Willocks - Tim Willocks

ALSO BY TIM WILLOCKS

Bad City Blues

Green River Rising

Bloodstained Kings

The Religion

RELIGION

Tim Willocks

Sarah Crichton Books
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
19 Union Square West, New York 10003

Copyright 2006 by Tim Willocks
All rights reserved
Distributed in Canada by Douglas & McIntyre Ltd.
Printed in the United States of America
Originally published in 2006 by Jonathan Cape, Great Britain
Published in the United States by Sarah Crichton Books / Farrar, Straus and Giroux
First American edition, 2007

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Willocks, Tim. The religion / Tim Willocks. p. cm. Sarah Crichton Books. Originally published in 2006 by Jonathan Cape, Great Britain T. p. verso. ISBN-13: 978-0-374-24865-9 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-374-24865-6 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Knights of MaltaFiction. 2. MaltaHistorySiege, 1565 Fiction. 3. CrusadesFiction. I. Title. PS3573.I456558R45 2007 813.54dc22

2006030419

Designed by Jonathan D. Lippincott

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To Chaim Zvi Lipskar and the many
other friends who helped to make this book

Contents

PROLOGUE

The Devshirme

Spring, A.D.1540

The Fagaras MountainsEast Hungarian Marches

On the night the scarlet horsemen took him awayfrom all he knew and all he might have knownthe moon waxed full in Scorpio, sign of his birth, and as if by the hand of God its incandescence split the alpine valley sheer into that which was dark and that which was light, and the light lit the path of devils to his door. If the dogs of war hadnt lost their way, the boy would never have been found, and peace and love and labor might have blessed him all his days. But such is the nature of Fate in a time of Chaos. And when is Time not Chaos? And when is War not a spawnhole of fiends? And who dries the tears of the nameless when even saints and martyrs lie sleeping in their crypts? A king had died and his throne was disputed and emperors fought like jackals to seize the spoils. And if emperors care little for the graveyards they scatter in their wake, why should their servants care more? As above, so below, say the wise men, and so it was that night.

His name was Mattias and he was twelve years old and of matters of Policy and State he knew nothing at all. His family were Saxon metalsmiths, transplanted by his migrant grandfather to a steep Carpathian valley and a village of no importance except to those who called it home. He slept by the kitchen hearthstone and dreamed of fire and steel. He awoke in the dark before dawn with his heart a wild bird in his chest. He pulled on boots and a scorch-marked coat and silentlyfor two sisters and his mother slept next doorhe took wood and summoned flames from the pale pink embers in the hearth so that warmth would greet the girls on their rising.

Like all firstborn men of his line, Mattias was a blacksmith. His purpose today was to complete the making of a dagger and this filled him with joy, for what boy would not make real weapons if he could? From the hearth he took a burning brand and stole into the yard and the sharp air filled his chest and he stopped. The world about was painted black and silver by the moon. Above the mountains rimrock, constellations wheeled in their sphere and he sought out their shapes and marked them under his breath. Virgo, Bootes, Cassiopeia. Lower down the slopes headlong streaks of brightness marked the valleys forked stream, and pastures floated misty beneath the woodlands. In the yard, his fathers forge stood like a temple to some prophet unknown and the firelight on its pale stone walls promised magic and marvels, and the doing of Things that no one had done before.

As his father, Kristofer, had taught him, Mattias crossed himself on the threshold and whispered a prayer to Saint James. Kristofer was out on the road, shoeing and sharpening tools for the farms and manors thereabouts. Would he be angry, when he returned, that Mattias had wasted three days forging? When he might have made fishhooks or a wood saw or a scythegoods that always found a ready buyer? No, not if the blade were true. If the blade were true, his father would be proud. Mattias crossed himself and stepped inside.

The forge smelled of ox hooves and sea salt, of clinker, horses, and coal. The firepot was readied as hed left it the evening before and the kindling caught with the firebrands first touch. He worked the bellows and fed yesterdays coke to the flames, coaxing the fire, building it, until burning charcoal lay two inches deep on the tuyere. He lit the lamp, then unearthed his blade from the ashes in which hed buried it overnight.

Hed taken two days to straighten and harden the steel, six inches in the blade and four in the tang. Knives hed made before but this was his first dagger, and the requisite skill was multiplied in the weapons doubleedged symmetry and the forging of strength in the spine. He hadnt perfected the symmetry but the edges didnt roll beneath a file. He blew away the ash and sighted down the bevels and found no warp or screw. With a damp rag he wiped the blade clean and worked its either surface smooth with pumice. Then he polished the blade until it gleamed dark blue, with powder of Emril and butter. Now would his Art be tested in the temper.

On the charcoal bed he laid a quarter inch of ash, and on the ash the blade, and watched the color creep through the steel, turning it face over face so the heat remained even. When the cutting edges glowed as pale as fresh straw, he pulled the blade clear with the tongs and plunged it into a bucket of damp soil. Burning vapors spiraled with a smell that made him heady. In this first quench, by his grandfathers lore, the blade laid claim at its birth to the power of all four elements: earth, fire, water, and air. Such a blade would endure. He rebuilt the coal bed and layered the ashes on top, and took the lid from his second quench, a bucket of horse piss. Hed collected it the day before, from the fleetest horse in the village.

Can I watch, Mattie?

For a moment his sisters voice vexed him. This was his work, his place, a mans place, not a place for a five-year-old girl. But Britta adored him. He always saw her eyes glow when she looked at him. She was the baby of the family. The death of two younger brothers before they could walk remained at the back of Mattiass mind, or rather, not their deaths but the memory of his mothers grief and his fathers silent anguish. By the time he turned, his anger was gone, and he smiled to see Britta in the doorway, her silhouette doll-like in the first gray rumor of dawn. She wore a nightshirt and clogs and she clenched her hands about reedy arms as she shivered. Mattias took off his coat as he walked over and slipped it around her shoulders. He picked her up and sat her on the sacks of salt inside the door.

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