by Robyn Young
Both of them lapsed into silence.
Eventually, Will spoke. “What are you going to do, my lord?”
Guillaume’s face hardened; then he let a long breath whisper through his lips. “I had thought to have you executed, William. I came here to try you myself, and had I found you guilty of what Vitturi accused you of, I was to have you hanged this very evening.”
Will tensed and had to clear his throat before he could speak. “And what is your decision, my lord?”
“You are guilty,” said Guillaume, after a moment. “Guilty of disobeying my orders, guilty of consorting with our enemy and responsible for the deaths of three of my men. Good men,” he added, nodding as Will hung his head. “But your motives were not self-serving. You did not seek to gain by your actions, nor did you intend harm against your brothers, or the Temple.” He crossed to the door using his stick and took hold of the handle. “The theft was not without grave risk; I always knew that, but with no other option that I could see, I would not let myself give in to that fear. But had we succeeded ...” He trailed off and looked at Will. “Perhaps God has been trying to tell me something? I refused to listen to my worries, but I cannot ignore two attempts on my life from the men I was involved with.” He opened the door and gestured through it.
“I’m free to go?” murmured Will, fearing to hope.
“I want a full report of what happened at Mecca,” said Guillaume harshly. “This time the truth. And you will be punished for your actions, William. I cannot ignore your gross insubordination, however noble you thought your cause.” He paused. “But not today and not with a hanging.”
“I thank you, my lord, for your mercy,” said Will, stepping, utterly grateful, into the briny underground air of the prison passage.
Guillaume said nothing, but gave a curt nod.
“What will happen to Vitturi?” asked Will, as they moved off.
“It is being dealt with.”
THE CHURCH OF ST. NICHOLAS, OUTSIDE ACRE, 14 JUNE A.D. 1277
The settlement outside Acre’s walls was a ruin. It had been for eight years, ever since Baybars had last appeared before the city with six thousand troops, planning to mount an assault. Unable, once again, to break Acre’s indomitable defenses, he had contented himself with the ambush and slaughter of a large battalion of Frankish knights, returning from a raid on a Muslim stronghold, and the destruction of the settlement. All that remained were a few rugged walls and crumbled foundations of houses, covered with tufts of scrubby grass, and the desolate skeleton of what had once been the Church of St. Nicholas. Children sometimes played in the ruins, although most were warned away by their parents, following a partial collapse inside the church a year ago, which had claimed the lives of two boys. The place was tainted with the stale air of decay and forlorn abandonment, the naked timbers that remained on part of the roof split and shriveled after a decade under the Palestinian sun. Scorpions, black and slick, scuttled over fallen masonry outside and disappeared into cracks in the stones as the church door, warped and stiff, groaned open.
“You took your time.”
Conradt von Bremen heard the voice before he saw the speaker, who loomed out of the shadows a second later, his black silk burnous making him one with the darkness.
“I was in urgent talks with a business associate of mine, Venerio,” replied Conradt, in his lazy, heavily accented Italian. “I left as soon as I could. But this place was difficult to find.”
Venerio swept past him and pulled at the door. It screeched over the uneven floor of the porch, was reluctant to close, then boomed shut. “Come,” he said gruffly, “the others are here.”
Striding around a latticed barrier of fallen beams, feet crunching on crumbled masonry, making prints in the layers of dust on the floor, Venerio led the German into what would have been the choir aisle. More beams littered the ground inside, some having shattered into dry shards and splinters, others leaning at uncomfortable angles against sagging pillars. Half of the west wall had come down, leaving a jagged silhouette against the blue backdrop of evening. The remaining timbers on the roof were steepled like bony fingers, large gaps between them revealing more sky. The sun had set an hour ago, slipping like a circle of butter into the horizon, and a single star, blunt and brilliant, had appeared in the vault of the roof.
In a space clear of much debris, in the center of the aisle, were three men. Two were sitting on blocks of fallen masonry and the third was pacing the floor. They all looked round as Venerio and Conradt appeared.
“We’ve been waiting hours,” snapped Angelo, halting his restless stalking, his gaze fixing belligerently on the German. “Where have you been?”
Conradt languidly brushed the flop of sandy hair from his brow. His flat blue eyes met Angelo’s. “I have explained my lateness to your father.” The rebuke was plain.
His pride prickling, Angelo started forward, but Venerio placed a hand on his son’s shoulder.
“Enough. We are here now.”
“Then let us begin,” came a singsong voice, as Renaud de Tours rose from the stone he had been perched upon. His small, round face looked up at the massive Venetian, his trimmed and neat hair blue-white in the dusk.
“Sit, gentlemen,” said Venerio, gesturing at the blocks of stone tumbled irregularly around the center of the aisle.
Michael Pisani stood gracefully, his lean face pinched with concern. “We have done enough sitting, Venerio.” He glanced at Conradt. “He would not tell us why he had brought us to this godforsaken place until you were here.” The sharpness with which he spoke the words couldn’t disguise the alarm that lay beneath them. “Explain yourself, Venerio,” he demanded. “Obviously all did not go well.” He gestured at Angelo. “The bruises on your son’s neck, the urgent summons, the fear that’s been coming off you both like a stench. What happened at the Temple? Is de Beaujeu dead?”
Venerio glanced at his son. There was a look of rancor in his face, unseen by the others but caught by Angelo, who scowled sullenly. “We aren’t sure.”
“What do you mean?” questioned Renaud quickly. “How can you not be sure?”
“Let him speak,” said Conradt, his usually torpid voice quickened by the news.
“Angelo stabbed de Beaujeu, but the grand master attacked him and he had to flee.”
“I do not think he would have survived,” Angelo said, looking at the men, whose faces were grim in the gloom. “He looked as if he were dying when I left him.”
“Looked as if?” murmured Michael, dangerously. “If there is even a possibility he survived ...” He trailed off.
“Angelo believes the wound to have been fatal,” said Venerio. “He is competent enough to know.”
“You aren’t certain though, Venerio,” Michael shot back, “or you wouldn’t have brought us to this place. What are you saying? That we cannot return home?”
“This is why we are here,” responded the Venetian. “To decide what to do.”
Conradt had been quiet for some moments, his sun-red face pensive. He now turned his ice-blue eyes on Venerio. “I gave you my decision when we met last night, after you told us of the knights’ failure to take the Stone.”
“You were outvoted,” snapped Angelo before his father could speak. “The others agreed that we had to kill de Beaujeu.”
“There was no proof that he was working against us, that this knight, Campbell, was acting under his orders by warning the Mamluks of our plan.” Conradt shook his head. “Why would de Beaujeu send his own men to Mecca if he knew the Mamluks would be there to stop them?”
“He would have had to make it look as though he were working with us,” said Venerio, coming to his son’s aid. “Or we would have known of his treachery when his knights failed to meet with Kaysan.”
“It is true,” said Renaud quietly. “We could not take the chance, Conradt. If the grand master was working against us, he could have ruined us. If the High Court discovered what we were planning and our reasons for it, we would ha
ve been finished, our property and estates confiscated, ourselves imprisoned, or worse.”
Venerio scanned them all with his imperious gaze. “What is done is done. If de Beaujeu is dead, the only one of us implicated will be Angelo. He is ready to leave, as was arranged.” He glanced at his son, who nodded.
“And what about the rest of us?” asked Michael. “We cannot all hide out in Venice under the protection of the doge, waiting for this to blow over. God damn it!”
Conradt’s growled response was drowned by an echoing bang that resounded around the church. All five men started at the sound. It was quickly followed by two other muffled thumps.
“What in hell’s name was that?” murmured Michael.
“Children?” said Renaud hopefully.
Venerio drew his sword and strode to the doors, which were obscured from view by fallen timbers. Angelo drew his own blade and made as if to follow, but he had only taken a few paces when the air was filled with faint hissing sounds. The church grew suddenly bright and the shadows were thrown back as four yellow balls of flame soared in through the gaps in the roof.
“Fire!” shouted Michael, staggering back as one of the missiles dropped toward him. It was a clay bottle, flaming from the top, which exploded in a liquid burst of fire as it impacted with the floor. A fiery substance spattered out around it, some of it spitting onto Michael’s robe. The Pisan shouted as the robe caught alight, the silk shriveling instantly. He tore the garment frantically from his shoulders, whilst around him the other missiles exploded, showering more of the flaming substance around the men and the debris-strewn church. It was Greek fire.
The broken beams on the floor were the first to ignite, blossoming into flame, crackling and splitting as the fire worked through them, spreading rapidly. The five men fell back shouting in alarm.
“The doors!” ordered Venerio.
“No!” yelled Michael, who had ripped off his robe. “They’re trying to drive us out. That’s what they want!”
“Who?” demanded Conradt.
But they all knew the answer. The Temple had found them.
Any argument over whether they should leave or not was cut short as two more missiles shattered into the aisle, whipping the blaze higher and wider. Seconds later, three flaming arrows thumped into the roof timbers high above them. The parched wood caught and flared.
“We’ll fight them,” said Venerio, through gritted teeth, heading for the doors.
But when they reached the exit, the thumping sounds they had heard only moments before became clear as the doors refused to budge. Someone had wedged the other side with something heavy. Try as they might, the men could not move them.
There was a whump as more of the timbers behind them caught alight. The interior of the church was now bright as day. A cloud of white smoke was rising, billowing to the roof, where a second fire had started, the brittle beams above turning black and cracking apart, sending showers of embers like glowing rain into the church below.
“We’ll climb the wall,” shouted Angelo, sheathing his sword and darting back around the lattice of timbers by the doors, which hadn’t yet caught. The heat took his breath away and seared his throat, and he halted, confronted with the roaring conflagration. He picked out a route to the side of the aisle and began climbing over the piles of shifting stones. There was a cracking sound and a gust of fire and sparks as one of the roof timbers collapsed. As the flames were fanned toward him, Angelo threw himself flat and screamed at the impossible heat of them. His cloak caught and began to burn. Scrabbling over the rest of the stones, he made it to the crumbled back wall and slammed into it, beating furiously at the flames.
The other men had left the doors and were now scaling the treacherous pile of rubble following Angelo, who had put out the last of the flames on his cloak and was slumped against the wall, whimpering and clutching his blistered and burned hands between his legs. There was another creaking, cracking noise from above. All of the men looked up. Michael cried out as another of the beams crashed down. One end of it came down on Renaud’s back, smashing him into the rubble, crushing him.
Angelo screamed as the pile of masonry collapsed and his father was swept into the inferno in the center of the church, Michael following him a second later. Two more roof timbers fell and Conradt was swallowed by fire. The smoke swirled thickly. Angelo sank to his knees as flames devoured the world around him.
THE TEMPLE, ACRE, 14 JUNE A.D. 1277
“Are you certain?” demanded Everard insistently. “De Beaujeu knows nothing of us? Of the Brethren?”
“I’m certain,” replied Will. He looked into the sky and took a draft of the fresh evening air, feeling the dampness and claustrophobia of the prison cell fading from him. The moon was yellow, almost full. He had heard one of the guards say there was going to be an eclipse in three days. Will felt his fear draining in shuddery bursts. Now he had been released, he realized how close he had come to never seeing daylight again. The thought made him weak. He and Everard were standing on the deserted battlements beside the treasury tower.
When he had climbed out of the underground cells, he had found the priest lingering in the courtyard.
“And the merchants? The Vitturis and the others? What will happen to them?”
“De Beaujeu said it was being dealt with,” said Will, glancing at Everard. “I don’t think we’ll have to worry about them.”
Everard rested his arms on the parapets. “I’m getting too old for this,” he wheezed. “I thought we were done for.” He turned back to Will. “By God and the saints, I swear you have more lives than a damn cat!”
Will laughed breathlessly in agreement. “When de Beaujeu knew I had betrayed him, I thought he was going to string me up himself that instant.”
“You did well, William,” said the priest seriously. He reached up and placed his bony, two-fingered hand on Will’s shoulder. “A lesser man may have broken, may have given up our secrets through fear or thoughtlessness. You kept your calm and thought on your feet.” A rare smile lit his face. “I feared as you left my chamber that it would be the last time I ever saw you.”
Will was about to respond when he saw a figure running across the courtyard toward the treasury tower. He recognized Simon and called down. Simon came to a halt, his head snapping up. In the yellow torch glare his face, white and wretched, was starkly revealed.
“Will!” he called hoarsely, racing to the stone steps that climbed to the ramparts and rushing headlong up them. He tripped, fell forward and almost threw himself at Will, who had gone quickly down to meet him, alarm filling him at the sight of Simon’s face.
“What is it?” demanded Will, catching Simon by the arms.
“Dear God,” breathed the groom, “dear God.” He dragged in several pained breaths and tried to speak, but only a high sobbing noise came out. “I’m sorry,” he cried, sweat dripping from his nose. His black tunic was soaked and stank. He collapsed to the steps, almost pulling Will down with him. “Will, I’m so sorry!”
Will crouched beside him, grasping his shoulders. “What is it?”
Everard had hobbled down the steps and was standing behind them.
“Elwen,” groaned Simon.
Will felt his alarm explode into a thousand stabbing shards of fear. “What about Elwen? Tell me!”
The power in his voice seemed to shake Simon from his hysteria. He raised his head. “They’ve taken her.”
“Who?”
“I couldn’t find you,” said Simon, shaking his head wildly. “I had your horse but you wasn’t there. I thought you’d gone, to Elwen like you said. I was going to go after you, but Paul said a man was here to see you and so I went out to meet him. I thought I was helping.” Simon dragged in a breath. “But he didn’t want to see you, Will. I ... I think he wanted to capture you.”
“The merchants?” said Everard quickly. “Vitturi?”
Will glanced at him, then back at Simon, who didn’t seem to have heard the priest. “Who was he
? Did he give a name?”
“No. But I know who he was,” said Simon bitterly. “He made sure of that. He was a Mamluk. One of Sultan Baybars’s men. A Bahri.”
“What has this got to do with Elwen?” urged Will.
Simon wiped his dripping nose roughly with the back of his tunic sleeve. “There were others with him and they made me take them to you, Will.” He looked up quickly. “They had daggers. They said they would kill me. I should have let them,” he whispered, unable to meet Will’s commanding gaze. “But I was scared. I couldn’t think. I thought you would know what to do and so I ...” He couldn’t finish, but he didn’t need to.
Will let go of Simon’s shoulders and slipped back onto the step, his whole body going limp. “You took them to Elwen,” he breathed.
“I thought you were there! I thought you could fight them!”
“Why did the Mamluks take her?”
Simon looked up at Everard’s stern voice, seeming to see the priest for the first time. “They found out that she . . .” He looked back at Will. “When they realized you weren’t there, they thought I had led them falsely. There was no one in the house to help us, just servants, and the Mamluks locked them upstairs. They wanted to know who Elwen was, and when neither of us would answer, they threatened to kill us. They would have done, Will, I swear they would. Elwen told them she was your wife. They took her,” said Simon exhaustedly, now resigned to the confession. “And they said I was to tell you what had happened. They said if you wanted her to live, you must come to Damascus and face trial for your crime against their sultan.” He shook his head. “I didn’t know what they meant. But that’s what they said.”