Blades of Valor

by Sigmund Brouwer

  Thomas smiled. “There was no poison. With each evening meal you ingested a small amount of the juice squeezed from an insane root. Only enough to upset our stomachs for ten minutes. The convulsions would have stopped whether or not you received the countering potion, which, of course, was no countering potion, but merely sweetened wine and water.”

  “You ate the same food we did,” Sir William argued. “And we prepared it.”

  Thomas winked at the knight. “Who was to deliver the plates for each meal? All except mine were smeared with tiny drops of poison.”

  The knight laughed. “Well done!” Then Sir William caught his breath. “But you said we held something of importance that would have stayed Lord Baldwin’s sword from our throats.”

  “The map to the caves,” Thomas said. “Knowing I wanted the Druid to take my bait, do you think I would also give him the map?”

  Another laugh from Sir William. “The parchment he took is useless?”

  Thomas nodded. He waited until Sir William finished laughing. “There is more,” Thomas said.

  Sir William echoed, “More?”

  “Yes. I expect we will be free in minutes.”

  “Impossible. I have given thought to our release and know it will be difficult. Glad as I am we won’t die from poison, it will take hours while I use my teeth on the knots of your bonds.”

  “That was the method I thought we must use. But since Katherine departed with Lord Baldwin, our task will be much less difficult.”

  “Less?” Sir William strained against his bonds. “I am forced to disagree. Once we free ourselves, we must begin immediate pursuit to rescue Katherine.”

  Thomas began to whistle the tune of a childhood rhyme.

  “What is it?” Sir William demanded. “What other knowledge have you kept from me?”

  Thomas continued to whistle.

  “Thomas!”

  “My father’s identity?”

  “I have sworn the secret.”

  Thomas resumed whistling.

  “If my hands were free …” Sir William threatened.

  “If they were free …” A new voice came through the doorway.

  “Katherine!” Sir William blurted.

  She stepped through the curtain of the doorway. She smiled at Sir William, but only for a moment, for her gaze turned almost immediately to Thomas. He stared back, hardly daring to let his face show the joy that consumed him.

  Without breaking her gaze, she stepped forward and leaned over, as if to cut the bonds on Thomas’s wrists with the small knife in her hand.

  “Thank you, Thomas,” she whispered. She kissed him lightly on the tip of his nose.

  Thomas could only grin like a dancing fool. When he found his voice, he asked, “Where did Lord Baldwin fall?”

  “Thomas!” Sir William’s voice was a begging groan. “What has transpired?”

  Katherine picked up the knife and, still on her knees, began to saw at the bonds around Thomas’s wrist.

  “I can explain,” she said. “Lord Baldwin drank the countering potion as we began to find our donkeys. Before he could offer it to me, he fell backward, holding his stomach in agony.”

  “Yes, Sir William,” Thomas finished for her. “My final weapon. I brought back from the market, not the ingredients for a countering potion, but instead a vile poison.”

  “Your test, then, could hardly have worked more perfectly.”

  Before Thomas could modestly agree, Katherine interrupted. “Not so,” she said to the knight, “for when Lord Baldwin fell to the poison, he rolled in such agony that he drew the attention of many passersby.”

  Thomas and Sir William frowned.

  “Among those passersby were Mameluke soldiers,” Katherine said. “They now search the city for us.”

  Twenty-Eight

  It did not seem real, the stillness of the morning air and the pastel contrasts of crowded and ancient stone buildings against olive-green and brown mountains, all framed by a pale-blue sky. It did not seem real, the background babble of the streets beneath the gentle warmth of the sun. And it did not seem real, to be walking—slowly and calmly—among the people on the streets while soldiers hunted this quarter of Jerusalem from house to house, soldiers determined to capture and crucify them.

  Thomas wondered briefly if the pounding of his heart might give him and the two others away.

  Crucifixion.

  Could any death be more horrible for them? A wooden pole would first be placed into the ground, and a crosspiece fixed near the top to form a cross. Then, if they were fortunate, their arms would be roped to the crosspiece, not nailed. Thomas knew—should the Mameluke soldiers in pursuit choose to be merciful—that he and the two others with him would then quickly die of suffocation, because the weight of their bodies would shut off their air passages. But should it be deemed that their agony be prolonged upon the crosses, the soldiers would nail their arms and feet into the wood, thus providing support for the body and making suffocation impossible. Death would occur agonizingly slowly, from shock or dehydration or exhaustion.

  Shouts of soldiers broke above the murmur of the streets as they swept from house to house. How far behind the soldiers? And how far ahead the gates?

  Thomas dared not lift his head to estimate their progress. His gray-blue eyes and fair skin would be too obvious to any onlookers, for it had been over a hundred years since Crusader knights had held the Holy City. Now Mameluke conquerors ruled, and Thomas needed to keep his face hidden by the cloth that was draped over his head and neck as protection against the sun.

  The other two, Katherine and Sir William, walked in wide separation and far in front. To remain in a group of three would instantly give their presence away to any sharp-eyed soldier.

  More shouts and angry arguments as new houses were searched.

  For a moment, Thomas let his mind wander as he imagined what a rabbit might feel, crouched and barely hidden among the grass with a hawk circling overhead. Any sudden movement would draw the hawk’s attention, just as surely as anything but a pretended calm now would draw soldiers. Yet Thomas could understand why a rabbit might bolt under the strain of waiting beneath a hawk, even knowing that to bolt meant certain death. It took great effort to force himself to walk when every nerve shrieked at him to run.

  The stakes were enormous.

  A terrible death through crucifixion mattered little in comparison to the scrolled map Katherine held in her travel pouch. He and the knight were to fight to the death should they be discovered. And she was to escape while they fought. For without the scroll, a much greater battle—thousands of miles away—would be lost with cold certainty.

  So much depends on escape from this city …

  Thomas bit his tongue to keep those thoughts away. For he could not let fear paralyze him.

  Instead, he directed his mind to the events that had led to this day, any thoughts at all except those of the soldiers in pursuit.

  How long since he had been exiled from England? Already half a year. The great, sweeping valleys of Magnus—lush green with the scattered purple patches of heather and shrouded with mist in the winter—were an aching memory.

  He had survived a cutthroat ship’s crew and a bandit-infested trek through the Holy Land. He had survived betrayals and lies, and now finally, just as he had established that he could trust the two with him, soldiers were in pursuit.

  Thomas shook his head.

  Walk slowly and think not of the soldiers.

  So he thought of Katherine. The moment she had first lifted her face to his in silvery moonlight. How his heart had caught. How later, in the Holy Land, the mystery of that yearning had been explained. He thought of their first fleeting kiss. He thought of how candlelight bounced off her blond hair, illuminating the contours of her face. Her smile of inner joy and the beauty of her character. The slow, savoring way she would stare deeply into his eyes. If he were to lose her now, after all they had been through …

  Walk slowly and
think not of the soldiers.

  Walk slowly and think not of the soldiers.

  Activity on the narrow, twisting streets still seemed mostly normal, a small piece of good fortune for Thomas. Obviously the people of Jerusalem were accustomed to the sight of running soldiers, for despite the shouts that carried from street to street, the bartering and selling at market booths continued.

  Thomas felt a tug on the edge of his cape.

  “Alms for the poor?”

  He looked down into raisin-black eyes. A boy. Maybe six years old.

  The boy’s eyes widened as he noticed Thomas’s European features. His mouth opened as he drew breath to speak his surprise.

  “Alms you will have, my friend,” Thomas said quickly to forestall any exclamation. “But you must grasp my hand!”

  The command intrigued the boy enough so that he did so and remained silent.

  “Your name?” Thomas asked, his head still low as he looked at the beggar.

  “Addon. I am nine.”

  A memory stabbed at Thomas. That of someone barely older than this boy. Tiny John, a pickpocket rascal as mischievous and cheerful as a sparrow, who might have already perished in England.

  Thomas blocked the memory and concentrated on walking slowly, holding the boy’s hand as naturally as if they were brothers. For if the boy bolted now and spread the word of a pale-skinned stranger …

  “Addon, as you observed, I am a traveler, now confused and lost in this great city of yours. It will be worth a piece of gold if you guide me to the nearest city gates.”

  The boy grinned. “Essene Gate! For a piece of gold.”

  The Essene Gate. As Thomas well knew, it was guarded by only one tower. Less than five minutes away and well marked in the mind of the knight in front of him. However, if a piece of gold and a feeling of self-importance kept this child silent until they had left the city walls …

  “After the gates, where shall I take you next?” the boy was asking.

  “That shall suffice.” Thomas smiled. This young guide wished to earn even more. “For then I depart.”

  Addon frowned. “Did you not know that is impossible?”

  “Impossible?”

  A quick nod from the young beggar. “The Mameluke soldiers have shut all the city gates. They guard them now.”

  “Addon, this is indeed your blessed day,” Thomas said as slowly and calmly as possible. He could not afford to alarm the boy or raise his suspicions. “For you shall earn enough gold to feed you for a month.”

  Addon grinned.

  “There is a man ahead of me,” Thomas continued in low tones. “See him there?”

  Thomas pointed at Sir William until Addon nodded.

  “Approach him, and tell him the same news you gave me. Tell him I shall wait here for his return.”

  Addon scampered ahead.

  Thomas waited in the shadow of a doorway and watched Sir William’s head bend as he listened to Addon, then watched with relief as the knight turned back. To any other but Thomas, it would have been impossible to notice that the knight spoke to a veiled woman as he passed her upon his return, for he did not pause and his lips barely moved. Yet, moments after the knight passed her, Katherine stopped where she was, then began to shuffle, to wait near a stand where a vendor shouted the sale of melons.

  “Thomas,” the knight said softly when he reached the doorway, “news of the gates does not bode well for us.”

  Thomas drew deeper in the shadows. “The Mamelukes must know not only of our presence, but of the scroll and the caves. Why else go to such measures to find us?”

  Sir William’s lips tightened in anger. “A sword across the throat of the man who betrayed us—”

  “Think of our throats,” Thomas interrupted. “The city is sealed. Yet we cannot keep our faces hidden forever. It will be too difficult to remain unnoticed inside.”

  Sir William closed his eyes in thought. Moments later, he smiled. “Have you a thirst for spring water?”

  “Water? We fight for our lives and—”

  “Thomas, tell me of Jerusalem’s history.”

  “There are soldiers all around! This is no place for—”

  “Come, come,” Sir William chided with a grin. “Surely as one of us, you would have a glimmer of this knowledge.”

  Thomas snorted. “The city is as ancient as man. Its history would take hours to recite.”

  “Tell me, then,” the knight grinned, “of King David.”

  “King David?” Thomas squinted his eyes in thought. “King David. He chose this as his capital because it sat squarely between Israel in the north and Judah in the south. Yet until him, the city had never been conquered, for it held a spring and no siege could bring it down.”

  “Yes,” Sir William said. “The spring. Gihon Spring.”

  Gihon Spring. Then Thomas knew. He grinned. “We shall leave Jerusalem the same way it was conquered.”

  Thomas turned to Addon and spoke. “You must guide us to the inner city.”

  The inner city—close to the palace and soldiers’ quarters.

  The imposing structure of the palace lay in the background, and directly ahead the circular area where three main streets joined. At the center of that large circle, the well. Thomas surveyed the bulwark of stones that surrounded the well and groaned. He could not share his dismay with anyone, because the knight and Katherine had, by necessity, traveled separately the entire journey back into the center of Jerusalem.

  “You wish a different well?” Addon asked in response to the low groan. “Yet there is none more ancient!”

  “No,” Thomas said, “a better guide I could not have found.”

  That was the truth. For Addon had led him through a maze of narrow and obscure alleyways that made detection by searching soldiers almost impossible. Ironic, then, that the first soldiers they had seen would now surround the well.

  Thomas bit back another groan.

  A dozen soldiers, all within stone’s throw. More ironically, none were there as guards. Instead, they stood or sat in relaxed enjoyment of the sun and gossip. Around the well, too, were the reasons for the soldiers’ presence—the women gathered to draw water before the afternoon heat overwhelmed the city.

  Their idle conversation reached Thomas clearly. He gnawed his inner lip as he lost himself in thought.

  Gihon Spring. Once, long ago, the former shepherd boy named David, who earned a reputation as military genius and united all of Israel, had sent his soldiers up this well shaft to invade and conquer Jerusalem. Will the shaft still be clear after these hundreds of years?

  There was only one means of discovering the answer. They must descend.

  But the soldiers stood between them and a desperate attempt at escape. Only a distraction could—

  Shouts and the braying of donkeys interrupted his thoughts.

  Thomas looked to his right in disbelief. Two donkeys plunged frantic paths through the small market on a nearby side street. The donkeys careened through stands of fruits and beneath the awnings that provided shade. One donkey plunged back out again, draped in the blankets from a shop.

  Angry shouts rose in response, and men chased the donkeys in vain. The soldiers turned to the confusion, at first amused, then concerned. They too dashed to chase the donkeys.

  “The well, my friend,” came a voice from the other side of Thomas. “How long until the soldiers return?”

  Thomas turned his head to look into Sir William’s grin. Katherine was already halfway to the well.

  “How—”

  “Misfortune, of course. Who could guess that a rag tied to a donkey’s tail might brush against a lamp’s flame?”

  “Who indeed?” Thomas grinned in return.

  The hubbub from the street grew. The smash of pottery and roars of rage rose above the clamor.

  “Addon,” Thomas said, “two gold pieces for your trouble.”

  Thomas began to search for words to dismiss the young boy but had no chance to speak. Addon w
as already backing away, his fingers firmly clasped over the gold.

  “The market,” Addon blurted. “In this confusion, I can fill my pockets!”

  Thomas decided it was not the moment to point out that there was no honor in theft. He sprinted to join Katherine and Sir William at the edge of the well.

  Thomas squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated on small mercies. With the deep unknown below, he at least worried little about the soldiers.

  There was a heavy rope attached to a pole at the side of the well. The rope hung down and disappeared into the black hole; hundreds of years of friction of rope against stone had worn the edges of the well smooth. The well itself was wide—toe to outstretched fingertips, Thomas could not have reached across.

  “If the well does not lead to safety?” Thomas asked.

  “What choice?” Sir William countered. “Gates sealed, city walls guarded, and in all probability, a reward offered for our heads. We cannot hide among these people.”

  Katherine said nothing. She hastily tore the veil from her face and crammed it into a pocket of her cloak. She smiled once at Thomas, then without hesitation took the rope in her hands and lowered herself over the edge.

  “What choice? Her action is answer enough,” Thomas said. He too wrapped his fingers around the rough fibers of the rope and rolled over the edge. Sir William waited until Thomas had disappeared into the darkness, then followed.

  Despite their conversation, less than half a minute had passed from the time of reaching the well to when all three were clinging to the rope and lowering themselves, hand over hand. No commands or soldiers’ shouts reached them. No one had seen them escape.

  Thomas hoped they would survive the descent and that the shaft did indeed lead outside the city walls.

  Twenty-Nine

  For the first ten feet of the descent, they found themselves pushing away from the sides of the well. Then, without warning, the walls seemed to fall away, and it wasn’t until Thomas had lowered himself another ten feet, did he understand. Looking upward against the light of the sky as backdrop, he saw that the well shaft actually widened as it deepened.