There was another strange fact that had revealed itself to Asif in these last few hours. He’d known, of course, that rats are ubiquitous in sewers, and when he had first descended into this forgotten netherworld, it had been immediately confirmed. He had tied his clothing tighter about him, and pressed on. But as he had progressed through the cramped tunnels, Asif had seen the quantity of rats dwindle, and for the past quarter hour at least this lone adventurer had been the only beast he had encountered. The absence troubled him. Something had driven them out. It took a lot to drive out rats.
Just one had stayed – and was reaping the benefits.
Asif did not fear rats as some did. Not even in large numbers. But he had no great desire to get closer to this single, grotesquely-swollen creature. It had been well fed of late. It also had no fear of man. Where it was now heading, and what he would find there, filled him with a sense of creeping unease.
And now it was on the move again. He heard its claws scratch on the stone ledge, saw its bald, pink tail whip from side to side. Then, as he swung his torch close to where there should have been only blank wall, a horrid shape loomed from the shadows.
A face. Half human. Less than a yard from his own.
He reeled back, almost stumbling, his free right hand going to his sword. There, in the crumbling ancient wall, was a jagged vertical fissure, and emerging from it, as if prising the stonework apart, were the skeletal fingers of a dead man. His warped skull grinned from the spreading gap, the empty pits of its eyes turned on Asif, while below, part of a leg bone thrust out of the crack as if about to take a step towards him.
Asif heard a harsh curse cut the thick air, only dimly aware that he himself had spoken. In a moment, he understood. He silently berated himself. They were bones, nothing more. Dead, dry, yellowed bones. But these bones, decades old at least – perhaps centuries – had been jammed into this crevice in such a way as to give them the semblance of life. To what end, and by whom, Asif could not guess. He stood for a moment, his heart still thumping in his chest – so hard he could hear it in the flat, eerie silence. A different kind of horror afflicted him now, spawned by his attempts to imagine what could have led to this terrible fate – how one who had once lived and loved could become so pitiful in death, abandoned and forgotten in this awful place.
The flickering light of the flambeau made the shadows about the bony form dance, creating a horrid illusion of convulsive movement. He fleetingly wondered what those long-dead eyes had once looked upon – a wife, a lover; children, perhaps. But whatever this man had been in life, he was now no more than an absurd relic.
As he stood, he felt the queasy pressure of effluent flowing past his calves, and for an instant his concentration faltered. Before entering the tunnels, in anticipation of the rising stink, Asif had stuffed his nostrils with plugs of beeswax mixed with aromatic herbs, and had been breathing through his teeth. But now – thanks, in part, to the panicked panting his skeletal friend had inspired – he was beginning to taste the foul stench. His stomach knotted, almost making him retch. He fought it down, and by way of distraction made himself stare again into the lifeless, hollow eye-sockets of the forgotten man.
He thought of Qasim.
Qasim had never wanted to come down here. But if you were an agent of the Sultan, you went where you were told to go – even if where you were told to go was a sewer. No one relished the idea of wading through shit, no matter how fervently they believed in the mission. To Qasim, however, there was something far worse than that, something that made him even less comfortable with the whole enterprise: wading through the shit of infidels. Especially worrying to him was the prospect of having to traverse the drains beneath the Christian quarter. “It’s not just that they are godless,” he said. “They are unclean. They eat pig...”
Asif sympathised, but – somewhat to his surprise – found his own feelings on the subject to be far more pragmatic. It was crazy to think in terms of degrees of uncleanliness down here. The slurry that now lapped about his ankles was about as unclean as anything could get, and the religious persuasion of the arse it had dropped out of a detail too far removed to trouble him. But no matter how many times he said it, Qasim just shook his head, and shifted uncomfortably, as if somehow troubled that his friend did not share his view.
A week had passed since Qasim had ventured into these gloomy tunnels. There had not been sight or sound of him since.
All at once, Asif was struck by an image of poor, doomed Qasim standing on this same spot, contemplating the same long-dead visage with its mocking grin. Asif’s desperate desire to live – to get out of this place – suddenly multiplied a hundredfold.
The flame hissed and crackled on the damp, square stone ceiling of the cramped tunnel, snapping Asif out of his reverie. He turned from his grim companion and focused again on the narrow passage stretching before him, and became aware of a dark intersection ahead.
Something glinted low down in the blank gloom. Two pinpoints of reflected torchlight. He took a step forward. As his eyes adjusted, he saw that the rat had stopped, and was looking back at him, almost as if making sure he was still following. It turned, and scampered around the corner.
Asif set off after it.
He could now clearly see that this tunnel joined another, larger one just a few yards from him. This was, without doubt, the route Qasim would have taken, following the tributary into the wider drain.
From up ahead came an echoing sound of movement. His muscles tensed. Something bigger than a rat. And a dim, reflected light, shifting away to the right. People. He instinctively lowered his torch and thrust it behind him – then cursed as it momentarily cast his vast shadow onto the far wall of the adjoining tunnel. A stupid error. He flattened himself against the slimy wall, praying it had not been seen. There came no shout of alarm. No sudden, urgent movement. Slowly he edged away from the intersection, back against the uneven stones – back to the dead man with his perpetual grin.
Still no sign that he’d been discovered. Asif had been lucky. And it would appear he also, now, had the advantage; he knew they were there, but they, as yet, had no inkling he even existed. A difficult decision needed to be made. He could not risk announcing himself to them as he approached – but in order to avoid it, he would have to extinguish his torch, or leave it behind. Asif stared down at the soupy, lumpy liquid flowing about his feet – only half-aware that, in this light, it seemed to possess a strange blue sheen – and contemplated thrusting the torch into it. It would plunge him into near total darkness. Asif hesitated – then, turning instead to his bony companion, muttered a sheepish apology, and jammed the shaft of the torch into the skull’s gaping mouth. Fire was not easy to acquire down here. He would not throw it away unless he had to. Drawing his long, straight-edged sword, he headed on again, towards the new tunnel, the glimmer of his torch dwindling behind him.
ONCE HIS EYES adjusted to the gloom, Asif was surprised at how much he could see. This tunnel had a higher, curved ceiling, constructed from surprisingly large stones. These tunnels were said to be from the time of Herod the Great – which seemed consistent with Asif’s observations of the city’s structures above ground (he had, over the years, become an obsessive student of its complex, layered architecture). The smaller tunnel he had just left, with its flat slab roof, would have been considerably older.
Sound behaved differently in this tunnel. Shufflings, splashings and strange whispers echoed weirdly along its length, sometimes accompanied by a tuneless humming. They baffled his senses, often seeming to come from behind him, from the walls themselves, or just inches from his ears. The air tasted sharp and acrid.
Then there was the light.
The reason he could see anything at all, he gradually realised, was due to the distant torch flame of his intended prey. It was now a clear glow ahead of him – flickering and moving, sometimes bright, sometimes fading, but always there. Within it – perhaps holding it – and in near constant movement, was what he assumed t
o be a human figure. And, from time to time, when the figure itself disappeared from view, the light threw into silhouette a huge, unidentifiable shape – uneven, but roughly conical, far taller than a man, and at least five times as wide at its base.
Asif advanced slowly, steadily, at pains to make no sound that peculiar tunnel might carry to his enemy’s ears.
The light stopped moving – was raised up so Asif could clearly see its flame, wobbled once, then hung motionless in the air.
There was a thump. The sound of some heavy wooden object being moved into place. A cough. Then the humming resumed.
As he neared – crouched, half-pressed against the left-hand wall, sword ready in his right hand – the hum began to resolve into a tune. A Christian tune. The torch, he now saw, had been stuck in a crack in the wall. The silhouette that had placed it there now had its hands free, and was lifting what looked like a small barrel. Humming quietly to itself, it heaved the cask into place upon a great heap of similar vessels. It was heavy; full. But of what?
Asif was now yards away, moving with painful deliberation, barely breathing. Suddenly the figure turned to face him. Asif froze, praying that he was still undetected in the shadows. The figure strode purposefully towards him. Asif raised his sword, ready to strike. It turned again, and headed to the far side of the heap of barrels, oblivious to his presence, still humming its tune.
Asif simply stood for moment, barely able to believe he had not been discovered. The figure had been a man. For a split second, he had seen him clearly. Lean, European, with a neatly clipped, coppery beard. Beneath his dark cloak was the glint of mail, at his belt a fine sword. A Christian knight.
The sound of his movement receded, and Asif crept towards the great pile of barrels. If he could just identify their contents before the knight returned, it may perhaps reveal his purpose. If not, his goal would be to follow the knight – and try to capture him alive. He hurried the last few yards to the barrels. He risked being heard, but his greater concern now was being seen. He had entered the pool of light spread by the torch upon the tunnel wall.
Reaching for the nearest barrel, he pulled at the wooden bung. It was stuck fast. He tried the one next to it. The same. Then one above. It shifted, and gave. He rocked the barrel, and some of the liquid within slopped out. It was somewhat viscous. Also dark – at least, in this light – but its appearance alone told him little. It struck him, then, that he was currently denied the one sense he most needed – the sense of smell.
Asif was about to remedy this situation when another, far more alarming fact impressed itself upon him. He could no longer hear the knight.
His blood ran cold. He turned. The knight stood glaring at him, eyes reflecting the flame of the torch, filled with a wild hatred.
The knight lunged, grabbing his tunic, teeth clenched, his breath on Asif’s face. Both stumbled. The knight let go with one hand, and Asif staggered backwards. His adversary was too close for him to deliver an effective blow with his blade – and suddenly Asif saw a knife flash in the man’s fist. With all the force he could muster, he smashed the pommel of his sword down like a hammer upon the knight’s temple. The man dropped like a stone, face down in the muck – and did not move.
Asif prodded him with his foot, and turned him onto his back. No response. He appeared not to be breathing. Asif gave thanks to Allah for sparing his life – then kicked the knight in frustration. Why, when you needed someone dead, did it take twenty blows to get the better of them – then, when you needed them alive, they immediately gave up the ghost with one knock to the head? Whatever secrets this man might have divulged were now lost forever.
A glimmer of light on the wall opposite the barrels suddenly caught Asif’s eye. The dark, rectangular shape that he had thought was merely shadow was glowing feebly. Flickering. It was the entrance to another, smaller tunnel – and, deep within it, someone was advancing towards him. At some indefinable distance, two points of light bobbed into view, like eyes in the dark. Distant torches.
For Asif, it meant a second chance. But this time, there would be two of them.
He backed into the shadows to the side of the barrel heap, and waited.
II
GALFRID REGARDED THE warm, pungent sludge flowing about his calves and tried not to gag. “‘Come to Jerusalem,’ you said. ‘Good wine. Good food. Lovely climate. Walk in the footsteps of Christ...’” He poked at something lumpy with his pilgrim staff and, with a grimace, decided against further investigation. “Obviously I missed the passage in the scriptures where Jesus went down the sewer...”
The figure advancing ahead of him said nothing. For a moment the taller man stopped, moving his torch to the left and right, his attention focused on the change in the size of the slabs that formed the ceiling of the tunnel. Then, without a word, he moved on.
Galfrid knew they must look an unlikely pair: he, dressed as a Christian pilgrim complete with staff, pilgrim badges and hooded cloak; his master outlandishly clad in the manner of a minstrel or joglar. Nothing could have been less appropriate to his master’s temperament. The incongruity had caused Galfrid much hilarity, even in these grim surroundings. But incongruity was the nature of disguise – and disguise had been necessary.
As they walked, Galfrid’s gaze came to rest on the long, narrow wooden box slung across his master’s back. He chuckled again, and shook his head. It was perhaps just long enough and wide enough to contain two dozen arrows, but he knew it contained nothing of the kind. From one end protruded a curved handle delicately wrought in iron, and along its body was an even row of wooden keys that rattled when the box was bumped. Galfrid reflected on his master’s dogged insistence on bringing it down here, and wondered if he was the first man ever to have introduced a hurdy gurdy into a public sewer.
“It’s just...” continued Galfrid wistfully, as if his master had deigned to respond, “I thought we might have a chance to actually enjoy some of those things. You know, see the sights. The Holy Sepulchre, maybe...” He’d tried to sound casual with his example, even though it was perhaps the fifth time he’d mentioned it. Galfrid didn’t know why he was bothering – his sad obsession with churches and cathedrals was well known to his master. He looked down again, and immediately recoiled. A dead rat had bobbed to the surface. He felt it bump against his leg and continue on its way. He was coping with the smell – just – but somehow the sight of that was threatening to shatter his resolve.
Galfrid belched, and felt a sudden, urgent need to put thoughts of good food and wine out of his mind. “Is this what they call ‘going through the motions’?” he said.
GUY OF GISBURNE had grown so used to the complaints of his grizzled squire that now the comments barely registered. But he also had other, more immediate things on his mind. One wrong turn in these tunnels, and they may never find their way out. Even supposing they kept track of their progress; if they ventured too far to make the return before their torches died... Well, that would be a fresh kind of Hell. And then there was their adversary. He was down here, somewhere. Amongst the rats and the stinking waste. Gisburne was sure of it. But to what purpose?
He heard Galfrid huff again and decided he would benefit from some attention.
“Relax,” he said, cheerfully. “Try to enjoy yourself. You’ve already got further than the Lionheart did.”
“Had King Richard succeeded in taking Jerusalem,” said Galfrid, no longer bothering to disguise the disgust in his voice, “I somehow doubt that a visit to the sewers would have been his first priority.”
“Unless he read that bit of the scriptures you missed,” said Gisburne. It showed, at the very least, that he had been listening.
Galfrid gave a snort and muttered under his breath. “At least Christ could’ve walked on it rather than in it.”
There was one key reason put forward to explain why the Lionheart’s conquest of Jerusalem had failed. It was said he had been troubled by reports of growing chaos in his kingdom – of open rebellion by his envio
us brother John, who wished to take the crown from him. And so, just days from capturing the Holy City – his one avowed object on this crusade – he had turned back towards England. It was an attractive story – and one Gisburne knew, with every fibre of his being, to be false. He knew it because Richard cared nothing for England, and never had. He cared only for battle, for conquest, and for the prizes that came with them. If he could defeat Salah al-Din and return Jerusalem to Christian hands, he would be acknowledged as the greatest warrior in the world – and if he could make himself king of that holy realm, well, all the better. Richard had no interest in sitting on a throne, but every interest in winning it.
Gisburne felt he knew the real reason the Lionheart had turned from Jerusalem: he was afraid he would fail. In Salah al-Din, he had at last encountered a general who was his equal. For the first time in his life, he had been forced to contemplate the possibility of defeat, and all that this entailed. No stronghold had ever been able to withstand his assault. He had cracked every city, every castle that stood against him. But if he were finally to be broken upon Jerusalem’s walls, at the hour of Christendom’s greatest need, and with the eyes of the world upon him, well... Where would his reputation be then?
So he had not even tried. Somehow, in doing so, he had also made retreat look like concern for his own beloved kingdom. If anyone had a charmed life – an inexhaustible well of good luck – it was surely Richard. At least, so Gisburne had thought until three days ago. Then, from one of the contacts he still had in the city, he learned that Salah al-Din – also doubting his abilities against a formidable opponent – had been one day away from abandoning the city to the surrounding Christian forces. Had Richard only known to wait for one more sunrise, Jerusalem would have been his.
Guy of Gisburne- The Omnibus Page 41
