Extraits

Chapter one

Jar of Honey

“I am here to redeem the lives of my wife and daughter. I’ve brought the offering.”

Those were the first words of Da-Ren, the man who would become my brother, hero, nightmare, savior, and my life’s only story. He knelt and offered me an earthenware jar. Only moments earlier, he had crashed through the main cedar gate of our monastery, hurling his body against it. He had the eyes of an infidel, one whom God had not allowed to sleep for many nights. No one like him had ever set foot on our remote island of Hieros in the middle of the sky-blue sea.

Many a disheartened soul had climbed the thirty-eight and thousand more steps that led to the Castlemonastery. They came proud and strong on fast-moving triremes; they came humble and desperate on wave-ravaged fishing boats. They moored their vessels, whether great or small, in the eastern harbor and ascended to seek mercy or plead for a miracle. Cure for the incurable. Resurrection. Eternal life. God’s kingdom is so often misinterpreted by the desperate.

Almost all descended the same steps one or two days later, some swiftly with wings of hope lifting their heels, others slowly with the look of a doom foretold in their eyes. And then there were those few who stayed at the monastery for a long time. They had found the strength to climb up but had lost what little was needed to climb down again.

On the day Da-Ren arrived, I was the novice monk in charge of the cleaning chores. I was airing the First Elder’s chamber to rid it of the stench of the linseed-oil-burning lamps. A flash of movement caught my eye, and I looked out of the window through the spider web clinging to the limestone wall and the wooden shutters. A penteconter was slicing through the calm blue waters like a giant serpent, approaching the harbor’s entrance. It was not a pirate ship; the swan carved on its stern was the mark of a merchant fifty-oared vessel.

A hide-clad man jumped into the sea with his boots still on before the ship was even moored. I clutched the wooden cross hanging around my neck. The man came ashore holding what looked like a jar with both hands above water, making his way across the razor-edged rocks. Biting my lower lip, I waited to see how many of his crewmates would follow. But none did. The man clambered over the salt-eaten stones without ever looking back.