by S A Monk
The foot soldiers, sergeants, and squires were being weeded out of the divisions, as well, being shoved, pushed, and drug to the far side of the camp to an open area that was surrounded by Saracen guards. There was no shade or water for any of them. The few Turcopoles who had survived the battle were placed in with the Templars and Hospitallers. From past battles, Lucien knew their fate. The Saracens held a particular hatred for the native troops that served Christian masters. They were always the first to be killed on the field, and any remaining alive were always executed immediately afterwards.
The most brutal treatment, though, was definitely being reserved for the battered bloodied knights of the military orders. Stripped down to their undergarments, they were shoved, drug, and kicked into a long ragged line that stretched from one end of the camp to the very edge of the plateau it was erected upon. Each one was then roughly shoved to his knees. With hands bound behind their backs, they were left to languish in the merciless heat of the sun for what seemed like hours. The only relief was the removal of their heavy body armor.
Positioned near the bluff, Lucien knelt among his ex-Templar comrades, almost directly across from the sultan’s yellow striped silk pavilion. Down the line, men groaned from their untended wounds, weak from thirst and exhaustion. Several collapsed onto their faces, keeling over and bleeding out into the dirt from their battle injuries.
Beside him, Brother Conrad put words to Lucien’s thoughts. “What I would not give for just a sip of water.” Sucking in a pained breath, he turned his head slowly to Lucien. “Are you wounded badly, brother?”
“Nay, just the normal assortment of sword cuts and bruises. How badly are you hurt, brother?”
“I took an arrow in the side, but it did not go deep. I have a pretty good gash on one thigh, though, from one of those bloody spiked starbursts the bastards are so fond of.”
“Has the bleeding stopped?”
“Somewhat.”
Lucien looked toward his friend’s leg and saw that it was so, then squinted through the glare of the sun and saw the king, some of the more prominent barons, and the Grand Masters of both orders being led into the sultan’s tent. Their fate promised to be much more merciful than what awaited all the rest of the warrior monks languishing on their knees to either side of Lucien.
Never had he regretted his lack of wealth or family connections more than at that moment. The men under the shade of the sultan’s tents would be held until ransomed, then returned to their loved ones. Lucien knew the fate of all those out here on their knees in the center of the camp. They wouldn’t live to see the sunset this day.
By all that was holy, he had never been afraid to die! But today he was terrified of it. Today he had someone to live for.
Gabrielle, forgive me for failing to keep my promise to return to you!
An image of her as he had last seen her rose in his mind. She’d been smiling valiantly, but beneath her smile, he’d seen how frightened she had been for him. Ah, God, a lifetime with her was not to be then! More than the heat, the thirst, and the pain, that thought threatened to crush him beneath its bitter truth. Naught could break him, but that; knowing that he’d never hold her in his arms again or know the joy of her beside him every day.
A strange burning began at the back of his eyes, and Lucien realized it was tears; the first he’d shed since his parents had died. He dropped his head, wondering how in God’s name his dehydrated body could produce water. But to his shock, they brimmed enough to fill his eyes, then dropped onto the sandy soil beneath his unprotected kneecaps, their precious liquid good to no one. Bending his head, he let them fall, unashamed to expend them for the woman he loved.
His grief evolved into a silent petitioning prayer as he squeezed his eyes shut.
“Lucien, look at that.”
He lifted his head slowly, swaying from dizziness. Across from him, Saladin was offering King Guy a cup of something to drink. Lucien was reminded of the Arab custom that allowed life to a captive when the captor offered him food and drink.
He wondered if the food and drink Saladin and the Blue Wolf had offered him and Gabrielle in Damascus covered his current circumstances, then laughed bitterly at himself for grasping at such shards of hope.
After taking a long draught, the king passed the sultan’s cup to the man standing next to him. For the first time, Lucien realized it was Reynald de Châtillon. God, what bitter irony that he should live and Lucien should die! He looked closer, but found no sign of Gabrielle’s father. He wondered if Armand had died in battle or escaped.
“I did not offer that cup to the likes of him!” Saladin roared, suddenly reaching out and slapping the cup from Reynald’s hands. “This criminal does not merit my safe-conduct.”
Lucien could not hear exactly what the Lord of Oultrejourdan said in reply, but he could tell by the tone it was arrogant and derogatory.
Saladin glared at him, concealing a barely controlled rage, then turned to the Templar Grand Master, who was standing next to de Châtillon. “Master de Ridefort, know you what I intend for your brothers behind you?”
For the first time, the Grand Master turned around to give notice to the men strung out on their knees in the dirt.
“I intend to rid our people of this plague upon our land. You and your monks have given this false kingdom of yours life far beyond what it would have otherwise had. Today I correct that. Though our faith decrees that conversion under threat of death is contrary to the will of Allah, I will ask each of them to convert to the true faith. All those who refuse will be executed; some here and now to show you how I will wipe your soldier monks from the face of Palestine, the rest later, in Damascus, for there are too many to slay today. My men are tired.”
To demonstrate his resolve, the sultan raised a hand and called out an order in a loud clear voice. Lucien looked to the far end of the line. The first brother, a knight of the Temple Lucien recognized as a young man from England, newly arrived but months ago, was drug forth a few feet. His prayers could be heard even from where Lucien knelt. The Blue Wolf emerged from the sultan’s tent. He strode up to the young knight and asked in heavily accented Norman French if he would convert to Islam. The young man called out a brave nay.
Lucien wanted to turn away, but like the others, he did not. All honored the bravery of the Templar with their witness.
The executioner was a giant black skinned Mameluk, a warrior slave that wielded an enormous axe shaped like a long, wide curving Arab sword. At least death would be swift, Lucien thought, as he watched the gleaming blade lifted high in the air. The Blue Wolf looked to his sovereign. Saladin nodded. The Turk gave the executioner the nod.
In a single stroke, the great scimitar struck the head from the Englishman’s neck, leaving it to roll across the ground, toward the sultan’s tent. The sultan yanked it up by its long beard and swung it before de Ridefort.
“See you, what you have wrought?” Saladin inquired in angry demand, his voice rising so all could hear. “Will you beg mercy for your brethren? Will you call for them to convert to Islam to save their lives? Will you lie down your arms and return to whence you came?”
The questions rolled off the sultan’s cultured tongue with increasing fury. De Ridefort replied with a snarl of rage. “Knights of the Temple of Solomon are prepared to die for their faith. They will not convert to your filthy religion! They will go to meet their God with glad hearts.”
Glad hearts? Lucien thought with dismay. Many, most especially himself, would not go so gladly. But the Grand Master was correct about one thing— out of the several hundred Templars and Hospitallers taken captive this day, none would renounce their faith and convert to Islam.
When it became his turn to convert or die, he would meet his death with his belief in the one true Lord intact. Though he loved Gabrielle beyond all else, he could not relinquish his faith for her; his brotherhood in the Temple, aye, but not his faith. He may not have joined the Order out of faith, but his life was rooted in it.
Conrad seemed to be reading his thoughts. “You will not….”
Lucien knew what he asked. “Nay, brother, I will not disavow the Almighty.”
“I hope they take us to Damascus,” his friend murmured.
“It will be a more merciful death here, swift and over with quickly, without pain. I have been in the prison at Damascus. They will make us suffer badly there.”
Conrad sucked in another gasp of pain as he twisted at the waist to see his friend more clearly. “I am sorry about Lady de Châtillon, Lucien. I wish you could have…”
“I will meet her in eternity… if God mercifully accepts my tarnished soul.”
“You are a good man, Lucien de Aubric. He will.”
Lucien wasn’t so sure, but he prayed Conrad was right. An eternity with Gabrielle was all it appeared he would have left of her.
When the Blue Wolf walked down the line and stopped randomly at the next man, he ordered him brought forth. It was another Templar, an older knight, a field commander.
“Well, what say you, de Ridefort? This one does not convert, either. Will you beg for his life? Will you beseech him to accept Islam?”
Lucien was not surprised that the sultan taunted the Grand Master so. He was a man he held in great enmity.
“Tell the damned infidel to go to the devil that spawned him!” Reynald de Châtillon shouted out to his comrade, the Grand Master, as he spat at the sultan’s feet.
With a snarl of rage, Saladin, Defender of the Faithful, usually known for his patience and deliberation, grabbed a sword from one of his generals. “For all that you have done to my people, my family, and even your own people, to the fires of hell with you, Reynald de Châtillon!” he thundered as he swung his long curved blade and struck off the head of the Lord of Oultrejourdan.
While the captives inside the tent, on either side of Reynald, cringed in terror, Saladin dipped his finger into the dead trunk of the body, at the headless neck, and smeared his enemy’s blood on his cheek. “I have taken the vengeance Allah commands. The rest of you will not be harmed, but will be held at Damascus to await ransom.” Turning, he looked directly at King Guy. “A king does not kill a king,” he informed him, then turned his attention on Gérard de Ridefort. “You will accompany me, monk. I have use of you still.”
At the lifting of the sultan’s hand, the king and the nobles were taken away, while the Grand Masters were seated in backless chairs facing the execution line before them. Saladin disappeared as de Châtillon’s body was being taken away. A few minutes the baron’s head reappeared, mounted on a stake that was shoved into the ground before the sultan’s tent.
Lucien stared at the gruesome memento of the sultan’s fury, unmoved by Reynald’s horrific fate. For all he had done to the kingdom, for all the truces he had broken, the lives he had shattered, particularly his wife’s and prematurely born child’s, he had met a just end, to Lucien’s way of thinking. At least now, Gabrielle would be safe from him. That gave Lucien great peace as the Blue Wolf advanced down the line of Hospitallers and Templars, toward him.
Beside him, Brother Conrad was praying rapidly and fervently, repeating the Lord’s Prayer and David’s twenty-third Psalm over and over.
A dozen men from both orders lost their heads during the next half hour. Only one converted. As he was led away, de Ridefort and some of his brethren condemned him to eternal damnation. Lucien could not find it in his heart to lay blame at the man’s feet. The smell of blood congealing in great red-brown pools and the grisly sight of severed heads littering the sand tested the strength and fortitude of them all.
Even though he was nearly senseless from the blistering heat and lack of water, Lucien held himself as erect as possible. His tongue was too thick from thirst to speak to Conrad anymore. His brother had to be in worse shape, for the sound of his prayers had long ago become only a whispered rasp. Lucien guessed they were still being silently completed, though. Conrad was a man of much greater faith than himself. He wanted to turn and offer his friend encouragement and solace, but he did not have the strength to do so.
Before them the Grand Masters sat and watched. The Hospitaller Grand Master had been driven to cries for mercy many times, only to be severely berated by de Ridefort for being a coward and showing such weakness. The bastard had not even grimaced when his brothers’ heads had been struck from their dirt and blood encrusted bodies. He sat like a stone, as if he felt nothing. But why should he? He knew he would likely walk away from this tragedy. What were a couple of hundred more lives? In his career as Grand Master of the Brotherhood, he had squandered hundreds more than this. Damn his soul! Lucien raged silently.
When the executioner came within two men of him. Lucien grinned in defiance as the giant looked maliciously toward him and Conrad. By God, Lucien, thought, I’ll not go to my death meekly!
“General Gökböri!” He shouted the emir’s name loudly, in perfectly inflected Arabic. “Is this how the great Blue Wolf and his desert lord treat one they have shared food and drink with?”
Across from him, Lucien saw de Ridefort rise and shout out his name. “De Aubric, you disavowed whoreson! You do not deserve a martyr’s death as do those alongside you.”
The sultan had reappeared and sat in the back of his open tent, in council with his other commanders. When he heard the Templar Grand Master bellow out Lucien’s name, he rose from his silk cushioned chair and walked out to the row of kneeling captives.
Muzaffar al Din Gökböri was well over six feet tall, a man built as solidly as a bear, but as lithe as the lion he was often referred to. Beside the giant executioner, he did not look nearly as small as everyone else. The shadow both men cast over Lucien as they stepped up to him encompassed Conrad as well, and was most welcome.
General Gökböri reached out and hooked a finger into the gold chain that glittered around Lucien’s neck. His ungauntleted hand pulled it out from under Lucien’s blood-drenched undershirt. The finely carved gold crescent moon inset with its sizeable clear stone looked tiny in the emir’s big hand and winked brilliantly under the desert sun.
Finally he dropped it back against Lucien’s chest and stared at him for several long moments. Lucien could feel Conrad tense beside him.
“What are you doing here, with these Templars, Lucien de Aubric?” Gökböri demanded.
Lucien had to tip his head back a long way to look up into the emir’s face. As he had been the last time he had seen him, the Turk was dressed in a long red leather hauberk. Only this time, he was wearing a steel cuirass, upper body armor that covered the breast, back and hips. He wore no headscarf or helmet, and his long black hair was woven into multiple braids down the back.
“I was captured with my brothers as I defended my friend’s back and he mine,” he answered simply, nodding toward Conrad.
Saladin stepped up beside his general. He was now attired in loose lightweight robes of red and yellow silk, with his traditional yellow cap still atop his dark head. “Spymaster, you are a disavowed Templar, are you not?” the sultan demanded. “You do not belong here anymore. And I have broken bread and shared drink with you. No harm shall come to you.” He looked to his general and nodded toward Lucien. “Release him.” Then Saladin turned and headed back to his tent.
Gökböri nodded to the executioner, who untied Lucien’s hands, looking none too happy to be deprived of his next victim. Quickly, his beady eyes fell on Conrad.
“General, Lord Saladin,” Lucien called out. “I ask for the life of my comrade.” He turned briefly to Conrad as he rubbed circulation back into his wrists. “If the Grand Master will not beg for even one life, I will.”
Gökböri stared at him in veiled amusement, while Saladin stopped and turned back to gaze at him in silent contemplation. “Will you trade your life for his?”
“If I have to.”
The sultan strode back to his general’s side, his shrewdly intelligent black eyes narrowed on Lucien’s. Briefly, he glanced back at the Templar Grand Mast
er. When his gaze returned to Lucien, his lips were curled into a partial grin, but he said nothing.
“This necklace belongs to Madam de Châtillon,” Gökböri stated, touching it again briefly. “I sensed a strong bond between you and my… the lady. Do you not want to return to her?”
“I want nothing more.”
Finally the sultan spoke. “And yet you would trade your life for this Templar beside you?”
“I would rather we both lived, but I have seen too many friends die in the conflict between our people. I do not think I can watch another do so.” Lucien looked over at Conrad, knowing that he comprehended nothing of what they were talking about since he neither spoke nor understood Arabic. “I would like to see all of these brothers live.”
“That is not possible. I intend to purify my land of these monks of war, and reward every soldier who captures or kills one. I will not stay their execution,” Saladin retorted firmly. “But I will give you the life of the man beside you, Lucien de Aubric.”
Lucien bowed his head in gratitude, though he had hoped for more. “Thank you, Lord Saladin.”
“And I will not take yours in exchange,” he added to Lucien’s vast relief. “I will hand you both over to General Gökböri for the time being. He may release you or not, as is his will. He will see that no harm comes to either of you while you are in his custody.” Turning back to the Grand Masters, he loudly announced, “The Great Prophet would grace any man who is not above begging for the life of his brethren. I do believe your own prophet, Jesus, believed the same.” His dark gaze shifted to the Hospitaller Grand Master. “Choose two to live, sirrah.” Then he turned back to the kneeling captives, their executioner, and his general. “We are done here for now. Take the rest away and prepare them for transport to Damascus.”