play games when he kills. He may be saying he knows you are with me. This may only be his opening move.”
“Goddamnit!” Ray shouted, stomping the stone floor and slapping his beret against his leg. “He has to go, Z! We need to take that murderin’ son of a bitch out!”
“I know,” I said, but Sailor’s words had stunned me. Why would the Fleur-du-Mal do that? What would so possess him to do something so cruel? What did my grandfather know?
Sailor was genuinely concerned about Giles and his condition. Every day all of us would ferry over to Malta and the hospital in Valletta to visit him. He drifted in and out of consciousness for five days, then on the morning of the sixth day he was able to speak and he and Sailor spoke to each other in whispers. They used Maltese, Giles’s native tongue and a language I had never heard. Even in slow, hoarse whispers, it sounded distinguished and elegant. Once we were out of the hospital, Sailor was openly relieved that Giles was going to live, but concerned about what Giles had told him.
“We shall see if he acted fearlessly or foolishly,” Sailor said.
“What did he do?” I asked.
“He did indeed lie to the Fleur-du-Mal.”
“We already assumed that.”
“Yes, however, the Fleur-du-Mal
“Not if we find him first,” Ray said.
“Yes,” Sailor said, but I could hear the doubt in his voice.
“What did Giles lie about?” I asked.
“What else? He lied about the Octopus. He told him the box was inlaid with ruby instead of lapis lazuli and the trail to find it begins in Damascus, not Cairo. That means we have an advantage in our search, but Giles will still be here, helpless and defenseless against the Fleur-du-Mal’s anger when he eventually discovers the truth, and he will.”
“How can we protect Giles?”
“We cannot. We must find the Octopus before the Fleur-du-Mal finds the truth. Then we shall bait the trap. It is that simple.”
“That don’t sound like it will be too easy,” Ray said.
“No,” Sailor almost whispered, “it will not.”
Captain B and his crew had the
On the way back to the
“He might be able to unravel the demented puzzle driving the Fleur-du-Mal and his aberrations,” Sailor said. “After the death of Aitor, Mowsel suspected it. Now, with the mutilation of Giles, I agree with him. Aitor discovered something about the Fleur-du-Mal that evoked a vicious response. Mowsel thinks Zeru-Meq may know what it was. I have my own thoughts on the matter, but they are only speculations.”
We walked a few paces in silence. I was confused. “Tell me about my grandfather,” I said.
“That will take some time and make us late for our departure.”
“Then make us late, Sailor. I want to know now.”
“Of course. I understand.” Sailor stopped walking and motioned for us to sit together on a low stone wall just to our left. From there we could see the harbor and the vast blue Mediterranean beyond. “The murder happened there,” he said, pointing north across the sea, “1,739 years ago on the western coast of Italy, near a fishing village along the Gulf of Salerno. The village is where your father was born and the murder occurred on the same night as his birth, a cruel irony that was neither accident nor coincidence.
“Your grandfather and your grandmother, Itzia, before and after they crossed in the Zeharkatu, were a uniquely gifted pair. I used to visit them at least once a year, if only to hear Aitor talk for hours about how it felt, biologically and psychologically, to age. He was obsessed with the science of it. Both he and Itzia possessed keen and curious minds and both had eclectic interests that led them all across the Mediterranean, Near East, and the shores of the Black Sea. Along with being an avid fisherman, Aitor was a student of tidal pools and marine life in coastal waters. He studied every species, but after the Zeharkatu, focused his studies on the cephalopod mollusks, particularly the octopus. Itzia was an expert in the medical sciences and studied for a time under the tutelage of an odd and brilliant Giza, the Greek physician Galen. Oddly, it was Galen who gave Aitor the first bit of information that inadvertently led to his death.
“Also, you must remember, Zianno, at this time the Fleur-du-Mal was not of much concern to the Meq. We followed him from a distance, disapproving, of course, but uninvolved. Aitor had even met him on three separate occasions over the previous two hundred years. They had exchanged a few unpleasant remarks and Aitor was not impressed, being repulsed by Xanti Otso’s mind and presence. During that time, the Fleur-du-Mal was extremely active and proud of it. Assassinations were rampant and he was in demand. However, to our knowledge, he had not yet killed or tortured one of us.
“Itzia said Galen knew she was Meq and became a trusted friend. He also knew of Aitor’s fascination with marine biology, especially the octopus. Apparently, on one long night in front of the fire, Galen told Aitor about a nefarious man, an opium dealer, he had encountered on the island of Crete. The man told Galen about a strange green-eyed boy who never seemed to age. The boy kept his hair tied in the back with a green ribbon and he wore red ruby earrings. Galen did not know the Fleurdu-Mal. What he thought Aitor might be interested in was the fact that the boy was an addict, and in his opium stupor would always ask, “Where is the octopus? Where is the octopus?” Galen thought the story was hilarious. Aitor was intrigued. A year later, Aitor was traveling to Crete concerning another matter. By the evening of his second day there, he was in the streets of Iraklion and the surrounding countryside asking guarded questions and searching for the opium dealer. After a week of disappointment, he finally located the man. The poor fellow had sunk into the depths of addiction himself. He was emaciated, lost and hopeless, but he happened to be lucid on the afternoon Aitor visited him. Whatever secret Aitor learned about the Fleur-du-Mal was learned there. It could not have simply been the fact that the man exposed the Fleur-du-Mal as an addict. His drug use was legendary and only one of his minor depravities. Much later, I discovered the opium dealer had been brutally murdered and decapitated shortly after Aitor’s conversation with him. That is when I first realized the extent of the Fleur-du-Mal’s network of information and how fast he can act upon it. In Aitor’s case, however, he did not. His confrontation with Aitor was much more diabolical. He waited a full two years, until Itzia became pregnant with your father, then on the night of his birth, appeared out of the darkness unasked and unannounced on Aitor’s doorstep. Itzia told me later she was in bed with her newborn and Aitor was sitting next to her. Aitor rose to answer the knock at the door, kissed her on the cheek, and walked out of the room. She never saw him again. She said she heard a raspy voice, a boy’s voice, congratulate Aitor, then ask him something about an octopus, after which Aitor raised his voice, saying “Outside with this!” and they left. The next morning, Aitor was found near a tide pool in the same condition in which we found Giles, except Aitor’s throat had been slit and he had been scalped. A green ribbon was woven into the hair and the whole scalp had been placed over Aitor’s face. No notes, no reasons, nothing. The Fleur-du-Mal disappeared.”
I was stunned and sickened and speechless for several moments. Finally, I asked, “Was Zeru-Meq informed of the murder?”
“Yes.”
“What was his reaction?”
“He wept,” Sailor said in a flat monotone. “He wept and then wandered into the Caucasus without a word.”
“Zeru-Meq told me in China he thought the Fleur-du-Mal was only a ‘sad, dangerous pilgrim.’”
“Yes, and Zeru-Meq likes to think of himself as seeking a higher truth, when in fact he lives a lie. He could help to end this madness and he knows it. He is aware of something about the Fleur-du-Mal that we are not, likely
