At Galfrid’s suggestion, they found lodging for themselves and their horses away from the centre of the city. Galfrid wished to continue on foot – to see the cathedral, he said – and this time, Gisburne resolved not to deny him this one pleasure. The cathedral was next to the current royal palace – the supposed final destination of the skull – and that was something Gisburne wished to see for himself. And so he donned his pilgrim hat – which he abhorred – and took up his staff.
As they advanced, the signs of innovation melted away, and the dingy, fungal maze of streets closed in about them.
Streets gave way to alleys, alleys to nooks not even wide enough to turn a horse. Up above, the teetering upper floors of the houses leaned in so close that Gisburne calculated one could easily piss from one open window to that opposite. And as the byways narrowed, the number of people grew. More than Gisburne had ever seen. Jerusalem had been populous – always bustling – but it was nothing like this. On every side, dirty figures shoved and jostled – young men, old women, children – occasionally regarding him with weary, blank eyes. Gisburne fought through the grim tide, oppressed by it. He felt like a knight’s pell, a straw-stuffed obstacle to be struck and kicked about. People of all ages begged or tried to sell them useless or rotting wares – things that, for the most part, looked as if they had just been picked up in the street. Mud-caked harlots plied their trade everywhere one looked, some with an almost evangelical zeal. On more than one occasion Gisburne had to physically repel them, and saw one strapping woman – with hair like Medusa, the muscles on her bare arms like whipcords – literally drag a cleric away to her lair.
About their legs, rats, dogs, fowls and the occasional pig – all the same dun colour as the trampled slush and mud, and all scrawny – darted and fought with each other over unidentifiable scraps, some with the intention of making a meal of their rival. Here and there were dead creatures – or parts of them. Once or twice Gisburne saw figures lying in the ordure at the street’s edge, the throng stepping over them on their hurried way. Whether they were alive or dead, he had no idea. Once, along a descending alley, a band of dark-eyed men with sticks came by, and the people stood aside. Gisburne and Galfrid did likewise, though what their purpose was, they never discovered.
If white was the colour of virginity, then Paris was a whore. In past days there had been a generous fall of fresh snow, but almost nowhere was it the good, honest white it was meant to be. Where feet, hooves and wheels passed – which was nearly everywhere – it had been churned and trodden to a grey-brown, icy sludge, its hue varying according to the neighbourhood. There were strict rules about what could and could not be emptied into the city streets, of course, but in this chaos – this abyss – enforcing anything was a virtual impossibility. In streets close to the river where certain trades predominated, one could tell the nature of the work not only from the dominant stink – a year-round feature, especially notable in summer – but from the distinctive colour of its effluent, thrown into even sharper relief where it stained the few untrodden patches of snow. There was grey snow outside the blacksmiths, red where the butchers had their shops and slaughteryards, yellow in the rows of tanneries clustered along the north bank of the Seine. Down one side street, where the snow was relatively untouched, Gisburne saw that it was blue. What had caused it, he could not guess. And everywhere, no matter what the trade, was the yellow-brown splatter of emptied chamber pots – 100,000 of them in continuous use in this one city, and tipped out of windows God knew how many times a day. If it was true what they said about the effect of cities on one’s guts, this was a frequent occurrence indeed. Eventually, all this – excrement, urine, blood, offal, and the chemicals from tanning and dyeing – would find its way into the river, the same river from which the city’s water was drawn.
Gisburne tried to visualise such an extraordinary quantity of shit, but found he could not. In the countryside where he grew up there had been muckheaps of almost legendary size, but they were specks in comparison. Surely, one day, the city would simply consume itself. He gave it ten years.
At last, the human tide flowing through the street drained into open space – the bank of the Seine opposite the Île de la Cité. Here, the general tumult was joined by the protests of horses, the rumble of carts and the cries of the traders whose stalls stood across the bridges.
Beneath the arches of the Grand Pont, great millstones turned day and night, driven by the open sewer of the Seine, grinding grain into flour for the next day’s bread.
Galfrid gazed across the bridge – packed with merchants hawking their wares, and hectic with every kind of noble, knight, ruffian and trader – to the royal palace beyond.
“Well,” said Galfrid. “That is where the skull is supposed to end up...”
Gisburne scanned the terrain from beneath his broad-brimmed hat. Back towards the Rue St Denis, his eyes came to rest on a small group of figures in white, red crosses emblazoned across their chests.
“Templars...” muttered Gisburne. He regarded them with a mix of respect and caution. The military order of monks known as the Knights Templar paid no taxes, passed unhindered through any borders and were answerable to no king. They were a formidable force – their coffers deep, their influence wide. It was wise to tread carefully where Templars were concerned.
“‘Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon’, to give them their proper title,” said Galfrid. He looked at Gisburne, then gave a shrug. “Although ‘Templars’ is shorter.” Then something caught his eye. He squinted sideways at them, trying not to look too much like he was looking. “And these are not just Templars...”
Gisburne followed Galfrid’s gaze, trying to obscure his own look under his headgear.
“You see that red ribbon tied about their left arms? That is the mark of Tancred de Mercheval. The White Devil.”
“So, he is here,” said Gisburne. “To see the King, I suppose?”
Galfrid shrugged. “Perhaps. Or simply heading south from Castel Mercheval. To collect his prize. And getting the lay of the land as he does so. And before you say it, no, we could not carry out the robbery here.”
It was exactly what Gisburne had been thinking.
“It’s tempting, I know. A city in chaos. A smash and grab raid. I don’t doubt there would be a way we could snatch it. But what then? Their obstacles would also become ours. We’d never get out of the city alive.”
“There’s always the sewers,” said Gisburne, wryly.
Galfrid simply gave him a withering look, as if the idea did not warrant serious consideration. “The streets are the sewers,” he said. “This isn’t Jerusalem.”
Gisburne decided to let it go. He nodded towards the knot of men. “Is Tancred one of them?”
Galfrid laughed. “No...”
“So, why do they call him the White Devil?”
“They say he died and came back.”
“How?”
“You’ll know when you see him,” replied Galfrid, and would say no more.
The Templars were momentarily swallowed up by the throng – but now, something else caught Gisburne’s eye. Something at odds with everything around. A vision.
Swaying above the jostle and din, hoisted by an unnecessarily handsome quartet of green-liveried servants, was a litter. It had evidently just traversed the bridge, and was heading away from the royal palace towards Rue St Denis. And seated upon it, gazing with languid expression upon the hoipolloi of Paris, was one of the most beautiful women Gisburne had ever seen.
She was a uniquely bright thing in all this grim chaos. Her cloak was a marvel of blue silk with an ermine lining as white as fresh snow. Over a white chemise decorated with flowers, she wore a tunic of green silk, also completely lined with fur, body and sleeves. To enhance the beauty of her neck – which was, Gisburne had to admit, considerable – she had placed a clasp on her chemise that permitted an opening of a finger’s width, through which one could glimpse the pale curve of her breasts.
The clasp itself was a masterpiece of craftsmanship, gold and shaped like the sun with a bright yellow stone at its centre. On her head – framing her rosebud mouth, her shapely nose, her large, limpid green eyes – was a wimple of white picked out in gold, and about her slim waist a belt fitted with a golden buckle. A single tendril of red-gold hair escaped the wimple’s edge, as if refusing to be contained.
She stifled a yawn, cast her eyes momentarily in Gisburne’s direction, and for an instant their gazes met. She looked hard at him, then turned swiftly away.
Gisburne heard Galfrid’s voice in his ear. “That is Mélisande de Champagne, daughter of the Count of Boulogne, grandaughter of King Stephen of England.”
Then, as if in answer to the question that had sprung unbidden into Guy’s mind, the squire added: “And wife of... no one. Yet.”
Gisburne gazed as the litter wove its way onward through the crowd, momentarily lost.
Without warning, something heavy cuffed his head – so hard he staggered where he stood, his hat bowling onto the ground. The blow was swift and brutal. While it didn’t feel as though it had drawn blood, it had about it the unmistakable heft and clink of metal. A familiar image leapt into his rattled brain. A mailed gauntlet. The hand of a knight.
“Filthy cur!” barked a voice.
Gisburne righted himself and turned to face his aggressor. Behind him stood four tall, broad-shouldered men. At their centre, and scowling at him from within a mane and beard of flame-red hair with a face of astonishing pinkness and appalled expression, like a freshly castrated hog, was his accuser. All wore the mail of a knight, a familiar white surcoat, and a red ribbon about the left arm.
Tancred’s men.
Gisburne knew the elite military orders well. He had stood alongside them in battle, seen them fight and die. But he immediately recognised the type of knights that now faced him. The worst kind – men trained to fight, raised on dreams of battle, who yearned for nothing else, and yet were denied it. He knew they hungered to be in the Holy Land, suffering any deprivation or hardship as long as they were able to kill for the Christian cause. He knew, too, that for men such as this, the Christian cause was perhaps not their primary motivation, but a convenient excuse. His mentor, Gilbert de Gaillon, had warned against loving combat for its own sake. “It is a means,” he would say, “never an end. One who fights for the sake of fighting has forgotten why he does it. Such a man dies soon, and for the most desolate of reasons – for no reason at all.”
To Gilbert, the very height of stupidity was to engage in a battle that did not need to be fought. But some, Gisburne knew, could not help themselves. Away from the fight, they felt useless. Impotent. They hated it – hated themselves – and so turned their hatred outwards, seeking conflict with everyone and everything around them. Such men would find a fight, or make one. Through all his battles, from the castles of France to the scorched plains of the Holy Land – battles in which the enemies had at first seemed clear – Gisburne had come to understand that the real threat to order came not from without, but from men such as this. They were the destroyers of peace, the agents of chaos. The ones who lusted all the more for battle when peace was upon them.
“How dare you gaze upon a lady thus?” The response that first sprang to mind – that he would look at whatever the hell he liked, in whatever manner he liked – remained behind clenched teeth. Instead, he said something he had never before said in his life.
“Peace be with you, brother.” And with that, he turned and walked away. He heard Galfrid sigh with relief as they went, picturing the throng closing around them as they plunged back into the current of human traffic.
Within moments, a rough hand spun him back round, and the ham-coloured flesh of the Templar was in his face once again. The quest for anonymity – the hoped-for dissolution back into one of the greatest concentrations of humanity in Christendom – had not been successful. Nor, Gisburne saw, could it ever have been. Around the Templars, even where the crowd were hard-pressed one against another, all maintained a fearful distance, eyes carefully averted.
“‘Brother’?” spat the man. “I’m not your brother. Do I look like the bastard son of a pox-ridden whore?” Gisburne felt Galfrid’s restraining grip on his elbow. But it was not needed. Various possible responses – many accurate, none particularly diplomatic – flashed through Gisburne’s mind. But, using all the will he could muster, he kept his mouth resolutely shut. Teeth clenched, straining to contain his outraged spirit as if it were a breath that had been held too long, Gisburne smiled weakly, gave a slight bow as if in obsequious apology, and turned once more.
Gisburne had not gone two paces before a hand in the back of his belt stopped him dead. The remaining Templars – four in all – circled around him like dogs. He and Galfrid could go in no direction now that was not physically barred by their persecutors. His persecutor rounded on him.
“We’re not done.”
“You’re making a mistake,” said Gisburne. He felt Galfrid tense beside him.
“You dare question me? I didn’t mistake the filthy look in your eye... pilgrim.” He spat the final word as if it were the grossest insult – but Gisburne could see a flicker of uncertainty in his eye. He looked hard into it.
“No, the mistake is what you’re doing now.”
Involuntarily, the Templar’s face fell. Gisburne, implacable, did not move, did not break eye contact, did not even blink. He could see the fear in in this man’s soul – could see the gnawing self-doubt that he had suddenly and inadvertently revealed, making the knight, even now, consider defeat. Gilbert de Gaillon’s words drifted back into his mind as they always did on such occasions. “Battles are first fought in the mind,” he would say. “One who believes he may lose is already half-defeated.”
Breaking away, as if suddenly aware that this strange pilgrim had seen too deeply, the Templar covered it with a raucous laugh. His fellows joined in as he turned to face them, then completed the circle back to Gisburne, his confidence visibly rallying at the sound. So, this was a man whose strength came not from within, but from without. It needed reassurance. He was weak.
“So what is it we have here?” he bellowed, far louder than he needed to, coming so close to Gisburne’s face now that he could feel the man’s spit hit his face as he spoke. “A fighting pilgrim? Oh! Pardon me, I have mistaken you, Sir Knight...?” He bowed low, his voice fluttering in a girlish mockery of apology. Gisburne felt Galfrid’s grip tighten on his elbow. The man straightened. “Well, I knew those Hospitaller bastards were desperate, but you...?” His fellow Templars guffawed. “So, is there fight in you, pilgrim?” He poked Gisburne hard in the chest as he spoke. “Is there?”
“There won’t be a fight,” said Gisburne in a monotone. Galfrid relaxed his grip.
The Templar frowned, simply bemused this time. “Oh? I suppose you mean to assault me with your piety. Do you mean to persuade me to throw down my weapons and follow the path of peace, when mighty Saladin and his godless minions could not?” His comrades giggled like boys at the absurdity of this suggestion.
“Not exactly,” said Gisburne, and smashed his forehead with unrestrained ferocity into the Templar’s nose. He felt the crunch as it flattened against the red face, saw the disbelief as its owner reeled backwards, the previously flushed face instantly paling – but for the gush of crimson that cascaded from its wrecked centre, clashing grimly as it drenched the coppery beard. Gisburne was vaguely aware of a drip of something on his own face as he braced himself for his next move – his enemy’s blood, he supposed. Before the knight could regain his wits or his fellows recover from shock, Gisburne had rammed the iron head of his pilgrim’s staff full force into the Templar’s unguarded stomach, then, as he doubled up, had whipped it around and cracked the wood across the back of the man’s skull. He went down like a sack of grain.
Two of the Templars already had their swords drawn. Galfrid’s hand went instinctively to his belt – but neither had anything larger than a kni
fe on them.
“Grab this!” cried Gisburne, extending the pilgrim staff towards him.
Galfrid did so – then looked startled as Gisburne pulled at it.
“Hold it fast,” Gisburne said, and pulled hard again. It clicked, and the top eight inches, around which his fingers were clasped, came away from the rest of the staff. Two short metal bars sprang out to form a crosspiece. Then, in one swift movement, Gisburne drew out three feet of double-edged steel blade. Galfrid, suddenly understanding why the damn staff had been so heavy, looked in astonishment at the slender sword, then at the wooden scabbard in his hand. He had the less favourable end of this stick – but it was better than nothing.
Gisburne did not wait to defend himself, but hurled himself at the nearest of the Templars. Ill-prepared, the Templar flinched and raised his blade in reflex, stepping back as he did so. Gisburne whipped his blade around and smacked it into the knight’s exposed ribs. It would not penetrate his mail, Gisburne knew – but being struck with a length of steel would still give him pause for thought. If the knight’s blade hit him, however, it would be a different story – but for a coat of horsehide, he was completely unprotected.
He felt a rib crack, and the man doubled in pain. Gisburne brought the pommel of his staff-sword down on the man’s head and sent him sprawling as the second knight advanced on him. But Galfrid’s stick was already swinging. Its solid end caught the Templar square in the teeth with a sickening crunch, ensuring his apple-eating days were over.
The other two had their swords drawn, but they stood back – wary, now, of their adversaries. Gisburne was suddenly aware that a large ring had formed about them in the crowd, some gawping with thrilled delight, others at its edge looking trapped, and like they would rather have six or seven people between them and these men with drawn weapons. Deeper into the crowd, the litter bearing Mélisande de Champagne swayed dangerously as its servants fought to distance her from the fight.
Gisburne drew his blade back over his shoulder, ready to strike. “Do you concede?” he said.
Knight of Shadows Page 13
