Chapter 26
"Sir and Madam," a voice called from outside—the voice of one of the Prefect's soldiers who had escorted them from the palace—"we have arrived at our destination. You may disembark now."
The carriage door was opened from the outside, and the morning air of Constantinople rushed in to brush against Nirma and Arya's faces, air tinged with the scent of sour wine, roasted meat charred in places, the sweat of patrons packed tightly inside, and a faint metallic tang that could not be identified yet seemed to linger in every tavern of the Middle Ages.
Before them stood a sturdy two-story stone building with wide-open wooden windows, oil lamps blazing brightly within and the clamor of human voices pouring out like a sudden flood.
A wooden sign hung above the entrance, painted with the image of an amphora spilling wine and Greek lettering that read "Kapeleion Ambrosia."
A wine tavern in Byzantine times in the year 1101 AD, a place where crusader soldiers often spent their final nights before departing toward death in the promised land, a place where seventeen souls might have passed their last evening before being found dead with strange rashes covering their bodies.
Arya returned the stack of documents with a gesture bordering on reverence, folding them neatly before placing them upon Nirma's outstretched palm.
No words were spoken between them, only a small exchanged nod—a nod born of thousands of nights traversing the corridors of time together, a nod that meant, I have finished reading, I understand all that must be understood, now it is your turn to lead.
Nirma accepted the documents with a faint smile, not wide enough to bloom fully yet sufficient to deepen the fine lines at the corner of her single eye—a smile only Arya could decipher, one that said, thank you for trusting me, now let us face whatever lies ahead together.
With a subtle movement of her hand, Nirma gestured for Arya to descend first from the enclosed carriage, a polite courtesy that was also strategy, for by stepping down first Arya could serve as the initial shield should danger lurk outside, while Nirma, following behind, could observe more broadly and prepare herself for any possibility.
Arya descended with a light leap, his boots landing upon the damp stones with barely a sound, and for a moment he stood upright beside the carriage, his head turning left and right with vigilance that had long become second nature.
But when his gaze finally faced forward, when his eyes captured what lay before him, Arya's body froze. It froze like a stone statue erected in a palace courtyard, like water in winter suddenly stiffening into ice, like time itself pausing mid-beat.
The muscles in his jaw tightened, his hands—once relaxed at his sides—curled abruptly into fists, and his breath caught in his throat as though an unseen hand were choking him from within.
He did not move, did not blink, displayed no reaction beyond the total paralysis that suddenly enveloped him, a response exceedingly rare for one who had witnessed death in its most grotesque forms a thousand times over.
Seeing Arya freeze, Nirma descended swiftly yet with controlled steps, her grayish-blue stola fluttering softly in the cold morning breeze.
She stood beside him, feeling the tension radiate from his body like heat from a furnace, then slowly shifted her gaze forward, toward the same sight that had transfixed him.
And there, for a moment, time truly seemed to halt for Nirma as well.
Her single eye widened, her chest stalled before the next breath escaped in a ragged gasp, and her fingers instinctively grasped Arya's arm, seeking an anchor amid a reality that had suddenly turned alien and horrifying.
Inside the wide-open Kapeleion, amid overturned wooden tables and toppled chairs, beneath oil lamps that still burned brightly as though indifferent to the tragedy that had just occurred, hung a body positioned so unnaturally that Nirma had to blink several times to ensure her vision was not deceiving her.
The victim, a man who according to the documents they had just read was named Étienne d'Arques, thirty-four years old, a crusader from Normandy who was meant to depart for the Holy Land in seven days alongside tens of thousands of his comrades, was now suspended half-hovering above the very chair in the Kapeleion he had visited.
His legs were neatly bent, arranged carefully upon the seat of the chair as though sitting cross-legged in meditation, yet his abdomen was pressed against that same seat, forming a position no living human could achieve without the assistance of external force.
His body arched like a bow drawn far too tight, and most horrifying of all—most chilling even for Nirma, who had witnessed death in countless forms—was the victim's head, which moved occasionally from side to side in a steady rhythm.
Every five seconds, precisely when the imaginary clock in Nirma's mind struck the same count, the head would strike the iron support of the chair behind him, producing a metallic clang not overly loud yet distinctly audible in the morning stillness.
Clang. Silence. Clang. Silence. Clang.
Like a giant metronome measuring the tempo of death, like a church bell summoning the faithful to pray for departed souls, like a heartbeat that continues to throb even after its owner no longer breathes.
Around the victim, chaos reigned in silence.
Wooden tables lay overturned with their legs pointing toward the ceiling, chairs scattered in all directions as though recently swept by a storm, shattered glasses strewn across the stone floor with remnants of wine still wet and not yet dried.
Several clay amphorae lay toppled in the corner, their contents slowly pooling into dark crimson puddles that under the oil-lamp light resembled coagulating blood.
Cloaks hung unevenly over chair backs, some fallen to the floor and trampled in the disorder.
In one corner, a short sword remained sheathed yet discarded carelessly, as though its owner had been too hurried to retrieve it.
All these objects, all these traces of life abandoned in panic, lay scattered around the victim like offerings upon the altar of a god of death, silent witnesses to what had transpired hours earlier when the patrons of this Kapeleion realized something was wrong, that danger lurked, that they must flee as swiftly as possible, leaving behind whatever they carried.
Without a second thought, without the need for exchanged glances or coded signals, Nirma raised both her hands upward in a movement so natural it seemed she had performed it thousands of times across her journeys through the ages.
Her open palms faced the ceiling of the Kapeleion, her fingers slightly spread, and from her barely moving lips slipped a murmured prayer in fluent Latin, praises to the Almighty Jesus, to the Holy Mother Mary, to all the saints who guarded Constantinople from the darkness lurking in every corner.
To be continued…