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A terrible wailing came from my lips. I looked upwards. The skyshifted; the blue sky over Jerusalem, the sand-filled air shifted; thewhirlwind had mercifully surrounded me, and the Blood of Christsank into my chest and my heart, circling my heart, the Light fillingmy eyes, both my hands pressed tight to the folded veil.
The whirlwind carried me in silence and stillness. With all my willI forced myself to look down, to reach inside my robe, which was notmy robe now, but my coat and my shirt梩he suit I'd worn in thesnows of New York, and under the cloth of my vest, next to my shirt,I felt the folded veil! It seemed the wind would tear off my clothes! Itwould rip the hair from my head. But I clutched tight to the foldedcloth that lay safe against my heart.
Smoke rose from the earth. Cries and screams again. Were theymore terrible than the cries surrounding Christ on the road toCalvary?
With a hard, shattering blow, I struck a wall and a floor. Horseswent by, the hooves barely missing my head, sparks flying from thestones. A woman lay bleeding and dying before me, her neckobviously broken, blood pouring out of her nose and ears. People fled inall directions. Again the smell of excrement mixed with blood.
It was a city at war, the soldiers looting and dragging the innocentsfrom out of archways, screams echoing as if off endless ceilings,the flames coming so close they singed my hair.
"The veil, the veil!" I said, and felt it with my hand, secure, stilltucked between my vest and shirt. A soldier's foot came up andkicked the side of my face hard. And I went sprawling on the stones.
I looked up. I wasn't in a street at all. I was in a huge domedchurch, with gallery upon gallery of Roman arches and columns. Allaround me, against the glitter of gold mosaics, men and women werebeing cut down. Horses were trampling them. The body of a childstruck the wall above me, the skull crushed and the tiny limbsdropping like debris at my feet. Horsemen slashed at those fleeing, withbroadswords hacking through shoulders and arms. A violent explosionof flames made it as light as midday. Through the portals menand women fled. But the soldiers went after them. Blood soaked theground. Blood soaked the world.
All around and high above, the golden mosaics blazed with faceswhich seemed now transfixed in horror as they beheld this slaughter.
Saints and saints and saints. Flames rose and danced. Piles of bookswere burning! Icons were smashed into pieces, and statuary lay inheaps, smoldering and blackened, the gold gleaming as it was eatenby the flames.
"Where are we!" I cried out.
Memnoch's voice was right beside me. He was sitting, collected,against the stone wall.
"Hagia Sophia, my friend," he said. "It's nothing, really. It's onlythe Fourth Crusade."I reached out with my left hand for him, unwilling to let go of theveil with my right.
"What you see is the Roman Christians slaughtering the GreekChristians. That's all there is to it. Egypt and the Holy Land have forthe moment been forgotten. The Venetians have been given threedays to loot the city. It was a political decision. Of course they wereall here to win back the Holy Land, where you and I have lately been,but the battle wasn't in the cards, and so the authorities have let thetroops loose on the town. Christian slaughters Christian. Romanagainst Greek. Do you want to walk outside? Would you like to seemore of it? Books by the millions are being lost now forever.
Manuscripts in Greek and Syriac and Ethiopian and Latin. Books of Godand books of men. Do you want to walk among the convents wherethe nuns are being dragged out of their cells by fellow Christians andraped? Constantinople is being looted. It's nothing, believe me,nothing at all."I lay against the ground, crying, trying to close my eyes and notsee, but unable not to see梖linching at the clang of the horses'
hooves so perilously close, choking on the reek of the blood of thedead baby who lay against my leg heavy and limp like something wetfrom the sea. I cried and cried. Near me lay the body of a man withhis head half severed from his neck, the blood pooling on the stones.
Another figure tumbled over him, knee twisted, bloody hand graspingfor anything that would give him purchase, and finding only thenaked pink child's body which he threw aside. Its little head was nownearly broken off.
"The veil," I whispered.
"Oh, yes, the precious veil," he said. "Would you like a change ofscenery? We can move on. We can go to Madrid and treat ourselvesto an auto-da-fe, do you know what that is, when they torture andburn alive the Jews who won't convert to Christ? Perhaps we shouldgo back to France and see the Cathars being slaughtered in theLanguedoc? You must have heard those legends when you were growingup. The heresy was wiped out, you know, the whole heresy. Verysuccessful mission on the part of the Dominican Fathers, who willthen start on the witches, naturally. There are so many choices.
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