Chapter 25
"Read it carefully, Arya. Do not miss a single word, because within this sheet lies the key we have been searching for."
Arya accepted the page with both hands, feeling the rough texture of the parchment against his fingertips, inhaling the distinct scent of fresh imperial ink.
His eyes began to trace line after line of writing, moving swiftly yet attentively, capturing every detail, every word, every punctuation mark that might conceal hidden meaning.
And the more he read, the higher his brows lifted, the tighter his breath became, the faster his heart pounded within his chest.
For there, written clearly in the same deep black ink as the other documents, was a fact that changed everything.
The similarity between the eighteenth victim and the previous ones, whether the first who died three months ago or the seventeenth found last week, was not merely a physical resemblance, nor a similarity of location, nor even of timing.
There were two similarities far deeper, far more significant, far more terrifying than all of that.
The first, every victim, without exception, held at least the rank of a crusader.
Not ordinary soldiers of the Byzantine Empire, not wealthy merchants who happened to carry weapons to protect their trade, not wanderers disguised as military men for safety on the roads.
They were true crusaders, warriors who had sworn before the popes to liberate the Holy Land, who had left families and possessions behind for the forgiveness of sins, who were to depart for Anatolia within days.
Eighteen crusaders, killed one by one over the span of months, and no one had managed to capture the perpetrator.
The second similarity was more dreadful, more mysterious, more unsettling to Arya than the first.
All the victims, without exception, were fully aware of the rumors concerning the Mireland.
They knew about that region in Central Anatolia, knew about the dozens of pilgrims and merchants who had vanished without a trace after stopping there, knew about the decrees of village elders forbidding anyone to approach it.
Yet all of them, with the same conviction, the same arrogance, the same foolishness, chose denial.
They believed that the Mireland, known for swallowing those who passed through it, was nothing more than a fabrication, stories deliberately spread by locals to frighten outsiders, or ancient superstition unworthy of warriors whose sins had been absolved by the Church.
Eighteen crusaders, eighteen men who knew of the danger in the Mireland, eighteen who chose not to believe, and eighteen who now lay dead with strange rashes covering their bodies.
Inside the enclosed carriage, now swaying gently as the horses slowed, Arya sat hunched before the stack of documents Nirma had just given him.
His eyes moved slowly, reading word by word on each parchment with near-ritual precision, like a monk studying sacred scripture in the silence of a monastery.
His fingers, rough from years of wielding weapons, now moved gently across the surface of the pages, tracing each line, pausing at unfamiliar names, at dates that might carry meaning, at locations that could serve as clues.
Sometimes his brow furrowed, sometimes his eyebrows rose, sometimes his lips moved silently, repeating certain words as if attempting to absorb their meaning more deeply.
He paid no attention to the passing time, nor to the subtle jolts of the carriage crossing uneven stone roads, nor to the growing noise outside.
In his mind existed only eighteen names, eighteen lives, eighteen crusaders who had died in the same manner and carried the same secret within their chests.
While Arya immersed himself in the documents, Nirma chose to do something different.
From the deepest fold of her stole, she withdrew a small sheet of paper, far smaller than the official parchments provided by the palace guards.
The paper was pale white with a smooth texture impossible to find in the year 1101, as such paper could only be produced with twenty-first-century technology.
In her other hand, a pen filled with metallic blue ink emerged from its hiding place, the same pen she had used hours earlier in the silent stone house.
With swift yet careful movements, Nirma began to write, forming short sentences whose meaning only she fully understood.
Her hand moved across the small sheet with impressive speed, capturing every idea that crossed her mind, every connection she discovered among scattered facts, every question left unanswered by the official documents Arya was now reading.
Then, after writing several lines, her hand stopped.
The metallic blue pen hovered above the page for a moment, as if contemplating whether the next words deserved to be immortalized upon paper destined to last only days.
Then, with deliberate motion, Nirma began to write a long sentence, which she circled repeatedly until the loops nearly tore the thin sheet.
"Emperor Alexios I Komnenos and the Prefect of the Byzantine City, Manuel Botaneiates.
Where were they during the murders, and what connection exists between the victims and these two names?"
The sentence shone faintly in metallic blue ink beneath the small oil lamp hanging from the carriage wall, gleaming like a cat's eye in darkness, like a sign that this was the most crucial question they must answer if they wished to solve the mystery of eighteen murdered crusaders.
Nirma stared at the sentence for a long time, her single eye narrowing, and within her mind the murmur began to spin once more, repeating the same inquiry again and again.
Why were the two most powerful names in Constantinople not mentioned at all in the official documents?
Why was there no record of their alibis during the times the murders occurred?
Why was there no inquiry into their possible connections with the victims, connections that might serve as motive behind months of unsolved deaths?
The swaying of the carriage lessened, the horses' gallop turning into short steps signaling they were nearly stopped.
The sounds from outside grew clearer, rough Greek voices in conversation, the crash of breaking glasses followed by loud laughter, the plucking of a lyre accompanied by drunken singing.
Nirma quickly folded the small sheet, concealing it once more in the deepest fold of her stole, then looked at Arya who was still absorbed in reading.
She did not interrupt, did not question, merely sat in silence waiting, for she knew Arya needed time to process all this information just as she herself needed time to shape the right questions.
BANG!!
The carriage came to a complete stop with a slight jolt that made the oil lamp sway and shadows dance across the purple silk walls.
A few seconds later, a gentle knock sounded upon the carriage door, the kind of knock made only by someone accustomed to showing respect to passengers of an elite carriage.
To be continued…