The Edge of the Blade

by The Edge of the Blade (retail) (epub)

  He stumbled back, lost and caught his balance, veering as if by accident to stand near the inner door of the room. The six intruders were pleased by the speed with which they’d invaded the cottage, though even with the light from the open windows it took them a moment to accustom their eyes to the gloom.

  The leaders drew back their hoods – and were mimicked by their men.

  They peered about for a trace of Falkan’s presence, then saw the odoriferous Balbo pantomime the fetching and filling of glasses. Grinning in spite of the bruise above his eye, he concentrated his performance on the four men-at-arms, ignoring the leaders who were already dismissing his offer.

  Wine, he signalled. A barile of wine. Big as this. I fetch it from the back. Then we drink it together, yes? You wait. You stay here. I bring it—

  And he shuffled through the doorway in the corner, springing the trap.

  * * *

  Determined to see them all suffer for the way he’d been attacked, Domenico Balbo barred the inner door with a heavy lateral beam. It slipped into place with a satisfying thud, and he allowed himself the pleasure of hearing the intruders hammer and curse. ‘He’s in Falkan’s employ, the stinking peasant! The money’s through there!’

  Then the Sicilian lifted his head, opened his throat and roared as if to bring down the roof. ‘Now! DO IT NOW!’

  Listening only for this, Domenico’s shout, the Crusaders sped to comply.

  The stiff leather bucket had served its task, the container squashed by the entry of Ranulf’s men… then expanding to its original shape… the door swinging almost shut on its lamp-oiled hinges…

  Falkan slammed it, locking it with the key he’d extracted from his boot.

  As for the shutters, they were banged together in a staccato of sound, Enrique de Vaca at one side of the house, Guthric at the other. And to hold them in place, the planks torn from the mule pen, the heavy boards jammed at an angle, as props would support the sagging of a wall.

  Trapped, and in darkness, the six men howled in concert, furious to be fooled. They hurled themselves at the shutters; at the inner door; the outer door; collided with each other in a fiasco of frenzy, the scent of victory turned to woodsmoke and the lingering stench of garlic.

  And then, to top things off, Quillon pulled himself on to the shallow pitch of the roof, tore one of the mattresses to shreds, and dropped the lumps of dampened straw down the open chimney.

  The fabric and its filling smothered the flames, smoke belching into the room. But a dozen handfuls of the palliasse and he too was driven back from the mouth of the chimney. Dragging the second mattress toward him, he laid it over the shaft, forcing the smoke to stay, like Ranulf’s henchmen, in the very room they’d invaded.

  * * *

  Within moments they were scratching at the shutters, begging to be spared. Death by suffocation is an unpleasant and agonizing end, be it in water, a mineshaft, or a sealed room in a commonplace cottage above an unfrequented port, on a foreign island…

  * * *

  Enrique de Vaca stripped them of their weapons. Quillon had already removed the mattress from the roof, Domenico returning to stamp out the fire.

  Guthric made use of the rope he’d coiled from the well, tying the men-at-arms ankle to ankle, wrist to wrist, their bonds looped together – ‘Four little rabbits in a hutch.’

  The soldiers glared at him with smoke-teared eyes. ‘The loyal lump of Tremellion.’

  Looking down at them – and always pleased to catch rabbits – the constable queried, ‘Loyal? Well, yes, ask around if I ain’t. And as for being a lump? It hurts me to say so, but there’s truth in it. I’ll admit I’m on the bulky side of thin. But you ask if I’m the loyal lump of Tremellion—’ And he leaned down, his scarred face shoved toward theirs, the prisoners drawing back as he bellowed, ‘It’s a name, Tremellion! There’s Lord Falkan’s Tremellion, and there’s Ranulf’s Tremellion, an’ you an’ l don’t pronounce it quite the same!’

  The safeguard came up to him, touched the constable on the shoulder, then wisely retreated as Guthric swung round.

  ‘And what are you after, joskin? Praise for disjointing a mattress?’

  ‘No, Master Guthrie. It’s just that you’re wanted. Your presence is, ah, requested by Lord Falkan. We’ve taken the leaders to the terrace.’ Then he turned to the door, dropped an arm beside him and flicked a finger, as if to beckon a lumbering bear.

  Improving with time, there was still a way to go before the erstwhile poacher would don the trappings of respect.

  * * *

  The leaders were not, in fact, subjected to the full glare of the terrace, but had been allowed to squat at the eastern side of the building. The high summer sun had baked the ground dry, though at this hour of the day the overhang of the roof gave some shelter to the prisoners.

  Not that the two blistered and smoke-seared knights offered much by way of resistance.

  Having chosen the one he judged the more truculent of the two – break the shell, and you break the egg – Baynard told him, ‘I made a mistake, back there, in the port of Tarragona. Failed to identify my enemy, the self-styled Roger Grevel. Though subsequently discovered, and not before time, that he was the kinsman of Justin de Vallen. You, on the other hand, I recognize from the mill. The mill of Tresset.’

  It was a lie, for the torrent of the linn, the drumming of rain, the climb to the loft and the hurling down of the eels-called-snakes – all of it had blinded Baynard Falkan to the identities of those who were sprawled with the women, or admiring the carnal display.

  But out here on Cyprus, months away from the mill-house, the pinpoint accusation was accepted as the truth. For the captive knew no better than his captor, and could well suppose his blistered face was recognized by Baynard.

  ‘If it matters to you,’ the man yawned, ‘I’m Ansel Sauvery, Lord of Merril.’

  ‘And your compeer?’

  ‘Ask him yourself,’ Ansel sneered. ‘His tongue’s as healthy as yours.’

  Baynard moved away, nodding as if in agreement. He glanced back once at the other leader, then strode out of sight, crossing to the far side of the terrace.

  With Enrique de Vaca and Domenico Balbo in the cool of the house, Guthric and Quillon glared angrily at Sauvery of Merril and his, so far, unnamed companion. The Saxon snarled, ‘Tell him, damn you, an’ get us out of the heat.’

  Ansel’s fellow knight shrugged, but said nothing.

  They heard Baynard returning, the sound of his voice preceding his appearance. ‘We’ll do as we planned at Tresset. Not under the blades of a mill wheel, but this time down the well. Keep a hold of Sauvery. Then tip the shy one down.’

  The disembodied voice and calmness of tone both added weight to the threat. By the time Baynard Falkan had rounded the corner, the second knight was muttering, ‘For all it’ll mean to you – I’m Renier Bertin of Petrock – but none of you the wiser.’

  His strategy planned, Falkan said, ‘Oh, but I am. And allow me to tell you why.’

  * * *

  ‘You suggest your names mean nothing to me, messires. That’s true. I remember you, vaguely, from the mill at Tresset, and know the approximate whereabouts of Merril and Petrock.

  ‘There is, however, someone to whom the names Ansel Sauvery and Renier Bertin will be of considerable significance. I mean, of course, my brother, Ranulf Falkan. When he hears how you failed him – you and the so-called Roger Grevel – preferring to profit from your time out here in the East—’

  ‘That’s not true!’ Sauvery shouted. ‘We came here—’

  ‘Not true!’ Bertin echoed. ‘We were sent—’

  ‘Yes, yes, you were sent here to kill me. And, I imagine, my companions. Then to steal Sir Geoffrey’s money. But I think you should know… I’m fast becoming as ruthless as you…

  ‘So here’s your last chance. Say nothing, or lie to me, and I shall see a message is sent back from this very port to my brother at Tremellion. In it you’ll be accused of dislo
yalty, personal aggrandizement, ineptitude and – well, there’s time enough to compile a pretty list.

  ‘On the other hand, I might just view you as the murderers you are, stained with the killing of my father, and have you tipped down the well. I tell you truly, my lords, the latter course is the one I would rather pursue.’

  He waited a moment, searching their faces for the merest sign of arrogance, the shading of a sneer. Then quietly, his voice nailed firm, he invited them to tell all they knew about brother Ranulf.

  ‘And God help you if the carillon rings false.’

  * * *

  From time to time he prompted them with questions, though the story was theirs, Tremellion content to listen.

  Fleeing from the mill of Tresset, Ranulf had survived the hiss of the rain, the chill of the night, trudging his way with the devil’s own sense of direction to a fortified manor near Savening, twelve miles south of the mill.

  A few days later, with Baynard preparing to leave from the port of Plymouth, Ranulf had rejoined his companions, survivors of the surprise attack at Tresset.

  Dismissing the fact that he’d abandoned his friends, he once again exerted his dominant personality, alternately raging and cajoling, scattering blame like nails from a keg. Impoverished now, he asked – and Baynard could imagine the manner of asking – for financial assistance, all of it to be one day repaid with interest.

  It was here that Baynard Falkan interrupted.

  ‘Ever since we were lured by the Hawksbill and de Vallen’s kinsman…Tell me, messires; I have long wanted to know… How exactly does my brother plan to repay these generous friends? Is Tremellion up for sale?’

  Sauvery and Bertin told him no. Quite the opposite. The seigneurie of Tremellion was almost, by itself, the high card in Ranulf s hand. But not quite by itself, for what was a castle without its castellan?

  ‘I sense you veering toward a lie,’ Baynard warned. ‘Step careful. You may yet tip down the well.’

  The prisoners hurried to allay his suspicions. As God was their witness – the blasphemy ignored – they were telling him the truth. It was not the castle and holdings of Tremellion that were up for sale. It was Ranulf Falkan himself.

  In short, he was entertaining marriage.

  ‘Keep this up, and you bring yourselves to the very edge of the well. Marriage? To whom? Name me a single nobleman, apart from riff-raff like you, who’d sacrifice their daughter to a monster—’

  Again the prisoners said no. The marriage-go-round had nothing to do with nobility. When Ranulf married – and the bids were pouring in – it would be to the daughter of some wealthy merchant, the woman entitled as Lady of Tremellion, her father elevated by association, whilst Ranulf himself – well, Ranulf Falkan, Lord of Tremellion would be enriched.

  The news brought a humourless smile to Baynard’s lips. But of course. How perfect. How fitting. Marry a rich man’s daughter – pretty as spring, ugly as sin, what would it matter to Ranulf? – and everyone, father, mother, bride and slab-faced groom, they would all, in their way, be satisfied with the match. The exchange. The trade.

  Then Ansel Sauvery took pleasure in saying, ‘So you see how it is? You can never be allowed to return alive to Tremellion. The reclaiming of the money—

  ‘Call it theft,’ Baynard snapped. ‘Call it seizure. Call it plain, bloody robbery. But do not call it the reclaiming of what was never yours. Nor his.’

  ‘As you will, Lord Falkan, as you will. It anyway makes no difference. With or without the money you remain a threat to your brother. Find your way home – Ranulf’s home now – and you’ll doubtless upset things by accusing him of murder.’

  ‘Be certain of it,’ Baynard measured. ‘They’ll be the very first words I utter.’

  ‘So, you see? No matter what happened to Grevel and the Hawksbill; no matter what happens to us. There’ll be others. Most likely there are already others, awaiting you in Palestine. You suppose yourself to be engaged on some honourable quest, eh, my Lord Baynard, sworn to keep your father’s promise to the Cause? But the money’s only part of it. The other part’s your own skinny frame.’ Leaning back in the scant shade of the wall, Sauvery glanced at Renier Bertin, then upward at Baynard, the prisoners’ arrogant sneers again settled in place.

  ‘It seems to me,’ Sauvery told him, ‘you should employ your gift for languages. Learn how they speak in the snowy lands of the north. Or maybe among the sands of the south. I can’t see where else you’d go, since you’ll surely be killed in the East. Or back home in the West.’

  * * *

  Ropes were found for Ansel Sauvery, Lord of Merril; for Renier Bertin, Lord of Petrock. The first was imprisoned in one of the cubicle rooms, the second in another, the four men-at-arms in the last.

  The shutters were closed around the cottage, the main door locked, the key sent twirling to be lost in the olive grove.

  Then Baynard, Enrique, Guthric and Quillon and the reliable, foul-breathing Domenico Balbo made their way down the path to the village, the men taking turns to bear the weight of the burdensome chest.

  Having outwitted their enemies, they should by rights have been jubilant in victory.

  But the taste of triumph lay sour on their tongues, for it is one thing to interrogate the foe for information; another to learn that all the news is bad.

  Part Four

  The Reward

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Some three years earlier – to be precise on July the 4th, 1187 – the Frankish army, under the irresolute command of Guy of Lusignan, King of Jerusalem, had been annihilated by a superior Moslem force led by the Kurdish Sultan, Salah ed-Din Yusuf, al-Malik un-Nasir, on a waterless slope called the Horns of Hattin, a few miles west of the town of Tiberias and the Sea of Galilee.

  Various reports put the Christian losses at 13,000 dead, 13,000 captured. Foremost among the prisoners was King Guy.

  Whilst he and other members of the nobility were held for ransom, the common soldiers were marched away to the slave markets of Egypt and Syria. The Christian captives were so numerous that a Moslem merchant could buy a healthy slave for the price of a pair of sandals.

  Hattin was not merely a defeat, but a disaster. The castles and strongholds had been all but emptied; every available fighting man summoned to the service of the king. With their garrisons reduced, the Frankish outposts fell. Then the larger fortresses. The dominant castles. The inland towns. The coastal cities. All but Tyre in the south, Tripoli in the north. Three months after Hattin, the Saracens had entered Jerusalem.

  In the spring of 1188, King Guy was released, having promised the triumphant Sultan Saladin that he would never again take arms against Islam. Yet no sooner was he free than he asked the Church to absolve him from his pledge, on the grounds that it had been made under duress, and anyway to a Moslem.

  But Guy had other reasons for breaking his vow.

  During his year-long imprisonment, a rival leader had established himself in the citadel of Tyre. This ambitious, lank-haired warlord, named Conrad of Montferrat, now claimed that King Guy had, by his irresolute leadership at Hattin, forfeited his right to rule. He levelled further accusations, then slammed the gates of Tyre in the monarch’s face.

  There was only one place left for Guy to go.

  Thirty miles to the south lay the city-port of Acre, for more than eighty years the headquarters of the Frankish force in the East. Another victim of Saladin’s victorious campaign, Acre was now in Moslem hands, though its ownership contested, its garrison besieged.

  Swelled by ever-increasing reinforcements from the West, the Crusaders had encircled the city and blockaded the approaches to the port. So it was to Acre that King Guy and his supporters made their way, the king reasserting his command of the Christian troops.

  Saladin retorted by besieging the besiegers, his Mamluks and Turcomans, Seljuks and Syrians, Sudanese archers and Bedouin tribesmen camped in the foothills, from where they could probe at the enemy, the Infidel.

  A
man would be safer in the citadel of Tyre than among the dirt and dust and disease of the camp at Acre.

  But Guy of Lusignan, King of Jerusalem and rightful leader of the Cause, was even now, in the summer of 1190, at Acre.

  * * *

  And so it was agreed. The Lampreda would sail south-east from Pafos, risking the Saracen dromonds that lurked in the waters off Palestine. And, God willing, reach the biblical port of Ptolemais, the Arabic ’Akko, the Christian St Jean d’Acre.

  ‘Who knows,’ Falkan remarked. ‘He might yet have beaten us to it. I mean the real king. Richard of England.’

  * * *

  Baynard and his companions gave no special thought to the men they’d left tied and shuttered in the cottage. They’d release themselves before long, force an exit from the house, then make their way down to the port.

  He believed what Ansel Sauvery had told him – Most likely there are already others awaiting you… But he did not think Sauvery or Bertin would follow in the wake of the Eel. Impressed by Baynard’s threats – as he was impressed by theirs – the lords of Merril and Petrock would probably hasten back to England, anxious to give their own, carefully crafted version of events to Ranulf.

  Ignoring the enemy behind him, the young Tremellion prepared to face the seaborne dangers ahead. He spent time with Captain Pino, pleased and yet disquieted by what the man had learned. With the ever-present problems of language some of what Pino told him was uncertain, much of it confused. But of this he was adamant; King Guido – King Guy – was at Acre. The port was blockaded by Crusader ships. But outside the blockade were the dromonds.