Bladesong

by Jean Gill

  How Dragonetz had treated de Rançon in the past and indeed how he was treating him now, remained a puzzle to Estela so she didn’t dwell on what she couldn’t interpret. There was enough to worry about. She had to maintain the correct dose of the drugs to get this man home, across weeks over desert and sea, and then she had to wean him off the poppy. None of the herbal lore she’d gleaned from her mother had prepared her for such a task.

  When they set up camp at the end of the first day’s travel, the travellers could see the darkness swirling behind them and the sky above, starless black. ‘Sandstorm,’ confirmed the camel drivers. ‘I think we will outrun it but the way behind is closed for days.’

  When Gilles caught a private moment with Dragonetz, he started with his apologies. ‘So you were played too,’ Dragonetz drawled. ‘De Rançon impressed you, didn’t he. So much more the right man for Estela than I am, don’t you think? Such a pity it turned out he was a treacherous bastard, working with that... pig.’

  ‘When are you going to tell her? About de Rançon? Or do you want me to?’ Gilles owed Dragonetz the choice, given his misjudgement of the man.

  ‘I can’t. Neither of us can. De Rançon barbed his hooks and if either of us tries to draw them out the poison will remain. If we speak against him, Estela will take his part all the more and any doubts he set in her mind about me will become certainties. She has seen him do nothing but behave in a courageous, loyal, chivalrous way.’

  Grim-faced, Gilles acknowledged the truth of this.

  ‘With any luck, we’ve left him behind. And not just for a few days. If not, at least you can tell me the worst. What has been said about me?’

  Hesitant at first, Gilles began the catalogue of petty spite, arrogance and dissolution which described Dragonetz, as seen through de Rançon’s clever inferences. Neither man took pleasure in the tale.

  De Rançon directed soldiers into one house after another, enjoying the screams of the occupants at the invasion into their homes. The sound of smashing crockery and furniture was music to de Rançon’s ears. Someone would pay for this evening’s comedy of errors, he promised himself.

  From the moment Yalda stuck a knife in her father, rendering him useless, all that careful work, months of planning, had been for nothing. It should have been so simple. He would have had Estela, to threaten and swop for the book. Dragonetz would have capitulated straight away and given the Torah to Bar Philipos, who could have dealt with the Jew and the book. The Syrian would have enjoyed dealing with the Jew, his hatred of the entire race being evident to anyone who knew him. In his imagination, de Rançon played the game as it should have been.

  Instead, first the Syrian’s daughter, then that clod of a manservant had intervened - pieces which should never have been on the board - and the game-plan was wrecked. The book was vanishing out of his reach with the mealy-mouthed Jew while Dragonetz lay unconscious from drugs, protected by a woman, a small boy and a one-handed man. De Rançon was renowned - renowned, he reminded his imaginary listeners - for his skills as a knight and now the revenge he’d dreamed of was reduced to skewering an unconscious man, already dying of drugs. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Dragonetz would live long enough for de Rançon to make him suffer before he died. Instead, de Rançon chose to chase the book, while the trail was still hot.

  One of Mélisende’s Guards rushed out a house to report, breathlessly, ‘My Lord, they’re hiding in the synagogue.’

  ‘Then get all your men and capture them!’ roared de Rançon.

  The soldier hesitated, then, ‘Yes, my Lord.’

  De Rançon had been right. Turning over the Jewish Quarter, men who knew their work had found Yerushalmi quickly enough. Within the hour, the Jew and Yalda were intimate with the instruments of torture maintained by Queen Mélisende for special guests at the palace. Men, who also knew their work, applied carefully judged degrees of pain and pressure, while de Rançon paced the passageways. The book had not been on the Jew when he was found with the woman, hiding by the altar - where no woman was allowed, de Rançon had pointed out to them. Yerushalmi said he’d passed on the book, that it was safer for someone else to take it Egypt. Yalda said she didn’t know who he’d given it to. Lies, de Rançon had thought. All lies.

  But morning had come and the Queen’s torturer reported to de Rançon, with his apologies, that the woman had not known who the book had gone to, or had died without saying. The good news was that the Jew had given up a name before they put him out of his misery. De Rançon barely waited for the last syllable before he was off hunting in the Jewish Quarter once more, with the same result; a successful capture, but no book, and more work in the Queen’s torture-chamber, more pacing the passageways. Red-eyed and fuzzy-headed from lack of sleep, de Rançon walked another restless night before, finally, the report came to him.

  When it did, he smacked his gauntlet across the man’s face in frustration but someone in his line of work would hardly flinch at a blow to the face and the Queen’s torturer merely repeated, ‘He gave it to someone else. That’s all he would say. We used everything.’

  ‘You should have kept him alive and started again!’

  ‘You wanted the information in a hurry.’ The man shrugged, explaining the obvious to a debutante. ‘Can’t do both. You should’ve said if you were willing to wait.’

  Dropping with fatigue, de Rançon returned to his lodgings to sleep. He could order random raids on the Jewish quarter, and he could give instructions to search every Jew leaving the city for a book stolen from Queen Mélisende, but he knew the odds were against finding it. The Jews would wait till things had quietened down then the Torah would head for Egypt. As for his business with Dragonetz, that could surely wait, the state Dragonetz had been in when last seen.

  By the time de Rançon knew he should have checked earlier, it was too late. He’d had no inkling that there was an escape plan, and Dragonetz had seemed too ill for any sudden action. De Rançon admitted it; he’d missed the move. When he realised Estela and Gilles were missing, he checked on Dragonetz and followed the trail to the Damascus Gate and a camel train en route for the coast. He’d almost laughed at the crazy daring of the plan. It was so much like something he would have done. He would have followed them on racing camel, or even horseback, had the sandstorm not made the final judgement on his chances of catching them. It was not to be.

  All de Rançon could do now, was to consider the position in which he was left. He still had all his credibility with Estela and he would find a way to use that in the future. Bar Philipos had become a liability, and the timing of his death had raised de Rançon’s credit with Estela, at the same time as solving a problem. It wouldn’t do to have Queen Mélisende know how closely her loyal knight had worked with Nur ad-Din in Damascus.

  On the other hand, the Queen was going to be very disappointed. She’d wanted the book, she’d wanted Dragonetz and she’d relied on de Rançon to deliver both. However, if word went out on the streets that thanks to their gracious ruler, a priceless Torah had been delivered to the Jewish citizens of Jerusalem and was on its way to Egypt for study, that would be received very favourably by the Jewish community, and might even be seen as a positive outcome by the Queen. De Rançon wrote the scenario in his head. Bar Philipos was the thief, intercepted and executed by the Queen’s man - de Rançon himself - who also trapped his partner, the daughter, and obtained her confessions to this crime. Then, at the Queen’s command, de Rançon had delivered the priceless book to its rightful owners.

  The big problem was that large numbers of Jewish families had been raided by the Queen’s Guard. Then they must revisit the Jewish Quarter, with largesse and apologies, explaining that Bar Philipos and his daughter had been in league to steal the Queen’s book. De Rançon had tried nobly to prevent them, and had returned the book to the Jew who would carry it safely for study in Egypt.

  Of course, this Jew’s name must remain secret to protect him, when he carried such a precious object, but he travelle
d with the blessing of Queen Mélisende. There were a few more details to be tidied up, monies and threats, in the required proportions, to the families of Yerushalmi and the other Jew who’d died under torture, but the story had enough of a ring to it to be spread as truth by those whose palms were greased well enough. Yes, he rather thought he could sell that version to the Queen and to the city. He sounded rather fine in it, there was no-one to contradict him, and it wasn’t so far from the truth.

  As to the Queen wanting Dragonetz; she had made it clear when she sent de Rançon to Damascus that she wanted Dragonetz leading her armies or dead. Dragonetz would not be leading her armies but neither would he be leading anyone else’s, thanks to the good work of Bar Philipos. The poppy would most likely finish Dragonetz, but on the slim chance that it didn’t, de Rançon would be only too happy to take on the Queen’s alternative wish. In fact, if he’d killed Dragonetz in the dyeworks, the match would be over, without him having seen the man suffer. De Rançon had enjoyed the admiration he saw in Estela’s eyes. She still believed in him, and therefore believed in all he’d said about Dragonetz. She was hooked and all he had to do was reel her in, while Dragonetz watched, helpless. If he survived the poppy, of course. De Rançon was starting to hope that Dragonetz would survive.

  So much potential in Estela. It would be a waste not to combine business with pleasure and he had unfinished business with the slut. Bar Philipos was right about women - sometimes useful and always disposable. De Rançon didn’t like unfinished business, or unsolved mysteries, and there had been something on the journey, something he’d meant to revisit... what was it again?

  He retraced their ride in his imagination, till he came to the turn for Marselha. That was it! The chit had wanted to go right, towards Narbonne, and Gilles had known why. She was very emotional about it too. So there was something Narbonne-way that Estela was very attached to. He smiled. Attachments were useful. They could be used to hurt people.

  Which reminded him. Another piece of unfinished business. And this time there would be no mistakes.

  Muganni was singing as he skipped along the cobble-stones, the sort of song a boy sings to himself when all is right with his world. He’d finished his errands for Dragonetz the day before, luckily, as the pigeons would never have been able to take off in today’s sandstorm. He had followed instructions carefully, putting a duplicate of the same message in each of fifteen tiny leather pouches, buckled in turn to all fifteen pigeons ‘to make sure that at least one gets to the Khatun’.

  He had held each one high above his head, cupped in both hands, feeling the plump breast and fragile heartbeat under the feathers and he had loosed them, to beat their noisy wingstroke away from the city and back to Damascus, where their keeper would feed them, care for them and take the messages to the Khatun. Whatever the Khatun knew, so would Salah ad-Din, and Muganni imagined them reading the message. He knew what the words said but they made no sense to him at all.

  ‘All as planned. My sword sleeps. Damascus chooses without me. Swordsmith, rose-grower and horse, please. Acre. Insha’Allah’ and there was a tiny dragon’s head as signature. There was no need for Dragonetz to worry if the message fell into the wrong hands, thought Muganni; the worry was whether it would be understood at all, even in the right hands. When they left Damascus they’d had twenty-four pigeons so Dragonetz must have sent some earlier. No doubt the combination of messages would make sense to someone. And the pigeons would be home.

  As he’d set each one free, Muganni’s own heart had lightened, as if he were flying a little way with each one. Home. Free. His steps echoed on the cobbles as he skipped and sang. He’d been wrong in the Great Hall. This was the happiest day of his life. If the sandstorm hadn’t stopped him, he would have gone to the mountains today, but tomorrow would do. Tomorrow he would be back with his people. One day made no difference.

  He didn’t see the man lurking in the shadows, nor have any forewarning of the knife that slit his throat from behind. As in the alleyways of most cities, people could turn blind and deaf, melt away into air, at a hint of trouble, and whoever might have been heading that way, found other streets to turn into when they saw the unmistakeable shape of one man holding another, followed by one figure collapsing to the ground.

  Had there been a watcher, the witness would have heard the murderer say, ‘Sing now,’ as he kicked the corpse into the gutter and then bent to pick up something glittering that rolled out of the boy’s clothes. The city saw nothing and heard nothing; merely absorbed one more bloodstain into its stone streets.

  Chapter 20

  There was no doubt that money opened doors, or more importantly hired a camel train and then a ship. Estela had already seen the impact of Queen Mélisende’s wealth, when she was travelling with de Rançon, but it made her quite giddy to think that Dragonetz could pay for all this and not even count the cost. She had kept to the same dose of drug that Muganni had been giving, until they left Jerusalem, and Dragonetz was on an up moment when they reached Acre, organising vast quantities of goods to go aboard the ship. Not just goods, either. Robed men also waited Dragonetz at the port.

  ‘Estela.’ Dragonetz called her over, his face alight with enthusiasm. ‘Before you go shopping, I want you to meet two of the finest craftsmen in Damascus, or rather in Occitania, for they are travelling with us.’ And then he introduced her to a swordsmith and a grower of roses ‘big as platters, frothy with petals and scented like the harems of Solomon.’ Estela learned that she would have gardens full of Damask roses, the envy of every court in Christendom and that she would have a new dagger to replace the one in her undershift.

  ‘Dragonetz!’ she rebuked him, flushing, but there was no stopping him in this mood. The swordsmith made no reference to where the dagger was to reside but told her it would be his pleasure to pattern such a weapon in the Damascene manner, and that my Lady could choose the designs she wanted. That definitely caught Estela’s attention and she was deep in questions about swirls and initials when Dragonetz darted off again, murmuring, ‘Sadeek,’ as he left. As if that explained everything. Which of course it did, to Estela.

  ‘His horse,’ she explained to the bemused craftsmen. ‘I sometimes think he loves that horse more than -’ she blushed - ‘more than anything,’ she finished lamely, wondering if intoxication was contagious.

  And then Dragonetz was back with them. ‘My horse,’ he said, and Estela smiled to herself.

  The rose-grower fished in his robes and brought out a small square of parchment, like those put into the capsules of carrier pigeons. ‘Salah ad-Din gave me this message for you,’ he said in his deep, serious voice. The craftsmen bowed and left to organise crates of metal and rose bushes, and their families. The two wives and a bevy of children hovered anxiously by the huge crates, waiting for embarkation.

  Dragonetz didn’t stop Estela reading over his shoulder, her own Arabic now capable of translating such a short, incomprehensible message. It looked like a couplet from a poem.

  ‘Leave as my honoured friend.

  Return as my honoured foe.

  Salah ad-Din’

  ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘It means I’ve survived the Holy Land twice and am not welcome here a third time. Thank the Lord there is little sign of another crusade. This man Salah ad-Din has something about him ... and he will be leader after Nur ad-Din. I don’t envy the commander who meets Salah ad-Din on the field in the future.’ Estela’s face must have shown how lost she was, for Dragonetz finished, ‘I’ll explain it all later,’ and then he rushed off to supervise more loading and unloading.

  All this frenetic energy did Dragonetz no harm and Estela knew what must follow, so she made no attempt to calm him down. In addition to the usual drop from his current state into depression, if she followed Muganni’s advice, he would be unwell, if not worse. Once they were aboard ship, Muganni had advised that she cut down the quantity of drugs, little by little, to try to make it easier when he stopped completely. The h
ash would help to combat depression and pains, but not enough to make complete withdrawal possible.

  That had to wait until Dragonetz could be placed in a secure room, and tended by friends who would also be his guards and physicians. Estela dreaded the scenes for which Muganni had prepared her, but as yet they seemed impossible. How could her Dragonetz ever be so crazed by drug-want that he could turn against her? She put the possibility aside in her mind and concentrated on the present; boarding ship, getting over the vomit-inducing swell of the sea, and maintaining Dragonetz in some kind of stable condition until they got him back.

  As it turned out, Estela found her sea-legs quickly, thanks to her previous voyage and de Rançon’s tough kindness. Dragonetz seemed unimpressed by her account of how de Rançon had rescued her from near-death below decks but then he seemed to ride the waves as he rode Sadeek, a natural. That did not spare him a different sort of sickness.

  As Estela experimented with the dose of poppy, Dragonetz was sometimes nauseous, other times garrulous and confused. Estela would lie beside him on the narrow ship’s bunk, holding him. Not only had he lost any desire for her, he seemed unaware that desire existed or that he’d ever felt any. He liked her holding him though, and murmured about her warmth. He sometimes felt very cold, shivering, however many blankets she used. At other times he threw off all coverings. Estela increased the poppy dose when she felt he was not coping - or that she wasn’t.

  Conversations were random, usually an outpouring by Dragonetz on something that interested him, particularly roses, steel and pigeons, with Estela encouraging him and asking questions.