Whatever the old man finally said in tones of velvet-coated steel clearly worked, for the door opened with a click, and the green-clad guard bowed his head as he motioned for them to enter. Arnau followed the older brother into the courtyard within and his gaze swooped cautiously around the square. His breath caught in his throat. In addition to the emir’s men and several palace functionaries and nobles in a variety of colours, there were three men in monochrome colours and armed with lethal spears, watching the two newcomers with barely contained aggression.
‘What did you tell them?’ Arnau asked, only then realising that perhaps this was one of those times he should have been playing the mute. Too late now, anyway.
‘That we were invited companions of the Aragonese delegation. It is the truth, after a fashion, since your young noble friend did indeed invite us aboard his ship. It took a little persuasion to make the man see sense, but even in the emir’s absence none of his people are going to risk angering the representatives of one of the strongest Christian kings. We should be safe under their nominal protection. Even the Almohad soldiers seem to be constrained. Likely Abd al-Azīz has enough on his platter undermining the island’s emir without risking war with Aragon. We walk a knife edge here, Vallbona.’
And it felt like it too. Passing beneath that vicious scrutiny, they made their way into the doorway beside the stairs and through the now familiar rooms and corridors to the various diwāns that made up the palace records offices. As always they paused at the entrance and handed over their weapons, and then Balthesar asked directions of some clerk and they moved off along the corridor and into the rooms.
Balthesar seemed immensely satisfied with the office to which they had been directed, though to Arnau it was indistinguishable from any of the others, except that the window from this room did not offer a view of the palace dock and the city ports, but rather of the main gardens of the Al-Mudaina, where nobles and servants moved about in colourful garb, all under the stoic watchfulness of the Almohad soldiers. Shuddering, he turned away from the window and instead stood bored, contemplating the room itself.
After some time, the older knight retrieved a set of records from one alcove and began to pore through them, his manner becoming more irritable as he read. Finally, he straightened and stabbed a finger at the document.
‘This is the only reference I can find so far. It is recorded that Muhàmmad the First, following the Christian uprisings, had any remaining churches and places of worship pulled down and the materials reused in his own projects. But sadly it intimates that all Christian, or as they term it, heretical, materials were made illegal and destroyed. There is no direct reference to the saint’s arm as far as I can see, but a blanket statement. It is not a hopeful sign, I’m afraid, but I cling to the hope that, because of the status of the bone as potentially a Mussulman relic, it might have been saved. I shall not give up on it yet. We are here among the records and while that is the case I shall make sure I have scoured them thoroughly.’
Arnau nodded. There was so little he could do to help, even if he had a clue what to look for, which he didn’t. The discomfort pressed upon him once more, and he had to change the way he stood, clenching himself.
‘My bladder is straining,’ he admitted finally.
‘Have a word with the clerks. They’ll direct you. I’ll be at least another hour.’
With a sigh, Arnau slipped from the room and returned to the front desk. Only as he arrived did he realise he had no idea how to ask about latrines. He motioned to his groin, raising some amusement from the gathered clerks, and then, flushing a little, asked the way in Spanish. One of the men clearly had sufficient command of the tongue to understand his query and gestured a sequence of directions. Arnau was trying desperately to remember the sequence when he caught the word ḥammām and recognised it as the Arabic term for a bathhouse. He remembered seeing what appeared to be the door and changing room of a small bathhouse on their various visits to the offices, part way along the route. Clearly the baths would be a sensible place to look for a toilet, and so with a nod of thanks Arnau turned and set off towards that place. He rounded the first two corners as directed by the clerk, and was standing, tapping his lip in contemplation of where to turn for the third, when the pommel of a sword came down on the back of his head and sent him spinning into sickening blackness.
Chapter Fourteen
Wednesday, 9 June 1199
The blackness failed to recede. Arnau awoke with a start, eyes jerking open, heart lurching and panic coming in a flood at the apparent blindness that had been inflicted upon him. Not blindness though, but soul-shrouding darkness all around, he realised as the very faint edges of things appeared. Not enough to identify anything, but enough to show that something was there in the darkness. As that panic receded, new realisations came.
First was the excruciating pain in his head. The rear of his skull felt as though someone had driven an iron piton through it, and his brain felt woolly and strange. Memories came. The bathhouse. Desperation for the latrine and a hurried walk through corridors to… a thump on the head. Yes, he remembered now being hit from behind, unaware of the assailant until it was too late. Damn his idiocy, but he should have clenched harder and stayed in the office with Balthesar.
He made to reach up and test the back of his head, and was suddenly acutely aware that his hands wouldn’t move. Fresh panic now. He was bound somehow. His wrists were pressed together and strapped tight behind his back. There was no pressure, though – he was just bound. What about his legs? A little exploration confirmed that his legs were still there and that he was in a heap on the floor. They did not seem to be bound like his arms, which came as something of a relief.
He stood. Or at least he tried to stand and failed. His legs held no strength whatsoever, probably from hours of being folded uncomfortably beneath him. Rubbing his legs together he could feel the sensation and nothing appeared to be broken, or cut, which was yet more of a relief. In fact, he seemed to be unharmed apart from the pain in the back of his head where he had been struck.
That was not enough of a relief to make him relax, though. Unharmed as he was, he was still bound and clearly held captive in some dark place, and that never boded well. So where was he, and by whom had he been captured? The answers were fairly obvious. Only two men on the island had reason to imprison him: Castellvell and the Lion of Alarcos. And Castellvell would be constrained by the presence of the other lords of Aragon and by Guillem Picornell; plus the only place he could realistically hold someone would be aboard their ship, while this place was silent as the grave and lacked all the creaks and groans of a floating vessel. So he was clearly in Almohad hands, which he would have assumed anyway. And that being the case, he was almost certainly still in the Al-Mudaina where the Lion now prowled.
He opened his mouth, wondering suddenly if he could speak or whether he’d been gagged. No, his mouth opened wide. His tongue felt a little swollen and his mouth arid and rough, and when he tried to speak it came out as a rasping cough. After a few attempts, he found a dry, uncomfortable voice deep inside that intoned the Psalm of David.
‘God, hear thou my prayer, when I beseech; deliver thou my soul from dread of the enemy.’
He fell silent, dreading the enemy still, and a moment later became aware of a muffled noise: a repetitive tapping which he soon realised was footsteps that were becoming louder as they approached. Two voices in Arabic – low, hushed tones. An exchange. The rattle of keys. The door.
Arnau snapped his eyes shut at the sudden intrusive light. It might only be lamplight from some dingy corridor, but after the oppressive darkness of the prison room, it felt like the brightest of noon suns. Slowly he became accustomed to the faint glow through his slitted eyelids, gradually opening them as new sources of illumination sprang into life in the chamber. Someone was lighting oil lamps.
‘I would tear out your tongue to still it shaping your heathen invocations,’ said a familiar and sour voice, ‘but I have nee
d of that tongue yet.’
His vision focused a little more in the dull golden light and Abu Rāshid Abd al-Azīz ibn al-Ḥasan, the Lion of Alarcos, stepped into view from the right, his face a mask of hate, his clothing rich and fine, his aura murderous.
‘I do not fear you,’ Arnau spat.
‘Yes you do,’ replied the Lion, in a truly matter-of-fact tone. ‘And you are right to do so. I am a fearsome creature, a blade of God’s will, a son of the Prophet and an instrument of righteous vengeance.’
‘You are a zealot and a would-be despot. Little else.’
Was that a smile that passed across the Almohad lord’s face? If so it was considerably less pleasant than even his frown of hate.
‘This land is mine now, Christian. What little influence Abd-Allāh ibn Ishāq ibn Ghāniya retains will soon melt away in the face of the true caliph’s power. And you can call me despot if you wish, but I am just a governor for the caliph, and it is he who truly rules. So forget any hope of rescue or survival you cling to. There is no succour or safety on Mayūrqa for you or your kind now.’
A black-and-white-uniformed soldier brought forth a chair and placed it before Arnau, and the lord sat in it and steepled his fingers. ‘I am not here to gloat, and I am not a man to unduly waste time and effort, so let me come to the point. Your life is forfeit, heathen, as it was the very moment you set foot on the soil of the Faithful. What remains to be decided is the manner in which you pass from this life.’
Arnau felt himself shiver. The man was so straightforward and direct in his evil.
‘I will do nothing to help you.’
‘Oh you will,’ the Almohad lord replied flatly. ‘You will spin me every yarn for which I ask, but you must decide how precious is your faith and how dearly you value your companions, for preserving them will come at a high price. You may refuse my requests, but to do so will bring agony. Comply readily and you will be fed and watered until this is over, whereupon you will be granted a swift and clean death. If you are particularly helpful, I might even consider sending your body back to your people for them to perform their heathen rites upon, rather than tossing you out upon the rocks for the scavengers and the gulls. You must decide how readily you can weather the pain through which you will be put. I urge you to acquiesce immediately and save yourself the agony and us the trouble.’
Arnau felt the dread rise in his stomach. Torture. He had faced death plenty of times, in battle and even face to face with della Cadeneta, but torture was entirely different. Not to face wounds that were intended to kill, but injuries meant simply to cause the maximum pain with the minimum of actual damage. He pushed down the fear. Pain was just a reaction, not injury in itself, and therefore it could be overcome. Like those apostles of whom Balthesar had spoken, he would be tough and weather all storms in the knowledge that the Lord would protect him, and should he suffer agonies at the hands of the wicked, his soul would dwell with the Lord in glory.
‘What is your answer?’
Arnau cleared his dry, scratchy throat.
‘The Lord governeth me and nothing shall fail to me.’
The Lion’s lip twitched upwards as Arnau squared his shoulders defiantly.
‘In the place of pasture there he hath set me. He nourished me on the water of refreshing.’
‘Your faith will be rewarded only with pain,’ the Almohad snarled.
‘He converted my soul. He led me forth on the paths of rightfulness, for his name.’
‘I shall give you no other chance to co-operate. From this time there will be only pain and interrogation.’
‘For why though I shall go in the midst of shadow of death, I shall not dread evils, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff; those have comforted me.’
The Lion’s sneer returned and he made a flicking gesture with two fingers.
‘Thou hast made ready a board in my sight against them that trouble me. Thou hast made fat mine head with oil, and my cup that filleth greatly is full clear.’
Suddenly the reason for the bound wrists became clear as they were jerked up sharply behind him, putting immense pressure on his shoulders. He winced and gave a yelp before biting down on it, refusing to give the man the pleasure of his audible pain.
‘And thy mercy shall follow me…’ he gasped, ‘in all the days of my life. And that I dwell in the house of the Lord… into the length of days.’
And then speech was no longer possible, for to open his mouth would be to scream as some unseen hand hauled on the rope that ran through a large iron ring in the ceiling and Arnau was jerked from the floor to hang by the wrists, his shoulders groaning and shrieking with pain as muscles stretched and threatened to tear, the joints aching as they were brought close to separation. He remembered hearing once about ancient peoples tearing their victims apart with wild horses, and he wondered if that was to be his fate. His shoulders were afire, every muscle tearing with infinitesimal slowness so that each heartbeat brought a continual stream of pain, pulsing through him, making him grit his teeth and huff through them.
Just as the agony was becoming truly unbearable and the possibility that his arms would dislocate and tear away became startlingly real, the rope was let go and he plunged to the ground once more, his legs folding painfully under him. Clearly the Lion and his men were experts at this. They had waited as long as they could before inflicting permanent damage, and had released him in time for his shoulders to heal in a matter of hours. Arnau knew that a skilled torturer could do this sort of thing indefinitely without killing their subject, and that knowledge brought him absolutely no comfort.
‘That was by way of a demonstration,’ the Lion said as Arnau breathed heavily in a heap on the floor. ‘I have time to devote attention to you. I will not push hard and break you, for that would not be productive. We shall work slowly so that you survive intact through everything we do, with time to recuperate before the next agonies are visited upon you. You will not be damaged, just put through much pain. You understand now?’
Arnau nodded and silence reigned for a moment. He realised that the man was waiting for him to beg, or perhaps to capitulate. In truth, the possibility had at the very least passed through his mind. The pain of being hauled up by the wrists had been so intense he was not sure he could cope with it again, let alone any other horror the Lion dreamed up. Still, he was not going to bow to this man, at least as long as he was in control of his mind and his tongue. As long as he could hold out, he would do so.
‘The Lord hear thee in the day of tribulation; the name of God of Jacob defend thee. Send he help to thee from the holy place, and from Zion defend he thee.’
Arnau cried out then in fresh pain as the rope was hauled on sharply once more and he rose from the ground, shoulder muscles tearing, feet kicking wildly. This time he was only there mere moments before he fell once more with a thud. The pain of landing roughly on the stone floor felt like luxury compared with the pain of dangling.
‘See how readily you suffer. And this is but the beginning. Now let me explain my purpose, for I am not a cruel man and I do not make men suffer for the simple love of it. I have reason for my actions. You are aware of my history with the Qātil wariʻa?’
‘He killed your son in battle,’ Arnau managed before gasping and clenching his teeth once more.
‘Yes, I felt certain he would have boasted of his prowess in killing young men. He was ever a killer in the saddle, long before my son met his end. But yes, though the caliph maintains a fatwa demanding the head of the Monster of Valencia, it is not this that drives me. I owe him for taking my son from me, and I have lived with that debt owed for much of my life while the Qātil wariʻa hid in obscurity. Now he is here, and I have wrestled for days with how I should proceed. For years I thought to take his head in revenge for my son and to hand it to the caliph as is my duty. But now, despite that duty, I find simply killing the Monster of Valencia to be inadequate punishment for the crime. He should suffer for the rest of his years as I have, and die a l
onely and broken man. That is my purpose now. That is my goal.’
‘Your goal is to let him live?’ Arnau laughed. ‘How easily achieved.’
‘Mock me as you wish,’ the Lion responded, ‘but I will visit upon my enemy the worst of all pains: loss, regret and guilt. For he will lose everything he loves, and will live the rest of his miserable days knowing that this is the case and that all his suffering is solely due to his own deeds.’
Arnau felt that shiver again now. What wickedness was this? How cruel to ruin a man for one act committed in the heat of battle.
The Lion of Alarcos steepled his fingers once more. ‘Now, I will find out everything you know about the Qātil wariʻa, and I will use what I discover to strip him of everything for which he cares. We shall start by learning what you know of him since he disappeared at Valencia, who you are and your connection to him, and what you are doing in Mayūrqa. I think to begin with, tell me who you are.’
‘Piss on you,’ Arnau spat.
The Lion of Alarcos sighed. ‘This is the simplest and most innocuous of questions, I’m sure. If you baulk at this one, I cannot imagine how you will feel about the rest. But let me demonstrate once more how I shall respond to such defiance.’
Arnau braced himself for the agonising lift once more, and was more surprised than shocked when some unseen figure behind him instead lifted his gandura and burnous and wrenched down his braies, exposing his bare buttocks to the cold damp cellar air.
The first thwack from the switch was like having liquid fire poured in a line across his posterior. What the weapon was made from he could not tell, but the pain was extreme and he immediately felt a tiny trickle down his buttock, confirming that the blow had drawn blood. His eyes watered, and he had to bite down on his lip to stifle the rising whimper.
The Last Emir Page 21
