by K. T. Tomb
Saladin nodded. He wasn’t much of a talker. He learned by listening.
Their mysterious host continued, “King Richard the Lionheart, your prowess on the field of battle has raised you to the rank of the legendary, mythic heroes, along the same lines as the White Knight and Robin of the Hood.”
Richard, not especially flattered by the comparisons, followed Saladin’s actions and nodded politely and listened.
“However, you are now my prisoners. Saladin, you asked for my name. I am but a thief, though a rich and successful one. I still fear God, for I am not ungodly. Perhaps God above shows me favor because of the good fortune I show to others. I do not hoard my wealth. I give freely to my men, but most importantly, I give to the poor: a motto, I must admit, that I did not entirely make up on my own. More than once, I have passed a poor beggar upon a street or in a market and I have made that poor beggar into a very rich man.”
At this point of his captor’s self-important story, Richard snorted and drank more wine, draining his goblet. The mysterious man before them signaled and instantly, Richard’s cup was overflowing with more of the dark liquid.
Suddenly, Saladin spoke up. “You are an assassin.”
The man smiled and nodded. “No longer, my lord. But, yes, I was an assassin, a trained killer. But I left to pursue my fortunes elsewhere. The Old Man of the Mountain, of course, did not approve, especially since much of our booty has come from caravans heading up into assassin’s mountainous castle. Already, I have fended off more than one attempt upon my life. But I was one of the best, if I may sing my own praises, and it is difficult to kill an enemy who has been equally trained.”
A moment passed with nothing spoken. The man before the kings kept a smile on his face. From all appearances, he was unabashedly pleased to be sitting before two men who controlled such vast empires; perhaps, also, he was overly smug because he held these same two powerful men at his mercy.
Assassin or no assassin, Richard knew that he could spring forward and break the man’s neck in a heartbeat. However, without a weapon, he could only hope to kill two of the guards at most—if he was able to secure a sword during the melee, all the better. However, there were plenty more soldiers milling about outside of the spacious tent. If worse came to worst, this brute force escape was Richard’s plan and he knew he was likely to be wounded in the ensuing escape. As of now, he would bide his time and wait. As Saladin waited. They were united in their lack of action until an opportunity presented itself to escape their captors. Together.
“What do you seek to gain from this meeting?” Richard finally ventured.
“Why have I brought the two of you here?” asked the man, still smiling, presumably enjoying himself. “First of all, it is not often that I entertain such esteemed guests.” The man said the word “guests” as if Richard and Saladin were truly guests and not prisoners. “Second, I want to tell you about a dream I had.”
Saladin suddenly stood. It was a surprisingly quick movement for one who had been so deathly sick just days before, but the guards next to him were almost, but not quite, as quick.
“Sultan, please be seated. I have no intentions of harming you or the Lionheart, but I will, if forced.”
The old king, with his thick head of gray hair, stared long and hard into the thief. That same look probably sent shockwaves of fear through many a man, but the thief just sat there and smiled, his smile reaching to the edges of his thin face, but not to his eyes. Richard read into Saladin’s impatient expression something akin to: Enough of this foolishness! Saladin did not suffer foolish men with any patience. He was angry to the core, but restrained himself from acting upon his emotion. Richard did likewise.
Saladin did sit down. He was a man not used to taking orders, and it obviously rankled him to do so. Richard did not sense that the thief purposely wanted to rankle the old king, and that he did indeed have all the respect in the world for Saladin, but as of now, they each had to play a role—unfortunately for the Muslim king and himself, of course, they were playing the role of prisoners.
“If it were not for my dream, my lords, I would not be here. In fact, I wouldn’t have even known the location of you and your small company.”
This bit of news may not have gotten the full attention of the Muslim leader, but Richard found himself growing more interested. The thief had mentioned a dream. Richard, in fact, would not have been here if it weren’t for his own peculiar, terrifying dream. With a full goblet in one hand, and a sizable chunk of dark bread in the other, the old Muslim ruler seemed somewhat pacified, which pleased Richard. “Go on,” Richard said politely, “what about this ‘dream’?”
The lanky thief, leader of this band of thieves—a band of thieves, Richard reminded himself, that overtook his and Saladin’s best men with relative ease—turned his full attention onto Richard, as Saladin did not hide the fact that though he, Saladin, was, in fact, a prisoner, he had no intention of behaving like a prisoner. Indeed, Richard was sure that the old Muslim king was doing all he could to make the thief feel intimidated.
If Saladin’s bravado affected the thief, he did not show it. Indeed, his smile had yet to leave his face, and it rankled Richard when he finally realized that the thief was having a quite amusing time with his captive audience.
The thief continued: “I had a dream last night of two kings, once fierce enemies, but now reconciled through a deed that was beyond my understanding. That, however, was not the purpose of the dream, that is, it was not important for me to understand this reconciliation—which I can now see before my eyes as something that has indeed taken place. It is an amazing thing to witness this reconciliation of two kings.”
“Go on, assassin,” growled Saladin.
The leader paused, perhaps to show Saladin that he would go on when he was ready, but nonetheless, he did continue: “Indeed, the nature of the dream was this: attack the group and carry away their gold. Now, I can do this, and am quite good at it. But the dream went on to further to instruct me to deposit the gold in a deep shaft under the Eye of the Sun. I do not know what this ‘Eye of the Sun’ is, but I do know that it is far below in the Sancta Sophia in Constantinople. Now, I am not in the habit of losing such immense wealth to a commander in a dream. Indeed, I have already been informed by my men that you are in possession of great quantities of gold. I have, however, been known to give away my gold, though not such great quantities of it. I think it best to follow my dream, for thus far, it has turned out to be quite correct. And if the dream continues to play itself out, then I will be adequately rewarded for my troubles sometime in the future.”
“Thief!” said Richard, addressing the leader, a word he barked crisply.
The smile finally faltered as the leader looked upon King Richard, for the single word had been spoken with enough authority to weaken the knees of most men. Now their captor was becoming aware that neither Richard nor Saladin were in the very least amused by what he hoped was his engaging story.
With the tent silent and all eyes on him, even the dark, brooding eyes of the Muslim leader, Richard continued: “In your dream, were you given a reason for attacking our group?”
The smile returned, but it was an unpleasant smile now, rather like a slithering snake. “Yes, my lord. There is, or was, among your group a defiler of the law of God. He is dead now, and of the three of your men who died, I do not know which one he was. I do know this, and this was spoken to me very clearly in my dream, that this man broke a covenant with Allah, with your God, a covenant he agreed upon…a covenant, in fact, imposed upon him by you, yourself, my lord.”
He knew immediately what the man was referring to: the location of the Holy Grail. Each man was to go to their grave with that information, and each had sworn to do so.
But who could he have told? They had yet to meet another living soul except for the slaughtered thieves of the day before, and there was not one now living. Richard suddenly knew the answer, and knew, as if he were looking at it now, that the man
had drawn some sort of map to the location of the Holy Grail.
In the least, the man had likely written down the directions on how to find the cave and then, the Holy Grail. But the map maker was dead now. Where, then, was his map? And why were these thieves told to gather up all the gold and dispose of it in a mosque? Perhaps the map was etched onto a golden shield, or a golden bowl? To Richard, etching all that information onto the face of gold seemed like an endless and foolish ordeal, especially when one could have simply done so on a piece of parchment.
Richard shrugged. He did not know why God would send these thieves to steal their gold. A last, inconsequential thought on the matter was this: somehow, he could have hidden the map to the Holy Grail within the gold. But Richard’s mind could not fathom how this could be done without being seen.
He certainly appreciated the nature of God’s punishment: one man breaks God’s law and they all were punished by the loss of the gold, and within the gold, somehow, the map was swept away, never to be seen again at the bottom of a pit under the Eye of the Sun.
Alas, thought Richard, the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh. He said convincingly, even though he wasn’t sure he would really do it, “Very well. I have heard your dream. From here, my men and I shall ride hard and long to Ankara, and then to Constantinople and deliver the gold unto the Lord. It will be a waste of a lot of beautiful gold, but who am I to question the wisdom of God whom you call Allah?”
“Truly? And the Holy Grail?” their captor asked.
“Gold is one thing and easily replaced, but there is only one Holy Grail. We must leave it for someone else to find.”
“Why, King Richard?”
“Because it belongs to the world. Not to England, not to Germany, not to Rome, not even to Jerusalem. But to all cities and to all peoples.”
“I don’t understand,” the man said, his voice growing very small and disappointed.
“In time, I pray that you will understand, pilgrim,” Richard said. “The fate of your soul depends on your obedience, even to the smallest detail. Or didn’t Allah tell you that in the dream?” He raised his eyes upward. His meaning was not lost on their captor.
Chapter Seventeen
Saladin looked at Richard with something that approached gratitude, which was not easy for the old king. Apparently, Richard had said just the right things to facilitate their hasty release.
Riding through the unusual misty night, the two kings were swiftly escorted within a league of their huddled men. Just short of their destination, the escorts bid the kings farewell, turned sharply and galloped away into the night.
Richard knew that once the handful of riders made it back to their own camp, their leader’s pavilion would be dismantled and packed onto the backs of horses, ready to move out.
They had come quickly, and would leave just as quickly. A fierce strike of wrath from God would unleash on them if they tarried, or if they removed the Grail from the hiding place. Richard pitied any soldier who took God’s command lightly. They would pay a heavy price if they failed to obey. A final price.
Once back in his own camp, Richard saw that the plundering was complete. All the gold, every bit of it, was gone. Weapons enough to defend themselves had been left behind, and even a little food and fresh water. At least, there was that.
“Kako!” Saladin called. “Come out if you are hiding! Your uncle is back!”
But the boy was gone. A single tear fell from Saladin’s eye and Richard felt the pang of loss as well.
“Perhaps he has gone home to the women,” Richard said hopefully.
Saladin shook his head. “No. They took him. I only hope the thieves will ransom him back to me. He is like a son. I would give much gold to have him back.”
“So would I,” Richard said. “I will help you find him and get him back.”
“No. The sole burden of recovering him is mine. You have other worries, King Richard,” Saladin said.
Richard shook his head as they surveyed the destroyed camp. The wounded came out of their wrecked tents, bloody and ashamed that they were not either dead or pursuing the bandits. Andre carried a shovel.
The bodies of the three dead were lined up next to each other. Richard recognized those who had been on guard over the gold. His gaze fell on the third, the map maker, Pierre de Mandeville, who had been a formidable soldier with even more formidable aspirations—he had been a man who desired power far greater than his birthright allowed. And apparently, he had been a fool. What had de Mandeville hoped to gain by revealing the resting place of the Holy Grail and making a map to it? Gold? And just where was that map?
Richard had just given him, along with the other soldiers, more gold than any soldier deserved to have or could even feasibly carry. And yet, de Mandeville had not understood, had not obeyed, and therefore, had not lived.
“Let us bury them,” Richard ordered. Both kings helped Andre scoop the sand on top of them, making the small telltale mounds that punctuated the desert near many watering holes and oases.
“I have something to tell you,” Andre said to Richard, after they had cleaned their hands of soil and Saladin had walked into the bushes to relieve himself.
“Speak freely,” said Richard.
“My name is not Andre, as you know. You named me when I could not speak. My name is Levi and I am a Jew.” He paused as Richard smiled and clapped his hand on the man’s shoulder in friendship.
“Truly?”
“Sire, I wanted to tell you, up there, in the snow cave, but I did not yet have my tongue back.”
“Well, now you do. Why did you tell me this now, Levi?”
“So that you could know what you said in the cave was true, that people are a trinity. Not godly, but human, connected, as you said. That we are Muslim and Christian and Jew. And that we worship Allah and God and Yahweh, but that they are the same. I thought it fitting that you should know my secret. And know that I was present, a Jew, at the discovery of the Grail. I felt, if I am not being too pretentious by saying so, that my presence there completed the trinity of which you spoke. Of humanity.”
Richard was amazed. “Yes, you did! Thank you for telling me.”
“I also wanted to tell you that I can read and write. In Hebrew.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, I thought you might want to know that I remember what one of the Hebrew inscriptions read on the Holy Grail.”
“Tell me.”
“‘As I have loved you, so you must love one another.’ Well, roughly translated.”
“Ah,” Richard said. “From the Gospel of John.”
“Is it? I don’t know what that is,” Levi said and paused. “If you ever go back to Ararat, I want to go with you and search for the Ark.”
“Noah’s Ark!”
Levi laughed. “That, too. However, I was speaking of the Ark of the Covenant. No one else seemed to know it, but I believe that is the missing piece of the puzzle. It is the only thing that makes any sense in the context of all that we learned.”
“Ah, thank you. Now I know the identity of the mysterious third divine relic on Mount Ararat. Of course, I wouldn’t go on that journey without you, Levi, a man who reads Hebrew and is very good at keeping secrets.”
“I see we understand each other, Your Majesty.”
“We do.”
“Are you going to retrieve Father Gustave from Jerusalem?” Levi asked.
“No, God doesn’t want me to go there, so I guess Gustave will find his way home, eventually. When he’s good and ready.”
“Are you going to tell him all that transpired?” Levi dared to ask.
Richard shook his head. “I think it would be too much for him to keep a secret from the Pope. And who knows what would happen if the Church got the details.”
“I agree,” said Levi, relieved.
They smiled at each other and Saladin came out of the bushes, dusting off his hands. “What did I miss?” he asked.
“A proposal for a new quest for spiritual
truth, in God’s good time,” Richard said with a smile. “Perhaps you will want to join us on Mount Ararat again.”
“Ararat? I get cold just thinking about it. Very well, but don’t make it too long from now. I’m old, or haven’t you noticed?” Saladin joked.
* * *
The bodies were left there, covered with a thin layer of desert sand and crosses made with stones laid on the ground at each of their heads. A few of his warriors wanted to pursue the thieves, but Richard knew this to be a lost cause. The thieves were gone, and they were protected by God above. The thieves had a divine mission to fulfill: to deposit the gold in God’s pre-ordained spot. He had no doubt that the leader of the thieves would be vastly rewarded through his diligent adherence to God’s command. Therefore, Richard forbid any pursuit of the thieves, even though they were also murderers. For one, Richard trusted God for retribution and he was just about finished playing God on his own.
“We have just one piece of business to finalize, my friend, my brother,” Saladin said.
Richard nodded. Finally, he sat at his broken table, propped up with a rock by Levi, and signed the treaty with Saladin, whereby the Muslims would retain control of Jerusalem but officially allow Christian pilgrimages. England would be granted control of Daron and Jaffa. It was less than Richard had hoped for, but perhaps even the King of England had learned to respect the mighty Saladin’s wisdom and foresight. And he had learned how to compromise and recognize another king’s burden, as well as his power.
Now, with the treaty signed, Muslims and Christians alike, and one Jew, picked up what was left of their camps, nodded farewell and rode their separate ways. For now.
The sun was just making its way over the distant horizon, its orange and gold beams streaming toward Heaven. Somewhere over the horizon lay Jerusalem, the holiest of holy cities, but it was not to be his.