Robin sang with me, from time to time, and recounted comic, and occasionally hair-raising, incidents from his days as a young outlaw in Sherwood. On two occasions Samuel warned us that he suspected another ship in the vicinity of being a pirate, and we donned our mail coats and helmets and slung our swords and shields, and with any of the sailors who could be spared from driving the ship forward, we lined the wooden aft-castle and watched as the suspected ship came closer up behind to inspect us. By that point I was so bored that I would genuinely have welcomed a good, bloody sea-fight and, off the coast of the Ile d’Ouessant, at the furthest western tip of the Brittany peninsula, Little John went so far as to roar a foul-mouthed challenge at the approaching vessel, a red-and-white-sailed sinuous snake-boat from the northern lands, by the look of it, packed with a dozen fair-haired warriors. But the sight of so many fighting men in hauberk and helm lined up at the rail and all eager for battle, seemed to discourage any would-be pirates and, to Little John’s chagrin, they put over their helm and headed north, and we were left unmolested as we began the long journey south towards the warm lands of Aquitaine.
From the first day of the voyage Nur seemed determined to stay apart. And I believe that none of us, except perhaps Robin, were entirely comfortable with having an avowed witch in our company – I saw the hostile glances that Sir Nicholas de Scras gave her as she perched up at the bow, an unmoving black bundle seemingly impervious to the discomforts of the journey.
She remained as still as a statue for hours at a time, but, very occasionally, she would withdraw a small dark-grey leather bag from within her robe, where it was attached by a thong around her neck. She would shake the contents of the bag, a collection of what looked like little grey-white splinters of wood, on to the deck and peer closely at the pile, poking at it with one skinny finger. Then she would gather the pieces up carefully and pour them back into the bag, which she would return to its place deep within her clothing.
Her behaviour was puzzling, and I feared it was some demonic ritual and crossed myself whenever I saw her perform it. But most of the time she sat, still and silent, and I, and most of the rest of the Companions, ignored her. By the second day, I had mastered my white-hot rage at her presence among us. But I still had every intention of cutting her scrawny throat, as soon as possible after we had accomplished our quest and taken possession of the Grail – I vowed to myself silently that I would take a good deal more than three drops of her blood once Goody had been cured.
From the first day on board, it became apparent that the witch had brought nothing with her in the way of nourishment. Each night, when we stopped and made our way gratefully on to dry land, we most often went without food. It was Lent, and while Robin cared little for this season of self-denial, Sir Nicholas insisted that we observe its strictures. How could we even hope to be worthy of finding the Grail, he pointed out, if we ignored God’s will and flouted His holy laws? So, reluctantly, we restricted ourselves to one meal a day, consumed at noon aboard ship. As The Goose shouldered her way through the tall grey waves, and we chewed our dull Lenten fare beneath the aft-castle, Nur remained in the bow and apparently neither ate nor drank. She did not attempt to join us, nor did she ask for anything, she merely sat hour after hour, twenty yards away with the heap of dirty coal sacks between us. And while we chatted idly, told stories and swapped jests, and consumed our meagre daily meal, she stared out at the passing coast as if deep in a trance, or as if she were the only soul in the world.
On the fourth day of the voyage, at noon, Roland, who seemed to be oddly fascinated by the witch, took a thick slice of bread and a handful of radishes and a leather cup of ale and made his way carefully along the deck of the tossing ship. He called out something jovial to Nur as he approached, but his words were scattered by the wind, and anyway the witch ignored him. After a few moments of standing behind her, Roland placed the food and drink on the deck, and returned with a rueful shrug. For an hour or more Nur disdained the vittles, but when I happened to glance over towards the end of the afternoon, when a gory sun hung low in the sky, and the Governor was instructing one of the crew to steer for a stretch of grey-black shore where our flat-bottomed craft would beach for the night, I noticed that the food had disappeared. Nur remained in exactly the same position as before, and for a while I wondered if a freak wave had washed the meal overboard. Roland, too, noticed that the food had gone, and the next day at noon, he once again brought her some sustenance, this time pickled cabbage and an oatcake. Once again she took no notice, and refused to respond to his pleasantries. Once again the food vanished when nobody was looking.
For a week, Roland brought food to the witch, and slowly, very slowly, as if she were a wild animal being bred to the hand by my cousin’s kindness, Nur began to respond. At first, it was a few muttered words of thanks, and a dip of the head, then Roland began to have very short conversations with her about the weather, and what the piece of land we were passing might be called. One day, a little after noon, when Roland was late in bringing her food up to the bow, I noticed her looking back at us with an unmistakable air of expectation. And twelve days into the voyage, miracle of miracles, Roland took Nur by the hand and led her slowly back to the aft-castle to join in our noon-time meal. She did not speak, and ate quickly and nervously, and crept away without a word of thanks after she had had her fill. But the next day she returned once again on her own. And from that day forward she shared the Companions’ meagre repast as if by right.
One day, after we had been discussing the Master and his activities in Paris, Robin turned to Nur quite casually, as if she had long been an accepted member of the group, and said, ‘Would you be so kind as to tell us what you know of the Master and the Grail and the company of knights who guard it.’
Nur, who had a hand under her veil at the time and was stuffing a piece of salted cod-fish in her mouth, registered a flash of panic in her dark eyes. But I saw that Roland was smiling at her and nodding encouragement.
The witch swallowed hurriedly, and looked around the circle of expectant men. She coughed, and Roland passed her the leather ale bottle, from which she took a small sip, sliding it under the heavy veil and jerking her chin upwards. No one else spoke, every eye was on her and, at last, in a small, almost timid voice she said, ‘Some of you men here know my story’ – she looked at Little John and the big man nodded. He had known her in Sicily, Cyprus and the Holy Land when she was young and beautiful and had been my lover. Robin said kindly, ‘Take your time, Nur, we are in no hurry, no hurry at all.’ And he gestured at the rolling blue-grey waves beyond the ship’s rail and at the far distant smear of land.
Nur nodded at him, her black headdress bobbing on her shoulders. Then she began her tale, in the traditional Arabic manner, from the very beginning.
Chapter Ten
‘I was born in a small village in the land you call Syria, a dozen miles outside the Christian citadel of Tyre,’ said Nur, in her odd sing-song voice, ‘and my people were farmers, growing vines, figs and melons. We were neither very rich nor very poor, but we were very happy,’ she said. ‘The days of my youth were filled with sunshine and joy; I played with my brother and helped my parents around the farm at harvest time; I even had my own pony to ride. All was well, all was indeed well, and I imagined that I would spend my days in that village, marry, have many children, and expire one golden afternoon as an old woman surrounded by those who loved me. I believed the world was a place of peace and happiness. I was a fool.
‘One day, when I had just turned thirteen years old, the raiders came. They were rough, cruel men in steel and leather, stinking of onions and old sweat and speaking in the strange tongue of the Turks. They killed everyone who did not run from them, except for the children; those of us who were not yet fifteen, they kept in a wooden pen that they had built on the beach as if we were animals. The ugly and malformed children, they separated from the rest, including my brother Salim, who was eleven, and had an eye that did not look straight. They d
ragged Salim away and I watched him be raped, by ten, twenty men, perhaps. He fought, but they clubbed him down and took their turns, laughing, until he was not more than an unmoving bag of bruised and bloody flesh. I did not know if he was dead or alive. I hoped he was dead. I truly believed that they would do the same to me, but no. I was valuable merchandise, I learned, not to be lightly despoiled.’
Nur laughed at this point, a dry grating sound that made all the hairs on my neck stand up. Not a man in that rapt circle moved a muscle as she spoke. Robin’s face was as grim as death and I saw that two of the crew had drawn closer to hear her words, finding simple tasks that brought them within earshot.
‘I was taken aboard a large boat with the others, perhaps a dozen children from my village, and locked in the hold. There were perhaps about two score already there, boys and girls, and many had been there for days and were already weak. I told myself that a terrible fate, a fate far, far worse than death, awaited me and that I must be strong. But I was afraid. I prayed to Allah – but he did not listen to me. I prayed to the Christ God that I knew that the knights of Tyre worshipped. He was deaf, as well. I despaired.
‘We spent three days in that small hold without air, tossed constantly by the sea, and we were all ill, and very, very frightened. One of the girls became particularly sick in the stinking belly of that ship with a fever of some kind, not just from the movement of the boat. She turned very cold and then very hot and sometimes she raved and screamed for her mother. But when we called to our captors, and begged for at least some fresh, clean water for her to drink, they laughed. She soon died, all of a sudden, just like the snapping of a twig. She fell asleep’ – Nur softly clicked her fingers – ‘and her spirit just left her. Like that. It was the first time I had seen someone die. And then the men came down among the sick children in the lapping filth of the hold, and they took her away. I heard the tiny splash as they threw her over the side.
‘After only four days, although it seemed a month, the boat stopped at a little harbour with high cliffs and a castle. The harbour was filled with ships, vessels from across the whole of the world, it seemed: Moslem and Christian and Jew. I was told later that we were in Cilicia, in the mountain realm of the King of Armenia. To me it was the stinking crotch of the world. They took us from that foul hold, sick, bewildered, frightened, and herded us with their spears to a large house behind the harbour with a high stone wall. I prepared myself for the worst horror I could imagine – for a Hell even worse than that ship’s belly, for the fate of my brother Salim. I looked about for ways to end my life. Instead, I found myself in paradise.’
Nur laughed again, the same awful grating rasp.
‘The girls were separated from the boys on the quayside and we were taken into the care of a very fat man, a slave like us, but an important creature, too. We were washed and well fed and given three days just to sleep and restore ourselves to health, and then we were washed again and dressed in fine clothes and allowed to try on perfumes and run about in the beautiful gardens of that palace and play. We were told that we were members of a harem, a women’s enclosure, the property of a great sea lord, and that our duty was to learn how to be pleasurable to men. If we did well, if we behaved ourselves and were obedient, we would be treated gently, like little princesses and fed the finest foods, and allowed to lounge all day on cushions of silks and eat curds and honey, but if we behaved badly, we would be whipped, and sold on to be used by the common sailors, or worked to death in the mines. There were scores of girls in that high-walled enclosure, and some of them had been there for several years – and seeing that they were, for the most part, content with their lot, my mind was greatly eased.
‘I said a prayer for the soul of Salim, and prepared to learn and make the most of my new life. And while we were closely guarded by the fat slave and his men, eunuchs all, and never allowed to leave the compound, we were not mistreated. Indeed, I was well cared for. I had no freedom, except to run about in that delightful garden, or to sleep till noon, if I chose, but I was fed fresh fruit and honey and iced sherbets every day, and allowed to exercise and play with the other girls as much as I wished. It was there, in that place, that I began to be taught, very gently over a dozen languid weeks, how to please a man. I learned how to please in many different ways, with a look, a smile, a tilt of the head, with a song or by reciting poetry, with my fingers, and lips and breasts, with my whole body – but for one part of me. I was a virgin then and nobody had tried to lie with me, except for one of the older girls who claimed that she had fallen in love with me and would die unless she could have me. But I laughed at her ridiculous notions and she went away weeping and saying that I was cruel. But after that, she left me in peace.’
As I watched Nur tell her story, I remembered how beguiling she had been when I had first met her. Her hair so black and shiny that it was like a spill of rock oil, her lips red and plump and sweet as cherries, her full, jutting, bobbing breasts, and her skin so white and unmarked, like a marble carving from a pagan Greek temple: I had loved her deeply, with the whole of my boyish heart. She had seemed to me to be perfection in female form, as near an angel as I had ever seen … And now, all that was left of her beauty was her eyes. The eyes that I now found staring into mine, just for a moment, above her veil and below her headdress, just for a moment before she looked away. They were still lovely, deep and brown and, with the rest of her face covered by the swathes of cloth, I could almost picture the girl she had been.
I broke my reverie to find that Nur was continuing with her tale: ‘… in truth, I was perfectly happy there; for four long months, I was in paradise. The ordeal of the raid on my village and the deaths of my parents and my brother faded from my mind. I spent the days making myself delightful to all the senses, with fine clothes, with oils and creams and powders and costly scents; or playing or talking with the other girls, or at my lessons in lovemaking. Some of the older girls whispered that there were secret ways that I could use to make a man fall in love with me, magical ways – for that was the great hope of almost all the women there, that a rich man would come and take them away to be his wife. But their magic was feeble, of little true power, much of it hardly more than childish nonsense, and I mastered it quickly – the tiny heart of a songbird, dried and crumbled into wine, water from the reflection of the moon in a pool at midnight, rhymes chanted over a burning candle – yet it was the beginning of my journey into the realm beyond this world. I did not then know the power that the spirit world wields over all mortals, and I could not imagine where the spirits would lead me in this earthly life. For I was young, and beautiful then, and for a little while, I was happy. I could have remained for my whole life in that garden of womanly delights, I think, and been content – but one day a tall man came to that secluded place, a Christian, a tall, bearded Frank. And although I had not misbehaved, although I had been an obedient girl in all the things that were asked of me, I was sold off to him like a fat-tailed sheep at the market. I had been a fool once again – I had forgotten for a time that I was a slave, of no more value than a fine kitchen pot or a silver bracelet.’
Nur paused and looked beyond the rail at the vast heaving surface of the sea. Still not a man in the circle around her spoke. She seemed to be summoning her courage before embarking on the next part of the story.
‘The man who bought me was a knight in a long white mantle with a small red cross, here’ – Nur drew the sign of the Templar cross with a gloved finger on her left breast – ‘and a vast, thick black beard that stuck out, like so.’ She made a gesture with her right hand, holding it under her chin, fingers extended to indicate the horizontal jut of the knight’s beard. ‘At first, I did not understand what he had come for; and in my foolishness, I did not know my happiness could be so easily shattered again.’
Nur coughed out another painfully dry laugh.
‘The fat slave-master mustered us like soldiers and ordered some forty of us girls to form a line in the gardens. The knight and hi
s companions, two other Franks who wore the same white mantles, and more men in black surcoats who served them, walked briskly down the line and pointed to ten of us. Including me, although I was the youngest by a year or so, being not quite fourteen at that time. We were taken from the garden that day, marched out under guard by the Franks, and I never saw that place or my friends there ever again.
‘They took us by sea, a hundred miles east, to the port of Ayas – in more comfort than our previous journey … at least in some ways.
‘On the first night at sea, the Frankish knight, whose name was Amanieu d’Albret, took me into his cabin and ripped away my innocence. He beat me with his fists and then he raped me, and afterwards he sobbed and prayed to the Christ God and begged my forgiveness for his sin. He said that I had bewitched him; that it was my own fault. For my beauty was a provocation, he said, a temptation no man could resist. Then he beat me again; this time with a riding whip, and then he raped me for a second time but in the other place, behind. And perhaps I had indeed bewitched him for, when we arrived at Ayas, the other girls were sold on but the knight, this Seigneur d’Albret, this cruel, weeping lecher, he chose to keep me for his own pleasures.’
The men listening to Nur’s tale were spellbound and I could see that they were, to a man, utterly sympathetic to her plight. Little John was even growling softly with rage under his breath and stroking the wooden haft of his axe.
However, the story was familiar to me and I noticed that Nur had left out certain things: for instance, she once told me that she had tried to escape from that paradisiacal garden of women and had been branded on the ankle for her pains when she was recaptured. I realized that she was altering her tale to make the listeners more amiable towards her. And I warned myself not to be seduced by Nur’s sad history: I closed my eyes and pictured Goody, dying Goody, my beloved wife who had been cursed by this black witch before me now. Whatever evil Nur had suffered, it did not excuse her actions against my poor innocent girl.
Grail Knight: Number 5 in series (Outlaw Chronicles) Page 14