The palace was full of noise and laughter. More than half of the English company were living there with their servants. It was strange being back among English voices, and it reminded me, not altogether happily, of my time with the army of King Henry in Poitou. Indeed, there were three veterans of that time here in the palace, and in a long wine-sodden night we brought it all back for ourselves: the boredom, the women, the march and the battle. Out of the blood-spattered muddle of Saintes we had managed to weave a few strange tales before one by one we sank, still muttering, into the rushes on the floor, to wake the next morning with heads pounding and mouths as dry as the plains that stretched beneath the city walls. I recalled, hazily, that we had not even decided if it had been a victory or a defeat, but each of us could name a dozen men who had not come home to England, but were buried there beneath the vines.
These were the men whom Richard of Cornwall expected me to betray. I carried the letter like a vial of poison, sealed into a thin tube of lead that I hid inside my boot. Though, as I had assured Iselda back in Lyon, I had no intention of delivering it, the fact of its existence weighed on me dolefully. I had not, even now, worked out what I was going to do – about the letter, about Richard and the pope – so it clung to me like a secret canker, like hidden leprosy, nagging at me, pointing insistently at a future into which I was charging at full speed, but in which nothing was clear except an overwhelming promise of danger.
My first duty in Nicosia was to seek an audience with King Louis. Henry de Lusignan, King of Cyprus, had given his cousin part of the royal palace. Nicosia is a mass of narrow, overhung alleys that reminded me, somewhat, of Constantinople, though it was a glimpse of that great city before the calamity of the Franks had turned it into a phantom place. I was wending my way through a crowded market, my head throbbing with last night’s wine, when someone knocked into me, hard, twisting my shoulder around and making me lurch into a slumbering donkey. I turned, my hand instinctively on my knife and hard words on my lips, and found myself looking into the face of Remigius. He stood, long arms loose at his sides, leering into my face. When he saw I had recognised him he grinned.
‘You are taking your time, aren’t you, Friend of Jews,’ he said softly.
Then he rolled his eyes like a mountebank and took off into the crowd. I found myself understanding what the old woman in Florence had meant when she described him: like a loose hand suddenly made into a fist. I took off after him, knocking over a basket of oranges. The donkey burst into enraged song behind me. I saw a black corner of his cloak vanish round a corner and dived after it, only to find myself stumbling down a flight of stone stairs. I kept my feet by a miracle, but when I reached the bottom and looked wildly about me, there was no Remigius to be seen. I ran down the street, guessing which direction he might have gone, but soon I was at the city walls. I doubled back, circling the market, but there was no sign. I wondered if I had imagined him, but the bruise darkening on my shoulder told me I had not. He could have killed me. He had killed Isaac in exactly that way: bumping him in a crowded street. I should have been dead beneath the hooves of that donkey. So I had been warned. John of Toledo – and behind him, Innocent himself – had thought it worth sending their assassin to check up on me. Well, I was doing what I was told. Here I was with the damned crusade.
I searched in vain for another hour, my blood boiling, Thorn loose in her sheath. Perhaps it was rage and vanity that told me I would kill him, because he was a murderer by trade and I had become a fat banker, but the truth was that I knew in my heart that Remigius was already long gone, well on his way back to Lyon to tell his masters that their tame serpent Petrus Zennorius was doing as they had bid. By the time I reached the palace I was quivering with frustration. I had not avenged Isaac. I had been too slow. I was furious that I was still being toyed with. I even felt vaguely affronted, if truth be told, that Innocent doubted my word. But perhaps there was some good to be gleaned: if Remigius reported me at Nicosia, with the crusade, would they now be assuming I would carry out the rest of my mission? That would be fortunate indeed.
I found Louis seated on a throne in a stateroom that overlooked the walls. He was delighted to see me, or seemed to be. We had not met since the year Montségur fell. I had been almost a courtier once, Louis’s Purveyor of Relics, and over the years I had spent months at the king’s palace of Vincennes, walking with him through the oak forests, far from the frantic bustle of Paris. But since fate had made me turn my attention to the stifling operations of the bank, I had not been back to Vincennes. Louis had not changed a great deal: his face was still unlined and strangely boyish, and indeed he seemed so excited to be on the brink of his great adventure that he might have been fifteen years old. He embraced me – no kingly airs with Louis – and led me straight to a table on which a jumble of maps was spread. To my surprise I saw that the queen was sitting by the window, reading a missal. I had rarely seen her at Vincennes. Louis did not seem to pay much attention to her, although all the gossip had it that they were greatly in love, and she had not been very interested in Louis’s relics or the Sainte Chapelle. Marguerite of Provence was, I suppose, twenty-eight or twenty-nine then, and I had forgotten how lovely she was. Her black hair hung in waves from under a fine white scarf, and her eyes were large and wide. She looked up to see who had come in, and I bowed.
‘Your Majesty,’ I said, ‘I am speechless. I would not have come wearing these dirty soldier’s clothes had I known you were here.’
‘Dear sir, I expect we shall all be very used to dirty soldiers’ clothes before too long,’ she murmured, and with a smile she turned back to her missal.
The king ignored her, and took my arm. ‘You are a knight now, eh, Petrus? An English knight, forsooth! I should have knighted you myself while I had the chance!’ Louis knew I had fought against him at Saintes, for by sheer chance I had killed one of his highest nobles, the Sire de Bourbon, on the field. But that had been war, and Louis had not begrudged me my loyalty to my own king and country. Besides, I had taken the red of Bourbon’s shield as my own colours in honour of the man – since I had spatchcocked him like a capon, it seemed the least I could do – and Louis had appreciated that, even thanked me for it in a letter. Strange, for what I had thought would be taken, at the very least, for a betrayal of his trust, seemed to have increased my standing at his court. I would never understand this business of knighthood, I knew that well enough. Still, here I was known as Sir Petrus Blakke Dogge, and I had to stop myself looking over my shoulder every time someone called my name, for it hardly seemed to belong to me.
‘We shall capture Damietta,’ Louis said, tapping a tiny painted castle hovering between blue sea and the spreading branches of the Nile. ‘And from there we shall march upriver to Cairo. The sultan of the Egyptians is a weak man, given to bluster but without true substance. Once we have Cairo, we will turn east and enter the Holy Land through the Sinai.’ He chopped the side of his hand across the map. ‘And so we shall take back Jerusalem.’ He looked up with a vast grin on his young face.
‘Well, it sounds simple enough, Your Majesty,’ I said, laughing. ‘When do we sail for Egypt?’
‘I have been waiting for the rest of our host to sail from France,’ he said. ‘Ah, here’s one of the newcomers!’ he added, as a young man put his head around the door. Louis beckoned, and the young man bowed, and came over to where we were standing. He was about twenty-five, with a carefully groomed beard, slate-coloured eyes and a thick head of yellow curls. He looked familiar, but from where, and when, I could not recall.
‘My dear Jean,’ said the king. ‘You must remember Sir Petrus?’
‘Oh, indeed!’ said the young man, and bent his knee courteously. ‘Jean de Joinville, sir. Delighted to see you again.’
Now I remembered. ‘The Seneschal of Champagne! The honour is mine. It has been a few years since we met.’ Indeed: the year before Montségur. He had been very young, chattering about heretics and crusades. The years had been kind to him.
‘They are all here now, but the weather has turned against us and we have resigned ourselves to staying here the whole winter,’ said Louis. His face fell, then brightened again. ‘But no matter! Do you know, I have received a letter from the great King of the Tartars? One Eljigidei, ruler of Persia, no less. He proposes that as I attack Damietta, he will strike at Baghdad, and so we shall divide the Saracens.’
‘And then, what of Jerusalem?’ I asked. ‘Your Majesty knows the Tartars are not usually inclined to stop their armies once they are in motion, or to give up land they have taken.’
‘An excellent question, Petrus. Do you remember Andrew? Of Longjumeau?’
‘Of course.’ I had not forgotten the amiable friar who had rescued me from Constantinople long ago, and who had been hunting for the Cathar Crucifix as war closed in on Montségur.
‘Well, I have dispatched him to meet this Tartar king, this Eljigidei. We shall see what comes of it. Meanwhile I shall not wait. Damietta …’ He prodded at the little castle.
‘I know Damietta, Your Majesty,’ I said. ‘I traded there in days gone by. It is a strong place, but you have a great army.’
‘And faith, Petrus: and faith.’
‘Amen!’ cried Joinville. Looking down at the map, hovering above the painted world like God himself, I realised that the moment I had dreaded was upon me: I had joined the crusade.
‘Amen,’ I said.
William Longspée unfolded himself from the casemate window in which he was sitting. He was an angular fellow, not excessively tall but lean and long-limbed, and he had a careful way of moving that reminded me a little of a praying mantis: poised, slightly ridiculous and dangerous. But he was less mantis-like in character, for I found him to be a jovial man, full of jests and quick to laugh. His gangling body was graced with a handsome face, a very English face: strong jaw, full lips, a somewhat thick nose, wide blue eyes and a high brow under cropped blond hair that would have curled if it were longer. He wore his beard cropped short as well, save for a gallant curl at the moustache-ends and chin. His voice was loud, which seemed to embarrass him a little, and that alone would have made me like him. But he had bid me welcome, and saw to it that I was settled and content among the English contingent, and though he was the Earl of Salisbury’s son and I a mere knight of dubious issue, he went out of his way to treat me as an equal, which seemed to be his habit with all those who served under him.
‘We are leaving tomorrow,’ he said, reaching for the wine jug. ‘And I for one could not have borne another day in this damned place.’
It was the beginning of March. The island was growing warm again, and the first spring flowers were starting to show as a pale wash of colour across the plain. Louis had given me a horse, a beautiful, tight-wound creature called Tredefeu – Tread Fire – and he had been grudgingly carrying me about the plain and into the hills. And with Tredefeu had come Warren of Eykenham, a freckled lad, second son of some Marcher lord, who would be my squire. I did not want to be responsible for the boy, but he knew the business of knighthood and its trappings far better than I and besides, Tredefeu tolerated him.
‘Cyprus will turn into a raving beauty as soon as we leave,’ I said.
‘Quite the story of my life!’ Longspée chuckled, and poured a cup of wine for each of us. ‘Still, my oath has been weighing on me of late. As if God is impatient with me.’
I had taken no crusader’s oath, though I had lied to everyone about that, and doubted it would have troubled me even if I had. But I shook my head.
‘God requires us to do our work as soldiers,’ I said. ‘And that must mean picking the right time and place to attack the Mussulman. God might perhaps be impatient with the weather, but not with you, my lord, or with me. Monks wait out their lives patiently in their cells, and so we have been no worse than monks these last weeks. God is pleased with stillness as much as with action, if it is done to serve Him.’
‘Christ almighty, Petrus! You sound more like a priest than the chaplain himself ! D’you think the Lord is pleased with young Simon? He certainly hasn’t been conducting himself like a monk.’
I might have told him that I had once been a monk myself, but I did not. Instead I grinned and shook my head. ‘Agh! I do not know what came over me. Perhaps I am trying to start this holy enterprise with a clean conscience.’ The truth was that I had grown so used to outdoing godly men at their own simpering, and had played the part for so many years while disguising the true nature of my godless heart, that I sometimes overdid it. And I had been spending too much time in the company of King Louis, for whom no pious platitude was too much.
‘And what do you have on your conscience, Petrus?’
‘Ah. If you see a confessor’s hair turn white in one day, you will know I have paid him a visit,’ I said.
‘So bad?’
‘Far, far worse …’
‘Excellent. Then I will make sure you are beside me in battle. An unshriven soul tends to fight harder, in my experience! But tell me – why did you sign with the cross? No, don’t fear. I don’t mean to pry. But it’s simply that so few Englishmen answered the call.’
I had been wondering how to answer this. ‘My lord the Earl of Cornwall …’ I began.
‘Oh, dear suffering Christ! Do not conjure up Earl fucking Richard and ruin this pleasant afternoon!’ cried Longspée. But he was laughing, and so I asked what he meant.
‘Only that Earl Richard, wealthiest of the wealthy, richest man in the whole of bloody England, did not sign with the cross, but managed to convince His Holiness that he should be rewarded with a levy as if he were coming to Egypt himself, while I have had to beg the pope for the money to keep my brave knights fed and horsed! The nerve of the man!’
‘Ah. Then perhaps I am Earl Richard’s conscience,’ I said wryly.
‘Maybe, maybe,’ said Longspée.
‘But do not worry too much about money,’ I said. ‘I have plenty, and I will make sure the earl reimburses me for whatever I spend on our glorious English contingent!’
‘Then drink up, Black Dog,’ said Longspée, filling my goblet once more. ‘For I think we are going to be friends.’
Much later, I was walking back to my quarters through the narrow streets when a man stepped into my path. He was a young knight, no different from the thousands crammed into Nicosia, and I nodded to him politely.
‘Petrus Blakke Dogge?’ he enquired. His French had a heavy tinge of German in it.
‘Aye. Can I be of service?’
‘Only to listen. Some words from Doctor Michael Scotus. He gave them to me, and I am passing them to you.’ He paused, and ran his fingers absently through his short, pale hair. ‘Something about a drug … Ah, yes. They – you’ll know who they are – have sent someone to do your business. Doctor Scotus bids you beware. He bids you to look for the God-fearing among the Mussulmen.’
‘Wait. Doctor Scotus gave you this message? Michael Scotus?’
‘Yes. I don’t know what it means. Do your business …’ He rolled his eyes good-naturedly.
‘Do you know Doctor Scotus?’
‘Of course not. I was paying my respects to the emperor – I am from Aachen, you see – on my way to take the cross. And this Doctor Scotus asked if I was bound for Cyprus.’
‘Did he tell you anything else for me?’
‘That … Oh, Lord. Terribly sorry. There was something else, but …’ He winced, as though he were grating his memory like cheese. ‘This person – he’s doing something that you’re doing, I think? Has something of yours?’ He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, my comrade. I was vilely sick on the crossing – I’ve puked my skull clean. Ach … no, he said to be on your guard. But then, I suppose that might do for any of us, eh? Well, good luck, Sir Blakke Dogge,’ he said, and slipped past me. Before I could ask him anything else, he was gone.
Chapter Twelve
The shores of Egypt were walled with gold, or so it seemed that morning in May. We had had a smooth crossing from Cy
prus, three merry days of sunshine and fair winds, but as soon as the coast of Africa came into sight as a black line on the horizon, the mood aboard our ship changed. The men did not become less boisterous or boastful, but whereas before the boasts and jokes had been easy and relaxed, now they were egging each other on. It was time to go to work.
The golden haze on the strand before Damietta slowly came into focus as we drifted in towards the shore. The sultan’s army awaited us in all its finery, sunlight blazing off helmets, swords and shields, silken banners snapping in the wind off the sea. And even from half a mile out we could hear the blare of trumpets and the frenzied drub of kettledrums. Men were galloping their horses up and down the beach, no bigger than gilded ants at this distance. From the king’s ship came the order to keep sailing up the coast. There was a low hiss of disappointment and, I knew, disguised relief from the English knights around me. We were not going to fight today after all.
The king had decided to listen to his barons, who were telling him to wait for the rest of the fleet. For the rest of the day we watched white sails appear like gulls on the horizon, until by dusk my galley had been swallowed up in a great floating city of ships, and still more were arriving. I curled up against the rail at the prow and listened to the sailors calling and the ropes creaking, and the soldiers puking. Very late, as the Via Lactea streamed out across the sky like God’s icy breath, I fell into an uneasy sleep and woke early in a wet mist, as rank and fishy as gull vomit. I went and found where the sailors were eating their breakfast, and passed an hour with them while the mist lifted and the day, bright and blue, was revealed overhead.
There was a sudden braying of horns from the king’s ship. William Longspée appeared and hurried to the rail. Flags were summoning the leaders of our various companies for a council. William descended gingerly into a gig and went bobbing off across the cat’s paws. He returned soon afterwards, and I gathered with the other knights to hear what our fate was to be.
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