The Last Crusade

by S. J. A. Turney

  The great fortress rose like a golden brown crag at the northern edge of the town, the banners of the family hanging motionless above the towers, and the six Templars rode their horses through the quiet early-morning streets at a walk, leading their pack ponies behind. The bakers and other pre-dawn labourers were already at work, but the streets were as yet filled only with stray dogs and scurrying children, each of whom hurried out of the way of the horsemen as they progressed ever higher through the town.

  During the journey, knowing that this would be a direct confrontation and no matter for subterfuge, the six men had once more exchanged their drab clothes for their mantles, the knights riding in gleaming white, the sergeants in black, shields bearing the blazon of the cross on every horse. Once more they had needed to keep the pace slow due to the pack ponies, and had been forced to overnight in a quiet, sleepy little village in the hills.

  Now, as they neared their destination in the dawn light, they each dismounted and led their mounts by the rein. Emerging into a wide square at the crest of the hill, with the daunting gate of the castle before them across the open and dusty space, Arnau’s gaze shot to his left, made aware by some preternatural sense of a potential danger.

  At the edge of the square, where the town ended somewhat abruptly and a single rail fence defined its perimeter, beyond which scrubby grass wasteland marched off into the morning light, figures lurked.

  There was a building close to them that had seen far better days, and the gate through a damaged arch was open. A cart stood outside, half loaded with goods, and three men were busy dragging the sacks from the vehicle, shouldering them, and hefting them in through the gate. It was all innocuous enough, and yet there was something distinctly off about them, something which Arnau could not quite define. It felt as though they had been watching intently and had suddenly gone about innocent business as Arnau looked their way, despite a lack of evidence to the contrary.

  ‘I fear something underhand is afoot,’ he murmured quietly, trying not to look at the three men directly now.

  ‘Our carter friends, you mean?’ Balthesar agreed. ‘Yes, they move with the poise of soldiers, not labourers.’

  ‘And yet I would swear we were not followed,’ Ramon added. ‘Besides, they are here with a cart and we happened upon them, so they cannot have been behind us.’

  ‘Still, something is wrong here,’ Arnau muttered as they crossed the square.

  ‘Be on your guard,’ Balthesar said.

  ‘That was ever my intention, given where we are and who we are to see.’

  The six men closed on the castle. Its massive walls marched off to the left, where they met the sharp cliff that plummeted to the river below. An imposing, drum-like tower of heavy cut stone sat at the centre, a deep arch beside it, blocked with a heavy, studded oak door, the walls stretching right from there to the cliff edge. A bleak façade to a powerful fortress. It did not look welcoming.

  ‘Is this a mistake?’ Arnau asked, voicing a fear that had recurred repeatedly throughout the journey from Rourell.

  ‘How would we progress in any circumspect manner now?’ Balthesar countered. ‘The conspirators, as we understand them, control all the resources that we could use to our advantage. If Castellvell is at the heart of the matter, we may be able to break the whole thing with one single, very direct threat.’

  The old man turned to the squires. ‘If we can secure access to the baron, the three of you will stay with the horses.’

  ‘If…’ began Tristán, but the grey-haired knight cut him off with a raised hand.

  ‘No. Especially you. This will need to be played extremely carefully if we are to succeed, and your particular brand of direct, foot-lodged-in-mouth confrontation could do more harm than good. Do not feel betrayed, Brother Tristán, for a few short years ago I would have left Vallbona here outside for the very same reason.’

  Arnau shot the man a dark look, which only made Balthesar smile even more, but the old man swiftly became serious once again. All business. ‘I would appreciate it if you leave the lead in this to me. I am the most senior knight, and the baron will recognise that and expect such niceties. Moreover, I can have a subtle turn of both speech and mind, while the pair of you are of a more direct nature. That being said, Arnau knows the nobility of Catalunya better than I, and Ramon, you are more familiar with legal aspects, so feel free to both put your oar in if you see the advantage in it.’ The other two nodded, Arnau’s squire glowering at them all from the rear, and Balthesar took a deep breath. ‘Very well, let us walk into the beast’s lair.’

  A bell hung beside the gate, marking this out more as a residence than a fortification, despite the clear strength of the place. The days when Mora d’Ebre had been fought over and battered by conflict were long gone, the war against the Moor now raging far to the south. Still, Arnau reckoned that if push came to shove, the castle of Ebre could be held against a siege with little difficulty.

  No defensive force moved atop the walls, and that did surprise him. His few experiences with the unpleasant baron, each long ago now, suggested that he was not a man to shun strength and protection. Regardless of this being a residence rather than a fortress, surely the baron maintained his force of guards here? The possibility that Castellvell was not here at all struck his mind, something that had strangely not occurred to him throughout the journey to this place.

  ‘What if he’s not at home?’

  Balthesar shook his head. ‘As well as the tower-top pennants, the main flag is flying. The lord is in residence.’

  Arnau nodded. He should have noticed that. He bit down on his nerves, steadying himself as Balthesar reached up and clanged the bell repeatedly. In the tense silence that followed, he found his fingers wandering over to the pommel of his sword, and he removed them deliberately. Threats delivered here would have to be careful and verbal, not backed with steel. Not yet, at least.

  Two figures appeared at the wall top high above the gate, faces enclosed in chain hoods leaning over to peer downwards, gleaming spear points rising into the air as they leaned on the weapons to look over the wall. The faces disappeared and two dozen heartbeats later the muffled sound of clomping footsteps issued from behind the heavy oak door. There was a clunk of two heavy beams being removed and latches and locks being opened and finally the door crept inwards, opening into the dark mouth of a long passageway through to the golden-lit courtyard within.

  Two men in the arms of the Castellvell family stood in the shade, watching the six men carefully.

  ‘What is your business here, sir knights?’

  Balthesar bowed his head respectfully. ‘Myself and my fellow Brothers here would like to request the honour of an audience with the baron.’

  The two men exchanged a strange look, and Arnau found himself frowning, suddenly all the more uncertain. Something was definitely wrong here. The guard told Balthesar to wait, and scurried off, leaving his friend watching them in the arched tunnel. The old knight turned to the others, and the look on his face suggested that he’d noticed the oddness too. Still, the six men waited and after a long, tense and quiet time, the guard reappeared.

  ‘Come with me,’ he said, gesturing for them to follow.

  Balthesar turned to the squires, handing over his reins. ‘Take the horses into the courtyard, but do not tie them. We have no idea what to expect here, and we may need to move at speed.’ He threw a warning look at the remaining guard, who stood silent and inscrutable in the gloom.

  The three men, now devoid of squires and horses, followed Castellvell’s man into the courtyard, then to the left and through a smaller door into the main castle building. Towering three storeys over them, the heavy structure retained signs that it had originally been a Moorish stronghold long before its reconquest, and that impression was borne out as they passed through corridors and halls that were as reminiscent of Cordoba or Mayūrqa as anything, all intricate patterns, horseshoe arches and delicate design.

  Up wide stairs they were led,
and finally into a corridor where another guard stood by a door. Arnau had been surprised to have seen no other soldier on their journey through the castle, and precious few servants too, for that matter. When he had previously seen the baron, the man had always been accompanied by a force of troops and a veritable army of attendants, all pomp and grandeur. This apparent ascetic lack of defence and ostentation seemed uncharacteristic.

  ‘Please leave your blades here,’ the guard said. Arnau might have considered arguing, but there was something calm and respectful in the guard’s voice that he had really not expected and that manner disarmed him every bit as much as handing over his sword did.

  At Balthesar’s gesture, the knights each unbuckled their swords and passed them to the guard, who coughed as though embarrassed. ‘And the rondels and misericordes, if you would, sir knights.’

  Frowning, Arnau withdrew his knife, the blade they each kept for finishing off the mortally wounded, capable of slipping between the plates or links of armour and delivering a swift and certain killing blow. The guard placed all six weapons on a low stone bench to the side of the corridor and, finally satisfied, nodded. Stepping past the other soldier, he rapped on the door. A muffled murmur emerged from the far side, and the guard pushed the door open and stepped inside.

  ‘The brothers of the Temple,’ he announced, taking a pace aside to allow the knights to enter.

  Arnau allowed Balthesar to take the lead, and Ramon entered second, the youngest of the trio bringing up the rear. As he stepped into the large room and moved left to stand beside the others, his eyes widened in surprise.

  The room was everything he might have expected from the Baron de Castellvell. A golden-stone chamber, lofty and ribbed with once-Moorish vaulting, it was decorated with tapestries showing scenes of wars and hunting, draped banners in the family colours, and weapons of war gleaming against the stone. The floor was flagged with a single, simple carpet marching from the doorway to a raised dais at the far side, where the baronial seat dominated all who stood before it. The rest of the room remained unfurnished so that any who approached would be forced to stand or to kneel upon the stone. Only one other seat lay within the room, off to the side of the throne on the dais.

  It was not the décor that had widened Arnau’s eyes, though.

  That was the occupants.

  As the guard retreated outside and shut the door behind him, the three Templars were left alone in the room with the subject of their audience, attended by neither servants nor guards. The baron was not here.

  A lady sat upon the great carved baronial throne, well-dressed and in the colours of Castellvell. She was a handsome woman, with a delicate heart-shaped face framed with lustrous black hair that had been elegantly braided to stay out of her eyes. It had been a number of years since Arnau had seen the baron, yet he could picture the man, and there was immediately no doubt in his mind that this woman was closely related, for her face carried strong elements of his visage. Given her age, she might just be a sister, but more than likely a daughter, to Arnau’s mind.

  Just across from her a man occupied the other chair in the most slovenly manner. He sat across it, rather than straight, his legs over one side, kicking out rhythmically as he cleaned his fingernails with a small knife. He was dressed colourfully, almost in the manner of a minstrel, and had it not been for the marks and scars that war had left upon his handsome, if drawn, face, Arnau might immediately have dismissed him as worthless. There was something about the man, though, that defied his easy slovenliness and suggested deeper currents flowed within those veins.

  Whatever this vision was, it was not the Baron de Castellvell they had expected.

  ‘Come,’ the lady said in honeyed tones. ‘Do approach. I do not bite.’ Her easy smile was as disarming as anything Arnau had noted so far.

  ‘My lady,’ Balthesar said respectfully, walking forward and coming to a halt some ten paces from the dais, the other two knights following suit.

  ‘Felipe tells me that you seek an audience with the baron.’

  ‘That is the case,’ the old knight admitted, inclining his head.

  ‘Then you had best find a sorcerer that can turn back the hourglass and pierce the veil of death, good sir knight, for you will find no baron among the living.’

  Balthesar faltered, and Arnau could quite understand why. He himself was utterly thrown, none of this what he had expected. ‘My lady?’

  ‘You are clearly behind upon the events of court, good Brother. My father, the baron, took ship for Outremer less than a year since, where he perished in the service of John of Ibelin. In my understanding, he died on a Christian blade during a dispute with the new regent of Jerusalem without ever having met a Saracen. In this I am moved to feel sorrow for him for perhaps the first time in my life.’

  ‘My lady?’ Balthesar said again, now extremely nonplussed.

  ‘My father had become ill and, though he recovered, experienced something of an epiphany in the process. He announced the need to cleanse his soul of a certain wickedness and took the cross in a foolish attempt to save his soul from damnation before such a sickness struck him again and perhaps carried him off the next time. It is said, is it not, that all sins can be washed away by seeking redemption in Outremer?’

  ‘It is. I had… we had not heard of this. Then the baron is no more and…’

  ‘And I inherited the lands and title, sir knight. You were friends of my father?’ She paused and frowned. ‘No, I think not. You expected him to be here, but you did not come as comrades. You knew not of his demise because you have been caught up in the crusade of the kings of Iberia and your own masters.’ Her frown deepened. ‘I do not know you, yet somehow I feel I do. To what house are you in service?’

  Ramon stepped forward. ‘We are knights of Rourell, close to Tarragona, my lady, returned as you surmise from the crusade in the south. And no, we are no comrades of your father, I’m afraid.’

  Balthesar threw a warning look at Ramon, but the dark-haired brother shrugged. ‘The lady’s own manner suggests that she lacks a usual familial tie to the man.’

  The lady smiled broadly. ‘This would be Brother Ramon.’ The three knights’ eyes widened at this, but the baroness was not done. ‘That would make the distinguished grey-hair, Balthesar and the young and handsome one, Arnau. How perfectly delightful.’

  Balthesar was baffled once more, and the lady continued to smile as the man lounging in the seat close by sat up and gestured at the three men with his nail-knife. ‘For Heaven’s sake, Guillema, stop playing with them.’

  The baroness nodded, chuckling. ‘I am sorry, Brothers. Please forgive me. Though we have not met, or not since I was a girl perhaps, I feel I know you all. Ermengarda speaks so well of you all. She has felt your absence keenly, and never more so than in her current dire circumstances.’

  ‘You know the preceptrix?’

  The baroness smiled. ‘I am not my father, Brother Balthesar. I have known Ermengarda d’Oluja for many years and she and I are that rare thing in this land, the best of friends. Be welcome in my castle, Brothers. Allow me also to introduce you to my husband, Guillem Ramon de Montcada. Do not allow his peculiar appearance to fool you. He is sly and careful and, if not a good man, then he is a bad man who often does the right thing quite by accident.’

  Balthesar’s expression hardened. ‘The same Montcada who once put a knife in the archbishop of Tarragona?’

  Arnau blinked, remembering suddenly Balthesar’s mention of such an event in their earlier discussion. This man was the assassin? Montcada hardly reacted, giving an easy shrug. ‘A familial disagreement. He was my uncle, and I suffered sufficiently for my crime.’

  ‘Whipped through the streets, I believe.’

  ‘I cleansed my own soul against the Saracen, Brother. Do not attempt to tar me with any brush.’

  The old knight nodded. ‘My apologies if I sounded accusatory. Stories of your youth still circulate.’

  ‘I’m sure they do. Every man h
as a past, though, do they not, Qātil wari’a?’ He smiled at the discomfort that passed across Balthesar’s face at the mention of his darker, bloody early days, and then went on with an easy smile. ‘To what do we owe the pleasure of your presence, gentlemen?’

  Balthesar straightened, recovering rapidly. ‘In truth, we came full of righteousness and ire to confront the baron, suspecting him of being behind the troubles the preceptrix is encountering at Rourell. I can see now that we were riding along entirely the wrong track in this. I must apologise, my lady.’

  Arnau nodded his agreement. Any friend of the preceptrix was an ally to be nurtured, after all.

  ‘No apology is necessary. My father’s rift with Rourell is known to me. You know of the troubles of the preceptrix? Despite being freshly returned from crusade?’

  ‘We are, my lady. You are clearly also aware.’

  ‘Ermengarda has forbidden me from involving myself further,’ the baroness replied in a frustrated voice, sitting back heavily in her chair. ‘In truth there is little I can do now but stand in support for her. She is convinced that despite my rank if I stand for her, I will fall with her. Still, had she not expressly forbidden me, I would do so. You know of the land-grabbing of the archbishop?’

  ‘Archbishops,’ sniffed Montcada from his seat, where he had gone back to cleaning his nails. ‘Nothing but trouble.’

  ‘We know that the archbishop presented the claims of many local nobles against Rourell’s property, and that he has been raising taxes on church lands to an unreasonable level.’

  The baroness nodded. ‘Many of the poor have been hit hard by the archbishop’s greed, especially those Jews or converted Moors who have laboured now for many years as part of our community for the betterment of us all. For much of this year I have worked with the preceptrix to rearrange our estates, moving the most vulnerable out of the archbishop’s grasp and into our protection, replacing them with those who could stand the church’s dreadful demands. Nothing we have done is illegal,’ she added, almost too hurriedly for Arnau’s liking. ‘We have been careful in our work, but it is my fear that our attempts to help those poor folk are precisely what drew the archbishop’s anger and summoned this trouble for poor Ermengarda. Now the archbishop works with nobles of our area and with the masters of your own order to ruin her.’