The Blessing Stone (46 page)

Katharina thought it a wonderful adventure, for she enjoyed the safety of traveling under the protection of prosperous merchants who hired archers to guard them, and she enjoyed the comfort of traveling in an enclosed wagon that was also her bed at night. And in the evenings, quietly by the campfire, Dr. Mahmoud taught her his native tongue, for he believed knowledge of Arabic would be an asset to her in the Holy Land. As he told her stories of his youth, his memories were all literally sweet for he spoke of a golden fruit in Spain called an orange, and a rich fruit in Egypt called a date, neither of which Katharina had ever tasted. But the relative ease of their southward journey ended when she and Dr. Mahmoud had to part company with their fellow travelers in Milan, for the Roths’ export agency was in Genoa, and they were advised not to sail from Genoa for it would take weeks longer and they ran the risk of being attacked by Barbary pirates. So they joined a merchant train carrying French textiles to be exchanged in Venice for Venetian glass, and followed the fertile plain of the Po River until they turned north to Padua, and from there to the Adriatic coast. Although from Badendorf to the Alps they had been among friends, now they were with strangers, and so they kept to themselves. Dr. Mahmoud had learned long ago that there was survival in silence. He never let on that he was Muslim, for in this day and age he was the enemy, especially as they drew closer to the Mediterranean where the hated Turks ruled the seas.

Venice came as a shock. Although along the way they had passed through larger towns, and even the breathtaking metropolis of Nuremberg, these had been but passing spectacles compared to Venice. Katharina had never seen a town so
flat
. There wasn’t a mountain or hill in sight; people lived on canals and got about in small boats with curious curved prows; and the citizens were more sumptuously dressed than any she had seen in the northern towns. Upper-class women tottered about on tall platform shoes and did not cover their hair, as was the fashion in Germany, but proudly displayed their locks and tresses with gold nets and ribbons. Katharina had never seen such long hair on men, especially the young men who seemed to Katharina to be very feminine. But there was nothing feminine about the way they cast suggestive glances her way. Her own hair was also an attraction. Even though her golden coloring was somewhat distinctive in Badendorf, it wasn’t unusual. But the farther south she went, the more unique it became. Although she did see women with blond hair, it was dyed and obviously artificial, so that Katharina frequently drew the admiring glances of strange men. She stayed close to Dr. Mahmoud keeping a grip on their bundles, and they made their way to the harbor in the vast lagoon.

As they progressed through narrow streets and along canals, they chanced upon a wedding party in progress in one of the magnificent mansions. From a balcony, the bride and groom were merrily throwing food to the crowd below: Katharina saw whole roasted pheasants, golden loaves of bread, candied fruits, and sugared almonds rain down upon the happy recipients. At Dr. Mahmoud’s quick thinking, they joined the crowd and grabbed a small wheel of cheese and a cluster of purple grapes, which they feasted on as they continued their trek toward the harbor. Such displays of wealth and largesse, they were later to learn, were typical of this powerful maritime city. Equally excessive, Katharina and Dr. Mahmoud learned, was the Venetians’ sense of justice. For as they rounded a corner they came upon an angry mob that had moments earlier set upon a pair of men. The victims’ chests were ripped open and their steaming hearts nailed to the doors of a small church. It was an act of revenge, Katharina was told by one of the bystanders. The two men had just the week before assassinated the head of one of Venice’s most powerful families.

They hurried on to the harbor where they were met by more astonishing sights. Through a forest of forecastles and masts, sails and rigging, Katharina saw the water afloat with caravels, carracks, galleons, square-riggers, lateens, merchant ships, vessels of war, canoes, dinghies, launches, rafts, and even a pair of weather-beaten red-sailed Chinese junks. The quays were choked with mobs of pilgrims, both Christian and Muslim, embarking for and disembarking from their holy places. There were sailors of all navies, merchants, scholars, officers, lowly crewmen in rags, and longshoremen hauling bales, barrels, animals, and goods on board. The air was filled with the Babel of a hundred foreign tongues and the miasma of a thousand strange smells. Katharina even saw something called a bookstore. While she had seen printed books before—the church in Badendorf was proud that its Bible had been produced on a printing press—she had never seen as many books as this shop boasted: over four hundred in stock!

Katharina had never dreamed of travel and adventure and now they had been thrust upon her. Her spirit was a curious dichotomy of sadness and joy, for she both grieved for the loss of her mother and Badendorf and Hans, and at the same time she was thrilled at the thought of meeting her real blood family. She had not believed a person could look backward and forward at the same time, and yet she was doing just that.

They went to shipping offices, where Dr. Mahmoud’s Arabic and rusty Spanish were of little use but Katharina’s German and smattering of Latin stood them in good stead. Unfortunately, everywhere they inquired, they received a variety of responses, from captains refusing to take a Muslim, captains refusing to take a female, captains refusing passengers altogether. Superstition ran second to fear in a sailor’s life: if a heathen didn’t sink the ship, then a woman would.

The day was starting to wane, and so was their hope. Dr. Mahmoud suggested they find lodgings for the night and try anew in the morning.

That was when Katharina saw the stranger. He caught her attention because he was different from the others on the dock, although she could not pinpoint exactly why. There was the look of the nobleman about him in his white, padded doublet, blue, padded breeches and blue stockings. He wore a strange mantle, which was old-fashioned, since men didn’t wear cloaks these days. It was all white with an eight-pointed blue cross embroidered on the back, as if he belonged to a religious order. Closely cropped brown hair and closely cropped beard above a white ruffed collar. Tall, fit. Elegant sword slung from a belt on his left hip. Clearly a man of wealth. But there was something about the way he looked out to sea; an air of mystery about him, or perhaps it was longing, that held Katharina’s interest. He turned suddenly to speak to one of the porters, and Katharina caught a shadow of sadness in his eyes.
Tragedy haunts this man,
she thought, and was surprised at herself. Strangers to Badendorf had rarely caught her attention, let alone her imagination. Yet this man had done just that and she had no idea why.

As she turned to Dr. Mahmoud to ask where they were to go next, ruffians suddenly appeared from nowhere and knocked them aside to run off with their parcels. Katharina cried out and caught her elderly companion as he fell.

The stranger in the cloak, seeing what had happened, immediately took chase. “Right there, you maggoty bastards!” he shouted, catching up with them and dragging the two back by their collars. As soon as the thieves dropped their booty, they bolted, vanishing in the throng.

“Are you hurt?” the stranger said to Katharina, addressing her in Latin, the universal tongue of Christian travelers.

“We are all right, thank you, sir,” Katharina said, breathless more from the stranger’s proximity than from the assault by the ruffians.

“I am Don Adriano of Aragon, a knight of the Brotherhood of Mary. Is he a Turk?” He jerked his head toward Dr. Mahmoud.

Katharina filled her eyes with the stranger. Close up he was even more striking. Not so much handsome as possessing interesting features. And the shadows of longing and loneliness were even more evident. “Dr. Mahmoud is from Spain, sir, like yourself.”

This seemed not to interest him. “Where are you bound?”

“For Haifa and then to Jerusalem.”

He studied her again. A girl, with hair like spun gold and the naiveté of a newborn babe. What was she doing in the company of an old Arab, and heading to Jerusalem? It would be none of his concern except that she was a Christian bound for the Holy Land and he had taken a vow to aid pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem.

“I can take you to Haifa,” he said, and quickly added, “But only you. Not the old man.”

“But I cannot leave Dr. Mahmoud!”

Don Adriano was surprised to hear the passion in her voice and see it in her clear green eyes. There could be no blood relation between the girl and the old man, so what was their bond? He gave it further thought. Don Adriano’s family had fought to push the Moors out of Spain. His father had died fighting the Muslims. And the brotherhood he belonged to, housed in a fortress on the island of Crete, was dedicated to wresting the Holy Land back from the barbaric Muslims and restoring it to Christendom.

But finally, deciding that his duty was to a Christian pilgrim, he nodded curtly. Let the old man tag along. He would not be Don Adriano’s responsibility.

“Wait here,” he said and he strode off, his white mantle with its blue cross billowing in the breeze. Katharina watched him engage a ship’s captain in what looked like an angry debate for the captain kept shaking his head. But Don Adriano, being tall and of impressive bearing—and there was no mistaking his rank and status—finally won and the captain reluctantly nodded assent.

When the Spaniard returned he said, “I convinced the captain that taking a Muslim on board could be good insurance should we encounter Barbary pirates, for they will let one of their holy men go unscathed, as well as anyone in his company. The fact that your friend is also a doctor helped. But the captain says his crew won’t have a female on board. Sailors are a superstitious breed. Any trouble and they’ll blame you, señorita. He says there’s only one way he’ll take you. That you disguise yourself.”

“Disguise myself! How?”

“You will travel as the old man’s grandson.”

Don Adriano took them to a small tavern and left them there, giving the proprietor a florin to keep an eye on them. When he returned a short time later, he took Katharina and Dr. Mahmoud out into the alley where, after making sure they were alone and unseen, he handed her a bottle of foul-smelling black paste. “It will turn your hair brown,” he said, and then left her to do the work.

While Katharina massaged the dye into her scalp and long hair, Dr. Mahmoud dug into his traveling bag and brought out a spare galabeya, a long straight Egyptian robe that hung loosely and without shape on the body. From Katharina’s shawl he was able to fashion a decent turban to cover her newly dyed hair, which she coiled on top of her head, tucking stray ends up. When she was dressed she emerged from behind the privacy of a stack of barrels. It was with a physician’s eye that Mahmoud studied the finished product. He saw a problem with the feminine breasts, so he brought out a roll of bandages from his medicine kit, handed it to her and told her to bind her chest as flatly as she could. He discreetly turned his back while Katharina completed the disguise.

When they returned to the dock they saw Don Adriano striding toward them, and when his eyes fell upon Katharina, his mouth opened in mild surprise. She was so slim and tall and well disguised that one would mistake her for a boy.

He had purchased bottles of water, loaves of bread, wedges of cheese, some fruit, and strips of dried beef, for passengers were to provide for themselves. By the time they climbed the gangway, the elderly Muslim, his grandson, and the Christian knight, the sun was slipping to the horizon and the sailors were in the rigging.

She was a Portuguese ship that had recently brought elephant ivory from Africa and was now headed for India with a hold full of copper ingots bound for the coppersmiths of Bombay. There was a brief delay as the captain ordered some of the cargo removed and reloaded, for a cargo that shifted under sail could cause a shipwreck. Once he was satisfied that the copper was stowed low enough to stabilize his ship, he gave the order to set sail. He led his crew in prayer, and Katharina heard earnestness in their paternosters, for although ocean travel was the fastest way to travel, it was also the most dangerous. And then two boys played a flute and a drum while the seamen got busy with the ropes and winches, the rhythm of the tune helping them to work together. Finally they were sailing out of the lagoon and into the open sea. Katharina stood in the bow, her face into the wind as she thought, not of the people and village she had left behind, but of the family that awaited her in some unknown land.

They slept as the sailors did, in hammocks strung between bales of cargo in the ship’s hold. Space was so cramped that meals were taken on a small table wedged between two cannons. But most of the time, weather permitting, the three passengers spent their time on the deck in the fresh air.

Katharina wondered about their rescuer, for although Don Adriano stayed with her and Dr. Mahmoud at all times, and advertised by his imposing presence that he was their protector, he otherwise had nothing to do with them. She noticed that he touched neither meat nor wine, and wondered if it had to do with the vows of his brotherhood, and when she watched him pray—down on one knee, holding his sword in both hands before him, the hilt resembling a crucifix—she suspected he was a deeply religious man.