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From:

dr_libra_phd

Nicolo has feelings. :)

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Part 20C
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(Nicolo)

Somewhere outside of Alexandria, 12th century

His skin itched.

Nicolo rounded back his shoulders. The tunic rippled down his body, still looser than he remembered it to be. Yusuf insisted Nicolo was ‘wasting away before his eyes’ in Cairo. Perhaps it was a fair assessment after all.

In front of Nicolo, the bowl of grain and lentils steamed, fresh out of the kettle in their newly built hearth. The hens poked their little beaks around the floor by his feet.

“Do not tell him I let you in here,” Nicolo told the brown and black speckled bird who flew up to the table with furious flapping wings. It pecked delicately into his cupped hand and the feed he offered. “He insists your feathers are warm enough.”

The chicken’s beak clicked lightly into Nicolo’s hand, quickly finishing the feed. Its head tilted, eyeing his hand for more.

“No more,” Nicolo chided the bird. He grimaced when it let out an unhappy screech before hopping off the table. It left a few brown feathers behind.

Another tried to nudge its beak into Nicolo’s bowl.

“You can have it,” Nicolo told it as he collected the feathers into a sack for Yusuf. Yusuf wanted to make a head cushion as well.

The grain was too hot for the hen’s liking, though. It leapt off the table, squawking at the other birds. It chased off the chicks gathered around the dish under the table. The dish, filled with feed, rattled loudly under the chickens’ beaks.

Nicolo rested his chin on a fist. Elbow to the table, Nicolo watched the fluffy creatures walk, bobbing up and down, chirping at him.

The bowl of grain still looked just as unappetizing as before, but Nicolo loathed wasting food. He listlessly stirred the mixture with a spoon. He wondered why he did not have the urge to eat it when it tasted delicious the night before.

“It was one of his better attempts,” Nicolo told one bird as it wobbled by. He was ignored for the leftover feed sprinkled on the ground.

Yusuf went into the village to help Izem and the mill’s owner. They wanted him to draw up a map of what homes were built and will be built. However, some villagers read Greek, others only read Arabic or lingua franca. Yusuf’s pen and affinity to languages were both needed.

Nicolo’s grasp on either language was scant and his Latin would not help. He offered to stay behind to check on their traps and finish moving their stored food outside to make use of the cold nights.

Yusuf looked concerned, but he said nothing. He kissed Nicolo goodbye and rode off for the village. He glanced back a few times. Nicolo knew if he asked Yusuf to stay, Yusuf gladly would.

“But what would he do were he to stay?” Nicolo asked a young fluffy chick who tottered into his foot on new unsteady legs. “The village needs his help more.”

The young bird did not answer. Nicolo set it down by the feed, nudging it closer to the dish with a gentle crooked finger.

“You would provide eggs one day the village needs,” Nicolo told it. He shrugged a shoulder, looked around their house. “The least we could do is provide you shelter.”

The eggs hatched three weeks after the attack on the village. Yusuf claimed the hens lay the eggs to cheer them up; the birds never hatched eggs or appeared to have any inclination to do so. Nicolo worried they need more feed and a warmer pen.

Nicolo’s shoulders squirmed under his tunic again. He glanced over to the woven blanket on the bed. He wanted to burrow under it but he should not be lying in bed while Yusuf toiled in the village. Besides, the blanket was no longer warm from the heat of Yusuf's body.

The nights were colder in winter, a painful contrast to the days of sunlight. He remembered his first year traveling with Yusuf and how cold nights were despite how hot the deserts were during the day.

Behind Nicolo, the flames in the larger hearth they built sputtered under the kettle. Nicolo had set the pot down to keep Yusuf’s food warm. He warmed up the grain for the afternoon, but found himself unable to even tolerate the smell. He left the pot in the hearth to keep warm, finally spooning a small bowl for himself as the sun started to descend.

The new hearth gave off plenty of heat, providing warmth in the house and warmed the wall the stable and the pen shared on the other side. Yusuf and Nicolo had relocated them to stand on the other side of the hearth.

One of the hens chased a kernel across the floor, crashing into the empty pail used to hold fish and tumbled into it. It squawked, wings beating at the edges of the container as it struggled to climb out.

Nicolo could not find the energy to be entertained at the hens’ antics. He watched as the chickens gathered around the bucket, twittering anxiously until the trapped bird found a way to hop out.

The pail rung hollowly as it tipped back over.

The hearth hissed and popped.

The lid on the kettle rattled.

The wooden board over the window opening banged.

The hens chirped to each other.

A lump formed in Nicolo’s throat. It felt like he could hear his heart thumping too loud in his ears. He glanced around, seeing the walls of their home as if for the first time. They loomed around him.

His skin still itched horribly.

Nicolo stood up, startling the chickens about his feet.

“Do not lay eggs on our bed,” Nicolo said absently as he slipped on his boots and retrieved his sword in the cracked jar.

Nicolo pushed the door closed so the wind would not swirl into the house. He shuddered, his shoulders almost to his ears as he staggered towards the stream.

After a few swings and lunges, Nicolo’s limbs moved easier in the chill. He panted as he went through the techniques they taught him, back when he could barely hold up the sword.

Step forward, turn, swing.

The air was biting on the exposed parts of his skin. But as Nicolo parried, slicing the air in front of him, dodging pretend blows, the sharp pricks on his skin went unnoticed.

The Church taught him to pray, taught him to fight, taught him what he thought was right. And then they put him on a ship, towards a land that was not theirs and told him to do some good.

A swing faltered. Nicolo dug his heels into the frost crusted dirt before he fell into the stream.

The stream to his left moved sluggishly, slowed by the fist-sized chunks of ice. Nicolo knew winter was cruel to trees and water. When he was in the monastery, he once overheard of a land up North that was covered in ice after days of snow.

Crops died, animals died, people died. No prayer or sword would have saved them.

Nicolo’s longsword whistled high pitched as he raised his sword overhead and swung it down.

It was harder to make bricks with the sun scarce in the winter. The days were no longer as hot or as long. The village built what they could, but soon there will not be enough to rebuild what they lost. The cold would finish what Hedi’s men had strive to do when they attacked.

Nicolo’s sword struck a rock along the stream’s edge. The impact vibrated up to Nicolo’s elbow. There was a crack. He felt something shift wrong in his right hand and his wrist burned. He did not drop his sword, though.

A few of the chickens and goats perished in the attack. Those who survived were too old or too young to provide a steady source of milk or eggs.

His sword tip went across the stream’s surface. Its wake flew up in a curtain of water that caught the reds and golds of a day starting its change to night.

A day has gone by. How many houses were done today? Was Yusuf able to tell the villagers the suffering to follow as the days grew shorter and colder?

Water rose up under his sword’s sharp swing again, drenching Nicolo as drops fell back into the stream, but he already felt numb long before the water. He shook his head dry of water. He stared blankly at the stream. Ice floundered in the water.

Did ice float to the mill’s stream as well? Would they be able to grind the grains into flour and meal? Fish was still plentiful, but will it remain so in another month? Nicolo’s nets were not as full. Yusuf’s traps have been empty the past week.

There was enough food in the jars to keep him and Yusuf fed until spring. There was not enough to feed the village, though. Why did he not think to preserve more?

The wind whistled as Nicolo twisted, his torso turning, his sword slashing. It caught light as Nicolo held it high.

Jamir, the mill owner’s youngest son lost his right foot in the attack. The young man clung to Izem as the village butcher sawed the mangled foot off. He did not cry. Izem told Jamir he was very brave. But Nicolo feared the boy would not survive the month. They had already buried his older brother last week even though Yusuf applied his family pumice on the sword wound across his back. The fever from the injury took Shamul away.

An arrow had pierced Nicolo’s navel. No one saw and his wounds healed within minutes.

Shirif still grieved for her mother. She stayed with the baker, silently crying as she ground the flour to make meal for everyone.

Yusuf died. But then he was back by Nicolo’s side in battle before Nicolo worried too long.

Steel sang as Nicolo pulled the sword downwards into a death blow.

With a clear clang, a curved blade met Nicolo’s sword.

Nicolo lifted his eyes and found silent brown ones.

Yusuf nodded, just once, and took a step back.

Nicolo nodded as well. And then charged.

Longsword and scimitar struck with a ringing sound that hurt Nicolo’s ears. The edges whined as they slid away from each other, blades briefly making music until they jumped apart.

The next blow was lower, both caught in a downward arc. Yusuf grimaced. He must have felt the same twinge Nicolo felt on impact. But Yusuf only shook his left hand, switched his grip on the blade to his right hand. He feinted to the left, his eyes narrowing when he saw Nicolo was not fooled.

Nicolo made for the right, jerked left and then surged forward to the right anyway.

But Yusuf was waiting. Because he has seen this move before: in front of crumbling city walls, standing on blood drenched desert sands.

Sword and blade met halfway, so sharp, Nicolo was surprised there were no sparks. Their blades slid against each other again, a thin note of metal on metal as Yusuf and Nicolo leapt back.

Breathing hard, Nicolo stared across to Yusuf. He was short of reaching distance, but close enough to realize sometime during their exchange, his sword found a way past Yusuf’s defenses. A pink tinged rip marred the hem of Yusuf’s gray tunic. The edge hung half way onto Yusuf’s shirt, dangling over the jut of his pelvis. Smooth toned brown skin peeked through. The skin was stained with drying blood.

Nicolo opened his mouth to apologize when Yusuf tipped his head, his eyes downwards. Nicolo blinked at the blood stained rent around his left knee and went up the side of his hip.

Yusuf made a sheepish face, shrugging, but did not speak. He tracked Nicolo as Nicolo circled around, his longsword held loosely in his double grip.

With wordless agreement, they charged again.

Their swords clashed once more. They sounded louder, sharper in the cold air. Nicolo felt the breeze of a blade zipping past his ear. There was a moment when he was tempted to lean into the blow. He wanted to see if it still hurt like he remembered it.

That stray thought startled Nicolo. He froze, suddenly unsure, missing the flash of panic on Yusuf’s face as his scimitar sailed towards him.

Nicolo roused in time. He dropped into a crouch, but not before the tip of the scimitar pierced the inside of his right elbow.

It hurt, but as soon as Nicolo glanced down the wound closed over. He thought he saw bone. He smelled his own blood. But just like that, he healed.

A weight seemed to slam over Nicolo. How easy he was spared. His immortality shield him from lasting pain. Yet people with tear-stained faces, living in broken houses were still able to rejoice they lived.

Nicolo staggered to his feet, shaking his head at the furrow on Yusuf’s brow.

Some of Hedi’s men escaped. Did they abandon their violent thirst? Did they return to destroying? Were they out there now burning homes and stealing lives? Was a faraway archer cutting down defenseless souls from a distance?

What good was his gift if the fragile lives around him still suffered?

Nicolo’s sword dropped to the ground.

Yusuf stilled. He held his scimitar loosely like it was an afterthought. He studied Nicolo from across the small patch of land. The fig trees were to his back. The stream was behind Nicolo.

Nicolo sighed. He lowered his eyes to the ground, to his sword. There was a growing knot in his chest he could not breathe or speak around.

“I know.”

Nicolo lifted his eyes. Yusuf smiled tiredly at Nicolo.

“While I drew the maps, I realized how much of the village had fallen. I thought to myself, ‘Here I am, unscarred and healthy’ as I drew a map that was empty of so many homes. I did not realize until now the spice trader. Bahr? His home burned to the ground with him in it. Only his wife and son remained. Yet they were overjoyed to find the trader’s small pestle and mill among the ashes.”

Yusuf exhaled. He wiped his bloodied blade on the yellowing and frost covered grass.

“I wept on my ride home. The beast was not pleased I left tears on its mane and would not move another step until I stop.”

Nicolo should say something. He should offer the comforting words Yusuf always offered him.

“Hobi,” Yusuf rasped. “I understand.” He slipped the scimitar back into its sheath strapped across his shoulders. “I have not felt ashamed of my immortality like this before.”

Nicolo stared down at the ground again. The lump in his chest pushed up to his throat.

The grass crunched and snapped under Yusuf’s boots as he drew closer.

“My heart,” Yusuf murmured as he drew Nicolo into the warm, affirming circle of his embrace.

Nicolo closed his eyes. He gulped. He still could not speak. They stood there in silence.

Yusuf’s beard brushed against Nicolo’s jaw.

“Nicolo. My Nicolo. Let us go back inside. I will later weep for the both of us. But for now, inside. Your skin is like ice. Inside and we will talk. Yea?”

Nicolo dropped his head into the curve of Yusuf’s shoulder. He nodded.

---------------

You guys are awesome. Thank you for your patience. I really needed that week. RL, school and work couldn't pause. Sadly, the one thing I didn't want to pause was this. But I needed the breather more than I realized. Thank you. Thank you!

Yusuf's turn tomorrow and then our last part. Sigh. But I have ideas! Hmmm....LOL