by Dan Davis
“You are willing to lead me to the area?” I asked him.
Antonius shrugged. “Very well. Perhaps I shall take you to where they were last seen. But then I shall continue home upon the Damascus road.”
“I will let you go when I find William,” I said to Antonius. “If we do not find him then I shall bring you back here.”
The priest opened his mouth to argue, looked between me and the Archbishop and closed his mouth. It was curious that he did not object further to such unreasonable treatment.
The Archbishop looked at me.
“He’ll do,” I said.
“Come,” the Archbishop said and we left the priest’s cell, leaving him sitting on the bed with his skinny legs dangling off the edge like some ancient child. “You shall be released into this man’s custody soon. I suggest you spend the time praying.”
The Archbishop’s man slammed and locked the door behind us.
“What do you think?” the Archbishop asked me in the corridor.
“I do not know,” I said.
The Archbishop nodded. “Good.”
I do not trust you either, I thought. “If he can bring me near to William then that will do well enough,” I said. “King Henry said you would give me men,” I said to the Archbishop.
“He did, did he?” The Archbishop said. “Well, I suppose you can take Adelard, here.” He gestured to his man, who looked surprised and then silently furious, his face colouring and his jaw tensing.
“Thank you, my lord Archbishop. The king said I could take four men,” I lied.
The Archbishop scowled. “Adelard, who is your best man?”
Adelard, an older man who looked sturdy and steady but angry, cleared his throat. “Young Elias.”
The Archbishop nodded. “You can have my two best men and you will be grateful for that much.”
“I am, my lord Archbishop,” I said, thinking about some of the taverns where I could hire more men.
I thought I would be escorted out yet the Archbishop hesitated. “You may wonder why I take such an interest in this situation,” he said.
“Because God wants peace?” I said.
A flicker of irritation passed over his face and he walked back the way we had arrived, his heels echoing down corridor. Me and his man Adelard hurried to catch up and he continued. “After the Battle of Hattin, Earl William came to see me. He felt he had experienced a profound revelation.”
“You knew William?” I was shocked.
He ignored me as he stepped into the spiral tower steps and instead of going down the way we had come, he went up and I followed, wondering what in God’s name the Archbishop had to tell me about William.
“Let us converse in here,” he gestured me into a lavish room near the top of the tower. The room opened to a balcony on one side with views out across the compact city and the sea beyond. There was a silver cross on the wall and a large golden cross with jewels embedded upon a table by one wall and decorated in an ornate, almost Saracen style with colourful and richly patterned carpets and cushions. I took the seat he invited me to take; a delicate chair carved with curving olive leaves near the balcony and watched him ease his old bones into a huge, gold leafed thing like a throne opposite me. He let out a huge sigh, wincing a little and when he was settled he closed his eyes for a moment and I wondered if he was going to fall asleep.
“So you knew William, my lord?” I asked.
His eyes snapped open and he sighed again. “Speaking about these things brings me no joy. But there are things you must know.”
A servant brought a jug of cold, sweet lemon water that he poured into silver cups. The Archbishop took a long drink and smacked his thin lips.
“Five years ago the largest Christian army ever assembled in this kingdom rode out from Jerusalem to meet Saladin. Foolish. Impetuous. I knew it would end in disaster but what warrior listens to an ancient, decrepit priest like me? Thousands of knights rode out from all over Outremer, with tens of thousands of soldiers in their wake, so certain that they would smash the Saracens. They were impressive as they marched off. Well, they all died. Thousands upon thousands of them slaughtered in the dust and the fools left Jerusalem emptied of men able to protect the Holy City. Those poor souls who could not escape Jerusalem, thousands of them, sold into slavery.”
He shook his head. He had tears welling in his eyes. I stifled a sigh and settled into my seat.
“Then Jaffa and Acre fell and everything collapsed. We fell back from city after city. Those idiots threw away the Holy Land. Only thanks to King Richard of England have we regained some of what was lost.”
“Yes, Archbishop,” I said. “All Christendom has been awash with the tales.”
His head snapped up. “The young are ever impatient. You rush toward death, never taking the time to appreciate where you are.” He indicated the room around us and then the sea beyond the balcony.
I leaned forward. “I swore an oath to God to kill William. You want me to take that priest from you and kill William. If you have something to tell me about William that will help me do my duty to God, please do so, my lord Archbishop.”
The servant poured the old man another cup of the lemon water while he regarded me with a look I could not read. “Did you know William’s wife and son were killed?”
“William was married?” It took a moment for my mind to adjust. “I never knew he took a wife. And he had a son?”
“A babe in arms. They were murdered, in the madness that followed after Hattin.” He looked at me strangely, carefully, judging my reaction.
“But I thought Saladin enslaved the Christians of Jerusalem. Not killed them.”
The Archbishop nodded. “It was not the Saracens but Frankish knights who murdered them.” He sighed. “It was a very bad time. There was no law. The survivors of the battle fled in front of the Saracens as fast as their stolen horses could carry them. Homes were looted and people were killed.”
“William survived the attack?”
“William was laying among the dead at Hattin when it happened. He knew nothing of the murder when he came to me, back from the dead, filthy and stinking but filled with the light of the Lord.”
“I have suspected that his madness began at Hattin.”
The Archbishop shook his head. “He was struck down in the battle and thrown into a mound of Christian dead. William lay in that mountain of death for two days, dying. He told me he had a vision of God. There was a bright light, warm and peaceful but instead of welcoming William into Heaven God told him to drink. God told him to become the cup of Christ. So William drank the foul blood that was leaking down onto him from the men above and around him. And that blood gave him strength enough to push his way out and rise up to fight his way clear, killing forty Saracens and stealing a horse and returning to me ahead of Saladin’s forces.”
“Forty Saracens? I wonder that you did not lock him in a dungeon for such ravings.”
“It was a miracle. I told him as much.” The Archbishop looked up at the ceiling. “You must understand that he seemed far from mad. He was filled with God, I tell you. Any man could have seen he was filled with joy, not madness. There was such vitality to him, such vigour and clarity. In the face of that terrible defeat I took it as a sign from God that there was yet hope. That the Christian kingdoms in the Holy Land would likewise return from the dead to take back what we lost.”
“He has used that vigour to murder uncounted innocents.”
“It was when he returned home to find his wife violated and murdered and infant son slain that he lost his mind. Can you imagine it? What would you think of God’s plan, then? What man would not descend into madness?”
I stared at the Archbishop.
His face flushed and he looked horrified.
“Please accept my apologies,” he said. “That was utterly thoughtless of me.”
“Of course,” I said, wiping my eyes. I looked out at the sky. “How was it that Christians killed his wife? Why?”
“Who were they?”
“The leader was noble. The others were common soldiers and when William had recovered from the first shock of his grief he hunted them down. As I recall, the leader ran to hide in Aragon. William stayed to hunt down all the others one by one. His madness was growing and he gathered those other monsters to him. I am ashamed to say that I thanked God when they left Outremer, even though I knew they were just taking their evil elsewhere. I have few contacts back in France any longer so that was the last I heard of him until William returned and started this bloody madness again.”
A coldness had tight hold of my heart but I forced myself to ask the question. “The name. The name of the leader of the men who murdered William’s wife.”
“Yes,” the Archbishop said, grim and nodding. “I see that you now know.”
“The name,” I said through gritted teeth, my hands gripping the arms of the chair.
“The man who killed William’s family was Henry of Ashbury.”
***
On the second day from Acre we crossed into a great valley with high, rolling hills studded with dark green bushes and Antonius told us happily that we were on Saracen land. Most knights would have found such news to be disconcerting but we rode to find and kill William and his remaining men so the presence of a few thousand Saracens within a day’s ride was of little concern.
“William drinks their blood, they say. He drinks it up and cuts their limbs from their bodies to better collect every drop.” In the full light of the burning sun, Antonius the little Egyptian priest was as shrivelled as a date. Riding beside me on the road, he looked at me and grinned as he spoke, revelling in the horror of our expressions.
“Stop speaking,” Adelard said, riding behind us with Elias, who was the other of the Archbishop’s men.
We rode through a land as hot and dry as an oven. The road from Acre to Damascus had until recently been well travelled and yet we were the only people anywhere within sight or sound. It was hot and there had been drought for months so we went easy on our horses. Even though we feared ambush, my two men and I rode without wearing our hauberks or helmets because of the heat. My shield was slung across my back and at least it shaded me a little.
The road wound down along the side of the valley, crossed the dry river and wound back and forth through the distant hills to disappear over the horizon. Antonius, the priest, claimed William was hiding out beyond those hills so my intention had been to make camp there. We rested in the shade of a cliff through the middle of the day and we would push deep into them during the night. The moon would be almost full so travelling should be easier and it would be cool enough to comfortably wear our armour.
I hoped to catch William unawares in the darkness.
“William is no man,” Antonius said. “He may have been a man once but he has been transformed. I think he is some other kind of being, perhaps.”
“You think he is a demon?” I asked. “Surely you do not think he is Satan.”
Antonius scratched his face and sighed. “No. I certainly do not say that William is Satan. But Satan was once an angel, hurled down from Heaven. The fallen angel is said to have taken other angels with him and these are the demons. Some are bound in darkness in everlasting chains but others walk the earth doing Satan’s bidding. They delight in torment and pain and seek to undo God’s will on earth.”
“My lord,” Adelard said. “Do we have to listen to this nonsense?”
Antonius grinned at me and turned back to smile at Adelard, which was inviting a severe beating.
“My whole life I have paid little attention to the priests,” I said to Adelard. “But recently I have become interested in some of the stories.”
Adelard said nothing and I glanced back in time to catch him rolling his eyes at Elias.
“Tell me about the Destroyer,” I said to Antonius who looked startled. “William’s men have referred to their master as such. But I do not understand.”
Antonius shifted in his saddle and hesitated. “The Destroyer is called Exterminans. In Greek he is Abaddon. The angel of the abyss.”
“Another demon?”
“No,” Antonius cried. “No. He is the Angel that does the Lord’s divine will. The Destroyer was sent by God to bring the plagues to Egypt. Some say the Destroyer is God’s most loyal, most powerful aspect. They say that the Christ was the Destroyer sent to earth to bring destruction to the heathens, to the unjust and the unworthy.”
Adelard grunted. “I never heard nothing like before.”
I had to agree with him.
“We follow the true way,” Antonius snapped. “In Egypt.”
Adelard looked offended and contemptuous. Elias looked disturbed.
“Be quiet now, priest,” I said to him. “I have heard more than enough of your nonsense.”
I glanced back and my men were smiling again. It was important I keep them happy for they were the only help I would have out there in the hills.
I had intended to hire as many men as I could. But the Archbishop and King Henry put a stop to that.
The two men I did have were burly enough. Adelard was older, Elias was his wife’s nephew. Both were experienced and though Adelard was painfully slow his timing was faultless. Elias was fast as a snake but forever forgetting to raise his shield and both I and Adelard easily rapped him upon the head when we had fought mock duels while our preparations were made.
Neither man was happy. They had survived the crusade and until I had come along both had faced a future of easy work. I wondered if they would stand with me.
I was lost inside my grief and thoughts of my brother Henry. Charming Henry, the apple of our father’s eye, who had travelled to the Holy Land on a pilgrimage and there committed the murder of a woman and a child. At first I could hardly credit what the Archbishop had revealed but the more I considered it, the less it surprised me.
Memories of Henry bubbled to the surface. Powerful, hateful Henry punching me to the ground as children, standing over me and cursing me until he was red in the face. I could not remember his words but I could quite clearly recall the look of mad savagery in his eyes. What had I done, I wondered, to deserve such spite?
There had always been some sort of feud between Henry and William. Henry was destined to swear fealty to William, just as our fathers had sworn to the de Ferrers back to the Conquest when my grandfather’s grandfather was raised up and granted the Saxon hall at Ashbury. Perhaps it had started because they were close in age and both were proud and prickly boys.
Both had gone to the Holy Land but that was not unusual, even outside of a crusade. I always knew something had happened between my father and my brother for Henry to have suddenly run off. Whatever it was, Henry had murdered Earl William’s family halfway across the world.
Perhaps it had been mere chance. Henry was fleeing the Saracen army, looking for loot and it happened to be William’s undefended home. Desperate men can do evil things.
Still, there seemed to be a secret just out of reach. A secret that I could solve if I remembered hard enough, thought clearly enough.
Something in the present had been nagging at my thoughts as we crossed the dry river bed by way of the ancient stone bridge. Only after we had begun climbing out of the valley to the east was it that I noticed how Antonius kept glancing off up the hill. There was nothing there but jumbles of rocks and spiky bushes, with the clear sky above.
“Something catching your eye, Antonius?” I asked him.
“Oh, no, my lord
,” he said, smoothly. “Merely enjoying my freedom once again. Being a guest of your Archbishop for such long time has made me appreciate God’s creation even more.
“Adelard,” I said to him over my shoulder as we rode slowly, our horses” heads lowered. “Do you think we are being watched?”
Adelard snorted. “What, you just realised, lord?” he said.
“What makes you so sure?” I asked. His scorn, absurdly, had wounded me.
Elias swivelled his head, wide-eyed at the hills about us.
“The people are gone,” Adelard said. “Empty homes mile after mile. If they’d ran off when they saw us coming we’d see cooking fires smoking and smell food. There’s no livestock, either. We’d hear the goats if there were any for miles. And we have seen no travellers upon this road for many a mile.”
“I believe you,” I said. “But why does that mean we are being watched?”
“Lord, if the locals are gone then who is kicking up the dust in front and to the south?”
I peered at the sky in those directions. Perhaps there was a touch more dust there than elsewhere but I would have to trust on Adelard’s experience.
“You know these lands, Antonius,” I said, watching him closely. “Are we in any danger?”
He rubbed a skeletal finger along his nose. “Perhaps we are,” he said, as if he had no cares either way. “Perhaps William’s men are waiting for us. The road is notorious for surprise attacks.” He coughed. “Perhaps we could ride down into the valley and along the valley floor. There is a way out up there across the pass at the end.”
I nodded and looked up the length of the winding valley. Far away at the head of the valley it rose up into an outcrop like the prow of a great ship, a flat deck at the top covered in rocks and scrub. Behind the flat area the hill rose to a peak behind. It looked like a long, heavy climb.
“Perhaps,” I said but the world had shifted again and I knew that the priest would have to be dealt with.
I kept us moving slowly with the rocky hills stretching above us on the right as it cut back and forth up the valley side. After a short while we rounded a cluster of huge boulders on the side of the road. My heart was racing at the thought of ambush waiting there but I had to deal with the priest. I pulled my horse up in the shade, shielded from view from anyone above. Antonius stopped further ahead and looked back.
