by K. M. Grant
“They must have arranged the thing between them.” Will knew that she was listening now. “Kamil knew exactly where we would be and how many of us there were.” Will was glad of the anger beginning to burn through him again and he fed it. “I wonder when he first began to plan this. I reckon he must have sent for Amal as soon as he knew that part of the ransom was to be delivered by me. They must have organized it together. All for some poxy silver.” Will wanted to spit. “I thought Kamil was a better man than that.”
Still Ellie would not accept it. “But Hosanna loves Kamil,” she said as if that settled the matter.
“Hosanna can be wrong.”
Ellie had never heard Will’s voice sound so bleak. Everything he had ever believed in seemed to be disintegrating.
“No, Will. No.” She so wished she could get to him, to shake some sense back into him. “I can believe bad things of Amal. But Kamil? I just can’t.”
Will gave a sudden thrust of his boots. It was the only gesture he could make. “Can’t or won’t, Ellie?”
There was a world of despair in his question. Ellie hunched up. “Can’t,” she whispered.
“Well, you’d better,” Will said. “Maybe I know why Hosanna has been friendly to Kamil. Hosanna has a scar on his neck.”
“What does that prove?”
Will spoke slowly. “The little triangular scar between Marissa’s ribs is exactly the same. They were both made by Kamil’s knife. I think Kamil has been drugging Hosanna.”
Ellie had to repeat this to herself before her brain would allow her to understand it. “But if Kamil hates Hosanna enough to do that, he must hate us, too. So why are we here, in this wagon?” she burst out, clinging to her certainties even as they cracked like eggs. “Why are we not dead, like everybody else?”
“He has other plans for us,” Will said flatly. “Ransom for you, probably. I don’t know what for me. Maybe the same. Or maybe I am to be a slave to Kamil, the new Sultan of All the Saracens.” He made the title sound ridiculous.
“I won’t believe it,” Ellie whispered. “I won’t believe it until Kamil tells me himself.”
Will shut his eyes.
Ellie did not have long to wait. In the early afternoon, the wagon halted in a clearing and the back was thrown open. As the prisoners blinked in the glitter of a heatless sun, their chains were undone and they were hustled out to find themselves no longer by the Rhine but by a smaller river with the ransom wagons once again being loaded onto barges. Now, although their captors were still wearing imperial uniforms, they could hear more languages than just German and Arabic. It seemed to Will that Kamil had drawn supporters from all corners of the world. This must have taken more than just a few weeks to organize. Maybe Kamil had begun sending messages from Hartslove immediately after his arrival all those months ago. Maybe, all the time he had been under Will’s roof, he had been plotting. Maybe, maybe. Will looked back on everything they had done together, every gesture, every friendly glance, and saw it all through the distorting prism of the moment.
He turned to Ellie only to find her transfixed by a vision neither of them would ever forget. Blowing steam into chilled air was Hosanna, and in his saddle Kamil sat giving orders to the bargemen. As if sleepwalking Ellie began to move toward him. Surely now Kamil would explain why this was all a mistake or a terrible misunderstanding. Unable to help herself she cried out to him. “Kamil! Kamil!” Her cry contained everything she had ever believed about friendship, faith, honor, and love and it struck Kamil, already reeling from the events of the morning though he dared not show it, like a hammer blow. It told him at once that Ellie would never understand, that he had stabbed her not in the back but in the eyes and had stabbed her so hard that the wound would never truly heal. Yet even now he knew she was still hoping. Even now, she would still listen if he ran to her. He could see her holding her breath, still believing in him. But he was in too deep and instead, with a groan he thought the whole world must hear, he turned away.
At once Ellie felt something within her shrivel. Her voice deserted her and a vice gripped her stomach. She kept her feet to avoid the indignity of falling but inside she could feel herself shattering.
12
Hours later, Kamil finally sat down to face the fact that his dreams and plans had turned into a chaotic nightmare. Amal had promised him a smooth handover and even now could not explain what had gone wrong. After the dead had been buried, Kamil had shaken the old man like a rat, again and again demanding answers. But what use were answers now? Good Hartslove men were dead. Will could not look at him without hatred and Ellie—Kamil could not think of her at all.
Moreover, Kamil was now boxed into a corner. Amal continued to insist that the quarrel had been an accident, some ill-judged teasing that had got out of hand and then, in front of the listening men, had questioned whether Kamil minded the deaths of Christians more than the deaths of his own people. When Kamil had not answered, the soldiers had begun to whisper and Kamil had had to ride Hosanna, and keep Will and Ellie in chains, to prove himself to them.
Amal had ridden with him, ever the helpful servant. Of course Kamil could mourn the Hartslove men in private, he murmured, and it was right that he should, for some had been his friends. But in public he was now a Saracen leader and must act like one since this was the role he had chosen. What was more—Amal’s voice buzzed like a wasp—Kamil must remember that not only his own future but the future of the dispossessed and unhappy Muslims in the Holy Land, depended on him. His people were waiting for both the silver and for Kamil. Amal let that sink in before his buzzing began again. “If you lose the confidence of these soldiers, you know, there will be further suffering. You must show your men”—he carefully stressed the “your”—“that you have not been tainted after months of living in a Christian household. If you do not convince these soldiers that you are a true believer, they will turn first on you and then on the earl and Mistress Ellie.”
Amal’s words were still hissing in Kamil’s head and Kamil knew they were true. He must show nothing of what he felt. Perhaps, in time, when he was leading his people to victory, this terrible pain would diminish.
From the deep shadows Amal watched him with pity in his heart before shaking himself. He could not afford pity. So he concentrated only on drumming into the soldiers that if Kamil suspected they were in the pay of the Old Man before the Old Man chose to reveal this himself, they would be punished in a way that would make them wish they had never been born. Kamil must not get a whisper of the real spider at the heart of this web.
Kamil sensed Amal watching him and although he could hardly bring himself to speak to him, he needed him. Only Amal could understand how important it was to repeat and repeat that it was not the task itself that was wrong, only that carrying it out had been mishandled. In fact, only Amal could provide any balm at all, for Kamil had cut himself off from everybody else.
The following morning, unrested, Kamil went out on Hosanna to reconnoiter the route. It was a long way to the ship on the south coast and Kamil wanted to waste no time. When he returned, Will and Ellie were standing outside their prison wagon, their feet shackled once again. Kamil dismounted and took Hosanna over to them. Will ignored Kamil and hobbled so close to his horse that he could feel the nerves under the skin.
Ellie could not remain silent. Although all hope had really long since left her, she tried just once more. “It can’t be as it seems,” she said, wondering how she spoke so calmly. “It’s just a mistake, Kamil, isn’t it?”
Kamil looked at her gravely. The agony of his parents’ deaths all those years ago had nearly crippled him but this agony was different. He felt as if he had swallowed a stone. “It is as it seems,” he said quietly. There seemed nothing else to say. “I’m a Saracen. The ransom collected for King Richard could never be delivered to men who would use it to kill my people. I am to deliver it elsewhere.”
Ellie heard him but all the while she stared at him as if he were a stranger. Should she ha
ve noticed something before, she wondered, in his face? She had only seen it as a face full of sadness and mystery. But had the mystery always been leading to nothing more than this betrayal? Had it been written there and she had just been too blind to see it? She stared harder. Could she see it now? But search as she did, she could not. She could see nothing except Kamil’s habitually direct gaze and the familiar tautness lurking in the curve of his lips. Her anger was suddenly marbled with appalling grief. She had thought of Kamil almost as a brother, the kind of brother you loved, even if you never really knew him. She broke away, falling over her shackles as she too made for Hosanna. Kamil shut his eyes. When he opened them, Ellie was also crushed against the red horse. They cast a solid shadow, Hosanna, Will, and Ellie, with no crack of daylight between them. It seemed to say everything that needed to be said and Kamil began to walk away.
Will called him back. “What is to happen to us?” He was imperious, indicating he wanted only a minimal reply. He would never again, he vowed, speak to Kamil as if he knew him. Surely even Hosanna would reject Kamil now?
“It was never the intention to bring you with us,” Kamil said in a voice flat and dry. “You were to be left unharmed but in such a way that the emperor’s real troops, when they came, would know that you were not complicit in the theft. That all went wrong in the fighting. We could not leave you safely and now we must keep you with us until the ransom is delivered to Saracen ships. If I let you go, I think you will lead the imperial troops to us. That’s what I would do in your place.” He hesitated. Amal and his men were listening. “And if the imperial troops do catch up to us, we can use you to make a bargain. Your horses, Hosanna and Shihab”—only at the mention of Hosanna’s name did Will’s eyes flicker—“will be returned to you when the ship is loaded at the coast. Once we have sailed, you’ll be free to ride where you will.” Kamil expected no gratitude for this information and he received none.
Will steeled himself. “Did you see what became of Hal and Elric?” He had to know.
“No. I’m sorry.”
“Can I ride to the coast?”
“I can’t allow it, Will,” Kamil said, “because if you try to escape, my men will be obliged to come after you. You and Ellie must travel in a wagon. But I promise the horses will be well looked after.”
Will had little choice but to hand Hosanna over and for a brief second, he and Kamil held the red horse together. Then Will let go and had to watch Hosanna walking obediently away. It was hard to understand why the horse did not object and Will put it down to some spell woven by Amal. Ellie could offer no explanation at all. Nor, as they were pushed back into their prison, did she notice that the leather thong of the pouch at her belt broke, tipping her green jasper necklace into the mud. Amal saw and went to pick it up but as he passed by, he could feel Ellie’s hatred as much as if she had spat at him and just left it where it lay. When Ellie finally noticed her loss, her heart sank further than she thought possible.
Using the river network as best he could, Kamil pushed south as fast as the wagons could go. They had hundreds of miles to cover and winter had set in. To begin with, he daily expected to find the rutted roads blocked as the real imperial soldiers realized the trick that had been played on them. But it did not happen. This disconcerted Kamil, who sent scouts out into the foggy dawns to scour the valleys and wooded hilltops. The emperor surely cared more about the ransom than just to let it go. However the best scouts returned having had no sight of any large group of soldiers flying the imperial pennant and with no rumors of any rippling through the village markets. Kamil found this hard to believe but let it pass as he pressed on, right away from the Rhine, over which the emperor would surely be keeping watch, heading in due course for Rhone. Yet even though he commandeered barges at will, throwing money at merchants whose manners were as rough as their dialects, the route south was not easy, particularly when they had to go by road and the land broke and rose in stiff climbs before them. Nevertheless the men, fresh and well disciplined, made good time, setting their shoulders to the carts when the horses strained and remaining reasonably cheerful even through squally weather and endless gray, finger-chilling hours in the saddle. Days turned into weeks. The air was crisper and sometimes even pleasant but now Kamil found it harder and harder to cajole weary men and reluctant animals down unmade tracks in desolate forests, across swollen streams with treacherous banks, and below hilltop towns over whose walls men peered in an unfriendly fashion. Sometimes the road was crowded with shivering pilgrims returning from visiting the shrines of saints. Huddled in cloaks they pushed resentfully against the wagons until Kamil and Amal had to brandish their swords to get them away.
Will could not be sorry that the journey was hard. Every day he spent peering out of the wagon, whether on the road or on the river, praying to see a glint of armor. Surely, if somebody had survived, they would even now be leading a rescue party. However there was no sign of anybody and after a fortnight Will gave up hoping.
As they drew farther away from the imperial lands, the soldiers removed the emperor’s livery and dressed as European merchants and merchants’ clerks. Though a few spoke Arabic, many carried on speaking German and Kamil was glad, for this made them less conspicuous, it being common to hear German in these southern parts. When they passed too close to busy castles, he ordered the three ransom wagons to separate, then meet again, thus courting less attention. Kamil allowed no rest days and utilized all the hours of light, pushing well into the dusk, not only worried about attack but hating every moment Will and Ellie spent in chains.
Each evening when Amal came to pray with him Kamil put away his heartache and spoke only of how best the silver might be used when they got it home. Afterward he would read the Koran. Hunched into a thick blanket either by Hosanna or in his wagon, he sometimes managed to cease thinking about anything in his past or his present and look only to his future.
Under the furs provided to warm them, Will and Ellie, too, thought about the future, but only the immediate future, spending dreary hours working out how long it would take them to get back to the imperial court, and to Richard, once they were eventually released. Sometimes they were allowed to walk and eventually Kamil relented and even allowed them to ride, provided the horses were led. They did not complain of their treatment but at night, in his dreams, Will shouted and raged while Ellie lay sleepless.
Yet, it was strange. Once Will was allowed back onto Hosanna and saw Kamil praying and carrying out his duties as a leader with quiet authority, it became impossible not to understand a little of his former friend’s motivation. Understanding was certainly not approving. Yet Will’s experiences on crusade meant that he knew something of being caught up in a cause so important that you would sacrifice everything for it. When he had been in the Holy Land he himself would have done anything in the name of his God and his king. Now Kamil was simply doing the same. Will resented his understanding but he could not deny it.
It was Ellie who could not bear even to think of Kamil. If she found him looking in their direction as they walked or rode she would demand to return to the wagon. Once, in the middle of the night, she peered out and saw him standing in the moonlight with Hosanna. The red horse’s head was low and Kamil was leaning with his face pressed against the chestnut withers. Ellie wanted to throw something, anything, to get Hosanna to pull away from Kamil and despised herself that, instead, she simply watched as Hosanna raised his head and turned, shielding Kamil with his mane. It was a gesture not so much of comfort as of protection and Ellie retreated as if stung. She did not want to see that. Furious with herself, she lay down and dug her nails into her palm as a punishment. The next day, she railed against Kamil to Will. He had hypnotized the horse. How else could Hosanna still bear to be near him? Will tried to explain some of his own feelings, which would, in turn, explain Hosanna’s, but Ellie wouldn’t listen.
After six grueling weeks, they gained the hospitable lower reaches of the Rhone, and the barges sped easily along.
By the week before Christmas, they could see the sea. Just as they reached the estuary however, Kamil, directed by Amal, ordered the ransom wagons be dragged from the barges and harnessed up once more. The ship would be waiting not in one of the ports, but in a less conspicuous inlet. The wagoners cursed and swore as the soldiers hacked routes down paths so stony that the puffing carthorses stumbled and often fell. When two lamed themselves badly enough to be left behind, the wagoners almost mutinied. But Kamil persuaded them to keep going and, soon enough, mud gave way to meadow, which, in turn, gave way to chalk. At the cliffs, the pack animals, squatting onto their haunches, began the hazardous process of slithering down to the shingle below. The soldiers cheered as they found caves offering shelter. They would wait in these until Saracen sails appeared.
After the immense effort he had made to get the ransom safely to the coast, Kamil was at first glad to rest bones weary from constant movement. The caves, though damp and cold, were spacious and in them it was possible to light inconspicuous fires and hide the ransom. Will and Ellie were loosely shackled near the horses and after Kamil had made sure that they were as comfortable as possible, he slept, awaking rested and slightly more at peace. Soon this would be over. After a day of doing nothing, however, with no sign of a ship, he was nervy. After two, he grew anxious. The men seemed less respectful here and sometimes he saw a few conversing animatedly with Amal, conversations that came to an abrupt halt when he approached. When he enquired as to their concerns, Amal just gave a troubled smile and said that they were impatient to get home.
Will too was impatient. “Where are your great ships?” he demanded contemptuously when Kamil came into the cave to check the ransom. He could not resist, just wanting to get away from Kamil and away from his own confusion. “Are you sure your people really want you back? Perhaps they will just leave you here.”
