The Mystic Rose (4 page)

Cait was instantly furious. “Do you think I brought about Father's death just to spite you?” she snapped. “For once in your life, Thea, think!”

The dark-haired young woman's face seemed to crumple inwardly. “He cannot be dead.” The tears spilled over her long lashes and her shoulders began to shake. “Oh, Cait, what are we going to do?” she sobbed. “What are we going to do?”

Thea put her face in her hands and leaned into her sister's embrace. Cait put her arms around the young woman, and felt Alethea's warm tears seeping through her mantle. “We will mourn him,” she murmured, rubbing Alethea's smooth bare shoulder as she stared dry-eyed upon the great, looming city spread out before her on its fabled hills, “and we will see him buried.

“Then,” she added to herself, “we will avenge him.”

“T
ELL ME,” WHINED
Thea, using her most irritating tone. “I am not taking another step until you do.”

“The less you know, the less you have to remember.”

The two young women walked together along the wide avenue as a deep, wine-colored dusk gathered around them. The street—all but deserted when they had started out—was quickly returning to life once more as the heat of the day gave way to a velvet soft evening. Everywhere, the imperial city was shaking off its languor and reviving itself in the splendid mid-summer night.

“Tell me, Cait. I want to know.”

“If I tell you,” she replied wearily, “will you promise to keep quiet until we get there?”

“Where? Where are we going?”

“I am not telling you a thing until you promise.”

Along the verges, meat vendors hunched over filthy black charcoal braziers which filled the air with blue smoke and the aroma of burning olive oil and roasting spices. Day laborers and wives late from the markets jostled them as they passed, hurrying home with their suppers wrapped in oiled cloth, and large, flat round loaves of bread tucked under their arms. Gangs of young men dressed in short blue tunics caroused, laughing loudly to call attention to themselves. Several caught sight of the two unescorted women and made obscene gestures with
their hands which Cait saw; Thea, however, remained blissfully unaware.

Cait moved with solemn purpose, immune to the charms and curiosities around her. To Alethea, who had not ventured into the city before, everything appeared fantastic and enchanting; she had to force herself to remember that just this day they had buried their father, and that she should, as a loving daughter, assume a mournful and somber step like her sister. But it was difficult when every few paces some strange new marvel presented itself to her easily dazzled eyes.

They passed through a street dominated by the tall, well-made houses of the wealthy, each of which boasted elaborate, carved wooden balconies—veritable outdoor rooms which overhung the street—on which the families of spice, timber, and gold merchants, ship owners, and moneychangers gathered to eat their evening meal and watch the pageant below.

Meanwhile, the inhabitants of more humble dwellings fled the close confines of dark, stuffy rooms and gathered in the streets and deserted marketplaces to exchange the news of the day. Men stood in huddled conclaves around jugs of raw country wine and nibbled green olives, spitting the pits into the air. Old women squatted in doorways, their wrinkled faces shrewd and silent, watching all around them with small, dark eyes. Dirty-faced children, clutching bits of food snatched from the table, stood stiff-legged and stared, while hungry dogs tried to cadge morsels from their hands.

Every now and then they passed a walled garden and caught a fragrance on the air—jasmine, lemon blossom, hyacinth, or sandalwood—or heard the music of pipes and lute, played to the accompaniment of the tambour, sticks, and hand drum. Although they recognized the instruments, the melodies seemed quaint and plaintive and strange to the ear, unlike anything they had heard before.

After a time, they arrived at a crossroads which formed a common square. Here, the commerce of the day was far from concluded. Women whose companionship could be obtained for the price of a meal strolled idly along, jan
gling the silver bracelets on their arms as an unobtrusive means of promoting their wares. Across the square, a potter had set up his wheel beside a low wall on which he presented examples of his work, and nearby stood a man with bits of painted wood dangling from strings in his hand; by pulling the strings, the carved pieces seemed to dance—much to the delight of the spectators gathered around him.

There were also chairs for hire lined up alongside a wall beneath the overhanging boughs of a huge sycamore tree. The bearers were huddled around a small fire in the street, resting after their day's work, talking and laughing as they passed a jar around.

Alethea took one glance at the row of chairs and instantly felt the strain of having walked so far. She stopped in midstep. “Could we?” she said, tugging on Cait's sleeve. “I am just exhausted.”

Cait moved on, inclined to ignore her sister's entreaty.

“Oh, Cait, please? We have been walking all day. My feet are sore.”

Caitríona hesitated. She turned back and looked at the chairs. Her vacillation was all that one of the more enterprising chair owners needed. Leaping to his feet, he hurried to where the two young women were standing. “My friends!” he called. “You wish to hire a chair. Mine is best.” Dark and thin, he smiled at them as he spoke in rough, rustic Greek. “I am Philippianous. Come with me, I will show you now.”

“Very well,” said Cait, when she had examined the chair and found it satisfactory. “How much?”

“Where you wish to go?” asked the eager Philippianous. “You tell me that, I tell you how much.”

“Blachernae Palace.”

At this, the young man's eyes grew wide. “You have business there tonight perhaps.”

“Yes,” said Cait. “How much?”

“Thirty denarii,” he said, growing sly.

“Ten.”

“My lady,” complained Philippianous, “it is getting dark.
We are tired and have nothing to eat. Twenty-five denarii. It is a good price.”

“Fifteen denarii—for both of us—”

“Ten apiece,” countered the chair owner.

“Very well,” relented Cait. Slipping a small leather purse from beneath her girdle, she began counting small silver coins into her hand. “Ten apiece—to take us there
and
return.”

“My
lady
,” whined Philippianous. “We are poor and hungry. We have had nothing to eat all day. We cannot work all night with nothing to eat.”

“Then take your rest,” replied Cait, regarding the group of bearers who were listening to the negotiation with undisguised interest. “I am certain one of your friends would be more than happy to oblige.”

“Cait, please!” whispered Alethea, embarrassed that her sister should haggle like a fishwife over such a trivial matter.

Sensing victory, the bearer pointed to his chair. “It is a nice chair. Very comfortable. We will take good care of you.”

“If you do well,” Cait promised, “I will give you extra for a meal. But you must take us to the palace first.”

“Done!” The chair owner spun on his heel and clapped his hands. He called to his laborers, who rose from among the men gathered around the fire. One of them took a last gulp from the jar before passing it along, and then he and his three companions shuffled to a wide red-painted chair with a green cushion on its wooden bench seat.

Alethea nudged her sister in the ribs, and pointed at a green chair. It was newer, slightly larger, the pole rings were shiny brass, and the cushion was yellow satin. Cait nodded. “Wait,” she said, and pointed to the green chair. “That one.”

“My sister,” complained the owner. “That one is very special—for the empress herself, eh?”

“If the empress wishes to hire it, we will gladly give it to her,” replied Cait, stepping into the chair. She held out the little stack of coins.

Philippianous sighed, but gave his men the nod to go ahead. Taking up two long brass-tipped wooden poles from
among those leaning against the wall, they slipped them through the rings, lifted the chair, and started off. “Enjoy your journey, my friends.”

“You come, too. I will give you an extra ten to announce us at the palace,” Cait said, adding a few more coins to the stack in her hand.

“Philippianous is at your service, empress,” said the chair owner, accepting his payment with a polite bow. The bearers moved out, and the owner ran on ahead, leading the way and clearing idlers from the path.

Alethea was instantly ecstatic. “This is wonderful! Cait, we should travel like this
everywhere
,” she said, almost hugging herself.

Cait made no reply. She turned her eyes to the slowly darkening street ahead, and thought about what had been accomplished this day, and what was still to come.

“Why did you not say we were going to the palace?” asked Alethea brightly.

“Some surprises are best kept secret,” Caitríona replied.

Alethea snuggled closer, enjoying the mysteriousness of it. “Is the royal family there?”

“No,” replied Cait. “I have to see someone.”

“Who?”

“A man called Renaud de Bracineaux.”

“It is to do with Papa's death?”

“Yes.”

Cait turned once more to her meditation on the day's events. As soon as the ship had been secured in its new berth in Bucoleon Harbor they returned to the church where Duncan was lying on his bier in the sanctuary, waiting for burial. She allowed Haemur to accompany them—more for Haemur's sake than for her own. The old sea captain had liked and admired her father very much, and it would have been a needless cruelty to have denied him the consolation of attending the burial.

So, leaving Olvir and Otti to look after the vessel, they had proceeded to the church where they were received by the abbot himself and conducted into the darkened sanctuary where burned but two tall candles, one either end of the
shroud-wrapped corpse. Upon entering the chapel, Alethea had begun to cry. Once they were seated, the cleric had read a simple service for the dead, at the conclusion of which the body of their father had been taken up by the brothers and carried to a small burial ground in a portion of the garden outside the monastery scriptorium where a fresh grave had been dug in the dry, rocky earth.

After a lengthy prayer in Greek, Cait said another in Gaelic, whereupon Alethea, weeping uncontrollably now, had placed on the body a handful of summer flowers and foliage wrapped in a length of white silk. The monks lowered the body into the hole and, while the abbot read a passage from the holy scripture, the brothers slowly filled in the grave. Haemur stood with bowed head and folded hands, and both Caitríona and Alethea knelt as the monks heaped the dirt high over the bundled corpse, tamped it down, and then planted a new-made wooden cross in the mound.

The service concluded, the abbot led the little funeral party to the refectory where they were given some wine and honey cakes with raisins to refresh themselves. Afterward, Cait delivered the monetary gift they had agreed upon—together with an additional sum for the grave to be continually maintained—whereupon the chapter's infirmarer was summoned. A stoop-shouldered man of middle age with sad dark eyes, the infirmarer presented the women with a small box made of lead; a
chi-rho
had been embossed in the soft metal, and the container sealed with solder.

“I thank you, brother,” Cait said, accepting the small casket from his hand. She then thanked the abbot for his care and kindness, and the three were conducted by the porter through the gates of the monastery and out into the light of a hot summer day. Cait moved out into the sun-bright street in a thoughtful mood, Haemur solemn and silent beside her.

Alethea, who had dried her tears, walked along the tree-lined streets with a buoyant step. The great tide of sorrow which surged over her unexpectedly now and again had ebbed for the time being, and she felt light-headed—as if the heavier humors had been drained off, and now she might float away on the breeze. “It was a fine funeral,” she ob
served, once they were through the gate. “Do you not think so, Cait?”

“It served a purpose.”

“
You
could have done better, I suppose.”

Not wishing to argue with her sister, she merely said, “Papa wished Padraig to conduct his funeral.”

“Oh,” said Alethea. She had not thought of that. “Of course.”

A Célé Dé funeral was a very sacred and special occasion, combining not only prayers and hymns, but stories, songs, and special readings. It culminated in a feast at which family and friends gathered at the banquet table to celebrate the life of the departed and share their fondest recollections. The feast generally began at dusk and continued through the night, finishing at dawn when everyone went out to witness the breaking of the new day and sing their brother and fellow pilgrim on his journey home.

Cait felt sorry that her father had not been able to receive such a funeral; it was his due. Still, she meant to do what she could.

“What is in the box?” asked Alethea. “Strange they should give us a gift.”

“It is not a gift,” said Cait quietly.

“What is it then?” The younger woman snatched away the box which Cait held reverently in her hands. She turned it this way and that, looking for a way to open it.

“Thea, please.” Cait put her hand on her sister's arm and turned her around. She held out her hand for the box. “Give it to me now.”

“No,” the young woman sulked, jerking the box away. “Not until you tell me what's inside.”

Cait frowned, regarding her sister with sour disapproval. “It is Papa's heart,” she said softly.

“What!” shrieked Alethea. Cait held out her hand, and Thea shoved the box into it with disgust. “You had them cut out his heart?” she cried, tears welling at once. “You cruel and thoughtless creature! How could you do such a thing!”

“It was his dying wish,” Caitríona explained simply. “He wanted his heart to be buried in the church at home.”

Alethea put her face in her hands and wept. Despite her
aggravation, Cait felt sorry for her sister—always getting things twisted around and making herself look foolish. She passed the box to Haemur who was standing awkwardly to one side, shifting his weight from one foot to the other in embarrassment.

“Take this back to the ship, put it in a safe place, and wait for us there,” Cait told the grizzled old pilot. “Remember what I told you. It will likely be very late when we return, so keep a light burning at the prow.”

Haemur accepted the lead box with a little bow, and said, “As you will, my lady. Return when you like, you will find the ship in order and awaiting your command.”