Finally, as they struggled on, Balthesar cleared his throat. ‘Soon, I fear, we will need to dismount and lead the horses. They will be suffering, even this small hardy breed.’
‘What happened?’ Arnau said bluntly, tense from holding back his curiosity for so long and interpreting the broken silence as a signal to continue.
‘Sorry?’
‘The bandits. You escaped?’
‘Clearly. It was a narrow thing, though,’ the old man admitted, and now his words flowed like a stream once more. ‘One of those men with me slipped and cried out, drawing the bandits’ attention. Next thing we knew, dozens of desert savages from beyond even the lands of the Moors were scrambling after us up the rocks, shouting and pointing. The rest of my companions panicked. Looking back on it, I don’t think I was any less panicked than the others, but while they let the terror grip and guide them, I managed to think through it, for I knew that if I didn’t do something, we were all dead. I took charge. There were boulders up there aplenty, because of the poor terrain, and with a lot of desperate kicking, we managed to start enough of a small rockslide sufficient to deter the villains from trying to climb up to us. It bought us enough time to run. We got back to the horses and rode for town as though Satan himself was nipping at our heels.’
He gave an odd, regretful smile. ‘I expected to be punished when we returned to town. I was just a mercenary, not some lord, and we had failed. Perhaps our emir was a truly insightful man. I like to think so. He thanked us for our efforts, despite our failure. More than that, he paid us half our due fee, which was beyond generous. I went and drank myself stupid on the back-garden liquor the Christians made in contravention of our masters’ laws – horribly drunk, the way only young men do. I was still inebriated and maudlin when the guards found me and I was hauled before the emir once more. I truly thought I was doomed then, a failed drunken mercenary under arrest. I suspect the emir did not know I was drunk because he had never seen it on a man, and I suspect I hid it well. Or perhaps he understood why I had resorted to the bottle. Whatever the case, it turned out that my companions had informed our lord that I was the only reason they had survived.’
Despite it being one of the seven sins men must avoid, Arnau could see a touch of pride puffing out Balthesar’s chest as he took up his tale once more. ‘That was how I left the city the next day as a freshly equipped mercenary captain at the head of a new group of fifty men, with a remit to complete our unfinished job.’
His shoulders sagged. ‘And finish it we did. I was implacable, barbaric, even insane in my vengeance. We took their heads as proof, with their turbans nailed in place, and we delivered them to the emir. I will not say that he was overjoyed with my new demeanour, but he paid us well and we soon had another commission.’
He sighed. ‘Perhaps we could have done very well serving under him, but the next year the Almohads came, and with little difficulty managed to persuade the emir to submit to their growing caliphate. I tried to serve under the new Almohad regime, but they had no interest in a Christian working for them, and I found myself instead poor and begging, too proud to go back to life as a common craftsman.’
He gave a wry smile. ‘Isn’t it odd how sometimes it is the most ridiculous chance, which beggars belief, that changes everything? I fled north. I found myself back outside Almohad lands once more. I made it to Balansiyyaḧ, one of the greatest of all the taifa, which we know as Valencia, the land of El Cid himself. There I sought an audience with the local emir, Abu Muhammad of the Jyaddid. Of course, I was a nobody there. I stood no chance, and that meant seeking out a small group of swordsmen and signing on once more at the very bottom. Chance, though, played its part. As I stood in the ornate palace of Valencia, who should walk in but the emir I had previously served in the south. It seemed that Almohad domination suited him even less than it did me. We reaffirmed a friendship, and he secured me my audience with the Emir of Valencia.’
Arnau looked at the man beside him with a whole new level of respect. He had suspected the man’s origins were within Moorish lands, which, of course, suggested he had no noble background, but his tale was more astonishing than the young sergeant had ever suspected. No wonder Balthesar knew the Moorish lands and language, and their people and history too. He had fought under them, and lived under them.
‘I spent good years in Valencia,’ the old knight continued. ‘For some reason, though he had long since died, the spirit of El Cid lived on in that place, and in those days Christian, Jew and Moor lived in relative peace there. We worked together and learned together. And for my part we fought together, too. Once more I was a mercenary, killing the enemies of the Valencian emir for pay. Good pay, too. And life in Valencia was different. The difference there between my kind and the Moor was so much less pronounced. I found myself bellowing Allāhu akbar as I rode into battle, and it seemed only right. I may pray to the Trinity, and not speak of God by the name of Allah, but it is just a different language, in truth. God is the greatest is a good thing to shout in any tongue.’
It struck Arnau as odd that he had never considered this point in such an oddly prosaic manner. Why would it be any different praising God in Arabic than in Spanish, or German, or Italian?
‘I fought for years,’ Balthesar went on, dragging the young sergeant back into the tale. ‘Well over a decade. I served the Emir of Valencia and built up something of a reputation. I think perhaps my faith had become oddly enmeshed with those men I fought for and with. I had begun to see little difference between us. By the time things began to change there, as they had in the south, I was not only a mercenary captain, but I was called sidi: a minor lord in my own right. I had hundreds of men at my command, and I fought with a fervour that only grew with each passing year.’
He gave Arnau a strange look. ‘I think I had reached my apex. Or possibly, looking back, my nadir. I was as rabid a believer as I could ever be, though I was no longer certain where my spiritual allegiances lay. I fought with the cross on one shoulder and the crescent on the other. I fought Christians for Moors and Moors for Christians. I fought Christians for Christians and Moors for Moors. But be assured that I always fought bad men for good, no matter how they prayed. And my dreadful reputation from the days we brought back dozens of African heads to my lord in the south only grew. I was a butcher of renown. I was a killer of men supreme. I was… well, can you guess it, young Vallbona?’
Arnau frowned in confusion for a moment. Then suddenly things fell into place.
‘You were the Pious Killer. The—’
‘The Qātil wariʻa. Quite. So now you know what it is. The Qātil wariʻa is me. A name earned in three decades of mayhem, bloodshed and bellowing the love of God in whatever tongue I was using at the time.’
‘Heavens above and saints bless us,’ breathed Arnau. Somehow old Brother Balthesar looked different to him now. Just how many men had the old man killed in his long life? He felt cold at the mere thought.
‘Perhaps now you understand why I am reticent over my past. Why I said that some things – some names – should stay buried.’
‘But what of the Lion of Alarcos?’ Arnau said suddenly. ‘I assumed he was part of your tale.’
‘My story is far from done,’ Balthesar sighed. ‘But the last part should be saved for the campfire.’
They rode on for the rest of the day, high into the mountains now. The mountains around them were beautiful, not dissimilar to the lower southern slopes of the Pyrenees near Arnau’s home, but the trail was hard, and he could not imagine what they would do if they met a local with his cart coming the other way. The sun began to sink as they entered a new type of terrain, where oddly shaped rocks jutted from the earth all around, as though the world’s skin had shrunk and the bones protruded. They stopped at a small dell formed by a natural circle of the rocks and made camp. While Arnau set up their blankets and gathered wood for a small cooking fire, Balthesar disappeared and came back with a rabbit, thank the Lord, which he then skinned and began to p
repare. He smiled at Arnau, knowing how grateful the young man would be not to face that old fish yet again.
Once they were settled in their small camp and eating delicious roasted rabbit with bread and fruit, Balthesar smiled. ‘This is most pleasant, but I will warn you that these mountains are barren and home to much animal life. There are wild cats up here that are of a size not to normally pose a threat, but if they are starving and we are unwary, we could very well fall foul of them, so listen and relax, but always keep your eyes open.’
Arnau did so, nerves pinging at the thought of meeting a savage, starving wild cat who was so desperate that he might bite a man.
‘It changed again, as it always must,’ Balthesar sighed. ‘Valencia had been strong and glorious, and a bastion for tolerance and reason, as Mayūrqa is now – the very last, in fact. But all of Al-Andalus had fallen beneath the zealous heel of the Almohad caliph, and Valencia was a prize of some importance. The emir knew he was being targeted. He reached out to the Christian lands, but who among the godly kings was going to aid a Moor against his enemies in those days? Short-sighted and foolish. When the Almohad forces came to Valencia, we had only our own men, including all those mercenaries like myself who had fought for the emir for years.’
‘The Almohads. They are a plague,’ Arnau grunted.
Balthesar snorted. ‘All invaders are a plague, Vallbona. Iberia softens invaders, though. The Carthaginians came here as overlords, but became part of the land. The Romans came in conquest, but soon Iberia became a second home to them after Italia. The Vandals came with destruction, but stayed as Iberians. The first waves of Moors were no different from the Almohads we see now, rolling their new religion across a conquered land, but they soon came to be relatively tolerant and calm. They became children of the peninsula. Successive waves of invaders now have come from Africa, for there are many kinds of Moor, and yet they have all, in the end, become the same. So will the Almohads one day, I suspect, but their belligerence is likely to force Armageddon before then. They will push for the battle for dominance in the peninsula and begin the war that will engulf us all. But I digress. Yes, it was the Almohad plague that came to Valencia.’
He leaned back in his blankets in the warm summer night, the canopy of stars opening up above them. ‘We could not win. I doubt anyone who fought for the emir believed there was a hope of holding the caliphate back from Valencia, but such was the need that we tried anyway. Once more I took up the sword and fought for the cross and the crescent. Once more I was Qātil wariʻa. For the last time, in fact. In those days I became Malak Al-Mawt – Azrael, the angel of death – which is another name I wore, and which I pray never resurfaces. I made the Almohads pay for every foot of land they took as they closed in on the city of Valencia. Finally, when we were beneath its walls, fighting out last great fight to keep the taifa independent, I made a mistake.’
He rolled onto his back. ‘We fought like lions. Oh, and in those days the Lion of Alarcos did not exist, for the disaster at Alarcos had not yet happened. Abu Rāshid Abd al-Azīz ibn al-Ḥasan was just an Almohad lord then, albeit a dangerous one. He was one of the lesser commanders in that army that came to force Valencia to submit. One afternoon, we sortied from the city gates in the latest of many awful fights, thousands of us under arms, refusing to submit to their domination. I was a lord myself then, a vicious killer with a name that was used to frighten children.’
‘God forgives such things.’ Arnau said, impulsively.
‘I pray daily that he does. Time will tell.’ The old man scratched his beard and yawned. ‘I saw one of their leaders through the press. My sword bit into steel and leather and flesh, and sometimes horses, as I carved a path. I wanted him. My vanity as a warrior was truly ascendant. I wanted that leader. I would see if I could buy another day for Valencia with his death. You know who he was, of course?’
‘Abu al-thingy. The Lion.’
Balthesar nodded. ‘Abd al-Azīz: a lord of the Almohad. I almost had him, too. I went for him, and I almost had him. At the last moment, one of his more impressively garbed men got in the way, screaming curses to my God, and spitting bile. He was a good warrior but only a young one. I, on the other hand, was Qātil wariʻa, and I had killed more men than leprosy, or so it was said. I feinted once or twice before I gutted him and pushed the gurgling, dying warrior from his horse.’
He sighed. ‘That warrior was little more than a boy, really. He should not have been on a battlefield. I have regretted sending him to his paradise every single day since then. He was just a boy, Arnau, years younger than yourself. But he was in the way of that which I sought, and I killed him without a thought. Sadly, I was swept away then. You have been in battle, I believe? Not a simple fight or a duel, but true battle? Battles are tidal; they have ebbs and flows, and a single man cannot fight the current. I was pulled away after I finished the boy, long before I could kill Abd al-Azīz.’
He sighed. ‘Valencia capitulated the following day, and with it the last taifa of the mainland fell to the ever-expanding caliphate. Reason had died in Al-Andalus and my world was gone. That was more than twenty years ago now, young Vallbona. And it was only on the next morning as I fled north among the survivors, hearing fragmented tales of the aftermath, that I discovered that the boy I had killed protecting his lord was Rāshid.’
He paused, clearly expecting Arnau to understand. When the young sergeant simply lay silent and blank-faced, the old man frowned. ‘The Lion of Alarcos is Abu Rāshid Abd al-Azīz ibn al-Ḥasan: Father of Rāshid, Servant of God, Son of Hasan.’
‘You killed his son?’
‘Quite. He harbours more than a little hatred for me. I was the enemy, and a Christian defying his caliphate, and that was all before I killed his boy.’
‘Jesu, he will never stop hunting you.’
‘Actually, he did not pursue me then. I heard nothing of him for a long time. You see, since the day I abandoned the lathe I had always been a man of the sword, living by the purse, but I had never really seen the Moor as evil. Even the Almohad. They were people as were we. Growing up among them perhaps changes a man’s perspective. When I fled from Valencia, I was seeking a new chance to fight. A new war and a new border. Perhaps stupidly, I came to these islands, for they are close by ship. Here I found the last taifa, the last emir, and I thought to fight for the remains of my dying world. But the emir – a proud man called Ishāq, of the Ghaniyid – did not want warriors. The sea was his rampart, and he felt sure he did not need to defend himself from Almohad advances. I tarried a while on this island, unable to earn a crust as a warrior, but the strangest thing happened. My pride began to wither, and while I was here and becoming poor and hungry, I fell back upon carpentry as the only skill I had. I lived well for a while, and with every chair I made my need to fight and to kill drained from me. I began to become something new. I was a man who created instead of destroying.’
A look of odd contentment struck him. ‘I was happy. But the legend of Qātil wariʻa followed me like a bad smell. Abd al-Azīz finally sent men. He had, I am sure, sent men to every quarter of the world to find me once Valencia was settled, and find me they did, on Mayūrqa. I fled back to the mainland, unwilling to confront the truth. I was not that man any more. In fact, I would say I had become a lost soul. Carpentry was seeing me through and had been something of a catharsis for me, but I had no real purpose and no goal. I was a killer no more, but the world seemed unwilling to let me disappear.’
He propped himself up on an elbow. ‘I met a priest, who changed it all: a man called Diego.’
Arnau blinked. ‘Father Diego from Rourell?’
Balthesar nodded. ‘At the time he was a local priest and teacher in a village near Tortosa. He took me under his wing. I found true peace for the first time under his care. I renounced the sword, spoke my vows, and took up the poor habit of a mendicant priest, living by the charity of good folk and preaching peace and understanding. After two years with Diego, I began to move through Iberia as a wan
dering holy man in the border lands, where our two peoples clashed. I sought, perhaps in a blind way, to heal the division between the Moor and the Christian, for I could see like no other the bonds between us. I did good work. I began to put my life right, healing wounds I had helped to create with my sword.’
He took a bite of cold rabbit. ‘Sadly, while I had changed, Abd al-Azīz had not. He devoted every moment of his free time now to hunting me. I evaded killers and assassins every month for years, despite my obscurity and anonymity. I had stopped being the Pious Killer, but my past was still with me. Eventually all Moorish lands, being Almohad-controlled and far too close to Abd al-Azīz for comfort, became too troublesome for me. I ended up fleeing north permanently to Christian lands. It was exceedingly odd for me. I was born and bred a Christian, and had been reborn under Diego, but the simple fact was that I had spent most of my life in Moorish lands. Moving into the Christian kingdoms of the north was utterly alien and bewildering for me. I spoke Arabic far better than Aragonese. I still have an Almerian accent in both languages.’
He lay back again. ‘I looked for Diego. He had left his church near Tortosa, but he had left a trail that a clever man like me could follow. I found him within the year. He too had gone north. Something had happened at his church. He would not say what, and has held his tongue on the subject as long as I have known him, but it had pushed the very model of a man of peace to take up the sword. I found Diego at Rourell. He had signed on as a sergeant, albeit a rather old one.’
Arnau tried to imagine the old, mad-haired priest in the black of a Templar sergeant. The image did not sit well.
‘I almost left him to it,’ Balthesar said quietly, ‘but because it was late at night I was given accommodation in the guest quarters – the very room I think you yourself first slept in – and I spent that evening in the company of two men.’
‘Who?’
‘Ramon de Juelle and Lütolf of Ehingen. One night with my brothers, and I never left. I signed on the next morning, and affirmed my vows within the month. I was grateful to have found the Temple, and I think the preceptor at the time was pleased to have me, for manpower was scarce and I was a warrior, tried and tested. The rest is history. I am still there.’
The Last Emir Page 8