Chosen Ch. 06

"Um... just a headache."

"It's just that you were muttering arder and fuego, over and over."

"I'm sorry... was I? I don't know what those words mean."

That got me a disbelieving look. "I'm sorry, miss... I need to ask you to leave."

"It's just... I have a headache. I just-"

Her eyes narrowed. I wasn't being asked to leave, I was being told to. Something in me bridled, but I bit my lip and held back what I was going to say next.

"Let me show you out," she said, firmly. Right, I was in a public library. They were used to homeless people coming in, some with issues. The call to the police would be next if I made a fuss.

"Yes. Thank you."

Once outside I did a web search on arder and fuego.

No wonder she'd escorted me out. I'd been muttering about burning things.

+++

Jose and I sat huddled in his tiny office.

I'd always imagined, when reading his essays, that he had a large, open office in a university in Madrid. Shelves lined with books everywhere. Several diplomas over his desk. Large windows, nearly floor to ceiling.

Reality was less impressive. His office was in Seville, and measured perhaps ten feet by eight, with a low ceiling and one small casement window. There were a few bookshelves, of some cheap metal, sagging. The light was an old incandescent bulb at his desk. The light switch in the wall was a very old pushbutton style, and did not work.

"Here," he said, pointing to the screen. "de Morillo. His name is a problem because it matches the name of a priest later involved in the Inquisition, so there's a lot of false leads to weed out."

"Inquisition. A descendant of his was involved in the inquisition?"

"You've perhaps forgotten that Catholic priests do not marry?"

"Doesn't rule out descendants."

"You're very amusing. We have reason to believe he attacked a library and killed perhaps thirty people. Let's not assume he was also a villain in all other ways."

"Marrying would not precisely make him a villain, Catholic teaching aside."

"I won't debate that. But there are rules to follow and he would be expected to follow them. A priest knows what he can expect when he signs up."

"Unlimited altar-boys?"

He stared at me. He wasn't amused.

"So," he said, turning back to the monitor. "Here's a list of priests with that name. Unfortunately rather long."

"The church has records of every priest ever?"

"It tries. Some of course get lost, but ordination is after all a big deal... so this weeds out anyone ordained before 1320 or after 1391. Still quite a few. I think it's probably safe to rule out anything outside of Iberia, but I'm not sure. The church was in flux..."

"That still leaves thirty eight people."

"Seventy. This other list here is for people of uncertain dates and locations. But a priest well known enough to be recognized on sight, leading an armed band... I'm going to assume he was not a question mark in some list. Let's remove those, and the ones who died before age 25, they were unlikely to lead much. So... thirty five."

"And now?"

"Now we let the computer search every reference to this name, and we manually compare it all to these thirty five records."

A few hours crawled by. I nodded to midnight, but it didn't look back.

"This," I said sleepily, two hours later. "Look at this."

He did. "Juanito de Morillo. Ordained 1365 in Seville, at age twenty five. About the youngest possible age. Expert swordsman. Awarded an honorary sword by a nobleman in Seville in 1382. Which nobleman and why...? It doesn't say. Now that is unusual. And look here, he travelled, unspecified journeys to the north and east..."

"Missions for the church, or for his noble family friend?"

"It would be useful to know. But we don't. And... it doesn't say when he died."

"A swordsman might run into unrecorded trouble."

"But burial was a big deal, Alan. The Americans say Never Leave A Man Behind. But the church had it first. People sent into all the world, and sometimes they didn't come back alive -- but much was done to bring them back in any case. Unless he fell into a ravine, someone buried him. He was a man of letters -- none of your illiterate priests came out of Seville -- with a pretty sword. Somewhere there was a record..."

Jose sighed. "...And somewhere that record was lost, something the middle ages was good at. I'm reading too much into a missing death record. We know so little I am grasping for straws. So. This is the man that attacked a church to burn a magical book, for lack of a better term. I'm certain of that now. And he was friends with a noble family. And they rewarded him for his travels."

"Or not. Look at these dates. He travelled early. He was awarded the sword over seventeen years later. Very likely unrelated."

"Alright. Assume that. So, he did some impressive local service. Guarding the nobles in a volatile time? But you don't hire a priest for that. But then, you don't hire a priest in general. Historical research, sometimes; doctoring perhaps, occasional scientific investigation, genealogy research... usually priests do what priests do and don't have a lot of spare time."

"Hm. He founded an orphanage."

"Wait, really?"

I pointed. He frowned.

"Yes, here in Seville, on his return from northern Spain... so why a mission to northern Spain? They were a separate land, the people to the north. Celts and Goths... blonde and fair skinned people, with their own language. Oh. Of course! It was missionary work, pure and simple. Church Latin wasn't well accepted by the Leonese speakers to the north. Someone had to go straighten their theology out, since of course it would be de facto wrong if they didn't speak Latin. Forgive my cynicism. But that must be it. The century matches up, it was a busy time for missions. It fits well. A new priest intent on proving himself to God and man by travelling and teaching. And the swordsmanship would have come in handy on such a journey, with the Moorish invasion still in progress."

"This is quite a renaissance man we've invented," I said, "assuming you'll forgive the mixed metaphor. Swordsman, missionary, presumably becomes fluent in two languages when most people barely managed one, travels a couple years at least, returns, founds an orphanage, eventually gets the favorable attention of a noble house, and then burns a library. Not quite saint material, but still a full life."

"It's surprising he's not a little better known," Jose mused. "He must have been very humble..."

"And had a will of iron. As someone who's travelled to foreign lands, I know what it's like."

"Hm?"

"Swordsman, adventurer...and he travels to a land full of exotic blonde women, all that temptation, but he does nothing but teach for two years..."

Jose looked at me, strangely. I paused, frowning...

"And... he returns... to found... an orphanage. Because men of action are all about... child care?" I said, slowly. "Right. Of course. And the dates line up. I see it now."

"What do you see?"

"I see a hot-headed, bright and impetuous young man, off to make his mark in the clerical world -- but instead he finds some exotic blonde that he's never seen the likes of before. He's foreign to them as well, perhaps handsome, dark, skilled, literate, daring... one or two years later... he finds he has a baby and his missions work is at an end. He returns in shame... with an 'orphan.'"

"You have made this swashbuckling hero of ours rather dark."

"Only if I'm right about what happened to the mother. She would have talked, no woman can hold her tongue about family, but to him it is his shame... so he puts an end to that talking. But who could kill a baby, their own child? A failed missionary, fornicator and perhaps even murderer, he returns home to repent -- or at least to cloud his sins with distance and time. The orphanage grows out of the fact that the child needs care and he will not name her as his own. His claims as to her birth are accepted, and his sins are forgotten."

"You think like a thief and a scoundrel, Alan."

"Suitable, since I am both. But you may be thinking too much like a priest. You seem a decent man, Jose, but not everyone is like you."

"Christians are forgiven, not perfect," he said, nodding. "But your Juanito de Morillo would need a lot of forgiveness."

"I hear it's available in extra-large quantities at any altar. But if he's burning librarians nearly thirty years later, I don't think he found it."

Jose leaned back and closed his eyes. "These late nights... I'm not twenty anymore. The eyes get tired... So on the flimsiest of evidence, we have painted a very bad priest. But we don't know why he gets an award... or why he's burning a library and putting people to death."

"He is a man with a secret to keep. I don't have the... mindset to understand this. His secret about his daughter. How bad is it really, if it's discovered?"

Jose opened one eye at me. "Are you serious? A man goes to bring Christ to the lost and instead fornicates up a baby. Fornication means nothing to people now, but it's a betrayal of oath and trust in his day. He's made the word Christian stink to the people he claimed to want to save. He is at the very least no longer a priest, and that is a long way to fall. And all that is assuming he did not murder the young woman. The millstone is of a certainty around this man's neck."

"So the secret must be kept. But why burn that library? Was his secret there somehow?"

"Use your own idea, Alan. The book was there. You said you guessed it was some sort of preserved memory. But a memory of what or who? Perhaps it somehow knew of his sins."

"Then in our series of wild leaps, we've accounted for the burnt library as well. That just leaves a sword."

"Perhaps it would help to see the sword. Weren't they engraved?"

I nodded. "Some were, but often only with the family name that gave them, the recipient's name, and the date. It would not be much help, even if it survived." I sighed. "Crazy speculation, all of it. No proof of anything."

"...Said the thief that traded in legends. We don't have to prove anything. We just need to follow whatever tenuous strands we can possibly find and hope they lead to more strands, until at last the web is charted and something is seen at the center."

I web searched. Nothing about de Morillo and a sword came up.

"For perhaps seventeen years he does nothing history speaks of, and then he gets a sword from someone. It's just such an... ironic gift for a priest, you know?"

"But an expensive one. Not a gift you get for running an orphanage, certainly."

"What happened to people in orphanages?"

"In the middle ages, rarely anything wonderful. Girls were married off when possible. Without a dowry, that wasn't always easy. Boys could end up as little more than slave labor. It was better than starving, but maybe not by much."

"Girls were married off as children?"

"Rarely. Legends of child marriage are exaggerated. The catholic church raised the effective marriage age over the centuries, in Europe. Economics also played a role. In hard times, people married later. Late thirteen hundreds, Spain... late teens and even early twenties weren't uncommon. It varied -- England was much lower. But out of an orphanage, if a girl caught someone's eye, it might very well be on the younger side."

"Like seventeen?"

"Where are you going, Alan."

"Nice girl you got there, de Morrilo. Of an age to marry and all, and very pretty. Unusual blonde hair. So you're the guy who gets to decide who gets her? Perhaps an expensive gift will make you consider sending her to my bed..."

"You really hate priests, don't you, Alan."

"I really don't. But this one burned a library and killed a bunch of people. He's on the naughty list. Look, it makes sense. This is what I mean by the dates fitting together. Priest brings home a daughter as an orphan. Seventeen years later she's exotic, blonde, hot. Our nobleman has suspicious about the girl's origin. Maybe there's family resemblance showing. So he says to the priest: give me the girl and you get the advantages of the friendship of my house, and the honor of a gift. She'll at least be well off. If you don't, word gets out that she's your child. The gift of a sword is an ironic choice for a priest, but maybe he knows de Morrilo's not really much of a priest and the irony is intentional. It explains why the reason for the gift isn't recorded."

"You're being disturbing."

"I might also be right..."

"That's why it's disturbing."

+++

With shaking hands I pricked my finger, and let the blood fall into the cup. I left the book closed.

"You have to talk to me."

Silence.

"You have to talk to me now."

Silence.

"I said NOW!"

Whispers, all around me. Shaking, I opened the book.

I heard his voice. "I told you not to do this!"

"Something's wrong with me. I need your help."

"Nothing would be wrong if you had listened to me."

"Are you sure?"

"...No."

"I am Adrienne. At least I was. Who are you?"

"Lucio. A thief. But the name will not help you. History does not remember me. People have seen to that. You among them."

"Who am I now?"

"That has become complicated. You have become complicated."

"I'm not Adriana."

"Yes, you are."

"I need to be Adrienne. I live in this time. She cannot be here."

"You and she are the same person. But the memories should not have been mixed together like this."

"You have to help me."

"I can't magically undo what you have done."

"Who am I really?"

"You would say Adrienne. I would say Adriana. They mean the same thing. You are mine. You are my beautiful darkness. "

"Why? Why am I yours?"

"You would have no other. Neither would I."

"We were very much in love?"

"Like no others."

"How does this... end? Will I be a book, too?"

He chuckled. "I don't think so. But if you were it would be half love poetry, half erotica. And all in capital letters."

"Lucio... you have to help me. Adriana's memories... everything is jumbled."

"That is not truly Adriana. That is only how I remember you, it is not the same thing as who you really are. It is not quite right, so it does not quite... fit. I know it is causing you confusion. You will settle that confusion soon. You have a very... strong personality."

"Why did I see a vision of her?"

"You forced it from me ... it's complicated. Everything is complicated. You are very curious about yourself in the past, so you pull my memories from me."

"You have been a book for hundreds of years?"

"Yes. I have been making things possible. You will be fine, Adriana. I have not come this far to fail. You are in the world again, and that is all that matters."

"I've been in the world for over twenty years. Why didn't you show up sooner?"

"I had to find you. And if I'd found you as a child ... this with the blood would have gone very wrong. We would not have met so young. They kept you locked away and they had nothing I wanted to steal, until you came of age."

"Did we marry?"

"We would have. We did not have that chance."

I fell silent. So did he.

"I'm frightened," I said, softly. "You've turned my world upside down."

"Not for the first time. Or the last. I promise."

"If you turn it upside down, and then do it again, does it come out right side up?"

"There is the Adriana I remember, always full of impossible questions."

"What is going to happen?"

"We will be together. How I do not know. You are going to Spain to help find the answers. I rescued you a few times... now you will rescue me. Adriana... I know you are frightened, but please wait and do not bleed again. Save it for when it is needed, because I don't know how many times it will work, and no one alive today can answer that question for me. When you get to Spain, use Adriana's memories... don't call for me again."

My eyes opened slowly, and I looked around at my apartment. I had the strong sense I was seeing it for one of the last times, ever.

"Adriana," I whispered to myself. "You are going to have to behave. I need to get to Spain. Just... sleep until you are needed, ok? I don't have room for both of us in this brain of mine."

And in the back of my mind I heard a whisper - soft, feminine, urgent. "I will sleep now. Please, hurry? Godspeed."

I sat, shaking. It wasn't a good thing, to be hearing all these voices, I decided. How did I know if I was even sane anymore? Is this why magic was forgotten, and thought to be evil? Because it drove you insane? What if I was hallucinating all this?

Godspeed. I knew what it meant, but it also the name of a painting. I had a print of it on my bedroom wall...

I ran upstairs, and looked at it, hanging on the east wall of my room -- just over the place I'd found a package, under the floorboards. A romanticized medieval scene, painted by Leighton around 1899; his The Accolade was better known but I'd always liked this one more. A woman tying a sash round the arm of a departing soldier, called to battle... it was her vow that they'd be together again. She was red-blonde, willowy, sad and serious; he looked at her so lovingly...

I burst into tears.