‘You’re a liar, Patch,’ said Iselda, gravely. ‘Do you think I don’t know what’s really in your heart? You don’t have to fear that you’ll upset me. But we both know where home is for you.’
‘All right. You are very wise. I did think of the Ca’ Kanzir, but no, it has never been my home, and it wasn’t the captain’s, not really. I’ll tell you, then … There’s a brook that rises under the shoulder of Three Barrows, a short walk from the house where I was born. It isn’t much, and it isn’t long. It flows out of a mire, trickles across the open moor and then falls down through a small ravine into a bigger stream. Two miles at the most. Just where it leaves the High Moor there is a pool, with a thicket of rowan trees under a high bank. The brook flows down a waterfall into the pool, and there are little brown trout and frogs, and once I found a silver peel spawning there. The waterfall isn’t high, perhaps the height of my shoulders, but the thing of it is, there are no rocks, just a great cushion of green moss, and the water tumbles over it and through it. On a hot day you can stand in the pool and lean against the moss, just sink into it and let the water run over you. And when the sky is as blue as a kingfisher’s back and the rowan berries shine …’
‘See? You have no secrets from me, Petroc,’ said Iselda, putting her hand softly against my cheek and kissing me on the brow.
‘But the Ca’ Kanzir wasn’t your home either,’ I said, kissing her back. ‘Are we going to roam for ever? I’m tired, love. I don’t want to fight any more. If I go on this way, one day I’ll find I’ve lost more of me than I ever had.’
‘You have changed,’ said Iselda, looking into my eyes. ‘You’re calmer, somehow. That didn’t happen in battle.’
‘No, it didn’t,’ I said. It was time to tell Iselda about my time with Nizam, and so I did, lying back against the cushions as the stars swayed solemnly overhead and the ship rolled softly in the quiet swell.
‘So the sheikh was my father’s old helmsman! I can’t … Fate is tying itself into knots around us,’ she said, wonderingly, when I was done.
‘No. The world is not large – our world, I mean, of traders and merchants. Nizam had been following my life for years. He knows many Damiettan merchants. I could have found him just as easily if I had bothered. And if I had not been flinging myself headlong into the future.’
‘And what did he tell you? What did you learn? Because you learned something. It has changed you.’
I did not want to talk about it. The days I had spent in Nizam’s clearing in the woods were already fading, but Iselda was quite right: they had changed me. I could feel it all through me. But now she was nudging me.
‘What, Patch? Unspeakable rites? Witchcraft? I need to know!’
‘Stop it. Nothing like that. Just peace, and thinking.’
‘About what?’
‘Everything. Nothing – there. I thought about nothing. Is that unspeakable enough for you?’
But she would not be dissuaded. Her fingers were squirming into my armpits and she was looking down on me, a lovely inquisitor, her hair in my face. ‘No. Tell me.’
‘All right!’ I sat up and took her hand. ‘Nizam showed me, somehow … He led me to it. Something I should have known years and years ago. They should have taught it at my monastery instead of the shit they filled me up with.’ I threaded my fingers through hers and winced. For some reason I was embarrassed. I had spent a lifetime scorning notions like the one that was growing inside me now. But what fools we are, when really we mean so little to the great riot of creation. ‘God is everything,’ I said at last, my mouth dry. ‘The stars, the sea, this ship. Us. God isn’t just with us, or inside us. We are God.’
I thought she would say something, but she didn’t, and she did not let go of my hand. We lay back and watched the stars in silence. After a while I found she had gone to sleep, her head in the crook of my neck. But sleep was a little way off for me, and as I waited, I stared up at the scattered diamonds of the Hyades, Iselda’s breath warm and regular against my skin.
Chapter Twenty-Six
‘There is a difficulty,’ said Jean de Joinville. We were standing around the ransom scales, and Jean had turned his head so that the Saracens would not see his lips.
‘And what would that be, Jean?’ I said, keeping my face blank. No one was actually looking at us, but I had noticed that Baybars seemed to see everything.
‘We are running out of money,’ he hissed.
‘We’re short? Oh, God … By how much?’
It was late in the afternoon. The counting had been going on since dawn with a pause for luncheon, and tempers were beginning to fray. The king had almost collapsed and was sitting in the shade under his tent. The other French noblemen were all in the hold, feverishly counting out money, and I was on deck with Jean de Joinville, overseeing the business. All of us, Franks and Mamluks, stood silent, shifting from foot to foot as coins tinkled endlessly into the copper pan of the scales. All, that is, except Iselda and Nizam, who were sitting in our nest of carpets and cushions in the bow. I had brought them together as we dined. It had been awkward, as the Mamluks were uncomfortable with a woman in their midst, but afterwards the sheikh had excused himself politely – though Baybars did not seem to be one of his followers, Nizam was the only one aboard this ship whom he treated with any warmth, and he did not refuse him now – and led her away. Now they were deep in conversation, and every now and then Nizam’s deep laugh broke into our own solemn proceedings.
‘About a quarter,’ said Jean. ‘Maybe less, but there definitely isn’t enough.’
‘Have you told the king?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Then wait.’ I bowed to the Mamluks and set off up the deck, where I made a show of taking a piss over the side. Now I would be ignored, so I walked quietly over to where Iselda and Nizam sat.
‘My darling,’ I said, ‘do you know how much money the king has in his coffers?’
‘Well, I lent Marguerite a hundred and thirty thousand livres. She told me she had another hundred thousand.’
‘Wait a minute – we’ve lent Louis Capet another hundred-odd thousand livres? That more or less makes us the owners of France, doesn’t it?’
‘Not quite, dearest,’ said Iselda. ‘What is it?’
‘Nizam, what if the king cannot pay?’ I asked. The French would have strung me up there and then if they had heard me, but I did not hesitate. If I could not trust Nizam, I could trust no man on earth.
‘Ah. Why is this not so very surprising?’ he replied, cocking an eyebrow. ‘Baybars is – he is a quite extraordinary fellow, actually. But among other things he is scrupulously honourable in matters such as this. If Louis cannot pay the ransom, he will keep the rest of the Christian army prisoner – and the king’s brother – until it is paid.’
‘Seems pretty straightforward,’ I said.
‘That is what Baybars will do. But he is not the master here. This Aybak, who will be sultan very soon, mark my words, is not a man of honour. I would judge that if he feels that Louis has insulted him, he will have the prisoners killed. They are already butchering the wounded, I am afraid.’
‘No! Can we stop them?’
‘Oh, my dear fellow, do you think Louis does not know? He is a wise ruler, so I hear, and so he weighs such things in the balance.’
‘So the ransom must be found. Can we pay it, Iselda?’
‘We can, but …’ She stood up and pointed over the rail. ‘See there? The Templar treasure ship. Do you see how the Temple is keeping its distance from all this? I’ve been wondering about it. There are thousands upon thousands of livres aboard that ship!’
‘And I know what they’re doing!’ I cried, and quickly lowered my voice. The Mamluks were starting to look over in our direction. No doubt they thought I was being disgracefully frivolous, consorting with my wife when there was business to be done.
‘Remember what I told you about Remigius, and the men who tried to kill me in Mansourah? They don’t want the king to
be ransomed! They want him to stay here as a prisoner, or to trap him in some other way. You have your spies, you say – well, you know the Templars have theirs!’
‘Swine,’ muttered Iselda. ‘I can name at least two of them.’
‘I will wager that they know exactly how many livres were in the hold of this ship. And of course they do nothing.’
Iselda sighed. ‘Look, why don’t we just make up the difference? If you weren’t here …’ She gave me a sudden, wounded look. ‘If you weren’t here I would do just that.’
‘No,’ I said.
‘Then what? We can’t just leave these idiots here! God help me, and Father, forgive me! But I don’t want the deaths of all these thousands of Frenchmen on my conscience. We were talking of revenge, weren’t we? Would the Montalhacs be revenged if we left Louis’s whole crusade here to die?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And Montségur would be avenged too. If we choose. But …’ I glanced at Nizam. He was studying us gravely, legs crossed beneath him, fingers working at his prayer beads.
‘No, we can’t leave these idiots here. But we’re not paying.’
‘Then how—’
‘The Templars. Let them pay.’
‘Patch, that’s what we’re talking about! The fucking Templars won’t pay!’
‘But they will. It doesn’t make any difference if they want to or not. They will.’
‘Why?’
‘I’ll tell you.’
The French coffers were thirty thousand livres tournois short, give or take five thousand. The sun was hanging just above the western horizon when Joinville came up from the hold and went over to the king. I was on deck with the king’s brother Charles, and the Master of the Trinitarian Order, usually a rather jolly fellow whose jollity had been all but wrung from him by his ordeal. As luck would have it, Baybars had just left our ship on the little Saracen galley, gone to ferry the latest load of coin across to Damietta. The two Mamluks left in charge of the scales were tired and bored and had long since ceased to pay us Franks any heed, and besides, they could not understand our language. By the look on Joinville’s face I knew that the bottom of the last treasure chest had been reached. And by the look on the king’s, I saw that he had not been expecting the news. His expression was that of a man who has eaten a spoiled oyster without realising it, only to have the first pangs of its poison unfold in the pit of his stomach like a cankered flower. I made an excuse to Charles and wandered nonchalantly across to the royal tent.
‘Sir Petrus—’ Joinville began, but the king cut him off.
‘Tell him, Jean,’ he said. ‘Petrus, it seems that our ordeal is not quite over,’ he added.
‘Not quite,’ said Joinville, forcing as much cheer as he could into the two words. ‘But it appears we are somewhat short of the ransom amount.’ He was frantically signalling to me with his eyebrows that I should be surprised.
‘Oh, good heavens!’ I exclaimed. ‘By how much?’
‘Thirty-two thousand, eight hundred and twenty-three livres,’ said Joinville. ‘To be precise.’
‘Precision is everything,’ I agreed. ‘Jean, a word, if Your Majesty does not mind?’ Louis waved us off, his mind far away, no doubt on his brother sitting in some Mamluk boat eating piss-tasting cheese pies. I leaned and whispered in Joinville’s ear: ‘Summon the Templars. They have several hundred thousand livres on their ship.’
‘I know that!’ he hissed. ‘But they won’t let a penny of it go! You know as well as I do that they are under oath not to release any money, except to the very person who left it with them, and it must be the same coin. And the king—’
‘Yes, yes, I do know, thank you, Jean. The king’s coin is in Acre. Nevertheless, the king needs thirty thousand livres, and the Templars have it, not a bowshot away. Is the Temple so high and mighty that it will refuse the King of France?’
‘Damn them,’ muttered Joinville. ‘But there is no other way. Very well.’ He turned to Louis. ‘Your Majesty,’ he said, ‘the Templars have this sum of money to hand. Shall I send for the commander?’
Louis considered, a drowning man trying to work out if the long shape in the water is a sea-serpent or a mast. Then he sighed. ‘Do so,’ he said.
In a half-hour, Étienne d’Otricourt, Commander of the Temple, climbed over the rail, followed by another knight. Their surcoats were gleaming white. So they had had time to do their laundry, I thought bitterly. Joinville had conveyed to the Mamluks that there would be a slight delay in bringing them the last part of the ransom. They probably did not quite understand, but in any case Baybars had not yet returned, and Nizam had, thankfully, gone over to start some sort of animated debate with them, which they seemed to be enjoying. But the commander was not enjoying himself. I had spoken to him once, after Mansourah, when I had helped the Grand Master back to the Templar lines. The last time I had seen him, at Fariskur, he had been watching helplessly as the Saracens hacked the Grand Master to pieces. Now he looked as thin as the rest of us and, unmistakeably, spoiling for a fight.
‘Am I to understand that Your Majesty wishes the Temple to make a loan to the Crown of France?’ he said, clipped, every inch a banker, except that he wore chain mail and had a festering sword-slash across his scalp, crude stitches and stubble poking up through the yellowish scab.
‘That is so,’ said Joinville. Of course it was beneath Louis’s dignity to haggle with anyone over money, but I was glad to see that Joinville seemed to have his hackles raised.
‘And you have advised His Majesty, my lord of Joinville? I must say that you have given your sovereign some extraordinarily bad advice, young man.’ The commander sniffed, and his hand wandered towards the scab on his head. ‘You know very well that all our deposits are held by us under the strictest of oaths, and nothing can change that.’
‘But we are discussing a temporary loan to the King of France,’ said Joinville. ‘King Louis has a considerable sum on deposit with the Temple, as you well know.’
‘That is in Acre,’ sniffed the commander.
‘But we are not! Surely it does not matter – you will simply make up the deposit when we get to Acre, and we are going there as soon as—’
‘You understand nothing, young man, and you are presumptuous as well as ignorant! Would you have me break my oath to God?’ bristled the commander.
‘Surely there are exceptions that can be made,’ said Joinville, still trying to be friendly.
‘How dare you, sir? Do you think I would break my oath for you, or for the king, or for any man? My authority is God Himself, young man!’
‘My good brother Étienne, you are a Frenchman, are you not? Have you no loyalty?’ Joinville’s temper had snapped. He was trembling with rage. A fine sight we must make for the seagulls chattering up in the rigging, I thought: a mob of wasted and decrepit men barely able to raise their voices for fear their legs would give out.
‘I am a Frenchman, sir! But my loyalty is to the Temple of Jerusalem, sir! And if you are impugning my honour, sir, I—’
‘Excuse me,’ I put in. Étienne d’Otricourt turned on me, eyes white with rage. ‘Do you know me, sir?’ I enquired, politely.
‘If you would get me to trample on the oath I swore to my lord God, who died in agony for our sins, I know you for a rascal and a serpent!’ he cried. There were a few specks of foam in his beard now. But it was plain he did not recognise me.
‘I am Sir Petrus Blakke Dogge. Or as I am sometimes known, Petrus Zennorius of the Banco di Corvo Marino.’
The white-rimmed fury in his eyes went out like a pinched candle wick, and his face went slack, for a moment, with confusion. ‘But I thought …’
‘That I had died in the retreat from Fariskur? Many did, God rest their souls. And by His mercy I survived. I am flattered you remember me.’ And I gave him a courtier’s bow. ‘Might I have a fleeting word with you in private, Commander?’
D’Otricourt looked from the king to Joinville and to me. Louis was pointedly staring out to sea, and
Joinville was looking as if he might tear out the commander’s throat with his teeth, and so he nodded, icily, and stepped with me to the rail.
‘What is the meaning of this?’ he began, but I ignored him.
‘Do not spew your piety over me, sir,’ I said, low enough for the others not to hear me, but loud enough for him to catch the steel in my words. ‘Four men from Sicily came looking for me, and they found me too, yet here I am. And Master Remigius – a snaky fellow, quite hard to forget. I expect he had words with you, Commander. A request from Cardinal John of Toledo, perhaps, or the Holy Father himself ?’
‘Look, Sir Petrus – I remember you now, of course I do. The man who brought our dear Grand Master out of Mansourah. You … One would have taken you for a man of honour, a godly man, but instead you are insinuating …’
‘Nothing. I am insinuating nothing at all. Shall I tell Louis Capet, the holiest prince in Christendom, that the Temple of Jerusalem has been conspiring with Pope Innocent to destroy his crusade and trap him in Egypt? Think of what would happen then. The Temple, wrecking God’s work? Would you like your commanderies driven out of France, like they were thrown out of Sicily?’
‘I do not know what you are talking about, sir,’ said the commander. He blinked, and glanced for a split second over to where Louis stood, leaning companionably on Joinville’s shoulder. And I knew I had him.
‘As one banker to another, of course you don’t,’ I said. ‘Do you think I am such a fool, Commander? You know who I am. You know my bank. Do you think I can’t ruin you, whether you are guilty or not? That I care a flea’s fart for your life, to say nothing of your precious honour? I do not. If this ransom is not paid, the army over there’ – and I flung out my arm towards the coast, dissolving into glowing ribbons of deepening reds and browns in the half-light of evening – ‘twelve thousand men, Christian men, and some of them Templar knights, will die. The king’s brother will die. And when I tell King Louis that it was the scheming of the Temple that murdered them, for he will believe me, what will keep your order out of the midden? Out of the shit, Commander? Do you imagine there are no greedy eyes coveting the Temple’s wealth? They will tear you white-draped fools to pieces and laugh when they are done.’
The Fools’ Crusade Page 32