by Dan Davis
“It is too big,” I said to Orus. “How will we find them??”
He nodded, cupped his hands around his mouth and mimed shouting.
“You bloody heathen madman,” I said. “Why in the name of God would Bertrand come to me if I—” I paused, thinking.
He would not come to me.
I cupped my hands around my mouth and roared. “Bertrand!” My voice echoed from the walls. Did I sound enough like my brother to fool him? I had to hope so. “Bertrand! Hughues!”
Taking a breath, I was about to hurl insults at the man, as I imagined my brother might have done when I stopped myself. Thinking back on Palestine and Sherwood, it seemed as though his men worshipped him. He commanded depths of loyalty and devotion I had seen only in the followers of Richard the Lionheart. It was unseemly and quite profoundly un-English, but there it was. William treated his men with courtesy and addressed them with respect.
“Come down, brothers!” I roared. “I require your presence!”
Orus stared at me with a lopsided grin on his face, and I shoved him across the hall into the archway so that we would be hidden from view. The banging subsided somewhat but three Mongols wandered in from outside and stood together in a group, watching us. Orus raised a friendly hand at them and babbled something. Whatever it was he said, they appeared to be unconvinced and their hands remained on their weapons.
I sighed. “Nothing in this world ever goes according to plan, Orus. I suppose we can at least take comfort in that.”
He smiled, nodding, not understanding me at all.
I pointed at the three Mongols, and then dragged my finger across my throat.
He grinned, drew his sword and charged at the Mongol soldiers. They scattered, but he caught the first one with a thrust to the unarmoured soldier’s lower back, driving him to the steps. It would have been visible to any others outside the palace.
Footsteps resounded on the stone floor behind me, echoing out of the stairway nearest to me. I slipped across the room to place my back against the wall beside the archway and drew my sword, ready to strike down the two or three armoured men who clattered down the steps.
The first man stepped out into the hall. A man dressed in the garb of a Frankish man-at-arms, with his straight-bladed sword at his side, and his helm tucked under his arm. His surcoat was faded, dirty and much-repaired but it was a familiar one.
In fact, I recognised him at once.
Hughues. Bertrand’s squire and cousin.
The second man, which was surely Bertrand himself, stopped within the stairwell, out of my sight.
I willed him to step out also so that I could take them both.
But he did not.
I watched as Hughues peered through the archway and out into the entrance hall where Orus fought with the Mongol soldiers.
Hughues turned back to the stairwell and began to call out in French. “There are merely—”
His eyes widened when he saw me, and I am sure the sight confused him for a moment. Brandishing a curved sword, I wore a Saracen soldier’s armour and clothing, from head to toe, and over the top wore the massive coat of a Mongol rider, with a fur-lined conical hat pulled over my Saracen helm. An ill-fitting ensemble, with my grimacing face staring out of it. No wonder, then, that the young man was struck by a momentary bafflement.
I leapt into his confusion, charging him with great speed and shouldering him in the chest. He was a big lump of a man and it hurt me, but it would have knocked the wind from him and he flew back off his feet toward the entrance, his helm clanging away. His skull smacked into the floor with a wet thud, like an apple being crushed, and he bounced into motionlessness. I had not intended to murder the man.
Footsteps behind me.
I ducked and twisted away from the blow that was surely coming, turning to face my attacker as I retreated away further into the palace.
Bertrand.
I had forgotten how big he was. His helm obscured his face but I could imagine the look upon it. His sword point danced in the air as he feinted his way closer to me. Neither of us had a shield but his armour was certainly better than mine, and I had a rather light blade with which to attack his. It would have to be my dagger, slipping it beneath his helm or through his eye slits, or up into his groin beneath his hauberk.
Then again, I needed the bastard alive.
He lunged at me to drive me back, then launched a series of rapid cuts at my unprotected face.
So fast.
Any doubt that he had been granted the Gift was now gone. He was certainly one of William’s immortals.
And now that our strength and speed was closer to equal, I could truly appreciate his skill as a swordsman. Bertrand was an emotional, prideful man but he did not fight with emotion. Instead, he attacked with controlled, precise cuts and thrusts, the point of his sword searching for gaps in my defence. My sword blade was shorter and was not designed for the thrust, and I parried and retreated. Even if I had been armed and armoured in my native style, I would likely still have been outmatched by his skill.
His point glanced off the top of my helm as I mistimed a lunging thrust at his lead knee and I shifted away as he followed up to keep me off-balance. Another cut struck me on the shoulder and I changed direction again to avoid being cornered. Frustration and fear began to surge inside me. A terror and anger that I would die an ignominious death at the hands of an arrogant Frenchman. That rage gave me strength to turn his sword and slip inside his guard to thrust my sword into the mail at his stomach. The force of it at least caused him to wince and grunt and suddenly he was on the backfoot. To get through his armour, I would have to grapple him to the floor and employ my dagger in a way that would disable but not kill him outright.
Across the hall, far behind Bertrand’s back, I noted that Hughues climbed gingerly to his feet with one hand on the back of his head but the other hand already gripping his sword. His face was covered with blood that must have leaked from a wound on his skull, unseen beneath his aventail. The tough little bastard had surely also been turned by William and I would have to now deal with both of them, just as soon as Hughues could shake the wits back into his head. The younger man staggered toward us while we fought, before lurching over to lean one hand on the wall.
“Bertrand!” Hughues shouted. “I cannot see. Is that you?”
The knight attempted to break off from me but instead, I pressed my advantage while he was distracted by his cousin’s wailing.
Behind Hughues, a dark shape darted and loomed up.
“No!” I shouted.
But it was too late.
Orus gabbed Hughues from behind and jabbed a dagger into his face and dragged him off his feet. Hughues screamed as he died.
While Bertrand was momentarily frozen in indecision, I hammered my sword into his helm, grabbed his arm and wrestled him off his feet. We crashed into the floor, and I struck him with powerful blows about his chest and body. Orus joined me, yanked Bertrand’s helm from his head and bashed his face into a bloody mess. Together we subdued the massive knight, lashing his hands together behind his back.
“You have murdered him,” Bertrand said, his lips split and oozing blood. His eyes fixed upon his young cousin’s body.
“It was not my intention,” I said, as I dragged him to his feet and propelled him rapidly from the palace and onto the path and into the orange sunlight. Dead Mongols lay on the steps, slain by Orus. The sun had moved far across the sky and was sinking low. It would not be long before evening came.
“There,” Orus said, nodding at the approaching group.
It was my own people, coming from their ambush in the square to escort us quickly back to our safehouse. Quickly, I found Eva amongst them and saw that she was unhurt. All of my company had survived the ambush they had sprung.
“We all live,” Eva said, falling in beside me with barely a glance at Bertrand. “A few injured. No Mongol escaped. But surely our combat was noted by others. We cannot remain long in this plac
e before more come for us.”
I nodded my thanks to my wife and then threw Bertrand down against the entrance hall wall just inside the doors to our home on the edge of the square.
“Where is William?” I asked him, while the others shut the doors and checked themselves and their equipment after their ambush of the Mongols.
“You murdered him,” Bertrand said. “Your savage killed my dear Hughues. Killed him dead.”
He was a knight and a lord but our survival in that place was precarious and would not suffer delay. I dragged the aventail from his head and punched him in the temple. “Where is William?”
Bertrand’s eyes glazed over and he screwed up his face. “How did it come to this?” he said, almost in a wail. “You and your brother, you are an evil pair. You bastard. True evil.”
I sighed and crouched in front of him.
“What happened in Karakorum?” I asked, lowering my voice. “You were free to return with the monks. Instead, you chose to follow my brother. Why?”
He laughed until his throat gargled and he spat a mouthful of clotted blood onto his surcoat. “I believed his lies.”
“What lies were those?”
When Bertrand hesitated, I grabbed my dagger and reached down to hold the top of his head still. “I am going to cut off pieces of your face now, Bertrand. I will cease only when you speak to me of my brother.”
“For the love of God,” he said, eyes wide and staring at the blade point hovering an inch away from the tip of his nose. “I will speak, Richard, I will speak.” When I did not withdraw the dagger, he quickly continued, swallowing hard. “William promised me a dukedom. In France.”
“And how would he accomplish such a thing for you?”
“The Mongols would invade France, he said. He had urged them to do so for years now. And after the kingdom falls to Hulegu, it will be rebuilt and new lords chosen to rule. I would be one of them.”
It was just as we had feared. After the Saracens were crushed, the Mongols would be turned against Christendom and the same horrors inflicted upon the people there.
Driven by fear, many questions leapt immediately to fill my mind. When would this happen? How many years would it take? What could we do to stop it?
But then I recalled what Bertrand had earlier said. “But now you believe his promises were lies? Why? What has happened since between you?”
“Between William and I? Nothing. But William and Hulegu?” Bertrand hesitated, glancing at my dagger.
“Come on, out with it,” I said. “My brother is nothing if he is not a braggart. I have never known him to keep his grandiose plans from his men. Speak.”
Bertrand licked his bloodied, cracked lips and looked away.
I sighed. The prideful ones always have to make it difficult. “My hope, sir,” I said, “is that once this unpleasant business is concluded, and you give me your word to do me and my people no harm, I will free you to do as you will. And I would rather you did so as a whole man, and not one lacking his ears or one of his eyes. Or some other part.”
It was sad, how the hope filled his eyes when he turned them to me. He must surely have expected that I was lying about sparing his life, yet the hope that he could survive the encounter overcame his sense of reason. Such as it was.
“Hulegu and his men, they grow tired of William urging them to conquer Christendom. All in good time, they say. First, the Mohammedans and then, later they will finish their conquest of the remaining peoples of the Earth. The Khan and his retinue, those changed by William’s blood, they speak now in terms of twenty years, or forty years, or even longer. They know that they will live forever, and are in no hurry.”
“And William is impatient?” I asked. “Why?”
Bertrand glanced at my dagger again. “There are men like us. In France and throughout Christendom. William has given the Gift of his blood to many great lords and I believe he fears that these men will grow powerful in his absence and that they will challenge him when the time comes. Possibly, I do not know for certain, he does not speak clearly of such things.” He trailed off, no doubt seeking to obscure the truth through vagaries. But I did not care about him, as my heart was gripped by a cold sense of dread.
I glanced around at Eva, who stood watching beside Thomas, Stephen, Hassan, and some of the others.
“William has made many Christian lords into immortals?” I said. “When? How many? Who are they?”
“I do not know, I swear it. He did not tell me. That is to say, he said he granted the Gift to many after he last fled England, and he journeyed through Christendom on his way east. It was many years, so he said, and he chose which men he could count on to do what he needed them to do.”
“And what was that?”
Bertrand attempted to shrug. “Some he wished to accumulate power and wealth, so that he could take it from them when he returned. Others, he said were good only for sowing chaos and disorder. Criminals and outlaws, by law or by nature. Their deeds would weaken the kingdoms that William would then conquer.”
“How many?” I asked.
“I do not know, I swear it.”
Pushing the back of his head hard against the wall, I took the dagger and pressed the point against his cheek beneath his left eye. “I sincerely beg your pardon, Bertrand, but I am going to take your eye now.”
“Wait!” Bertrand squirmed. “It was perhaps a dozen. A dozen.”
I hesitated. “So few? That cannot be true, Bertrand.”
“Forty, perhaps,” Bertrand said. “Yes, a great many, perhaps. Or less.”
“For God’s sake,” I said. “You truly have no idea of how many, do you.”
He let out a shaky sigh. “No. He would not say. And I do not know.”
“Where is William right now? Is he in the city?”
“Yes,” Bertrand nodded. “We came in together, along with Hulegu’s courtiers. The damned savages.”
“Where are they now? Where is William, Bertrand, right at this moment?”
He breathed heavily, for he was betraying the lord he had sworn himself to, and it weighed on him. “William went to the house of learning near to here. He wished to find texts and maps on Cathay and the lands of the East.”
“He is in the madrasa?” I said. I could feel Eva shifting behind me. “How many men with him?”
“Six of the Gifted, and a hundred or so royal troops loyal to Hulegu.”
“And Hulegu wants maps of Cathay? Why?”
Bertrand shook his head. “No, no. It is William who wants such things. He told me in secret.” Despite everything, there was pride in his voice that William had taken him into his confidence.
“Why does William want them?” I asked.
“I am sure he has his reasons,” Bertrand said, grudgingly admitting his knowledge of my brother’s plans went only so far.
“If all this is true, why were you and Hughues in that palace instead of by William’s side?”
“It was the residence of the lord of the madrasa,” Bertrand said. “We were to find him or his family, or his belongings and writings, and bring them back to William.”
Abdullah came striding in behind me and mumbled something to Thomas before hurrying away again.
Thomas stepped close and bent to speak into my ear. “The enemy are concentrating nearby. We must flee, immediately. Else we shall be surrounded and crushed.”
I nodded my thanks as he retreated and turned my attention back to Bertrand.
He licked his lips again. His face was already healing.
“If I gave you fresh blood to drink,” I said. “which would heal your wounds, and put a sword in your hand, would you serve me?”
I saw how the idea of it outraged him. He, a great lord, serving me, a landless, rootless knight. But he must have known that he could never go back to how he was and he marshalled his civility and nodded.
“You would take no revenge against Orus, the man who killed your cousin Hughues?”
Hatred crossed his face
but again he nodded.
Thomas bent down beside me. “We will be hurrying across the city for a long time, avoiding patrols. One shout from him would condemn us all.”
Bertrand glared at the old Templar before fixing me with what I am sure he believed was a sincere expression. “I would serve you faithfully.” He swallowed. “My lord.”
Outside, shouting filled the air, and my people gathered together in the hall behind me, ready to leave.
“You should pray now,” I said.
“I swear, Richard, you can—”
I stabbed my knife into his head. He went down, bucking like a landed fish. He was an immortal and would have died hard from such a wound. For all that he had to die, I did not want him to suffer unduly. I pulled the blade from his skull and sawed it across his throat, worked it through the gristle and hacked through his spine.
Thomas was white as a ghost when I turned around. Stephen mumbled a prayer over the body.
“What do you think?” I said to them. “What is William doing here?”
“We must go,” Stephen said. I ignored him.
Thomas growled. “It sounded to me as though William has fallen out with Hulegu and is attempting to flee from him. No?”
“Yes,” I said. “Why send that damned fool and his squire into the palace at all?”
“That is it,” Eva said. “William was sending him on a fool’s errand. While Bertrand and Hughues were occupied elsewhere, William was going to flee.”
“Leave by himself?” I said. “Yes, that is what he does. When his plans fail, he flees. Like a rat. He has lost control of Hulegu and he has fled.”
“What was all that about immortal lords that William has made in France?” Thomas said.
“If we survive this city,” I said. “We can think on it then. So, where is William? In the madrasa?”
“We believe William is fleeing, yes?” Stephen said. “So where is he fleeing to?”
“Anywhere,” I said. “Away from Hulegu first, then he can go where he pleases. He has done so before.”
“Abdullah?” Hassan said. “If you wished to flee to the west from the madrasa, which route would you take?”