by Robyn Young
Memory, he knew, had probably colored the moment, made it more grandiose, more momentous than it actually had been. But he remembered being held, as if in a spell, by the priest’s revelations of how the Brethren were formed following a war with the Muslims that all but annihilated the Christian forces in the Holy Land; a war incited by a former Templar grand master. He recalled how attentively he listened as Everard explained how the Anima Templi’s initial mandate was to protect the Temple and its vast military and economic resources from the personal or political agendas of its leaders. But that in time, as other members were admitted, many of them high officials and men of learning, they brought with them their own ideas and this aim grew to encompass the preservation of peace in Outremer and among the Christian, Muslim and Jewish faiths.
At the time, Will protested hotly against such a notion, saying that they were irreconcilable; that there could be only one true God for any of them, and that none of them would bow to the beliefs of the others. Even when Everard explained that the Anima Templi didn’t propose to change the faiths to suit one another, but rather a mutual truce in which people of all religions could exist together, Will hadn’t believed it possible. But in the years since, he had seen with his own eyes how people of any faith could live alongside one another, benefiting from trade and from shared knowledge and experience.
Now, as he listened to Everard discuss a treatise he and Velasco had written, outlining the similarities among the three faiths, Will wondered if he could ever be so inspiring. Could he move men to give up their lives for a cause he championed, the way the priest had moved his father, the way Everard had moved him? The thought crept into his mind of what they would do when Everard died. He was approaching ninety and was older than anyone Will had known. Often he thought the sheer bloody determination to see the Anima Templi’s aims consummated was what held the old man together; was the sinew and the muscle where the flesh had long since failed. Will’s eyes moved to the seneschal, who was talking about how they could distribute the treatise. The seneschal would most likely be elected as their head when Everard died. And Will knew, when that day came, his place in the circle he had helped Everard rebuild, the circle his father had sacrificed himself for, would hang in the balance.
The meeting continued for another hour before the seneschal brought it to a close. Will noticed that Everard seemed increasingly impatient and kept looking over at him. As the Brethren began to disperse, agreeing to meet again after the grand master had arrived, the priest caught him on the stairs.
“I need to speak with you, William.”
“What is it?”
“Not here,” replied Everard quietly. “Come to my quarters.”
3
The Citadel, Cairo 17 JANUARY A.D. 1276
The beast paced, hunched shoulders flexing, slabs of muscle sliding and stiffening beneath the skin. Every now and then its lips would curl back to reveal rows of tusklike teeth and it would growl, a low rumbling noise that sounded as if it came from deep within the earth, like stones grinding. Its liquid gold eyes, flecked with jet, stared out through the bars of its cage at the milling, chattering crowds as it ranged the confines of its prison, instincts screaming against the incarceration, screaming to spring forward and attack.
On the other side of the grand hall, Kalawun al-Alfi, commander of the Syrian troops, watched the lion pace. It was magnificent. All power and raw fury. Later, they would tow its cage outside the city walls to a fanfare of trumpets and kettledrums, and set the beast free. For a time it would be beautiful. Then they would hunt it. Today, though, it was all for show. It would be the privilege of the bridegroom to make the killing strike, and Kalawun knew the usual excitement of the hunt would be dulled. He liked to track and pursue his quarry, liked to work and compete for the kill. This would be too easy. The death less noble.
Kalawun took a sip of sweet sherbet, his eyes moving over the mass of royal officials, governors and soldiers who filled the hall, their voices drowning the softly plucked notes of the zithers and harps being played by the musicians. His gaze drifted over his two sons, as-Salih Ali and al-Ashraf Khalil, both born to his second wife and both dark-haired like himself, with the same strong features. Khalil, at twelve his youngest child, was picking restlessly at the stiff collar of the blue cloak the servants had gently forced him into that morning. Kalawun smiled to himself, then looked away, his gaze caught by a knot of youths partially hidden behind one of the white-and-black marble pillars that flanked the chamber. One of the youths was Baraka Khan, heir to the throne of Egypt and, from today on, his son-in-law. Mildly curious as to what had caught their attention, Kalawun rose onto the steps of the dais behind him, where the sultan’s throne stood, arms capped with the heads of two lions fashioned from gold.
Standing with his back to the wall, surrounded by the knot of boys, was a slave, a little older than the youths themselves, maybe sixteen or so. His head was tilted away from the group, eyes fixed on some distant point. His expression was paralyzed in an unreadable mask, and only his unnatural, frozen posture revealed his distress. Baraka was talking animatedly to the others, his face, framed by his black curly hair, split in a broad grin. Kalawun frowned and craned his head to see above the crowds.
A commander of one of the Mamluk regiments, clad in a yellow cloak, hailed him. “Amir, it was a beautiful ceremony. You must be pleased.”
Kalawun nodded distractedly. “As pleased as any father could be, Amir Mahmud.”
Mahmud maneuvered himself in front of Kalawun. “Perhaps, now the festivities are over, we can begin speaking of our strategy for the coming year. I was wondering if you had talked with the sultan? Perhaps you know of his plans?”
Kalawun noted the predatory look in the young commander’s eyes. “No, Mahmud. My thoughts of late,” he spread a hand to take in the chamber, “have been elsewhere.”
“I understand,” said Mahmud, touching his heart with false sincerity, “but now there will be less to occupy your thoughts, I thought we might speak to the sultan, arrange a council for—”
“Excuse me,” said Kalawun, stepping down from the dais and moving past Mahmud, who glared after him. Two of the youths with Baraka had parted. In the gap between them, Kalawun had seen that Baraka had hold of the slave’s tunic. He was lifting it, revealing the scars of the boy’s castration to the others. A couple of the youths were laughing along with Baraka, the rest were staring in appalled fascination at the disfigurement. The slave closed his eyes.
For men such as Kalawun, the term slave warrior wasn’t just a name. Years ago, he, like many other Mamluks, including Baybars, had been captured by slave traders following the Mongol invasions against the Kipchak Turks around the Black Sea. They were sold in the markets to officers in the Egyptian Army and, taken as prisoners to Cairo in their thousands, were educated as devout Muslims and raised into an elite fighting corps by the former Ayyubid sultans of Egypt. The Ayyubid dynasty had ended twenty-six years ago when the slave warriors overthrew their masters and took control of Egypt.
The younger boys remembered the parents and siblings they had been separated from. But over time, toughened by the rigorous training and consoled by the camaraderie of the barracks, those memories faded. When they were freed to become soldiers and officers of the Mamluk Army, very few deserted and returned to their families. Kalawun had been twenty when he was captured, old for a slave. He remembered his wife and child, memories that were slow to dissolve. Even now, at fifty-four, with three wives, three children and another on the way, he sometimes wondered whether his first family had survived the Mongols’ attack and were out there somewhere, unaware he was still alive, unaware he was now one of the most powerful men in the East. Baraka, born into a world where the slave warriors were the rulers and resided in grand palaces surrounded by finery, didn’t know the chains his heritage had broken from.
Generals and officers passed by the group of tormentors, but said nothing. The household slaves who, unlike soldiers, were subjected
to castration to protect the harem and to keep the slaves themselves docile, occasionally rose from lowly beginnings to fill offices of high authority under their masters, even being sent as ambassadors to foreign dignitaries or training recruits for the army. But most, although often treated better than servants in Western households, were simply part of the silent, invisible race that thronged the halls and passages of every wealthy residence in Cairo. Baraka was a prince, the eunuch just another nameless body. Kalawun, however, would not ignore such cruelty.
Passing his goblet to a servant, he started to make his way through the crowd. He had not gone far when he was greeted by the familiar face of Nasir, one of the officers of his own regiment, the Mansuriyya.
The tall, solemn young man, an olive-skinned Syrian, inclined his head respectfully as he approached his commander. “Amir, it was a truly beautiful ce—”
“A beautiful ceremony,” said Kalawun, forcing a smile, “I know.”
Nasir looked at him quizzically, then returned the smile, which brightened his otherwise plain face. “I’m sorry, Amir, I must be one of many to have spoken to you today without truly saying anything at all.”
“As is the tradition at weddings,” responded Kalawun, glancing back to the youths. As he did so, Baraka stepped away from the slave and caught his eye. For a second, there hung a look of guilty shame on the young prince’s face as he realized what Kalawun had witnessed. Then, almost as quickly as it appeared, the expression was gone, replaced by one of haughty defiance. Baraka nodded curtly to Kalawun and moved off with his friends, leaving the slave huddled against the wall, near to the cage where the lion paced.
“Amir?” questioned Nasir, studying the commander’s face, which was tight with concern. He followed Kalawun’s stare and saw Baraka laughing with the group of boys. “He will make a fine son,” he commented.
“But will he make a fine husband?” murmured Kalawun. He met Nasir’s gaze. “A fine sultan? Sometimes, I think he ignores everything I have tried to teach him.”
“You have guided him well, Amir. I have seen how you have instructed him so patiently, as if he were your own.” Nasir lowered his voice. “You have given him more than his own father has.”
“Sultan Baybars has not had the time to train him,” answered Kalawun. But they both knew this wasn’t true.
Baybars had ignored Baraka for most of the boy’s early life, saying that he belonged with his mother in the harem until he was old enough to be trained as a warrior. When he finally felt Baraka was of an age suitable for training, he handed him over to a tutor and, for a brief time, took a real interest, even pleasure, in his eldest son. But then Omar, his closest comrade, was killed by an Assassin’s blade that had been meant for him, and following that death Baybars hadn’t taken much interest in anything.
Nasir shook his head. “Still, it amazes me how much you have given of yourself to the boy.”
“I want him to lead his people well.”
“And he will. He may have become a man today, but in his heart he is still a boy, and boys of his age sometimes believe they are better than their masters.” Nasir met Kalawun’s eyes. “We all have.”
Kalawun put a hand on his shoulder. “You are right. It is just that sometimes I feel as if I am trying to mold clay that has already been fired. I worry, Nasir, that he is ...” His next words were cut off as a girl’s voice called across to him.
“Father!”
Kalawun turned to see Aisha, his fourteen-year-old daughter, weaving through the throng. Her black hijab, threaded with gold, was dangerously close to sliding off her head and uncovering her sleek dark hair. On her shoulder, its claws making little nicks in her black gown, was a tiny, amber-eyed monkey. It had a jewel-studded collar, from which hung a leather leash that Aisha had twined around one long finger. In her other hand was a fistful of dates.
“Look, Father!” she said, tossing up one of the fruits. The monkey reached out and snatched it out of the air. With little jerking movements it grasped the date and chewed, looking around inquisitively.
“I see you have been training him,” said Kalawun, cupping his daughter’s face in his large, callused hands and kissing her brow. He tugged her hijab over the line of hair that had been revealed, making her frown. “You haven’t let him out of your sight.” Kalawun smiled at Nasir. “If I had known such a gift would have preoccupied her so, I would have given one to her years ago.”
Aisha ignored the comment. “I still cannot think what to name him.”
“I thought you had called him Fakir?”
Aisha rolled her eyes. “That was last week. I don’t like that name anymore. I told you that.”
Kalawun touched his daughter’s cheek. “I think now is not the time to concern yourself with this. It has been a long day and you must prepare yourself for the night to come.” His smile faded as she shrugged away from him, obviously discomforted.
Kalawun felt a wrench in his gut at the thought that he had put his daughter’s happiness in the balance to secure his position with Baraka. She felt like a sacrifice. He supposed most fathers giving away their daughters into marriage must feel something like this, but the thought didn’t comfort him. He had bought her the monkey to alleviate his guilt. It had worked for a few days as he watched her delight over the creature. But after what he had witnessed with the slave, he felt troubled again. “You are a woman now, Aisha,” he told her, trying to sound firm. “You must be modest in your worldly appearance and obey and support your husband. You cannot run wild around the palace halls anymore or play with the servants or wade in the fish pool. Not as a woman. Not as a wife. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Father,” murmured Aisha.
“Go now, await your husband.”
The part of Kalawun that wasn’t bound by duty or custom, the part of him that was all father, was secretly glad to see that none of the defiant sparkle had left her eyes as she moved off.
Kalawun heard doors opening and turned to see four gold-cloaked warriors of the Bahri regiment, the Royal Guard, entering the hall. Behind, standing several inches taller than the soldiers, came Baybars Bundukdari, the Crossbow, sultan of Egypt and Syria, with whose sword the Ayyubid dynasty had ended in blood and the reign of the Mamluks had begun. He wore a heavy, fur-lined cloak of gold silk, embroidered with inscriptions from the Koran. Black bands of cloth on his upper arms displayed his rank and title. His tanned face was stony and his eyes, with the star-shaped defect in his left pupil that turned a simple gaze into a piercing glare, were as blue and fathomless as the Nile. At Baybars’s side were three military governors, including Mahmud and a fifth man dressed in the violet cloak of a royal messenger, one of the men who worked the posting houses through which information was relayed by horse across the empire. The messenger’s cloak was dust-stained, his face weary. It looked as if he had been on the road for some time. Baybars said something to him and he bowed and moved off. The sultan’s eyes swept the crowd and came to rest on Kalawun. He beckoned sharply. Leaving Nasir with a nod, Kalawun followed as Baybars left the hall.
Together, the governors and their sultan headed up to the quieter second story of the palace, leaving the music and crowds behind. Here, the Bahris pushed open a set of ivory-paneled doors, which led out onto a wide balcony. The guards remained by the doors whilst Baybars and the governors moved out into the sunlight. It was a cool day with a strong breeze that plucked at their cloaks. The afternoon sky was a wide, flat blue without a trace of haze, and in the far distance, southwest of the city, they could see the Great Pyramids rising from the desert. The citadel, built by Saladin, was situated at the highest part of the city, just below the Muqattam Hills, and the view from the balcony was spectacular.
Below them sprawled Cairo, whose name, al-Qahira, meant the conqueror. Minarets spiraled into the sky over the domes of mosques and palaces adorned with glass and mother-of-pearl that glittered in the sun. Woven in between these majestic edifices was a tight jumble of houses and shops that formed a compl
ex warren of narrow streets and covered souks, in places so dark and airless it was like passing through caves.
Camel and horse markets, madrassas and mausoleums all jostled for space in this cramped arena, where districts for the Greeks, the blacks, the Turks and others were crowded around the newer quarters of the city to the north, established by the former Fatimid dynasty. Here, the al-Azhar mosque, with its adjoining university, had stood for three centuries and was now the highest seat of learning in the Islamic world. Part of the building was still shrouded by scaffolding from the repairs Baybars had ordered begun several years earlier. The smooth white limestone that clad the new side had been taken from the Pyramids and the many Crusader castles in Palestine the sultan had spent the sixteen years of his reign demolishing. The old part of Cairo, Fustat Misr, was located south of the citadel, opposite an island in the Nile. On the island was a palace erected by the Mamluks’ former Ayyubid master, the towers of which Baybars had given to Kalawun and the Mansuriyya Regiment as barracks. Between the sand-blown city and the hostile expanses of the desert, the Nile, the city’s life-blood, flowed endlessly.
Baybars turned to Kalawun with a smile, the expression not quite reflected in his wintry eyes. “We have been comrades for more than half our lives, my brother,” he said, kissing the commander’s cheeks. “Now we are family.”
“It is an honor I cherish, my Lord Sultan,” replied Kalawun.
“But now the wedding of our children is over, we must turn our eye to matters abroad.” Baybars’s manner was instantly all business. “A messenger has come bearing news from our northern territories. The Ilkhan has assembled an army. The Mongols are on the move.”
