Julian Rathbone - Kings of Albion

However, on this second night, because of the ague from which he was suffering, he had gone to bed while the rest were still at supper and was alone in what the landlord was cheat enough to call his best 'guestroom' when there was a knock at the door.

I remember that at this point Ali ben Quatar Mayeen shifted a little in his chair, then moved the chair so the wickerwork creaked a little, took his head out of the dipping sunlight and glanced across the table at me. 'Shall I go on? I'm not boring you?'

'No, no. Not in the least.' 'You yawned."

'A moment or two ago. perhaps, when you were describing the status of Calais. But now I am caught in the net of your tale as surely as the Sultan Schahriah was in the web Scheherazade spun. But if you, Ali, are tired, I can come back tomorrow and hear who your visitor was in that dreadful lodging-house.'

'Perhaps that would be better. The house is stirring again, and presently, no doubt, my wives will want to attend me as they usually do when the afternoon gets cooler…'

The following afternoon, when I returned to that delightful patio with its pool of iridescent fish and cages of singing birds and its scent of cardamom, Ali took up his tale. He spoke slowly, with difficulty even after the lifetime that had passed since the scimitar sliced his mouth, hut making expansive gestures with his good hand.

Loosening my stiletto in its scabbard beneath the covers, I called out that the door was unlocked.

On account of the grey habit and hood worn by my visitor, I took the figure that came in to be a friar, or mendicant preaching monk, of the Franciscan order. He was earning a greasy tallow candle that gave off more black smoke than light and, to my levered brain, made the wooden plank walls of that cubbyhole sway back and forth like the sail on a luffing dhow. I noticed that his robe had been patched with a tiny heart-shaped piece of red felt just above the waist – but I was, at that time, unaware of its significance. He squeezed between the bed and the wall and thus sidled up to where my head lay propped on a dirty bolster filled with unwashed fleece trimmings and set the candle on the shelf above me. I gripped the silver-wired hilt of my stiletto and wished that my palm were not so slippery with sweat. He must have sensed my unease.

'I wish you no harm," he said, and sat on the edge of the bed, pushing back his cowl as he did so. His face was lean, grey, clean-shaven, apart from a slight stubble, and marked by two deep creases that ran from the corners of his nose, which was large but bony, past the comers of his mouth and gave him a look that combined asceticism with melancholy. His eyes were dark, but in that light piercing.

'You are, I believe,' he continued, 'Ali ben Quatar Mayeen, a traveller and merchant from the east."

I conceded that this was so.

'But I understand, too, that you belong to a secret brotherhood under which you also carry the name-'

But now I was alarmed and I let him see the stiletto. 'Pray do not utter the word on your lips, or it may be your last,' I said.

'Very well,' but I could see how his thin mouth lengthened into a smile that held both delight and mockery, 'names are power and should be respected. However, I should like you to believe that I come to you as a member of a similar society that shares many of your beliefs. I am putting my life at risk by admitting as much, but hope thereby to gain your trust. I have a favour to ask that may or may not be in your power to grant, but will be easier for you to perform than anyone else I am ever likely to meet.'

I waited to see what would be forthcoming.

'My fellow sectarians have a secret house in the north-west of Ingerlond. Amongst our number is a man, who, like you, came from the distant east many years ago. He is the younger brother of a prince of an eastern country who sent him abroad on a particular mission. He now wishes to return. However, due partly to the fact that both his legs have been cut off through the knee joints and also to certain vows he has taken, he is unable to travel. He instructed me to find a traveller who came from his pan of the world and give him this…'

He held up a packet. It was as long as the span of a stretched hand, from little fingertip to thumbnail, its width a little less, its depth half the thickness of a large thumb. It was wrapped in black oiled cloth, and tied with rust-coloured leather thongs.

'What is it?' I managed to croak. Much of my success as an agent for traders has arisen from a gift of insatiable curiosity, which I share with cats. Curiosity, you may say, killed the cat, but then you will recall Allah mitigated that threat with the gift of nine lives. At least eight of which I have used.

'I am not permitted to say,' my visitor answered. 'It should only he opened by the man to whom it is addressed or by his direct heir. Indeed, for what it is worth, my friend, whom we know as Brother John, since that is the nearest our tongue can get to his real name, added a curse of some viciousness on anyone else who might even attempt to undo these thongs. But judging by its weight and shape I would hazard a guess that it contains pages ot parchment, and is therefore some sort of message, testament or whatever. Will you take it?'

By now, for all I was suffering from a fever and all the other symptoms I have described, to which were added severely aching knees, that near fatal curiosity was stirring like a waking lion. Or cat.

'First,' I said, 'tell me to whom this packet must be delivered."

The stranger's eyes gleamed yet more brightly, and his tongue touched the corner of his thin mouth. Clearly he believed I was hooked. Indeed, I was.

'The prince you must take it to is called Harihara Raya Kurteishi."

Even by then, after such a short acquaintance, I was not able to quarrel with that 'must', though immediately I suspected that I was likely to be committing myself to a journey longer than the one I had envisaged. I cleared my throat and swallowed the evil-tasting phlegm that filled my mouth.

'And where does he live?'

'In Vijayanagara, an empire which is ruled by John's cousin, a great emperor who is known as Mallikarjuna Deva Raya.'

I sighed and let my aching head fall back on that noisome bolster. I swear it smelt of dog-shit.

'Vijayanagara is almost on the other side of the world. Only Cathay lies beyond it,' I croaked. 'If I travel for half a year I will come to the lands I was born in, which you call the Holy Land. To get to Vijayanagara I will have to travel as far as that again.'

'There was a Venetian who went the whole way to Cathay, and others have followed since. I believe he even called in at Vijayanagara on his way home.'

'Marco,' I scoffed. 'He went with his father, Niccolo, when he was twelve and came back a middle-aged man. I am already as old as he was when he returned, probably older.'

But at that moment there was uproar below, filling the narrow street, and indeed we could see the glimmer of torches dickering through the cracks in the shutters of the one dormer window of that tiny room. I was not then as fluent in the Inglysshe tongue as I have later become, but the gist of the shouts, bellowed commands, was clear enough. The commander of the men-at-arms who had burst in on our landlord had reason to believe that a foul miscreant, a counterfeit friar, a most evil heretic, was sheltering beneath his roof.

My visitor's visage went paler even than it had been before and with one swift movement he thrust the black packet beneath the bolster and headed for the window. However, before he could pull back the shutters, which had probably not been opened since summer and were jammed, three men-at-arms, clad in chain-mail and steel helmets with rims like those on a barber's bowl, burst in and apprehended him. At least I must presume they did, for I had buried myself beneath the stinking covers of the huge bed. Even cats curb their curiosity at times. And survive.