Bladesong

by Jean Gill

  Burying their dead diminished most men’s destructive urges but there were always some who were merely more determined to make the most of what might be their last moments. The camp followers earned their keep and the sausage-skins used for protection from the pox were worn thin.

  War had no day of rest and perhaps Unur of Damascus deliberately attacked the next day in full knowledge that it was the Christian Sabbath. He must also have known that Lebanese reinforcements were coming through the Barada Gorge, although Dragonetz still wondered at how much better informed the Damascans had been than his own armies.

  Another question for Bar Philipos. Was it just a question of better scouts? Better knowledge of the terrain? Unquestionably, Unur had been well-informed and led a mass attack through the northern gates in an attempt to clear a route to the city. Dragonetz wasted no time remembering the bloody immediacy of combat, one death much resembling another, and best thought of as a number.

  He did remember three days of reinforcements arriving from every direction to join the city’s defenders, three days of harassment from Unur’s crack ahdath soldiers and his mercenary ’askar troops. Whichever way the Crusaders turned, from another direction would come the Turkoman Seljuqs, flowing into Damascus like the life-giving water in its irrigation canals, unstoppable.

  Dragonetz also remembered the first night after they’d set up camp by the river. He’d taken his men to patrol the northern wall of the city, where the Faradis gardens remained, although the suburb itself had been destroyed by pillaging Crusaders on the first day of siege. He was scanning the fortifications at dusk, searching each section for a weakness, when he noticed dark figures clumsily descending the wall.

  Within minutes, his men, laughing, had brought him the would-be attackers and dropped them at his feet. Putting aside the guilt he had carried for three years, and its fictive embroidery to the scene, what did Dragonetz really remember of the six girls giggling at their adventure? Veils, robes and giggles, indistinguishable one from the other. Averring their Christianity and their support for the crusade, offering - more giggles - whatever encouragement they could give in an hour or two. Hoping they would see their new friends in the city soon and that their families would be protected when the city fell, as surely it must.

  Naive but no virgins, Dragonetz had judged, licensing his officers to do as they wished. To his shame, and surely eternal damnation, one eager girl had stayed behind and he had used her as easily as eating a plum, probably with less pleasure, in earshot of Raoulf’s porcine grunts. Just one more girl, best thought of as a number.

  There had been a promise of repeated ‘encouragement’ the following night but Dragonetz was busy elsewhere and the men who waited, hopeful, told him no-one had appeared. Maybe the guards, who’d been happy to accept bribes the night before, had been moved to other posts, with tighter instructions in place. Why think more of it? Especially when Unur’s messages from the Citadel showed no more hint of surrender than the destructive sorties of his men, which continued in the usual lightning style.

  Even parading the holy relic of the cross, which had worked the miracles of the previous crusade, barely lifted the men’s spirits. This wasn’t the sort of fighting they were used to and they were confused. Dragonetz was no more able to work miracles than was a bit of old wood but he knew they had a strong position tactically. They had food, water, somewhere comfortable to sleep in good weather. All they had to do was to wait. The strongest minds would win.

  On the fourth day of siege, Dragonetz was brought to his knees, begging forgiveness. There had been messages between the Crusaders and the Syrian Christians in Damascus, brothers in religion, who would obviously welcome the new lords of the city with open arms once the tyrant Moor was overthrown. The same kind of open arms their daughters offered, on their backs in the orchard at night?

  The messages from the Syrians had been effusive in welcome, in mention of God’s will, and completely void of any details that would help the allied forces take Damascus. Of course, it was too risky to commit such messages to people or papers that could be intercepted. The consequences for Syrian families trapped in the city were unthinkable - the Moors were infamous for their horrific tortures. Everyone knew they ate babies and bastinadoed old women.

  Louis and Conrad were voluble about the goodwill of Christian Damascans, once freed, but Dragonetz had the impression that Baudouin kept some thoughts to himself on the matter. Baudouin’s grandmother had been a Syrian Christian so maybe he had some inside knowledge? Whatever Baudouin’s unspoken reservations, any messages from the Damascus Syrians were received by Louis, Conrad and Dragonetz himself, with the expectation that they would reveal some secret of the city’s defences. Contact from a Syrian meant hope of entering the city.

  This time, however, on the fourth day of seige, it was no message but an anguished Syrian father, who came to the camp in person, grief marking his face with reddened eyes, cracked lips and ashes. He was brought to Dragonetz by silent men, two of whom had been of the party by the northern gate. If Dragonetz had wanted to lie, he could not have, in front of those silent witnesses. Instead he bore publicly the Syrian’s account of his daughter’s torture, evident on the corpse that was rescued from the street dogs outside her father’s house. It had been tossed there from a cart, which didn’t even stop.

  From her sobbing friends, her father uncovered the escapade over the wall, the rope ladder intended for more innocent times and used by those too innocent themselves to know the difference. It was said that she’d lain with the grand Frankish Commander, Lord Dragonetz and that she was in love with him, was going to meet him again. The father was told that armed men in the city had taken her for questioning. They’d been heard telling her she could save her city by meeting her lover one more time, with a little twist to the story. She’d been dragged away screaming that she would never betray Lord Dragonetz. Then she’d been dumped, without eyes and without fingers, for her mother and sisters to see.

  Dragonetz crumpled to his knees, saying ‘I beg forgiveness’ over and over, knowing that his real crime was to learn her name only when her father spoke it, his voice breaking. Aini. Dragonetz didn’t even know what she looked like. The veils had still covered her face while he hitched up her robes and took what he wanted.

  Willing she might have been but there was no word low enough for what he’d done to another soul and now she was dead for his sake. He was still kneeling when his men led away Bar Philipos, speaking of ‘war’ and ‘courage’ and ‘sacrifice for the greater good’, using whatever words would change a rut in an orchard to a sweet love affair, that would make a cruel death heroic.

  Events from there on made no sense to Dragonetz nor did he care. He’d reached his lowest point since Mount Cadmus so when he received the orders to break camp and move south, to the region outside Damascus where there was no food and no shelter, he made only token protest. He was told that the Syrians had made face-to-face contact with the message that the Crusaders could force entry at the south, that the wall could be breached easily there and that they would have inside help.

  The Bishop of Langres returned to camp from the south, confirming what Dragonetz had already told his Commanders but still they ordered the move, despite the lack of food or shelter where they were going. The three armies pitched camp overnight mid-way to their destination, at Qayniya, where they still had good forage.

  And then the new orders came - the crusade was over. The retreat was sounded and they were all to go home, tails between legs. Dragonetz didn’t care enough to ask why. He was Aliénor’s Commander of the Guard so that’s what he did - he commanded the Guard. He built walls stronger than Damascus between himself and any man who risked talking to him of ‘war’ or ‘courage’ and, worst of all, ‘girls’. Chastity was no longer a bar to his joining the Templars, should they invite him again.

  He was no longer the young man who’d come on crusade. On the weary route home, Dragonetz saw Aliénor near-death in the storms of
rough passage between Acre and Aquitaine, between the news of Prince Raymond’s death and her return to her duty as Queen and Duchesse. He saw that whatever had been between her and her uncle ran deep, below the skin, and he forgave her, a little. Who was he to judge others?

  Later still, he forgave himself, a little, and found again the sweetness of bedding a woman, and then found something much deeper himself. He had never promised Estela to be faithful in his body. He knew himself too well for that. But he would never find his match in anyone else, his partner in song and sensuality, his equal in grief and guilt over Arnaut’s death, with her own share of the burdens that come with leadership.

  The man Dragonetz was now, with all he’d learned from living inside the city, reviewed the events of the crusade dispassionately. He heard the discord at the centre of the melody and then all the wrong notes jarred at once. It was all in the wrong key, all of it!

  Starting with the certainty that Syrian Christians did not want now, and never had wanted, Frankish Christians taking over their city. They did not hate their Muslim fellow-citizens nor their administration. All Damascans had one priority, stronger than any religion; the city of Damascus itself. Change that key and what questions there were to ask of the past!

  Would the daughters of Damascus have been any different from their parents? Would they really have been so keen on Frankish occupation of their city? What if Dragonetz had underestimated the girls. What if he’d fallen for their giggling act, dulled by his own appetite? What if they had come over the wall so easily, on a convenient ladder, because they had been sent. What more innocuous spies could there be, to report back on the besiegers’ positions!

  And if they had made use of the more intimate positions in which they found themselves, to pose innocent questions of their gallants, as to how soon they could expect entry to their city, what would have been easier! Dragonetz had no idea whether he himself had been asked and answered such questions but he owned it was possible. In that case, he had been too quick to feel guilt, too full of hubris and he had been punished. There had been no ‘love’, not even imagined. He had been played; he was not the player.

  The logic led inexorably to yet more questions. Why then would the Moors have tortured and killed Aini? With gut-wrenching certainty, he knew, they wouldn’t have. Not unless there were reasons that had nothing to do with him. Aini had not been tortured to give up his name, his details. She had not died trying to protect him. Bar Philipos had lied.

  Dragonetz pictured the grief-ravaged face and knew no-one could act the feelings expressed there. Words could lie, and Bar Philipos must have done so, but his face had shown unmistakable grief. If the daughter was indeed dead, why? And why had Bar Philipos blamed Dragonetz?

  All the wrong notes played together in his head into a crescendo of discord; girls, spies, murder, lies, girls, friends... girls! Girls close in age, in friendship, in background, trusting each other for such an escapade - whether spying or seeking lovers made no difference. Girls who told Bar Philipos where they’d been, what they’d been doing and what had happened to Aini.

  Whether his story was true didn’t matter; the girls knew the answers. Who would be in such a group of friends? Who would be the natural first choice of company for a girl in such an adventure? Her sister, of course, and Dragonetz would not be played a second time!

  Dragonetz grasped Yalda’s wrist, stopping her hand as it reached his skin. He ignored the instinctive response to her touch and tightened his grip, waiting for the answer to his question.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I was with my sister and our friends in the orchard, with your soldiers.’ Dragonetz let go and rose to his feet, thinking it all through, while she rubbed her wrist and said nothing.

  ‘The guards dropped the ladder, let you down over the wall, let you back in, afterwards. You were sent to check our position and report back. If you were caught - which you were! - you were just giggling girls on an adventure, using your bodies like a jongleur to distract from what was really going on.’

  ‘And it worked.’ Her smile hit home.

  ‘Yes, it worked.’ The words tasted of his own gullibility. ‘You were the very people we’d come to rescue, fellow-Christians threatened by the monstrous Moors, so of course you were overwhelmed by our heroic presence and so keen for us to enter your city - so keen for us to enter your bodies too!’

  The smile vanished. ‘Now you know better. I am Damascan. What would we want with your toy soldiers, squabbling with each other over who should have our fathers’ land. You did well enough from ‘rescuing’ us, my Lord Dragonetz. Would you be the rich ‘los Pros’ without rewards from the Queen of France for commanding her Guard Oltra mar? Were you disappointed not to get Tripoli or Acre or even Damascus for your great leadership? Is that the real reason you’re back? You missed out on your share of our land last time round!

  Yes, we girls were sent, and we made the best of the idiots we found! You have no idea how proud your boys were of your wonderful training and troop placements - nor how helpful Unur found the information! It was a pity we didn’t reach Baudouin’s men instead and we might even have had a real conversation about ending the stupid siege. At least the Jerusalem troops had some idea of how we live together here, without being afraid of baby-eaters and dark arts. You Franks talk as if the Muslim religion is contagious!

  You want to know who sent us? Damascus sent us! It doesn’t matter whether it was my father or another of a thousand Christian, Muslim or Jewish fathers in our city. Damascus and its independence are all that matters.’

  White-faced, Dragonetz accused her, ‘Damascene, adulterated steel, watered silk, a slut.’

  ‘And you, my Lord? Are you so pure?’

  Dragonetz pursued his dogged thread. ‘That doesn’t explain your sister’s death. Nor your father claiming it on my head.’

  Yalda’s laughter was ugly. ‘You mean you don’t believe Aini was killed for love of a man.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Wrong again, my Lord, wrong again. You have learned a little more about us but not enough.’

  ‘It makes no sense.’

  Suddenly the defiance collapsed, leaving the unhealed traces of grief stark and unfeigned in the dark eyes. ‘No, it makes no sense,’ Yalda agreed. ‘But we must live with it. Insha’Allah, as our enemies say.’ The mocking bitterness returned so quickly Dragonetz doubted he’d seen anything else. ‘I am tired of this conversation so unless you plan to torture me for more information, I will leave you.’

  ‘She didn’t love me,’ Dragonetz repeated stupidly, knowing it was true, not understanding what it meant.

  ‘Shall I come to you again?’ Startled by the question, Dragonetz studied the face in the window light. The morning sun was gentle, erasing blemishes from the gilded skin, reflecting his own face in her eyes. ‘Has it meant nothing to you?’ she asked softly, open as a flower, turned towards the light and him.

  ‘No,’ he said, avoiding her eyes, avoiding the pain he told himself he must be imagining, as he fixed his gaze on the street below. He would not be caught twice. Long after the heavy door had creaked to, Dragonetz stared out of the window, seeing nothing.

  Chapter 9

  ‘There is no other way,’ declared Estela, her eyes red, her face pinched and lined. ‘I’ve been over and over it in my mind. Musca must go to his father.’

  ‘But -’ started Raoulf and Estela cut him off, reminding him with a glance that Prima was in earshot, both babies asleep in her arms like bolsters on a well-padded bed. Estela had called her two men and her nurse to a private council, a very private council, behind thick oaken doors and stone walls.

  ‘Johans de Villeneuve,’ Estela enunciated her husband’s name carefully, ‘will provide a place of safety for his son,’ also carefully enunciated, ‘and an education worthy of the knight my son will become.’ She glared at Gilles and Raoulf. The latter glared back at her, looking more and more like Nici and with the same instincts.

  ‘I don’t like it,
’ he growled. ‘We should find this Miquel, and deal with him.’

  Estela folded her hands in her lap, the air of calm contradicted by fingers lacing and interlacing as she spoke. ‘You’ve looked. Nici’s looked.’ The dog opened one eye at the sound of his name, checked on the whereabouts of the two babies and his mistress, then relaxed again. They were here. There was no threat. All was well.

  ‘My brother is a nobleman, adept with a sword, if not as skilled as ... some of our friends.’ Two pairs of eyes regarded her steadily, knowing full well the name she skipped. ‘He is protected, respected and there are many in my home region who will tell you that I am neither. Even if you did find him and ... deal with him, there would be no honour for you in doing so and no safety for the little one. Lies breed. There would be law-suits for compensation, and who-knows-what attempts at revenge. Gilles knows what that woman is capable of!’

  Gilles nodded, instinctively holding his right arm. ‘She is behind Miquel and his death wouldn’t stop her. Losing his only son would spur Tibau, Estela’s father, to ever crazier action too. He believes everything Costansa tells him.’

  ‘And Miquel is my brother,’ said Estela quietly. ‘He might be himself again, one day. I cannot sanction his execution, in cold blood or hot!’ She suppressed the question as to what she would do, with dog or dagger, if Musca’s life were at stake.

  ‘I don’t like it,’ Raoulf repeated. ‘You’re sending the baby away from everyone who can best protect him. I am under oath to my Lord Dragonetz to protect you with my life’. He ignored the eyes pleading with him not to say too much. ‘I will speak plain! If I’m to protect you, he would want me to protect,’ he hesitated, ‘... your baby too. How can I do that if he’s a thousand miles away, near Narbonne, closer to the very people who threaten him?’