Archive of Our Own

“How much can you change and get away with it,
before you turn into someone else,
before it's some kind of murder? ”
— Richard Siken

It is a long march from Jerusalem.

Leagues and leagues behind them, there is still smoke rising in the distance. The smell of blackened flesh and of blood carries in the air. Nicolò is not sure if it carries over the wind that blows at their backs, or if the scent clings to his hands. He is not sure if the accused spoor will ever wash out, from his skin or the desert sand. But he is sure of one thing; this is a fire that will never go out. A burning will never cease. Damnation will follow him, forever close at his heels.

In the summer’s heat the sun above bores down on them all, the innocent and the guilty alike. Without his armor or the decency of his head covering, Nicolò’s exposed skin blisters red all through the day. With each nightfall, the pale pink of his coloring is restored miraculously as the rest of his body. The others are not so fortunate. The Jerusalemites who flee to the arid countryside stagger on, slower and weaker by the day. No matter the beloningins they shed, they carry on heavier, their skin mottling from exertion and drought.

Nicolò remembers the fleeting, glorious sight of the fountains he saw inside the city. Rippling water flowed freely from the stonework right in the city streets. All of it surrounded by lush hanging greenery and plenty. An oasis in a desert, a source of succor after such a long siege. Endless streams flowing clear and pure from spouts surely were an unspoiled treasure cascading straight from the Garden of Eden itself. But Nicolò never got the chance to taste of those waters. They had run red before half the army pushed through the gates.

There is no water here. The hard crust of land offers no rivers, woods, and springs. Here, the bedrock of the earth stretches into the distances as if it too was razed of all life long ago. Perhaps once it was another kingdom of God blighted by men with swords and torches and fury in their hearts.

Ahead of him, in the narrowing swath of bodies, Nicolò hears a tired voice call out. A begging cry for mercy followed by weeping. Nicolò walks faster, chasing after the voice.

In painful remembrance, another heated cry rolls through his mind. “Deus vult! Deus vult!” they cheered. “Deus vult!” Nicolò himself had roared. God wills it. The Pope commanded it. Their hearts had sung until their lungs nearly gave out with it. Take back the Holy Land. Bring all of Christendom to its seat of rightful power. Jerusalem was theirs for the taking, by honor and creed and destiny. The unfit and the unfaithful would no longer mar that which belongs to the Holy Father.

The war cry had carried them so far, across the sea and across fields, through villages and strange lands. Jerusalem was not the first city to meet the wrath of their crusade. Yet Nicolò had not looked twice when his generals urged them onward, taking and plundering. Those dead men had been opponents of their godly work. This alone was the reason they fell, all in the service to God.

There is no better way to die, he had told himself. It would be an honor of the highest order. The stand before the Divine in the heavenly kingdom and find the forgiveness he was promised.

And he had been promised much. 

Pushing on quickly, he gently sidesteps the refugees, slowinly only to help others steady themselves when his haste startles a weary traveler. He can still hear the weeping. A woman. Perhaps a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister. There were many lost among them.

What he finds at the source of the noise is a young girl and an even younger boy. He lays prostrate to the hot sand with his fists shaking under his heaving chest. The girl shouts and shouts at him while sobbing over his little body. Nicolò knows, even without understanding a word of their language, that he is too weak to rise and she will not go on without him.

Others are watching, offering kind words and calming touches. However, the girl will not be soothed. Still, the boy does not move. An older man, an elder with a worn in face and thin dark hands places a hand to the child’s back. He presses his eyes closed in defeat and tells the girl something that makes her wail even harder.

Some begin to continue forward with grave and heavy hearted glances. The boy is not the first to collapse. The girl is not the first to refuse to save herself.

Nicolò is tired of it. Aching from the core of his being, of whatever is left of his soul with the sickness from it. All it seems he has done since his dereliction from the Holy Army is stand party to greater and greater suffering. He is meant to help lead these people somewhere safe. That can be the only reason he himself has failed to be swallowed up smoldering sands below.

“We do not stop,” he tells them. They do not understand, but nonetheless he repeats himself. “We do not stop. Not here. I will carry him.”

Nicolò kneels down. In his arms, the boy weighs nothing. Nicolò imagines him back home in the security of a mother’s arms, well fed and knowing nothing of thirst. All he must have ever known was the cool shade of a great city, bosomed by his innocence.

Resting the boy’s head on his shoulder, Nicolò vows to see him to safety. Why else would a wretched thing such as he still live?

The girl says something fearful, once and then twice. She looks ready to bolt at Nicolò and tear the child from his arms. He would not blame her but he would hate for her to waste her strength. Her elder intervenes, placing a hand on her shoulder much the way he had touched the boy’s back. They exchange no words but he leads them on into the passing mass of still living bodies. The old man does not leave the children’s side, but he allows Nicolò to carry him.

How Nicolò has earned his, or the trust of any man like him, is a mystery. He knows he bears too close a likeness to their attackers. There is no mistaking him for anything but a Christain. Yet they allow an outsider and a sinner such as him to remain with them, even with his sword. He has only drawn it once from its scabbard. He had to beat back a wild animal scavenging amongst the dead from those who had fallen on their third night.

They carry on under the sweltering slaughter of the sun. The boy in his arms mutters feebly in his ears the same word over and over. This is how Nicolò learns the word ‘mama’ transcends all languages. The boy begins to shiver and cough in his arms. His skin is papery to the touch. Nicolò fears he will not make it.

Just as the sun sets in the west, a thunderous rancor sweeps through the human herd. Even the heaving child jolts up to attention.

“Meyah lal shereb!” shouts a familiar voice so loud it drowns out the sound of pounding hooves. “Meyah lal shereb!”

Nicolò does not know this word. But the stricken faces all around him are alight with urgency. For a terrible moment he wonders if his countrymen have caught up to them, if now he must set this child aside to kill again. But the women and children around him have eyes filled with hope. Their steps are quicker, frenzied and rushing forward as if their lives depended on it. They are marching towards something, not away from death.

“Meyah lal shereb!” calls the voice again. Now Nicolò can see the horse and rider. Him, the same man approaching, a vision blazoned across the red skylight. He reigns in the beast that carries him, slowing to a trot when he sees Nicolò. With a pointing hand and viscous glare, he shouts something, perhaps demanding an answer from the elder standing beside him. Whatever words they exchange are heated but brief. He never looks away from him, and Nicolò can feel it down to his bones, how righteously he is hated. 

Then the man they call al-Tayyib, the man Nicolò murdered thrice, retreats, to shout his words of good tidings to the exiled, urging their numbers onward.

*

“Destati, cuore mio!” sings a heavenly voice. “You have slept too long, and you promised to finish the sauce for our supper—”

He blinks. His body feels heavy, unmoored and sinking, out of place and outside of time. The world around him is stiflingly bright. Enveloped in too much whiteness, if he stares hard enough into the pain of it he can see impressions of shapes. A piercing sting radiates from the forefront of his retinas into the back of his brain.

“— I was thinking we could use the pistachios we picked up at the market —”

The blankness parts and there stands the sun itself. This man he knows. He could never forget. Yusuf. Joe.

And he himself is… he is…

“Nicky?”

Yes. That feels right. Nicky. That is his name. He nods slowly, as he can hardly balance his head upon the perch of his neck. His mind is still dense, his thoughts cumbersome. Eyes half lidded, he sees two hands reach for him. Instruments of the utmost gentleness find his face to raise his chin. Guided by that delicate touch, eyes find eyes and nine hundred years come flooding back.

Nicky winces, turning away. It hurts to remember.

“My love, what is wrong?”

He tries to rise from where he lay but he cannot. Around them is a balcony he does not recognize. Noises and scents from far away. Below him is a reclining chair. Its cushions are soaked with sweat.

The pain is fading quickly, as it always does. His voice is raspy when he finally asks.

“Where are we?”

“Catania. We arrived yesterday, remember?” 

“Yes, I remember. Sicily.” Nicky wipes at the few damp stray hairs in his face. “I wanted to see Castello Ursino again.”

“And I still cannot fathom why. It was a drafty old castle back it was new.” His hands are still upon him, quieting touches rubbing into the back of his neck, his jaw, and the thumb at his bottom lip. Nicky kisses the fingerprint in thanks. The past is less and less and narrowed upon his heart. The times when he could never dare touch Yusuf give way to the now.

“Come inside, Nicky. You should not be sunbathing in this heat.”

“It is alright,” he murmurs, not wishing to be moved. He can recall why he chose this spot for his nap. Everything is beautiful here. The serene view from the balcony, the crashing waves of the Ionian sea and the citron groves heavy with fruit. The rolling masses of buildings, the clash of neoclassical steeples and late baroque façades. The jagged rise of Mount Etna breaks the lines of the horizon. There, a steady line of smoke rises from its summit. No wonder Nicky dreamt of such things, he realizes. Of course his mind had drifted to thoughts of a world on fire.

“Do not fret, my love,” he chides against Joe’s nagging instance, finding the strength to prop himself on his elbows.

“I do not remember needing your permission to fret,” he argues. Still kneeling beside him, Nicky is struck by how impossible it is that this is the same man from his memories. It feels like double vision. The multitudes of eternity superimposing on themselves for a single moment. “I will be very upset if you die of heatstroke.”

Nicky chuckles. “I think I will survive, Joe.”

“Fine, then. Be difficult.” Joe starts up. His beautiful face furrowed as he retreats through the balcony doors. From behind the sheer linen curtains, he calls back, “But I will remember this the next time I want to go skydiving.”

A shock of anxiety blooms in Nicky’s chest. He scrambles out of the chair.

“No, Joe! You promised me, never again!” Joe closes the glass doors behind Nicky who does not let up his admonishments. “We are not meant to jump out of planes, and in peacetime no less!”

“You make this far too easy,” Joe says, stirring a bubbling pot on an island gas stove. “And no one said you have to jump with me—”

“Yes, but what if your hubris in challenging gravity is what finally—” Joe shoves a spoonful of something fragrant to Nicky’s lips. He obediently tastes it. “Needs more rosemary.”

“You think?” Joe peruses through the complimentary spice rack. “Ah, here it is. Now what was it you were saying, Nicky? About my arrogance against the laws of nature?”

Nicky huffs. “Ever since São Paulo you have been far too obsessed with leaping off of things.” 

“What can I say, there is no other rush like it.” Through the rising steam where he drops a dash of spice, Joe pauses for good measure so Nicky cannot mistake him. “Well, almost no other.”

A predictable stab of want courses through him. He is as defenseless to it now as he was the first time Joe looked at him like that. “You are insatiable. In every meaning of the word.”

“Right now the only thing I hunger for is the sauce you promised.” Joe playfully slaps a hand to the counter space beside him. “Come now. I have already prepared the roux.”

The waking world seems mostly back in order. Everything is where Nicky left it in the fridge. The heavy cream, the asiago and the parmesan. Standing alongside his husband, Nicky begins to slow the ingredients. He lets the flavors settle over low heat. Before he can even ask, Joe hands him a cup of dry white wine. Nicky sighs.

“You are hovering, my love.”

“I am not hovering.”

“You most certainly are.” Nicky turns to find the pepper grinder, but once again Joe materializes it from nowhere and holds it up under Nicky’s nose. “I will banish you to the bedroom.”

“Is that supposed to be a threat?” Joe scoffs. “And don’t forget, it is my sauté we will be eating with that sauce—”

“Is that what is burning?”

“No, nothing is—” Joe sniffs the air. In a hurried blur he jerks around and pulls a smoking cast iron pan from the flame. Looking down mournfully at the charred vegetables and diced meat, he plasters on a smile and declares it, “perfectly salvageable, you’ll see.”

“Of course, of course,” Nicky agrees, knowing full well it’s a lost cause. Nicky pulls the leftover eggplant from the fridge while Joe makes a valiant effort of seasoning the blackened food. By the time he accepts its a futile loss, they will have plenty more to cook.

Joe is particularly heavy handed with the ground basil when he says, “I am still waiting for you to tell me about it.”

“About what?”

“What else? Your nightmare.”

“Is that what is bothering you?” Nicky takes a green sprig of thyme from his hands. They do not have enough of the herb to waste. “It was merely a passing shade. Nothing at all, really.”

“It looked like something,” he insists. His brows are drawn together as he samples the white wine left on the countertop. “You were disoriented. Panicked. It took you too long to remember yourself.”

“It was no more than a bad dream. An old dream.”

Joe’s arms encircle him, pressing Nicky’s back to his chest. “Which war?” he asks against the flesh of his throat.

“The first.”

“Ah. That would explain it.”

“Hm? How so?”

“When you woke, you looked at me like…” His words trail off in a way that they never do. His love never neglects to speak his mind. The silence lengthens and Nicky turns off the gas and faces him. The caution in his husband’s eyes worries him.

“Joe?”

“When you came to, for a moment it… it looked like you were afraid of me.”

“I have never been afraid of you,” he insists. “Not even at the start.”

“Well, that is clearly a lie. I was a ferocious sight on the battlefield.”

“Yes. Every Christian who beheld you was quaking in their boots.” 

“And rightly so.”

Nicky leans in to kiss his fearsome infidel, the shoos him away. ”Go set the table. The food will be ready soon.”

“Only if you promise no more sleeping in the sun like overfed cattle.”

“It is far less dangerous than skydiving,” Nicky mutters while Joe fetches the plates.

“What was that?”

“Oh, nothing my love.”

* * *

Yusuf slit Nicolò’s throat before the sun was even up.

In the market square where the early morning vendors were loading up their stalls with spices, dried meats, fresh caught fish, and mounds of textiles to be bartered away for coin, he blew him over so quickly that Nicolò barely made a sound. The bite of the blade takes his vocal chords. He manages a thick, wet gurgle but certainly not enough to draw the attention of passersby.

Outside of the moment, far from the terror and confusion of fumbling hands to his severed open throat, from the loss of air and blood as life empties his body, one might think he would be used to this. How many times had he died? How many times had he died at Yusuf's hand alone? The ceaseless butchery blurs together, stained with so much blood and grime. The darkness that greets him alone and cold and blackens the world away.

He comes to with a roar. Deflated lungs heaving in precious, precious air so hard he thinks he might hear the crack of his ribs call out. He lay upon a dirt floor, far from where he lay dying what felt like only moments ago. There is a raised path of dust leading from the door where his corpse had been dragged and a sticky trail of red down the front of his quilted shirt. Dimmed light enters from a window cut in the sand and stone wall. Across from it in the shadows stands Yusuf, arms crossed and sleeves dirtied. His handiwork in dispatching Nicolò temporarily of life had not been a clean business.

"Limadha?" he asks, voice coarsened by the mangled constants. Time had not granted him any mastery over this land's native tongues. He still struggled to make himself understood.

Yusuf gives him a dismissive look, using the hem of his shirt to clean blood from under his fingernails. He either cannot piece together what Nicolò means, or he does not care.

"Why?" he demands again in his own tongue, despite knowing Yusuf will understand none of it. "Why do this?"

Their bodies may not show it and the wounds from the final siege may still be fresh, but Nicolò thought they had finally reached something close to a truce. Since the days and weeks spent leading the exiled to safety. Since beating back the brigands who came to pick over the refugees like vultures to a carcass. Since settling into the same city, in their respective tensions. Since killing each other out in the open and failing to die would bring undue scrutiny to their undying bodies they could not explain. Since Nicolò had dreamed that one day, he would speak enough of the language to tell Yusuf he had been lied to. To tell him that he marched all this way to find absolution, not atrocities.

Yet he could do none of these things. He could barely string a sentence, let alone a truthful apology. Instead all he is left with is the withering ire of Yusuf's last look. Without so much as a word, he other man walks towards the door.

Furious in his helplessness, Nicolò thunders after him.

Before he can make another demand in the wrong language,  Yusuf turns on him. Fast as a wild cat, his eyes dark and his tongue still. His hand clasps over Nicolò's mouth and cranes his neck to look down the road. There stand at least six of the city guardsmen, their back turned to the two of them while they question street vendors. Their is a clear track of boot prints through the puddle of blood where they must have steeped over Nicolò's dying body. It is all the explanation Yusuf believes he deserves.

When Nicolò feels his hand slip away, Yusuf is already gone, vanishing into the crowd.

*

It is not to say Nicolò has never tried to speak to him. In the beginning, he tried in vain to find a common tongue between them. Latin had been his best bet, but Yusuf never once answered in kind. Insofar as the nomad would allow him, they have traveled far from cities, villages, and over war-torn country. The days were spent in silence, but at night Nicolò spoke softly and endlessly. He spoke of Genoa, of his family, of the deceptions of his church. He spoke of the people they had met and how he remembered their dead. Yusuf paid him no mind. What little meaning that passed between them was lost among Nicolò's confessions and quiet remarks that Yusuf muttered to himself.

By the time they reached Damascus, Nicolò longed to decipher him. Even his most heated castigations. How could he not, when Yusuf's face was so radiant beautiful when twisted in a righteous snarl.

Nicolò knew it is a sin to believe so. For how dare he so lowly admire someone he has wronged with such injustice. It is one of the many secrets he was glad to keep. There were no cathedrals near to take his confession.

No matter the linguistics lost between them they kept within reach of one another. Neither enemies nor friends. Simply two warriors bonded by a gruesome, inexplicable fate. It is how Nicolò knows where he will be when day is done. The city guard change in patrol lets him slip from the gates undetected.

He finds Yusuf along the Barada river, where the channel grows widest and the waters rush the heaviest. He likes it there, in the open and the solitude. Above the stars are out in numbers as in a show of force. It is the only light to be found around the bend in the hillside, so far from the encampments outside the city and their small hand warming fires.

Nicolò does not mean to make secret of his arrival. Stealth in wartime had become second nature to him. He realizes too late he has come too close to the other man by failing to announce his presence. Yusuf would surely mistake this for another attempt on his life. Nicolò’s mind spins, silently chastising himself on how best to retract his error when he sees Yusuf is disrobing. He leaves his stained shirt scattered in a heap behind him and he stands barefoot in the grassy bank.

Nicolò gulps down air. Reason flees him. Once, passing through the Roman city, Nicolò had seen crystalline statues carved so delicately that stone was made supple as skin. He had thought that no such form could truly be so perfect, save for in the eye of artists. He had been wrong.

For it is clear Yusuf toils too hard and drinks too little. It left his well muscled and impossibly beautiful.

"I—” Nicolo gapes, again in the wrong language. He had been practicing his Arabic, all the things he wished to say. The power of speech fled him all the same.

As predicted, Yusuf turns at the sudden noise, eyes fierce as they were on the battlefield. He lunges.

Nicolo hits the ground hard. They wrestle over the loamy soil and Nicolò is thankful Yusuf does not appear to have his trusted knife. It would be a feat to hide them in the thin fabric of his trousers.

Throwing a leg over Yusuf, he maneuvers the man beneath him. He grabs of his forearms and pins him. Yusuf excelled at speed, grace and swordsmanship. Grappling is the one skill in which Nicolo surpassed him.

“I do not wish to fight you!” he yells pointlessly. “I only want to talk!”

“And I wish to hear none of it,” Yusuf growls back in perfect Ligurian.

Nicolo stills. His knees lock. His fingers lose their grip. The atmosphere changes, charged with a growing storm though the starlit sky is clear as ever. Yusuf plants his feet and knocks Nicolo off of him. He nearly tumbles into the river.

They both rise, gasping and incensed.

“All this time,” Nicolo whispers, “all this time you understood me!” Yusuf says nothing, slipping back into his act of a mute. “All of your ignorance, it was a lie!"

"As false as your kindness," Yusuf counters.

"No, I have begged you, pleaded you to understand—”

"Why should your tears and whinging move me? It would take far more than words or tears to earn me forgiveness had I been the one to burn Rome down.”

“I am not Roman!”

“Did you not march under their banner and cause? Did you not kill in their name? Burning, bleeding, maiming and taking!”

Nicolò turns away. His hands are shaking.

“Oh, is that all it took to shut you up? A reminder of your crimes? Of the dead women, the burned children, the men too old to run, the defenseless slain in the street!”

“I have killed no children!”

“Had I not risen from the ground, had we not battled on, would you not have sooner joined the ranks inside the city walls, joined in the slaughtering?"

“No!”

Nicolò threw down his sword. Once inside the city it had been too much; the fires, the killings, the rapes, the barbarity. He only took up arms again to save those fleeing the carnage.

“I can see your mind working, Nicolo, son of Genova. You are telling yourself you stopped in time to save your soul. That you only killed one man, albeit you killed him thrice.” He looks away, into the flushing river. Over the surface skims the image of his face. Cleaned of blood, but still never completely washed away. “Do you think it so small a thing? That my life did not matter?"

“I came to be forgiven.” It is his only defense.

“And I pray God never grants it to you.”

Nicolo swallows hard. “Forgiven by you. That is why I came here.”

Yusuf bellows out a laugh. "Then I know it shall never be granted to you.’

“You saved me! This very morn! When I did not see the approach of the guard! They would have mistaken me for a Christian spy and killed me, but you—”

“But I, what? Made a show of killing you for them? That was a fun little farce, and it protected me as much as it protected you.”

“No you… you… you…” Nicolo flounders, words in his own tongue escaping him.

“You thought that I cared?”

Nicolo stares hard at the ground, forcing himself to breathe.

“You should return to your Holy Father and all his promises.” Bathing all but forgotten, Yusuf turns to dress himself.

“I will not go,” Nicolo says. He repeats himself in Latin, in Arabic. In every language he knows. “Not until I have paid my penance.”

“You are not my captive, Nicolo son of Genova. You are not my burden or my curse. To me, you are nothing. And that is all you will ever be. So stay, or go. It does not matter to me. There is no salvation for you here.”

He is left choking on that final blow long after Yusuf leaves him. Left wounded and winded and more hopeless than he has ever been.

*

This time Nicky wakes snowblind and dizzy, blinking hard to focus his vision. Somewhere close he can hear a rancorous howl that never abates, only grows. His heart slams in his chest. He feels for his sword but the hilt is nowhere to be found. Not at his side. Not resting against this strange looking chaise he rests upon. The enclosure around him is wood and glass with sweeping ceilings. A temple of somesort, one with deep coffers.

Before he can recall if he is a prisoner or parishioner, a door bangs open wildly. In hurries Joe with his cheeks flushed with the cold. There is snow in hair and mirth in his laugh as he strips down to his socks and underclothes without any preamble.

“I told you I would be back in time!” He calls out, carefree, chucking frost glazed goggles to the ground. “The powder was perfect before the storm hit. Well worth the risk of getting buried in an avalanche, though I know you’ll disagree.”

Coming back to himself, the piece fit together. On the other side of the window nearest to him is a swirling abyss of ice and white. They had bickered over the forecast and Joe’s chances of getting caught in a looming storm. As audacious as ever in taking his chances, Joe had been ready to risk it while Nicky threatened not to mount his one-manned search party if he did not return.

Through the snow boots he left clearly within reach of where Nicky had fallen asleep told a different story.

“You are too quiet, Nicky.”

“Oh? I, well…” Nicky fiddles with his hands. “Can you tell me what year it is?”

Propping his snowboard against the foyer wall, Joe waits half a beat too long before he answers. “The year is two thousand and twenty. We’re in Zermatt, Switzerland, or what once was part of the Kingdom of Burgundy when we first chanced upon it. The hour is a quarter past seventeen hundred.”

Nicky sighs, awash with relief. “Grazie, grazie.”

Nicky had not wanted to ask, already knowing and fearing it would stoke Joe’s growing concerns. From his stone faced reply and the way he is not looking in Nicky’s direction, his fears have come to pass.

“Another one of your nightmares?”

“They are not nightmares,” Nicky insists. He’s certain tilting the argument into the well worn territory of cognitive neuroscientific semantics won’t help his case. But he is in possession of two PhDs in the field under different aliases, and dammit, the particulars matter.

“Yes, yes they are,” argues Joe, roving around the towering chalet. He settles on the ludicrously exorbitant coffee bar and it’s a vaguely threatening coffee machine. It is a dull matte black with no buttons and far too many levers that reminds Nicky of a landmine from the Gulf War. “And, no, I don’t want to hear about the psychoanalysis behind it. You only refuse to call them nightmares because you think I will worry less.”

“And will you?”

“Will I, what?”

“Worry less?”

“No!”

A spindle limbed spruce tree drags over the wall length window. The storm is worsening. Nicky can almost feel the windchill dropping. Or perhaps the chill is owed to the fact that Joe has yet to come near him or greet him with their customary kiss and a hand on his waist.

He abandons the blankets and couch cushions to sit in a polished metal stool. Like most modern things, it’s more style than comfort. Joe meanwhile has made some progress with the coffee machine. It is now spitting hot water into a mug, somehow bypassing the coffee grounds he poured into the contraption entirely.

“The dreams are not new, my love. I have had them for centuries.”

It was the truth. Aside from the surreally vivid dreams they shared of Sébastien up until the eighteen-twenties and their one dream of Nile, neither Andy, Joe, or Quỳnh could relate to the experiences of Nicky’s dream. When he spoke of his experiences, of the time altering textures, the hyperspecificity, the vaulted edges around infinite space, he was met only with puzzled looks. Quỳnh had recommended less wine before bed while Andromache had prescribed more.

“Not like this, you haven’t.” A pained look flashes over Joe’s face. He pretends to be far more invested in the coffee than either of them could ever believe. “You used to dream of old battles, of ruined cities, earthquakes and floods. I used to know which dream you were having before you would wake, just by the feel of you stirring in my arms.”

The coffee machine vents more useless steam. 

“I did not know my dreams were so familiar to you.”

“They were once. Back when you told me about them.” 

“You want me to bore you with more stories you also lived through?” Nicky tries to laugh.

Joe is having none of it. He grumbles something under his breath, looking ready to strike the machine he simply will not give up on. Which of course worries Nicky. Joe is still dressed only in his socks and boxers with nothing else to protect him if the machine turns its wrath upon him.

“You are being ridiculous,” Nicky insists, making a very dignified dive to unplug the machine.

Joe swats his hand away. “And I will keep being ridiculous until I am satisfied you are telling me everything.”

“Oh?” Nicky cannot help but challenge. “How much more ridiculous can you be?”

“I don't know, perhaps I will walk out into the blizzard without my thermals.”

“You wouldn't dare and I wouldn't let you.” Nicky warns. At this rate, they wouldn't find him until the spring thaw. Joe, ever one to call anyone's bluff, makes a flighty eyed dodge for the door. Nicky lodges his body between Joe and path to it at the last second. He presses a kiss to Joe's cheek. He slips his hand to Nicky’s hip.

For a second, in the shaken up snowglobe around them, every piece of existence floats in just the right place. And for all his husband’s stubbornness, even Joe relents into the rightness.

“They are just dreams, my love. I promise you.”

Joe’s body tightens to the touch. He shakes his head. “Dreams that you wake from distressed and quiet. Dreams that shake you until you forget the year, or where we are, or who I am—”

“I have never forgotten you,” Nicky insists. With a finger to the bottom of Joe’s jaw, he forces him to look him in the eye. “And I never could, Joe. You know this.”

Joe nods, slowly. Too slowly for Nicky's liking. “Maybe you are right. But sometimes… Sometimes I am afraid that you remember too much.”

“What does that mean?”

He places another kiss on the corner of Nicky’s mouth. “Go back to your book, my heart. Let me start you a fire and make something warm for you to drink.”

In the years since they had first drawn blood, Nicky has mostly perfected the art of winning arguments against Joe. It usually involves being just as stubborn as he, albeit in a more reserved manner. Lying in wait was a specialty of his before the advent of the sniper rifle. But unlike any strategic retreat in the theatre of war, turning away from his husband’s handsome face marred by a furrowed brow is an exquisitely awful feeling.

“There is a caffettiera a stantuffo in the cabinet above the breadbox,” he mentions quietly, padding off towards the couch. When Joe returns he is wrapped in the bathrobe Nicky bought him and setting a drink tray on their coffee table. From the scent alone Nicky can tell it carries hot cider rather than coffee. Spiced strong and perfectly warm, Nicky finishes with his own mug and begins drinking Joe’s while he is too preoccupied at the foot of the fireplace. He is prodding at the logs with a bronzed poker, feigning an unaffected look.

“If you keep that up, the fire will go out.”

Joe flashes a toothy grin that does not reach his eyes. “You forget who started the Great Fire of 1452.”

“A brigand knocked a torch from your hand. Hardly a claim to infamy.”

“That is not how I remember it,” he contends, pointing the poker like a sabre. “Unless you dreamt of that, too?”

Nicky no longer feels any twinge of guilt and finishes Joe’s cup. “Does it bother you that much?”

“You never had this many before. How many nights has it been this week alone?”

Nicky knows how many nights exactly. “I am not sure, but what does it matter?”

Joe is unconvinced. “Your dreams weren’t always about me, either.”

“Who said they are always about you now?” Nicky scoffs, low light. Joe raises an eyebrow. “Alright, fine. Yes, I suppose they are about only you. Or rather about us, back in or firsts. This time I dreamed of when we,” Nicky groans, because just thinking about it felt ludicrous. “If you must know, it was of the times when we fought, when you pretended not to understand me.”

“That!?” Joe stands up, rolling his eyes. He paces the length of the room. “That was your nightmare?”

“They are not nightmares. They are more like, semi-lucid remembrances.”

“Of all the nights to… Why Nicolò? Why is it so important to remember one terrible night we shared in Acre—”

“In Damascus,” Nicky corrects.

“Right — Damascus — but why then, when we have had many better, far more memorable nights since?”

“Yusuf,” Nicky trails off. He opens the blankets that lay over him on the couch. The invitation is unmistakable, if only Joe would stop riling himself up. “You are looking for meaning where there is none.”

And Joe does stop. Not to join him or relent, but to breathe once, than twice. “After a millennia of hearing ‘everything happens for a reason’, can you blame me for thinking otherwise?”

“Joe, no, please.” Nicky clambers of the couch. He is done waiting for Joe to return to his arms. He drags him back down to the foot of the fireplace. The crackle of the logs nearly drowned out by the doleful winds outside.

“I said terrible things to you that night. Most of them lies, but I did curse you, if memory serves.”

“You owed me nothing then. If anything, you owed me worse.”

“No, I… I was spiteful. I wanted to hurt you. But I couldn't kill you. And you showed one moment of weakness, granted me one moment of power over you and I wanted you to suffer for it.”

It is entirely backward that Joe sits here beside him, colored with shame. “I wont have you apologizing to me for this , Yusuf.” Nicky draws Joe deeper into his arms. It is clear he is not the only one who remembers too much. “I had yet to earn your forgiveness.”

Joe throws a look out the window, looking defeated at the whiteout conditions. “I should not have dragged you to this mountain. I know how you hate the cold air. 

Nicky is confused. “It is fine. We come every year.”

“In the morning we can go back down the mountain,” he offers.

“But you will miss the fresh snow.”

“I can live without it.”

Nicky is unsure of who this man is, and where his adrenaline junkie husband has gone. 

“We can go somewhere that brings more pleasant dreams.”

Nicky knows Joe is holding something back. But it feels hypocritical to demand it of him. Moreover, his husband is no great mystery to him. He knows if Joe had the words he needed, he would use them. Use them until his lungs gave out and his lips turned blue and his volume rivaled the storm swirling around them.

Nicky is certain that when the words are found, the meaning will follow. Joe will make sure he is the first to know.

* * *

The Rhomaioi are a different sort.

Nicolo finds it easier to converse with them, but after thirty years or so even he, tongue tied as he was, had to show some improvement. While still a fellow Christian, he is never mistaken for anything other than an outsider in Constantinople. He speaks Latin and Greek in the thoroughfares, tithes at the cathedrals, give his confession in a booth behind a thick velvet curtain. “Bless me father for I have sinned. It has been thirty years since my last confession.”

“This is a place for the penitent,” hisses the robed priest. “Not for idle jests.”

“I am much older than I look.”

The priest never softens towards him. Through the wired partition Nicolò can read his impatience. He imagined it had little to do with him. Many with aspirations to holy orders find themselves above the trivial works of dealing with commoners and parishioners. He had met many in his own seminary school. He had only been too young and blind not to see through their airs of self importance.

“I came for salvation,” Nicolò confesses at last. It is the only real truth he has come here to say. “But all I found was him.”

“Salvation is not found. It is earned. It is obtained through works and the Grace of the almighty. Do you understand me, child?”

“Yes father,” Nicolò parrots back, his attention drifting through a slip in the curtains. There is a procession of robes and collars all centered around one man. The Bishop. “I believe I do.”

“Yes, yes, then say your Act of Contrition and offend our Lord no more.”

“Thank you, Father,” Nicolò says again but the priest is already gone. How kind of him to make haste, Nicolò thinks to himself, and leave an empty cathedral at his disposal. He had not expected it to be this easy. But all arrogance has its price.

Taking stock of his weapons, the blade tucked in his boot and the other sheathed up his sleeve, he cuts to the apse. Candles are still burning, and he lights more with that he finds with the longest wick and things of those handsome eyes, those beautiful curls.

Then he sets about his mission, without forgetting his prayers. He recites from memory: “O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee.” 

Off the platform and towards the quire stands he finds a long toothed key wrapped in a rag placed where his handsomely paid informant said it would be.

“And I detest all my sins, because I dread the loss of heaven, and the pains of hell.”

He crosses back into the nave where the lightness of his footsteps matters not. His trail echoes under the towering pillars and gilded domes. It is the largest church in the world, some say, this Hagia Sophia. It is assuredly one of the most beautiful, by the fresco laden walls alone. It almost makes Nicolò regret what he has come to do here.

“But most of all because they offend Thee, my God—” 

Down a corridor marked on his hand drawn map, he finds the locked door. It is heavier than he was warned about. It keens a miserable grinding song when he heaves it open. It has been ages since someone accessed this staircase shrouded in webs and long dead insect carcases. Further, the floor drops off precariously. There is no light to lead his way, but Nicolò is unafraid.

“Who are all good and deserving of all my love.”

He was prepared for a much longer walk. The airless footpath, at times little more than a glorified crawl space with crumbling walls, soon fills with a cool draft. He is close.

“I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace—”

The end of the trek leads him up, up, up. He heaves against a wooden ceiling. For a moment he fears whatever lay on the other side is too heavy to budge. But providence is with him. It is only a woven rug that lay over the trap door. It slides off and he pulls himself above board by his elbows.

“To confess my sins, to do penance, and to amend my life—”

It is fortunate that the two stationed guardsmen inside were not in this part of the rectory. They stand together at the atrium, protecting the ornamental grand doors. Nicolò draws but one blade and their bodies drop one after another, their last gasps soft as the cushioned thud against the thick woven rug.

“Amen.”

He cleans his blade and tucks it away. Through the portal and down the corridor there is a lamplight behind an open door. He can hear movement. He is close. He makes no effort to hide his presence now. He walks without stealth and merely pushes his way past the archway into the study. The walls are lined with grand bookcases, tomes and scrolls all surrounding a table as large as the hull of any fishing boat. Seated at the table is a wide man, divested of his robes. He has heard his footsteps, but does not raise his eyes to greet him.

“Petrus, good of you to come. Here,” The man holds out a gleaming chalice without looking up from his parchments. “Fetch me more wine.”

“I am not here to fill your cup,” Nicolò warns him, edging closer to the table.

“What other use do I have of—” The man realizes his mistake. His severe face darkens evermore. “Who are you?”

“Your Excellency, the splendor of your accommodations are a sight to behold.” Nicolò stops short of the arms reach of the bishop. Nicolò’s eyes scan everything. Maps of the east, a small mound of coin, a goose quill, a bowl of fruit and dull knife, a blunted cross for decoration. All makeshift weapons if haste demands it. “You have done quite well in your role as Apocrisiarius. Clearly an excellent choice by the Holy Father.”

“His Holiness is never unwise,” the bishop replies. He neither rises nor panics in the face of his new intruder. He is watchful, yes, but unafraid. Truly, the vainglory of the clergy would never cease to surprise him.

“In that we must disagree. The Pope who launched us off to war was dead before he ever received the fruits of his bloodied campaign. As was his vision of Jerusalem under the grip of Rome. The politics and gold, false faith and blood. All of it came to naught. But now there is a new Pope. One who wishes for Rome to begin it all again. Killing anew, sowing new poisoned promises. And you wish to help Rome, don’t you, Your Excellency?”

“Rome only lost hold of the Holy Lands because it marched without Constantinople.” At last the bishop stands. His shadows towers along the walls in the lamplight upon his desk. “When it is my men reaching those city gates, we will take back what is ours and we will keep it.”

“You mean what is rightfully that of our lord, our Heavenly Father?”

“I do not need your pestering word play. Can a peasant and a thief such as yourself even read your own names, let alone the Holy Word?”

Nicolò places a hand to his chest, taken aback. “You think me a thief?”

“How else did you evade my guards to chance upon me here if you were anything but a prowling wretch?”

“I have been many things, Your Excellency, but I have never been a thief. In fact, I once wore the frock of a priest. Then the arms and armour of a knight. The dusty clothing of a desert wanderer. I have lived so many lives in my last sixty years.”

“You’re a madman,” the bishop sits down again, seemingly bored. “Guards!”

“Your Excellency,” Nicolò steps closer. “No one but me can hear you. As I told you, I am not a thief. And I did not sidle past your guards. I stepped over them.”

“What? No! There are men out there, twice your size! Guards!” 

Nicolò waits for the shouting to cease. The haughty always realize far too late how little they have done to protect themselves. The image in their minds of their own safety. Their towering walls, their piles of riches, the imposing bodies they imagine will shield them.

Finally gathering some of his wit, the old man brandishes fruit frecked knife. With a powerful jab, he tries to run Nicolò through. Instead he finds his fist gathered in Nicolò’s grip and twisted at the wrist.

“This is… Urgh! This is a holy place! You would defile it with violence?”

“This is but a rectory, Your Excellency.”

Nicolò feels bones snap beneath his grip.

“Why? The Bishop gasps. “Why have you come here?”

At that Nicolò releases him. The bishop stumbles to the ground.

“Because you have turned your sights on the Holy Land, on turning back the forces of Saladin. Because before you took the comfort of your office, you were a Templar; one proven to be an excellent martial commander and an effective, albeit corrupt, statesman. Because many trust that with your help, the Papistry and the Rhomaioi will join together to again usurp a land it has no claim to. Because you would do all of this, merely for the belief that with the right victories, you will be crowned the next king of Jerusalem.”

The bishop shoots upwards. Ready for his last stand of pride and avarice. “If God wills it, so it shall be!”

“Many will suffer and many will die if you are allowed your ambitions, Your Excellency. That is, unless you bleed your last here.”

“No! I—”

Nicolò kills him quicker than he deserves.

*

He feels no remorse after as he escapes through the passage from which he arrived. Though there are times he still wishes he did. He could never muster much grief over one less greedy man in the world. Nicolò had left the body where it would be found. Taking the stack of coins on the desk, the rings from the bishop’s fingers, and the crested medallion that hung from his neck to leave the appearance of a burglary. 

Every map and letter pertaining to Jersulem was put to fire and reduced to dust. While Nicolò could not stop yet another war, he had cauterized the damage the Christian forces could inflict. 

In the city, the people move freely, trading and conversing in Greek, untroubled and busy. They will not hear of the murder of the Roman ambassador until the morning. When the guards change patrols and the alarm is sounded, the city exits will assuredly close. Nicolò has just long enough to gather supplies and vanish into the countryside.

“You there! Halt!”

Nicolò freezes, one arm up his sleeve. He has but set one foot inside the inn when soldiers surround the building. “What business have you in the city?” A helmeted man demands.

Nicolò opens his mouth, but it is not his words that come out. For they are not speaking to him. They want another, the man under his shawl beside the fire.

“My business is that like any other,” comes the man’s voice. Tones Nicolò last heard in Damascus decades ago. “I come to trade and…” a sword extended front he soldiers hand is pushed under Yusuf’s throat, “and to pay my respect to the Emperor.”

“Have you any proof of this?”

“Merely my word.”

“And mine,” Nicolò cuts in. “Al-Tayyib has come to trade with me in the Latin Quarter. We have a lot of business in the morning, and must take our rest.”

“That is not the name he gave the patroness,” questions one of the soldiers.

“If you have ever met his kind,” Nicolò’s laugh is forced and jovial, “you know they have so many names.”

“That is true,” nods the same soldier. He lowers his sword. “They are named after every uncle and horse their father ever met. How could it be possible to keep track?”

The soldiers snigger amongst themselves and disperse. Nicolò takes Yusuf by the elbow and drags him up the stairs. “We can kill each other later,” he hisses at Yusuf’s resistance. “Somewhere safer.”

Once behind closed doors, they breathe one sigh of ease before their blades are drawn. The nimble movements of Yusuf’s slashing blade almost feels like reminiscence.

Almost.

“What are you doing here?” Yusuf demands in Ligurian.

“I was going to ask you the same question,” Nicolò replies in Arabic.

Yusuf scoffs. “Your accent is nearing passable.”

“I am glad it is more pleasing to your ear.”

“I did not say pleasing! I said passable.”

Nicolò chuckles. “Either way, I am content.” Wiping the blood from his shirt proves pointless. He wipes the rags off and fetches a new one from his sack. Yusuf watches him carefully, as if inspecting his bare skin for weapons or his saddlebag for knives. He almost looks disappointed when Nicolò turns back to him, and he averts his eyes while he dresses.

“How have all these years treated you? It is been too long since we parted. Since you left.” Yusuf says nothing. “Come now. Our story that we are business partners will not hold if you march out of here alone. We have bought a little time. We may as well spend it well.”

Yusuf’s stare hardens. His lips do not budge.

“At least tell me, do they still call you al-Tayyib?”

“Wwe can pass the time in silence.”

“But why? when there is so much I have wanted to ask you.”

“Like what?” Yusuf derides. “Not more of you whining for forgiveness.”

Nicolò buries the flinch that creeps up his spine. Yusuf was always quick to open old wounds. He was a man who knew his weaknesses. 

“I wish to know, do you also have the dreams?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“But you must! There are nights when I dream I am outside my body, when I see into others and others see into me. Others who live as we do in lands I have never seen before.”

Ignoring him, Yusuf wanders about the room. He stakes stock of the bed and the wine and dried figs beside it. He picks through the bowl until he finds one appetizing enough to eat.

“When I first realized that my body would remain unchanged, that I would not age, I wondered if you were discovering the same. If you would be the same man I met on the battlefield.”

Again Yusuf says nothing.

“Then do you fight for the Caliphate?”

“Why would I tell a Roman dog any such thing?

“Because you wish to liberate your home—”

“The Caliphate had overrun my home long before I was born. But now they are the enemy of my enemy.”

“And that is what brings you to Constantinople?”

Yusuf stares daggers at him and Nicolò raises his hands in apology. “Whether or not you fight for the Caliphate, I no longer fight for the Holy See. And I never will again. I promise you, I am no spy.”

He scoffs. “Which is exactly what a spy would say.”

“Are you certain?” Nicolò japes. “Have you met many spies?”

“Yes.” Yusuf stands straighter, perhaps to be more imposing. “For I am one.”

“Hmm. That is not something a spy would say,” Nicolò laughs. And for the first time, Yusuf relents. From behind his fiercely guarded wall, a small flicker of gaiety shines and he smiles. He smiles at Nicolò. And oh.

Oh.

Nicolò has felt his heart stop before. Felt the beat of it gave way to arrows and blades. Felt it smothered in smoke and blunt pressure. But he has never felt this. Never, ever this. He can barely think as Yusuf resumes talking to him.

“I am here because there is a bishop in one of the great cathedrals. He is martially minded, and a dangerous asset to the so-called Crusaders and their Templars.”

Nicolò’s eyes widen. He sputters to catch his breath. “You do not… you do not mean Bishop Severino?”

“The very same.”

It is the renowned gravity that Yusuf possesses, his surety and fortitude in relaying his mission that causes Nicolò to break. He cries and cries with laughter, braying like an old donkey. Because it is hopelessly perfect, there meeting like this. Here, stands the man he had waited and wished to see again for so long, and he only stands there to rid the world of a man Nicolò has already seen too.

“Forgive me, Yusuf,” Nicolò wipes his eyes, “but I must tell you now, your trip to Constantinople is wasted. The bishop is—”

“Is heavily revered and constantly guarded,” Yusuf spits, his anger flaring. “But that will not stop me.”

“No, you misunderstand me—”

“You Christians think yourselves untouchable—”

“I do not doubt your skills as an assassin—”

“You clearly do!” And there is Yusuf’s fury again. The old hatred underneath. Nicolò’s chest constricts. He already misses that smile. “All of you believe that because none can compare to your outmatched savagery, that one man cannot—” 

“I have felt your blade,” Nicolò reminds him, his voice calm. “It always finds its mark with vigor and skill.”

Yusuf blinks, the whirlwind dying down for a moment. He starts and fails to speak something, before turning away. Nicolò has never seen him quite so bothered, nor as red-faced. He looks as if he is deciding to stab Nicolò again.

“Your bishop enjoys the public baths. And while the church turns a blind eye to his proclivities, his enemy’s do not.”

Nicolò’s face go white. “I do not understand… You would… you would ensnare him by his… carnal appetites?”

“Men are far easier to seduce than women.”

Nicolò’s heart beats in his ear drums. “You have done so before?”

“When a blade in the night would not suffice, yes.”

“How can you be sure such a tactic would work?”

“Your Bishop’s prefers men who are darker than your Roman lot.”

Nicolò remembers the sight of Yusuf on the banks of that river long ago. “Then it is the Bishop’s great loss that he did not die at your hand.” Nicolò pulls the medallion from his pocket. He tosses it. Yusuf studies it for a second, not realizing what he is seeing. Then his eyes turn over the Latin inscription that Nicolò is certain he can read.

“This cannot be.” He turns it in his hands. There is blood dried to the back. “This is his seal.”

Nicolò nods. “A token from the Bishop and our brief time together. Though I know he would have prefered to die in your bed.” He means it as a mere jest, but Yusuf hauls up to his feet, brandishing the medallion.

“I do not murder men in the very throes of passion,” Yusuf fumes.

“That is good to know,” Nicolò smirks.

Yusuf begins pacing whilst whispering to himself. Nicolò wonders if this is something he does often. He wonders what other little habits and rituals he might perform. Not only in anger or frustration, but also in happiness and peace, in hunger or perhaps even lust. 

“You work for the caliphate,” he accuses. 

“I work for no one.”

“Then why kill him at all?”

“Because I saw what you saw. The bishop was uniquely positioned to do great harm. He could not be allowed to live.”

“That is it? You killed another Christian, to what? To save Muslim lives?”

“You hold the proof in your hands.”

He shakes his head. At last, he collapses onto the bed to sit beside Nicolò. “How long until his body is found?”

“Soon, by morn at least. If not sooner.”

Yusuf nods. “We need to get the hell out of this city.”

*

It feels somewhat like slipping into old ways. Keeping close to Yusuf’s movements as they cut through the winding city. Nicolò trades the amethyst he pried from one of the bishop’s rings for a pair of horses. The sleepy eyed stablemen informs them to come back first thing at dawn’s light for the stallions.

Yusuf shoves two waterskins into his hands. “Go fill these while I haggle with the horsemonger.”

Nicolò knows a place to do so. Outside the entry pergolas of the Great Gardens is a city well filled in rainwater. Nicolò is filling the second waterskin when Yusuf finds him.

“We are in agreement. We have but a few hours to wait.”

Nicolò passes him the waterskin. He looks across the way, deeper into the immaculate flora just beyond. “Shall we?”

Yusuf opens his mouth to say no, but instead he softens. “I don’t see why not.”

The Gardens of Byzantium had survived the city’s reconcentration after Constntine the Great. Nicolò hoped it would survive many rulers to come. Any place that thought to emulate paradise deserved to live on forever. Throughout the walled courtyard, there is rushing water, fragrant flowers, and fruiting trees heavy with their bounties. Trellises are alive with vines and the hum of feathery swooping moths.

Yusuf finds a bench near the fountains. He does not object when Nicolò sits beside him. 

“I always wanted to ask,” he begins. “How do you know my mother tongue?”

“I’m a merchant. Or I was.”

“What did you trade in? Horseflesh? Precious metals? Swords or armaments?”

Yusuf rolls his eyes. “Tea. I sold tea.”

Nicolò is not sure why he is delighted by this revelation. “Then I’m sure it was the finest tea this side of the sea.”

“Oh I assure you, it was the finest tea on either side.”

And there is that smile again. Nicolò will carry it to the grave. To his every grave, his every death. It alone will keep him warm.

“You also told me the Caliphate took your home. Where were you born?”

Yusuf looks at him, then away. Nicolò fears he won’t answer. “I was born in a city called Mahdia.”

“And what is Mahdia like?”

“It is… it is the single most beautiful place on earth. Nothing compares. It is a coastal settlement, white stone buildings, overflowing courtyards, old docks, a fisherman in every family. The sea and the sky are always the same color. It is impossible to separate them on a clear day, when the sapphire hues swallow everything. And when storms gather, the silver overtakes the horizon. The clouds seem close enough to touch. But if you look up too long, you slip on the rocks and…”

Remembering himself, Yusuf cuts off abruptly. “Forgive me, I have prattled on too long.”

Nicolò grabs his hand and squeezes. “Tell me what happened when you slipped on the rocks, Yusuf.”

Perhaps without meaning to, Yusuf squeezes back. “I didn’t drown, but damn near. You go under, and you don’t come up fast enough. You learn down there in the dark that there is more water in the ocean than you ever dreamed, and there is so much less of you. Sometimes I still feel…” Yusuf closes his eyes. “When I broke the surface, still alive, I felt I was someone else. Someone who learned they did not have the makings of a fisherman. So I hopped a boat and joined another trade. Sometimes I ask myself, if I had drowned there, would I have stayed under the waters? Or would I have arisen, the same gangly adolescent for years to come, the way I do now.”

“I am sure you were a beautiful youth.”

“You would think that, you dirty Roman.”

“I am not Roman!

Their shared laughter stirs a pair of sleeping birds. They lift off from their nest, chasing moths that fly over the waters.

“Genova it is then. Is that where you enlisted in your Pope’s holy war?”

“I was not. The truth is … complicated. I had been in the seminary to become a priest but I was asked to leave.”

“Why?” 

Nicolò stares at his shoes.

“Ah, this is the difference between you and I, my dear Frank. I will let you keep your secrets in peace.”

“I never asked to join the order of the knighthood. I wanted a parish and to share in God’s love. But instead I proved myself too adept at violence… and my choices were taken from me. In the end, the only say I ever had was in joining the faithful in their quest to take the Holy Lands.”

“That is what you meant when you said you came for salvation.”

Nicolò does not deny it. “The Holy Father promised a remission of sin for all who died in the name of the crusade. I felt I could not say no.”

“And the sin you wished to be free of? Was it your… adeptness at violence?”

“Yes.”

“Who did you kill?”

“Before you? None. But by the time I left the seminary…” An old rage seeps out of the crevasses of his heart. It feels cold. It locks his jaw tight until his teeth her. He wills himself to speak. “Some might say they wished I had been merciful enough to become a murderer.”

“I do pity your enemies,” Yusuf laughs, looking impressed. “Myself included.”

“You are not my enemy. If I have learned nothing else these past endless years, it is that you never were.”

“Nicolò-”

“Please, let me say this. You asked me before why I would kill a Christain to save Pagan lives. I need you to know that from the moment I met you, from the moment you killed me, my eyes have opened. And I see the world for what is, and what it should be. I know in my heart there are always some men who stop. Some men who speak up. Some men who without knowing are touched by Grace, and guided from that which would command them to do evil. But those men are never enough. There are men who do not stop. Men who we must stop.” In a moment of insanity, Nicolò takes Yusuf’s hand to his lips. He kisses the back of his hand. “Can you think of any better reason that we should remain? Because I cannot.”

Yusuf is still and silent. A riot moves behind his beautiful dark eyes. Finally he speaks: “When I left you last in Damascus, I said many things, and I…” He turns Nicolò’s hand over in his. Nicolò thinks it has been an age since he has felt anything this gentle. “It was wrong of me to speak on your salvation. That is not for any man to decide.”

“It is when it is you, when it is me,” Nicolò whispers. “It is still your forgiveness that I prayed for.”

Yusuf feels for the medallion resting in his pocket. Nicolò had not asked for it back, and he never shall. 

“Then you shall have it. I absolve you, Nicolò, son of Genova. Of all of it. You are free.”

If the gardens blossomed in full around him, petal heavy and nectar flowing, Nicolò would not have noticed. All matters of the earth could not compare to this man’s hands around his soul. Lifting him from the mire, the filth of battle, into the respite of mercy.

“Yusuf, I—”

The sound of hooves carries closer. Yusuf bounds up from the stonebench. His haggling worked. Their horses have arrived. Following Yusuf out of the gardens, he realizes something is amiss.

“Why is there only one horse?” he asks the stablemen.

The man in question gives him a confused look. “He asked for one horse as soon as possible,” he claims as he departs, “and the other comes at dawn.”

“What? No—” But Yusuf has already mounted the saddled steed. He manages to look regretfully down at Nicolò, before he shakes it off. Nicolò attempts to take the horse by the reins. That beast could easily cave in his chest with a flail of his hooves but Nicolò must risk it. He cannot lose this. Not again. Not after they’ve come so close. “Stop this!”

“You have my forgiveness.” His voice is grave, but his eyes shine even in the low light of night. “You cannot ask me for more. That is all I can give you.”

“You’re wrong! Why can’t you see? From the start we were made together, we are supposed to be—”

The stallion whinnies angrily. Yusuf keeps a level hand to its neck to steer it away. “You have what you came for. Go home, son of Genova. Not all of us can.”

“No! Yusuf!”

But it is too late. The horse races down the last track of the city and out of the gates beyond. Out of reach, perhaps to the ends of the earth, where Nicolò fears he cannot follow.

*

Twitching awake inside Joe’s arms, his lover already lies awake and mutters against the back of his neck. “And what terrible slight did I commit against you this time?”

Nicky lifts and kisses Joe’s wrist. “It was when you admitted you did not care for my spiced lamb marinade.”

A rumble moves through Joe. “At least your humor will never darken.” He rolls over onto his back, his embrace over Nicky slipping away. “Do you need to know the year?”

“No.” Nicky rubs at his eyes. He is mostly sure he knows what decade it is.

“If you’re certain.” He throws his legs over the side of the bed. He leans back to kiss Nicky on his shoulder. “I will fix breakfast. Oh, and we’re at the Victoria cabin. Out in wine country, in case you forgot.”

Nicolò does not want to ruminate on how tired Joe sounds relaying the common facts of their everyday whereabouts. And according to the analog clock, it is too early for breakfast. He tries to sleep until a more respectable time. However, without Joe’s touch it is a useless endeavor. 

“Joe?” There is food in the kitchen and no sign of his husband. The television is switched off, the study is empty, as well as the art room. For a gut wrenching moment Nicky is standing in Constantinople. He can hear hooves in the distance carrying his heart away.

“I’m out here,” comes a muffled call, and Nicky can breathe again. On the porch the sky is reddening but the sun has yet to appear. Joe is leaning against the wooden railing overlooking the rows of grapes. He seems like he has been there for some time. Looking up at Nicky, Joe must realize he is nowhere near when he promised he would be. “I’m sorry. I forgot all about breakfast.”

“Stay with me,” Nicky asks when Joe tries to take his leave. “Just for a moment.”

Joe smiles lightly. “You can have as many moments as you wish.”

They watch the sunrise and listen to the crickets cede the morning orchestral to birdsong. It clearly rained the night before. The wafting breezes carry the scent of wet, thriving soil. Nicky shivers in the last of the night chill and Joe whispers, “come here,” before bracing him against his chest. And for a moment Nicolò feels ashamed for thinking, for even but a moment, that Joe would ever leave his side.

“I dreamed of our first time in Constantinople,” he whispers. “You and your trick with the horses. I should have seen it coming. You did tell me that you were a spy.”

Joe groans even despite his smile. “You are determined to remember me at my very worst, aren’t you?”

“It was more than I deserved, even then.”

The sun is up now. The first golden rays wash over them and Joe is as beautiful as ever. If only Nicky possessed a fraction of his poetry, of his gift for verses. Perhaps then he could share his total and complete awe of his husband. His impassioned ideals, his scathing humor, his appetite for all things new and daring. But what Nicky most desires to put a name to is the gentle quiet hurt he carries when he believes it to be a kindness.

“I wish you could remember as I do,” Nicky tells him, running a hand through Joe’s curls. “You would see there is nothing to be afraid of.”

“I can’t say the same. I don’t think I could bear it.” Joe leans further into his touch. “I keep thinking about Baltimore.”

“Oh?” It is hard for Nicky to fathom anywhere further from the wide Australian wilderness they stand in now. “You hated it there. My neurology studies bored you and Johns Hopkins was full of snobs.”

“Yes, it was. But I keep thinking about what you said. How you didn’t believe the mind was meant to stretch across an eternity. That our brains just simply were not built for it. That you wanted to discover what would happen to us, if we lived as long as Andromache.” Joe slips his hands in his pockets. He rolls forward on the balls of his feet. He is afraid to say what he wants to say.

“Joe?”

“Andy kept telling you it was a waste of time. That you didn’t need a doctorate to figure out that the mind… just forgets. That we can’t hold onto all of it. Some of it has to slip away. Otherwise, it buries us. Otherwise, it would destroy us.”

From the depth of a storm, Nicky hears again what Joe is too afraid to say: Sometimes I am afraid that you remember too much.

“Nicolò, I’ve already forgotten more than I ever thought I would. Forgotten things I swore I never would. I cannot remember the names of my sister’s children.”

But Nicky remembers. Each of them found in a locked drawer inside his head. Brahim, Zainab, Ibrahim, Izîl, Ahmed, Aadan, Sufian, Idir, Dalil, Usaden, Tajeddigt and the last two, both named Yusuf.

Joe huffs a defeated laugh. “Even now you are pretending you don’t remember, but you do. Because you don’t forget.”

“Yusuf, please…” He does not know how to make this better.

“I sleep beside you every night. I know what it feels like when you are rested. When you are at peace. The same way I know what it feels like when that beautiful mind of yours is spinning away from you. And all your nightmares... your remembrances … I am afraid to lose you to them.”

“That will not happen.”

Joe smiles softly. It is clear he does not believe him. 

“No matter where we are, no matter who we save, no matter what I try… the nightmares haven’t stopped. Because something is weighing on you. And maybe you already know what it is, or maybe you don’t. But my love, I know one thing; every nightmare is about me. Night after night I hear you saying my name, in your sleep… and you sound pained. All your dreams of us, they're unhappy ones. And if you were… if you were…”

“If I were what? Unhappy?” he scoffs, incredulous.

“Yes,” Joe says plainly. “If you were unhappy, I couldn't bear it. I would want to know. I would want to be able to stop it, to change something.”

Nicky stares at him. Joe stares back. Nicky forces himself to breathe steady, in and out, no matter how it hurts. It is a learned skill, drilled into him from hours and years of sniper training. It may be the only thing that saves him from sinking into tears.

“That is why you wanted to leave the mountain early.” Perfect clarity strikes him like a bolt to the heart. The long drive down from the alps, where Joe insisted he lost his taste for winter sports. He would not be dissuaded from bringing Nicky somewhere warmer, somewhere he could enjoy himself. All because he’d convinced himself that the sacrifice was necessary. “You think that my dreams are trying to tell me that I’m unhappy and that I’ve just failed to notice?”

A shade of doubt colors over him. “You say it like it’s impossible, like we never hated each other and — Are you… are you laughing at me?”

“No, of course not,” Nicky chortles. “These are just the sounds I make when I am hopelessly miserable.”

“You think this is funny?!”

Nicky shoves a knuckle in his mouth, trying his damndest to keep the noises in. He fails.

Joe trails off, muttering to himself, “ — I lay awake every night, holding the man I love more than anything, who only dreams about  every time I was ever cruel to him — ”

Nicky’s laughter devolves to very unattractive snorting. “Amore mio, please! You’re killing me.”

“I just might!”

“How long have you thought about this? Should I spend the night on the couch so you can get more rest? Because I fear you would only believe something this implausible without at least a year’s sleep.”

Stalking back into the house, half embarrassed and half cursing the day he ever met Nicolò di Genova, Joe shouts over his laughter. “Forgive me for daring to worry about your happiness! Next time I will simply remind myself that an eternity of suffering alongside me is all a Frank like you deserves!”

“See, my love, now you are talking sense!”

* * * 

The ship is readying to cast off. Sailors scurry about, shouting orders to one another. The taste of the sea is a constant. No matter the stench of any city, its cook pots, its bathhouses, when the ocean is near the salt lingers.

The ship name is something that translates to The Spearhead, but Nicolò thinks it could very well be a garish euphemism.

“Last chance to change your mind, Nikolas,” laughs his Athenian escort, a portly man with bristle brush hair and several pagan tattoos. There was a time when Nicolò would never have dared to be associated with the likes of him But life is very long, and to reach his desired destination he would consort with far worse. As Nicolò’s voucher aboard the ship, he accepts some ill-gotten gains and trades them off to the sailor guarding the ramp. It is all an unsavory arrangement with the gambling companion of some degenerate or another who has a connection to the dockyard foreman who himself has pull with the vessel’s captain. Nicolò tried not to dwell on the web of it too long. As mercantile cargo ships rarely allow unpaid men passage aboard their decks, the elaborate chain of moving pieces and allegiances that brought him to the gangplank needed to be greased with more than money alone. But it has not hurt that Nicolò has grown quite persuasive in his years. Once he had made his mind up, he would not allow himself to be deterred from his destination.

He had drifted so far from where he belonged. God willing, when next this vessel docked he might find an answer. A sign.

With only his sword and a rucksack — the former of which is turned into the captain in good faith and left under lock and key — a bored seaman leads him about the ship. Above and below deck the only lesson imparted to Nicolò is hat he should touch nothing, ask nothing, and get in no one’s way. Even the swinging hammock that is to be his bed is not to be used often. He must share it in rotation with a crewman.

Nicolò has yet to meet this man, but is certain it’s for the better if they avoid each other entirely.

A ways past the lower deck dormitories is a passageway lit with candlelight. A shadow moves to and fro over the glow with the rock of the ocean. For some reason, Nicolò cannot pass its shape from his mind.

“What is beyond that corridor?”

“Hm? That? That’s where we stow the merchants who actually paid their charter, so they don’t have to live down here with us working men.” The sailor looks Nicolò up and down once more. “They pay for their cargo and to be unbothered until we dock. So don’t go sniffing where you’re not wanted. Their lot take more than a hand when it comes to thieving.”

“You trying to scare sense into a cabin boy again, Yorick?” asks the shadow coming closer. Lithe and even-toned before arriving in sight, Nicolò knows all at once what has happened. Knows the shape of it and its absence, by the way it confounds all he knows to be possible.

It can’t be him, whispers his better sense.

It is , beats his heart. It is, it is, it is .

Yusuf, son of Ibrahim, son of Muhammad, stands in full view. His hair is longer, his curls licked with salt water and hiding his ears. He wears more rings upon his fingers, one for every digit, save his thumbs. His beard is denser than Nicolò ever remembers it. He cannot help the fleeting foolhardy thought of how much he would like to touch it. 

The sailor pushes Nicolò along. “Pay no mind to our stowaway, Ioséph, he will not bother you.”

“He is known to me,” is all Yusuf says. Nicolò wonders what it is about him that so greatly captures his attention. What draws his eyes back to his unchanged face again and again. He fears he may ask something improper if reason does find him soon. “Leave him be, Yorick. He may follow me.”

They say nothing as they walk shoulder to shoulder down the way to the merchant cabins. Yusuf lifts the curtains to his quarters and motions Nicolò to step instead. His room is lodgings are humble, but exceedingly more spacious and private than the hammock Nicolò is to sleep in. There is a standing barrel in the corner clearly being used as a desk with papers and breadcrumbs and a burning candle atop it. A chest at the foot of his post-raised bed. The wall above where he sleeps is littered with parchments nailed to the wood bearing sketches of places and faces. Some Nicolò has never seen, but others he remembers. Before he can get close enough to look closer, Yusuf yanks him back.

“Why are you here?” he demands. Nicolò steps back. No matter the joy he feels, he can see it is not shared. 

“I am here to set sail to—”

“I know where this damned ship is going! What I want to know is why. Why you, why here, why now after all this time?”

“Yusuf, I don’t understand—”

“I released you,” he despairs. “I forgave you. I gave you everything you asked for. All so you could go home.”

“That is all I have tried to do!” Nicolò yells back at him. “And I am here, trying, still!”

“Except this ship is not sailing to Genova! It is going to Mahdia!”

Above deck sailors shout and run up and down the length of the ship. The wooden walls of the ship lurch forward. The sails must be unfurled. Their voyage is beginning.

And there is nowhere left for either of them to hide.

With a hand over his forehead, Yusuf stares at him like he may destroy him. “Do you know how maddening this is? To see you here? All the years I spent avoiding this, never daring to turn back… and the moment I do, the moment I set foot in the direction of home, here you are. The man I cursed, the man I forswore. The man I forgave, the man I freed. Still here, right in front of me.”

Nicolò sits on the wobbling chair beside the bed. He motions for Yusuf join him, but he is too busy prying open his chest. Inside is a bottle wrapped twice over in very fine cloth. Once uncorked, the smell of fermented grain fills the air. 

“Well?” Yusuf asks after taking a swig, “are you going to say something?”

“You want me to explain myself?”

“Yes! How did you find me? How did you know? How is any of this still happening?” In spite of his frantic frustrations, he shoves the bottle into Nicolò’s hands. He is not satisfied until Nicolò drinks. “Why can we not escape this?”

Nicolò laughs into the neck of the bottle. It sings a solitary note. “Running from you feels as futile as running from God. Because I did not board this ship to find you. I did not dream I would ever meet you on my path to Mahdia. I only wanted to see the city where the sky and the sea were the same blue…”

He takes back the bottle and swallows deep until it is empty. “I forgot I told you that.”

“I remember everything you told me. I want you to tell me so much more.” He feels hope swell in his chest, but Yusuf shakes his head.

Nicolò reaches for him. He takes hold of Yusuf’s hands and traces every golden ring. 

“I want you to tell me the names of your parents. The first boy you loved. Where you found tutelage in the arts, how to hold a sword. All the places you’ve been. The people you saved.”

“Does it matter?” Yusuf begs. “All of them are gone. All the things I loved, all the things I hated… none of it is left.” He tries to pull away but Nicolò does not release him. He can’t. Not ever again. “Look, Nicolò. Even these hands you are holding. I lost them; this one to a sword, and the other in the mouth of a beast. They are not the hands I was born with. Not the ones my mother held or my father guided.” He laughs bitterly, hopeless, the picture of anguish. “They’re not even the hands I killed you with.”

He closes his eyes, weary down to his soul. “Nothing remains…”

“We remain together, Yusuf.” Nicolò steps closer to him, to the head heavy heat of his body. Their foreheads pressing together. “You must see that. We have not come so far, so entwined for you to be blind to it still.”

The ship rocks with the sway of the waters. Nicolò and Yusuf step in time, one backwards and one forwards until they hit the bed.

“You are whole, Yusuf.” Nicolò breathes it into his mouth. “Let me show you.”

“Say it again,” he pleads. His eyes are dazzlingly warm. Nicolò has never seen so many perfect shades of brown. “Please. Say it again.”

“You are whole,” he repeats, voice caught between a gasp and a sigh. “You are home. You are safe.”

*

The surf rings against the arched inlets of stone, and that is what wakes Nicky. Yawning, he stretches up towards the hanging stalactites and the dripping waterfall. One day, this grotto will sink to the erosion of time and climate change. But here and now the marvel stands, even eight hundred years later.

Joe is somewhere out of sight. Nicky stands, dusting sand from his beach towel. He looks for a set of footprints to follow. But his eyes catch movement from a shelf of rock along the cave walls. Joe is climbing, scuttling along the wall like a crab. He heaves himself up onto a ledge and looks down at the drop below. Balancing precariously on the incline, he notices Nicky.

He blows him a kiss and jumps.

Nicky hears the slash more than he follows the descent with his eyes. He holds his breath until Joe surfaces, his characteristic joyful holler echoing about the grotto. Oh, how he does love this hopelessly insatiable man.

“How was your rest?” he asks, swimming back to shore. “How are you feeling?”

Nicky hums. “Oh you know. Only a little unhappy today.”

“Ha. Ha.”

“Somewhat dejected.”

“Very funny.”

“Mildly inconsolable. Mildly.”

“What will it take to make you stop?” Joe demands. 

“Well… now that you mention it,” Nicky rubs his chin. “If my husband gave up cave jumping, that would make me happy. And no more ice climbing, either. Or freediving, or rafting, or motor racing. Really, any sport with the word extreme in front of it.”

Joe snaps his towel at him. “I was being serious!”

“As am I!” He had been telling Joe for years that while he was almost certain God would never take him from Nicky on the battlefield, but needless sporting accidents were an entirely different matter. “Oh, and add bullfighting to the list. No more of that.”

“Once, Nicolò! I did that once!”

“And you were nearly gored in half!”

In the distance through the caves their voices bounce off the craggy stone walls and return to them. Somewhere, a bat stirs and flutters awake, swooping through the mineral air.

Joe dries off the last of the water from his hair. “You do seem better, though. No nightmares?”

“Only old dreams. Good dreams.”

“Oh?” Joe flops down onto his towel. He wiggles his eyebrows. “Was it the last time we were here in Malta?”

“Not quite.” Nicky relishes the hand that sneaks up his leg.

“Then what were we doing in this good dream?”

Nicky cants his hips into the touch. “We met on the ocean, after a long time apart.” Nimble fingers skim over the waistband of his shorts. 

“That rings a bell.” Joe chuckles. “Tell me more?”

“You weren’t happy to see me. I thought you might try to throw me overboard.” Nicky’s breath hitches. Joe draws circles on the inside of this thigh.

“Which would have been a waste.” Joe kisses Nicky’s stomach, then below his navel, then lower.

“You were tired,” Nicky continues, “and lost and hurting badly.” Joe’s ministrations still over his skin. “You were so afraid of losing yourself, you were trying to go home.”

“Doesn’t sound like me,” Joe protests. “How could I be afraid of anything when I have you?” He leans up to capture Nicky’s mouth. His skin is chapped with sea salt, but he is soft and warm.

“It was the first time I knew we would last forever,” Nicky sighs. “I think that is what the dreams are for.”

“Yeah?” Joe sits up, sex still clearly on his mind but now pushed to the wayside.

“You were right about my subconscious. Not that I was unhappy, but it was trying to tell me something. Something I needed since finding Nile, losing Booker. Since knowing that Quỳnh still lives and Andy will fade… I think I needed to remember us… Not in part, but in whole. I needed all of the pieces. The ugliness, the zealotry, the hatred. How it all became more.”

Joe nods. Curling his knees to his chest, he and Nicky watch the tide rushing in and out. “But would it have killed you to dream of a time I swept you off your feet?”

Nicky crawls up to him, kisses him again and again. “I don’t need to close my eyes for that.”

fin.