Chapter Text
Strateburgus
3 Shawwal, 493 AH
17th of August, 1100 AD
Nicolò woke. The dream had come again.
The women lay together in the pleasant open air, in repose, but not sleeping. The tall one with her arm around her lover, her thumb stroking absently between the small one’s breasts as they talked. Serene, untroubled. Their conversation was inconsequential, but it was, finally, understandable; as in other dreams of the past few weeks, the women spoke in Latin.
Within the cloistered dark confines of the room they had taken for the night, Yusuf pulled Nicolò closer, using the arm that always encircled him while they slept, the shield that kept his nightmares now so firmly at bay. He sighed contentedly as he scented at the back of Nicolò’s neck, and if the rhythm he struck up with his thumb at Nicolò’s chest was a deliberate mirror of the dream, or completely subconscious, Nicolò could not guess.
“They are still coming back to the north?” Nicolò wondered, barely a question. Behind him, he felt Yusuf nod.
“You could see it in the sky; the angle of the light, and the shadow,” Yusuf stated, unequivocal, and Nicolò had absolutely no reason to doubt his assertion.
“They must be close,” Nicolò mused, and Yusuf nodded again.
“Shall we go out to meet them?” he asked, mildness in his tone, as if there were nothing momentous in the suggestion. Nicolò smiled, and raised Yusuf’s hand to his lips in order to leave a kiss in his palm.
“Yes, my love. Let us find them today.”
If today was an ambitious hope, it was not foolishly declared; the hope had been building for over a month now. It was the women’s decision to switch to Latin when they were alone together that had sparked the first optimistic ember, as Nicolò and Yusuf had agreed in interpreting the change as evidence that the women also dreamed of them, and that the choice of language marked their imminent expectation of convergence. At the time, Nicolò was willing to privately consider it wishful thinking from both of them, and not necessarily indicative even if it was comforting to call it that. It was just the wear of travel on their minds, the constant pattern of dreams and interpretations and ideas that—while exciting in the moment—often turned out to be false starts, and rarely changed the trajectory of their journey to anything more definite. However, confirmation of their Sign had come soon after: innocuously, twenty days ago, they had approached a simple arched stone bridge in the fertile green countryside, and Yusuf had startled and grasped frantically at Nicolò’s side.
Look at that! Nicolò, do you see it?!
Nicolò had been confused at first—he did not have Yusuf’s magnificent recall—but as Yusuf had stooped to search the parchment from his pack, the realisation had dawned for Nicolò as well. Two dreams prior, Yusuf had rendered—with characteristic attention to detail—that exact bridge. They had whooped and laughed to be so near, at last (and Nicolò had discreetly wiped at his eyes, though there was no point trying to hide such a thing from his Yusuf’s sharp gaze), and—after apologising to Agathe for the noise—they had continued on in bright spirits, anticipating their next dream with a true eagerness hitherto unknown to them. There had been some difficulty since they did not already know the region, and they had passed through Strateburgus only to loop around and backtrack after seeing the women do the same. Using Yusuf’s drawings, they had found the inn where the women had stayed only four days before them, and for a steep price the innkeeper had shared all that he knew of where these eye-catching patrons had gone, in which direction, and upon which road. Thus it was that Nicolò di Genoa and Yusuf al-Kaysani went to their morning prayers with a hope—or more than that, perhaps, with a belief—that on this day they would join their quarry on the Path, and their quest would reach its fabled end.
They were slower now, without poor Firdaus; Yusuf had refused to replace her, and so they had gone on with Agathe acting as a pack mule, while Nicolò walked at Yusuf’s side. It was one of the several ways in which Yusuf’s experiences in that cottage in the woods had continued to travel with him. At first, he had lapsed into a stoic quietude akin to those early days after al-Quds, and he still harboured a tendency to be caught staring off into the distance, absorbed completely by untold memories, even though—true to reliable form—he also never ceased to strike out ahead, to take charge, to be perfectly self-assured in all things as he insisted that he was alright. He had admitted nothing of the torture he had endured, and Nicolò had taught himself to be at peace with that; he knew well enough, what it was to be haunted by things. When Yusuf was ready to say it, no matter how long that took, Nicolò would be there to hear him. To be the support that let his steadfast love know that it was safe to crumble, to relieve his constant tension, to let his grief be felt. To help him smile with ease, at last. His breathtaking, volatile, remarkable Yusuf.
One day, many years from now, they would have distance enough for the traumas of their beginning to wield no power, and they would both be able to look back and remember this time generously. To see the messy, broken past they had sprung from, and the decisions they had made: answering transgression with forgiveness, difference with respect, and agonies, always, with kindness. Age would mellow their anxieties, and they would laugh to recollect their old doubts, their ancient selves. With the wisdom of hindsight they could reflect upon the careful foundations they had carved from adversity, an undertaking in acts large and small which ultimately allowed them to build their monumental devotion to one another, to survive for all of time. They were so young, still, and they would have so much more life than they could yet fathom, to make sense of this intricate blessing they had been bestowed. From the corner of his eye, Nicolò could see it already; he saw his vast, incredible future, and all the brightness that would win out over the dark. Clearer and better than anything, he saw Yusuf.
With a comfortable nonchalance as the morning unfolded, they left their inn, they collected Agathe, they resupplied at market, and finally they left the city behind. Though it could be argued that it would be more sensible to remain in Strateburgus and wait for the women to come to them, they did not deign to consider it; in due course Nicolò and Yusuf took their buoyant trust out into the seclusion of the sprawling landscape, to face this thing directly—if indeed it was to come today—without the complications that random townspeople entailed. How exactly it might happen, Nicolò did not try to contemplate; he enjoyed this time while he could, these last simple hours before it might all change, however that turned out. Just a blink of an eye, this would be, one day. Barely the space of a breath in their eternity.
Nicolò was not worried; he was not afraid of how things might change, and not only for his perfect faith in being able to weather it all with Yusuf at his side. Among their interpretations of the women across their many dreams, a theory had developed: the reason the women travelled as they did, it seemed, was that they had also set themselves a task of altruism, lending their unique and impressive abilities to whomever they encountered in need. Though Yusuf would say that Nicolò need not endlessly atone for al-Quds, Nicolò’s penitent heart was far from ready to rest. He suspected that might prove to be one of the constants of his long and ever-changing life, as intrinsically a part of him as Yusuf was. Age might mellow the anxiety, yes, but Nicolò was still sure that Judgment would come at the end of it all. He was not worried; they would find their destined companions at last, and they would continue, together, seeking ways to achieve righteous good with the grand lives they had all been given. He would be able to hold his head high, when at last his final death had dawned. See what I did with the time I was given, Lord? Isn’t it beautiful?
“Do you think they will have answers?” Nicolò pondered, looking to Yusuf beside him as they walked, leading Agathe behind by her reins. “Might they be able to tell us at last, why we have been made this way?”
Yusuf—resplendent in the early morning sun—gave the question a perfunctory moment of consideration before he answered, as certain in his reasoning as ever:
“No. They will not have answers, but that will be alright. I do not have questions. We already know why we are this way, and we need not fear it.”
Nicolò smiled, and did not argue. He felt it also, as intangible, as inarticulable, and as true as anything that he knew. It was peace, and he feared nothing so long as he had it. Had him.
“Do you still wonder how long it will last?” he asked.
“You mean us?”
“I mean life.”
“The same thing,” Yusuf shrugged, as if that were not a wildly romantic thing to say. He looked to Nicolò, beautifully sincere, and made one of his irrefutable declarations: “To wonder would be ungrateful. However long it lasts, it is a gift, and I accept it.”
“I love you, Yusuf.”
“I love you. My Nicolò.”
They stopped early, well before midday, and they left the road so that they could settle dear Agathe to graze by the meandering riverside while Nicolò and Yusuf partook of a small meal from their freshly-bought supplies. Afterwards, Nicolò made gentle love to his man in the tall grass next to the water, and as he held Yusuf’s body and devoured his sighs he let all other thoughts slip away for a while. He was still what he had always been, and in these clandestine moments, nothing else mattered. They rested together as a tangle of limbs in the golden sunlight, beneath the towering alder trees, and let the grace in their hearts hold sway. Nicolò traced Yusuf’s features with his fingertips, and Yusuf lay still and watched him, without a word; in his magnificent gaze, there was poetry, and nothing needed to be said. They spent almost an hour that way, at perfect leisure, before Yusuf finally roused himself to action. He played out his loving ritual as he washed them both, and then he dressed and went to his midday prayers as Nicolò prepared Agathe, and they gathered themselves to continue on the path once more.
Just once more, like this.
When the sun had barely passed its height overhead, they stalled in the road, listening. Travelling on the windless air, there were voices, and after more than a year of hearing them, there was not the shadow of a doubt. They walked a little further, and the sound grew richer, just on the other side of the hill that sloped up from the road ahead. Despite all of the months that had gone by, and all of the distance travelled, and all of the revelations faced…suddenly it felt so easy. Nicolò looked to Yusuf next to him, and smiled wide.
“Are you ready, my love?” he asked.
Yusuf leaned in and left a lingering kiss at Nicolò’s lips; a perfect answer. Leading Agathe, they went together to stand at the crest of the hillside.
In the dell below them, the women had halted for a repast of their own, with their horses tethered nearby. The tall woman sat with her back turned, telling a story in Latin regarding some humorous centuries-old incident with a cartload of fruit. It was the small one who noticed Nicolò and Yusuf first, glancing their way as she swept her long dark hair back from her finely-crafted face; smiling in a way that was fond and familiar, she drew her companion’s attention. The women stood, completely calm, knowing. Their glad faces upturned to greet their brethren, they grinned brightly and linked hands with one another, raising that link between them in salutation, and understanding.
Nicolò felt for Yusuf’s hand beside him; he looked across, looked to Yusuf’s breathtaking, ageless visage. Eternity. Yusuf echoed his smile as he entwined his fingers with Nicolò’s, and a delighted laugh rose from him, beautiful, music to break the silence. Nicolò nodded, and let the thankful tears roll down his cheeks unhindered. They turned their eyes back in unison, to their mirrors, and raised their joined hands as well.
Well met, sisters. We are so happy to be here.
Without letting go, they began together into the dell, beneath the glowing embrace of the cloudless sky. The women watched, and waited, and there were no words necessary.