The Last Emir

by S. J. A. Turney

  He and Balthesar sought the relic. They had no power or influence, and a ready supply of enemies. The emir might be a friend, but only on a temporary political level, and even then only in a conditional manner. Picornell was a friend, but with insufficient influence or power to make a difference. The emir sought an alliance with Aragon that the king would not grant and Balthesar could not secure, but if they promised to attempt to secure it, he would give them what he could on the relic. The Lion of Alarcos could not overtly move against them without earning the ire of his host. So he hired thugs instead. And Balthesar was confident that the Almohads had as yet insufficient power to pressure the emir. That brought images of the ships landing, mind, and Arnau wondered just how many men it would take to secure the Al-Mudaina, and with it the island. And finally there were the Aragonese diplomats. They were here for little more than consolation, to mop the emir’s brow and tell him how sorry they were the king could not help. One of them might be Arnau’s friend, but a more important one was his enemy.

  Lord, what a mess. They had come here as two simple travellers seeking a relic, and it had led them into a world of political turmoil. And though Arnau was about ready to admit defeat and return home empty handed, clearly Balthesar was not.

  ‘Forgive us our trespasses

  as we forgive those who trespass against us.

  And lead us not into temptation,

  but deliver us from evil.’

  ‘What are you muttering about?’ mumbled Balthesar.

  ‘Just praying. I seem to have missed the chance rather often of late. Prayer seems more important than ever right now.’

  ‘Lucky you, then, for the evening prayer is little more than an hour away.’

  ‘Can we not skip it?’ Arnau sighed. ‘I’ve noticed that not all Moors go anyway.’

  ‘Not all go, but it is considered correct form to pray together with others when possible, and alone only when necessary. Given our precarious position here, let’s not aggravate our hosts. The whole process of the salat takes less than ten or fifteen minutes, including the ritual washing and all preparations. You can spare that long.’

  Arnau grunted. ‘I might sleep through it yet. I’m exhausted.’

  Balthesar nodded as he too lay on his back with a sigh. ‘It has been a busy day. Hard to believe that this morning we were still in the hills and blessedly ignorant of so much. But fear not, sleep if you will, the call to prayer will awaken us, for certain.’

  ‘Oh good.’

  The two men lapsed into silence, and Arnau rolled onto his side, wishing that sleep might enshroud them both so solidly that they missed the coming call. Sadly, though his body felt drained and his eyes heavy, his mind continued to churn with all they had learned and seen that day. No matter how many times he contemplated the many aspects of this entire mess, nothing changed, and he was graced with no clearer solution to any of it. Still, he lay in silence, in the darkness, turning and sighing. His irritation with the absence of sleep only grew when Balthesar began to snore gently in the next bed. The old knight had removed his boots and sword belt but otherwise remained fully attired.

  Another sigh.

  Another turn.

  Sleep was fighting back.

  It didn’t help that this place smelled lightly of spice and sweat, which seemed to be the overpowering odour of the town as a whole. Spice and sweat and—

  His eyes sprang open and he sat bolt upright, shivering. Perhaps he had imagined it. Perhaps he had fallen asleep after all, and his dream state had created the scent.

  No, there it was again. For a fleeting moment he wondered whether it was part of some Moorish ceremony of which he was not aware, in a similar manner to the thurible of the Christian Church, but again, no. This was not incense.

  Slipping sideways from the cot, wincing as his aching muscles held him up once more, he hurried across to the other bed and shook Balthesar. The old knight started awake with the suddenness and ease of a warrior used to sleeping light and being ever ready.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Smoke,’ Arnau replied.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Believe me,’ the young sergeant said firmly, ‘I know the smell.’

  Trapped inside a burning mill, sacks shoved up against the crack at the bottom of the door, rafters ablaze, enemies outside and no escape.

  Yes, he knew the smell right enough.

  ‘Could it be a cooking fire or something?’ Balthesar asked, though he was already sitting on the edge of his bed and reaching for his boots. Suddenly aware of how lightly dressed he was, Arnau hurried over to his own pile of clothes and began to dress swiftly.

  ‘If that’s a cooking fire, then it’s a big one.’

  As the older man strapped on his sword belt, Arnau slipped into his burnous and hurried across to the window. He threw back the shutters and became aware now of shouts of alarm. They were muffled, not coming from the street, but from the other direction, beyond the door, in the building itself. He wasted not a moment at the window but slipped into his boots and ran to the door as the older man now rose, fully dressed.

  The sergeant noted with sinking spirits the wisps of smoke now curling under the door. Not again…

  He braced himself and undid the catch, swinging open the door. The din of urgent, panicked shouts suddenly became clear, along with the roar of flames and the crack and spit of burning timber. The waqf hostel was ablaze in a dreadful conflagration. His gaze took it in immediately. Only this wing of the structure was alight, though the blaze was already spreading into the rear of the building and also threatening the ornate stone frontage. The balconies were on fire, and the stairwell was wreathed in burning golden flames.

  ‘Mother of God, we’re trapped.’

  Balthesar appeared at his shoulder. ‘Abd al-Azīz’s hand grows stronger.’

  ‘You think this is the Lion’s work?’

  ‘A blaze begins in a place that belongs to the mosque, and happens to start below our very room, engulfing the stairs we need to escape? If this fire is an accident, then it is a most specific and unlikely one. No, agents of the Almohads are behind this, mark my words.’

  ‘But to burn down a building just to get to us?’

  ‘An unhappy incident that rids him of me and cannot easily be traced back to him? Think, Vallbona. This is most assuredly his work. Now use that mind of yours. You are inventive, young man. You escaped an impossible fire at the mill last year. Get us out of this.’

  Arnau felt the claws of panic tearing at him. He had so often followed the old man’s lead on these islands, for Balthesar was the fount of knowledge and the senior man. Now, when their lives hung in the balance, suddenly it became Arnau’s task to save them. His mind raced. To go up was impossible. Most of the balcony was aflame now, and he could see ripples of flame above. Whoever had set the fire had been thorough. Outside the door, only the few paces around this room remained untouched. Above, below, and to both stairwells the fire roared. Perhaps…?

  He hurried over to the window once more and leaned out. The drop was considerable and onto cobbles. While it was possible to jump, it carried a high risk of broken legs. He turned and looked up. This side of the roof was still dark, though he could see the orange glow cast by the flames on the other side. There was an overhang, but if he could just manage to get his elbow over the edge, he could pull himself up and onto the roof. Perhaps then he could also pull Balthesar up. The knight might be remarkably fit and strong for his age, but Arnau couldn’t see him achieving such a troublesome climb. And if…

  The arrow came so close to ending his life that it tore a tiny piece from his ear in its passing before it thudded into the wall, close to the ceiling. Arnau blinked. The second arrow would have killed him had Balthesar not grabbed him by the burnous and hauled him back from the window. This second shot thrummed through the air, whispering above his head as he fell, and thudded into the ceiling. Arnau lay on the floor in shock as the older knight slammed the shutters to swiftly
and dropped the catch. Two more thuds shook the shutters as the unseen archers targeted them once more.

  ‘I think that confirms that this is no accident,’ Balthesar said grimly. ‘And perhaps your timely prayer tipped the Lord towards your salvation. Pray on, young man, pray on.’

  The notion of taking time now to pray as the inferno closed in around them was ridiculous. Instead, Arnau found himself rushing around like a chicken without a head, dashing back and forth between the door that offered only a blazing balcony and a shuttered window that threatened barbed death, pausing in between each time to gather up another piece of his kit.

  Yet as he ran and worried, his mind churning, the old knight watching him patiently as though fully believing that Arnau was planning and not panicking, still the young Templar found his mind drifting into his mother’s favourite Psalm, the one that had risen unbidden to his lips more than once during the horror of last year.

  The Lord governeth me and nothing shall fail me. In the place of pasture there he hath set me. He nourished me on the water of refreshing and he converted my soul. He led me forth on the paths of rightfulness, for his name…

  His mind whirred as something clicked into place. What was it? Something he’d just thought of. Something in the song of David. Something on the tip of his tongue.

  A moment later he was at the door once more, but this time full of purpose. The fire was almost at the threshold now, and the timbers of the balcony were too hot to touch, even through boots. Still, he stepped out onto the precarious walkway, feeling the ends of his hair singe in the heat. He reached the balcony edge, eyes streaming, skin parching and sizzling, and without thinking grasped the rail. Yelping, he let go, his hands pink with pain. But it was over the balcony he was looking.

  Then he was back inside, heaving in smoky breaths.

  ‘How far can you jump?’

  Balthesar frowned, looking over the courtyard with the central pool at the balconies beyond. ‘Not far enough to get to the other side.’

  ‘But far enough to reach the water?’

  The old knight’s eyes sparkled as his gaze dropped to the pool. ‘Let’s find out.’

  Arnau nodded. They were out of time. Even now tongues of flame licked at the door frame. Any longer and they would be trapped in this bonfire. With a deep breath, he turned in the middle of the room and ran. Years of activity and martial training as a knight and then a sergeant in the order had left him as fit as any young man of his age could possibly hope to be, and yet he still only just cleared the steaming timber of the balcony.

  The world roared past him as he plummeted. Half the building was now wreathed in fire, the other playing host to those few residents who had not already fled the premises but instead remained to gawp at the disaster.

  He hit the water hard, not in an easy dive, for his run had been instinctive and designed primarily to clear the rail and carry him as far beyond it as possible, rather than brace him for landing. He felt the impact in every joint and every bone, and his sword came round uncomfortably and slammed into him during the fall, bringing more heavy bruising. Yet the water, despite the pain, was a balm, soothing the burning in his lungs and the sizzling pink of his skin.

  He was alive.

  He broke the surface of the pool, coughing violently, not from the water, but from the smoke that still sat heavy in his pipes. With desperate, thrashing movements and grateful above all that he was not wearing chain mail, he powered to the side of the pool and threw his elbows over it. He was leaning over the edge and heaving in breaths when Balthesar hit the water behind him. The impact sent a wave over Arnau and set him off coughing again, but the young sergeant was faintly peeved that the older man had landed with far more poise and grace than he himself had.

  Moments later, Balthesar was leaning over the side of the pool with him, elbows up, breathing in deep, calm breaths. ‘The good Lord provides, but when he is busy elsewhere, the good Vallbona sits in for him.’

  Arnau laughed and then exploded in another coughing fit.

  ‘What now?’ he asked when it finally subsided.

  ‘It is too much to hope that they believe us expired, but we have to at least try and maintain that fiction. At the worst it might buy us some time. The locals will extinguish the blaze before it consumes the whole building, for they cannot afford it to spread to other blocks. The exits will be watched by men with bows. We are confined, but if we find a small, dark room in the stone-built front wing of the place, we can shelter there tonight, away from the fire and out of harm’s way. Then, when dawn comes, we can leave, for surely the Lion’s archers will presume us dead by then.’

  ‘And then what?’ Arnau felt he knew the answer to that, though he would much prefer to head to the port he’d seen so often from the palace windows and secure a voyage back to the mainland.

  ‘And then we go back to Al-Mudaina and deliver my reply to the emir. A promise for a relic.’

  Arnau sighed and nodded.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Wednesday, 9 June 1199

  11.30 a.m.

  It was startlingly late when Arnau awoke in their dark, smoke-scented corner of the waqf house. Though there were no windows here, he could tell from the lengthy golden beam of light in the next room that the sun had been up for some time – long enough to have climbed high and peek over the roofs of other buildings.

  ‘What time is it?’ he said in muffled tones, making out the shape of Balthesar next to the doorway.

  ‘Late. Approaching noon, in fact.’

  ‘You let me sleep this long?’

  Balthesar nodded. ‘I felt that after the exertions of yesterday you likely needed the rest. Worry yourself not. I have made full use of the morning thus far.’

  Arnau blinked, his eyesight slowly focusing in the gloom. He could see the old knight sitting in the dim light of the doorway. His heart lurched as he noticed the huge dark stain at the man’s side.

  ‘Your wound!’

  ‘Quite,’ Balthesar replied. ‘The leap into the pool. I ruined most of the stitching, and when I woke it was in a pool of blood. I have forayed out into the town and visited our friendly doctor close by. He was less than impressed, but has done an exemplary job of repairing the wound once more.’

  ‘You went out?’

  ‘I did, and was not attacked. I suspect that the thugs responsible believe we died in the blaze, for that entire wing of the building is little more than charred timbers and ashes. Abd al-Azīz will not believe as much without visible proof, but it has bought us precious moments to act with impunity. And I intend to do so. Now you are up and I am repaired, we shall make for the Al-Mudaina.’

  Arnau stretched and paced, urging life back into tired and stiff limbs, and soon thereafter the two men emerged once more into the city of Madina Mayūrqa. The sun was indeed approaching its zenith as they moved away from the part-ruined waqf house. Balthesar chose their route even more carefully than usual, and they moved from the building through three backstreets until they came upon the Gumāra fortress.

  As they approached, Arnau frowning, he realised that the great heavy gatehouse and the tall walls stretching to either side of it were more than just a fortress. They were a massively defended entrance in the main walls. One of the old city gates had been given an inner barbican and formed a small enclosure. This being in theory a time of peace, those gates were currently both open, and people were being allowed in and out of the city through the Gumāra.

  Following the older knight and lowering his face to prevent easy identification, Arnau passed beneath the first gate, through the heart of the small fortress, and then through the second gate and out into the extramural area of the city. Here, Balthesar swung sharp left and began to make his way somewhat laboriously around the city’s northern edge. It was a slow and tiresome journey, but eventually they passed inside once more through the same gate at which they had first arrived, crossed the river on the bridge just inside, and then passed around the edge of the city inside
the walls until they were almost at the port. Finally, having taken the most indirect route possible, they headed towards the river once more, crossed the lowest bridge and headed for the high walls of the Al-Mudaina on the hillside above, confident that skirting almost every neighbourhood in the city would have discouraged any potential pursuit. Still, with every step closer to the emir’s palatial fortress, Arnau’s nerves increased, his disquiet more than mere worry.

  ‘This feels wrong,’ he said finally as they climbed the slope towards the Al-Mudaina. ‘Dangerous in the extreme.’

  ‘Without sufficient cause,’ reassured the older knight. ‘Abd al-Azīz will surely not act within the palace of the emir. We are more at risk from him in the city outside, as the residents of the waqf house discovered.’

  Arnau nodded his understanding of the reasoning, though the nerves remained and his uneasiness continued to increase as they approached the walls. His gaze strayed upwards and alarms sounded in his mind. He reached out and grabbed Balthesar by the sleeve.

  ‘What?’ the old man said.

  ‘Look up. That’s not good.’

  And it wasn’t. The emir’s men in green and shining steel were in evidence patrolling the wall top as usual, but here and there, interspersed among them, were figures in black and white. Balthesar made a low rumbling noise in his throat, and Arnau recognised it as a rare indication of worry from the old man.

  ‘A troubling sign.’

  ‘Yes, first a worry to find them on the island at all, then many times worse to find them unopposed in the emir’s presence, but to see them in positions of strength and authority in the palace…?’ Balthesar nodded, yet he began to walk once more towards the gate. Arnau, eyes flickering nervously about, followed. He was immensely relieved when Balthesar rang the bell and rapped on the small door in the gate and the portal was opened by one of the emir’s own men and not an Almohad soldier.