The Wolf and the Snake (English version)

Chapter 3

Bloodied and panting, I crawl miserably on the sand.

Can I still claim to belong to humanity?

No one in this world will believe this nightmare, not even Reyn. And when darkness engulfs me, I plunge with happiness into its beneficial rest.

Dreams become entangled.

An unknown woman sitting at the edge of a lake blazing under the sun's fire makes me big friendly signs; strange and tiny characters jump around her.

Suddenly, thunder rumbles, and lightning violently streak the sky. Night has fallen; the lake now looks like a dangerous, impetuous abyss. Before my eyes, wide with horror, a huge, roaring creature emerges from the waves.

Then Jerusalem.

The southern quarter where my childhood home was on a narrow street, framed by facades darkening it. I escaped the surveillance of Martha, my grandmother. Barefoot on the cobblestones made slippery by abrasion, heart pounding, breathless, I run straight ahead.

Then I stumble heavily, and my knees are bloody.

Under the shock, I close my eyes.

When I open them again, a man is staring at me. His pupils are as blue as Lake Tiberias, and he wears a red cross on his chest.

He's a Templar.

***

The dreams are gone, but I remain frozen in the border territories between life and death, without any idea of time or space. I can neither speak nor move my limbs; only my fingers hold those of the Templar when he pretends to leave.

The smell of death is persistent in this place where I'm fed and wiped. Impatient hands are constantly busy arranging the sheets and blankets around my body.

These are the Templar's hands.

I don't know from which atrocious battlefield I come back.

But I remember that I lost every battle.

As the days go by, I'm better.

So I realize, with superhuman efforts, I'm not a child.

I'm much too big.

I make pitiful grimaces to articulate some words. But tears flow from my eyes in front of the uselessness of my attempts.

The Templar's fingers dry them gently. "Everything will be fine," he murmurs.

One evening, I put a hand on his face to explore with my index finger the contours of his mouth and cheeks. Then my hand falls back, overcome by exhaustion, and I utter a name.

"Aurel?"

I think it's the Templar's name because he seems amazed at this slight progress. Some fragments of my life emerge from nothingness but are too imprecise to join them together.

People tried to get me up, in vain. I would have crashed to the ground if Aurel hadn't held me tightly. I could tell by his worried look that things weren't right. Then memories came flooding back, and Aurel kept me away from the dangerous waters just as he kept me from sprawling on the ground.

I leave the hospital in his arms, hanging on to his cloak. Then, following the physician's advice, Aurel asked a wheelwright to make a wooden chair with wheels.

But remaining crippled isn't engraved in my destiny at this moment. And instead, the physician keeps hoping my body's weakness will improve with good care, time, and patience.

Aurel rented a beautiful house in the Templar quarter, the largest in Acre, with a varied population that didn't only include knights or priests and their servants. He preferred to avoid the Genoese, Pisan, and Venetian quarters because of frequent quarrels between inhabitants.

The house is imposing, with large rooms and a vast interior courtyard garden where sycamores, carob trees, and fig trees flourish. Pearly white jasmines and sumptuous roses adorn some pretty pots abounding in Acre's markets.

I have a pleasant room furnished with a chair, a table, and several chests covered with precious fabrics. Sweet oriental perfumes are everywhere, even on my bed, where silk and delicate gold thread embroideries rustle under my fingers.

Two maids look after me when Aurel is away. They're not young anymore and are grateful to earn a good salary in a noble house. They're old, repentant prostitutes to whom a famous "abbess" refused room and board.

The poor women no longer attracted customers who preferred fresh, young damsels.

They help me to wash, dress and do my hair.

As experienced women, they admired the gowns that the young Templar offered to his unfortunate cousin, deprived of everything and disembarked almost naked on the beach in the Levant.

Aurel didn't hide from the Temple's Grand Master that he had come to the rescue of his family member, who had survived a terrible shipwreck. No one is shocked he gets to have meals with the poor girl since the house she lives in is close to the Templars' citadel.

This stronghold, along Acre's coast, is known as the strongest building in the city, with an entrance protected by two powerful towers whose walls are about twenty-eight feet thick. Aurel's fighting skills make him a valuable trainer for the novice knights and sergeants of the Order.

Renaut of Vichiers likes him very much and sees in him a future marshal; this is why he also allows him to sleep only every other night in the citadel.

Over the days, terrifying images have arisen from my memory.

In dark nightmares, I fall into the void with the certainty that I will crash on the rocks.

But a strange force pulled me towards the sea.

It was as if I was caught by something powerful and unknown.

A magical creature, perhaps?

My father used to say that people from all over the world liked to imagine there were extraordinary beings, secret inhabitants of mysterious forests, immense deserts, and deep waters. Thus elves, goblins, fairies, djinns, nymphs, and dryads would hide for centuries.

But according to Simon, only the innocent or foolish could believe in such nonsense.

In the dark abyss of my memories, I see this raging monster smashing everything that had the misfortune to stand in its way.

Ships and also men, women, and children, perhaps!

I'm not a survivor of a shipwreck.

I'm the cause of the shipwreck.

I'm a murderer; the blood staining me when I came out of the waters wasn't only mine.

In the dark abyss of my memories, a name returns with a cascading.

Reyn!

He shines brightly in the night, even more than the stars.

And my tears flood my face, dark worthless diamonds, false as this human appearance masking a repulsive monster.

But, Reyn, my beloved wolf, you aren't the monster.

Aurel was wrong.

I was wrong.

I'm the monster.

***