God's Warrior

by Hilary Green

  17.

  THE CASTLE OF MARAT 1119.

  The stars had faded above the castle of Marat and the sky beyond the small window paled with the first light of dawn. Marc d’Ambray drained the last drops of watered wine from his cup and stretched. His throat was dry and his muscles cramped from sitting so long. He looked across the bed, half expecting the boy who sat opposite to have fallen asleep; but he was leaning forward, his eyes fixed with an almost painful intensity on the still face of the man between them. Becoming aware that Marc had stopped speaking, he looked up.

  ‘And so he proved – a doughty warrior indeed. Thank you for telling me so much. I feel … I feel I begin to know him.’

  Marc studied the young face. There was something incongruous about it, something that tugged at his memory with a disconcerting hint of familiarity. Yet he knew they had not met until two days earlier. Then it came to him. It was the eyes. The boy’s hair was dark and his skin olive, like most of his compatriots; but the eyes were as blue as the desert sky. And at that moment they were bright with unshed tears. Marc sat forward, his drowsiness vanishing.

  ‘We have sat together for two nights, and I have never asked your name.’

  ‘It’s Pedros. You would say Peter.’

  ‘And your father’s name?’

  The boy looked down. ‘For most of my life I have believed it was Hamid bin Ismael. It was only two years ago that I learned otherwise.’

  ‘And your mother?’

  ‘I never knew her. She died giving birth to me. But her name was Mariam.’

  ‘Then …?’ Marc let the sentence hang in the air.

  Pedros reached out and laid his hand over the one that lay inert on the blanket. ‘Then, from what you have told me, I believe this is my father.’

  ‘But how is this possible? Ranulph received a letter, the very day we entered Jerusalem, telling him that his wife was dead in childbed, and the infant with her.’

  ‘I have been told that I was born too early, and was not expected to live. But the doctor you spoke of, Ibn Butlan, took me and found a wet nurse for me, and somehow I survived. I grew up in the household of Firouz bin Dmitri, together with, as I thought, my two brothers and my sister. But I began to realise that my brothers and I were not alike in many ways. For one thing, they were circumcised and I was not. One day, I plucked up the courage to ask Firouz why that was, and he told me that my father was not Hamid, but a Christian knight who had come to Antioch in the retinue of Prince Bohemond. He wooed and married my mother after Hamid was killed, but left with the other Franks when they set out for Jerusalem.’

  ‘But I don’t understand. Why didn’t Firouz write to Ranulph to tell him his son had survived?’

  ‘He believed that he must have been killed, either in the first assault on the city or soon afterwards. He said that otherwise he would surely have returned to Antioch to claim the gold he had left with his wife and which was now in Firouz’s care.’

  ‘But Ranulph wrote to him, telling him he did not intend to return, and asking him to care for you and your sister and brothers and giving him the use of the money for your education.’

  Pedros frowned. ‘I never heard of such a letter. I think it can never have been delivered.’

  Marc lifted his shoulders in a small shrug. ‘That is not unlikely. In those disturbed times it would be easy for a letter to go astray.’ He hesitated a moment, then went on, ‘I do not mean to doubt you, but do you have any proof of what you have just told me?’

  The boy tugged at the collar of his tunic and reached inside for something that hung on a chain round his neck. He pulled the chain over his head and held the object out to Marc. ‘Firouz told me that my father gave this to my mother before he left.’

  He opened his hand and Marc drew a quick breath. On the boy’s palm lay the magnificent ruby which Bohemond had given to Ranulph, as a reward for his part in the conquest of Antioch.

  ‘It is true then. You are Ranulph’s son.’ He sighed and shook his head. ‘It is a great misfortune that that letter never arrived. But tell me, if you believed him dead, what brought you here?’

  ‘Once I knew the true identity of my father I was eager to find out all I could about him. Firouz told me some of what you have repeated to me, except the part he played in letting the Franks into the city. I think he preferred not to speak of that.’

  ‘Understandably, in view of the consequences,’ Marc said.

  ‘I began to ask around. There were plenty of people who remembered my father. They spoke of his kindness and his great learning, as well as his courage in battle. The more I learned, the more I wished I could have known him. I even went to Prince Tancred to ask if he knew anything of him.

  When I told him that I believed my father had been killed he said ‘Dead, is he? Are you sure? That’s the first I’ve heard of it.’ That set me to wondering. I had not met anyone who could tell me definitely that he was dead. I decided that I must go to Jerusalem to find out for certain. Then, I heard that Prince Tancred had given permission for your brotherhood to set up a hospital in this castle. I knew that my father had been interested in medicine. Ibn Butlan was long dead by then, but there were still men at his hospital who remembered my father. I had even been shown some of the books he had given them.’

  ‘Books he looted from Kerbogha’s tent,’ Marc interjected.

  The boy nodded. ‘I know that now. I thought that if anyone remembered him and knew what had happened to him, it would be amongst the brotherhood. So I came here. But when I arrived the whole castle was in an uproar because the message had been received that King Baldwin was coming with an army to relieve the siege of Zerdana, and preparations were being made to receive him. No one had time to answer my questions. I heard someone mention Sir Ranulph and I saw him for the first time, so when the army set out for Zerdana I followed. I made myself useful where I could and no one questioned why I was there.’

  ‘You are wearing the tabard of a lay brother,’ Marc pointed out.

  Pedros blushed slightly. ‘There was a lay brother who was in the hospital, too ill to go with the others. I … borrowed his tabard. Was it very wrong of me?’

  ‘Forgivable, under the circumstances,’ Marc said, with a faint smile. ‘But you put yourself in great danger.’

  ‘I know that now, but I had never seen a battle. I followed the army until we heard that Zerdana had fallen, and then came the retreat to Hab and that terrible struggle – and the rest you know.’

  Marc shook his head sadly. ‘What a tangled story. But why did you not speak to Ranulph while you had the chance?’

  ‘I was … afraid. I knew he had taken Holy Orders and I thought that perhaps he did not want anyone to know he had a child.’

  ‘My dear boy, he would have rejoiced in the knowledge.’

  The tears the boy had been suppressing brimmed over. ‘I have so longed to meet him, and to receive a father’s blessing. If only I had come sooner …’

  Marc reached across and touched his arm. ‘Do not despair. He may yet recover. God is merciful. I pray that He will spare you both to enjoy each other’s company for many years yet.’

  ‘Amen.’

  Marc had closed his eyes in prayer and the whisper was so faint and dry that for a moment he thought it was no more than the desert wind stirring the rushes on the floor. Then Pedros gave a convulsive sob and dropped to his knees beside the bed. Marc looked at his old friend’s face. Ranulph’s eyes were open, and his fingers had curled round the boy’s hand, enclosing within their clasp the priceless jewel he had given Mariam as a talisman.

  Historical Note.

  The events in this book are based on historical fact, I have merely inserted my fictional characters among them. The story of the First Crusade is recorded by a number of medieval chroniclers, including the anonymous Gesta Francorum, William of Tyres Historia Ierosolimitana , and the writings of Fulcher of Chartres.; the deeds of the Emperor Alexios Comnenus are recorded in his daughter Anna's 'Alexiad'. Boh
emond was a real person, as were Raymond of Toulouse, Tancred and the other Christian leaders. The siege of Antioch took place as described in this novel and historical records tell us that the city walls were finally breached due to the help of an Armenia Christian resident called Firouz.

  Further reading:

  The First Crusade, the Call from the East – by Peter Francopan, published by Bodley Head -2012.

  God's War – by Christopher Tyerman, published by Penguin in 2007.

  The First Crusade, a New History – by Thomas Ashbridge published by OUP, 2004.

  Medicine in the Time of the Crusades – by Piers D. Mitchell, published by Cambridge 2002