Eventually I found myself inside a large cavern and stopped to listen. In the far distance I heard the sound of water as waves washed up on the shore. Nearby were the quiet murmurs of voices and the sounds of men.
Extinguishing the torch in the dirt floor of the cavern, I waited a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, but even then it was hard to see. The smell of the ocean was stronger now, and after a moment I saw a faint flicker of light ahead, whether from torches or a fire I could not tell.
Keeping to the wall of the cavern, I left the tunnel opening and slowly and quietly made my way toward the light. The first cavern gave way to a larger one, and I crept softly forward. A dim light began to cut the darkness.
Sir Thomas had been right. Saracens were in the cavern ahead of me. The noise of the ocean grew louder, and I realized they must be sitting just inside the cave opening on the beach. It was only by luck that they had not yet discovered the passage at the rear.
Cautiously, I peered around the corner of the cavern. About twenty paces ahead of me sat three of the Saladin’s warriors huddled around a fire. Each of them had a tremendously long scimitar at his belt, and one of them held a giant and deadly looking battle-ax.
The sound of the waves had dimmed the noise of the battle in the city above, but now and then I heard shouts and explosions. I ducked back around the corner of the cavern, needing to think of a plan, a diversion that would get me past these men and onto the beach. I fingered the satchel that hung on my shoulder and offered up a silent prayer, hoping for some sign or guidance to get me out of this predicament. A miracle would also be welcome. A small miracle would be fine. Nothing too serious. No lightning strikes necessary. Just…
At that moment, I heard the sound of a trumpet, and the men in the cave jumped to their feet, talking rapidly in Arabic. The horn must have sounded a call to arms, and from what I could guess, the soldiers were arguing over whether or not to abandon their posts or hold their positions in the cave. Two pointed up toward the battle above, while the third shook his head, pointing at the ground where he stood, muttering something. I assume he meant to stay rooted to his spot.
At last they came to some agreement. Two of the men ran out of the cave, disappearing from sight. The remaining guard sat back down at the fire, unfortunately still facing me with the giant scimitar. Very long and sharp this scimitar was. At least the size of a small tree, I was certain.
I needed to escape before his companions returned, but how could I defeat a trained warrior of the Saladin in hand-to-hand combat? I needed something to give me some advantage. Finally an idea came to me.
Reaching down I grabbed a handful of sand. I quietly drew my short sword and peered around the corner of the cavern to make sure the soldier remained in the same spot. I took a deep breath, gathered my will and jumped out of the cavern, screaming a war cry at the top of my lungs.
The man yelled in surprise, but being well trained, he recovered quickly and jumped to his feet. I ran a few paces directly at him, watching in horror as he drew the scimitar, certain that it measured at least eleven feet long. I hoped my plan would work.
By the time I was a few feet away, his arm had drawn back the scimitar, which would likely remove my head as he brought it around. At the peak of his backswing, I threw the handful of sand in his face.
Temporarily blinded he shrieked, clutching at his eyes with his free hand and trying to see. Staggering backward he began swinging the giant sword all about, blind with rage. I danced away from him, still yelling to cover the sounds of my movement.
In a second I was behind him. I brought the hilt of my sword down on his head as hard as I could. He cried out, falling to the ground, and went silent.
Quickly moving to the campfire I kicked sand on it until the flames went out. I didn’t want anyone passing the cave to spot me in the firelight. The man on the ground behind me groaned. There was no time to waste.
I saw Saracens moving about here and there on the beach, luckily too far away to have heard their comrade’s cry. Moving from the safety of the cave I crept as quickly as I could along the cliff face, darting from boulder to boulder, finding whatever cover there was. It took me more than an hour to move even a half league. Several times I dove behind a pile of rocks as soldiers rushed by, but as the darkness of the night deepened, eventually I managed to put the cave and the city of Acre above it behind me.
When I had seen or heard no one for half an hour or so, I began looking for a place where I could scale the cliffs and reach the road to Tyre. A few leagues from the cave I found a trail leading from the rocks along the shore up the side of the cliffs.
The path was steep and narrow, cutting back and forth along the rock face. It was a hard climb, and soon I was sweating, my breath coming in shallow gasps. I stopped to rest several times, always hugging the cliff, praying that I would meet no one coming down from the top. It would be a simple matter to be pushed or thrown from the narrow trail, and that meant sure death on the rocks below.
After another hour of climbing, I reached the cliff top. I paused momentarily to catch my breath, then cautiously made my way inland from the cliffs toward the road.
Cresting a small rise, I looked back toward Acre. The city was in flames. Even from that distance the wind still carried the sounds of battle-the screams and shouts of dying men and above it all, a high-pitched, eerie wail that will forever haunt my sleep. The sound that told me all was lost.
The cry of Al Hashshashin.
ON THE ROAD TO TYRE
18
It was near dawn on the third night after my escape from Acre. Following Sir Thomas’ instructions, I rested during the day, finding a group of rocks or some wooded glen to sleep in, and traveled near but never directly on the main road to Tyre. I was able to fill my water skin in the many streams and springs on this part of the coast. The wild olive, fig and date trees that dotted the countryside provided me with food.
From the shadows, I watched many groups of men pass by me in the darkness. A large detachment had ridden by the previous night, but with the cloudy sky, I could not tell if they were friend or foe. It was better to remain alone than risk capture and sure death at the hands of the Saladin’s forces.
Before I fell asleep each morning, I worried over the Grail. I knew that Sir Thomas saw its safety as my duty, but it weighed me down as if I’d been tossed into the sea with a millstone about my neck. I reminded myself that Sir Thomas, the man I admired and respected like no other, had chosen me for this sacred duty. I should have been honored.
Part of me was angry with Sir Thomas. “Here, Tristan, take the Grail back to England. Don’t let anyone near it, Tristan. Keep it safe at all times, Tristan.” Horse dung. I wished I’d had the courage to stand up to Sir Thomas. That I had demanded to stay in Acre, as my duty commanded.
Then I realized that I was alive, that I owed Sir Thomas my life. And I was grateful.
The night was nearly over. Soon I would need to find a safe place to sleep for the day. I found it hard to concentrate. There was danger all about me, yet the fate of Sir Thomas and the other knights was all I thought of. I missed Quincy and Sir Basil and tried to force myself not to think of what I knew their fate must have been. I told myself that somehow, the knights at the palace had managed to turn back the Saracens. I held that thought, small comfort that it was.
Perhaps because I was not paying attention, the bandits surrounded me before I realized my mistake.
“Hold!” a voice said out of the darkness.
My hand moved toward the short sword at my belt. Sir Thomas’ battle sword was still strapped to my back, but was too difficult to draw without notice.
“Don’t do it,” the voice said again. From the accent, I could tell it was an Englishman. And for a moment I felt the relief wash through me that I had not stumbled upon a group of Hashshashin. But then I remembered: bandits. Bands of these men, who had grown weary of the Crusade, roamed the countryside, preying on the weak and defenseless
while they made their way homeward. Englishmen and Christians they were, and most likely deserters.
“My name is Tristan St. Alban,” I said. “Servante of Sir Thomas Leux of the Knights Templar. Who commands me to hold?”
There was no response. Only silence. The night was cloudy, and I could only make out a dim shape several paces in front of me. Off to my right and left I sensed movement but saw nothing. All of them were well out of reach of my sword.
Finally the voice. “State your business,” it commanded.
“I am gathering forage for the horses. Our camp is yonder.” I needed to convince them, whoever they were, that I was not alone.
Again, silence. There were a few hushed whispers among them, but I could not determine what was being said.
“I think not, boy,” the voice said. “I think you are alone. There is no camp about. We would have seen it. Now, very slowly, draw your sword and lower it to the ground.”
There was no further sound for a moment. I heard the barest whisper of movement as those on my right and left moved to take a position behind me. They would surround and try to rush me, so I kept my hand on the hilt of my sword.
“You would assault a servante of the Templars?” I asked. “Are you mad? They will hunt you down, and you will know no mercy if you harm one of their own.”
“If you serve the Templars, as you say,” the voice replied, “we will be long gone before you are able to rejoin them. Now, this can end quickly and easily or with difficulty. Lower your sword and hand over that satchel and bedroll.”
His words told me they had been following me for some time, and if so, they definitely knew I was alone.
The moon was setting low in the sky but broke through the clouds and began giving shadows to the darkness of the woods. Ahead of me perhaps ten paces, the dim outline of a man grew less faint. He held a worn sword in his left hand and was dressed in shabby clothing. I could not make out much else, except that he was bearded and wore a cloth hat pulled low and close to his eyes.
Looking quickly to my right and left I could not yet see either of the other men. Sure that they had moved behind me, I tightened my hand on my sword, and with the other I firmly gripped the satchel. I was about to take flight when two sets of arms grabbed me roughly from behind.
“Let me go! Let me go!” I shouted. “Sir Thomas! Sir Basil! Help! Bandits!”
Of course, there were no knights nearby, but I hoped to confuse and delay the thieves all the same. Holding fiercely to the satchel, I managed to free my other arm momentarily, scratching and clawing and punching at the arms holding me. The man to the front of me started toward me with his sword raised.
I kicked and hollered and screamed mightily, but was outnumbered and considerably outmuscled. I started gasping for breath, for each time I yelled, the arms holding me grew tighter around my chest.
Then a very strange thing happened. The man who held me yelled loudly in my ear, followed by another painful scream a second later. His arms let loose and he staggered forward, falling to the ground. To my great surprise I saw in the dim light that two arrows had magically appeared in his backside and a large red stain darkened his pants, moving outward from each arrow’s shaft. He shrieked, wiggling on the ground, clutching at his buttocks.
From behind me a loud voice commanded, “Drop your weapons!”
The man in front of me paused, unsure what to do. The other man to the side of me released his grip on the satchel, and as he did so, I drew my short sword and jumped sideways away from him. He and his companion were confused, not knowing where the voice had come from, but realizing the situation had turned.
“Now! Drop your swords or my next arrow finds a throat and not an arse!” the voice shouted. “I have a wallet full of arrows and haven’t shot a bandit in a week, so move one more step toward the lad and see what sport a King’s Archer can make with swine like you!”
A King’s Archer? Here in the woods?
The bandits were silent. Their wounded companion struggled to his feet and had clearly lost his taste for thievery. He staggered past the leader of the group, howling like a wounded pig. In moments he had disappeared into the woods.
I kept my sword up and pointed toward the bandit closest to me.
“Very well,” the archer shouted from the woods behind us. “My arm grows weary. Perhaps I’ll just shoot you both and be done with it! The world could use two fewer bandits!”
It was not to be, however. The bandit closest to me ran, and I pivoted to face the leader. As I did so, I drew Sir Thomas’ battle sword from behind me, holding it in my right hand with the short sword in my left.
“Time to run,” I said.
As the bandit’s face grew more distinct in the gathering light, I could see a look of anger clouding his features. He had failed to rob an easy mark, and it did not sit well.
“I will see you again, squire of the Templars,” he muttered. But as he started to turn, an arrow whistled past my ear, taking the bandit’s hat off his head. I nearly laughed as I watched it land with a solid thud in the trunk of a tree ten paces beyond him. The bandit froze.
“If I see you,” the voice shouted, “the last thing you will see is my arrow, seconds after it pierces your chest, so I hope you’ll please me by making more idle threats. The King requires me to kill ten bandits a month, and so far I’m one short.”
But the bandit didn’t hear the last part. Losing his hat had clearly unnerved him. He disappeared into the woods before the last words of the archer had echoed off the trees.
My shoulders slumped and I felt myself go limp. I was angry with myself for walking so blindly into a trap, yet relieved at being alive. Remembering the archer with the itchy temperament behind me I sheathed both swords and looked in the direction of the voice, my hands empty and held out from my sides.
“Hello? Archer?” I said to the woods behind me. I still saw no one. “I thank you for your help!” I did not speak too loudly for who knew what other dangers these woods held? If there were three bandits nearby, there were likely thirty.
“Hello?” I said again. “Will you not come forward, so that I may thank you face-to-face?”
Then I saw him. From twenty paces away he stepped from behind a wild olive tree and walked to where I stood. He was taller than I but wore the colors of the King, and in his left hand he carried the traditional longbow made of yew. On his back sat a wallet full of arrows, the gray feathers riding above his head. He was thick through the arms and chest like most archers I had seen. His hair and face were fair in color. Close up I could see his features clearly, and was startled to see that he was young-my age, or perhaps a year or two older.
I extended my hand. “I owe you both thanks and my life,” I said. He cautiously looked at me, then took my hand, shaking it briefly. “My name is Tristan.”
“Robard,” he answered. “My name is Robard Hode, formerly of the King’s Archers.”
“If I may inquire, what brings you to these woods?” I asked.
“My conscription is over. I’m on my way back to England,” he replied.
And that is how I first met Robard Hode, born in Sherwood Forest near the shire of Nottingham.
19
Robard had traveled here from the south near Jerusalem. He did not know of the fall of Acre, which had been his destination. I told him that Acre was in the Saladin’s hands, and he agreed we could travel to Tyre together. When he asked me why I chose to travel at night, I explained to him that I carried dispatches for the Templars there, and dared not allow these documents to fall into the hands of the enemy. He accepted my explanation without much question.
I was grateful to have Robard and his bow as traveling companions. As before, we kept to the hills near the main road. At night we built no fires. Walking in the darkness we quietly exchanged the stories of our lives.
Robard was seventeen years old. His father owned a large farm near the shire of Nottingham. When King Richard took the throne and raised his army for the C
rusades, he levied taxes on all the farmers of England. After a poor harvest two years before, Robard’s father had been unable to meet his burden. Those who could not pay were allowed to join the army or send a son in their stead to join the Crusaders. Robard joined the King’s Army, and after two years of service, his father’s debt was forgiven.
It was Robard’s father who first taught him to use the bow. And two years of nearly constant warfare had made him an exceptional archer. In the King’s Army he learned that an archer was only as good as his equipment. Before we slept each morning, Robard obsessively checked his bow for signs of wear or weakness. He studied and rechecked the hide strings that held the grip, a piece of wood fastened to the shaft. He removed every arrow from his wallet, checking the feathers and the points to make sure they were secure and sharp. Each morning, when it was light enough to see clearly, he would take several practice shots at a distant tree. Retrieving the arrows from the trunk, he checked them again, returning them to his wallet.
As we traveled, Robard told me much of his life and what he had witnessed during his years in Outremer.
“I’ve seen nothing but waste and destruction,” he complained. “The Lionheart”-Robard spat out the name as if something sour and unpleasant had landed on his tongue-“commands us to take a fortress or a city or a swatch of land, and we do. Then a few weeks or months later the Saladin’s forces take it back. Men are killed for nothing. Yet the King keeps raising his army and taking more taxes while poor men like my father struggle to feed their families.”
Robard was quietly intense, and when he spoke of his home and father and the struggles of the people of his shire, he became quite passionate. I sensed a great determination in him.
“What will you do when you return to England?” I asked when he finally paused in his rant against King Richard, the rich and the general inequalities of the known world.
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