The Last Crusade

by S. J. A. Turney

  Arnau crossed the room and looked down at the shapes. ‘They’re good. Or they will be. I can see the king, and the one with the cross must be de Comminges. The others are La Selva and the archbishop?’

  Tristán nodded.

  ‘I have to try to save Orbessan. And we have time. The king still has not arrived, though rumour now has him on this side of the mountains. He will be here soon enough, and then we will seek justice.’

  The others nodded. The presence of the Catalan knights in the city made it fairly clear that the Aragonese contingent would be coming soon. Settling down for the night, they slept fitfully, one man on watch at the window at all times, with a good view of the building that was being used to house the Pujol prisoners. It was the next morning as the four men ate a small repast of bread and butter only, and seated close to the window to maintain their watch, that Ramon said, ‘I believe I have a plan.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘When the prisoners are moved, they will be strung out. Few of them would recognise us even with our surcoats, but d’Orbessan will. There is a marketplace between here and the building they’ll be taken to, in fact both that building and the church look onto it. As they emerge into the marketplace, there will inevitably be locals crowded there. We need Arnau and Tristán to stand on the steps of the market cross where they can be easily seen. The enemy won’t know who you are, so you should not draw undue attention. The moment d’Orbessan registers your presence, Arnau can signal us, and Balthesar and I will start a distraction at a nearby market stall. Hopefully, in the chaos d’Orbessan can get to Arnau, who will throw a cloak over him and sneak him from the marketplace. We’ll meet up back here and then get out of Toulouse as quick as we can. What do you think?’

  ‘It might work,’ Balthesar replied thoughtfully. ‘We will have to be very careful, and a lot relies upon the enemy being careless, but it is the best I can think of, and we will likely only have one chance. We need to scout out the market square and plan this carefully.’

  ‘I think that might not be possible,’ Tristán said suddenly, lurching to his feet and pointing out of the window as his chair scraped back. The others hurried to look down. A gathering of Toulousain guards stood outside the door opposite, and already sullen, drab prisoners were emerging.

  ‘Damnation, but that was fast,’ Ramon grumbled. ‘Can we still manage it?’

  ‘With luck and the grace of the Divine Will, perhaps,’ Balthesar answered. ‘We must hurry, though.’

  Grabbing their weapons, the four men belted them on and hurried from the room, locking it behind them, then descending the stairs and leaving the inn by the rear exit through the stables. Once out into a back alley, Ramon took the lead, having checked upon the location of this new building the previous afternoon. Following him, they ran through narrow streets and back alleys, heading north and keeping parallel to the main road along which the prisoners would be herded. As they finally, a quarter hour later, emerged into the market, it was considerably less busy than they had hoped, being early in the morning. A few traders were setting up stalls, but most of the square remained a bare space of flagged stones. Arnau registered the massive Church of Saint Sernin de Taur off to the right, and directly ahead a building that could only be the makeshift prison, given the number of guards standing out front. This was going to be exceedingly difficult.

  Moreover, as the four men took in the square, they would have no time to plan. The sound of hundreds of tramping feet echoed out from the road off to the south, announcing the approach of the prisoners.

  ‘Good luck,’ Ramon said without further preamble, and he and Balthesar hurried off across the square. Arnau gestured to Tristán and the two of them hurried to the centre where a large market cross stood on a pedestal of five steps. Climbing to the top one, the two men stood proud of all life in the square and watched the southern road. Arnau had never felt quite so exposed. Certainly no one should miss the two of them, and d’Orbessan would have to be blind to do so.

  Barely had they the time to work out what they would do before the prisoners began to arrive. Arnau was holding the cloak they had planned to throw over the Frank to help lose him in the crowd, but it was now more or less pointless, for there were not enough people here to get lost in. Fretting, he decided all they could do was react. If they could get d’Orbessan to them, they would simply have to run and get lost in alleyways, hoping to evade pursuit.

  The column of prisoners was led by some captain they knew neither by sight nor by colours, and there were sufficient men accompanying them to either side that escape would be extremely hazardous. Worst of all, here and there among the armed escort were men with loaded crossbows, keeping a wary eye on their charges. The count’s men were taking no chances.

  The column of dejected men shambled across the square, and as Arnau peered at them carefully, d’Orbessan suddenly appeared from the crowd, shuffling to the edge as he saw the two men on the cross. Arnau felt his pulse begin to race and raised a hand, hoping that Ramon was watching. Moments later there was a cry of alarm from the far side of the column, and every pair of eyes turned towards the noise.

  D’Orbessan needed no encouragement. The moment the guards were distracted, he suddenly broke from the column and hurtled towards the two men on the cross. Arnau felt hope surge in his heart. It was working.

  Then it began to go wrong. A crossbowman turned, hearing the pounding feet of the running man, and loosed his bolt in the blink of an eye. D’Orbessan lurched suddenly, then fell face first to the flagstones. Arnau felt panic then, but in a moment the man was up again. The missile had lodged in his thigh. D’Orbessan ran as best he could, limping heavily, but other guards were shouting now, and a small gang of them had broken away from the column and were chasing down the fleeing Frank. Arnau realised with dismay that d’Orbessan was unlikely to make it. Worse still, the crossbowman was reloading for a second shot.

  The Frank’s eyes met Arnau’s and he realised in that moment that d’Orbessan knew he was not going to get to the cross alive. With that knowledge, the man changed his plan. Forgetting Arnau, the Frank lurched around the side of an empty stall that had been set up ready for the merchant to arrive, using the wooden frame as cover. The crossbowman cursed and lowered his weapon, jogging off to the side to where he might be able to get a better shot. No one was paying any attention to the two men on the cross, unaware of their part in this escapade.

  The men chasing d’Orbessan changed direction, and Arnau realised suddenly what the Frank was doing. He was running for the church. He could seek sanctuary there. He would be safe, for a time at least. Arnau felt hope return. The men chasing him wouldn’t catch him in time. He would make it. But the crossbowman was now hurrying past the cross to the far side for a clear shot. One more bolt well placed, and d’Orbessan would be done for.

  As the crossbowman ran past them Tristán stepped down to the lowest level and stuck out a leg. The running Toulousain pitched across the limb, tripping and slamming hard to the ground, his crossbow discharging harmlessly over the stones.

  ‘Damnation,’ Arnau grunted, for that had given the game away, and now guards were looking at them. Still, they had probably saved d’Orbessan’s life. Before the crossbowman could recover, Tristán gave him a hefty kick in the side, and suddenly he and Arnau were also running. They had to make cover and swiftly lose any pursuit.

  Half expecting to be picked off by a crossbow bolt at any moment, Arnau was both surprised and relieved when Tristán and he reached the entrance to a side street without injury. There he paused to take stock and looked around. He could see no sign of Ramon or Balthesar. With a flood of relief, they saw d’Orbessan slip through the door of the church, limping inside to sanctuary. Then he realised with a start that four guards were still chasing them; he and Tristán ran on into the shadowed street. Reaching a crossroads, the younger man immediately turned left, but Arnau grabbed him.

  ‘This way,’ he hissed, turning instead to the north and running on.
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br />   ‘The other way went back towards the city centre and the inn,’ Tristán breathed.

  ‘And this way only skirts the marketplace close to them. They will expect us to run far away, not stay close.’ Finding a shadowed doorway, they ducked into it and waited, silently. Moments later, the four guards emerged into the crossroads and looked this way and that before running off down the street Tristán had almost taken.

  ‘Come on,’ Arnau said, and led him back around the street, keeping left at junctions and moving around the rear of the enormous church. There they tested a side door but found it locked. The only way they were going to get in was the front, which was open to the square. Continuing on, they found themselves in a side street opposite the one they’d used to escape. There they edged slowly towards the open square until they had a reasonable view and then stopped.

  The column of prisoners was being led into the building, while half the guards went in with them and the others waited outside. Then another nobleman arrived with a force of men and a score of horses. What this meant Arnau could not fathom, but as his eyes played across the new arrival, the nobleman happened to turn, his face coming into view, and the two men in the alleyway recoiled.

  It was Bernard de Comminges, the would-be Templar Master of Barbera. He was not wearing his mantle or any distinguishing mark of the Order. Instead, he was in his own colours and Arnau now recalled, from the map he had examined in the library of Barbera, that de Comminges’s lands were not too far from here. Looking at the rest of the figures, Arnau felt a growing suspicion that the heavily armoured men with the master were also Templars without their mantles.

  ‘Are they all brothers?’ Tristán asked, clearly musing on the same point.

  Arnau scratched his neck. ‘If I were to speculate about this, I might suggest that the Order has refused to send brothers with the king for this war. That they would not oppose the Pope. I would also suggest that de Comminges and other brothers who felt the same way might have dropped their mantles for a time and crossed the mountains as lay warriors to aid the cause.’

  Tristán produced one of the wooden figures from his belt pouch. It bore a shield with a cross on it. ‘We could make a start today?’ he said, darkly, nodding towards the nobleman.

  Arnau chewed his lip. ‘I would like nothing more, but there are hundreds of Toulousains out there, and a good score of probable Templars with him. We’d be dead before we got within fifty paces.’

  ‘You can’t be suggesting we leave him be?’

  ‘What choice do we have? There will be another time.’

  ‘And,’ a new voice added, ‘if de Comminges is here, then the rest of Aragon will be on his heel. The king comes.’ Arnau turned to see Ramon and Balthesar, sweating and breathing heavily.

  ‘Thank the good Lord you got away,’ he said, and then turned to the square once more. De Comminges had marched forward and was now in heated debate with the captain who had brought the prisoners. They couldn’t hear the details over the general din in the square, but Arnau began to wonder whether the Templar was about to strike down the captain, the way they argued. Finally, the captain, with a face like thunder, marched off to the new prison, while de Comminges and his gathering of knights strode towards the church.

  The noise in the market quieted. With all the military commotion, the traders had fled and taken their wares, and the bulk of the soldiers were now inside the prison or tending to the twenty horses outside. Thus it was that when de Comminges stood outside the front of the church with his men and started to shout, they heard every word.

  ‘I am addressing the prisoner who has taken shelter in the church. You have one minute to come out and surrender, or I shall pass a sentence of death, as on my authority as a commander of this army and a senior noble of Occitania. And to the priests of Saint Sernin, remember that your loyalty to Rome means nothing to me, and your authority to grant sanctuary is not recognised by this army. If you harbour that man, you become as guilty as he.’

  Arnau felt his heart pound. Surely he would not really ignore Holy Sanctuary? Could he be that heretical? In his times in Iberia, Arnau had seen even Moors honour the sacred tradition of sanctuary. How low had de Comminges sunk?

  His attention was distracted then by a new and horrible commotion. The doors of the huge prison had closed, and so the sound from within was muffled, but it was loud enough to be unmistakable. It was the sound of butchery. The prisoners were being executed en masse in that building. Arnau felt the bile rise in his throat at what he was seeing and hearing.

  Even as the sound of the massacre went on, the muted screams sending a shiver up his spine, Arnau watched de Comminges counting down his minute and, at the lack of any response, he and his men marched into the church.

  ‘I had thought La Selva to be the worst of our enemies,’ Ramon breathed as they watched, ‘though I am forced to revise my opinion. De Comminges appears to be nothing more than the very Devil himself.’

  Arnau nodded vehemently as they watched the door until the figures reappeared. What had happened inside they could only imagine, but d’Orbessan was barely conscious as they dragged him by his shoulders into the light. There one of the knights slapped him several times until he snapped out of his grogginess and stared his captor in the eye. As de Comminges took in this captive with a wrinkled lip, d’Orbessan spat in his face.

  Arnau knew, as they all did, that this was the end for d’Orbessan. No one could save him now. They had done what they could. They watched in appalled and weary horror as the man was held, his arms being pulled apart as though crucified in the very air, knights pulling his arms tight. Thus held, de Comminges drew his broadsword and pulled it back. The first swing went almost halfway through the Frank’s neck, and de Comminges took his time preparing the second blow, allowing his victim to feel every nuance of the first while he could. The second snapped the neck, but the head only came free with the third blow. Arnau crossed himself and could hear Ramon performing the viaticum in a whisper behind him, blessing d’Orbessan and absolving him of all sins as the man went to stand before God.

  ‘If ever I doubted the rightness of our cause,’ Arnau growled. He turned at a scratching noise to see that Tristán had produced his knife and was deftly scratching out the cross on the figure of de Comminges he held.

  ‘He doesn’t deserve it,’ the former squire snarled, a little too loudly for comfort. Fortunately no one in the square was paying them any attention.

  The massacre in the prison seemed to be over, for the doors opened once more and Toulousain soldiers emerged drenched in blood. If the four watchers thought the grisly end of Pujol was over, though, they were to be disappointed yet. In an awful, mechanical process, the chopped and dismembered bodies of hundreds of Franks were dragged out into the square, many missing limbs or heads, a few little more than a trunk of meat with no appendages at all. There they were all tied to ropes, like a chain of butchered carcasses. Once they were arrayed in lines and roped together, the soldiers attached those ropes to the saddles of the twenty horses and then mounted up. Arnau watched, feeling sick, as twenty roped lines of butchered men were dragged through the streets of Toulouse in a grisly spectacle for all the population to witness.

  Finally, the work done, de Comminges and his men left, heading south, the rest of the Toulousain soldiers following on. The square was suddenly empty, but for a swathe of blood streaks that crossed it like some butcher’s road and disappeared off down the street to the south.

  Arnau and his compatriots remained hidden for several minutes to be sure of their safety. Once they were comfortable that the square was truly empty, they crossed to the decapitated body of d’Orbessan that lay in front of the church from which he had been dragged. As Arnau bent and hauled up the body, so Tristán collected the head. Both men, with bleak expressions, carried the Frank’s remains into the church, the other two following on. Silently, in his head, Arnau was apologising to d’Orbessan for their failure, though he had no regrets. He had tried. E
ven in the face of disaster, he had tried. He could do no more.

  As they entered, priests gathered in the nave, facing them, their own expressions dark and horrified. Arnau presented the body and laid it with what reverence he could on the floor, Tristán placing the head beside it. Arnau pulled a small purse of coins from his belt and tossed it to the ground beside the body.

  ‘See that he is buried properly and with what grace you can. That will more than cover it.’

  And with no further words, the four former Templars turned and left the church.

  ‘What now?’ Tristán murmured.

  ‘Now we find de Montfort and we bend this entire crusade to the purpose of destroying a heretic king and his trio of demons.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  The coming of the King

  11th September 1213

  ‘Three weeks,’ Arnau grunted in irritation.

  Ramon, riding alongside him, simply nodded, looking up at the changeable sky.

  After the horrifying events in Toulouse, the four men had ridden hard for the east, and in a small unnamed village amid harvested fields they had encountered tidings of Guy de Montfort’s relief army, only two days from Pujol, yet too late to make any difference. Riding to intercept that force, they had managed to secure an audience with the nobleman, the second-in-command of the crusading army, and Sir Guy had not been magnanimous.

  In retrospect, Arnau had admitted to himself that it did not look good. The entire garrison of Pujol had been butchered, yet the four of them had managed somehow to get away, and that would likely smack of cowardice. In addition, the fact that they were from Iberia, when the only other people from across the mountains fighting at Pujol had been Arnau’s neighbouring Catalan knights who had fought for the Count of Toulouse, smacked of treachery. Neither cowardice nor treachery was going to get them far.

  Guy had sent them back to Pamiers, where they had no trouble securing an audience with the Earl of Leicester, given that they were now under the guard of his brother’s men. At Pamiers they had told the same story, the true story, still aware that it sounded suspiciously as though they had been implicit in the defeat somehow, and had managed to sneak away and leave the crusading force to their fate. It was almost certain that they would have spent the rest of the war watched and under guard, or worse, had not the testimony of two spies from within the Toulousain army, who had fled the city in the wake of the killings, borne out every word of their story, if not confirming their part in it.