The Last Emir

by S. J. A. Turney

  Balthesar seemed to come to some agreement with the three and rose, turning to Arnau.

  ‘We must move fast, but we are in luck. God is with us – or perhaps Allah. These three are most loyal to their emir and loathe the Almohad invader. The young man with the beard will lead you by a subtle route to the throne room. The older one will stay here and protest to any who follow that he has not seen us pass this way, buying us precious time.’

  Arnau nodded, then his brow folded in concern.

  ‘And what about the third? What about you?’

  ‘We are running out of time, and if we cannot find Abd al-Azīz and put him to the sword, then the emir will be forced into an impossible position, having to besiege his own palace against difficult odds. The girl here will direct me to the gate, where I will find a way to open it for the emir.’

  Arnau stared. There would be a score of hardened Almohad soldiers at the gate. How the old Templar could hope to get the gate open, Arnau could not conceive, but there was no time to argue as in that moment of silence there was the muffled and distant, but distinctive, sound of the door at the top of the stairs opening.

  ‘Don’t argue, Vallbona. Have faith and go. Find Abd al-Azīz and kill him honourably and openly.’

  The bearded young servant crossed to Arnau and gestured to the other door, while the girl led Balthesar over to the trapdoor. The old servant paused but a moment and then unlocked the door to the stairs through which they had entered.

  Arnau felt his stomach twist at the fact that they were separating, leaving him alone to face such a dangerous opponent, and also a flicker of irritation at yet another of the older knight’s exhortations that Arnau trust to his faith, but there was no time to waste lest the Almohads be on them. He followed the bearded servant as the man crossed to the door and opened it, slipping through. He had to hope and pray that the old man they had left behind managed to convince their pursuers that they had not come this way.

  The young sergeant swallowed his nerves as he passed through another room in the servant’s wake. He was committed now. Balthesar had gone on his own mission and Arnau was left alone to deal with the Lion of Alarcos, the only hope of reaching him being the servant that led him along. He only hoped that the bearded man could be trusted.

  With ever-growing anxiety he followed the slave through corridors and rooms, occasionally passing another slave or servant, none of whom paid the pair any attention beyond mild interest, and was surprised when they emerged into an even smaller courtyard – little more than a light well in the heart of the complex. Here, they passed another pair of slaves who merely nodded acknowledgement of their existence, before reaching a small and functional staircase, which they climbed, emerging once more back inside the palace itself. A long corridor led to another door, and then a second staircase.

  They climbed this latest set of steps and at the top the slave turned a handle, opening the door wide and gesturing for Arnau to go through. Gripping his sword tight and holding his breath to steady his nerves, the young Templar stepped through the door.

  He was now in the chamber where the Lion of Alarcos had stood glowering at them as they’d left the emir’s presence. To his left the staircase descended to the corridor where he and Balthesar had almost been trapped, while to his right lay the double doors of the throne room. The bearded servant had been true to his word. Leading Arnau via the hidden ways of slaves and servants, he had brought the young Templar to his destination without encountering the enemy, and without even raising more than passing surprise from anyone. Arnau turned and thanked the man in his limited Arabic, hoping he had remembered the correct word.

  ‘Šukran.’ He bowed his head respectfully, and the servant beamed happily, confirming that Arnau had got it right.

  Nodding repeatedly as he retreated, the servant passed back through the door, leaving Arnau alone in the antechamber. The young sergeant swallowed noisily and felt his breathing become shallower, his pulse faster. Nerves. Beyond that door lay the throne room and, with luck, the Lion of Alarcos. He would likely be well defended, but Arnau had a feeling that if confronted the man’s odd mix of perceived honour and pride would demand that he face Arnau alone. What the young man really wanted was to do so in public. Perhaps he could challenge the Almohad lord and back away, leading him somewhere more open and visible, though at the very least it seemed likely that some of the emir’s people would be witness wherever it occurred.

  He had not planned that far ahead, of course. None of them had. In truth, though they had agreed to the plan, none of them, he suspected, had ever truly believed that the plan would work this far, so reliant was it upon chance. And once at the throne room they could hardly plan further anyway. The variables were just too myriad at this point.

  Faith. Damn Balthesar, but he would just have to trust in the Lord.

  Lo! I made a smith blowing coals in the fire and bringing forth a vessel into his work, and I have made a slayer.

  Each vessel which is made against thee shall not be directed, and in the doom thou shalt deem each tongue against withstanding thee. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and the rightfulness of them at me, saith the Lord.

  Isaiah be praised. Arnau was the Lord’s slayer of the wicked this day. He reached up and grasped the handle of the throne room door, pushing. The door swung inwards, into that wide, spacious room where they had initially met the emir. The first thing he registered was that the room was not empty. The second, with some deflation and anger, was that the Lion of Alarcos was not one of those inside.

  The wazir kneeled on the floor close to the dais upon which the throne sat, his hands behind his back, presumably bound. A Moorish nobleman in a rich blue burnous stood close by, a green-clad soldier beside him, and a black-and-white-garbed Almohad warrior loomed at the room’s centre, sword in hand as he wagged an angry finger at the wazir, snarling something in Arabic.

  Something snapped inside Arnau at the sight of the arrogant Almohad, and instead of contemplating his best options, or simply backing out of the door and hoping to remain unseen, he began to run, raising his sword as he did so.

  The Almohad warrior turned in surprise at the thundering feet behind him, and Arnau snarled as he pulled back his blade. The soldier, shocked, threw his own sword up to block the swing, but it was a last-moment attempt and Arnau’s blow had been powerfully delivered, infused with the force of anger, hate, frustration and thirst for revenge. The young Templar’s sword hit the parrying blade of the Almohad with such power that it smashed the other sword aside and slashed at the man’s face.

  The Almohad realised what would happen even as he blocked, and was leaning back as far as he could to be out of the way of the sword as, even robbed of strength, it continued on its deadly course. Only that instinct saved the warrior’s life, and even then it cost him dearly.

  Arnau’s blade tip smashed into the Almohad’s mailed face, ripping the veil free from its fastenings so that it flopped loose, revealing the horrified face of a dark-skinned man only for a fraction of a second before the blade ruined that too, carving a line through his nose and taking an eye before smashing against the orbital socket, then the helmet, then flying free.

  Howling, the disfigured Almohad fell back, sword out to the side, staggering backwards from the savagery of Arnau’s assault. The young Templar, still enraged and gripped by the fury of righteous battle, pulled back his sword and advanced on the man. The Almohad turned his blood-soaked, ruined face to Arnau, and the young man was impressed to see the defiance that still gleamed in the remaining eye. The wound must have been agonising, and yet the warrior was pulling himself up into a combat stance, ready to face Arnau once more.

  ‘And lo! I have given to you power to tread on serpents, and scorpions, and on all the virtue of the enemy, and nothing shall harm you,’ Arnau growled, crossing himself with his free hand.

  The Almohad, unlikely to understand anything but Arabic, frowned at Arnau in utter incomprehension, though he clea
rly recognised the intent behind the words, for his sword came up ready.

  ‘The book of Lucas,’ Arnau snapped, and swung his sword down in a powerful chop. The Almohad pulled his blade into the way, but once more it only robbed the Templar’s strike of a little strength, and the sword came down hard, biting into the man’s shoulder. He bellowed in pain.

  ‘Chapter ten,’ Arnau growled once more, pulling his sword back to the side. He swung with all his might and the Almohad failed to react in time, reeling as he was in agony and partial blindness.

  ‘Verse nineteen,’ added the young sergeant as his sword point dropped, the Almohad falling back, blood gushing from a face now ruined a second time, this time fatally.

  Still emitting a low rumble of rage, Arnau turned to the other occupants of the room. He gestured to the wazir.

  ‘Your master has returned and stands outside the gate, which will be opened to him and his men shortly. The lifespan of the Lion of Alarcos is now measured in hours at most.’ He turned to the nobleman with the emir’s guard. ‘That you stand here with the emir’s trusted adviser bound and even one of the Almohad dogs in attendance suggests that you chose to favour the hated invader over the island’s rightful ruler to whom you took an oath.’

  The guard in green clearly had no idea what Arnau was saying, but the facial expression of the nobleman suggested that even if he did not have a strong grasp of Spanish, he grasped enough of what Arnau had said, or at least the emotion behind it, that he had the grace to look utterly foolish and chastened.

  ‘Release him.’ He pointed at the wazir with his sword, and the nobleman barked an order to the soldier, who hurried over to the emir’s second in command and untied the man’s hands.

  ‘May Allah and his prophets send you favour and strength, young man,’ breathed the wazir, standing and rubbing his hands. ‘Thank you.’

  Arnau simply nodded his head, then pointed at the other two. ‘Good men, who owe allegiance to the rightful emir, are busy working to open the gate and deliver this palace to him. I know your faces. When this is over, if I learn that you were not part of that effort, I will make your failings known to your emir. Do you understand?’

  The nobleman nodded, but there was no need for him to pass on the ultimatum to his guard, for the wazir was already effortlessly translating Arnau’s words like an echo. Seemingly hungry to absolve themselves, the nobleman and the green-clad soldier hurried off, heading for the stairs. Whether they would help Balthesar, or even try to do so, Arnau did not know, and in truth he would never recall their faces, but he would not kill a man who could be saved. Besides, he had his gaze set upon greater prey.

  ‘Where is the Lion of Alarcos?’ he demanded of the wazir, once they were alone in the throne room.

  ‘You will find him at the highest level,’ the wazir replied quietly. ‘Atop the battlements of the tower, whence he commands his temporary kingdom, and from where he can see everything.’

  ‘Not everything,’ Arnau said, in tones of serrated steel. ‘He cannot see me.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  Friday, 11 June 1199

  11.50 a.m.

  Arnau climbed the stairs slowly but purposefully, the wazir four steps below him and following on close. The Templar had almost argued when the old man had left the room in his wake and followed him, worrying that he had no time to look to the safety of civilians right now, but had said nothing in the end. Not only did he have at least as much vested interest in what happened here as Arnau, if not more, but on a purely practical level, the wazir would know the palace well and could direct Arnau to his destination, diverting him around any trouble spots. The upper levels of this place were a mystery to the young sergeant after all.

  Strangely, as they passed through half a dozen rooms and corridors and climbed towards the roof, he picked up an entourage. No one of practical use, admittedly – no green-clad emir’s guards loyal to the end and able to put down an enemy with a blade – but palace slaves who, in the chaos and panic of the confrontation between emir and Almohad interloper, had spotted the wazir and flocked to him as a symbol of stability and authority, regardless of the crazed-looking warrior with him.

  By the time Arnau approached the door that would lead out onto the battlemented roof, there were five people with him, all nervous and weak and clinging on to his tail. It felt oddly thrilling to gather an entourage, even if they were really here for the old man and would be of little aid. At least it gave him a little extra spirit to know he was not alone.

  Psalms and prayers flitted through his mind as he climbed, none of them willing to settle long enough to be of comfort as his tension grew. He was about to face the most dangerous man on the island, and it had been gratifying to do so when he had expected it to be both he and Balthesar. Now, it felt somewhat different. Arnau could handle a sword – or a mace for preference, though his skills with the blade were improving all the time – but he was under no illusions that there were not much better swordsmen in the world, and instinct told him that the Lion of Alarcos was almost certainly one of them.

  Fragments of prayers and Psalms, just odd lines, flickered into his thoughts.

  Blessed be my Lord God, that teacheth mine hands to war; and my fingers to battle.

  Thou hurtlest down to me the instruments of battle.

  For the armours of our knighthood be not fleshly, but mighty by God to the destruction of strengths.

  And suddenly, as the door that would lead to confrontation loomed close, Blessed Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians came to him, a passage the army’s priest had intoned before the kneeling ranks of knights and men-at-arms before that fated clash at the Ebro where the Lord of Santa Coloma had died.

  Clothe yourself with the armour of God, that ye may stand against the assailing of the devil. For why battle is not to us against flesh and blood, but against the princes and potentates, against governors of the world of these darknesses, against spiritual things of wickedness, in heavenly things. Therefore take ye the armour of God, that ye may stand in the evil day, and in all things stand perfect. Therefore stand ye, and be girded about your loins in soothfastness, and clothed with the habergeon of rightwiseness, and your feet shod in the making ready of the gospel of peace. In all things take ye the shield of faith, in which ye may quench all the fiery darts of him that is the most wicked, and take ye the helmet of health, and the sword of the Ghost, that is, the word of God.

  The words flowed from his mind into his veins and thundered around his body, filling every part of him, bolstering his courage. He was clothed in the armour of God, even though he wore the mail shirt of a Moor, and he was here to do the Lord’s work as well as the emir’s. Wickedness had to end, whether a man marched for God or for Allah.

  Arnau’s fingers tightened on the hilts of his weapons, his sword and a short stabbing knife he had purloined from the belt of the dead guard in the throne room before he left. Now, as he closed on the door, he reached up and slipped the knife temporarily between his teeth, freeing up a hand.

  His left hand reached the door handle. He had no idea what awaited him outside and would have to trust in the Lord to see him through. If the Lion was confident – something on which Arnau was relying – then the bulk of his military strength would be down below facing the emir, where Balthesar would have to deal with them. If he was nervous or being cautious, on the other hand, then there could be a number of black-and-white-clad soldiers on this roof, and Arnau might find himself having to fight through a small army just to get to the man he had to kill.

  Lord, watch over me.

  Speed. Right now, he had only one true advantage, and that was the element of surprise. The Almohads could not yet know that he was in the palace, and would not be expecting danger to strike from so close a position. If he hurried, he could take advantage of that, but once he lost that surprise, he lost all advantage. As soon as the door opened, he had to take in everything in the blink of an eye and be on his enemy in a trice.

  Steeling hi
mself, he turned the handle and pushed.

  I shall stand in the evil day, and in all things stand perfect.

  The door flew open, and Arnau took in everything in an instant. They were on a tower top, one of several at the summit of the Al-Mudaina, and there was a lot less room than he had anticipated. In fact, from the door he was only twenty paces from the battlements at the far side, which looked down upon the troubles below. There were but four figures on the rooftop, which came as something of a relief.

  Abu Rāshid Abd al-Azīz ibn al-Ḥasan, the Lion of Alarcos, stood at that far parapet, facing away from him, observing what was happening down by the gate. Off to one corner, also looking away and down, was a courtier of some kind in bright red and green, oddly the colours that seemed to be favoured by the emir and the Lion. The remaining two figures were in the ubiquitous monochrome of the Almohad guards, one standing to the right of the door by a different parapet, and the other at the tower’s centre, inconveniently between Arnau and the Lion, and facing the door, to boot.

  Speed. Surprise. Instinct.

  The man to his right would have to wait. The first target had to be that guard who stood between Arnau and his prey, who was prepared and alert, whose eyes had already widened in shock and perhaps even recognition of the man who had emerged from the door.

  The guard managed to get out a strangled squawk and half draw his sword before Arnau was on him. As the young Templar ran, he whipped the knife from his teeth, delivering a tiny cut to the corner of his mouth in the process. He concentrated on his left hand now, aware that his sword was of limited use against such an armoured man, especially when speed was of the essence.

  A panicked and fading scream suddenly arose behind him and to his right, and he realised with grim satisfaction that the small group of civilians following him had tipped the other surprised guard over the parapet. The doomed Almohad soldier landed with a crunch some distance below, raising a cry of alarm from the other enemies down near the gate, but Arnau had his own issues to deal with.