by Dan Davis
Eva waited until she was sure I had stopped speaking. “You are losing your wits by using them so much. Twisting yourself into knots for no more than a few mad words by a twisted man.”
“William has a way of making me dance to his tune, does he not?”
She sighed, thinking. “Perhaps you imagine his abilities to be greater than they are.”
“How so?”
“What is the likelihood that you have some secret ancestor still living in Swabia? It is an absurd notion. So why would he say such a thing? Perhaps he was speaking whatever words formed in his mouth, without thought, and he never even dreamed up the notion before he spoke it. Perhaps he does believe it because he is mad. Which clearly he is. And it could be that he was deceived himself by some decrepit old trickster. You imagine that he has some grand plan that he is unleashing on you and so you give his mad words credence when you should simply forget them.”
I listened to an argument break out on the dockside beneath the window. It was rather heated, especially for so early in the morning. But that was the normal manner of social interaction for Venetians.
“It is indeed a bizarre claim,” I said. “Our true grandfather is thousands of years old, and he lives still. The outlandishness of it alone makes me believe there is something to it. If he was going to lie, would he not have made it credible?”
“You may be right about him manipulating you,” she said. “His words always get their claws under your skin. Could it not be that some of his spawn are in Swabia? He is sending you to them so that they can kill you.”
I sat upright. “That is it. By God, that is it. It is so obvious, why did I not see it? I am a fool. Of course he has laid a trap. We should go there, immediately, find these immortals and slay them.”
Eva rolled over and faced away from me. “Why do what William wants? If it is a trap, by going to Swabia you may very well be charging headlong to your death.”
I could not understand her reticence. “This is why I founded the Order. We must go to Swabia and kill these immortals.”
“Immortals who may not even be there. You are giving his words credence when the truth is unknown. His other admissions are far more credible. He turned knights in France and England and we have their names, do we not? This is far more credible, as it mirrors his previous actions. You should focus on those men first, and then see what they have to say about the immortals of Swabia.”
I nodded, though she was not looking at me. “That is a reasonable course to follow. One immortal thoroughly questioned will lead to more. We should do precisely that.” I clapped her slender flank and grinned, banishing thoughts of William’s cunning. “What would I do without you, my love?”
She climbed out of the bed and pulled on her undershirt.
“We should go out and find some food,” she said over her shoulder. “And some strong wine.”
My smile fell from my face. “A little early for strong wine, is it not?”
She did not look at me. “We shall both want wine.”
Her words and demeanour filled me with dread.
All through the journey, Eva had been wistful, and distant. She had never been an overly-affectionate woman but it seemed as though she spoke her thoughts less and less. We would not make love for weeks or months, even when we had the chance, and then she would suddenly seize me in a great lust and cling to me with a desperate passion. Other times, she would weep and then deny it. Although she also often seemed her old self—sturdy, confident, wise—I believed her changed from how she was before we set off into the steppe years before. I clearly recalled the Eva I had grown to love as we travelled from England to Spain, Italy, and Outremer, fighting in local wars and making our way in the world. She had been different when we ranged deep into Mongol lands, and those of the Assassins and the Saracens. And then there was the Eva who I had now. Aloof and gloomy.
Being a mere ninety-seven years old at that time, I had not yet begun to understand the mind of a woman and so I did not know what to make of it all.
I suspected that the toll of spending so much time amongst Godless peoples had worn her down. It certainly had me. And I was apprehensive about the world we were going back to yet I could not wait to see the French countryside and travel amongst my own people, or people almost the same as mine. Why Eva did not feel the same, I could not say.
Whenever I attempted to ask her about it, I would find myself angering her.
“You should be happy,” I recall informing her in our cabin on the way home. “French taverns serve proper food. Think on that. Think on riding all day in the rain before drying our boots on the hearth while we eat roast mutton and drink good wine from Bordeaux.”
“Think on what you like,” she said, not looking at me. “Do not direct my thoughts, so.”
“You are only bitter that we have not lain together for such a long time,” I said, grinning and reaching for her. “Come here to me.”
She slapped my hands away. “Come to yourself instead. And keep your tongue behind your lips so I can get some bloody sleep.”
There was a strong chance that it was the murder we had done in Maragha. Such a sin weighed heavy on me and on Thomas and it was not either of us but Eva and Khutulun who had lobbed the fire pots and so delivered the inferno to the Mongols and their innocent slaves. Women are not created for war, and despite all her skills with the blade and her unfailing, uncomplaining toughness, Eva was certainly a woman.
Yet, when I broached the notion of penance, she cursed me and said that our quest for William’s monsters, our very continued existence was our penance. And although I did not quite understand what she felt, I agreed to let the matter lie.
There was another great sin that I had committed. One which I pretended to myself and to God that I had not done. And yet I had carried with me, for years, the guilt and the shame of my abandonment of her in Baghdad. I had looked at her, my wife, surrounded and assaulted on all sides, and I had left her to die. No matter that I justified my actions post hoc by telling myself her strength and skill would always have saved her from the horde. I left her to die.
It was my greatest sin, though it already had such mighty competition. What is more, the abandonment had accomplished nothing. William had eluded me anyway.
That decision that I made must surely have demonstrated to Eva, beyond all words that I could ever utter, that my quest for vengeance against William would also come before her, my wife.
Ours had never been a proper marriage. Looking back with the power of hindsight, I saw how I had treated her in many ways just like the squire that she often pretended to be and indeed served as. I had neglected to provide her with what she needed. A wife is subordinate to a husband, of course, but while the male domain is the world, the married woman’s realm is the home. A marriage is for producing and raising children, but even for those who are barren, a woman, a wife, rules her home, she commands the servants and directs the meals and company, creates income from the assets, manages the economy of the household. She has that power. She serves that role, as the man serves his in turn as provider and protector.
But Eva had never had her own place, her own realm. Her own life. Never had anyone to command, anywhere to grow, and had been at my side like a servant more than a wife.
I was such a fool. A fool for women, people liked to say of me, ever since I was a boy. It was meant to imply that beauty made me stupid, and that has been true from my first decade to my last century. But in truth, it was more than that. I was foolish in all ways, where women were concerned.
And I had not seen any of that at the time.
Which is why it hit me with such terrible force and brought me so low when it happened. We sat opposite each other across a small table in the morning sun outside the tavern near to our rooms. It overlooked a quiet, narrow inlet and though there were people all about, they were going about their daily business and paid us no mind. The wine was good, and Eva drank off three full cups before she had the courage to
say what she had to say.
“I will not travel with you into France,” Eva said, looking me in the eye. “I am going to England, and there I will establish one of the two houses that we will run for our order.”
A thousand thoughts ran through my head. Mostly, I was simply confused. “Why have you not spoken of this to me before now?”
“Cowardice. I feared saying all that I must say. And I feared your reaction.”
My heart began racing as I struggled to comprehend what she was getting at. “You have not yet said all you must say?”
Her courage faltered and she looked away for a moment. “When William killed me, and your blood brought me back, you saved me. We were together. We have been together ever since.” She sighed. Eva had never been gifted with speech. “I am tired, Richard. Tired of always travelling. Tired of dressing this way. Pretending to be a man, to be your squire. You will not stop your quest. The thought of trailing from town to town in the search. I cannot do it. I will go to London, and make a house there, or I shall go to some other town. My oath to the Order stands. I am committed to our purpose. My life will be dedicated to finding and ending all of William’s spawn. But I will live my own life.”
“Your own life?” I said, stuttering like a boy. “And not a wife to me?”
She looked at me again. “Not a wife, no. I shall pose as a widow, in order to have the appropriate station. I will take no husband.”
Suspicion crept into my thoughts. “Is this some scheme to marry Stephen?”
Eva stared in astonishment, then laughed in my face. “He is a boy. I want nothing of love from him. But, in truth, yes, I also wish to learn more from him.”
“Learn?” I said. “What could you learn from him? He is a boy, as you say. You could never learn from him what you have from me.”
“He is a boy in his heart. But his mind is devious and he burns with ambition. He is clever.”
“And you wish to be around him, rather than me?” I could not believe my ears.
“It is not him that I want,” she said, growing irritated. “I will live my own life but will correspond with him, visit with him, coordinate our efforts. You see, it is his cunning I wish to cultivate. Cunning that can be turned into power.”
I struggled still to understand. “You want power?”
She waved her hand and shook her head, growing impatient. “You have listened to Stephen, but you do not take him seriously, so you do not take his ideas seriously. Imagine it. Look at us. We still have not aged. How long will we live? Decades more, certainly. Centuries, perhaps many centuries. Imagine what we can build in that time. We would have to be careful, pretending to be small people while hiding our wealth and our connections, but with the knowledge to find all of William’s spawn. And then, when they are all dead and our oaths are complete, God willing we will still be here. What else might we achieve with what we have been given? With this Gift?”
Stephen’s ambition had infected her. I should have seen it earlier but perhaps I could have done nothing even if I had known where it would lead. Although, I could always have cut off Stephen’s head and thrown him into the sea before we ever reached Venice. Perhaps that would have kept Eva by my side over the centuries.
But it may also have condemned England to a tawdry existence on the edge of the world, rather than becoming the greatest empire that ever would bestride it. Stephen and Eva made that empire. With my help, of course.
In Venice, sitting before my wife under a pale blue sky, the stench of the lagoon and with a cloud of flies determined to die in my cup of wine, I had more selfish concerns. “We took oaths,” I pointed out. “To be undone only by our deaths.”
“We have lived together for fifty years, Richard.” Her eyes grew damp. “A lifetime of marriage for mortal men and women. We have been faithful to each other, in all ways. I think God will forgive us.”
Eva had decided. She was not asking permission, as a woman should, which was typical of her forthrightness. Quite rightly, she had not considered our marriage to be an ordinary one. It struck me suddenly as quite astonishing that she had lasted as long as she had. Even before I had met her she had received some simulacrum of a knight’s training and had served as a bodyguard for her perverse father. But no other woman in all the world would have entertained for a moment’s thought what she had embraced with me as we fought and killed across the world.
“You will need blood,” I said. “Every few days. You must be prepared. I will not be there to give you mine and you must not be without for too long.”
I do not know why but at that she burst into womanly tears. The first time I had ever seen her weep.
***
In the face of the rampant Mamluks under Baibars and his successors, the Crusader kingdoms in the Holy Land would not survive for very much longer.
The remaining Syrian Assassins were initially overjoyed by the Mamluk defeat of the Mongol armies. Of course they were. Hulegu had destroyed hundreds of their castles in Persia and had slaughtered everyone who had lived in them. For a time, the Mamluks were an avenging force, delivering a righteous blow against the Mongols.
But when the Mamluks had subdued the Mohammedan peoples of Syria, Baibars turned his attention to wiping out the heretic Assassins between 1265 and 1273. Even with their fine castles, the Ismailis of Syria could not resist the might of Egypt and their new allies, and they ceased to be an independent military or political force. Baibars did not exterminate them as Hulegu had done to the Persian Assassins, and so the Ismaili Assassins struggled on in Syria, keeping their faith but lacking any power in the world. Indeed, they survived only by being subjected to the authority of Baibars and the Mamluks and agreeing to carry out the political murders that the sultan ordered.
Saracens turning on each other should have been a good thing for Christendom. But the Assassins were so easily subdued that it barely slowed down the Mamluk assault on the Crusader Kingdoms.
The Mamluks raided Antioch in 1261. Nazareth fell in 1263 and Acre was encircled, only surviving due to ongoing supply from the sea. Caesarea and Haifa fell in 1265 and then all our remaining inland Crusader castles could not survive. In 1271, it was the White Castle of the Templars and the magnificent Krak des Chevaliers, Beaufort and Gibelcar that fell. Without reinforcing Christian armies to save them, the greatest fortifications could not survive the Mamluk siege engines.
The Mamluks even employed a Syrian Assassin to murder the chief baron of Acre, Philip of Montfort in 1270. Unholy savages that they were, the fedayin struck down poor Philip while he prayed in his chapel.
From being the terror of the Holy Land, feared by the Abbasids, Persians, Mongols and Crusaders alike, the Assassins ended up becoming nothing more than hitmen for the sultan. A truth demonstrated by their attempt on the life of my future king, Edward I of England.
Prince Edward, as he was then, joined the Crusade that was to undo the conquests of Baibars.
And who was the great saviour of Christendom come to save the Crusader Kingdoms? The great King Louis IX launched a new Crusade to smash the Mamluks and was even seeking to coordinate with the Mongols of Persia who had inherited Hulegu’s empire.
And yet, the great fool messed it up once again. Louis diverted the Crusade to Tunis with the intention of converting the sultan there to Christianity. No doubt they convinced themselves it was for good and noble reasons, and not due to their fear of facing the ferocity and ability of the Mamluks. Either way, they paid for their cowardice when the army was struck with the bloody flux. The pestilence tore through the men on the North African shore and even took Louis himself. Good riddance. An ignominious end to an incompetent crusader.
Prince Edward of England, son of Henry III, and a man destined to become a truly great king arrived in the Holy Land in June 1271. He led a force on Louis’ Crusade to Tunis but was not willing to accept that failure and so sailed on to Acre. His army was small but the Mamluks rightly feared the might of Christian knights and so Baibars decided to ha
ve this English prince killed.
Edward struck into the Plain of Sharon, near Mount Carmel and coordinated with the Mongols, who sent a tumen of ten thousand to Syria to support him. But without the leadership of Hulegu, the Mongols quickly withdrew in the face of the Mamluk counterattack, leaving Edward to negotiate a peace with Baibars.
The Mamluk peace was negotiated to last ten years, ten months, ten days and ten hours. This is the timeframe allowed for hudna, the truce that is allowed to interrupt jihad if there is a justified tactical advantage for the Mohammedans to temporarily halt their duty to annihilate the infidel. Such practices show very well their fundamental deceptiveness and cunning. As does their continued love of political murder.
Not satisfied with the peace, Baibars sent a Syrian Ismaili fedayin to assassinate Prince Edward of England. The Mamluk governor of Ramla pretended to be willing to betray Baibars and sent a messenger with gifts for Edward. With a cunning and patience that Hassan would have been proud of, the messenger was admitted many times into the prince’s presence while the false negotiations were undertaken. Even though he was searched for weapons, the fedayin’s patience had caused Edward and his men to let their guard down. A knight who claimed to be there later told me how it happened.
Edward was unused to the climate and reclined on a couch in no more than a cotton tunic. The fedayin, posing as a messenger, approached in order to pass the prince a document, a false letter supposedly from this traitor Mamluk lord. Edward took the letter and asked the messenger a question regarding its content. The messenger bent over the reclining prince, directing Edward’s attention to a line in the letter with one hand, and with the other, he drew a concealed blade, cunningly hidden on the inside of his belt.
He thrust this blade at Edward’s chest.
But the future King of England was no ordinary man. He had a lifetime of martial training honing his instinct and he was a big, powerful fellow.