‘A youth with smell of the rut and air of indiscretion.’
The hand on his shoulder was firm, the voice that of Sergeant Hugh. Otto had jumped the last few feet of his descent, had landed soft beside the fig tree and congratulated himself on departure well executed. He would be back, could barely stay away. Matilda was everything he had longed for and nothing he had ever known. From those sweet hours of charged frenetic passion and warm embrace, he had discovered wholeness, carried away the perfume of her body on his skin and her ease and comfort in his soul. Now the English bowman intruded to shatter his delight.
He glared at the dim presence. ‘You spy on me, Sergeant Hugh?’
‘I guard your back. A back, I wager, which is bruised and strained from its misadventure.’
‘You will learn of misadventure from my blade.’
‘As Lady Matilda discovers it from your sword thrust.’ Sergeant Hugh enjoyed his own jibe.
‘It is no concern for you.’
‘No?’ The soldier manhandled him roughly to the palace wall. ‘A peacock without feathers or gizzard cannot strut, a bull without balls is not highly prized.’
‘You have been drinking?’
‘That would be my preference. But there is too much excitement loose, too great a danger to you beyond wet vestibule of a damsel or wrath of her royal guardian.’
‘Here? Danger?’
‘Waken to it, Alzey.’ The longbowman communicated with a slap.
‘Let me be.’
‘So you may walk into trap and trouble?’ Sergeant Hugh shook his head. ‘Enemies pursued you in the Alps and stalk you close in Acre.’
‘Your solution is to waylay me in the dark?’
‘To escort you to rare meeting. Come with me.’
This was his environment, the royal city in which the English bowman had lived, drunk and brawled for twenty years since storming its ramparts with Richard Cœur de Lion. He moved with the confidence of ownership, and Otto followed, pacing fast as the soldier strode through the tangled confines. Moslem raids had forced many to seek refuge within the walls. They clustered in the streets and courtyards, huddled figures steeped in misery among their goats and poultry and random belongings of their departure. Waiting for better times.
Sergeant Hugh and Otto reached their destination. It was a basic structure built of stone and close by an inner revetment, little more than an open shed stabling rats and storing animal dung to dry for later use as fuel. Few would visit or inspect too close. The young noble remained silent, for asking questions would gain no frank disclosure. Besides, the soldier was busy, had lit an oil lamp and was heaving aside a pallet of droppings to raise the cover of a hidden entrance.
He beckoned Otto to join him and heaved himself down before taking the lantern. There was little choice but to obey. Gingerly, the youth lowered himself through, feeling with his fingertips the earth walls of a narrow passageway, smelling the musty dampness of ancient excavation. They went deeper, part crouching, semi-crawling, navigating a subterranean lair of recesses and crumbling shafts. Sergeant Hugh knew the way. The cramped labyrinth was his unofficial storeroom, repository for traded and stolen wares, treasure-house of gold, silver and jewels. Every soldier required a retirement fund. Otto was flattered, and mystified, to be shown it.
‘The very foundation of our walls.’ Sergeant Hugh slapped the keystone of a half-buried arch. ‘Below us are wood props, the structures for which Saracen fire-troops will mine to set their flame and crack the earth, to bring our fortress tumbling down.’
‘We are not yet at war.’
‘Though we are all of us perilous close.’ Anticipation made the eyes of the bowman gleam.
‘You did not bring me here to confer on philosophy and stratagem, Sergeant Hugh.’
‘Proof that a handsome head may also be a wise one, Alzey. Tell me again how seemed the leader of those who snared Kurt and Isolda.’
‘I have described him on numerous occasions.’
‘Once more.’
‘He was of mean and knavish look, with the scar of a knife-blade apparent on his cheek even at a distance.’
‘You would recognize him?’
‘I could not forget him.’
Sergeant Hugh grinned a mischievous smile. ‘That is to our benefit, for I arrange reunion.’
He did not lie. With a flourish and a wave of his lantern, he stepped back and revealed the presence of a prisoner bound and gagged. There was no mistake. The bulging and livid eyes, the angry wound scored on pitted skin, belonged to a lieutenant of the Lord of Arsur. And Otto had once seen him outside the caverns near Beirut, had witnessed him place a sack over the head of his young friend Kurt. Circumstance was reversed.
‘I am poor judge, but it seems he is not yet grown fond of us, Alzey.’
‘You bring him here?’ The young noble was incredulous.
‘He hunted you with a knife, tracked you as though he were your shadow.’
‘I thank you for such meddling.’
‘It was sound idea at the time but his master will be awonder at where he might have strayed.’
‘How did you convince him to accompany you to this place?’
‘With comradeship and a larger knife.’ The soldier cuffed the straining face a playful blow. ‘You hear him, perceive how he longs to sing?’
Strange and throaty sounds filtered through the bared lips and the rope-knot fixed between them. The man was not a happy captive. It did little to daunt Sergeant Hugh, who was proud to show off his trophy and pleased at chance to bait it.
‘In exchange for his collaboration, I give him voice, welcome his merriment and mirth.’ He leaned forward and, with deliberate roughness, loosened the muffle.
It produced instant result. Grunted invective became a torrent of bellowed abuse, the detained henchman struggling enraged and unleashing curses and threat. Music to the tone-deaf ears of the Englishman.
‘Such hearty tune from my caged and precious songbird.’
‘You will pay for this! You shall hang for this!’
‘Come, my songbird. It is time for pleasantness and not idle menace.’
The prisoner spat his ire. ‘You believe you may escape retribution, may take action against me without coming to harm?’
‘Maybe you forget you are in Acre and nor Arsur, that your companions are there as mine are here.’
‘It will not save you.’
‘And who will liberate you?’ Sergeant Hugh pulled a face of mock concern. ‘One moment you swagger haughty and strong, servant to your lord. The next you are gone and none know where.’
‘You will release me.’
‘We merely begin, my songbird.’
‘Do not fool with me, nor misjudge the penalty for your crime.’
The soldier cocked an eyebrow. ‘What of your misdeeds and of the boy Kurt and girl Isolda you seized outside the caves?’
‘Your anxious care touches me, Hugh of York.’ The sarcasm was laden with hate.
‘As violence will readily mark you. Tell me where they are.’
‘There is nothing you may do for them.’
‘Why does your Lord of Arsur gather up the young to his lair? Did he further plot and take the baby queen?’
‘Matters exist beyond your comprehension and control, outside the bounds of your narrow realm.’
‘Little exists outside yours. Confide in me, my songbird.’
A stubborn silence prevailed, the captive refusing to speak, the bowman declining to end his inquisition. Whatever it took, however bloody it became, he would break the man and gain information for his efforts. He drew a long and thin knife from a metal sheath and turned it in the lamplight.
‘Your own blade, my songbird.’ He held it before the eyes of the man. ‘A Persian design.’
‘You speak without insight, Hugh of York.’
‘Yet I make connection, draw close to the truth. I have seen such weapons before, carried by Assassins.’
‘What of it?’
/>
‘Is your Lord of Arsur in league with these zealots? Was he arranger of the murder of Sir William de Picton and the Lord of Jebail?’
‘You will have your tongue cut out, soldier.’
‘While you shall still be buried.’ Sergeant Hugh dangled the blade, saw the face blanch and perspiration spring. ‘You recoil, my songbird. Is it that the steel is treated with poison, that single scratch may kill?’ He brought it close.
‘Stay your hand.’
The bowman glanced at Otto. ‘Intriguing that he consorts with Assassins, conspires with killers of the kind who pursued you to Rome. They lead to the Lord of Arsur.’
Otto spoke calmly to the prisoner. ‘I live because of Sergeant Hugh, and in spite of your endeavour. You damn your master by your presence here.’
‘My damnation is as nothing to your own.’
The captive was scowling, had regained the bravado and arrogance of the wronged and righteous, of a lieutenant who was privy to the greater scheme and the role of every player. He would not be cowed. Others would replace him, would come to exact revenge.
He looked slowly at the bowman and the young noble. ‘Confession from me will bring you no solution or relief, will go ignored before the throne. I took the children at the cave and have herded many to our charge. I was present at the deaths of Sir William and the effete Lord of Jebail, myself flung a prying stablehand from the high parapet of the Accursed Tower. Each of you will suffer similar and deadly fate.’
Sergeant Hugh viewed him with understated threat. ‘What happens in Arsur, my songbird?’
‘Destiny.’
It was a word spoken with conviction.
Along the harbour-front of Arsur, ships had moored and disgorged their cargo. They came from Cyprus and Tortosa, brought Templars and mercenary knights, carried the troops and supplies that would keep an army on the march and sustain a military thrust upon Jerusalem. Like a blanket of spring flowers bloomed too early, a tented encampment spread out on the plain around the town. Horses exercised, campfires burned, ox-carts were positioned and filled with catapult-shot and bundled arrows. A static location everywhere in motion.
Occasionally, scouting turcopoles and squadrons of mail-clad Franks galloped in from outlying patrol. Their warlike cries and fluttering pennants added to the tension, built anticipation towards the moment when the trumpets would sound, the formations fall in, the whips crack and wagons roll. Preparations would not be disturbed. The regent king of Outremer was otherwise engaged, the Sultan of Damascus busy with cares of his own. Both men were readying for peace talks in Jabala; both men would be butchered when they met. It was far from Arsur, from the place where ambition was made solid and where a force five thousand-strong gathered and waited. Beyond it, masked by the ridge-line of hills, hidden in their wooded sweeps and gorges, the leper Knights of St Lazarus also stirred. All had motive and their orders.
Pace and planning did not abate. There were battle-scythes to sharpen, sword-skills to hone, pike-drills to practise and maintain. In the Cathar lines, the Perfects moved among their armed flock, laying on hands, leading prayers, promising salvation in just conflict against heretical Latins and heathen Saracens alike. Aloof from them, kept apart from those they would one day kill, the Templars accepted holy sacrament and knelt before the cross-guards of their swords. Between such factions, the hired warriors and professional thugs played dice and swapped stories of past skirmish and close escape, of towns razed and girls taken. Prospect of campaign and glory could forge unity in any tongue, win obedience to a single cause. Jerusalem lay exposed. No greater spur to action existed in all mankind. The Lord of Arsur was counting on it.
‘A sad and piteous sight.’
‘The one I see is more shameful, Gunther.’
But the son of the woodsman had no shame. At a safe distance from the shackled children, he gnawed contentedly on a boiled chicken leg and licked his fingers. Since Kurt had challenged the Perfect and been chained as punishment with his sister, it seemed fitting moment to approach. Gunther would not waste his chance.
‘How does it feel to be prisoner, Kurt?’
‘More comfortable than to be a traitor.’
‘Traitor?’ The redhead sniggered. ‘It is not treachery I perform, but a duty, a calling, a service to my lord.’
‘A means to line your stomach while we starve.’
‘You chose the wrong cause, and I the right.’
‘Where is right in keeping us here bound?’ Kurt trembled in his indignation.
The older boy continued to suck the chicken-bone clean. ‘You think you may appeal to my nature, win mercy for yourselves. There is no profit in it for me.’
‘Reward is in heaven.’
‘My prize is on earth, is to witness you suffer, to observe you carried off to die.’
‘I do you no wrong, Gunther.’
‘Yet I have hated you always, despised your well-liked and admired ways.’
‘It is no reason to do us harm.’
‘You are friend to the weak as I am ally of the strong.’ The son of the woodsman threw down the bone and ground it beneath his boot. ‘Struggle exists, and only one may triumph.’
‘So you come to taunt us?’
‘I am here to eat.’
‘The hand that feeds, the lord who governs you, will wring your neck, Gunther.’
‘First it will twist yours. And yours, loving and caring Isolda. And yours, silent little Zepp. And yours, large and hardy Egon. And yours, each and every last one of you.’
He delighted in the fear generated, in the tremor that coursed through the bowed and quaking group. They were his audience and his victims. The gathered young looked to him, stared at him, respected him. It could go to the head. He hesitated, a boy with a bullying manner and a wider stage, a figure of new-found authority who would abuse it well. There was no better privilege. Almost in afterthought, he rocked on his heels and directed a ball of phlegm straight into the face of Kurt.
‘Learn who is your master.’ With that, Gunther left.
The twelve-year-old mopped his face in silence, aware of the sympathy of his friends and relief of the rest. If as focus of loathing for the woodsman’s son he protected them and drew punishment on himself, so be it. He would not break. Beside him, Isolda whispered her concern and Egon his impotent rage. Nothing more remained to be done.
With a sound they had grown to dread, and from which they instinctively shrank, the studded oak door again crashed wide. Only bad things and rank food arrived through that opening. Two guards appeared and came for Kurt. He put up a fight, resisted with the energy of several demons, kicked and struggled with all his might, added to the chorus of shouts with his own protesting yells. To no result. His feet barely touched the ground as they transported him away.
It had been a journey of winding passageways and endless stairs, of fluttering shadows and the tramp of hobnailed leather on echoing stone. Wherever he was, he was far from his companions and further from safety. But he could remain defiant. He blinked in the half-light, and could just make out the dark shape and pale face of a stranger in the centre of the room. The man did not smile, showed no emotion or surprise.
Kurt summoned the courage to stammer a challenge. ‘What is it you want of us?’
‘Your lives.’
‘We are not important. We are pilgrims without money, children without value for any ransom.’
‘Thus you shall not be missed.’
‘My friends fall sick and hungry. They need food, air, the light of the sky upon them.’
‘Such concerns will fade.’ Tepid eyes studied the boy. ‘I am the Lord of Arsur.’
‘What you do is wicked and unjust.’
‘And what you say is rash. Tell me of the friar and the youth with whom you travelled.’
‘Otto is more noble than you will ever be. Brother Luke is guide and shield like no other.’
‘An aged Franciscan more irksome than a gnat.’
‘He causes you
trouble?’ Kurt brightened.
‘His insolence will be short-lived as your smile.’
‘They will free us. Otto, Sergeant Hugh, Brother Luke will bring force against you, will keep on until you are judged, are felled by staff or sword.’
‘I regret they will not.’
Kurt saw that he spoke the truth, that none would hear the prayers of the imprisoned, not a soul would answer their plaintive cries. He noticed other things. On a far wall was the monstrous head of a deity rendered in gold, its horns curling upward, its forehead etched with the sun and moon and bisected with a burning torch. His confidence bled away.
The Lord of Arsur followed his gaze. ‘It is why you are here, why I act as I do.’
‘False idols will not bring you victory.’
‘Victory is already mine.’
‘You lie.’
‘A child has poor understanding.’
‘I comprehend enough. I know you to be evil, that the statue before me is of a demon and no God.’
‘Your own God is dead.’
‘Yours is metal effigy.’
‘Truth and power reside in Baphomet.’ The voice of the Lord of Arsur almost carried a frozen trace of feeling. ‘For over twenty-five years I have served Him and prepared. Now I offer Him my life work, deliver unto Him the Christian world, the Holy City of Jerusalem.’
Kurt controlled his quaking, for there was no one to speak out but himself. If he was now to breathe his last, he would at least adopt the confident bearing of Otto or the relaxed assertiveness of Sergeant Hugh. He had seen sufficient death to recognize its closeness.
The Lord of Arsur viewed him distantly. ‘Bow down and tremble before the Divine.’
‘I am not Gunther to do as you bid.’
‘Yet you are boy of flesh and blood, a mortal with finite time. Even your Christ is prisoner in my keeping.’
He gestured to objects arrayed to the side, their shape and nature obscured by the gloom. With measured movement, he lifted the shutter from an oil lamp and swept its light across the artefacts. Still Kurt was motionless. The youngster could make out the gleam of elaborate gilding, the dark pustulence of gemstones and splintered edge of ancient wood. Such items were plainly sacred relics, for he had seen similar on his travels.
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