Pilgrim

by James Jackson

‘For all your sacrifice I am grateful.’

  ‘The Sultan will consign his own son al-Mu’azzam to our keeping. Is it not good sign?’

  ‘I am in no mood for signs.’ The regent ground his fist into his palm. ‘I lose my wife to an early grave, my sweet infant daughter to the hands of a vile thief. I cannot give up Matilda to unknown fate.’

  ‘Our fate is ready decided if I do not go, my lord.’

  Matilda curtsied low, had entered the chamber unnoticed, was solemn and correct in her composure. Yet her spirit glowed. So collectable a beauty, such effortless and untamed grace, thought the Lord of Arsur. Her eyes were as green as the most precious of emeralds, her hair raven, her skin soft and pure. Breeding-stock without compare. The regent desired her safe, did not wish for her involvement. But she was already enmeshed. She would be lured to a new destiny, taken if necessary by force.

  She levelled her gaze at John of Brienne, her look one of resolve. ‘My duty is to serve, sir. How could I turn away when Yolanda is imperilled? How may I live in indolence and comfort when there is effort to be made?’

  ‘This is no matter for a noble maid, nor for one so young.’

  ‘I am needed, sir.’

  ‘You are required here.’

  ‘To roam the palace halls, to play at my loom, to watch our lands wither from the vantage of the city ramparts?’

  ‘Dwell where you are protected and not with the responsibilities of men.’

  ‘Have I not assumed the mantle of my father and administered his estates?’

  The aged crusader shrugged in tired perplexity. ‘Should harm befall you, I am finished.’

  ‘I merely share the burden that threatens us all.’ She pressed her case as his resistance flagged. ‘Your own Maria, my dear and departed queen, would not sit idle by. She would spur action to restore her child and our battered nation.’

  John of Brienne clamped his open hands across his face. ‘Your truth cuts deeper than any knife.’

  ‘Let me travel to the fort of Beit-Nuba, sir. Permit me to tarry there with the Lord of Arsur and the other noble captives.’

  The Lord of Arsur nodded comfortingly in his support. ‘On my honour and life, I will guard and reinstate her to your side.’

  Pledges were so easy to break, declarations so simple to abandon. A distressed regent and an ardent girl were the most malleable of elements. The Lord of Arsur was solicitous in his attention. He had kidnapped the infant daughter of that regent, had long ago killed the father of that girl. They were none the wiser. A pity the late Sir William de Picton and Lord of Jebail were not present to offer guidance. But they were victims of their own credulous nature. It was ever the unlikely and the ordinary who became the greatest of tyrants. He would surpass them all.

  Ill at ease, Matilda wandered beneath the barrel-vaulting of the processional corridor. She had agreed to be made hostage for the sake and future of the realm and for the duration of the peace talks. Yet conflict instead of calm attached to every thought. She did not wish to leave her regent lord at time of such dread magnitude, to abandon Acre and the walls of Christendom for the uncertain company of the Lord of Arsur and hospitality of the Saracen. But such petty and self-serving views were unworthy of her name. She tried to discard them, attempted to reason they were product of emotions frayed by recent happening. Still they remained. There were none in whom she could confide her previous and warning instincts concerning the wet-nurse of Yolanda. Now the infant queen was gone. Perhaps it was reparation, a divine form of atonement that she should spend time with the strange and hateful Lord of Arsur. God have mercy. She was bleakly certain that matters would soon worsen.

  January was a treadmill. For many hours of every day, dressed in threadbare rags against the wind, Brother Luke trudged the slatted boards and slowly turned the wheel. The Templars had found labour for sore and bloody feet. Each step produced the echoed rattle of a chain, pulled wooden pails from the cistern deep below and tipped their contents into sluices. These channels took water to every part: to the troughs and baths, to the forge and the mills. The Franciscan walked at their centre. He was an assiduous worker, never complaining or slackening his pace, never once crying out at the casual application of the lash. Even when it was dark, and the only light came from the orange glow of the smithy fires, the ambient sound of hammers on steel, the elderly friar plodded on. The Franks were preparing, and he wished to see. Boats came and left, provisions were loaded, the occasional corpse of a slave was dumped without flourish at sea. Such was life and death during that month on the tiny fortress isle of Arwad.

  This morning he had a fellow prisoner beside him, a roped associate to share the load. It was the Dane, the former Varangian guard of Constantinople who had broken bread with him at the start of his incarceration.

  ‘You think on everything or nothing, holy brother?’

  ‘I dwell upon the happiness to be gained even in the simplest toil.’

  ‘A noble example I find hard to follow.’

  ‘Was it not a humble ass that carried Jesus to Jerusalem? We Franciscans seek no higher calling than to be similar beast of burden.’

  ‘I can truly say you have found it.’

  Brother Luke gave an enigmatic smile. ‘Slavery is a soul confined and kept in irons. This wheel provides no real imprisonment.’

  ‘You have been touched by the sun and on the road too long, holy brother.’

  ‘Maybe so.’ Another step and revolution completed. ‘Yet I have more liberty than any here in the dungeons possess.’

  ‘Greater resilience too, I note.’

  They pushed on, pressed down, heaving against the weight of their rotating pathway. Brother Luke glanced to the side, mapped with the trained eye of an observer the route of the watercourse and location of critical labours. An innocent enough pursuit. Bored with the monotony of their own regime and in search of better pastime, the guards had sauntered away. Attention diverted was opportunity gained. It was in such moments a prisoner might pluck from the ground a pin or discarded shard of glass; it was in these seconds he could perform reconnaissance or conceal an item. The Franciscan was no apprentice.

  The Dane panted through exertion. ‘For myself, and for my sins, I believe the acts of my forebears are come to visit me.’

  ‘How so, my son?’

  ‘I am descended from kings, rulers who once raided your shores of Albion, who pillaged the holy isle of Lindisfarne, who enslaved thousands.’

  ‘There is not a man alive whose lands have not seen occupation, whose ancestors have not been put to the sword or yoke.’

  ‘It becomes our turn, holy brother.’

  ‘You a soldier and I a friar. Both are callings of uncertain fortune.’

  ‘Does a man of God expect to be caged?’

  ‘On occasion it is what I have come to assume.’ Brother Luke found amusement in the memory. ‘I have ceased to predict the vagaries of life.’

  ‘But Templars? Christian knights who inflict suffering and indignity on a Christian brother?’

  ‘It is possible I provoke them.’

  Silence again settled, their efforts directed to maintaining the flow of their task. Brother Luke had not stopped surveying the backdrop. His gaze took in every detail, alighted on an idling figure or moving cart, tracked the course of a passing patrol. He was counting, testing, arranging his future.

  A murmured warning from the Dane. ‘Put it from your head, holy brother. Escape will not happen.’

  ‘As I have declared, I am loath to make prophecy.’

  ‘You are one man on an island of many, an unarmed friar against the most martial of foes.’

  ‘That they do not consider me their equal is at least a beginning.’

  ‘It is as like to be your end.’ The prisoner stared at him in wonderment and oblique admiration. ‘Tell me it is delusion, a trick of an infirm mind.’

  ‘An aged wanderer is permitted occasional flight of his senses.’

  ‘I think you too wise and calcu
lating for such flight. It makes it the more dangerous.’

  ‘Nothing I do will imperil any captive on this isle.’

  ‘You may yet inspire us.’

  There was a sudden catch in the voice of the Dane, as though emotion had been stirred, a longing uncovered. Prisoners rarely had the chance to reach beyond the confines of their bars, to travel further than the radius of their shackles. Brother Luke seemed to stretch out beyond the realm of probability. The promise was tantalizing, the reality daunting.

  ‘Is this wild jest, holy brother?’

  ‘I merely study all routes and dwell on each prospect.’

  ‘However the future, regard me as your comrade.’

  ‘With willingness, my son.’

  ‘You, come with us . . .’

  Interruption was swift and with its usual brutality. Guards had appeared, were dragging the Dane from his position and redirecting him in a flurry of kicks. It would be foolish to resist. Brother Luke did not pause, the Dane reflexively folded to deferential posture. There were sacks to be hefted and carried. With discordant shouts, the prisoner was driven on. He exchanged only a sliding glance with the tramping friar, blank and transient stares that signified nothing and communicated much. Sentinels could rarely decipher the language of their captives.

  The incident was past, and Brother Luke continued to plan for his breakout.

  His lambs had seen nothing like it. Kurt and Isolda crouched in the cathedral gloom of the cave, children awed and insignificant in the hollowed majesty of their surroundings. Below them the river Lycus rushed and cascaded through gaping caverns; around them the pendulous stalactites and jutting stalagmites emerged as a myriad coloured teeth. Any mortal would be impressed. A few miles from Beirut, and this was their latest hiding-place, a waystop on a journey that had taken them from mountain peaks to valley floors, which had seen them huddle in the ruins of Byzantine churches and lie low among the stone remnants of Greek temples. They had no wish to be captured.

  ‘Otto and Sergeant Hugh are departed a long while, Kurt.’

  ‘Patience, Isolda. They forage for food, scout ahead for any danger.’

  ‘I once believed it was the infidel alone who wished us harm. Since the monastery, I am not so certain.’

  ‘Hazard is everywhere. It is why Otto and Sergeant Hugh ride with senses sharp and blades drawn.’

  ‘How blessed we are.’ She turned to him, her face thin and delicate in the light of their single lamp. ‘And how lucky I am my brother is constant at my side.’

  He put his arm about her shoulder and rested back against the cold dampness of the rock. In truth, he yearned to be riding out with the young noble and the English soldier, to be performing brave deeds and charging down the foe. That was aspiration for a boy, the spirit of Cœur de Lion. After all, he acted as unspoken squire to Otto, was as loyal and accomplished as any born to better blood. What he needed was a sword, a fight, a proving-ground.

  Beside him, Isolda sighed. ‘Is this what the old Hospitaller at Krak des Chevaliers meant when saying we might be consumed in the darkness?’

  ‘He spoke in tongues, not any I can explain.’

  ‘We are far from the square where we gathered before the cathedral in Cologne.’

  ‘Far from everything.’

  ‘So much joy and hope was there, so many children.’

  ‘We are what is left, Isolda.’

  ‘I did not imagine it this way, did not think there was cost in what the preacher-boy Nikolas told us.’

  ‘Perhaps we did not think at all.’

  It had been an age since the image of the girl with the flaxen girl had visited. She returned to him now, her smile as open and eyes as bright as they were when first she approached. He welcomed her back. There was no sadness in her face, no accusation or regret. She would never grow old, never need to run for her life or tremble in caves. He was grateful for that.

  His sister was talking, her voice subdued against the heavier flow of the water. ‘Not once have we learned of Brother Luke passing this way.’

  ‘He travels to his own calendar, Isolda. While we move and live as mountain ibex, he walks the coast. He has doubtless already reached Acre.’

  ‘I miss him, Kurt.’

  ‘We will soon be reunited and sharing tales of our adventure.’

  ‘You think he has escaped by basket from a clifftop? You think he has been dragged off by heathen traders into slavery?’

  They shared the joke, entertained and amazed at the world opened to them. Nobles and Franciscans, Templars and Saracens, Cathars and longbowmen. None other in their village would have made such encounters. What lay ahead rested in the closed palm of God. He might give or take away, might reveal to them the True Cross. Kurt wondered if they would ever confront a genuine dragon or monster.

  ‘Kurt, you hear it?’ His sister clutched his arm.

  ‘There is nothing but the river and its sounds.’

  ‘A voice.’ Her own was insistent. ‘Listen.’

  ‘It is no one.’

  ‘Someone comes. He is calling to us.’

  ‘Sergeant Hugh? Otto?’ The twelve-year-old eased forward to concentrate. ‘I still do not notice.’

  The words crawled faint and indecipherable to him, a reverberation pushing through the background. His face wrinkled in the effort to interpret. Whoever called could be near or far, might never stumble upon them. He doused the lamp.

  But illumination remained. It was growing from a single source, glancing from limestone, creeping subdued and ever closer. Behind it was that voice. Again it cried out, plaintive, seeking, probing ahead of the oncoming beam. Isolda shivered. And Kurt too began to quake, his mouth dry, his stomach tightening in involuntary spasm of alarm. He and his sister were being identified by name. Kurt . . . Isolda . . . Kurt . . . Isolda . . . He recognized the words. Worse, he knew their speaker. Hypnotized in disbelief, he awaited revelation. The intruder had leaped from past and sinister dream to present and living nightmare, might just as well have reached and seized him by the throat. He could scarcely breathe, hardly think. Gunther had joined them in the hillside chamber.

  He was not the son of the woodsman as Kurt remembered. The sneering arrogance was gone, the bullying manner evaporated to leave a cringing supplicant who posed no threat. That alone was disconcerting. Bewildered, Kurt rose and tried to retreat. The older boy was on his knees, stuttering and imploring in his regret, his face strained and mucous-wet with tears and misery.

  ‘Kurt, Isolda, I ask your forgiveness for what I have done. Please, I beg of you.’ He wrung his hands, bowed his head weeping.

  ‘Is this the boy who robbed, who showed no mercy, who was cruel to any weaker than himself?’

  ‘I am changed, wish only to make amends and prove myself worthy.’

  ‘You may offer explanation.’ Kurt heard his own voice hard-edged with mistrust. ‘How came you here? How could you find us? How might any know of our position?’

  ‘Your companion, the soldier.’

  ‘Sergeant Hugh?’

  Gunther nodded and sniffed. ‘I come from Beirut, where he now attends. I met him by chance, and by good grace have earned his esteem through my rescue of others.’

  ‘His esteem?’

  ‘This voyage has taught me much, Kurt. It has granted me peace, opened my eyes and ears to the beauty of God and the meaning of His Word.’

  ‘I do not believe you.’

  ‘Drive me from your sight if you wish, yet I come in friendship.’

  ‘It does not happen. This is nothing more than magic trance.’ Kurt squeezed his eyes tight-shut and opened them once more. ‘You are the Devil.’

  ‘I am Gunther, the son of the woodsman, the boy from your village.’

  ‘Would that you had stayed there.’ Kurt spat out the words with vehement rage.

  ‘For all my sins, I will pay. But let me begin to heal wrongs, let me help you in your journey.’

  ‘We have aid enough.’

  ‘I
have food, warm clothes, a guide to escort us these last few miles. Sergeant Hugh awaits you, trusts in your agreement.’

  ‘He should himself return to us.’

  ‘A soldier easily strays, an Englishman finds pleasure wherever he visits.’

  ‘There is Otto.’

  ‘Our guide searches for him now. Better to be in daylight than in a cave, Kurt. Emerge from the gloom and ride with me.’

  ‘What of the danger?’

  ‘I survive, do I not?’ Gunther managed an appeasing smile, his face splitting into bony configuration of rotten teeth and drying tears. ‘We each search for the True Cross. Is it not fellowship, a bond?’

  Of a kind. Kurt wanted to take up a stone and dash out his brains, to kick the mortal remains of this trespasser into the deepest pit, but he would not act on the urge. There was a possibility Gunther spoke the truth, the smallest reality he approached in good faith. Miracle or curse, it was hard to gauge.

  The red-headed boy read his doubt. ‘Heed me, Kurt. We must depart before robbers or bandits discover you here.’

  ‘Shall we depend on him, Isolda?’ Kurt turned to his sister.

  She was mute in horror at the scene, her expression mobile with confusion and conflicting senses. She could offer him no guidance. Gunther seemed transformed. Yet, however contrite and passive his new-found manner, he inhabited the same body, used his former voice. It was too much to grasp.

  Isolda finally nodded. ‘We should follow him, Kurt.’

  Chapter 17

  Conditions were treacherous. With care they clambered over obstacles and slithered down steep faces, making for the distant entrance of the caverns. Once, Kurt slipped. But Gunther proffered his hand, hauled him to safety as though brother-in-arms, as if bad blood and unpleasant history had never existed between them. Division was ended. The younger boy was glad his grudging instinct had been proved correct. Gunther was merely a lad like himself, a youth brave enough to bury the past, generous enough to lend his aid. The son of the woodsman was eager too to talk. He told of how he had travelled from Genoa, how little blind Achim had died, how Egon and Zepp now awaited their old friends in the royal city of Acre. Such news was further reason to hasten their pace.