by Dan Davis
“My horse is favouring a leg,” I said, dismounting.” I pulled my dagger and bent over, pulling a random hoof up. “A spine of some plant. In deep.” I looked up at Adelard. “May as well dismount and rest, lads. Have a swig of Adam’s Ale. I shall have to draw this slowly or I shall lame her.”
Adelard and Elias were happy enough to stop but Antonius looked miserable. When a hot and thirsty man begrudges a few moments shade and a drink of water then something is very wrong indeed.
“Come soothe her while I draw it,” I commanded the priest. He knew something was wrong but he came anyway.
I grabbed his scrawny shoulder, threw him against the wall of the boulder and put my dagger to his throat.
“What is waiting for us out there?” I said to him.
“How dare you?” Antonius said, as if he were baffled. “Take your filthy Frankish hands from me.”
Adelard and Elias jumped to their feet. “Hold on to the horses,” I told them. “Stay out of sight but watch both approaches.”
They drew their swords and stood ready without a word.
I turned back to Antonius. “I will not ask again.”
“The sun has baked your humours dry, lord,” Antonius said, trying to grin. “Richard. My lord. I am a good Christian. I am helping you, yes?”
Perhaps my humours were dry but I knew he was lying. Was he in the pay of Saladin? Luring us into a trap to spark a war?
Whatever the truth, if I was ambushed and killed then William would go free and Alice, Isabella and their children and all the other innocents” deaths would go unpunished. Surely God would forgive anything I did in pursuit of my aim. He forgave Christians who killed Saracens for Christ so I was certain he would forgive me.
I slashed my dagger through his filthy, long robes. He flinched and chewed on his dry lips but held remarkably still while I cut and ripped a ragged strip of cloth from his sleeve and stuffed the lot into his mouth. He gagged repeatedly until I slapped him, hard.
His eyes were white all the way round and they swam out of focus from the blow to his head so I waited until they fixed upon me once more.
“I am afraid that I must cut into your flesh now, Antonius. I shall do this in the hope that you understand how much the success of this quest means to me,” I explained. “And after I have cut into your flesh I shall remove this cloth from your mouth and then you shall explain to me what is waiting for us up in the hills here.”
He began moaning, speaking with rapid hums from his throat.
“It’s no good trying to talk now,” I said, shaking my head as if I was heartbroken. “You had your chance. You can tell me all about it when I am done. I promise you that I take no joy in this and I regret its necessity immensely.”
Taking my dagger, I sliced a deep cut along the outside of his forearm. He whimpered and shuddered as the sun-baked skin split aside to let the gloriously red blood well up and pour out along it. His eyes were wide as he stared at it dripping into the pale dust.
Next I cut into his left shoulder. There was no fat there. I cut through just skin and bone in a line from his collarbone right around to his shoulder blade. Blood gushed out. Antonius’s breath was whistling in and out of his nostrils.
The third cut I sliced deep into the skin on his face under his left eye, opening it down to the cheekbone. He whimpered and shuddered as the blood welled and ran down in a steady stream.
I pulled the cloth from his mouth and he vomited thick bile and then gagged repeatedly until I shoved him upright, cracking his head against the rock.
“Now you get to tell me the truth,” I said, smiling.
The hatred that filled his eyes was startling. “You are doing the bidding of the Angel of the Lord. He has called and you have come. And he will drink the blood of your—”
“Not this again.” I kicked him in the balls and he fell to the ground, winded and writhing. That, at least, shut him up.
“Let us put on our mail,” I said to my men who were both staring at me with a look somewhere between horror and newfound respect. “The priest is William’s man after all and we should expect his bastards to attack us on the road.”
We helped each other into our doublets and hauberks.
“We are a mere two days from Acre, lord,” Adelard said once we stood ready. His tone was humbler than it had been before. “A day if we ride through the night.”
“You may go where you think is best,” I said to them. “But I swore an oath and there can be no turning back for me.”
They stared.
“We are here because of a ruse, lord,” Adelard said slowly. “Surely you know it would be madness to continue?”
“We know they are waiting for us,” Elias explained, as if I was simple-minded.
I nodded. “And I shall fight my way through and on to William’s hiding place. There, with God’s will, I shall cut off his head with this sword.”
A deranged chuckling coughed its way out from the curled up priest. “He cannot be killed. He will never die. For he is God’s final prophet and God shall bring about the—”
I kicked him in the stomach so hard he stopped breathing. After a long moment he juddered into movement again, wheezing like a broken bellows.
My men whispered and gestured to each other while I waited.
Whether it was honour, a sense of duty to the Archbishop, the Kingdom of Jerusalem or that they believed their chances were better beside me than riding back by themselves, they elected to head on with me and Antonius.
The priest I gagged, lest he cry out and give us away and I tied it in place around his head. I tied the rest of him up tight, too, with wrists tied together and then tied hard against his belly. Then I sat him back on his horse and left a few yards to rope for to hold on to least he attempt to ride away.
I left his wounds open and bleeding. I had no doubt his cuts would become infected but then as soon as I found William I was going to kill the priest anyway. His poor horse was disturbed by the blood but she calmed after some reassurance.
“How many?” I asked him again before we moved off. “Nod your head once for each man waiting to ambush us.”
He shook his head.
“If you do not tell me how many of them there are then when the fighting begins yours shall be the first throat that gets cut,” I ventured.
He shook his head again, mad eyes shining.
My men shrugged and I had to agree with them. When slicing a man open does not cause him to talk then there is not much more one can do without a range of sharp implements, a lot of time and a special kind of creativity.
“Let us try a different route,” I said. “Along the floor of the valley by the river.” I pointed.
“That is the way he wanted us to go,” Adelard said.
“Quite right,” I said, looking at the huge promontory high up at the head of the valley.
I wanted to ride into William’s trap. I longed for his men to attack us. I wanted to kill those men and I wanted them to lead me to William.
As long as I found success, I did not care if I lived to see the coming dawn.
But I did not say such things to my own two men. Having no true idea of what I rode toward, I thanked God for their company.
“Come on,” I said.
We rode down into the valley.
Chapter Eight - Valley of Death
We ambled along the valley as the sun fell lower and lower toward the hills to the west.
I expected to get an arrow through the neck at any moment. I imaged what it would be like to look down and see an arrowhead poking through my chest, glinting with shiny blood.
Below us the riverbed was dry but for patches of mud and isolated pools with patches of tall plants growing. Despite the drought, the land all around us was green and good for some crops and goats. Adelard said the water for the valley came from springs. Far behind us out of sight beyond the hills to the South was the Sea of Galilee. It was likewise forever filled by the springs even when the river ran
dry and the rains did not fall. And there were trees. Spindly things with pale bark and small dark leaves but there were plenty of copses all over the valley. Copses dense enough to hide a group of horsemen.
It was ancient land. Here and there stood stubs of walls or stones with remnants of ancient carving upon their faces. Long ago there had been wealth in the hills. Now it was a land of scattered houses, sometimes gathered in clusters. It had been much ravaged by war. The sight of Frankish knights would have been enough to cause them to flee but it seemed that everyone had been gone for quite some time.
Damascus was merely sixty or seventy miles to the north-east. Although we were off the main road there should have been people moving around within and along the valley. There was no-one.
The heat of the day finally faded. The road climbed up the eastern side, away from the relative lushness below. We came closer to that high rocky promontory that jutted out above the riverbed and hills below. A single man up there could keep watch over miles of country. Our road lead there.
The surface of the road showed heavy use. Dusty hoof and cart tracks had kicked and rolled through the dried, cracked earth.
“What’s this?” I asked.
The dust had been greatly disturbed and there was a scatter of bark and tiny twigs.
Adelard peered at it. “Nothing, lord. A load of logs fell off a wagon, that’s all.”
It was quiet even in the scattered villages on the other side of the valley. The sun fell behind the hills to our left. The sky was yet bright but we rode through shadow. Other than the warm wind it was deathly quiet and I saw no movement and heard no sound of pursuit.
I prayed that William was close.
We came to a spring that bubbled from a stone-lined crevice. Water ran trickling down the hill in a narrow ditch toward the huge riverbed below us. A little brown bird like a sparrow fluttered about in it, ducking its head under and shaking itself.
“We should make camp here,” Adelard said and Elias nodded. Their heads swivelled back and forth up and down the hill and both repeatedly looked behind us.
“Water the horses. We camp there,” I said, pointing to the high outcrop looming above us.
They were deeply unhappy at the prospect of the climb. I hoped that they would not be too tired to fight when we reached the top.
Antonius was drifting in and out of wakefulness. The blood from his wounds had mostly dried hard. Sometimes he was jostled by his horse over uneven ground and he would jerk his wounds open and they wept afresh. The flies could not believe their luck and swarmed him. I wondered if he would live to reach the top.
Night proper fell. The sky fading into black
It was a long climb in the dark and we had little strength left for discussion. We trusted the horses to feel their way up. It was unkind and foolhardy to push them further but I wanted time to set up a proper defence. My men also needed rest. Adelard was puffing and blowing as much as his mare.
The moon rose and cast a beautiful silver light brighter than a midwinter noon back in Ashbury.
Our horses were breathing hard when we wound our way out to a flat shelf near to the top of the hill. Crisscrossing stone walls had been left to crumble into ruin. To the rear of the shelf of land the hill rose abruptly to a scrubby peak fifty or a hundred feet further up. There was a foul smell in the air, like a goat had fallen into a cave and rotted.
I assumed the ruins had once been a watch tower with a few outer walls. It was a perfect place for one. Even in moonlight the view was magnificent.
My men were ready to drop but without rest or complaint began unburdening the horses. The poor creatures were all shaking so Elias said he would walk them about before allowing them to drink.
“Keep watch,” I commanded Adelard and he went to lean on one of the ruined walls, peering out at the valley. His battered old shield slung across his back.
I dragged Antonius the deceiver from his horse with the rope around his waist and he fell, hard. He whimpered. I tied the trailing end of it tight around his ankles. Then yanked them tight so that his ankles were bent up to his backside. I bound them to his waist. He was a scrawny streak of piss but that did not mean he was not dangerous. I could not afford to take chances. When he was secure I pulled the strip of cloth from out of his mouth.
“Please,” he said, his throat sounded dry as wind-blown sand. Even though it was night, black flies buzzed on his scabrous wounds.
I left him bound upon the dusty rock, pulled the cork from my precious skin of water and held it near to his face. Sticking out his tongue he gasped for a drop.
“When you tell me what I want to know,” I said. “I will allow you to drink this whole skin of water.”
His eyes told me he did not believe me which was fair of him because I was lying.
“He will come for all of you and he will eat your children,” Antonius mumbled past cracked lips.
I sighed and looked out down the valley through which we had ascended. The moonlight edged every rock and bush in silver and cast moon shadow ribbons between the dotted lines of trees. It was bright enough to see fields and houses. Far off was a jagged black band under the silver black sky.
“Where are all the people?” I asked Antonius.
He smiled, cracking his lips and wincing as the blood seeped from the cracks. “Serving a higher cause,” he said, throat rasping.
“Horsemen,” Adelard said from the edge. “Riding slow, following our way.”
Elias immediately ran by me to join Adelard.
“How many?” I asked.
“Five,” Adelard said.
“Seven?” Elias said.
“What in God’s name’s wrong with you, boy?” Adelard said and clouted the back of his head before turning round to me. “Perhaps as few as four, lord.”
“Not much of an ambush, is it,” I said.
“Our horses will never survive a pursuit, lord,” Elias said.
“Four is nothing,” I boasted. “This is a good place. We shall stand here. How long do we have?”
“They”re a fair way off yet,” Adelard said.
“We could keep on by walking our horses out of the valley northwards,” Elias said, pointing. “Theirs will be blown by the climb, too, we can stay ahead of them.”
I crouched down with Antonius. He eyed the dagger at my waist and licked his lips, tongue rasping over the sores. Clearly the trap was being sprung so I held the mouth of the skin to his mouth and squirted in the tepid spring water. He sucked it down like a babe on the breast until I took it away. I wanted him able to speak but not sated. The bastard could suffer. And I needed every advantage, no matter how small.
“William sent you to Acre to lead men to him?” I said.
Antonius savoured the water for a moment, sighing. “He sent me to the Archbishop, yes. My lord wished me to get soldiers,” he shrugged. “Or priests.”
“But why? We could have brought a hundred men down upon him, had the Archbishop chosen to do so. Why would William risk his destruction by sending you?”
The men were listening but kept keeping watch over the edge.
“He swore to us that they would not send many,” Antonius said, eyes shining. “And he spoke the truth, did he not? My lord sees things mortal men cannot see. He is the light of the world and his blood is the light of the life.”
“Yes, yes,” I said. “But why lure anyone at all?”
“My lord seeks new brothers to join us,” Antonius said. “Our numbers must grow, my lord says, if we are to bring his revelations to all the people of God’s land. You shall see, all you shall see and then you shall follow him as faithfully as I have and you will be rewarded with everlasting life on earth.”
Adelard laughed from over by the edge. “Why in God’s name would we join with William?”
“Once you received his Eucharist,” Antonius said, mad eyes shining in the moonlight. “Then you will know the truth. I was like you. I doubted. I was on my knees looking up with contempt and pity f
or his evil. But once I tasted it, I became filled with the strength and the power of God made flesh.”
“His Eucharist?” I asked.
“His holy blood is fire in your veins,” Antonius said, his voice rising in passion. “I was old and weak and then I was strong.” The priest coughed and winced and his voice fell to a whisper. “But the Gift fades, day by day. Every Sabbath we share the sacrament. It has been so very long since I drank from him. I am so hungry. So very hungry.”
Adelard and Elias looked as confused and disturbed as I felt.
The wind was full of dust and the smell of juniper. Our horses whinnied and stamped their feet, nervous. They snorted. Perhaps it was the smell of the priest; that old and new blood and the beginnings of rotting flesh.
There was a sound. Faint enough to almost be the wind but not quite. It reminded me of a millstone in use. I stood and looked across the intersecting ruin of walls for the source but saw nothing in the deep shadows. After just a moment the sound was no more.
“Adelard, Elias. Listen to me,” I said, speaking softly and they turned around. “This was always the place of ambush. Those men in the valley are but one part of it. Others will be coming from the north. Elias, get my shield and your own.”
But both men jumped in surprise and drew their swords, staring behind me. At the same time I heard footsteps approaching and I leapt to my feet and spun round, drawing my own blade.
Five men approached in the darkness spread in a wide row, stepping carefully across the ruins. They took up position, arrayed before us.
In the centre was Hugo the Giant.
He stood flanked by two Saracen knights. They held their curved swords already drawn and at the ready. To either side of those Saracens were two crossbowmen of the Italian style, with their weapons loaded and aimed us.