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Chapter Text

Jerusalem.

Yusuf saw the arc of the longsword reach its zenith, small glints of steel barely visible through the thick, black coating of blood on the blade. His body was already tensing in anticipation of the pain, as though a phantom blade was already cutting through the skin and the tendons and the muscles. He was off-balance, recovering from his own swing gone wild, already folding around himself to protect his sword arm (nearly severed at the elbow, earlier), his stomach (he had heaved up massive quantities of blood and bile after watching his intestines pull themselves back inside his abdomen ), his sides (the Frank was a butcher; there was no artistry or precision to his blows, there was only strength and blood and shattered ribs). 

He was falling to his knees. Half his mind was frantic with fear and prayer and the promise of pain, and the other half was calmly trying to determine exactly where and how he would land, how long he would be given to rest in the nothingness, and whether he could surprise the invader with a knife to the ankle on his next resurrection. He did not listen to the voice, very deep down, that was hoping this time ( please, please, this time) , he would be granted peace. He had stopped listening to that voice hours ago.

The sky was fading into dusky orange as the sun hung low, shadows from the wall stretching out toward them. His forehead was soaked with sweat, grime, and worse from the long hours spent in furious combat, and blood still sloshed around his ankles from the mangled bodies they had trampled over in their haste to continue the fight. Screams echoed in every street and alley and home, high up on the walls, outside the walls, the stone echoing with screams. Yusuf tried to follow one voice, tried to trick his mind into hearing the call to Maghrib, already drifting a little and grateful for the chance to rest. His forearms ached. His shoulders were stiff and sore. He was suddenly conscious of just how terribly thirsty he was. He started to exhale.

But the blow didn’t land.

The pain didn’t sear.

Yusuf looked up, still balanced on one knee. The Frank was staring down at him, arms trembling from the weight of the sword held high overhead. His face was covered in blood, and his eyes were so pale that the greenish-blue tint was barely visible, but he stood there with the sword hovering above him, waiting. Just waiting. 

Scrambling quickly to recover, Yusuf climbed to his feet and drew his scimitar back to prepare another strike, ignoring the screaming in his shoulders and the way his legs shook with exhaustion. 

The Frank faltered, slightly, at the promise of another swing of the blade, but he still held the sword overhead. He didn’t move. The muscles in his arms were visibly shaking now. Perhaps he was also too tired to continue.

Yusuf slowly lowered his scimitar, holding it in front of his body protectively but without outward malice. Caution. “What are you doing?” he asked.

The Frank also lowered his sword slightly, his grip around the hilt now tentative and loose. Then he said something in a language that jerked and rolled with too many sounds that stuck in the roof of his mouth. A few sounds struck him as familiar, but garbled and transposed; almost like the Lingua Franca spoken backwards.

“I don’t understand you,” said Yusuf.

The Frank nodded, as though he had made a reasonable and coherent response, and took a step back.

Yusuf did the same, and then slipped on the blood-smeared body of a man too small to properly hold the title. He saw movement out of the corner of his eye, and immediately drew his scimitar up again to defend himself, fully prepared to strike. But the Frank merely had his free hand slightly outstretched as though to steady him from falling over, the big longsword tilting low toward the ground.

Now , Yusuf thought. Do it now, while his defenses are down. Put your blade through the middle of his eye and crack the skull in two and scoop out the brains with your fingers, and perhaps that will stop the demon from reanimating. He had found every weakness in his armor, exploited every slip and mistake. He had cut across his collarbone, and pierced through his kidneys, and drained the blood from his thighs. Nothing worked. And now the city he had sworn to defend with his life was overrun. Truly, the city had fallen. The steady sound of screaming still echoed everywhere around him.

He lowered his scimitar. 

The Frank started to speak again, and Yusuf snapped, “I don’t understand you! You came here , we are standing in the blood of my people , and you expect me to speak your language?” 

The Frank didn’t respond, but simply looked at him with such a placid expression that Yusuf felt momentarily, reflexively, chastened by his own naked display of rage. As though he were being rude.

Yusuf sighed and stepped to the side, a small space at the end of the alley where there were no bodies, although blood still splattered and flowed everywhere on the ground. Some of that blood was his own; he had felt it flooding down his chest when the Frank cut through his throat with a lucky swing. He couldn’t remember how long ago that was. 

The Frank followed him a few paces and wiped his forehead with the back of his arm, smearing sweat and blood alike across his hairline.  

Yusuf took a deep breath, then grunted out, “Yusuf,” gesturing at the Frank to exchange his name.

The Frank tilted his head, still staring as blankly as a dead-eyed cow. 

“Yusuf!” he snapped, losing patience and slapping his palm flat against his chest. “Yusuf ibn-Ibrahim ibn-Muhammad al-Kaysani,” and he made another sarcastically inviting gesture.

“Nicolò,” said the Frank, without revealing any spark of understanding in his face.

“Nicolò…?” Yusuf trailed off expectantly, raising his eyebrows.

The Frank nodded. “Si, Nicolò.”

Yusuf gave another exaggerated sigh, rolling his eyes toward heaven. “I give up,” he said, looking down at his bloody scimitar and wondering when he would find a cloth clean enough to properly wipe the blood and entrails off the edges. He opened his mouth to speak again, but was caught by movement behind Nicolò’s shoulder. Most visible portions of the street were quiet with the dead, but a dark figure clutching bleeding wounds was running through, followed by another of the barbarian knights, whooping and screaming almost as loudly as the victims in the distance. The pile of bodies littered here and there looked like lumpy, ragged sacks of sorghum or rice left out in the rain. When there were no screams, there was wailing.

“Nicolò di Genova,” the Frank offered, looking concernedly at the bodies littered everywhere around them, as though he were seeing it for the first time.

“Genova?” Yusuf repeated.

“Si,” said Nicolò.

Yusuf laughed. “Genova. Are you serious? I’ve been there. It’s a shit city. It’s filthy, it’s ugly, the streets are full of sewage, the air smells like fish guts and rotten milk. Of course,” he shook his head, smiling down at the bloody cobblestones, “Of course, you’re from Genova.”

“Si!” said the Frank, brightening slightly and nodding. There was something close to a smile on the edges of his lips. “Si, Genova!”

Yusuf stared at him. Perhaps I have been ungenerous to cows in my assessment of their relative intelligence. Though this resolved the puzzle of the garbled Lingua Franca: Liguria, not Hispania. He pulled some words from the cobwebs of another life. “Se ti sabir?”  Do you know? Can we speak?

Nicolò’s eyebrows were furrowed again. Yusuf couldn’t tell whether this was confusion, suspicion, or more simple-mindedness, until he finally said, soft and slow, “Se sai?”

“Only a little,” said Yusuf, inwardly wincing at the Iberian inflection, discordant and arcane. He hadn’t attempted Lingua Franca for many years. “My family traded in Hispania more often, and I have not crossed the Mediterranean since-” he stopped himself, realizing that he had already slipped back into Arabic for the words he did not know (which was most of them), and Nicolò was looking confused again.

A fresh scream startled them both. Another knight ran by, this time chasing a woman with her clothing half-torn off her shoulders. She sounded frantic. Yusuf swallowed down the urge to pursue them. Nicolò was similarly tense, whispering something quietly to himself, but Yusuf did not miss the wave of disgust that passed over his face, clouding the ice in his eyes. It wasn’t entirely clear whether that faint hint of remorse in his narrowed eyebrows was connected to the violence being wrought against the people of Jerusalem. More likely, Yusuf decided, he was debating whether to assist in the slaughter or continue this futile undying combat until the walls fell down around them.

“I cannot let you rejoin them,” Yusuf said, too tired to attempt anything but Arabic. Nicolò looked at him, again confused, and Yusuf pointed at the carnage in the street beyond with the tip of his scimitar. Then he angled it directly at Nicolò’s throat and took a single step closer. This got the man’s attention, and the eyes hardened again, his hand gripping tight to the hilt of his longsword. But he did not move. “So I think you must either come with me to leave this city, or we must resume until one of us is well and truly dead. I don’t see any other option,” he added with a shrug. 

Those eyes were truly unnerving, pale and intense, a pale blue base with eerie flecks of green. Nicolò did not respond, but Yusuf didn’t really expect him to. What was important was that the longsword stayed low, his feet planted and still. Nicolò glanced, briefly, at the filthy steel in Yusuf’s hand, and then said, “La pace.”

“I don’t remember what that means,” Yusuf confessed. “Truce? Does it-- are you-- ?”

Nicolò spoke again, and again there was something familiar in it, but Yusuf could not remember what it meant. He might have known fifteen years ago, when he spent more time with inventory than steel, when he trailed after his father at his work like he’d hung the moon between the stars. But that was then. For now, he had failed to defend the city, failed to stop the invading army, failed to die. 

The Frank ( not Frank, he is Genovese , Yusuf reminded himself) took a deep breath, and looked down. His guard was dropped and then, if the gesture hadn’t been clear enough, he wiped his longsword awkwardly on the bottom of his overcoat and slid it carefully, still coated with dried brown blood, into the sheath at his belt.

Yusuf took another step back and lowered his scimitar. “All right. Come on, then.” He turned and began to walk to the back of the alley, where it jogged into another part of the quarter. Another glance over his shoulder saw Nicolò still rooted to the spot, watching him with his eyebrows furrowed in uncertainty. “Come on,” said Yusuf, with slightly more urgency and edge in his voice. “We need to be out of the city before nightfall. I’ll find you some different clothes.”

Nicolò followed him.

Yusuf had no trouble finding abandoned houses, as the vast majority of Jerusalem’s residents had already evacuated, fled for the sanctuary of Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock, or were lying dead in the streets. But few houses were empty; the army of wild-eyed, sallow-faced Franks was gleefully looting through the ghosts of the slaughter for petty treasures to steal, wine to guzzle, and women to rape now that the city had fallen. Finally, though, Yusuf found a quiet and darkened entryway with its door half-hanging off the hinge in a quiet sector of town near the east wall. The looters had already passed through.

“Here,” he said with the jerk of his head as he crossed the threshold.

The front windows of the house faced west, allowing the low angle of the setting sun to shine brightly, gold and pink, into the main room. Yusuf sighed a little. That light tinted too prettily to display such ruthlessness. 

Nicolò stood gawking at the overturned tables and strewn possessions in the center of the room while Yusuf searched the house. There was no food, but he did not expect to find any; three weeks of siege had ensured that supplies had all but run out before the assault began. But there was a half-full pitcher full of water hidden in the back of a kitchen cupboard, and Yusuf guzzled down several mouthfuls before he could force himself to stop and share it. 

“Here,” he said as he returned to the main room holding out the jug. Nicolò grasped it with both hands and drank so heavily Yusuf had to tap him on the forearm. “Not too much,” he warned. Of course the knight was thirsty. Yusuf had helped to poison all the wells outside the city’s walls, and the invading army had been short on water for weeks.

Nicolò was still clutching the jug to his chest like it was something precious, but he nodded. Yusuf nodded in return, and began to search for spare clothes. Blankets would serve if he could truly find nothing else to wear, but he would rather search at least one more house before resorting to walking to the sea with that minor humiliation. He did not want to search too many, though. They were running out of time.

“Ah ha,” he muttered when he unearthed a few pairs of rough homespun robes from underneath a half-broken chest. Any finer fabrics would have been spirited away by the Franks, but drab beige-and-brown linen was all the better to be inconspicuous. There were smaller clothes in the chest, too. Child’s size. Yusuf gritted his teeth, and ripped one little gown in half. He threw the smaller half at Nicolò with far less grace than he had shared the water jug. “Get cleaned up,” he snapped, tossing the robes against the overturned table. 

Nicolò eyed the child’s dress with his eyebrows slightly furrowed. 

“I hope they are all grown up,” said Yusuf, glaring at him, “And far away from here. Not dying in the street or watching your friends rape their mother.”

Nicolò’s face darkened further. Yusuf felt a twist of satisfaction at it. He turned to the side, then, and pulled the disgusting, blood-soaked coat over his head. He dragged the child’s dress across the dried blood in a semi-futile effort to clean the worst of the carnage off his hands and arms, then turned it inside-out to scrape more blood out of his hair and beard, scrubbing as best he could with dry cloth. He would not sacrifice water for this.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Nicolò slowly set the jug of water down on the floor. Then he, too, began to strip off the ragged and bloody clothes: the surcoat, brown and rusty blood staining what had been clean, brilliant white when they first crossed swords; the clinking hauberk, gaping with holes from lucky strikes of Yusuf’s scimitar; and then the final layer of cream-colored muslin underneath, which he used to clean his face the way Yusuf had done. His face and neck were much darker than his torso, an olive-tinted bronze from his weeks outside the walls in Jerusalem’s sunshine. His shoulders and chest were the same sickly-pale color as some of the fairer-haired Franks. Those shoulders were pleasantly shaped, though, with lean muscles in his arms that were flexing as he scrubbed at his face and the back of his neck.

Then Yusuf caught the red in his cheeks. Nicolò had noticed him watching. Yusuf immediately turned his full attention to the fresh linen, refusing to allow himself to display any similar sense of embarrassment at being seen half-naked. They were both soldiers, after all. And surely there was no greater intimacy than the closeness of watching someone die, seeing the fear and the anger and the light fading from their eyes, except perhaps watching those same eyes while his own vision went white and gray before the black overtook them. Breathing the same air, until the breath was gone. 

Yusuf kept his gaze on the floor.

Nicolò said something again, in that language that Yusuf did not understand. His voice was very deep, and surprisingly soft.

“I only know a few words from Genova,” said Yusuf, finally looking up once he was fully dressed and throwing him a set of robes. “I can say ship , and cargo , and payment , and thank you. ”

“ Thank you, ” Nicolò repeated.

Yusuf stared at him a moment, trying to decide whether this was a true word of gratitude, or if perhaps that was the only word he had managed to say correctly and therefore the only word Nicolò had understood. 

“Water,” said Nicolò, though the word was so poorly formed that Yusuf barely recognized it as Arabic. “ Thank you , water.”

“You’re welcome,” said Yusuf after a long moment of uneasy silence. Then he turned around. “Get dressed. We need to find a way out of here.” 

***

Lifta (Jerusalem Mountains)

Yusuf al-Kaysani had been many things in the course of his 33 years: apprentice, merchant, mercenary; son, brother, husband. He had never thought ‘deserter’ would be one of them.

They had stolen out of the west gates into the burnt fields beyond the walls just after sunset. Half of the barbarian knights were drunk on blood and wine and power, singing in sloppy circles around the enormous bonfires lighting the streets, crackling embers floating into the clear, dark sky. The more dutiful invaders were focusing their final assaults on the Tower of David, where a few hundred survivors had sequestered themselves in sanctuary. Yusuf and Nicolò had picked their way through many, many bodies to reach the gate. Yusuf idly wondered how long it would be before a heavy rain appeared to wash the bloodstains off the stone. The city had contained thousands at daybreak.

Yusuf yanked Nicolò’s hood down over his eyes with a firm hand. No one would think twice about the dried blood still clinging to their faces, but those light eyes seemed like they should be instantly recognizable as a deserter of the victorious, far more suspicious than his own slinking, humiliated black and brown. But he needn’t have worried. The Franks were far too focused on their jeering and cheering, the smell of incense and bloating bodies, ringing the bells and watching the smoke curl up into the last yellow wisp of twilight. He pushed Nicolò out of the shadows and into the firelight during a brief moment of distraction when a fight broke out between two knights, both nearly sick with drink, and they easily melted back into the darkness behind the wall.

They said nothing to each other as they walked along the rocky road to Yafa. As the fires of Jerusalem retreated into the darkness behind them, the silence seemed to stretch even deeper. Yusuf held tightly to the hilt of his scimitar, taking frequent glances behind in case the Genovan turned suddenly violent. But Nicolò merely walked with his hands folded in front of him, stumbling occasionally on a rock in the dark.

Yusuf tried to console himself, tried to justify his cowardice. No other choice , he reasoned. You could not kill him. He would not die. The city was lost, you could not stay, but you could not leave him behind unchallenged. What if they sent him back to Edessa? Or on to Acre? What if he guarded the gates of Jerusalem forever? How many men could he kill? Who but you could stop him? The further from Jerusalem they walked, the more hollow and weak his justifications seemed ( coward coward coward ), the more ludicrous the idea of being destined to battle endlessly with one quiet man who had not said a word for hours. But he could see no other way to go, and the decision was already made.

After several miles, they reached a small natural spring tucked into a hidden grotto of rock in the low mountains, too far away from the city to have been poisoned by Iftikhar al-Daula to stall the advancing armies before the siege, and Yusuf stopped their march to rest. The moon glowed with only a thin crescent that night, narrow as a fingernail; all the better with which to see the thousands of twinkling stars misting the dark sky. 

Yusuf felt considerably better after a long drink of water and a more thorough washing of his face and neck, scrubbing the blood from under his fingernails as best he could. He knew he ought to be more troubled than he was by the simple satisfaction of quenching his thirst, the feel of the warm blood in his veins, of the cool, fresh air in his lungs. He was alive. Alive, when by all rights he should be among the pile of corpses being burnt on the pyre. He’d always thought he paid proper attention to how nice it was to feel night air on his face; that he had understood and identified with the passions of the poetry he had heard, exhilarated in his travels across the Maghrib, the joy in how far he had roamed, the sights he had seen. But here in the moonlight, with the clear sky of stars and the gentle sound of water, he had never been so overwhelmed by the gifts of Allah’s creation and his own existence. His stomach grumbled; he had not eaten since yesterday. He found himself smiling at such precious mundanity. He took another drink of water. Then he moved a few paces away from the spring, and prayed and prayed and prayed.

They were not the only refugees who had found their way to the spring, but it was easy enough to find a solitary set of low-growing scrubby bushes to shelter themselves for the night, a safe distance away from the few other survivors. Yusuf managed to scrounge up a few stray branches on the ground, and with some borrowed flame for another group, built a small fire. Still, he startled when Nicolò sat down heavily beside him. His face was red again, though now scrubbed clean, and Yusuf resisted the urge to pull the hood lower over his eyes once more.

“It will be at least two days to Jafa,” said Yusuf. 

Nicolò frowned at him.

“You can take a ship back to Genova from there,” said Yusuf. He focused on poking the fire, refusing to look him in the eyes.

“Ship,” Nicolò repeated, still frowning. 

Yusuf nodded. They sat next to each other, quietly watching the flames creak and crackle, for a long time. Nicolò’s hands were folded in his lap, and every few moments he moved his thumb to press against another finger; not quite wringing his hands, but not still. Counting something, or calculating, or simply nervous. 

Yusuf looked up into the sky again, back into the wash of stars. “ Dwellers on earth should cry and never cease ,” he recited quietly, almost to himself . “Time’s vagaries crush us like glass; thereafter We’ll never be remoulded as one piece. ”  The nearly-burnt charcoal shifted with a hush of ashes, and Yusuf saw that Nicolò was now looking at him quite intently, his eyes bright and orange in the firelight. “Al-Maarri,” said Yusuf. 

Nicolò didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Sat there, still as stone, staring at him. 

“What?” It was discomfiting to be the subject of such intense scrutiny without the distraction of oncoming death.

Nicolò hesitated, taking a small bite of his lower lip, but then the sullen resentment in his jaw returned and he shifted away, muttering to himself.

Yusuf rolled his eyes and shook out his shoulders, rallying just enough energy to hoist himself back onto his knees. “You sleep there,” he pointed Nicolò to a space near the dying embers, protected by the ring of shrubs.

Nicolò gave him another one of his confused eyebrows and shook his head, pointing out toward the ruins of Jerusalem in the darkness behind them.

“No, you, there,” Yusuf pointed again, with more force. “I will be here,” and he sat down in front of him, putting Nicolò’s body between himself and the fire. “I don’t want to deal with what will happen if someone tries to slit your throat in the night. Sleep,” he pointed at the ground again.

Nicolò said something vaguely sarcastic, and made to move next to Yusuf instead of behind.

“Do I need to gut you again?” Yusuf said, exasperated. “Go to sleep. We’ll need to start early and I don’t want anyone looking too closely at you in the morning. There,” he pointed at the spot on the ground, with finality, and flopped over to face the empty shadows. He gripped the hilt of his scimitar close to his chest, barely loosening his fingers until he heard Nicolò settle down behind him. The fire was issuing little crinkles as it died. After a few minutes, he realized Nicolò was whispering to himself, barely louder than the hissing steam escaping the charcoal. After two repetitions, Yusuf recognized it as prayer.

Some time later, he heard the other man’s breathing slow, quiet and steady. Yusuf shifted his shoulder in the hard dirt to look behind him. Those unnerving eyes were finally closed. His mouth was slightly parted, one arm tucked under his ear and the other wrapped around his knees with his outer cloak pulled close. The sword lay by his head but just out of arm’s reach, almost as though it had been forgotten. Too far away to grab in sudden danger. Too far away, if Yusuf struck quickly. Yusuf could be very quiet, when he needed to be. He could slit that throat again, take the sword, steal away into the shadows and back down the road. Haunt the outer walls and hunt the invaders down one-by-one until he dropped from exhaustion or starvation or thirst. He could do it.

Yusuf let the scimitar’s hilt slip out of his fingers and onto the ground. Then he fell asleep, and dreamed of galloping horses with shining, chestnut-brown coats and two riders with long, flowing dark hair.

Chapter Text

Lifta (Jerusalem Mountains)

Nicolò opened his eyes to dark shadows and moonlight.

It was something of a surprise how quickly Yusuf had fallen asleep. He had shifted his shoulders in the dirt, burrowing a softer place out of the hard-packed ground, and let out a few tired little sighs as the tension slowly sifted out of his upper back. Nicolò had kept still, forcing his breathing slow and quiet, waiting for Yusuf to glance back at him, feeling the eyes trained on his shoulders, forcing his body to relax and his lungs to fill in gentle crests, like the rise and fall of a mild wave. Yusuf then rolled back onto his side, and almost immediately went limp with the unmistakable stillness of sleep. Nicolò watched him for a long time, and then a little longer after that.

Finally, when he was well and truly certain Yusuf was asleep, Nicolò sat up. It took a great deal of effort to continue sitting still, to stop himself from running back to the spring for another drink of water, and then another. He had not truly known what it was to be thirsty until he came to this place, where the water was precious and the wells were full of death. It took even more effort to keep from running pell-mell back down the road to the Holy City and the men who held her.   

The moon was thin and lingering low on the horizon, yet its light seemed brighter in this place than a full moon over seawater. Perhaps it was grace, blessings, holiness, washing over Jerusalem and the dry, scrubby lands that surrounded it. Nicolò had had many hours to think about Jerusalem. As it so often did, in the quiet moonlight late at night, his mind picked up the frayed knots tangling endless threads of worry, confusion, fear, uncertainty, and doubt that had been circling and churning from the moment he’d first woke up from the black nothingness of death. 

That was, perhaps, the first terrifying and immutable thing to learn: death was black, and silent, and empty. Nicolò had not expected the immediate choirs of angels and paradise, but he had expected light, and divine presence for his judgment, and, pulled from an unspoken hope deep in his heart, to see his mother again. He had not expected that enormous, cavernous loneliness that stretched across what seemed to be eternity.

The second terrifying thing was, of course, that Yusuf could not be killed, either. 

The third was the sudden and terrible responsibility of choosing what to do next. 

And so here, sitting on the cold ground, surrounded by the grief and anger of his enemy (for Yusuf’s face had not softened in sleep, something lingering from the heartbreaking sound of his voice when reciting that poem by the fire), he poured over the question and all the others that joined: What had God appointed him to do? 

Was he to clear the Holy Land of pagans, as the Pope decreed, or was he to stop this one undying man from stopping the Christian war? Was the slaughter of Jerusalem’s residents adherence to God’s will, or had he been granted this gift to stop that violence and failed? Should he have remained with the Christian army, or should he have followed this man whose life force seemed tethered to his own? And was it even a gift, if this pagan idolator had received the same blessing? Was he, instead, cursed?

He had not been able to reach any conclusions. He was tired, and hungry, and lost. He called to mind every verse of scripture he knew about love, forgiveness, everlasting life, salvation, Luke, Matthew, St. Peter’s letters, John’s new commandment, wishing always for the library of books at Santa Maria in Valle Christi. Nicolò had spent ten years in quiet study and contemplation there before returning to Genova two years ago, and that was when things began to go wrong again. He knew he should have stayed at Santa Maria. But it was much too late for that, now.

Yusuf snuffled slightly in his sleep, inelegantly twisting his torso to flop onto his other side, and Nicolò tensed with one hand outstretched for his longsword. Yusuf was facing him now, eyes still closed, lips parted and burbling quietly. Nicolò held back a smile. What a strange duality of hospitality and vengeance, this man. His enemy had clothed him, had provided him with water, had accepted his truce. Christ himself had spoken of these things. But he could also wield his curved sword like an extension of his arm, vicious and dauntless and unforgiving. Nicolò distinctly remembered being stabbed through the back, rough arms pulling him close enough to whisper something threatening in his ear, and then kicking him to the ground, off his blade, and into the dark. And when he’d woken up, Yusuf had still been there, waiting to kill him again.

Perhaps you ought to kill him , the thought drifted idly. This is what you came here to do. Perhaps he would not be forgiven until he did. Perhaps that was his test. He could do it. He could slit that throat again, take the sword, fell the other Muslims huddling around the spring in their bundles of rags and pagan gods, then steal away into the shadows and back down the road. Haunt the outer walls and fight Yusuf to the death day-by-day until he dropped from exhaustion or starvation or thirst. He could do it.

Nicolò crept closer. He had a knife in his belt, small but sharp, useful for cutting cheese or fruit or opening the veins in the neck. Yusuf’s warm breath was ghosting over the hairs on his forearm. It was not the first time he had crept closer to a sleeping man, trying not to wake him. But that time, he had been gentle and soft and warm. That time, the man had opened his eyes and smiled. Did anyone see you? he had asked. But that warm and sleepy man had not waited for an answer before he pulled him down, pressing his mouth against his; knew that no one ever saw Nicolò. Not really.

Nicolò’s hand poised the tip of the knife over that soft, exposed neck, Yusuf’s brown skin ashy from the dusty road, but even that thin sliver of moonlight showed the pulse of blood. Nicolò could almost see the warmth there, at the edge of his dark beard.

Something moved.

Yusuf opened his eyes.

Nicolò drove the knife down deep into the scaled flesh. The long tail was thrashing and whipping frantically against their bodies, and he shoved Yusuf back with the side of his hips as he twisted his hand away from the sharp fangs and gaping jaw and drove the knife down again. The thrashing quickly dissipated into the same unnerving twitching that Yusuf’s body had made that time he was bleeding out from a crack in his skull under the dry sun, right before Nicolò had slid the edge of his sword across his neck, cutting across that line of pulsing blood. 

Nicolò released the hilt of the knife with a little grunt and shifted away, letting the starlight fall over the limp, brown-and-tan body of the snake.

Yusuf had scrambled so far back he had nearly climbed into the still-hot embers of the fire, his eyebrows pushed close to his hairline, rambling something half-asleep and frightened.

“It’s all right,” Nicolò found himself saying, watching Yusuf’s chest rise and fall as he caught his breath. “It’s all right. I killed it.”

“ Thank you ,” said Yusuf, a short gasp of Zeneize, staring at the hilt of the knife buried in the snake. 

“It’s a viper,” said Nicolò, trying to keep his voice even and his expression blank while he shoved the dueling feelings of shame in plotting to murder another man, and the shame in failing yet again. “One of the cooks was bitten. It took three days for him to die.”

Yusuf stared at the snake for a long time, and then lifted his eyes. They looked at each other, as though all the confusion and suspicion and uncertainty could be understood, just in the eyes. Then Yusuf grunted out a little order, gesturing to the other side of the dead fire.

Nicolò lay down next to him. They rested, though neither slept.

***

Yafa.

The rest of the journey to Yafa was uneventful: long marches in the hot sun, Nicolò’s stomach nearly turning itself inside-out with hunger, throat dry and hoarse from lack of speech and water. But the occasional whiffs of salt in the air or a wisp of cloud from the promise of seawater kept him putting one foot in front of the other. It seemed that, wherever in the world he was, the brine of the sea always reminded him of the painful joy of coming home.

The road seemed busier with common people than the last time Nicolò had walked it over three weeks ago, the recent events in Jerusalem surely adding to the bustle. For Yusuf, it presented endless opportunities to exchange news with other travelers and to show an entertaining spirit that seemed to naturally draw people toward him: telling stories, coaxing laughter out of a shy child, collecting walking companions with a wide and easy smile. For Nicolò, he held mostly dark glares and suspicious looks, but without hesitation, Yusuf immediately split every crust of bread or sip of water from a passing farmhouse evenly with Nicolò. 

Yusuf seemed slightly less guarded on the second day’s march. Nicolò knew he would not hesitate to kill him if he showed a hint of danger to the people on this road, and Yusuf still frequently looked back at him. But when he did, it was not to ensure that Nicolò was still scuffling a few feet behind, sweltering hot under the July sun. It was to laugh at him in some joke, presumably at his expense, or even attempting to bring Nicolò into shared knowledge with a word in Greek or butchered Zeneize, pointing out some landmark or sharing a story that Nicolò could not understand. It was a strange balance. Yusuf had a roguish charm and entitlement to leadership which should have irked him, but instead increasingly reminded him of a similarly mesmerizing figure from that old and ancient life in Genova (and no, he absolutely should not think about Lorenzo right now).

Finally, just before sunset, they walked through the high stone gates of Yafa by the sea. Gulls were crying along the ramparts that bordered the city, and Nicolò could see the tips of dozens of ship masts signaling the location of the harbor, sails unfurled and colors flying. The narrow streets were lined by old, patched and plastered stonework and hanging laundry, much the same as Jerusalem. Yusuf had been casually walking and talking with three other men during the last hour of the journey, and Nicolò lagged behind them as they meandered through the city. Finally, the little group paused just outside a fine-looking complex with a wide courtyard and several shady trees.

Yusuf and the acquaintances grasped hands in parting and friendship. Nicolò tried to be inconspicuous, resting his shoulder against the warm slab of a cracked wall and staring at the glimpse of blue in the horizon, as though he were merely pausing in the same place and not waiting for Yusuf to conclude his business. Then the solid wooden gates of the complex closed, and Yusuf and Nicolò were once again alone. 

Yusuf barely glanced at him, the charismatic smile dropping from his face almost immediately to leave him looking very tired. Tugging impatiently on Nicolò’s sleeve, he guided them around the block, out of sight from the fine-looking house, and halted to count a small collection of coins onto his palm while muttering to himself. Nicolò wondered how and when he’d received them, whether he was trying to determine if there was enough for both lodging and food or if Nicolò would sleep on the ground in a back alley somewhere. Perhaps Yusuf would kill him again, in the night. It was impossible to know for certain. 

Nicolò tried to pay attention as Yusuf began to talk again, leading them to the center of town through the rambling streets, but all the words sounded the same with that guttural gurgling in the back of his throat, lilting and musical but entirely incomprehensible. 

Suddenly a voice came sailing over the rooftops, someone singing a loud, plaintive call that echoed overhead. Yusuf perked up slightly at the sound and then glanced at the sky, the pinks and purples of the setting sun, clearly recognizing the melody. Nicolò only knew it to be one of the many songs that echoed over the cities in these lands at different times of day. He could not tell them apart, but they were all haunting, and eerie, and sad, and beautiful. “Calls to pray to their god,” one of his fellow soldiers had told him on a particularly beautiful evening when the wind blew the voices over Jerusalem’s walls and out to the sea of encampments waiting for the siege equipment to be built. Nicolò had spent many hours sparring with his sword in that camp, using his body in a way he had not done since he was young and being beaten endlessly by his older brothers at their war games with sticks. 

Yusuf said something, loudly, to jar his attention. He was already gesturing down the street, repeating the same word over, and over, until he finally mimed a hand to his mouth.

“Food?” Nicolò attempted the Arabic.

“Yes, food,” Yusuf nodded. “And-” a word that seemed familiar, but Nicolò could not identify it until it was accompanied by the miming of washing his face. Another echo of Jerusalem.

“Wash,” said Nicolò, hearing relief in his own voice. He was quite certain some of his skin still held a few drops of Yusuf’s blood that even the sweat from two days of marching in the summer heat had not washed away. 

Yusuf nodded curtly, giving a hard glare and another irritated tug on the sleeve of his shirt, hurrying him down the road. Nicolò wished he could draw some resentment of his own to return the attitude, some manner of pride and disdain at the constant mocking and disdain, but his heart was too confused and uncertain to muster the energy. The only truth of this matter was that somehow, blessed or cursed or chosen or damned, he and Yusuf were on the same path. Nicolò had decided that he must continue on it until the Lord gave him further instructions. 

Then they turned a corner, and Nicolò saw a small and somewhat neglected-looking stone building with a cross placed atop, its dark silhouette just barely visible in the fading dusk. There was a lamp lit in the window. 

“I must go there,” Nicolò said immediately, in Zeneize, interrupting one of Yusuf’s long-winded sentences and crossing the street with urgency.

He heard Yusuf questioning or protesting behind him, but he would not be deterred from this mission, feeling as though God himself had placed this church directly in his way as a clear indication of what to do next. Yusuf managed to stop him just before he opened the door, his complaints getting louder and more erratic, but Nicolò shook him off. “I must go in here. I will find you later.” He had no idea how that could possibly be accomplished in a city he did not know, but that wasn’t important now. God would guide him.

Yusuf threw up his hands and stalked away, still grumbling to himself in that language he did not speak. Nicolò only watched him for a moment before opening the cracked wooden door and slipping inside.

The church was dark and very old, with little ornamentation. Its windows were small and covered with thick, faded tapestries, the ceilings low, the whitewash cracked. But the wood in the old pews was polished and clean, the tile floor neatly swept, and the air was thick with the comforting smells of incense and burning wax. The yellow shadows from the candles and the lamplight were inviting in their familiarity. He wondered how long this building had stood, here in the old parts of the world, how many Christians had gathered in this humble house of worship over the centuries.

He approached the altar quickly, preparing to drop to his knees and beg for guidance, when movement behind the sacristy revealed an old priest with heavy streaks of gray in his hair and beard. He spoke a greeting in Yusuf’s gurgling tongue, and Nicolò tried not to wrench his hand with desperation when he grasped it. Hurriedly, in Latin, “Seniore, I must speak with you.”

“Are you all right?” the priest responded after a moment of surprise, eyebrows raising. His Latin was stiff with underuse, but passable.

“I must repent,” said Nicolò. “It is urgent, I-”

“Calm yourself,” said the priest with a small smile, taking his hand and patting it soothingly. “You are safe here. Sit, you look tired. Do you need water?”

“No, I’m-” Nicolò started, and then he stopped himself. “Well, yes. Water would be welcome.”

“You have been on the road,” the priest nodded, patting his hand once more before extracting his own and shuffling to a back room. He returned with a clay cup full to the brim, which Nicolò gulped down in seconds.

“Thank you,” he said, looking down into the empty cup, perhaps with the vague hope of answers at the bottom.

“Sit, please,” the priest guided him by the arm to one of the old wooden pews, settling down next to him with a wrap of his robes. “No one will be coming at this late hour. I was about to lock the door.”

Nicolò nodded, worrying at his lower lip, wondering where to begin. “Seniore, I am so conflicted. I do not know what to do.”

“Then you should tell me of your troubles, and we will give them to God,” said the priest.

“I believe I am cursed,” said Nicolò.

The priest tilted his head and examined him closely. “In what way?”

“I cannot tell if it is a curse or a gift,” Nicolò clarified. “If it is a curse, I must atone. I must do my penance and be absolved. But if it is a gift, I do not know what I am to do with it, or where I should go.”

“How did you come to be here?” asked the priest, though Nicolò suspected he already knew.

Nicolò gave a heavy sigh. “I came to these shores a month ago, with supplies and equipment to join God’s army, to...to purify the Holy Land. I...I tried, Seniore, I tried to do His will, and I fought against the pagans in Jerusalem.”

The priest’s gray eyebrows had risen very high on his forehead. “Then you are to be praised! Praised and glorified, for you have brought a great victory for Christ! We heard only of your success this morning.”

“No, no,” said Nicolò, shaking his head and feeling a rush of panic. “No, I have forsaken the Cross. I abandoned the fight and fled the victory, I did not stay. Seniore, I do not know that I can carry out this charge.”

“Many men feel fear in battle,” the priest nodded. 

“I was not afraid,” said Nicolò, and it was true. He had waded through the bodies, he had swung his sword with abandon, and he felt only soaring energy and elation. “I was not afraid to fight, but now...now, yes. Yes, I am afraid.”

“Courage, my son,” said the priest, putting a soft hand on his arm. “You must have courage. You will be rewarded for your valor in heaven.”

Nicolò was afraid to say the words his mind supplied. But what if I never see heaven? “My fellow pilgrims, they...they were killing everyone. Not just the men who would oppose our righteous army, but the women, the children…”

The priest made a knowing sound. “If any man has committed violence in the name of anger or hatred, then they must enact their penance or be judged in heaven. Many dark things happen in war. But blood must be spilled to defend the lives of your fellow Christians and liberate us from the oppression of the infidels. These people are the enemies of God.”

“And yet you live among them,” said Nicolò. “I do not understand.”

“Why should we leave these Holy Lands? They are ours, our heritage, our birthright,” said the priest. “Stolen from Heraclius and hoarded by one Caliphate after another. The Christians of the Levant are grateful to you. You have come to set us free.”

Nicolò considered that for a little while. He had heard similar speeches: in Genova, on the ships in the middle of the sea, when the dark tales of saracen atrocities were passed around the decks, and even darker tales amplified by the soldiers who had taken the long route through Antioch and Edessa and Constantinople. The righteousness of their quest, the honor and glory for God. And yet he did not know how to describe the dark, anxious feeling that settled in the pit of his stomach the moment he walked onto the ship in Genova. He thought it was only nerves, excitement and apprehension, but the feeling did not go away when he disembarked in Yafa, hauled supplies and marched with the wood and the iron to join the rest of the army, practiced with his sword, climbed over the walls, set his sights on his target: a man with dark, furious eyes and a scarlet red coat. That dark feeling had become a part of his body, grounding in the fight. But in the moment he paused his attack, held his sword high overhead and found he was unable to bring it down again, the feeling lifted and the heaviness vanished. He did not want it to return. “Seniore, I believe I was granted a miracle.”

Again, the priest’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “In what way?”

“I was struck down, in Jerusalem, and the Lord healed my wounds.”

“Truly?”

“Truly,” Nicolò nodded. He put the empty cup beside him and pulled the neck of his robes down to bare the place where Yusuf’s scimitar had pierced through his neck, just above his collarbone. The skin was smooth, without scar or blemish. 

The priest examined him, glancing up to his eyes once or twice, and then settled back again. “Then God be praised, you are truly blessed. How can you doubt your purpose, here? Is this the curse you mentioned?”

“An enemy soldier, with whom I was fighting, was also healed,” said Nicolò.

“An enemy?” the priest repeated.

“I watched it happen. His throat was slit, his blood was everywhere, and then…” Nicolò swallowed carefully, recalling that cold wash of fear. “And then it was not. And he rose, and we fought again. So who was blessed, Seniore, and who was cursed? Was I blessed with healing by the Lord, only to have another rise to test my faith? Or did his god bless him, as mine did, when-”

“That is sacrilege,” the priest interrupted sharply. “Their god is false.”

Nicolò swallowed again. “Yes. I know.” But a terrifying creep of that heavy feeling fluttered in his stomach as he said it, like an echo of a dark time. If he were being honest, he could name it ( doubt ), but he could not be so honest right now.

“I do understand your confusion,” the priest was saying, back into a soothing tone. “Please let me reassure you: you are on the path of the righteous. This cause is just. You are doing God’s will, here on earth. He moves through you, and he blesses you.”

“But the children-”

“Children of non-believers,” said the priest. “Regrettable things always happen in war. But you have seen Jerusalem! You have traveled to the Holy City, and have liberated it for Christ! Is that not a wonder? Are you not proud?”

“I...I don’t know,” Nicolò admitted. 

The priest thought for a moment, and then tried again. “Did I understand your words correctly that you left after the victory?”

“Yes,” Nicolò nodded, “Jerusalem had fallen. They were-- Seniore, they were butchering -”

“You did not flee while there was still a chance that the holy cause could be lost?” the priest interrupted.

Nicolò shook his head.

“Then you did not forsake the Cross,” said the priest. “You have done your duty, Child of God. If you take up your sword and return to Jerusalem, you will be blessed with the courage you seek in this life and eternal salvation in the next life. But should you choose to return home, you may do so with the knowledge that your struggle and your sacrifice and your deeds have ensured absolution for all the sins you committed here.”

The Pope promised all sins, past and future , Nicolò reminded himself, and then put those thoughts away. It would do no good to think of Giuseppe, either, right now. “My heart is still heavy.”

“Then let me grant you absolution,” said the priest. “Though I see no cause for punishment, here.”

Nicolò felt tears gather at the edges of his eyes. “All the same, I killed my fellow men. Many times. Forgive me, Seniore.”

“Your heart was true,” said the priest, “And your cause was just.” And he quickly spoke the words of absolution, the Latin flowing from his lips much more freely, signing the Cross over him with a warm and loving smile. 

Nicolò felt a little better, and took a deep breath. “And my penance?”

The priest laughed a little. “You must be one of the most pious young men to have ever graced my doorstep. Most men of your age have only to confess to lying with women outside of their marriage bed, or uttering falsehoods to their wives. But if it will lighten your heart, I will give you this: Pray here, in gratitude for the blessings bestowed upon you by a proud and grateful Father. You have pleased the Lord. What is your name?”

“Nicolò.”

“Nicolò,” the priest repeated, smiling again and squeezing his arm once more. “Pray, Nicolò, and peace be with you.”

“And also with you,” Nicolò returned, sliding off the worn wooden seat to his knees.

“I must finish my nightly duties,” said the priest as he crossed to the back of the sacristy, “But you may stay as long as you like. Do you need a place to sleep tonight?”

“I-” Nicolò started, but was interrupted by the light knocking against the door at the back of the church. He turned to see Yusuf’s dark eyes staring at him through the lamplit window, gesturing for him to come outside, clearly impatient.  Nicolò had not realized he had been so long. “No, I suppose not.”

“Who is that?” the priest asked with suspicion.

“My guide,” said Nicolò, rising to his feet. “Thank you, Seniore. Good night.”

Yusuf was already yelling at him the moment the door opened. Nicolò waited for him to take a breath, finding it entirely unnerving how little concern he had for Yusuf’s temper when all fear of being permanently harmed was removed from possibility. He had not known the man long, but Yusuf was clearly a person who frequently boiled over with passion, the knife’s edge splitting between laughter and violence. Still, the threatening bluster held little weight.

Finally Yusuf paused, and Nicolò was able to get a single word in edgewise. “Food?” he asked, in his creaky new Arabic.

Yusuf snapped something so low, Nicolò felt sure it was a curse. He tried to commit it to memory. And then something fragrant was being placed in front of his face, a bread-like wrapping full of spiced meat and dried fruit and grain, and Nicolò had not realized how incredibly hungry he was until he smelled it. He immediately sank into the dirt in front of the church, cross-legged, to begin devouring the food. It was half-eaten before he finally managed to croak out, “This is delicious,” defaulting to Zeneize without thinking. “Thank you.”

Yusuf said something grumbly in response, crouching down next to him with a brief, uncertain glance at the lamplight in the window. Then he asked a question.

“I still do not know what to do,” said Nicolò, shaking his head slightly, even though he knew it was impossible for Yusuf to have asked that specific question. “But I suppose I can do nothing further tonight.”

Yusuf pointed at the meat and gave the Arabic word, which Nicolò believed to be goat in its similarity to mutton. Nicolò repeated the word, whatever it truly meant, and then pointed at the fruit, and again a word was supplied. They traded that way for a few minutes while Nicolò finished eating, trying to commit the frequently-heard sounds to memory as Yusuf had again lapsed into jabbering full, incomprehensible sentences. Once, long ago, in that other life, Nicolò had delighted in learning Latin. It was like a secret code that only he and Seniore Piero could decipher. His brothers had no patience for it, stumbling over translations and pronunciations like broken wheels over rock, but to Nicolò it was like divine confirmation that he would have been destined for the church even if his birth order and family status had not made it all-but-inevitable. The sounds and structures of Arabic seemed to be as different from Latin or Zeneize as the night was to the day, and the little writing he had seen an entirely mysterious puzzle of backwards loops. But, Nicolò reminded himself, he rather liked puzzles.

Yusuf suddenly stood up and tilted his head, as though he had asked another question. 

“What is it?” Nicolò asked.

Yusuf repeated it, then tilted his head again more distinctly. The sun had nearly set now, and his body was a silhouette against the last hints of yellow light. Then he turned and began walking down the darkening street. Nicolò followed him.

***

“...ship, Nicolò,” said Yusuf, pinching the bridge of his nose with irritation.

“No,” said Nicolò. He kept his arms locked across his chest and tried to fix Yusuf with his darkest glare. He could see Yusuf trying to avoid looking him directly in the eyes, but also not to look too closely at the Genovese First Mate of the ship Zeffiro.   The First Mate seemed torn between amusement at the futility of this multi-translated conversation and irritation that it was taking so much of his time.

Nicolò was annoyed when Yusuf led him directly from the church to the harbor, and then even more annoyed at himself for not expecting it. Of course Yusuf went to the harbor to find a ship while Nicolò was praying in the church. He had told him he would do so, with his ship and Genova . Of course, he was attempting to offload him as quickly as possible. Why would he wait for another night of uneasy sleep, another day of impossible conversation and delay? The man wanted this undying Christian as far away from these shores as possible, so long as the pilgrims held Jerusalem. 

And for a moment, Nicolò had considered the idea. All sins, past and future. All sins, past and future. Really, would it be so difficult? He had fought, as he promised to do. He had taken the city. Nicolò imagined himself sailing into the harbor in Genova, his father and brothers waiting at the dockside, seeing him on the deck with wide eyes of shock and begrudging respect, finally, finally . Walking down to greet them with his head held high, wind in his hair, his sword at his hip, a sword bloodied in battle and righteousness. Seniore Piero, welcoming him home.

But then, in the instant his feet touched the creaking wood of the gangplank, that dark, unsettled feeling sank into his stomach again. It coated his belly like thick tar, like rotten food, like coiling shame and doubt and warning. Nicolò wanted to believe it was his own sense of honor telling him not to abandon the Christian army to the mercy of an undying non-believer. But that was not the truth. The truth was, simply, that the feeling in his stomach, whether it was God or his guilty conscience or his own poor instinct for making choices, said not this and wrong and turn around .

And so, he did. 

“No ship,” Nicolò said again.

“ Are those the only words of Arabic you know? ” The First Mate translated the next sarcastic sentence from Yusuf.

“No.”

Yusuf made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat, his Adam’s apple bobbing in the yellow torchlight. “ You do not belong here. Get on the ship. ”

“No,” said Nicolò, with finality. “I cannot go back to Genova.” 

“ Why not? Wait, I don’t care ,” said Yusuf. “Nicolò, you are not welcome here. You are useless to me and a danger to others. You don’t even speak any languages that might-”

“I can speak Latin.”

“I don’t need Latin!” Yusuf snapped. “What would I do with Latin? I need Greek, I need Arabic, even Turkish would be better than-”

“I have a little Greek,” said Nicolò.

“Your Greek is terrible ,” said Yusuf, throwing up his hands. “If you don’t want to go back to Genova, fine. Go to Malta, go to Rome. Go to Naples! I don’t care! As long as you go away . You cannot stay here!”

Nicolò stared at him, clenching his teeth so tightly together he could feel his jaw click. Then he turned to the bemused-looking First Mate. “I apologize for wasting your time,” he said evenly. “I wish you safe travels across the sea.”

“Go with God,” said the First Mate with a little smile and a shrug, turning to translate for Yusuf. Nicolò did not wait for his response; he turned on his heel and walked away from the gangplank. The dark feeling in his stomach lightened with every step.

“Nicolò!” Yusuf shouted after him, taking two paces to yell it again. “Nicolò! ---ship!”

Nicolò ignored him, trying to melt into the crowd of shadows and lamplight lining the quayside. He didn’t go far before stopping just short of another ship’s gangplank, however, staring out into the darkness of the open sea as a new kind of anxiety took the place of the old. He still did not know quite what to do, and had rarely, if ever, had the freedom to make his own decisions. He had rejected a chance to go home. He had chosen to stay here in this odd, foreign place where he did not speak the language. He had no money. He knew no one. No one, that is, except Yusuf.

“Nicolò!” he heard Yusuf shouting at him again, just barely in earshot. Nicolò watched him stalk closer, like storm clouds racing across the sea, and then looked back to the water, bracing himself for the thunder and lightning.

Yusuf did not lower his voice even as he stood close beside him, shouting with even more vitriol than he had outside the church, inside the walls. He shouted, and gestured frantically between their two swords, their two bodies, pointing out at the dark ships, shaking a little with what appeared to be a heady combination of anger, and grief, and perhaps a small amount of fear. I don’t know what to do! his body seemed to scream. I don’t want this!

“I don’t want this either,” said Nicolò, finding his voice was quiet and soft, looking down at the toes of his boots and shrinking into his shoulders. “I do not know what God wants for me. I do not know who is destined to kill who, or whether we must fight each other until Christ himself returns. But I cannot leave these shores while our souls still tether each other to the earth.”

Yusuf’s brows were furrowed, drawing dark and low over his eyes. He said something that matched Nicolò’s softer tone.

Nicolò sighed. And then he put his right hand over his heart, first with his palm flat, and then curling his fingers into a tight fist.

Yusuf’s frown deepened, staring intently at the gesture. He asked a question.

“I swear, this peace will hold,” said Nicolò, trying not to blush, even knowing the darkness would hide the color. “And I do not wish to fight you again. I am very tired. Aren’t you tired, Yusuf?”

They stared at each other for what felt like a long time. And then Yusuf stifled a yawn, mouth twisting as he attempted to swallow it.

Nicolò smiled a little. “Sleep?” he attempted to say in Arabic, though with his luck, he had just as likely insulted Yusuf’s ancestors.

Yusuf was chewing on his lower lip now, in an intense bid to keep the yawn at bay. Finally, he let it out, wide-jaw and eyes squeezing shut. “Sleep,” he spat out at the end, clearly resigned.

Nicolò nodded slowly, and gestured for Yusuf to lead the way.

Chapter Text

Yafa.

Truly, Yusuf had decided, the most irritating thing about Nicolò di Genova was the kittens.

Or perhaps it was the dogs.

Or the children.

“Will you come on ?” he snapped down at his feet as, not for the first time, his immortal shadow was on his knees getting his face licked by a sleek, roly-poly pack of puppies, mottled brown and white fur, tails wagging, chasing him down the alleyway and waylaying their progress toward the market. “How many times do I need to tell you, these animals are well fed! They do not need your breakfast! Nicolò! ”

He had told him this in Arabic, he had told him this in Greek. The kittens did not need the saucers of water he left on the windowsill of their small rented room (“Look, you see? Everyone fills their little water troughs when they go to the well!”), nor did they need the scales and bones from the fresh seafood that Nicolò brought home from the dockside (“They will be too lazy to catch the mice if they know there is an easier way for their supper!”). The dogs did not need the crumbs of stale bread from his pocket (“Ahmed the butcher gives that pack a flock’s worth of bones every night, Nicolò!”). 

Nicolò was laughing and clucking at the puppies, speaking low and playful in Ligurian, and it was doing things to the flip-flopping place in Yusuf’s stomach, and it infuriated him. “They have been eating garbage, and you let them lick your face!?” 

It wasn’t that Yusuf disliked animals. They were useful, valuable members of society who ought to be treated with kindness and appreciation, but...well, all right, the smallest, muddy-brown puppy whining in its attempts to knock over its larger siblings to reach Nicolò’s face was very sweet, and he so rarely heard Nicolò laugh (it was as soft and low as when he sang to himself sometimes, late in the evening while he petted the rooftop kittens through the open shutters, when he thought Yusuf was asleep) but this was still an entirely-- “Nicolò. Nicolò ,” he tried again.

Nicolò looked up, at least having the decency to look slightly chagrined, and then the little brown runt made a desperate leap to attach its tongue directly onto Nicolò’s lips, and he tumbled onto his back in the middle of the street, only his propped-up knees visible in front of six or seven wagging tails. Yusuf could hear him laughing harder, the puppies on his chest bouncing up and down as they wiggled over him.

“Nicolò!” came the chorus of voices, and Yusuf tried to suppress the audible groan as another pack of young creatures (the four children of Mahmoud the baker) came running excitedly down the alley to join in the fun. 

“Buongiorno,” said Nicolò from under the pile of puppies, trying to sit up and repeatedly being tackled down again by another wet nose or over-eager tongue. Two of the puppies were tugging his tunic in different directions, while another was growling at the toe of his boots. 

“Do you need help?” asked one of the children, pulling at a puppy by the tail.

“They’re so cute!”

“Are they eating him alive?”

“Not with my luck,” Yusuf grumbled under his breath, finally rolling up his sleeves to wade into the fray and pull Nicolò up by grasping his forearm. 

“Thank you,” said Nicolò, speaking Arabic only briefly before looking down at the gaggle of children and saying something in his secretive, whispering Ligurian, glancing pointedly at Yusuf and charicaturing a frown. The children laughed.

“What did he say?” Yusuf’s eyes narrowed, as Nicolò paraded past him with one of his smug little smiles.

“I don’t know how to explain it,” Fatima shrugged. “You just look funny when you’re grumpy.”

“I am not grumpy!” said Yusuf, recognizing his mistake (and the undisputedly grumpy tone of his voice) too late. The children laughed again, and thundered back down the alley, an army of the painfully young. It wasn’t entirely clear whether the children were chasing the puppies, or vice-versa. “Well, you would be grumpy, too, if your breakfast was forever being given to the dogs,” he said, shaking his head and following after him. 

“Hungry dogs,” said Nicolò in his spare and heavily accented Arabic, eyes still bright with amusement even if his expression had returned to seriousness.

“Hungry Yusuf!” he insisted, and Nicolò laughed again, and his stomach flipped again, and it was all he could do to keep from stomping like a tantruming toddler all the way to the market.

He had cooled off by the time they saw the colorful awnings and smelled the spices and cooking meat in the marketplace, shame pooling under his cheeks. He never meant to let his temper get the better of him, knew it was a weakness he must master, forever asking Allah for patience and clarity. But every morning, the heat rose again.

They both woke with the call to Fajr (Nicolò always out of bed first, as though he were poised and waiting for the sun to rise). Circling around the wash bucket on their little table, bare-chested and shadowed by the barely-rising sunlight, and then they separated back to their own sleeping corners to pray. Yusuf would blearily unroll his mat, fighting yawns, his mind still swirling with the images of horse hooves and long black hair and two women dancing, firing arrows, swinging axes in his dreams. 

Nicolò would sink to his knees as though he did not feel the cold, hard floor. It had genuinely surprised him to find that Nicolò prayed nearly as often, and at nearly the same times of day, as Yusuf did. Their prayers would often take the same amount of time, even if spoken in entirely different languages to entirely different gods with entirely different purposes. Yusuf’s Arabic lessons had not progressed enough to get a true response whenever he tried to ask Nicolò about it, but Yusuf had always found it easier to adhere to the daily salah when he was surrounded by other devout Muslims in a city with regular calls, and he was certainly not going to allow a non-believer to display more piety to his bloodthirsty god than Yusuf would to Allah. (And then, with a sigh, he would pray again for patience and forgiveness for the audacity to treat his worship like a competition, but heaven help him, the man was infuriating .)

Then they would dress and eat whatever food still remained in the room that had not been gifted to the kittens in the window, and it helped that they often did not see each other for much of the rest of the day. 

Nicolò had managed some form of employment with the Frankish sailors at the port. Every evening, Yusuf found himself bewildered to see him striding through the market with a bundle of fresh fish, or a small bucket of oysters, or several scoops of rice from a bag that had ripped in transit and could not be salvaged. Every day surprised to see that Nicolò had not taken another ship and gone home.

Not that Yusuf had made any arrangements to return to Cairo in the three weeks they had lingered in Yafa. He had passed himself off as one of his own cousins (who would notice? There were so many), and had been working with some distant family connections in the market. It suited him well. It was social, it afforded many connections that Yusuf could perhaps use to establish his own business later (that vague, nebulous, don’t-examine-too-closely concept of later , once he had decided to cease providing mercenary services to the Fatimid, once he had decided to accept that was no longer an option for him, once he decided to accept his fate and go home). The busy port brought new merchants and suppliers and purchasers into the city every day. 

Since the fall of Jerusalem, Yusuf had spoken to as many vendors and shopkeepers and members of the local Fatimid garrison as possible, creating networks of information to track the movements of the invading army, waiting to see what it would do next. No one believed they would be content behind Jerusalem’s walls, and no one believed the Fatimid would stand to see the city fall without response. So here they were, in their small rented rooms on the second floor of Mahmoud’s shop, their daily inconsequential occupations, their trading of words and differences, waiting for signs of the next thing to happen.

Nicolò walked slightly ahead of him to the awnings of the produce grocers where Yusuf often started his day. He greeted the vendor with almost painfully-stiff politeness, pulled a small coin out of his pocket, and selected a large, ripe, purple fig. He placed it reverently in the palm of Yusuf’s hand, saying with grave solemnity, “Hungry Yusuf.”

“What-” Yusuf started, but Nicolò had already gone, weaving his way through the morning crowds of customers toward the harbor.

“He always pays too much, your friend,” said the vendor with a secretive sort of smile. “I have not told him, but I am beginning to think perhaps I should.”

“He is not my friend,” said Yusuf, taking an enormous bite of the fig and refusing to watch the place where he’d last seen the sun glinting off of Nicolò’s pale brown hair. And then he plastered on his most charming smile, and added, “But you can give the rest of his figs to me.”

The vendor laughed, selected a few more figs to fulfill the coinage that Nicolò had paid, and sent Yusuf on his way.

The air was rather tense this morning, Yusuf noticed, once he had eaten and the distraction of Nicolò had been removed. Vendors were talking in hushed whispers rather than bright and easy tones, the customers were scurrying through quickly to select their wares rather than linger to exchange gossip and stories. There were fewer street musicians, fewer bouts of laughter. Something was happening.

“Mr. al-Kaysani!” someone called, and when he turned, he saw the young and overeager Ibrahim ibn-Mohamed of the Fatimid garrison in Yafa pushing through the crowd toward him. He had a long face, a small nose, and a charming collection of freckles across his cheeks. Ibrahim always reminded him strongly of his favorite nephew, the second son of his older sister, bubbly and exuberant and joyful.

“What’s happened?” Yusuf frowned.

“Everything! You asked me to tell you when the garrison was to move, and this morning we received the orders! Half of us are being sent to Ascalon,” Ibrahim rushed out with excitement.

“Ascalon,” Yusuf repeated. 

“The Fatimid have sent an army from Cairo to retake Jerusalem. Twenty-thousand strong!”

“I pray that will be enough,” said Yusuf quietly, mentally calculating the size of the army he had joined to defend Jerusalem and the numbers he had seen of the invading force.

“How could it not? The invaders do not have half so many, especially since they must leave some behind to guard Jerusalem,” said Ibrahim. 

Yusuf shook his head. “You have not seen them fight. They believe this is the will of their god.”

Ibrahim scoffed, rolling his eyes. “Their god is false, and Allah wills that they must be defeated.”

“Yes,” Yusuf nodded. “God is most great. You are part of the force to be sent to Ascalon?”

“We leave today!” Ibrahim exclaimed. “I was on my way to my parents’ house to tell them the news. Are you coming with us?”

“Yes,” said Yusuf, without the slightest hesitation. 

“Good,” said Ibrahim. “We are all to pray Dhuhr at the mosque before boarding the ships.”

“I will be there,” said Yusuf, already calculating how long it would take him to prepare his supplies. He hadn’t yet found a replacement coat for the one ruined at Jerusalem that met his standards, but he would just have to compromise with that inferior cloth from the sour-faced woman near the orange grocers.

“See you then!” Ibrahim called, already running again. “We go with God!”

Yusuf paused for thought, standing stock-still in the middle of the crowded market. What to do about Nicolò? If he left without a word, it would seem to all-but-guarantee that Nicolò would return to the invading army. Yusuf would hope for him to be stymied by his own ineptitude and be unable to find his way, but Yusuf himself had stupidly taught him enough basic Arabic that he could hire a guide or ask for directions. It was also too much to hope he would take the opportunity to quietly disappear back to Genova, as he had clearly ignored that possibility for weeks. Nicolò had been waiting for this moment, too.

Bringing him along seemed to be equally insane, though, even if he could somehow smuggle him on board a ship. What if he sabotaged the Muslim defenses? What if he opened the gates for the invaders? What if-

“Yusuf!” And there Nicolò was in front of him, breathless and red-faced. He must have heard the news from someone at the harbor and ran the entire way back to the market. Word was traveling very fast, today.

“You’ve heard?” asked Yusuf, leading them out of the thickest section of crowds and vendors to the open edge of the square, the tips of the harbor ships just barely visible down the slope of the hill.

“Ascalon,” said Nicolò, following at a slower pace while he caught his breath.

“Who told you? What did you hear?” And again, coming to a halt with that heat of frustration rising so quickly in his throat he sometimes wondered how it ever left. “Ugh, why can’t you just talk to me? What do you know? What did they tell you? What are their numbers, what are their plans?”

“Nicolò!” someone shouted, and they both turned.

A solidly-built young Frank with broad shoulders and a square jaw made all the stiffer by a ragged, poorly-trimmed beard, was running toward them. “Nico!” he shouted again, and waved. He was beaming.

Nicolò tensed, making a single aborted movement of his feet. Yusuf couldn’t tell whether he was preparing to move toward the man or away from him, but he did not look happy. His face went completely still, the way it did when he was worried or uncertain, and his shoulders were shifting protectively inward. 

The man crashed into Nicolò, wrapping both arms around his shoulders. He was slightly taller, almost exactly Yusuf’s height, and was laughing loudly and swaying their bodies from side to side in the hug. Nicolò looked extremely uncomfortable, barely moving, his hands patting the other man’s back once and then drifting back to his sides. The stranger didn’t seem bothered in the slightest by Nicolò’s clear reticence to reciprocate affection; either he didn’t notice, or he was intimately familiar with Nicolò’s reservedness. He immediately began pelting him with excited questions, which Nicolò answered in succinct one or two word sentences. Yusuf vaguely recognized a Ligurian word here and there. 

He was about to remove himself and let them reconnect in private when the man glanced at him, brief and instinctual, and Yusuf froze. The man’s eyes were exactly like Nicolò’s: that eerie, other-worldly combination of green and blue and gray, pale and glass-like. It may have been a trick of the light, but this man’s eyes seemed more identifiably green, and with the delighted grin on his face, far more light-hearted and jovial. Even with the beard, he was clearly younger than both of them by a few years; far fewer worry lines around his eyes and forehead, though plenty of smile crinkles.

Yusuf realized, too late, that those new eyes were suddenly fixed on him. Both sets, now. 

“Yusuf, Alfonso,” Nicolò introduced after some awkward silence. “Family,” he added in Arabic.

“Your brother,” Yusuf said, and then repeated the word with his hand flat and palm down, hovering around his thigh, to indicate a smaller person or a child. 

“Brother,” Nicolò repeated, nodding. “Ship. Beirut.” 

Yusuf bit down on the inner part of his lip, just hard enough to stop his temper from flaring. He had heard of how the Genovese Navy had boxed the Fatimid ships in the Beirut harbor, preventing reinforcements from sailing south to aid the defenders in Jerusalem three weeks ago. Nicolò’s brother must have been part of that fleet. Presumably, they had now made port in Yafa, likely to bring more supplies for the occupiers. “Are they sending reinforcements?”

“Fight,” said Nicolò. He fixed Yusuf with a look full of hinted meaning that Yusuf didn’t trust himself to decipher accurately.

“Will you go with them?” he asked instead. The reluctance in his own voice shocked him, and he had to bury it under a new current of anger that these damn invaders kept multiplying and that, even with this gift, he could not fight every single Frank alone.

Alfonso was watching this exchange with bare suspicion, though most of his darkening glare was increasingly focusing on Nicolò and not himself. “Nicolò...” and he issued an accusation, or at least a disapproving question, in a low, hard voice.

Nicolò flinched slightly.

Alfonso’s joviality shifted immediately, and now the questions being pelted in Ligurian were harsh and full of the kind of admonishing disappointment that Yusuf would expect in a father or an older brother, not one so clearly younger. 

Perhaps Nicolò also felt the indignity of being scolded by his junior, as his shoulders were squaring up and his eyes were flashing with a sort of wounded pride. Again, Yusuf wondered if he should remove himself to go buy that surcoat or get more information about the Fatimid attack, but then Nicolò rapidly fired back several sentences at Alfonso, suddenly looking almost as determined as he had when they were swinging steel at each other’s bodies. He had been so calm and accommodating in the intervening weeks, Yusuf had nearly wondered if he’d invented the visions of the mad knight hell-bent on killing him, that wild-eyed fierceness and ferocity. But this stubborn streak and the hard set in his eyes brought it all quite clearly.

Nicolò snapped a final last word at his brother, and then he stalked off in the direction of the church, leaving Alfonso sputtering in the street and Yusuf staring at his back.

Alfonso watched him go, hands on his hips, and then turned to fix his disapproval on Yusuf. Yusuf met his gaze evenly. “What have you been telling my brother?” asked Alfonso, in Arabic. He kept his hands on his hips.

Yusuf was rather surprised to hear passable Arabic coming from someone who so closely resembled Nicolò. Their dialects were different (Alfonso had clearly learned in the Levant, and his accent was as thick and clumsy as his brother’s), but it was enough. Tilting his head and raising a skeptical eyebrow, he forced out an unaffected laugh. “I can hardly tell him anything.”

“He shouldn’t be here,” said Alfonso. 

“Then, please, take him!” said Yusuf. “I cannot seem to get rid of him! He’s the one who refuses to take a ship and go home.”

Alfonso frowned a little. “He refused?”

“He did,” said Yusuf.

“Why?”

“How would I know? We can barely communicate. How do you speak-”

“I’ve been all over,” said Alfonso with a shrug. “Nicolò’s always preferred dead Latin and crusty old hermits. So he never has to talk to anybody,” he smiled, the knowing smirk of a teasing sibling. And then he pressed forward, eyes narrowing. “How did he get here? Why isn’t he in Jerusalem? He said he fought with the army there, but he’s clearly lying about something.”

“It’s none of my business what he tells you,” said Yusuf.

“He hasn’t just been hiding here for the last two months, has he? When I saw him at the harbor, I couldn’t believe it. Then I figured he’d just lost his nerve.”

“No,” said Yusuf, speaking the truth before he could stop himself, again surprised at the urge to defend Nicolò’s honor that he had fought. (What honor? It was a massacre, it was a-) “He was at Jerusalem.”

“Were you?”

Yusuf nodded slowly. “I was.”

Alfonso’s suspicious look intensified, until Yusuf recognized it for what it really was: worry. “He should never have come here.”

“On that, we can agree,” said Yusuf.

“If any of us were going to take the Cross, it would not have been Nicolò,” said Alfonso, shaking his head. “It was ridiculous! Could he even hold a sword? All he’s ever done is pray and copy out Bibles, for God’s sake!”

“What do you mean?” Yusuf frowned.

“He was a priest,” said Alfonso. “Didn’t you know? Don’t think he’s ever won a fight in his life. But none of us could talk him out of it.”

“He is very stubborn,” said Yusuf. There was another strange trickle of protectiveness as he said it, the sort of fondness that comes from knowing someone combined with a little hunger to ask Alfonso all of the questions he could not ask Nicolò directly. But there was also the shadow of doubt, and a fair bit of shame. Yusuf considered himself an able fighter, battle-hardened and skilled with a sword. Nicolò hadn’t seemed helpless at Jerusalem; he’d been wild and rough, true, but undeniably brave and tenacious. Had he really been bested by someone that inexperienced? A bookish priest who had never held a sword? Again and again? 

“We thought he’d be killed in the first volley,” Alfonso was saying. “I was sure of it. Every one of us tried to practice with him until he could-”

“Us?”

“The whole family. Even Matteo disarmed him at first, and he’s almost as hopeless as Nicolò.” Alfonso shook his head. “Seniore Piero encouraged it and our father wouldn’t refuse him, not that Nicolò would listen to him either. I made him spar with me the entire voyage...I can’t believe he’s here.” And he looked in the direction where Nicolò had disappeared, as though he could still see his retreating shoulders. And then he looked back at Yusuf, softness in his eyes. “What really happened at Jerusalem? I’ve heard some stories, but...”

Yusuf swallowed carefully, trying to hold his gaze, but those colors were too similar to Nicolò, that intensity too familiar. He looked away. “Will you take him back with you?”

“You saw how it went, just now,” Alfonso shrugged. “No one can convince Nicolò of anything.”

“That’s true,” said Yusuf, smiling a little in spite of himself. Then he sighed. “There’ll just be more and more of you coming, won’t there?”

“Well, of course! Why would we stop?” Alfonso shrugged.

“Trade must continue,” said Yusuf. That was a benefit to everyone. “But these invasions, this...this holy war...”

Alfonso considered him thoughtfully for a moment. “It’s not really about religion.”

Yusuf raised an eyebrow.

“It’s always about the money,” said Alfonso. “The greedy ones, the opportunists. Younger sons who want their own kingdoms and crowns. And then a dumb sap like Nicolò gets suckered in with the fanatics and the lost, thinking it’s his destiny and he’s been appointed by God.” He shook his head. “Trade, and ships, and gold. That’s all it ever is.”

“Are you not a Christian, then?” asked Yusuf. 

Alfonso laughed. “Sure I am. Aren’t you? But what does that have to do with anything?”

Yusuf did not correct his mistaken assumption, Allah forgive him. “You should take him home,” he said instead. “He does not belong here.”

“I’m not sure where he belongs,” said Alfonso. “Maybe Rome would take him. He can’t go back to Genova.

Yusuf frowned. “Why not?”

Alfonso’s eyes hardened. “None of your business.” Then, like fast-moving clouds passing over the sun, he sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Do you know where he’ll have gone?”

“The church, probably,” said Yusuf, shrugging. “He spends a lot of time there.”

“Of course he does,” Alfonso rolled his eyes. “Always on his knees one way or another. Has he rooms somewhere?”

“Try the church,” said Yusuf, already turning away with his eyebrows furrowed. He needed to leave town, soon. This new glimpse into Nicolò’s life was threatening to complicate matters further than they already were. “Take him home.”

“God be with you,” said Alfonso in a casual good-bye, already turning down the street where Nicolò had fled.

***

Yusuf bought the inferior surcoat, despite the sour-faced vendor’s frowning, along with some food and a few other supplies for the journey south. He went rapidly through the market, barely stopping to exchange coins for goods let alone pleasantries. Within an hour, he was running up the steps above Mahmoud’s bakery two at a time, blowing into the door of the rented room like a gale force wind.

Nicolò was waiting for him, poised but patient, sitting at the edge of his bed with the sheathed longsword in his lap. His eyes were burning, his mouth set in the same thin line Yusuf had seen at the harbor, as though daring Yusuf to challenge him.

“Your brother is looking for you,” said Yusuf, refusing to return his gaze as he bustled around the room to gather a waterskin, a spare pair of socks.

“Yusuf,” said Nicolò, crossing the room and grabbing his forearm in a tight grip. “Ascalon.”

Yusuf immediately pulled his arm away, glaring at him. “I am going there now. The garrison is taking a ship this afternoon.”

Nicolò dipped his head, trying to force Yusuf to meet his eyes, and there was a moment where Yusuf thought he saw full comprehension reflected back at him; an echo of his own frustrations by their lack of ability to communicate. He touched his arm again. “No fight.”

“Yes, fight!” Yusuf snapped up his chin. Pride and impatience, ever his downfalls. “I will not let that butchery happen again in Ascalon, not so long as I draw breath. If I have been appointed to stop this, I will die as many times as it takes to keep from-”

Nicolò put up both hands to interrupt him, shaking his head wildly. “No fight,” he repeated, gesturing out the window. Yusuf didn’t understand at first, but then he heard the wild games and raucous giggling of Mahmoud’s children, playing in the alley underneath their window. Nicolò gently grasped his sleeve, pulling him to the open shutters, and he pointed down at the children below.

Yusuf furrowed his eyebrows, hesitating to make assumptions.

“No fight,” Nicolò said, again, and gestured between Yusuf and himself. Then he spoke rapidly in Ligurian, occasionally throwing in a mangled Arabic word, “God,” and “Fight,” and “Children,” and something poorly-pronounced that could have either meant “Gift” or “Basket.”

“I don’t know how to be sure of what you’re saying,” said Yusuf slowly. “But I hope...I hope that I’m correct. We will not fight each other,” he said, gesturing between them again. “We will protect the people,” and he gestured down at the children, just as Nicolò had done. Allah help me, I do not want to kill you again , he realized, somewhat shocked by that truth. 

“Yes,” Nicolò nodded his head some more. 

“You know, if we fought together, there would be no one to oppose us,” said Yusuf. “Your army would have to go home. You could lead them home! You do not belong here, Nicolò.”

Nicolò merely shook his head, and repeated the same gestures between them and to the children in the street below. “God,” he said finally.

“God,” said Yusuf, not at all sure whether he was debating, agreeing, correcting, or begging. Then he let out a deep breath. “We should leave now, before the garrison. We can travel more quickly as the two of us anyway, even on the south road.”

Nicolò nodded agreement, as though he understood every word, and turned to pick up his own satchel. It was already packed. He slung it over his shoulder on the opposite hip from his longsword and waited by the door for Yusuf to join him.

Chapter Text

Ascalon.

“Mother of God,” Nicolò whispered as they crested the top of the narrow, rocky outcrop overlooking the open plain that stretched away from the walls of the city of Ascalon to the east. “How many are there?”

It was impossible to answer under the cover of darkness. They had walked for hours, nearly without rest and at a pace Nicolò would have considered impossibly quick two months ago, and reached the outskirts of Ascalon in the dead of night. There was no sign of light on the horizon. Nicolò estimated there were a few hours yet before dawn. The Fatimid army encampment was quiet and still with sleep, but there were thousands of torches lighting up the little city of tents and awnings, the lingering scent of wood smoke, the occasional boot step of a passing guard echoing across the rocky ground.

Yusuf answered in Arabic, although he flashed all ten fingers twice, which Nicolò took to mean somewhere in the realm of 20,000. He tried to compare the scene before him to that first glimpse he caught of the siege encampment outside Jerusalem in mid-summer. He had been told the Christian pilgrims had numbered close to 12,000. If Yusuf was correct, the Muslim army sent to retake the Holy City was double that of the Christians, accounting for the losses in battle that could not have been reinforced as easily as other supplies.

Somehow, even in the darkness, the shadows from the torchlights seemed to also be reaching east. Nicolò squinted into the dark black horizon, just beyond the edges of the Fatimid encampment, trying and failing to catch a glimpse of similar lights from a possible camp set by his former companions. It seemed impossible for the Muslims to amass such a large army without the Christians learning of it, but he did not know whether the Christians were waiting in Jerusalem with their new supplies and their poisoned wells, now taking the part of the defenders, or whether they were planning to attack with the same audacity that had given them Edessa, Antioch, and the Holy City.

“When will they march?” Nicolò asked Yusuf. “Tomorrow?”

Yusuf’s eyebrows furrowed with concern, his teeth worrying at his lower lip. He spoke in Arabic at length, gesturing down at the lines of tents and the occasional guard (weren’t there too few of them? Nicolò had only seen two so far, which left far too many still to rouse in the event of an attack). Nicolò had no concept of how to organize an army, how to determine the best tactics, whether the Muslims would leave a garrison behind to guard Ascalon or whether they would send their full force down the road. 

“We should get some rest,” said Nicolò, already settling himself against one of the rough-barked, knobby trees clinging to the rocks. He wrapped his cloak around himself, grateful for the warmth. The cool night air had given a welcome respite from the sweltering heat of scurrying along the sun-drenched road, but these early morning hours still made him shiver. Leaning his head back against the tree, shifting to find a less-hard, less-bumpy place, he only barely startled when Yusuf settled in beside him, tucked against another tree with their shoulders and arms brushing against each other. 

Yusuf said something like “Wake,” and Nicolò nodded, closing his eyes again. “We’ll scout in the morning,” he agreed. He tried not to lean too much of his weight into Yusuf, warmth and solidity, far more comfortable than the itchy bark of the tree. He fell into a light, fitful sleep.

***

The women were outnumbered. A full dozen men surrounded them, a circle of attackers just inside a wider circle of lush, drooping, brown-and-green fir trees. The women were standing back to back, their shoulders somehow both taut with anticipation and relaxed in confidence. They had always seemed confident in these dreams. The smaller one held two long knives or short swords, one in each hand, her dark eyes set in stone and her mouth twitching. The taller one, with the piercing blue eyes, was absently twirling her strange, circular-shaped axe as though daring someone to be the first to draw against it.

The taller one said something, curt and incomprehensible, and the smaller one’s mouth twisted into something closer to a proper smile. They both raised their weapons, took a deep breath, and stepped forward.

Then the smaller one cried out, dropping to the ground. There was an arrow slung through her throat, rivers of blood coursing out of the vein onto the spongy green grass. The shouting circle of men immediately closed around the woman with the axe, who let out a loud yell as she glanced behind and saw the smaller woman bleeding on the ground. The assailant with the longbow rained down another arrow from his perch in the trees, catching the axe-woman in the shoulder, and she growled like the earth itself was shaking underfoot, throwing her axe directly into the bridge of the first man’s nose, and-

Nicolò woke with a jolt. He had a hand clasped to his chest, breathing heavily, his other hand gripping tight to Yusuf’s shoulder. He realized, belatedly, that Yusuf was speaking to him; slowly, gently, like he was calming a restless animal or a child who had a nightmare.

I am the child with the nightmare , Nicolò thought, trying desperately to slow his frantic breaths. “I think that was an omen,” he said aloud, refusing to look over at Yusuf. He also refused to loosen his grip on the man’s shoulder. Yusuf’s hand was pressed over Nicolò’s fingers, warm pressure, soft touch. “This is a bad omen. Yusuf, I don’t think we-”

The morning call to prayer echoed across the valley, always that haunting melody that drew shivers out of the morning chill. Yusuf looked away, hunting the source of the voice and then eyes fluttering closed, the way he always did during these songs. The pale dawn gave the barest view of lilac-tinted daylight to see the encampment begin to stir below them, the smell of cook fires, the scrape of whetstones.

“Is it time to pray already?” Nicolò asked, finally withdrawing his hand from Yusuf’s shoulder and rubbing lightly at his throat, in the place where the arrow had pierced the smaller woman in his dream. 

Yusuf was already dribbling water from his skein onto his fingers to wash his face, sighing a little tiredly as he scraped aside some particularly sharp rocks on the ground for a slightly smoother place to kneel and bow and crouch. Nicolò tried to draw his dusty boots close to his body, scrunching back against the scratchy bark of the trees, to give him more space. He closed his eyes. He tried to say his own morning prayers, but back in the darkness of near-sleep, he couldn’t stop replaying the battle in his mind. A bad omen. “I think something bad is going to happen,” he whispered, almost like a prayer, too quietly for Yusuf to hear.

Yusuf was kneeling down and pressing his face into the ground, the first of his prostrations, when someone screamed.

Nicolò was on his feet in an instant, skittering to the edge of the rocky outcrop to look down on the open plain. The tents at the very eastern edge of the encampment were full of dust, and screaming, and the voices of angry men. “Yusuf, the Christians!” he shouted, already scrambling down the side of the hill. “They are attacking now !” 

It sounded as though the entire rocky slope was tumbling down after him as Yusuf followed, shouting something near his ear and then overtaking him in the descent. Yusuf leaped the last few feet to the bare ground, his scimitar drawn and running hell-for-leather toward the sounds of battle; toward the Christian army rampaging through the half-asleep, half-in-prayer, caught entirely unawares Muslim army.

“Yusuf!” Nicolò called as he ran and dodged other frantic soldiers, trying to catch up with him. “Yusuf, the gate! We should guard the gate!” But either Yusuf could not hear him, did not understand, or did not care. Nicolò could just barely see the tip of his headdress, blurring with the thousands of running soldiers stumbling out of their tents, half-dressed and insufficiently armed. “Yusuf!” he kept calling. His mind kept replaying that circle-shaped axe driving into the face of the man. How the woman growled . How the woman with the knives was already dead. “Yusuf!”

And then the battle was before him, and Yusuf was pushing his blade deep into the belly of a Christian with a blue-and-yellow crest and insufficient mail. The man’s eyes bulged, and he dribbled blood onto Yusuf’s shoulder before dropping to the dirt. 

Nicolò had no time to think, and yet his mind continued the attempt. I cannot fight other Chistians! he told himself as he parried a thrust from a narrow-chinned Frenchman, trying to sidestep and dodge away from the return blow. We were not supposed to fight! What do I do? God, Christ, Lord of all Creation, what do I do ? The only thing he could think of was to stall the killing, still the vengeance, before the entire plain was soaked in blood. So he gripped tight to the hilt of his sword with both hands, and did his best to defend. Shoving aside a Christian before he could land a killing blow on a Muslim on his knees; a shallow swipe to a Muslim’s arm before he could complete the swing that would half-sever a Christian’s neck.  

“Yusuf,” he tried to call again, looking behind and around to find the other man, but the fighting was intense, and the carnage was everywhere. He remembered this. He remembered how this felt.

Slowly, he fought his way toward the general direction he thought Yusuf had gone, catching glimpses of that red coat and those dark curls, the set of his shoulders and the slide of his scimitar. There were bodies on the ground everywhere. Nicolò looked ahead and realized he was on the shallow crest of a small hill, the incline barely perceptible from the back of the plain, but just high enough to see further past the edges of the front lines and toward the Christian reserves. 

He was not sure, later, if he would have seen it at that moment if the sun had not come out. If the first true golden rays of light had not beamed across the sky, burning away the single faded cloud in the purple dawn. The enormous golden cross seemed to flicker and glow in the dawn light as though it were molten gold, liquid and shining. It was being held aloft by a tall, imposing figure in white robes, with silvery-white hair and beard, bright blue eyes crackling with intensity even from across a battlefield. For a moment, a strange, charged moment, the sounds of screaming and dying and shouting faded away, and Nicolò could hear the chanting from the priests and patriarchs.

“The True Cross!” they were shouting. “The True Cross!”

Nicolò felt his knees buckle. He had heard of it, of course. The relic of the True Cross, the sacred shard of wood saved from Christ’s crucifixion set in gold for honor and glorification, hidden somewhere deep in Jerusalem. The Christians had found it. It shimmered in the daylight. The Muslims around him screamed.

Oh God , he thought, dropping to his knees. Oh God, what do I do?

“Nicolò!” he heard someone shouting.

That was when he felt the pain in the back of his head. The knight who had clubbed him with the hilt of his sword was walking steadily around him, already preparing for the swing. Will he behead me? Nicolò wondered idly, still staring at the shining cross across the battlefield. Will I see my mother?

“Nicolò!”

The knight’s face was covered by an armored helmet. He seemed calm, centered in the surety of his purpose. Nicolò could not begrudge him that. They had the True Cross. He had chosen wrong, again. He was feeling rather faint. The back of his neck was wet, and sticky, and warm. He felt rather sleepy. After all, he had been woken out of a deep dream that morning, barely any rest the night before. The omen…

The knight drew back his sword. And then there was Yusuf, spitting and shouting at the knight with a face full of blood and wild eyes as he parried the longsword away. And then Yusuf’s scimitar clattered to the ground, sliding just in front of Nicolò’s arm. The knight again drew back his sword, and this time the tip pierced home, driving deep into Yusuf’s stomach, scraping past the bone, lodging somewhere deep inside his body. Yusuf made a strange noise. His eyes went very wide, and he gasped something quietly as he fell into the blood-spattered dirt next to Nicolò.

An arrow caught the knight in the neck, and he fell at Yusuf’s feet. Yusuf kicked him away.

Nicolò felt strangely detached, now lying on his side, watching Yusuf. Yusuf was flat on his back with tears tracing lines through the dirt and blood on his face, pulling uselessly at the hilt of the sword and wincing or grunting in pain with every attempt. The steel seemed lodged in the bone. He was muttering quickly, the way he did when he prayed, his voice rising to a bark at each attempt to remove the sword and whimpering as he relaxed his muscles to rally for another try.

“It will be over soon,” Nicolò tried to say. “Perhaps this was the answer all along. We cannot kill each other, so it must be done by another.” Someone with the blessing of the True Cross.

Yusuf kept praying, kept openly weeping hot and angry tears, kept scrabbling at the bloodied hilt of the sword and the sharp edges, slippery and stuck, feet churning in the dirt. There were screams all around them, though for a moment, Nicolò almost thought they were fading away again. Fading away, like the blood flowing through Yusuf’s hands. Nicolò could not feel his hands.

Suddenly, Nicolò realized that Yusuf was terrified. His eyes were still wide open to that pale blue sky above them, and his praying was getting more frantic. “Yusuf,” said Nicolò, and then again, louder, “ Yusuf .”

With a start, Yusuf looked over, almost as though he had forgotten Nicolò was there, even with their faces mere inches from each other. “Nicolò,” he sputtered, blood dripping over his lower lip. “Nicolò…” and he rambled something urgently in Arabic, and Nicolò found he was too numb to mind that he did not understand. There was such fear in Yusuf’s eyes. 

“It’s all right,” said Nicolò, trying to shift slightly closer, rocks scraping under his arm. “It will be over soon. There is no more to fear.”

“Dark,” said Yusuf, swallowing a mouthful of blood and coughing it back up again. “I do not like the dark place, Nicolò.”

A bit of cold shivered down the back of Nicolò’s neck. Yes, he remembered the darkness of death. Without thinking, without feeling it happen, he reached out and grasped Yusuf’s forearm, holding just below his elbow, locking them together. “After the dark is peace,” he said.

Yusuf nodded frantically, coughing up more blood, clearly trying to control the terror. It was odd to see him so scared; even his rage when they fought in Jerusalem was steady with courage, occasionally proud or defiant, always fierce. This fear was surprising. But then, this was much longer to anticipate the coming darkness than they’d had in Jerusalem. Nicolò had always been careful to kill him quickly, not to let him linger, not to prolong the pain. He realized, absently, that Yusuf had done the same for him.

“We will see God,” said Nicolò, nodding slowly to Yusuf. “God is great.”

Yusuf nodded back, tightening his grip on Nicolò’s arm, trying to whisper his own prayers through increasingly labored and restricted breaths. He did not take his eyes off of Nicolò, and Nicolò watched him in return. Nicolò saw his eyes go still and unfocused, the muscles in his face going slack, just as the darkness finally crept over his own vision and everything went black.

The longsword made a horrible, head-splitting screech as the metal scraped against it, and Nicolò immediately dropped it to the ground to cover one ear.

“Damn it,” Giovanni muttered from the side of the yard. It was swelteringly hot, with the harsh rays of the mid-afternoon sun at a high enough angle to be beating down without any shady relief from the small grove of old peach trees above them or the modest but respectable manor house below. Somewhere, a gull echoed the scream of metal. 

Matteo winced, reaching for Nicolò’s sword in the gravel with a quiet, “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” said Nicolò roughly, batting his hand away and retrieving the sword himself. “Go again.”

They circled one another, Matteo’s dark brown eyes uncertain and reluctant. He had been only five years old when Nicolò had been sent to Santa Maria, and Nicolò had barely recognized him when he came home again: this slight-shouldered young man with his step-mother’s dark, curling hair. Matteo did share their father’s nose, a large landmark on an otherwise delicate, narrow face. Nicolò had thought them brothers in name and nose only, this much-younger first son of his father’s second family. He had been so focused on the others; had thought he would feel so much happier to be surrounded by his brothers at the family table when he came back to Genova after so much time away. It was a definite disappointment to find that Giovanni, Francesco, and Alfonso were very much the same as they were before, only older, stronger, more set in their ways, more secure in their own righteousness and more free with their insults and opinions, unburdened by the worry of their father’s disfavor by the protection of adulthood.

That day, his father had summoned Nicolò to luncheon at the house. It had an air of solemnity, the sire and four of his five sons, and at the end of it, Alfonso the Elder presented Nicolò with the longsword without a single word. Then he disappeared back into his office, where the large front windows overlooked the harbor and the sea salt filtered into the draperies even when the shutters were locked. 

Giovanni, for once, did not follow to compare accounts but rather jerked his head toward the back door. “Let’s hope you do better than when we were children,” he had said.

Francesco immediately whooped and raced out into the yard ahead of them, Matteo trailing behind like a nervous shadow. Matteo had often drifted by the church to say hello in the two years since Nicolò had come home, sat next to him at the bi-weekly family dinners Nicolò now attended, quietly talking about books, or gardens, or the shy attentions he paid to the second daughter of Tomaso Ramberti. Nicolò was surprised to realize that, of all of them, Matteo might be the only one who would truly miss him if ( when ) he died.

“Come on, Matteo,” said Nicolò, crouching back into a square-set stance with the heavy sword balanced over his shoulder. “I am ready.”

“Yeah, come on Matteo!” Francesco called from his perch near Giovanni’s shoulder. “Those filthy saracen bastards won’t show him any mercy!”

Matteo swallowed and nodded, re-centered himself, and then attacked again. The lighter-weight rapier suited his small frame; he moved the steel deftly, shuffled his feet quickly in the dirt, and soon enough the tip of the sword was pressing lightly into the thick padded jacket, just above Nicolò’s heart. “Sorry,” he said again.

“Stop apologizing,” Giovanni snapped before Nicolò could answer.

“My turn,” said Francesco, leaping off the wooden fence.

“He’s not ready for you, yet,” said Giovanni, shoving Matteo out of the way. “Nicolò, remember, you’ve got to move your feet. The sword is heavy, so your body will have to make up for how long it takes to swing it. You move while you set up the strike, you see?” and he dodged in front of him, holding his own exquisitely engraved longsword as steadily as Matteo’s little rapier. Giovanni was powerfully built, even taller and broader than their father. He slowed the dance down at the last steps, shifting to the side, waiting for Nicolò to turn with him, before carefully displaying the arc of where the sword would land against Nicolò’s shoulder. “You can do this.”

“Do it or you’ll be dead!” Francesco added, quite unhelpfully. He suddenly turned and attempted a surprise strike at Matteo, who reacted with only a few seconds to spare before the sword reached his stomach. Another horrible screech of steel; Francesco laughing. A few light, clinking taps as they circled around each other.

Nicolò shook his head, trying to shift his feet as gracefully as Giovanni, as lightly as Matteo, but he felt uncoordinated and clumsy. He was already feeling tired, and they had only just begun. Giovanni’s first attack was slow, and Nicolò managed to parry a few thrusts, but then Giovanni quickly sped up, barking orders for his feet, his eyes, “Turn with your-- no, not like that, Nicolò, like this, you see?”

Again, the sword went to the dirt. Again, Nicolò picked it up. 

Finally, he caught a lucky twist, keeping his balance while Giovanni faltered, and Nicolò saw an opening he could use. In what felt like magic or divine providence, he shifted the sword sharply and scraped the longsword down his brother’s steel hard enough to force it out of his hand. Giovanni’s sword dropped to the ground.

“Ah ha!” Nicolò started to smile. But in the next breath, a heavy boot kicked the back of his knee and collapsed the joint, and he was on the ground. He could already hear Francesco laughing, and he quickly rolled to the side, forcing Francesco’s sword away with a hard clink.

“He’s not ready for you yet,” said Giovanni, although he was standing back now, giving tacit permission.

“That’s the point,” said Francesco, bringing the sword down for another swipe. “You think the saracen will fight fair?”

Nicolò swung his sword blindly, rolling again and scrambling back to his feet. Francesco barely gave him time to find his balance before he bore down hard, swinging and spinning and pushing, threatening a kick with his boot and joking about the knives in the back of his belt. Giovanni kept issuing suggestions which sounded more and more like commands as the fight continued, increasingly impossible to pay any attention or obey. Nicolò was well and truly angry now, fueled by pride and shame and desire to prove himself. He also knew that Francesco was just playing with him. That was when Francesco was the most dangerous, even when they were children. Francesco only displayed patience while he was waiting for the moment that Nicolò’s ran out.

Nicolò saw another opening like the one that had disarmed Giovanni and he took it immediately, expecting to feel that same lightness and pride to watch the sword drop to the ground. But in that moment, Francesco sprung the trap. Before his next breath, Nicolò was flat on his back with the tip of his brother’s sword pointed squarely at his throat. 

“Yield,” Francesco smirked at him.

Nicolò let go of his sword.

“I said, yield,” said Francesco, taking a step closer. And then, in a quick flash, the sword flicked to the left and nicked the top of Nicolò’s ear.

“I yield!” Nicolò yelped. “Mother of God…” He rolled to his side with a hand slapped over the skin, feeling the blood dripping between his fingers.

“Franco, enough,” Giovanni said disapprovingly. He pulled at the back of his younger brother’s tunic and shoved him away.

Francesco kicked a bit of dirt in Nicolò’s direction as he twirled around, and then immediately let out a happy kind of cheer while Nicolò was still mopping the blood in his ear with the back of his sleeve. Nicolò looked up, and there was Alfonso the Younger being dragged from the back door to the house into the yard with Francesco’s elbow locked around his neck and a hand ruffling his hair. Alfonso only gave him a moment of supremacy before he was wrestling him back, an arm around his waist, finally getting a leg under him and knocking him to the ground. They were both laughing when Alfonso pulled him up again. 

“How was the voyage?” Francesco asked, looping his arm back around Alfonso’s neck in a gentler, looser hold.

“I met the wettest cunt in all of Christendom in Lisbon,” said Alfonso, elbowing Francesco hard in the stomach to free himself from the headlock. He looked windswept and carefree, as usual, still dressed in his rumpled sailor’s linens. “I’ll tell you everything later. What’s all this? Are we going to war with the Rambertis?”

“Nicolò is going to the Holy Land,” said Giovanni with a disapproving drawl.

Alfonso burst out laughing, throwing his head back, and was quickly joined by Francesco. Then he saw that the others were staring at him with varying levels of seriousness, Nicolò gripping tight to the hilt of his sword and trying to decide whether to take another swing or throw the cursed weapon into the bushes. “Wait, you’re serious? Shit, Nico, who’d you fuck this time?”

Heat erupted over his face and there was a loud ringing in his ears, though it wasn’t quite loud enough to drown out Francesco answering in a loud, mock-whisper, “Lorenzo Boscholi.” Nicolò wanted to meet the laughter head-on, wanted to distract them with an unaffected joke or an insult, or simply not to care , the way they always managed to do with each other, but the ringing got louder and his face felt warmer, and he had to look away.

“Oh Nico, he’s not even very pretty,” Alfonso was still laughing. “There’s no shortage of ugly women, if that’s what you need. I’m sure we can find someone with large hands and a mustache.”

“Like his wife?” Francesco suggested. “Maybe he confused the two.”

“Not that our Nico can grow a decent mustache,” said Alfonso. “Did he buy you that sword?” 

Francesco snorted, making a rude gesture at the length of the steel. “Haven’t I always said he was compensating for something?”

“Who, Lorenzo or Nico?”

“Lorenzo!” Francesco laughed. “Do you remember the Feast of St. Anthony three years ago, when he-”

Nicolò closed his eyes.

He was prostrated on the cold, stone floor of La Chiesa di San Siro, knees aching, arms stretched in front of him to beseech the altar. He had not moved for two hours. He had come to the church-- ran, he had run the entire way from the Boscholi mansion on the hill overlooking the turquoise-blue harbor, counting on the constricted stinging in his throat to hold back the nausea in his stomach, very little breath left in his lungs. He had locked the church doors, sank down before the altar, and prayed. For forgiveness, for guidance, for transformation. Please , he begged. Please, God. Please, answer me. What am I to do?

The small door to the sacristy opened, and soft footfalls stepped into the hall. Nicolò didn’t need to look up to know who it was, the only person it could be, the person he had hoped would come to see him two hours ago, to comfort him, to tell him what to do.

“Several people came to see me this evening about the strangest rumor,” said Seniore Piero as he strolled casually around the front of the church. “Something about the fourth Boscholi son being caught by his wife in a...compromising situation with a handsome young priest.”

Nicolò willed himself not to vomit on the floor, willed himself not to move or breathe or break.

“I told them it could not possibly be my Nicolò,” said Piero. “You were with me in the sacristy all afternoon, preparing for Easter services.

Nicolò risked peeking an eye over the top of his shoulder. Piero’s dark, salt-and-pepper curls were swept neatly off his forehead. His eyes were very grave, watching him expectantly.

“Oh get up, Nicolò,” Piero sighed after a few moments. “Tell me the truth.”

Nicolò slowly, achingly, drew his shoulders back. He kept his eyes fixed on the floor, sitting back on his knees, the bones still chilled and sore. “It was not his wife,” he said finally. “His wife never comes to his chambers, it-- It was one of her ladies.”

“How much did she see?”

“It wasn’t-- I mean, we--” Nicolò stammered. Piero fixed him with a stern eye, the one that always caught him out as a child when he was daydreaming during logic, or losing focus enough to mis-form a letter. “We had finished.”

“But you were in bed together?”

“Yes.”

“Unclothed?”

“...Yes. Forgive me, it was-”

“And this is why you have been repeatedly disappearing up to that household under the guise of saying private mass over the last month?” The voice got a little sharper.

Nicolò nodded miserably. He still could not lift his eyes from the floor.

“And then what happened?”

“I left, as quickly as I could. Lorenzo was yelling at her not to-- she could not have-- I think the servants heard,” Nicolò finally decided on. 

“Servants are easily dismissed,” said Piero. “Especially if they cannot keep the secrets of their house. The rumor should fade soon enough, then.”

Relief flooded into his fingertips, warm and crackling.

“Do not misunderstand me,” Piero said calmly, lighting a candle in the window. “It is disgusting.”

Nicolò’s stomach twisted in shame once more, his fingers going numb again and the back of his throat burning with the threat of more tears. He kept them down.

“I know that the doctors say that the humours must be balanced, but there are other ways. Bleeding, fasting-”

“I am bled as often as the doctors will let me,” said Nicolò. “I fast three times a week, I-”

“And still you cannot manage your lust?” Piero turned on him, face twisted with a combination of disappointment and a vicious sort of hunger. “I thought you were stronger than that. I would have thought, after that business with the sailor, you would have learned some self-control. Even a prostitute would be better than this.”

Nicolò sank a little heavier into the stone floor, praying frantically for an earthquake to swallow him up, to open a hole to hell and leave no trace of him in its wake. It felt like he had tried everything else: bleeding, exercise, cold water, fasting. He had thought about buying the service of a woman, or rather, had tried to force himself to think about that possibility. But the embarrassment, the humiliation and awkwardness of even imagining himself walking through the doors of a brothel nearly paralyzed him with shame. Not that it would have done any good. Nicolò knew what he was. He had known even before Giuseppe had kissed him for the first time, when he was just the handsome young sailor with salt spray in his hair and laughter in his eyes that Nicolò liked to watch from the window.

“Nicolò, you have been like a son to me since you were a child,” said Piero, interrupting the reminiscence by sitting down in a pew across from him. “It was not only the special relationship I am fortunate to have with your family, with your father. I have educated many children over the years, but you…you were different. Brought to me by God, the child I could never have. I have always thought that there was no other man to choose for this parish. But…” and Nicolò’s heart sank. Piero continued, undaunted, “But I cannot possibly leave my congregation to someone like this. There are too many wayward souls that sail into our harbor each day. This community needs strength of character, of faith. I thought you were such a man.” And then he sighed, with the deepest of sadness, and stood up.

“What am I to do?” asked Nicolò miserably. “I am that man, I can be that man. Please, Seniore, help me. I will do anything to stop this. Do-- Do I walk to Rome and back? I would do it, barefoot even. I will take nothing, eat nothing, I-- Please, help me.”

“A pilgrimage?” Piero raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. “Haven’t you already tried that?”

Santa Maria had not exactly felt like a pilgrimage at the time. Nicolò had assumed for his entire childhood that he would be sent to Santo Stefano, the much-larger monastery on the hill overlooking the harbor, still in Genova, still close to family and everything he knew. But after Giuseppe, his father had sent him further into the mountains. “It’s not your fault,” his father had said then, refusing to meet his eyes for even a moment. “Piero told me to send you two years ago. I should not be surprised that you found...a way to occupy your time. It is my fault.” 

Nicolò had always wondered whether it would have made any difference. Two years, twenty days, or if he had been donated the moment his mother died. His was not the only family who sent such wayward sons to the mountains, after all. Nicolò had met many others in his ten years at Santa Maria.

Thoughts of Giuseppe, dormant after so long, suddenly made him think of ships. “There are ships going to Holy Land,” said Nicolò, almost before he could think. The Pope promised all sins, past and future. “To aid the siege at Jerusalem.”

“Jerusalem,” Piero hummed. His eyes glinted in the candlelight. “Well, I should think that a man who has seen Jerusalem would be so blessed by God as to be able to overcome this...deficiency. Yes, a man who has seen Jerusalem could surely glorify God to his congregation. You would fight?”

“Fight?” Nicolò blinked rapidly. “Me?”

“The pagans must be driven out,” said Piero, crossing to the other side of the church to light more candles. “The Pope has decreed it. To make the way safe, so an old man like me can see that Holy City before I die. You could clear the way for me, Nicolò,” and he glanced back, briefly, over his shoulder. “Yes, I think I could leave my parish to the man who gave me Jerusalem.”

Piero’s voice faded away suddenly, like a door closing in the wind, and the true darkness of death finally came for him. 

Nicolò waited there for what felt like a very long time. Still hoping for light, for peace, for judgment. Still all alone in that black nothingness.

And then, just like all the other times, he woke up.

He was still curled on his side. Yusuf was still dead.

Nicolò sat up slowly, pressing a hand into the wound at the back of his head, though of course it was no longer there. Still, the blood remained, tacky under his fingertips. He glanced over at Yusuf, those blank, honey-brown eyes, and slowly reached over to brush them closed. Then he looked around.

The battlefield had gone quiet; bodies were everywhere. Aside from the dead knight at Yusuf’s feet, most appeared to be Muslim. Many were still half-dressed. In the distance, he saw a small line of Muslims on their knees, arms raised, and then he saw the moment when the Christians gave up the ruse of surrender and ran their swords through every single one. They screamed.

Yusuf gasped behind him, immediately coughing and grunting and muttering and praying and-

“Hold on, Yusuf,” said Nicolò, turning immediately. He reached for the sword hilt, blade still trapped between his ribs, lungs still full of blood. Yusuf swatted his hand away. “Yusuf!” Nicolò said loudly, trying to startle him into attention. He dropped to one knee to put a hand behind his head. “I have to draw the sword. Let me draw the-- Yusuf, wait-”

Yusuf died, again.

Nicolò carefully, gently, then forcefully when it did not yield easily, drew the sword out of his body. It was coated bright red. Yusuf’s eyes looked up at him, vacant and dark. Nicolò watched the blood stop flowing, crouching down to get a closer look at the patch of raw flesh under the quilted coat knitting itself back together. Spread the ripped fabric apart, watching his skin fold over the wound as though the sword had never been there.

When Yusuf woke again, his voice sounded less rasping. He was still whispering, but he was far less frantic; calm, composed, though his eyes were excessively sad. Then his eyes took in the bodies around him, and he looked away. “Peace,” he shook his head, with something close to a sneer. “No peace.”

“No,” agreed Nicolò. He stood up and began hunting around for their swords, easily finding Yusuf’s bloody scimitar an arm’s reach away. He wiped the blade clean, using the bottom of his coat, and handed it hilt-first to Yusuf. Yusuf barely glanced at it, placing it back on the ground next to his leg, quiet and defiant, glancing once at Nicolò and then away again.

“Come, let me help you up,” said Nicolò, reaching out a hand.

Yusuf’s eyebrows twitched. He looked at the outstretched hand for a moment, leaving it suspended in space, before accepting it with a weary sigh and allowing himself to be pulled to his feet. He wiped his hands on his coat, and then brushed over each eye with the heel of his palm, grinding out the last of the tears. His face was a mess.

“Come on,” Nicolò said again, bending down to pick up his longsword and resheath it. He did not bother to clean it. “There will be wounded. We can help.”

Yusuf gave him another undecipherable look. There was another scream from another execution, and Yusuf nearly took off at a run after it, but Nicolò stopped him with a firm hand on his arm.

“You cannot help them,” he said. They have the True Cross.  

Yusuf opened his mouth to argue, but then one of the bloodied bodies at their feet began to moan, and they both turned away from the slaughter at the edge of the field to look for the wounded man. When they found him, he was young, and frightened, and cradling his bloody arm while trying not to cry.

Nicolò helped him to his feet, and Yusuf put an arm around his waist, and they went in search of help.

Chapter Text

The Mediterranean Sea.

“Hand,” said Yusuf, pointing down to his other hand, palm-up and slightly outstretched.

Nicolò repeated the word, and then offered, “La mano,” after a moment of hesitantly watching Yusuf’s face. They were sitting together against a large pile of packing crates, tucked away from the strong west-moving wind, their knees at odd angles to avoid being knocked together. 

“Eat,” said Yusuf. He used the outstretched hand to mime putting food to his face.

“I know this,” said Nicolò. He sounded slightly affronted.

“No, no, eat ,” said Yusuf, miming again and gesturing between the two of them. “In Ligurian.”

“Oh!” Nicolò’s eyebrows raised. “Mangiare . ”

“Magiare,” Yusuf repeated, or tried to.

“Si . Io mangio, tu mangi...

“Noi mangi….ano?” 

“Amo.”

“Mangiamo.”

“Si, noi mangiamo.”

“Yes.” The ship creaked under their feet, rolling over a large swell that had Yusuf clutching his stomach with one hand to force the nausea rising with the wave back down into his gut. The ship creaked again. Yusuf had never liked the sound of the boards creaking, had always felt there was a warning there; that the nails would have rusted from the salt, that the hull would splinter beneath him. What sane person would do this? Trust an enormous hulk of wood and iron to carry him across a vast and open sea, deep and churning and-

“La pancia,” said Nicolò, with a little spark in his eyes. “Le ondata . ”

“Hush,” said Yusuf, briefly closing his eyes to concentrate on his breathing as they glided over another pitch of the ship, and then realizing the darkness made the rocking sensation intensify. “It’s only like this the first day. I’ve spent plenty of time on ships,” fixing Nicolò with a glare out of one eye. “I even sailed to your heathen fish-city, remember?” He had been nineteen years old, and his older brother had teased him mercilessly about weak stomachs and lack of nerve until Yusuf had vomited heavily over the side of the rail. After Ahmad had stopped laughing (or perhaps because Yusuf threatened to heave onto his feet instead of overboard for the next wave), he had rubbed his back and pointed at the horizon until Yusuf got used to the sway. By the time they sailed into the rotten-smelling Genovese harbor, Yusuf was running across the deck like his legs had never felt solid, unyielding earth.

Of course, that was a long time ago. 

The ship pitched again, and Yusuf felt his cheeks blowing out and something rising in his throat. He was on his feet with his chest propped against the railing in the next breath, willing himself not to vomit ( not in front of Nicolò, not in front of- ) but knowing it was likely inevitable, that perhaps it was part of the process of adjusting his body to the waves, that he would feel better afterwards. Then the ship started to roll, and his stomach lurched again.

Slowly, once the ship righted itself, he realized there was a hand on his back and Nicolò was talking quietly to him. His mouth was rather close to Yusuf’s ear, braced against the railing and half-curled around him, one hand on his back and the other pointing out across the water. He was repeating a word, over and over.

“I don’t-” Yusuf started to say, but he had to clap his mouth shut and constrict his throat again.

“L’orizzante,” Nicolò repeated. “Guarda l’orizzante.”

Watch the horizon. He could almost hear Ahmad saying it, first in that teasing older-brother voice, that any idiot knows to watch the horizon on a ship, but increasingly soothingly. “Just watch the horizon, Yusuf,” he had said, rubbing his back in deep circles. “Deep breaths.”

Nicolò was pulling him up by the shoulders now, and while Yusuf tried to protest, worried that the movement might be enough to break the control he currently had on his stomach, Nicolò gently guided him around the stack of crates to where the wind was barreling past them. A strong wind, propelling the ship forward like a catapult, adding white froth to the tips of the waves and putting leagues between them and the port at Ascalon. 

It had been three weeks since the battle. Ascalon had not surrendered to the Christian army (something about Raymond of Tolouse that made Nicolò roll his eyes but had not been able to explain in their extremely limited shared vocabulary), the Christians had returned to Jerusalem (and quietly stayed there), the Fatimid had not sent another army to challenge them (and did not seem likely to do so in the future). So one day, without any fanfare in the decision to do so, Yusuf and Nicolò went to the harbor and chose a ship.

Yusuf had to close his eyes, the wind was so strong here. Strong, salty gusts licking his cheeks and the tip of his nose.

“Breathe,” said Nicolò.

Yusuf took a deep, shuddering breath. His throat hitched briefly, but he swallowed down again, took another breath.

“Guarda l'orizzonte . ”

Yusuf opened his eyes, into the wind, and looked for the horizon while he repeated the phrase in a sort of whisper. The sea was a great expanse of fathomless blue, little drifts of spray when the ship shuddered down over the edge of another choppy swell. Yusuf took another deep breath. He wondered if Ahmad was on a ship right now, somewhere far across that water. Sailing home, perhaps. Alongside their father, maybe, or with his own son thundering his bare feet across the deck. Yusuf’s stomach clenched again, not with nausea this time but with envy. 

“It’s only like this the first day,” he murmured, leaning against the railing to brace himself against another strong gust of wind. 

Nicolò made a noncommittal noise and stepped back, hands dropping away from Yusuf’s shoulders. He, too, was staring out into the sea. Looking west, toward Genova, as the ship creaked its way along. But this ship was not heading toward Cypress, or Athens, or Malta. They were going south, toward Cairo.

***

The Nile River, somewhere between Rasheed and Cairo.

The most irritating thing about Nicolò di Genova was the way he prepared a beautiful table of food after every sunset during Ramadan. 

Nicolò was a terrible cook. He burnt couscous and undercooked chicken and simmered vegetables into inedible mush. But he could slice and cut and arrange the simplest fruits and breads and preserved meats and cheeses into a colorful tableau so delicate and lovely that Yusuf was reluctant to take a bite and ruin the presentation.

Or maybe it was that he joined Yusuf during the entire fast, even when Yusuf told him it was not necessary, that it was not his obligation. “I have fasted before,” was the quiet, stubborn response. And so Nicolò would prepare the food and lay the table, and then would wash the dishes while Yusuf prayed in the corner of their little house, nestled between two soggy veins of the Nile delta on the southern outskirts of Rasheed. The house had flooded during a particularly high water season a few years ago, and even though Nicolò and Yusuf had thoroughly cleaned it for habitation, the walls were still damp and the faint smell of mildew was forever in their hair and on their clothes. They always kept the shutters open, Nicolò resting his forearms on the window ledge, looking out at the stray dogs in the yard or the chickens from Sulaym’s house, or the white cranes fishing in the shallows of the wide, muddy river. The light turned his hair into a shade of dun almost-gold, at certain times of day.

Perhaps the most irritating thing was the way that Nicolò would occasionally, not very often, Yusuf could count the number of times it had happened, touch him on the shoulder to draw his attention. Or when he grasped Yusuf’s upper arm, his warm hand wrapping around the muscle with the pads of his fingers resting in the tender space underneath. Or once, one single time, when he put a light fingertip on Yusuf’s wrist, so close to that Yusuf’s own fingers twitched, involuntarily seeking contact. Nicolò would barely look at him when he did so, and would move that warmth away almost immediately, and Yusuf found himself cold even in the hot and humid hours of the late fall and middle spring.

Spring was quickly running back to summer again, hastening toward the exact date where, one year ago, Yusuf had set out for Jerusalem with several thousand other mercenary soldiers of the Fatimid Caliphate. Yusuf had been trying not to think about it for weeks. He and Nicolò had not spoken about Jerusalem or Ascalon or Yafa from the moment they stepped on board the ship last year and crossed the sea. Sometimes, those first weeks felt like ancient history; sometimes, more like an uncovered well that everyone merely stepped around, heedless of the peril in leaving an open, gaping hole in the ground.

A sudden gust of wind snapped him out of his thoughts, rocking the little boat from side-to-side. “Nicolò!” Yusuf hollered, holding tight to the rudder. “Let out the sails before we capsize!” Another strong push as the too-tight canvas resisted the wind rather than pocketing it.

“Si, si, si,” Nicolò said, without urgency, ambling across the warm wooden planks on the deck of the felucca with his trousers rolled up to his knee. “You should not worry so much,” he called back to Yusuf in the stern as he slid a length of rough rope through his palms, and then re-secured it to the mast with new slack. Soon the little boat was again gracefully skimming across the surface of the water. “It would take a lot more than this breeze to tip us over. She is a good boat.” And he patted the mast with fondness.

“I’ll remind you of that when we’re being eaten by crocodiles,” said Yusuf as he concentrated on guiding the felucca around a tight curve of the river.

Nicolò chomped his teeth together with a sharp, clicking bite of the air in an approximation of crocodile jaws, and Yusuf could feel those pale eyes trained on him, warmer than the beating sunshine. “I thought we agreed that I would do the sailing, and you would do the selling?”

“You will do the sailing?” Yusuf countered. “So I can take a nap until we get to Cairo?” 

“If you like,” said Nicolò. One of his eyes was half-closed against the brightness reflecting off the water, and it almost looked like he was winking. Which is ridiculous , Yusuf reminded himself. He did not think Nicolò had ever winked at anyone or anything. At most, those shy smiles, that dry laugh as difficult to pull out of him as teeth. Nicolò smiled more in the months since Ascalon, but it was often soft, as though he did not think he was allowed to have one. Yusuf liked to tease it out of him, along with the pink in his cheeks and the shaking of his shoulders in quiet laughter. His nearly-silent shadow, scuttling along behind him in Cairo’s marketplace, soaking up Arabic idioms and insults, ambushing him later with his new understanding and smiling smugly while Yusuf sputtered in surprise. 

Every week, they shuttled upriver to Cairo, transferring goods from Rasheed’s harbor to Sulaym’s small collection of customers and contacts in the great city of the Fatimid and Pharaohs. Sulaym’s son had died of a fever after those high-water floods, leaving his daughter-in-law and multiple grandchildren in desperate need for provision, but the old man’s body was no longer spry enough to ferry the felucca and lift the crates of ink and make pace with the rate of modern trade on his own. It was a comfortable arrangement: Nicolò managed the boat, Yusuf managed the merchants, and Sulaym provided a semi-habitable dwelling along with local knowledge and business relationships while he spent his days playing with his grandchildren. As the months passed without any news of further Christian aggression or Muslim retaliation, the guilt of abandoning the fight and leaving those shores had faded. Though it had not disappeared entirely, as Yusuf was reminded every time he saw a member of the Fatimid garrison parading through the market or the few times he had come across Nicolò practicing forms with his longsword in the reeds behind their house.

Nicolò was humming to himself as he finished tying off the mastline, punctuated by a satisfied-sounding sigh. The more time they spent on open water like this, the more unguarded and easy Nicolò had become. It was becoming increasingly difficult to fluster or rile him, which was itself unsettling.

“What has you so cheerful today?” Yusuf forced himself to look back at the river.

“What do you mean?”

Yusuf shrugged and gestured in his general direction. “You never smile this much, it’s disturbing. Are you planning to throw me down a well? Sell me up the river?”

“Perhaps you are just unusually cranky,” said Nicolò. The breeze faltered, and he pulled a bit of slack into the canvas before shuffling down to the stern and settling himself next to Yusuf. He sat very close, letting their shoulders touch, warm and solid and grounding and entirely distracting. “You should relax. It is a lovely day.”

“It is very hot,” said Yusuf. He didn’t move.

“I like the heat,” said Nicolò. He slouched down and rested the back of his head on the rail behind them, closing his eyes. Yusuf could feel his arm next to his, the warm skin, the soft-looking, straight brown hair flowing off his forehead, long enough now to brush the tops of his shoulders. 

“You are in league with the crocodiles, then,” said Yusuf. “Cold-blooded as you are.”

Nicolò laughed, without opening his eyes. “Perhaps I am. I often fell asleep curled up in the sun, as a child.”

“Lazy,” Yusuf tutted. “My mother would have swept your face with the broom.”

“My mother was dead by then,” said Nicolò, the smile at the edges of his mouth quickly melting away. “No one else seemed to mind.”

“Oh,” said Yusuf, brought to pause by this unusually honest admission. Which then forced him to consider that he had not seen his own mother for several years. His travels had taken him leagues and leagues across the Maghreb, further and further from home, the occasional letter sent but none returned, for who would know where to send one and how would it ever find him, anyway? The more time passed, the more time Yusuf spent ignoring the growing dread that she could have died at any time and he would not know. Might never know. You should go home , the voice at the back of his mind whispered. Yusuf tried to ignore it. You need to go home, you must go home, you-- He shook his head. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“It is a common story,” Nicolò shrugged, turning his face to the sails and tilting his nose up toward the sun. “Childbed fever, she and my baby sister both.”

Neither of them moved for a long time. The sail rippled contentedly in the wind.

“The same took my wife, you know,” Yusuf said suddenly. 

Nicolò opened his eyes and stared at him, eyebrows furrowing. 

“With our child,” Yusuf added. He stared intently over the deck into the greenish-brown river ahead of them, gripping the rudder tight enough to cause an ache in his knuckles. The warmth of the skin between them felt hot enough to burn. He did not know why he was saying this out loud, risking a sudden explosion of unwanted memories. (His mother, weeping. Is she even alive? Is she– )

Nicolò shifted their shoulders apart in an instant. “That is a tragedy. I am truly sorry.”

Yusuf kept his eyes locked on the water. After a moment, still holding his mouth closed with his teeth clenched, he nodded in thanks or dismissal.

Nicolò seemed to take it as permission to continue. “When did it happen?”

“Five years ago.”

“Do you have other children?”

Yusuf shook his head. “No. He was to be the first.”

“A tragedy,” Nicolò repeated. He pressed a hand to his shoulder, warm and solid. Yusuf realized he had been waiting all day for such a touch. It added a very unwelcome complication to his racing thoughts of funerals, deaths, and family disappointment, and the reason he had been in Jerusalem at all. And why did Nicolò always seem to have the upper hand when they were on the water? Calmer, more collected, while Yusuf felt anxious and guarded, trapped by his own spinning thoughts. He hated it, that imbalance. “I hope they are at peace with your god, truly,” he distantly heard Nicolò saying.

Yusuf whipped his head around to stare at him. “My God?”

“Yes,” Nicolò nodded. “Your god promises a heaven, doesn’t he?”

“ My God,” Yusuf said again, barely louder than a growl.

“Have I misspoken?” asked Nicolò, dropping his arm and moving even further apart. “I meant only to-”

And then Yusuf seized the opportunity to escape, launching across the deck with his heels thundering against the wood. How many times had he stormed away from Nicolò? Slamming the front door, crossing the deck, stomping to another market stall, one tantrum after another after another, every time his blood began to heat and he did not know what to do with it, with any of it, infuriating and confusing and overwhelming. He seemed helpless to stop it, and constantly ashamed of that helplessness, and blisteringly angry at his shame. 

He stood facing the bow, the wind gently moving his kaffiyeh, a cooling breeze on the sweat gathering on the back of his neck. He could feel Nicolò’s eyes watching from behind, tentatively creeping closer. 

Nicolò was always coming closer. Yusuf needed him to go away .

“I have offended you,” Nicolò said.

“I have been thinking,” said Yusuf, still facing the water, “About judgment.” 

Nicolò was quiet for a long time. Yusuf did not look back. Finally, “The topic is often on my mind, as well.”

“Why did you come here?” Yusuf asked. He turned himself halfway around, just enough to glare at him, and then retrain his eyes on the river ahead. It was flat and open, the current flowing steadily against them to the sea. Behind, dark clouds were gathering; one last thunderstorm before the rainy season ended and the long, hot, dry summer began again.

“What do you mean?” Nicolò was being very careful. 

“This land,” said Yusuf. “That city. Why?”

“To retake the Holy City for Christ,” said Nicolò, as though he were reciting something. And then, with another brief flash of honesty, “For forgiveness of my sins.”

“Your sins,” said Yusuf.

“Yes.”

“You murdered my kinsfolk,” Yusuf continued, dangerously calm, “To win forgiveness from your god?”

“Yes,” said Nicolò. 

Yusuf was somewhat shocked he had so readily admitted it. “What sin could you possibly have committed to make that choice? And why will you not be judged for it?”

“Of course I will be judged,” said Nicolò. 

It did not escape Yusuf’s notice that he did not answer the first question. “If we cannot die, then we cannot be judged.”

“Is that the conclusion you’ve drawn?” He sounded almost aghast.

“What other conclusion could there be? And if so, why would my God allow you to escape your judgment?” 

“I have repented for Jerusalem,” said Nicolò. “I have repented and been absolved.”

“By your god,” said Yusuf. “ Your god’s forgiveness of your sins. What about my God?”

“There is only one God, Yusuf,” said Nicolò. A bit of defensive warning was creeping into his voice now, too. Good , thought Yusuf. Good. Fight me. “I am trying to be as respectful to your people as I can be, but I will not forsake my faith.”

“There is only one God, yes,” said Yusuf. “ My God, which men like you would massacre a city and slaughter an army on their knees to destroy.”

“Men like me?” Nicolò repeated. “All the Christians wanted was the freedom and safety to visit our Holy City! You know the Muslims have been attacking our pilgrims for decades.”

“You truly believe that justifies what you have done?”

“And what exactly have I done? Killed a man who could not be killed?”

“Me, and how many others?”

“Just you, Yusuf,” said Nicolò. “I was not-- I have never been-- Before Jerusalem, I was a scholar, a priest. I never-”

“Yes, your brother told me you were always on your knees,” said Yusuf, and he felt an immediate swell of guilt at how very red Nicolò’s face flushed, how the shame burst through the anger in his eyes. Yusuf could not pretend that he hadn’t understood Alfonso’s double meaning, not when that shame made it clear. He knew that shame. He knew it very, very well. Come closer and touch me again , something begged in the silence that stretched between them. And then something louder, angrier, Fight him. Fight him or that voice will get louder, like it always does. If you don’t fight him, it might win this time and then there is nowhere you can run to be safe from it. “You certainly killed me enough times to-”

“I thought you were a demon!” 

“Before or after you killed me?” Yusuf prodded. “I know the stories you tell about us.”

“And your people have no such stories about us, is that it?”

“If we didn’t before, Jerusalem and Ascalon certainly assures we do now.”

“I am trying to atone for Jerusalem.”

“I do not remember you asking for forgiveness,” said Yusuf. 

“I told you, I-”

“Yes, from your god , but what about me?” Yusuf all but shouted at him. “What about my God? What about my life ? You stole my death, and now you preoccupy what is left!” ( Fight me fight me fight me, don’t you know what happens when only ashes are left, don’t you understand what I- ) “What are you doing here, Nicolò?”

Nicolò opened his mouth and then immediately closed it again. He was silent for a long time, eyes tilted down and to the side. He was still very flushed. Yusuf’s discomfort increased the longer the silence stretched, and when Nicolò finally spoke, it was with tight shoulders and a tense jaw. “I have only ever wanted to do good,” Nicolò said slowly. He took a step backwards. “To do the right things, as I was told by Scripture, by my mentor, my family. They made it seem so simple. And yet, I continue to fail.”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Yusuf snapped, without thinking, trying desperately to stoke the fires again, another desperate swing.

“Clearly, “Nicolò continued, his voice shaking in the first syllables but his eyes were set in stone. “Clearly, I have again chosen poorly. I forced you to accept my companionship. I thought God had greater plans for us, that he placed us together for some higher purpose, but clearly…” He shook his head, then abruptly turned on his heels while Yusuf was still digesting those phrases ( greater plans, higher purpose ) and walked to the rudder. “I know your language now. I can make my own way.”

“What are you talking about?” Yusuf blinked. 

“I will complete this errand and sail you back to Rasheed, as promised. And then I will leave you in peace.”

“ Now you wish to go home?” asked Yusuf, still gaping. “Not when I could have gotten you a ship? Not when you could have stopped Ascalon from-”

“There is nothing I could have done to stop Ascalon,” Nicolò shot back, but it was a cold burn of resigned ice and frost, nothing like fighting fire. “They had the-” and he stopped himself, let out a deep sigh, and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“Had the what?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Why can’t you go home?”

“Why haven’t you?” Nicolò snapped back. “This is no more your home than mine.”

“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” said Yusuf, unmoored again.

“Neither of us, then,” said Nicolò, shifting the rudder. “Neither of us needs to explain anything.” There was another long stretch of silence in the rippling wind, and soon, the distant sounds of calling voices. More boats on the water. People waving from their feluccas and barges and cargo ships, the closer they came to the great city on the Nile. 

Yusuf stood in the bow, and Nicolò sat in the stern, and no one said a word.

Why did you come here? What sins? Yusuf’s mind was still racing. And it continued to race along, pouring the same questions over and over ( What plans? What purpose?) as the felucca sidled up to an empty space on one of Cairo’s many docks, the necessity of work to complete suddenly moving them in tandem, the same fluid partnership, the way they had done for many months: handing off ropes (Why must you keep fighting?) , knotting and unfurling (What if she’s already dead?) , unloading the wheeled cart (my wife and son, the same took my-) and the boxes and crates (Why are you here, Nicolò). They managed it all in complete silence, without eye contact, working in perfect synchronicity. Yusuf could still feel heat on his shoulder, even though the temperature was dropping steadily now, heavy moisture in the air. He could not stop thinking about Nicolò and he could not let himself think about Nicolò and he was almost too angry to think about anything besides Nicolò. 

Yusuf lingered by the rope, by the wood, by the rail. Nicolò did not touch him once.

Chapter Text

Cairo.

The market had been frantic with activity, throngs of merchants and shoppers and travelers hurrying through before the rain began. Yusuf and Nicolò, seemingly grateful for the excuse to focus on tasks and avoid any unnecessary conversation, completed Sulaym’s business quickly and without incident. Nicolò waited outside the little shop, hand on his sword and watching the crowd as it scurried and streamed along past him. It was easy to let the shapes and colors run together while fixing his eyes on a distant, indistinct point ahead of him. It was less easy to ignore Yusuf’s personable cheerfulness as he laughed and teased the merchant over their transactions. Less easy to ignore the feel of someone’s eyes on the back of his head, refusing to turn around to verify whether Yusuf was looking at him, whether he was still taking those increasingly less-furtive glances at him, the way he had on their walk through the market, as though he was worried. As though he cared how their argument had affected him.

Nicolò shook his head, slightly, to shift damp hair out of his eyes. The rain was falling now, somewhere on the wetter side of showers, and the sky overhead was practically dark even in the early afternoon. Fitting, really, for another blunder. Another series of missteps, miscalculations, misreadings, and all the shame and confusion and anger that came along with them. He supposed he should be used to those emotions, constant and commonplace by this point in his life, but again he had been blindsided by the hope that this time, this time , it was different. That he and Yusuf understood each other now, in more than just words; that real communication had woven teamwork and camaraderie over the last ten months into something strong and secure, something that transcended the violence of their first meeting. Something that led to those moments when he saw warmth in Yusuf’s smile, a spark of playfulness in his eyes, the way his breath had caught the one time Nicolò felt brave enough to touch his hand.

He had done this dance before, many times. He thought he knew the steps. He had told himself not to hope, to be watchful and tighten his defenses against temptation and wickedness, but this time there were no abbotts or fathers or captains to watch with disapproving frowns. No one to catch them, no one to scold. And so his heart had refused to stop its stupid, hopeful beat, further emboldened by their laughter and shared work and shared meals, the simple pleasure of sharing a domestic space with another man who did not recoil those few times they touched. It only beat harder once he began to understand Yusuf’s language and learned he was twice as funny as Nicolò had thought, twice as cheerful, twice as brave. That he was generous, and passionate, and his wit could cut like a knife, and how his face flushed rose-and-umber when Nicolò surprised him, teased him back, challenged him, throwing new Arabic back at him like volleys of arrows, unforeseen moments of mirth. That Yusuf laughed with his entire body, that he never told a story in exactly the same way twice, that he used his grumping anger as a shield to protect a very tender heart.

Yes, Nicolò had to admit, he liked Yusuf very much.

He shook his head again. It was all wishful thinking, again. Loneliness and perversion, amplified by their shared inability to die. Wasn’t this the inevitable result of every one of Nicolò’s infatuations? At least now he could fast as often as he wished, bleed himself as often as he needed, and his body would find a way to persist and no blemish, mark, or scar would remain on his skin. Perhaps that was the point of it all. Nothing new, he supposed. Just another cross to bear, more testing, more patience. (Nicolò was so very, very tired of practicing patience.)

Yusuf said his goodbyes to the merchant, transactions completed, and joined Nicolò next to the empty cart that was now slowly filling with rainwater. Nicolò did not look over. Yusuf didn’t move, either. They hesitated, watching the rain and the crowds and the puddles. They often took tea together after their exchange of goods, or walked the market looking for fresh fruit, or the squeaky salted cheese that Nicolò liked, or the bright paints and powders that Yusuf gazed at with covetous eyes. They stood, shoulder-to-shoulder but without touching, as the rain fell. 

Finally, Nicolò looked over. Yusuf’s face was cautious, a combination of worried and hopeful, and after a few seconds, he opened his mouth.

“We should go,” said Nicolò. He reached for the cart. “The banks will flood again if this gets worse.”

“Nicolò.” Yusuf reached out and then halted himself just before making contact with Nicolò’s sleeve. He hesitated, again. Nicolò thought, briefly, about stabbing him. He remembered a flash of sunlight, a glint of gold on a battlefield. Inevitability. “Yes,” Yusuf said finally, dropping his hand and his eyes. “Yes, you are right. We should go.”

***

The weather did not improve. In fact, it worsened at almost the moment when the river curved and the outer edges of Cairo disappeared behind the clouds and the reeds, thunder clapping overhead and steady showers turning to deluge.

If it weren’t for the near-certainty that they could not die, Nicolò would have advised they land the boat and take shelter, or even return to Cairo for lodging until the storm passed. As it was, both the current and the winds were in their favor, and so long as they were not capsized they were making excellent time downstream. Nicolò had no real desire to discover whether the Gift extended to being eaten by crocodiles, but he also had no desire to spend another sleepless night next to Yusuf in a small, dark, rented room, longing for something he could not and would never have.

So he sat in the bow, facing into the torrential downpour, his hair plastered to his cheeks and his arms wrapped around his knees, watching for obstacles in the now-fast-flowing river.

“You should come back here,” said Yusuf from the rudder. “It is a little drier.” 

Nicolò shook his head. “No, thank you.” 

“Don’t be so stubborn.” Yusuf’s keffiyeh was soaked, wisps of wild, frizzing curls escaping the saturated fabric to wave halfheartedly in the wind. “Are you going to sulk the whole way home?”

“I am not sulking,” said Nicolò, pushing water out of his eyes.

Yusuf laughed at him. “You are. I ought to know, I am an expert.”

Nicolò could not stop himself from glaring. It felt petty and pathetic in equal measure.

Yusuf rolled his eyes, unimpressed. “Come here. You look like a drowning rat.”

He levered another glare while he considered, but the water trickling down the back of his neck and under the waistband of his trousers made up his mind for him. He tried to shake some of the rain out of his hair and eyes, entirely unsuccessfully, as he slipped to the back of the boat and again settled himself next to Yusuf, a darker echo of their morning. But this time, he kept a calculated distance between their bodies. It was still wet in the stern, but the rail of the boat at least presented a drier wall to press his back against.

“Good,” said Yusuf, staring into the rain.

They sat in silence for another long while. Nicolò felt himself shivering, for all that it was a warm rain, and slowly realized that the moisture gathering at the edges of his eyes was not coming from the sky. He swallowed carefully, trying to swallow the high lump lodging itself in his throat. There is no possible way he would allow himself to cry, right now. He was not so pathetic as that, yet.

“I owe you an apology,” said Yusuf.

Nicolò looked over at him, sharply, but Yusuf’s gaze was still pointedly trained away. 

“I should not have said what I did about Ascalon,” said Yusuf. “You are not responsible for what happened there.” He briefly glanced at him, seeming to check whether Nicolò was listening, but looked away again. “And I cannot fully fault you for Jerusalem, either. You did not commit the atrocities of your companions.”

The lump in Nicolò’s grew larger, burning like he had swallowed something spicy. He turned his face into the wind to let more water drip down the bridge of his nose. 

“You may not believe me,” Yusuf continued, “But I have never considered myself to be an angry person.”

“I believe you,” said Nicolò, without hesitation. His mind immediately drew up a kaleidoscope of Yusuf’s smiles, his teasing laughter, his stories and poems and work songs sung off-key. The friendly, gregarious traveler that Yusuf showed to everyone else but him.

“Still, I should not lose my temper so often,” said Yusuf.

Nicolò shrugged and wrapped his arms more tightly around his knees. Rain dribbled along the sides of his neck. “How could it be helped? I have been a great burden to you.”

“You were the first between us to choose peace,” said Yusuf, and then he sighed. “And I know you to be an honorable man.”

“...that is the nicest thing you have ever said to me,” said Nicolò. The lump in his throat was very large, now.

“It is the truth.”

“Thank you,” said Nicolò. And then, gripping the sopping wet fabric clinging to his shins, he swallowed the lump and gathered his courage. “I suppose you do have the right to know why I...Genova, and my family. Why I really came to be here. The truth is…” It was hard to speak while chewing on his lips. “There was…You see, there was a man. And I...Well, he and I...”

“It does not matter now,” said Yusuf, very pointedly looking at the river ahead of them. 

Oh . Nicolò’s shoulders hunched tighter, wrapping himself into a little ball. Yes, of course it does not matter. I am leaving. “I suppose not,” he said. Then he risked a small, hopeful glance. “Still. I should have asked for your forgiveness a long time ago, Yusuf. For…murdering you. You have been far more generous to me than I ever deserved.”

Yusuf looked at him, his mouth twitching at the edges. “You-” he started, but Nicolò quickly cut him off. 

“I ask it now, only to confess that I am sorry,” said Nicolò. “I do not expect you to forgive me. I do not know that you should. But I am truly sorry. For what it’s worth, I am--” and then he stopped himself, shoving the side of his tongue between the sharp edges of his teeth and biting down as hard as he could.

Yusuf looked at him some more. Nicolò waited. And then, in that gentle voice he had heretofore only heard reserved for others, Yusuf said, “It is already forgiven, Nicolò. It is already forgiven.”

Nicolò shook his head. “I have not completed my penance.”

“Which is?” Yusuf asked, with curiosity instead of challenge.

“I am not entirely sure,” said Nicolò. Then, musing, “Perhaps I must return. Guide them home, as you said. I have seen the Holy City, but only bathed in blood. And I should so like to see it the way I had intended. As a pilgrim, to pray, to worship, to--” He stared at his hands, still clutching the wet fabric.

“You know, for a priest, you are very good with a sword,” said Yusuf. “It is extremely irritating.”

“Irritating?”

“My pride does not appreciate being bested by a man of books over steel,” said Yusuf. “And as you well know, my pride is quite inflated and thus easily punctured.”

He couldn’t help but smile at that.

Yusuf was smiling, too, and then turned thoughtful. “Why did you stop fighting that day?”

“Perhaps I am not so brave as you,” said Nicolò.

“That’s nonsense and you know it.” Yusuf was openly watching him now, which only made Nicolò want to curl into himself so tightly he disappeared. “Tell me why you stopped,” he pressed. “I would never have stopped.”

“I know.”

“I would have fought you until the walls fell down.”

“I know.” He’d had that realization, too, that day.

“Why, Nicolò?”

“Because I no longer had certainty that my cause was righteous,” he said And then, quietly, almost to himself, “God works among men, but men are fallible and can misinterpret his guidance. I am no closer to knowing what God wants of me, of us. But when a man refuses to die, it seems immoral to continue to kill. To prolong suffering, to create pain, with no rest or release or deliverance.” He shook his head. 

“You see?” said Yusuf, leaning back and looking self-satisfied. “A decent, honorable man. Who would have guessed?”

Nicolò rubbed his scratchy cheek against the wet fabric covering his knees. “I have learned many things since that day.” 

Yusuf nodded a few times, a gesture of such basic understanding that Nicolò had to swallow a mouthful of rainwater. “What have you learned?”

“There are so many Christians here,” said Nicolò to his knees.

“Yes, there are,” Yusuf nodded again. “Does it bother you that I am not?”

“No,” said Nicolò. “I know that you, too, are an honorable man.”

Their eyes met. Yusuf’s were such a soft brown color. Then he smiled, a bit cheeky, as though the very act of it was teasing. “Thank you.”

Nicolò smiled back. And then it stretched, the two of them sitting in the pouring rain, shivering and silent and smiling. 

Yusuf cleared his throat and looked away. “Well, whatever you choose to do next, I no longer fear that you have evil intentions to harm the innocent and subjugate your enemies.”

“Thank you,” said Nicolò, his heart sinking deep into his stomach. He knew this was a kindness, but being reminded of his dismissal made it impossible to keep the devastation at bay any longer. Thank God for the rain. “Then we can part ways in peace. And so to greet each other as allies, should we meet again.”

“Yes,” said Yusuf. “Yes, I would like that.”

The rain lessened slightly once they arrived back at their little house near Rasheed, and they sloshed their way through the soggy muck to the front door. Before Yusuf had finished lighting a candle, Nicolò began collecting his meager possessions: a spare tunic and socks, the little wooden cup and bowl he always used, his comb, his knife. He could feel Yusuf watching him, the curl of his mouth behind his beard looking strangely disappointed (but that could not be the case; Nicolò must have been imagining, hoping). He did not let himself be deterred. The pain would lesson after the first week, he told himself. The first week was always the most difficult, the loneliness the most acute. After that, it would be better. And perhaps, Nicolò reasoned, there would be some comfort in knowing that wherever he was, whatever befell him, Yusuf was also somewhere in the world. That their paths might indeed cross again, someday.

Once the last item was stowed away into the sack, the roof began to echo with the hard pummeling of another torrent of rain. Yusuf looked worriedly out the window. “The roads will be pure mud tonight, Nico.”

“It will be fine,” said Nicolò, feeling frustrated by the friendliness of the nickname, of continuing to delay the inevitable. Poor weather, regret, gratitude, loneliness. He wasn’t sure he could handle any more of this back and forth between kindness and rejection. It was too much. “It is not a long walk to town.”

“Surely you can stand one more night in my presence?” Yusuf gestured at the sleeping mats. “Start in the morning. I will even cook you a good breakfast, before you go.”

The rain, as though listening to them speak, pelted the roof harder.

Nicolò thought for a long time. He listened to the rain overhead, watched the candles’ soft shadows flickering on the warm cob walls, the smell of the oil Yusuf used in his beard. Then he sighed, tired and defeated. “All right.”

They rolled out their mats, extinguished the candles, and laid down. The rain continued to pound on the roof, sometimes seeming hard enough to break through the old slats. Their mats were placed very close to each other that night; Nicolò could have touched Yusuf’s shoulder, if he chose to reach out. He did not. They were both lying on their backs, staring up at the ceiling, awake, not touching, not talking. The air tasted vaguely metallic; thunder was echoing through the open window. Rain, and rain, and rain.

“Nicolò?” Yusuf asked, in the dark.

“Yes?”

A very long silence. Then, “Nicolò?”

“Yes?”

“Do you ever wonder whether it would have still happened if someone else had killed you first?”

“...Yes.” 

“And?” 

“I do not know.”

“No one can know,” said Yusuf. “What do you think?”

“I think…” Nicolò began, then shifted his shoulders. He debated his words for a long time, but decided there was little point in obfuscation or vaguery anymore. “I do not think anyone else could have killed me. I fought like I was guided by the hand of the Archangel Michael. I avoided so many blows that should have felled me, before I got to you.” And then, barely louder than a whisper, “I think I was already touched by God.”

“It was the same for me,” said Yusuf. “But why?”

“I do not know.”

“There has to be a reason,” said Yusuf. “All questions have an answer.”

“There are nearly no questions with an answer. That is the nature of existence,” said Nicolò. “Only God has the answers.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Yusuf scoffed. “We know why the sun sets, why the river floods, why the moon changes shape.”

When could he reach the end of this godforsaken day? “Then what is your answer?” Nicolò challenged. He rolled to his side, already half sitting up and putting his hand down to the ground for balance, and then all other thoughts flew out of his head as his fingers found a puddle of muddy water pooling next to his bedroll. “Yusuf.”

“I wonder if it--”

“No, Yusuf,” Nicolò cut him off. “The house is flooding.”

“What?” Yusuf sat up, his feet splashing into more water at the foot of his bed. “Damn it.”

The seeping mud squishing between Nicolò’s toes felt gritty and slick as he scrambled to light the candle on the table and inspect the situation. It wasn’t good. His sack by the door was already half-sunk in the rising water, as that side of the house sloped downhill toward the riverbank. It was ankle-high by the window, where he hurriedly grabbed some of Yusuf’s other possessions from the shelves: a small collection of paint bottles, knives, their good cooking pot. 

“We’ll go to Sulaym’s,” said Yusuf as he threw the damp blankets and bedrolls over the table. “Hopefully it’s on high enough ground.”

Nicolò was skeptical, given how quickly the water was rising and how the rain seemed to show no sign of stopping. Sulaym’s house was not significantly higher than theirs. But it wasn’t as though they had a better option at the moment. They piled as many things as could be gathered into the center of the blanket. Then Nicolò twisted the edges into a tight bundle and wrapped it around his torso, with his longsword and Yusuf’s scimitar strung awkwardly through the knot. 

Yusuf was fighting with the door, now. The water was nearly up to his knees, and the old splintered wood was protesting the move between the silty muck that was now their floor and the press of rushing water outside. “Watch out,” he said, grunting against the door as he pulled. “It’s going to–”

The moment the door cracked open, cold water flooded in with a rush. Nicolò’s panic flooded along with it. The candle was immediately lost in the swell, and he fought to keep himself from over-balancing and slipping into the back wall. 

“Come on!” Yusuf was shouting, holding onto the door frame with one hand and reaching the other towards him. Nicolò’s hand clasped his, locked tight around each other’s wrist, and Yusuf pulled him out into the rain. 

They waded, half-swimming and half-pulling each other along, through the cold, steadily-rising flood water and the torrential downpour toward Sulaym’s house and higher ground. It was a struggle against current and wind, thick bundles of submerged reeds that trapped their feet like coiled ropes under the water, the constant worry of a wayward crocodile in the back of his mind. Nicolò was soaked to the bone, his hair plastered to his forehead, staring desperately into the darkness ahead of him at the fading moonlight reflecting off the back of Yusuf’s dirty white tunic. After a few minutes, he realized the white-and-black shadows were turning lilac and gray with the oncoming dawn.

“We’re nearly there!” Yusuf called behind him. Nicolò tightened his grip on his shoulder, shuffling through the mud and trying not to startle at every slimy, foreign object that brushed against his feet and legs. Then, Yusuf cupped his free hand around his mouth to bellow, “Sulaym!”

Nicolò looked up and saw the old man huddled with his family outside under the eaves of their house. Sulaym called back, although his words were lost in the wind and the rain. Edrice, Sulaym’s daughter-in-law, held her little toddler close in her arms with his face crushed into her neck, as though he could make the water disappear if he couldn’t see it rising. There was a blue-and-white striped blanket slung around his back, wrapping him to her hips. Edrice’s oldest daughter, Masika, had her younger sister wrapped around her like a small monkey clinging to her belly, but the little girl’s legs were so long she could barely keep them from brushing the ground. Nine-year-old Youssef was holding tight to his mother’s hand, though his fearful face displayed how desperately he was battling the need for courage to help his family and the instinct to nestle for safety against his mother the way his younger siblings could.

“What are you doing out here?” Yusuf bellowed as he and Nicolò pulled themselves up the muddy hill.

Sulaym shouted something back, which was again lost to Nicolò, but he pointed to the other side of the house where another current of the flood was quickly creeping up to their doorstep.

“They’re not safe here,” said Nicolò.

Yusuf nodded, immediate agreement. “And the water is still rising. Here, will you take-”

But Nicolò had already pulled the little girl out of Masika’s arms. She went to him without question, arms clinging so tight around his neck he found it difficult to breathe. “It’s all right,” he said, hoping he sounded soothing. “It will be all right.”

“We’ll head for–” Sulaym’s directive was drowned out by a clap of thunder, but Yusuf nodded agreement.

“This way,” said Yusuf. Then he held out his hand for Youssef, who was still pressed against his mother’s side. The boy’s eyes were very white and wide and fearful. “Will you help me?” Yusuf asked. “We need to scout a safe path for Ged.”

Youssef hesitated, but only for a moment before his courage won out and he took the offered hand. Edrice immediately hitched the baby more securely around her hip.

“Good boy,” said Yusuf. “Come on, now. Stay close together!” He kept a tight hand on Youssef as he led the procession around the back of the house, trying to stay along the ridge of the hill, heading east. Sulaym and Masika followed, each supporting the other, closely followed by Edrice on their heels and Nicolò bringing up the rear.

The wind blew harder on the rise, but Nicolò felt significantly calmer the farther they moved away from the edges of the floodwater. The sun was rising steadily now. The cloud-cover was still dark and oppressive, but there was better light to pick a path through the veins of rainwater and mud that exposed every bottleneck, every flash point, every rise and fall of the land around them. 

After some minutes of walking, Yusuf halted. “Nicolò!” he called, gesturing him forward.

There was a small, narrow channel between two hillsides where rainwater coursing downhill and floodwater seeping into the plain had gathered into a swift-moving stream. “Can you jump it?” Yusuf asked him, his eyebrows furrowed with concern.

“Yes,” said Nicolò. The little girl tightened her arms around his neck. 

“All right,” said Yusuf. “Take Anat up past those Jacarandas. She should be-”

“I understand,” said Nicolò, spotting the little copse of trees still sporting a few purple blossoms clinging stubbornly to the branches despite the wind and rain. “Ready?” he asked Anat, softly, in her ear. She pressed her nose deep into the place in his neck where he could feel his heart beating. Nicolò awkwardly tightened the bundle around his chest, wrapped one arm more securely around Anat’s back, and leaped across the fast-moving channel of water. Scurrying up the hill as quickly as he could, he deposited the child underneath the largest Jacaranda, along with his parcel of things, and extracted the damp blanket to wrap around her shoulders. “Your mother will be here very soon,” he promised, before slip-sliding back down into the mud.

By the time he returned, Sulaym and Masika had crossed the channel and were making their way up the hill. Sulaym nodded at Nicolò as they passed each other. Yusuf was trying to coax the littlest child out of his mother’s arms so she could safely jump across.

Nicolò hopped back across the water to help him. “Here now, Piccolo,” he said, rubbing the child’s back and slowly snaking one arm around his waist. “We’ll go together, yes?” It took a chorus of all three adults alternating between gentle encouragement and increasingly hurried, stern insistence before he relented, and Nicolò again had a weeping octopus wrapped around his neck. He again jumped across the channel and immediately turned back, one hand outstretched for Edrice. She stumbled at the edge of the water, her sandals sinking into the mud, but Nicolò pulled her across. He hoped the amount of heretofore impermissible amounts of touching and physical contact he’d had with Edrice and her children would be forgiven. Surely it would, he reasoned as the child launched out of his arms to re-attach himself to Edrice’s chest, somehow wailing louder than he had been before the separation. After all, this was an emergency situation, and–

There was a loud, ominous crack. Another clap of thunder; the rain pelted down. Another crack of wood. Someone cried out.

“Youssef!” Edrice screamed. 

Nicolò turned just in time to see a wave of muddy brown barreling toward them, a sluice of broken logs and reeds racing with the water. He grabbed Edrice by the arm and pulled, yanking her half off her feet to drag her up the hill and just out of reach of the racing water.

“Youssef!” Edrice was still screaming. The little boy in her arms was hysterical now. “Where is he? Go after him!”

Nicolò stumbled to his feet and pushed water out of his eyes. The far side of the channel was empty, only a fast-racing torrent of water and vegetation. “Yusuf? Yusuf!” he shouted. He took off in the same direction as the current. The river churned thick and brown around him, rain pelted his face, and here and there he thought he saw a glimpse of a white tunic, a glance of dark hair, a brief, gurgling shout. But every time he reached down to splash and drag at the water, he found only mud, silt, and reeds. “Yusuf!” he shouted into the wind. “Youssef!”

But Yusuf and the boy were gone.

Chapter Text

Under the Water.

It isn’t quiet under the water. Swishing, bubbling, ringing, tightness, splashes, screaming above the water, screaming muffled below the water, roaring and dark. 

“It’s Asma ibn Abd Allah,” says his sister.

Yusuf looks over. There is light shining through the water, but all he can see is the brown muck swirling around him, just the edges of her fouta as it cascades over her feet, bright red and trimmed with gold and teal, like the water glinting off the sea. He knows her feet are bare, that she is enjoying the feel of the soft, warm sand between her toes, the little physical pleasures she can steal for herself and hide away, the little scraps of comfort in between motherhood and marriage that are allowed to her.

“It’s settled, then?” He shifts his sit bones on the hard, hot, tile stoop. He knows he sounds disgruntled.

Ahmad’s response confirms that it does not go unnoticed. “She consented. Do you intend to object?” He is looming over both of them, tall and slim-shouldered and very tan from a late-summer voyage.

“I know her a little, Yusuf,” says Khadija. She smooths her skirt over her knees, over her round belly, over her swollen feet warming in the sand. “I think it is a good match. She’s quite funny, and not stupid or dull.”

Yusuf makes a sound somewhere between intrigue and despair.

“What is it?”

He shakes his head. “You’ll think less of me.”

“She’s very pretty,” says Khadija.

“That isn’t it.”

“Good,” says Ahmed. “She’s Fatma ibn Masruq pretty, not Yesmine al-Hassan pretty.”

“Ahmad, that isn’t helpful.”

“He rejected Ramla al-Qasim last year and she’s the best looking girl I’ve ever-”

“Because she was in love with someone else!”

“That was nonsense then, and it’s nonsense now,” says Ahmad. “You two were the only ones who seized on the idea that her heart was promised forever.” His eyes will always roll for anything sentimental. “All our plans in the garbage for what was, at most, a girlish infatuation.”

“What matters now,” says Khadija, in the voice she cultivated for her children and increasingly uses for all the men in her family, “Is Asma. And her heart is open for you,” as she turns to Yusuf. Her hair is floating in the water, in the sunshine, darker than the silt. She is tired, and happy, and sad, and beautiful. “Whatever fears you have will fade. Trust me, I had them, too.”

“What’s to be afraid of?” Ahmad shrugs, and then winks. “My wedding night couldn’t come fast enough.”

Khadija shakes her head, fondness and exasperation in equal measure. Then she turns again to Yusuf. “Won’t it be nice to have your own household? Someone to care for you, listen to you, bear your children?”

“You barely have to do anything, really,” says Ahmad.

“Poor Meriam,” says Khadija dryly. 

“Meriam’s days are full of joy. Her children love her daily, and I love her nightly, and everyone is happy.”

“It really is the greatest joy, the children,” says Khadija.

“The two of you have brought more than enough children for one family,” says Yusuf.

Khadija frowns. “But you love children.”

“I love your children,” says Yusuf, standing up to pace back and forth between the bright sun and the bit of shade under the eaves. “I don’t mean to be difficult…”

“You’re frightened,” says Khadija.

“Of getting married?” Ahmad scoffs.

“It’s normal,” says Khadija.

“I’m not frightened,” says Yusuf. There isn’t a way to explain it, this feeling, this darkness. It isn’t fear. It isn’t worry. It’s something deeper and uglier, something closer to dread. Like the anticipation of a sharp blade on the back of his neck, like the creaking of ship boards, building in the back of his mind and the pit of his stomach for a year now, harbingers of–

His lungs burned. The water was cold here, and his body is battered against shapes in the water: rough, scaled, slimy plants and oily silt. He flailed his arms, his chest feels so tight , there’s such a weight on it, something digging into the skin on his arms. He remembered crocodiles, and screaming. Someone was crying, was it him? Does he still have hands, or have they been eaten? Does he still have lungs, or have they been crushed? The water burbled in his ears, rushing forward, rushing down.

“Don’t you feel it, too?” Daoud asks. His face is close enough to see the flecks of green in his eyes, the way his breath is warm on his lips, his lips are so warm and soft, and something wet is brushing his lips, pink tongue, brown water. Yusuf flails again, pushing against the crocodile, pushes him so hard that the back of Daoud’s head smacks onto the ground with a wet, sickening sound, the sound of something soft over something hard meeting something very hard. But Yusuf is running too fast in the opposite direction to see more than a trickle of reddish-brown, the water is so muddy and dark here. He can hardly hear the music, though he knows his family is still dancing, knows his mother is standing guard outside the door with a sly smile on her face, and Asma’s eyes have little flecks of gold around the pupil. “This is nice,” she says in a low and quiet voice. She has big, open eyes and the lids are lined with black and gold. “It’s sweet that you’re shy,” she whispers as she leans over to kiss him. Her lips are soft, and warm, but he can already taste whatever she’s used to paint them with, chalky and sour and–

He took a deep, long breath. It was the wrong thing to do. His lungs burn. There is only water. His voice was full of mud. The weight on his chest kept crying. There was so much water. He felt so heavy, the weight was so heavy, the mud was so heavy.

“Yusuf, darling, tell me what’s wrong.” Khadija’s hand is warm on his shoulder. He holds her new baby close, wrapped and swaddled and sleeping, a tiny bundle in his arms. The night air is warm tonight, the sweetest salty breeze, but he adjusts the top of the blanket around her thick black hair, keeping her head warm, keeping her safe. He can’t stop looking at her. Her eyes are closed, her little fist tucked under her chin. He can’t stop looking. “Do you really not like her?”

“It isn’t that,” says Yusuf. The baby’s blanket is blue, swirling shades like the sea: indigo and turquoise and the pale sky over hot sand. “I don’t know. It isn’t…how I thought it would be.”

“Give it time,” says Khadija. She rubs his back. “The first year of marriage is very hard.”

“She is beautiful, and she is kind, and she is doing everything one could possibly ask a wife to do,” says Yusuf, and hates the misery in his voice. Asma, serving him meals. Asma, leading him to bed. The taste of that chalky paint on her lips. “I feel nothing . I’m worried I-” He halts. He holds the baby.

“There is no need to worry. I know you, Yusuf. You are a good husband,” says Khadija.

Yusuf forces the words out between his teeth. “I’m worried I’m going to hate her, Khadija. I feel nothing . I feel nothing, and I’m going to hate her for it, and she doesn’t deserve that.”

“Why would you hate her?” Khadija is frowning again. “I don’t understand.”

“I can’t explain it,” says Yusuf, lying to himself. He thinks of green flecks, bright jewels against a brown backdrop. There isn’t much green in his world. There is blue, and red, and white, and gold, and sage and palm and brush and weeds, but that particular shade of green is scarce. Precious as emeralds. (His mother loves emeralds. His father gave her one, once, a small, shining bead of life set in gold around her neck.) Yusuf’s throat feels tight. “I don’t know. She is a good woman. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

The baby stirs, makes a little whimpering sound, and Khadija scoops her away from him and puts her to her breast before she can wake. “I know you were reluctant to marry,” she says, wholly focused on the little mouth, the little lips, the closed eyes, the perfect cheeks. “But you two have so much in common. Doesn’t she make you laugh?”

“She does,” Yusuf concedes. “She’s very clever.” She is a good wife. She is a good woman. Yusuf knows, deep down inside, where he sometimes goes mining for emeralds, that he already hates her.

“Give it time,” says Khadija. “There is so much time for the two of you to learn how to please each other. To build a life.”

“She’s pregnant.”

The weight pulled at his neck, squeezing the water out or pushing the water in. He couldn’t open his eyes. They stung and burned, just like his lungs, just like his ears, just like his chest and his stomach. The back of his mouth felt slick and scratched. Did he swallow splinters? How much more can he cough? The weight kept crying, kept screaming.

“Yusuf,” Asma says, but her voice is hoarse from screaming and her eyes are a dull, muddy brown. Where did the gold flecks go? How could they have just disappeared? Were they buried, somehow? “Yusuf, have you seen him? Is he beautiful?”

“He’s perfect,” says Yusuf, stroking through her hair. Her thick black hair, usually brushed into soft, cascading curls now matted and sweaty on her forehead, matted into knots. There is so much blood. He can still hear her screaming. It is his mother, wailing with the tiny body in her arms, and it is also Asma, and Khadija, and once, just at the moment his son is born, too small and too bloody and too quiet, it is Yusuf. He is wrapped in a linen shroud in the other room. Asma hears the mourning. Asma hears the celebration.

“What did you name him?” she asks, her eyes fluttering closed and then opening again.

“Ibrahim.”

“For your father. That is good.” Asma smiles, content, drifting away from him again. “Would you bring him to me? I want to hold him. They took him away, but he must be hungry…”

“Of course,” says Yusuf, shifting more blankets over her shoulders. Her shoulders are shaking. He is not sure whether she is cold, or merely dying. He places her hand, the one he is holding between both of his hands, hers are cold and his are warm, across her chest, over the blanket. The blanket has bright green flecks. “Mama will bring him as soon as he is hungry. For now, you should rest.”

For a moment, she lays very still. Then, while her eyes are still closed, she murmurs again, “Is he beautiful?”

“Yes,” Yusuf answers. He leans down to kiss her forehead, in the exact spot he kissed her on the day they married. “He’s perfect.”

Too much water. Too much weight. Too much burning. Too heavy. The mud was winning. Swim down. Swim down.

“No.”

“No? What is this, no? There is no ‘no’.”

“No.”

“She has consented.”

“I do not.”

“It has been two years, Yusuf.”

“My wife is dead.”

“You’re still a young man! Khadija says you didn’t even like her very much!”

“Khadija should mind her own business.”

“She’s just trying to look out for you. We all are. You can’t just wander around moping forever, you need a wife.”

“I don’t want a wife.”

“You need one. Don’t you even want to hear about her?”

“No.”

“She’s rich.”

“I have plenty of money.”

“Not if Baba cuts you off for disobedience, you don’t.” Ahmad’s eyes are deadly serious. “She’s beautiful.”

“Then you marry her.”

“I think Meriam would object.”

“I object.”

“You can’t object. She’s already consented. You want to humiliate her, this poor girl? Why would you do such a thing? You’re not a cruel man, Yusuf. You want to turn down a beautiful girl in your bed, every night, for what? For a dead woman you barely liked?”

“I can’t marry her. Ahmad, I–”

“You what?” Ahmad is frustrated. His foot jiggles, the way it does when he is trying to be patient, when he is trying to be calm. Yusuf has tried this trick for himself. It has never worked. It only works a little for Ahmad. “Explain it, please, because I cannot make sense of it and the rest of the family is ready to strangle you.”

Yusuf tangles his hands in his hand. He closes his eyes. All he can see is black blood pooling on warm sand, and swirls of muddy water. “I just need more time. Please, Ahmad. Please, just a little more time. Can you help me?”

“Yusuf…” His older brother is so tired of being the eldest. Yusuf does not blame him, this responsibility, this steadfastness. He does not want it. He has never wanted it.

“Please. Please, Ahmad, please help me think of something.”

Ahmad sighs. “There is an important exchange going to Cairo later this week.”

The breath catches in Yusuf’s throat. He holds it. Manages to speak without losing much air. “What about Meriam? The baby is coming any day now.”

“Meriam has brought many children into this world,” says Ahmad slowly, carefully. “They have both always been healthy and safe, but–”

“Ahmad, you should be here,” says Yusuf. Swallows back the air and the panic, a bubble of mud in his throat. “What if she– Asma was healthy, everything was fine, until the night she–”

“Meriam has been very worried,” Ahmad admits. “About that.”

“Let me go for you,” says Yusuf. “Please, Ahmad, it’s perfect. I will go, you will stay. I will go to Cairo, it will be–”

“You will sign the contract before you go,” Ahmad cuts in. “Otherwise, Baba will never agree to it.”

Another breath held. A slow release. “All right. I’ll sign the contract.”

“Three weeks,” says Ahmad. “Three weeks, no more. You can invent as many delays as you wish, but it must be–”

“Three weeks,” Yusuf nods vigorously. “Yes, that’s fine. That’s plenty.” A forced, nervous laugh. “Thank you. Thank you, Ahmad.”

“All right,” Ahmad nods again. “I’ll convince Baba. It shouldn’t be too difficult. We all know that you keep your promises.” 

There was water and mud in his throat. He felt each finger wrapped around his neck. There were hands buried in his clothes, and a little voice cried and clung. Yusuf held onto it. Yusuf kicked his legs, shoved aside the weeds that tore at his clothes, and swam away from the brown. He hunted for green. Green and blue, like the sky and the shore. That was instinct. Something small in his arms, hold it closer. Something crying, bring it up into the light. The weight held on tight. 

Two slim, hooded figures are walking through narrow streets. They could be any streets, in any place. There is hanging laundry, the close quarters, windows that face the alley, the voices that carry overhead. One is tall, and one is small. He knows their hair is long and dark. The streets are dark, and the figures are covered in shadows, but Yusuf knows there are weapons hidden everywhere.

They turn down one corner, and then another. They talk to each other, but Yusuf does not know the words. He has heard many languages, but these sounds are merely muffled water and darkly filtered sunlight. They ask questions. They draw suspicion. They leave early. They walk the streets alone, together.

They turn another corner, and there are four men waiting for them. A knife is in the neck of the first man before he realizes he has already taken his last breath. The blood sprays across the small one’s face, and she smiles up at the tall one. The tall one pushes a man’s face into the wall, the sound of something soft over something hard meeting something very hard. Then she leans over to kiss the blood off the side of the small one’s mouth.

Warm breath on his mouth.

Burning in his lungs.

Yusuf wakes up.

Chapter Text

Nowhere.

He had the distinct realization, first, that the air in his lungs was not his own. His stomach was hot and hard and empty, the muscles contracted and sore, like they’d been inflated and deflated over and over again for hours, for days. He was soaking wet. It was still raining lightly, but the roaring in his ears was gone, along with the submerged rushing and bubbling and ringing sounds. Now he could clearly make out the sound of his own gasping, heaving breaths. He sucked down air. It whistled in his throat like wind in the reeds.

“ There you are ,” a very soft voice said in his ear. A language he knew, a language he did not know. “ Praise be to God.”

Yusuf wanted to say, What? But as he opened his mouth, more water came up, along with more hacking coughs and high, rasping breaths. The voice kept praying. Yusuf kept coughing.

Finally, he managed to gasp, “What happened?” He was shivering all over, his hands twitching and curling in ways he could not control. “Allah, I am so tired.”

“Rest,” said Nicolò. Of course, of course it was Nicolò. That realization settled something in Yusuf’s chest like stone slotting into place in the foundation of a wall, study and secure. Yusuf tilted his head to see that Nicolò was looking at something on the horizon with Yusuf’s head resting against his chest, body half-slumped in Nicolò’s lap. There was a strong, warm arm wrapped around his shoulders, a tangle of legs and mud. “Just rest, for now.”

“Did I die?” Yusuf asked.

“Many times,” said Nicolò. The hold on his shoulders tightened. “But you came back.” 

“You’re holding me,” said Yusuf.

“You were dead.” Nicolò shifted behind him, starting to get up.

“Wait.” Yusuf forced one of the muscles in his hands to work, grabbing at whatever he could reach, which happened to be Nicolò’s knee, wet and filthy with mud. “Do not let me go.”

Nicolò slowly settled back into place. He relaxed the leg that Yusuf was clutching, re-tightened his grip on his shoulders, held his back steady against the stiff papyrus reeds clumping the river bank. Yusuf breathed, and coughed, and breathed some more, until he realized that Nicolò was still watching the horizon. Waiting for something, scanning the flooded plains around them, with one hand on the hilt of his sword.

“Where are we? Why are we…?” Alone , he wanted to say. They were entirely alone, here. There was an eeriness to it, an unnatural stillness despite the sounds of the rushing water and the wind in the reeds.

Nicolò set his mouth in a thin line. “You died many times.”

Yusuf recalled flashes of raging, muddy river; of small hands tangled in his hair, his beard, his clothes; of floating and splashing and heaving and coughing. He rested his head against Nicolò’s chest and looked up at the darkening sky. The clouds were moving quickly overhead, creating strange shapes and shadows, spirits and figures, and one solemn lady, her gray-and-white hijab flowing behind her like a long cloak. “Youssef. Oh God, Nicolò, the boy was-”

“He is safe,” said Nicolò. 

“Safe?” Yusuf repeated, blinking. “How? How could he have…?”

“Your body,” said Nicolò. “He…held onto your body.” 

“Wait, but–” His throat burned. It was hard to speak. “That means he must have seen me.”

“You came back,” Nicolò repeated. “Many times.”

“I see.” Yusuf thought about that, and breathing, and air, and water, for some time.

“We must find some shelter soon,” said Nicolò.

It did not need saying that they could not go back to Rasheed. “I don’t know where to go,” he said, wracking his brain for ideas and finding only sluggishness and exhaustion. “I don’t know what to do. I am so tired.” 

“I will find something,” said Nicolò. “Do you think you can walk?”

Yusuf nodded, although even the light jostling from climbing out of Nicolò’s lap was enough to send him back to his knees to heave up more water and bile in the bushes. Nicolò stayed near. “But then what? I do not know where to go.” He heaved again, though only air. “I don’t know where to go next.”

Nicolò’s hand was on his shoulder again. Yusuf felt the panic recede slightly. “You have made many friends in Cairo.”

“No,” Yusuf shook his head. “No, that is too close. Word travels.”

“Your family, then,” said Nicolò. “Your mother, your sister. You wished to go home.” 

Yusuf let out a bitter laugh, resting back on his heels. “I cannot go home,” he shook his head. “Not like this.” Not ever, he realized, with complete certainty. And then, a moment later, You were never going to go home.

“No one would know about this,” said Nicolò. “No one has to know.”

“And what happens during the next accident?” Yusuf looked up at him, his mind already thinking of the next town he tried to inhabit, the next job, the next lie, “The next flood, the next war, the next-- We’ve died so many times now, Nicolò. What if--” He reached out blindly, gripping Nicolò’s arm. “What if this is–” They were alone in a muddy field. He felt utterly horrific and monstrous, which was not helped by the muck clinging to his clothes and the sour smell of the river water clinging to his beard. He wished his stomach were not so empty. “Will we truly never die? Never?” Not ever.

“I do not know,” said Nicolò. Then, when Yusuf continued staring into the puddling water, haunted and paralyzed, he gently hauled up to his feet. “Come with me.”

Yusuf let himself be led.

They walked for a long time. They walked until night fell, and then kept walking. Yusuf didn’t know how Nicolò could see well enough to navigate, but he plodded along behind him in the dark, listening for the squeaking of the longsword’s leather sheath as it twisted on his belt, the squelching mud drying into slippery pads as they moved further away from the river, and finally the quiet slide of grass and well-drained paths. Yusuf’s feet followed Nicolò while his mind wandered.

He thought about his mother, his sister, his brother, his wife. He thought about Daoud, about horses, about springtime. And then, without really intended to, he began to think about Nicolò.

Nicolò, with his brown hair lit gold by the setting sun. 

Nicolò, with his shy smile and his tray of food.

Nicolò, with steel glinting in his eyes and blood on his mouth.

Nicolò, with whispers for the children and fishbones for the kittens and prayers very late at night, when he thought Yusuf was asleep.

Nicolò, looking at him with reverence.

Nicolò, touching him.

He realized, vaguely, that he was being encouraged to sit down; Nicolò’s hand was on his shoulder again. There was sweet-smelling straw underneath him, dry and rustling, and the comforting smell of animals. There was a little light in the corner. Nicolò had found a candle, a small stub of tallow wax, though Heaven knew how he had anything dry enough to light it. Yusuf looked up to see that he was standing in a dilapidated old barn with the ceiling half-open to the sky, the roof caved in or blown off, but this corner was dry and the walls seemed sturdy enough to lean against.

Nicolò was feeling his forehead, the touch quick and clinical. Then he pulled a rough, mouse-eaten, extremely dirty blanket from under the straw in another corner and threw it around Yusuf’s back. 

“I am all right now, Nicolò,” said Yusuf, holding the blanket around himself and trying not to gag at the smell.

Nicolò immediately retracted his hands. Yusuf immediately regretted their absence. “There is another building up ahead,” said Nicolò. “I will see if there is any food.”

Involuntarily, without thinking, Yusuf’s hand darted forward to catch his elbow. Nicolò gently detached it, and then slipped the hilt of his scimitar into his palm. Yusuf had not even noticed he’d been carrying it. How long had Nicolò been carrying that? “I will be back very soon,” Nicolò promised.

“All right,” said Yusuf, shrugging back under his blanket.

In the silence, in the moonlight, Yusuf’s thoughts immediately returned to the exact same road in his mind. Nicolò, arguing for peace. Nicolò, clumsily mending rope and trousers and sailcloth. Nicolò, watching his mouth while he talked. Nicolò, nearly an entire year of Nicolò. Nicolò, who needed his guidance, in a land that was not his home. Nicolò, who needed him. (Yusuf, who needed-) (You are never going home.)

North, Yusuf decided, shifting out of the blanket. We both have a little Greek. The Genovese ships may have gone through Athens; perhaps Nicolò has friends there we could– And then he froze. We . There was no longer any such thing as ‘we’ or ‘us’. Nicolò had been preparing to leave before the flood. Nicolò had promised to leave. 

Because Yusuf had told him to leave.

His heart clenched and his breath jumped in sudden, acute panic. What if he had already left? What if he had found shelter and safety for Yusuf as a final gesture of good faith before walking away? Sneaking away, so Yusuf would be spared the awkwardness of asking him to leave again, and wouldn’t that be just like Nicolò? 

Yusuf raced to the window and attempted to peer through the shadows to see the house. Was there even a house? How long has it been since he left? And now that he is gone, how could Yusuf ever possibly find him again? Where would he even go? How would he manage? The man could barely cook a meal and was already so prone to going long stretches without eating, he would be–

“The house is not abandoned,” Nicolò said in a low voice as he re-entered the barn, “But the kitchen window was open and I could just reach a bit of bread. Will it be a grave offense to take it, do you think?”

Yusuf was on his feet in an instant, crossing the few paces separating them and clutching Nicolò’s forearms. The small loaf of bread hung awkwardly between them. “You came back!”

“Yes, of course,” said Nicolò, looking at him with concern. “I told you I would.”

“I thought you had left.” Strange how the panic was still caught in his throat at that thought.

“To find food,” said Nicolò. “Have you noticed being hungry after you are revived? I am often famished.”

“But you are leaving?” Yusuf pressed. He ignored the empty growling of his stomach. “When are you leaving?”

“Oh,” said Nicolò. He looked down at the bread in his hands and slowly pressed it into Yusuf’s damp shirt. “Yes, I suppose…now that you are all right. As you said, you are all right now. Yes, if you wish me to go, I will–”

“No!” Yusuf grabbed him more tightly, pulling him closer. The bread dropped to the ground at their feet. “No, Nicolò, please. Not– do not go.”

Nicolò refused to meet his eyes. His eyebrows were scrunched heavily together, worried or confused, as he looked down at Yusuf’s fingers gripping tight around his arms. 

“Please,” said Yusuf, “Please, don’t go.”

Nicolò’s eyebrows twitched lower. His arms moved back, just slightly, but Yusuf refused to loosen his grip. Don’t go , said the Dangerous Voice. ( Fight it fight it fight it , the other chanted somewhere.) Stay with me. ( Run.) You said it, you said God brought us together. (He cursed you. It is a curse. It is-) “I think if I am left alone with this curse, I will go mad.” (It isn’t only that, you coward, stop running, it isn’t only that you-)

“It is not a curse,” said Nicolò.

“But those who have faith and work righteousness, they are companions of the Garden, abiding in it eternally,” Yusuf recited. “As for those who believe and work righteous deeds, they will have the gardens of Paradise as hospitality, eternally therein . ”

“You speak of Heaven?”

“Jannah,” said Yusuf. “Everlasting life comes in Paradise. This is not Paradise.”

“Perhaps not,” said Nicolò. “But I do not believe it is Hell.”

“How do you know?” asked Yusuf. “To die eternally, without paradise? How could it not be a punishment?”

“Punishment?” Nicolò looked incredulous. “Yusuf, we were granted a miracle. You are alive.” And he shifted in Yusuf’s grip, twisting his wrist just enough to let the rough pad of one fingertip rest, light and soft, against Yusuf’s skin. It was warm. Nicolò’s voice was shaky, now. “You were dead, and now you are alive again. It was a miracle.” And then he extracted his other hand to wipe at the edge of his eyes. “So many miracles. You are a–” and he halted.

Yusuf stared at him. “I am a miracle?”

Nicolò laughed a little, which squeezed another tear out of his eye. He turned away. “Forgive me. It has been a very long day.”

Yusuf watched him swipe his knuckles under each eye, the movements fuzzy and dream-like in the dim light of the moon peering through the half-open roof. Nicolò sniffled again, tucked his hair behind his ears, took a deep breath. “I suppose that is sacrilege,” Nicolò said with a little exhale. “But to me…To me, they have all been…”

Miracles . And then, he said it aloud. “Miracles.”

Nicolò’s face went a little pink. Yusuf wasn’t sure how he knew that, dark as it was, but he knew it as well as he knew the incomparable, irreplicable shade of blue and green in his eyes. Then Nicolò shrugged one shoulder. “I was very worried when you would not wake up.”

“You were?”

“Yes.”

Vague memories filtered into the back of his mind: pressure on his chest, pain in his lungs, warm, hot breath in his mouth. “I was very glad to see you when I woke up.”

“You were?” Surprised.

“That you had not left,” Yusuf clarified. 

Nicolò still looked somewhat incredulous. “You would finally have been free of your millstone.” 

Fight it (No) Run (No) You can’t (I can) You won’t (I will)

“I would be missing a heartbeat,” said Yusuf. Then he put his hand, palm-flat, on Nicolò’s chest, a warm point against the cold air, and all the warring voices in his head went silent. Peace. Finally, at last, finally. Peace. “I can feel it beating.”

Nicolò was watching him out of the corner of his eye, clearly fighting every urge to regard him too openly. “Yes.”

“It’s strong,” said Yusuf, stroking a light hand across his ribs. “Beating a little faster, now.” He could feel Nicolò swallow. He tangled his fingertips in his tunic, just the lightest pressure tugged into a small knot, balancing on the knife’s edge between pushing him away and pulling him closer, and then smoothed the fabric out across Nicolò’s chest again. 

Nicolò kept quiet. He moved his hand, just slightly, and Yusuf forced himself to keep still, but Nicolò still didn’t pull his hand away. “Yusuf, every time I...”

“Every time you what?” Yusuf prompted, after a long silence.

Nicolò shook his head, pressing his lips tightly closed.

“We cannot be judged, remember,” said Yusuf, with a teasing raise of his eyebrow.

“You seem far more cheerful about that than you were yesterday.”

“Yesterday, I had not drowned seven times and then woke up in your arms.” He slowly dragged his hand up from Nicolò’s chest to gently stroke his thumb along the flow of his beard. It was very soft. “If you are not to be judged, Nicolò, then what do you want?”

Nicolò’s eyes were dark, reflecting only shadow and starlight. He didn’t move. His chest rose and fell with his breath, and Yusuf stroked his cheek, and they sat there with the crickets and the gentle drip of rainwater off the roof of the barn while the stars shifted across the sky as the earth turned under their feet. “Every time I fall in love,” Nicolò said, slowly and carefully, “They send me away.”

Yusuf gently guided Nicolò’s eyes back to meet his own. “Stay. Stay with me, Nicolò, please.”

“Yusuf…” Nicolò looked back down at the ground, chewing on his lower lip.

“I know I tried to send you away,” said Yusuf. He rubbed his beard again with the side of his thumb. “I was afraid. I was wrong.”

Nicolò shook his head. He kept his eyes fixed on the ground.

“You said this was destiny,” Yusuf prompted. It was very dark, but Yusuf knew every curve of his face, the exact shade of his eyes under a full moon. 

“Because you asked why,” said Nicolò.

“I did,” said Yusuf. His own heart was also beating very fast.

“You said there has to be a reason.”

“Yes,” said Yusuf. “There must be.”

“I do think it was destiny,” Nicolò began in a whisper. “I think we were meant to find each other.”

And there, after all that, the truth flowed out of his mouth like rushing water. “Why? Because we both desire the touch of other men?” 

Nicolò was quiet for a long time. “No,” he said finally. Slowly, carefully, he slid his hand down Yusuf’s arm and began to caress the delicate skin between Yusuf’s forefinger and thumb. “That is much more common than you think.” He felt Nicolò’s smile more than he could see it, even with the bright starlight.

“So you believe,” said Yusuf, leaning closer, “That in all the battles, and all the lands, and all the filthy, flea-ridden, barbarian-speaking Franks to come to my home, you were the heartbeat who would not stop for me?”

And then Nicolò kissed him. Reserved, withdrawn Nicolò with his lips pressed against his. Yusuf kissed him back. He could still taste the river water, feel the soft scratches of his beard, his warm hands in Yusuf’s hair. He wasn’t sure who made the first little noise of pleasure when their tongues touched, who decided when to break enough for the sound of their lips to echo in the quiet, to revel in the breaths they shared. But he did know that it was Nicolò who pulled him into a tight embrace, arm wrapped around his waist, his chin tilted heavenward and his eyes closed, to kiss him again, and again.

After some time, Yusuf found himself on his back in the dry, sweeter-smelling straw with Nicolò draped over his chest, tapping his finger lightly against Yusuf’s ribs in time with his heartbeat. He was combing through Nicolò’s long, straight hair with his fingers, waiting for the buzzing in his body to ease while he soaked up the warmth of Nicolò’s body and basked in the giddy lightness of the quiet in his mind.

“How long do you think this will last, really?” he asked. The starlight through the gaps in the roof was very bright.

“Only God knows,” said Nicolò. “Perhaps now I have damned us both.”

Yusuf laughed so hard Nicolò had to sit up a bit to keep his head from bouncing. 

“Just because judgment is delayed does not mean it will never come,” said Nicolò, giving him a rather prim, unimpressed look from under his dark eyebrows.

“Ah, so you think God put us together only to test us for eternity?” asked Yusuf, sliding his hand slowly up and down the curve of his spine.

“It has been much more than 40 days,” said Nicolò. “Perhaps it must be 40 years.”

Yusuf couldn’t stop from chuckling again, pulling Nicolò close and pressing a kiss into the top of his hair. “Well, it seems I am not strong enough to resist for 40 years. I think, perhaps, I have had enough running away.”

Nicolò tucked his face against Yusuf’s neck. He wrapped an arm around Yusuf’s waist and let out a little sigh. And then, after a very long pause, “If it is forever...Yusuf, forever is a very long time.”

“So is damnation. So is paradise,” said Yusuf, shrugging. His mind was so quiet . So blissfully, happily quiet. “So are the wettest days in the rainy season, and the worst heat of midsummer, and the minutes before you wake up and the hours before I can go to sleep, thinking about how warm your body would be, over there, in your own bed, so far from me. But if you would kiss me like that, like you just did...do you know, I think I can bear it?”

He felt Nicolò’s smile against his chest, but he didn’t move or speak. Then Nicolò’s hand drifted up to tousle the curls of his hair. Nicolò gently caressed his hair, down around his ears, sliding across the side of his neck, to rest palm-flat over Yusuf’s heart. Eyes intent and focused, Nicolò watched him breathe for a long time.

“You’ll stay with me?” Yusuf prompted, finally, when he couldn’t stand it any longer. “Please? I could not bear it if you left.”

Nicolò nodded slowly, and then kissed him for a long time. He pressed his cheek back down against his chest. “I would be missing a heartbeat, too, Yusuf.”

***

Yusuf woke to a warm body held tightly in his arms. Nicolò was still asleep.

He shifted a little, more to feel the warm, smooth skin on Nicolò’s back against his bare chest than to adjust his position, pressing his thighs closer to the back of Nicolò’s legs, tangling their feet, tightening his hold around Nicolò’s waist, a light stroke to the soft hair on his belly. He pressed his nose against Nicolò’s shoulder, skin still smelling slightly of sex and sweat, warm and musky. He nuzzled the skin, then issued a faint kiss to his shoulder blade. 

“Mm,” Nicolò sighed, yawning like a cat and then interlacing their fingers, drawing Yusuf’s arm up to clasp their hands at his chest.

“Good morning,” said Yusuf.

“You never wake up first,” said Nicolò, sleepy and bemused.

“I never had so nice a reason to wake up early,” said Yusuf, kissing his shoulder again. Nicolò made that same contented noise, so Yusuf kissed the back of his neck, which caused a twitch of ticklishness, and then the side of his neck, holding him close, and Nicolò breathed out slowly.

Then Nicolò turned his face to look at him, outwardly blank and placid as usual, but Yusuf saw the calm, contented softness in his eyes. Those pale, blue eyes with their flecks of green, staring at him like he was the only creature in existence. Yusuf grinned. The corners of Nicolò’s mouth turned up, and then they were kissing again, Yusuf’s hand sliding across his chest as his body turned in his arms.

There was a loud, impatient knocking at the barn door, a fist threatening to pound it off its hinges. Nicolò’s eyes went wide, and he immediately rolled out of their nest of straw and horse blankets and scrambled for his clothes.

Yusuf felt far less urgency. “A moment,” he called to the door.  The pounding continued; increased, even. “A moment, please!” Yusuf yelled as he stepped hurriedly into his trousers. 

Nicolò was already standing next to the door, one hand on the hilt of his sword, waiting for Yusuf to get dressed. He was clearly under the impression that they were about to be attacked by the barn’s owner for daring to seek shelter in a storm, or perhaps some moralistic cleric come to punish them for the sexually depraved crimes they committed the night before. Yusuf thought it was more likely to be a bite of charity breakfast before being sent on their way. Still, he made sure to note that his scimitar was in reach, and opened the door.

“We lost our way in the storm, but we will be gone shortly,” he started for a show of grateful reassurance as the door swung open to let in the fresh daylight, but his eyebrows immediately shot up his forehead and his mouth dropped. 

The woman from his dreams was standing right in front of him, her hand resting on the hilt of a menacingly sharp-looking circular axe strapped to her back.

“Took you long enough,” said the woman in perfect Arabic. She was tall, with pale skin and bright blue eyes lined in black, just as piercing in person as they were in his mind. Her long, dark hair was hidden under a gray felted cap.

Yusuf immediately looked behind her and recognized the second, smaller dream woman, ink-black hair flowing freely around her face, smiling with an easy confidence. “They were busy last night, Andromache,” said the smaller woman. “No need to be impatient.”

“It’s been long enough finding them,” Andromache returned. “Where’s the other one? Oh. You don’t need that,” she added, and Yusuf saw that Nicolò had joined in the doorway, his longsword held so lightly that it nearly fell to the floor.

“It isn’t possible,” he whispered, staring with the wide eyes of someone looking at ghosts. “How can you be here?”

Yusuf gaped at him. “Wait, you know them?”

“Only in dreams,” said Nicolò. He looked very shaken.

“Those will end now,” said Andromache, scuffing her boot in the dirt. She had a nervous energy, looking as though she could bolt or fight at any moment, not unlike the fine-looking brown horses nibbling the grasses at the edge of the yard and saddled for long travel. “Come out. We have much to discuss.”

Nicolò and Yusuf looked at each other. Hands on the hilts of their swords, shoulder-to-shoulder, they stepped out into the sun toward two dreams.