Knightfall--The Infinite Deep

by DAVID B. COE

  The Turcopole left him, and he curled up on his blanket. His ribs ached. The pain of his shattered nose radiated through his entire face, and the knot on the back of his head was tender.

  But the hold was silent, save for quiet breathing.

  He raised his head, peered through the shadows until he spotted the girl. She lay nearby – closer than he’d expected. She was sound asleep. Her father was on the other ship, as distracted as a man could be.

  He sat up.

  “Is something the matter, Egan?”

  He started, his head whipping around in the direction of the voice. The young, dark-haired knight – Landry – sat on the stairs leading to the deck.

  “No, I—I’m just trying to get comfortable.”

  The knight didn’t say a word. He didn’t smile or nod. He just stared.

  Egan rolled onto his other side, groaning as he did, and lowered himself onto the blanket. But now that he knew the Templar watched him, he couldn’t bring himself to close his eyes. He felt the man’s gaze as he would twin sword-points pressed into his back, and he held himself still.

  But he seethed.

  You won’t always be watching, Templar. And I swear, I will find other ways to strike back at you.

  Cunning and patience. These he would need to have his revenge. As it happened, they were qualities he possessed in abundance.

  * * *

  Landry was still awake when Simon returned to the ship.

  He remained in the hold, near the stairway, where he could watch both Egan and Adelina. Simon trod lightly on the steps, and appeared surprised to see Landry awake and keeping watch.

  “Has something happened?” he whispered. Before Landry could answer, he surveyed the hold, taking note of where his daughter slept, and where Egan had bedded down. “Did he do anything to her?”

  “No,” Landry said. He nearly mentioned seeing Egan look over at the girl, and his sense that the thief meant her harm. But he had no proof of this, and no desire to trouble Simon without need. “I didn’t like the idea of the two of them being down here without anyone watching over her.”

  In the shifting light from the torches on deck, Landry saw Simon’s cheeks shade to crimson. He hadn’t meant his words as a rebuke, but he understood how the man might take them as such, in particular from a Templar.

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “I shouldn’t have—”

  They spoke in unison, broke off at the same time. Landry smiled. Simon didn’t.

  “I make no judgment,” Landry said. “Nor did I mean to imply otherwise. I saw Egan go below. I followed. It was as simple as that.”

  Simon nodded, his color still high. “Thank you.” He faltered, and Landry thought he might say more. But he crossed to Adelina and knelt beside her. After adjusting her blanket, he kissed her forehead and lay down near her. Landry regarded Egan. Convinced that the man slept, he climbed to the deck and found a place to sleep as well.

  The night passed without incident. The Templars rose with the dawn and spoke their morning prayers. The crew of the Melitta stirred a short time later, and before long both ships bustled with activity. Again, Killias offered food to the knights and their passengers, and Godfrey accepted on their behalf, thanking the captain for his generosity.

  The men and women on the Tern made their way over to the galley. Egan lagged behind, but crossed over as well, his gait stiff, the bruises on his face stark in the light of day.

  The morning meal was far more modest than that which they’d enjoyed the previous night, but it was still ample, especially when compared with what they had eaten in recent days.

  After eating, the Templars, the strongest of their passengers, and a good number of crewmen from the Melitta, made their way to the Tern and commenced work on the broken mast.

  The Melitta’s carpenter repaired the damaged spar, and oversaw the sealing of the spot where the spar had punched through the Tern’s deck.

  Next, they worked on the mast itself. The wood of the mast had splintered badly, rendering both the bottom end of the broken piece and the top of the base unusable. The carpenter had men saw off these shattered segments. Using a hatchet, he notched the new ends so they would fit together.

  The men under his supervision then took positions along the length of the broken mast, intent on lifting it high enough to fit it back onto the base. It promised to be a herculean task. Landry took his place among the company of men preparing to make the attempt, but Draper stopped him.

  “Your arm is not ready,” the Turcopole told him.

  “It feels fine.” A lie, but the wound pained him far less than it had.

  Draper smirked, clearly not fooled by the statement. “I’m sure it does. Nevertheless, I cannot allow you to do this.”

  “I do not need your permission, brother.”

  “No, but you do need Godfrey’s. Please do not force me to involve him. We have plenty of men, Landry. For once. Do not risk further injury for nothing.”

  What answer could he make to such a plea?

  He stepped aside so that another might take his place, and joined Gawain at the rail.

  “We’ve been reduced to spectators,” Gawain said.

  “Not by choice.”

  “No. Draper ordered me away. I didn’t know he could do that.”

  Landry chuckled. “I’m not sure he can.”

  Gawain answered with a rare grin. “Yet, here we stand.”

  An older man coated the top of the base and the notched end of the mast with ship’s tar. Then, amid grunts, and a few expletives from the crew of the Melitta, the men lifted the mast and set it onto the base. The notches fit together perfectly.

  Several men encircled the mast, holding it up. Others scrambled among them, using hammers and nails to brace the junction of the two pieces with wooden boards. More men followed, securing these pieces with thin rope and coating the rope and wood with still more tar. At last, all stepped away from the mast. It held. Landry stepped forward and tested its strength. Godfrey and Killias did the same. It felt as firm as it ever had. It wasn’t quite as tall as it had been, but it would do.

  “I do not believe it can weather a storm,” Killias said. “I would not even hazard raising your sail in a powerful wind. But for most days…” He paused to gesture at the clear sky, the open sea. “For a day like this one – it should serve you well.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” Godfrey said. “Perhaps, then, we should take our leave.”

  “Certainly we can uncouple our ships. But I think it best that we escort you.” At a questioning look from the commander, Killias said, “Well, you have depleted our stores. We’re as much in need of a port as you are.” He flashed a grin, drawing one in turn from Godfrey. “These are dangerous waters, Templar. For any ship, but particularly one as small as yours. I wouldn’t wish to see you and your passengers come to harm, and thus waste all that food we’ve given you.”

  “We’ll be grateful for your company, and your protection. I know that I speak for all aboard the Tern when I say that, before you found us, we were sorely in need of a change of fortune. Your arrival gave us that and more. You were an answer to prayers. We are in your debt, and will never forget all you’ve done for us.”

  “Well, the less you say of this to others you encounter, the happier I’ll be. The Melitta has a reputation to uphold. It wouldn’t do for my rival captains to learn of how soft I’ve become.”

  “Oh, they know, Father,” Melitta said, drawing laughs from men and women on both ships.

  Landry enjoyed the repartee with the rest, but he happened to glimpse Egan’s bruised face as the laughter continued. What he saw there chilled him to his heart. The man’s glower, directed at all of them – Melitta and Killias, Godfrey and the other knights, Simon and Adelina – conveyed pure venom. He hated every person on the two ships. Landry wondered what devilry a man nurturing such hatred might wreak.

  Egan shifted his small, dark eyes in Landry’s direction. Realizing that he was wa
tched, he schooled his features and looked away. But Landry had seen enough. For the rest of their voyage, wherever it took them, he would keep watch on Egan. Their survival, he believed, depended on no less.

  Working quickly, the two crews removed the planks that had joined the ships. The Melitta’s men raised their sails. Under Tancrede’s watchful eye, the knights of the Tern did the same with their sail and the newly mended mast. The sail billowed with a light gust of wind, and the ship surged forward. The mast groaned in complaint, but it held and the ship cut a path in the Melitta’s wake.

  They headed north and east, their destination now the same as it was before the storm struck: Rhosus, on the shore of Cilician Armenia, near the grand city of Alexandretta. The journey would take them near Aleppo, a city that had, in recent years, seen even more bloodshed than Acre. Landry expected that they would approach Rhosus from due west, and thus avoid sailing too close to Mamluk-held territory.

  While the ships sailed separately, they remained in close proximity, and sailors from both vessels used a skiff from the galley to shuttle from one to the other. In this way, romances that had bloomed the night before continued. Melitta joined Simon and Adelina on the Tern, much to the silent consternation of Egan, whom Landry kept under constant observation.

  “Are you their guardian?”

  Perched on the rail, Landry turned at the sound of the voice. Tancrede had strayed forward from the stern.

  “Shouldn’t you be steering the ship?”

  The knight shrugged. “Thomas has the rudder right now. As long as he follows the Melitta, we should be all right.”

  Landry nodded and swung his gaze back to Egan.

  “He’s been humiliated, Landry,” Tancrede said. “Melitta took all the fight out of him. You don’t need to watch him every moment of every day.”

  “Perhaps. You didn’t see him earlier. He was… I fear there is more fight left in him than you might think, twisted now by his shame and his bitterness.”

  “He’s but one man. What do you think he can do?”

  “I don’t know. He might not even know. Not yet. But we would be remiss if we ignored the danger.” He glanced back, his eyes finding Tancrede’s. “I have nothing better to do while I heal. I can spare some of my time to keep an eye on the man. But promise me that you’ll do the same if my attention is elsewhere. There’s darkness in him, Tancrede. I see it growing. Promise me.”

  “Very well. You have my word.”

  “Thank you.”

  Landry shifted again, and stretched his tender shoulder. All the while, he continued to mark Egan’s every movement, every shift in his expression. He might have been wasting time and effort, as Tancrede insisted. But he thought otherwise. He didn’t fear that Egan might seek vengeance. He knew it would happen, just as he knew that the sun would set in the evening and rise again come dawn. Landry’s fear was that he would not be prepared to stop Egan when the time came.

  Chapter 8

  They sighted land two days later: Cyprus again. Killias wished to make land there, but at Godfrey’s urging, they sailed past the isle and continued northward toward the land of the Turks. They encountered one other ship along the way. It appeared to be a merchant vessel. Upon sighting the Melitta, this other ship altered its course and fled, reminding Landry of what Killias had said two days before.

  The Melitta has a reputation…

  It seemed they had been more fortunate than they knew in gaining the friendship of Killias and his sailors. No doubt the captain meant what he said when first they met the ship. He wished to be rewarded by the Templars, and he would expect handsome compensation.

  Not long after they navigated around Cyprus, they caught sight of a much larger landmass to the north and east, which they assumed must be Anatolia. Killias’s galley might have reached her shores within a day, but the captain had his sailors keep pace with the Tern, prolonging their voyage substantially.

  Landry grew ever more watchful as they approached the Turkish coast. He expected Egan to strike at Simon or Adelina before they made land. He didn’t.

  Indeed, the closer they drew to land, the more withdrawn he became, until he appeared to take no notice of the Templars or his fellow passengers. Except for those rare occasions when someone spoke to him directly, he said not a word. He took food. He tolerated Draper’s ministrations to his injuries. When he wasn’t asleep in the hold, he sat along the rail, staring out at the sea, seemingly oblivious of all that happened around him.

  Observing this, Landry questioned what he thought he had seen earlier in their voyage. Had Tancrede been right all along? Had the beating Egan suffered at Melitta’s hand been enough to knock the fight out of him? Eventually, as they neared land and Landry’s thoughts turned to what they might find on shore, his vigilance slackened.

  Late in the second day after passing Cyprus, they followed the Melitta through the Armenian Bay and into a moon-shaped harbor. Mountains loomed in the distance, their dry slopes gilded by the setting sun. The town along the water’s edge was a good deal larger than the one they had seen on Cyprus. Stone buildings rose from the lanes, graced with elegant, domed towers and soaring archways.

  The Melitta struck its sails and went to sweeps. At Tancrede’s urging, Godfrey ordered the Tern to do the same. As before, Landry remained by the hatch so that he could relay instructions from Tancrede to those pulling the oars. Before long, they had steered the ship to a wharf and tied in. The Tern’s passengers gathered by the starboard rail, eager to be off the ship.

  Godfrey called for them to wait, and led the other Templars onto the deck.

  “We cannot know what we’ll find here,” he said. “I hope, and even expect, that we’ll be safe, but after what happened at Cyprus we would be foolish to assume that all will be well. You can leave the ship – I have no authority to hold you here. But I would urge you to stay close, so that if something happens, we can protect you. We will try to secure food, and we will also inquire about where it might be safe to leave you permanently.”

  “Leave us?” Simon said. “Why wouldn’t we continue to sail with you?”

  “Because as long as you sail with Templars, you are on a ship of war. It isn’t safe for any of you, your daughter least of all. I’m certain I speak for all my brothers when I say that we have no desire to part company. But it is for the best.”

  Displeasure creased Simon’s forehead, and showed on the faces of many of the other passengers as well. But none of them argued. Egan held himself apart and gave no indication that he heard any of what was said. When the rest of the passengers disembarked, he walked with them.

  After watching them go, Godfrey turned back to his fellow Templars.

  “Do you know this town?” he asked Draper.

  “I know of it, but that is all. My family has its roots in a village near Smyrna, more than one hundred leagues from here.”

  “Will you be able to speak to those who don’t know French?”

  Draper lifted a shoulder again. “Perhaps. There are many dialects in my language, and they vary widely from the western shore to the eastern. Still, I should be able to make out some, if not all, of what they say.”

  “Anything you can do to make them understand us will be helpful.” Addressing all of them once more, he said, “Our first task is to replenish our provisions, food and healing herbs both. We don’t have much that we can use as currency, but the Cilicians see their land as an outpost of Christendom, and they have long supported the Crusade and its warriors. Once we locate a church, we might prevail upon them to help us. They’ll know that we can repay. Still, after the ‘welcome’ we received in Cyprus, we should be cautious. I would rather not linger in this town. The sooner we can reach Bagras, the better off we will be.”

  “I see a cross,” Tancrede said, pointing toward the city. “I believe we should start there.”

  “Agreed.”

  They left the ship together, their tabards announcing them as Templars and drawing stares from people they p
assed on the wharf, and then on the stone lane fronting it. Landry’s hand crept repeatedly to the hilt of his sword, but he resisted the impulse to draw his weapon. He and Tancrede flanked Godfrey. Draper and Thomas walked ahead of them. Gawain and the others strode behind.

  As they marched deeper into the town, more people took notice of them. A few spoke, and though Landry understood nothing of what they said, he recognized the tone. Where he had expected hostility, he found instead curiosity, and even signs of friendship. The Templars’ weapons and armor, and most obviously the blood-red crosses on their chests, left no doubt as to who and what they were. While in the Holy Land, Landry had grown accustomed to the hostility of men and women he encountered in lanes and marketplaces. It had been too long since his presence last drew smiles and words of greeting.

  As he and his brother Templars marched on to the church, Landry allowed his hand to hang by his side, near his sword still, but no longer hovering at the hilt.

  The church Tancrede had spied was modest, but as graceful in design as so many of Rhosus’s other structures. Its façade consisted of three stone arches, the middle one tallest. A single tower rose above this middle archway, and was crowned by the stone cross they saw from the ship. Broad stone steps led to twin doors beneath the central camber.

  Godfrey paused at the bottom of the stairway, eyes raised to the cross. “We shouldn’t all go in,” he said. “I don’t want them to feel that they’re under assault. Draper, Tancrede, Landry, you will accompany me inside. Gawain, you shall have command of the men who remain out here. We seek no conflict with anyone in Rhosus, but if a threat should arise, return to the ship and leave these shores.”

  “Without you?”

  “We should be safe within the church.”

  “Very well,” Gawain said, disapproval tingeing the words.

  Godfrey led them up the stairs and pushed through the doors.

  Within, the church was dimly lit and spare, but welcoming. It consisted of a small nave, shallow transepts, and a simple square chancel. The altar, constructed of stone, stood at the end of the chancel, beneath a rounded window of milky glass. Candles burned at intervals throughout the church, illuminating the only adornments: brightly colored frescoes on either side of the altar, one a representation of Christ and His disciples, the other depicting the Savior on the Cross.