Navigator

BMQVK XESEF EBZKM BMHSM BGNSD DYEED OSMEM HPTVZ

'There were letters nearby too, preserved on the fragment, but ripped through. AD, perhaps, a V and an M – nothing else could be made out.'

Saladin read this over. 'It's in no language I ever saw.'

'Reading isn't your strong suit anyhow, son,' Joan said, mocking him.

'This is no known language,' Thomas confirmed. 'I believe this is a cipher – a code, perhaps of the type Caesar once used. There may be some key, which is lost. At any rate it was preserved, thanks to the transcription of the bookish son.'

'Now,' said Joan. 'Here's the most important thing for us, Saladin. Another of the three prophecies, the Testament of al-Hafredi, also fell by chance into Robert's hands.'

'Written on a bit of human skin,' Thomas said with a certain morbid relish.

'And this al-Hafredi has become our family's own oracle.'

'An oracle?'

'I mean that literally, Saladin. One of Robert's grandsons gave the material to Brother Thomas's house to study and interpret it for us, and so they have, in the centuries since.'

Thomas said, 'Al-Hafredi told of events to come – very broad-brush, but reliable none the less. And in particular he spoke of the advance of the Mongols. This followed the Islamic conquest of Europe, and he described it step by step.'

Saladin was trying to work this out, his face twisting. 'The Muslims have never conquered Europe.'

'True, but we can believe that the Mongols' advance would have occurred as al-Hafredi described it, whether Islam conquered or not.'

Now Saladin seemed utterly baffled. 'And Robert lived and died long before anybody had heard of the Mongols!'

'He did indeed,' Joan said. 'It wouldn't be much of a prophecy if it was the other way around, would it?'

'But how can this be? Who but God can know the future?'

'Ah,' said Thomas. 'An interesting question.'

'Which,' Joan said hastily, 'we can explore at our leisure another time. For now, Saladin, the important point is that this information has proved useful.'

Saladin nodded. 'If you know the Mongols are coming you can arm against them.'

'We tried that,' Joan said. 'But nobody wants to believe in the coming of the Mongols until they are on the doorstep.

'What we could anticipate was the plight of the refugees – those poor folks driven ahead of the Mongols' advance, in Asia, Persia, Europe. So we set up caravan stops. We supplied food and water, blankets. We even hired Saracen doctors. And we bought up the land to which they had to flee.'

'We made money out of the terrified,' Saladin said. He seemed faintly disgusted.

'We saved lives,' Joan said sternly. 'There are far more ignoble ways of making a living, Saladin. And if we had not, our family could not have survived here.'

'Think of it as a miracle,' Thomas said to Saladin. 'Everyone knows that the First Crusade's dazzling successes all depended on miracles. Perhaps God has miraculously assisted your family, for purposes yet to be revealed. Think of it that way.'

'But now,' Joan said, 'things have changed.'

'How so?'

'For one thing,' Thomas said, 'the Mongols have turned back. We must discuss the meaning of this in due course.'

Joan said, 'And then there is this letter from Subh the Moor, our distant cousin. She drops a hint that the Codex, Sihtric's engine designs, may not be lost after all…' Subh had said that a copy of the lost plans might have been buried under the floor of the mosque in Seville. 'If Robert ever knew this,' Joan said, 'he did not tell his son, or at any rate it was not written down.'

Now Saladin's face was full of a boyish wonder, pleasing to Thomas's dry heart. 'Buried under a mosque! What a story!'

'It may be just that,' Thomas warned. 'A story. But Subh has taken it seriously enough to write to you.'

Joan said, 'Subh believes that all these fragments of prophecy, in her possession and ours, may be put back together into a whole, the prophetic lore reassembled for the first time since the age of Sihtric himself.'

'And so that's why she wrote to you?' Saladin asked. 'But what does she want? We are Christian, she is Muslim. The Christians are destroying her country. Perhaps she intends to trick us, as that old priest Sihtric intended to trick the Moors.'

Thomas said, 'Even if that is her intention it need not be fulfilled. If we could get hold of these designs, if we could build the Engines of God, we could strike a devastating blow against Islam.'

Saladin studied him, curious. 'That sounds a very military ambition for a monk.'

'Not military. Evangelical.' He told them of Saint Francis of Assisi, founder of his order, whom Thomas himself had, thrillingly, met as a novice. 'The first rule Francis wrote for our order was a command for a global mission to "all peoples, races, tribes, and tongues, all nations and all men of all countries, who are and who shall be". Perhaps these Engines will enable my brothers to advance their most holy mission – even if not a life is taken with them.'

Joan said, 'So we share common goals, my family and your order.'

'Oh, yes.'

'So what do you think we should do about this, Thomas?'

'You could write to this cousin in Cordoba, or travel there. Or you could come to England – perhaps we could bring her there.'

Joan frowned. 'The Muslims would have us out of Jerusalem for good. It's not the best time to leave, chasing a dream. And I'm not sure if writing back to my Moorish cousin about this matter is advisable. For now, let us study the matter further. Subh can wait.' But she frowned again at her letter. 'You know, there are so many puzzles here. Thomas, what of this phrase, Incendium Dei?'

Thomas said, 'Something Subh's own ancestress, Moraima, evidently remembers of the lost Codex.'

"'The Fire of God."'

'More than "fire",' Thomas said. 'It is a word with passion. It means conflagration. Ruin. Perhaps it is a phrase associated with the bit of the manuscript from which Robert tore his corner…'

A thought occurred to him. He pawed through his notes once more, looking for the transcription of the ripped-through phrase with the coded words. All those incomplete letters, I, V, M – was it possible that Subh's Latin phrase would complete that puzzle?

But he was exhausted by the heat. With apologies to Joan, promising to discuss all this further, he gathered up his documents and made his way to bed, his head buzzing with the enigma of the Incendium Dei, the Fire of God.