Behold the Dawn (39 page)

He dropped his left hand from the sword and slammed his elbow into the crack between the doors. They clattered open, louvers crashing and splintering against the doorframe. He stumbled into the sunlight, leaving Gethin’s blade to cleave only shadow.

Immediately, he was aware of two things: He was standing upon the city wall, which formed the back of Roderic’s house. And the battle was right beneath them. The sound of it thundered in his head. The energy pumped in his veins.

Gethin burst through the door into the heat of the sun, sword cocked above his shoulder, teeth bared in the deep tan of his skin. Annan pushed himself up from where he had fallen against the parapet and turned to face him.

“What happened at St. Dunstan’s was wrong.” He held his sword before his face, the side of his left leg pressed against the rampart wall. He backed away slowly, one step back for every of Gethin’s steps forward. “It is my fault you have traveled the path that has led you here, and I am sorry.”

Gethin spat. “It is a path you should have walked yourself! It is you who should have killed the bishop. Have you forgotten already what he did to the countess?”

Below them, an English voice shouted for the troops to hold steady. Annan did not risk the glance that would show him the crash of iron against flesh. “What the
bishop
did? Gethin, you have blinded yourself! It was
you
who twisted him and misled him and played upon his fears, just as you sought to play upon mine!”

“He was evil!”

“He was a weapon in
your
hands!”

Gethin struck like a snarling cat.

Annan met the blow with all the strength of both arms. Pain rattled through his bones. His left shoulder pounded. His vision blurred white, and he struck again. It was Gethin who had perpetrated all the atrocities against Mairead. It was Gethin who was responsible for Lord William’s death. And Lord Stephen’s death. And Lady Eloise’s devastation. And Marek’s wounds.

Was this the man who had been his dearest friend, his only confidante, his paragon of charity? Something squeezed in his heart, and he wanted to weep.

Gethin’s blade smashed into his once more. This time Annan held it, screeching, against his own. Barely a span separated their faces.

“How far we have fallen.” Annan’s words were hoarse. “A long time ago, it was you who taught me of mercy. For all these years, I thought I had forgotten it. I thought that when such a moment as this came, I would be ready to leave a cruel world behind and my own cruelty in it.”

The tendons in Gethin’s neck stood out above the heave of his chest. His eyes fluttered like an ensnared kestrel.

“But God is still merciful, and I will fall no more. Let us end this.”

With a roar, Gethin pulled away. He charged headlong, casting aside all thoughts of defense. Annan took one step back, braced, and swung to meet him. His sword connected just above the dirk’s hilt. The force of the blow slammed Gethin’s hip into the low wall, and his upper body swung out over the parapet.

Annan stepped back. The soles of Gethin’s sandals slipped against the plank flooring. His eyes bulged, black pupil engulfing amber iris. Cavalry thundered in the plains below; a hundred archers added the twang and patter of their steadfast fire; an English voice roared the age-old battle cry of the Crusades: “God wills it!”

And Gethin the Baptist fell from Jaffa’s ramparts.

Annan closed his eyes and listened as the scream was chopped short. He did not step to the wall to see the dusty heap of brown homespun that had fallen amidst all that remained of Christendom’s greatest armies. He did not want to see. Turning away, he sank to his knees. Roderic’s sword clanked against the planks, and at last he prayed.
Christ, have mercy... Save me.

He slumped his head to his chest, utterly spent. He had been forcing punishment for St. Dunstan’s upon himself long enough. The time had come to put it aside forever. His pride torn down, he could now accept the forgiveness he had so long shunned, the forgiveness that had never been his to earn, but only to claim. His punishment was at an end—at last.

He opened his eyes. For the first time in sixteen years, perhaps for the first time in his entire life, a glimmer of day flickered at the end of his dark path.

Behind him, painful, halting footsteps whispered.
Mairead.
He didn’t turn around, even as she laid her hands on his aching shoulders. For a long moment, neither of them moved.

“It’s over,” she said at last.

“Aye.” His throat grew thick, and he raised his right arm to hers. Aye, it was over. And, in that one word, he—undeserving, miserable man that he was—had been given a gift so great it overwhelmed him. The chance to begin anew. The chance to remember what it was like to serve a God who loved. The chance to push Death out to arm’s length and keep it there. The chance to love this woman who was his wife.

“Stay with me,” he whispered.

She sank down behind him, her fingers closing over the reopened gash in his forearm. Her arms slipped around him, her cheek against his shoulder. “Yes,” she said.

He cradled her arms against him and looked out at the battlefield. Darkness was growing on the faraway horizon. It was the darkness of gathering troops. Probably the rest of Richard’s army on their way from Caesarea to rescue the beleaguered city. Jaffa was saved.

And so was he.

Chapter XXVIII

ON OCTOBER 9, 1192, Richard Coeur-de-Lion, King of England, together with most of his army, left the Holy Land in the hands of the infidels and embarked for home. Far down the beach, near where he had held his first meeting with Brother Warin under the cover of moonlight, Annan watched the ships catch sail and begin their creaking way out to open sea.

Beside him, mounted on a little black Turkish mare he’d dubbed Lucretia, Marek lifted his chin from where he had propped it against his hand. “Well, this has been a right good waste of a Crusade, hasn’t it? Here we were, hovering round for practically the whole rotten thing, and we’ve not an absolution to show for it among the lot of us. Complete and utter waste. ‘Specially considering I had to spend a night in some cold, nasty cell.”

“Will the Christians return?” Mairead asked over Annan’s shoulder. She put her hand against his side, balancing as she shifted on the pillion.

“I don’t know. Perhaps.” He hoped not. Despite the Christians’ escape at Jaffa, the Turks had soundly beaten the might of Christendom. Had it been a mission blessed of God, he could not help but think the outcome would have been vastly different. His eyes followed the retreating galleys. Did they even realize their mistake? Or would they come again, believing—like Gethin and Father Roderic and Hugh de Guerrant—that they were wise enough and righteous enough to claim their swords as God’s judgment?

Aye, they would come. It was the way of man.

The wind picked up, cold for the time of year, and swept across the sea, ruffling undulant silver into whitecaps. Mairead’s cloak spread with it, and she leaned closer to Annan. “Will
we
ever return?”

“St. Jude.” Marek sniffed. “Only a fool comes back to a place this bloody.”

Annan half-turned, careful to balance his weight on his battered hips, and looked at Mairead. “Do you want to return?”

She met his gaze, then looked away, out to the sea. A strand of hair escaped from the braids atop her head and blew past her cheek. “Nay. But I think I’m afraid to leave.” Her gaze flickered in his direction.

He turned away, and a smile tucked itself deep within the corners of his mouth. What had begun for them would not end here. His promise to Lord William had yet to be fulfilled.

He nudged his heel to Airn’s side, and they started forward. “But
you’re
ready to leave, are you?” He looked over at Marek.

“No more Crusades for me. I’ve better ways to waste my time.”

“Such as?”

“Ha. Keeping you out of trouble doesn’t allow me much time for the wasting, does it?”

“And what about Maid Dolly in Glasgow?”

“By now she probably thinks I died saving dusty old Jerusalem. Hope they gave me a proper eulogy.”

“Would you like to find out?”

“Hmph. And how would that be?”

Annan swiveled to look him in the eye. “Ask her for yourself.”

Marek raised an eyebrow, then suddenly his mouth dropped. “You mean I’m—you’re letting me—?”

“When we get back to Scotland, you go find this Dolly of yours and tell her you earned an honorable freedom.”

“I—” Marek stared. Then he dropped his reins onto his mount’s neck, cupped both hands round his mouth, and yelled like he thought he had won the war single-handedly. Still yelling, he laid his heels into his mare’s ribs and tore down the beach.

Mairead laughed. “He’ll be in Constantinople ere midnight if he keeps up like that.” Her hand rested on Annan’s side. “Why did you do it?”

“He deserves it.” He smiled at the sand spraying in all directions from beneath the black mare’s pounding hooves. He was going to miss Master Peregrine Marek more than he wanted to admit. He chuckled, the sound so soft it was barely audible.

Mairead’s fingers tightened in his jerkin. “I’ve never heard you laugh.”

“I will laugh again,” he said. “When we see the Cheviot Hills, I will laugh. When we make our home in their shadow, I will laugh. And when our children are born to us, I will laugh.”

“What?” The word was breathless.

He reined Airn to a stop and turned to look at her despite the ache of his hips. Her teeth caught her lip. Another gust of wind flattened the loose strand of her hair against her face, and he lifted it from her cheek and feathered it against his forefinger.

“We’re not going to Orleans.” He dropped the hair and cradled her jaw. “Lord William wanted me to give you the name of Matthias. That was the name he thought would best protect you. And it is time I did that.”

He kissed her, once on the lips, once on the forehead, then leaned away. His back was beginning to cramp, but before he turned around, he would say everything that needed to be said.

“I was afraid. Afraid to forgive myself, and even more afraid to ask Heaven to forgive me.”

“But no longer?” Her eyes shone. He remembered that night in Brother Werinbert’s earthen chapel, when she had knelt in the dirt and prayed for him. Those prayers had gone farther than she knew.

He nodded. “You were right. You learned from your suffering what I would not allow mine to teach me. Every dawn is a new beginning.”

Two little tears glistened against the glow of her face. “Aye.” She smiled and became radiant.

“Yaaaaaiiih!”

Annan turned to see Marek beginning his return trip down the beach, the sand flying just as furiously as on his departure. “Take hold.” He laid his free hand over Mairead’s where it crossed his ribs and closed his legs around the courser’s girth. The horse jumped forward into a few trotting steps, then flattened its body, ears against its head and ran to meet Marek.

They passed him and kept on going. From the corner of his vision, Annan could see on the faraway eastern horizon, where the bone white of the sky met the pewter glass of the sea, a rim of sunlight, like the crease of an eye just waking from sleep. For sixteen years his world had slept.

But no more.

Afterword

I FIND MYSELF at the close of a story that has borne the brunt of some huge personal growing pains. Ironically, the theme of Marcus Annan’s story—that each new day holds the opportunity to redeem yesterday’s mistakes and begin afresh—was a lesson I faced on an almost hourly basis during the writing of this book. Although my representation of such an immense topic as redemption and grace must necessarily be flawed, I hope you will be able to see past the dross and take away a few flakes of the gold at the story’s heart. And perhaps Marcus Annan and company will leave their impact on your life, as they most definitely have on mine.

Although I have tried to remain as true to the historical setting as possible, I have taken a few liberties I would like to point out.

No record exists of Saladin executing mass numbers of prisoners in retaliation for King Richard I’s breach of promise, in which Richard ordered the deaths of some 2,700 prisoners from the garrison of Acre. After this incident, however, Saladin did adopt a strict take-no-prisoners policy, in which all surrendered Christian troops were summarily beheaded.

The timeline of the Crusade has been shortened to accommodate the necessities of Annan’s story. In fact, the time that passed from King Richard’s arrival in Acre on June 7, 1191, to his departure from the Holy Land on October 9, 1192, encompassed almost a year and a half.

Finally, the languages found throughout the story are not representative of those spoken during the Middle Ages. English, French, and Italian did not exist as we now know them, and even in the forms in which they were found, they were largely fragmented into hundreds of local dialects. For obvious reasons of clarity, I have chosen to use primarily modern English.

The Crusades—especially the Crusade of Kings—are perhaps the most familiar symbols of the Middle Ages known to us in the 21st century. Gritty, gory, and often brutal though they may have been, their sense of the shortness of life and the realness of living is arguably unmatched. In lives so fleeting (Psalm 90:12), how can we afford to let even one dawn slip away without taking hold of the redemption found only through the blood and mercy of Christ?

K.M. Weiland

September 1, 2009

Glossary

Absolution
: Forgiveness for sins, given formally by the Church.

Anathema
: Curse from a religious authority that denounces or excommunicates.

Baldric
: Sash or belt worn from one shoulder to the opposite hip, used to support a sword.

Beatified
: Statement by the Church, after someone’s death, that he lived a holy life; first step toward sainthood.

Bellwether
: Sheep that leads the rest of the flock; usually wears a bell around its neck.