Orm remembered Aethelmaer.
In the last days of the reign of King Edward the Confessor, Sihtric had attached himself to the court of Harold, Earl of Wessex, as a priest-confessor – and as a prophet of sorts. He believed he was in the possession of a prophecy already four centuries old, a calendar-like vision called the Menologium of Isolde, whose sole purpose was to ensure an English victory over the Normans in the year of the great comet – the year of Our Lord 1066. Not that it had done much good. Harold, who had refused to take all the prophecy's advice, had fallen to defeat by the Normans.
But during his career as a court Sibyl, Sihtric had learned of the existence of a rival.
'Aethelmaer! A fat, crippled monk from Wiltshire,' he said with some bitterness. 'Who had also been uttering prophecies about the comet. I've since found his very words, among his papers.' He quoted from memory: ''You've come, have you, O comet? You've come, you source of tears to many mothers. It is long since I saw you; but as I see you now you are much more terrible, for I see you brandishing the downfall of my country…''
'And you summoned him to Westminster.'
'Yes. You were there, Orm, you remember.'
His useless legs stinking of rot and unguent, the monk had wheezed his way through an account of his prophecy – which turned out not to have been his at all, but gabbled out by a young man called Aethelred, who had been abandoned as a child, taken in by the monastery at Malmesbury, and then had his short, unhappy life curtailed by debauched brothers.
'But not before he had left behind a remarkable body of work, studied and preserved by Aethelmaer and others.'
'I saw them. Sketches of machines. Siege engines, catapults…'
'I call the designs the Codex of Aethelmaer.' Sihtric smiled. 'The Engines of God.'
Orm struggled to remember the fantastic designs he had glimpsed just once, decades ago, and had never understood even then. 'But they were just scribbles on parchment. In a lifetime of study, Aethelmaer could build none of them.'
'Not quite,' Sihtric said. 'He did try to build one, remember? That was how he became crippled.'
Orm shook his head. 'I never understood that. Why would you want to fly like a bird? Of course none of this means a thing unless you can actually build these mechanical marvels of yours.'
'True enough,' Sihtric said. 'And I think you would be pleased to learn that I too have failed like Aethelmaer, wouldn't you, Orm the Viking? Well, you're about to be disappointed.'
Orm stared at him. 'You mean the arbalest? Sihtric, can you really be developing gadgets, weapons, from the plans you stole from that mad monk?'
'Interesting choice of words,' Sihtric said. 'Stole? I hardly think so. You met Aethelmaer. Old, crippled, he could do no more than have his arse wiped by some young novice, and probably enjoyed it too.'
'Your talk is sometimes filthy for a priest,' Orm said.
'Well, I'm a filthy sort of priest. Anyhow Aethelmaer's laborious mechanical sketching would have gone no further when he died, if not for my 'stealing'. Am I not honouring his legacy, by trying to pursue the designs he left?
'And, 'gadgets'? You make them sound like toys. These are engines, Orm. Engines of war – and, perhaps, of peace. Come now. Let me show you.' Sihtric spurred his horse forward.
Orm, overwhelmed, followed.
XI
Robert and Moraima walked out of the mosque into dazzling daylight.
They headed down to the river, where waterwheels turned with a creak of wooden gears – Moraima said the wheels were called norias – and boats with colourful sails steered through the arches of the Roman bridge. On the bank, amid a clinking of coins, vendors sold food and water and parasols.
Moraima said, 'You were affected by the mosque, weren't you? Not everybody is. I think you're deep, Robert son of Orm.'
'Am I?' He laughed. 'Well, maybe compared to Ghalib and Hisham.'
'Now you're being jealous, and that's not deep. I can't always tell what you're thinking, though. What you're feeling.'
He thought it over. 'My time in Spain – I didn't know what to expect. That journey down through the country, the emptiness, the heat…' He was shy about this, but he tried to express himself. 'And when I walk into these marvellous places, the mosque, the palace – something inside me – it's like a bird fluttering in my chest.'
She astonished him by placing her hand over his. 'My father said you would be like this. You have your father's muscles, but the soul of your mother.'
'Whose soul does he say you have?'
'His sister's. My aunt, Godgifu, who died before either of us was born. And who loved your father, Orm.'
That was a shock. 'I knew nothing of that.'
She looked at him directly. 'Do you think love can cross generations?'
Confused, he turned away. 'I didn't come here for love. I came here because of my father's business with yours.'
'Yes. Our fathers are both veterans of Hastings, and I suppose something like that shapes you for ever. But the past is dead, gone, and they are old men. Who cares about our fathers' business? We are young. We are the future.'
He looked at her. 'You're talking about us.'
'What about us?'
He sighed, faintly irritated. 'There you go again. You drop hints, and when I respond you turn away and go all coy.'
She smiled. 'Don't tell me you don't like it. Would you like there to be an us?'
He gazed at her, hot in his tunic of English wool. 'You know I would, or you wouldn't talk like this.'
She said, 'But…'
'But we're so different. Muslim and Christian!'
'There are ways around that. The People of the Book are tolerated here.'
He grunted. 'Not in England, they're not. And you're becoming a scholar, as far as I can see. While I will never be anything but a soldier.'
'There's plenty of work for soldiers in Spain,' she said.
He smiled. 'Let's keep it simple. Do you think it would be a sin before God or Allah if I kissed you?'
'We could always find out.' She stepped towards him. Her skin was the smoothest surface he had ever seen, utterly flawless, and as her full lips parted he could smell the subtlest spice, a pepper perhaps.
But there was a rude cry. 'Hey, Christian! Take a look!' It was Ghalib.
XII
Orm paced out the mighty weapon.
The body of the shaft was forty paces long, perhaps two wide, and mounted on three axles. The bow itself, twenty paces from tip to tip, was made of wood layers, finely cut and polished, that ran in smooth, pleasing curves, gleaming in the intense sunlight. It was like a section of a boat, perhaps, or a monstrous piece of furniture.
'You've used arbalests,' Sihtric called. 'Tell me about them.'
'The bow is usually made of metal.'
'Not here. We couldn't cast such an immense bow, and nor could it be bent back if we did. Look here, we use laminated wood, layers pasted and nailed together. We hired boat-builders from your Viking homelands.'
'The vizier's pockets must be deep.'
