by Dave Duncan
King Richard, we were informed, was presently in the far south of the Holy Land. As yet, he had made no attempt to take Jerusalem.
Master Onfroi had brought some cargo that he was anxious to unload now, but again Archdeacon John produced a large bribe and persuaded the master to take us south to where the army was encamped, at Ascalon. Reluctantly, Onfroi embarked a local pilot and set sail again.
We made a brief stop at Acre, so Lars and I disembarked for a hurried inspection of the battered little town. In my vision of the siege I had seen it only from landward, not inside the walls. The damage from the long battle was still very evident, with hardly a building not bearing scars inflicted by the diabolic blizzard of rocks hurled at it by the Christian catapults. When we returned to the inner harbor, we were hailed by a tallish, deeply tanned man in his forties.
“Lars!” followed by an even more surprised, “Baron Durwin!”
We turned and together exclaimed, “Maur!”
Maur son of Marc was the Oxford sage I had assigned to lead our crusader contingent. He was a brilliant healer and a fine organizer, but in two years he had acquired a shocking stoop and streaks of gray in his beard. He had the haggard look of a man who sleeps poorly. “What are you doing here, my lord?”
He was carrying a bedroll and he was at the dock, so what was he doing there, instead of tending the army? And I wasn’t sure what I was doing anyway, so as we clasped hands, I countered with, “I might ask the same of you, Sage.”
“I am going home, my lord. There is nothing to be done here. Men are dying like moths in a campfire, but we healers are not allowed to do anything at all now. Only priests and mundane doctors are allowed to treat the sick, and they are useless. Fever and dysentery kill five times what the infidels do, yet enchantment is strictly forbidden.”
“God help us! It’s that bad?”
“Remember Ranulf de Glanville, who used to be justiciar? They buried him just three weeks after he stepped off the boat at Acre.”
Appalled, I said, “Well, we are on our way to see the king. You come with us and tell us all about it and we’ll see what we can do to put things right.” I took his arm. When he began to protest, Lars took his other arm, and we headed back to our ship with Maur between us.
The winds were so skittish that for the next two days we were rarely out of sight of the Holy Land, and it was not an attractive prospect. The coastal plains were generally fertile, but baked brown by the summer sun, not lush like England or France. The hills beyond were drab and dry, almost desert, although somewhere within them lay Jerusalem, sacred to Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Without that objective, Lars and I agreed, Outremer would hold no appeal at all.
Those two days were not wasted, though. Sage Maur was well informed on the war—after all, what else was news in the Holy Land?—so the Archdeacon and I, and even Lars, cross-examined him in great detail. The army, he said, was champing at the bit, frantic to head inland and free Jerusalem—that was what they had come for. Even the French barons were back in line, now that the squabble over who was to be king of Jerusalem had been settled. But Richard was intent on cutting the road to Egypt, or even invading that country, for it was Sultan Saladin’s main source of supply. I was not hopeful that I would be able to carry out my mission from Queen Eleanor to see the king safely home that year. It was already the end of May, and the Middle Sea became impassable about the end of September. Next year he might have no kingdom left to return to.
Of course, we asked about the death of King Conrad, and Maur’s account confirmed what the archdeacon had learned in Messina. News to us, though, was that the barons had later elected the young Count Henry of Champagne to be his successor. He had the virtue of being a nephew of King Richard as well as of King Philip, so he was acceptable to both factions in the Christian army.
“And who ordered the murder?” Lars asked, a question neither the archdeacon nor I had yet put.
Maur seemed strangely reluctant to answer, but eventually dropped his voice to a whisper and named the Hashshashin, followers of the Old Man of the Mountain. Killing with knives was their style. And why, Lars demanded, would this Old Man want the new king of Jerusalem killed? Nobody knew that, the sage insisted, and would not even name anyone who might have hired the killers. Two years in Outremer had wrought drastic changes in my old friend of Helmdon days.
The most troubling thing of all that we discussed during his long interrogation was the king’s ban on enchantment and the resulting disastrous state of the army’s health. I wondered if my main duty might be to see the army home, not just the king.
“It began when the kings arrived at Acre last year,” Maur said. “Many newcomers, including both kings, came down with a strange disease, which made their hair and fingernails fall out. King Richard had himself carried to the front on a litter and joined in the fighting by using a crossbow. He is reputed to be a crack shot with it. King Philip just stayed in bed. The doctors could find no cure except rest and patience. They prescribed fasting and bloodletting, of course, but those just weakened the patient, as usual. The king adamantly refused enchantment.”
None of which was news to me. “It sounds like the sailors’ sickness,” I suggested. “Did you try any of the enchantments for that?”
Maur shook his head, avoiding my eye. “Nobody had thought to bring any of those. Not us, not the French, not the various baronial healers . . . we had come to help an army, not a navy.”
“I brought one,” Lars muttered angrily.
Because of the Church’s ingrained suspicion that enchantment was unholy, the two kings had banned its use in the crusade. Some men accepted the sages’ help in secret, and those efforts were often successful, but the ban had remained. If flux or fever felled you, the medics would bleed you, priests pray over you, and a chain gang of prisoners bury you.
Around noon on the 29th of May, we were towed into the harbor at Ascalon, whose name was oddly familiar to me, although I could not recall where I had heard it. Its tiny harbor was jammed like a herring barrel with ships of all descriptions. Even flying Queen Eleanor’s banner, we had to wait while room was cleared for us. There was very little town to be seen, for Muslims and Christians had fought over Ascalon many times in the last hundred years. The army’s tents had replaced it, spreading far off out of sight, but everything was dominated now by the walls that King Richard was rebuilding, sprouting like a giant cancer, stronger and greater than before. No wall that Richard built was likely to fall down in the next strong wind.
“Ascalon is the gateway to Egypt,” Sage Maur had told us. “Saladin tore down the old battlements when he heard that a new crusade was coming. If the Templars, say, or the Knights Hospitaller, can hold Ascalon, they will split his realm in two, Egypt south and Syria north.”
“And Jerusalem?” Lars asked.
Maur pointed at the barren, dead hills. “Go forty miles inland. Don’t try it without an army.”
A little later, as Lars and I were leaning on the rail together, he said, “This is where you meet William.”
“William Who?”
“William Legier. My godfather. Don’t you remember? Three years ago, right after the great council at Pipewell, you told him you would see him again at Ascalon.”
“That may have been what William thought he heard, but I didn’t say that. I couldn’t have done. I’d never heard of Ascalon.”
“I was there, Father,” Lars said softly. “I heard it too.”
“Oh.” What else could I say? I looked back at the turmoil ashore and wondered why on earth William would have come to the Holy Land himself when he had promised the king he was going to send four sons in his stead.
The moment we docked, an earl and two deacons hurried up the gangplank to learn who aboard merited that flag. Archdeacon John was whisked off to meet with the king, but it took me a little longer to persuade a mere knight that I might indeed be a member of the English aristocracy, not just a minstrel. Lars and I were escorted to the barons
’ compound, where Earl Robert of Leicester, laughingly vouched for me. He ordered his chief squire to find us a tent—somewhere, anywhere, for space was at a premium.
The size of the crusaders’ camp was amazing—tents, horses, oxen, camels, mules, weapons, kitchens, stonemasons, builders’ yards, makeshift chapels, banners, bakeries, latrines, paddocks, armories, hospitals, wagons, stretched out in all directions, farther than the eye could see. Above all people, thousands of people. Even this enormous sprawl must have borders, though, which must be constantly patrolled and guarded against Saracen raids. All of this was the responsibility of one man! I marveled that even royal shoulders could carry such a burden.
“Durwin! I might have known! Durwin!”
I turned at the shout, but for a moment I did not recognize the crusader pushing his way through the crowd in our direction. It was William, of course, but his beard was more white than brown, and three years had aged him ten. I dropped my bag and gittern to accept his embrace.
“You foresaw this!” he muttered as we separated.
“Not truly. What brings you here, old friend?”
“Revenge.”
I recoiled from the torment in his eyes. “Not Absolon? He was such a—”
“All of them: Absolon, Baudouin, César, Dominique. I came to collect some dead Saracens in return, so their souls can find peace. And also,” he added fiercely, “so that their brothers do not come on the same mission. Their mother is close enough to insane already.” I mumbled something meaningless, as one does. What words could replace four stalwart sons? Then, “Where did it happen?”
“In Acre. They had barely set foot ashore when the fever got them. They never blooded a sword, not one of them. They lie in unmarked graves, but I swear I will see they are avenged.”
I looked to Sage Maur, for this horror tale confirmed what he had told us, and then at Lars, who was as white as a sunlit cloud. We are all aware of Death lurking in the far distance and we all pretend not to notice. He only becomes truly terrible when he comes close.
“Show us where you are billeted, William,” I said. “We have only just disembarked and need to find our way around.”
He laughed. “Come then. We’ll clear some corpses out of the way to make room for you.”
A little later I registered at the royal enclosure. I was informed that the king was in conference, which of course I could have guessed. I left word of where I could be found.
I did not try to spy on Alençon’s meeting with the king, but the whispers that sped around the camp were consistent. The astonished Richard had embraced his old friend and then taken him into his tent for private talk. Outside that tent only Lars and I knew why the archdeacon had come, or the substance of Queen Eleanor’s message, although many people could probably have made a shrewd guess. After the archdeacon had taken his leave, so it was said, the king sat alone in silence for a long while. That did not surprise me. He must now choose whether to stay in the Holy Land in fulfilment of his oath, or hurry home to defend his empire from the avarice and treachery of his brother and King Philip. Richard always trusted his mother’s judgment, and if she said the danger was acute, then he would believe her.
Confident that the court secretariat would be able to find me when I was summoned, I spent the next two days inspecting the hospital situation with Maur and Lars. It was appalling. As Maur had warned me and William now confirmed, disease was killing far more Christians than Saladin was. I did not interfere, because Richard was quite capable of marching me onto a ship and sending me home. Or of chaining me to a rock and dropping me into the harbor, for that matter.
Just as troubling was the state of the army’s morale. Less than half a year ago, the crusade had been within twelve miles of the Holy City it had come to rescue. Many men had ventured to high ground and actually seen it in the distance. Now summer had come, and they were back on the coast, mainly in Jaffa and Ascalon. The men wanted to head inland and finish what they had started. Richard disagreed. He knew the strength of Jerusalem’s defenses, knew that Saladin was pouring men into it, and knew that every man in his own army would consider his oath fulfilled the moment he stepped into the Holy City. Then they would all head for home like bees at sunset, and who would then man the ramparts against the inevitable Saracen retaliation? The king wanted to head south, invade Egypt, and thereby drag Saladin to the negotiating table. Alas, high strategy was too subtle for the rank and file. It was even beyond the understanding of most of the barons, and mutiny was brewing.
My summons came toward evening on the second day, as a welcome breeze off the sea began to soften the unbearable desert heat. The king’s tent was an elaborate complex, and he was seated on a plain chair in a sort of courtyard where he had only sky above him and could not be observed by anyone, except God and perhaps his own concealed guards. After what had happened to King Conrad, I would have wagered a lot of money that those concealed guards did exist, even if Richard had not ordered them himself. The ground was covered with an uneven, muddy carpet. Tables and more chairs stood around in no discernable order.
I bowed. He looked tired, and gaunt. My eyes told me what I already knew by hearsay—that he had repeatedly been sick. I wondered if he was managing to sleep.
He began without formal greeting. “Describe the murdered man’s horse.”
I thought back . . . “An elderly bay gelding with a white blaze and four white feet.”
“A newly appointed king riding trash like that?”
“That was what I saw, Your Grace.”
King Richard shrugged. “You are likely right; he was on a private visit to a friend. Why are you here?”
“Because your royal mother sent me.”
“To do what?”
“To be useful in any way I can—and I do have some unusual skills.”
“Like seeing what is happening hundreds of leagues away?” He truly hated the thought; he did not want to believe, and it is very hard for any of us to credit unwelcome news. Above all, Richard the Lionheart wanted to be known as a man of honor, never one who had dealings with the Devil. Yet he did keep corresponding with Saladin, which the fanatics considered worse.
“Sometimes I can, Lord King,” I said cautiously. “I cannot do it to order. The visions just happen.” Not quite true.
“When the Devil sends them? Will we take Jerusalem and drive out the heathens?”
“I have received no direct guidance on that matter, sire. I suspect that the answer is no. Of course, I cannot see a negative, but I have foreseen you leaving the Holy Land with tears running down your cheeks.”
He glared at me in silence. I kept my eyes lowered and waited, not venturing to return the gaze.
He said, “Sit down.” And when I obeyed, “You are not afraid to offer unwelcome news, Baron Pipewell.”
“Such would be no true loyalty.”
“My mother trusts you. My father did. So I will try to. How can your unnatural arts be useful to me, as you put it?”
“I will tell you of my visions when they come, if they do. More urgently right now, your army is wasting away. You must know that you have hundreds of men lying at death’s door, yet you will not let people like me try to help them?” This time my anger won, and I did look straight at him, a breach of decorum. Kings should not be questioned.
The wintery eyes chilled even more. “I suppose I could let you prove it on a few victims.”
After two days of silent rage, I found it difficult to control my temper. “About five years ago, gracious lord, I was summoned to treat a dying woman. I had two days’ hard ride to reach her and by the time I arrived, she could not breathe, her lungs were full of phlegm, her fingernails were turning blue. Her physician had given up hope. My cantor and I chanted over her, and she recovered. Had she not done so, Archdeacon John would not be here now.”
His face turned white, but whether from rage or shock I could not tell.
“Your mother,” I added unnecessarily.
“Go then!
” he barked. “See what your magic will do for the fluxes and the fevers of Outremer. But you must first warn your patients that your treatment may imperil their souls, and they must give their consent.”
I stood up and bowed. “And one thing more, sire?”
“Ask.”
“If I am granted a vision and it suggests immediate action— an enemy attack coming, say—I shall need access to your presence.” No subordinate would dare interrupt him to say that a wizard wanted audience.
He showed me the royal teeth. “I am tempted to cut off your head and mount it on a bedpost. At least it would be handy.”
“But not much use, even as decoration.”
“I suppose not. Fulk!”
A leather flap billowed, and a young knight appeared. Noting that he held an already-spanned crossbow in one hand and a bolt in the other, I felt the hair on my neck stir.
“Lord King?”
“This is Baron Durwin of Pipewell. Some credulous folk call him Merlin Reborn. He is to be kept supplied with the passwords, all of them.”
From then on, wherever I happened to be, every day just before the night watch came on duty, either Fulk Gourand or some other royal aide would appear at my elbow to whisper passwords in my ear. I was usually so busy that I barely heeded them. Fortunately the Myrddin Wyllt never distracted me with visions when I was healing.
As Richard had known, rumors about the man with the cane being Merlin Redux were already circulating in the camp. I wasn’t happy about them, but I assumed that they would aid me rather than hinder, so I paid them no heed. I had a fairly imposing flaxen beard by then, which may have helped give me archaic status. I was also known as Three Legs, which I liked even less.