Alys Clare: The Paths of the Air

‘You did not consume the drink?’

‘No, I poured it away in the sand beneath the rugs and when the servants offered more, I held up my empty glass and then poured that away too.’

‘It has been suggested that the Knights Hospitaller also intended to deceive,’ Josse said. ‘Was that why you fled? Because you could not trust your own Order with either Fadil or this treasure offered for him?’

‘Yes. But Josse, strictly speaking they are not my Order. I never took my vows.’

‘Then why,’ Josse hissed, leaning close, ‘have those two Hospitallers lying there at the other end of the infirmary gone to such extraordinary lengths to catch you?’ Light dawned in a flash and he said, ‘They aren’t after you at all, are they?’

And John Damianos patted his satchel and said, ‘No.’

Josse leaned back against his pillows. ‘You have to tell me what it is,’ he said. Or else, he added silently, my intense curiosity might just kill me. ‘Whatever it takes, whatever promises of secrecy you have to break, I must know.’ Turning his head, he fixed John with a piercing glare.

‘Yes, I appreciate that,’ John said quickly, ‘and you of all people have earned the right to be told.’ He paused, as if deciding exactly where to begin, and then said, ‘There were two special reasons why they selected me for the desert mission. One of them was that I was unavowed — not one of them — and therefore expendable. The other… Once again, it refers to my childhood. I was taught to read and write, Josse, and those skills are rare outside the ranks of the clerics. So there I was, the very person the Hospitallers needed for the mission that night. I was ordered to join the group as night fell and we rode out to the meeting place. Then as we all sat down, something extraordinary happened: my commanding officer turned to me, handed me a piece of parchment, a quill and a brass pot of ink and, nodding in the direction of the fat man on the divan, he said quietly, “When the fat man starts to speak, write down exactly what he says.”

‘I sat there straining my ears to catch every word. The fat man was reading from a manuscript and he made no attempt to speak slowly or clearly and I was scribbling faster than I had ever done in my life before. I was fervently hoping for the chance to write out a fair copy before handing it over, otherwise nobody would have made any sense of it at all.’

‘It must have been nerve-wracking,’ Josse said. Barely able to write, he readily understood the demands and the horrors of John’s task.

‘The main problem was that although I recognized most of the individual words, together they made no sense. Many of them were Latin words. I did not try to understand but merely scrawled them down just as the fat man spoke them. I kept thinking, if only I could have a respite! A few moments to go over what I had written so far and try to extract some meaning! If I’d had an inkling of what it was about, I would have stood a better chance of getting the rest right. But no such respite came. The fat man’s voice went on and on. My hands were damp with sweat and the effort of concentration was making my head pound, but I went on scribbling.

‘After an eternity, the fat man at last stopped speaking. It would probably be some time before I could study what I’d written and I was really worried that I wouldn’t be able to decipher it. I decided to have a look there and then, when everybody was cheerful and friendly and my monks were innocently sipping those lethal drinks. So I smoothed out the parchment and studied it.

‘All the time I’d been writing, I was so preoccupied with not missing anything that I hadn’t considered the piece as a whole. Now I read it right through and for the first time I understood the full import. As I sat there the heat died out of me and my sweat cooled on my skin. I sat in the brilliant luxury of that tent, looking down in horror at my piece of parchment, and my blood felt like ice in my veins.’

‘What had the fat man dictated?’ Josse asked in a whisper. Something came back to him — a word, spoken what seemed a long time ago. ‘John, what does simyager mean?’

John’s eyes widened in surprise. ‘It’s a Turkish word. It’s what Hisham is. However do you know it?’

‘What is he?’

There was an instant of perfect silence.

Then: ‘Hisham is an alchemist. The treasure with which he lured us into the desert that night was a deadly formula he’s discovered.’

‘What is this formula?’ Josse whispered fiercely. ‘What does it do?’

John was watching him as if, even now, he was reluctant to confide the secret that he had borne for so long. Then with a sigh he said, ‘It makes a black powder. If it is compressed and set alight, it explodes. If the balance of materials and the method of operation are accurate, it hurls a heavy object with incredible force.’

Dear God… The soldier in Josse conjured up instant images. Heavy objects hurled with great force into buildings. Into men. Blasting them apart. ‘It’s the devil’s work,’ he breathed.

‘I don’t believe in devils other than human ones,’ John said calmly.

Josse still could not accept what he was hearing. ‘But — are you sure?’ he demanded. ‘You only have this Hisham’s word for it, and-’

John interrupted. ‘Hisham arranged a demonstration that night,’ he said. ‘And to make sure I wrote it down correctly, I have tested it myself more than once. My latest attempt was not long before Paradisa and I arrived in England.’ He pointed to the huge wound on the underside of his chin. ‘I was careless, though, and I almost blew myself up too.’

‘How do you make it?’ Josse whispered. Horrified though he was, still he was fascinated.

‘You mix brimstone, saltpetre and charcoal in a very specific ratio. It’s difficult to get the right quality of saltpetre — it’s that stuff that seeps out of cellar walls, which is how it got the name salt of the stones — and usually it has to be manufactured out of urine and excrement. I wrote all this down. Hisham was very thorough because he knew his formula was not going beyond those silken walls. It didn’t matter if his servants heard because, as I told you, much of it was in Latin and they did not understand. As for the monks, Hisham knew we’d all be dead soon.’

‘As indeed you would have been but for your childhood greed,’ Josse said slowly. He was trying to take it all in. ‘And you have this piece of parchment still? The formula is safe with you and nobody else has had access to it?’

‘I have it and until this moment I have shared it with no one but Paradisa.’

‘But the fat man — the alchemist Hisham still has it!’

John shrugged. ‘He does not have the parchment from which he read it. I destroyed that. I threw it on the fire and watched it burn. He may have another copy but I doubt it; I judge by how desperately he tried to capture me that I now have the only one. His motive in sending Kathnir and Akhbir after me may have been simply to make sure the secret of the formula remained his alone, but I have come to think that it was more than that.’ He paused. ‘I said that Hisham had discovered this terrible thing, but I believe it was someone else’s discovery. All Hisham had was the formula, and God alone knows how he got his hands on that.’ His light eyes on Josse’s, he said quietly, ‘I do not think he can make this powder by himself. I believe that he needs my copy of the formula and I will not let him have it.’

There was a short silence. Then Josse said, ‘Kathnir and Akhbir have failed. They will not catch you now.’

‘That is true.’

‘And Thibault, for all that he lies but the length of this room away, has no idea that you and what you carry are right here within his grasp.’