King of the Middle March (18 page)

E
R-NUH-DA HOOPLITH SITT!” LORD STEPHEN
announced.

The eye-slit in my glistening helmet is so narrow that I couldn't see him without turning right round to face him.

“What, sir?” I called out.

“ER-NUH-DA…,” Lord Stephen bellowed, and then he opened his mouthpiece. “Sorry!” he said. “I forgot! Speaking in here is like trying to talk underwater.”

“What were you saying, sir?”

“Another!” Lord Stephen replied. “Another hopeless saint!”

“Who, sir?”

“Chrysogonus. Today's his feast day, his bones are buried in this city, and he still can't save it!”

The Doge has agreed to spare everyone's lives, but he's forcing them all to leave the city at once so that the crusaders can use their houses.

The Zarans are not allowed to remove anything valuable from the city. They've had to leave behind all their church plate and decorated manuscripts, their necklaces and armbands, their gold and silver coins, all their cows and goats and chickens and other livestock.

We rode towards the Land Gate, creaking and clanking, followed by Rhys and Turold with our chests and saddlebags, and I was
filled with relief that Zara had surrendered without more bloodshed. A band of Venetian pipers and drummers greeted us; I felt a surge of hope. This is why I took the Cross. Onward to Jerusalem!

But then we met a long line of Zarans on their way out of the city.…

Some of them turned their faces away and flattened themselves against the inside of the Gate; some crossed themselves, and one man spat on the ground in front of us. But most people just stared at us with their dark, sad eyes.

I kept looking into their faces. You? Or you? Each looked like the mother or the father or the brother or sister of the boy in the mangonel.

Gennaro and Piero say crops and vegetables and fruits of all kinds grow along this coast, but today there's a freezing wind from the north, and not a stitch of green in the fields. So where will everyone find food? Where will they sleep tonight?

Just inside the Gate, four sergeants were checking no one was disobeying orders. I saw one of them put his arms round a woman, then tug her linen shirt. She was wearing a glittering waistband inside it. The sergeant cursed her and tore it off.

“That's what they're like, these people,” he said. “They'll swallow precious stones and dig them out of their own excrement.”

One of the Zaran men had a woollen bag slung over his back. When a sergeant jabbed at it with his knife, the bag squawked and shuddered.

The sergeant smacked his lips.
“Poulet Zara!”
he exclaimed. “Very nice too.” He pulled the bag off the man's back. “Chicken-brain!” he bawled, and kicked the man on his way.

Behind us, someone yelled, and I saw dozens of mounted knights and squires waiting to come through the Gate. We were blocking the way.

“English!” the sergeant called out, and he flapped his hands helplessly.

“I'm Welsh,” Rhys objected. “Welsh, not
Sais
!”

“Clots!” added the sergeant.

“And you?” demanded Sir William. “French slime! Slick as fresh snot!”

The Doge and the French leaders have agreed we should spend the winter here because we can't be sure of supplies if we sail on south, and anyhow, the weather will be against us. They have divided the city, and we have been given a stone tower-house.

But who lived here until this morning? In one corner of my room, which is right at the top, I found a little dark-eyed rag doll lying on straw, tucked up under a scrap of cloth.

The Doge has kept all the houses on the east side of the island, nearest to the ships, for his own councillors and sea captains. That's where Simona will be billeted, but she says she'll come and find us.

Simona fusses over Serle and keeps ruffling his hair and bumping into him and laughing. I feel glad for them but sorry for Tanwen. Poor Tanwen!

I wish Winnie were here. Or Gatty.

Turold helped me to unarm. “Well?” he asked. “How was it?”

“I have worn it before,” I said.

“Only for practice.”

“You can't call this action,” I said. “Turning defenseless people out of their homes.”

“Amans, amens!”
Simona told Serle, laughing, as she unarmed him.

“What's that?” asked Serle.

“You,” giggled Simona. “Lover, lunatic! You're mad, Serle.”

“That's what's wrong, Turold,” I said. “There's nothing to laugh at anymore.”

Turold removed my skullcap. “Your ears are red, sir,” he said.

“And my tongue is blue,” I replied. “Simona! How do you know so much Latin?”

“Not much!” Simona replied. “My best brother is a monk. He teaches me sayings.”

Zara is about two and half miles long but only five hundred paces across. If we were gulls, wheeling above it, it would look like a giant's thumb, pointing north.

Once we'd stabled our horses in an undercroft beneath the house, Serle and I walked out to look around. I felt so strange—curious and guilty at the same time. Most of the streets are very narrow and the walls are so high, you can't see over them, but a little way north and east from our tower-house, there's a marketplace.

“A forum,” said Serle. “The same as on deck.”

“How do you know?”

“Simona.”

“Si-mo-na!” I moaned. “You're love-struck and moonstruck.”

“Moonshine!” said Serle. He looked quite pleased, though.

The forum was deserted, and on the far side of it there's a very strange, large church. Circular, with three apses bulging out, like a huge, misshapen loaf. It was locked, though, and the windows were out of reach.

“Come on!” said Serle. “On my shoulders! Let's see if we can climb in.”

“We can't,” I said.

“We can,” Serle replied. “Zara's ours now.”

“This is a church, though.”

“There may be things in it.”

“What do you mean?”

“The chalice. The paten. I don't know.”

“We can't take them.”

“Stop being so high and mighty, Arthur! If we don't, someone else will.”

“It's wrong whoever does it.”

What put an end to our argument was meeting Simona and Gennaro with two other Venetians.

“Have you seen this?” Gennaro asked me, and he pointed with his left foot.

Ablock of white marble built into the foundations had lettering on it.
IOVI AVGVSTO
.

“And this,” Gennaro said.

IVNONI AVGVSTAE
.

“Jove and Juno,” Simona translated. “God and goddess.”

“Roman gods,” Gennaro explained. “Church builders took stone from the old Roman temple. Altar stones. Blood sacrifices.”

“Really!” I exclaimed. “What did they sacrifice?”

Gennaro shrugged.

“But this is a Christian church,” said Serle.

“Et nova et vetera,”
Simona observed. “New and old. Both.”

Oliver wouldn't like the way this marble has been used a second time. He thinks things are either Christian or unchristian, but Merlin told me that Yule and Easter were once both heathen feasts.

While we were talking, we heard shouting, and I saw two men chasing a woman across the forum. They had green crosses stitched on their chests, so they must have been Flemings.

The woman screamed and headed towards us, but the men grabbed her and brought her to the ground.

“Serle!” I exclaimed. “Come on!”

Gennaro put a hand on my right shoulder. “No.”

“We must. We can't just let them.”

“Serle!” Simona cried. “Yes, Arthur!”

“Come on!” I yelled.

I ran towards the screaming woman. The Flemings were on their knees, ripping her clothes.

I grabbed one of the man's shoulders, and drew my knife. “Stop!” I yelled.

The Flemings looked up.

They saw Serle and Gennaro and the Venetians.

And then Simona ran up, howling, and started to kick them.

The Flemings scrambled to their feet, and stumbled away. “Eunuchs!” they yelled. “Plenty where she came from!”

The woman got to her feet and straightened her clothes.

“You shouldn't have done that!” Serle said angrily. “I'm not even armed. They both had knives!”

“We couldn't just leave her!” I shouted.

Simona stepped towards the woman and put an arm round her.

“She shouldn't be here anyhow,” Serle said. “The Zarans are meant to have left.”

“Many still here,” Gennaro replied. “All the women…holy women…all the nuns in Saint Mary monastery.”

“They're asking for trouble,” said Serle darkly. “From what I've heard, the ordinary crusaders will use every woman and girl they can find.”

Serle may be right. This evening thousands of men have crushed into Zara. Crossbowmen, foot soldiers with pikes and staffs and slingers, grubby miners, all the men who work the siege engines, sailors, oarsmen…

The streets are heaving. Men are pitching tents wherever they can squeeze them in.

They're thirsty.

They're hungry.

Heaven help any Zaran left in the city.

When Milon came to inspect our tower-house, he told us the Doge had seven Zaran councillors arrested as they tried to leave the city. They were decapitated outside the Land Gate.

“He promised to spare everyone's lives,” I cried.

“These men were enemies for twenty years,” said Milon. “Their pirate ships attack Venice boats.”

“But if the Doge doesn't keep his word, why should anyone else?” I asked.

“Without leaders,” Milon said, “the Zarans will not attack Venice again. They go to hills. To monasteries.”

I am sitting in my high room, and the dark-eyed doll is sitting on my saddlebag, looking at me.

There are ninety-four steps up, and I can see right over the walls. I can see an island, west and a little north. It's called Molat.

Catmole! My mother…Not this year…

Since I began writing, it has got death-dark. I heard a group of men running down the street, hooting. Then there was far-off slamming and cheering. And just now I heard someone screaming right down below this tower. A woman. A girl.

A
RTHUR-IN-THE-STONE GAZES AT THE RUINS OF NAMES
inscribed on the Round Table. So much of the gold leaf has flaked away.

G HE IS
He is—whom? G

ARE
Are? Are what?

Gaheris…Gareth…

Letters. No more than a litter of characters, half-gone, wholly gone.

O NCE

LOVE

Florence…Lovel…

Yes, they loved once, Sir Gawain's sons, and they were well loved. But their eager faces and shining eyes have turned to dust.

The king leans over the Round Table. He spreads his hands over its face. Moving now as an old man moves.

This sphere. This whole world of rock crystal.

The air of it still gleams. Planet-eyes, seething stars, leaping golden comets. The sea of it still twirls its whirligig holes, and spins its silver threads. The fire of it shoots arrow-rays. But the earth of it is splitting—one crack is widening into a chasm. A ravening dark mouth.

King Arthur closes his eyes. His body looks slack as a sack full of slops.

“Divided in itself,” he says. “The Round Table is wrecked.”

The finest fellowship…All that was, and almost was…All that now cannot be.

I
CARRIED BERTIE LIKE A BABY ALL THE WAY TO THE HOUSE
where the Doge is staying, and from there to his surgeon, Taddeo.

“You again!” he said. “Well, you're in luck. By the sound of things, I'm going to be busy tonight.”

I gently laid Bertie on the table, on his left side, and Taddeo took hold of his right forearm.

Bertie yelped. “I never saw it,” he sobbed.

“So,” said the surgeon thoughtfully, “in here…grazing your collarbone. Down! Right through.” He sighed. “The tip's just sticking out of your back.”

Bertie moaned.

“Take hold of Arthur's hands,” Taddeo told him. “Try to crack each bone in them. What's your name?”

“Bertie.”

While he was talking, Taddeo was examining Bertie, and then he turned to his brazier, and pushed the iron deeper into it.

“What's in that pan?” I asked.

“Elder oil,” the surgeon replied. He placed the pan on the open coals. “Seethe it. Don't let it start popping. Now, Bertie! This is going to hurt.”

Taddeo put his left arm under Bertie's neck and grasped the arrow shaft and drove it in deeper.

Bertie screamed. He cracked my hands. Then, all at once, his own hands went as limp as dead sparrows. His whole body went limp.

“Now the pliers,” the surgeon said. “Why do things always hide when you need them?”

I was panting and shaking.

Taddeo rummaged in the straw on the floor until he found the pliers, and he gave them to me.

“Good lad!” he said to Bertie. “Some men writhe and scream, and however terrible the pain, they still stay awake.”

The surgeon put his left arm under Bertie's neck again, and cradled him.

“Now, Arthur!” he said. “Got the pliers? Snap off the point. Quickly!”

As soon as I had, Taddeo pulled the shaft back out. Bright red blood flowed from the wound and dripped from the table onto the floor.

Taddeo pulled the iron out of the brazier. The tip was red hot. He just touched it to Bertie's wounds, front and back. “To seal the blood vessels,” he said. “Now! The oil. Tip some onto his neck and his back.”

Taddeo rubbed in the oil, then wiped his own hands on a bloodstained shaggy towel.

“A very near thing,” he said. “An inch away from his windpipe. He may be all right, but I'm no Avicenna.”

“Who, sir?”

“Avicenna. A Saracen. He wrote a book about medicine. Yes, he should be all right.”

“Coeur-de-Lion wasn't,” I said. “An arrow went in through his shoulder and stuck out of his back.”

The surgeon's mouth twisted. “He will be rather sore,” he said, “when he wakes up.”

I didn't even realize it was Bertie to begin with. I just rounded a corner and saw two Venetians dragging a boy down the street by his legs.

You can't run in armor, but I waded after them.

That's when the arrow struck him. Some Venetian shot it from a window or up on a roof.

They let go of his legs, and he screamed and clutched his neck, and I clanked up to him, and that's when I saw it was Bertie.

The two Venetians faced me. One had a glittering knife, the other a staff.

I unsheathed my sword. The dazzling blade Milon gave me. I grasped the pommel in my left hand.

The man with the staff leveled it at my chest, but as he lunged at me I sidestepped. Then the other man raised his right arm. The knife flashed. It glanced off my cheek guard.

I swung my sword. I missed. The blade clashed against the stone wall, and struck sparks.

The man with the knife threw himself at me. I heard the blade grating against my mail-shirt. Then the other man drove his staff at my groin, and grabbed me.

I don't know how I worked myself loose. I must have raised and swung my sword, but I don't even remember hitting him—the
man with the glittering knife. All I can see is his nose. His nose. Lying in front of my feet.

I can see them running.

I can hear the man howling.

I can hear Bertie choking and moaning.

It's a good thing Lord Stephen had told me to put my armor on.

Frenchmen were chasing Venetians; Venetians were chasing Frenchmen. They were knifing each other. Hacking. Jabbing. Slinging stones. Loosing arrows.

Lord Stephen and I tried to stop them, and so did many other knights and squires—Milon, even Sir William—but it was almost impossible. There were so many of them, rushing along the narrow streets, searching, killing.

It was dark, and Lord Stephen and I were soon separated. I didn't know where to go. I was cold and sweating and trembling. My mouth was dry. I was afraid of dying. And that's when I rounded the corner and saw them dragging Bertie away.

It started around Vespers and went on all last night. It didn't stop until midday.

As soon as it was quiet in one street, there was fighting in another. Like fire in Pike Forest you can't put out. But the French were the stronger, or the braver. They swept the Venetians back into their own half of the city. They almost pushed them back to the channel and their ships.

Some say the French began it, but no one agrees. We all visited Milon's quarters this evening, and Bertie was sleeping deeply in one
corner. Milon told us his men were angry because they're not allowed to keep plunder for themselves—gold and silver and stones and spices and silks and carpets and things like that—but the Venetians are.

“Certainly not!” Milon said. “I say who and what. First we pay the Venetians for their ships.”

Sir William says the French dislike being led by a Venetian, Serle says if only the marquis were here, this would never have happened and he only hopes Simona is safe, and Lord Stephen says the French object to staying here.

“It suits the Doge,” he said, “because he needs to secure Zara, but it doesn't suit the French. They've already been away from home for three seasons, as we have, and now we've all got to wait here until Easter.”

In any case, everyone agrees the Venetians were asking for it, but I keep thinking of that man. His blood leaped over my boots and stained them. His nose! I didn't mean to. I was just trying to protect myself.

Milon thrust out his jaw. “One hundred and one men dead,” he announced.

“It's going to take a lot of time and skill to calm things down,” said Lord Stephen.

“Sir Gilles de Landas. Dead!” Milon said fiercely.

“How?” asked Sir William.

“They arrowed his eye.”

Sir William grunted. “Not so lucky as your squire, then.”

“Except for Arthur,” Milon went on, “Arthur and surgeon, Bertie is dead.”

Lord Stephen looked down at Bertie. “Poor pumpkin!” he said.

In his sleep, Bertie said something. Well, he made a noise like someone talking. Like a leucrota. Then he began to pant.

The upper part of his body is covered with a marjoram poultice, but I could see it's almost twice its normal size. His face is so white, and shining with cold sweat. His hands and feet are cold too. I know that's a sign someone may die.

Not Bertie!

Surely Death won't dance for him tonight. He'll kick and yell and tell Death to go away.…