Chapter 4 #2
“I’m insanely high,” I crooned to myself. Jean rose to his feet in an instant.
“Pray point in the direction of your destination,” he asked.
“Okay,” I said.
Thibaut raised an eyebrow.
“I beg your pardon?” Jean said. “I do not understand that expression.”
“I said, ‘Okay.’” I was tired of this game. But Jean behaved with the utmost courtesy and supported my elbow as I got up off the ground. When I lost my balance, he held me by the waist. “Oh-ho,” said Thibaut from his spot under the tree.
I’m going to kill Dan, I thought to myself.
That jerk was insane to suggest such a high dose.
Jean scrutinized my pendant. “Why are you bedecked with a copper dinar?” He held the coin between two fingers and examined it carefully.
“It looks like the coin I threw into the holy spring a few minutes ago.”
“And you asked for a wish and refused to disclose it to me,” Thibaut remarked from under the tree. Twang, twang, his fingers plucked the strings.
“That is the seal of the house of Ibelin of Beirut,” Jean said slowly. He surveyed me up, down, and up again, increasingly warily.
“I found it on the seashore,” I fumbled for the right words. The fanaticism of these two history buffs was beginning to feel a little dangerous. I grabbed the coin between my fingers and stared at it.
It looked new.
Engraved on one side of the coin was the same cross with the widened edges, encircled by an inscription. On the other side was a decorative gate of a stone tower. The coin shone. I swallowed hard. “I … I … I don’t understand …” My heart began beating wildly, and shapes drifted before my eyes.
“I barely understand a thing she utters.” Thibaut looked at me as though he were checking out a new car and then looked at Jean, who was holding me by the elbow.
“Take care, my lad, that this fairy does not spirit you away to the otherworld.” Jean laughed in response—there was something youthful about his laugh—and he walked me out from under the canopy of the huge tree.
I meant to say something, but I choked instead.
At the site of the small fortress and broken rocks of Le Destroit now stood several single- and two-story buildings.
The entire area up to the Carmel Hills was covered in fields and orchards.
Here and there were small clusters of stone dwellings, probably hamlets or farms. There was no trace of cars or highways.
Suddenly, I realized that one of the strange noises I had heard on the way, and had not managed to decipher, was the snorting of horses—tied to metal rings in stone walls, now grazing on grass.
The horses were dressed in fine cloth decorated with noble insignia.
The simpler cloth on Jean’s horse was checkered yellow and red; the other horse sported a textile embroidered with luminous threads in shades of blue, yellow, and silver—apparently the colors of Thibaut.
Count of Champagne, King of Navarre, the words whispered in my brain.
Spellbound, I turned my attention to the seashore.
Instead of the ruins of the Atlit fortress, with the white structures of the Israeli naval base, there rose a gigantic stone fortification with turrets and towers of the kind found in Italy or Spain.
Above some of the turrets hung large pale flags.
Close to the fortress, instead of coastal vegetation and salt pools, was a small town surrounded by walls.
I heard what sounded like the pealing of church bells.
Along the plain that lay between the fortress and the town, and between the range of hills, were orchards and groves, fields and gardens.
All the new building sites, the bulldozers, the trucks and the roads, the houses of Atlit, the power lines, the makeshift shacks, and the caravans near the beach had disappeared.
I fell to the ground. It felt as if all the blood had drained from my body. Helpless, I watched a flock of flamingos on the southern edge of the town, preparing for flight.
“I’m going to faint,” I whimpered in Hebrew.
Jean tensed up and knelt beside me. Brunette padded up to me and thrust her nose into my armpit.
I took a long breath and inhaled air redolent with horse droppings, trampled vegetation, and the scent of the sea.
My brain contracted, and then, all at once, I threw up.
I took another gulp of air and threw up again.
From the window of one of the buildings of Le Destroit, a head wearing a strange helmet appeared, looking out at us with concern.
“Are you sure all is well, my lord?” shouted the guard.
Jean glanced at him and shouted back, “All is well, my good man. We came across a pilgrim; she is much parched. Return to your duties. I commend your vigilance.” The man did not look convinced.
“As you wish, my lord,” and his head disappeared from sight.
Jean led me back to the spring and helped me drink some water and wash my face. “What’s going on?” I barely managed to get the words out. “Where’s Halimi?”
“Where is who?” Jean asked.
“My … my servant,” I said. “We must find him.” With a glimmer of hope, I began rummaging deliriously through my backpack, looking for my cell phone. I sighed with relief as I fished it out of the bag, but when I switched it on, nothing happened.
“What is that?” Thibaut asked, setting down what I now presumed to be a lute.
“I … I can’t say,” I said weakly.
“She is either a fairy or a poulain or a Saracen in disguise,” Thibaut proclaimed. “Those kinds always have various sophisticated instruments, not to mention satanic.”
I blinked at them several times, came out from under the tree’s canopy, and then went back under it. I sat down heavily near the spring and washed my face again.
“Perhaps this is all a dream?” I said out loud. The thought afforded me instant relief. I had simply fallen asleep near Halimi, and those goddamn mushrooms had tripped me out. I should wake up any minute.
“Life is but a dream,” Thibaut hummed, strumming on his lute. “A pleasant but fleeting dream …” Twang, twang, his fingers whipped through the air with a soft, sweet melody.
“My lady, it will be my pleasure to assist you in locating your servant,” Jean said, scowling at his friend.
“His Royal Highness Thibaut and I are residing at Chateau Pèlerin. I am sure that the good knights will be happy to offer you shelter for a few nights if you and your servant have lost your way.” He spoke slowly to me, as if he thought I was not quite right in the head.
Perhaps I wasn’t, it dawned on me. Perhaps the mushrooms had caused irreversible damage.
“Halimi!” I suddenly remembered. “Let’s go look for my servant,” I told Jean.
“That’s the name of a Saracen,” Thibaut said, but he was smiling this time.
Twang, twang.
“Why not proceed, your Majesty, and ride to the chateau?” Jean suggested to Thibaut. “You can announce the arrival of a pilgrim lady who has lost her way, and they will have time to prepare lodgings.”
“What impertinence!” Thibaut snarled, adding with surprising affection, “And the wretched brothers will have to atone for your raging impulses with infinite prayers, mortifications, and fasting.” He fell silent for a moment and looked at me again.
“Périgord will undoubtedly appreciate such a beauteous addition to the gloomy chateau. Very well, then.” He leaped elegantly to his feet.
“And since it is you who insisted we set out without squires, it is you who will pack up our chattels. That is what a savage such as yourself deserves.”
“Certainly, your Royal Highness,” said Jean. The two men grinned at each other, and Thibaut slapped Jean on the back. He packed up his lute in a lavish velvet sheath, secured the loops with practiced speed, and slung it over his shoulder.
“Don’t spirit the poor fool away to the otherworld, my lady,” he winked at me. “Have mercy upon this lowly creature; he has a wife and offspring.”
Thibaut mounted the horse with incredible ease for a person with a body like his—he was tall and solid with a sizable paunch and massive limbs.
As he leaped onto the horse, a pungent odor of sweat and moth-eaten clothes was released into the air.
His large sword and lute, slung across his back, settled into place as though they were integral parts of his anatomy.
“Adieu!” he cried to us, spurring his horse, who broke into an easy gallop southward.
Cedrique ran effortlessly behind them, barking joyfully.
I followed them with my eyes until they descended beyond the Narrow Passage, disappearing onto the quarried road.
The hoofbeats resounded for several moments.
A short while after that, the figure of horse and rider appeared beside the walls of the fortress before being swallowed up inside.
I blinked again and shook my head. I held my breath, eyes closed, and tried to imagine Halimi waking up under the tree.
I thought of the silence, the dark green shadows, and how he would begin looking for me.
I imagined Simone putting Lily to bed in the hotel in the south.
I took a deep breath and opened my eyes.
The fortress still loomed on the horizon, majestic and rock solid.
The buildings of Le Destroit were scattered along the sandstone ridge.
A seagull squawked overhead as if hurling curses at us.
I burst into tears. Brunette came up to me and licked my hand.
Jean, who was busy gathering up the leftovers and replacing the utensils in their containers, raised his head.
“We will begin the search for your servant tout de suite, my lady. Pray, do not worry.”