Raymond Khoury - The Sanctuary

The prince nodded ruefully. “So you really don’t have it?”

Sebastian shook his head. “No.”

A look of heartfelt dismay flooded the principe ’s face as the finality of the reply sank in. He reached inside his shirt and pulled out the chain he wore around his neck. He fingered the medallion with shivering fingers. “So this?” he said, holding it up to Sebastian.

“Nothing but a trick, a mirage,” Sebastian said in a hollow voice. “A siren that lures men and wrecks their lives against the rocks of its false promise.”

He looked at di Sangro and released his hold. He pushed himself up to his feet and extended a hand to di Sangro. The prince took it, got up, and looked away at the glassy water of the lake, the dejection seeping into every corner of his tired body.

“Such a shame. A tragedy. For us all.” He turned to Sebastian. “Imagine if it were true. Imagine how it would change the world. What a gift it would be. To have more time to spend with those we cherish. To have more time to learn, to travel, to discover…to truly live.”

Sebastian nodded glumly. “Go home. Go back to your family. Enjoy the time you have left. And leave me in peace to enjoy mine.”

Di Sangro took one last look at him and nodded.

The boisterous voices and laughter roared all around him, but di Sangro couldn’t hear any of it. He just sat at his corner table in the small tavern, a broken man, nursing yet another jug of ale, staring at the dancing flame of the candle before him, lost in the abyss of his mind.

All this, for nothing, he lamented. Years wasted. Time, money. His son’s life. And for what? To end up like this, old and withered, drowning in bitter ale, hundreds of miles from home.

Despite the glaze obscuring his thoughts, he scoured his memory for every piece of background he’d gathered, every word he’d heard, every nuance he’d picked up on during his dogged pursuit of the man who now called himself Sebastian Botelho. Every now and then, the disparate thoughts would emerge from the crevasses of his mind and threaten to coalesce into an affirmation he was yearning for, but each time, the doubt would set in and send them scattering into the shadows. Images and voices competed for attention inside him — the Contessa di Czergy and her recollections of Venice, Madame de Fontenay in Paris, among others — but each time, the shuttered face of Sebastian Botelho would appear, godlike, and overwhelm them into submission.

For hour upon hour, he replayed his encounters with the man, the words they’d exchanged, the revelations he’d seen — or thought he’d seen — in his eyes. And in that jungle of confusion, a few words kept clawing at him. You don’t want to know, principe . Trust me. It is not a gift, not for any man. It is a curse, pure and simple. A curse from which there is no respite.

Respite.

He concentrated on that word and on the haunted look in the eyes of Botelho — the Marquis de Montferrat, at the time — when he’d uttered them all those years ago.

What if respite was what Botelho had finally found? What if he’d had the elixir, but had — for some demented reason di Sangro couldn’t begin to fathom — decided to stop using it.

He threw the mug to the floor and rubbed his eyes harshly, trying to wipe away the fog that was clouding his thoughts. His heart thundered in his ears as the angry realization materialized before him.

He’d been tricked.

The marquese had done it again. He’d played him like a fool. Yes, Botelho was older. But that didn’t mean he never had it. It meant he was no longer using it. And, like the old fool that he now believed he’d become, di Sangro had allowed the marquese to hoodwink him into believing him and abandoning his quest.

“Bastardo,” he bellowed as he hurled himself to his feet and staggered out of the crowded inn, fueled by the raging fire in his veins.

Sebastian watched the faint shadows from the moonlight inch their way across the walls of the bedchamber.

He couldn’t sleep. The idea of losing Thérésia or Miguel to di Sangro still seethed inside him. He wondered whether he ought to have killed him, there and then, but it was too late for that now. Besides, he didn’t know whom the principe had brought with him, whom he’d told about what he suspected. Killing him was no guarantee of peace.

His sanctuary had been compromised. The intruder, more than the man himself, was the words he’d spoken, which still rang in Sebastian’s ears.

Imagine if it were true. Imagine how it would change the world. What a gift it would be. To have more time to spend with those we cherish. To have more time to learn, to travel, to discover…to truly live.

He’d imagined it many a time, as had Isaac Montalto, as had Sebastian’s own father before him. A gift they all dreamt of giving mankind. A burden that had rested on his shoulders alone. A promise on which he’d reneged.

Di Sangro was right. It was a tragedy.

He couldn’t ignore it any longer.

Thérésia stirred beside him, her smooth skin silhouetted against the pale sheets. From the concern in her eyes, he knew that, as on so many previous occasions, she could read the thoughts written across his troubled face.

“We have to leave, don’t we?” she asked.

Sebastian simply nodded and embraced her.

Di Sangro burst into the stately mansion at first light like a demon, brandishing a sword in one hand and a pistol in the other, screaming for Sebastian to appear before him, but his shouts went unanswered. He pushed and kicked at the servants who appeared and tried to reason with him and bounded up the central staircase to the upper floor, where the bedchambers lay. He kicked in the carved double doors to Sebastian and Thérésia’s bedchamber, only to find it empty.

They were long gone, and in his heart of hearts, he knew he’d never see either of them again.

He dropped to his knees, the weapons tumbling noisily onto the tiled floor beneath him, and wept.

Sebastian watched as the porters carried Thérésia’s chest and dressing case onto the ship. The harbor was teeming with vessels of all sizes, from the small, Phoenician, crescent-shaped fragatas that performed lighter-age duties around the port to the three-masted tall ships that plied the Atlantic and linked the old port city to the New World.

His heart contracted at the thought of the crossing his wife and son would soon be undertaking. The decision had haunted his every waking moment since they’d all abandoned their house on that night, barely days ago.

They would never find peace. Not from di Sangro, not from others who would inevitably hear about it. Not as long as they were together.

And he had work to do.

A promise to keep.

A destiny to fulfill.

“Why won’t you change your mind and let us come with you?” Thérésia asked him. Miguel stood beside her, holding her hand, watching in wonderment as the last crates were loaded onto the towering vessel.

“It’s not safe,” Sebastian answered, the words barely escaping through his lips.

He knew what he was talking about. He’d been there before — and he was about to journey there again. He’d return to Constantinople. Assume the persona of a sheikh, just as he’d done half a century earlier. And travel into the Levant, to the bustling cities of Beirut, Jerusalem, Damascus, and Baghdad, and across the mountains and deserts in between, in the hope that this time his search would be more fruitful.

The ship’s first mate called for the gangway to be withdrawn and the lines released.