Anticipation, page 21
“Except,” Al-Furat said with his signature brevity, “the fear of inciting violence.”
We were all silent, even Trabucco, acknowledging the wisdom of his interjection. “Exactly, violence,” Trabucco said. “Violence—though I assure you it is a trait far from my soul’s leanings—is what we must create, for no other means will enable us to escape from this oppressive prison. And that, my friends, is the second point we must hammer home, with all the force that drives a nail to its target.” Trabucco inhaled a lungful of air. “The French officials he has left to do his business, these foreigners who cannot even pronounce the words of our language—let alone understand them—are vicious, ruthless, and profoundly corrupt.”
A smell wafted from Itria’s vicinity, and I glanced over at her. She was chopping fiercely. A pile of peeled onions sat next to her on the sideboard. Beside those was a comparatively small quantity of meat, though more than enough to feed us all. Trabucco was saying something about taxation while the onions went into a pot with the chunks of meat, water, and salt. Itria hung the pot over the fire. A slosh of oil from a jug followed, then spices. I recognized the scent of cinnamon, but others eluded me. When Itria dropped in handfuls of tiny balls of ground meat, my mouth began to water.
Trabucco stood up from the table, waving his fleshy hands for emphasis. “And finally, perhaps worst of all, these Frenchmen have no respect for our culture and customs. Sicily is to the French a bowl of soup from which they can scoop at will, to feed their appetites for power. But we were not born Sicilian to fill the bellies of the French. We do not walk this earth to help King Charles conquer more land, find more subjects to subjugate, or amass more gold to fill his overflowing coffers. We will not be press-ganged onto ships sailing for Constantinople to fight against an honorable emperor. We shall not, not today and not ever, bend to his will!”
I almost clapped at the performance. Al-Furat nodded his agreement.
Vicenzu patted Trabucco’s padded shoulder. “He’s got his defects, our Trabucco, as do we all, but his assets surely outweigh them.”
I had to agree. But I wondered even more, listening to these men who knew so much, what my presence added. “Vicenzu, I am honored to be part of this fight. But I am not Sicilian, and my knowledge of your troubles comes secondhand. Why would the Sicilians listen to me?”
Vicenzu put a hand on my shoulder. “You are the representative of the Romaioi empire, a loyal subject of the emperor who supports our cause, with finance and force. You brought weapons across the sea to arm the rebellion, and you bring the promise of allies to conquer our oppressive masters. This rebellion cannot be accomplished by Sicilians alone. If we know foreign aid is coming, we will fight harder. Tell all you incite to rebellion that your friendship assures support that transcends their own struggling kingdom, and which comes from all over the world.” Whatever is asked of you in the service of this place, do not shrink from the task. I would serve Mystras, whether I thought myself equal to it or not.
The meal Itria had prepared tasted even better than it smelled. The raw onions melted into a sweet caramelized sauce around the meatballs scented with cinnamon, spikenard, and black pepper. A vegetable with shiny purple skin called melanzana came pickled with garlic, mint, and celery. Flat, thin semolina noodles were boiled and served with a yellowish-white sweet sauce. Itria, so surprised by my interest she actually smiled, listed its ingredients: almond milk, sugar, and saffron, picked from the throats of lilies. We devoured a fresh cheese, which was soft and cylindrical, with a seeded flat bread we tore with our hands. When I thought I was too full for another bite, sesame candy came to the table. Itria had cooked the seeds with honey until the mixture turned silky and pale gold, then worked the sweet on a marble slab until it began to harden. We broke the candy into squares and ate, sighing our appreciation.
After our meal, I was shown to a bedchamber where I collapsed into dreams. I was in my brother Giánnis’s smithy. Giánnis hammered at a piece of iron that glowed under the hammer’s force, and I pumped the bellows, fueling the flames until they burned high and blue. Soon, the hammering became more insistent, as if the hammer were driving my brother, rather than the reverse. I had to drop the bellows to cover my ears and escape the relentless sound.
When I awoke soaked in sweat, the sound continued; someone was pounding on the front door. I stumbled into my Franciscan robes, which I was grateful to see had been washed.
Itria opened the front door, her white coif askew. Outside in the bright daylight stood five men, and at their head an armed sergeant wearing the Angevin blue and gold. His arm was raised, and I thought he was about to run Itria through with his sword. Then I realized he had been hitting the door with the butt of his weapon.
“We don’t like to wait, puterelle. Where’s your husband?”
Itria did not respond to the crude insult. “He is out.”
“You’ll have to do.” The sergeant smirked. His face was ruddy, with vessels spidering his cheeks and nose. Sweat-matted black hair edged out from the brim of his helmet; a matching thatch poked up over his tunic’s neckline. Itria stood stiff as a fire iron. “The king requires grain, cattle, pigs, and horses for the armada’s expedition. As you are a loyal subject of the king, you will provide these expediently.”
The pause before Itria’s answer was uncomfortably long. “I prefer you return when my husband is here. Who shall I say came calling?”
“I’m Sergeant Drouet, and I don’t care what you prefer.” The soldier stepped forward, too close to Itria, and in the way of her closing the door.
I stepped out of the shadows. “Signora Trabucco, may I assist you?”
Itria turned slowly, relief on her face. She’d thought she was alone. “Please, Brother Francis.”
My disguise, and my basic competence at French, kept the king’s officers civil. We walked to the storeroom, the animal pens, and finally the stables, where Drouet chose the best horse with deliberate slowness. Itria gripped my arm.
She and I stood outside the house, watching the soldiers leave with their newly acquired supplies and livestock. Drouet and his men did not pay for what they took, and we could not argue. When they were out of earshot, Itria turned to me. Her voice was savage.
“Your job is to incite anger against King Charles and his French pigs.” She let go of my arm, which had gone numb under her hand. “You are charged to ensure that rage runs hot in the blood of the Palermitani, hot enough to burn this brutal kingdom to ashes. These men, stealing in the name of their king, have done your work for you.”
ELIAS BORGHES
Holy Week 1282
Sicily
Trabucco’s house lay on the outskirts of Palermo, near the Oreto river. From there we could see the city walls. “The city is closer than it looks—an easy walk,” Vicenzu said, stepping his fingers along the kitchen table for illustration. “And there we’ll soon do our business.” A fly landed on the table, and Vicenzu, punctuating his words, flattened it with one hand.
Each day of that week leading up to Easter, we started at dawn with a prayer in the Church of the Holy Spirit. Consecrated on the day an eclipse plunged the world into darkness, the church was, to my eye, severe, but I was not accustomed to seeing beauty in the Latin image of the Divine. The church was all straight lines where ours had graceful arches, and the windowless length of stone along the church’s side seemed blind and uncaring, as if to make us fear God rather than love Him. Whether the architecture echoed my sense of holiness or not, Easter was imminent, a holiday that I would share with the Palermitani and, with it, the departure of Charles’s fleet.
I stood outside the church’s narrow door, listening to the river rush along, full with spring rain. The churchyard was packed with burghers, farmers, servants, and peasants who thronged the entry for mass. A Cistercian friar gave me a brotherly nod, a gesture I’d never experienced in lay clothes.
Al-Furat appeared beside me suddenly. “Do you worship as these Latins do, Elias of Mystras?”
It was a difficult question to answer. “Not exactly.”
“Exactness exists only in mathematics,” he said, but kindly.
“Similarities between our churches are not sufficient to prevent the Latins from sacking the greatest city in Christendom.”
“By which I understand you to mean the events of seventy-eight years ago?”
I calculated in my head. “Exactly.”
We both smiled. “You were not alive then,” Al-Furat said.
“My mother would not let me forget.”
“Mothers,” Al-Furat answered, “are a powerful force.” I suspected he was imagining his mother the way I was imagining mine. “Despite what you have been taught, you will join hands with these Latin worshippers in the service of their freedom?”
“Yes,” I said. “As will you.”
“My people have suffered as much as yours for our differences. But so have the Sicilians. Today we stand and pray with them, against our shared enemy, and for our mutual causes of justice and liberty.”
* * *
Each day, Al-Furat, Trabucco, Vicenzu, and I walked into town just after services at dawn and returned at dusk. We had a week to foment as much unrest as possible so that at the moment the match of rebellion was lit, the fire would rage uncontrolled. We ate in taverns, visited landowners, and spoke to peasants surprised anyone wished to talk to them. We prayed in churches and befriended merchants. We walked through the bustling port where King Charles’s soldiers picked out young Sicilian men to force onto the galleys. Trabucco and Vicenzu introduced me to their friends, colleagues, and acquaintances, who seethed with resentment. When we heard a grievance, we echoed it. When we saw anger, we fueled it. And when we met silence, we told stories of the ills we had witnessed at the hands of the king and his corrupt officials.
On my third day, I made an error that almost jeopardized our plans and nearly cost me my life. I came to a house on a street off Palermo’s port. A woman stood on the doorstep with two children—a small girl clung to her leg while a baby cried in her arms. She looked frightened when I asked whether we might speak inside. But she let me in, with a respectful nod and a quiet “Frati” in Sicilian. As she juggled the two children’s demands and served me a drink, I offered to help her, but she shook her head vehemently. I began to cautiously ask her questions. With each one, she became more and more anxious, her gaze darting frequently to the closed front door. When I asked how she fared under the French, she went white and gripped her infant to her chest.
“You had better go,” she said, but too late. The door opened and I saw why she was so frightened. Her husband was dressed in the uniform of a Frankish soldier. He scowled and drew his sword. I saw myself from his perspective: a strange man threatening his terrified wife.
She put herself between us. “Julien, please! He is a man of faith. Let him leave unhurt.” The baby in her arms began to scream outright, and the girl at her leg burst out into sympathetic sobs. Her husband reluctantly let me escape through the open front door.
I chose my targets more carefully after that. Later I thought of her, when I saw the danger that a Sicilian woman’s marriage to a Frenchman could create. Her fear for her life and that of her children was justified.
We avoided the Frankish patrols, staying apart to avoid suspicion. One by one, we returned every night to Trabucco’s house, where Itria presided over the cavernous kitchen, to review progress and make plans for the following day. And every night, as befitted Itria’s culinary mastery, we ate. On Easter Sunday, we celebrated the holiday with the Palermitani as if nothing were amiss, but late that night, Vicenzu took me aside. “People trust you, Elias. You have spoken well and done justice to our cause. But I warn you—what comes next may require more body than mind.” He handed me a dagger in a tooled leather sheath. “This is your next weapon. Are you prepared to use it?”
I looked down at the blade. “I am as prepared as I can be.”
Vicenzu nodded. “That is as much as anyone can ask.”
* * *
The next day, Easter Monday, fell early that year, on the twenty-ninth of March. Before Vespers, we gathered in the square outside the Church of the Holy Spirit for the festivities, along with what felt like the entire population of the island. The night was warm and smelled of orange blossoms. A band of musicians played as churchgoers spilled out into the square. A man with a weathered brown face held a goatskin bag and pipes that somehow produced many songs at once, a high melody over three deeper drones.
“Our ciaramedda,” Vicenzu said with pride as he saw me staring. The other instruments were more familiar: a plucked lute and handheld drums. When the music began, everyone began to dance and sing. Trabucco took one of my hands and Vicenzu the other, and soon I was dancing, too, though it felt more like being pulled than anything graceful on my part. Itria’s cheeks were rosy, and her straight brown hair escaped from the edge of the kerchief. Dressed for the festival, she wore a shawl of saffron yellow over her white coif, and her gown was deep blue with a silver brooch pinned at her throat. But it was her smile, so surprising on her serious face, that made her radiant.
The drums sped up, and the music grew frenetic. A figure draped in yellow ran into the plaza, his face hidden in a devil’s mask. Two demon-faced dancers in red raced behind. Young children squealed with delight, pretending terror as the devils grabbed a man from the crowd.
“Diavoli!” the onlookers shouted, and I joined in the chant. From the door of the church, priests emerged with statues of Jesus and the Madonna, which swayed over our heads. Around them ran a herd of children dressed as angels, their feathered wings bouncing as they drove the devils away.
Suddenly, at the edge of the square, a group of soldiers in blue and gold appeared. The music faltered like a missed heartbeat. Sergeant Drouet was at the head of the band. They strode into the square as if they owned it. A wave of disapproval spread out from their passage, but Drouet paid no attention. He walked up to a man selling marzipan sweets from a tray and grabbed a handful. He stuffed two of the candies in his mouth and chewed, the almond paste gathering at the corners of his lips.
The dancing came to a halt. “They look drunk,” Vicenzu whispered.
“We’re here to enjoy the festivities,” Drouet said with an almond-filled grin. “The fun that you Palermitani are famous for. Play on, in the name of your king.” He waved a hand at the musicians.
Trabucco shouted his answer: “We play for God’s honor on this day, not for your king.” Several Sicilians clapped, and a murmur of assent spread through the crowd.
Drouet’s face reddened, and he pushed his way through to Trabucco. “You will do as you are told or be arrested for treason.” Itria broke from the line of dancers to join her husband, and Drouet’s eyes shifted to her. “Ah, this is your little wife?” He took a step toward her, too close.
Trabucco put his hand on Itria’s arm. “I’ll thank you to keep your distance.”
“Today is a holiday, meant for enjoyment,” Drouet said, grabbing Itria’s breast.
Trabucco did not look like a man built for speed. But in seconds, he’d drawn his dagger and driven it into the sergeant’s chest. Drouet’s mouth fell open, still full of marzipan. Trabucco drew out the blade, slick with blood, and stabbed Drouet repeatedly, until he folded to the ground, blood burbling from his wounds.
Vicenzu pulled out his hidden weapon and held it high in the air like a banner. “Moranu li Franchiski!” he shouted in Sicilian, years of anger ignited by this final outrage. Death to the French.
The remaining soldiers rushed at us, brandishing weapons, but they were too drunk and too few, outnumbered by the enraged Palermitani. The mob turned on King Charles’s men, hacking at them until the paving stones of the churchyard were slick with blood. I fought next to Vicenzu. The worthy cause did not erase the horror. The bells of the Church of the Holy Spirit began to ring for Vespers: a song of Christ risen, now a song of revenge. One by one, churches throughout the city joined the chorus.
“Moranu li Franchiski!” The call spread through the crowd: to burghers, peasants, and priests, to the children dressed as angels. And the words became reality.
Enraged Palermitani ran toward the city gates, calling fellow Sicilians to join against the French. Church doors flew open and worshippers ran into the streets, shouting. Some carried swords and knives, others whatever weapon they could find—pokers, brooms, pitchforks, shovels, a broken goblet from which red liquid still dripped. As I ran past, I did not know if it was wine or blood.
We were carried on the rising tide of rage. The mob tore down the doors of inns, killing every Frank they found—not only uniformed officers, but also old men with canes, youths with the first fuzz of manhood on their cheeks, kerchiefed matrons, even Sicilian women who had made the deadly error of marrying Frankish men. All were slaughtered and left bleeding in the streets. I could not bring myself to kill without provocation. But when a French soldier threatened me or my comrades in rebellion, I used my weapon until it was stained with the Angevin blood of King Charles’s men.
That night I found out the importance of Vicenzu’s lessons. The swelling tide of rebels threw open the convents and monasteries, confronting each friar.
“Ciciri,” a Sicilian rioter snarled at one cowering brother, so young he’d likely just entered the monastery. “Say ciciri.” The French Dominican struggled with the unfamiliar syllables of a language it was said the French could never master. The Sicilian left the Dominican bleeding to death from a gash in his pale throat, unable to make a sound in any language. I, thanks to Vicenzu, passed that test. But my immediate reward was taking others’ lives from them.
Just before dawn, the mob dragged a pregnant Sicilian woman into a public square where, accusing her of lying with a Frenchman, the rebels cut the mixed-blood babe from her belly, leaving mother and child to die. After that I ran without seeing, my heart breaking. At dawn, I found Trabucco at the gates of the old royal palace, his jolly face incongruously streaked with blood. When he smiled, his teeth were white against the gore.
