Pilgrim

by James Jackson

  The Englishman rolled his eyes. ‘Enough gaiety. We are still in Syria. We remain on dangerous soil.’

  ‘But we are reunited.’ Kurt slapped him enthusiastically on the shoulder.

  ‘I am unconvinced of the merits of this.’

  Otto jeered. ‘Do not listen to him, friends. He is as pleased to see you as I.’

  ‘My purse is considerably lighter.’

  ‘Proof of his affection and regard and his readiness to buy you both from your imprisonment.’

  ‘It was my mother, God rest her soul, who warned I was a halfwit.’

  Isolda looked enquiringly at him. ‘Yet where is Brother Luke?’

  ‘Your blessed friar is alive, you may be sure. He is too frail for a venture such as ours. He went with the Templars to their command at Tortosa.’

  ‘Will he join us?’

  ‘At his own pace and once he has preached to every man, stone and lizard on these shores. Then he will come to Acre to meet us and preach some more.’

  Kurt voiced their disappointment. ‘That could be weeks or months, Sergeant Hugh.’

  ‘I am merely bearer of the tidings. Blame it on the vagaries of an old man, on his holy mission, on the curious twists of fate.’ The soldier strode to Zephyr, his horse, and mounted up. ‘Now, I have as good as bought you, you are my chattels and those come with me. Noble boy, you will bring them. We head once more for the Cistercian monastery above Tripoli.’

  Confident in his command, that the youngsters would follow, he flicked the reins and allowed his mount to travel on. It had been an eventful morning, and would be more so if they did not avoid further patrols or the caravan he had waylaid and whose possessions he had lifted. He pulled the wood stopper from a goatskin flask and put it to his lips, grimacing and spitting its contents on discovering only water. The gods were perplexing. He turned in his saddle.

  ‘You dolts, fools, ingrates!’ He wheeled his horse, roaring in livid disbelief, riding to catch the children setting out on different bearing. ‘Why is it you disobey me? Where is it you think you journey?’

  Otto answered. ‘The Hospitaller fortress of Krak des Chevaliers.’

  ‘Madness.’

  ‘At least it is my madness, Sergeant Hugh.’

  ‘We had agreement, a plan.’

  ‘Your agreement and your plan.’ The youth grinned winningly at the thunderous face. ‘My father is Hospitaller knight, and my task to find him.’

  Astride another horse with his sister, and led on a rope by the noble boy, Kurt chimed in. ‘Our own duty is to go where Otto goes.’

  ‘And where do you believe your mighty castle is? How do you intend to reach it?’

  ‘I shall enquire, will seek direction from others.’ Otto was calm at the edge of the storm.

  ‘Others? Others who wish you ill, who do not speak your tongue.’ The exasperation of the bowman had translated into shouts and wild gesticulation. ‘You have no allies or support, no knowledge of these parts.’

  ‘We learn as we journey, Sergeant Hugh.’

  ‘Then you will cruelly find your well-bred notions and appealing ways no match for Saracen malice. I have risked myself for your infant pelts. I have saved you more times than I may count.’

  A plaintive note had entered his voice. It had no effect, for the three youngsters continued on their way. With a prayer and an oath, the soldier nudged Zephyr forward. Irritation, professional pride, would not let him stay behind. He called after his stubborn charges.

  ‘Defiance is an ugly thing, Otto of Alzey. Mark my words, your Brother Luke would not approve.’

  Their Brother Luke was busy. He had talked and perambulated his way about Tortosa, always willing to stop and offer a blessing or kind word, ever eager to tend the poor and sick of the town. Visibility rendered him unseen. Yet he noticed. He spoke the language of the Arab, could ask questions, pry where others could not, carry his investigation into the darkest and most threatening of reaches. How many boats had come to the harbour, how many forays had the knights made, how many men patrolled the castle walls. All needed answers.

  Rumour and observation travelled fast at the bottom of the dungheap. Tortosa was a key bastion guarding the crusader sea routes from Europe. News and trade, supplies and manpower converged on this point. The Franciscan too was newly arrived, just an aged friar in a habit as stained and shabby as the surrounding streets.

  He crossed the central courtyard of the fortress and passed below an archway to a worn flight of steps. Most of the brother knights would be at prayer. It was an opportune moment to burrow further beneath the Templar skin, to push the bounds of their Christian hospitality. Begging for alms was not part of his itinerary this day. He descended the stone stairs past an open doorway, keeping to the shadow, flitting beyond the radius of a murmured conversation. Here a drapier hurried to discuss matters concerning holy vestments; there a turcopole snored off the rigours of a previous night on duty. Brother Luke went deeper.

  No guards were present. The Templars could play their own games of dissemblance and masquerade. They belonged to a secretive Order, felt no compunction to throw wide their cellars and chambers to the world outside. But an air of concealment could breed inquisitiveness. Perhaps they were confident that none would make discovery; perhaps they believed that overt security would fan speculation.

  The friar paused and listened. In the cool subterranean gloom, only silence pervaded. He sniffed the air and pushed on. Ghostly light dappled the flagstones through narrow openings set high in the walls, seeming to cast more darkness than illumination. At intervals, oil lamps had been set, and the friar took one as he progressed on. Vaulted passageways divided, the underworld labyrinth winding through a series of crypt-like halls. More steps, additional corridors.

  That smell. It was the faintest of traces, carrying the suggestion of naphtha and nitre, of sulphur and pitch. He went forward and raised the lamp. Before him, laid out on racks and trestles, were clay pots with thin necks, vessels designed not for drinking but instead moulded small and spherical for a human hand to throw. Beside them were stacked short lengths of tow, hemp and flax cut to order and able to be flung. Brother Luke swung the lantern and searched into the black. Against the walls he could make out the taller shapes of amphorae, possibly filled, probably sealed. He could not leave them ignored.

  As he stooped to put his nose to earthenware, a voice broke harsh into the stillness. ‘You are an unusual wanderer, Brother Luke.’

  ‘Forgive an old man and his curiosity.’ Chuckling disarmingly, the Franciscan straightened and turned. ‘A weakness for wine takes me to all manner of place.’

  ‘Today it brings you here.’

  Three Templars blocked his escape, sergeants whose faces glowed hostile in the restrained light thrown by their lanterns. Rush torches were too flammable for these cellars. Brother Luke noted it, had already discerned much. He backed innocently and imperceptibly against the large jars close to the wall.

  ‘Why, if it is not my old acquaintance from Rome. Can it be you, Sergeant Brother James?’ He leaned forward, blinking at the leader of the group.

  ‘I am promoted turcopolier.’

  ‘Indeed? A battlefield commander of other sergeants, a position of responsibility deserving of respect.’

  ‘Your own position creates only doubt.’

  ‘You know me, Brother James.’

  ‘I recognize you as a man whose age belies his actions, whose rags disguise a scout who came ashore by fishing-boat to spy upon our isle of Arwad.’

  ‘Such reasoning is misguided.’

  ‘Interrogation may tell us otherwise.’

  They advanced upon him, threat implicit in their bearing, intention evidenced by the heavy cudgels in their hands. Brother Luke viewed them with calm and passive interest. Three brutes who betrayed a great deal in what they did.

  ‘Kneel.’

  The friar replied without a tremor. ‘I bend only to the will of God.’

  ‘We shall see.’
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  A blow struck his chest, a second his abdomen. He swayed slightly and recovered, a tree buffeted but unfelled. They tried again, pummelling with bone-jarring ferocity, driving their clubs hard into ribs and back and head. He breathed harder and stayed upright.

  ‘Yield, friar.’

  ‘Did Christ do so before Pilate?’

  ‘You blaspheme.’ The wooden baton impacted on his nose and the blood gushed free. ‘You wish to be flayed alive, to be burned as a heretic?’

  ‘What I wish is of little consequence to your conduct. I sought you out in Rome as a friend, Sergeant Brother James.’

  ‘You discover me as your enemy.’ The club rose and fell.

  A pink loop of saliva hanging from his mouth, the friar stood serene for the next violent contact. The Templars had something to hide and protect, a clandestine matter that had brought them in number from Europe, that had made them lay-up boats and put down traps. His instincts had been correct.

  He offered conversation while they gathered their energy and breath. ‘Are we not both of us Christians, Sergeant Brother James?’

  ‘You believe in peace as I put trust in war.’ A mailed fist slammed into the cheek of the Franciscan. ‘And, as I have advised, my rank is become turcopolier.’ The balled and steel-clad hand pulled back and punched forward, this time to the temple.

  Collapse came, Brother Luke toppling across jars that split and spilled their contents. In the wreckage, the friar was motionless. He was aware that the three Templars continued to beat him, conscious too that what he detected were the component substances for one of the deadliest weapons of war. Liquid seeped around him. He tasted vinegar, the drink with which Christ was taunted on the Cross, the one material able to contain and douse the blaze created by these demonic armaments. The Knights Templar were making wildfire. It would permit them to take and hold a city, to defend its seized ramparts by raining fiery death on any who besieged them. As he drifted towards grey oblivion, the old friar congratulated himself on his find. It was worth the suffering. There could be only one city, a single target. The Templars intended to conquer Jerusalem.

  There would be pandemonium in the royal city of Acre, much wailing and gnashing of teeth at the sudden disappearance of the baby queen. Grief-stricken, howling conspiracy and blaming the Saracens, her father the regent would be ordering a general search. All to no use. It was simply another stage in the disintegration of Outremer, a further prop ripped from beneath the power-base of John of Brienne. Sad and worrying times. Such were the thoughts passing through the mind of the Lord of Arsur as he headed for the cold and wooded slopes of Mount Tabor.

  He spotted the cavalry of al-Mu’azzam riding out to greet him, a silent display of strength that fanned out and fell in to either side. The Mohammedans were taking no chances. He guided his horse on, refusing to acknowledge their presence, secure that the Sultan of Damascus intended first to talk rather than kill. His moves, like those of John of Brienne, were so predictable, so easily manipulated and countered. Each leader was absorbed in his own concerns. Neither would foresee the coming strike.

  Attended by two bodyguards, Saphadin received him in his tent with studied graciousness and appraising eyes. They had not met since the days of the great Salah ad-Din, when each had acted as negotiator and go-between, when the Lord of Arsur had delivered up the Christian army for annihilation at Hattin. Matters for discussion and reminiscence were plentiful.

  ‘I am sixty-nine years of age, older than when last we met.’

  ‘The years sit well with you, al-Adil.’

  ‘Not so with the land we inhabit.’ The Sultan looked gravely at his visitor. ‘How has this come to pass? How has truce between our nations slipped to the brink of an abyss?’

  ‘Hot temper and ill judgement may for ever carry men towards conflict, al-Adil.’

  ‘I thought I could trust your regent king John of Brienne. I believed we had treaty, supposed that even while he planned long-term crusade he wished peace and reason for the present to remain.’

  The Lord of Arsur held and returned the steady gaze. ‘It is not he who agitates for war, al-Adil. As in your own court, there dwell in Outremer rash and emboldened nobles, zealots and provocateurs who rouse the furies and stir the blood.’

  ‘Which are you, Lord of Arsur?’

  ‘A friend to amity and accord, a bearer of the seal and confidence of John of Brienne, a supporter of the very compact you made with our Latin kingdom.’

  ‘Yet you are the viper in the bosom of that kingdom, the creature who betrayed the Christian forces for profit and for gain.’

  ‘The more reason you should embrace my intervention and good office, al-Adil.’ He produced a sincere and reassuring smile.

  Sultan and envoy sipped mint tea in silence, each man perusing the other, reflecting upon motive and intended move. The Lord of Arsur was content to wait, satisfied with the dialogue he had already created. Saphadin was intrigued; Saphadin would fall all too easily in his trap.

  The Moslem ruler was cautious. ‘What advantage is yours in coming now to me?’

  ‘Peace brings reward to us all. I own land and wealth, have earned much from prior association with Salah ad-Din your brother.’

  ‘Why should I see truth in your counsel?’

  ‘For that we both are witness to the destructive destiny of battle. For that I am no Templar or Hospitaller knight chafing to slaughter every Mohammedan. For that I am the sole chance you possess to draw back from looming fray and devastation.’

  ‘Perhaps devastation is required.’

  ‘And what then, al-Adil? The Pope and the European princes will raise armies, send fleets, engage you in fresh cycle of bloodshed and brutality.’

  ‘I shall crush them all.’

  ‘At supreme cost to yourself and instability to your realm.’

  There was recognition in the face of the old man, awareness behind the white beard that for every strength there was opposing weakness. He might be able to summon troops, could raze every Frankish town and bastion the length of Outremer. But the conflagration might yet consume him.

  The nobleman was patient and persuasive. ‘Conciliation is ever a more certain and placid creature than war, al-Adil. It is twenty-five years since Hattin, less since Richard Cœur de Lion stormed ashore with vengeance in his heart. Reasonable men have no wish to repeat in haste such history.’

  ‘You have suggestion?’

  ‘Negotiation, al-Adil.’

  ‘I have sent to Acre messengers of peace, ambassadors for mediation, my own senior chamberlain. None return to me alive.’

  ‘Killed no doubt by those desiring confrontation. Let us confound them. Let us seize the moment and sue for harmony.’ The Lord of Arsur stepped closer to the Sultan. ‘Confer with John of Brienne in private discourse; bring your emirs to meet the barons. Only then will order be restored from present chaos.’

  ‘We shall choose the site of assembly.’

  ‘As you demand, al-Adil. Pick also your hostages to pass to our safe care for duration of the gathering. In good faith I will tender myself as captive to your charge.’

  ‘A brave decision.’ Saphadin waved an imperious hand. ‘You have place in mind for the keeping of my pledge-made-flesh?’

  ‘Your chosen emirs will be imprisoned at the small fort of Sephorie close by Tyre.’

  The irony was not lost on Saphadin, for it was the stronghold from which the Christian army had set forth that July morn in 1187 for eventual destruction on the Horns of Hattin.

  His dark eyes narrowed. ‘As my honoured guest and future hostage, as baron who has worked for our sultanate and cause, where is it you would desire to be lodged?’

  ‘At the castle of Beit-Nuba.’

  The Lord of Arsur was no stranger to the place.

  Twilight dropped across Mount Tabor, broadened over the hills of Galilee and the valley of Armageddon. A still and peaceful night. The eve of Christmas in the Holy Land.

  Chapter 14

 
‘Identify yourselves.’

  ‘Otto of Alzey, son of Wilhelm the Knight Hospitaller, and three companions.’

  They were dwarfed by the soaring edifice. Unassailable on its rock bluff, a monumental bulwark of concentric defences and thirteen outer towers, it was the mightiest of all crusader castles. The stone essence of Frankish power. Never taken by siege, it sat above the valley pass and astride the route to the Syrian interior, a constant presence, a visible reminder to the Saracens and their sultan in Damascus that the Christians were unlikely ever to leave. A bastion set within a stronghold wrapped inside a fortress. Breach the walls and an attacker would find himself confronted by an interior moat. Cross the moat, survive the catapult-shot, and the same attacker would face a steep glacis, would be channelled into killing-zones overlooked by angled ramparts and hidden galleries, by murder-holes and defensive passageways. Krak des Chevaliers in all its harsh glory.

  Kurt glanced uncertainly at Otto. ‘You said they were Hospitallers, Otto.’

  ‘They are.’ The noble boy kept his gaze on the gate tower. ‘Yet they are also Knights of St John of Jerusalem, men who both tend the sick and wage war against the heathen.’

  Sergeant Hugh nodded. ‘I know it well, for I have ridden into battle with them when King Richard marched towards Jerusalem. It was they who charged first at the enemy, who compete only with the Templars in fervour and ferocity, who are the sworn enemies of Islam. A Hospitaller is as gentle in the infirmary as he is barbarian in the field.’

  ‘This castle is proof of it.’ The twelve-year-old let his stare traverse the daunting heights.

  Isolda too was looking. ‘I cannot believe a father of yours to be barbarian, Otto.’

  ‘He was the most temperate and beloved of men and kindest of fathers, was never known to raise voice or hand in anger. His mission east was to nurse pilgrims and care for the weak.’