Mark Teppo - Dreamer - A Prequel to the Mongoliad

“Hmm,” Brother Francis said, returning his gaze to the cloud-strewn sky. “I carried a sword once,” he said. “I wanted to be a chevalier, a French knight. Did you know that?”

“Brother Leo mentioned something to that effect,” Raphael admitted.

“Did he tell you about Perugia? The Battle of Collestrada?” Brother Francis grunted when Raphael nodded. “He is an old gossip, Leo. It is a good thing he is also the kindest man I have ever met. Otherwise he would be insufferable.”

“He is kind,” Raphael agreed. “I…when I arrived, I was a rather undignified guest…”

Brother Francis offered him a smile. “We all are, at one time or another, here in God’s house.” His hands began to rub one another, his fingers working the dark smears on his skin. “How many of your brothers-in-arms were lost in Egypt?” he asked.

“All but three of us,” Raphael said.

“I am truly sorry.”

“I could have saved them all,” Raphael admitted. “If I had just given the legate what he asked for. I could have saved them.”

Brother Francis was silent for a moment, his gaze drifting idly across the open sky. “The prophecy,” he said finally, having found the memory he was looking for. “He wanted you and Eptor to give him a prophecy. I remember it now. When I returned from my stay with the Sultan, he was insisting that Eptor’s gift was nothing more than heretical possession, the touch of the Devil among his camp.”

“I refused to give him what he wanted,” Raphael said. “He wanted a witness, someone who would have given credence to a lie of his devising. If it hadn’t been for your intercession, we would have been branded as heretics and tossed out of the camp.”

A hard lump of laughter worked its way out of Raphael’s chest. “As it was, he simply waited six months and tried again. This time, you weren’t around to intercede. Nor was Sir John. The legate kept insisting; when I refused, he had me flogged. He took Eptor and tried to make my friend tell him what he wanted to hear. It didn’t work, of course. That was not Eptor’s…gift. All Pelagius succeeded in doing was distressing Eptor to a point that he retreated further into his illusion. And somewhere in that fog in his mind, he saw something he did not like. Something that frightened him. Something he could not look away from.”

Raphael’s voice grew hoarse. “He screamed all night. I could do nothing to calm him. It was awful to listen to, but I couldn’t leave him. Nor could I bring myself to end his misery. I sat with him; I was the only friend he ever had. I sat with him until his fear burst his heart.”

Brother Francis stopped rubbing his hands, resting them calmly in his lap. “You cannot carry that blame,” he said. “I would have done the same in your stead.” Raphael opened his mouth to protest otherwise, but the monk stopped him with a sidelong glance. “You should consider that possibility, my son,” the monk said. “Consider that I might be more at fault than you. In some convoluted fashion that only God could truly apprehend, am I not to blame?”

“What?” Raphael asked. “How?”

“Did I not abandon you and Eptor to the legate? Did I not fail to convert Al-Kamil to Christianity, to find a peaceful resolution to the enmity between the Church and the Sultan? Have I not spent my entire life preaching nonviolence, calling out each and every day for each of us to fill our hearts with nothing but peace? And has my personal crusade lessened the violence that surrounds us?”

Raphael could not bring himself to vocalize agreement — the idea seemed so enormously reprehensible in its cruelty — but he could not verbalize any cogent argument to the contrary. His throat was too tight for any words to escape.

Brother Francis offered him a kind smile. “I have been here for many weeks,” he said. “Every day I ask God this question: What have I really accomplished? What have I done that has made any difference?”

Raphael nodded, hearing an echo of those questions in his own heart. “Has He offered you an answer?” he asked.

Brother Francis idly rubbed the back of his hand again, and Raphael noticed that, even in the gloom of the shack, the shadows on the backs of the monk’s hands remained. “He has,” Brother Francis said. “Rather, He will. Soon.” He smile again, and this time his smile was free of any sorrow. “I have faith.”

Raphael wanted to touch the other man’s face, to trace his fingers along the curve of that smile in a vain effort to understand how it was formed. After everything he had seen, how could he still cling to his faith?

After everything I have done, how can I be worthy of such faith?

Brother Francis twisted around and grabbed the edge of the chest. He pulled it closer to him and fumbled with the lid. He took out a ragged scrap of parchment, and rooting around inside the box, he located several shards of charcoal. “Do you know much about the Muslim faith?” he asked as he smoothed the piece of parchment flat. “Their holy book is called the Qur’an, and it contains a list of the names of God. Ninety-nine of them, in fact. The Sultan, Al-Kamil, told me about this when he and I met in Egypt. He is an incredible man, and to this day, I wish the mean and petty differences of our cultures did not prevent us from being better friends.” He sighed.

“I was born in Acre,” Raphael said, “as was my mother and her mother.”

Brother Francis eyed him. “And yet you are a Christian man?”

Raphael struggled with his answer. “The only vows I have ever sworn — the only ones I will ever keep — are those I swore to Athena Promachos.”

“‘She who fights in the front line,’” Brother Francis said. “Those are hard vows to keep.” He laughed. Not from a place of pity or arrogance, but from simple clarity. “You may be a stronger man than I, Raphael of Acre,” he admitted.

He showed Raphael the sheet. It was covered with a number of skewed lines of Latin, and Raphael read a few: “ You are Good, all Good, supreme Good… ”

“It is but a pittance,” Brother Francis explained. “A distraction, perhaps, from what I am meant to be doing, but for some time, it has been something I have been yearning to write. In fact, it is only now, meeting you again, that I understand the source of this desire.” He turned the page over and, peering at Raphael’s face for reference, quickly sketched a figure at the base of the page. The man seemed to be lying on his back, looking up at the lines of text over his head. He squinted at Raphael’s hat and shook his head, drawing instead a peaked cap reminiscent of the style worn by Muslims. With a practiced twist of his hand, he inscribed a letter rising from the figure’s mouth.

“Do you know what this is?” he asked Raphael, pointing at the letter.

“The tau,” Raphael said.

“Do you know what it means?”

“I have heard it is used to represent the Cross upon which Jesus died.”

“The Cross upon which he was resurrected,” Brother Francis corrected him. “Our lives are not spent waiting for death, but waiting for life.”

Raphael acceded this interpretation could be equally valid, though the subtle distinction was one that he would have to consider more fully. “I have brought death to many,” he said quietly.

“And have you not given others life?” Brother Francis asked.

Raphael shrugged. “How can one ever atone for the other?”

“Only God can answer that question for you, Raphael of Acre,” Brother Francis said. “But you have to let Him. You have to have faith that He will.”

Raphael nodded, hearing the monk’s words. His mind struggled to accept them, to let them sink into his heart where they might take root.

“Give this to Brother Leo,” Brother Francis said, offering the page to Raphael. “Tell him it is more important than any other legacy of mine.” His face tightened, a brief spasm of pain that seemed to rise from nowhere and flee just as quickly.