by Dan Davis
Two men were arguing, and the others were glaring or grinning. At a glance, I knew they were drunk. Most did not have a weapon drawn, and only two held their swords ready. Others gripped daggers. One man had a remarkably ornate mace with a steel shaft that he had no doubt looted from somewhere in the city.
My sword sliced him across the neck before he had time to flinch and I slashed at two more, roaring at them as I shouldered my way through. I was fast, and loud in the enclosed space, and they leapt back to let me through.
While they stood momentarily dumbfounded, I heaved one of the front doors shut.
That snapped them into action and they came at me, suddenly understanding I wanted to trap them inside with me.
I slashed wildly, back and forth, connecting with an arm, a helm. A thrown dagger bounced off the door beside my head and clanged on the paved, bloody floor.
And then my own followers crashed into the Mongols from behind. Eva’s first cut took a man’s head from his shoulders in a single blow. Khutulun, screaming in joy, sliced a man’s face open from ear to ear, then shoved his falling body towards her brother to finish off while she leapt into the next enemy.
We made short work of them, and they were soon lying dead or dying in the darkness of the entrance hall.
“Do not finish that one,” I said to Thomas, as he stalked over to a man crawling away. I called out to my people. “Drink what blood you need, then throw the bodies with the others into the storeroom.”
“Bodies give bad smell,” Orus said. “We throw from roof into alley, yes?”
He was a truly gifted fighter but, unlike his sister, he was not the sharpest tool in the box. “That would attract attention, Orus. The storeroom, please.”
Orus shrugged, slung one filthy dead Mongol onto his shoulder with graceful ease, and strode off.
“Should we save the blood?” Thomas asked.
“No need. We will be seeing plenty more soon, I am certain.”
“What do you want with him?” Hassan asked, coming up and pointing with his dagger at the prisoner.
“Get him to tell us where Hulegu is,” I ordered Hassan.
The Assassin was sceptical. “This one is a nothing. He will not know where his lord is.”
“Get him to tell you everything he has heard. How long were they given to sack the city? Tear it out of him.”
Hassan’s eyes were cold when he nodded and stalked toward the dazed Mongol.
A cry echoed from above.
“Richard!”
It was Stephen, shouting so loudly that his voice cracked. I took the steps up the inside of the minaret three at a time.
“What is it?” I called as I ran. “Is it Hulegu?”
Stephen had his face pressed against the ornate stonework carving in the corner, staring out at something, his hands planted on the stone either side.
“He is gone,” Stephen said as I came up behind him.
“Who has gone?” I asked, dragging Stephen away from the window and pushing my face where his had just been. The city beyond thronged with Mongol troops. “Who, Stephen?”
“Well, I do not know for certain,” he began. “I thought that I saw a knight—”
“Where?” I said. “Was it William? Did he look like me? What did he look like? Where, Stephen? Where?”
“Down by the path to the palace. I may well be wrong… in fact, it is quite likely that I am mistaken. It may be that I have been looking down for so long that my mind’s eye has deceived me—”
I turned, grabbed him by the shoulders and jammed him against the wall. “Who did you see?” I snarled in his face.
He swallowed. “Sir Bertrand. Possibly. That is, Bertrand de Cardaillac, and possibly also Hughues, his squire. But, surely, that cannot be—”
I leapt away from him back down those damned steps. “Come on, you fool,” I shouted over my shoulder. “Everyone, to me,” I repeated my call to my men to assemble in the entrance hall.
The bodies of the Mongol troops and their weapons littered the floor.
Hassan looked up from where his prisoner was propped against the wall. “What is it?”
“Kill that one and take his coat,” I said. “Get the coats from all of them, and their helms and the hats.” My people filed in from all over the house, asking each other what was happening. “Everyone, clothe yourself in the enemy’s garb. We are going to leave this place, seize one or two men, and bring them back here. Stephen, Abdullah, you close the doors behind us and guard the building.”
Stephen was appalled. “What if the enemy break in again? If it is only Abdullah and I—”
“You are an immortal now, Stephen,” I snapped. “Take up a weapon, use your strength, remember your training. Defend this place until we return.”
“Why go and take another one?” Thomas asked, pointing at Hassan’s now-dead prisoner. “We had a perfectly good one already.”
They busied themselves stripping the bodies and trying on the stinking, blood-soaked clothes of the Mongol men.
“Stephen saw Bertrand de Cardaillac heading for the palace,” I said.
He stammered. “I am not certain what I saw. It may be that—”
Thomas froze, his arm halfway into a Mongol coat. “Why in the name of God would he be here?”
“It makes perfect sense,” I said. “My brother William has brought him. Him and his squire. He had him prisoner in Karakorum, did he not? The night he killed Nikolas and stabbed you, Thomas.”
“I remember,” Thomas said, his jaw set. “Hulegu promised to let the monks go free, and Bertrand was their escort.”
I shook my head. “William would never let a man like Bertrand go free. He would use him, make him a follower.”
Eva spoke up. “He would turn him.”
“By God,” I said. “You are right. He would have turned him into an immortal. Given him the Gift. Hughues, too. Two more knights to follow him.”
“It is too dangerous out there,” Hassan said, stepping forward. He held a Mongol’s hat and coat but made no move to clothe himself with them. “These disguises will never pass any inspection.”
“We will not stop for any inspection, Hassan,” I said, feeling the red anger burning. “We will go quickly, heads down. Ignore all who speak to us. Orus? If anyone seeks to obstruct us, shout that we are on important business for Hulegu or some other great lord whose name is feared, understand?”
“Bertrand may be a mile away by now,” Thomas said. “We may never find him.”
“We bloody well better find him,” I said, letting my anger show. “Or else all this, everything we have done, will be in vain. He will lead me to William, do you not see it? And William will lead us to Hulegu. And all of them will die. You are all coming with me, and we will all have our vengeance. Agreed?” I stared at each of them in turn. “Agreed? Agreed?”
One by one, they acquiesced.
“We will stay together. We will keep moving. We will not allow ourselves to be cornered. And we will not allow ourselves to be distracted. Understand?”
When we were all cloaked in bloody, stinking Mongol clothing, I led them at a run from the house and into the square where we had hoped to lay our ambush. No enemies in sight but their shouts and the screams of their victims echoed from the walls. The sun was bright and my immortals flinched from it, shielding their eyes.
I sensed that my terrible plan was already falling to pieces but, despite what Thomas believed, God cares nothing for a man’s intentions and hopes, and so we must accept disasters and respond swiftly to overcome them. We followed the wall of the house and crossed to the huge madrasa on the other side, heading for the path that led to the entrance of the palace. It would have been quicker to cross directly but I wanted to avoid detection from anyone for as long as was possible.
At the edge of the building, I peered around the corner at the pathway, lined with ornamental trees. A large band of soldiers filled the grand entrance, many lounging on the steps or against the walls. Others car
ried loot from inside the palace. A group carried piles of clothes and other silks to a row of carts in the open forecourt. A trail of dry blood stained the stones of the path and continued into the light dust of the courtyard. It led to a pile of bodies tossed against the wall of the palace. The building rose up three or four storeys high above, with window after window reaching up to the roof above, each one with intricately patterned stonework jutting over the arches.
Could Bertrand truly be within? Even if he was now one of William’s men, how could he walk freely through a company of drunken, looting Mongols?
If he was within, he was certainly my best hope of finding William himself, for surely Bertrand would know where he was. But how could I storm such a place with so few men of my own? How many were inside? Twenty? Fifty?
Although there were dozens of palaces in Baghdad, and this was a small one, it was perhaps a madness that drove me to head into the palace, an enclosed space full of looting Mongol soldiers. Taking all my followers down that path and into the palace was likely to end in disaster, surely.
“Wait here,” I said to my people. After all my talk of staying together at all costs, they stared at me in surprise. “I will draw Bertrand and Hughues out, and lead them here where we will take them. Disburse yourself about here and fall on them from all sides.”
Eva moved in front of me. “We stay together. Do you recall the last time you went into an enemy force alone?”
“No,” I admitted.
She punched me in the chest. “Forty years ago, you went into that village alone in Nottingham to rescue me. And you were captured, and I had my throat slit.”
“But that was a trap, laid to lure me in.”
She tilted her head. “What makes you think this is not?”
I froze, astonished that the thought had not even occurred to me.
Reaching my hand out, I stroked her cheek. “Truly, my love, I would be dead a dozen times over, if you were not at my side. What would I do without you?”
She did not smile at the compliment, as any other woman would have done. Instead, she slapped my hand away. “You are a bloody fool, Richard.”
I laughed, because the battle thirst was upon me, and she could tell that was so.
“Orus?” I called. “You will come with me. We will lure the enemy into the square. And the rest of you will cut them down, do you hear me? Kill them all. We want Bertrand or Hughues, and we want them to tell us where to find William, and Hulegu. Come, Orus.”
We strode toward the Mongols, who had not yet noticed us.
“Kill them?” Orus asked, with a hand on his sword.
“Tell them that a gaggle of Saracen princesses are fleeing across the city and that you need help killing their guards. Do you understand? Tell them a dozen Saracen maidens are making a run for it, across the square, and they have their wealth with them. Do you see, Orus?”
A cunning smile stretched across his handsome face.
After a moment to compose himself, he ran forward raising his arms out at his side and began shouting at the men in an agitated voice. He jabbered and roared at them. The sharpest few came to him with their swords drawn but Orus did not respond to their threats, other than to beg and plead in the barbarian tongue for them to help him to take this great prize which was getting away, just out of sight, so close, so close.
I watched the hunger light up their eyes, and more and more jumped to their feet and dropped what they were carrying. A handful more came out from within the entranceway. I kept my head lowered so that my Mongol hat would shield my face from them. Some were wary, but they were overcome by the greed filled amongst them, who dragged them forward. Orus kept on at the stragglers, no doubt urging that they needed every man. The first moved by me and I backed away, making myself smaller and meeker. A few barked words at me and I bobbed my head and mimicked the gestures that I observed the Mongols making in my time at Karakorum and on the steppe. No one troubled me, for they were hurrying to seize their prize before it escaped.
I slid by them, sidling to the palace entrance where those too drunk or too lazy remained. Orus tried to rouse them but I clapped him on the back and told him to cease. The bulk of them were moving away and would soon feel the blades of my people cutting them down. But some would no doubt escape, and there were many more nearby and within, so we had to move quickly now.
Orus followed me and we ducked inside the decorated archway into the entrance hall. It was bright and airy and open, with clear lines and geometric designs in the stonework. The polished floor was littered with detritus and spattered with blood. Rooms led off through high arches in front and to either side. Above, two levels of balconies looked down on us. Two doorways led to stairways that wound up to other storeys above. Banging and crashing noises echoed through the building.
“It is too big,” I said to Orus. “How will we find them??”
He nodded, cupped his hands around his mouth and mimed shouting.
“You bloody heathen madman,” I said. “Why in the name of God would Bertrand come to me if I—” I paused, thinking.
He would not come to me.
I cupped my hands around my mouth and roared. “Bertrand!” My voice echoed from the walls. Did I sound enough like my brother to fool him? I had to hope so. “Bertrand! Hughues!”
Taking a breath, I was about to hurl insults at the man, as I imagined my brother might have done when I stopped myself. Thinking back on Palestine and Sherwood, it seemed as though his men worshipped him. He commanded depths of loyalty and devotion I had seen only in the followers of Richard the Lionheart. It was unseemly and quite profoundly un-English, but there it was. William treated his men with courtesy and addressed them with respect.
“Come down, brothers!” I roared. “I require your presence!”
Orus stared at me with a lopsided grin on his face, and I shoved him across the hall into the archway so that we would be hidden from view. The banging subsided somewhat but three Mongols wandered in from outside and stood together in a group, watching us. Orus raised a friendly hand at them and babbled something. Whatever it was he said, they appeared to be unconvinced and their hands remained on their weapons.
I sighed. “Nothing in this world ever goes according to plan, Orus. I suppose we can at least take comfort in that.”
He smiled, nodding, not understanding me at all.
I pointed at the three Mongols, and then dragged my finger across my throat.
He grinned, drew his sword and charged at the Mongol soldiers. They scattered, but he caught the first one with a thrust to the unarmoured soldier’s lower back, driving him to the steps. It would have been visible to any others outside the palace.
Footsteps resounded on the stone floor behind me, echoing out of the stairway nearest to me. I slipped across the room to place my back against the wall beside the archway and drew my sword, ready to strike down the two or three armoured men who clattered down the steps.
The first man stepped out into the hall. A man dressed in the garb of a Frankish man-at-arms, with his straight-bladed sword at his side, and his helm tucked under his arm. His surcoat was faded, dirty and much-repaired but it was a familiar one.
In fact, I recognised him at once.
Hughues. Bertrand’s squire and cousin.
The second man, which was surely Bertrand himself, stopped within the stairwell, out of my sight.
I willed him to step out also so that I could take them both.
But he did not.
I watched as Hughues peered through the archway and out into the entrance hall where Orus fought with the Mongol soldiers.
Hughues turned back to the stairwell and began to call out in French. “There are merely—”
His eyes widened when he saw me, and I am sure the sight confused him for a moment. Brandishing a curved sword, I wore a Saracen soldier’s armour and clothing, from head to toe, and over the top wore the massive coat of a Mongol rider, with a fur-lined conical hat pulled over my Saracen helm. An
ill-fitting ensemble, with my grimacing face staring out of it. No wonder, then, that the young man was struck by a momentary bafflement.
I leapt into his confusion, charging him with great speed and shouldering him in the chest. He was a big lump of a man and it hurt me, but it would have knocked the wind from him and he flew back off his feet toward the entrance, his helm clanging away. His skull smacked into the floor with a wet thud, like an apple being crushed, and he bounced into motionlessness. I had not intended to murder the man.
Footsteps behind me.
I ducked and twisted away from the blow that was surely coming, turning to face my attacker as I retreated away further into the palace.
Bertrand.
I had forgotten how big he was. His helm obscured his face but I could imagine the look upon it. His sword point danced in the air as he feinted his way closer to me. Neither of us had a shield but his armour was certainly better than mine, and I had a rather light blade with which to attack his. It would have to be my dagger, slipping it beneath his helm or through his eye slits, or up into his groin beneath his hauberk.
Then again, I needed the bastard alive.
He lunged at me to drive me back, then launched a series of rapid cuts at my unprotected face.
So fast.
Any doubt that he had been granted the Gift was now gone. He was certainly one of William’s immortals.
And now that our strength and speed was closer to equal, I could truly appreciate his skill as a swordsman. Bertrand was an emotional, prideful man but he did not fight with emotion. Instead, he attacked with controlled, precise cuts and thrusts, the point of his sword searching for gaps in my defence. My sword blade was shorter and was not designed for the thrust, and I parried and retreated. Even if I had been armed and armoured in my native style, I would likely still have been outmatched by his skill.
His point glanced off the top of my helm as I mistimed a lunging thrust at his lead knee and I shifted away as he followed up to keep me off-balance. Another cut struck me on the shoulder and I changed direction again to avoid being cornered. Frustration and fear began to surge inside me. A terror and anger that I would die an ignominious death at the hands of an arrogant Frenchman. That rage gave me strength to turn his sword and slip inside his guard to thrust my sword into the mail at his stomach. The force of it at least caused him to wince and grunt and suddenly he was on the backfoot. To get through his armour, I would have to grapple him to the floor and employ my dagger in a way that would disable but not kill him outright.