‘I blame myself for much of this,’ he said quietly. ‘I should have known what trouble he might cause, our Gaumar de Garin. Rejected by the Templars; brushed aside by the Knights of the Hospital; he was ever unstable in his aims.’
‘Well, I tell you,’ Guthric said. ‘With all respect – whatever is needed from a commoner of Cornwall – I couldn’t care so much as a rabbit’s droppings for de Garin. But the man you sent to command that patrol – he’s been hacked to the bone by your bloody de Garin, and will die if he ain’t given fast to the physicians! So here’s where I stand, my lord Marshal. Me – an’ this knight who rode home with Falkan. And it’s here we’ll stay until—’
‘You must get him clear of this stinking, putrid camp. I’ve a house in Tyre. You will see him lodged there. As for doctors, there’s one in particular I’d trust within that city. Though wouldn’t you know it, he’s an Arab.’ Without further delay, de Blanchefort issued orders to his clerks, leaving them to pen a number of letters while he strode off to organize a cart for Baynard, an escort to protect him on the coastal road to Tyre.
He returned a few moments later, directed his gaze at Gerard Passerel and said, ‘You have no special standing hereabouts, have you, Sir Gerard. Just one of our landless knights, isn’t that so?’
‘No, sire, I have not. I mean, yes, my lord Marshal, you are. I mean—’
‘You mean well, I think,’ Jobert smiled. ‘So keep close to us here. The king himself will wish to show you that part of Aquitaine you will hold in his honour.’
His tired lips stretched as in the beaming of a clown, the promoted knight turned to share his pleasure with Guthrie. But the Saxon had already departed, the letters of introduction snatched from the clerks, his only wish now to get Falkan to Tyre and into the knowing hands of the healers.
Chapter Thirty
Once an island, but now linked by a causeway to the mainland, the city and citadel of Tyre were defended by three moated walls, a dozen towers, a series of deep, dry ditches. Spared by Saladin – one of the sultan’s few strategic mistakes – Tyre was all but impregnable, the sea around it patrolled by Crusader galleys, its food stocks plentiful, its garrison and inhabitants bypassed by the war.
Having missed the opportunity to strike when the city was weak, the Saracen spies reported that Tyre was now too formidable to be taken, not least because it was commanded by the ambitious and unyielding Conrad of Montferrat.
Reaching the first of the walls that barred the approach to the causeway, the cart and its escort were halted. The Tyrian guards questioned the riders, the leader of the escort turning to Guthric and Quillon.
‘Surely Marshal de Blanchefort gave you his authority in writing. I hope to God he did, else Montferrat’s guards will never admit us.’
Guthric remembered the letters, dug them from his pouch, then fanned them like oversized playing cards, staring blankly at the thick black script. The knight snorted irritably, reaching to take them from the hulking, illiterate Saxon.
‘Not this one… Nor this… Nor – Yes, here’s the one they’ll want. He thrust the others back at the constable, gestured to one of the guards to lower the message-sack from the wall, then rode forward to deliver the sealed and folded parchment.
‘And speed it to your master! We’ve a wounded man here who’s well enough thought of by the Marshal of this Kingdom!’
Safe and smug within his heavily fortified stronghold, the Tyrian dismissed the knight’s command with a jerk of his head. Different rules apply, up here. We’re Conrad’s men, not Guy’s.
With insolent slowness, he hauled up the message-sack, extracted the letter, then moved along the wall-walk to the steps. Guthric and Quillon cursed him beneath their breath, the safeguard thinking how easy it would be, even now, to send an arrow through that bastard’s piggish neck!
Guthric made his way to the straw-bedded cart, the Saxon appalled by the greyness of Baynard’s skin. The young man seemed oddly stretched in length, though so thin, so hollowed and drained of life. He trickled water on Falkan’s lips; gently sponged his face. Then muttered to himself – something about Sir Geoffrey using his influence with God…
* * *
As tall in health as Baynard seemed in sickness, the lank-haired Conrad of Montferrat read the letter from Marshal Jobert. Prowled the mosaic floor of the castle as he read it. Reminded himself that King Guy was his rival, and that Jobert de Blanchefort had chosen to side with Guy.
Reminded himself that King Guy was in trouble down at Acre, whereas he, the Marquis of Montferrat, was still the untarnished champion of the West.
So why admit this – who was it? – Baynard Falkan, Knight of Tremellion? Just so he could nurse his wounds, then canter back to the king? Come sunshine at midnight and Conrad would help the balding monarch. But until that time—
Then his long, artistic fingers – the only artistic thing about the Master of Tyre – touched the broken grey wax seal of de Blanchefort’s letter.
Jobert de Blanchefort… Not someone who takes kindly to being denied. As for the king, well, to hell with the king… But spurn de Blanchefort and a man would store up trouble for himself… More than he might ever wish to bear…
His decision made, the cadaverous Montferrat spun on his heel, snarling at those who stood in attendance. ‘I pray this was brought to me straight, this letter! He’s a man I admire, our great Marshal! And I will thus befriend anyone he sends for safekeeping! Well? What are you waiting for? Sunshine at midnight? Get those callers into the city, damn you, and the patient to his bed!’
* * *
The second letter was read by the keeper of Jobert’s household, an immaculate, level-voiced man named Aubery – ‘That alone will suffice, Master Guthrie; it will please you to address me as Aubery.’
The constable nodded, then started to say ‘The Lord of Tremellion—’
‘He is already being carried from the cart, Master Guthrie.’
‘He’s been sorely wounded. I think one of these letters—’
‘For the physician no doubt. May I see? Yes, it is. I’ll have it placed before him when he arrives. His presence has been requested.’
‘It has? How did you—’
‘A word from the castle, Master Guthrie. The Marquis of Montferrat would have everything possible done for the Lord of Tremellion.’ With neither the salt of a scowl, nor the sugar of a smile, the bland and unshakeable keeper told Guthric and Quillon they’d be quartered on the ground floor of the house; the escort thanked and fed and sent on their way back to Acre.
The constable said, ‘I’ve another letter, though in truth I have to tell you—’
‘That you’re foreign to Tyre, is that it, Master Guthrie? And lost for the address? And would have me deliver it?’
He knows, Guthric thought. Christ, you could slide on this man, he’s so smooth; see your face reflected in his cheeks. But withal, he’s saved me saying it; knows I can’t read but has spared me admitting it. The joskin an’ me, we could both learn a thing or two from Aubery.
* * *
The Arab physician counted slowly aloud as the sedative mandragora took effect. Baynard fought against the drug, writhed on the bed, muttered and mumbled as the opiate stole his senses.
And then, when the sharp-eyed physician was satisfied the pain would be dulled, he cut wider and deeper than Gaumar de Garin’s original sword-hacked wound.
New blood spurted to wash away the old. The bone was scraped clean, the sides of the cut anointed with sulphur, the patient’s leg lifted, the Arab threading horsehair through the eye of a curved bone needle.
Inserting the needle from side to side of the cut, he delicately drew the edges of skin together, twisting the last of the thread around a small wooden toggle. Then he bandaged the thigh, heaped pillows beneath it, and turned to ask Aubery – ‘Likely though it is that he’ll live, your God may wish to claim him. In which case – yet praying he’s spared by both your god and mine – to whom should I send my bill?’
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* * *
The final letter had now reached its destination, an elegant, Moorish-style house at the far side of Tyre. It was quoted aloud by its mystified recipient, the man’s finely modulated voice carrying across the chamber to a window-seat that overlooked the port.
‘…spoke of you, asking your whereabouts… I told him at the time you were not yet with us, though I sensed his interest extended somewhat beyond his inquiry… As one old friend to another, I would ask you… keep an eye on him and… came far to set the chest at our feet… months of courageous effort for the Cause…’
The reader then looked up and asked, ‘Should we know of him, this protégé of de Blanchefort’s?’
‘I’m sorry. I wasn’t listening. There’s too much going on down there in the port.’
‘I said; this knight I’ve been asked to survey. This fellow who brought money out from England. This Baynard Falkan of – Remind me, were we ever at a place called Tremellion?’
Turning from the alcove of the window, Christiane de Magnat-Vaulmier left the ships to sink or sail. Well, now, she thought. So he’s here. Kept his word and – ‘Read me that last part again if you will, Father. Something about fighting for the Cause?’
Finding his place, Gilles de Magnat-Vaulmier, Duc de Querinard, Comte d’Almé, read the final line of the letter: ‘“Tremellion’s money donated, he has risked himself in months of courageous effort for the Cause.”’
‘And you say he’s here, in Tyre?’
‘So I gather. Seems he’s been wounded and is lodged in Jobert’s house, over by—’
‘I know it,’ she said quickly.
Magnat-Vaulmier watched his attractive, hard-to-please daughter smooth the creases from her gown. Twitch her head to settle the braids of her hair. Yawn as if bored, then make her way idly to a chair, its broad leather back draped with a fur-lined mantle.
The least of fools, the longtime widower Magnat-Vaulmier was alerted by Christiane’s yawn. Where other girls might squeal with pleasure, his own would portray a marked lack of interest in the things – and the people – to which she was most attracted. The selfsame attitude, he thought fondly, that had drawn him to the Lady Isabel twenty years before.
But he still couldn’t remember. ‘This Tremellion place—’
‘In England,’ she told him. ‘In Cornwall. We had to zigzag around a series of walls to get there. The father, Sir Geoffrey Falkan, he’s a fine old warrior, though as for his elder son, Ranulf—’ and she twisted her full, wide lips in chilly distaste. ‘But the other one, this Baynard you talk of, he’s not nearly so bad. And it seems to me – since he’s landed up in Tyre – I might as well see how he fares.’
Then, with a brief kiss for her father, she left him with Jobert de Blanchefort’s letter in his hand.
Come to think of it, he mused, I do remember those tricky, zigzag walls. And the grizzled Sir Geoffrey Falkan. And faintly the one called Ranulf. But with the best will in the world— Who on God’s earth remembers the second sons of minor foreign families?
* * *
Accompanied by a female servant, Christiane made her way through the fresh drizzle of evening to the house of Jobert de Blanchefort, the lodgings of Baynard Falkan. She was met at the door by the silk-smooth Aubery, the two women installed in a downstairs chamber, the callers left in comfort, with wine and the warmth of a fire.
For a while the inquisitive servant worked on her question, then slyly asked, ‘A friend of your father’s, my lady, this Trewillman?’
‘You’ve misheard the name,’ Christiane teased. ‘Its roots are from both the German and the French. Spoken fast it sounds otherwise, but it’s really – and repeat after me – it’s really Tremengewurtensteinen. And important we get it right, for you know how touchy they can be, these mispronounced lords from the North!’
It amused her to see the woman chew on the name she’d been fed. But the girl’s smile faded when Guthric appeared in the doorway, bowed curtly to the visitors, then told Christiane she could not see Baynard Falkan.
‘I regret, my lady, but Lord Falkan’s in no fit state. He’s been drugged and stitched, and would not – with all respect to you – recognize the difference ’twixt you an’, well, anyone else.’
‘How was he wounded? My father only mentioned—’
‘He was cut in the thickness of the leg. It doesn’t matter who did it. It’s enough that he was out searching for the foe.’
‘But he will—’ she started. ‘That’s to say, he will recover with time.’
Not one to dissemble, Guthric thought how much better the keeper Aubery would have handled this exchange. For his part the constable could only shrug and say maybe. ‘If the Arab’s as good as de Blanchefort told us. And God looks Falkan’s way.’
‘Will you tell him I was here, Master Guthrie? And that, should he wish it, I’ll return when his strength is rebuilt?’
The Saxon nodded, saw distress tug at Christiane’s features, and struggled for something to say. ‘Yes, my lady, I’ll – I’ll make sure it’s the first thing he hears.’
And with that she had no choice but to glance at her silly chaperone, incline her head toward Guthrie, then allow herself to be escorted back from whence she’d come.
* * *
She awoke in the still, cold hours that precede the dawn.
For an instant she thought she’d been roused from a nightmare, her mind forcing her to cast aside the phantoms of her dream. Then she remembered – He is here, in Tyre… Cut in the thickness of his leg… Drugged and stitched and unable to recognize – ‘You from anyone else.’
Her pretences abandoned – no longer yawning with feigned indifference – the eighteen-year-old daughter of the Treasurer of the Kingdom surrendered to her fears and feelings. She was aware that of all the young noblemen she’d met, all the stories they’d recounted to impress her, all the titles they’d unrolled and futures they’d mapped – the one she most clearly remembered was the lean and awkward Tremellion, his laughter too loud as she’d told him her not-very-witty tale of the smoke-filled castle.
Their time together had been brief, so why did she remember him? Why did she even imagine she remembered him?
And why was she now quietly weeping, and praying that of all of them, he especially wouldn’t die?
* * *
The physician made regular calls to the house of de Blanchefort. Each time he came he offered the patient a draught of mandragora, warning him that further inspection of the wound was necessary, but that the probing would be painful.
No more courageous than others, Baynard nevertheless declined the drug, his plans extending far beyond the agony of the Arab’s administrations.
He had heard from Guthric that Christiane de Magnat-Vaulmier had been to visit him – ‘And she’ll come again, when you want.’
‘I doubt,’ Baynard smiled, ‘that those were exactly her words. She did not seem to me the kind who’d be summoned by the snapping of fingers, or the issuing of orders. Anyway, I’ve no wish for her to see me here, on these stained and unchanged blankets. It’s the only reason I resist the good doctor’s opiate; so I can learn to tolerate the barbs of de Garin’s bequest. It’s like – do you remember this, old Guthrie? – like the time I had toothache? When it all became too much for me, I got you to draw the tooth. So be it with the wound. The pain will diminish, and I’m the one who’ll go visiting. Or the Arab and you, you’ll be either ends of a saw. Now, my loyal friend; let’s get to working the leg again, for tomorrow I intend to touch the floor.’
* * *
Brave talk, though backed by a rare determination. Tomorrow left Falkan sweating in agony, the next day no better, the one that followed marked by a wave of excruciating pain. Yet the young Tremellion persisted, the Arab sufficiently impressed to bring him an odd-shaped bamboo cage, in which the foreigner could stand and sweat and recover.
Then a pair of crutches, bound with cloth…
Then just the single crutch…
Then a cane…
Baynard had already sent a note to Christiane, stiff and formal in its tone.
‘It was both kind and generous of you, my lady, to visit the knight who now lodges in the house of Marshal de Blanchefort. You are ever remembered from the all-too-brief time we shared together in my late father’s castle of Tremellion. Be assured, my Lady Christiane, I shall make the utmost effort to return your visit in person.’
Reading it over, he realised it was not at all what he’d wanted to express. It failed to give the merest flavour of his feelings – a dull-as-ditchwater message.
But that, after all, was why he’d spurned the mandragora. In order to live with the wound, come to terms with it, hop and hobble, then one day make his way to the house of Magnat-Vaulmier where he’d meet Christiane – and let them both learn what his heart would have him say.
Unwilling to call on him again, uninvited, she nevertheless replied to his note with one of her own. It was equally rigid, as colourless in tone as his, her imagination tethered by the disciplines imposed upon the daughter of Magnat-Vaulmier, Treasurer of the Kingdom.
‘It pleases me to receive your missive. I remark the passing of your father, and add him to my prayers. May the Lord speed your own recovery, Sir Baynard, so that you might, before long, visit us here in person.’
It wasn’t, she accepted, at all what she’d planned to tell him. But at least she’d been remembered – the all-too-brief time we shared together – and it encouraged her to wait.
Chapter Thirty One
On February the 12th, 1191 – a date of no great significance in the calendar of the world – Quillon and Guthric accompanied their master through the narrow streets of Tyre. They made a point of ignoring his painful progress, knowing how he’d snap at them if they reached to catch his arm. Let him fall, and the thing to do then was stand back and wait till he climbed to his feet. But close in around him? Cosset Tremellion? Try that and they’d feel the sting of his cane, or more likely the lash of his tongue.
The Edge of the Blade Page 28