On either side of him Templar crossbowmen exacted a deadly slaughter, while those with no better weapon hurled rocks down from the piles already prepared.
Almost immediately Saracen archers swept the front of the battlements with a cloud of arrows, knocking several Templars back into the courtyard below.
Above the din Salvatore heard a loud crack as the gate below him began to give way under the battering ram. The besieging soldiers cheered and swung the ram again.
Salvatore turned and raced down the stairs, across the courtyard and into the building. The main chamber was crammed with civilians, screaming and weeping at the sounds of battle. He pushed through them until he reached the low doorway that led to the cellars.
Grabbing a torch from the wall, he moved quickly through the narrow passageway until he reached the trapdoor that led down to the workings that the Mason had ordered under the foundations.
He strode along the gallery directly under the main gate, listening to the sound of battering above him. He walked along the line of support beams until he found himself at the end of the workings.
A heavy stonemason’s sledgehammer lay propped against the rough wall. Salvatore lifted it and took its weight.
The upright nearest him was one of those that sounded hollow when it was tapped. Salvatore laid the head of the hammer on the ground, then swung it slowly from the ground in an arc until it smashed into the upright. It splintered like old kindling.
The two cross-supports that had rested on the upright immediately buckled downwards and he heard the stone above him groan.
He moved to the next upright, laid the hammer head on the ground and then swung it with all his force against it. This one disintegrated as though it had exploded, and a shower of small stones fell on Salvatore.
The third and fourth uprights shattered equally easily and Salvatore could see the roof of the chamber move. Large black cracks appeared and the trickle of stone fragments became a cascade. The roof now bulged down under the weight of the stone walls above.
Another upright, one made from strong cedar buckled and then snapped, sending a volley of timber shards along the passageway rattling against Salvatore’s chain mail.
For a moment Salvatore stood watching the death of the castle, then turned back into the passageway.
Better to die in the daylight, he thought, as he reached for his sword.
Logic
No one spoke. For a long moment Laszlo, Tilly and the priest sat looking at Sparke, the silence between them amplified by the muted sound of traffic in the streets outside. Sparke glanced at the three people around him. Tilly’s face might have had a trace of a smile, he thought, Laszlo’s did not.
“Should I expand?” said Sparke.
“Please do,” replied Laszlo. “Before you begin, I would ask you to consider that this document is part of a correspondence between the writer and the recipient that spans a three-year period. There are eleven items, most of which reference comments in earlier correspondence. It would be a massive task to fabricate such a thing. Leaving aside the provenance of the document, there is the physical support for the veracity of the document in terms of the materials used, such as ink and vellum and the language used.”
“Hmm,” said Sparke. “I wouldn’t suggest for a moment that the document is a recent forgery, that’s way outside my scope of expertise. What I do have is some experience in dealing with reports of major disaster incidents. Looking at it this way, there are some problems with the logic of what the letter says.”
Laszlo closed the file on the desk in front of him and crossed his hands over it. “Please continue. You have my complete attention.”
“The letter says, I think, that a group of Arab soldiers were lured into the Templar castle and ambushed. The Caliph was so angry that he immediately brought several war machines, catapults and siege engines I suppose, through the city and used them to demolish the fortifications. Is that right?”
“That is what the letter says and that accords with the archaeological evidence,” said Laszlo. “When you take time to study the ruins of the castle area you will find that it was destroyed very thoroughly, very little evidence even exists of where it stood.”
“Let me tell you my thinking,” said Sparke. “Perhaps you can show me where I am going wrong?” Even though he was sitting in a comfortable office in the middle of Amman with no major crisis unfolding around him, Sparke could feel himself slipping into his professional mindset. His field of vision narrowed, the outside world faded away.
“If I can summarize my understanding,” he said. “The Arab army had fought a very bloody battle to take the city, their goal had been the elimination of the Crusader occupation, the garrison and population had been massacred, and no one, not even high-ranking Europeans, had been allowed safe passage. Logically, I would say that the Arab population and especially the army believed they had won a complete victory. That would suggest that allowing the remaining Templars to escape must have been politically difficult to say the least. My understanding is that the Templars were particularly hated by the Arabs. I would propose that the Caliph had many reasons to destroy the Templars and their castle and few to accept their surrender. That would suggest that he would have used any military means to breach the walls. Why would he not have brought his siege engines through the city already?
“By the descriptions in the earlier letter, it sounds as though the city was in a state of chaos with buildings burned out and roads would probably have been blocked with rubble and other wreckage, but the second letter indicates that major artillery was brought up almost immediately. Why would he have waited?
“Next, you have to wonder why the Templars would have thrown away their lives just in order to kill one senior Saracen leader. There is no reason as to why the man called Yusuf might have been so important for them to kill. Where is the logic here? The Templars had offered to surrender and I would imagine that would carry some level of risk to their own reputation.”
The only sound in the room was the soft tapping of Tilly’s pen on her notebook. “Why would such an otherwise reliable witness make a statement that was untrue?” she said.
Sparke nodded. “Good question. He wouldn’t have needed to have a personal gain from making a story up, but eyewitnesses are much, much less reliable than most people think. Perhaps the version that is written here is just an attempt to make sense of a confusing situation, perhaps he was going on second-hand versions of the story but wanted to give the impression that he had been closer to the action than he actually was, but I would say that the idea of the Saracen army suddenly being able to rush heavy weapons through a ruined city when they had not been able to do so until then make little sense. I mean, wouldn’t a feat like that have been more widely reported at the time? What do the European sources say about the event?”
It was Laszlo’s turn to speak. His voice was flat, betraying no emotion. “The Western chronicles say that the castle just fell down. Perhaps that is more credible?”
Sparke smiled and said, “Just because one version of events is not credible, it doesn’t mean the other version is automatically true, does it?”
Laszlo gave a small, cold smile. “Do you discount everything from this source?” The edge in his voice was clear and the priest had lost his habitual smile.
“Not at all,” said Sparke. “I was asked for my thoughts and have given them. I’m sorry if you feel upset.”
“Upset?” snapped Laszlo, “Why would I be upset by the comments of an amateur and a treasure hunter?”
“I am certainly an amateur,” said Sparke, “but I’m no treasure hunter.”
“Really?” said Laszlo.
“Perhaps,” said Tilly, “we might take a step back and listen to the next letter in the record?”
Laszlo seemed to take her attempt to bring calm to the situation as an insult. “I’m sure Mr. Sparke would feel that is a waste of time,” he said.
Sparke said nothing and a painful silenc
e fell on the room.
Ends
The entrance was breached. Salvatore reached the courtyard and saw the left-hand gate sag backwards on its hinges. A mass of Templars wedged the gate with their own bodies while others traded wild jabs with the Arabs pushing on the other side. Salvatore looked around him and saw, flying on the eastern battlements, the Templar standard. He was surprised to notice that he was still holding the smoldering torch he had used in the underground chamber in his left hand. Better to burn the Templar standard than have a Saracen cavalryman take it for a horse blanket.
The gate collapsed. With a wild cry of victory, the Arab soldiers burst through the entrance and the courtyard became a wild melee of slashing figures, Templars caught in the courtyard were immediately overwhelmed and dragged to the ground, each knight surrounded by a knot of hacking enemies.
Salvatore leapt up the first steps that led towards the standard, but was stopped by a dull roar that thundered across the courtyard. He turned towards the gate and saw the whole front wall drop several feet down into the ground like a falling curtain.
It held for a moment silencing both sides of the frantic struggle then began to collapse, whole sections falling like trapdoors slamming. The sounds of battle were drowned out by the screams of those crushed. The collapse spread along the wall as the thin crust of rock that sat above the diggings gave way. Hundreds of tons of masonry folded in on itself as the massive walls collapsed in a slow, rippling wave.
There were twenty steps from the courtyard to the battlements and Salvatore raced up them. He reached the top and watched, stunned as the castle began to collapse on itself, the weight of each piece of wall pulling down its neighbor as it fell. He reached up and grabbed the rope that secured the Templar standard, determined to put it to the torch.
Through all the noise and chaos a single voice cut through.
“A fighting death!” He looked down and saw the figure of Whitehead and several of his Knights of Lazarus standing on the roof of their bastion looking up towards him. They, at least, would have the result they most desired.
Salvatore hauled on the rope and the standard snapped free. Without stopping to think, Salvatore looped the rope over the nearest crenellation and, holding both ends in his hands, threw himself over the wall down towards the leper knights below.
Tact
“A bit too direct maybe,” Tilly said.
“Too direct?” said Sparke.
“You could have couched it more delicately, put it as a possible scenario rather than saying that you thought the documents were a pile of fiction.”
“That’s not what I said, what I said…”
“Ah,” said Tilly, holding her hand up to silence him. “It’s not actually what you said, more the way you said it.”
The two were alone in the priest’s office after Laszlo and the priest had decided they needed to take a short break for tea.
“Should I apologize?”
“I think that boat has sailed,” she said.
“Then I reckon I should make my excuses and leave you to it. I’m only going to make things worse.”
Tilly ran her hands through her hair. “Problem is, this material really is fascinating. You know it really is quite common for archive materials like this to contain inconsistencies. The man who wrote it probably just repeated the accepted version of events.”
“I should apologize then, tell Laszlo that it’s just my own inexperience.”
“The thing is, I think you might have broken his wee heart a bit. I get the feeling that he has a tiny man-crush on you.”
“What?” said Sparke.
“Bit of a bromance, you know? Best let things calm down a bit.”
“So I should go back to the hotel.”
Tilly thought for a moment. “Tell you what, we can tell them you want to spend more time looking at the physical artifacts. The priest himself said that you had to rush through the collection.”
“Rush through? I was in there for hours looking at old bits of bone and pots and stuff. Do you really think that’s best?” said Sparke.
Tilly nodded, then said, “Why don’t you go and spend some time looking at all the relics and I will find Laszlo and the priest. Everyone will be fine, trust me.”
Sparke reached down and picked up his bag. “I’ll take some photographs while I’m there,” he said glumly. “Sorry for messing this up.”
“Don’t be silly. You just said what you thought,” she said, opening the door for him.
Last stand
Salvatore landed on the roof of the bastion and fell forward, entangled in the Templar standard. He struggled to his feet and stood alongside the group of Lazerines watching in awe as the main castle continued to collapse.
The main wall that towered above them swayed forward for a moment then toppled back inside the Templar castle, sending tons of stonework down on the people within. Each section of the wall collapsed with a thunderous roar, sending new clouds of dust into the sky and rolling out over the sea of rubble.
The main castle was gone, replaced by a pillar of dust. Those parts of the wall which had not been undermined had been hauled down by the collapse of its neighboring section and they too toppled in turn.
The Templars, who had been either manning the walls or fighting in the courtyard, were wiped out, along with hundreds of Saracens who had rushed through the castle’s breached gate. There was no sign of any civilian survivors.
Whitehead and Salvatore stood on the low roof of the bastion looking out over the carnage. The small fort of the lepers now stood alone next to a mountain of smashed stonework.
The shock of the collapse had stunned the Arab forces and the city was silent for the first time since the siege began.
A few Arab soldiers who had been nearest the castle struggled to their feet, coated with dust. Several figures lay motionless on the ground near them.
The destruction of the last significant Western outpost in the Holy Land was greeted not with a roar of victory, but silence. The collapse had been so sudden and so complete that many Saracen infantrymen waiting behind their comrades to attack had missed it. It seemed to them to have vanished.
The leper bastion was now effectively defenseless. Its low walls were never designed to hold off a siege army as large as the forces assembled by the Caliph. They could swarm up their assault ladders and submerge the defenders in a single rush. Besides, the collapse of the Templar castle had created a sloping ramp of masonry to its rear that reached almost to the roof. Yet they did not attack.
The Knights of St Lazarus looked across the no man’s lands at their enemies and the massed ranks of the Arab army stared back.
Whitehead’s soft voice sounded loud in the new silence.
“There is no rush to grapple with lepers, I think,” he said. “Our curse can be a blessing.”
Salvatore looked at the Grand Master, then back towards the Saracens, seeing the man, Yusuf, among them, brushing dust from his clothes.
Yusuf gave an order to the men around him. There was a flurry of movement and a moment later the sky was alive with arrows plunging down on the leper bastion.
Before the arrows clattered onto the roof Whitehead had ordered his men below. In the dark passageway below the bastion’s battlement, Whitehead and Salvatore stood watching the hail of arrows wash over the roof.
“I have known the Mason for most of my life,” said Whitehead. “He has never stopped surprising me. This was his work of course.”
Salvatore kept his eyes on the roof and the deluge of Arab arrows. “When will they attack?” he said.
“At dawn tomorrow,” said Whitehead. “Even the power of the Caliph is not strong enough to order ordinary men to fight us hand to hand. They could wait and demolish this place with artillery, but I sense they are in too much of a hurry to get this over with.”
“What will they do?”
“Killing us is not a job for ordinary men, but they have some within their ranks who are not ordina
ry. Tomorrow we will see them.”
Relics
“Item reference 4426/AMH/ 1D,” said Sparke into the voice recorder app on his phone. “Sandal strap from Jacob the Stylite.” The room which held the relics of the church had seemed merely tedious when he toured it with the priest the day before, now it felt like a prison. He was sure the room was longer and that there were more relics than last time.
He lifted his camera and took a photograph of the small, dark strip of leather.
Why would a sandal strap have any special properties? he thought. Was it particularly relevant to prayers about foot related ailments?
Since Tilly had given him no guidance about what he should look for among the collection of artifacts, he had decided to photograph all of them and note their descriptions.
“Item 9231/BSM/7R. Fingernail of Bartlem, Aleppo. Pointed the way to the site of first Cyndicious Monastery.”
It was a failing on his part, thought Sparke, that he could not understand people’s belief in the supernatural. He was aware that many, in fact probably most people throughout history, had a clear and solid belief that they lived in a world where they were surrounded by invisible creatures with supernatural powers, but it was something that he could only grasp in the abstract.
“Item reference 1162/CDV/3G. Chalice or Cup of Charity of Saint Senga. Brought water to the lepers,” he said, reading the small cardboard label next to a chipped earthenware jar the size of a coffee can.
There was nothing on any of these labels that gave an idea of the provenance of the items or how they came into the possession of the church. Sparke had no idea how, or if any of the things he was photographing could be of value to Tilly and the program.
“Item reference 1966/WWC/31. Fragment of the cloak of Peter the Hermit. Washed tears from the eyes of Evangeline.”
Sparke was good at dealing with boredom and good at routine. After the first half dozen relics he found a rhythm in his work and worked along the room, photographing, noting the labels and, on a few occasions, making small notes when he saw items that may have had some correlation between each other. He began to wonder at the journey each of these strange things had been on to earn them the dubious privilege of being housed in this dusty room.
The Templar Scroll: Book six in the series Page 23
