Knight of Shadows

by Toby Venables

  Young Tancred was well liked, and well rewarded for his services, and proved himself a bold and fearless fighter. But while he had always revelled in the physical challenges, discipline and camaraderie inherent in training for combat, he was nonetheless troubled by the use of force. As a good Christian, he questioned it constantly. And yet, he also saw the necessity – the goodness – of protecting those who could not protect themselves. And had not Christ himself violently ejected the money-changers from the temple? The young Tancred respected his Saviour all the more for this moment of pragmatism – of humanity. It seemed to him a guiding principle; violence was always regrettable, but sometimes necessary, if the cause was just. That meant it should always be questioned, the justice of the cause weighed up. Many there were who admired the combination of valour, wisdom and moral rigour in one so young. Admission to the Knights Templar had followed naturally.

  Then he had been struck down. For days, he had been as one dead. But he did not die. God would not let him.

  Afterwards, everything changed. He had suffered wild swings of mood. There were bursts of terrible anger – at himself, at mankind, and yes, even at God. He admitted now that he had been raving – a temporary vessel, in his weakened state, for the whims of the Devil. But he had resisted. He had seen his foe up close – felt his cold fingers clutch at his soul – and he had wrestled himself free. He had been reborn. He had also begun to realise the terrible folly that had afflicted him his whole life.

  Compassion no longer troubled him. God had freed him from its tyranny. And he saw now that it was those such as him – such as he had been – who were the problem. The reasonable, the merciful. The “fair”. The world was not reasonable or merciful or fair. They simply allowed the Devil to have his way.

  Friends drifted away, but it was no loss. He did not need them. They were a distraction from his new purpose. He heard some whisper, darkly, that he had changed, and knew this was true; but he was glad of it. He’d been blind, and now he could see. That was all there was to it. They said he had lost his good humour, that he had turned to stone. But he was glad of that, too. He found nothing to laugh at in the world. Laughter was delusion, and stone was strong. Incorruptible.

  Gradually, he understood that many of those he had admired and served were not worthy of his respect. One by one the idols fell. Everywhere he looked he saw flawed humanity, corrupt flesh. He cut it away. Discarded it. It would infect him no longer.

  A Templar was bound to no king – only his superiors within the Order: his Master; his Grand Master; the Pope. For a long time, Tancred had continued to do his duty by them.

  Of late, he had come to know that even they were fallible. Weak. Now God spoke directly to him, what need had he of them? They were the reason for the disaster – the punishment – of Hattin. But it was also at Hattin that he had been awakened from his long slumber. Now, while they were distracted by their quest for redemption in the Holy Land, he could get on with the real tasks.

  He had finally risen to where he belonged. Nothing now stood between him and his work. Nothing stood between him and God. And he took orders from no one.

  It was the note of incredulity in Aldric’s tone that stopped him, that inspired a strange, uneven frown on his pale brow.

  “What is it?”

  Aldric – still staring out over the battlements – opened his mouth to speak, but no word came out. He simply stood there, mute, gaping like a fish.

  “Well?” snapped Tancred.

  Aldric stared at him, dumbfounded. Somewhere nearby, someone on the parapet muttered “My God...”

  Tancred hissed in boiling rage as he charged back up the rampart. In most of Christendom, a man who cursed in the name of God might be fined or flogged; here, far harsher rules were observed. Tancred would personally rip out the tongue of any guilty of even the mildest blasphemy. Aldric had seen him do it. But this time, before he could act upon it, he was stopped in his tracks – his attention seized by what was happening on the rock.

  Slowly but surely, Gisburne was rising to his feet. At first, Aldric had thought it the last gasp of a dying man – the final flourish of defiant spirit before it departed the flesh. But as Gisburne rose, the two crossbow bolts still sticking out of him like the appendages of some black beetle, he seemed to gather strength. To rally. To grow.

  Aldric – the hair on his neck standing on end – could feel the shock and disquiet of every man watching along that rampart. Finally, the twice-killed apparition stood fully upright – a bizarre, impossible figure – shoulders thrown back, hands clenched into fists at his sides, crow-black hide coat whipping about him in the winter wind. As if in sympathy, the sky darkened, the leaden clouds seeming to press down upon those below.

  Tancred’s face was now twisted into a bitter mask of anger and hatred. But there was something else – something that Aldric had never seen upon that warped visage before – something which, for the first time, made the grim master of Castel Mercheval seem vulnerable.

  Disbelief.

  Gisburne’s eyes scanned the parapet, fixing on Tancred. He raised his right hand, its finger pointing at his adversary as if he were passing judgement, or casting a spell.

  “Your men believe there is a curse upon that box,” he called, his voice echoing off the castle wall. “They’re right. It’s me.”

  At the words, a shudder seemed to pass along the battlements, as if all upon it had been struck by an icy blast.

  “Shoot him!” spat Tancred. “Someone shoot him down!” But no one now had a crossbow cocked, half the men still in a state of petrified shock. Tancred wrestled Gaston’s weapon from him, made to draw the string, then flung it down as the better option dawned upon him.

  “Scorpion!” he yelled, pointing a bony finger at the gatehouse tower. On its battlements, the operator of the scorpion – a huge sniper crossbow that was Lucatz the Enginer’s crowning achievement – jumped out of his stupor. At the cry of alarm, all main weapons had begun to be readied, and the scorpion – lighter than its fellow war machines – stood ready to fire. But its operator had been standing idle, apparently transfixed by Gisburne’s uncanny resurrection. It was a failing for which the man would later pay.

  Now, in haste, flushed with mortification, he swung the weapon around upon its axis, the point of the arrow projecting over the parapet like the sting of some huge insect. Aldric saw him steady himself and take a deep breath.

  The bolt flew. Its aim was good. But the man behind it had been too slow – Gisburne was now moving, stooping to snatch up his bow. The bolt roared through the empty air, striking a yew tree at the forest’s edge with a great crack, its still-green, spiny leaves shuddering at the impact, the iron point splitting the bough and sending splinters of wood and fragments of bark flying.

  The dark, hooded ghoul on the rock straightened. “See you in Hell, Tancred,” he boomed.

  And with that he turned and ran – yes, ran – until the dark maw of the forest swallowed him.

  LV

  THE PARTY OF mounted knights and serjeants thundered out of the castle gate – the knights in the white surcoats of the Templars emblazoned with the red cross, the serjeants in their blood-red livery.

  Fulke had been quick to volunteer himself as their captain. He needed to win back some favour from his master, and riding down this wretch – bringing back his head this time, so there could be absolutely no doubt – seemed the best way to do it. They would flush him out, surround him and pin him with lances. It would be just like hunting boar. Except, of course, that a boar didn’t come back at you with a bow or sword. But Fulke had thought of that. Before their precipitous departure from Castel Mercheval, he had spoken privately with the crossbowmen among the serjeants – all of whom were trained to fire from horseback, and at a gallop if necessary – and promised five deniers to the one who could bring down the miscreant without killing him. With their quarry disabled, Fulke would run him through until his lance was red with his blood. Then he’d have one of them
perform the messy task of decapitating the corpse, and would ride back triumphant, Gisburne’s head held aloft. In his mind, he could already hear the cheers of the jubilant garrison. He would get them to like him if it was the last thing he did.

  Soon after Gisburne’s dramatic resurrection and disappearance, they’d noticed a thin column of smoke rising from the forest, to the southeast. One of the foresters was certain he could tell the location of the source. When pressed by Fulke, he admitted he had not passed that way in months, and could not vouch for the state of the paths, but a glance suggested it was the place they called the “wolf glade”, not far off the road. He knew these woods, as he put it, “better than he knew his brother’s wife” – a quip he would not have made within Tancred’s hearing, if he valued his testicles.

  And so, with a great clatter of arms, armour glinting, Fulke had ridden out onto the forest road at the head of nine knights and six serjeants, helm thrown back, red hair and beard flying. Of course, Fulke’s version of “riding at the head” included two serjeants as outriders just ahead of him. He was a knight, not a fool.

  They had not ridden far along the tree-hemmed road when a cry went up from one of the serjeants. A horse, riderless, and apparently rooting for sustenance in the verge. As they drew close, they could see it was a cart horse. In the next moment, as the road curved, the serjeant at the head – a stocky fellow named Theobald, or Theobard or some such name – spotted another part of the puzzle, and called back to Fulke. Up ahead was a wagon, seemingly abandoned by the side of the road.

  It could only be the enginer’s wagon. Fulke urged them on with a triumphant curse, and they flew towards it at a gallop. As they neared, they could see some of its load was scattered, and parts of the wagon itself apparently missing or destroyed. Fulke was just trying to understand what had wrought such destruction upon the cart when Theobald’s head snapped back. His whole body flipped up in the air and was flung backwards off his mount, smashing upside down into the side of the other serjeant’s horse, which he was desperately trying draw to a halt before it struck. It looked to Fulke as if a great hand had plucked at Theobald as he rode, pinching him about the neck and tossing him in a somersault. His body crunched to the ground, head first, then rolled over, head lolling limply. Fulke drew up suddenly behind his serjeant, several of the men behind him careering into each other with much protest.

  Fulke had not paused to allow the crossbowmen to ready their bows – something they could not do whilst riding. Effectively defenceless against a man with a bow, they now struggled to prime them as they pulled their horses in a circle and scanned the trees for targets. But they found none.

  Then Fulke saw it. It was almost invisible against the backdrop of dark trees, but stretched across the path between two adjacent trunks – the exact height of a man’s neck, if the man were on the back of a courser – was a rope.

  That Theobald was dead was beyond doubt. Fulke – furious that first blood had been to his adversary – wheeled his horse around in tight circles, his sword drawn, shouting obscenities at the mute ranks of trees.

  Just then, one of the serjeants – Fulke didn’t know his name – called out. In the dead foliage at the side of the road, close to where the wagon had been abandoned, was a gap – the opening to an old path. This, he said, was the old path the forester had meant – he was sure of it. The wisps of smoke, still just visible above the trees, lay directly beyond. Around the opening lay freshly-broken twigs. Fulke bravely permitted the serjeant to dismount and investigate on his behalf. He peered along the path, and called back to report that he could make out bits of the ill-fated enginer’s cargo scattered along it.

  The path was far too enclosed for horse and rider – barely wide enough for those on foot to go more than single file. But Fulke roared in triumph nonetheless, sheathed his sword and leapt off his horse, dragging a poleaxe from the side of his saddle and tucking a mace into his wide belt. He had his man. He knew where he was, and which way he had gone. And he had fifteen armed men to this one. Those were the kind of odds he liked. This was going to be a slaughter – one he would relish.

  “You and you – stay with the horses!” barked Fulke. “The rest, with me...” All but two dismounted, and loaded themselves with every kind of weapon. One of the mounted men addressed Fulke then, asking if it was not wise to remain mounted, and perhaps find a different route in. Fulke glared at him, and spat on the floor in contempt. He would deal with that one later. Now, without hesitation, he turned and plunged into the forest.

  Once inside, Fulke ordered two of his serjeants to scout ahead. The path was eerily quiet – no birds, just the creak of shifting boughs in the wind and the steady drip-drip of rain and meltwater from the leafless branches. Along it, strewn with apparent carelessness, were all manner of strange, discarded objects – soaked scraps of cloth, a small hammer, a leather belt, several iron rivets in a pile, a freshly broken jar with stinking, acrid contents.

  One of the serjeants hissed back to Fulke, pointing ahead. All tensed and readied their weapons. As they drew closer, Fulke could see the path opening up into a clearing. And he could hear a sound – muffled, indistinct, but unmistakably human.

  Fulke, advancing slower now, joined the serjeants who had stopped at the edge of the open glade. He saw what they saw, and froze.

  It was just as the forester had described – an almost perfect circle that had, at some time in the distant past, been painstakingly cleared, and was now surrounded by a ring of ancient oak trees, each one of huge size. Almost dead centre of the clearing, a fire burned, smoke spiralling up into the grey sky, some of the logs as yet unmarked by the flames. They could only have been placed there minutes before. About it were scattered various objects – some, simple tradesmen’s tools that Fulke recognised even at a distance; others enigmatic, glinting with metal and glass.

  And beyond, tied upright to one of the largest of the trees, was a man.

  Fulke had not expected to find such a thing. For a fleeting, irrational moment, squinting at the gagged, partly obscured features in the low light, Fulke thought it was Gisburne himself; that he had been cheated of his prize by some mysterious interloper, who had, perhaps, captured the villain in the hope of reward. In the next moment, he was castigating himself for his stupidity. This could not be the same man. He was stocky, short, his clothing common. He was also the source of the sounds, the wailing and whimpering. His eyes widened as he saw the knights and serjeants, and his volume and urgency rose.

  Fulke urged the nearest of his serjeants on. The man took one step, then did not move, apparently reluctant to come out from cover. “Pathetic coward!” breathed Fulke, shoving him forward with the point of his poleaxe.

  The serjeants advanced slowly, warily into the open.

  All looked about them, senses keen, weapons drawn, loaded, ready – the only sounds the crack of the fire in the damp, the whimper of the bound man, and the constant creak and drip-drip-drip of the surrounding trees. Fulke did not like it here. There was an almost unearthly stillness which made even those sounds seem weirdly muted. He gripped the poleaxe tighter, and wondered at this glade’s ancient purpose. Perhaps once some pagan place, he thought, trying to suppress the shudder he felt pass through him.

  Beneath the sharp tang of woodsmoke, the place smelled of damp and mould and rot. Then, as the wind gusted, something else hit his nostrils: tar or pitch. The wind changed, whipping the smell away again. Then there was something else – faint, but distinctly there, at the back of it all, wafting now and then. Something he had only smelled on the hunt, or in battle. Blood. Fresh blood.

  There was death here, he was sure of it.

  It was not the man against the tree. He was very much alive. Fulke realised, slowly but surely, as they advanced step by step across the damp and spongy floor, that this could only be the fabled enginer from Amiens. If he got Gisburne and brought back the enginer in one piece so the box coud be opened, that would be triumph indeed. He felt a surge of confiden
ce. Gisburne had not killed the enginer after all – had not even maimed him, as far as he could see. He was not as ruthless or invincible as he had made out. And the enginer must know from their garb that he was now saved.

  So, why was he whimpering harder, and shaking his head at their approach, his eyes wider than ever? Fulke drew up level with the crackling fire and paused. On the ground now, half hidden, he could just make out a large circle of tiny stakes in the ground. He vaguely wondered if a tent had been pitched there, when one of his knights nudged him, and gestured towards something else on the ground, just beyond the fire. A thick, dark plank of wood, about the length of a man’s arm and a forearm in width. It bore a simple carved design, and on one side were broken, black iron hinges. The lid of a box. Fulke recognised the design. The mark of Lucatz, the enginer. He even believed, now he thought about it, that he might have seen this very piece of wood before. It was the lid of the box that contained Lucatz’s tools. Except now, it had a loop of string attached to one end, like an apron. And embedded in it were two crossbow bolts. Crossbow bolts bearing the fletching of Castel Mercheval.

  So that was how the pig did it. He was no demon, not invincible. Fulke gave a gruff laugh of satisfaction and took a step forward. The enginer whimpered louder through his gag, trying to speak, shaking his head with ever greater urgency. Fulke stopped and stared, his meaty forehead creased in a deepening frown as realisation began to dawn.