Pilgrim

by James Jackson

  They emerged blinking to the outside, disorientated in the cool afternoon glare. Around them, cedar trees climbed the valley sides; below, the river disgorged strong and full in its seaward spate.

  Kurt looked about him. ‘How good to see the day. We thank you, Gunther.’

  ‘What I do is for greater cause.’

  ‘It was wrong of us to question you, to believe you wished us harm.’

  ‘I cannot right the past, though I may try to change the present.’

  ‘We stand here because of you.’

  ‘That pleases me, Kurt.’

  His glee was authentic and infectious. He embraced his companions, whooped and punched the air, joined them in their delight. They were on their way. Even Isolda, always careful, grieving for Achim, gave over to excitement. There would be food, proper shelter, a reacquainting with friends.

  ‘Where now, Gunther? What action shall we take?’

  The pale eyes of the boy shone with anticipation. ‘You need not move, Kurt.’

  ‘I do not understand.’

  ‘You never did.’ Gunther punched him hard in the belly, danced back as the youngster buckled retching to his knees. ‘The Lord of Arsur will provide all answer.’

  Strangers had appeared, were closing in from the trees with the drilled intensity of a planned outcome. Brother and sister were their focal point. Doubled over, still clutching his stomach, Kurt staggered to his feet. There was no mistaking what he saw, could be no misreading of the crime. A blind and choking fury seized him. He brushed aside the caring entreaties of Isolda, whirled floundering to meet the taunting challenge of his foe. Gunther stayed beyond the cramped radius of his reach.

  There were other ways to resist and fight. Struggling to breathe, choosing his moment, Kurt levered himself upright. He raised his face to the surrounding slopes and began to call.

  ‘Otto, it is the Lord of Arsur who does this. Hear us, Otto. The Lord of Arsur . . . The Lord of Arsur . . .’

  A sack was pulled over his head, and his shouts abruptly ceased.

  Otto heard and saw. It was fortunate he had detected the arrival of armed men at the entrance to the caves, had watched as they dispersed to cover and as the gaunt form of Gunther disappeared within. It could mean only a trap, for instinct and experience had taught him as much. So he lay on his belly and observed, did not move as Kurt and Isolda were led out, as the two children were cast once again into captivity. He could not reason why. His limbs were heavy with dread for them, his thoughts frenzied even as his body was still. There were no troops to call upon, no Sergeant Hugh with longbow close at hand. The soldier had his own itinerary in Beirut. To confront was wastefully to die. Yet he possessed information, intelligence of critical import and a name with which to conjure. The Lord of Arsur. That same identity had been prized from the abbot by the hard-drinking and bargain-driving Englishman. Correlation was made, conspiracy revealed.

  He had to reach Sergeant Hugh, to deliver report and prepare for rescue. The children depended on him. For three hours he waited in the thicket of trees, holding position and nerve before venturing to recover his horse. Then, mounted, he picked his way along the forest-bordered track to the coast, was cantering south for the city of Beirut. The Arab steed moved well, its neck stretched, its hooves thudding rhythmic and free. No other breed of stallion could maintain such pace.

  At the river edge, he paused. It would be the optimum place for an ambush. An arched stone bridge spanned the divide, and on each bank high cliffs rose above the wooded gorge. Armies in retreat or on campaign had passed this way, their fates varied, their journey marked with regiment names and legion numbers scored deep in the rock face. A graveyard of sorts; a lesson in history. Otto peered about. Beneath him, his mount whinnied fretfully and stamped. Perhaps it was impatience, or possibly it was warning.

  The figures when they materialized were not as he expected. They were Franks, certainly, armed as knights and seated on chargers. But they were different. They had the quality of spectres, the menace of bandits, the cowled and hooded facelessness of men without identity. Otto counted thirteen of them.

  ‘What is your purpose, youth?’

  For a moment, he could not answer. The voice of his challenger came diseased and harsh, seemed to issue from a lifeless soul. Any would be unnerved. Controlling his horse, subduing his impulse to leave, the young noble faced the threat.

  ‘I would travel onward for Beirut.’

  ‘You shall not pass.’

  ‘Says whose authority?’

  ‘That of the sword and superior force.’ The eyes of the stranger glared sickly at the Rhineland boy.

  ‘It is not the law of the land.’

  ‘There is no law beyond the convention of death.’ The leader of the leper knights made no attempt to move. ‘State your name, fair one.’

  ‘Otto of Alzey.’

  The briefest of pauses. ‘A far way from home, a distant corner in which to lose your handsome face.’

  ‘You test me?’

  ‘I invite you to combat, welcome you to perish for our sport.’

  ‘I tend to more noble pursuit.’

  ‘To flee, Otto of Alzey? To foul your undergarments? To fall to your knees and pray for clemency?’

  ‘None of these shall I do.’

  In fair fight he stood a chance against this scarecrow-apparition, and would have worked his blade to advantage. But there would be nothing just or even in the coming bout. Behind the aggressor were a dozen more, baneful disciples who would avenge and dispatch. No going forward, no falling back. Yet duty, urgency and honour forced him on.

  The hooded form climbed from his horse and accepted the one-and-a-half-hander sword proffered by an acolyte. Perfectly balanced, its spine and twin edges gleaming, the weapon could cleave in twain chain-mail or man. Despite the wayward and mercenary habits of the English bowman, Otto found himself wistful for his presence. He dismounted purposefully and drew his sword.

  At either end of the bridge they stood, squaring off, their blades lowered. Otto studied his rival. The man appeared to be carrying a limp, to have a left arm that occasionally twitched. He would attempt to exploit it. On that plain before Rome, Brother Luke had once counselled him to fight not as princeling from a castle but as mean vagabond of the road. He would shortly know the effects of such tutelage. Opposite, his antagonist behaved with the measured ritual of an executioner.

  ‘Commit yourself to God, youth.’

  ‘He guides all that I do.’

  ‘Soon will He pluck you from this earth.’ The body swayed, mesmerizing, cobra-slow. ‘Shout out your final prayers that we may hear.’

  ‘It is you who should make peace with the Redeemer.’

  ‘I find my peace in the screams of others, in the corpses which litter my path. Your life is at stake, youth.’

  ‘Name and repute are of higher value.’

  ‘Be on your guard.’

  They closed in a ringing clash of steel, and the world narrowed. It had reduced to this, to a slender band of stone on which two men fought and where existence balanced. Otto lunged and leaped back, greeting the whirling blade in a flash and flicker of sparks. He heard his breath and the pulse of his blood, the grunts and hammer-strikes of close exertion. Brute force contained its own sounds

  Moves were replicated, blows met and traded in dancing and parallel flow. Otto deflected an attack and hacked for the head, driving back his adversary. Cross-guards locked. He peered into malice-framed eyes, struggled yelling against an immutable strength. There had to be a way. Speed, judgement and cunning, Brother Luke had advised. But the friar was not engaged in deathly effort with unearthly foe.

  He lashed out with a foot, connected with a padded knee. It earned him slight reprieve. But the sword rebounded fiercer, battering hard, sweeping near. He was losing ground.

  ‘Beg for mercy, youth.’

  ‘I save my breath to curse you.’

  ‘Submit and die.’

  ‘I will not.�
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  Thrust and cut. The knight flicked the pommel with his hand, switched the angle of assault with velocity and skill. A trick garnered from the battlefield. Otto panted. He could not lower his defence, could ill afford error. Somewhere, a vision of his grave floated. He would do everything to avoid ending there, anything to prevent himself betraying his friends. Metal scraped on metal.

  In violent riot, the blade severed space and glanced from his cuirie. He staggered back and fell, recovered to a crouch, and parried upward. Again the sword descended. He blocked, his gauntleted hand gripping and levering his tapered blade. Pressure increased. Quickly, he dropped to the side and released his hold. The enemy corrected, was too practised to overreach, to become entangled or unbalanced.

  One on one, and he felt he faced an army. He was weakening.

  ‘What ails you, youth? I have found fiercer adversary in miners of iron, in women of villages I have burnt.’

  ‘Your taunts are nothing.’

  ‘There are victims whose tongues I have nailed to doors, whose skins I have stripped free and stuffed with straw, whose bodies I have rent asunder between sprung trees.’

  ‘For all misdeeds, you shall answer.’

  ‘Yet not this day.’ The sword arced, Otto sprawled, and the masked aggressor stood above him. ‘Luck deserts you, Otto of Alzey.’

  His weapon was also gone, sent clattering beyond his reach. It was too late for calculation or riposte. He wiped the sweat from his eyes, blinked passive as the razor edge hung still and lingering above. Seconds away from his butchering. An oddly emotionless affair, a respite before the inevitable. His old tutor Felix would have been disappointed in such an ignoble finish. A mortal pity he would never again see his father.

  The steel tip grazed the surface of his leather breastplate. ‘What privilege to tremble at the edge of oblivion, youth.’

  ‘Act as you may, brigand.’

  ‘Such defiance in your perdition.’ The sword toyed as though itself making decision. ‘Dignity and hope have no worth in the Holy Land.’

  ‘I live or depart as I choose.’

  ‘And you earn stay of slaughter.’

  Threat and blade lifted with suddenness and no explanation. A signal to his men, and the knight of St Lazarus returned to his horse and climbed into the saddle. Farewells were unnecessary. In a press of spurs and spray of hooves, the band had dissolved from sight. Game was over.

  For a while Otto lay on his back, happy to be alive.

  As some were thrown into bondage, others took steps towards their freedom. On his prison island, Brother Luke walked his creaking wheel as he had these many days and weeks. It was a night like any other. The same cold wind, the same glow from the smithy furnaces, the same routines. Somewhere, Templar knights slumbered and patrols strolled their customary beat; somewhere, a guard dozed beside the treasure-house and slaves nestled in the dank foulness of their dungeons. He had them all mapped.

  Diverted, the escorting soldier had not earlier witnessed him stoop and plunge his hands in the open container of olive oil. Nor had the man noticed as he worked free those hands to later slip their bindings. It had been a time-consuming process. But the hours, and now darkness, were on his side. Carefully, he removed the last tie and eased himself from the wheel. From hereon, recapture would mean certain death.

  He had rounds to perform. There were no guards on the oil-store, and it was there that he first directed himself. Using touch alone, he applied his pilfered needle to the lock, pushing against the door as the simple barrel gave. He had defeated tougher obstacles before. Systematically, he opened window shutters, emptied amphorae, decanted contents into earthenware jars. Then he cut his ragged garment into long strips with his acquired and hidden shard of glass. The better to make fuse-string.

  Progress was steady and unhindered, the friar circulating through the narrow alleyways with the quiet confidence of purpose and carrying a bulky sack. To be furtive was to excite interest and enquiry. Occasionally a hound barked or a cat slunk by on mission for rats, a goat bleated. With a sigh of relief, a sentry loosed his bladder against a wall and returned to his repose. Nothing to report. He had been unaware of the night-stalker lingering at the corner. Brother Luke passed by. A cache of armour and weapons provided useful source of cover. He made his selection, chose a javelin, a linen mantle, a helmet with nose-guard, and moved on. The flour-mill was next, beyond it the forge and the armoury. It was a circuit of a mere few hundred yards, a journey that seemed like an odyssey.

  ‘As exciting as any tomb, brother.’ A hand slapped his back.

  He paused and half turned, his voice lapsing to the rough vernacular of the soldier, his body stiffening in expectation of a knife. The sour hint of fermented wheat clung to the breath of the man. It could offer advantage or drawback.

  ‘To you I am Sergeant Brother.’ His hissed response was domineering and unfriendly.

  The soldier lurched confused. ‘I mean no harm, Sergeant Brother.’

  ‘Yet you create offence. You have task to do?’

  ‘It is not my watch, Sergeant Brother.’

  ‘So use these hours to sleep and not to drink. We each of us face battle ahead.’

  ‘That itself gives reason to celebrate. Attack on Jerusalem deserves libation, Sergeant Brother.’

  ‘It demands our preparation.’

  ‘You are fine sergeant and stern master.’

  ‘Likely to be harsher should my comment go unheeded. Spare your effort for the fray, or we shall all end in the tomb.’

  Salutary advice deliberated in silence by the drunk. He appeared to be convinced. The commanding tone and nocturnal shadow, the expanded garrison of recent days, lent credibility to the lie and anonymity to the friar. Brother Luke had gained the upper hand.

  He pushed against the swaying form. ‘Begone now, before my patience ends.’ It had the desired effect.

  Just as well, for the Franciscan had been engaged in pouring oil through a hatch that led direct to the flour-store and the baking-ovens adjacent. At this hour, the residual dust would have been swept, the grates cleared. But the stones within would still be hot. A useful item to remember, and a place he intended to revisit.

  The forge was his focus and objective. At all hours its frenetic industry never ceased, the hammering, the hellish glow, the wheeze of bellows, the clouds of steam infecting the air about. Bodies glistened and toiled. A process was in motion, fires stoked, bars and ingots of white-hot steel folded, beaten, plunged and tempered. Military campaign made demands of its suppliers. They were too busy to notice incident at the margins, too deafened to sense an aged prisoner appearing in a doorway.

  Flame belched in sudden explosion. Men and order vanished, chaos entered, as ragged blasts tore and repeated through the building inferno. Clay jars arced and shattered, oil spilled to hasten and fuel. Within the furnace, shapes had become indistinct. Humans lumbered and tumbled, colliding in blind exodus, fighting for air and escape. Their small and efficient world had crumpled. Conflagration replaced it, and the fire was spreading fast.

  ‘Feu! Feu! Feu!’

  Shrieked warnings did not do justice to the incendiary scene. From their dormitories, knights and sergeants came running, adding to confusion, swelling the frenzy. They were well occupied. Through their midst, Brother Luke wandered. He had discarded his javelin, had acquired a steel pail of burning charcoal that he seemed to be removing from the billowing site. None asked questions. He was merely another pair of hands, a soldier abandoning his post and gathering in a street thronging with too many. The glowing cinders were deposited through the entrance to the cloth-house.

  Further eruptions burst in untidy trail across the island, the walls and passages soaked in creeping light and desperate scenes. Arwad was ablaze, and the old Franciscan on the move. He had reached the treasure-vaults. On normal occasion they were well guarded, the gilded heart of a Templar Order whose burgeoning wealth was amassed in coffers here. But circumstance was changed and discipline sp
ent. Waving and hollering, the friar rushed in, a convincing presence in a moment of uncertainty and crisis.

  Fearful and in haste, a warder crashed against him. ‘What happens, brother?’

  ‘Arwad is consumed. We all must join to fight the storm.’

  ‘Where should I head?’

  ‘Wherever there is flame to douse.’ The friar propelled the man for the doorway. ‘Make haste, brother, and may God help us.’

  He had lifted the keys from the leather belt of the man, knew the procedure well enough for entry to the sanctum. Close by, fireballs vented to the sky, secondary and tertiary detonations catching the oil-mill, overwhelming the kitchens. He would be quick in his choice. Ten minutes later he re-emerged, a hunched figure trundling a laden handcart, a friar turned soldier turned thief. The shoreline had become his destination.

  At some point his absence from the wheel would be noticed. Yet he had already ranged beyond the deserted gates, ascended a defilade, and ventured with his barrow out on to a stub pontoon. Fire-fighting would detain his captors for a while. He busied himself in stowing his trophies aboard a little skiff, his labours lit by unnatural radiance cast and reflected on the dark surrounding water.

  ‘Holy brother, they come for you. You have not much time.’ His fellow prisoner the Dane had crawled unseen from his duties.

  Brother Luke glanced at the dim shadow. ‘You are present to bid farewell or sail with me?’

  ‘Neither, holy brother. I am here to preserve your life and protect your flight.’

  ‘Though you may forfeit chance for your own?’

  It provoked a quiet laugh. ‘I acquire a sword and will put it to use. Call it revenge or simple pleasure for a Varangian guard who once more has occasion to enter the fray.’

  ‘Do not squander your blood on account of an old Franciscan.’

  ‘There is no waste when it is done in fraternal love.’ Shouts echoed near, were accompanied by the martial tramp of feet. ‘Make haste, holy brother, and pray for me. We shall meet again in paradise.’