Eric Lustbader - The Testament

Bravo swung at Kartli. The Georgian took the blow on his shoulder, grabbed Bravo's wrist and began the process of breaking it.

Bravo slammed his fist into Kartli's stomach to gasps from the onlookers. Released, he inadvisably took a step forward, ran right into a left-handed uppercut from the Georgian that dropped him onto his backside. Kartli came on in a low brawler's crouch. Bravo, half-dazed, waited until as long as he dared, regaining his breath, before he drew Lorenzo Fornarini's dagger.

Kartli froze in mid-stride, but his four sons moved toward Bravo, until the Georgian held up a hand. His blazing eyes were on Bravo, not them.

"Have a care," Kartli said with a strange intensity. "I told you to make damn sure you knew when to use it."

As Bravo's fist tightened on the dagger's hilt, Khalif intervened again. "Listen, both of you, if the Order is divided against itself, then, truly, all is lost."

Kartli sneered. "He comes here, this American, with his hand out, asking for help. Then, in the same breath, he orders me to crouch at his side like a dog, then he accuses me. Like a dog, he strikes me, expecting that I should happily grovel before him." He spat heavily. "Should any of this be a surprise to me? The day dawns when the horns of the rampaging beast will gore even the most prudent of onlookers. This is the American way, isn't it, all over the world."

"This is the Voire Dei, Kartli, we're both-"

The Georgian cursed in Georgian and in Turkish. "What do I say to someone whose government has allied itself to the Moscow criminals who continue to persecute my people without mercy?"

"For the love of God-"

"Another point that must be clarified, American-whose God do you invoke, mine or yours?"

"We're both human beings."

"But we're not equal, are we? You wish to use me, just as your government uses the Russians for their own end."

Adem Khalif said quietly but urgently, "Mikhail, after all, Bravo is the Keeper, it's your duty to protect and to help him."

"Such arrogance in a Keeper. And now you side with him." Kartli hawked and spat into the dirt.

Bravo, grief and frustration once again flaring into anger, began to advance on Kartli, but Khalif grabbed him, held him back with a grip like iron.

"Don't do this," he whispered in Bravo's ear. "I warned you, this man is very dangerous, easily provoked." To the Georgian, he said, "Since when have you known me to take sides? I, who have broken bread with you, who have changed your children's diapers, who have sat in counsel with you. We are friends, Mikhail. Friends."

"Then back away from the American."

"Only to see you kill him," Adem Khalif said sadly.

"He drew a weapon in my house. He has committed a mortal offense."

"You were friends with his father."

"Dexter Shaw is dead," the Georgian said. "My obligation died with him."

"But the Order, your vows-"

"I have taken enough from these people." Kartli's hand flashed down. "It is finished."

"At least allow him to walk away," Adem Khalif said. "The death of Dexter Shaw's son will be a heavy weight to bear."

"Let him go, and step back," Kartli said simply.

Khalif did as he was told, but not before he managed to whisper in Bravo's ear, "Sheath the dagger and wait… Wait."

And there Bravo stood, the dagger sheathed, alone, waiting. A terrible silence strangled them, the furious bustle of the street faded away as if it had never existed. And all the while the Georgian's eyes never left Bravo's. There seemed to ensue a curious contest of wills, silent, lethal.

Very slowly, Bravo pulled out the scabbarded dagger, held it out, an offering to propitiate Mikhail Kartli or, perhaps, his god.

"You seek to buy me off," the Georgian said. "How American."

"There is no price on this dagger," Bravo said. "It is yours."

Kartli shook his head, as if at something infinitely sad. "No, Keeper, where you travel you will need it."

Bravo lowered the dagger.

"Go now," Mikhail Kartli said.

Bravo turned, saw that Khalif made no move to go with him. The circle of the Georgian's sons parted as he neared it.

Just before he stepped outside the ring, leaving the Georgian's aegis forever, out into the streets of Trabzon, Mikhail Kartli said, "Pray to whatever god it is that moves you, for without him you are truly lost."

Bravo sat in the same cafe' on the hill in the Ortahisar quarter where he had first met Adem Khalif, hoping that if he stayed long enough the Turk would come. The cafe smelled of burnt cigarettes and cat urine, but the coffee was thick and strong. From his tiny table he had an excellent view of the main arteries of the Old City, the ravines in which all light was absorbed. He realized that he could not bear to be in any section of the new city, grown like a gross shell around the jewel of long-lost Trebizond. He wanted to recapture that fabled city, wanted to walk its streets, hear the regal sound of Trapazuntine Greek being spoken, watch the stately round ships sailing in from Florence or Venice, Cadiz or Bruges, ready to take on the exotic cargoes waiting for them in Trebizond's bursting warehouses. And on the horizon, the sinister slash of the black sails, the threat of the Seljuk pirates. He pulled out his cell phone. In the middle of dialing Jordan's number, he stopped. Jordan was his closest friend in the world. Bravo had already asked him for help and Jordan had generously agreed, but now it was too dangerous to involve him further. Bravo knew he didn't want to endanger anyone else, especially his friend.

He put his head in his heads. He wanted another life, or at least to roll back the clock. He pictured himself standing on the corner of Sixth Avenue in New York, watching his father walk away. If only he'd gone after him. But, really, what good would it have done? Delayed what was already set in motion, nothing more. It was dispiriting, the idea that he'd been helpless, trapped like a cog in a huge machine, grinding forward with inexorable precision…

"It's time to see your grandfather, Bravo."

He looked up, saw his father's weather-beaten face. They were in their house in Greenwich Village and he was nine years old.

"I know you don't want to go."

"How d'you know that?" Bravo said.

"Because you just asked Mom if you could help her dry the breakfast dishes."

Bravo set down the dish towel. He knew his father had made a joke, but just then it didn't seem all that funny.

Dexter put a hand on his son's shoulder. "Your grandfather wants to see you, he asked about you specially this morning."

"Doesn't he want to see Junior?" Bravo asked, thinking misery loves company. Emma was far too young to be brought to the nursing home.

"Junior's not feeling well," Dexter said.

That wasn't it at all, and Bravo knew it. He'd overheard his parents talking about it several weeks before. They'd deemed Junior too young to go, a decision that only added to Bravo's resentment.

The drive to the nursing home wasn't short, but to Bravo it seemed to take three minutes. Fleets of semis rumbled, factories belched smoke, and he had to roll up the window so as not to be overcome by the reek of chemical waste that smelled like burnt tires and cat piss.

The nursing home, somewhere in the unfathomable hinterlands of New Jersey, was a large Georgian redbrick building that seemed like one of those thoroughly unpleasant London institutions Dickens so brilliantly described. Bravo sat in the car, listening to the hot engine tick over like a mechanical heart, waiting for it to slow and, finally, stop. He stared straight ahead even after his father had clambered out, a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"Bravo?" Dexter opened the passenger's-side door and held out his hand.