Devil's Bargain

by Judith Tarr

  Richard addressed them in a voice that was low but pitched to carry. “I’ve heard that a charge of armored knights could break down the walls of Babylon, and those are three lance-lengths thick. This gate’s not near as thick as that. There’s not much room to get going, but we’ll give you all we can, and cover you with crossbow fire. Just break that gate for me.”

  They eyed that great slab of wood and iron, sheathed in gold. Some smiled; some even laughed. Some simply and eloquently donned their great helms and couched their lances.

  The rest of the army drew back as much as it could. It must have looked like a retreat: Richard heard whooping and jeering on the wall. The charge prepared itself behind a shield of English and Norman knights.

  When it was ready, the crossbowmen in place, Richard raised his sword. As it swept down, the knights lumbered into motion. Their shield of knights melted away, then came together behind them.

  Crossbow bolts picked off the Saracen archers with neat precision. The knights were moving faster now, building speed from walk to an earth-shaking trot. Lances that had been in rest now lowered. The few arrows that fell among them did no damage, sliding off the knights’ armor or the horses’ caparisons, to be trampled under the heavy hooves.

  The Saracens above the gate hung on, though more and more of their number fell dead or wounded. The charge struck the gate with force like a mountain falling. Lances splintered. The destriers in the lead, close pressed behind, reared and smote the gate with their hooves. The knights’ maces and morningstars whirled and struck, whirled and struck.

  They broke down that gate of gold and iron as if it had been made of willow withies, trampled over it and plunged through. The second, less massive but still powerful charge thundered behind them, Richard’s English and his Normans chanting in unison: “Deus lo volt! Deus lo volt!”

  A battle waited for them in the court of the Temple, mounted and afoot: the dead sultan’s gathered forces under the command of a prince in a golden helmet. That helmet had been Saladin’s, and the armor had been his, too; but he had never ridden that tall bay stallion, Richard’s gift to the great knight and prince of the infidels, the lord Saphadin. The first light of the sun caught the peak of his helmet and crowned him with flame.

  Richard’s knights plunged deep into the waiting army of infidels. His lighter cavalry, his archers, and his foot soldiers were close behind them. The court could not hold them all. Over half waited in reserve outside, or had gone up on the walls to deal with the archers whom the crossbowmen had not disposed of.

  It was a hot fight. The enemy had been herded and trapped here, but they had not been robbed of either their courage or their fighting skill. They contested every inch of that ancient paving, right up to the gate of the golden mosque.

  Richard faced Saphadin there. The prince had lost his horse some while since. He set his back to the barred door; Richard left Fauvel behind to face him on foot, man to man and sword to sword.

  In the months that they had known one another, this was the first time they had met face to face in battle. Richard was taller, broader, stronger; his reach was longer, his sword heavier. But Saphadin was quicker, and he had more to lose. He drove Richard back with a flashing attack. He was smiling, a soft, almost drowsy smile, deep with contentment.

  It was the smile of a man who had decided to die, and had chosen the manner of his death. He was wearing himself into swift exhaustion. It was a grand and foolish gesture, showing off all his swordsmanship; he would know, none better, that Richard could simply wait him out.

  Richard waited, keeping sword and shield raised to defend against the whirling steel. He was aware while he waited of the battle raging around him. His men were gaining the upper hand, but they were paying for it. There were too many of them in too small a space, and their heavier horses, their weightier armor and weapons, were beginning to tell on them as the sun climbed the sky.

  It had to end quickly. Richard did two things almost at once: he firmed his grip on his sword as Saphadin’s swirl of steel began to flag, found the opening he had been waiting for, and clipped the prince neatly above the ear; then, not even waiting for the man to fall, he spun and bellowed, “Now!”

  Richard’s forces had been waiting for that word. Well before the echoes of it had died away, they struck. His archers and crossbowmen had won the wall, and began a withering rain of fire. In the same moment, his reserves charged in through the Beautiful Gate, swarming over the enemy, surrounding them and bringing them down.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  When Mustafa and Sioned together saw how David’s Gate was open and the Tower deserted, they saw in it the darkness that was the Master of Masyaf. If he was not in the city, then his power was. And the spells on the garden were weakening rapidly.

  As Richard pressed the assault on the city and the Temple, Mustafa slipped away into the darkness of the deserted streets. Sioned within him was dizzy and dazzled with the power that slept in these ancient stones. It was all she could do to keep her focus, to ride in his heart and not spin away into nothingness.

  The spell of the city overwhelmed the faint song of the Seal, and that was well—but here where the Seal had been made and where the great king of the Jews had wielded it, it was waking. She could feel the strain in her wards, the bonds slipping free.

  He was here—the Old Man himself. He had concluded his bargain with Eleanor: he had lured and tricked the infidels into the trap of the Temple, and opened the city to the Franks. There would be a price for that, and he would not be slow in demanding it.

  Mustafa was a gifted tracker, but there was too much magic here. Just as it concealed the Seal, so did it conceal the Master’s whereabouts. He followed a trail through the Street of the Bad Cooks, holding his breath against the cloying reek of a hundred cooks’ and bakers’ stalls, but it ended in a blank wall and a barren door. There were only mortals cowering behind it, dwellers in the city who waited and hid and prayed that the sack, if and when it came, would not fall upon them.

  Richard’s coming had been no surprise. The city was ready for him: the barricades up, the Temple fortified. Mustafa caught a rat in the shadow of a baker’s stall, a thief looking to steal the invaders’ leavings. He squeaked abominably, but amid the gibbering were a few words of sense. “One came before the sun set, and persuaded the emirs to take a stand in the Temple. He was most convincing. They were in despair; they grieved terribly for the sultan. They were driven like sheep.”

  Dawn had come without Sioned’s even realizing it: his face was clear to read. He was telling the truth as far as he knew it. Nor was he an Assassin. The city was full of them, but this was an honest rat.

  Mustafa let him go. He vanished into an alley.

  Sioned had already forgotten him. A monstrous blow nearly smote her into the aether. The thread that bound her to her body stretched almost to breaking.

  The serpent in the garden had roused from its long sleep. It lifted its head drowsily to assure itself that the stone it guarded was still safe. In the moment of her inattention, when she focused on the thief, the spell shriveled into mist. The serpent saw what it had been protecting, and rose up in hissing rage.

  For a searing instant, Sioned knew the whereabouts of every Assassin in Jerusalem. They burned like embers in her consciousness.

  Indeed he was here—the master of them all. He was terribly, perilously close to Richard and to the Seal. And, she saw as her magic stretched to take in the circle of men about Richard, to Ahmad.

  Mustafa’s mount, in keeping with his sergeant’s guise, was a Frankish cob, and speed was not its greatest strength. But it was sturdy and imperturbable, and for these streets, it was fast enough. It managed a quite acceptable pace, even a gallop as it came to the Street of David. It hurtled over and around barriers, flotsam, the all too frequent sprawl of a body.

  They were riding into the battle now, a steadily rising clash and clangor, battle cries and shrieks of the wounded. Mustafa in Frankish dress, on a Fra
nkish horse, met no opposition. No doubt the king’s army took him for a messenger.

  The Beautiful Gate was down and broken. Men struggled in the ruins, packed so close together that they could barely move. Franks thrust inward; Saracens thrust them out again.

  Mustafa left the cob with a pang of regret that quivered in Sioned’s consciousness—it was a loyal beast, and it would be lucky to survive the day—and took to the walls. He went up them with breathtaking speed and skill, finding handholds where Sioned saw only smooth stone.

  She had never been more helpless than she was then, borne within Mustafa’s body, with her magic all scattered and her wits in scarcely better straits. She could focus on one thing: on finding the Old Man wherever he was hiding.

  Daylight was well broken now, the morning advancing, and the heat rising. Mustafa heaved himself up over the rampart, found that stretch of it empty of defenders, and paused for breath.

  From here he had a clear vantage over the court of the Temple. It was a mass of struggling men, tossing banners, swords and knives and spearheads now flashing brightly, now dark with blood.

  Sioned found the king with the eyes of the heart, even before the eyes of Mustafa’s body could follow. He was up against the gate of the great mosque, locked in combat with a man in a golden helmet wound with a snow-white turban.

  She would have known that one if it had been blind dark and if he had been in sackcloth. He was wearing the sultan’s armor and the sultan’s famous helmet—no doubt to hearten his troops, and to remind them of what they fought for.

  She could not take time to watch the duel, however deadly and beautiful it was. She slipped free of Mustafa’s body, rising on currents of power that swirled and eddied all through this place. The Dome was thick with spirits, the sky swarming with jinn and afarit, watching rapt as mortal men paid tribute in blood to the ancient powers.

  The darker spirits and the shades of the dead were feeding on that outpouring of blood, and fattening on slaughter. She searched for one that was both dark and secret, rooted deep in earth and sending tendrils through the heart of the city.

  It was hidden, but not well enough. She found it a scant man-length from the combatants, crouching against the wall of the mosque. It wore the semblance of a soldier of Islam and the face of a boy, young and feckless, clutching a bloody sword.

  It was strangely dissonant to see that smooth face worn like a mask over old darkness. Sinan watched the duel with taut intensity. His spells were woven about Ahmad, a black and writhing tangle, breeding and nurturing despair.

  They groped constantly toward Richard, but slipped past without touching, as if he were globed in glass. It would be expected that his mother would protect him whether he willed it or no, but as Sinan hurled stronger and ever stronger spells at him and he fought on untouched, Sioned watched suspicion dawn in those cold dark eyes.

  Sioned struggled against the tides of the spirit, currents that tugged at her, urging her up and away from the dim and bloody earth. She could have the peace that the sultan had found; she could depart from all these cares and troubles.

  It was not her time. She fought her way back down the spirals of air, gathering jinn as she went, until she hovered in a cloud of them, directly above Sinan’s head.

  He looked up. The jinn were not afraid of him now that he no longer had the power of the Seal. His eyes widened. The sight above him was terrible: swirling wrath, edged with fangs.

  The spell-web about Ahmad frayed and melted into air—too late: Richard’s sword was already in motion, smiting him down. Sioned lashed out with a wishing, to turn the blade, but Richard did not mean to kill, only to stun.

  When she looked again, Sinan was gone. He had left nothing in his wake but a spell that, before she could guard herself, had caught her and snapped about her like a noose.

  This was her death—of the soul as well as the body that she had abandoned. She did not greet it peacefully, although a moment before she had been ready and willing to slip away into oblivion. She struggled wildly, blindly, without knowledge or sense, only the pure will.

  The jinn could not touch her. Sinan’s binding was set to trap any who tried—and they, pure spirit without flesh to anchor them, however tenuously, were even more subject to dissolution than she.

  The battle below was ending. The warriors of Islam were dead or taken; the sack had begun. Faint and far away, Sioned heard the bellow of Richard’s voice, calling for men to take the lord Saphadin, to secure the Temple and the city, and to put a stop to the looting and pillaging. “Not here,” he declared. “Not this city. This is holy ground. Any man who rapes or sacks or burns within it will lose his head.”

  He was not aware of her at all, even through the Seal. No one was. The one who might have sensed her was unconscious, borne away to captivity in the arms of strong English yeomen.

  Unconscious was not dead. His magic was still there, freed of the bonds that Sinan had tried to lay on it. She was desperate; else she would never have ventured it. With the last shreds of her will and strength, she flung herself toward him.

  Sinan’s binding strained. Her spirit frayed. If she judged this wrongly, with what little of her was left to judge, she would kill Ahmad with herself. The distance between them was a breath’s span, or a gulf between worlds.

  There was little left of her but the will to reach him. Sinan’s working rent her, gnawing and devouring. Ahmad receded with all his bright magic, his knowledge and power. He was lost in darkness and dream.

  Somewhere in the depths of it, awareness sparked. The light in Ahmad brightened; the power, the beauty of it, grew stronger.

  Sinan’s spell caught hold of it. Too late to stop it, too late to protect her beloved—she could not even save herself.

  Darkness swept over Ahmad. She sank down into it.

  Lightnings cracked. The full force of Ahmad’s power smote the Old Man’s spell and shattered it—nearly taking Sioned with it. She would not have cared if it had. There was nothing left of her to care. But in the last instant, Ahmad caught her, enfolded her, and kept her safe.

  She drifted in enormous quiet. It could have been death, but there was still a thin thread winding out of the light, and her body at the end of it, alive. She could not see Ahmad, or Sinan, or the army of the jinn. Yet she felt Ahmad like the warmth of arms about her, guarding her, slowly feeding her power and strength until she could sustain herself.

  Her body was waiting. She was not ready to go back to it. She must not—Richard—

  You must, Ahmad’s will said, or you die.

  “Sinan will come for the Seal,” she said, shaping each word so that it was distinct. “My brother doesn’t know—”

  He would not help her to hold back. He thrust her toward her body, so sudden and so strong that she could not resist him. She was locked in it, confined in flesh, before her will found itself again.

  He had bound her there with a spell remarkably similar to Sinan’s, save that its chains were of light rather than darkness. There was less pain in it, and less fear, but no more freedom. She was trapped until he saw fit to let her go. No amount of struggle or protest would budge the working.

  He left her there with a touch as soft as sleep, and a whisper of a promise. “Be at ease. All will be well.”

  Ease was the farthest thing from her mind, but she had no choice. She was helpless to stir from this rampart of flesh, and all but emptied of magic. Richard would have to fight alone, unless Ahmad could help him—Ahmad, whose body was as unconscious as hers.

  Trust, he said. Have faith.

  Faith was a thing for people of the Book—for Christians and Muslims and Jews. She was a wild pagan. She had only herself and the gods to rely on, and the gods were notoriously capricious.

  Not mine, he said as he slipped away. Rest. Sleep. Be strong.

  Easy for him to say, she thought sourly; but her heart was no longer quite so heavy. He had done that to her—that headstrong, arrogant man. “May your God protect you,” she
said to the memory of his presence, “and bring you back to me.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  By noon of that endless day, it was done. The Temple of the Lord was taken. The defenders paid the price that the knights of the Kingdom of Jerusalem had paid at the slaughter of Hattin: the high ones died or were held for ransom; the ordinary troops were bound and led away to be sold into slavery.

  Saphadin was alive and reasonably well. Master Judah had taken charge of him, under heavy guard. Richard had no intention of letting him go; he was far too valuable a hostage.

  For the moment he was safe. Richard’s men admired him greatly, as the great knight and prince that he was. The Old Man of the Mountain was another matter. Richard could not be certain that Saphadin was not the Assassins’ next target.

  Richard would have to trust the vigilance of his guards to keep the sultan’s brother safe. For now he had a conquest to secure.

  His army was under control. There were a few Frankish heads on pikes among the heads of Turks and Kurds, and more than a few would-be pillagers who had discovered the fear of God.

  Then at last he could go to the place that he had dreamed of for so long. He did not want to make a spectacle of it, but as he mounted Fauvel and rode back through the city, he found himself at the head of a swiftly growing procession. All of his men who were not preoccupied with the aftermath of battle, and a good number of the people of Jerusalem, had fallen in behind him. They were singing—raggedly at first, then a lone determined voice lured them into a chorus.

  It was Blondel’s voice, a little ragged with exhaustion, but clear and strong. He offered none of his secular songs now, no love songs or even songs of war, but the great anthem of Mother Church: Vexilla regis prodeunt.