by Dan Davis
Not only was I not supposed to leave the city, I was harbouring criminals. The two young Mongols hid their faces beneath their fur hoods and held tight to each other.
I gathered the rest of my brood to me. Eva, Stephen, and Abdullah. In outer appearance, we were dressed much the same as everyone else; our thick overcoats hiding our amour or our robes, and our hoods hiding our faces. We kept our voices low and spoke barely at all.
Around us, the Assassins busied themselves. Hassan’s captain stood by my side, watching the Mongols all around us from the corner of his eyes.
A guard approached, lantern held high, and the Assassin directed us away from him while he went to intercept. Another Assassin took control of our group and directed us to one of the wagons, where he invited us to load our belongings.
While the sky lightened, and preparations continued, they moved us between them so to hide us from the Mongols in plain sight. I noticed how the Assassins formed another group like ours, with the same number, and one of them was tall, like me. This group was allowed to be inspected by a guard, and then we were swapped for their position. Not for nothing were the Assassins said to be cunning in the extreme.
We waited for the gate to be opened and I was gripped with a sudden, mad fear that William would be standing there as it did so, backed by a thousand battle-ready savages. No matter how much I told myself it was merely a weakness of my own heart, I could not shake the fear.
As the sun rose, finally the gate was opened.
William was not there.
It was the harsh and barren landscape with the silhouettes of groups of horses huddled together against the freezing night dawn. I breathed a short sigh of relief but remained tense and anxious as we mounted our horses all together, with us fugitives in the centre and the Assassins shielding us from view as well as they could. We kept our heads down, in shadow within our hoods.
Finally, we rode out through the gate into the freezing valley beyond. Our immediate route was to follow the frozen river southward as it wound along the valley, edged by the sharp hills.
We went slowly. The horses were hardy but it was so cold it was a wonder they were willing to walk at all. The oxen pulling the wagons were subdued as if they could sense our tension, our fear. I had heard often how the Assassins were joyfully willing to die for their lord, but they seemed fearful also to me. Perhaps it was concern not for themselves but for Hassan al-Din, who we left behind at the palace with only one attendant so that he could secure our safe passage.
If Hassan were killed, or his deal refused, we would be brought back and I would be executed by Hulegu, who was arriving on the other side of the city that day.
That freezing morning, facing my imminent death at the hands of my immortal enemy, it is fair to say that I ached for my home.
England.
I had felt cold there, but the deep, crisp snows of English winter were nothing like the bitter, dry, howling winds of the foothills and mountains at the edge of the great grassland plains. I hated it, suddenly, hated the strange land, that was so lifeless and miserable that I understood at once how it could create such a foul people as the Mongols and other tartar peoples. England was green, with thick, dark, rich soil that crumbled between one’s fingers. Soil that was deep, and always moist, and grew tall, healthy crops.
The hills of my homeland in Derbyshire were beautiful, steep and hard in places but civilised and on a human scale. My dear hills were so unlike the savage grey and black giants that jutted up into the bleached skies in the distance, like dungeon walls. I knew, deep in my bones, that God had lovingly sculpted Derbyshire and all England with his own hand, and had set the climate to make civilised men, and good women. A land hard enough to make us strong, and courageous but generous enough to breed within us a fundamental decency and goodness of spirit.
That land of central Asia seemed to be scoured by the hand of some demon, bordered by mountains thrown up out of the bowels of the Earth. Even the low hills that hemmed us in were an unnatural shape, with peaks like the edge of a curved blade, or the backs of giant serpents undulating across the landscape in a grotesque parade. Hot enough to kill a man in summer, cold enough in winter that many a traveller never awoke in the morning but lay frozen to the ground, as if the land wanted to devour him. A brutal place that bred brutal men. A people without the luxury of civilisation.
A pale sun dragged itself halfway into the sky to our left, casting long shadows across the stony ground. From our right came the howling, bitter wind that could cut through half a dozen layers of clothing, including furs, to numb one side of your body and drive painful aches deep into your bones.
All the while, I felt the presence of Karakorum behind me. Would it be a galloping army come to take me away? Would William himself lead them? Would I be killed here, in this God-forsaken nightmare land? What would happen to Eva? Had I led her into ruin, finally?
It was the end of the day, as the sun grew weak and rested for a moment on the distant mountains when I had my answer.
A shout went up and the procession of Ismailis halted and turned. I could see nothing behind us but more broken land and a sky turned pale as ice, with a sun falling away to the West as if it were glad for the shelter.
Riders.
My hand went to my sword, and Eva moved to my side so that we could fight together against the pursuing enemies.
Yet there were so few of them. Just three riders, in fact, with three more riderless horses following.
“It is Hassan,” Eva said, squinting, for her eyes were far better in the half-light than any mortal’s, and better than mine also. “With his attendant. The third man is… I cannot make him out, it is as though he is hiding.”
“Thomas,” I said, hardly believing my own words as I spoke them. “That is Thomas with them.”
Stephen positioned his own horse behind mine and spoke up. “What in the name of God is he doing here?”
“Why is he hiding?” Eva asked. “Hunched so low as he rides?”
“He is cold,” Stephen said.
“He is injured,” I said.
And so it was.
I rode out to meet them, along with Eva and a group of Hassan’s men.
“What happened?” I shouted as we came together.
“Mongke Khan agreed to let us all go,” Hassan said. “All of you included. In exchange for me agreeing to call off all of the four-hundred fedayin.”
Thomas was slumped over, barely conscious, and tied to his saddle. The horse was skittish, tossing her head and stepping sideways.
“What happened to him?” I asked as we took his reins. “Thomas, can you hear me?”
“Is he dead?” Stephen said as he rode up behind me against my orders.
“Almost,” Eva said. “Look.”
Thomas’ lower body and legs were saturated with blood, as were the flanks of his horse. He seemed dead but the Templar groaned and feebly tried to fight us off while we cut him down from his horse. We carried Thomas and placed him on the back of a wagon, removing his clothing.
“Who did this?” I demanded, though I dreaded the answer.
“Your brother,” Hassan al-Din said. “Used a dagger to cut him, here. See?” Hassan mimed the cut, low on the abdomen, from hip to hip.
Upon examination, the cut was not so wide as that, but it was bad. It stank of foul blood and shit, and only the frigid wind stopped the stench from being totally overpowering. It smelled of death and I knew Thomas would not be long for the world. Still, the Assassins moved to help us and Stephen poured their offered wine over the wound to clean it, then wiped at and soaked up the blood. Thomas shivered and his skin, where it was not bloody, was as white as bleached bone.
“Make a fire,” Stephen said. “We must warm him. Hurry.”
No one made a move to do so. All of us knew that it would do no good. Thomas had only a short while to live.
“My brother did this?” I said to Hassan, my own body shaking now, not with cold but from a white-hot
rage that grew with every moment. “Sent him to me like this, just to taunt me?”
Hassan grimaced. “Mongke Khan agreed to the terms, and Hulegu could not persuade him otherwise.” He pointed at me. “Your brother William calmed Hulegu and demanded to see your monks.”
“He killed them?”
“William harmed them, demanding to know where you were fleeing to. Of course, they told him everything, immediately. They will live. As will the large knight who looks like a bullock.”
“Bertrand.”
“Hulegu himself demanded Bertrand tell everything about the King of France and the land of France. Precisely how many towns are there, how many sheep, how many horses.”
The Mongols had asked us similar questions before. “Absurd. How can any man know such things?”
Hassan shrugged. “This Sir Bertrand made a sincere attempt to give them answers. Hulegu said that he would make Bertrand a great lord when the Mongols conquer France.”
“Dear God,” Eva said, looking at me.
“When did William do this?” I said, pointing at the dying Thomas.
Hassan looked back at the dark horizon. “Night will fall soon. We should make camp here.” He called orders to his men, who immediately began to corral the horses and circle the wagons on the bleak plain.
I grabbed him by the arm, which alarmed his captains enough that they drew their daggers and made ready to strike. But they were utterly obedient to their lord, and he restrained them with no more than a look.
“Tell me what happened,” I said, in a low voice.
“Hulegu and your brother arrived and your companions were brought to the palace,” Hassan said. “The monks, the knights, the Templars. Even the servants. Hulegu was angry that Mongke had agreed to free you, and his traitorous wife, in exchange for my word to stop the fedayin.”
“First, he killed the young Templar. The squire of this man,” Hassan said. “Crushed the skull with his bare hands and drank his blood from the neck. His keshig were there. Evil men. While the body yet twitched, they passed it between them as if it were a skin of wine, many drinking from it before tossing it aside. The old knight here shouted curses and Hulegu’s keshig held him so that he would see it all.”
Eva shook with rage. “We shall kill them,” she promised me.
“William spoke into the ear of Sir Thomas,” Hassan continued. “And then cut him, like you see. He told me to take him to you. Take this old man to my brother Richard, he said to me, and the old man will tell my brother my message. I said that I would do so but that the old man would die before he could speak it.”
I hung my head, for I knew at once what William intended. “And he told you I would have to turn him into an immortal in order to save his life. In order to hear the message.”
Eva and I looked at each other.
Around us on the back of the wagon, the Ismailis placed lamps that cast yellow light over Thomas’ body.
“And then, there was a boy,” Hassan said, speaking reluctantly. “While William cut this Templar across the body, a slave boy attacked your brother with a white dagger. Stabbed him low in the flank.”
“Nikolas,” Eva said, her eyes shining in the dusk. “What did he do to Nikolas?”
Hassan’s nose wrinkled. “You do not wish to—”
“Tell me,” Eva said.
“William laughed at the boy, pulled the blade from his body without pain, and asked the slave from where did he steal such a fine dagger? The boy said it was a gift from the greatest knight who ever lived, Sir Richard the Englishman. William found this to be highly amusing.” Hassan looked away from us. “They held him. William peeled the boy’s skin from his face and chest using the white dagger. Played games with his pain. All the time, they were laughing. When they tired of it, two of Hulegu’s immortals took an arm each and pulled him apart. The keshig tore his arms from his body.” Hassan shook his head. “It was a very bad thing. Very bad.”
Eva stood, her body shaking, her face set in stone as she glared back at the north.
“We cannot go back,” I said, softly.
She did not look at me when she replied, irritated. “I know.”
“Here,” Hassan said, taking an object from inside his overcoat. He handed it over. Small, wrapped in a square of silk, cut from robes. “Before I was dismissed, your brother approached with this. I thought he was going to defy the Great Khan and kill me but instead he told me to give this to you.”
I unwrapped the object.
My white dagger.
While the blade had been wiped clean, the carving of Saint George lancing the dragon was crusted with dried blood. William’s blood? Or had it come from Nikolas?
An ember of rage grew in me as I imagined the horror of the death of the boy. My hatred for William had burned low for decades but when I pictured Nikolas in his final moments, the agony and fear he must have felt, that hatred began to burn once more.
Thomas groaned and I kneeled by his side again. “What is the message, Thomas?” He muttered, begging for water. “
Stephen pulled a blanket over Thomas’ body. “What if this is the message?” he said. “Just this, returning him in this condition?”
“I do not have a mind to listen to your nonsense, Stephen.”
“Your brother, he is devious, you said so. You said he once sent men to attack your manor, knowing they would be killed, simply to draw you to him. A manipulation of your actions, do you see? He wants you to give your blood to Thomas, to turn him immortal. What if that is what he wants to tell you?”
“I do not understand. How would my actions be a message? And why would he want that?” I said. “That would only serve to make me stronger.”
Stephen opened his mouth to reply but closed it again.
I sighed. “I will feed him my blood.”
Stephen nodded, placing a hand on Thomas’ pale, glistening head. “He will not wish it. He thinks you are an abomination.” He glanced up at Eva. “Both of you, and your brother.”
“Perhaps he is right,” I said. “He told you that?”
“Last night, when we returned to the ger. He urged me to stay away from you.”
It annoyed me. Thomas was not wrong, not at all, and yet it annoyed me greatly.
Using the white dagger, I sliced into my wrist and pressed the wound to Thomas’ lips. They were cold. He tried to turn his head away, tried to raise an arm and force mine away. But he was so weak.
And he drank. Slowly, at first, and then he sucked and gulped at my wrist.
“He will not like this,” Stephen muttered, looking ill.
“It may not work at all,” I said, quietly. “And if he lives and does not wish to, I will simply cut off his head.”
While the others ate, drank and pondered the long journey ahead of us, I sat beside Thomas on the wagon, inside the little pool of yellow light given off by the lamp set down by his head. The small flame glowed within the waxed parchment sides, safe from the wind howling down the valley. Eva came to sit by my side, leaning her body against me for a time before she moved away to sleep. She draped me in furs and kissed my cheek before she left me.
Once in a while, I felt the skin of Thomas’ chest, slipping my hand beneath the furs covering him to see if his heart was yet beating and if he still breathed. An intimate gesture that set me wondering about the old man’s life, and whether he had ever had tender moments with a woman. At the start of the night, his skin was cold as ice and clammy. Later, he developed a fever that radiated from him like an iron pulled from the fire, and a sweat broke out to soak him right through.
“It is a strange life,” I said, to Thomas, wondering if he would live to see the dawn. “We have seen much of the world. Seen many wonders. We have done many glorious deeds. But we have done ill, also. I have done murder. Killed men who have wronged us, or wronged others. Doing justice, as I see it, but the laws of England would say it was murder. And we have no home. That is to say, we have homes only for a while before we must move on
. But you have been a Templar, sir. And you have served with honour, I have no doubt. You have fought in the Holy Land, and you have fought across Christendom. Perhaps ours would be a life that would suit you.” I bowed my head and rubbed my tired eyes. “I shall have to feed you blood, as I do for Eva. You will not like that. No more than I will. But I hope that you will live, Thomas. The truth of it is, I could use a knight such as you at my side. A knight of your skill, and your experience, with the strength of one of the Immortals…” I leaned in closer to his ear. “Live, Thomas. Live.”
The lamp ran dry of oil during the night and I fell asleep sitting by the man who was suspended between life and death.
As the sky grew light, before the sun rose, the old knight muttered through cracked lips and bestirred me from my fitful slumber.
“Thirst,” he said. “Thirst.”
“I know,” I replied.
The old man seemed stunned by what had been done to him and sat subdued on the wagon rather than ride his horse, despite the way those carts bounced and juddered over the rough road. We were all of us well on the move as the sun dragged itself up above the horizon and I asked Thomas, finally, what William’s message was.
Stressing that he could not recall the precise words, in between mouthfuls of wine he recited the message back to me.
“Tell him this, he said to me into my ear. I wished that you had forgotten me. He spoke it as if I were you, do you see? I wished that you had forgotten me and had decided to take a path of greatness for yourself.” Thomas stared into nothing. “Brother, if you leave me be, so shall I leave you. But if you continue to oppose me…” Thomas squeezed wine into his mouth, so much that it spilled from his lips and he swiped it away. “Then he gutted me with a hooked dagger.”
The words affected me deeply. There was so many barbs within it that I did not know which of them wounded me most deeply. Worst of all was the sense that, to me, William was my enemy, my sole purpose in life, my quest, my obsession. Yet to him, I was little more than an annoyance. If he spoke truly, it seemed as though he had forgotten me in the years since we had last clashed. All the while, I had dedicated every waking hour to finding him, reaching him. Killing him.