Novel 1984 - The Walking Drum (v5.0) by Louis L'Amour

Author:Louis L'Amour [L'Amour, Louis]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Usenet
Publisher: Bantam
Published: 1984-04-03T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 30

* * *

THE FRANCE TO which I returned was vastly different from Islamic Spain, and I learned to take no part in discussions, yet it went sore against me. We Bretons are inclined to silence, but, nonetheless, Celts have a love for argument. It was hard to be silent, but usually I was.

The universal lack of cleanliness, as well as the overbearing pride and ignorance of both nobles and churchmen, astonished me.

For all their effect on the Western world, the Greek thinkers, except for Aristotle, might never have lived. Of Muslim and Jewish thinkers and scientists nothing at all was known, and the practice of medicine was frightening.

During time past I had become accustomed to the easy give-and-take discussion in Córdoba, to the hot, lazy baths, and lighted, paved streets. Everywhere in Córdoba, Toledo, Seville, and Málaga there was wit, poetry, excited discussion of ideas.

Yet even in France I found a growing curiosity, a willingness to listen and a desire for learning among the young.

Here and there in the monasteries scholars such as Peter Abelard were thinking, writing, talking. They were few, and often in trouble, but their number was growing.

At long last, a month after our leave-taking in Brittany, I rejoined the caravan.

They were at Cambrai. Difficulties had arisen at Bruges and Lille, and those fairs had been avoided. Business had been good, and I returned to find our silk sold but for a few bolts and our money invested in the cloth of Flanders. We turned southeast to Châlons-sur-Marne, and six weeks later went on to St. Denis, near Paris.

It was at St. Denis that Safia said, suddenly, “Mathurin, I shall leave you here.”

She had been quiet since my return, and I knew she had problems she did not confide in me, nor did I question her. As long ago as Montauban she had received a message from her old associates, and now she would resume where she had left off.

“I shall miss you.”

Her eyes held mine. “Do you still wish to find your father?”

“More than anything.”

Her eyelids seemed to flutter a little, and I knew she knew more than she cared to tell me. “It would be better if you did not think of him again.”

“He is dead?”

“No, but he is beyond your reach. I fear for your life if you persist.”

“I have no choice.”

She was silent. We were in a small grove on the banks of the Seine. Tomorrow we would ride into Paris and say our good-byes there. We had been good friends, with mutual admiration and respect. She was a shrewd, intelligent woman, one of a network extending through the Islamic world, and there were several such, working for different ideals, different causes, and there was war between them, a war unseen, untalked of, but a vicious, deadly war nonetheless.

Finally, she asked, “Have you ever heard of the Old Man of the Mountain?”

“Of the Assassins? Yes, I know of them.”

“He has a fortress high in the mountains, beyond the Caspian Sea. There are several castles, as a matter of fact, but only one concerns you.

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