The cellars of the church of St Ignatius were cool and well aired. The twenty parishioners who crammed themselves into the space held their breath as the sounds of war raged through the streets outside. The hundred or so people who had rushed into the church above them prayed loudly as the doors were rammed open and the first Arab soldiers ran in.
Those in the basement listened in horror as their neighbors and friends were massacred a few feet above their heads. After the screaming stopped, a thick trickle of blood found a way through the floor and dripped into the basement hiding place.
The muffled voices of the Arab soldiers could be heard in the main church as they searched bodies, the occasional scream being heard as they dispatched a survivor hiding amongst the dead. The Arab voices increased in volume as they barged through the smaller rooms behind the main church hall.
In the cellar no one spoke as the sound of footsteps moved to the door leading down to their refuge. It was possible, just possible, that they would not find the doorway, or that they would see it but ignore it.
The door clattered as it was thrown back and the Arab voices were now clear. The score of people trapped in the cellar stared as one at the short passageway that led to their hiding place. The Arabs were discussing something, perhaps they would move on to other buildings, there were plenty of rich merchants’ houses surrounding the church that would offer better pickings.
The heavy footsteps of the soldiers echoed through the cellar. There were two of them speaking softly to each other at the entrance, but they did not get any closer. Then a pale yellow light spilled out of the passageway as one of the soldiers found a lamp. More footsteps, perhaps half a dozen men now.
The light from the lamp grew brighter and the sound of shuffling feet was joined by the sharp clatter as weapons glanced off the walls of the narrow corridor. To the people crowded into the cellar it seemed to take an age for the men to walk the few paces to where they hid.
The lamp was dazzling bright to the people in the cellar and it took time for them to be able to see the men who carried it. There were four of them, all were drenched in blood from their killing. The man holding the lamp lifted it higher to get a clear view of the huddled group in front of him. He said something to one of the soldiers next to him and pointed to a man who wore the over-shirt of the militia. The soldier stepped forward and thrust his sword into the body of the militiaman. His scream echoed through the cellar, but the other occupants stayed silent, watching.
The soldier with the lamp said something to the men with him and then he looked at the cowering prisoners. He walked towards them then flicked his head back along the passageway.
“Move,” he said.
Hesitantly, the people shuffled out of their hiding place and along the passage. One at a time they emerged up into the church which had been the center of their community for as long as they had lived here. Every inch of the floor was thick with blood, and torn and ragged scraps of clothing lay scattered over the lifeless bodies of their friends and neighbors. A pile of corpses lay heaped around the altar and in each corner where they had fled in their last desperate attempts to escape the swinging blades of their attackers.
Other Saracen soldiers stood in the church, staring blankly at the emerging civilians. There was a clattering as the plates and candlesticks of the church were dropped on the floor near the door.
The line of survivors was pushed out into the street, the first of them only narrowly escaping being crushed by a detachment of Arab cavalry. The world had been turned upside down. Houses had been turned inside out with furniture and carpets being dumped outside, mounted men walked their horses through gardens, and doors and shutters hung from their hinges at wild angles.
There was the crack and snap of burning timbers and the air was filled with the sharp, metallic stink of fresh blood.
At the sight of the prisoners an Arab soldier dismounted and strode across the street to where they cowered. He spoke to the man who had carried the lamp for a moment. The two men looked at the clutch of prisoners, then the cavalryman disappeared into one of the houses.
He emerged a moment later with a length of rope. One at a time he had the prisoners pulled forward and looped the rope around their necks. Two older women and a grey-haired man were pushed out of the line and ignored. The three stood glancing at each other, not knowing if they were destined for slaughter or were free. They were still standing there when the horsemen mounted up, took the loose end of the rope and led his coffle of slaves out of the city.
Despite the chaos around them this was a well-organized sacking by a professional army. There was no private looting as everything was the property of the Caliph who would divide the spoils.
Even as the city was being sacked, the front ranks of assault troops were still racing through the streets. At one end of the Street of Saint Stephan the inhabitants were dead or enslaved, at the other they were still straining to make sense of the noise of battle.
A full troop of mounted archers erupted into Merchant’s Square as people were still loading wagons. The Arab bowmen formed up at the east end of the square and advanced at the walk into the crowd, their right arms wheeling as they loaded and reloaded their bows, throwing a storm of iron head arrows into the crowd. Within moments the square was carpeted with corpses.
Their path clear, the Arab troop trotted through the pools of blood west towards the sea. Nothing and no one stood before them except flocks of unarmed civilians; any man foolish enough to wear armor or livery was instantly killed.
To the left of the advancing horsemen was the harbor, to their right the distant walls which were still being cleared of the last Christian defenders, ahead of them stood the last stronghold in the city. Silent and massive, the Templar castle faced them like a sea wall.
Decision
“I thought it best to disregard our earlier discussion.”
“Disregard?” said Sparke. “How can you disregard someone telling you to go away and never speak to them again? It’s not as though I gave you some casual advice about which restaurant to go to or the best way to avoid traffic on a Friday rush hour, I told you that I had no interest in speaking with you and that there was definitely no possibility of you working with us on this, or any other project.”
Laszlo glanced at Afiz and the two men shared a look.
“Don’t feel bad about it,” said Laszlo, “you spoke without thinking.” He turned to Afiz and said, “My dear Doctor Afiz, thank you for your great assistance in this project. I’m sure the General will share my gratitude in this matter. You have done a great service.”
Afiz smiled slightly and, nodding quickly in goodbye towards Sparke and Tilly, he disappeared through one of the staff doors that lined the corridor.
Sparke looked closely at Laszlo for a moment. “Why did you speak to him in English?” he said. “I assume you speak Arabic since it turns out that you are Jordanian.”
“As I mentioned in our last little chat I have a Jordanian passport and nationality and of course I speak Arabic, but I thought it best to speak to my colleague in English so you would understand the situation. If you want to work with the Jordanian academic world you would be better to work through an established channel. When I told the General that we were friends he absolutely insisted that I be your primary point of contact.”
Tilly stepped forward and looked directly at Laszlo, saying, “This is my project and I make the decisions on who is involved. You’re a man with a criminal record for illegally transporting historical artifacts, a smuggler.”
Laszlo returned her gaze, his face impassive. “Technically correct, but gauche of you to bring it up. I propose that we move on from this. I see no point in bearing grudges. Shall we retire to the office?”
“No,” said Tilly. “Mr. Sparke and I will go to the office and you can wait here. If we need you we can find you, I’m sure.” Tilly turned and without another word headed down the corridor.
Sparke followed in her wake. Catchin
g up with her he whispered in her ear, “I think we’re walking in the wrong direction,” he said.
“Don’t care,” said Tilly.
“You’re walking in the wrong direction,” said Laszlo, behind them.
Sparke turned, still walking, and looked back at Laszlo. “We know we’re walking in the wrong direction, but we’re making a point.”
“A dismissive gesture?” said Laszlo, standing where they had left him.
“Exactly, a dismissive gesture,” said Sparke.
Laszlo nodded at the idea of this. “Once you’re finished with that, you’ll find me in the office.”
Tilly and Sparke continued to walk until they came to a large set of double doors. Tilly pulled on one door, then the other, then pushed on them both simultaneously.
Without taking her eyes off the doors, she said to Sparke, “Is he still there?” Sparke turned and looked back along the corridor to where Laszlo stood.
“Yes,” he said. “What do you want to do now?”
“You’re the bloody crisis manager, what do you think we should do?”
“Address the problem at its root cause and define the available options,” replied Sparke.
“Right,” said Tilly, turning on her heels and walking back towards Laszlo. She strode past him without a glance. “Where’s the office?”
“First left, second door on the right,” said Laszlo.
She let the door slam behind her.
Sparke walked past Laszlo who fell in a few steps behind him. They entered the office together to see Tilly sitting behind one of the desks drumming her fingers on its metal surface.
“You talk,” she said looking at Laszlo, “we’ll listen, then you leave.”
Laszlo nodded, moved across the room to where a chair stood and sat down. Sparke sat on Tilly’s desk.
Laszlo crossed his legs, flicked an invisible fleck of dust from his knee and folded his hands in his lap.
“You are here to make a shallow and uninteresting program on a semi-mythical artifact of little or no historical value for an audience that will forget everything you have told them before the end of the next commercial break. It may provide some fleeting benefit to your personal career in the mass media and is unlikely to cause you any harm in the academic world. You will discover nothing and educate no one. I dare say you will make some money from this.”
Tilly’s fingers had not stopped their steady rhythm on the desk top.
“So why would you bother even talking to us since you think that everything we are trying to do is such a waste of time?”
Laszlo smiled. “Finally, a worthwhile question. There are two reasons. Firstly, I happen to hold your colleague, Mr. Sparke, in particular regard. He has a loyalty to the truth that is almost unique, and secondly, you could, if you want to, actually do something of value here.”
Bastion
The men who lined the battlement of the Templar castle stood to guard, relaxed and confident as any professional would be preparing for work. Every crossbow was cocked and loaded, bolts were lined up in easy reach near their feet and bushels more were stacked a pace behind them. Spare weapons were placed, one for every three men, and fresh strings and draw straps were spooled waiting for those bows that needed them. Barely half the Templar knights and sergeants were at post, the command knew that this would be a long fight and that the men who would man the walls tonight needed their rest.
Small, hand pulled catapults sat, tensed and ready for their missiles. The baskets of firebombs lay like deadly fruit beside them. A few of the weapons were aimed into the broad arterial roads that led from the city towards the harbor, but most were targeted at a few larger buildings where the Templars knew that men would seek refuge when the first firebombs landed. The plan, like all Templar plans, relied on simplicity and on their understanding of how men responded to fear: drive them into buildings that had the look of stout security, then drench them in a barrage of fire.
Salvatore stood watching the city transform. Yesterday it had been a patchwork of petty jurisdictions and ethnic quarters, now it was shrinking into a single blanket of burning rubble.
As the assault troops raced into the city the fires sprang up behind them. You can make soldiers do anything, thought Salvatore, but you can do nothing to stop them burning things down the first chance they have. Stables, warehouses, merchants’ villas and whole swathes of properties owned by Muslims fell under the torch as the tide of troops crept into the heart of the city.
To Salvatore, Acre had the look of a piece of parchment thrown into a fire, the words were still legible, but the edges were already curling into ash. Once the clattering rain of the Saracen bombardment had ceased the city had a heartbeat of silence, now, as the invaders pierced the city, the sound of screams wafted towards the Templars. None of the men on the walls made any sign of having heard the new chorus. They were a company of men familiar with the sounds of horror.
“They’ll be held up at the road of St Peter,” said the Grand Master. He stood barely two yards away and Salvatore was unsure if he was expected to reply.
“The militias of the Venetians and the Genoans are making a fight of it,” said the Old Guardian, pointing at the barrack buildings the two militias occupied. There was no fire there yet, but the roofs of the buildings surrounding them swarmed with attackers.
Since the departure of the Mason, Salvatore had often found himself in this pose, standing next to the Old Guardian and two steps away from the Grand Master.
“I will talk with the lepers,” said Salvatore. The Grand Master nodded wordlessly. He had become used to the presence of Salvatore since the Mason had been taken from the city and accepted his role of taking care of the less pleasant duties. The Old Guardian sniffed and looked intently at something in the distance. Some tasks were better left for others.
Salvatore walked the wall to the spot that stood directly above the old bastion that had been given to the Knights of St Lazarus. The roof of their small fort stood thirty feet above the ground, but forty feet lower than the Templar castle behind it. Like the Templars above them, the lepers were fully prepared. Unlike the Templars they showed no signs of keeping back a strong reserve, as every man they could muster was lining their defenses.
“Lord Whitehead,” shouted Salvatore. “They are well inside the walls. They will be here in strength within the hour.”
On the roof below one of the figures turned and looked up. “We’re as ready here as we ever will be. Look out for yourselves.” After a pause the figure looked up again. “Once the first attack passes, come back to speak again.”
Salvatore nodded and walked back to his position near the Grand Master. Like the three hundred soldiers who manned the Templar castle, he had done all he could do, now there was nothing left but the waiting.
His years of working for the Mason had infected him with an obsession for preparation. He ran through his plans yet again.
Under the castle stood his strange copper dome, already weighted and sitting in the water waiting for him. When the moment arrived he would be at the watergate within a minute. As far as it ever could be that part of the plan was complete, and if it failed then the responsibility was his alone. The plan to build a dome of copper was based on a few lines of ancient, probably untrue text. It claimed that Alexander the Great had used such a vessel to walk along the bed of the sea and this was the entirety of Salvatore’s plan.
The other part of his duty, the part that the Mason had told him about just as he was leaving, was less clear. Once the Mason had been taken aboard the ship, Salvatore had immediately gone back to the diggings under the outer walls of the castle and looked again at the heavy timbers that now propped up the mountain of stone above them. This time he looked at the supports with fresh eyes.
All the timbers and cross joists were well cut and positioned on the square. As the Mason had instructed, he now walked the length of the freshly dug passageway, tapping each upright with the end of his dagger. Each made the sa
me solid noise until he reached the far end where the last four uprights responded to his taps with a higher tone, an almost hollow sound. He went back and tapped each one again, then tested the first of the four with the last of the other uprights. The tone was clearly different, but the timber looked and felt the same under his hand.
Of all the jobs that Salvatore had ever had to execute, questioning the orders of the Mason had never been one and he had no intention of starting now. Strange as his instructions were, Salvatore would carry them out to the letter. He stood in the gloom of the passage, hoping that for once the Mason would be wrong, but sure in his heart that he would not be.
Witness
“Now you’ve got me,” said Tilly. “A man with a record for trafficking historical artifacts uses some kind of corrupt influence to have himself appointed as our local contact.”
“Nothing at all corrupt,” said Laszlo, calmly. “The General and I are connected through the family of my mother’s cousin. Also, his son and I went to university together in Budapest.”
“Oh, that’s fine, no corrupt influence at work there, then,” said Tilly. “You finagle your way into our project, insult every aspect of what we are trying to achieve, then tell us that you’re willing to help us in some unspecified way if we listen to your ideas.”
“Not how I would have put it, but you are correct in the basic points, I suppose,” said Laszlo.
“Mr. Laszlo,” began Sparke.
“It’s Doctor Laszlo if you prefer to use suffixes.”
“Doctor Laszlo,” said Sparke, “I’m sure you’re aware that there is no way that Professor Pink’s project can have any contractual dealings with you. The issue of your Swiss incarceration alone precludes that, and I suspect that there may well be other, uhm, episodes in your career that would not bear up well under any scrutiny. Knowing this, I need to ask what you actually expect to gain from this, and what on earth you feel you could do to help a project which you so clearly feel is not worthy of your serious consideration?”
The Templar Scroll: Book six in the series Page 19