Blades of Valor (15 page)

So much depends on escape from this city …

Thomas bit his tongue to keep those thoughts away. For he could not let fear paralyze him.

Instead, he directed his mind to the events that had led to this day, any thoughts at all except those of the soldiers in pursuit.

How long since he had been exiled from England? Already half a year. The great, sweeping valleys of Magnus—lush green with the scattered purple patches of heather and shrouded with mist in the winter—were an aching memory.

He had survived a cutthroat ship’s crew and a bandit-infested trek through the Holy Land. He had survived betrayals and lies, and now finally, just as he had established that he could trust the two with him, soldiers were in pursuit.

Thomas shook his head.

Walk slowly and think not of the soldiers.

So he thought of Katherine. The moment she had first lifted her face to his in silvery moonlight. How his heart had caught. How later, in the Holy Land, the mystery of that yearning had been explained. He thought of their first fleeting kiss. He thought of how candlelight bounced off her blond hair, illuminating the contours of her face. Her smile of inner joy and the beauty of her character. The slow, savoring way she would stare deeply into his eyes. If he were to lose her now, after all they had been through …

Walk slowly and think not of the soldiers.

Walk slowly and think not of the soldiers.

Activity on the narrow, twisting streets still seemed mostly normal, a small piece of good fortune for Thomas. Obviously the people of Jerusalem were accustomed to the sight of running soldiers, for despite the shouts that carried from street to street, the bartering and selling at market booths continued.

Thomas felt a tug on the edge of his cape.

“Alms for the poor?”

He looked down into raisin-black eyes. A boy. Maybe six years old.

The boy’s eyes widened as he noticed Thomas’s European features. His mouth opened as he drew breath to speak his surprise.

“Alms you will have, my friend,” Thomas said quickly to forestall any exclamation. “But you must grasp my hand!”

The command intrigued the boy enough so that he did so and remained silent.

“Your name?” Thomas asked, his head still low as he looked at the beggar.

“Addon. I am nine.”

A memory stabbed at Thomas. That of someone barely older than this boy. Tiny John, a pickpocket rascal as mischievous and cheerful as a sparrow, who might have already perished in England.

Thomas blocked the memory and concentrated on walking slowly, holding the boy’s hand as naturally as if they were brothers. For if the boy bolted now and spread the word of a pale-skinned stranger …

“Addon, as you observed, I am a traveler, now confused and lost in this great city of yours. It will be worth a piece of gold if you guide me to the nearest city gates.”

The boy grinned. “Essene Gate! For a piece of gold.”

The Essene Gate.
As Thomas well knew, it was guarded by only one tower. Less than five minutes away and well marked in the mind of the knight in front of him. However, if a piece of gold and a feeling of self-importance kept this child silent until they had left the city walls …

“After the gates, where shall I take you next?” the boy was asking.

“That shall suffice.” Thomas smiled. This young guide wished to earn even more. “For then I depart.”

Addon frowned. “Did you not know that is impossible?”

“Impossible?”

A quick nod from the young beggar. “The Mameluke soldiers have shut all the city gates. They guard them now.”

“Addon, this is indeed your blessed day,” Thomas said as slowly and calmly as possible. He could not afford to alarm the boy or raise his suspicions. “For you shall earn enough gold to feed you for a month.”

Addon grinned.

“There is a man ahead of me,” Thomas continued in low tones. “See him there?”

Thomas pointed at Sir William until Addon nodded.

“Approach him, and tell him the same news you gave me. Tell him I shall wait here for his return.”

Addon scampered ahead.

Thomas waited in the shadow of a doorway and watched Sir William’s head bend as he listened to Addon, then watched with relief as the knight turned back. To any other but Thomas, it would have been impossible to notice that the knight spoke to a veiled woman as he passed her upon his return, for he did not pause and his lips barely moved. Yet, moments after the knight passed her, Katherine stopped where she was, then began to shuffle, to wait near a stand where a vendor shouted the sale of melons.

“Thomas,” the knight said softly when he reached the doorway, “news of the gates does not bode well for us.”

Thomas drew deeper in the shadows. “The Mamelukes must know not only of our presence, but of the scroll and the caves. Why else go to such measures to find us?”

Sir William’s lips tightened in anger. “A sword across the throat of the man who betrayed us—”

“Think of our throats,” Thomas interrupted. “The city is sealed. Yet we cannot keep our faces hidden forever. It will be too difficult to remain unnoticed inside.”

Sir William closed his eyes in thought. Moments later, he smiled. “Have you a thirst for spring water?”

“Water? We fight for our lives and—”

“Thomas, tell me of Jerusalem’s history.”

“There are soldiers all around! This is no place for—”

“Come, come,” Sir William chided with a grin. “Surely as one of us, you would have a glimmer of this knowledge.”

Thomas snorted. “The city is as ancient as man. Its history would take hours to recite.”

“Tell me, then,” the knight grinned, “of King David.”

“King David?” Thomas squinted his eyes in thought. “King David. He chose this as his capital because it sat squarely between Israel in the north and Judah in the south. Yet until him, the city had never been conquered, for it held a spring and no siege could bring it down.”

“Yes,” Sir William said. “The spring. Gihon Spring.”

Gihon Spring.
Then Thomas knew. He grinned. “We shall leave Jerusalem the same way it was conquered.”

Thomas turned to Addon and spoke. “You must guide us to the inner city.”

The inner city—close to the palace and soldiers’ quarters.

The imposing structure of the palace lay in the background, and directly ahead the circular area where three main streets joined. At the center of that large circle, the well. Thomas surveyed the bulwark of stones that surrounded the well and groaned. He could not share his dismay with anyone, because the knight and Katherine had, by necessity, traveled separately the entire journey back into the center of Jerusalem.

“You wish a different well?” Addon asked in response to the low groan. “Yet there is none more ancient!”

“No,” Thomas said, “a better guide I could not have found.”

That was the truth. For Addon had led him through a maze of narrow and obscure alleyways that made detection by searching soldiers almost impossible. Ironic, then, that the first soldiers they had seen would now surround the well.

Thomas bit back another groan.

A dozen soldiers, all within stone’s throw. More ironically, none were there as guards. Instead, they stood or sat in relaxed enjoyment of the sun and gossip. Around the well, too, were the reasons for the soldiers’ presence—the women gathered to draw water before the afternoon heat overwhelmed the city.

Their idle conversation reached Thomas clearly. He gnawed his inner lip as he lost himself in thought.

Gihon Spring. Once, long ago, the former shepherd boy named David, who earned a reputation as military genius and united all of Israel, had sent his soldiers up this well shaft to invade and conquer Jerusalem.
Will the shaft still be clear after these hundreds of years?

There was only one means of discovering the answer. They must descend.

But the soldiers stood between them and a desperate attempt at escape. Only a distraction could—

Shouts and the braying of donkeys interrupted his thoughts.

Thomas looked to his right in disbelief. Two donkeys plunged frantic paths through the small market on a nearby side street. The donkeys careened through stands of fruits and beneath the awnings that provided shade. One donkey plunged back out again, draped in the blankets from a shop.

Angry shouts rose in response, and men chased the donkeys in vain. The soldiers turned to the confusion, at first amused, then concerned. They too dashed to chase the donkeys.

“The well, my friend,” came a voice from the other side of Thomas. “How long until the soldiers return?”

Thomas turned his head to look into Sir William’s grin. Katherine was already halfway to the well.

“How—”

“Misfortune, of course. Who could guess that a rag tied to a donkey’s tail might brush against a lamp’s flame?”

“Who indeed?” Thomas grinned in return.

The hubbub from the street grew. The smash of pottery and roars of rage rose above the clamor.

“Addon,” Thomas said, “two gold pieces for your trouble.”

Thomas began to search for words to dismiss the young boy but had no chance to speak. Addon was already backing away, his fingers firmly clasped over the gold.

“The market,” Addon blurted. “In this confusion, I can fill my pockets!”

Thomas decided it was not the moment to point out that there was no honor in theft. He sprinted to join Katherine and Sir William at the edge of the well.

Thomas squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated on small mercies. With the deep unknown below, he at least worried little about the soldiers.

There was a heavy rope attached to a pole at the side of the well. The rope hung down and disappeared into the black hole; hundreds of years of friction of rope against stone had worn the edges of the well smooth. The well itself was wide—toe to outstretched fingertips, Thomas could not have reached across.

“If the well does not lead to safety?” Thomas asked.

“What choice?” Sir William countered. “Gates sealed, city walls guarded, and in all probability, a reward offered for our heads. We cannot hide among these people.”

Katherine said nothing. She hastily tore the veil from her face and crammed it into a pocket of her cloak. She smiled once at Thomas, then without hesitation took the rope in her hands and lowered herself over the edge.

“What choice? Her action is answer enough,” Thomas said. He too wrapped his fingers around the rough fibers of the rope and rolled over the edge. Sir William waited until Thomas had disappeared into the darkness, then followed.

Despite their conversation, less than half a minute had passed from the time of reaching the well to when all three were clinging to the rope and lowering themselves, hand over hand. No commands or soldiers’ shouts reached them. No one had seen them escape.

Thomas hoped they would survive the descent and that the shaft did indeed lead outside the city walls.

Twenty-Nine

F
or the first ten feet of the descent, they found themselves pushing away from the sides of the well. Then, without warning, the walls seemed to fall away, and it wasn’t until Thomas had lowered himself another ten feet, did he understand. Looking upward against the light of the sky as backdrop, he saw that the well shaft actually widened as it deepened.

The sight gave him a prickle of hope. Would not a city as ancient as this slowly build over the well through the centuries? Did this widening of the shaft not mean that perhaps there would be room to stand around the pool at its bottom?

“Thomas!”

“Yes, Katherine,” he grunted. It took great effort to breathe normally, let alone speak.

“At the side of this wall. Rungs!”

Thomas grinned in relief. She had spoken true. A ladder of horizontal iron bars was imbedded into the stone walls of the shaft.
At one time, this well was meant for more than rope and bucket.

The rope began to swing.

“Katherine!” Thomas yelped. “This is no time for play!”

“If we … reach the … rungs,” she said, “no person above … who seeks to … draw water … will pull against … our weight.”