Dagger of the Martyrs

by Steven Savile

  “Javed?” she asked, thinking that the old man had sent his breath down the mountain to watch over her. But this felt different again, it did not taste like her master.

  The ripples continued to run out from the woollen shawl, dark shadows that quickly filled the hut, darting and cavorting around Samira as if in a frenzied dance. Samira felt no fear; there was no sense of imminent attack, just curiosity, as if this new thing, like her spirit, had just been freed and wished to learn.

  Samira instinctively knew what was needed here. She closed her senses down one by one and calmed herself quickly – just as swordplay came easier with practice, so this too had become as simple as taking a breath – and called on her spirit.

  She felt her dark sister breathe on her cheek.

  It was joined by a second, colder breath, and a single word, whispered in the dark.

  “Lucian?”

  Samira’s spirit answered for her.

  Mother?

  ◆◆◆

  Two sets of ripples, each obvious and individual, ran in intersecting shadows inside the confines of the hut, as if two pebbles had been dropped into the still waters of the tarn, allowing patterns to form, break apart and reform in dizzying combinations.

  Mother.

  Samira’s spirit spoke, and the breath of Allah ran fast in the room, gathering in the other ripples, a fisherman casting a net for his catch. Samira felt a warmth envelop her – like being wrapped in a woollen shawl. She smelled the perfumed oil her mother always used on her hair, heard a whispered lullaby of love and longing in the far distance, and caught a single, fleeting glimpse of a mother’s smile as her dark sister brought another’s breath inside her to join them.

  Samira had thought her mother to be lost to her completely.

  She had just been proved wrong, and now they would never again be parted.

  1308

  THE POOR QUARTER, PARIS

  Aymeric’s rehabilitation from his ordeal in the Palace cells was slow and frustrating.

  He woke that first afternoon to find his wounds had been tended, and that he had been dressed in a simple cotton tunic and trousers that, while not anywhere near new, were clean. It felt good to be in proper clothes again. He lay on a pallet of straw in an austere room that was barely longer than he was tall, and the same again wide. The only décor was a plain wooden cross on the wall, the room’s single window a small, plate sized opening high above the bed, too high to see through, that let a small sliver of day into the chamber.

  He tried to swing his legs out of the cot, intending to stand, but the sudden wave of nausea and dizziness forced him onto his back. He didn’t move for the longest time, concentrating on the deep, slow breaths that helped his master the nausea.

  As if summoned by the mere thought of food, the old bearded man came shuffling through from a larger room beyond, carrying a steaming bowl of stew and a small loaf.

  Aymeric wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep anything down, given the fresh bout of dizziness as he struggled to sit, but the stew proved to be hearty and hot, despite the lack of meat, and the bread was far fresher than anything he had eaten in months.

  It might not be ambrosia, but the restorative powers of a simple bowl of soup and bread was undeniable; he felt considerably stronger for it, even though he realized he’d wolfed it down without saying Grace, and with no manners whatsoever.

  The little priest’s eyes creased with laughter.

  “Do not worry yourself, lad. I am sure the good Lord will happily forgive your transgressions, given the circumstances. Now, you will have questions, I’m sure. I will do everything I can to give you answers, though I am not sure they will be satisfactory. For now, though, rest. I have seen newborn babes with more strength than you.”

  Over the course of the next hour Aymeric learned that his host, Reynard, a priest – shepherd was what he named himself, although his connection to the Holy Church appeared to be tenuous one at best – ran the poor quarter as something of a personal fiefdom. He was allowed to do so at the pleasure of the Templars, in return for favours when required from his team of itinerant priests, thieves and beggars, who had access to places in the city where the Knights themselves could not travel.

  Aymeric was one of the aforesaid favours.

  “But it was a favour I was more than happy to oblige,” Reynard said. He sat on the edge of Aymeric’s cot, his beard bundling in his lap like a sleeping cat. “I have known your father since he was your age, and we have helped each other where we can over the years. More than that, I consider him, not only an ally against the King’s whims and misfortunes, but a friend, one of the closest I have.”

  “We can’t leave him to mercy of the Inquisitor,” Aymeric said.

  “That man has no mercy,” Reynard replied, “But we must move with care. To rush, and betray our hand, will do him no good. Getting you out of that damned place was hard enough. Your father is more carefully guarded, and if I know Bernard Gui, he will be driven to rage by your escape, and look to take that anger out on your father.”

  “I can’t sit by and do nothing,” Aymeric replied, frustrated.

  “Ah, my boy, you can, and you will, at least until your strength returns. Courage. We must be as wildcats stalking tender prey in this game. You have more friends than you know – and more enemies than you can count. Your Order is scattered, broken for the moment. We must retrench and rebuild before we strike back if we wish the Order to rise again. Foremost, we must disprove this King’s foul lies and unravel the whole basis of his attack on your brothers and your Chapterhouse. Such evidence will not be easy to come by, if indeed it can be found. For this moment, all I can offer you is a sanctuary.”

  ◆◆◆

  Hope was all that sustained Aymeric over the long weeks to come.

  One of his burns festered and wept sorely, needing the holy man to cut out of the infected part, which further weakened him to the point where there was more concern than smiles on the old priest’s face during his frequent visits.

  Aymeric spent the best part of a week tossing and turning in sweat-fuelled fever dreams, and even after the fevers broke, he was left weaker than he ever had been in the cells.

  But the stews were hearty, and he had his fill of fresh bread and surprisingly fine goat’s cheese. Slowly, his health, if not his strength returned. He was haunted by constant demons, each spawned by the trials he knew his father still suffered in the King’s cells.

  By late spring he was able to get out of the cot but couldn’t maintain any sort of physical effort beyond shuffling around inside the confines of the decrepit old church. It was almost June before he managed to take a walk outside in the sunshine and feel its warmth on his face. And even then it was several more weeks after that first walk before he had the energy to wield a sword and reacquaint himself with his practice regime.

  It was mid-summer before he felt close to recovered, and still a long way from himself, but, sword in hand again, the honest sweat of exertion peppering his skin, Aymeric bristled against the in action. The wrongs done to his family and his Order demanded justice. Nine long months had passed since the raid on the Chapterhouse. Nine. And still the small priest with his peg-toothed smile counselled care and caution.

  ◆◆◆

  “My father has suffered long enough,” Aymeric objected.

  He sat at a table breaking bread with Reynard and Yannick. The heady wine that accompanied the meal threatened to go straight to his head. He was careful not to allow himself that release.

  “Moves are afoot, lad,” Reynard assured him. “We have reached out to gather the scattered remnants of the Order. I have quietly let it be known to the Royal Guards that thoughts of rebellion are stirring out in the streets and that they will soon be faced with outright anarchy as the mob seeks to tear down those palace walls and burn the place, such is their anger at the increased austerity they are forced to live under. That is not exactly true, of course, but the King doesn’t know that, and my ears in the pal
ace tell me that he is worried enough to have Gui out looking for ringleaders to root out an punish.”

  “That is all?” Aymeric said, not seeing the bigger picture. “It is amusing that the King is scared, but how does that gain my father or my brothers any sort of respite from the white-hot pokers and other tortures of the Inquisition?”

  Reynard sighed, and took a long drink of his wine before replying. The ruby red wine spilled a wet trail down his beard. Aymeric tried not to look at it because it looked too much like blood.

  “Patience. I have been gathering my resources,” the old man replied. “The King is scared, yes, but far more importantly, he is bankrupt. With the right amount of leverage and gold, I trust we can buy your father’s freedom.”

  “How could it be that easy? Just to offer a few coins?” Aymeric shook his head.

  “Money is still what makes the world go around, my young master. Palms crossed with gold, wheels greased in return. That is how this city works. If we can leverage that hardship and buy Lucian’s freedom, then we have somewhere to begin, but we need more. We need something we can tell the Pope in Avignon or the Church in Rome that will discredit the Kings assertions, and that will cost more than any one man’s liberty. Trust me, lad. I have people working day and night on this riddle.”

  “But it is all taking too long,” Aymeric said, his frustration obvious. “I need to do something now.”

  The old man didn’t speak, but Yannick did.

  “I believe our young Templar is ready to earn his keep,” the younger priest said. “With your permission, Master, I will take him on the blood walk tonight.”

  “It would be good to show him we are not just talkers,” the older man agreed.

  “Blood walk?” Aymeric asked, but Yannick just smiled in reply.

  ◆◆◆

  They left the old church at sundown and headed north into the city itself.

  Both Aymeric and Yannick were dressed head-to-foot in monk’s habits, hoods pulled forward to mask their features in shadow. They walked slowly, deliberately, chanting Latin prayers as they went, both as disguise and to bury any inadvertent clinks and clatters from the clay pots they carried hidden beneath their robes.

  “Pig’s blood,” Yannick had explained, handing tow pots to Aymeric before they left the church. “You don’t want to get any on your habit, the stains are a swine to get out and Reynard will make you do the laundry for a month.”

  Under the habit Aymeric wore only a thin cotton tunic, and a leather belt to which he attached a long knife in a woven sheath. Given a choice, he would have worn a sword, but Yannick had forbidden it.

  “This is a night for care and deception, not swordplay. All of your fancy moves will be for nothing if we are discovered about this business.”

  So, they walked, chanting, through streets filled with people who paid them no heed at all. It was a perfect disguise. The city was full of the religious, the penitent, the just and the unjust, and two more were barely worthy of attention.

  They walked as far as the richer houses in the environs of the Palace before Yannick drew Aymeric aside, into an alley. The crowds were thinner, their presence more likely to draw attention here as they walked among the dwelling of merchants, counts and noblemen.

  Yannick watched and waited, making sure the street was empty and quiet, before he led Aymeric to the nearest door. It was a new piece of heavy oak, polished until it seemed to gleam in the moonlight.

  “Fat Count de Villas is very proud of his new door, or so I have heard.” Yannick said with a mischievous smile. He took out a clay pot, and dipped his fingers in it, using the tips to daub a tall and wide cross on the wood, with the letters XP in more dripping red below.

  “The Templars are about in the city tonight,” Yannick said. “Best be careful, lad.”

  Over the course of the next hour they daubed the crosses and the letters of Christ on doors all throughout the streets surrounding the palace, more than once having to move on quickly and silently as they heard the approach of the King’s guards.

  “There are more of the dogs around than usual,” Yannick said. “I’m thinking we’d be wise to move on.”

  “One more,” Aymeric replied. “Just the one and we’ll be gone. I promise.”

  “You have a particular house in mind?”

  “I do. Where does Bernard Gui rest his head?”

  Yannick laughed, thinking that Aymeric must be joking, then went quiet when he saw the set of the young man’s jaw and realised he was deathly serious.

  “The Inquisitor is not a man to rile unduly,” Yannick said.

  “There is nothing undue about this,” Aymeric replied. “I have looked into his eyes. I know the darkness at the heart of the man. I would test his spirit.”

  Yannick again took his time replying.

  He looked Aymeric in the eye.

  “He lives in the dwelling annexed to the Palace proper. There will be guards at every turn.”

  “Then we must be careful,” Aymeric replied, echoing Yannick’s own earlier words back to him. “Our blood walk will have been for nothing if we are discovered about this business.”

  ◆◆◆

  Yannick led them through as many back streets and side streets to the start of the causeway leading to the Palace’s great portcullis. He sniffed and pointed out a tall stone building that was a mirror of its owner, skeletally thin, towering over the riverbank to their left.

  “Are you sure about this?” the young priest asked.

  From their position in the shadows, they watched two guards within twenty steps of the doorway of the dwelling. There were sure to be more.

  “We can’t walk up to the front door,” Yannick said, but Aymeric had other ideas.

  Aymeric reached inside his habit and took his knife from its sheath.

  “We kill the guards. I can do both if you are not willing, but it will go faster if we take one each.”

  Yannick smiled thinly.

  “Believe me, I have no qualms bringing death to this lot. I had thought you might.”

  “I am not the boy I was, they saw to that,” Aymeric replied, and secreted the knife inside the sleeve of his robe. Without another word he walked out onto the causeway, already chanting his remembered Latin prayers.

  Aymeric walked past the nearest guard, leaving him to Yannick’s blade, and headed directly for the second.

  The man looked up at Aymeric’s approach.

  “You cannot be here. This area is under curfew.”

  Aymeric stepped up closer, and raised his right hand as though to deliver a blessing, though at the same time he released the knife from his sleeve into the left. “Pax vobiscum,” he mumbled, and made the sign of the cross.

  The guard’s eyes followed that movement, drawn away from the knife as Aymeric brought it up. The bladed flashed silver in the moonlight, the guard’s blood almost black as it poured down his chest.

  It was red enough when Aymeric used it to paint the cross on the Inquisitor’s door.

  The message would not be missed.

  ◆◆◆

  “Was I talking to myself, young master? Do I, perhaps, live only for the sound of my own voice? Because I could have sworn my last words to you were of caution, telling you the night was one for care and deception, not swords? Or did I imagine that warning? Perhaps I am losing what little is left of my mind?” Reynard asked.

  The three were once again breaking bread over breakfast in the old church, and Yannick had just recounted the tale of their blood walk.

  “I marked your words, Reynard, and took your counsel to heart.”

  “But chose to ignore it? Well, killing the King’s guards in the shadow of the Palace and taunting the Inquisitor so openly is nothing short of madness. That cross wasn’t just painted on Gui’s door, it was painted on us, making us a target for his wrath… But, perhaps your youthful folly has achieved something all my guile could not.” Reynard removed a scroll from within his robes. “These were nailed to all
Templar properties at first light,” he said. “It charges the Order with heresy and treason and signals the seizure of all Templar assets throughout the realm, by order of the King. It appears you have forced his hand.”

  “And the Pope?” Aymeric asked.

  “The Holy Church has not yet made its move. There are several illustrious signatories, but no Church men, neither of Avignon nor Rome.”

  “At least not yet.”

  Reynard drew his finger down the list of names on the scroll.

  “The Church may yet be convinced of the King’s perfidy in this matter,” he mused. “I know one of the Counts named here, or know of him at least, a weak man and easily led. He might be persuaded to see the error of his ways, if properly asked.”

  “And how do we ask him properly?” Aymeric asked.

  Reynard smiled.

  “After last night, I believe it is time you had a lesson in guile, young master,” he suggested.

  ◆◆◆

  Later that evening Yannick and Aymeric walked back into the city, heading not this time to the rich quarter but rather to the lanes of taverns, inns and brothels that lined the north bank of the Seine.

  They were dressed simply, as labourers headed for the city in search of pleasure, but each carried a long knife under their shirt.

  “How do we know this Count Berton will be here?”

  Yannick laughed.

  “He is always here. His vineyards make him money and he spends it here on wine and young girls, the younger the better, either of which he could have on his country estate without paying. He is a simple man, with simple pleasures. He will not be hard to find.”

  Yannick’s prediction proved true. Less than an hour later they found their Count in a riverside tavern. He was clearly drunk, and losing heavily at a game of dice, but he didn’t seem to mind in the slightest, as he had half-naked girls cuddled up on either side of him. Aymeric recognised the dark-haired girl on the left; he’d first seen her, caked with dirt, on his arrival at the church on his rescue. Now he’d seen her again that very afternoon, when Reynard introduced them.