When they had completed their round of the buildings facing the courtyard, they passed out by way of a gate facing west and discovered there was yet another lone tower, standing upright and defiant on a little peak of white rock roughly a thousand feet away. This tower was very narrow and tall with no windows, but topped by crenelation.
“How do we get there?” Philip asked in awe. There was no visible path. In fact, right in front of them the rocks fell sharply away, and they were looking at the tops of the pine trees. In short, they were separated from the tower by a shallow gorge.
“I think there’s a trail over here,” Joscelyn decided. He had wandered a little to one side.
Guy and Philip followed him and looked at the narrow, naked path that struck out into the trees from the foot of the rocky platform they were standing on. “I’m not so sure,” Guy prevaricated. “It looks like nothing but a goat track to me.”
“But look!” Philip pointed. “You can see it emerging from the trees there!” He pointed toward the tower. Sure enough, at the foot of the tower the trees parted a little, and a narrow white path wound up out of them to go along the base of the tower and disappear around the corner. “The door must be at the back of the tower,” Philip concluded.
“But how do we get down to the start of the trail?” Guy asked. The beginning of the trail was a good six or seven feet below where they were standing.
“Oh, that’s easy!” Philip announced. Dropping down onto his buttocks, he rolled over and, face to the rock, slowly lowered himself. The rock face being rugged, he had handholds and footholds. Once his feet hit the trail, he backed up (oblivious to the white dust smeared across his front) and waved at the other boys. “See! Easy!”
Joscelyn was already on his belly and following, leaving Guy little choice.
They followed the trail through the woods, the pine needles under their feet and birds crying indignantly as they were disturbed from their perches. It was chilly here in the deep shadow, although the trees broke the wind somewhat. None of the boys gave a thought to the fact that some of the chill came from the fact that the sun was very low in the sky. They were too busy concentrating on the trail, which was more rugged than expected. The last hundred feet was a climb up the escarpment on which the tower was perched. They had to use their hands to haul themselves up as much as their feet to push them off. They were filthy, scratched, and breathless—but triumphant—by the time they reached the foot of the tower.
As they came around the first corner, however, they gasped in terror. The trail broke off abruptly and plunged down a thousand feet to a heap of broken masonry already half overgrown with gorse and thorn bushes. The outer half of the tower, concealed from view up to now, had collapsed.
Still shaken by how close they had come to stepping off the cliff, they turned around to return the way they’d come. Only now did they notice that the sun had already set, and night was closing in on them rapidly. “We’d better get back fast,” Guy summed up the situation.
He got no contradiction from his companions. Rather, they all started to hurry, afraid to admit to one another how frightened they were becoming. The first challenge, of course, was getting down the face of the rock they had climbed up earlier with so much élan. Again they resorted to going down the face of the rock backwards, but in the fading light it was harder to find footholds. Now and again one or the other missed and slid more than stepped, scraping knees, elbows, and hands. But they made it.
The trail, however, was harder to find now that the shadows had enveloped it. Footing was harder to find, too. Partway, Joscelyn tripped over a root, staggered forward out of balance, and in trying to catch himself put his foot sideways on another root. With an audible “knick,” his foot fell sideways off the root. He crashed down face first with a cry of alarm and pain. Philip was leading, and he stopped at once to look back. Guy turned and went back to Joscelyn to help him up.
“My ankle,” Joscelyn gasped out. “It’s broken.”
“You probably just twisted it,” Guy countered. “Here. I’ll help you up.”
Joscelyn shook his head. “I can’t! I can’t!” There was a whine and sob in his voice that was utterly unlike him. Joscelyn was no crybaby. He could usually take more and worse than the others, always anxious to prove that a Mamluke was better than any Frank. The pain and panic in his voice now made Philip turn around and return to find out what had happened.
With Guy’s help, Joscelyn had pulled himself into a sitting position with his back against the trunk of a tree, but his face was ghostly white, and he was holding up his right leg at the knee. The foot hung uselessly from it.
“Christ!” Philip whispered in shock.
“He can’t help, you stupid polytheist!” Joscelyn snarled, and he started praying in Arabic.
“What are we going to do?” Guy asked Philip.
“One of us has to stay here with Jos, and the other better go get help.”
Guy nodded.
“You’d better go,” Philip decided; “it’s your father’s castle and his men. My father’s here for the first time and doesn’t know his way around.”
Guy nodded again, but he didn’t move.
“What’s the matter?” Philip asked.
“I’m not sure I can find my way back or climb up the rock at the other end,” Guy admitted.
“You have to!” Philip told him in a tone that was sharp with rising panic. “We can’t stay here all night!”
It was starting to get decidedly cold now that the sun had set, and the wind seemed to have picked up as well.
“I know; it’s just—”
“All right, then you stay here. I’ll go for help!” Philip declared. He was inwardly just as afraid he might lose his way or fail to scale the rock, but now he was determined to show off his courage. He forged ahead with blind determination for a few hundred paces, only to stop abruptly. He was surrounded by darkness, and overhead the trees whispered to one another alarmingly. He hadn’t a clue where the trail was. His breathing was getting louder and he could feel the pounding of his heart. He turned on his heel to return the way he’d come, but now he couldn’t find the trail back, either.
Philip felt an intense need to pee, but he knew it was just fear. He had to find the trail. After looking this way and that, he gave up, and just struck out through the trees in the direction he thought the castle should be. The first time he tripped over a root, he froze with a new terror. If he broke his ankle like Jos had done, no one would ever find any of them. And there were lions up here in the mountains, John had said.
Philip held his breath to listen. Everything was still except for the rustling of the treetops. Maybe that was because a lion was already stalking him! Philip started praying frantically and plunged forward through the forest, telling himself that as long as the ground was sloping upwards, he had to be going in the right direction.
It seemed like an eternity, but eventually he began to make out a rocky cliff, lighter than the forest, behind the trees. He’d made it back to the base of the castle. Only this wasn’t the same place where they’d descended. The cliff was much taller—at least ten feet. Worse, to his left the ground dropped hundreds of feet into the darkness. Philip broke out into a cold sweat and started back along the base of the rock on which the castle perched.
He hadn’t gotten very far when he saw light overhead. It was an unsteady light, yellowish and swaying. A torch!
“Hello!” he called out at the top of his voice. “Hello! Can anyone hear me?”
The torch swayed. “Hello?” came an answering call.
“Help!” Philip cried out with the strength of hope. “It’s Philip d’Ibelin! I’m down below you!”
The torch moved, and a head silhouetted against the light of the torch looked over the edge of the cliff.
“How did you get down there? What are you doing?” With relief Philip recognized the voice of his father’s squire Georgios.
“We just wanted to see the outer tower,
but then Jos broke his ankle and it got dark, and I couldn’t find my way back, and—”
“Stay there!” Georgios ordered. His head disappeared again and Philip could hear voices muttering. Then Georgios’ head reappeared and he called down, “Follow the trail, keeping your right hand on the rock all the way until you come to some stairs. We’ll be waiting for you there.”
Philip had never been so relieved in his life. He turned, and keeping his hand on the surface of the cliff he slowly made his way back. After a few minutes he saw two torches descending in front of him. Georgios was accompanied by a sergeant from the garrison and his father’s other squire, Amalric d’Auber, Jos’s older brother.
As Philip came into the circle of light cast by the torch, Georgios could see his torn and dirty clothes. The squire frowned. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine! It’s Jos who broke his ankle.”
“Are you sure?”
“It looks like jelly on the end of his leg,” Philip answered graphically.
“Where is he?” Amalric asked tightly. Jos was, after all, his little brother, even if the boy’s conversion to Islam was almost as much a shame to him as his elder brother’s incompetence at arms.
“There’s a trail that leads to that tower over there!” Philip explained, pointing. The tower, pointing upward from the highest hillock to the west, stood out in sharp silhouette against the luminous western sky.
The sergeant grunted and added, “I know it.”
“Can you lead us there?” Georgios asked.
The sergeant nodded.
“Do we need a stretcher for Jos?” Georgios thought to ask.
“Surely we can carry him between us,” Amalric answered irritably, already annoyed by how much trouble his stupid brother was causing.
Georgios nodded, and they followed the sergeant first along the base of the castle and then into the woods. With the torches it was a lot easier. As they approached, Guy called to them in a voice that was high with fear: “Over here! Over here! Help!”
When they reached the two other boys, Georgios went down on one knee to examine Jos’s ankle and gasped. It was badly swollen and discolored already, but just as Philip had said, it was completely wobbly—which could only mean that every tendon and ligament had also snapped.
“You idiot!” Amalric burst out at his younger brother. “This is what comes of abjuring Christ! If you never walk again, it will be what you deserve! You brought it on yourself, you—”
“Amalric! Enough!” Georgios cut him short. Although Georgios was the son of a native tradesman, he was twenty-five years old, and he’d been in Ibelin’s service since before Hattin. Amalric might be the son of a knight, but he was just seventeen, and he’d been a slave for five years. When Georgios stared him down, Amalric looked at his feet resentfully.
“Take your brother under his arms from behind,” Georgios ordered Amalric next, and then addressed himself to Jos. “We can’t walk backwards on that trail. You’ll have to straddle me with your legs so I can hold them at the knees. I don’t want to touch that ankle. Understand?”
Jos nodded, swallowing hard, but tears were streaming down his face and his teeth were chattering.
“Doesn’t anyone have a cloak?” Georgios asked, recognizing shock.
The others shook their heads helplessly, so Georgios unhooked his aketon, pulled it off, and put it around Jos’s much smaller shoulders. Then he turned around, stepped between Jos’s legs, and hooked his hands under the boy’s knees. “Ready?” he called to Amalric, and on the affirmative answer ordered, “Lift him up!”
Jos screamed at the jostling, but cut off his own cry. Then they set off, with the sergeant leading with the first torch and Philip bringing up the rear with the second.
It wasn’t until Jos had been delivered to the castle barber (who doubled as surgeon) that Philip had time to start worrying. By now he knew that their absence had set off a massive manhunt. Well, maybe not massive, but the Lord of Lusignan’s concern for his heir had resulted in search parties being sent in multiple directions. Because they’d been in such a hurry to get Jos and Guy out of the woods, their rescuers had not sent word that they were found. Their arrival at the castle barber set off such an explosion of shouts and activity that Philip and Guy knew they were in deep trouble. “Shit!” Guy kept saying. “Shit! My Dad’s going to have my hide!”
“He’ll have to fight my father for the honor!” Philip answered grimly, before adding, “We’ve got to tell them Jos broke his ankle on the way—no, that won’t work, either. Maybe we could say—”
“The truth!” Balian’s voice came out of the darkness behind them, making them both jump.
“Ah! Yes, my lord. You see—”
“No! I don’t see.” The next minute Balian had them each by the scruff of their neck and was pushing them in front of him to the steps leading up to the great hall.
The hall was full of people and oppressively hot after the cold of the night. Torches were lit all along the wall. A fire was roaring in the main fireplace on the inside wall. A sideboard had been set up with cold leftovers from the midday meal, and large pottery jugs of water and wine for the knights and squires to help themselves.
As Ibelin entered with the two boys, a ragged cheer went up, and Lusignan signaled for Ibelin to bring the boys up onto the dais. As they passed through the crowd, everyone turned to look at them, and Philip became conscious of how dirty, scruffy, and ragged he looked.
“You don’t think he’ll put us in the stocks, do you?” Guy whispered beside him, his eyes fixed on his father, who glowered at them from the high table. Guy sounded genuinely afraid, and Philip realized that Guy didn’t know his father very well. Lord Aimery had been away most of the last two years, the very years when Philip had been getting to know his own father. Philip wasn’t afraid. He knew he was in trouble, but he trusted that the punishment would be fair.
“So! What do you have to say for yourself?” Lusignan snarled at his heir as the latter came to a halt in front of him, Ibelin holding him firmly in place. “What were you doing? I had a hundred men out looking for you!”
Philip, with a glance over his shoulder at the roomful of men, thought the number was greatly exaggerated.
“We were just exploring,” Guy squeaked out uncomfortably. “We wanted to get to the outermost tower. We didn’t know it was a ruin.”
“Why didn’t you return before dark?” Lusignan demanded. “Don’t you know how dangerous it is to wander around in a forest after dark? Are you idiots, or what?”
“Jos tripped over a root and broke his ankle, and then I got lost trying to find the way back in the dusk. It was my fault,” Philip announced, and was gratified by the squeeze his father gave his shoulder. His father approved of him taking the blame.
Lusignan shifted his gaze to Philip, then back to his son. “Whose idea was this?”
“Mine!” the boys declared in unison, then looked at one another and smiled.
“Well said.” Ibelin patted them both on the back, and Lusignan nodded.
Ibelin added, “I hope you’ve both learned a lesson. A good soldier never loses sight of the sun, and always makes sure he has a secure place for the night. Never forget that!” The boys nodded vigorously.
Lusignan waved his hand in dismissal. “Go get yourself something to eat and then clean yourselves up.”
Balian released his grip on the boys so they could run back to the sideboard; then he mounted the dais, pulled out the chair next to Aimery, and sat down, remarking, “As long as they’re both safe and sound . . . ”
Aimery pushed a pitcher and goblet in his direction as he answered: “Yes, but if something had happened to Guy so shortly after losing this last baby, I don’t know what Eschiva would have done.”
“We can’t coddle them,” Balian reminded him.
“I know,” Aimery answered with a sigh, running his hand through his graying blond hair. “Nor do I want to, but—”
“My lord?” A
knight with wind-blown hair was standing before the dais.
“Yes?” Aimery sat upright and asked expectantly.
“I was out looking for your son on the upper ramparts, and from there I spotted a sail far out to the west. The light was fading fast, so I can’t be sure, but I think it was a snecka. At any rate, it was very low in the water and running before the wind with shortened sail.”
“Magnussen!” Aimery exclaimed at once, instantly filled with tension. Would the Norseman hurry back with good or bad news?
“We can’t be sure,” Balian warned.
“But the sailing season’s over. We haven’t seen a merchant ship in over a fortnight, not sailing west to east.”
“Send someone to Kyrenia to find out what ship it is,” Balian advised, adding, “presuming she puts in to Kyrenia.”
“I’ll send John. He knows and likes Magnussen.”
Balian bit his tongue. Hadn’t he said just two minutes earlier that they should not coddle their sons? Still, he didn’t like the thought of John alone on the roads here, or in a port town—not after what he’d seen of Famagusta. “I’ll have Amalric go with him,” he decided, and Aimery made no objection.
Kyrenia, Late October 1194
The imperial road, built in the reign of the Emperor Manuel I, led from Larnaka via Nicosia to Kyrenia. It had been paved with massive square stones and had been wide enough for four men to ride abreast or for an ox-cart to move comfortably. From Larnaka to Nicosia it was still in good repair, but as it started up the backside of the Pentadaktylos range, although still intact, it became more rugged. The edges had often broken or been washed away. By the time it reached the pass itself, large portions of the road had been completely washed away by landslides. Instead of a road, there was just a dangerous trail of broken masonry, gullies, and rubble.
John, still distressed by the injury Centurion had taken on his trip home, at once jumped down and led the young bay palfrey his father had helped him choose in Caymont. Troubadour was a pretty, intelligent bay with a smooth gait and an easygoing temperament—an ideal palfrey. He was also very curious, and he found this unfamiliar landscape very provocative. He had to stop every few feet to look around and sniff at things, making Amalric impatient. “Just yank on the reins!” Amalric suggested irritably.
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