The Codex Lacrimae: The Book of Tears

Chapter 8: The Ellipses of a New Triquerta

The blue flames faded into black, then into mottled browns and greens. Khajen ibn-Khaldun awakened gently, sprawled on his face in a soft bed of loam. He pushed himself from the dirt and recognized the graveyard in the vast northern space of the Krak. He stood, brushing soil from his robes, then snatched at the leather satchel containing the Codex Lacrimae and relaxed upon feeling its heavy weight still inside.

Two men came around the corner of the fortress. They bore a stretcher, upon which lay the covered body of a corpse.

"Vous, là-bas! You there!" called the knight at the rear of the stretcher. "What are you doing?"

"I ... tripped," Ibn-Khaldun replied in vexation, unused to explaining himself to castle staffers. "Do you have another casualty there?"

"Oui, c'est le Frère Roberto," the other man grunted as they lowered the stretcher to the ground. "He didn't make it."

Ibn-Khaldun grimaced and adjusted the satchel on his shoulder. Roberto was the knight who'd been injured on the Baghdad mission, the one whose hand Ríg amputated.

"I could've told anyone that he wouldn't," said the knight who'd first addressed Ibn-Khaldun. "Not with a hand cut off. I tell you, Anthony, if I'm so injured that they want to be hacking off parts of me to 'save me,' you let the Lord take His due, do you hear me?"

"I hear you, Jaime," grumbled Anthony, "but let's worry about putting the ones who are dead into the ground, eh?"

"He seemed on the mend when I last saw him," Ibn-Khaldun said as he moved over to the stretcher, taking in Roberto's grey face. The Muslim scholar frowned, not liking what he saw in the strained expression around the mouth. He knelt beside the dead man, gently pried open his lips, and smelled the air there.

"Do you know how long ago he died?" Ibn-Khaldun asked. "His skin still feels warm."

"Not long ago," Jamie replied."At least, that's what Brother Nicholas said when we came to get him.He's the first of the bodies we've got to bury — your son and Rig slew some Assassins by the gate, and then Marcus took care of another one in the stables."

Ibn-Khaldun felt a wave of relief at the news that (in this world, at least) Marcus seemed to be alive and well. Then he frowned. "Did you say that Brother Nicholas sent you to take Roberto's body? The new physician ?"

"Je ne sais quoi, monsieur," Jaime shrugged, "l'un des médecins. I don't know any of the doctors."

"No, no — I've met him, but why was he attending Roberto?" Ibn-Khaldun started to ask, then realized that neither man could be expected to know the answer. He waved at them to continue. "Merci, mes amis. Carry on with your work."

Jaime didn't move, nodding at the body.

"Did you find something wrong? You smelled his lips?"

"Oui," the scholar murmured, "but, now is not the time nor place to discuss it."

"Let's get to work," Anthony said. "Is there enough quicklime around the corner, or are we going to have to ...?"

The men's voices faded from earshot as Ibn-Khaldun entered a nearby stairwell. He moved with alacrity, his pace hastened by the gravediggers' report. Marcus had killed the traitor down by the stables, the same area where his dream-vision revealed Fatima and Khalil to be. Was it true —were his family members, indeed, somehow within the Krak's walls? He needed to find out and see if Marcus was wandering somewhere along the way.

Another thought intruded: how had Roberto died so quickly?

Ibn-Khaldun had seen Ríg's work on the man and knew that he couldn't have done a finer amputation himself. The lad had studied the medical arts assiduously under the tutelage of Ibn-Khaldun and other Islamic masters, as well as at the great hospital of his order in Jerusalem. Indeed, although he was humble about his ability, Ríg was on his way to becoming as proficient as any of those on the Krak's staff.