The Tower of the Knights

To All and Sundry whom these Presents do and may concern ...
      Sahir stooped to pick up the document which had fallen from the breast pocket as he had folded his jacket over the chair. She turned the pages, seemingly more interested in the lions, eagles, half-moons and scimitars of the visa section, than in the portrait of the bearer entitled to enter the realms of these exotic beasts. Then she turned her attention to the lion and the unicorn embossed on the cover, running her fingers over the inlay of gold lines and scrolled lettering:
      Know Thee therefore that We have devised and do by these Presents assign, rarify and confirm unto the Petitioner and his Descendants, the Following ...
      "That's the lion and the unicorn," he said by way of explanation, "They're fighting for the crown!" and in celebration of the numerous gin and tonics he had had, he burst forth into song:

	The lion and the unicorn Were fighting for the crown; The lion beat the unicorn All round about the town

This, although not unrestrained, did however unwontedly succeed in turning heads in the vicinity, perplexed at the intrusion of the rich sonorous notes that usually heralded the arrival of drunken sailors.
      "Sh!" she beseeched him. "It's not good for you to sing here. Tell me about the lion and the unicorn." And so it came to be that he told her about the land of the unicorn:
      Azure: parted by a Chevron Sable between a lion Or with Tail nowed in Sinister Chief and a Unicorn Argent in Dexter Chief; which being both rampant, do face each other and fight, as is decreed, over a Crown Royal in Base.
      Sahir smiled quietly to herself, as the drunken foreigner told her of that fabled land where the wildest creature is the unicorn and where bees nest in the carcasses of the lions that have perished at the thrust of its spiralling, tapered horn. For this is the land where the ostrich subsists on a diet of iron and stone; a land where curved horns of unknown origin are said to be griffin's claws and fossilised sharks' teeth, the tongues of dragons. But why had he left the paradise of those chivalrous shores? Neither the arbitrary juxtaposition of emblems stamped in his passport, nor the vague expression "prolonged vacation" provided any clue as to his purpose. What could it be that he was hoping to find amongst the fractured patchwork of territories, apart from the dust that defied the cartographer and over which the politicians argued? He reminded her of the butterfly collectors who came in search of rare specimens. As colourful and unpredictable as the very insects they themselves were pursuing, they were essentially harmless. She thought of them leaping around the rocks ineffectively with their nets. Only he was more ethereal. She would tell Muhammad that he was O.K. A hunter of miscellaneous beasts, hunting the heraldic inventions of his crusader forefathers.
      Above the Shield an Helm befitting the Degree, with Mantling of Glues double Or, and within a Wreath of Liveries is set for Crest a Platter Argent, with a Boar's Head thereon.
      He had forgotten how many times the barman had come over to them with the bottles on a silver tray but here he was again, ready for yet another refill.
      "And does that creature also come from the land you described?" Sahir had noticed the boar's head emblem on the side of the gin bottle. Gordon's. It had to be Gordon's.
      "Of course," he answered. "That's a wild pig. They used to hunt them in England." Sahir and the boar's head were grimacing at each other in mutual suspicion. Enemies on two counts he thought, thinking of the Koran's ban on both alcohol and pork. "The head used to be a special delicacy," he continued, "Roasted whole just like that but with an apple in the mouth - the Original Sin!"
      In a Compartment below the Arms, this Motto, "Terra Perusta" for this is the fate that hath been decreed unto the Petitioner and his Descendants.
      She was looking at him askew, as if he had said something he ought not have. But before he could say anything, Muhammad's pidgin English was intruding upon them from out of the confusion of the background noise, in a series of delayed reflexes as resemblances were heard and recognised. Klosink. Klosink. Closing. Closing. Casting an eye around at the unabated excitement of drink, smoke and gossip, he whispered to Sahir,
      "I thought this place was always open, so long as there were people in it."
      "Yes," she replied in a lowered voice, "but he means that for you its closed now. I don't know why." Whereupon she rose and vanished into the dimness of the back rooms, behind the rustling of the bead curtain that swayed tantalisingly in her wake.

---

Terra Perusta: desert country

      In the dawn of the morning after, confused memories resurrect themselves from the swoon of an evening past. He tries to reconstruct the sequence of events that has somehow become concatenated in the image of the gin bottle on the silver tray. He thinks of the Fall and of his expulsion from the Garden. A history of the world begins to riverrun before him, past Eve and Adam's; flowing in a ceaseless tide of strife and discord, division and acquisition, as the lion and the unicorn fight over the crown of destiny and the beasts of the kingdoms do struggle one with another; merging into one another in a blur of colours punctuated by fleeting glimpses of claws, beaks, horns, hooves, tails and wings that kick and scratch, butt and flap, as the cavalcade surges away and around and about the boar's head on the silver plate that the waiter holds out before him. Will he, too, be reduced to feeding on locusts and honey for the space of forty days and forty nights? He is here now, the arms of his family once again returning to the heat and the dust of the desert kingdom where his ancestor perished so many centuries before.

 

The Awakening Promise

He had chanced upon the bar whilst strolling back through the cool night air, after an unsuccessful meal at a touristy restaurant down by the harbour. Wandering vaguely in the direction of the hotel, he had at first been attracted by the murmur of gathered voices, which he had traced to a doorway, conspicuous by the light that hung above it and to which the night insects flocked. As he approached, a cheer had broken out from deep within and he had noticed the English letters painted onto the crumbling stone of the door's lintel. The Latrun Bar.
      He had peered in cautiously. A steep flight of steps lead down to two men talking at the bottom. They had looked up at the tall figure in white, who hovered above them in the doorway.
      "Come," one had instructed, gesturing enthusiastically, "Drinking and dancing," his infectious grin spreading to his colleague, who nodded in agreement.
      "Yes. Arabic dancing. You must see." The murmur of voices behind them died away and he had hesitated, the slow, sad chords of an accordion finally persuading him to plunge forward and follow his shadow down the steep steps.
      "Welcome!" The men had greeted him as if congratulating him on his decision. One was obviously the doorman, the other a friend keeping him company. They had indicated that he should go left through a bead curtain, this being in fact the only way one could go. Parting the beads with his hand, he had slipped through into the barrel-vaulted space of the cellar, just as the throaty syllables of a man's voice began to join the long, drawn-out notes of the accordion, bewailing the plight of a peasant boy in love with a Persian princess many centuries ago.
      Inside, illuminated by hidden spotlights, the sides of the vault's curves reflected a soft light into the interior of the room. Honey from the rock he had thought, being reminded of the slabs of baklava he had seen in the market, oozing honey from the ground almond of their rocky cross-sections. Slowly, his eyes had adjusted to reveal that the lounge was, in fact, empty, the voice and its accompanying accordion waxing and waning through the beads of a second doorway. Through this second curtain, his approach had revealed a semi-circle of musicians seated within the semi-circle of their audience. Circumscribing the arc of tables and chairs, a waiter had been busying himself with the wishes of the guests. He had pushed on through the strings of wooden beads, deeper into the realm of awakening promise...

A six poynted sterre folwyd bi three staffs
Aboven a launce descenden in caste,
Thene ther cometh the hethene lettre Mim
Blynde and doumbe in the wildernes of Zin.

Nexte a ledder poynten up to the sky
And four fyngres agayns the yvel eyhe,
'Forn the closyng sythe of deth be a Ha
Served bi the secret of a laste Waw.

Dating from the twelfth century, the cellars are the last remains of a castle built by an order of crusader knights. Taken by the Saracens in 1291, the fortress, along with other fortifications along the coast, had then been razed to the ground, dashing once and for all, western hopes of a continued presence in the East. Only a handful of knights had survived:

Beryng this charme that al-Buni dyde write
The consailers lyft bi couere of nyght,
Lettyng hir fortress and al thynges within
A-falle to a mercyles Saladin.

Under the rule of the Egyptian Mamluk dynasty, the town had prospered and expanded, the present-day house being built over the old cellars, in the area that had come to be called Latrun. Corrupted from the French, this name derives from the crusader name for the castle, Le Toron des Chevaliers, the tower of the knights.
      In the sixteenth century, Latrun began to feature again in the Christian consciousness, after pilgrims identified it as the birthplace of the good thief (Boni Latronis), who was crucified alongside Jesus. Although this may not be true of the good thief of two thousand years ago, it is however true of Muhammad al-Jawal, who apart from running the bar in the house in which he was born, also uses the underground passage that runs from the cellars down to the beach, for the purposes of his smuggling operations. It had been by this means that the counsellors of the order had escaped on the eve of the castle's fall.
      Although nowadays the passage is still there for emergency exits, its traffic mostly flows in the other direction bearing the tide of goods that supply Muhammad's black-market network. The bar is therefore both the centre and the front for these activities; the veil of subterfuge being cast by Sahir, the Egyptian girl Muhammad had adopted and had instructed in dancing, so that now she dances on most days of the week. The crowds she draws and the reputation she enjoys are such that the authorities no longer doubt the bar's authenticity. Nevertheless, when an unknown face does descend the steep steps, the doorman presses a concealed button which causes a bell to ring at the bar, alerting the waiter and allowing Muhammad's more infamous accomplices and foreign visitors (who come, like their wares, without embarkation documents) time to make a discrete exit via the back door, or if necessary, along the tunnel to the boat that lies hidden among the sand dunes. Last night, however, none of his foreign colleagues or accomplices with prices on their heads had been present, and so this course of action had not been necessary. Muhammad and his friends were thus able to continue their merry-making unperturbed, though nevertheless curious to see the new-comer who was pushing his way through the beads of the curtain.
      Sahir, standing in the shadows of the doorway that leads to the back rooms, had also noticed the arrival of the well-dressed foreigner; and although it has never been discussed, is also perfectly aware of her function and the rôle she plays. Only too well does she know the limits of her freedom and the price that she would have to pay at the hands of her adoptive father for any disobedience. Dedicated to her dancing, she secretly hopes that one day, one of the new-comers Muhammad asks her to "check out" will turn out to be someone from a rich far-off city; someone who has come specially to see her dancing and who will be prepared to pay her more in one month to dance in his club than Muhammad would ever dream of paying her. Fanciful though these fancies may be, it is not, however, impossible that they may one day be fulfilled; for Sahir is "33 drums" which is to say "very good" and news of such dancers has been known to travel far and wide. An awakening promise.

 

The Encounter

Sitting on the balcony, drinking his coffee in the pleasant warmth of the morning sunshine, he leafed idly through the stiff pages of octavio: ¹4 A8 B-C8. Bound in green leather, the volume contained the fragments of a fourteenth century poem, that purported to describe the fall of Outremer and the disappearance of an order of knights. He had stumbled across quotations in "Band LVI" of the "Wiener Beiträge zur Englischen Philologie" and shortly before his departure, his advertisement in the Book Collector had yielded an eighteenth century edition of the text. From across the centuries, the verses jogged further memories of an evening past and he wondered what on earth had possessed him to include this almanac of sorcery and betrayal among his travel literature.

The consailler this fol knyght dyde biwray
And coude for the sorser-charme feign to pay,
Weche sygnes the warlagh on papirus wrote
In these here vers that be aisy to note.

      Sitting down at the empty table, he had smiled at the waiter's attempts to describe some dancer, who, as far as he had been able to make out, was going to dance later.
      "She very good. You like very much," he had insisted before getting round to the question of what he would like to drink. He had ordered a "G & T" and at last the man had bustled away, leaving him to his thoughts. On stage, the vocalist had plied the accordion that hung from his shoulders with closed eyes. Curving away on either side of him, the other members of the ensemble had been somewhat more detached in their attitude towards the rendition of the song. He could remember their eyes darting to and fro among the audience, his own arrival having precipitated a series of winks and nods that had ricochetted across the crescent, while the saxophonist, whose cue had not yet come, whispered remarks into his neighbour's ear. About him?

With-oute dout or the leste suspecisioun
The yong man sette-oute with comyssioun,
Commaunded to kyll whateuer lay therin
He knew it oonly watz of yvel kyn.

He had not missed the inevitable turning of heads either, as the waiter had led him over to the empty table. But it had not lasted long. Only for one group had his presence continued to be of interest; for while the gestures and glances of the other tables were focusing on the stage, from this select company, set apart from the crescent, came only the gazes and hushed tones that continued to glide over him in question. "Stammgäste," he had thought; people who come not just once a week but every night.
      It had been then that he had seen her. The music had trilled three times before finally erupting into a vibrant architecture of intricate rhythms and echoing tones. He had turned towards the bar to see what was happening with his drink and had noticed, in the shadows of a doorway, a reticent form waiting for the cue that would lure it out into the opposing spheres of audience and band, along the trajectory of the waiter's garbled gesticulations.

Opunyng the tumb of the girl now ded
Ther flaw oute a foul and orebil hed,
Wich cerclen hye aboven his bladde
Coude not by the yong man be bilayde.

Her hair and body draped in a silken shawl, clasped at the neck by those delicate hands, she stood in the seclusion of the shadows, awaiting her cue, aware of his presence, aware that she was looking at him. She lowered her eyes as his returned to hers. Irresitably, in the intimacy of the shadows, a smile had crept over her face. Then the music had reached the crest of its crescendo and the moment had vanished, shattered by her stepping out into the light.

The vertouous manere of gentyle bor
The grisly hed ne colde hit not aoure,
With brennyng ehyen and ful brethynge smoke
A foul smul descended as she thus spoke.

His first reaction had been one of shock at the transformation that had come over her. Gone were the shy shadows and the understanding eyes of the face in the wings; evidently she was enjoying what doing. Nevertheless he had watched, slowly beginning to discern the alphabet of movements, and appreciate the effect of floating she was able to conjure up. It was as if her body had dissolved into disparate limbs to be tossed and turned on the rhythm of a restless sea. Wrists and elbows rose and fell, the pelvic girdle was washed one way and the shoulders were swept by the swell in another, gradually erroding his resistance to the spectacle that was unfolding before him.

I am the doughter of hym, al-Zagzag,
Demon ascendyng of oone al-Haggag,
Bighute bi hym that heth yow to me sente
Him to fynd hit is now myn owne entente.

Sometime after the dance, she had come over to him and seated herself at his table, introducing herself with the words:
      "I'm Sahir, everbody knows me." He had stooped to kiss the hand that was teasingly proffered him.

The face in the shadows had returned.

 

Manderville

Stretched over the surface of the globe, like the fabric of the Turin shroud over the face of Christ, he imagined the miracles and the wonders of the medieval imagination emblazoning the arid landscape while the taxi sped southward, past the dry tree, the first roses, and the cave where the true cross was found.
      "The excellence of things is in the middle," says Sir John Manderville, quoting Aristotle as he expounds upon the reasons why Christ was crucified in Jerusalem. "For he that wishes to do anything that he wishes to be openly known to all men, will have it cried in the centre of a town or city, so that it may be known to all parts of the city. In the same way He that was King of all the world wanted to suffer death at Jerusalem which is the middle of the world so that it might be known to men of all parts of the world ..."
      They continue heading south, away from the holy centre; while Manderville's prologue goes on to assert that "Each good and Christian man who is able, and has the means, should set himself to conquer our inheritance, this Land, and chase out therefrom those who are unbelievers. For we are called Christian men from Christ our Father; and if we be true children of Christ, we ought to lay claim to the heritage that our Father left to us, and win it out of strange men's hands."
      This, the Baedecker's Guide of the Middle Ages, covering the Middle East, India and the Far East as far as the walls of Paradise, started to appear around 1356. Originally written in French, by the end of the century it had been translated into every major European language; so that by c.1500, when it started to be available in print, there were already enough manuscripts for over 300 to have come down to us today (as compared with Polo's "Divisament dou Monde", of which some seventy manuscripts have survived). Leonardo possessed a copy and Columbus consulted one before setting out for China by sailing West (Manderville assuring him that this was possible). As late as 1576, "The Travels of Sir John Manderville" numbered among the books and instruments that accompanied Martin Frobisher on his quest for the North West Passage.
      Back at the hotel, a copy of this catalogue of the world's marvels also numbers among the volumes of the Englishman's travelling library, for in the succession of stories he sees De Chiricoesque landscapes of yearning and regret - mappings of rich poetry: the well whose water changes colour each hour of the day; the trees that bear flour, honey, wine and venom; the self-sacrificing fish and the gold-digging ants. While in the land of darkness, in the cannibals and troglodytes, the men without heads and in the poison damsels, he sees the charted isles of sub-conscious fears. True travel indeed. Passing the scattered groups of Bedouin, the sights and descriptions of the travel guide break surface in his thoughts as they follow the black snake of Tarmac deeper into the heart of the wilderness.
      Sahir, in response to his tales of fabled animals and strange customs, had told him of the desert of Zin, an accursed place, where prophets of old had sought to curb, with talismans and spells, the ravages of the "Childmother"; an evil demon of unknown origin, who delighted in the misery she wrought on mankind. Whenever she passed by, the air would be filled with a terrible stench and children would begin to cry, men would be left lame and the unborn would die in the womb. After her passing, the valleys would be filled with wailing and lamenting as the people discovered the ailments and ruin that had befallen them: cows and goats would no longer give milk, camels would stop eating and crops would lie spoiled in the fields.
      Sahir had said that it had wings and a head with burning eyes, that it breathed smoke but she had not mentioned a body; so he had begun to wonder if it was not the ghoulish head of the poem. The wingèd fiend had clearly been no angel or cherubim. Did it personify the sins of a guilty father? The suppressed conscience of the evil-doer? After stumbling across those first fragments, he had followed up the article's references to Manderville, who, writing some forty years earlier, mentions the story of the fiend's origin in connection with a bay situated between Rhodes and Cyprus.
      "On the way to Cyprus men pass by a place that is called the Gulf of Cathaly, which was once a fair country, and there was a fair city in it that was called Adalia. And that country was lost through the folly of a young man. For there was a damsel whom he loved well, and she died suddenly and was laid in a tomb of marble; and on account of the great love he had for her he went to her grave and opened it and went in and lay with her, and then went his way. At the end of nine months a voice came to him one night and said "Go to the grave of that woman and open it, and behold what you have begotten on her. And if you go not you shall have great evil and suffering." And he went and opened the grave, and there flew out a very horrible head, hideous to look at, which flew all round the city; and forthwith the city sank, and all the district round about. And around there are many dangerous passages."
      The poem too starts off in the same vein, although the location is not specified.

But al this watz the foly of one knyght
Whos desir for love exceded al right,
As wan his maid deyed in hire prime of youthe
He lousid the graue for a cryme uncouthe.

Thareftir he went his myschieuous weye
To prie Outremer from Sarcen assay,
Wher he atteigned thurgh connynge deceite
The pouer and welth of a counsail sete.

But oon day he was bi a voys bisette
Wich telde him to see whatte he had bigete,
Sore afraid he assigned a new-come knyght
To gay to the graue in the derke of nyght.

Here, however, the poem departs from the direct simplicity of Manderville, opening up subplots of intrigue and betrayal. The father of the fiend is not the young knight but is instead, one of the counsellors of the order, on whose orders the young knight is sent to the grave. On arriving there, the head flies out; but not recognising her mortal father, she addresses him, citing her lineage, before flying off to the South. The young man returns, dutifully reporting all to his superior:

Heerynge this the consailer weye dyde haaste
A charme by the Saracen to porchace,
For feeren that withoute a magyk spell
The feend wolde certain ne not mene him wel.

Ne gold ne syluere wolde al-Buni taake
Oonly that hijs lyf that the feend dide make,
For thur bi he hoped the yvel to destrie
Thif he coude the fader-flessh plie.

To hym the trechette consailer agred
And knowinge the oon who wolde fill his nede,
He sent the yong knyght oute on a forray
To wher the enemy lay to taake hir querré.

With the young knight thus betrayed and silenced, and the Arab magician tricked into handing over the protective amulet, the councillor returns to the city, leaving the warlock to his futile necromancy.

Thogh the warlaugh dyde at hijs magyk toyle
Na-thynge wolde the feend of hire myght despoil,
And sone he saugh that this innocent hed
Watz not the oon that the spirit wolde dred.

So in a grete rage he dyde sende hit back
A parchmyne therwith in a lethern sak,
i-Written on wich a curse dyde hit shew
That the verrei trewthe he now dyde ful knew.

Later the Mamluks, seeing the weakness and corruption that had spread through the crusader kingdom, surround the city; a long, drawn-out siege begins. As hopes of relief dwindle, the counsellors decide to flee under the cover of darkness. On the morning after their departure, the head is seen circling the walls and sultan al-Ashraf Khalil marshals his forces for a renewed offensive. The air is filled with the smell of rotting flesh and that day the city falls, sinking not into Manderville's literal sea but into the deeper sea of unbelief.
      Even Manderville speaks of intrigue and betrayal, deploring the wickedness of his times: "But now pride, envy and covetousness have so inflamed the hearts of lords that they are more busy to disinherit their neighbours than to lay claim to or conquer their own rightful inheritance." The hundred years war has begun and the ninth crusade will never be launched.

 

In nomine Deus

Beneath the pointed arches and the crocketed pinnacles that make up the canopies of their seats, the knights have gathered together once again to receive our Lord's blessing on their undertaking and the promise of a life everlasting. In the distorted reflections that tint the sand held in the blown bubble of the hourglass's upper chamber, he sees the chapel and all within swoon in supplication for the acceptance of their petition. On the convex surface, the curves of the bowed knights' bodies echo the curves of the vaulted ceiling high above them, while pious hands mould with faith the very enclaves of pew and canopy that enclose them as they kneel.
      It is an image he knows well now, that has repeatedly haunted him since he first read the fragments of the poem and visited the chapel where the hourglass stands upon the altar, challenging the onlooker for an explanation as to its reason and message. But he has none and time is running out; for as the level of the sand sinks, so the reflections on the surface of the glass ebb away, as the light from behind breaks through. Who are the knights? And what mission is it that they are about to embark upon? He has often posed these questions to himself, wondering what heresies and dark secrets lie behind the morbid verses.
      Meanwhile, above the solemn faces bathed in the light of the stained glass windows, the central pinnacles of the canopies bear the helmets, mantlings and crests of the order's elect. Like the knights, the carved effigies face each other in pairs across the aisle: head of ram and tree of oak, bee and castillated tower, head of stag and a sailing galleon, ostrich feathers and a red lion strident, dragon's head and bundle of arrows, scaley monster and portculis-bearing virgin and lastly, burning salamander and a dove descendant. Silent witnesses, having the anonymous, threatening character of totem poles and tribal masks, the crests command the space of the nave and the consciousness of those assembled. The air is still and sultry, and the effigies resonate with the suggested symbolisms of rites only half understood, of associations not yet acted out. The image is often accompanied by the buzzing sound of insects; the air thick with the imminence of an impending drone, as the grains begin to fall away, subsiding into the retort of the hourglass's lower chamber. The order is party to fractions and rivalries. After mass he knows that they will drift away into the main body of the church, splintering into groups and hailing one another loudly, before lulling into whispers as conspiracies are confirmed and plans arranged.
      And so he dwells upon the story of the young knight, realising that the desert that contains all histories within its restless sands also contains his history; a history that stretches back through the eye of the centuries' hourglass, back to the age of chivalry and romance, where ideals and intrigues stand out against the shifting sands. Hesitatingly, he picks his way through the wilderness of the lower chamber, familiar reflections glinting at him from among the ever changing constellations of silica:

Three tymes on Golgotha the cocke dyde crowe
And three tymes dyde he on hijs trumpette blowe,
Rore of leon metyng shrille cries of mone
As thredes were sponne on that trecherous lome.

The fate of this boolde knyght beende arayed
Licke him for whom syluere coigne had ben paide,
Eclipsed bi the forss of the mone cressit
No socours watz for hym fo be sendit.

Trapped in the rowgh hulls of that caliph lond
With grete valour he dyde fighte hijs laste stond,
Agayns slaschting cimitars glyntyng brihte
The vnycorne wild he dyde dein to fighte.

And wan the yong man at long laste watz ded
Hijs corps the vnfeithful dyde ther bihed,
As a crest fixed ther bi cruel accounte
Hijs launce they dyde thene with hijs hed surmonte.

Wan trewe knyghts of Christ the sighte dyde poruay
Liht crownèd the hed that watz on display,
Wevyng on hem an illumynacioun
The warpes and weftes of this dedicacioun.

 

Reverberations

That evening, between the static blocks of the houses and the whispering silhouettes of palm trees that swayed in the wind, the streets hummed with the excitement of a strange message ...
      - The Englishman had been to the desert! - The desert! Had left at five in the morning ... - An early start for once! - You can say that again! - Wanted to see the sunrise perhaps. - Would have been too late. - Then what did he do? - According to the taxi driver, they'd just drive ... - And every so often stop. - That's what I heard too. And then he'd get out, walk a few hundred yards ... - And get back in again. - Desert exploration! - Then they'd drive on again ... - Until he'd ask to stop. - And then he'd get out. - Sometimes he'd go to the top of a dune ... - And once he walked along the bed of a dried-out river. - But would usually wander among the palm trees. - Had a map with him I heard. - Ya, kept on looking at it in the taxi. - Probably looking for something ... - Mirages! - Or those creatures he's into ... - Thinks he'll find their fossils in the desert! - Ya, heard about that from Muhammad. Don't believe it though. - Don't reckon Muhammad does either. - 'Course if he was looking for fossils, he'd have lots of equipment with him. - Sure! - Like the one who came last year, looking for butterflies. - But he hasn't. - That's the point. - Has a whole load of books with him, I heard. - Oh yeah? - Books on what, that's the question.
      Behind the streets, overlooking the lights of the harbour and the black ink of an almost land-locked sea, the Englishman is standing on his balcony, his lips moving silently in the moonlight, as the mediterranean's modest swell washes against the beach, lulling the town into the peace of a hushful slumber. The evening has passed and night has come...

Written from lefte to right in swich a weie
This charme shal kepe the malengin at baie,
Threw lynth of daies and in the depth of nyght
Hit will a-knowe the malefice heth myght.

He turns and addresses himself to sleep.

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Prologue | Chapter I | Chapter II | Chapter III | Chapter IV | References | Table of Contents