Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

title from butchered tongue by hozier (and a story playlist here for anyone interested; content warning, i'm an elder millennial)

so far from home to have a stranger call you, "darling"
and have your guarded heart be lifted like a child up by the hand
in some town that just means "home" to them
with no translator left to sound
a butchered tongue still singin' here above the ground

A little over a month after fleeing Jerusalem with Yusuf, Nicolò encountered a hakawati for the first time. The old man was perched on the edge of a stool, the expressions on his lined brown face animated, his wrinkled hands embellishing a tale that held rapt the multigenerational audience gathered around him. Nicolò was no exception. 

He stood apart from the crowd, hovering instead just inside the entrance of a small tavern located in the heart of Alexandria’s bustling Kasbah neighborhood. Behind him, the market teemed with activity. Residents hurried around the agora that sprawled along either side of the wide avenues connecting each of the city’s impressive gates, rushing to finish errands before the sun set. Already the bright orb was dipping below the ridge of the western wall, casting the street into shadows that joined a sea breeze blowing in from the north to offer a welcome reprieve from the late summer heat.   

Another fair skinned man jostled Nicolò, casting him a significant look as he exited the establishment. Nicolò muttered an apology in Latin, for there was something distinctly Roman about the man's militant air and curved nose, and shifted so he was no longer blocking the doorway. None of the other patrons even glanced toward Nicolò when he inched inside, still too tied up in the story themselves.

He leaned against a bare stretch of wall to continue listening. Even the tavern’s workers had paused their tasks to watch. A couple wore indulgent smirks at the reactions of the younger audience members gathered cross-legged around the storyteller’s legs. Based on their reactions, the old man’s tale was nearing a climax - though Nicolò caught no more than one in every five or ten words.

Their harried flight to the metropolitan city had yielded a rudimentary understanding of Yusuf's native dialect. It pleased Nicolò to realize that he’d absorbed enough to recognize this old man spoke a similar one. 

A young girl sitting near the storyteller’s knee gasped in affront at some point he'd reached in the tale, while the slightly older boy next to her elbowed his friend. The two shared a sly look and dirty giggle. Nicolò wished he knew what had happened to make them react so. It was difficult in that moment to fathom that he once believed the Arabic languages grating to the ear. Shame at the memory flooded Nicolò's chest like a cresting wave, followed by a second, larger swell when Yusuf appeared beside him, unexpected. 

But the other man took no notice of Nicolò's internal strife. Instead, he shifted the load of supplies he'd purchased at the market into the half-full basket dangling from Nicolò's arm, head tilted in a universal listening pose. Nicolò glanced away when a smile stretched across Yusuf’s face. His dark eyes sparkled with recognition.

“Ah,” he said in the Greek dialect of the Byzantiums, the only shared language between them, and one on which Nicolò had a much more tenuous grasp. “It’s been some time since I stumbled across a hakawati. There were usually more than a few inside Mahdia’s walls competing for an audience around the holy months. Always a treat.”

Into the pause that followed, Nicolò silently shaped his mouth around the unfamiliar word.  Yusuf added, “A good tale he’s chosen, too.”

Nicolò ached for Yusuf to share it with him, to understand the story as it was meant to be heard. He swallowed. “I was passing by on my way to meet you and thought I recognized a familiar name.”

Yusuf beamed. “Indeed!” he said, and the hint of surprised delight detected in his tone coated Nicolò's insides like warm honey. He glanced away again. The young girl from before had turned to chastise the boys beside her, a frown tugging at her mouth. “The story is about my namesake, in fact. One of many in the Quran about the prophet Yusuf, though a number of them predate the written word. But here is how they’re truly meant to be experienced.”

Yusuf gestured toward the old man - the hakawati - who was wrapping up with what appeared to be a summation of the story’s morals. He had leaned forward on the stool, a gnarled finger pointing around his audience. It lingered on the giggling boys, who now wore twin contrite expressions.

After a moment longer of listening, Yusuf said, “This is the one about Yusuf and Zulaikha, though slightly different from the version I remember. Quite a scandalous choice considering the younger slant of the audience.”

“Why is it so scandalous?” Nicolò inquired some handful of moments later, after Yusuf suggested they take advantage of the dispersing crowd to eat before returning to the inn where they’d rented a room.

Yusuf turned to him, blinking. He’d been watching, chin propped on his fist and expression distant, while the middle-aged man preparing their food behind a counter spoke in rapid Arabic to another man around their age. This one wore an exasperated expression as he pinched his identical nose and shook his head. Nicolò swallowed past the sour guilt at a sudden sense of having interrupted something. “The story,” he said, clarifying.     

“Ah, well” Yusuf said. His expression cleared and shifted into a sly smile. “First, the other thing you need to know I have in common with my namesake is that one of his defining traits is how very handsome he is.” 

And so Yusuf explained, his eloquent words flowing forth, even as some of them caused Nicolò's ear’s to burn. By the end of the tale, which had included many digressions in order for Yusuf to grapple with which version to draw from and how to best translate certain parts, they were most of the way through their delicious meal, and Nicolò couldn’t have looked away even if he’d wanted to.

He gaped as Yusuf finished with a flourish and a wink. Yusuf leaned back on his stool, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he sipped his pomegranate juice. “You shouldn’t look so shocked. This story is in your holy book as well, I believe?” 

“I don’t recall it being told quite so colorfully,” Nicolò muttered, flushing. It was true he’d recognized soon enough that Yusuf was speaking of the tale of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife, though unlike any version he’d ever encountered. To start, Potiphar’s wife was nameless in the Bible.

Nicolò wiped a breadcrumb from the corner of his mouth, considering the many potential morals embedded within the tale. “It was admirable of Yusuf to forgive his brothers, after their actions led to so much suffering for him. Zulaikha’s actions as well. Though… I suppose love in any form does not always lend itself to one behaving rationally. Jealousy, possessiveness, lashing out from fear or the hurt of rejection... it’s all rarely separate from love, no?”

Nicolò's fingers had lingered on his chin while he spoke, and he tapped his bottom lip in thought. “Is the lesson about finding compassion and empathy for others, even for those who cause you harm?” 

“Hm? Oh.” Yusuf’s eyes flicked up to meet his gaze, then over Nicolò's shoulder. He leaned sideways on his stool, gesturing to someone. Likely the young woman who’d served them, the one with the same crooked nose as the two men behind the counter. Yusuf considered for a moment longer as the woman carried over a fresh jug of juice and removed the empty one from their table. A shadow lingered in his expression. Nicolò's insides squirmed, and he chastised himself: who was he to be preaching something as precious as forgiveness to Yusuf, who owed none of his own to Nicolò or the men he’d joined in slaughtering Yusuf’s people?

But then Yusuf just shrugged and waved his hand, a tense note of forced lightness in his voice as he said, “Debatable, all of it. Some imam preach that it’s primarily a tale about the virtues of patience and faith, enduring through suffering and staying steadfast in the face of Allah’s plans for you. Others argue the main moral is upholding one’s integrity and behaving morally in the face of any… ah, temptations.”

Something clenched low in Nicolò's stomach. He averted his gaze from the amused smirk on Yusuf’s face, allowing the rest of his words to filter through the sudden haze clouding his mind.

One night, a few weeks after fleeing Jerusalem and even fewer into their tentative truce, Yusuf had mentioned a brief stint of time spent studying at the Al-Azhar university in al-Qāhira, before he’d left for Juresalem the previous year.

It was even rarer then, these moments of open conversation between them. Nicolò had tested his good fortune that evening by attempting to draw out more from this man who remained so unfathomable to him. And Yusuf, in what could only be a miracle, obliged. Over a shared meal around their fire, he told Nicolò about how his family had come to Egypt’s thriving young capital city from Mahdia some years earlier - 1087, in the year of the barbaric Christians. Then, with a suddenness that surprised Nicolò, Yusuf’s eyes had turned to flint, and he’d turned away onto his bedroll. Nicolò had watched the rise and fall of Yusuf’s back as he pretended to sleep for some while after, trying to recall why that date tickled something in the back of his mind. 

By the time Nicolò managed to surface from the unpleasant memory, Yusuf was expounding on the extant oral variations of the tale about his namesake. Nicolò listened for a while longer, smiling faintly. The passion Yusuf held for his chosen subject was obvious, and Nicolò did his best to follow along with all the foreign names, the unknown to him dates and locations. The Latin Church rarely concerned themselves with educating its clergy on Islamic history, beyond ensuring they knew every example of the barbarity of the Muslim people.

Though mostly Nicolò watched the expressive gestures of Yusuf’s hands as he spoke, his attention ebbing and flowing along with the increasingly familiar cadence of Yusuf’s voice. He wondered if Yusuf studied or composed poetry at the university. It seemed a natural fit for him.

“Did you ever wish to be a hakawati?” Nicolò asked with uncharacteristic impulsiveness, into a lingering pause.

A Gordian knot formed in his chest, one he knew by now could only be loosened by Yusuf deigning to answer any questions about his past. Besides his migration to al-Qāhira and brief studies at its university before enlisting in the Fatimid army to help fight skirmishes against the Seljuks, Yusuf’s history was shrouded in mystery.

Yusuf studied Nicolò. His eyes were partially hidden in the gathering dark, which cast long shadows into the tavern’s single, lamp-lit room. Surely it was nearing time for it to close, though Nicolò couldn’t say at that moment whether they were alone or surrounded by other patrons. The knot in his chest squirmed like snakes. 

Blessedly, Yusuf spoke. Though his answer felt as shadowed as his eyes. “No, I’m afraid a professional storyteller was never an option for someone like me.” A salty breeze wafted through the room, guttering the oil lamps, and Yusuf’s expression cleared. He continued, “My brother would have said it required someone who actually paid attention during lessons in madrasas and memorized his jurisprudence like a good Shia Muslim. Not a heathen who often sleeps through fajr or is lax about any wine that finds its way into his cups.”

Yusuf crossed his arms over his chest, turning his head. But neither the gesture nor his overgrown beard were enough to hide the frown tugging down the corners of his mouth. In the face of Nicolò's silent, questioning gaze, Yusuf sighed. 

“I overheard a conversation between some merchants earlier.” He paused. “The new moon is expected soon.” When Nicolò only wrinkled his brow in response, Yusuf continued, sounding exasperated, “Ramadan will likely begin within the next week. In all the upheaval of our… travels, I forgot about the upcoming holy month.” 

Nicolò tried to recall what he knew about the unfamiliar holiday, which turned out to be not much. At first, Yusuf answered his tentative questions willingly enough. His gift of painting a picture with his words remained mesmerizing, and Nicolò found himself unable to quell his curiosity once Yusuf had indulged him. No one had spoken so openly about a faith other than Christianity to him since childhood. 

Of course, it didn’t last. Eventually Yusuf stumbled to a stop in the midst of a story about the iftar traditions from his youth, and the unspoken competition between his aunties over who made the best brik.

A heavy silence followed, enough to drag down the previously lighthearted mood. Nicolò sighed. He’d begun to allow himself to feel hopeful that they’d go another evening without one cropping up between them. Perhaps it was wishful thinking, but the tense, lingering silences seemed to be getting less frequent the longer their acquaintance. Though Yusuf’s moods remained as mercurial and unpredictable as ever. 

“Anyway,” Yusuf said, voice a blade slicing through the dense air between them. Nicolò chanced a glance toward him, but Yusuf kept his face angled away. His expression was blank. It seemed to take effort, holding it that way. “It’s not as though I’ll be observing it this year.”

“Why?” Nicolò asked before he could think better, too eager to grasp the line of conversation Yusuf had offered him, no matter how baited. Instant, bitter regret flooded his mouth as the stoic mask of Yusuf’s expression cracked open to reveal an unhappy frown. “I mean to say… surely you’d be welcome at any of the mosques here. Most of the city's residents will be observing the holiday, will they not?”

It was obvious from the narrowed glance Yusuf darted at him that Nicolò hadn’t righted the ship by continuing to speak. In fact, it seemed to be sinking even more rapidly now. His mouth snapped shut, eyes fixed intently on the empty clay cup gripped between his hands until Yusuf sighed and said, “Travellers are exempt from observing the traditions of Ramadan, though expected to make it up at some other point during the year. Our bodies require the energy of food to keep up with the exertions, so fasting isn’t reasonable.” 

Nicolò frowned. They’d been stationary in Alexandria for almost two weeks, weighing options for their next moves. Though he’d spent much of that time more sick with anticipation than he’d been willing to admit as Yusuf remained indecisive about whether he’d travel with Nicolò any further. Privately, Nicolò often wondered why Yusuf didn’t seem to consider returning to his family in al-Qāhira. The rare personal stories he’d shared gave the impression that Yusuf was fond of many of them. But Nicolò refused to push. 

Instead, he’d prepared by trying to picture his life - which stretched out, possibly endless, before him now - without Yusuf’s company.

Already it felt impossible, despite barely knowing (and, in Yusuf’s case, still barely tolerating) each other. Even with his best efforts, Nicolò had found it increasingly difficult to ignore the gnawing sense that this could be anything other than a shared destiny, some sign about their larger purpose. Though... he could no longer say for certain if he believed it one from God or not. Whatever was happening, the pull of it was undeniable. And the idea of continuing onward without Yusuf ached like the bruises it seemed would never mar either of their skin again. 

But still. Nicolò didn’t push. The very least Yusuf deserved from him was the space to make this decision on his own. 

Just that morning, Yusuf had been contemplating aloud the benefits of joining a merchant ship scheduled to sail northwest toward Sicily in a few days' time. Yusuf, however, had also had multiple last minute changes of heart about similar journeys before. So Nicolò could only wait, and hope. 

And not push. 

Nicolò studied Yusuf’s profile as he spoke to the server he’d gestured over once more. His friendly, open smile was back while he flirted with the young woman, smoothing over the fact that they’d obviously overstayed their welcome and passing her some extra coins with a wink. She rolled her eyes, good humored, and slipped them into a pocket of her skirt before shooing them out the door. The brief interaction seemed to revive Yusuf from his earlier dark mood. He was speaking to Nicolò breezily again, pointing out sights as they wandered the wide streets back toward the inn.

Merchants lingered around the bazaar, chatting as they packed up their stalls and a few haggled with some harried last minute customers. The colorful awnings of their stalls were crammed close together, sprawling outward like its own small village. Enormous buildings encircled the market’s perimeters, the gleaming white stones glowing in the moonlight as their impossibly high walls reached toward the clear night sky. Looking around him, Nicolò felt his chest expand.  

The slight exertion of their walk to the outskirts of the agora had left Yusuf’s cheeks pleasantly flushed, loosing a few rebellious curls from the knot at the back of his head. He still spoke on occasion, lifting a hand to gesture with elegant fingers as he explained some point of history or another about the places they passed.  

Well, Nicolò decided, the uncharacteristic recklessness from before buzzing between his ribs as he hefted his basket to his other arm, maybe just a nudge would be worth a try. “What if you stayed here instead of travelled?” he asked into a pause. At Yusuf’s questioning glance, Nicolò added, “For Ramadan. If you aren’t traveling then you can observe, yes?”

“Yes,” Yusuf confirmed, a note of something wary in his voice. 

Nicolò steeled himself and continued, sweeping his arm around him. The Jami al-Attarin mosque sat looming and impressive at the end of the long street, its splendid exterior courtyard alight with colorful lanterns. “Stay if it’s important to you. What’s another thirty days of being idle?” Nicolò's mouth twisted into a sardonic smile. “It isn’t as though we don’t have the time.”

They stopped outside their modest two-story inn but lingered in the street while Yusuf gazed toward the mosque. Moonlight limned his profile in silver.

After a few endless moments, he shook his head. Nicolò's stomach sank, then clenched, when Yusuf looked at him, expression unreadable. He held his breath. Eventually, Yusuf asked, “You will stay also?”  

“Yes,” Nicolò said on an exhale, almost before the question was fully formed. Yusuf blinked, his mask cracking once more, though Nicolò could no more easily decipher what it revealed. Whatever it was seemed delicate, too fragile yet to touch. In his native Ligurian, which Yusuf did not speak, he added, “It would be my honor.”

A couple of days after this decision, Nicolò determined it was time to acquire work. In addition to the dwindling coin earned from odd jobs picked up during their winding route to Alexandria, Yusuf had finally told him about the jizyah. 

“You should know, since you’re intending to stay for more than a brief sojourn,” he’d said to Nicolò the next morning, as they broke their fast together at their modest rented room’s solitary table.

Nicolò had paused in the act of reaching into the bowl of dried dates between them, eyebrow quirked. It was the most words either of them had spoken since rising from their bedrolls with matching dark circles under their eyes. Nicolò couldn’t help wondering if perhaps he wasn’t the only one being haunted by strange dreams of stranger women, but Yusuf’s demeanor had firmly shut down any attempts to broach the subject. Though on this one, he continued, “It’s possible you’ll be approached by someone once you’ve been spotted around the city’s markets enough times by the wrong people. They’ll expect you to pay a, ah…” Yusuf paused, gesturing as he grasped for the word. “A jizyah - a sort of… collection, I suppose? Paid to the local authorities.”

“A tax?” Nicolò asked, and Yusuf snapped. 

“Close enough. It’s expected of all non-Muslim inhabitants of Islamic caliphs, for the upkeep of your churches and such.” He paused again, taking a bite of his food and chewing with a considering expression. Then he swallowed, shrugged. “Perhaps not, though. How lax they are with it depends on the current government. Just avoid any administrative looking types, and you should be fine.”

Still, Nicolò opted the following day to seek employment. Even if he avoided the jizyah, the inn’s owner would expect payment for their room each week in advance.

However, in the hidden depths of his heart, Nicolò almost wished to be accosted by any of the official looking men with ledgers hanging around the market’s money-changer and collections stalls. He’d likely even welcome it. The penalty of paying an extra fee for the chance to stay at Yusuf’s side a little longer felt more than generous, considering the punishment Nicolò actually deserved.

Though he would endure that as well, should Yusuf ever decide it worth the effort to enact retribution. In fact, with each passing hour in the other man’s presence, Nicolò grew increasingly, uneasily certain that there wasn’t much he’d refuse if Yusuf asked it of him.

Anything to be even marginally worthy of Yusuf’s forgiveness. To even slightly atone for the evil he’d done. 

It didn’t take long wandering through the bustling bazaars at the heart of the city to stumble across a call for able-bodied workers. The large man making the announcement was difficult to miss. His voice boomed from somewhere deep within his broad chest as he held up a thin sheaf of papyrus, foreign script writ large across it. Nicolò stood among the gathered crowd and hefted his pack to settle more comfortably on his shoulder, contemplating the best approach for making himself understood. He was almost certain from the way the men around him were raising their hands and stepping forward that this was his opportunity. 

Before he could formulate a plan, a voice to his right spoke up in heavily accented Greek. “You seem lost, pale devil.” 

Nicolò's head snapped around, looking down into the deep brown eyes of a man with skin a few shades darker than Yusuf’s. His midnight black curls were shot through with gray and more tightly coiled, a similar twinkling mischief about his smile. All told, the stranger and Yusuf looked not much alike at all. This new man was at least a head shorter as well, but the smile put Nicolò at ease. He chanced returning it with one of his own, though self-deprecating.

Nicolò rubbed at the back of his neck, admitting, “Yes, a little. I’m looking for work, and it seems I’ve found it. But I admit that I’m not yet familiar enough with the Arabic dialects to know how to proceed.” 

The stranger regarded Nicolò for a long moment, considering. “You a Frank?”

Nicolò winced. “Genoese.”

“Hm. Word is your people were responsible for the Christian invaders being able to cause so much trouble in al-Quds. My cousin’s caravan got rerouted on the way there a couple months back because of the havoc they wreaked. He said if it weren’t for the Genoese ships bringing materials to build siege weapons the Christians would have died of thirst outside the walls.”

Something seized in Nicolò's chest, twisting painfully. He ducked his head, no longer able to meet the man’s friendly eyes.

It was a thought that had occurred to him before as well: how easily all this death and destruction could have ended before it even began. He fumbled out an apology, and after another pause, the man waved it away. “Not like you were on those ships,” he said, and Nicolò flinched as though struck by the words. By God’s grace, the man’s eyes were averted. He turned back and offered a bow. “My name is Maymun. What shall I call you, pale devil?”       

Maymun was more generous than Nicolò deserved, volunteering to act as interpreter for Nicolò to negotiate a place among the other laborers. It turned out that the Alexandria canal was in need of repairs and dredging, Maymun explained to Nicolò as the large man with the papyrus spoke, eyeing Nicolò with suspicion. The artificial canal, constructed during the reign of one of the many Ptolomies, wrapped around the land outside the city’s southern wall and was a primary source of fresh water and irrigation from the Nile delta to the east. But it often became clogged with detritus from various human use. On occasion throughout the city’s storied history, neglect of regular maintenance tasks had led to such misfortunes as poisoned drinking water and famine.

The work sounded grueling but honest, and the pay the man quoted through Maymun seemed fair. Nicolò agreed.

In fact, not only was the work grueling, it was also disgusting. Nicolò wasn’t certain the smell that had accumulated from the waste in the canal would ever wash out of his clothes. And yet he offered a genuine smile to the overseer of the workers as he passed Nicolò his day’s earnings. The expression on his thin brown face was still one of frowning confusion, as it had been since Nicolò had shown up with the others and patiently awaited his assigned task. Though he and many of the more hardened among the group had at least ceased glaring at Nicolò after he’d jumped into the water to help save another laborer from drowning. 

Farther down the canal, verdant fruit gardens sprawled outward from its banks, creeping toward the city’s walls. Green lingered in the periphery of his vision, and the air wafting toward him smelled sweet. Nicolò grinned outright, pocketing the meager handful of coins. 

“Thank you,” he said in halting Arabic, and the man’s frown deepened, his dark brows drawing together. Nicolò curled his tongue in unfamiliar ways, inexpertly shaping the foreign words that he’d requested a bemused Yusuf teach him that morning after he’d come back from fajr. “I will return tomorrow.” Nicolò pointed to the coins in his open palm, then to the ground between their feet. “Here.” 

After a stunned beat, the man tossed back his head and laughed. He clapped Nicolò on the shoulder, speaking a string of words too quickly for Nicolò to interpret. But still, Nicolò understood. 

Back in their rented room, Yusuf was sitting cross-legged on the edge of his bedroll. His hair was loosed from its usual tie, the long curls spilling forward to hide his expression as he gazed down at his clasped hands. At the sound of the door opening, Yusuf’s head jerked toward Nicolò, eyes widening a fraction. Somehow, the unobstructed view of his face gave Nicolò no more indication than before of what the other man was feeling. 

Time stretched. Yusuf watched Nicolò, and Nicolò watched back. The air between them gathered close, like a storm brewing on the sea’s horizon. 

Then Yusuf’s nose crinkled, and he lifted a hand to wave in front of it. Nicolò's eyes flicked away, mouth quirked into a weak smile. He shrugged, apologetic. “I found a job today.”

Yusuf had refused to let him explain any further until he’d marched Nicolò to the nearest bathhouse himself, muttering under his breath in Arabic the entire way. As Nicolò slid into the tepid water across from a group of Jewish men conversing in Hebrew, Yusuf scrunched up his face and nudged the discarded pile of clothing with a sandaled toe.

It made Nicolò smile to himself, despite the pang of regret when Yusuf insisted they’d likely have to burn them. Nicolò didn’t want to disagree with Yusuf’s declaration, especially when a breeze wafting through the bathhouse’s high stone windows shifted toward him. But Nicolò had always been pragmatic. They’d fled Juresalem with nothing but the grit- and blood-caked clothes on their backs and had managed to accumulate only a few new pieces in the aftermath. It seemed a waste to not at least try to save them.

When Nicolò said so out loud, Yusuf paused in toeing off his sandals to laugh, a short but sweet sound. The corners of his eyes crinkled, and he shook his head as he resumed disrobing, as though sharing a private joke with himself. Apparently he’d determined the statement unworthy of a response. 

Nicolò's gaze lingered until Yusuf gripped the hem of his tunic and pulled it over his head in one smooth movement. He turned away, a sudden lightheadedness overcoming him.

It seemed impossible Nicolò would ever grow used to how Yusuf could wear his emotions so baldly at times and yet still feel like a locked chest in all other ways. The ways that truly mattered. It ached, sharp as a dagger sliding between his ribs, to think Yusuf might never find Nicolò worthy of being trusted with the key to that chest.    

It took only a few short moments for Yusuf to finish undressing and slip into the water beside him, but it was all Nicolò needed for his thoughts to drift inward. He watched, trancelike, as the water ripple away from his chest.

A weight like a yolk settled across his shoulders. Likely exhaustion catching up to him from the day, Nicolò assumed. The water stilled for a moment, rippled again when the group of men from earlier exited the bath, still absorbed in a conversation Nicolò couldn’t understand. Most of the sounds around him had gone fuzzy, in fact.

Fog hung thick in his mind, a heavy veil. Perhaps it was more than exhaustion from just the day. From the past two months, maybe, since the Genoese ships made port in Jaffa.

No, Nicolò amended: from these last few long years of crusading and constant war. 

Moisture pricked at the corners of Nicolò's eyes. He blinked, swallowed.    

No.

From his whole life. 

Nicolò lifted a hand. Water streamed from it as he turned it over and over in front of his face, examining.

On their second day of being stuck in a seemingly endless cycle of killing each other only to rise and clash again, a spent and disarmed Nicolò had made a fumbling attempt to block the blade of Yusuf’s scimitar. It had sliced easily through his palm, as though it were soft cheese. He squinted at the unmarred skin now, searching for even the smallest scrap of evidence left behind from such a grievous injury. The sickening memory of bones and sinew weaving back together obscured the present for a moment, blurring it. A lump formed in his throat, suffocating, and Nicolò struggled to swallow around its mass. 

When Yusuf spoke his name, Nicolò jumped, startled. At the question in Yusuf’s raised eyebrows, he only huffed a self-conscious laugh and shrugged, lowering his hand. Eventually Yusuf nodded, as though Nicolò had voiced his thoughts aloud. He passed Nicolò a coral sponge and hard wedge of soap. And if Nicolò scraped himself raw scrubbing too hard, what matter was it? The skin knit itself back together, smooth and unblemished again before he could pay it more than a passing notice.

“It’s still strange for me as well.”

Yusuf was facing forward, speaking to the expanse of colorfully tiled walls across from them. Nicolò froze, frowning at his profile. He willed his rabbiting heart to calm as Yusuf, too, laughed. The sound was empty, hard edged, and it left a bitter taste in Nicolò's mouth.

“Sometimes I wonder if maybe I dreamed it all, if I’m still dreaming even now. Or perhaps I truly did die out there, and my body is in some anonymous mass grave being consumed by maggots while my soul endures one final test from Allah.” Yusuf shrugged, raising one shoulder to swipe against his cheek, and the lump in Nicolò's throat swelled. It was hard to breathe around. He tried to say Yusuf’s name, but no sound escaped. Yusuf’s head turned, like he’d heard all the same. 

Their gazes snagged, held. Light from the late evening sun slanted in from the arched windows, painting Yusuf golden, rays catching the water in glowing ripples that reflected against his skin. Nicolò was only dimly aware of the low murmur of conversation around them, the gentle lap of the water against his chest.

“I keep wondering if coming to this land was my destiny after all,” he said after a long moment, voice hoarse. Yusuf’s eyes glistened in the warm light. “If God always had a purpose for me, but if perhaps…” Nicolò hesitated, and Yusuf only waited. He was grateful. It gave him space to gather his courage, to finally confess aloud a thought that had been haunting him since Jerusalem. To Yusuf, he whispered, “If perhaps God is not who the Church led me to believe at all, nor was the intended destiny they preached. But… I do believe this to be a gift with a higher purpose.”

Yusuf’s eyes widened, his mouth falling open slightly. He drew in a breath as though to speak, but Nicolò rushed forward before he could lose heart. “Surely I cannot be alone in this. Tell me, Yusuf, please. Have you dreamed of the two women as well?”

It stung, watching Yusuf’s expression shutter as though against a winter storm, until none of the sweet openness from the previous moments remained. His mouth snapped shut. “We should go soon. The innkeeper is hosting a dinner tonight and has extended an invitation to us.”

“Yusuf,” Nicolò said, frustrated.

Not pushing be damned. He’d been attempting to bring up the dreams for weeks without success, only to be summarily shut down at the first direct mention of them. Yusuf could decide on his own what he wanted to do next with this gift they’d been given, but a reluctance to allow him to deny the truth of its existence flooded Nicolò like a wave swelling over the deck of a storm-tossed ship. He wished only to grab Yusuf by the lovely stretch of his bare shoulders and shake him.

But Yusuf had clearly decided the conversation was at an end. Nicolò looked away quickly as Yusuf stood, putting him at eye level with anatomy Nicolò had only seen in brief flashes during the forced closeness of travelling together. By the time he’d gathered himself, Yusuf was dressed once more, his hair dripping droplets of water that clung to the exposed stretch of his collarbone.

“I’ll meet you back at the inn,” he said, then left.

Yusuf was not, in fact, at the inn when Nicolò returned a short while later. Though the kindly owner Razin, a portly balding man a few decades his senior, and his wife Halawa were. The latter, who Nicolò had caught watching him and Yusuf more than once with a glint of uncomfortable shrewdness in her heavily lined eyes, was more than happy to drag Nicolò toward the inn’s decorated inner courtyard using the deceptive strength of her willowy arms.

In the courtyard’s center, a long table packed full of colorful, fragrant dishes of food waited. The air smelled divine, rich and heedy with spices. A small crowd had already gathered there, and more people trickled in as the evening wore on, until the benches surrounding the table were crammed shoulder to shoulder. Nicolò navigated trying to eat without elbowing his neighbors, offering awkward smiles when he failed. 

The gathering was a jovial event, the guests lively and chatting with one another beneath the warm glow of lanterns strung between columns lining the lush gardens. Nicolò was relieved when a young Jewish woman next to him introduced herself as Einat using Byzantium Greek. Though considering the way he kept just missing the gaze burning into the side of his face whenever he sought it out, Nicolò suspected Halawa’s seating arrangement to be more intentional than she’d led him to believe. Still, Nicolò and Einat spent most of the dinner engaged in pleasant conversation. She even offered to teach him basic Hebrew phrases in exchange for lessons in his native Ligurian dialect, a subject in which she seemed to have a keen interest. Nicolò agreed readily.

At some point, Yusuf must have slipped unnoticed into the festivities. By the time Nicolò spotted him, he was engaged in swapping tales with a group of laughing men on the opposite end of the long table. However, it soon enough became clear that Yusuf had no intention of acknowledging Nicolò's presence. Suddenly exhausted, Nicolò bid goodnight to his new acquaintances and dragged himself upstairs, collapsing on his bedroll and falling into a fitful sleep.

That night he dreamed of the women again, though this time was different than any before. This time, one of them died. Nicolò felt the searing pain of the spear that embedded itself into her gut while fighting in a battle amidst unfamiliar mountainous terrain like it was his own. She cursed loudly as she crumpled to her knees, in a language unlike any Nicolò had ever heard, her insides spilling hot into her hands. The last thing he saw was the bright-eyed woman running toward her, shouting a foreign name.

Nicolò sat upright with a gasp. He was still catching his breath when Yusuf followed, the sound of his ragged, desperate inhale of air filling the small room. 

Darkness engulfed the space, causing it to feel even more claustrophobic. No light spilled through the single window situated on the far side of the room, near the solitary table.

The new moon was upon them, Nicolò recalled learning at dinner. Ramadan was to begin in two days. He fumbled around the narrow stretch of floor between their bedrolls, groping for the oil lamp situated there, and lit it. The stone wall was cool enough to seep through the fabric of his one remaining tunic when he sat with his back pressed against it, arms looped around his drawn up knees. 

Then Nicolò just… waited, and watched, as Yusuf rubbed at his torso. Acidic bile rose in his throat, and Nicolò swallowed, wiping his palms against his thighs in an attempt to rid them of the visceral sensation of holding his own intestines. Outside the window, the city was still. Once Yusuf’s breathing grew even again, he glanced in Nicolò's direction, saying nothing. 

Still, Nicolò waited. 

“Plenty to have nightmares about,” Yusuf said finally, acerbic. He glared at Nicolò, who frowned. For some reason, the lingering silence seemed to agitate Yusuf even more. His eyes narrowed to slits and he spat, “Most of them are about you and your fellow barbarians, you know.”

Nicolò flinched, though he didn’t respond.

What would the purpose of a hollow apology be to someone who’d suffered and lost as much as Yusuf? He had every right to his wrath. Nicolò would bear that righteous rage for as long as he deemed necessary. And if Yusuf saw fit to blame Nicolò for the sins of all his kin, then he would accept that as well.

What his silence also concealed was that he understood far better than Yusuf likely realized. Though the subject of them differed, Nicolò had endured plenty of nightmares about the Christians of the Latin Church since he was young.

After another long moment, Yusuf’s shoulders drooped, and he looked away. He flopped back onto his bedroll with a groan, hands covering his face.   

“Raven haired, both of them?” Yusuf’s words were muffled, but Nicolò heard them like the clear ringing of a chapel bell. He stayed very still. “One with dark eyes as well, the other with eyes like…” He removed his hands then, head turning toward Nicolò to reveal an anguished expression.

Nicolò nodded, slow. Eventually, Yusuf whispered into the delicate space between them, “What does it mean?”

Nicolò shook his head. That, he wasn’t certain of himself. He hadn’t even been certain the shared nature of their dreams was real before this moment, when Yusuf confirmed his own.

There was a seed of an idea, however. One that had been struggling to take root over the past weeks, like his mind was a soil too drained of the nutrients it needed to thrive. As though it was too absurd to even consider. Although some months ago, Nicolò's current situation would have also seemed beyond consideration or possibility. 

Perhaps it was something different, then. Perhaps it was that Nicolò wouldn’t, couldn’t, dare to let himself hope. If these dreams were truly what they seemed, if he and Yusuf weren’t fully alone in sharing this fate…

Nicolò crossed his arms, his body shying away from the ember of yearning sparked by that thought. The stone wall behind him had warmed to match his own radiating heat, and he stretched his legs in front of him, scrubbing a hand over the beard he kept intending to shave. Yusuf had turned onto his side to face him. The dancing flame of the lamp reflected in his eyes. 

Neither spoke. It seemed a cruel irony that after so long spent waiting for Yusuf to broach this topic, it was during a moment when reluctance to dig any deeper had draped over Nicolò like a stiff, formal chasuble, weighing him down. The thought of talking about it now only made him more weary. Something to do with the late hour, perhaps.

Nicolò was just so very tired. 

He stared, unseeing, at the flickering shadows cast onto the walls, the silence between them heavy but not necessarily uncomfortable. Yusuf’s gaze remained fixed on him, almost like a tangible touch.

Not for the first time, Nicolò found himself wondering how it would feel for Yusuf to actually touch him. He frowned, rubbing at his upper arms and shivering despite the lack of chill in the late summer night.

Of course, he had been touched by Yusuf - many times. Killing and being killed in turn until they’d both grown too weary of the effort. But since calling their tentative truce they’d remained cautious, taking extra care to leave a respectful distance between themselves at all times. For Nicolò, this wasn’t anything unfamiliar. His mother had been free enough with her affections, but she’d died when he was young, and his father had sent him to the Church soon after. 

And the Church… well. 

Yet Nicolò had observed Yusuf with others, from the time they’d fled Jerusalem onward. He’d first noticed his tendency toward easy physical affection while around the rural farming family with whom they’d exchanged labor for a few night’s reprieve in their barn. It wasn’t uncommon during their stay for Yusuf to ruffle the hair of the many young children running around the surrounding fields or pull the elderly matriarch in for a hug while complimenting her cooking or sling a friendly arm around the eldest son-in-law during conversation. When it came to Nicolò, though, Yusuf was as restrained as a monk. 

Nicolò sighed. “I do not wish to discuss it right now.” 

He shrugged at Yusuf’s raised eyebrows. The question in them was obvious, but Nicolò brushed it to the side. 

Blessedly, Yusuf permitted a change of subject, seeming content enough instead to answer Nicolò’s benign questions. He described his previous day’s trip to a nearby mosque to help in preparations for Ramadan. It amused him to learn that Nicolò had been unaware that they would not be charged rent during the holy month, per Muslim tradition. Though his smile was soft, no mocking edge to it, as he explained the significance of giving zakat during Ramadan especially.

The concept intrigued Nicolò, and his curiosity soon overtook his dark mood. He asked question after question about other traditions, which Yusuf answered with his usual weighted consideration. Eventually, Nicolò learned about the expectation of abstinence from physical intimacy as well.     

“Like Yusuf with Zulaikha,” Nicolò recalled. He smirked. “Integrity and moral scruples in the face of temptation?”

Yusuf’s cheeks flushed, small patches of color appearing above his dark beard and illuminated by dim light from the dying lamp. Nicolò's mouth went dry. He cleared his throat as Yusuf replied, “To feel closer to Allah, yes. That is the intention behind it at least.” 

The pause that followed felt loaded with something unsaid, and Nicolò looked away.

“The God of the Latin Church makes a similar demand of His priests. A vow of celibacy, though for much longer than one holy month.” 

Yusuf whistled, low. “And do they feel closer to God for it?”

His wording caused Nicolò to blink, caught off guard. For a few moments, he searched his memory. Surprised, Nicolò realized that, for Yusuf, his past was likely just as shrouded in mystery. 

“I cannot speak for every priest, but to me it seemed more like one of His punishments,” Nicolò responded, and Yusuf’s jaw fell open. The dramatics of it, paired with his eyebrows disappearing into the wild tangle of dark curls above them, loosened something in Nicolò's chest. His mouth twitched upward, almost a smile. “My father was convinced to send me to a rural monastery when I was a child. For someone raised as I was, priesthood felt like the natural path.” 

The untruth of it coated his mouth in a sour taste. Nicolò had trudged through the training and education required to become a priest of the Latin Church like he’d been given a dull blade and instructed to cut a brand new trail through dense underbrush. Nothing about it felt natural. If Yusuf noticed the lie, he was generous enough not to mention it.    

“But you’re no priest now?”

The unexpected question startled Nicolò back to attention, a note detected in Yusuf’s tone causing his ears to burn. Slowly, he shook his head. After a moment, Yusuf nodded slightly, as though to himself, but said no more on the subject. Instead, he gazed toward the window, expression distant. Nicolò took a few deep, quiet breaths, willing the flames licking beneath the surface of his skin to retreat.

Eventually, Yusuf broke the silence once more, his voice quiet. “I was worried earlier, when I returned to an empty room and your pack gone. I believed… I thought perhaps you’d left after all.”

His face was still angled away, but Nicolò could see the wrinkle of concern that had appeared between his brows.

Desperation warred with caution inside him. He ached to close the distance between them, to do everything in his power to convince the other man that Nicolò would die a thousand more grisly deaths at those hands just to stay at his side even a few days longer. The words flowed up from somewhere deep in his chest, flooding his mouth. But Nicolò clenched his jaw against it, damming them up before they could rush forth and drown the delicate seed of whatever was being planted between them. 

“I wouldn’t do that,” he said instead, and Yusuf finally looked at him. His expression had reverted back into something impossible to translate.

The oil in the lamp was running low, and soon the room around them grew dark.

Nicolò lowered himself to lie on his side and wondered if he’d ever find a language to describe what his life had felt like since meeting Yusuf, since he first fell to his sword and began to dream of what he was increasingly certain was his destiny. It felt too expansive, too complex, too lonely and furious and miraculous for any words to possibly incapsulate. Though, if they had one thing now, it was apparently time.

Yusuf was lying down now as well, facing Nicolò, the whites of his eyes barely visible. A sudden determination solidified in Nicolò’s chest, and he vowed to himself to use this unfathomable gift to understand everything he could about this equally furious and miraculous man across from him. As much as Yusuf would allow, for as long as he would tolerate Nicolò's presence. 

But where to even start?

Chapter Text

Yusuf touched his forehead to the prayer mat a final time and did his best to ignore the storm gathering behind his eyes. The pressure of it pushed against his temples, aching so bad he wondered if his skull might split.

Not that it would matter, he mused with a bitter sigh, standing to roll up his mat. One of his most embarrassing deaths hadn’t even occurred in al-Quds. Rather, it happened when Yusuf, delirious with exhaustion and hunger and heat, had tripped over his own feet and directly into a large rock jutting out from the dusty road on which they were travelling. He wouldn’t soon forget the sensation of the delicate bones of his skull molding themselves back together, so he presumed a headache wouldn’t kill him either.

And yet. Every jostle of a shoulder as he’d bent among the others gathered in communal prayer had been agony, triggering a rolling thunderclap of pain.

Yusuf moved through the dense crowd that had gathered at the mosque for that evening’s maghrib, trying to hide the wince in his smile as he returned blessings of peace and mercy. The inner courtyard had been lavishly decorated for iftar, and the air that wafted toward him on a warm summer breeze was redolent with the smells of garlic and spiced grilled meat . Long, food laden tables lined the lush grass, the length of them lit with colorful oil lamps. 

Yusuf hoped with no small amount of desperation that breaking his day’s fast would quell the pounding behind brow. The storm there was threatening to break now; an occasional lightning bolt of pain streaked across his forehead. With poorly concealed impatience, he waited as the imam gestured for the assembled to begin eating, and had snatched up a handful of dates before the regal man even finished lowering his arm. Sweetness burst inside Yusuf’s mouth, coating his tongue as he bit into the fruit’s waxy exterior. It was so satisfying he almost moaned aloud.

Indelicately, he spat the pit into a bowl by his elbow, devouring another and chasing it with refreshing gulps of water. Yusuf sighed. Already the dense clouds were dispersing. 

An elderly matriarch seated to his left chuckled, presumably at his eagerness. Yusuf glanced her way and wiped the corners of his mouth, his smile sheepish. “Apologies for my rudeness, auntie. I’m not certain when I grew so delicate about fasting.”

It was true. 

Even prior to growing accustomed to the common experience of nearly starving to death on the journey to Alexandria, Yusuf had spent years in the Fatimid army. As much of an effort as they’d made to keep their soldiers fed, all the power in their vast dynasty couldn’t make enough food grow in earth that had been scorched from the endless wars waged by and against them. He was no stranger to an empty stomach. And yet, he must have somehow become soft during his weeks of relative safety and anonymity behind the city’s walls. 

Perhaps it was from indulging Nicolò’s endless curiosity about the variety of foods to be found around the markets, if only to watch the way his strange pale eyes narrowed in skepticism or grew wide with surprise after trying each one. Or perhaps it was that Yusuf had not adhered so strictly to a prayer schedule since he’d grown old enough to decide for himself that sleeping until mid-morning brought him more contentment than rising before the sun each day, much to his father and brothers’ frequent displeasure. 

Likely it was spending the week since Ramadan began in constant motion from sunrise to sunset, only pausing each time he heard the adhan. If he wasn’t doing mundane chores around the mosque, he was volunteering to walk the length of Alexandria’s broad avenues, distributing food to the city’s street-dwellers, or helping with any tasks that needed completing in the homes of the elderly or infirm. On occasion, Nicolò had even joined him for the latter. He’d asked almost timidly for permission on the second day of the holy month. 

“I would not want to intrude,” he’d said to Yusuf, mouth twisting into a grimace. “If it’s too much of an imposition…”

It had been, in a way, Yusuf reflected afterward. But probably not in the one Nicolò had meant. He’d likely assumed his company would come between Yusuf and time spent in prayerful reflection with Allah, wholly unaware that even his lack of physical presence was able to do just that. 

Their intense midnight conversation from the previous week had lingered like a stubborn mist on a lakeshore, refusing to lift enough for Yusuf to parse apart the complicated emotions it stirred within him. During the times Nicolò wasn’t at his side, Yusuf was frustrated to find he remained a near permanent fixture in his thoughts. Any others were obscured by flashes of broad shoulders or the hidden mole that had been revealed upon Nicolò finally shaving his haggard beard. It was distraction enough that Yusuf often realized with a start that he’d been polishing the same surface or sweeping the same spot on the floor for much longer than necessary. 

Of course, he would only allow his imagination to carry him so far. Nicolò's odd beauty and whatever feelings of desire it stirred in Yusuf’s gut didn’t negate the fact that Yusuf still wasn’t even certain he could trust the other man. Sweet, elusive smiles tucked into the corners of a generous mouth were not enough to change what Yusuf’s people had suffered in Jerusalem, at the hands of Nicolò's invaders - and, in Yusuf’s case, at the hands of Nicolò himself.

A polite cough jolted him out of his reverie. Heat flooded Yusuf’s cheeks as he turned back to the older woman. He was horrified to realize that she had likely been speaking for quite a few moments, all while he ignored her in favor of commiserating on his warring emotions about the pale devil who’d helped seize his people’s holy land. During Ramadan. 

Allah forgive him.

The woman smiled at his fumbling second apology, waving a hand and passing him a hearty bowlful of harira that smelled just like the one his mother used to make. 

“I recognize the distance in that expression. My nephew was the only of his brothers or cousins who returned from a battle with the Sunnis in Assayid some years ago, and he often wears a similar one.” She smiled kindly when Yusuf furrowed his brows at her. “It hasn’t escaped my notice that you’ve been here every evening for iftar, but not with any family. At first I wondered if it was by choice. A merchant, perhaps, or visiting scholar… but recently I have been thinking perhaps not.”

Yusuf stared, blinked, then shook his head. Not by choice, no.

Her name was Ayah, and she reminded Yusuf achingly of his favorite older cousin. As they spoke, the flickering lamp flames highlighted tones of yellow and red shifting beneath the surface of her warm brown eyes like desert sand. Deep smiles lines spidered out from their corners, crinkling as she laughed heartily at his better jokes. 

Over the course of the evening, Yusuf learned that Ayah and her infirm husband had come to the city some years prior. Famine had struck their war-torn region to the east, the result of a vizier named by the Fatimids neglecting their branch of the Nile. For years, crops refused to grow, and entire villages perished from starvation. Her sons had been slain in the same battle that her nephew survived, and what was left of the family had fled to Alexandria. The only who still lived with them was their widowed daughter-in-law, the other having remarried earlier in the year.

“Dima does what she can to help care for my husband and our home’s upkeep, but…” Ayah shrugged, accepting Yusuf’s proffered hand as they rose from the table together. The crowd dispersed around them, people laughing and patting their stomachs in satisfaction as they spilled out of the mosque. “It isn’t always easy, for two old, grieving women.”

Yusuf frowned, stopping as they exited onto the street and reached a point of inevitable parting. He placed a hand on Ayah’s shoulder before she could turn away. “Make a list tonight, auntie. I’ll be by after the sun rises tomorrow to help with any repairs you need.”

The papery skin of Ayah’s hand was dry and cool when she raised it to pat his cheek. Inside Yusuf’s chest, something cracked under the weight of the gesture.

He chose a wandering path back to the inn, seeking space to think. The sky was clear of clouds that evening, bright waxing moon approaching half-full where it glowed amidst a mass of stars.

In a few short weeks, it would be Eid. And then Yusuf would have to finally make a decision about what to do next with his, apparently eternal, life. Yusuf turned his head to the north. A light breeze lifted the short curls at the base of his neck, and he pretended the salt he tasted in his beard was from the sea. 

Unsurprisingly, Nicolò was already there when Yusuf returned to the inn. He sat hunched over a squat oil lamp at their room’s solitary table, squinting at a papyrus scroll. Despite spending their time apart unable to keep his mind from wandering to thoughts of the other man, Yusuf was entirely uncertain what it was Nicolò did most days. The canal project had wrapped up prior to the start of Ramadan, with the understanding that most of the laborers would be unable to perform their hired duties for the month. But Nicolò had still managed to disappear often, sometimes for entire mornings or afternoons, never speaking afterward of where he’d gone.

Though, to be fair, Yusuf hadn’t made a habit of asking. 

Nicolò offered a small smile in greeting as Yusuf closed the heavy wood door behind him. Yusuf simply nodded a response, moving the scant few paces to the far side of the room and unrolling his mat in preparation for ‘isha. 

It had felt awkward those first few nights, openly praying under the curious gaze of a former priest of the Latin Church, but Yusuf had since learned to ignore it. And Nicolò never commented, despite his obvious interest in the ritual. Presumably part of his continued efforts not to impune on Yusuf’s time spent engaging with the traditions of his holy month. 

After cleansing himself in the basin between their bedrolls, Yusuf crouched, wordlessly lighting the bakhoor waiting in its gilded burner. Thick smoke swirled around him, filling the space with the fragrant, spicy aroma of the perfumed wood chips, and he lifted his hands, breathing in deeply. 

Then, as he had done without fail for the past nine nights, Yusuf prayed for God to forgive him.

The next morning seemed to dawn earlier than usual, and Yusuf’s headache had returned with a vengeance. His sleep had been fitful, fractured, though he didn’t recall waking at any point. 

He’d dreamed of the strange women again, thankfully without the visceral, grisly death that had accompanied the last. They’d been sitting around a campfire instead, simply engrossed in companionable conversation, while the one with eyes similar to Nicolò’s had picked a stray bit of grass from the other’s hair. Despite the lack of internal organs spilling from a puncture wound in his gut, Yusuf found the imprint of emotions he was left with upon jerking awake were no less intense.     

“May I?” 

Yusuf lifted his head, blinking bleary eyes at the shadowy figure of Nicolò standing next to the table, gesturing toward the empty stretch of bench beside him. After a moment’s sleepy confusion, Yusuf waved a hand in permission. 

It shouldn’t have surprised him that Nicolò was also awake. He’d seen the open slit of his eyes, bright even in the dim predawn light, when Yusuf had risen with the adhan, felt their weighted gaze upon him as he’d performed the fajr. 

But that had been most mornings. This was the first where Nicolò had risen as well, let alone come downstairs to the inn’s inner courtyard to partake in suhur with him and the other Muslim guests. Yusuf watched, taking a silent bite of his honey-sweetened yogurt, while Nicolò mulled over a platter of fruits, cheeses, and breads. Yusuf had to hand it to Halawa; she and the daughters who helped run the inn had provided an impressive array of options each morning.

Eventually, Nicolò selected a slice of apricot to pop into his mouth. He closed his eyes for a moment as he chewed, humming a pleased note, and reached for another. Yusuf tracked the movement, considering. He’d never been at his sharpest in the mornings, his thoughts honey slow and hazy in the early hours. Nicolò was tearing apart a hunk of bread now, passing the other half to Yusuf as he said something unintelligible. Yusuf accepted it, still mesmerized by those hands. Wide palms, with long and capable fingers, and…

Yusuf swallowed, throat going dry, and blinked. 

The present dropped away with a suddenness that made his stomach swoop and churn like a tide pool thrashing against its rocky confines. A memory of those hands as they’d looked wrapped around the hilt of a longsword assaulted him, the flex of them as they’d swung the weapon with deadly accuracy toward Yusuf’s throat. He looked away, unable to meet Nicolò’s concerned gaze, and tried to calm his frenzied heartbeat. 

A moment passed, then another, then innumerable others. At some point, Nicolò had ceased waiting for Yusuf to speak again. He turned his attention instead back to eating, glancing on occasion in Yusuf’s direction. 

Finally, the blurring at the edges of Yusuf’s vision sharpened back into focus, and other details began to filter into his awareness: the sleepy murmured conversations of the guests around them, the cool, hard stone of the bench beneath him. He took a deep, bracing breath, and one more for good measure. Emotions mastered, he turned to Nicolò, stretching his mouth into an ill-fitting smile. 

“So,” Yusuf began, voice mercifully steady, and Nicolò eyed him with clear suspicion. But he said nothing further, angling his body instead to give Yusuf his full attention. Yusuf found himself perversely grateful for both actions. He was a sick man. He continued, “Where will you be disappearing to this fine day? It seems lately that you’re always off on some mysterious and important task.”

Nicolò’s tongue darted forward, licking the sheen of fruit juice from his lips as he considered his answer. Then he smiled, small and secretive, and shrugged. “I have made some friends around the city,” he said, obliquely, and only that. 

If it weren’t for Ramadan, Yusuf would be spitting every creative curse he could think of at the infuriating man before him. 

Though, if he were being very honest, Yusuf was also a little jealous. His entire life, Yusuf had borne the burden of wearing his emotions so plainly that a blind beggar could read them kilometers away. That’s what his mother and sisters used to tell him, at least. But even after their months of acquaintance, Nicolò remained wholly unfathomable. From the eerie sea glass color of his eyes that betrayed nothing of what he was thinking, to the stony set of his face, so similar to the Roman style statues Yusuf had seen during his years spent working for his family’s merchant business - he was impossible to interpret. 

Between this and Nicolò’s broken, heavily accented Greek, Yusuf was often left with a sense of being adrift during and after their interactions, groping for anything to keep himself afloat. It was the reason why Yusuf had found himself pacing their rented room that first day he’d returned to find Nicolò’s things missing, scouring his memories for any clues he’d missed that Nicolò had wished to go.

After a moment, Nicolò quirked an eyebrow, as though reading something into Yusuf’s thoughts that he himself was struggling to translate. “I’ll return to the inn this afternoon, before your evening prayers.”

Yusuf only nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He glanced at the hands folded in Nicolò’s lap, then he glanced away again.

As promised, Yusuf borrowed some tools from an obliging Razin and headed for Ayah’s home after sunrise, following the convoluted directions she’d given him with relative ease. It was with no small amount of surprise that Yusuf realized how familiar these wide avenues had grown to him in the scant few weeks since their arrival. He turned onto a narrower side street, glancing up. The cloudless morning was already portending another stiflingly hot late summer day, and Yusuf hurried along, intending to complete as many tasks as he could before the heat drove him to exhaustion. 

After paying respects to Ayah’s sickly husband, he tackled her list with a fervor. Under the sternly watchful eye of her daughter-in-law Dima, Yusuf mended broken shutters and saw to the loose, splintered balcony railings that needed replacing.  

By midday, he’d worked his way through the home’s most pressing repairs and was busy sweeping cobwebs from corners too high for either woman to reach when the adhan sounded. Yusuf wandered into the front room, unfurling his mat to observe dhuhr alongside Ayah’s small family. The prayer’s final ringing note had barely faded when Dima abruptly stood and walked away without a backward glance. Yusuf watched her go, frowning.

Ayah sighed. “Don’t fret too much about her. It gets quiet around our home, and she has been lonely since our other daughter-in-law moved to be with her new husband’s family.” 

She thanked Yusuf as he helped her to her feet and bent to retrieve her mat along with his. At Ayah’s gesture, they moved toward the home’s modest inner courtyard to sit at a small table positioned beside a shrub of vining jasmine, the air perfumed with the floral aroma of its white blossoms. 

“She misses her late husband, my son, as well, even as she refuses to see it’s not a grief she carries alone. And our nephew visits less frequently these days. To avoid his guilt at seeing her anguish as much as anything else, I believe. It is… difficult for her to be around anyone who survived fighting for the Fatimids.” 

Ayah’s gaze went distant and she sighed again, a quiet sound, though heavy with meaning. She looked back to Yusuf. “What my nephew doesn’t realize is that it isn't him she blames for her husband’s death. It’s Allah.”  

Yusuf blinked, surprised. His predawn yogurt curdled in his stomach with the sudden shameful awareness of how often he’d pondered whether God had cursed him by permitting him to survive as he did, when so few of his comrades had. How he continued to wear this fate like the hairshirts he’d heard the monks of Nicolò’s faith were so fond of using for self-flagellation.

Perhaps the other man had been more of an influence on him than Yusuf realized. A hysterical laugh bubbled in his throat at the thought, and Yusuf swallowed it down.    

Reading into the silence with uncomfortable accuracy, Ayah shook her head and patted his thigh. Her smile was soft, reassuring. “It’s a blessing you and my nephew are still here. What else could another chance at life be but that?” 

Yusuf inhaled sharply and blinked again, though more rapidly this time. Ayah nodded, swiping at one of his cheeks. 

“But I do not believe it was Allah’s fault my family has suffered so much loss, because I do not believe it was Him who demanded my sons and nephews be sent to fight these wars. No,” she said at Yusuf’s puzzled look, words now a blade slicing through the air before her, “It’s the men who have gained enough power and influence to twist His word into justifications for their endless grabs at power. They are who I blame.”

Something pulsed, painful, in Yusuf’s chest as he took in the set of her jaw, her squared shoulders. “You truly believe this?”

“So much devastation, and for what? For the opportunity to say that one human man or another is the rightful leader of the followers of Islam? As though a leader is someone forged through blood ties and the ability to purchase armies, not his character and his actions.” 

She scoffed, waving a dismissive hand. “My faith relies on no man to define my relationship with God, especially any so willing to spill Muslim blood over it. I watched while my homeland was destroyed, all over which dynasty of men would rule its people next. How is this so different from the ways the invaders of Antioch and Jerusalem have perverted God’s word to justify their massacres?”

Yusuf gaped at her, jaw open. At some point as she spoke, a chasm had split open inside his chest, and he was acutely aware of the raging torrent of emotions beneath.

It was different, he wanted to shout at her. He had been there. The blood of his people had run like rivers through the streets and stained his feet a tacky brown; the air was clogged with the putrid stench of death, so pungent it choked whoever tried to draw a breath. 

Yusuf continued to stare, all while Ayah watched him back. Her expression was the picture of patient benevolence, even now, and after a long moment it calmed the roaring in his ears. 

Perhaps… it was not as simple as that after all. 

She had also lost everything, he realized like a brick to the face. Her family had been forced to leave what remained of their home behind in order to escape the drawn out death of starvation and dehydration that so many of their kin around them had fallen to. They and countless others had mourned as the verdant oases that had nourished their region’s masses for generations shriveled into the sand before their eyes. 

Yusuf’s head spun.   

“There was a reason Allah spared you, Yusuf,” Ayah concluded, voice reaching him from a vast distance. “Ramadan is as good a time as any to understand more about why.”  

Numb, Yusuf followed her to the door of her home. He bent for her to kiss his cheeks, bidding a distracted farewell until that evening’s maghrib. 

It was early enough in the afternoon yet, and Yusuf found that he was no longer bothered by the heat or the desire to quit himself of manual labor until it passed. On impulse, he changed course, heading instead toward a nearby mosque to speak with one of its imam. They often knew where the most help was needed that day, and Yusuf was soon volunteering to patch the roof of a home belonging to an elderly couple living just outside the city walls. 

One other man went with him, but Yusuf didn’t mind the company. They spoke little beyond deciding on a plan of action, and eventually Yusuf set himself to work with a single-minded focus, ignoring the sweat stinging in his eyes. At one point he lost a fingernail to the intent pounding of his hammer. He cursed and sat back on his haunches, watching in morbid fascination as it regrew within the space of a few moments.  

Yusuf worked more carefully after that, not wanting the stranger beside him to catch on to his secret. The more cautious pace freed enough space in his mind that, unbidden, thoughts of Ayah’s words began to seep into the cracks. 

Soon, he drifted toward the only other subject that had taken up as much of his recent attention as the confounding riddle of Nicolò. The one he was truly meant to be contemplating during this month.

Forgiveness. 

Yusuf hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d quoted his brother’s criticisms of him to Nicolò during their shared evening at the tavern. Even as a youth, Yusuf had never fully understood or wished to engage with the strict trappings of religion, whether it was those of the Sunni or Shia. He’d preferred to have his own relationship with God, on his own terms. It hadn’t seemed to him over the years that enjoying an occasional trip to the vineyard or an extramarital tumble with a beautiful man or woman would get in the way of that, no matter what the imams at his madrasas preached. 

For so long in his hotheaded youth, Yusuf had stubbornly clung to his moral stances and insistence of the variable interpretations of the Quran. He’d argued with mosque leaders over tradition and infuriated any scholars attempting to drill jurisprudence into his head through rote repetition. 

But then the siege of Jerusalem had happened, and the barbaric invaders had painted one of their holiest cities red with the blood of his kin. It had only been then, after it was too late and he was wading through the sea of bodies comprised of his brothers in arm, impossibly alive despite falling to one of the pale devils himself, that a thought had struck Yusuf: perhaps he’d been wrong this whole time; perhaps Allah was punishing him after all. 

What option had he now but to do everything he could to be worthy of His forgiveness? To await the end of his suffering, exiled from his home and family, as the prophet Yusuf had done for decades? 

If it was even possible that his suffering could ever end. 

But then again, what if Ayah had been correct, and his survival was indeed a blessing? It echoed Nicolò’s sentiments about their shared destiny so closely that Yusuf flinched from the thought, toward another memory. One of their conversation at the bathhouse, not so long ago, when Nicolò uttered one of the stranger things he’d said to him since their first meeting - words Ayah had also unwittingly evoked.

Perhaps God is not who the Church led me to believe at all , he’d mused, as though just speaking such a thought aloud wouldn’t get him crucified as a heretic by said Church. 

It wasn’t a consideration Yusuf had wished to examine too closely, especially at that moment. Nor did he in this one.   

Shortly after ‘asr, Yusuf finally returned to the inn and collapsed onto his bedroll. He stared at the ceiling, an invisible weight pressed steadily down onto his chest, pinning him there. Long moments passed, indistinguishable from each other. By the time the door opened to reveal a flushed Nicolò, the sun had shifted beyond the frame of the room’s narrow window, casting it into dim shadows. 

Yusuf raised his head, let it drop heavily back down again. He heard Nicolò pause, then shuffle over to sit on the edge of his own bedroll. Light flared as he lit the oil lamp between them, and Yusuf squinted. 

Into the pent silence, he wondered if Nicolò would ask what was wrong. Yusuf rolled the thought over in his mind, contemplating if that was what he wanted, or how he’d react. There was no way to be certain. Nicolò had backed off with his endless questions since Yusuf had snapped at him in the baths that afternoon. And since then, he’d reverted to the safer, surface level ones he’d favored during the first weeks of their tentative acquaintance.

Instead, Nicolò eventually said, “I spoke earlier of the friends I’ve made. One of them has invited me to join his family for iftar this evening.” 

This surprised Yusuf into turning his head, brows furrowing. A corner of Nicolò’s mouth quirked, hesitant. “He said you are welcome as well. I know you have been going to the mosque every night to break your fast, but if you’d like a change…”

He trailed off with a shrug, suddenly seeming much younger. Yusuf studied him for a moment longer, frowning. Eventually he said, “You actually made a friend?”  

As it turned out, Nicolò’s friend was indeed real. Not only that, he was a squat, friendly Muslim man named Maymun, who welcomed Yusuf to his family’s table with a booming laugh and clap on the back. 

Yusuf’s bewilderment at this newly discovered truth had barely passed when he learned that Nicolò had in fact made multiple friends over the course of his time spent in the city. Among them, a young Jewish woman with frizzy brown hair named Einat, who had an enticingly wicked smile and seemed to enjoy teasing Nicolò about the slow progress he was making with his basic Hebrew lessons. Yusuf liked her, despite the pit in his stomach at the easy, good-humored way Nicolò sighed and rolled his eyes at her jabs. It was obvious they were comfortable with one another.

“She has picked up Ligurian much faster, I’m ashamed to admit. Thank you.” 

The latter Nicolò said in surprisingly clear Arabic, as he accepted the bowl of spiced lentil stew passed to him by Maymun’s eldest son. A dialect he was learning pieces of from the nuns in one of the few Coptic churches outside Alexandria’s walls, Yusuf discovered. Nicolò had apparently taken to visiting it on occasion with Maymun, where they’d been aiding the man’s sister with various tasks.

After this revelation from Maymun, Nicolò held Yusuf’s surprised look, a twinkle of something in the depths of his entrancing eyes. Smugness, perhaps? But that didn’t seem like Nicolò, from the little Yusuf actually knew of him. A challenge, maybe, or satisfaction at witnessing Yusuf struck speechless by his actions. 

The boisterous conversations around the packed table dulled to an unintelligible hum as Yusuf once again grappled with a word to accurately describe the color of those eyes. Eventually, Nicolò shrugged. A flush stained his pale cheeks, the tips of his ears. Yusuf continued to stare.

Nicolò said, “I suppose you could say I was inspired by the spirit of Ramadan all around us. It may not be my holy month, but I didn’t see why that should stop me from finding my own ways to feel close to God.” He paused, swallowed. “I haven’t…”

Nicolò hesitated again. Yusuf scanned his face, trying to read anything of what he intended to say, uncertain for some reason whether he wished for him to continue. The twinkle had been extinguished from Nicolò’s eyes, which had shifted into a similar hue as the Mediterranean before a storm. 

In the center of Yusuf’s chest, the chasm split open by Ayah’s earlier words cracked wider, the roaring river of emotions echoing more loudly than ever within it. He teetered, toeing its ragged ledge.

“You haven’t…” he prompted, and Nicolò started, his expression clearing.

“It’s nothing. A selfish thought, really, and not one worth speaking aloud,” he said after a long moment, the tips of his ears growing redder. 

Yusuf frowned, brows drawing together. He opened his mouth. To his consternation, no sound escaped. Mentally, he flipped through his not insubstantial catalogue of languages: varying dialects of Greek and Arabic, passable Latin, conversational Hebrew, even a tentative grasp on Sicilian. 

But try as he might, Yusuf failed to locate any string of words that felt adequate enough to translate his thoughts into spoken word. 

Before he could make another attempt, a laughing question and thump on the back from Maymun drew Nicolò into a debate being had with his many nephews. Tongue still tied in knots, Yusuf could only watch as Nicolò listened, expression set into fierce concentration, to their intentionally slowed down Arabic. He nodded along, responding with stilted, awkward questions of his own as he clarified various points. A sharp pain stabbed through Yusuf’s guts, not unlike being run through by a longsword. 

By Nicolò’s longsword. 

Sweat prickled at Yusuf’s temples. He struggled to master his breathing. One of Maymun’s younger nephews was now passionately arguing his side, and Nicolò was smiling with actual teeth, though he almost certainly couldn’t follow most of what the child was saying. Then he turned, glancing over at Yusuf with raised eyebrows, like they were dear friends sharing a secret joke.

Yusuf stood, abrupt enough to bang his knee on the solid wood table. He needed to be somewhere far away. 

Ignoring the concerned looks and questions from the guests seated around him, Yusuf strode through the inner courtyard and burst onto the street a few moments later. He bent at the waist, bracing his hands on his thighs, and took deep, grateful breaths of saltwater air. Gradually, the world steadied beneath his feet once more.

“Now why would you invite me to an iftar that you intended to leave before I’d even arrived?”

Yusuf spun and came face to face with Ayah. She had lingered at the mosque earlier that evening to speak with some friends after maghrib, vowing to catch up with Yusuf when he’d extended what he’d been assured Maymun had called an open invitation to all who needed a place to break their fast. 

While Yusuf fumbled for an excuse, Ayah narrowed her eyes, keen gaze sweeping him from head to toe. It was an expression Yusuf knew intimately from many of the women in his family. Usually the ones who’d grown wise enough with years to see directly through his horseshit. He sputtered to a stop, then sighed.

“There’s a man in there with whom I have a… complicated relationship,” Yusuf admitted, and Ayah’s eyebrows touched the hem of her headscarf. He hurried to continue, not wishing for her to draw the incorrect conclusion. “We fought on opposite sides in the battle of al-Quds. He… came with the invaders, but he’s since had a change of heart. It’s…”

Yusuf trailed off, scrubbing a hand over his face. His beard was badly in need of a trim.

“Complicated indeed,” Ayah said after a moment. Yusuf peeked at her from beneath his fingers, grateful to discover no trace of pity in her expression. She linked an arm into the crook of his elbow, leading Yusuf inside again as he began to protest. Ayah shushed him. “You would deny your company to an old woman, one who walked to a different part of the city just so you could break your fasts together? I thought better of you, Yusuf.”

Yusuf sighed, the passive chiding in her voice also intimately familiar, and allowed himself to be led.

Back in the large interior courtyard of Maymun’s impressive estate, Nicolò hovered by a column near the exit. The lines of his body were sharp with tension, and he appeared indecisive. 

Yusuf froze when those pale eyes lifted and pinned him, ignoring the curious noise from Ayah. A moment later, Nicolò stepped closer, his gaze darting between them, hands hidden behind his back. 

“Ayah, I presume?” Nicolò inclined his head, greeting her in his halting Arabic. Ayah didn’t bother to hide her bemused smile, and Nicolò clarified, his accent atrocious, “I have heard Yusuf speak of you before. Very good things.”

Ayah observed him for a moment, smile morphing into something different. The muscles of Nicolò’s forearms flexed, and Yusuf wondered if he was wringing his hands. Eventually, Ayah nodded in approval, slipping her own wrinkled hand into the crook of his elbow as well. 

Like two polished robin’s eggs, Yusuf thought when Nicolò’s wide eyes met his over the older woman’s head. But no. That wasn’t quite right either. 

They both accompanied Ayah to the table.

“How have you been here for a month and not gone to see Lake Maryut yet?” asked Basma, Maymun’s eldest niece, although still a good decade younger than Yusuf. Nicolò shrugged. 

“I had not heard so much about it before now,” he replied.

Basma turned to Yusuf, shaking her head with enough force to free a few tendrils of loose curls from beneath her scarf. “I’d hoped for better of you, at least. You told me you were a lover of beauty and the arts. The gardens on the Maryut’s shores have inspired scrolls full of poetry over the centuries! Tales have it there were whole sections of Alexandria’s great library dedicated to them.”  

“What are these gardens like?” Nicolò asked, suddenly rapt with attention. 

He folded his arms on the table, jostling the forgotten piles of empty dishes between them, and angled his long torso toward Basma as she expounded upon the lavish greens and bright bursts of color that sprawled along the great lake’s banks. The hungry expression on Nicolò’s face as he absorbed her words sparked something unpleasant in Yusuf’s chest, and it flared bright and hot when Nicolò turned it toward him. For once, the question in his eyes was communicated clearly, but Yusuf had learned enough of his personality by now to know Nicolò would never ask such a favor of him.

On impulse, and with impending regret creeping in even as he spoke, Yusuf said, “We can go see them together soon, if you’d like.”

Chapter Text

Another week passed, and Nicolò failed to find courage enough to bring up the promised trip to see the gardens of Lake Maryut again. Yusuf, on the other hand, seemed to have forgotten all together. 

Since his strange episode at their single shared iftar, he had reminded Nicolò of a trapped wild animal. When he was around for longer than a handful of moments, he paced the length of their room, unable to sit still. There was a warning glint in the deep brown looking back at Nicolò during the rare moments their gazes met anymore that caused any questions to evaporate on Nicolò’s tongue like water on parched desert sand. 

Though most often, Yusuf was nowhere to be found. He rose each morning for fajr and returned only shortly before ‘isha, if at all. One humid summer morning when Ayah stopped by their room to call on a favor, Nicolò learned that Yusuf had apparently been dedicating every second of spare time to giving zakat as Ramadan stretched nearer to its closing days.

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised to miss him. If those old gossips at the mosque are to be believed, he’s very in-demand,” she said, waving a dismissive hand when Nicolò invited her inside to sit. “I should probably warn him that a few of the more cunning among them are likely to start throwing unmarried daughters his way, in addition to requests for household repairs.”

During his only other interaction with Ayah at iftar, Nicolò had discovered that her Greek was minimal at best, and a dialect with which he was unfamiliar, so she’d spoken in slowed down Arabic for his benefit. His eyes narrowed as he parsed apart the words, then he frowned. 

Ayah was too busy adjusting her skewed headscarf to notice. She appeared distracted, muttering to herself too quickly for Nicolò to understand. Though the fretful note in her tone was universal.

She sighed and looked back at him. “Thank you all the same. Please tell him I came by.”  

“May I help with this favor?” Nicolò asked on impulse. Ayah squinted, her mouth moving silently as she translated Nicolò’s garbled question. He tried again. “If you do not want to wait for Yusuf to return, perhaps I would… suffice instead.”

He was almost certain he’d gotten some of the words wrong, but after another moment, Ayah seemed to take his meaning. She smiled, the crinkles around her eyes deepening, and gestured for him to follow. A warmth sparked somewhere deep inside Nicolò’s chest, its comforting heat thawing a place he’d believed to be permanently frozen over. 

As they walked, Nicolò pieced their fractured conversation into a complete picture. Ayah’s ailing husband’s health was poorer than usual on this day. She hadn’t wished to be far from him for long, but she’d realized she was missing some key components to prepare her requested ful medames for that evening’s iftar with her daughter-in-law’s new family. 

And so Nicolò spent the early afternoon running errands through the muggy heat that hung heavy over the city’s crowded markets. Then, after delivering baskets of delicious smelling ingredients to a grateful Ayah and catching sight of the inner courtyard, he volunteered to weed her overgrown gardens. 

Medicinal herbs sprawled outward from one of the courtyard’s far corners, and he passed a few pleasant hours knelt among the wild growth. He inhaled the citrus fresh aroma of coriander, rubbed marjoram leaves between the pads of his fingers just to enjoy the soft texture of their delicate fuzz.

At the sound of the adhan ringing out from the Jami al-Attarin, Nicolò stood and stretched his back. He hovered a polite distance away, brushing dirt from his palms, as Ayah’s family observed asr in the front room of their home. 

Prior to Jerusalem, Nicolò had never seen a Muslim pray. The first handful of times he’d observed Yusuf at it, early in their acquaintance, he’d been surprised to realize that it seemed not so different from his own faith’s prayers. Specific rituals that accompanied each, at specific times of the day, done mostly in isolation. 

But then they’d come to Alexandria, and Nicolò had felt foolish to see the truth of Muslim prayers, the deeply ingrained communal nature of them. The thought that Yusuf had spent those long weeks during their travels observing them alone bloomed like an aching bruise behind his ribcage. Even here, in the little front room of Ayah’s home, there was a holiness to how her small family moved in unison, how they breathed as one with tens of thousands of others. Nicolò swiped at his eyes.

Shortly after their prayers were complete, Nicolò bid his goodbyes. Dima, Ayah’s widowed daughter-in-law, only brushed past him, darting him the same wordless glare she’d been directing his way all afternoon. But Ayah kissed both of his cheeks, sending Nicolò on his way with a covered clay dish and a warm glow expanding in his core.

Once back in their empty room, Nicolò knelt at the end of his bedroll and pulled his pack toward him. Then he paused, glancing toward the door. 

The sack’s worn leather edges were warm where he gripped them, his knuckles white. It had been some days since Yusuf had bothered to return to the inn between asr and maghrib, and there was no reason to believe he’d do so this evening. Steeling himself, Nicolò reached into a hidden pocket sewn into the interior. There, his fingers brushed along the bumps of the smooth beads gathered inside, wrapping around them. 

There was a pale patch at the crucifix’s center, where the dark wood from which it was carved had worn down after years of being worried by the pad of his thumb. Nicolò studied it, chest tight. The weight of the rosary was familiar as he draped it across his palm, winding its length in a practiced pattern around his fingers. In the echoing quiet of the room, his breathing sounded ragged and shallow with effort. He bowed his head.

“Oh my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended you…” 

The whispered words spilled from his lips, flowing like water over a ledge. They filled the space, drowning him. Over and over, he chanted his unworthiness and pleas for guidance, rocking forward on his knees, his torso curled over the tight clutch of his hands. But when Nicolò finally pried opened his eyes, chest heaving, the only response was deafening silence. 

As it had been each time he’d attempted to pray since Jerusalem.

Blood slipped from between his clenched fist, where the cross’ corners had pierced the soft flesh of his palm. Nicolò tracked its sluicing path, lip curled, as it slid in rivulets down his wrist and splashed onto the stone floor. One steady drip after another, his blood collected into a small puddle. 

After a long moment Nicolò reached down, smearing it into a stain that would soon be the only remaining evidence of his wound.

In the days that followed, Yusuf never returned to share an iftar with Maymun’s family. Though Nicolò had attended a few more, hesitant to impose too often on Maymun’s generosity despite the open invitation. Thankfully, the older man had greatly exaggerated his family’s shared trait of sticking noses where they didn’t belong, and most who’d inquired about Yusuf’s absence had accepted Nicolò’s flimsy excuses and averted gaze without pressing. 

Only Einat seemed to doubt him. But even she had ceased her teasing prods after Nicolò snapped a terse response one evening to Basma’s innocent question about whether he’d yet visited Maryut. He’d felt guilty enough afterward that he’d arrived at the next iftar with his fumbling attempt at Ayah’s kunafa recipe, so patiently conveyed to him. Despite it being a poor imitation of her favorite Ramadan desert, Basma was generous enough to eat the entire thing. 

Meanwhile, Nicolò tried to put visiting the gardens of Lake Maryut out of his mind. It was more kindness than he deserved that Yusuf had entertained his curious whims enough to offer. Nicolò resolved not to bother him about it further. 

To keep busy, he continued swapping language lessons with Einat at one of the city’s beautiful public parks a few times a week. It was thrilling to hear her recite various versions of tales from the Torah, as well as her explanations about their Jewish origins. And, between her favorite pastime of criticizing his pronunciation more harshly than Nicolò believed he deserved, she was kind enough to indulge Nicolò’s litany of questions about the history of her people. The Church, he learned, had a very stringent interpretation of the Old Testament. He found he preferred Einat’s more embellished variations of the tales it contained.

At some point it became habit to bring bundles of food to share as they talked. They would sit under the shade of an old sycamore tree that faced a clear pond, glancing around with exaggerated surreptitiousness with each bite. It had become something of a game for them after the first time Einat caught Nicolò at it and laughingly assured him that nobody in the city cared if a non-Muslim wasn’t fasting during Ramadan.

“Oh, very subtle. Certainly no one noticed that,” Nicolò said with a smile one sunny afternoon in the middle of August, a week before the holy month’s end. Einat lowered her hand, empty now of the matzo ball she’d shoved into her mouth before swinging her head around with a wild expression in her eyes. 

Einat snorted, pulling her untameable hair over her shoulder and beginning to plait it. She shrugged. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

Consistent with her usual blunt style, Einat then reached out to place her thumb and index finger on either side of Nicolò’s throat, just below the hinges of his jaw. The first time she’d done this, it surprised Nicolò enough that his hand had flown toward his empty waist. Now, he only rolled his eyes as she said in Hebrew, “From here. Stop talking so much with the front of your mouth, Roman.” 

Nicolò raised an unimpressed eyebrow, and she patted his cheek with a smile. 

His sister had been an infant when Nicolò had been sent to the monastery, himself too young to recall much of anything about her as he aged. But on the rare occasions he’d allowed himself to imagine it, Nicolò hoped in the depths of his heart that their relationship would have been similar to this, had it been given the opportunity to flourish. 

A wave of wistfulness crested in his chest, followed by a crash of melancholy. Nicolò turned away, pulling up his knees to wrap an arm around them and tugging at a stray thread on the sleeve of his tunic. He’d been convinced by Yusuf some weeks ago to add more pieces to his wardrobe, and now owned three. After a moment, a hand appeared in Nicolò’s line of sight, anchoring him back to the present. In its small palm sat an offering.

He accepted the matzo ball with a sigh. “Thank you,” Nicolò said in Hebrew.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. If you’d asked when we first met, I would have said it’d probably take months before you were even able to string together a basic sentence. Now look at you.” It was a high compliment, coming from Einat. Nicolò nodded. The wave had washed back to sea, leaving behind an achingly pristine stretch of empty shoreline. 

Madre di Dio , he was tired. Nicolò scrubbed a hand across his face. 

Einat studied him, a crease between her substantial brows. She said, in nearly flawless Ligurian, “You're more difficult to read than usual today. Something on your mind?”

Nicolò frowned at her, a sting of resentment working its way under his skin like a splinter. Though it was admittedly unfair of him. Einat was far from the first person to express such a sentiment about Nicolò over the course of his life. The Church had long ago extinguished any instinct or inclination Nicolò may have ever possessed to openly display his thoughts and emotions. A hard but necessary lesson he’d learned early during his time at the monastery: keeping hidden meant keeping safe. It had never occurred to him to be bothered by such a thing before. For Nicolò, such a way of existing seemed to be more or less a fact of life. 

But increasingly, he was bothered. Did Yusuf believe him as coldhearted and devoid of original thought as Einat once had? Impossible to think the truth could be anything otherwise, considering how they met. 

Gradually, Nicolò’s mind slipped from the anchor of Einat’s presence, and he found himself adrift once more. 

Surely Yusuf was avoiding him for a similar reason. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise Nicolò to learn that the other man had been sleeping with his scimitar within reach and one eye open each night, awaiting the inevitable moment when Nicolò finally, mindlessly carried out his Church’s mission. No small wonder Yusuf preferred to spend as little time as possible with the barbaric Christian who’d slaughtered him without mercy numerous times. Especially if he couldn’t tell… if Nicolò had truly not given Yusuf reason to believe his heart had been so thoroughly changed since their first encounter. 

Was Nicolò so unknowable after all?  

The buzz of late summer insects grew louder, obscuring all other sounds. Nicolò shook his head to clear it. “What?” he asked, and Einat closed her mouth mid-sentence. She squinted. 

“I was saying,” she replied after a moment, slowly and in Greek, “that we’re probably ready to take the next step, wouldn’t you agree? There’s a synagogue nearby, and my rabbi will be thrilled to learn I finally headed his pleas to marry.” 

When Nicolò only stared, jaw slack, Einat thumped him in the middle of the forehead. Satisfied she’d once again captured his full attention, she peered at him, saying, “In all seriousness, Nicolò, are you feeling unwell? Let’s get out of this heat.”             

Nicolò shook his head, stilling her move to stand with a touch to the arm. “Do not worry yourself,” he assured her. “I am well. Merely prone to allowing my thoughts to carry me far away at inopportune moments.”

It didn’t sound convincing, nor did Einat appear convinced. She crossed her arms, her mouth opening around what was certain to be a cuttingly accurate observation, but Nicolò rushed to speak first. 

“Explain to me again,” he said, the flatbread he held up flopping over his hand, calling up another well-worn joke between them, “it’s unleavened because…”

Einat was clever enough to see through the flimsy change of subject, but it seemed she was in a rare merciful mood today. She sighed with dramatics that wouldn’t have been out of place on the stage of Dionysus’ Theater, tearing off a corner of the bread for herself. 

“Well, I’m not sure if you know this… but my people had to get very good at making food that was portable.”

During the rare afternoons when he wasn’t meeting with Einat or joining Maymun to visit his sister at St. Mark’s, Nicolò wandered the city, finding ways to help where he could. He passed more pleasant hours in Ayah’s courtyard, after she’d requested he come finish the job he’d started in her garden. On occasion, he attended iftar, or ate a quiet meal alone at the inn as he poured over the various scrolls and scripts he’d acquired. Despite how stilted their interactions remained, the few moments he and Yusuf did cross paths felt like basking in the sun on an overcast day, warm and fleeting before it retreated back behind the cover of clouds. 

And so went Nicolò’s days, with little variation. Gradually, a hum of contentment settled under his skin. Though it was slightly off key, as if blown through a warped wind instrument. Until one morning, nearly two weeks after their shared iftar and only a handful of days before the end of Ramadan, Yusuf asked if Nicolò would like to accompany him to see the lakeshore. 

“We’d need to leave early enough to stop by the docks afterward. An errand for Ayah,” he said, scratching the side of his beard as they sat together at their room’s single table. The pleasant rasping of the gesture was only amplified by Nicolò’s stunned silence. 

It must have lingered too long, though, because Yusuf frowned, crossing his arms and looking out at the waning moon. With no reason provided, he’d decided to return to the inn between iftar and ‘isha that evening. Nicolò glanced down at the scroll of foreign characters he’d been studying, still at a loss for words, then toward Yusuf once more. The other man had turned back to him, face shadowed in the guttering lamp light. 

“I know it’s been some time since I proposed the idea,” Yusuf said, sounding defensive for some reason. “If you’ve changed your mind -”

“I haven’t.”

Nicolò’s jaw snapped shut, embarrassed by the breathless, eager note he’d been unable to keep from his voice. The corner of Yusuf’s mouth lifted and twitched the dark curls of his beard, a lopsided, almost smile. It seemed to surprise him as much as Nicolò, and soon the expression dropped. Their gazes held, until Yusuf cleared his throat with a nod. Then he glanced away again.

“We can leave shortly after sunrise.”

The storied Lake Maryut lay southwest of Alexandra’s walls, where the westernmost branch of the Nile pooled before continuing onward to empty into the Mediterranean. It was also around a two hour walk. 

Upon discovering this new piece of information, Nicolò tried to not visibly fret about the toll such an excursion would take on Yusuf’s fasting body. Though apparently his efforts weren’t enough to go unnoticed. After catching Nicolò’s probing gaze darting away too slowly yet again, Yusuf sighed. He adjusted his keffiyeh as they walked and cast Nicolò a pointed look. 

“Do you so easily forget that we each very likely starved to death at least once crossing the desert? And none of those times did I begin the day’s journey full to bursting from one of Halawa’s wonderful suhur spreads.” Yusuf patted just above the sash tied around his waist, fingers splayed against his stomach. 

They’d veered from the main road some time earlier, to Nicolò’s relief. It had been far too crowded with travellers and merchants spilling from the city’s southern gate, most en route to Fustat or al-Qāhira. The shoulder to shoulder traffic had left his skin with an unpleasant itch beneath it. 

But now they wandered a more comfortable distance from any others sharing the well-maintained but smaller road that followed alongside the Alexandria canal as it coiled south, then west, away from the city. Wispy clouds gauzed the sky, offering little reprieve from the sun that glinted off Yusuf’s tan skin, gilding him. He raised a hand to his eyes, frowning at Nicolò.

“It’s you who’s in true danger,” he said. “I’ve seen the horrific shades of red and purple you turn without proper protection from the sun.”   

The warm glow in Nicolò’s core pulsed as he accepted the second keffiyeh Yusuf produced from the pack slung across his shoulder. He wound it inexpertly around his head, the corner of his mouth twitching at Yusuf’s grumbles of disapproval.  

Mercifully, the walk was not as taxing as Nicolò had feared. In fact, he felt energized when they eventually reached the lake. Upon spotting the lush green edges of the gardens, Nicolò gasped. The verdant mass sprawled, vast, across the floodplain below a large town whose name Nicolò struggled to pronounce, stretching outward from where fishing boats floated along the Maryut’s pristine blue. 

It was everything Basma had described and more. Whites, reds, yellows, blues and purples dotted along the garden’s meandering paths like pops of bright jewels. Too overwhelmed to take it all in at once, Nicolò paused often to admire the vivid orange spikes of a bird of paradise or inhale the fruity, floral aroma perfuming the air. Rapt, he listened as Yusuf pointed toward the reeds growing along the lake’s shore and explained how they were often used to make renowned writing utensils, coveted by merchants for the prices they fetched. 

But when he wasn’t showing off his knowledge of the local flora and history, Yusuf lagged a few paces behind, silent as he beheld the breathtaking beauty surrounding them. On one occasion, Nicolò chanced a glance in his direction, only to find Yusuf staring up into the flaming scarlet blossoms of a royal poinciana. He stood completely still, a rarity for Yusuf these days. 

Or, almost completely still. His fingers twitched restlessly against the strap of his satchel, as though there was something else they wished to be doing.  

It was past midday by the time they wandered to the lakeside, and the adhan was ringing in the distance. Nicolò sat at the lake’s edge, admiring the expanse of sparkling aquamarine, as Yusuf knelt to unfurl his prayer mat. It had been some time since Nicolò had been granted an opportunity to listen to the quiet litany of Yusuf praying. He floated along with the cadence of the dhuhr, gentle and rhythmic as the waves lapping against the shore. From this vantage, the Maryut looked so big it could have been a sea. For a world-tilting moment Nicolò was able to grasp the edges of a concept that had eluded him for most of his life. 

There was no word he’d ever found that felt adequate for it, in any of the languages he’d learned over the years. Though his closest attempt, he suspected, would sound something like home . Tears pricked in the corners of his eyes. Nicolò closed them, inhaling deeply through his nose.

It took such concentration to sink the sudden swell of emotions back beneath the surface that Nicolò startled when he realized Yusuf had concluded his prayer and was sitting in quiet contemplation at his side. He’d removed his keffiyeh, and his fingers were twitching once more where they rested in his lap. 

The spot they’d chosen was shaded by the heavy drooping branches of an old willow tree, its dense canopy of leaves allowing in only dappled sunlight. Spots of light and shadow shifted across Yusuf’s profile with every sway of the cool breeze blowing off the water. There was a very slight bump in the center of his nose from this angle that Nicolò had never noticed before. He gazed at it, helpless to not. Nor could he look away when Yusuf turned his head, their eyes locking. 

He was beautiful. Nicolò understood this like a sudden blow to the chest, stealing his breath in one swift move. 

Years prior, Nicolò had gathered with the other clergy of his rural church to listen to a recitation of the pope’s speech from the Council of Clermont. The bishop who’d been elected as Pope Urban’s representative had spoken with fire and brimstone in his voice, promising penance for all true Christians who took up arms to reclaim their Holy Land. Nicolò recalled the stirring inside him as he’d listened, the immense surety of his belief that this was God bestowing him with a chance at finally earning His forgiveness. To wash away the sins that had stained him his entire life, ones Nicolò feared would forever mark him as unworthy. Not only desires of the flesh, which so many priests were known to succumb to, but others that he’d buried much deeper. 

Longing for the love of another man, for one. A shameful yearning to experience the warm, comforting embrace of being known, in every way, by someone he’d chosen. And so of course it was now, with a sick certainty, Nicolò realized: he would choose Yusuf, without hesitation. 

In quick succession, and with an equally sick certainty, Nicolò realized another thing: he would never be allowed that opportunity. 

“What were you intending to say that night at Maymun’s iftar, before our conversation was interrupted?” 

Nicolò blinked, confusion overtaking his desolate thoughts. He furrowed his brows at Yusuf, who seemed frustrated that Nicolò didn’t immediately take his meaning. “You told me that you’d been moved by the spirit of Ramadan, and that you haven’t… something. But then your attention was diverted, and I admit to being curious ever since. What haven’t you?”   

Nicolò remembered, of course. He’d barely checked the impulse to speak the words aloud, grateful for Maymun’s timing in pulling him away and saving Nicolò from himself. In truth, Nicolò hadn’t wanted to burden Yusuf with the weight of his melancholy, then or now. 

He cleared his dry throat, watching as a boat drifted lazily past. Its passengers appeared to be more concerned with basking on its deck in the bright afternoon sunshine than with the fishing rods that hung over the side. Despite the clear blue of the sky, a storm raged in Nicolò’s chest. In many ways it felt as though he was back on the battlefield, when the warring emotions within him were reflected in the clashing chaos before him. 

Yusuf said his name, uncharacteristically soft. 

But no, that wasn’t quite the truth, was it? Even if he was fated to walk this earth, eternal and deathless, for hundreds or thousands years more, Nicolò doubted he would ever find another human with a heart as tender as Yusuf’s. It was only that it was uncharacteristic for him to gift Nicolò any of that softness.

The way he’d spoken his name just now, though… Nicolò hadn’t experienced anything so gentle since he was a child. He sighed, heavy and long, his soul saturated with the sudden downpour of his grief.

“My mother was a heretic, did you know this?” 

Yusuf froze, mouth hanging open around whatever he intended to say before Nicolò’s admission stunned him into silence. After a moment, he shook his head. Nicolò nodded, licking his lips. Of course Yusuf wouldn’t know. Nicolò had never once in his life shared this story with anyone else.  

At first it resisted, sticking in his chest, clawing his throat to shreds as Nicolò dragged the words into the light. For so long it had only been him and this secret, clinging to each other in the darkest depths of the night. To coexist in this way, exposed under the hot Egyptian summer sun and expectant brightness of another’s gaze, felt wholly antithetical. In a display of more patience than Nicolò was owed from him, Yusuf waited. He brushed away the escaped curls that had blown into his eyes, and he waited. For once, his expression was open, brows tilted in obvious curiosity. 

A thread of gratitude wound its way into the knot of emotions at Nicolò’s center, loosening them. He continued, “She was not from Liguria originally, but a region to the north. When she was barely more than a child, her people were finally forced to pledge their allegiance to Rome. They’d resisted for generations, but the forces of the Roman military combined with the men and resources supplied in large part by Genoa’s republic was too great, and so they were overtaken.” 

Nicolò leaned forward, wrapping his arms more tightly around his legs. He propped his chin on his knees. “As a show of fealty, the leader of my mother’s people agreed to Rome’s terms demanding a number of politically arranged marriages. My father was awarded the eldest of his daughters.” Nicolò’s lip curled. “She was… a prize for my family’s monetary contributions to the effort.”

Now that he was speaking, Nicolò found he could only stare forward. Beside him, Yusuf’s silence was so loud it rang in his ears. Hues of blue and green blurred together, and Nicolò blinked.

“But you see, my mother’s people were not Christians. They were a matriarchal clan of pagans, patrons mostly of Diana.”

“Diana?” Yusuf blurted, seeming to immediately regret the interruption. He grimaced, there and gone, before he continued. “I came across texts about her, during my studies. She’s adopted from the Greeks’ Artemis, is she not? A goddess of the hunt and… virgins, I want to say?”

Nicolò considered. He leaned back onto his palms, looking up into the vining branches that reached down toward them. 

“I suppose she has been many things for many people over the centuries,” he responded after a moment. “Perhaps it’s impossible not to be, if you survive for so long.” 

The silence that lingered was fraught with something Nicolò couldn’t put a name to, an unspoken question lingering in the air. Who, or what, would they become, after hundreds, possibly thousands of years? Eventually, he exhaled. “For my mother and her foremothers, Diana was a guardian. She protected their people’s women, watched over them through childbirth. To bear a child was considered comparable to being a warrior for them.”

Yusuf rubbed at his chin, appearing thoughtful. “I’ve been around many who’ve given birth and wouldn’t disagree.”

Nicolò hummed a response, pleased. The knot in his chest had continued to loosen as the thread of Yusuf’s undivided attention broke apart the tangle. He’d worried speaking about his mother would unravel him entirely, but it hadn’t. Instead, Nicolò felt something dislodge inside him, clearing a path for the words to flow more easily.

The sun shifted in the sky, and Yusuf continued to listen as Nicolò dredged up tales from hidden, long forgotten depths. On occasion, he interjected with a question, growing less hesitant when Nicolò answered each to the best of his ability after a thoughtful pause.

Nicolò’s mother had officially converted to Christianity shortly before marrying his father, of course, but she’d clung in secret to the beliefs of her upbringing. And she’d shared them freely with Nicolò, the beloved youngest of her two sons. While his older brother was busy following around their father or meeting with his tutor, absorbing all he needed to learn about the family business and assets he would someday inherit, Nicolò would sit at his mother’s feet by the fire in their estate’s library. Countless hours he spent in that spot, listening as she combed nimble fingers through his hair and spoke of distant lands with foreign gods. It felt magical to him as a child, this secret the two of them shared. This forbidden knowledge.   

“Then the Church came for her, not long after my sister’s birth,” Nicolò said, throat clicking when he swallowed. 

He’d finally reached the conclusion of his tale, the part he still felt uncertain he could speak aloud. Another breeze wafted by, shifting the branches, and Yusuf’s eyes shone as they watched him, unblinking. 

Nicolò gathered his courage. “The physician had sent for a priest during her labor. It was a difficult one, and there had been… complications. He believed she would not survive. But when my grandmother learned what was happening, she burst into the room and demanded it be cleared. My sister was delivered soon after, whole and healthy, as was my mother.”

“A miracle,” Yusuf murmured.

Nicolò cast him a wry look. “One would think. The priest entered the room anyway, despite my grandmother’s insistence. He was determined to ensure my mother was administered her last rites so her soul would have passage to Heaven. No one except him knows for certain what he saw, but he claimed it was… ah.” He groped for the word, speaking its equivalent in Ligurian, then Latin, then Greek. “Witchcraft.” 

Yusuf nodded, solemn, and Nicolò ignored the hammering of his heart.

Both his mother and grandmother were dragged away from his family’s estate in the middle of a winter’s night a few weeks later. Nicolò had sat shivering in his bedroom’s large bay window, watching his mother curse and spit and struggle as she was carried beyond the garden gates. Her mother, his grandmother, went with her usual quiet stoicism, her proud head held high. 

It was his older brother who told Nicolò the reason why, relaying it with all the authority of a twelve year old explaining something he’d been convinced was a necessary evil. Then he’d added, a glint in his eye, that he’d also overheard their father speaking with some priests. Some days later, a monk appeared on their doorstep. Nicolò was packed away to a monastery, where he spent the remainder of his childhood studying the ways of the clergy.

“Hm. I was… seven, perhaps, maybe eight,” Nicolò said in response to Yusuf’s question. He shrugged. “Eventually I obtained priesthood and was assigned my own modest church in a rural village not far from Genoa.”

“And were you content there?”

Nicolò furrowed his brows at the unexpected question. It had never occurred to him to contemplate his own happiness within the Church’s clergy, nor had anyone ever inquired about it. His purpose had been only to serve God, with all his being.

“I enjoyed some aspects,” Nicolò answered after a moment. “Being able to help the people of the village, providing nourishment if they were hungry or a listening ear if their souls needed to be unburdened.” He frowned, considering the exorbitant taxes he’d been expected to collect for the Church, as well as the trouble he’d gotten into for being lax about doing so more often than not. “Other things I liked less.”

“The celibacy?” Yusuf asked, his expressive eyebrows dancing on his forehead. 

Nicolò snorted, despite the pang in his chest. At some point during the long conversation, there’d been a shift in the air between them. An easing of sorts. Nicolò was loath to do anything to disrupt it, but their gazes snagged, and Nicolò was caught before he realized. 

He ran his tongue along his chapped bottom lip. Yusuf’s teasing expression slipped as his eyes dropped to Nicolò’s mouth, then down to his clasped hands. Pent silence lingered. A sudden, hysterical urge seized Nicolò, to inquire if Yusuf had broken his fast in other ways during the nights he hadn’t returned to their inn, perhaps with any of the unmarried daughters apparently being thrown in his direction. He swallowed the impulse. 

Instead, he responded, “That one bothered me less than most.” Yusuf lifted his head, eyebrow raised in a clear question, and Nicolò sighed. “Nothing worth dragging out of the past today. You’ve been more than generous by allowing me to do so as much as I already have. And besides -” Nicolò squinted through the branches, where the sun was sinking toward the west. “I’m afraid all my talking has thrown us off our schedule. We were supposed to stop by the docks for Ayah, were we not?”

A spark of recollection ignited behind Yusuf’s widening eyes, and he jumped to his feet with a bitten off word that Nicolò didn’t know but understood for the obvious curse it was. He hid a smile and he stood as well.

As it turned out, there was still plenty of light left before sunset. Once the alarm of losing track of time had passed, they allowed their steps to slow while they traveled a northeastern road leading toward one of Alexandria’s large ports. The late afternoon heat hung heavy, and soon their steps grew even more meandering. 

From the corner of his eye, Nicolò watched Yusuf closely for any signs that the chasm between them had widened, now that Nicolò had shared something so personal and unflattering. But Yusuf only adjusted the strap of his satchel on occasion as they walked, permitting their shoulders to bump when he did. He didn’t look at Nicolò, but his silence felt companionable, devoid of its usual simmering tension. 

“May I ask you a question now?” Nicolò asked when they’d been following the road for some time. The bubble of courage in his chest burst at the wary look Yusuf cast in his direction. But after a moment, he gestured for Nicolò to continue. Nicolò sucked in a breath. “Have you dreamed any more of the strange women?”

Yusuf stopped, abruptly enough that Nicolò took a few steps before he noticed. He turned back, eyebrows raised. 

Yusuf said, “I’ve noticed that this seems to only be an acceptable topic of conversation when you wish it so.” Nicolò flushed. He opened his mouth to apologize or argue his point, uncertain yet which one. Though Yusuf seemed to know, and he held up a hand. “Peace, Nicolò, please. There’s still a bit of a journey before we reach the docks; we can discuss it if you’d like.” 

Yusuf began to walk again, and, heart beating a dent into his ribcage, Nicolò followed. He would follow Yusuf anywhere.

“I have dreamed about them twice more since we last spoke of it.” Yusuf darted a glance Nicolò’s way, swallowing. “You as well, I assume?”

Nicolò nodded. He mulled over the contents of the dreams, dull compared to the one they shared a few weeks prior, never spoken of again. There had been no more visceral gore of violence, thankfully, only company shared between two people with a connection so strong it left Nicolò’s fingertips and toes tingling for hours after waking. For some reason, this felt more difficult to contemplate than the violence. 

He said, rubbing absently at his torso, “They’ve been pleasant enough, the most recent dreams, and I admit to being curious if future ones will provide any additional clarity. Though I can't say I’m eager to relive the experience of my entrails spilling onto a battlefield.”

To his surprise, Yusuf barked a laugh. “Agreed. I’d say we’ve had our fair share of that.”

They continued walking, Nicolò lending careful consideration to what he wished to say next, until Yusuf broke the silence, blurting, “Do you truly believe it’s a destiny from God?” He gestured at himself, a sweep of his hand that encompassed the whole of him, then did the same to Nicolò. “Whatever’s happening to us, and these dreams we share, I mean. You think it has something to do with these women, whoever they are? And… if you’re correct, and they are somehow part of this grander purpose, do you believe they dream of us too?”

Nicolò wasn’t sure which question to tackle first. It was clear Yusuf had been holding them inside for some time, and a flush stained his cheeks as he glanced away. 

When their eyes met again, Nicolò smiled in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. But the stretch of his mouth felt unnatural on his face. A sudden jealousy stabbed through his gut at the thought of how easily such warmth would have come to Yusuf, the casual way it infused his every expression and gesture whenever he offered someone kindness. Which, for Yusuf, was often. No one would ever say to him that he was harder than usual to read, simply because Yusuf wore his heart on display for the world to see. After all, this was how Nicolò knew without doubt that such a heart was closed to him. 

But Yusuf nodded, as though indeed reassured, and faced forward again.

Nicolò tilted up his head. He inhaled, tasting the salty tang of the breeze blowing in from the Mediterranean, now a growing expanse of blue-green on the horizon. As he considered, he rubbed at the lingering ache in his torso, then said, “I believe… we are meant to find each other, us and these women. That it is our destiny to do so. As for what we’re meant to do with that destiny after…”

Nicolò shrugged, spreading his fingers in supplication. 

Yusuf seemed to contemplate this while they walked. He had a habit of rubbing the back of his hand against the bottom of his beard when he was thinking, Nicolò noted. The wiry dark curls had grown shaggy once more, likely because his busy activities during Ramadan had kept Yusuf from his regular grooming routine. Miserable, Nicolò clenched his fists against the sudden urge to scratch his fingers into them.   

Eventually, Yusuf said, “So this is what you think God meant for you to do instead?” 

The question sunk into Nicolò’s stomach like a dropped anchor, plummeting it to his feet. He swallowed, not looking Yusuf’s way. If he kept his eyes ahead of him, and his feet moving forward, perhaps Nicolò could speak these words aloud after all. Yusuf had already proved he could glimpse some of the darkest parts of him without fleeing. 

Or, at least not yet. Nicolò took a deep breath.

“At the lake, you asked what I intended to say that night at Maymun’s iftar. I’m not certain if you noticed, but I didn’t exactly provide you with an answer.” Nicolò didn’t check to see Yusuf’s expression, but something in the loaded silence gave him the sense that Yusuf had indeed realized as much. He continued, “I want to try to do that now, but… it won’t be simple for me to say.” 

When Yusuf only waited, the tension drained from Nicolò’s shoulders. He gestured toward where the city walls had recently sprung into view. High above the farmlands and homes clustered outside of them, the large white cross perched atop the grand arched entrance to St. Mark’s Cathedral gleamed in the sun. Maymun’ would likely be on his way home from visiting his sister at this hour. 

“Before we arrived here, I was -” Nicolò groped for a word, in Ligurian, then Greek, then, poorly, in Hebrew and Arabic. None of them felt correct. He sighed. “Lost, I suppose you could call it. What I intended to say on that evening was that I haven’t… felt God’s presence since the siege.” Yusuf said his name, in the same soft tone he used before, but Nicolò couldn’t look at him. Not yet. He allowed the current to sweep him onward. “I’ve been searching for him ever since I woke up on the battlefield that first time and knew without a doubt that He’d abandoned me. At first…”

And do not think I have come to bring peace. 
I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.

Nicolò swallowed past the sour taste in his mouth. “At first, I believed I must have failed in my mission, and that as long as you remained alive He would continue to punish me by turning his back. But afterward, when I finally understood this fate was something we shared, and that you were afraid as well -” Beside him, Yusuf made a choked off sound. Nicolò still refused to look. His gaze remained fixed on the sea, beloved and constant as it was tumultuous, unpredictable. “It only grew more confusing, the longer we travelled together. I saw nothing of the savagery I’d been taught to expect from someone such as you. Then we came here, to this place, and Yusuf -”

The other man’s eyes grew wide at whatever expression they saw when Nicolò finally turned his head. “I realized how wrong I had been. We are the ones who are barbarians, the Christians who invaded these lands, and God has absented himself from my presence not because I failed at my destiny, but because I… I misunderstood it so catastrophically.

“I’ve been searching for Him since Jerusalem,” Nicolò admitted after a stunned pause, looking forward once again. 

They were close enough now that sounds from the busy port were carried over to them on a breeze. A lump formed in his throat. 

How hard, how desperately Nicolò had searched, in every nook and cranny of Alexandria. Was the truth hidden in a language he’d yet to learn? An interpretation of God’s word not taught to him by the Latin Church? Acts of kindness toward people he’d once believed were beneath him? 

“There were glimpses, moments when I thought I had found Him again. During iftar at Maymun’s table, among the welcoming embrace of his family as they broke their fast together. Or in the wrinkles of Ayah’s hands as she picked figs from the tree in her garden to share with one as unworthy as me. Or dispersed among the scent of the bakhoor you light for your prayers.” Nicolò swallowed into the pent silence. Then he laughed, mirthless. “Once, I even believed I’d found Him in Einat’s inappropriate jokes about being a wanderer in the tradition of her people. But when I try to call on Him myself…”

Nicolò shook his head, blinking rapidly. He concluded, “I believe that I did wrong in Jerusalem, and that whatever is happening to us… I am meant to use it to atone for that mistake, however long it takes. I think… that perhaps God will punish me with His absence until I do.”              

Eventually, Yusuf cleared his throat. “And me? Am I being punished as well?” he asked, voice a rasp.

Nicolò’s brow furrowed. He shook his head, bemused. 

“Yusuf, no. I have witnessed you throughout one of your holiest months.” Yusuf frowned, his expression twisting, as though in pain. Swallowing past the sudden dryness of his throat, Nicolò rushed to reassure him. “It seems to me that God has been with you this entire time, and that you speak often. You… if it hadn’t been for Christians invading the Holy Land, you would have never been part of that battle. What punishment could you possibly deserve for the sin of defending your city and the people within it?”

Yusuf’s brows flew up, nearly touching the hem of his keffiyeh, his mouth hanging open. He appeared at a loss for words.

Thankfully, no more were needed. They’d reached the docks at last.