“Beg pardon,” Methodios said.

  Drawn from dreams of fleeing for his life, Alexios opened his eyes. All was dark save for the wax taper Methodios held in one hand, the other hand protecting the leaping flame from the wind. Orange light flickered over the dormitory walls, touching the darkness between the bricks and in the archimandrite’s wrinkled face, in his enormous eyes—shaped like rhombuses—and his huge hooked nose, his glittering beard to end all beards.

  Something wooden was also rattling outside. Alexios realized it was a semantron.

  Prayer time.

  Alexios’s burning eyelids had closed by themselves, and he had turned over on his mat—uncomfortable, but better than sleeping on roots and rocks, under stars and tree branches—and his consciousness was flying apart when Methodios cleared his throat. Once more, Alexios opened his eyes. This time he saw Basil and Kassia sleeping beside him under their blankets on their mats, their eyes closed, breathing softly, warm and snug.

  They look like angels, Isato had said. But where was she?

  “It’s supper,” Methodios said. “The last meal of the day. I thought you’d like to join us. Otherwise we can’t feed you until morning.”

  “Yeah.” Alexios sat up, blinking heavily. His mouth tasted of old wine; his forehead pounded faintly. “Just—where’s Isato?”

  “Your friend is still sleeping in the infirmary,” Methodios said. “We thought it wiser to let her rest.”

  “Sounds good,” Alexios said. “I’d like to see her.”

  “Later, later,” Methodios said. “After supper. There is precious little time.”

  “Like always,” Alexios said.

  He woke the kids. It was always a struggle to get Basil up, while Kassia often rose on her own, sometimes before everyone else. Together with Methodios they crossed the courtyard to the refectory. Methodios stopped just before the door.

  “I must tell you, in case you do not know,” he whispered. “No talking at meal times, not even whispering. Make a sign with your hands if you need something.”

  His three guests nodded and blinked. They were all so tired, they looked dead. Even the children, both of whom were chatterboxes, seemed like they would have little trouble keeping quiet.

  Methodios smiled. “It is the Day of Judgment. The dead are risen, and have come to be judged according to the Book of Life.”

  “What?” Kassia said.

  “Never mind, my dear,” Methodios said. “Now come!”

  Inside the refectory, they found dozens of the brothers—men of all ages, even some children—sitting at the table. Alexios noticed how the men were mostly overweight or even obese, a rarity in the Middle Ages. One man at the table’s head was standing over a lectern and reading aloud from a religious text, his voice caught by the room’s stone acoustics.

  “Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night,” the monk read. “Nor for the arrow that flieth by day.”

  Odd coincidence.

  As the man read on, Alexios thought of fleeing through the night, and the arrow that had struck Isato. He wanted to leave the refectory and check on her. But “later, later,” Methodios had said.

  Even though everyone was forbidden to speak, they made up for the monastic silence by chomping with their mouths open, and guzzling their wine and soup like they were competing over who could do so at the highest volume. They also burped and farted rhythmically, as though directed by a musical conductor.

  Monks, Alexios thought. They mostly come from wealthier families, don’t they? Evidently money still can’t buy class…

  Only three candles burned in the refectory: one on the lectern for the reader, one in the table’s center, and one in Methodios’s hand. Alexios recalled, from his Workers’ Council days, how much labor was required to make a single candle. Until then, he had never known how expensive they were, especially without modern chemicals or machinery. The wax alone needed to be collected from bees’ honeycombs.

  The dim lighting made the refectory moody, cinematic, dark. It also made Alexios think of an old Toots and the Maytals song. In his nervousness at interrupting the meal, he blasted the song at maximum volume and highest fidelity in the concert hall of his mind:

  You can’t play in the dark, brother, oh you can’t play in the dark!

  Yet as he looked at the monks gobbling up their dinners, sipping their wine, and wiping the crumbs and droplets from their beards, he concluded that Toots was wrong. The brothers could, in fact, play in the dark.

  He recalled that the song was called ‘African Doctor.’ This made Alexios wonder how Za-Ilmaknun was doing back in Trebizond. The man wasn’t just an herbalist, an exorcist, or a warrior who sometimes smashed people’s faces with his rainbow-colored walking stick wrought of strongest acacia wood. No, he had many talents. During more than one difficult pregnancy delivery in Trebizond, Za-Ilmaknun had performed successful c-sections—disinfecting knife and belly with wine, shouting a prayer to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and then slicing the belly open and pulling the baby from the womb. Every time he did this, the mothers and the babies had not only survived, but thrived, a feat unheard of outside Afrika. Surprised at how this impressed the Trapezuntines, Za-Ilmaknun maintained that the procedure was commonplace among the Aethiopian highlands, plagued as they were by elephant infestations and other troubles. Even farther south, he said, among the great lakes that fed the Nile, witch doctors performed successful c-sections all the time. Alexios still thought this amazing, especially when one considered how many people died in childbirth in the medieval period, and how dangerous childbirth could be even in the old world, especially for the poor.

  Methodios brought his guests to the end of the table closest to the refectory entrance, where several monks moved over to make room. The archimandrite served the three guests their food and wine. Although Alexios forced himself to eat—he was still full from their late lunch—the two children stared at their meals, their eyes fluttering as they listed forward. Alexios nudged them.

  “We can head straight back to bed once everyone’s finished,” he whispered into Basil’s ear—so silent that Alexios himself was unable to hear his own words.

  “No talking,” the monk next to him growled.

  Alexios bowed, then mouthed the word: “Sorry.”

  The angry monk beside him resumed eating. At the table’s head, the reader kept reading as though nothing had happened.

  “When the wicked spring as the grass.” He glanced up at Alexios. “And when all the workers of iniquity do flourish; it is that they shall be destroyed for ever!”

  Many other monks also looked with disapproval at the guests. Alexios kept his eyes down.

  Sorry!

  The food was just as amazing as at lunch—the midday meal they called “dinner”—so much so that Alexios soon found himself eating as loudly as the monks. It took effort to keep from groaning with delight at the fresh vegetables, the hot soft bread that steamed when he pulled it apart, the luscious wine that had been growing here since cavemen had realized that when you gathered grapes, and they sat around for a few days in a container of some sort, if you drank the medicinal-tasting juice, you could make yourself feel either dizzy and silly, or dizzy and angry, depending on the person.

  Is all medieval food like this? Alexios wondered. Because it’s made with love, instead of for money? Still some things I miss from the old world. No coffee, tomatoes, potatoes, chili peppers. No corn, no tortillas, no avocados. No Mexican food, no Chinese food, no Indian food. Sugar and spice and everything nice is rare. Even salt is expensive. Amazing to think that something so common from where I come from, people barely notice it, is expensive enough in the Middle Ages to fight wars over. We can make enough of everything everyone needs. Make so much that money becomes meaningless, monetary exchange unnecessary. But that’s so far in the future. I feel like Moses on the mountaintop, looking out over at the Promised Land and knowing that he’ll never get there—but that his children might.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Soon the meal was over. It only lasted as long as it took the reader to finish a few chapters in the Book of Psalms, and he had already started when the guests first arrived. When the reader closed his thick gigantic tome with a loud thump, the monks stood and brought their dishes—a single cup, plate, bowl, and spoon for each—to the kitchen. The four novices washing dishes there were different from the two he’d seen earlier in the afternoon. One scrubbed dishes in a wooden tub filled with water; another took these dishes and rinsed them; a third dried them with a towel; a fourth put them away.

  Division of labor. A forerunner of things to come. One of many horsemen of the feudal apocalypse.

  Not for the last time Alexios reflected that the monks did things here in a way similar to back in Trebizond, taking turns dealing with annoying chores.

  Basil and Kassia, in the mean time, had barely eaten. Alexios was going to be furious if they whined that they were hungry before breakfast—was it called matins, here?

  Before prime, the first daylight hour.

  Having dropped off their dishes, the brothers rushed off to church, jogging at a decent speed across the courtyard in an amusing yet endearing manner. They were productive. Industrious.

  Look at the monks! Run, monks, run!

  Alexios brought the children back to bed, tucked them in, kissed them goodnight, told them he loved them. Kassia asked him to stay until she fell asleep. Nodding, he lay on his own mat beside them, waited only minutes before their breathing became slow and regular, and then, when he felt more awake, he decided to see what the monks were up to. Partly he expected to just see some boring prayer, and maybe hear some decent choral singing, but he also recognized that wherever he went in this world, he always ran into trouble. If he stayed here, there would be trouble. If he went out, there would be trouble. Alaverdi Monastery had been too easy so far. He was waiting to discover that the monks were actually cannibals or demons. The church floor was going to explode and a worm the size of a subway was going to roll around and smash everything and eat everyone. And how did this worm get here? How did it survive or procreate? Was it possible to find a peaceful solution to the disagreement with this gigantic worm? What did it matter?

  I’ve been in the game too long, he thought. Need to get back to the good old fashioned horror of quotidian existence. The psychopathology of everyday life.

  Yet he found something unexpected in the church. Pews, like bells, were a technological innovation from the far future. They would only become commonplace in churches in a few centuries. This meant that Alexios found the monks standing before the altar, their heads bowed, their hands kept together and open as though they were each holding an invisible book. One monk sitting on a stool before a pipe organ was pounding the keys like an early rock and roller, and everyone else in the church was bellowing hymns with real operatic verve.

  No sex when you’re a monk, Alexios thought, as he found himself shaking his thighs to the music. All that libidinous energy needs to go somewhere.

  Georgia—Arran—Iberia—wherever they were, whatever this place was called—was also near the Middle East and Afrika, the lands where Western music began. Alexios recalled Methodios mentioning earlier—during his argument with Adarnase—that Alaverdi had been founded by an Assyrian monk named Yoseb. He must have walked for hundreds of miles to get here…

  Alexios winced at the memory of the journey from Trebizond to Harran, across the frigid Armenian highlands, then the cold Assryian desert. This Yoseb character had probably followed a similar path.

  Just a hop, skip, and a jump. Only a few weeks of walking barren landscapes which don’t have any trees or wildlife. Like Mars but with oxygen.

  Alexios found it difficult to believe that he had survived the journey. But here he was.

  Some monks had noticed him standing just outside the doorway, though the church interior was lit by the same three candles they had used in the refectory. In fact, the monks had been using the candles for so long that the flames were now burning down to the bronze holders, spitting droplets of gleaming molten wax. The church darkened, but the monks kept singing and sometimes glancing at Alexios. Their song kept repeating the words “Kyrie Eleison,” which meant “Lord have mercy” in Roman. It was funny how this ancient language was so ordinary here. If you traveled a thousand miles west, it became a precious prestige tongue. Rumor had it that even the most educated barbarians living in Romanía’s lost western provinces were unable to read Homer, let alone find copies of Homer to read.

  What, truly, is barbarism, if not the inability to read Homer in the original?

  When the monks had finished singing, half seemed to be waiting for something, while the other half bowed to Archimandrite Methodios and walked toward the doorway. Alexios stepped aside.

  “Brothers,” one monk said. This was the one who had earlier growled for Alexios to be quiet. He was, like the others, on the heavier side, neither old nor young, capped and clothed in black, with a big gray beard, and a face that would have looked ordinary anywhere around the Mediterranean.

  “Forgive me,” the angry monk continued. “I have held my peace too long. But there is something we must discuss. These guests Archimandrite Methodios has welcomed to our home endanger us all.”

  The monks who had been walking to the doorway stopped and heaved their shoulders. Some even looked at the ceiling and murmured prayers. Alexios was unable to catch what they said. It probably went something like: just please, god, let me get the hell out of here so I can sleep!

  Everyone looked at the angry monk, who pointed at Alexios.

  “They must leave before the riders return!” the angry monk exclaimed. “They must leave at dawn!”

  The crowd of monks who had initially remained in the church clapped and nodded their assent. The others, who had wanted to leave, sighed, frowned, shook their heads.

  “Brother Kyril,” Methodios said, addressing the angry monk. “I must protest. It would violate the time-honored tradition—stretching back to ancient days—of welcoming all who request our aid, regardless of consequence. It is not our place to judge.”

  “But it is our place to live, archimandrite,” Brother Kyril said. “I saw the one who called himself Prince Adarnase of Tao, and heard his words. We have heard also from local peasants that Tiflis city burned to the ground only days ago—just before these mysterious strangers arrived at our gates, pleading for aid. What if this Prince Adarnase really is so crazed for revenge that he will burn an ancient monastery like our very own Alaverdi, and kill everyone within, as he threatened? How many churches and monasteries have already suffered this fate in Tiflis? The man seems demon-possessed—he cares nothing for how the church will act when it learns of these terrible threats!”

  Methodios nodded. “It is possible that he will do as you say.”

  Kyril’s tone intensified. “How then shall we defend ourselves? We have no weapons—only walls, and a barred gate!”

  “We will keep the gate closed,” Methodios said. “And trust in Holy God with all our hearts.”

  Kyril scoffed. “Forgive me, archimandrite. You have always been kind to me—you have always been kind to all of us, truly the best of fathers, there is nothing you have ever denied us when we have asked it of you—but I fear your kindness will lead to your downfall. There is no need to be kind to those who obsess over our destruction!”

  “What would you have me do?” Methodios said, growing angrier. “Should we take up arms? Should we have old men who have never held a sword in their lives fight these hardened warriors tomorrow?”

  Kyril nodded to Alexios. “We must turn them out, apologize to Adarnase, and ask what needs be done to restore his confidence in us.”

  Methodios shook his head. “We cannot. Not to our guests, not to anyone. It would stain this sacred place with sin. We are men of God, Brother Kyril. We cannot pick and choose whom we help. Anyone who cries at our doors is welcome to stay for as long as they please. For is it not said in the Book of Peter: ’Use hospitality one to another without grudging.’ The monastery is an island of holiness in a sea of sin—”

  “Enough!” Kyril said. “They abuse our hospitality. It will be our end.” He turned to the other monks. “Brothers, let us choose. Should we turn out our guests, or—”

  “This choice is not yours to make!” Methodios cried, holding up his arms to quell the unrest among the monks. “Authority has not been given to you to deny the will of God—”

  “But we can defy your will!” Kyril roared. “I don’t need to be slaughtered like a pig on a spit tomorrow morning just to protect a bunch of criminals who have already dedicated their lives to the church’s destruction! Oh yes, we all know what they have done in Trebizond!”

  By now everyone was yelling at everyone else. Some monks were screaming in each other’s faces and seemed ready to come to blows. Alexios raised his hands and shouted to get their attention.

  “We’ll go!” he yelled, as the noise died down, and the monks looked at him. “You don’t need to fight over it. You don’t need to vote or argue. We don’t want to cause you any trouble. We’re already grateful for the help you’ve provided us.”

  “Alexios, that’s a death sentence,” Methodios said. “Adarnase could come back with an army tomorrow, now that he knows where you are—”

  “We’ve been through worse,” Alexios said. “We can handle them.”

  “Forgive me, but you had trouble enough handling them yesterday,” Methodios said.

  “We were exhausted,” Alexios said. “But thanks to your help, we’ll be rested when we leave tomorrow. We can head to the mountains. We’ll be fine. And I’m sorry you got involved in all of this in the first place. It was none of your business.”

  “As your fellow men, it most certainly is our business,” Methodios said.

  “It’s nothing,” Alexios said, looking to Brother Kyril. “I promise we’ll be gone by dawn.”

  “You had better be,” Brother Kyril said. “Or we will make it thus.”

  Alexios nodded, left the church, and returned to the dormitory. He lay on his mat in the dark, unable to sleep, trying to avoid thinking about how angry he was at Kyril. Instead, he wondered about Isato and if the horses were ready to go. If they weren’t up to it, would the travelers even be able to leave in the morning?

  Here’s the true horror of Alaverdi Monastery: the monks don’t want to die for us.

  Though he disliked Kyril personally, Alexios couldn’t help agreeing with him. Methodios was indeed too kind, and Adarnase was too dangerous. Yet who was Kyril to make threats like that? “Or we will make it thus,” he had said.

  Give me a break, Alexios thought. I’d like to see him try. Kyril’s got a gray beard and a wine belly. Wouldn’t be a fair fight. Beating up an aging monk. Not exactly on my bucket list.

  He closed his eyes and tried to force himself to sleep. In a few hours, dawn’s rosy fingers would brush the sky, as Homer liked to say. By then the travelers would be riding to the mountains as though the spirit of death was gnawing at their heels.