The Conquest

by Elizabeth Chadwick

  The water turned red and the colour eddied away down the current like scarlet fairing ribbons. Benedict was aware only of burning pain, of a weight across his body, driving that pain into every vital part of him. He tasted blood, and then the cold swirl of the water. It entered his nostrils and mouth, choking off his breath. He jerked his head up, gasping and gagging, and the pain redoubled. Gisele stared into his eyes, an expression of utter bewilderment on her face.

  He tried to cry her name, but all that emerged was a wordless croak. To lift himself was agony. He pushed himself half-way to a sitting position, but the pain was too great, and he slumped back upon his wife's dead body, darkness claiming him.

  CHAPTER 54

  Faisal ibn Mansour, a Moorish physician in the employ of a Christian lord, Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar, had his mind on more pleasant thoughts than the stony route beneath his mule's hooves, when he and his escort came upon the scene of the massacre.

  One moment, he was imagining the pleasures of home — the comfort of a couch, as opposed to the chaffing of this saddle, Maryam's quiet smile as she rubbed his feet, the laughter of their children in the room beyond — the next he was gazing at the bodies, strewn around the crossing place like so many discarded rag dolls.

  'Allah be merciful!' he gasped, and drew rein so abruptly that the mule threw up its head and sat back on its haunches, almost unseating him. Kites and buzzards circled in the sky above, and as the new travellers approached the river, two black griffon-vultures took ponderous wing from the body they had been tearing apart. The birds flapped to the nearest tree and sat in the low branches, biding their time.

  Faisal scrambled down from his mule and hastened to examine the bodies to see if anyone still lived. They were Christian pilgrims, he could see at a glance. Nuns and a monk, a minstrel, merchants and traders. Their clothing was sober, but of good quality. None of them wore a purse, nor was there any jewellery to be seen. There were hoofprints in the soft earth of yesterday's rain, but no sign of any horses. It was plain to Faisal that these pilgrims had been murdered by one of the bands of robbers that preyed on groups heading through the mountains towards the shrine of St James.

  He shook his head in dismay as he moved from one to the other, laying his hand against their throats to check for the life-beat, holding a small mirror before their lips to see if they breathed, although in his heart of hearts, he knew that none would.

  Generally, Faisal had an optimistic view of human nature. When you served such a man as Lord Rodrigo, whom the Moors knew as El Cid, you could not help but see your fellow man as worthy, but sometimes, such as now, the small, grey-bearded physician would wonder at the savagery which lurked in human nature too. Even with all his medical skills, it was not something that Faisal could cure.

  Two soldiers of Faisal's escort had pulled some more bodies out of the water. A man and a woman, both of them arrow-shot. Shaking his head, tugging at his neat beard, Faisal went to inspect them. The woman had taken an arrow beneath the left shoulder blade, straight through the heart. Probably she had died even before she had hit the ground. She was slender, with a delicate, oval face and dainty features. The robbers had plundered her corpse as they had done all the others, but they had missed something. Her right fist was tightly clenched, and when Faisal gently prised it open, he discovered a small, jewelled reliquary pressed against her palm. The Christians, he knew, set much store by these objects, often reverencing them more than they did their God. He could understand that they were a focus and a comfort, but was glad that his own belief required no such props.

  He shook his head over her body, and, having tugged out the arrow head, laid her flat and composed her limbs. Then he turned to the final corpse, and discovered with a sudden lurch of his stomach that the young man was still alive and watching him out of glazed, dark brown eyes.

  'Bring me blankets, quickly!' Faisal commanded over his shoulder. 'This one lives, but I do not know for how long!' He knelt down in the grass beside the young man and laid his lean palm against the water-dewed neck. The pulse was steady, if somewhat slow, and was cause for reassurance. The Moor drew a sharp, curved knife from his belt.

  'No, no,' he soothed, pressing down firmly with the flat of his hand as the brown eyes widened and the young man fought to rise. 'I am here to help you.' His tone, if not the meaning of his words, was understood, for the wounded pilgrim ceased to struggle and lay still except for the rigours of cold which shook his body.

  Faisal eyed the two arrow shafts quilling the victim's tunic, one in the arm, the other in the side, and briefly deliberated whether to remove them, or leave them in situ. The one was likely to cause poisoning, the other excess bleeding, depending on angle and internal damage. He was accustomed to dealing with this kind of injury; he had cut his surgeon's teeth on just such wounds when travelling with Lord Rodrigo's army.

  The soldier returned with the blankets. Faisal spread them over the pilgrim's right side, leaving the left bare to the exploration of his knife. The Moor cut away the blood-soaked sleeve, and slit the side seam of the tunic and shirt so that he could assess the damage. The arm injury was obviously a flesh wound. The tip of the arrow had pierced skin and muscle, but Faisal could tell from the amount of blood on the tunic that it was not too serious.

  'This will hurt,' he said, and when the young man looked at him with a questioning frown, repeated the words haltingly in the language of the Franks.

  The dark eyes flickered, the throat moved in a swallow. 'Do what you must,' the pilgrim said huskily.

  Faisal gripped the arrow shaft firmly in his two hands and smartly snapped it off. The young man arched, his breath catching and then hissing raggedly through his teeth. Faisal reached into the pouch at his waist, withdrew a small flask, and removing the stopper, dripped a clear liquid onto the site of the wound which had begun to ooze blood under the movement of the arrow shaft. This time, the injured man's body leaped like a bounding gazelle.

  'I am sorry to hurt you,' Faisal said, 'but this will keep your wound clean until I have time to probe the rest of the arrow from your flesh. I must look at the other one now.'

  Faisal did not know if the pilgrim had heard him through the pain. His eyes were clenched shut, and his breathing was a series of unsteady sobs.

  The soldier who had brought the blankets, a man in his thirties whose name was Angel, squatted on his haunches and looked across the body at the physician. 'Is he going to live?'

  Concentrating intently upon his patient, Faisal did not look up. 'It is hard to tell. He is strong to have survived thus far, and he is conscious, he knows what I am doing and he is able to respond. It depends upon how much more punishment his body can take. He is chilled to the bone, and I can do no more for him now except remove the length of these shafts for travelling and keep him warm. I dare not start probing for the arrow heads out here.' Although talking to the soldier, Faisal was also talking out his thoughts for his own benefit.

  'Will he be able to sit a horse?'

  'He will have to. He is not heavily built. I will sit behind him on the mule and hold him in place.' Faisal's strong, brown hands moved dextrously to the second arrow shaft, buried in the young man's side.

  Angel grimaced. 'Is he gut shot?'

  'I do not think so, he would be screaming and writhing if he were, and his condition is too good for a man with a pierced belly. I think,' he added slowly, his words keeping pace with his examination, 'that he is very lucky. It is like the arm wound – through the skin and flesh of the side without touching any vital organ.' He broke off the second shaft, and then leaned over to sniff at the site of entry. 'I feared that perhaps the point had entered a kidney, but there is no smell of urine,' he muttered. 'Yes, it may be that he will survive.' Faisal proceeded to anoint the second wound with the clear liquid, and again, his patient reacted strongly, then shuddered and was still.

  Angel looked anxiously at Faisal. The physician checked his patient's wrist and then the bare young throat. 'He is merely unconscious,
and better so, I think, if we are to journey with him.' He fingered the rich woollen cloth of the pilgrim's tunic, typical of the finest fabric that the northern Franks produced, and then frowned as he felt something flat, hard and round under his touch. It was a token, or a coin of about the circumference of his little fingertip. He found more of them, identical in size, spread throughout the lining of the tunic. Robbers might have seized his money pouch, but it seemed that the young man was still not without his resources, and Faisal was willing to hazard that the coins would amount to a small fortune.

  Angel had been watching the physician's exploration with ever-widening eyes. 'I wonder who he is.'

  'If Allah wills it in his mercy, he will live to tell us.' Faisal rose to his feet, and tugged thoughtfully at his beard. 'He looks to me like a Frankish merchant, and a wealthy one. Nor would I say that the pilgrim road was his only business in our country. A handful of silver would be more than enough to see him comfortably to Compostella. I think that Lord Rodrigo should involve himself with this one.

  Benedict tried to move and found that he could not. Someone had taken two nails, each a foot long, and driven them through his body, pinning him to the ground. He could hear shouts and screams, cries choked off in blood as those around him died. He tried to shout for help, but his voice remained locked in his throat. Gisele fell beside him and he saw her die before he died too, and woke to find himself in hell.

  There was a devil with black eyes and a trim, grey beard who kept poking and prodding at his wounds with a sharpened knife, and muttering to himself in a strange language full of hawkings and words that sounded like 'Beelzebub!' Sometimes the devil would attempt to communicate with him by speaking in halting French, but Benedict would pretend not to hear, and close his eyes. There were others, his minions, who came and went. On several occasions, Benedict was visited by a priest wearing a dark brown habit, a heavy silver cross hanging upon his breast. The priest urged him to repent of his sins so that he night be shriven. Benedict could not remember revealing any-thing to him, but he must have done so, for he could still distinctly feel the slick anointing of the holy oil between his brows. Were there confessions and anointings in hell?

  Cautiously he raised his lids and looked around. On this occasion, no-one leaned over him to pronounce judgement, -his eyes met cool, whitewashed walls and a high, wooden ceiling, a cupboard of dark oak, and an arched aumbry above it n which stood a terracotta oil lamp. A path of sunlight streamed through the shutters of an open window and traversed the foot of his bed, brightening the colourful stripes on he coverlet of woven linen. Three ripening oranges glowed on he sill, drawing his eye with their intensity of hue. He frowned. Wherever he was, it was certainly not the hell of his fevered dreams; nor yet was it heaven. And there was pain. His entire left side from armpit to groin felt like a bar of red-hot iron.

  He strove to sit up, and quickly discovered himself so stiff and sore that he was as stranded as a beetle cast over upon its back. Then, right-armed, he eased back the sheet and coverlet o look at himself. Layers of linen bandage were wrapped round his upper left arm and secured with a small cloak pin. On his torso there were livid bruises, and another wad of bandage which covered his left side from his lower ribcage to his protuberant hip bone. He had never carried much meat on his body, but now there was scarcely enough for a vulture to pick lean.

  The thought of a vulture sent unpleasant images jolting trough his mind. Bodies strewn on a river bank, and huge birds descending to feast, while he watched, powerless to love. Human vultures stalking among the dead, knives like beaks rending and tearing.

  The door opened, and amidst a rustling whisper of silk robes, le devil of his dreams with the hawk nose and black eyes of a bird of prey stood over him. This time, however, Benedict was lucid enough to see that he was a man of Moorish extraction in his early middle years, slender and small. His loose tunic was of striped silk in deep citrus shades that complimented his dark skin.

  'Ah, you are awake,' the Moor said in careful French and smiled, revealing a gleam of white teeth. 'I was beginning to think that I might lose you. You must be wondering who I am and where you are?'

  Benedict swallowed. 'I thought I was in hell at first.'

  The smile became a wry chuckle. 'You would not be the first. My name is Faisal Ibn Mansour, and I am a physician in the employ of Lord Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar, who is also known among my people as El Cid, the Lord – may Allah grant him many blessings and a long life.'

  Benedict struggled with the names. The Moor was watching him as if expecting the titles to mean something. He thought that he might have vaguely heard of Rodrigo Diaz in a hostel along the way, but at the time he had taken small notice.

  'You are in one of Lord Rodrigo's castles on the road to Burgos,' the Moor continued, and the black eyes softened. 'We brought you out of the river beyond Roncevalles, half-dead with cold and suffering from arrow wounds. You were the only one of your company to survive. I am sorry.'

  Benedict drew a deep breath and released it shakily. So that part of his nightmare had been true. 'My wife,' he said. 'She was in the river with me, filling our water bottles.'

  The physician shook his head sorrowfully. 'She was shot to the heart. One arrow. It is a dangerous road through that pass.'

  'We were on pilgrimage to Compostella, to pray for her mother's soul. She hated travelling. It was only because it was her duty… her accursed duty.' Benedict's eyes burned and filled. He looked through a polish of tears at the Moor. 'I was with her; she thought that she was safe.'

  'Do you desire to speak to a priest for comfort?'

  'No!' Benedict almost choked on the word. 'That is the last thing I want to do.' He bit his lip, struggling for control, and when he had mastered himself, looked at the physician, who was eyeing him the way he might eye a strange creature in a cage. 'I want to sit up, but I cannot move.'

  'Small wonder, the size of the hole in your side. Allah be praised that the arrow did not pierce a fraction deeper, or you would now be dead.'

  'Allah be praised?' There was a note of cynicism in Benedict's voice. Just now he was not sure whether living was a blessing or a curse.

  'Allah be praised,' Faisal ibn Mansour repeated firmly, and grasping him by the right arm, manipulated him gently upright, supporting his spine with more pillows. The pain was briefly blinding and it took Benedict a moment to recover, leaning back, his eyes tightly closed. When he opened them once more, the older man was staring at him curiously, his hands folded within his sleeves.

  'You see that you are wearing nought but a loin cloth,' he said. 'That is to help your wounds heal. If you wish to leave your bed, clothes can be found for you. Your tunic, the one you were wearing when we fished you out of the river, is locked in the chest in my chamber. If you had a money pouch, I fear it has been robbed.'

  Benedict's gaze sharpened. The pain had sufficiently diminished for him to be aware of the reason for the Moor's curiosity. It was not every pilgrim who carried a fortune in silver sewn into the lining of his tunic. 'I did have a money pouch,' he said slowly, 'with enough in it to give alms to the poor and pay out for our board and lodging where necessary, but as you have realised, that is not where the bulk of my wealth was stored.'

  The physician unfolded his hands from his robe and went to the cupboard, returning with a jug of wine and a cup. He filled one from the other. 'Drink,' he commanded. 'You must restore your strength.'

  Benedict took several swallows, and rested his head against the heavily stuffed pillows. His left arm and side throbbed painfully. 'How long have I lain here?'

  'You have been three days on the road, and three days in this bed. This morning is the fourth.'

  Benedict tried to order his thoughts. It seemed as if eternity had passed since the attack, and conversely, no time at all. 'My wife,' he said hesitantly, 'and the others. What happened to them… I mean, what did you do?'

  Faisal spread apologetic hands. 'We were only a small party, we could not carry them
with us, but we composed the bodies decently, and spoke to a priest as soon as we met habitation. He promised that he would attend to the matter of their burial. I will take you to the village when you are recovered, if you wish.'

  'Thank you.'

  Faisal cocked his head on one side. 'We still do not know your name, or how we should address you. Outside this room, they call you the Young Frank, but there is more to you than that, I think.'

  Benedict's mouth curved in a bleak half-smile. 'I prefer the simplicity of being "the Young Frank",' he said, 'but if you desire to know my name I will tell you. I am Benedict de Remy and I call Normandy and England my home. My father is a prosperous wine-merchant, and my father-in-law breeds horses for the Duke of Normandy and the King of England.'

  'Ah,' said Faisal, looking interested, but not particularly impressed. A man, as El Cid was always saying, should be judged on what he is, not who his forefathers were. Although a breeder of horses might take exception to that theory. 'But what of yourself?' he asked.

  The half-smile deepened. 'I would not blame you if you thought I had been sent on a pilgrimage to stiffen my character -it is something that rich fathers do for their decadent sons.'

  'I make no such judgements. Only Allah sees what is in a man's heart.'

  Benedict shrugged, not entirely in agreement, but did not argue the point. 'You ask what of myself,' he said after a moment. 'The easiest reply is that I too breed horses, that I am an assistant to my father-in-law. My wife came here to visit the shrine of St James at Compostella, and I elected to escort her because I wanted to buy Spanish horses to improve our bloodstock in the north. It is my desire to breed the best warhorses in the Christian world.'

  'Even if the best warhorses of the moment are Moslem bred?' Faisal asked mischievously.

  Benedict smiled. 'I am willing to learn. A man's religion should not stand in the way of knowledge.'

  Faisal nodded with cautious approval. 'When you are well, will you still pursue your intention?'