by Paul Finch
The Ethiopian rocked on his feet. In a stiff, spasmodic motion, his hand unclasped and the bush-knife fell to the carpet. As he sank to his knees, he tried to speak, but the words were lost in a bloody froth that bubbled from his semi-paralysed mouth. They sounded like: “Millionth … millionth …”
His eyes rolled white and he fell face down on the granite hearth.
Charles stepped around him, the gun still in his hand. Annabelle was standing beside her armchair. She was staring at him white-faced, teeth clamped on her thumb as though to suppress a scream. But when she finally spoke, it was in a carefully modulated tone.
“You find it easy to kill Africans, don’t you, Charles?”
“If it’s necessary, yes.”
“Necessary?”
“On this occasion to save your brother.”
“To save him?” She almost laughed.
“To take him to the Natural History Museum, where he can be cared for.”
“You mean dissected.”
“Annabelle!” Charles said. “The Natural History Museum is a humane institution. The gentlemen there are scientists. They’re not wantonly cruel to lesser creatures.”
“Indeed? Did you know that Colonel Thorpe made several trips in their employ?”
“Colonel Thorpe?”
“Do you think the creatures he brought back were humanely treated?”
“Annabelle, listen …”
“I’m sorry, Charles.” She was shaking her head. “A few moments ago, Nigel tried to explain to you why he’d made the choices he had. And you told him, and then proved to him, that he no longer had any choices at all. I’m now telling you the same thing.”
“What are you talking about?”
“There are different kinds of lesser creatures, Charles. But you’ve learned that too late.”
And only now did Charles realise that over the last few seconds, several drops of fluid had been landing on his right cheek. He glanced up.
Sebastian was clinging upside-down to the ceiling. He’d dispensed with his last vestige of human clothing, and was now to be seen in his full green, exoskeletal glory. Even as Charles stared up at it, the locust-being turned its head and regarded him with its complex, globular eyes. Then it detached itself.
Charles raised the revolver, pumping the trigger hard. But the revolver was empty.
Claws hooked and wings outspread, the god descended.
THE DESTROYERS
As the end of our time neared, it was written unto many stones, most readily in that ancient land of apostate kings, the Distant East, that Man would spill a tide of blood unlike any known since that scourge of tribes, Attila. Eager to partake of this feast, the godless things that swim in dark and unseen places …
Childeric
AD 1099
Jerusalem, the navel of the world, the sacred city of Christians, Jews and Moslems alike, might have been worth the wearying journey to reach it had its alleys not swarmed with flies, its squares and courts not lain under a vast litter of the hacked, mutilated and dead.
In any normal time, the sight of the sun – a ball of orange flame high on the rugged flanks of Mount Zion, or shimmering through the green canopies of lemon and fig trees in the lush gardens of Gethsemane – might stop the surliest man in his tracks and make him draw breath. But now that sun was lost in a haze of acrid smoke, and the sky, the little of it visible, fluttering with ravens.
“They said the Church of the Sepulchre was once destroyed,” the boy muttered. “By the mad Caliph Al-Hakim. But that it was raised to glory again by a Viking … Harald Hardraada, in the pay of Byzantium. I thought it would be an astounding place to visit.”
“It was, Ulf,” the man replied. “Didn’t you feel that?”
They’d both of them been inside that great and holy place, been witness in person to its many coloured marbles and rich murals. But the boy was shocked that even there the people of the city had failed to find sanctuary from the crusader army, and, almost as one, had fallen beneath a flailing storm of blades and mattocks. Even there, on that very site where Jesus himself had lain entombed, a hideous slaughter had been wreaked. For both man and boy, now tired and bedraggled and sated with battle, it was discomforting to think about that. They rode in silence, drawing steadily away from the city, their horses picking a careful path over a once-fertile, now-trampled plain. Where pomegranate and aubergine had grown in irrigated rows, only char remained; where lines of canes once earmarked the melon and spinach plantations, now there was an immense smouldering refuse.
“Thurstan,” the boy said, his face pale, streaked with dirt, “I wanted to drink the sacred waters of Siloam.”
“I know.”
“I wanted to walk the pavements laid by Hadrianus.”
At first Thurstan made no reply. He didn’t want to imagine what was happening on those ornate footways now – two days after the fighting had finished. Both of them could still hear the smashing of furniture and rending of cloth, the shrieks of rapine and carnage, the riotous drunken laughter, the sickening chunk of axe-blade in skull.
“Warfare is Hell, lad,” the knight finally said. “Wherever it occurs.”
“But Thurstan … there were very few of them soldiers.”
“There were soldiers enough.”
Thurstan could vividly picture the sky filled with blazing arrows as siege-engines crowded against the walls, the streams of burning pitch from the high stone towers, then the wild melees on the ramparts and down in the passages between the leaning clay tenements – the screams and curses and slashing blades. Oh, there’d been soldiers. Of course, in the way of all Infidel armies those soldiers had fought virtually to the last man, yet when that last man had fallen the furious assault had gone on unabated.
And we thought them barbarians, Thurstan considered.
“They weren’t even all of them Saracens,” Ulf said. “I saw Jews, Greeks …”
“Impossible to tell,” the knight replied curtly. In the red mist of his memory, his sweeping longsword clove a variety of faces, yet all were nut-brown, hook-nosed, thickly-bearded. There were no racial differences in this God-forsaken region. “Especially in the heat of battle.”
“Or massacre,” the boy said.
“Enough talking. It won’t help to brood. What we’re doing now is good.”
Up ahead, beside a natural water course and a clump of spiny cactus, a small troop of men waited. Some were mounted, some on foot, though like Ulf and Thurstan, all were girt in slashed, bloody hauberks or thick leather harness now rent and dusty. Many had cast off their helms, loosing lank mats of sweaty hair, or had ripped the cloth crosses from the shoulders of their smoke-grimed cloaks. What few banners they bore trailed the barren ground or hung in shreds. So dirty and dejected were the men, it was impossible to tell knight from serjeant-at-arms, banneret from bowman. As the newcomers arrived, a silent passage cleared and Ramon la Hors, Knight-Commander of Cerne, was revealed, seated by the water, head bowed. Ulf dismounted and hurried forward to embrace him. “Ramon … thank God!”
Ramon jumped up however, glaring. His eyes were red-rimmed and sore, his once handsome face ingrained with dirt. A deep, clotted sword-cut was visible across the bridge of his nose. “For Christ’s sake, boy,” he snarled. “In front of the entire house?”
The squire halted in his tracks. “I … I thought you were dead.”
Ramon spat out gritty phlegm. “Do you have anything to drink?”
Ulf turned to his horse and unhooked the wineskin. “It’s poor quality …”
“Don’t give me some damned trade patter,” Ramon grunted, snatching and uncorking it. “Just the drink.”
The boy stood awkwardly as his lord and tutor gulped down the tepid fluid. The others had already lost interest. They sat or stood in silence, fidgeting with weapons, staring at nothing. Only Thurstan watched Ramon, his rugged brown face more sullen than usual.
Ulf glanced out into the surrounding wilderness. Heat wavered on its dry, d
usty ridges. “They say this land was once a forest, but that the Romans cut down all its trees to make crosses.” He looked at Ramon. “Quite appropriate for us, don’t you think?”
Ramon wiped his mouth. “I can’t see how it has any relevance at all.”
The squire shook his head, bewildered at the change that had overtaken this once noblest chevalier. “Then why are you here?”
Ramon looked hard at the boy. “Why are you here? You’re young, virile. Why aren’t you back there?” He indicated the distant, smoggy haze of Jerusalem. “Using this?” He slammed his mailed fist into Ulf’s groin, felling him like a young ox. “You’re landless, nameless. For God’s sake, why aren’t you plundering, grabbing your share?”
“You know why,” the boy choked, rolling in agony.
“Damn right!” Ramon snapped, turning away. “And more fool us.” He spotted Thurstan watching him. “Do you have a problem, sir?”
“Do you, Ramon?” Thurstan replied. “Because I think I can resolve it for you.”
Ramon’s hand stole to the hilt of his longsword. “Any time you feel appropriate.”
Thurstan nodded, and slipped down from his saddle. With a rasp of steel, he drew his blade. They circled each other warily …
“Enough of this, in the name of Christ!” cried an angry voice, and Bernard d’Etoille stamped between them.
He was an elderly man, once dignified but now as haggard and dingy as the rest. Arch-Deacon of Salisbury, he’d been advocating this ‘holy war’ since long before Pope Urban preached it at Clermont four years ago. Even now, his purple robes hung over a suit of chain; the blessed mace he carried had many times been caked with Saracen brains. However, as with so many of them, things had changed for Bernard d’Etoille.
“Hasn’t there been enough killing?” he shouted. “You call yourselves soldiers of Christ, yet after slaughter and theft on a monstrous scale, you’re ready for it again … even in the midst of your penance.”
“Our penance, yes,” Ramon said with a slow smile. “Now there’s a sore point, father-confessor. Who exactly chose this penance?”
“Me,” came a deep, resonant voice.
The company turned. Three more riders had approached. They too were windblown and battle-scarred, and despite the searing heat, heavily mailed. One by one, they removed their helms, shaking loose their sodden locks. The central rider, massive in shoulder and a head taller than the other two – in fact, with the exception of Thurstan, a head taller than any man there – was Gilles fitzOslac, Count of Cerne, Leopard of Gerberoi. He’d always been a stark, imposing man, even dusty and bloodied as he was now. His hair and beard were thick and dark, yet shot with silver, his eyes a piercing blue. There might have been an honest nobility about him, had somebody not once slashed his face to bloody ribbons. Now it was a crisscrossing puzzle of hard, white scars, lending him a near-daemonic countenance.
One after another, his mesnie knelt in deference.
He surveyed them in silence. The duo with him also held their peace, awaiting instruction. The first of these was Joubert, the Leopard’s son – a surly, scowling individual; the second was Simon de Vesqui, the baron’s personal bodyguard. He was Aquitainian by origin, with a thick, guttural accent and feral, dog-like features.
“Do we have a full complement?” the Leopard asked at length.
His warriors rose slowly to their feet.
“To some extent, my lord,” d’Etoille replied.
“To some extent?” the Leopard said. Unable to explain, the priest averted his eyes downwards. “Thurstan?” the Leopard asked.
Thurstan sniffed. “Gilbert and Tancred are dead, my lord. Gaillard refused to come.”
“Refused? But I gave orders.”
Thurstan shrugged. “He was a man possessed when I last saw him. Drunk, drenched in blood … ravishing the harem girls as if there was no tomorrow.”
“There won’t be a tomorrow for him!” Joubert snarled. “When we return.”
Ramon couldn’t resist an ironic smirk. “Return?”
The Leopard looked hard at his captain. “Your faith in me weakens by the day, Ramon.”
“We weaken by the day,” Ramon replied boldly. He gazed out into the grey, smouldering emptiness, into the great haze of heat and sand and shattered rock. “And now this.”
The Leopard gazed out as well, and couldn’t suppress a thin smile. “Yes. This …”
*
The Leopard of Gerberoi had a vision, and that vision was Eden – not some nebulous notion of paradise, some vague province of tranquillity, but the Eden. The very place; that oasis of life in the sunburned Hell that was this ‘Holy Land’, this scorched stripe of wilderness on the outer verge of the vast Seljuk Empire. Only there, he’d decided, in the verdant vales where God Himself had stridden and conversed face-to-face with his earliest, most sinless creatures, could they find succour for the heinous crimes of the past three years. Perhaps the Tree of Knowledge would provide answers? Mayhap the Risen Christ, offering gentle palms and tears of joy, waited in its cool shade, eager to reward their effort with lasting forgiveness?
Of course, they’d been promised similar in those heady, far-off days, when they’d sailed the English Sea and rallied to Duke Robert’s standard, to hear the beseeching prayers of Pope Urban’s legates. The enthusing cries had gone up like birds into the great vaults of the cathedral: “Any Christian soul, be he ne’er so base, who lifts his spear in the face of the foe, will stake his place in the Heavenly fold no matter the sin he later commits. He who dies fighting in the Lord’s name will claim the life eternal on the stroke of his departure! Better yet, he who survives the ordeal may seize what he will from the heathen in direct and lawful reward for the glory of his conquest! God is generous to those who carry his pennon. Destroy the Mohammedan scum! At them! Mind and body! Kill them … kill them all!”
That wondrous day in Rouen in the mellow October sunshine, with heraldic banners billowing and a thousand valorous voices cheering, seemed a world away now: beyond the rivers of blood and bowel shed so savagely at Dorylaeum and Antioch; beyond the baking wastes of Malabrunias, where Christians had perished in their thousands, riddled with famine, thirst, disease; beyond the towns of Banias and Ma’arra, ravaged and left in seas of avenging flame, their innocent inhabitants scattered and slain like dogs; beyond the flies and the dirt and the sweat and the pain – and of course, beyond the jabbing blade of guilt, for there were few, in truth, who by the end of the great ‘crusade’, felt honestly and truthfully that this was the will of the Lord.
Eden – only Eden, with its tender flowers and fresh-fallen dew, was fit to scour the memory of such calamities. Yet no-one, not even d’Etoille, who’d passed his holy tests at Cluny, the home of ascetic leaning, knew for certain where this fabled garden lay, except that it was somewhere to the southeast, beyond Mount Hebron and the Dead Sea. If the thought of this further pilgrimage, now through some vast, trackless land abounding with the sons and brothers of those they’d defiled and slain, filled them with dread, the warrior-priest had already advised those who would listen that death in their present unclean state would be worse still. In any case, who’d have expected them to cover the immense distance to Jerusalem and survive? Yet they had. And Eden couldn’t be as far away as that.
First of all, they would seek Uruk – the earliest city known to Man, built by the banished tribe of Adam aeons even before the founding stones were laid at Babylon. A place, it was said, where the first human words were uttered, the first letters written, the first metals struck from the forge. Here, and only here, would they find the maps and scrolls to lead them.
*
They were perhaps forty in total, straggling in linear formation through the desert of broken stones and scrub-thorn. Ulf rode at point, alongside Thurstan and Ramon. For the most part they picked their way in silence, coated in dust, broiling in their sweat-soaked mail. Every so often cruel laughter would sound from behind, where the Leopard and his son, and their
lackey, de Vesqui, drained their plentiful wineskins, always, it seemed untroubled by recent events.
Ulf spat froth and mopped his brow. They’d been riding five days since Jerusalem, and he was saddle sore beyond description. His face had thinned to bones and was wizened as if by age. His long yellow hair lay in plastered streaks on his back, bleached to near-silver.
“Do you gentlemen think those three behind us are truly here for the good of their souls?” he wondered.
“I don’t presume to think about my overlord at all,” Ramon said. “Except as knight and master, whose worthiness is beyond question.”
“With all respect, that is a lie,” Ulf replied.
Ramon snorted. “Believe what you will. In the mean time, return to the luggage … bring me some fruit. My gums are blistering.”
The boy gave him a sullen look, wheeled his horse about and trotted back along the column.
“He’s your squire, yet you treat him like a slave,” Thurstan observed.
“He’s English, isn’t he? What other way is there?”
Thurstan chuckled. “A thing I’ve always wondered about, Ramon … why a good scion of Tancarville, whose father and brothers charged the English shield-wall at Hastings, then aided the Bastard in all his northern butcheries, should take an English soke-lad and train him for the merit?”
“It’s the youngest son’s prerogative to behave irrationally. Without a penny to my name, nor a rood of land, it’s my belief I can do more or less as I please without having to answer for it.”
“Have you always had this secret soft heart?”
Ramon glanced sidelong at him. “Are you questioning my courage?”
“Not at all … at Dorylaeum I saw you break lances with twenty or more Saracen horsemen, and kill at least that number on foot. It was most impressive.”
“Courage doesn’t necessarily translate to cruelty.”
Now Thurstan laughed. “Splendour of God, you’re even sounding like an Englishman.”