by Dan Davis
I found and collected our horses and fed the children with what food and water remained in the packs.
We rode for Acre.
***
“So dozens of men and women died but you let William escape,” Henry of Champagne, King of Jerusalem said to me, some months later in Acre. “In fact, everyone died but you and William, is that correct?”
It was not correct but I was in no mood for rising to his bait and I said nothing. It was another informal audience in the cool room at the top of his palace. Such was the desire to keep my actions as quiet as possible. I stood before him while he lounged ungraciously with the Archbishop sat next to him.
“Richard is to be congratulated,” the Archbishop said, smiling and inviting the king to share in his praise of me. “He put an end to William’s raids and trade is now flowing once again. He stopped the abductions of the locals and returned many innocents to their homes. Surely Saladin will be grateful to you for the fact it was a Frank that saved them.”
“I doubt that,” Henry said and drank more of his wine. “And William is free to start again at any moment.”
“Not in your kingdom, sire,” I said. “He fled north, I am certain of it. Near Tiberius two weeks later there was a woman with her throat savaged. A few weeks after that I heard of two children wounded about the neck at Antioch. They were buried by the time I arrived but I am certain it was William. There were other tales that may have been him but his trail went cold not far into Anatolia. I was most unwelcome there, as you might expect. Then I spoke to merchants who told me of more sudden deaths in Antioch so I returned, thinking William had also doubled back on me. But it was just a bloody flux and I could find no further trace of him.”
“So, you failed,” the King of Jerusalem said. “I think that perhaps it is convenient that William walks away from this unharmed. I do not say that you were in collusion with the man but this is all too convenient, too convenient by far.”
I was thinking that it was convenient for the king that his guards had taken my sword at the palace gates. But still I imagined dragging him from his chair and beating him senseless. Perhaps the Archbishop could read my thoughts.
“William is gone from your kingdom, sire,” the Archbishop said, quickly. “Certainly gone and likely gone for good. And if ever he dares show his face once more, then Richard will most certainly slay him, will you not, Richard?”
“William shall die by my sword,” I said, picturing that very thing.
The king looked like he had a bad taste in his mouth. “I suppose I must present you with land and a title,” he said. “As a reward for scouring out and destroying William’s raiding camp and preserving our fragile peace. It is good land, I stayed there once, I think. It will bring you a better income than that accursed pile of dirt outside Jaffa. Income to buy men and men’s tales of William. Your search will go better with it, will it not?”
And, of course, he wanted me as an ally to help protect his fragile kingdom. There was no denying now that I was a great knight.
“I am grateful, my lord,” I said.
I shall not live, I shall not die until William lies dead by my sword. I would take the land but if Henry called upon me to fight I would have to deny him. William would have to come first. But not because of any oath. My duty was to the dead.
“Good, then. Speak to my chamberlain, he will see to everything. Now, go. Go and find a wife and when the Saracens stir themselves again, you shall help me win the war.”
I took my leave from the king, my liege lord, and he waved me away while sinking another cup of wine.
The Archbishop rose and accompanied me out of the room and into the corridor where he placed a hand upon my arm. He still gripped his cup of wine in his other gnarled hand.
“You are deeply troubled, Richard,” he said as the door was closed behind us.
“William lives,” I said.
The Archbishop sighed and sat upon the bench that ran along the wall. “Sit,” he said and patted the bench next to his backside. “My old bones ache. I find I need rest more often every month. Every day, sometimes. It shall not be long before I finally join God in Heaven.” He leaned over to me and lowered his voice conspiratorially. “I find that wine, the very best wine, you understand, is the one thing that helps with the pain.”
I sat. It was quiet. Through the door to the king’s chamber I could hear muffled voices as the king’s men got on with the business of governing and the king got on with drinking. I was burdened by what I knew and I wanted the old man to believe me. But how could I convince him?
“What of the children?” the Archbishop asked, softly.
“The boy Jocelyn and his sister I took to Alice’s mother’s sister in Jaffa,” I said.
“Do you have no love for the children?” He asked it softly but it was a cruel question and he twisted it further into my guts. “You are now the lone other soul in the world who they know. Can you truly abandon them to distant relatives?”
“Leaving them with a family they do not know may be the greatest sin I have committed, my lord Archbishop,” I said. “I am aware of the agony those children are in. But leave them I must. With William roaming free, my presence may bring death down upon them once more.”
And seeing them reminded me of Alice.
“Who better to protect them?” he asked.
“I tell you I am dangerous,” I said.
I would confuse them and upset them if I went to see them, I told myself. It was cowardice, of course. I could not face the loss of my wife. Thinking of those children made me think of her. When I thought of her I felt like dying. The horror of it was that her death was my own fault. I had fought to become a knight worthy of her but I had thought that meant having wealth and social standing. If she had never met me, if she had rejected me, then she would have been alive to be mother to those children. The only way I could cope with such thoughts was to pretend I did not have them.
“And how are they, Richard?” he asked, again, gently.
“Jocelyn is angry at everything,” I said. “When he is older he will come into some of his father’s land in Poitou. He is seven, now, I think. I told him to train hard and to become a good knight before then and if he ever needed my help I would fight alongside him. He’s a good lad. The girl, Emma. She does not speak. Perhaps, in time. She is yet very young and has time to mend.”
“Well, quite,” the Archbishop said, nodding. “I shall pray for them.”
“Would you look in on them, my lord?” I asked, my throat tight. “From time to time?” It was an absurd request for he was just a couple of steps down from God Himself.
“I shall keep an eye on them,” the Archbishop said. “I suppose I owe them that much, for my part.”
I thanked him sincerely.
“I shall pray for you too, Richard. I shall pray for your soul.”
“Pray for William’s soul,” I said, ungratefully. “For he shall be facing judgement soon enough.”
Such words come as easily as breathing. But words mean nothing and the Archbishop knew I was full of bile and nonsense.
“I do pray for William’s soul,” he said. “Anger and bitterness, if he holds on to such things, fill up a man’s soul until there is nothing left that is good and decent.” He peered up at me.
“I do not wish to be like William,” I said, irritated. “Perhaps it truly was the death of his wife and son that turned him so completely to evil. It is likely that it sent him mad. But he was vindictive and cruel from birth.”
The Archbishop nodded. “I see now what is troubling you.”
“My wife is dead. Her death was my doing and I have failed even to bring justice to her murderer. It is years now since I swore an oath, to Isabella, to slay William and every day is another day of failure. Of course I am troubled. My lord.”
“You have slain all of Williams’s followers. Six of whom were the vilest, deadliest creatures who walked or crawled upon the earth. You have scoured him from the Holy
Land. If I were you I should call such victories a success.” The Archbishop shifted his buttocks on the hard bench. “But you fear that you are as William is, do you not?”
“Does every man in Christendom know that he and I are brothers?” The shame of my ignorance made my face burn.
I felt him shrug beside me, his robes rustling softly. “Perhaps only to those few of us who have known you both. You are so very similar to each other. In stature and features. Your manner of speech is almost identical. It would not be the first time an overlord has forced himself upon his vassal’s wife. I am sorry to hear that the old Earl died unpunished.”
“William returned to Derbyshire to kill his father. Our father.”
“Good God.”
I found I had a burning need to tell the Archbishop everything. “William said he killed our father with poison. Earl Robert was dead and cold but then he woke up and William had to kill him again.”
“Terrible. A terrible sin.”
“Do you not see, my lord?” I said. “Does the tale not sound familiar to you? William was cut down and tossed into a pile of corpses at Hattin. He was truly dead. Do you think the Saracens are so incompetent that they cannot ensure we are dead? They stab us before they strip our bodies. William died. Then he was reborn and reborn fully healed with strength enough to fight his way clear. Perhaps he truly did kill forty Saracens in his escape.”
“Once I thought it was a miracle. Now I doubt it happened at all.”
“I tell you it may well be the truth. I know that when I was reborn I found myself with greater strength than I ever had before.”
He looked up at me. “When you were reborn.”
“William’s men killed me. At my estate, when Alice was killed, I was stabbed many times, deeply, in the chest.”
“Your robustness is well known, Richard.”
“I was always remarkably quick to heal, yes. Which in itself is very strange, is it not? But these wounds were different. I have seen more men killed than I can count and I know for certain that no man could have suffered so and lived.”
“And yet you did. A flaw in your reasoning.”
“I died. My servants said I was cold and lifeless for a day before I woke up. And when I did, I found that I was stronger, faster. And a good thing, too, because William’s men possessed their master’s own strength.”
“William’s men were the risen dead, also? Come, Richard, you go too far. You were out in the hills too long.”
“They were not dead but had drunk William’s blood. His blood has power. Power to heal wounds. Power to grant strength and speed.”
He looked gravely concerned. “I am beginning to fear you have become as mad as William.”
“There is more,” I said. “My own blood holds the same power.”
“Because you are brothers?”
“We were both grown from our father’s seed. Why would it not? When I pulled the children from the smoke, Emma was dying. I gave her a few drops of my blood and she woke. Fully healed and full of life.”
“Are you saying you imbued her with the strength of a knight?”
I smiled at the thought. “The strength of a strong girl, perhaps. The powers last no longer than a week, and they fade over that time. Emma is returned to her old self.”
“I must say, I struggle to believe what you are telling me. You have always seemed a sober, reasoned young man.”
I plucked the cup from his hands, stood and tossed the wine from the window.
“That was a particularly fine Burgundy.”
I took my dagger and pierced my thumb where the large vein is and squeezed my blood into his cup.
“If you think I am going to drink that then you truly have lost your mind,” the Archbishop said.
“My mind is perfectly clear,” I said, taking my seat by him again while my blood spurted into the cup. “It has grown clearer and stronger ever since I died. Whatever it was that happened to me, the change in me was for the better. My whole life I was amongst the fastest and strongest. But since I woke from death it is as though all other normal men are wading through mud.” There was enough blood in the cup for a mouthful. I pinched my thumb, stopping the flow. The smell of it was strong and good and it glistened, dark and shiny in the shadow of the cup. I looked at the Archbishop, seeing disgust and wariness in his eyes. But also curiosity. He wanted to believe me.
“If you taste this,” I said. “I am certain that the aches in your bones will ease. For no more than a week or so but you might feel young again.”
“What makes you think I want to feel young again? I am perfectly happy being old. God wills it. And the only blood I will drink is the blood of the Christ. This smacks of blasphemy.”
His protestations were so weak that I was sure he needed no more than a nudge.
“I swear it is true and if it does not work then I shall do whatever penance you instruct of me.”
He paused and I knew I had him.
“Richard, I would not make a man do penance for madness. I may have you thrown into a dungeon until you stop this raving.”
“Here,” I said and gave him the cup.
“God forgive me,” he said. He looked down the corridor to be sure no other man was there and drank, grimacing. Good on the old man; he knocked it right back and handed me the cup.
“How do you feel?” I asked as he wiped his mouth.
“I must say that was the vilest—” he froze. His eyes widened until I could see the whites all around and his pupils grew until they were enormous black pits. He sprang to his feet, knocking the wine cup clattering into the corner. He bent his knees, bouncing up and down. The Archbishop stretched his hands up above his head and then squeezed his knees and shoulders and he laughed.
“The pain is gone,” he said, his voice breathy and excited. “I feel as though I could leap from this window and fly.”
I laughed. “Please do not try that.”
“You feel like this all the time?” he said, flexing his hands and peering at the knuckles.
“Perhaps even more so,” I said. “William gave his blood to his men and they became more than they were. But still I was quicker than they. Mostly. But when I tasted William’s blood myself it was as though the power was many times stronger still. I remember William’s astonishment at the ease with which I killed his men. My body could scarcely contain it. Thankfully, it lasted but a few moments.”
“By God,” he said, full of wonder. “I am sorry I ever doubted you.”
The chamber door opened beside us and one of the king’s men came bustling out carrying a bundle of scrolls, begged our pardon and walked by.
“Let us take some air, Richard,” the Archbishop said and before I could reply he had hitched up his robes and charged off toward the stairs. He barged the king’s attendant out of the way, sending scrolls bouncing all over the place. I heard him laughing as he ran.
Following the trail of startled servants, I caught up with the Archbishop in the palace gardens. He had his legs planted wide, hands on his hips looking up at the sky. It was a cool day but the air was crisp and clear.
“You have a gift, Richard,” he said as I drew near to him.
“I wonder,” I said. “Perhaps it is a curse? For William and I are the same. And William is evil.”
The Archbishop turned to me and his face was full of joy. “I do not believe that this could be an evil thing.”
“And yet,” I said. “If William and I drink human blood, we become even stronger than we are.” I explained what had happened in the cavern. My burns and how I healed them.
He shook his head in wonder. “God is so very mysterious.”
“You asked how I could abandon the children,” I said. “The truth is that I wonder if I am a danger to them.”
“But you would not harm children, Richard. You saved them. You are a good man.”
I said nothing.
“Perhaps William is cursed,” the Archbishop said. “But perhaps God has given yo
u this gift so that you may stop him. So that you may be a perfect counter to his evil.”
“I am not that good, Archbishop,” I said. “His evil knows no bounds and I myself am full of sin.”
“Then be as good as you can,” he said. “We are all sinners but it was you who was given this gift. Whatever God’s reasons, take comfort in knowing that he has a plan for you.”
I suppose I felt comforted. I thanked him.
“You say this shall last less than one week?” he asked.
“It will fade until you are just as you were before,” I said.
“Do you know,” the Archbishop said. “I have not run like I just did since… I do not know that I ever ran before in all my life. Even when I was a boy. Do you know what else I have never done? Swam in the sea. Care to join me?”
In those days no one swam. I laughed. “They will call us madmen,” I said, grinning. “And I do not know how.”
“I am the Archbishop and soon I shall be dead. I care only what God thinks of me. And we shall learn how. Come on, you coward. Race you there.”
He lived almost two more years. The last time I saw him, he was wasted away into nothing, laying in his bed. I offered him more blood and I saw he was tempted but he refused. I mourned him.
After I had climbed from that cavern of blood, I stayed in Outremer, Cyprus and the lands of Byzantium for seven more years. Always I was moving from place to place, living in cities for months or even years, listening for tales of blood. God knows, there enough of those but none led to William.
King Henry of Jerusalem died, tumbling from a window like an idiot. There were whispers of assassination but drunks often come to foolish ends. The new king, my liege lord, did not know me and was irritated by my existence. A steady stream of knights and other madmen arrived in Outremer, my few acquaintances died or returned to Europe and I saw new faces everywhere.
I was tired. Tired of the Holy Land. Tired of hiding from the world and of watching it go by without having any real part of it or having any significant connection with anyone. Tired of loneliness. I had grown sick of the heat, of the dust and the memories but still I waited for William to show himself again. Certainly, he could not have gone to any of the vast Plantagenet lands for King Richard would have had him arrested.