by Jack Whyte
Sinclair dismounted, lowering himself as gently as he could. He drew his long-bladed dirk and walked forward cautiously, squinting against the glare reflected from the rock face as he peered towards the black incision of the cave opening. But it took only two paces to reveal that he was looking at a shadow, not an opening in the wall. A bladelike protrusion in the surface jutted towards him; its sharp-edged facade blended perfectly into the stone face behind, and it formed a sheltered corner, its vertical edge casting the hard, dark shadow he had mistaken for an entrance to a cave. Annoyed with himself for having dismounted to no good purpose, Sinclair straightened up from his crouch and was on the point of turning away when something, some nudging of curiosity, urged him to approach more closely and make sure that the sheltered nook was, in fact, as empty as it now appeared to be.
It was not. Wedged into the corner of the shallow cleft, the head and upper torso of a man were clearly discernible beneath a light covering of sand, slumped but apparently sitting upright in the angle made by the two walls. Sinclair’s immediate reaction was elation that Moray had found shelter and survived, just as he had wished and hoped. He advanced quickly, dropping to his knees and brushing away the sand from the cloth-wrapped head. The head moved, jerking away in surprise or protest from the unexpected touch, but Sinclair’s fingers had already hooked into the edge of one layer of cloth and the sudden movement pulled the covering free, exposing part of the face beneath. Within a heartbeat he was upright again. He brought up the point of his dirk, then stood there, swaying.
The inch or so of skin and hair that he had seen did not belong to Sir Lachlan Moray. Lachy’s hair was blond, almost red gold, and his cheeks were fair, constantly burning and peeling and never tanning in the desert sun. Whoever was lying in front of Sinclair now was no friend. The skin of that face was a deep nut brown, and the hairs about the mouth were black and wiry. Sinclair backed away another step, his dirk poised to strike. He knew he was in no danger, because the man in the corner was even more deeply buried than he himself had been, and he remembered how difficult it had been for him to struggle free. As he stood there, looking down at the recumbent form, his eye caught a small, peaked irregularity in the windblown surface of the shroud that masked the man, and without removing his eyes from the still concealed head in front of him, Sinclair sheathed his dirk, then stooped and groped at the protrusion with his fingers, finding the hilt of a sword.
He straightened up slowly, pulling the weapon with him, and found himself holding a Saracen scimitar, its curved, burnished blade worked in the intricate Syrian fashion known as Damascene. It was a fine blade, he knew, and that told him that its owner was a warrior, and therefore doubly dangerous. But Sinclair knew he had no need to kill him. All he need do was walk away, remount his horse and ride off, leaving the infidel to his fate. But even as he thought that, Sinclair knew he would not do it. He too was a warrior, and he lived by a warrior’s code. He had never killed anyone who was not attempting, in one fashion or another, to kill him. Already cursing himself for a fool, he thrust the sword point-first into the sand, close to hand, and knelt by the slumped form. As he took hold of the wrapped cloth again, the figure in the sand stirred violently, but Sinclair merely lowered his splinted arm to the area of the man’s sternum and pinned him with it while he unwound the multiple loops of cloth from about the head, then backed away to look at what he had uncovered.
The face that looked back at him was, as he had suspected, unmistakably Saracen, thin and high browed, hawk nosed, with prominent, tight-skinned cheekbones beneath deep-set, narrow eyes so dark that they appeared to be uniformly black. Lips and chin were covered in black, wiry, glistening hair, each strand apparently coated with its own covering of sandy dust. The eye whites were discolored and angry looking, irritated probably beyond bearing, he suspected, by the same grit and dust, but the face itself was not angry. The word that sprang into Sinclair’s mind, unthought of for years, was Stoic, and he thought it apt.
The Saracen, unable to move, gazed at him without expression, clearly waiting to see what he would do next, and for several minutes neither man moved or made a sound.
Finally Sinclair drew in a breath. “Right, laddie,” he said in his native Scots. “Let’s have you out o’ there.” He raised a finger to his lips in warning, then drew the dirk from its sheath and held it up for the Saracen to examine before he thrust it into the sand by his right knee. Then, without another word, he bent forward and began to scoop the sand away, starting beneath the man’s chin and baring his shoulders before going on to free his left arm, exposing a shirt of fine chain mail that reminded him of the one he had found on the dead man. From that point on the Saracen worked with him, thrusting the accumulated sand away from his own body. Twice Sinclair repositioned himself, throwing the scimitar behind him out of reach the first time but keeping his dirk close to him yet safe from the other man’s grasp.
They worked together, the only sounds their heavy breathing as they labored, but when Sinclair finally dug his hand beneath the level of the fellow’s waist, to scoop an armful from between his buried legs, the other grunted deeply and jerked his arm into the air in an unmistakable signal to take care. Sinclair sat back and blinked, wondering what he had done wrong, but the Saracen bent forward and indicated where his left leg must be, making vigorous shoveling motions and obviously telling Sinclair to continue. The Frankish knight went back to work, but as he did so, he saw the caution with which the Saracen now worked on freeing his own right leg, and understood that the leg must be injured. He saw, too, how haggard the man had become since first they started digging, and the recognition reminded him of his own thirst. He straightened abruptly and walked back to his horse, on the far side of the sheltering wall, where he retrieved the larger and fuller of the two water bags, and as he returned he could hear the Saracen spitting sand. The sound stopped as soon as Sinclair’s shadow came into view, and as he rounded the edge of the blade of rock he found the man he had already begun to think of as Blackbeard staring at him as he had before, stoically, his face expressionless.
Sinclair leaned against the cliff wall and lobbed the heavy water bag towards the other man, who caught it with both hands, his face registering surprise for the first time.
“Go ahead, laddie. Drink.” He nodded, and the Saracen nodded in return, his face unreadable again, then began to remove the bag’s stopper. Sinclair watched him wryly. “It’s a grand thing to have two hands when you need to drink from a bag, is it not?”
The Saracen had stopped before the bag reached his mouth, his eyes on Sinclair and his incomprehension plainly visible. On the point of repeating what he had said in Arabic, Sinclair caught himself and continued in his native tongue. “Go on, drink, but pour some for me.” He drew the metal cup from inside his jerkin and tapped it against the splints on his useless arm, then moved forward, his hand outstretched. The Saracen glanced at the arm, then nodded his understanding and filled the cup. Sinclair sipped delicately and rinsed his mouth, spitting before he took a second, proper sip and returned to lean against the wall. The Saracen did the same, rinsing his mouth carefully and deliberately before spitting the resultant mud out with some delicacy. He looked again at Sinclair, clearly asking permission, and when Sinclair nodded, he repeated the sequence, then took a third sip with evident relish, washing it around his mouth but swallowing it this time.
“Go ahead. Take more. And wash your eyes, for I know just how you feel.” Sinclair picked up the cloth that had wrapped the fellow’s head. He took one end of it and flapped it until it was relatively free of sand, then mimed wetting it and bathing his eyes before handing it to the other man, who watched him cautiously and then did as Sinclair suggested. When he had finished, he hefted the bag, clearly asking Sinclair if he wished to drink again, and when Sinclair shook his head he corked the bag deftly and set it down beside him. Sinclair stepped forward and retrieved the dirk that was still stuck in the sand, then stood looking down at the other man.
&nb
sp; “I have a question here, Master Blackbeard: are you my prisoner, or am I yours? I have the dirk and your sword, but I’m no’ certain they’ll do me much good, gin it comes to a fight. It will depend, I’m thinking, on that leg o’ yours, for if it’s in better shape than my arm is, then I might have to pay the piper.” He paused, debating with himself on the best course of action, but well aware that he would have to finish the task he had begun. “Come on, then,” he said, shrugging, “let’s find out.”
Several minutes later, he unearthed the Saracen’s buried left foot and brushed off the last of the sand from the leg, but the Saracen himself was still proceeding very cautiously with his right, brushing delicately at the sand and clearly concerned about what yet lay beneath it. Soon enough, Sinclair could see for himself what was wrong. The leg was heavily bandaged and splinted, and it had clearly been done by someone who knew how. Sinclair laughed aloud, although there was no humor in the sound.
“Well, we’re the fine pair, are we not? Six good limbs between the two o’ us and both o’ us so useless, we canna even talk to each other, let alone fight.” He hoisted his arm and tapped the steel bolts of his splints with the blade of his dirk, and for the first time a hint of what might have been a smile flickered at one corner of the other man’s mouth.
“Well, we might as well have another drink, because I canna think what to do next. I doubt I’ll be able to climb back onto my horse wi’ this damn arm, lacking a mounting block, and even if I could, you couldna get up behind me.” He picked up the water bag again and handed it to the Saracen. “Here, you pour better than me, so pour away.” Moments later, his cup brimming, he moved away and sat carefully on a heap of sand. As he reached down to balance the cup carefully at his feet, the hilt of the jeweled dagger slipped out from the folds of his jerkin. Before he could push it back in, he heard the Saracen’s gasp, and he looked up to see a strange, wide-eyed expression on the man’s face.
“What’s wrong? Is it this?” He pulled the dagger free and held it up, and as the man looked at it, Sinclair saw something enter his eyes, and then his face went as still as it had been before.
“Where did you obtain that knife?” The question was in Arabic, but Sinclair had anticipated it, and he kept his own face blank as he shook his head and shrugged, as though not understanding a word. He could not have explained to anyone why he was pretending ignorance, but he knew instinctively that it was the right thing to do. The Saracen frowned, then made another attempt.
“How did you come by that?”
The question was in French this time, and Sinclair’s eyes widened with shock, but he answered immediately in the same tongue, genuinely pleased to have a means of communicating with this man without revealing his understanding of Arabic.
“I found it, this morning. On a dead man. Several miles from here.”
There was a long pause before the Saracen said, “You killed him?”
Sinclair heard pain in the question and he shook his head, then lifted his rigid arm so that it rested on his upraised knee. “No,” he said, adjusting the arm to make it as comfortable as possible. “I told you, I found him dead, buried like you. Who was he? It’s plain that you knew him.”
The Saracen paused, but then he dipped his head in acceptance. “His name was Arouf. He was youngest brother to my wife. He was sorely wounded when he left here. The bleeding had been stopped for hours by then, and the wound was packed and tightly bound, but it must have opened again while he was riding.”
“He took your horse and left you here?”
“There was no other choice. We were three men, with two horses. Arouf rode north in search of help, and Sayeed rode east. They left me here safely in the shade. None of us knew the storm would come.”
“So the other man, this Sayeed, may still be alive?”
“Aye, if Allah so wills. If it is written in the Angel’s book. If it is not, then it may be written therein that you and I will die here, together.” He looked about him. “But we will not die yet. I, too, have water, and a bag of food, buried somewhere here by the wind.”
Sinclair ignored that. “What happened to your leg, and who did this?” He waved towards the splinted limb.
“Sayeed saved both of us. He is learned in the healing arts.”
“A physician?”
“No, a warrior, but he was trained in youth by his father, who was a famed physician. Sayeed never followed his father’s craft, but he remembered his teachings on the care of wounds.”
“And he rode east?”
A dip of the head. “I have said.”
“In search of whom? How came you here? Were you at Hattin?”
“Hattin? Ah, you mean Hittin …” The Saracen’s brow wrinkled then, but he plainly resisted the impulse to ask what was in his mind and simply answered the question. “No, I was not. We were on our way to Tiberias, in obedience to the Sultan’s summons, when ill fortune befell us.”
Sinclair reached down and handed the water bag to the Saracen again. “Tell me about it, since we have nothing better to do, and then we will find your food and water. What happened to you?”
The dark-faced man sat thinking for a few moments, then began to speak.
HIS NAME WAS IBN AL-FAROUCH, he said, and he had been in the southwest, riding with a reconnaissance force near the town of Ibelin on the coast when a courier arrived to summon them to Tiberias, eighty miles away. They had set out immediately on receiving the command, and along the way had met a wounded man who had, mere hours before, escaped from a nearby village that was being attacked by bandits. The bandits, the fugitive told them, had numbered fewer than twenty, but the villagers, lacking their men of fighting age, had been unable to resist them. The name of the village, which meant nothing to Sinclair, had caught the attention of al-Farouch immediately, because he had an aged uncle, fond brother to his mother, who lived there. Angered at the thought of his uncle, who had always been kind to him and to his family, being molested and perhaps even killed by godless brigands, he had sent his men on their way, but had ridden with an escort of ten hand-picked companions to administer justice to the raiders.
Unfortunately, he said after a lengthy pause, in his anger and indignation he had underestimated his opponents, not merely their strength but their number, taking the word of the fugitive at face value. He and his party had ridden into a cleverly constructed ambush in a steep-walled wadi, and he had lost seven of his men, shot down from concealment, before he could even begin to collect himself. Only Sayeed, Arouf, himself and one other had managed to fight their way free, three of them, and two of their mounts, wounded. The fourth man had died of his wounds soon after their escape, as had his horse, and Sayeed had cut the throat of Arouf’s horse some time after that, when the deep slash in its belly had finally split and spread, spilling the beast’s entrails to tangle in its hooves. Arouf, pressing a cloth to his bleeding groin wound, had then mounted behind Sayeed, and the three had kept riding until they found this place, where they had stopped for the night. Sayeed, the only one unhurt among them, had stanched the bleeding in Arouf’s groin first, sprinkling it with some powder that stopped the flow of blood, after which he had strapped the wound up tightly. He had then tended to al-Farouch’s leg, the smaller bone of which had been snapped by a crossbow bolt. He cleaned the wound, set the bone as well as he was able, and then bandaged and splinted the limb, which he expected to heal completely.
They had spent the night here together, all three of them, and when the next day dawned they discussed what must be done. Their companions would be far ahead of them by now, and might even have stopped to wait for them, or turned back to search for them, but all three men knew that the odds against their being found without assistance left little hope. And so al-Farouch decided that Sayeed would ride out in search of the others. Arouf would have none of that, swearing he was sound enough to ride, now that the bleeding from his groin had stopped. He would ride out with Sayeed, overriding his brother’s wishes for the first time in all
the years they had known each other. He would take the northern route while Sayeed searched farther to the east. Al-Farouch, whose splinted leg made it impossible for him to mount a horse, would remain where he was, with a supply of food and water sufficient to sustain him for seven to eight days, by which time one or both of the others would have returned with help. The two then rode off, leaving al-Farouch’s round shield hanging from his upended spear to serve as a sign on their way back.
“And now you know as much as I do, ferenghi,” al-Farouch concluded, using the Arabic term for a Frank and lapsing back into silence.
Sinclair sat silent, mulling over what he had been told. If Sayeed had survived the storm and found his fellows, they would return here and that would be the end for him. He could still depart on the horse, he knew; one way or another he could contrive to mount it again, even without a mounting block, now that he knew its placid nature. He thought of looking out again to check that the horse was still nearby, but instead he leaned forward and spoke to the Saracen.
“How is it that you speak our tongue?”
“One of your tongues,” the other answered drily.
“When you spoke at first, in that first tongue you used, it fell upon my ears like the gibbering of djinns. What was that noise?”
Sinclair grinned for the first time in days. “That was Gaelic, the language of my people in Scotland, where I was born.”
“You are not, then, a Frank?”
“No, I am what they call a Scot, but my family came there from France a hundred years ago. When the call went out for warriors to come here, I joined the army.”