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Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three

Chapter One

In his rage Father Enlil answered Ninshubur: "Inanna craved the great heaven and she craved the great below as well. The divine powers of the underworld are divine powers that should not be craved, for whoever gets them must remain in the underworld. Who, having got to that place, could then expect to come up again?" -Inanna's Descent to the Underworld, Sumer, 2nd millennium BC

~~

The House of the Rose, Béziers, County of Toulouse--Tuesday, July 21st, AD 1209

Menelaos cracked open the thick, bronze-banded door and checked the sky outside. A red sunset blazed above the two-and three-story wooden houses across the street, but the moon had not yet risen. With his Seer's Eyes, he carefully examined the dirt street left and right, uphill and down. No townsmen were visible, only some vagrant pigs. Sure that it was empty of human life, he closed and barred the door. So far, so good.

He checked all the storage rooms on the streetside ground floor of the House of the Rose for unauthorized occupation, and to ensure each stone-arched window was shuttered tightly. The overwhelming scent of roses had some competition from the litter left over from the wedding feast that hadn't yet been swept up: scattered flowers and grain, crumbs of food, dropped sweetmeats, splashes of beer and wine. He smiled at the remnants of the joyous occasion that was the plausible excuse for this gathering of far-flung family members. He found no intruders. Good.

The counting room, offices and stillrooms were neat, and vacated. The kitchen, pantries and buttlery at the rear of the house were likewise deserted and spotless. Nobody was hiding in the cistern. The doors leading upstairs to the great hall were shut, but the murmuring noise from above attested to the attendance of all the kin, waiting for the great occasion that was still to come. They would discover any strangers in their midst on their own. He would not disturb them yet. Turning his Seer's eyes to the substantial courtyard in the middle of the House, he scanned the dim radiance of the auras surrounding the herbs and fruit trees and saw a brightness in one tall tree that did not belong to mere plant life.

In a moment, he crossed the space and yanked the spy off his perch using his hand or air, catching him by the back of a skinny neck. Closing his Seer's Eyes to look clearly upon the face of one about to die, he lifted the miscreant to eye-level.

He beheld a thin, brown-skinned face, and amber eyes framed by dark brows, like all the kin. It held the promise of a strong character--if he made it to the age of wisdom.

"My lord! My lord! It's me, Simon!" cried the boy, half in terror, half in vast excitement.

Menelaos held him quite still, glad he had not automatically shaken him like a terrier shakes a rat, breaking his neck. He was not an intruder at all, merely an inquisitive son of the House, trying to discover secrets he was not yet old enough to learn. He would earn the right to those secrets soon, but not this year.

"You're lucky," Menelaos growled, hiding his relief and his shaking hands, and set the boy down, unharmed. Opening his Seer's Eyes again, he searched the courtyard for any confederates, and found none. "If Honoria had caught you, you'd be in the Underworld already, looking for a new mother."

"Yes, lord. I know, lord," babbled Simon. Then he twinkled, and gave a cheeky grin. "But I wanted to see it all! All the djinni..."

That was obvious, and understandable. But not permitted. "Back upstairs. How did you escape from Deema, anyway?"

The boy shrugged, not willing to betray his cousin.

Menelaos kept hold of him as they found the stairs in the deepening gloom and ascended. Simon wouldn't get a second chance to escape from the children's quarters tonight.

No one could be allowed to learn the secrets of the House of the Rose uninvited, and live.

So it had been for millennia. So it must always be.

* * *

In the darkness, one by one, the nine djinni Protectors of the House descended the stone stairs leading from the living quarters to the great hall. Below, in a vast, high-ceilinged space that took up most of the house's second story, the mortal members of the House waited, more than a hundred hearts racing with excitement.

During his fifteen centuries as a Protector, Menelaos of Pergamon had often participated in these secret ceremonies. But even so, he felt a thrill as he paused at the carved arch that marked the hall's entrance. He raised his right hand to touch the winged figures, the sculptured limestone slippery and cool against his heated fingers. Behind him, he heard quiet rustling and smelled perfume--roses, of course, but the subtle notes of sandalwood, myrrh, and jasmine also--as the other Protectors found their places.

After a moment, one more djinn came down the stairs, excitement and nerves swirling in his wake like phosphorescence in a midnight sea. It was Raymond Taille-fer, nicknamed Raymond-Soleil, newly-Transformed djinn, and ready to stand for his Appointing by the mortal elders of the House of the Rose.

Would he pass tonight's tests? Menelaos had known him in many of his--their--past lives, and liked his current incarnation as the shy youngest son of a Parisian blacksmith.

But even after training Raymond-Soleil for the past half-year, Menelaos could not predict the Appointing's outcome with surety. Raymond-Soleil's soul was immensely old, and enriched with the experiences carried from lifetime to lifetime, but bodies--even those of the nearly-immortal djinni--were fragile and sometimes betrayed their owners.

Tonight would end either in rejoicing or tragedy.

As the djinni waited for the signal to enter the hall, Menelaos felt a familiar presence beside him, clothed in an aura that shone like cloth-of-gold.

<Your light is tarnished with fretting, my love. Don't make our poor Raymond more nervous than he already is,> came his wife's brisk mental communication. Honoria nevertheless slipped an arm around his waist, offering soundless comfort. He turned and gave her a kiss, a feather-light brushing of lips and minds.

From somewhere on the dark staircase behind them came Raymond-Soleil's anxious thought: <What if my robe falls off in the middle of the ceremony?>

There were silent chuckles from the assembled djinni. Most of them had faced a similar crisis the first time they were summoned to appear before the assembled kin of the House clad in the ritual Garment of Divine Kingship, a fourteen-foot-long layered and fringed linen shawl that was wrapped around the torso, under the right arm, over the left shoulder, and tucked under the right armpit.

<Don't worry,> Honoria reassured Raymond-Soleil. <I used my best gold fibula to pin it.>

<And you're a good-looking lad, so even if it does slip off...> Menelaos projected a swift memory of the nude Greek athletes from his long-ago youth, gorgeous and gleaming in the hot sun, then added an equally nude and broad-shouldered Raymond-Soleil and a few ogling maidens to the mental image. <...I doubt the kin will mind very much.>

Raymond-Soleil caught himself just in time from laughing out loud, the sound escaping only as a sharp puff of air. <I would probably have to run just as fast as those athletes!> he commented, wryly, changing the image to one of himself wearing his long leather blacksmith's apron to preserve his modesty. But Menelaos's joke had done the trick: the waves of trepidation roiling from Raymond-Soleil subsided to mere ripples.

Then it was time.

<Now,> came Lady Cecilia's mental command, and Menelaos, hand-in-hand with Honoria, stepped under the archway.

As they entered the great hall, pitch-black to mortal eyes, he opened the eyes of his mind, his Seer's eyes. The hall suddenly blazed with the flame-like auras of the assembled kin, as if the Christian Pentecost had descended upon the House of the Rose. And the great winged auras of the djinni, making their stately way along the walls to the front of the hall, outshone the mortal kin of the House as the sun outshines the stars.

The tension was too much for a solitary infant. It wailed, despite maternal efforts to quiet it. As if the crying baby had been a signal to relax, there were scattered coughs and the soft sounds of people stretching and shuffling to get more comfortable where they stood.

When the djinni reached the dais at the front of the hall, Menelaos reluctantly released Honoria's hand so that they could take their accustomed places.

When all ten of the djinni had assembled on the dais, Cecilia called out in ringing tones: "Let there be light!"

Menelaos put all the strength of his aura into condensing a small sphere of air into a white-hot point, then touched the spark to an oil-soaked torch above his head. It flashed into life just as Honoria's torch, then Cecilia's, sparked and flared.

The sudden light revealed Sharibet, the First Protector of the House, standing at the front of the dais. A tiny, brown-skinned, amber-eyed djinniah, it was she who had first recruited the Apkallu to protect her House, for she was the ancestress of most of the kin gathered in this hall. Her long, rippling black hair was braided with gleaming gold ornaments, and she wore the feminine version of the Garment of Divine Kingship, the fringed linen shawl folded into a wide collar across both shoulders and hanging down to her knees over an unadorned sheath tied at the waist.

Sharibet's mortal descendants sighed appreciatively at the familiar magic and lit hand-held candles from the torches. The flames passed from celebrant to celebrant, until the whole hall glowed with light. Family musicians began to play an ancient flute melody, accompanied by drums deep enough to vibrate bones.

When the last notes of the song ended, Sharibet said in the ancient language of the House, "Nu dumu-dumu-la! My children!" then waited as the ecstatic response came in waves:

"Ama! Mother!"

"My children, it is good to meet again!" She held her hands up for silence. "We are gathered tonight to celebrate the Finding of one of the Lost Apkallu, and to appoint him anew as a Protector of the House."

Raymond-Soleil bowed, outwardly grave and dignified, but Menelaos saw that his aura was swirling with anxiety again.

Cheers and ululations resounded. Although any mortal could be Transformed into a djinn, the incarnations of the Apkallu, the original group of twelve djinni once revered as gods, were especially esteemed as Protectors by the kin.

"My children, will you accept him?" Sharibet asked.

The crowd hushed and parted to reveal Solange, the eldest mortal of the Béziers House of the Rose. Her thin silver hair was braided with blue faience rosettes that swung and clicked as she hobbled to the fore. She was ninety years old, bent and wrinkled, but her amber eyes were still clear and alert.

"Most gracious Mother Sharibet, all of us who belong to the House, born into it or adopted, trust in your loving care, for you have rescued us from the forgetfulness of the Underworld for sixty-eight centuries." The old woman's voice shook and she paused to breathe deeply. "You ask us if we will accept a new Protector, and this is a hard thing to answer. Many times, Protectors have sacrificed themselves for us, and we honor them. Yet how shall we know that this one will prove true?"

Cecilia stepped forward to answer. "He shall answer your questions himself, but I affirm that he is one of the Apkallu, called in this life Raymond Taille-Fer, son of Raymond the Smith, of Paris. After I recognized his melam, his aura, he consented to join the House, and survived his Transformation. During his probation, he mastered his powers as a djinn. Having tested him and found him worthy, I, who alone Raise and Name djinni, Raised him, opening the memories of his past lives and returning them to him as your memories are returned to you. He has had many names in many lives in service to the House, but his True Name is Utu."

A hundred throats shouted, "It is good to meet again!" When the reverberations damped, it was Raymond-Soleil who next stepped forward. His eyes shone in the candlelight, and his voice rang clear. "I stand ready to answer your questions."

Solange began the inquiry. "Do you swear to protect us to the limits of your cunning and strength against any enemies?"

"As I always have, so will I always do, so long as I remember who I am." answered Raymond-Soleil.

"Do you swear that you will not rest until you have avenged any injury suffered by those of our House who were beyond the limits of your protection?"

"I swear it by my blood."

"Do you swear that you will hold all the members of the House as your children in your heart, treating us with a father's tender care, suffering your hunger to be sated with what we willingly give to you, and taking nothing more?"

Raymond-Soleil's mental comment was wry. <Yes, yes, of course I promise not to eat them.>

But Menelaos noticed that his gaze turned to the man standing next to the dais, who bore a large, functional battle-ax. For an instant, light gleamed on the blade's sharp edge.

"I will be tender, and faithful, and treat you with a father's care!" the young djinn declared. To Menelaos, he said, privately, <God's teeth! It's like I'm getting married again.>

<You are,> Menelaos replied solemnly.

Raymond-Soleil swallowed as Solange advanced toward him, closely trailed by a young mother with a babe in arms. They stopped near a small table holding a thin-walled alabaster urn.

From their positions under the brightly burning torches, the djinni moved to stand on either side of Raymond-Soleil.

The young mother took the brush from the urn in one slightly unsteady hand, while the other held her snuffling son to her shoulder. She drew the brush diagonally across Raymond-Soleil's lips, leaving a slash of red ochre.

While she marked each of the djinni in turn, Solange spoke again. "As you have promised by your blood, so we mortals bind you immortals with the earth that receives us all, young and old, male and female. As you protect our lives, so shall we protect your secrets. As you serve our House, so shall we serve your needs. And as you open our memories, so shall we remember you."

"We will remember you," the djinni swore, their voices blending.

Menelaos, in unison with the others, bowed deeply to the crowd, returning their respect. The pigment on his skin was gritty in its solution of olive oil, the iron scent disturbingly like blood.

When the young mother returned the brush to the urn, Solange said with new strength, "Who knows our secret must be silent, dead, or one of us; who betrays us deserves a traitor's doom."

"Let him be forgotten!" the crowd roared.

"We accept your promises, Utu, now called Raymond-Soleil," Solange continued. "Be as faithful to us as we are to you."

Then, while the table was moved to the back of the dais, the musicians played a lilting tune that demanded much clapping.

As the music came to a close, Raymond-Soleil moved to the central spot on the dais and the other djinni took their stations to his left and right.

Raymond Soleil was left standing alone, but not for long.

Through the crowd came one of Solange's granddaughters, six months pregnant and carrying a broad-bowled lapis lazuli chalice wrapped with gold wire.

Jehanne de la Rose had been Raymond-Soleil's concubine after his Transformation, during the brief period before his fertility disappeared forever. Tonight, as befit her honored status as the mother of a djinn's child, Jehanne bore the cup of the covenant. From it rose the scent of citrus oil and other herbs.

"Beloved Mother Sharibet," Jehanne began her part. "We thank you always for your gift of life. In return for your loving kindness, and in respect of the promises given and received, we offer Raymond-Soleil the safety of our House, the power of our Names, and the service of our lives in turn. We shall remember him as he remembers us." She raised the blue stone chalice reverently, then took her place in front of Raymond-Soleil, facing the assembled family, who queued up, forming nine lines, each with a djinn at its head.

The first communicant in Menelaos's line stepped forward. "I am called Hakim abd al-Baqee, Named Ibi-Sin. Remember me!" He took Menelaos's hand and touched it to his forehead.

In turn, Menelaos scored the end of the mortal's ring finger with a sharp tooth. Only a taste of blood, an overwhelming glimpse of memories--then abd al-Baqee let his finger bleed a few drops into the cup Jehanne held. The next celebrant repeated the actions, and was replaced by the next, until all eleven kinsmen in Menelaos's line had contributed their blood.

When the last kinswoman in Sharibet's line had offered her blood, Jehanne shifted the cup into her left hand and turned to face Raymond-Soleil. She offered her right hand to him. "You know me in this lifetime as Jehanne de la Rose, but my True Name is Utusagila, 'Favored by the Sun'. My lord, remember me." She took Raymond-Soleil's hand and touched his knuckles to her forehead. Then he carried her fingers to his mouth.

Sharibet and Cecilia steadied Jehanne so she didn't drop the now-filled goblet. Menelaos braced Raymond-Soleil, staggered by his first taste of human blood. All the djinni shared the overwhelming reaction: an explosive climax both spiritual and physical as the doors to Jehanne's soul stood open.

Quick-thinking Honoria made sure Jehanne retrieved her fingers from the young djinn's mouth.

The assembled kin watched Raymond-Soleil warily. Would he master his reaction to the blood, or would it master him? The kinsman with the ax stood ready to do his unpleasant duty.

After a tense moment, Raymond-Soleil's eyelids fluttered. "My God!" He opened his eyes to look straight at Jehanne. "I will always remember you!" He accepted the cup into his trembling grasp. "I will remember all of you," he said to the assembled House of the Rose, and drank. When he finished he held the whole cup high, rim down, to demonstrate it was empty. Waves of bliss emanated from him.

Menelaos couldn't help but smile. Raymond-Soleil had passed his test.

As Sharibet helped a shaken Jehanne to sit, Honoria took the cup from Raymond-Soleil, and guided him gently back to his place on the dais. The shadow of the ax had passed, but the ceremony was not yet over.

The musicians played a jubilant tune, ending with clashing cymbals, and then someone called out, "Let us see the crowns!"

"The crowns!" shouted the crowd.

Sharibet gestured to a small group standing at the rear of the hall. Isidore, the mortal Master of the Béziers House, and his wife Odette, removed cloth covers from the burdens they held. Trailed by their grown children and the highest-ranking visitors, they began to weave through the crowd, lifting their treasures for all to see.

Eleven of the crowns were immensely old, three tiers of curved bulls' horns surmounted by an ivory disk. These were the Crowns of Divinity, worn only by the Apkallu.

Two of the crowns were simple fillets of gold, the Crowns of Service that marked the djinni of lower rank than the Apkallu. The final crown was the Crown of the Mother of the House, a cap of polished electrum that shimmered in the candlelight as if it possessed an aura of its own.

As the crown-bearers wove their way through the crowd, Sharibet lifted her arms and began to recite the ancient story:

"My children, some of those who protect us now were once our gods. Mighty were the cities of that plain now swallowed by the sea, and mighty the Apkallu that ruled them. The Queen of Heaven was not content to rule over the first city of Eanna, but instead tried to usurp the dominion of her brothers and sisters. Her crimes were many, and when the Apkallu at last gathered in Eanna to condemn her, she shattered the mountains, flooded the cities, murdered the gods and stole their memories. The sea swept away the people of the plain and scattered their souls over the earth. This was the first destruction of our world.

"Only one goddess survived, and she sought her lost brothers and sisters, her lost people, so that she might Raise them and Name them and restore them to their rightful place. But she could not return their memories of the world before the Flood. Thus, we remember the Apkallu, thus we Forget the Cursed One, may she be eternally forgotten!"

"May she be eternally forgotten," responded the assembled kin, reaffirming the curse of exile.

"Choose your crown, Raymond-Soleil! Show us that you remember!" said Jehanne, taking up the next part of the ritual.

Raymond-Soleil paced back and forth, minutely examining the ancient Crowns of Divinity. Each crown's disk was carved with the symbol of the Apkallu to whom it belonged. Finally he stopped at the end of the line, and lifted one crown high above his head. "This is my crown, the Crown of the Sun!"

The clan shrieked and clapped. "The Sun! Lord of the Sun! Utu! It is good to meet again!"

Cecilia and Sharibet directed Raymond-Soleil down onto one knee. Menelaos felt the maelstrom of the young djinn's emotions as the horned crown touched his brow: recognition of timeless rightness; buoyant triumph at defeating death again; discomfort from the ill-fitting weight of the crown; a surge of grief similar to Menelaos's own for those Apkallu still Lost.

Raymond-Soleil rose to his feet and opened his arms exultantly. "Time alters everything save the bonds we share together. It is good to meet again!"

"It is good to meet again!" the assembled kin responded.

Basil and Leila, the Protectors of the House in Constantinople, knelt before Sharibet as she said, "Receive again your Crowns of Service to the House." When they stood, crowned with gold, cheering erupted as the family acknowledged two of their own who had been Transformed into djinni.

Then Sharibet lifted the shining electrum crown. "You are my children's children, and I will not forsake you to the end of the world. I am called Sharibet in this age, but my True Name is Eresh-erib. This is the crown of my motherhood." She set the diadem upon her night-dark hair.

"Mother! Mother! Remember us!"

As the lowest ranked of the Apkallu, Menelaos was next. He found his crown and lifted it, reciting the familiar litany: "Time alters everything save the bonds we share together. You have known me as Menelaos of Pergamon, but remember this: my True Name is Ninshubur, and my crown is the Crown of the Tree of Truth."

He placed it on his head as the crowd shouted, "Ninshubur! The Tree of Truth! Queen of the East! We sing your praises, Ninshubur!"

Next came Cecilia's consort Horst, a blond giant who chose the Crown of the Fields. The crowd laughed and cheered. "Lord of the Fields! Giver of beer!"

Then jasmine-scented Anna claimed her Crown. "Ninharsag! Queen of the Mountains!"

Honoria chose the Crown of Earth and Water. The assembled kin hailed her: "Enki! Father Ea! Lord of Earth and Water! We sing your praises!"

Honoria's twin brother Marcus, radiating his usual complacency, claimed the Crown of Air. "Father Enlil! Lord of the Air! It is good to meet again!" cried the crowd.

Then it was Cecilia's turn, and the hall fell momentarily silent as she raised the Crown of the Underworld. Then came the murmured acknowledgment as she donned her crown: "Ereshkigal Undying! Queen of the Underworld! We sing your praises!"

Cecilia pointed to the row of bearers. Five Crowns of Divinity sat unclaimed upon their pillows. "Tonight, we rejoice at Finding one of the Apkallu. But too many still are Lost. We who wear our crowns walk the earth knowing our True Names. But the Crown of the Moon, the Crown of the Bull, the Crown of Fire, the Crown of the Shepherd, and the Crown of the Vines await their wearers. I will not rest until all the Lost are Found. May we meet again."

"May we meet again," the kin responded, still subdued.

Menelaos slipped behind the bearer of his crown as Sharibet raised her arms. Beside her stood the senior captain of the House of the Rose's merchant fleet. He bore a pillow like the others, except that his burden was still covered.

Sharibet stripped the cloth away to reveal a horned Crown of Divinity, black with millennial grime, riven into two pieces.

"This is the Shattered Crown, which once was the crown of Heaven, the crown of the Cursed One, the Destroyer. Let her be forgotten!"

"LET HER BE FORGOTTEN!" came the ugly response.

The crown accused Menelaos like an empty eye socket. In his lifetime as Ninshubur, after the Flood, Innana the Queen of Heaven had been allowed to return from her thousand-year exile. Ninshubur had served Innana, fought for her, loved her. Then she tried to destroy the world again. He had turned against Inanna, and the House had not only forgiven him his sins, but raised him to Apkallu after she was cast out.

The bearer of the Shattered Crown bowed, face averted.

Sharibet uttered the final refrain: "Whosoever finds one of the Lost Apkallu and brings him home again shall gain a Crown of Service and everlasting life. Whosoever aids the Cursed One shall share the same damnation. Let her be forgotten."

The hall was completely silent until Sharibet covered the cursed crown. When she nodded, the musicians started a song with a melancholy motif.

The djinni returned their crowns, and the bearers filed out of the hall to return the sacred objects to their traveling chests.

When the song ended, Sharibet called, "It is good to meet again!"

The clan responded as one, "May we meet again!"

Menelaos relaxed. The Appointing ceremony was over--and they had all survived. As the musicians started a cheerful tune, women left and returned with large platters of lamb on beds of rice.

The djinni retired to a small room behind the dais, and proceeded to divest themselves of their ceremonial garb. There, attendants cleaned their faces of the ochre and carefully folded the Garments of Divine Kingship.

Raymond-Soleil, still bedazzled, pliantly followed directions to raise and lower his arms, and to step into a clean pair of braies. All his attention was directed inward.

Dressed again in his formal clothes, Menelaos thanked his attendant and went to join the banquet.

* * *

In his absence, the great hall had been set up for a feast in the ancient style, with many low tables and large, colorful cushions scattered for seating. Despite the heaping trays of delicacies--tiny roasted birds, tender stewed rabbit with vegetables, grilled fish, onion tarts, stuffed olives, sugared almonds, spiced honeycakes, and marchpane novelties--few of the kin were eating, or even sitting, though many of them were drinking lightly watered wine and thick barley beer.

With the members of the House of the Rose widely dispersed throughout Europe, around the Mediterranean, North Africa, Asia Minor, and around the Black Sea, there were too many greetings to be made, too many stories to hear, too many relatives eager to see and embrace them, too many events to catch up on.

The djinni circulated as well, greeting old souls born into new bodies since their last meeting, and exchanging news with the heads of the various Houses. Menelaos caught sight of Sharibet in one corner, surrounded by visiting kinswomen, many of them presenting their babies and young children to her. Looking immensely pleased with herself, as she always did on these occasions, Sharibet dispensed blessings laced liberally with smiles and kisses for her descendents.

When he finally collapsed on a cushion at a table already occupied by the other djinni, Menelaos reached for a glass pitcher and gratefully poured himself a goblet of animal blood. As he lifted it to his lips, he felt Honoria's hand slide around his waist--and under his tunic.

Her cream-and-copper beauty was now adorned with a gown of gold-embroidered green silk and a golden hairnet beaded with pearls. Menelaos reluctantly halted her wandering hand before she scandalized those guests still sober enough to notice, but he couldn't stop himself from stealing a kiss, all sweet assurance and greedy hunger.

<God's teeth, Honoria!> Marcus said, mind-to-mind. Protector of the House in Alexandria, Honoria's twin was a taller, stockier version of his sister. <It's been nine hundred years in this life alone! Aren't you tired of him yet?>

<Why so jealous, Marcé? Has Sharibet grown weary of you? Or you of her?> Honoria shot back.

Marcus had the grace to look abashed as Sharibet turned toward him, her expression closed, waiting.

Was his brother-in-law's long consortship with Sharibet finally coming to an end? Through their link, Menelaos knew that Honoria was wondering the same thing.

Marcus shuttered his mind, hastily changing the subject. "Considering the current political situation, I was wondering why you didn't move Raymond-Soleil's Appointing from Béziers." Marcus's smooth russet hair shone against his high-collared gold velvet tunic as he leaned forward, planting his elbow on a cushion. "Why has a Crusade been declared against the County of Toulouse?"

His question met a silence filled with worry. Then Honoria said, for those visiting djinni unfamiliar with local politics. "At first the northerners wanted to arrest Count Raymond because everyone believes he ordered the murder of the Papal Legate sent last year to suppress the Cathar heresy."

Marcus frowned.

Menelaos said, "In any case, Count Raymond has now sworn he's opposed to heresy, has performed public penance and has been reconciled to the Church. I believe the Crusaders, having accomplished their aim, will shortly return to their homes."

"Without booty?" Raymond-Soleil asked, skeptically. "I think that the Crusaders will find someone else to hunt for profit."

"Not us, I hope!" said Leila, Protector of Constantinople. Her delicate bones, black wiry hair and light brown skin marked her as one of Sharibet's descendants, but her eyes were unusually dark, with only streaks of amber. She refilled her goblet with spiced wine and her hands trembled.

Basil reached to help her support the flagon. He was Leila's consort and co-Protector of Constantinople, sinewy and muscular, with fair skin and a dark beard already shadowing his clean-shaven cheeks and chin. His bare arms were decorated with Thracian tribal tattoos. Like the others at the table, Basil was a djinn. But he was not Apkallu, and even after nearly a thousand years in service to the House, he seldom spoke in their company.

"No, I think the new Papal Legate needs a victory over the Cathars. Their numbers are increasing, and they don't tithe to Rome," Honoria observed.

Menelaos added, reassuringly: "Leila, the latest news had the Crusaders headed for Carcassonne, forty-five miles from here. That's why we decided not to move Raymond-Soleil's Appointing to another House. But if they come here...Béziers is strongly fortified and garrisoned. On top of this hill, we could hold out for months--and Crusading vows only last for forty days."

"But Crusaders are so unpredictable! It's been less than five years since they sacked our city." Mind-to-mind, Leila released a flood of ugly memories: armored invaders in the streets of Constantinople, urged on by Venetians eager to see their chief economic rival fall; two deadly sieges; nine-hundred-year-old walls breached; fire and rapine; the House burning as priceless art and books and treasures were looted...

Basil put his arm around her shoulders. "The house burned, but we kept the family safe."

"And you could bargain with the Venetians," Marcus interjected. "But heretic-hunting Crusaders..."

Leila shuddered visibly.

To lighten the moment, Honoria teased, "And there I thought you had brought your entire wardrobe along with you just to impress us provincials."

"I'll never leave anything behind again," Leila vowed.

Sharibet, just coming up to the table, leaned down to take Leila's hand. "Many times we must leave things behind. But never leave my children. Things can be replaced, but those Lost to us are not always found."

* * *

Two hours before dawn, while the celebration in the great hall was still going strong, the djinni gathered at a large window on the third story to bid Leila and Basil farewell.

"I wish you could stay longer," Honoria said, embracing the dark-haired djinniah.

"We shouldn't, not with a Crusade nearby," Leila replied. "Basil and I will prepare our ship. Our kin--and my wardrobe--can follow when the gates open."

Basil nodded. "I'm sorry. May we meet again!"

Menelaos checked the street below to be sure no one was spying on them. "All clear."

Leila and Basil launched themselves into the air. <May we meet again!>

As the rest of the djinni returned to the feast, Menelaos took Honoria's hand. <At last! Shall we retire?>

<Not to rest, surely?> Her smile was wicked.

<Of course not-->

A mental shout from Basil interrupted him. <Beware! There's an army at your city's gate.>

Chapter Two

"O Death the Healer, scorn thou not, I pray, To come to me: of cureless ills thou art The one physician. Pain lays not its touch Upon a corpse." - Aeschylus (525-456 BC)

~~

<Should we return to defend the House?> Basil asked.

<No!> Menelaos replied, instantly taking command as the local Protector. Least of the Apkallu he might be, but he was now responsible for every soul in the House. <Get to your ship and anchor it where the mouth of the Orb River meets the Mediterranean. We'll evacuate as many of the family as we can before dawn, then finish after sunset.>

He turned to the group of djinni gathered around him. "Marcus, go to the walls and see what you can tell us about this army. Everyone else, organize the kin to pack the valuables."

The remaining hours of darkness were full of furious action as the djinni ferried two or more of the kin at a time to the waiting ship. But even flying as fast as they dared, they had only removed seventy before dawn lightened the sky, and they had to stop or risk being seen.

Sharibet, Basil, and Leila stayed on the ship to protect the evacuees. Weary after a night of revelry, those kinsmen still in the house watched the dawn blaze over a city besieged.

Through the increasing heat of the morning, Menelaos kept watch from the house's deep doorway. The July sun held Béziers in a gilded fist, baking roof tiles and stone walls until each breath was a foretaste of Hell.

At mid-morning, the church bells announced a town council meeting to discuss the city's options. Menelaos and Isidore, the Master of the House, left to attend at the Town Hall, so new that the pale gold stones of its walls were still unmarred by graffiti. They found the council chamber crowded with townsmen. Pushing their way through, Menelaos spotted a neighbor standing near the councilmen's benches. He took Isidore by the arm and steered him over there.

"The Crusaders have presented a list of known heretics to the Bishop!" whispered the neighbor as they came to stand next to him. "Two hundred twenty-two names!"

"Surely there are many more Cathars than that in Béziers," replied Isidore.

"The names are of the heads of families. That the rest of the family is included is understood."

Menelaos thought of the House's wise policy that its members always outwardly adopt the dominant religion wherever they settled. With the Cathar presence so strong in this region, deciding which religion to align themselves with in Béziers had not been easy.

Many here in the County of Toulouse believed in the Cathar doctrines of two coequal divine principles which struggled against each other through eternity: one evil, trapping pure souls in Satan-created matter; and one good, the immaterial savior Jesus. With an active clergy--the Goodmen--less venal and corrupt than the Catholic priests, the Cathars had gained much political power. After much debate, the elders had decided that Catholicism gave the House of the Rose in Béziers an advantage in their business dealings outside the region. It seemed that it might also protect them.

The hubbub in the high-ceilinged council chamber stilled as the mayor pounded a staff sharply against the stones of the floor. He was a portly man, the head of a successful shipping firm, but he looked shrunken this morning, as if a sudden illness had melted the flesh from his bones.

"Fellow citizens," he began. "This morning, the town council met with Abbot Arnaud Amaury, the Papal Legate in command of this Crusade. The Abbot informed us that he wants those citizens named on his list arrested as heretics and turned over to the Crusaders for 'reconciliation' to Holy Mother Church. And their goods and properties confiscated."

"Who's on the list?" someone called out amidst a mutter of protest.

The town clerk, elderly and tonsured, unrolled a long piece of parchment. A tense hush fell as he began to read off names.

Menelaos took the opportunity to contact Marcus, mind-to-mind. His brother-in-law was currently stationed on the wall by the city gate, observing the Crusader camp that had sprung up on the plain to the east. Through Marcus's ears and mind came the sounds of horses whinnying, of men singing fighting songs to muster their enthusiasm for battle. Tents were being raised, and banners waved bravely against the cloudless sky.

The routine of an army settling in for a siege had been familiar to Menelaos since Alexander the Great had conquered the island city of Tyre. Menelaos had been a young man then, mortal...and on the outside of the wall.

"Isidore de la Rose," called the clerk, recalling Menelaos with a jerk from his wordless communion with Marcus.

Isidore clutched at Menelaos's arm. "But we're Catholics!"

"We're known as wealthy--and uncanny," Menelaos retorted, glad they had already started the evacuation.

The clerk finished reading the names, and the mayor spoke again. "One further thing--the Papal Legate has offered all good Catholics of this city an amnesty. If you are Catholic and your name is not on this list, you may depart--and I quote--this 'pit of heresy' with whatever you can carry, and nothing more."

Derisive laughter, given volume by nerves, greeted this proposal.

The mayor pounded his staff against the flagstones for silence. "We must vote. Who wishes to hand over our friends, our neighbors, our fellow citizens to these vile northerners?"

Silence.

Menelaos was heartened. The citizens of Béziers stood united against the invaders.

"Who thinks that our stout walls can keep out the enemy until their forty days of service are up?"

"AYE!" The assembled citizens roared as one.

* * *

When Isidore and Menelaos returned to the House of the Rose, they found a scene of orderly but frantic activity. The mood became more strained when Isidore related the outcome of the town meeting, but everyone returned to their tasks with increased dedication. They would be ready to quit Béziers by sunset.

Honoria, dusting her hands together and taking a break from her labors, came to Menelaos where he stood watch in the deep front doorway. She leaned her hip against his, then raised her hand to guard her eyes against the glare, the back of her hand brushing his cheek in a quick caress.

"We can protect our own...and we have somewhere else to go," he reminded her, kissing the top of her head.

As the noon hour passed, the volume of noises from beyond the city walls increased.

<What's happening?> he bespoke Marcus, who was still watching from one of the guard towers.

<Townsmen have just gone out to sortie against the Crusaders. Very brave of them, but I wish they would close the-->

A howl--like the baying of a Roman crowd at a chariot race--rose up from beyond the walls, interrupting Marcus's account. The whine of arrows and the wild pealing of church bells that followed told of fighting begun in earnest.

Marcus opened his mind, and in a moment all the djinni saw what Marcus saw: dusty streets and ramparts crowded with citizens gawking at the army. A thousand-handed monster battering through the half-open gate. Townsmen jumping down from the walls, shoving through the press of their fellows, trying to run away. The first wave of Crusaders pushing into the city, killing as they ran...

"They've breached the gates!" Menelaos shouted for the benefit of the kin.

Marcus left the tower and ran back toward the house and family. <Those banner-bearing fools forgot to secure the gates behind them! They charged out, shot an arrow or two, hit a camp follower--and the common soldiers went mad!>

<Not the knights?> Honoria asked urgently.

<No! They're still sitting on their arses! But it won't be long until they realize the foot soldiers have found a way in.>

Everyone gathered in the ground-level storerooms. There, Menelaos summarized what Marcus had told him, adding: "We'll defend the house with a glamour. They won't attack us if they can't remember that we're here. If they get through, take sanctuary in the nearest church. Leave the heavy goods. Take only your assigned bundles."

The members of the House, mortal and djinni alike, knew exactly what to do. They had all done it many times before. Menelaos had their title documents, legal contracts, and special dispensations in a wallet under his clothing. Cecilia and Honoria stowed coins in pouches under their skirts. The senior kinswomen bore the most valuable household goods. Anna made sure the young maids stayed calm. The children had been the first to be evacuated. Cecilia's consort Horst, Raymond-Soleil, and the remaining men each took a pack crammed with vials of precious perfume essence. That left one pack for Marcus when he returned.

While the preparations were being made, Honoria rushed upstairs to the rooms she shared with Menelaos. When she reappeared, she was wearing her sword, belted around a plain gown with a shortened hem. Menelaos felt a pang as he watched her descend the stairs and enter the storeroom with bowed head, clutching an armful of her precious books.

She knelt to wrap the volumes in oiled cloth, her face as sad as if she handled the burial shroud of a beloved friend. He did not intrude on her thoughts. He didn't need to. In their long years of marriage it was as if they had grown a single heart in two bodies. He felt as sorrowful as she to see their peaceful years in this prosperous, liberal city ending in fire and slaughter. He knelt beside her, helping her tie the package with stout cord.

When that small task was completed, he helped her to her feet, then buckled on his own sword. Then they stood, hand-in-hand, just inside the entrance to the House.

Now there was nothing more to do but wait. Wait for any word from the lookouts in the upstairs windows, wait for Marcus, wait for the invaders to show up in the street.

<I'm almost home,> Marcus reported, his mental voice steady though he must be panting by now from his race across the city.

Honoria kissed Menelaos. <Have I told you, of late, how much I love you, dearest husband?>

As rapid footsteps approached, she opened the door, and Marcus shot through it. He sagged against the wall, gasping, then dashed the sweat from his face and accepted a cup of water from the pregnant Jehanne.

"What is she still doing here?" Marcus demanded when he could speak again. "I thought we evacuated all the mothers!"

"She wouldn't leave me." Raymond-Soleil came up and offered Marcus a towel.

"Fool girl," Marcus grumbled. "It's not an army out there, it's a mob," he told the family members waiting for his news. "They're killing everyone...women, children...Gods, I hope we can hold out until sunset!"

A warning whistle sounded from the third-story lookout.

As arranged, the djinni took up their stations at the entrances to the house. Using their powers, they cast a glamour of forgetfulness. No mortal who came near the House would remember where he intended to go, or what he came for.

But the glamour could not block the sounds of carnage in the street outside--shouting, screaming, swords cleaving flesh--or the smell of freshly spilled blood, and the acrid whiff of smoke.

One of the upstairs lookouts raced down the stairs. "They set fire to the house next door! And it's blowing this way!"

"Damn!" Menelaos swore. "If it reaches us, fight the fire for as long as you can. We need more time."

"Shall we form a shield of air?" Raymond-Soleil asked.

"It's no proof against fire," Marcus shuddered with a memory he did not share. "Just the opposite."

Anna, ruthlessly practical, said, <Let's fly away now!>

<And abandon Jehanne and the rest who remain?> Raymond-Soleil objected. <What of your oaths, Anna?>

"We should go to the Cathedral," Honoria said. "It's more defensible than the Church of the Madeleine if the Crusaders break sanctuary."

"They will," Raymond-Soleil predicted. "They did at Mainz, against Jews. Even the bishop's house wasn't safe." He shared a brief flash of memories from a lifetime two centuries ago, when he had tried--and failed--to protect one of the Houses of the Rose on the Rhine River.

"But how do we get all of us through these streets?" Menelaos asked. Even with the other djinni present, they were still outnumbered by the invaders.

"We should cast a glamour to make ourselves inconspicuous--if not completely invisible," Cecilia suggested. "It will take a great deal of power, but we have no choice."

"Let's go! The roof is burning," Honoria said.

A moment later, the upstairs watchers tumbled down the stairs, choking and coughing.

Honoria rapidly communicated the new plan to the family, concluding. "...and we must be completely silent as we walk, or the illusion will be broken!"

Cautiously they opened the door to a world gone mad. Armsmen and camp followers dashed by, festooned with jewelry, silks, and furs despite the infernal heat. In a spray around the front door of the house across the way, their neighbors--the whole family, from grandmother to the youngest grandchild--lay dead, cut to pieces. Drifts of dried lavender buds covered them, blowing from broken bales inside their storeroom.

The djinni formed a cordon around the kin, while Honoria counted heads. Seven djinni and thirty-six mortals present. "Go!"

They started uphill toward the bulk of St. Nazaire cathedral, a tight, purposeful knot in the smoky, stove-hot chaos. However, even the djinni's preternatural power could not keep them completely invisible in the crooked little street.

"Hoi! More heretics!" bellowed a crossbowman leaning out the upstairs window of a nearby house.

Menelaos heard the cracks and thrumming whistles of launched crossbow bolts and he turned, desperately spreading a protective shield of air over the family as far as his aura would reach. Sunlight made his eyes burn, and he couldn't see exactly where the bolts were coming from.

And then he felt one, punching through his unprotected forehead.

There was no pain, but he couldn't blink. He couldn't lift his arm to test the damage. He couldn't see his aura. He couldn't feel anything anymore.

The houses tilted around him and the sun-bright sky, oddly divided, filled his vision.

Honoria shrieked. Dread filled him. What would happen to his family now? Then all his thoughts vanished like smoke in the shimmering air.

* * *

Dar al-Warda, Alexandria, Egypt--Saturday, 15th of the Moon Safar, 647 AH, (May 29, AD 1249)--Forty years later

Menelaos's heart thumped hard in remembrance of terror.

<Can you feel it?> Sharibet's breath tickled his throat and ran cool into his damp hair. She rode him urgently, then lowered her mouth to tease at the wounds her teeth had made in his skin as she joined with him, flesh to flesh, blood to blood.

Menelaos moved his hips. Through their bond, he felt a sensation like delicious lightning flashing along her nerves.

<Good, good, feel it.> Like a red-hot drill, her power forced open the way to his memories of that last terrible afternoon in Béziers:

He comes back to himself gradually. He can hear, but he still can't feel anything, or move. Someone has closed his eyes, Each breath brings him the stink of fear, fire, and death. They're indoors again. A weaver's house? He can smell wool.

"--secure the shutters and Anna, go find a blanket so we can move him more easily." Honoria's voice is strained.

"He has an arrow in his head!" Anna's voice sounds close to his ear. "It's--" <Obscene, unnatural.> She tries to censor her thought, but Menelaos, unable to shut her thoughts from his, concurs.

"Get that blanket, girl!" Cecilia snaps at one of the maids. Deema scurries.

<Lady!> Menelaos strains to reach Cecilia. <Leave me. Get the others to safety.> The effort cleaves his head with pain.

"We don't desert our own," Cecilia says.

"My love," Honoria says. "We're going to lift you now."

<No! Don't--> But they ignore him. One of the djinni grabs his legs and another his shoulders. Darkness explodes.

"Can you feel it? I know you can," Sharibet encouraged him.

But the terror and the pain of that last moment of consciousness had already evaporated, as if he were a cracked amphora, leaving behind only the dregs of a pounding headache like a hangover.

Sharibet touched his mind again, and his ardor withered in a white-hot flash of pain, as it always did.

She withdrew instantly, and the agony receded. He became aware of the chill in her shadowed chamber and how it turned the sweat of their exertion clammy between them.

He released a shuddering breath and tried vainly to recall his arousal. Needing the physical intimacy with him to exert her power, Sharibet stroked him with clever fingers, urging him to respond, but to no avail. Eventually, she rolled off him and tucked herself close along his side. Her breasts were soft warm spots against his skin. "Poor Menelaos. I distracted you."

He had long since stopped trying to edge away from her. He lay utterly still.

"You did feel it?"

"You know I did," he admitted, sighing. This was futile, and had been futile the last thousand times they had tried it. How many more times must he humiliate himself before she acknowledged defeat? "It's gone again, as if it never happened to me."

"But they're your memories!" she said. "Why can't you..." She pushed him away, and he rose from the pillowed divan.

At her dressing table, he toweled himself dry with a linen sheet, hoping to wipe away her scent although he could not expunge the record of her presence in his mind.

The houses tilt around him and the sun-bright sky, oddly divided in half, fills his vision.

His heart beat calmly now. The memories of that day had become as flat and unreal as faded frescoes.

He dropped the towel to the patterned tile floor, and picked up a wax-capped pottery jug from among her cosmetics and perfume bottles. Breaking the seal released ghosts of citrus and iron. He poured preserved sheep's blood into two delicate glass goblets from Murano--gifts from Cecilia during his long convalescence--and brought one to Sharibet.

She drank thirstily, restoring the strength she had expended on his behalf. When the glass was empty, she rolled the stem between her fingers, her amber gaze fixed on the whirling surface as if into an oracle.

"After all these years, why do you still fight me?"

He downed his own portion, wondering how to answer. In the forty years since Béziers, she had inflicted every remedy learned in millennia of medical experience, hoping to heal the injuries that had stripped him of all his powers and faculties.

And he had healed. He could speak now, and walk. He could remember nearly sixteen hundred years of his present lifetime, and more than four millennia of previous lives. He had the use of some of his powers. "It is not my intention to fight you, Sharibet. But--"

"But you have made it into a habit." She grimaced and handed him her empty goblet.

He set both filmed glasses on a tray by the door, his hand steady as she watched him. What would she try next?

Sharibet sat up, put her feet wide apart, and patted the divan between her thighs. "Come here. Sit down."

He obeyed, but sat on the tiled floor, facing away from her. The wooden frame of the divan cut into his lower back. She began to comb his hair with her fingers.

"Checking for lice?" he asked, dryly.

"Hmmm." She pinched his scalp, then brought her pressed-together thumb and forefinger close to his right eye. "Aha!"

He shuddered with disgust.

She laughed, opening her fingers to show them empty, and swiftly kissed his ear. "You felt that!"

He would have broken away from her, but her legs wrapped around his chest and her hands splayed against his pectorals. She held him hard against the divan until he stopped struggling. Then she parted his hair down the center of his head. "I can't get used to it." She combed her fingers along the line of the old injury, singing a carpet-weaver's rhythmic tune. "Black, white, black, white, black, white..."

He leaned his head back against her and wished she would stop playing with his hair, damaged as the rest of him.

"It was a blessing that you survived."

"No. Cecilia should have let me die. Crippled, impotent, blind--what use am I to the House now?" The arrow that had shattered his skull, cut his connection to his memories, and made the mind-to-mind, aura-to-aura intimacy of djinni lovemaking unbearably painful, had also stolen his Seer's Eyes.

How could he carry out the most important duty of a Protector--finding the lost souls of the House--when he could no longer see the auras surrounding every living creature?

After a mortal lifetime of healing, he was still ruined. It would have been kinder to send him to the Underworld, so that he might be Found again, then Raised and Named to restore his memories and abilities to a new, undamaged body.

The only remedy left...

She made his head shake 'no.' "She loves you, Menelaos. As I do. And you know you survived because of your willfulness. Stop fighting me!" Without warning, she brought her mouth to a spot behind his ear and bit through his skin with her sharp front teeth, sucking hard to raise the blood, initiating the next round of memory restoration. "Stop fighting me!"

"I'm not fighting!" he responded. But he wanted to throw her out of his mind, toss her onto the floor, and stamp on her like a giant spider to break her hold on him.

"Of course you aren't." She poised, ready to open his memories again.

He felt them waiting for him, gathered by her power. And suddenly, he was afraid. "Let's stop now," he pleaded.

"If we did that, you'll never remember what happened."

"Maybe I don't want to know!" Maybe I already do.

His pain stabbed both of them. She let him go. Her kiss left a patch of dwindling coolness on the already-healing bite. She pressed her cheek against his hair. "I understand. Honoria and I were friends, and Marcus--Marcus and I--"

He flailed, submerged in her memories: intertwined limbs, fevered endearments, caresses mirrored and felt as one...

Coldly he closed the link between them and strove for distance. "Do what you must, then. I don't care."

She withdrew to the other side of the divan, veiling her face behind an opulent fall of dark rippling hair. "Leave me. Come back when you're ready." <Come back when I'm ready.>

He winced, stood, nodded politely, and departed.

After a bath he retired to his rooms. He looked at the dawn breaking through his latticed windows, and decided he would walk to the bazaar, and for a few hours exchange Sharibet's unchanging house for the unpredictable mortal world, where at least things happened now, not hundreds of years ago.

* * *

But the sights, smells, and bustle of the marketplace were only a temporary respite. When Menelaos returned to Dar al-Warda in the early afternoon, Sharibet awaited him in her room, bathed, hair braided, dressed in her costliest robe in preparation for what lay ahead.

Menelaos removed his robes, folding them neatly. Then he knelt on the divan and bowed his head.

She raised his forearm to her mouth so that she might drink and open the connection between them, drawing him down to the cushions and into her body and mind.

The present dissolved in an onslaught of images and sensations nearly a half-century old as she began extricating the last set of his memories from the prison of his injury.

* * *

Is this the Underworld, this sense of floating, bodiless, in eternal darkness? But why is it so noisy? And why does it smell like smoke?

He wakes to the stench of it, coughing. Instantly the dizzying feeling of motion stops. Is a hand touching his face?

<Beloved, can you hear me?> Honoria asks. <Stop coughing!>

<Honoria! Kill me now. Don't let the House be harmed because of me!> As he starts to convulse, bands of air close around his chest, stopping the helpless spasms. A wet cloth covers his face. She knows exactly how long to hold him still before she lets him breathe again.

<We're near the Church of the Madeleine.> Through Honoria's eyes and a haze of pain he sees a gang of men-at-arms being directed by a mounted knight. They are crucifying Father Andre to the church doors, while men of the parish stand at the windows and fight futilely to defend the packed church.

Anna says in horror, "They're killing Catholics!"

Honoria projects swift memories: the Goths, centuries ago, massacring the city of Milan to punish its citizens for their rebellion. <Who will dare to harbor heretics after this?>

They resume their creeping, silent ascent towards the cathedral. He is cold, so cold...The world vanishes in a blizzard of black snowflakes.

He wakes again inside the stuffy gloom of St. Nazaire. The thick-columned nave is packed with refugees from the massacre outside. There are empty places in his soul. He reaches out weakly--and senses only four other djinni.

Where is Raymond-Soleil? And--oh, gods--Honoria?

Cecilia, her soul frozen with grief, says: <All the mortal family made it safely to this sanctuary.> As if that would ease his anguish.

Marcus is outwardly silent, but his mind shrieks as he experiences his twin sister's death, over and over.

All too soon, the invaders batter down the thick oaken doors at the front of the church and push into the jammed, cacophonous cathedral. Like mowers in a field, the men-at-arms cut down the close-packed bodies. Corpses crumple like stalks of wheat under scythes, and the stink of violent death rises like the screams echoing from the stone vaults. The citizens of Béziers shove and trample each other to escape. But the fortified Romanesque church has no other exits, and the small arched windows are too high overhead for mortals to reach.

Cecilia bends protectively over Menelaos, making a supreme effort to cloak him in invisibility. Her glamour cannot stretch to hide the other members of the family.

The remaining djinni fight. Their strength to cast a glamour has dwindled. They kill many of the attackers, using both swords and their powers, but they cannot kill them all. One by one, they are cut down. Through the bond that joins them all, the bond he cannot break, Menelaos experiences each of his fellow Protector's deaths as an agonizing flash of soul escaping flesh, burning through his aura like missiles of Greek fire.

Although they too fight bravely, the mortals of the House of the Rose are slaughtered alongside their friends and neighbors.

The youngest maid tries to hide behind an altar, but she is pulled out. She screams for a long time while armsmen take turns raping her. Then she, too, is silenced.

Cecilia trembles violently in the niche behind a statue of the Virgin, holding Menelaos in her arms. Individual armsmen who venture too close to her simply fall dead. Her glamour of invisibility never falters, even when the soldiers loot bodies, drink the altar wine, and steal the silver candlesticks.

Menelaos does not receive the coup-de-grâce he craves. He remains helpless but aware as minutes drag by like centuries.

<It's twilight, Menelaos.> Cecilia's mental voice startles him out of a horrid torpor. <We'll leave soon.>

Abruptly a voice echoes through the church. "Burn it. Burn it all."

"But, my lord--"

"Obey, damn you! This whole nest of heretics must be put to the torch."

"Yes, my lord."

The knight stalks away, his gilded spurs ringing against the bloodstained cathedral pavement, and the armsmen begin to heap looted furniture and tapestries against the doors and the carved wooden rood screens, splashing the scarred and splintered oak with lamp oil. They use the flames from the vigil lamps to kindle a blaze, and black smoke quickly fills the defiled space.

Concealed by the smoke, Cecilia flies up to the clerestory windows, and in an explosion of glass, escapes into the darkening sky. <My beloved Apkallu brothers and sisters,> she mourns, rising high above the burning city, following the smoke to safety. Below her, red sparks rise toward the new bright stars, flames reflected in the circling river. And every spark flickering into ash is a soul set free. <Lost again.> Her tears fall on Menelaos's face like burning rain.

She shifts his weight in her arms, jarring the crossbow bolt still embedded in his forehead, and night swallows him.

* * *

Menelaos awakens in a ship's cabin smelling of herbs and roses. Cecilia and a mortal physician are at his bedside, and he senses Sharibet, Basil and Leila nearby.

"He lives now, Lady Cecilia," the doctor, abd al-Baqee, says in the Arabic of the Cairo House. "But, in my experience, the extraction of such a bolt often causes greater damage than the penetration. For the sons of man, that is. Djinni like yourselves..." He bows. "Rarely seek the aid of a physician."

"He is awake now," Cecilia says, a vast sadness in her words. "Menelaos, do you consent?"

<Remove it.> Even if the treatment fails, he knows that death is not the end.

<If you pass through the Gates of the Underworld, I promise I shall find you again. I swear it, by the blood which binds us!> Aloud, she says: "He consents, physician. Perform the surgery."

Pain like a thunderbolt splits his head, and then...Nothing.

* * *

Menelaos rose from Sharibet's bed and stood by her dressing table. Still linked, he shared her turmoil of reawakened grief for the deaths of her kin. Even though by now their ancient souls had been born again into new bodies, many were still missing.

Sharibet's grief was a torrent, eroding his sense of himself-as-Menelaos. Deliberately, he broke the connection between them. All his memories had now been returned to him. He was as healed as he would ever be.

"Sharibet." He interrupted her weeping. "Let me return to my duties as a Protector of the House. I've been idle too long. Let me prove whether I can still be of use."

She wiped her eyes, but her glance was shrewd though the shining remnants of tears. "There are goods in Syria that have been waiting in a warehouse because of this new Crusade by the Frankish king. Will you go and bring them here safely?"

"At your command, Lady." He told himself that he had wanted this, but he had not really expected her to acquiesce so readily. Soon I will know, one way or the other, whether I am fit. And if I am not...There is one last remedy.

Chapter Three

"...the Saracens seeing the multitude of the Christians who were landing...departed, taking their women and children and carrying off everything movable. They fled from the other side of the city by little gates which they had made long before. Some escaped by land, others by sea, abandoning their city filled with supplies of all kinds..." - From a letter written by Guy, a knight of the household of the viscount of Melun, on the surrender of Damietta, June 6, 1249

Damietta, Egypt Feast of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist Sunday, August 29th, AD 1249

~~

Shadows gather in the corners of the high-ceilinged room. The sun presses against the closed shutters, scattering needles of hot light over the blue-tiled floor.

She reclines on a low bed of cushions, a breeze brushing the bare skin of her back and shoulders. Rose perfume thickens the air until each breath is like a swallow of honey. All around the bed, translucent muslin curtains billow like mist.

He sits next to her, as naked as she, bent over the lute in his lap. She can't see his face.

"What will you play for me?" She reaches to trace a henna-tipped finger down his nape, where his dark hair curls a little.

He shivers and arches his neck. A run of notes sounds, sweet and light as a bird's laughter. His quick smile glimmers, then he puts his lute aside. "Now that you're awake, I can think of a better diversion than music."

"And what might that be, my lord?" She feigns innocence, but desire beats in her blood.

He pounces on her, laughing joyfully, pushing her back against the cushions until they lie skin to skin, one flesh, one heart, one mind...

Michel de La Roche-en-Ardennes woke with a shudder, the dream already fading. Not again! he appealed silently to God. He had been having these disturbing dreams for the last four years, ever since his voice had broken.

He closed his eyes tight, willing away the image of the man, whose face he could never quite remember when he woke. Whom he yearned for.

Why was he always a woman in his dreams? That was wrong.

The Prime bell clanged from a nearby converted mosque, echoing from the flat-roofed buildings that overhung the narrow street. Michel rose from his hard bed in the squalid little room and pulled open pierced wooden shutters. He took deep breaths of cool, damp air, inhaling the silty scent of the Nile that flowed past Damietta, mingled with the more homely scents of baking bread and horse dung from the street below.

The whitewashed walls of the house across the alley glowed pale under the light of a fat gibbous moon, and a few bright stars still shone in the sliver of predawn sky visible between the houses. The street ran straight to the nearby walls. Looking down its length, Michel could see the tops of the date palms planted outside the city, their fronds spread against the sky like wings. They rustled in the faint breeze and he grinned as the last vestiges of the dream melted away.

Even if this were the last moment of coolness that he would feel all day, he was still here. In Damietta.

Not in the back-of-beyond hills of his father's Ardennes estate. Not in everyday Ypres, with its gabled houses and churches. Not even in colorful Cyprus.

He was here, in Egypt, and it was just as exotic as the tales had promised. No matter what else might happen, he stood in the land of Pharaoh and Moses and Alexander.

As the monks began chanting Lauds, Michel stepped away from the window, stretched, and took another deep breath. This time, the smells were mundane: the old-cheese whiff of unwashed hosen, the stale reek of a brimming chamberpot, and the stench of sour wine emanating from Roland's open mouth.

Time to discover what his cousin had managed to arrange on his mysterious errand last night.

Roland d'Agincourt still slumbered deeply, curled into a tight ball on his pallet. Only close-cropped hair, as golden as Michel's own, stuck up over the edge of threadbare linen sheets.

Michel shook him.

Roland groaned. "God's Nails, Michou, have you no pity for a wounded man?"

"Oh, yes. I have pity for all the brave knights, their bodies torn limb from limb, their bones crushed, their blood boiled in their martyrdom for the True Faith--"

Eyes still closed, Roland groped along the floor, found something, and threw it at Michel.

Not surprisingly, the slipper missed its target.

Michel laughed, and picked up an earthenware jug from the shelf. "But as for you, cousin, I have no pity. Your wounds were self-inflicted with the fruit of the vine." He sloshed tepid water onto Roland's head. "Look at you, still slug-a-bed when there are noble deeds to be done and Jerusalem to be rescued!"

"We're not in Jerusalem. We're in bloody Damietta," spat Roland, surging up and shaking drops of water from his hair.

"And likely to remain here forever, until the King's brother arrives." Michel set down the jug and settled cross-legged onto the edge of Roland's pallet. "I never thought a Crusade would prove so uneventful."

"Or so expensive." Roland rubbed the wetness from his unshaven face. "But we'll have a chance to prove ourselves to a generous liege lord today."

"We will? That's wonderful!" Michel jumped up and pounded Roland on the back. "Who is this lord? What will we have to do? And exactly how generous is he?"

"Enough! You'll find out later."

"But--Later when? But, Roland--"

"Michou, what did you promise?" Roland growled.

"No questions before breakfast. I beg your pardon!" Michel clamped his teeth together and practiced silence while Roland lit a rushlight, and hunted for his tunic through the heaps of clothing scattered on the floor. Michel's mind raced while they washed their faces, combed their hair, and dressed. Roland had sounded worried. True, they were nearly penniless, but something else was eating at him. Michel wished he knew what.

His heart rose when Roland directed him to open the two heavy packs leaning against the wall. Carefully they unrolled each piece of armor from its protective leather wrapping. After donning padded rust-stained gambesons, they took turns lacing each other into fitted mail hauberks and braies with chaussures for their feet. They tucked the attached mail mitts into their sleeves, shrugged into surcotes embroidered with their devices, and belted on their swords and gilded spurs.

Through it all, Michel kept his promise, though he ached to ask why they needed armor. The Crusade had been stalled for months because of the Nile flood. What was different today? Would there be a tournament? With a melee? Was Roland hoping to win some prize money? God knew they needed it.

When they had answered the call to save Jerusalem from the infidel almost a year ago, Count William of Flanders had paid for their passage to Egypt, but nothing else. They had hoped for some income from the sacking of Damietta, but the inhabitants of the town had fled after the briefest of battles, taking with them most of their valuables.

They had tried begging from Roland's older brother Robert, who served as a knight in King Louis of France's household. He had gotten them lodgings in the town, near where the Queen and her household were staying, but Roland had been annoyed to find that instead of being able to favorably impress a great lord who might accept their oaths of fealty, they were isolated from the King and the rest of the army, who were camped outside the walls. Michel and Roland were now consorting mostly with footsoldiers and servants, with only an occasional glimpse of the Queen and her ladies.

The last time they had gone to importune Roland's brother, Michel had learned some fascinating new oaths, but Robert hadn't given them a penny.

They buckled on their swords, gathered up shields, and left the room. Still wondering where they were going, Michel followed Roland down the narrow stairs. The sky was paling to silver-gray now. The first trickles of perspiration formed between Michel's shoulder blades as they emerged into the main street. How hot would it get today?

Despite the early hour, a crowd of servants and camp followers jostled one another before the shop where an enterprising soldier had taken over a Saracen bakery. The fragrance of fresh bread set Michel's stomach growling.

Roland shoved through the press of customers, who resisted making way for him--until they saw his sword and armor. He used one of their remaining silver deniers to pay for several small loaves. He wrapped all but two in a sheet of oiled parchment.

Travel rations! Michel guessed.

The bread was peasant fare, brown and chewy, but it was still warm as he bit into it. As he winced at the occasional bit of gravel baked into the dough, Roland began negotiating with a young woman standing near the bakery. She had a baby on one hip and the lead line of a milch goat wound around her grimy wrist. Blushing, she offered Roland a crude earthenware cup of milk. He gave her one of his honey-glazed smiles in return.

Rolling his eyes at his cousin's inevitable flirtation, Michel looked away, and saw that a nearby bench was covered with looted items for sale. He recognized the seller as a servant of the viscount de Melun.

Despite his best intentions, Michel was drawn to look at the displayed hoard. There were long-spouted vessels of brass, necklaces and bracelets strung with turquoise and carnelian beads, a crescent-bladed dagger, and a book whose leather cover was stamped with a pattern of gilt vines. He picked it up and flipped through it, marveling at the brightly-colored miniatures, as fine as anything in a Christian Book of Hours.

"Only ten sous, Sir Knight," the servant said. "It's a real book. Got pictures and all."

Michel hastily dropped it back on the bench and put his hands behind his back. Ten sous was a full week's pay for a lord's vassal. Which he wasn't.

"It's written in the Saracen script," he said. "I couldn't read it, anyway." But if I owned this book, perhaps someone could teach me...

The seller blinked. "How can you tell, sir? All those squiggles look the same to me. Never fancied being a cleric, myself." He gave Michel an offensively familiar wink. "Eight sous? You'll get a remembrance of this Crusade for a song."

"Why would I buy someone else's spoils when we haven't even started fighting yet?" Michel told himself that he shouldn't covet a book he couldn't read. He despised having to pinch every penny until it cried mercy. Although not wealthy, his family was renowned for their good looks, their courage in battle and for their estate in the Ardennes hill country, which produced some of the finest warhorses in Christendom.

He and Roland had started off on this Crusade with two of his father's horses each, destriers trained for battle and smooth-gaited riding palfreys, along with equipment and a small sum for provisions and lodgings. But Michel's palfrey had perished during the voyage to Egypt and over the last year his funds had disappeared coin by coin.

"You drive a hard bargain, Sir Knight." My lord de Melun's servant was still hopeful. "Six sous? Look at all the gold leaf."

Michel's destrier was eating thirty-six sous worth of hay and grain per quarter. He and Roland had counted themselves fortunate when Roland had charmed the Templar Sergeant-Brother Gauthier, one of the Marshall's men, into allowing their horses to be stabled with the Templars' mounts. But right now Michel didn't know where tomorrow's breakfast would come from, much less this quarter's stabling fees.

Feigning a loss of interest, Michel tore himself away from the seductive book and strode away. The seller called after him, but Michel shut his ears and made his way to his cousin.

Roland was still flirting, playfully grabbing for the giggling girl's hand as if to kiss it.

Michel glanced ostentatiously at the sky. "Don't we have an appointment?"

"Of course." Roland made a gallant bow and wiped a rim of goat's milk from his golden-stubbled upper lip. "It's over this way," he said cheerfully.

As they exited the square and began walking down another narrow street, Roland handed Michel the lumpy package of bread, then tied a string of blue faience beads around his neck and tucked them inside his hauberk.

Stung, Michel thought of the beautiful book he had so virtuously resisted purchasing. "Why did you buy that?"

"She said the beads would protect me against evil."

"And it had nothing to do with her being pretty?"

"No!" Roland sputtered. "It was simple Christian charity. She was so thin. And her poor little baby..."

It was unusual for Roland to be so discomfited. Michel couldn't resist prodding. "Everyone knows you can't say 'no' to a pretty face. You could have stayed in Flanders if you hadn't gone sniffing after Mathilde."

"I loved your sister with my whole heart," Roland said with wounded dignity.

"Her husband didn't like it."

"He's just a merchant. What does he know of chivalry--or courtly love?" Roland snapped.

"Didn't he threaten to have you gelded to match your palfrey?" Michel knew he had scored when he saw the flush in his cousin's fair cheeks.

"At least I'm not trying to make friends with every Saracen that crosses our path," Roland retorted. "And if you start praying to brass idols, I swear I'll abandon you to your fate!"

"But Muslims don't pray to brass--" Michel stopped at Roland's smirk. "Besides, what about the Queen's handmaid, Helene? I thought you and she--?"

Roland heaved an exaggerated sigh. "She only favors handsome knights with money."

Michel snickered. "Then your cause is doomed, even if we acquire riches today." Nimbly he ducked Roland's half-hearted cuff. "Speaking of which...now that we've eaten, tell me where we're going." He hefted the wrapped bread by way of emphasis.

Roland gave him a guarded look. "On a raid."

Not a tournament? Michel sorted through his mixed feelings. "I thought the King forbade--but where will we go? Who else is coming? Who's leading?"

"Baron Amalric de Sens," Roland said, answering the last question but refusing to meet Michel's eyes.

Michel made a face. The Baron de Sens was known as a doughty fighter, but there were ugly rumors about his too-close friendship with an English knight. "Are you certain we ought to...I mean, if de Sens is leading the raid, won't Sir Oswald of Geddington be there too?" At Roland's raised eyebrow, Michel blurted. "I've heard that Sir Oswald--"

"Michou, if we're lucky, this raid will convince my lord de Sens to take us on as replacements for Sir Philippe and Sir Gaston, may God rest their souls." Roland crossed himself as he mentioned two knights recently dead of a bloody flux.

"But what will Robert say? We'll never hear the end of it."

"Isn't any liege better than no liege?" countered Roland.

"But--" Michel set his jaw. Roland was right, of course. They needed a liege. But that did not lessen his discomfort. Vassal to a suspected sodomite...Michel had a disconcerting flash of caressing the back of a dark-haired man's neck, and squeezed his eyes shut. No.

Roland continued in his most persuasive tone. "Of course I'd never force you to do something against your conscience, but if Lord de Sens doesn't accept our oath of fealty..."

"We could join the Templars," Michel suggested, half-serious.

"What! Give up women?" Roland exclaimed, punching Michel on his armored shoulder. "It's no wonder they're so eager to die in battle!" He laughed, then turned serious again. "Cousin, I promised Mathilde I'd take care of you. But without a liege..."

Michel understood. As boys, fostered together in the household of their uncle, Roland had protected him from beatings and worse. At eighteen--well, nearly eighteen--Michel was a man now, but Roland was still trying to protect him.

Swallowing his misgivings, Michel forced a smile. "Then let us go and convince my lord de Sens that we will be loyal as dogs in his hall and as fierce as lions in his battles."

Roland clapped him on the shoulder again and they continued walking.

* * *

They arrived at the Baron de Sens' house, formerly the residence of a wealthy Saracen merchant, just as the first rays of the sun burned over the horizon. Admitted by a sleepy-eyed servant, they were ushered into a spacious reception room containing a tiled fountain, and given a goblet of wine.

It was sour, tasting like the leather bag in which it had been stored, but Michel gulped it. As he wiped his mouth and hoped for a refill, he drank in the details of the room's exotic furnishings.

High shelves displayed a profusion of pottery vessels, some enameled and gilded. The floor, instead of being flagstones scattered with rushes and herbs, was clean tile. There were no benches or tables or chairs, only a set of wide, low cushions against three walls, and a shelf over intricate supporting arches against the opposite wall, holding several items he could not identify.

When a small, dark-skinned servant refilled his cup, Michel pointed to a mysterious X-shaped object made of filigreed wood inlaid with ivory and lapis. "What is that?"

The servant looked startled. "Sir Michel, that is a stand used to hold the Qur'an, the holy book of the Muslims."

"Thank you," Michel said, restraining himself from asking further questions. What, exactly, did the Saracens believe? Could all of them read and write? What did the writing mean? How were you supposed to read writing that was all hooks and arcs?

"Last night's wine was better," Roland commented, breaking off just as a group of men entered the room. They bowed, and courtesies were exchanged all around. Michel retained only the vaguest impressions of the four knights accompanying the Baron.

As for Amalric de Sens, he was tall and lean, with dark hair and a high-bridged nose that had once been thoroughly broken. His companion, the notorious Sir Oswald, seemed a manly enough fellow. Perhaps the gossips had been mistaken. Or perhaps they blamed him unfairly for his girlish complexion and his hair, so pale blond it was almost silver.

Oswald caught Michel's eye and smiled at him. Michel nodded back courteously. Oswald's grin broadened--he was a handsome fellow--and he winked.

Michel was uncomfortably reminded of the way Roland had smiled at the wench selling milk. He felt his cheeks grow hot and he found somewhere else to look, not wanting to give insult but not wanting to play Oswald's game, either.

De Sens and Sir Oswald were attended by their two freckle-faced squires, brothers named Nicolas and Joscelin. Michel had encountered the two young men several times during the journey to Egypt, and did not like them.

Only a year or two younger than Michel, and from a family with larger estates than Michel's family, they failed to give Michel the same respect they gave the other knights, and their insolence, falling just short of the outright insult that might have justified a beating, rankled.

De Sens cleared his throat loudly, and everyone gave him their attention. "Gentle knights, I thank you for attending me this morning. I have discovered that a rich prize is making its way from Port Said to Alexandria: a Saracen trading caravan, loaded with treasure."

Amid the cheers, Michel asked, "My lord, how is this caravan guarded?"

"By a few unarmored Saracens," de Sens answered.

Michel would have asked more, but behind the Baron's back, Roland frowned, and then de Sens unrolled a sheet of parchment and bade them all to come near as he pointed out details on a crudely-drawn map of the Nile Delta.

"The road runs here. We shall ride south along the shore of Lake Manzala. Tonight we will camp here." His scarred forefinger traced a path along the lakeshore. "The caravan is expected to cross by boat, disembarking here in the next three or four days, so we will await them here." His finger moved to a point further south on the map, then he straightened up. "We'll ride out after Mass. Meet at the Cairo Gate as soon as you saddle your horses. Bring enough food and drink for three nights. Don't be tardy, or we'll leave without you."

Sir Oswald winked again.

Michel hastily swallowed the last of his wine and followed the others.

* * *

The papyrus reeds lining the narrow, muddy track rattled softly in the hot wind of late afternoon, as Roland rode in single file behind his cousin and the other knights. He wiped his sweaty forehead, telling himself, It's just the heat.

But his heart pounded and his fingers, clenched too-tightly around his palfrey's reins, began to cramp. His war-horse followed, its lead tied to the back of the palfrey's saddle.

Ahead, a long-beaked bird broke from th