The Mongoliad: Book Two (The Foreworld Saga) Read Free Page B

wondered.
    “During the Crusade, I saw many whose faith in God failed to sustain them. On both sides,” Raphael said, his voice soft enough that Brother Leo had to lean his shoulder against the other man’s in order to make out the words. “Do you know the Muslims believein the same God as Christians do? They have a different name for him—Allah.”
    “I have heard Brother Francis speak of the Muslim beliefs,” Brother Leo replied, happy to be speaking of a different topic, even if it was one he was not well versed in. “I have not had the opportunity to study them myself,” he admitted.
    “Do you know their traditional greeting?” Raphael put his hands together as he had when he had first arrived. “
As-Salamu ‘Alaykum
,” he said. “It means ‘Peace be upon you.’ That is not dissimilar to the greeting you offered me. I have heard Brother Francis use it as well.”
    “He finds it suits his mission—our mission—quite well,” Brother Leo said, nodding.
    “My father was a German soldier,” Raphael said. “He fought for Frederick Barbarossa and went with him to the Holy Land for the Crusade. When Frederick died in the river crossing, my father completed the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He ended up fighting for King Richard of England against Saladin. However, when Richard returned to England, my father stayed in Acre. My mother told me he became a Knight of the Teutonic Order, but—” Raphael shrugged, “—when I got old enough to ask of him, the master of the order claimed to not know my father.”
    Brother Leo nodded. He continued to fiddle with his cross, playing the well-rehearsed role of listener.
    “I grew up among Muslims,” Raphael continued, winding his way toward the confession he sought to make. “I played in the shadow of Muslim minarets and mosques. Their call to prayer—the
azan
—was as much a part of my childhood as the shouts of the merchants in the market or any oratory from a pulpit—more so, in fact, for it happened multiple times each day. How could I become a Christian warrior and treat these people as my lifelong enemy?”
    Brother Leo shrugged as if the question was mysteriously opaque to him as well.
    “When I was old enough to think I knew something of the world, I stowed away on a Venetian merchant ship. The captain found my audacity not without charm, and instead of hurling me into the Mediterranean, he put me to work. I stayed with him for several years, all the while yearning to set foot in Christendom—the land where my father had come from. Finally, when the ship was in Trieste for repairs, I managed to escape. I went north, hoping to find the Teutonic Knights again. They had gone to Transylvania to fight against the hordes from the east—an enemy of which I had no knowledge. I could kill these infidels, I thought, because they were strange to me. During my journey, I fell in with a party traveling to Petraathen, the citadel of the
Ordo Militum Vindicis Intactae
. They took me in instead, and after years of training, I took their vows—pledging myself to serve the Order and the Virgin.”
    Brother Mante returned, a bottle in either hand. “Ho,” he said. “A bounty has been provided.” Piro crowded behind him, carrying an armful of wooden cups.
    As one of the bottles was opened and the cups were filled, Raphael sighed. “God is testing me, isn’t he?” he asked.
    Brother Leo hesitated.
God tests all of us
, was the thought he had, but he feared such language would not assuage the young man’s despair. He wished Brother Francis were with them. He would have words that would soothe the knight; he could tell Raphael of his own trials as a knight of Assisi. He had been commanded to fight against his own people when Assisi went to war with Perugia.
    But Brother Leo had not had such experience.
Nor
, he quickly admitted to himself,
will I ever know what it is like to take up a sword against another man
. Battle changed men; that was part of why Francis