The Paths of the Air

by Alys Clare

  Thibault did not answer for some time but stared silently into her eyes. She read yearning in his, as if he longed to confide but knew that he could not. Eventually he said, ‘I appreciate the offer. There is little that I may tell you of why we hunt our runaway. However . . .’ He paused, as if testing his decision. ‘However, I feel that I may at least tell you something of the man’s life in Outremer.’

  She shot a glance at Josse, to discover that he was unsuccessfully suppressing the same excitement that she felt rise up in herself. She said calmly, ‘Very well, Thibault; if you are prepared to do so, then Sir Josse and I are listening.’

  Thibault glanced at Brother Otto in the next bed. Otto had his eyes open but Helewise did not think he was aware of them. He looked vacant and she suspected that he was still being dosed with the infirmarer’s sedative and analgesic mixture.

  Then Thibault began to speak. ‘The English monk was not a Hospitaller when he arrived in Acre. He came out to Outremer in a company of twenty-five knights and their attendants, all in the service of an English lord who was going to the support of his kinsman in Antioch. The kinsman was a wealthy landowner but his wife had given him only daughters and, hard pressed, he had sent home to England for help in defending his lands. The Englishman fought for his lord at the Battle of Hattin, and in the aftermath of the defeat his master retreated to his kinsman’s home in Antioch to lick his small wounds and recover his strength. According to the Englishman, his master had not enjoyed his experience of fighting and was not keen to repeat it. He had the excuse that his kinsman needed his and his knights’ help in defending his property, which was after all why the lord had come out to Outremer in the first place. Our Englishman, however, felt differently. He made his way from Antioch to Crac des Chevaliers where, in the early autumn of 1187, he was admitted to the Order of the Knights of the Hospital. He was strong and blessed with a fit and healthy body, and worked hard, training his less experienced brethren in the arts of war.’

  ‘I thought you said he was young?’ Josse asked. ‘How was he able to teach such skills?’

  Thibault smiled. ‘Young he might have been – he was eighteen or nineteen when first I met him – but in the year he had spent in Outremer he saw a great deal of action. Moreover, he had received the training that prepares a man for the life of a knight. There was much he had to teach and I observed that once the monks had overcome their disinclination to be drilled by a younger man, they learned to appreciate him. He was modest and he did not permit the role to inflate his sense of self-regard.’ For a moment Thibault stared into the distance. ‘Then,’ he resumed, ‘King Richard arrived and we began the next major onslaught against the enemy.’

  ‘You were in the fighting?’ Helewise asked.

  ‘Yes, my lady. I was in the army that took back the great fortress and port of Acre from the infidel and the English monk was of my company. We rode together on the march from Acre to Jaffa and we fought at the Battle of Arsuf, where the Hospitallers formed the rear guard; we and the Templars took it in turns to be the advance guard and that day it was their turn. Despite this, it was our Grand Master himself who led the charge.’ His face glowing, he added quietly, ‘The English monk and I rode side by side.’

  Helewise, glancing at Josse, noticed that his face too was alight with excitement. Men, she thought.

  ‘As we routed the last attacking Saracens, the English monk encountered an old friend. It was his former lord and he had been stricken with dysentery. He was so unwell that he could not sit his horse and the Englishman was ordered to take him back through the lines to where he could be treated. But the lord showed no sign of a speedy recovery and it was decided that he should go back to Acre and thence to his kinsman’s estate in Antioch. Our army was indebted to him; he had supplied a strong force of knights and men-at-arms, most of whom remained to fight with us, and in recognition of this the Hospitallers were ordered to provide an escort to see him safely home. The English monk was selected to care for his lord, and although the task was not to his taste and he would have preferred to remain with the army, he had to do as he was told.’

  ‘Was that the last time that you saw him?’ Helewise asked.

  ‘No, my lady. When the fighting was over and King Richard set sail from Acre after the Peace of Ramla, we returned to Crac des Chevaliers and quite soon after that I was posted to Margat. The English monk turned up there one day late in 1192. He had, apparently, been there on and off for the past year, alternating his duties with nursing his lord back to health in Antioch. By December his lord was well enough to go home to England and our monk, not wanting to go with him, came back to us.’ Thibault frowned. ‘He was different,’ he said. ‘Something deep within him had changed. He was still dutiful and conscientious; he took on any duty that was laid upon him, however arduous, without complaint and he would carry out the task to the best of his ability. But it seemed to me that his heart was no longer in it.’

  ‘And it was at this time that he was selected for the mission in the desert?’ Josse asked. ‘The prisoner exchange that went so wrong?’

  ‘Yes,’ Thibault replied. ‘I selected him to be part of the escort because I thought that the experience would be something out of the ordinary. Something with a dash of excitement, which might help him draw the sundered parts of himself back together again.’ He looked at Helewise. ‘My intention was good,’ he said quietly. ‘But it ended, as you know, in disaster.’

  There was a short silence, as if all three were honouring the memory of those who died. Then Josse said, ‘Thibault, it seems that you liked this English monk?’

  Thibault closed his eyes, his expression grief-stricken. ‘I did. He was a good man and I both liked and respected him.’ He opened his eyes again and glared at Josse. ‘I find it all but impossible to believe that he can have acted in such a cowardly way!’ he burst out. ‘He was the last man I would have expected to run away and leave his dead and dying brethren to their fate!’

  Helewise had remembered something. ‘Did you not tell us that there was something odd about the dying brother’s last words?’ she asked. ‘Brother James, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, Brother James. And you are right, my lady. I had the impression that James was trying to say that Brother – that the English monk had done well to run off as he did.’ He shook his head. ‘I have thought about it so much – if only poor Brother James could have explained more thoroughly! – and I cannot envisage a situation where running away was the right thing.’

  ‘Perhaps—’ Helewise began. But then, aware of the two fighting men beside her, both of whom knew so very much more about these matters than she did, she stopped.

  Josse said, ‘Go on, my lady. What is your thought?’

  ‘Oh – I am sure it is nothing.’

  ‘Tell us, anyway,’ Thibault invited. ‘It cannot be more far-fetched than some of my ideas.’

  She returned his smile. ‘I wonder whether something even worse would have happened if this English monk had stayed with his brothers. If they had each received a fatal blow and he had escaped injury, he would have been the only Hospitaller left to carry out the mission.’

  ‘The prisoner exchange, you mean?’ Josse asked.

  ‘Yes. You said, Thibault, that the knights and men of your Order are renowned for their obedience?’

  ‘Yes, indeed.’

  ‘Then as the sole survivor, would not this Englishman have taken upon himself the task of fulfilling the mission?’

  ‘Ye-es,’ Thibault said slowly.

  ‘The knights and the enemy had both suffered many casualties,’ she said, excited. ‘You said, Thibault, that the surviving enemy removed their dead and injured?’

  ‘That is correct,’ Thibault confirmed.

  ‘It must have been a terrible fight,’ she said. ‘In the midst of it, the Englishman could have seen that although it was too late to help his brethren, he might still get the prisoner away to be exchanged at a later date. Wasn’t that the purpose of the nig
ht’s excursion?’

  Thibault was thinking. ‘I suppose it could have happened like that,’ he murmured. ‘It is possible that the English monk regarded the order to guard the prisoner as more important than attending to his brethren.’ His eyes lit up. ‘He might even have been ordered to take the prisoner away – perhaps that was what Brother James was trying to tell me!’ He turned to Helewise. ‘Thank you, my lady. You have given me something to think about while I lie here.’ He added something else; she was not sure she caught the words but it was enough to make her feel a sudden heat in her face. She turned away and suggested to Josse that they leave Thibault to rest.

  She thought he said, ‘I was wrong about you. You are a woman to reckon with.’

  She would have to confess and do penance for the sudden rush of pride the remark had brought in its wake . . .

  Outremer, September 1194

  He had to get away.

  Those few who were left alive of the enemy had removed their dead and wounded and gone. He had heard their wails as they had ridden away. The servant with the deep cut to his cheek had stemmed the blood and managed to get the fat man to his feet and outside to the horses. The fat man, groaning and wheezing, had been clutching his right arm, into which Brother Andreas’s sword had bitten deeply as the fat man drew his vicious, curved knife and sliced into Brother Theobald’s throat. The fat man would live; Theobald would not.

  Brother James was still alive – just – although the poor man could not have very long. The young man knelt beside him, his face close to James’s mouth, for he could see that James was trying to talk.

  ‘You must – go,’ he whispered.

  ‘No! I will look after you until help comes!’

  ‘NO. That is an order and you will obey me. Take the prisoner and go.’

  ‘But—’

  Brother James steeled himself for a last effort. ‘If you stay here, others will come and they may arrive before our brethren come looking for us. Then you too will die, the prisoner will be lost and, most important, that which you now carry will not reach its destination.’

  ‘I can’t leave you!’ he whispered.

  ‘You must,’ Brother James said. ‘God bless you, my brother, and keep you safe.’ Then, with one last direct look into the young monk’s eyes, his lids fluttered down and he turned his face away.

  It was an order, the young monk thought in anguish. I have been given a direct order by a senior monk. I must obey.

  They had to get away . . .

  He looked across to the prisoner, huddled on the sand with his thin arms clutched around his raised knees and moaning softly. He strode over and took him not ungently by the arm.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ he asked in Arabic. The boy shook his head. ‘Then we must leave.’

  The boy stood up and trotted along at his side. Outside, all the horses had gone – the wounded servant must have cut them loose after he had grabbed mounts for himself and the fat man – but the young monk stood quite still and presently he heard the sound of a tentative neigh. He called out softly the words he had heard the native grooms use and out of the darkness a group of ten or twelve horses slowly appeared. Some of them were the Hospitallers’ mounts but he passed them over, instead selecting two of the smaller, lighter horses of the enemy which travelled so swiftly in desert conditions.

  He told the youth to mount up. He put his hand on his leather pouch to make sure the contents were secure, then he patted the horse he had selected for himself, put his foot in the stirrup and mounted. He paused to lengthen the stirrup leathers – he was considerably longer in the leg than the animal’s former owner – and then, with one last look at the silken tent, kicked his heels into his horse’s sides and, with the youth at his side, galloped off into the night.

  Part Three

  The Saracens

  Nine

  Josse was with the Abbess in the refectory finishing the noon meal. They were seated apart from the rest of the community, discussing Thibault’s story.

  ‘I keep returning to the conclusion that this runaway English Hospitaller and the Saracen whom Kathnir and Akhbir are hunting just have to be together,’ Josse said. ‘And I feel sure that the man calling himself John Damianos is Fadil.’

  ‘Fadil?’

  ‘The prisoner who was to be exchanged.’ He frowned. ‘Although I thought Fadil was a younger man.’

  ‘The meeting in the desert was two years ago,’ the Abbess pointed out. ‘Fear, privation and a hard road can greatly age a man in two years. And you never saw John Damianos’s face.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Well, then. For the time being, let us work on the principle that the runaway monk and his charge – Fadil, going under the name of John Damianos – have travelled all the way from the desert outside Margat to the south-east corner of England.’

  ‘Where are they going?’ Josse demanded. ‘Why would the Hospitaller bring the prisoner so far? The obvious thing to do was go straight back to Margat, return the prisoner and make a full report.’

  She thought about this. Eventually she said, ‘Thibault suggested that the prisoner’s family might have tried to cheat the Hospitallers so that they went home with both Fadil and whatever they were offering in exchange for him. Is it not possible’ – she had softened her voice to a whisper – ‘that the Knights Hospitaller did the same?’

  ‘Gervase suggested something similar,’ he whispered back. ‘When I protested that the Hospitallers were renowned for their honesty and dependability, he replied that it only takes one man to instigate treachery.’

  ‘I agree,’ she said. ‘If the English monk knew that the tragedy in the desert had been caused because a senior Hospitaller had decided to cheat both his brethren and the prisoner’s family, then returning meekly to Margat and the monk who had sent his brethren into danger would have been the last thing he would do.’

  ‘It’s possible,’ Josse said reluctantly, ‘although I still find it hard to believe the great Order of the Knights Hospitaller would behave so shabbily.’

  ‘One of them might,’ she persisted. ‘Keep an open mind, Sir Josse. As to why the English monk made for England, why, I can think of two reasons. One: he is, as we keep saying, English – he went out to Outremer in a party of knights with an English lord who has kin in Antioch – so he could merely be coming home. Two: we have heard mention of the Order’s headquarters at Clerkenwell, so might our man be heading there? It is a very long way from Margat and he might think it is therefore a safe place to deliver his charge.’

  ‘Either is possible,’ Josse said. ‘But we cannot confirm anything until we see more clearly.’

  ‘Sir Josse?’ she said after a moment.

  He turned to look at her. ‘You sound as if something has just occurred to you. Let’s hear it.’

  ‘It has,’ she said eagerly. ‘Why don’t we ask Thibault if he knows the name or the dwelling place of the English monk’s former lord? If he could provide either, then we can perhaps discover where the English monk came from.’

  ‘How would that help?’

  She sighed. ‘Because he would very likely be making for the place,’ she said. ‘We could look for him there.’

  ‘Aye, so we could,’ he said slowly. Then: ‘John Damianos – Fadil – came to New Winnowlands. If his monk companion is also hiding out in the area, that suggests he might have come from around here.’

  Her eyes widened. ‘Of course!’ she said. ‘Do you know of any families in the area with kin in Outremer?’

  He grinned. ‘Not offhand, my lady, although I dare say I could find out.’ He wiped his platter with a crust of bread. ‘I’ll ride over to see Brice of Rotherbridge; he knows most of the big households of this corner of England, by reputation if not personally.’

  He had just put the bread in his mouth when Sister Martha came to tell him that Will was looking for him. Hastily standing up, he chewed and swallowed his mouthful and said to the Abbess, ‘Excuse me, my lady.’

 
; ‘Of course, Sir Josse,’ she replied. ‘Hurry – he would not have come to find you unless it was important.’

  Josse ran to the gates where Will, dismounted and holding on to his horse’s rein, was waiting for him.

  ‘Will, what has happened?’

  Will touched his shapeless bag of a hat and gave him a sketchy bow. ‘Those two foreigners have come back. One’s got an arrow sticking in his chest.’

  He said two, Josse thought swiftly, so he must mean Kathnir and Akhbir. ‘The men who came before?’

  ‘Aye. It’s the one who did all the talking that’s been wounded. The other one is afeard for him – rightly, I’d say – and he brought him to New Winnowlands because it was the only place he knew. Reckon they must have been nearby,’ he added. ‘Stands to reason.’

  ‘Aye,’ Josse agreed. ‘Has anything been done for the wounded man?’

  ‘Not much,’ Will admitted. ‘Couple of the lads helped me and Ella get him into the hall and Ella’s keeping the fire fed. But none of us knows anything about arrows and we thought we’d do more harm than good.’

  ‘I’ll come back with you straight away,’ Josse said. ‘I’ll ask the Abbess if she’ll send a nursing nun with us. Go across to Sister Martha and get Horace ready for me, Will. We’ll leave as soon as we can.’

  They reached New Winnowlands in good time. Sister Euphemia had ordered Sister Caliste to go and tend to the wounded man and, with a small leather pouch of medical equipment at her waist and mounted on the golden mare that had been left in the care of the Abbey, she rode as swiftly as Josse. They had soon left Will behind. The stable lad came out to meet them, staring at Sister Caliste as if he had never seen a nun before. He took the two horses and led them away to the stables.