Pilgrim

by James Jackson

‘You may fight as the military Orders fight, resist as we resist.’

  ‘To what avail?’ The baron made no attempt to hide his antipathy. You holy warriors are quick with your swords, zealous in your pursuit of Saracen blood. Yet I see no lessening in the pace and fury of the infidel raids.’

  The Hospitaller leaned forward and jabbed a finger. ‘Your honour is at stake, Aymar of Caesarea.’

  ‘There is no honour in foolhardiness, no credit in rash adventure.’

  ‘Beware your tongue, noble lord. It is the knights of the Hospital, the Temple, the Teutons, who guard your threatened kingdom.’

  ‘Guard? You provoke.’ It was the Lord of Haifa who spoke out.

  ‘You have never liked us, never approved of our sacred purpose.’

  ‘At last, a Knight Hospitaller who observes the truth.’

  There was laughter, and the Grand Master of the Hospital glowered and reddened. Particularly fine sport, the Lord of Arsur mused. Better than any bear-bait, more savage than fighting-dogs placed together in a sack. The scarred and sardonic veteran from Haifa was well matched to the bull-headed aggressiveness of the Hospitaller chief. Play on.

  The Grand Master stared venomously at the baron. ‘The Pope himself commands us in our holy task to wage eternal war against the infidel.’

  ‘And where is the Pope? Passing edicts in Rome. Idling in the sumptuousness of the Lateran while we suffer and toil to preserve our weakening hold on this corner of Palestine.’

  ‘Our hold is weak since you are weak.’

  ‘I have slain with these hands more Saracen than a troop of Hospitallers or Templars.’

  ‘Yet now I see they tremble too much to hold secure a goblet of wine.’

  The Lord of Haifa rose slowly from his seat. ‘You insult me.’

  ‘I inform you.’ The Grand Master had touched a nerve, sat back to appreciate his handiwork.

  His pleasure was short-lived, the moment punctured by interruption from John of Brienne.

  ‘My lords of Caesarea and Haifa are right in what they say, Grand Master de Montagu.’ The regent gestured to the Lord of Haifa to be seated. ‘The Pope will not save us, nor the princes of Europe. They are unhappy with the peace I struck with Saphadin, yet remain unwilling to send armies for a war. Instead, fate plays cruel trick on us, washes bands of ragged children up along our shores.’

  ‘At least those children have more daring than these lords about your table.’

  Uproar ensued, the hammering of fists on seasoned oak, the cries of men offended and shouting for retraction. The Lord of Arsur sat it out, waiting for the squall to abate. There would always be the next twist of events.

  ‘Silence!’

  John of Brienne held up his hand and the noise stilled. He studied the unrepentant face of the Hospitaller, his patience spent, his voice edged with the harsh defensiveness of authority undermined.

  ‘Your violence leads to nothing but desolation and despair; your assaults on the Mohammedans bring greater woe upon ourselves.’

  ‘It is your timidity that reaps the whirlwind, sir.’

  ‘Remember to whom you owe your allegiance.’

  ‘To the pontiff and to God.’ De Montagu gazed unblinking at the regent. ‘And you should consider well on whom your authority rests.’

  ‘I was elected king and regent by the barons here. Such state of things remains unchanged.’

  Philippe Du Plezier, Templar Grand Master, smiled without humour. ‘Age may weary a man and render him feeble.’

  ‘Not me, Grand Master.’

  ‘Then some might discern your reluctance to raise arms against the infidel as treason to our sacred cause.’

  ‘How do you perceive it, Grand Master Du Plezier?’

  ‘My eyes are turned to more spiritual concerns.’

  Sour and ill-disguised mirth erupted in snorts among the gathered nobles. The man was a butcher, an earthy Templar who delighted in leading out his knights to harry and kill the Saracen. Soldier or villager, the nature of the target little troubled him. All that mattered was the victims were Mohammedan, their liquidation a religious duty. He and the regent rarely shared common cause.

  ‘I am realist rather than traitor, Grand Master.’

  ‘Reality is a war you choose not to see.’

  ‘What I see are warehouses filled with goods and trade; our vaults and coffers groan with gold and silver earned through commerce with Damascus and Aleppo. You would squander this for squalid dispute and confrontation with the enemy?’

  ‘We would not exist were there no heathen threat, were there no reason for our skills. It is fortunate for you our joy and calling is to fight.’

  ‘It encumbers any chance for peace.’

  ‘Peace is illusory, is worthless when based on conciliation or concession.’ The expression on the face was unyielding above the white Templar surcoat and red Latin cross. ‘Saphadin is sixty-nine, wishes to draw events to conclusion, to complete the vision of his brother Saladin and drown us beneath the waves.’

  The Lord of Arsur received a nod from John of Brienne and climbed unhurried to his feet. It was important that the regent and his lords witnessed the coming quarrel, necessary for them to believe the drama they beheld. He would make it easy for them.

  ‘I have heard more sense spoken by my pet dwarf, Grand Master.’

  Response was immediate, as he had expected and rehearsed. Inflamed by rage, the Templar leader jumped up and made to lunge towards him. Fellow Grand Masters struggled to restrain him, to mollify and calm, to no avail. Du Plezier shook them off, his hate-filled shouts and wild punches aimed at an unrepentant adversary.

  Protected by the table width, the Lord of Arsur stood his ground. ‘Quite some display, Grand Master. I can only surmise how the Saracen trembles at your approach.’

  ‘Cowards!’ Arrogant disdain had evaporated into rabid fury. Du Plezier was trembling with ire, his face mottled red, his eyes bulging from an unseen pressure. ‘You hide beneath your rocks and stones, recoil as Jerusalem suffers under the demonic yoke of Islam. You lie, you appease, you bow timorous before the Antichrist Saphadin.’

  He did temper well. The Lord of Arsur regarded him, his fingertips resting on the table edge. ‘I was at Hattin, saw how the infidels outnumbered us, the consequence of recklessness, the result of stupidity and belligerence by your former Grand Master Gérard de Ridefort.’

  ‘He was a loyal servant of God.’

  ‘De Ridefort was a dolt.’

  ‘You dare affront our Order, besmirch our reputation?’

  ‘I would challenge any I deem to threaten the security and integrity of the realm.’

  ‘The Knights Templar are blessed by the Lord, sanctioned by His Holiness in Rome.’

  ‘And they are led by bellicose simpletons.’

  Rage had few boundaries when pride was assailed. Had swords been close, there might have been deaths. Guards were called, the tussling interests physically parted, and John of Brienne pounded the table to reclaim control. Even the Bishop of Acre was involved, had the Lord of Haifa by the throat.

  ‘Is this not what our enemies seek? Division, confusion, schism that will deliver up our broken kingdom into heathen bondage? I beseech you . . . No, I command you to your places.’

  It was the weary irascibility of a ruler who maintained his throne but had lost position. He owed his presence, his authority, to his late wife Queen Maria, to their infant daughter Yolanda. Neither could help him. There was scant quarter given to the wounded in Outremer.

  In the wavering silence the moment passed and the flame of discord between the barons sputtered to mute and uneasy truce. Only the voice of the Lord of Arsur could be heard, his words low and measured.

  ‘Your regent majesty, my brother nobles. We are seized in the grip of madness, a choleric fury that consumes us. Like the blind, we totter towards a war we cannot win, fritter a peace we cannot afford to lose.’

  ‘The Saracen attacks us and that is enough!’ Hermann Bardt of the Teu
tons bellowed in disagreement.

  ‘It is never enough, never sufficient to let chance slip through our maladroit fingers. To this end I make proposal and vow. I will take horse to Damascus and seek audience with Sultan Saphadin himself.’

  That had their attention. Dreamer or fixer, he would be viewed as peacemaker, hailed as a symbol of virtue and conviction willing to travel the distance and see concord prevail. He might fail, could die. But at least the inhabitants of Outremer would for ever regard him as the man who offered a last push for reason. All to the good, all for a hidden intention that was supremely bad. He would indeed deliver the final heave. It would topple the Holy Land over the edge.

  As he spoke, his leper Knights of St Lazarus were preparing to attack Moslem pilgrims gathered to make the annual hajj to Mecca.

  Over one hundred miles north along the coast, south of the town of Tripoli, the weather was breaking. The seas were still rough, the caps of the restless waves white with spume, but the gales had eased, the winds gusted less, and passage could be forced to the foaming shallows. A small boat pitched towards the shore. It dipped and rose, first perched on a crest, then sinking into steep descent, its soaked passengers braced and huddled, its lone oarsman battling valiantly in the surf. The bow struck sand, and four figures abandoned the craft to leap and stumble to the safety of dry land.

  ‘Where was Moses when we cried out to him?’

  Brother Luke plucked Isolda from the draining sea and set her down upon the beach. Beside her, Kurt was scrambling waterlogged to observe his surroundings, Otto dragged his pack to higher ground. The faces of each carried expressions of wonderment and relief.

  The Franciscan looked at them. ‘Near three months, and we are here, my lambs, arrived on this sacred soil I visited and left so many years past. Our Lord has been merciful.’

  God had certainly given them cause to be thankful. Their ordeal had been long, their journey full of hazard and incident. The sea claimed their first ship, for it had foundered near Messina. Their second vessel was boarded by Greek cut-throats who themselves had their throats cut; their fourth and fifth were no more than fishing-craft that had inched them east across the Mediterranean map. Finally they had reached the island of Cyprus, had sojourned in Limassol for a fortnight while the friar made preparation for the onward step. And at every stage they had heard news of the children from France who had gone before them. Grim tales of shipwreck and piracy; stories of how thousands had perished on the rocks off Sardinia, how thousands more had been traded to the Arabs.

  Survival was sweet. Kurt breathed deep and watched the cloud dissolve above the distant mountains, a flock of gulls wheel and fight over a morsel of food. The land of the Bible, and his feet were upon it. This was what Hans and little Lisa had died for, what Egon, Zepp and Achim had tried to reach. He and Isolda alone were left standing. The voyage had changed him. He felt older, stronger, wiser, perhaps appeared so to the others. But Isolda still mothered him, and his friend Otto, now seventeen and with a light stubble and hair grown long, still treated him as a younger brother to be indulged and protected. It was comforting in its way.

  The noble boy whooped. ‘Who could imagine our exploits, Kurt? Who would conceive we might come so far?’

  ‘Many times I thought we would not.’

  ‘Put it behind you, my brother. Everything we seek is here. Honour, glory, feats of every kind. You will discover the True Cross, and I shall find my father.’

  ‘Where to begin, Otto?’

  ‘Revelation will come. People talk, clues unfold. We are in a place to which thousand upon thousand of good Christians have travelled before.’

  Kurt shrugged. ‘I have met enough unlikeable ones on the way.’

  ‘The four of us will confront any who wish us ill. We have triumphed over previous threat, will do so again.’

  ‘Why do we land at such a place?’ Isolda was wringing salt water from her sodden tabard dress. ‘Why did we not sail on to proper port?’

  Otto laughed. ‘Because the old friar wishes to teach us humility; because he feels a drenching will remind us of the power of the Divine.’

  ‘And because our ship heads for Tripoli while our goal is southward for Beirut and Acre.’

  The Franciscan had dropped to his knees, had bent and kissed the sand with reverence and joy. His charges were safe; his mission of pilgrimage and wandering piety could resume. There were many who required a healing and helping hand, a multitude of sinners and unbelievers ready to receive the Word of the Saviour.

  He clambered upright, his pilgrim staff held tight in his hand. ‘How better to arrive than as newborns on a deserted beach with nothing here but nature and the elements?’

  Reply came from an unexpected quarter, with a wailing shriek from an arrow that pierced the air with the high-pitched noise of its flight. The youngsters threw themselves flat. Yet Brother Luke faced the danger unperturbed at the whistling approach, motionless even as the steel head struck and shattered his wooden staff.

  A figure had materialized, a sturdy European in motley Arab and Frankish garb, with a yew longbow clenched in one hand and a broad grin creasing his bearded features.

  ‘It scares them every time. Yet not you, holy brother.’

  ‘I do not frighten with ease.’ Brother Luke met him with a level gaze.

  The man tilted his head and studied him. ‘I have seen the bravest of Saracen warriors run at the sound of my flying she-devils. You act as though versed in these dark arts and trickeries of war.’

  ‘I am more versed in acceptance of fate.’ Brother Luke switched from French to English tongue. ‘You use a longbow, play pranks and speak words as though born and raised an Englishman.’

  ‘A Yorkshireman. They call me Sergeant Hugh.’

  ‘While I am known as Brother Luke, bred in the English county of Somerset. And with me Otto, Kurt and Isolda.’

  ‘To be without weapons in these parts is rash. To venture here with mere children is unmatched folly.’

  ‘We take our chance.’

  ‘You have no chance. The land is in turmoil, the risks abound. Everywhere there are enemy patrolling. Mamluks, Bedouin, the cavalry of Saphadin, the brigand troops from Lattakia, Arab foragers or Italian errants ready to profit well from the easy capture of the meek and inexperienced.’

  ‘From whom do you profit, Sergeant Hugh?’

  ‘I cannot deny I am paid, rewarded for every head I find and deliver up safe and attached alive to its body. But it is in good cause, at behest of young Lady Matilda of Acre, the most kind and fair of all noblewomen in Outremer.’

  ‘She has evidently bewitched you.’

  ‘I know of no man resistant to her excellence and charm. She commands me protect the children, and I obey.’

  ‘Thus now do you wander lovestruck and loyal.’ The Franciscan snapped the arrow from his staff. ‘I am grateful to her, thankful your aim is both straight and true.’

  ‘Silver pennies improve the eye and steady the hand, outweigh my lack of practice.’

  ‘You must have been peerless in your day.’

  ‘The best, the personal guard to Richard Cœur de Lion.’

  ‘Well, Hugh my brother, it seems we are become acquainted.’ The friar proffered his hand.

  As afternoon light shaded into evening, the small party made camp within a cluster of Greek temple ruins. Sergeant Hugh had led in his horse and laid out blankets, Brother Luke built a fire from kindling and dung-bricks brought by the soldier, and the young explored. The Yorkshireman, a long-poled battleaxe resting at his side, stretched out against a crumbled pillar, unstopped a gourd of wine, and casually observed the activities around him. To the amusement of Kurt and Isolda, Otto was poised atop a fallen block of marble and was struggling gamely to draw the longbow.

  ‘A heroic picture.’ The sergeant gulped a mouthful of wine and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘As sculpted as a statue, as fair as any maid. And still you are no archer.’

  Crestfallen
, the youth lowered the bow. ‘I thought I had strength enough for the task.’

  ‘A yew bow defeats all but the most sturdy. It has taken me a lifetime to bend her to my will.’

  ‘She?’

  ‘The most capricious of mistresses. Yet I have tamed her, have learned to put three arrows in flight at any time, to pitch a man from his horse at over four hundred paces.’

  Kurt was examining the quiver of arrows and plucked one at random. ‘What is this, Sergeant Hugh?’

  ‘Three feet of finest ash, with flight of goose-feathers and steel bodkin-head as sharp as a pin. It will punch through oak doors, pierce the mail or plated armour of an infidel.’

  ‘And this?’ The boy held up a black-painted arrow for inspection.

  ‘I call her my night terror. Unseen in darkness, she puts the fear of a thousand heathen gods into the hearts of men when she arrives silent among them.’ He nodded as Kurt extracted another. ‘That you have encountered: the she-devil with a whistle I have hollowed beneath. Beside her, the barb, a fish-hook no man may pull from his gut. Next, the blunt-head or hammer.’

  He described each, lovingly providing explanation, illustrating with tales of his past. The soldier seemed wistful, more at ease with vivid recollection than in the disappointment of the present. He was a fighting-man left stranded, a survivor who had cheated death and now made a living by cheating almost anyone. While the flames of the fire climbed, the children and friar drew nearer to catch its warmth.

  Brother Luke eyed him. ‘Your German is good, Hugh.’

  ‘When one has dealt with the Teutons, lived so long in Outremer, one acquires the ear for several tongues.’

  ‘I would not cast you for ambassador.’

  ‘Tact and manners are not my bent.’ The sergeant started on a second flask of wine. ‘It was I in drunken moment who removed and flung down the banner of Duke Leopold of Austria from the conquered towers of Acre and ignited his lifelong feud with my master King Richard.’

  ‘Did he not repay such insult by taking captive the Lionheart two years later on way home from crusade?’

  ‘I hear ransom was given and the King released.’