Holy War

by Hight, Jack

  John left the archdeacon’s residence through a narrow stone passage that led directly to the sanctuary. He frowned. The tapestries had been removed from the church’s stone walls and the candelabra taken. Even the gold inlay had been stripped from the altar. Only two of the canons had bothered to come to prayers. Their voices sounded small in the vastness of the church. John knelt before the sepulchre and crossed himself. He whispered a prayer for the people of the city and then exited into the southern courtyard. Three large wagons stood there, each piled high with crates, barrels and burlap sacks. Since horses could not leave the city, men had taken up the traces. Heraclius stood at their head. He was studying a sheet of parchment as he spoke with the treasurer.

  ‘The hangings?’ Heraclius asked. ‘You are sure you packed them?’

  The treasurer nodded, setting his fat cheeks to jiggling. ‘Yes, Your Beatitude. I believe so.’

  ‘You believe?’ Heraclius’s eyebrows arched. ‘Those hangings are worth more than you are, you fool. Make certain.’

  The treasurer nodded and scurried off. John crossed the courtyard to confront Heraclius. ‘What is the meaning of this?’

  ‘Have you not heard, John? The city has fallen. The treasures of God must be protected. I am taking them to Tyre.’ He went back to examining the sheet.

  John plucked the parchment from his hand. It was a list of the church’s wealth – the silks, the golden candelabra and goblets, the relics in their ornate reliquaries, the chests of gold and silver. ‘There are more than fifteen thousand people who cannot afford their ransom,’ John said. ‘There is wealth enough here to free them all. Balian will hear of this.’

  ‘He already knows.’ Heraclius sneered. ‘He has no power over me. These treasures belong to God, not the poor.’

  ‘The women will be raped, Heraclius, and their children sold into slavery.’

  The patriarch looked down his nose at John. ‘And their suffering shall reap them a great reward in the next life. Blessed by the Spirit are the poor, for theirs is the—’

  John punched him, and Heraclius landed hard on his rump, blood trickling from his broken nose. John raised his fist again, but two knights of the Holy Sepulchre held him back. John spat, catching Heraclius in the face. ‘You will burn in hell,’ he growled as he shrugged off the knights’ hands and strode away.

  He walked south, heading past Saint George’s Church on his way towards David’s Gate. The pig and grain markets that normally stood near the church had been transformed into huge bazaars featuring every sort of good imaginable. John saw chairs and tables, rugs, pots and pans, a table laid out with a blacksmith’s tools and another with the mortar and pestle, scales and vials of a druggist. Anything the Franks of Jerusalem could not carry with them, they sought to sell here. Even themselves. Young women, their tunics torn down the front to reveal their cleavage, lounged amongst the goods, hoping to sell their bodies for enough to buy their freedom. They were desperate, and the price was correspondingly low. Saracens and the Syriac Christians who had been allowed to stay in the city were snapping up women and goods for next to nothing.

  Past the markets, John joined the line of refugees waiting to leave, their possessions slung over their backs as they shuffled forward with heads bowed. Half the day was gone before he reached the gate. It was framed by mamluks who demanded the ransom due from each person leaving. When they paid, their coins were handed to a scribe, who made a note of the money collected and dropped the coins in an iron-bound chest. Some sought to pay in kind. If the scribe approved, he would give a curt nod. If he rejected the offering, then the guards would roughly shove the unfortunate soul back into the city.

  When John’s turn came he counted out ten bezants. Balian had given him a hundred to see him back to England, but John had kept only twenty. The rest he had returned to Balian to purchase the freedom of poor Franks. John handed the coins over, and the mamluks waved him through.

  Beyond the gate, he joined the crowd on the road to Jaffa. From there, they would head north, following the coast road to Tyre, the last Christian stronghold in the Kingdom. At the port, John hoped to find a ship that would take him to England. There was nothing left for him in the Holy Land. He was abbot and archdeacon of churches in Saracen hands. The women he loved were dead, as were Raymond and Baldwin. The only people he still cared for were amongst the Saracens, and they had become his enemies.

  The refugees ahead of John were stepping off the road to make way for a troop of mounted mamluks. John also stepped aside, and as the mamluks passed, he caught a flash of gold. It was Yusuf in his vest of gold jawshan, coming to claim the city. He rode looking straight ahead, and passed John without noticing him.

  John felt a sudden heaviness in his chest. It was the last time he would see his friend, he was sure. He waited until Yusuf had entered Jerusalem, and then turned his back on the city.

  Yusuf felt oddly numb as he rode through the Gate of David. The last time he had passed through the arch had been twenty years ago. He had been a hostage to King Amalric. Now, he was a conqueror. The moment was not how he had dreamed it. Instead of cheering crowds, Frankish refugees lined the roadside, held back by a line of mamluks. The Christians glared at Yusuf with undisguised hatred. A red-haired woman spat as he passed.

  Yusuf’s son Al-Afdal saw it. ‘Guards! Bring me that woman’s tongue!’

  ‘Leave her be!’ Yusuf commanded. ‘I have promised to spare these people, Al-Afdal. I will not have you make a liar of me.’

  ‘But she insults you, Father.’

  ‘Look at these people. I have taken everything from them but their lives. Let them insult me if they wish. It is all they have left.’

  Yusuf continued up David Street. The way narrowed and grew steeper until he was forced to dismount and lead his horse up a series of steps to the top of the hill, from where he could see the Dome of the Rock glinting in the distance. That was his destination. He mounted again and rode down into a valley, then up and across the bridge that led through the Gate of the Moors to the Haram Ash-Sharif, what the Franks called the Temple Mount. The Al-Aqsa mosque, which the Templars had claimed as their headquarters, sat to his right. The dome rose high on his left.

  ‘Al-Afdal, you will see that the cross is taken down from the roof of the Dome. And make certain that Al-Aqsa is cleansed in time for next Friday’s prayers.’

  ‘Yes, Father.’

  Yusuf dismounted and headed up the steps to the Dome of the Rock. ‘Wait here,’ he told his guards. ‘I wish to pray alone.’

  Inside, his boots sounded loudly on the marble floor. Light filtered in through windows above, illuminating the bare walls. The elaborate mosaics and Koranic inscriptions that had once covered them had been plastered over by the Franks. Yusuf would have them restored.

  He crossed to the rock, which sat directly beneath the dome. The Christians had built an altar over it, but part of the smooth white stone was still exposed. The iron grate the Christians had installed in order to stop pilgrims chipping off pieces had already been removed by Yusuf’s men. He stepped on to the rock, turned to face Mecca and began to pray, speaking the words of the sura al-fatiha. ‘In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful: all Praises to Allah, Lord of the Universe. The Most Gracious, the Most Merciful . . .’

  When he had finished his prayers, he remained kneeling on the hard rock. It was from here that Mohammad had ascended to heaven. Yusuf looked up to the ceiling. Might the words he spoke here reach paradise?

  ‘I have done as you commanded, Father,’ he whispered. ‘I have driven out the Christians—’ Yusuf stopped short as he thought of John and of the others he had lost: Zimat, Faridah, Shirkuh, Turan, Asimat. ‘I sacrificed everything, Father. Those who stood in my way, even those I loved. I did it for you and for Allah.’ Yusuf rose. When he spoke again his voice was loud and firm. ‘But now my task is done. No more lies. No more murder. Once the last of the Franks are driven out, I will return to Damascus. I will see my daughters married.
I will raise my sons to be better men than I. I will create a kingdom of peace and plenty, and when I die, I will be remembered for the good that I did, not the men I killed.’

  Part II

  Lionheart

  Acre, the crown jewel of the Kingdom. Its vast harbour welcomed ships from Egypt, Italy and Constantinople. Its markets produced more wealth than the rest of the Holy Land combined. And it was there, before its mighty walls, that the fate of the Kingdom would be decided. On the one side stood Saladin, conqueror of Jerusalem. On the other was Richard, King of England. Lionheart, they called him, and it was a fitting name. He was the fiercest warrior I have ever known. It was the greatest battle of Saladin’s life, a battle in which victory could only be bought at the ultimate price . . .

  The Chronicle of Yahya al-Dimashqi

  Chapter 13

  October 1188: Harthill, England

  John’s hood was pulled up in a vain attempt to keep out the rain, and he leaned heavily on his staff as he trudged into Harthill. It was a tiny village, almost indistinguishable from the dozens of others like it that he had trudged through in his trek north across England to Yorkshire. The street was unpaved, and his heavy wooden clogs sank into the mud with every step. He passed scattered wooden longhouses and sunken huts until he came to one with a tankard hanging over the door – the sign that ale was being served. Most villagers were brewers and turned their homes into impromptu taverns whenever a fresh batch was ready. John pushed the door open and stepped inside.

  The room was dim, the ceiling and walls dark with smoke from a fire that guttered in the hearth on the far wall. John hung his cloak from a peg over the fire and leaned his staff on the wall. Two simple tables – boards set atop trestles – ran the length of the room. At the far end of one, two men sat across from one another. One gripped his tankard with strong calloused hands that were black under the nails. He had broad, muscled shoulders and a back bent by labour – probably at the whetstone quarry that John had passed on his way into the village. John did not like the look of the other man. He also gripped his tankard with thick fingers, but his nails were clean and his back was straight. He wore his cloak indoors. There was no reason to do so unless he was hiding something – armour, or perhaps a weapon. The men lowered their tankards and glared at John with undisguised hostility.

  John had grown accustomed to rude welcomes. More than a year had passed since he left Jerusalem. He had marched to Tyre, but the city’s new ruler, Conrad of Montferrat, had refused to open the gates to the flood of pilgrims. He feared that if Tyre were besieged, it would run short of food as Jerusalem had. John and the other refugees were forced to continue north to Antioch. By the time they arrived, the sailing season was over and John had to wait until March. Refugees continued to pour into Antioch. They crowded the docks, forcing up the price of passage to Europe. John had to sell his cross, and even then he could only afford a passage to Venice. He did not have sufficient coin for a horse, so he had crossed Europe on foot. The rucksack with his vestments and prayer book had been stolen while he slept at a church in Turin. His leather breeches had held up well enough, but his tunic was ragged and his cloak so riddled with holes that it looked as if a thousand moths had made a meal of it. His boots had fallen to pieces as he crossed the Alps, and soon enough his feet were raw and blistered, leaving him leaning on his staff as he limped along at a snail’s pace. After seeing his tattered feet, the Benedictines in Lyon had been kind enough to provide him with a pair of clogs. The inside of the right one had cracked somewhere outside Paris when John stepped on a sharp rock. The crack opened and closed with every step, pinching his foot.

  John had stayed in churches and monasteries along the route of his journey. At first, the abbots and archbishops had been delighted to welcome the archdeacon of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. He had shared their tables and slept in well-appointed rooms. But as the road took its toll on his appearance so the welcomes cooled. By the time he had reached Bayeux, near the channel coast of France, he was lucky to find a place in the stables. In England, his appearance brought hostile looks wherever he went. Harthill it seemed, was no exception.

  John ignored the men’s glares as he took a seat on the far side of the room. The tavern keeper entered from the back. He was a skinny man, all elbows and knees, with a bulging Adam’s apple. He scowled when he saw John and his hand moved to clutch something beneath his leather apron.

  ‘A tankard of small ale,’ John told him in English. The skinny man did not move. John held up a silver coin – his last – and the man muttered something as he went into the back. John looked about. Now that his eyes had adjusted, he noticed a third man in dark priest’s robes sitting in the far corner. He was a portly fellow, and his head was resting on the table while he snored softly, his tankard of ale still in hand. The village priest, no doubt.

  The tavern keeper came back with a full tankard. John took a sip and childhood memories came flooding back. The ale was sweet, with a bitter aftertaste. There had been nothing like it in the East. ‘A good brew.’

  The tavern keeper grunted. He was still standing by the table, his hand beneath his apron. ‘You speak queer. You’re no Frenchman, nor an Englishman neither.’

  It was John’s turn to frown. ‘I have spent some years in the East. I come from the Holy Land.’

  ‘A pilgrim.’ The man said the word as if it were an insult. ‘What brings you to Harthill, stranger?’

  ‘I am a priest, on my way to Tatewic.’

  The priest in the corner sat up, setting his double chin to jiggling. ‘A priest? Have the White Brothers sent you? To take over the grange in Tatewic?’

  The White Brothers were Cistercian monks. They had owned no farmland in Tatewic when John was a child. He wondered to which abbey the grange belonged. ‘I have come to speak with Tatewic’s lord,’ he said. He looked back to the tavern keeper. ‘Tell me, is it still Rangaldr’s son, Caelin, who sits in the hall?’

  ‘Aye, same as it’s been these last forty years and more.’ The man’s eyes narrowed. ‘What’s your business with him, priest?’

  ‘I come on behalf of Geoffrey, the bishop of Lincoln, bearing this message.’ John took a scroll of paper from inside his tunic and unfurled it on the table. In fact, he had not passed through Lincoln. In Bayeux, the bishop had been shocked to learn that the archdeacon of the Holy Sepulchre and abbot of Mount Sion was sleeping in his stables. In a transaction of dubious legality, John had sold the posts in return for passage to Portsmouth. The scroll was a record of the transaction. The tavern keeper squinted at it, but it was clear he could not read. John would be surprised if even the fat priest were lettered. Most village priests were as ignorant as their parishioners.

  The tavern keeper was nodding, clearly impressed by the document, as John had hoped he would be. ‘Tatewic is less than three miles north, father, just past the woods.’

  ‘Tell me of Caelin,’ John said as he rolled up the scroll. ‘Is he a good lord?’

  ‘Hmph.’ The man in the cloak slammed down his tankard and rose. John could hear the clink of mail as he stomped to the door and stepped outside.

  The man he had been drinking with turned on his bench to face John. ‘He’s good enough, when he’s here. He and our lord Serlby spend most of their days in France, campaigning for the King.’ The quarryman spat. ‘His wars bring us nothing but trouble.’

  ‘Aye,’ the tavern keeper agreed. ‘Lord Serlby was here only yesterday. He spoke of a new tax to fund King Henry’s crusade.’

  The priest in the corner lowered his tankard. ‘A holy cause!’ he declared and then belched.

  ‘A waste of good coin, if you ask me,’ the quarryman grumbled.

  The tavern keeper nodded. ‘Henry has been planning his crusade for longer than I can remember. It’s only another excuse to tax us. He won’t leave France, not now. Lord Serlby says that Richard has allied with Philip of France to make war against Henry. The Lionheart aims to take his father’s throne. Our good lords Serlby a
nd Caelin have returned home to squeeze yet more silver from us to pay for the war that’s coming.’ The man snorted. ‘God save us from kings.’

  ‘Amen.’ John finished his ale and placed his last silver on the table. He went to the fire and pulled on his still damp cloak. He had reached the door when the tavern keeper called to him.

  ‘What’s this?’ he demanded as he held up the piece of silver. ‘I’ve never seen a coin like this.’

  ‘Silver is silver.’

  The tavern keeper grunted and pocketed the coin. John stepped outside with staff in hand. The rain had stopped, but the road north was still muddy and pockmarked with puddles. He slogged his way past sloping fields where sheep grazed on the stubble left from the recent harvest, and entered an old wood. The occasional towering grey-trunked ash, already bare of leaves, stood out amongst the golden foliage of field maples and elms. A thick layer of leaves crunched under foot, and John breathed deeply of their rich scent. He had walked these very woods as a child. They smelt of home.

  He entered a clearing. On the far side stood a stand of ancient oaks with gnarled trunks so thick that ten men could not have encircled them. Pigs were rooting for acorns beneath. As John approached, two men stepped out from behind the trees. One clutched an old, chipped sword and the other held a knife. The one with the sword had a thick blond beard and wore rusted mail. The other was a huge man in leather armour so old it was falling apart. He had close-set eyes and a simpleton’s slack-jawed smile. Outlaws. John had come across such men more than once during his long journey. Most were commoners who had joined their lord in his wars, and when they were done, had decided they did not wish to return to a life behind the plough.