Rannulf took another loaf from his pack. “Odo used him to handle the King’s mother and the rest of the court. Odo had his uses for everybody.” The sergeant came back with a small keg of wine and a single wooden cup, and they passed it around them; with the sergeants they made a close circle. “De Ridford loves double dealing.”
“Yes,” Stephen said. “Like this with you. Why do you trust him?”
“Does it look as if I trust him?” Rannulf leaned back against the wall. His bad shoulder ached. “I’ve never been to Damascus. And they have Odo there; I’d like to see him.”
“Maybe you can talk the Sultan into taking ransom for him,” Stephen said.
Felx gave a grunt of a laugh. “The Sultan would have ransomed him with the others if he intended that. I promise you, the problem isn’t the Sultan. I’m glad we’re going—I hear Damascus is beautiful, and rich as Constantinople.”
Rannulf snorted. “Nothing is as rich as Constantinople.”
“Have you been there?” Stephen asked.
“I came through Constantinople on my way out here, in the year of the earthquakes,” Rannulf said. “I was lost in the city for three days. And for two of them, I didn’t even care.”
“Is it beautiful?” Stephen asked.
“It’s dirty, and it’s noisy. And beautiful, yes, but mostly it’s big, the buildings are huge, the streets are jammed with people, even at the dead of night there is something going on, everywhere. In a single hour you see more than in a whole lifetime anywhere else. It’s all lit with lamps, everywhere, so that it’s never dark, and the Greeks are like mosquitoes, they’re always on you, trying to get another drop of your blood.” He shook his head, bringing himself back to this stable, the horses champing and stirring up the straw, and Bear, already asleep, snoring gently in the shadows. Thinking of Constantinople still gave him a quick burst of longing, as if he had seen a vision of a higher life he could not attain. “I almost stayed there, I almost gave up the vow and just stayed.” He crossed himself.
Stephen said, “I almost give up the vow every day.”
“Every Matins,” Felx said. “When the bell rings. Between the first and second stroke.”
Rannulf said, “Well, since we’re speaking of bells, Compline is going to ring soon, and I have some orders for you. Stay away from Tripoli’s men. From now on, no talking on the march. Ride in columns.”
“There’s four of us,” Stephen said. “Six, counting the sergeants.”
“Do as I tell you. I’m sending the sergeants back.” The wine cup came around again. “I brought enough corn for the horses, but I only have bread for four men. Tripoli will not keep us, and between here and Damascus I think there may be very little for anybody to eat.”
The two sergeants murmured, protesting; one said, “We can forage.”
“Don’t argue with me,” Rannulf said. “You’re going back. In fact you ought to go back tonight, and save me your breakfast.”
One sergeant groaned. The other said, “We need the sleep, Saint, soften up.”
“Is that all?” Felx said. “No psalms or sermons?”
“Say your prayers,” Rannulf said. Outside the bell was ringing. He locked his hands together and bent his head, and while the others mumbled through their paternosters he pretended he was praying too. He was not praying. He had not prayed in weeks, not since he had fallen in love with the Princess Sibylla.
The Damascus road crossed the high grassy bluffs called the Goulan, the path a deep dusty dent through barren pasture turning into flat desert scrub. From the heights, Rannulf twisted in his saddle and looked back, and at the far edge of the land saw the glitter of the Mediterranean: all the Holy Land lay beneath his eyes, taken in a single look.
Just before noon the next day, they came to a well, a green patch in the dull brown land, where there was a village with a little church. At Tripoli’s passage a few minutes earlier the people had come in from their fields and out of their houses to watch, but now they were going back to work. The Templars took over the church, turned the priest out, shut the windows up, locked the doors, hung the sword over the altar, and gathered there to arrange the Mass.
Rannulf said, “I don’t want to serve it.”
They stood before the altar. Stephen had brought some wine from Tiberias, and was pouring it into one of the church vessels. Bear glowered at Rannulf, “What’s the matter with you? Why are you such an old woman lately?”
Stephen said quickly, “I will serve it.”
Bear swung toward him. “You know it? All of it?”
“I know it,” Stephen said. He laid a loaf of bread on the altar. “Get ready.”
Rannulf, Felx, and Bear lined up before the altar, and Stephen began to lead the service, in a clear voice and good churchly Latin. Rannulf kept still, his head down, his hands folded before him. He was at the low end of the row of men, and when the bread came around, and the cup of wine, he put them down. Stephen came along, giving the kiss and the blow, and Rannulf turned away.
The other men prayed on a while; Rannulf went out as soon as he could. Stephen came after him in the churchyard, in a hot temper. “Why am I unworthy?”
Rannulf picked up his sword, which he had left outside the church door. “Nobody’s worthy. What do you mean?” He looped the belt over his shoulder and walked across the village common to his horse.
“You would not take the sacrament from me.”
“It has nothing to do with you,” Rannulf said, surprised. He had left his horse by the well. A crowd of little boys surrounded it; he brushed in through their midst and led the horse away a few steps.
“What is it then?” Stephen asked.
Rannulf mounted his horse. “No concern of yours.” They had to catch up with Tripoli, who fortunately did not travel very fast. Felx and Bear were coming out of the church. Stephen mounted and rode up stirrup to stirrup with Rannulf.
“Bear’s right, you’ve been in a fit, lately.”
“Then why do you follow me?” Rannulf said, angry.
“God loves madmen. We’re hoping a little of it rubs off.”
Rannulf growled at him. “You’re light as a girl, Mouse.” He reined around, headed toward the road, and the other two men got on their horses and followed him. They fell into columns, Stephen on Rannulf’s right, and went at a quick trot down the road after Tripoli.
Just after sundown, they caught up with Tripoli at a caravanserai on the desert where there was neither bread nor wine nor fodder for the horses; Tripoli’s men were fighting and arguing over a few stems of hay when the Templars rode to the far end of the horse pen, tied their horses to the fence, and fed them of the corn brought in their packs. There was only water to drink, but Rannulf had bread enough to fill the four knights’ stomachs. Tripoli’s men took note of this, from a distance.
After they had eaten, they said the Compline office, and went to sleep, and before dawn the pounding of drums and the braying of horns brought them leaping up out of their blankets. The sky was still dark but all along the edge of the world the light ran pink and orange and blue, and surrounding the caravanserai were Saracen horsemen, packed together stirrup to stirrup, a wall of gleaming breastplates and fluttering yellow cloaks.
The rapid rhythmic drumming never stopped, a relentless pounding in the ears. Rannulf said, “They’ve sent an escort. We’ll say Matins on the march.” He went to saddle his horse.
The Saracen soldiers were Kurdish lancers from the Halka, Saladin’s elite troops, armored and greaved, their helmets tufted with yellow plumes, their surcoats of yellow silk. Their magnificent horses wore yellow saddlecloths and yellow tassels on their bridles. They carried lances with six-inch double-edged steel points. The drums beat constantly. The Christians formed their columns, Tripoli and his forty men first, and the Templars at the end, and rode out the gate between two ranks of the lancers, as if between two rows of knives.
When they had gone on a way, a servant came back and demanded that Rannulf attend the
Count of Tripoli. With Felx van Janke, he rode up along the side of the column, until he came to the Count, who rode beside a wiry Saracen in the splendid clothes of a prince.
“My lord Emir.” Tripoli spoke as if the words tasted bad to him. “This is the Templars’ commander, Rannulf Fitzwilliam by name, an ordinary knight, I believe.” His gaze skimmed past Rannulf. “I present you to the lord Turanshah Mohammed ibn Ayyub, master of shields and cupbearer to the Sultan.”
Rannulf knew this name: it was the Sultan’s brother, who was said to be closer to Saladin than any other. Tripoli had spoken French and so he spoke French. “I am honored, my lord.”
The slim man on Tripoli’s far side watched him steadily, his head at a proud angle. He said, in Arabic, “Only four Templars. Are we slighted?” Lifting his hand, he summoned other men out of the pack behind him. Now he spoke French, accented, and a little kinked. “The Sultan has sent some servants of his, to attend to you while you are his guests.” Three men in long robes and turbans circled their horses around the front of the column and fell in beside Rannulf and Felx.
Rannulf said, without enthusiasm, “The Sultan is generous.” He saw they would be watched and followed and fenced in the whole of this trip.
“If you are in need of anything, we shall supply it,” said the Sultan’s brother.
Rannulf said, “The Sultan is generous. We need nothing.”
Tripoli coughed. The Saracen princeling said, “By an oversight this inn was not stocked sufficiently with food and fodder—we shall supply you and your horses.”
Rannulf said, again, “We need nothing.” He was watching Tripoli through the corner of his eye, to see how he took this; the Count’s face, sloping down from his high round forehead to his small and pointed chin, showed nothing but his harsh dislike of Rannulf. Rannulf bowed his head slightly. “By your leave, my lord, I shall go back to my position.”
“Go,” Tripoli said, and Rannulf swung out and with Felx beside him cantered back along the column toward his own men. Half the yellow lancers now rode in a disorderly mass behind the Templars; there would be no falling back on this day’s march. The three Saracen servants who were trailing along after him were not soldiers, maybe courtiers, in silk gowns and boots of red leather, riding slim-legged mares with braided manes. Under their sharp, curious eyes the Templars rode along in their marching order, facing forward, saying nothing.
The high road climbed through hills like grey-brown slabs of rock tilting up from the sand. From the pass at the crest of the range, they could see all across the broad flat desert to the blue mountains. In the north one peak wore a snowy cap, like a captive cloud. The river lay like a darker ribbon through the low ground; where the city stood, the stream broke into many separate streams, and the gold of the desert burst into a jewel-like green. They rode on toward it all afternoon. As they drew near, the scent of oranges sweetened the air; the white walls of the city rose from the dense green groves and garden of the oasis. The last sunlight shone on domes and spires, on the tiled gate where they entered in.
Inside the city, a mob waited for them, shouting and restless. The Kurdish drummers set up their steady thrumming but the uproar of the crowd drowned them out. The lancers made a great show of galloping up on either side of the Christians, shielding them from this threat: the arms of the mob waved sticks and stones in the air, and their voices were ugly.
They crossed a square, also packed with angry people; beyond the thickets of their bodies Rannulf could see a vast sprawling building, faced with blue tiles, decorated in swirling designs like writing. The mob began to throw rocks at them, and the Kurds shouted and shook their lances and made short dashes into the mass of the people, to drive them away.
They rode along a covered street, straight as Roman work, which was lined with shops and stalls overflowing with goods: heaps of oranges, stacks of flatbread, and piles of cloth, and other things, the metalwork tools and toys for which the city’s craftsmen were famous. Under the tangy scent of the oranges, and the sharp smoky smell of all cities, there was another trace in the air, like rotting flowers.
Across a wide pavement as big as the pavement of the Temple itself, they came to a high white wall, set in it a second gate, a grille of iron fixed with plaques of gold, and here they stopped, and the Sultan himself met them.
The lancers fell back to form a curved wall of horsemen stretching all across the pavement. In the open archway of the gate, the Sultan sat on a white camel, comparisoned in cloth of gold and scarlet silk. A servant held a parasol over him, although the sun was almost gone. Another servant, a black man, stood at the shoulder of the camel, and whenever anybody talked, he talked: Rannulf guessed he was changing the French into Arabic. There were two rows of archers on either side of the gate, carrying double-curved horn bows, and at the top of the wall, other soldiers stood half-hidden behind a battlement. Rannulf could not see how they were armed.
Tripoli ranged his company in two ranks before the Sultan; the Bishop of Saint-George with his attendants took the right end of the front line, and Rannulf took his men to the left. From here he got his first good look at al-Nasr al-Malik Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, Sultan of Cairo and Damascus.
He was slight, like his brother, with large dark eyes, and a quick, forceful way of looking around him, as if he saw everything immediately. He wore a white turban, but Rannulf knew he was bald beneath it, bald as a peeled egg. Remembering how he knew, he smiled.
Tripoli was introducing his company, but the Sultan had seen Rannulf s smile. Stiffly perched on the camel, his hands folded before him, he directed an unblinking look into the ranks of the Templars.
When Tripoli had finished the catalogue of his own men, the Sultan said, “Make these piebald knights known to me.”
Tripoli turned, and began the introduction of them, but when he said Rannulf’s name, the Sultan waved him silent. Bolt upright as if he might by sheer will make up for his lack of size, the Sultan riveted the knight with his stare.
“Who is this man? He smiles, as if he knows me. I do not recall that I have met him.”
He spoke in Arabic, and the servant beside his camel raised his voice to translate, but Rannulf answered him at once. “It was at Ramleh, lord. We did not meet, exactly.”
With the eyes of all the Saracens on him, he knew how coarse and harsh he looked, his jerkin frayed along the hems, his beard tangled and untrimmed. He saw how the men around the Sultan were staring at him, hiding smiles behind their hands. But the Sultan seemed to have lost interest in him. Maybe he had forgotten what had happened at Ramleh. With a nod, he let Tripoli go on with his introductions, and after a while the Christians were led into the palace, and there taken to the rooms where they would stay.
“This is beautiful,” Stephen said, walking slowly through the sun-washed room. Under his feet lay a cream-colored carpet, trimmed with a border of green and gold. He put one hand out and drew his fingertips across the inlaid wood of a table, polished to a golden glow. “Simply beautiful.”
Inside the palace wall, there were gardens and parks; the Saracens had led them to a grove of lemon trees, where the fruit hung ripening. Here, set off from the rest of the palace, was a house of white brick, with three big rooms, and a balcony looking out on the lemon grove.
The three rooms made even the King’s hall in his citadel of Jerusalem look like a kennel. Open and airy, they were full of light, and yet shady and cool; carved white screens of stone stood before the windows, so that the sun cast patterns of shadow onto the walls. When the wind blew through the branches of the lemon trees outside the house, the shadows danced and shivered. Plants like tall green fountains stood in the corners of the room. On the table a scatter of agates and carbuncles caught the random sunlight. Stephen’s gaze sought out the servant Ali, standing by the door with Rannulf. “Beautiful,” he said, again.
He shut his eyes a moment. He was not supposed to think that way. Bear and Felx were wandering around the chambers, handling everything, li
ke bumpkins. Now Bear with a cry pounced on the pretty jewels on the table. Stephen went over to where Rannulf stood with the handsome servant.
Rannulf was saying, “Where are our horses?”
Ali said, “We shall care for your horses. You have no need for them here.” He turned, lifting his hand, and in through the door came a parade of other servants, each carrying a basket or a ewer. Stephen’s mouth suddenly sprang with water; he smelled roasted meat, and onions, and fresh warm bread.
Beside him, Rannulf said, “I would like to go out to see Damascus. Such as I saw of it coming here seemed interesting.”
Ali bowed, more with his eyes than his head; like all the Saracens he clearly thought the Templars were little better than peasants. “I shall ask. But I doubt it very much. You saw, coming here, how the crowd would have torn you to pieces. For your own safety, you must remain inside the palace wall.”
He was tall, bonelessly supple, his face quick and lively, with high cheekbones and a full, sensuous mouth. Ever since he joined them on the road here, Stephen had been admiring that mouth, in some imaginative detail. The servant sensed his gaze, and gave him a flash of a smile.
“Well, then,” Rannulf said. “Are we allowed to go where we please in the palace?”
Ali inclined his head an inch. “Probably it would be best for you simply to stay here. We shall provide for you. Tomorrow the Sultan will honor you as his guests at a formal banquet, which I believe you will find a feast for all your senses.” He gave a faint, wicked sniff, nosing Rannulf, who stank. “We shall provide you with suitable clothing.”
Felx came out of the next room. “Saint, there are no bells here.”
“I know,” Rannulf said. He jerked his thumb at Stephen. “Go in the other room and run those slaves out; we ought to say Vespers.” Turning to Ali, he said, “Get out. We’re busy now. I’ll call you when I need you.”
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