Crusade (10 page)

Will caught sight of the silvery hair and rangy form of Theobald Gaudin in the group outside the officials’ building and headed over. Having returned to the dockside to collect his sword, he had found that the marshal and the grand commander had gone, and he’d been unable to inform anyone about the boy. Before he could reach Theobald, however, he saw the squat, barrel-chested form of Simon Tanner jogging over.

Simon’s broad, square face, with its slightly bulbous nose and ruddy cheeks, was tense with concern. “Will?” he puffed. “Are you all right? What happened?”

“I’m fine.” Will looked over at the grand commander, who was heading into the officials’ building. “Simon, I’ve got to—”

“Everyone’s talking about you,” Simon cut across him.

“They are?” said Will, surprised.

Simon stuck a hand through his thatch of brown hair. A few twigs of hay were dislodged by the movement. “I thought you’d been hurt trying to protect the grand master. The reports were confused.”

“You should know not to listen to stable gossip.”

“I couldn’t help it. I was worried.”

“There was no need to be,” said Will a little abruptly. Simon had been one of his closest friends since they were boys in the London preceptory, but even after eighteen years the groom’s almost motherly concern for him still made him uncomfortable. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe because it reminded him of the way Elwen sometimes worried over him—and thus seemed more befitting a woman’s nature than that of a brawny thirty-year-old man. But then Simon was a groom, not a warrior. He hadn’t been toughened by training or taught to hold his emotions in check for the brutal reality of battle.

“Well, you know I’m as daft as a brush.” Simon shrugged, then smiled and immediately looked like his normal, easygoing self.

“Dafter,” said Will, returning the smile.

“Brother Campbell,” came a stern voice behind them. It was Peter de Severy.

“Sir Marshal,” said Will in greeting, inclining his head. Simon also bowed.

“Have you just returned, Campbell?”

“Yes, sir. I was on my way to speak with Grand Commander Gaudin to report what I saw at the harbor.”

“You can report it to the grand master,” replied the marshal. “He wants to see you in his quarters.”

“Now, sir?”

De Sevrey, a tight-lipped man with a long, waxy face that remained pale even through the torrid summer months, gave a thin, rare smile. “You saved his life, Brother. I expect he wants to show his gratitude.”

Moving off with the marshal, Will gave Simon a brief nod.

Simon understood and headed for the stables, knowing they would finish the conversation later.

The grand master’s palace was the tallest building in the preceptory, its towers competing with the chapel’s elegant spire and winning by a few meters. Will had never been inside, although he passed the entrance every day on his way from the knights’ quarters to the great hall.

The porch led through doors reinforced with iron rivets into a chilly stone corridor. There were no windows, and even in daylight it would be dark if not for the torches set at intervals along the passage wall, the flames throwing a warm glow across the stones. The marshal approached some narrow steps winding up. Will climbed them behind him, and they came out in a busy area, where Templar officials were working, some talking quietly with fellows, others moving with purpose in or out of the doors that lined the passage. One set of doors at the end was larger than the others. They were open, and as he followed the marshal toward them, Will could hear a man’s voice issuing from within. It was a deep, resonant voice, all confidence and strength.

“I thank you for your concern, but I assure you my person is perfectly sound. I need neither your pills nor your prodding.”

“But, my lord,” came a clipped, quieter voice, “you have had a shock. At least let me have a servant bring you a cup of wine. A good red will serve to bring the color to your cheeks.”

“I have been in more battles than I have seen summers, have been captured and imprisoned by the Saracens, survived torture and disease. If my attacker’s blade had pierced my flesh, then I may have had need of your services, but it will take more than the sight of a kitchen knife in the hand of an angry young man to put me out of humor, Master Infirmarer.”

Will reached the doors with the marshal and saw Guillaume de Beaujeu standing in the center of a spacious, well-appointed solar. There was a desk and a cushioned chair beneath a narrow, pointed window that looked out over the darkening courtyard. A silk rug was laid in front of a massive hearth where a merry fire was leaping high into the soot-blackened chimney, roaring now and then in the gusts of wind that echoed down. To either side of the hearth were two couches, draped with embroidered throws, and the walls were strung with tapestries which portrayed Christ’s journey from the hall of judgment to Calvary. Standing in front of the grand master was a short man with a shock of white hair, the Temple’s chief physician.

Guillaume de Beaujeu looked around as the marshal rapped on the opened door. “Ah, Marshal de Sevrey,” he greeted. “Come in. And this, I take it, is the man I am to thank for my continued existence?”

As Will bowed and came forward, Guillaume extended a hand. When Will offered his own, the grand master took it in the warriors’ grip: a firm grasp of the wrist that Will had always found strangely more intimate than a shake of the hand. Up close, he saw that the grand master looked younger than he had first thought, early or mid-thirties perhaps, although he had heard one knight say that he was at least forty. Despite the infirmarer’s insistence, there seemed to be no lack of color in his cheeks. Indeed, he looked the peak of health. Tanned and hale, he had a strong, angular face, the hardness of which was softened by an easy smile. Will was immediately aware that they looked alike, a realization that struck the master at the same time.

“We could be brothers, could we not?” said Guillaume with a short laugh, stepping back. “And I am told we also share the same name.” He nodded to the marshal. “You may leave us.” As the marshal bowed, the grand master turned to the infirmarer. “I will drink wine with my supper if it will put you at ease.”

The infirmarer heard the dismissal in the grand master’s tone. “As you wish, my lord,” he conceded, following the marshal out of the room.

“You would think they would be thankful I had survived the attack,” Guillaume said to Will. “But I have never seen such solemn faces.”

“They are just worried, my lord,” said Will, not sure what else to say. The grand master had an energy about him that unnerved him, a crackling intensity that fizzled beneath that unruffled exterior.

“Well, I myself am deeply grateful for what you did. I am in your debt, William Campbell.”

“It was nothing, my lord.”

“Nonsense. If not for you, I would have most likely died today.” Guillaume studied Will. “But I wonder,” he continued, moving over to the table, which he leaned against, folding his arms across his chest. “How, out of one hundred and twenty knights, were you the only one to see the danger?”

Will averted his eyes. In all the excitement, he had forgotten that he had deserted the ranks without permission and the reason for it. He searched for an answer, but only Catarina’s face came into his mind. He decided something near the truth was better than an outright lie. “I was helping a young girl, my lord. She had lost her parents in the crowd and was upset. I found them for her and was heading back when I saw the man who attacked you.” He paused. “I’m sorry I broke rank.”

“I see,” said the grand master. His face was unreadable. “And what alerted you to this man? What was he doing that caught your attention?”

“At first, nothing. It was a boy who signaled me to the danger.”

“How so?”

Will explained what he had seen and how he had pursued and lost the boy.

The grand master looked thoughtful. “What would be your assessment of this? Who do you believe this child was?”

“Family perhaps? Their ages were too different for them to be likely comrades. He almost certainly knew the attacker and seemed, I would say, to know what was about to happen. As I said, he was terrified.”

“Would you recognize him if you saw him again?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” said Guillaume. He breathed in deeply through his nostrils, unfolded his arms and perched on the edge of the table, his mantle settling around him. “Tell me about the mood here, William.”

Will was disconcerted by the shift in conversation. “My lord?”

“I need to better understand this place if I am to command it. I spent half my life in this preceptory, but the view from this position is somewhat different to that which I am used to and I have been away from the Holy Land for some time. Grand Commander Gaudin and Marshal de Sevrey sent reports to me in France and Sicily during my absence, but they too see things from an elevated place. For a more general picture I need to speak with the men of the barracks, the soldiers of the front lines. I want to know how they feel.” Guillaume cocked his head. “How you feel, William.”

Will was silent, uncertain how best to respond. He knew the answer, but wasn’t sure he wanted to give it. “Obviously,” he began slowly, “we are pleased to have you here. We have been subdued by your absence. But the mood is mostly good. The peace is holding strong.”

“Ah, yes,” said Guillaume, “the peace.” He fixed Will with a shrewd stare. “Interestingly, yours is somewhat sunnier than earlier reports I received.” He gave a slight smile. “You need not worry about telling the truth to me. I am aware of how despondent the men have been. I only needed to look into their eyes as I entered this place to see that. It is
because
of the peace that they are dispirited.” Will went to speak, but the grand master continued over him.

“How many holdings have we lost to the Saracens these past decades? Almost thirty. How many men? Well,” he finished quietly, “they are countless.”

“It is true,” agreed Will, “we have all suffered hardships during the wars, but—”

“And you, William? Have you lost anyone dear to you? Comrades? Masters?”

Will faltered. But the grand master was looking at him intently. “I lost my father.”

“How?”

“At Safed.”

The grand master’s hard face thawed in sympathy. “I was in Acre when the massacre happened. I was deeply affected by the courage our men showed, choosing death over conversion to the Saracens’ faith. I heard too of Baybars’s brutality and his defilement of their bodies. It sickened me to the core. You, however, must live with that hurt even now. How you must despise his killers.”

Will felt a pain and realized he had clenched his fists so tightly, the nails had bitten his skin. “I did once,” he said, struggling to keep his voice measured. “But not anymore. I forgave the sultan when he allowed me to bury my father.” The words were flame to a wick, and as Will spoke them, memory flared.

After handing Prince Edward’s peace treaty to Baybars at Caesarea, Will had journeyed to Safed with two Bahri warriors the sultan had ordered to escort him. The huge fortress that dominated the Galilee, standing sentry over the River Jordan, was broken and scarred, its sides pitted with the marks of boulders hurled against the walls from siege engines, blackened by Greek fire and stained with oil. A squadron of Baybars’s Mamluks garrisoned the stronghold, and goats and chickens were scattered about the outer enceinte, where children, sons and daughters of the soldiers and their wives, played in the dust. Despite the inhabitation, it was a desolate place. Too big to be filled by a mere hundred or so men, its halls and passageways were echoing, empty. Will felt the sadness that lingered there, seeped like water that leaves behind a stain, in the deserted court-yards and the gutted interior of the chapel, where a statue of St. George, the Temple’s patron saint, had been pulled from its plinth and shattered with some blunt weapon. On one wall near the barbican, he found several Latin words scrawled in a dark substance that looked like pitch.

Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam.
Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name the glory.

It was the psalm the knights said before they went into battle. Will had passed his fingers across the black letters, wondering who had written them.

Had it been before the men had left the fortress under Baybars’s promise of amnesty, just before they were led unaware to their executioners? Or was it older? Had they seen it as they had passed out of the gate and been comforted by the familiar markings?

When Will stumbled over the rocky, scrubby ground at the base of Safed’s hill, the sight of the eighty or so heads stuck on pikes shocked him more than he had been able to prepare for. He had sunk to his knees and stayed there, staring at them for some time, before he was able to rise and do what needed to be done. After six years exposed to the elements, they were mostly skulls, with very little flesh or indication of who they had been or what they had looked like in life. A few had fallen off their pikes or slipped down, the iron tips protruding from repulsively huge eye-sockets. Two were missing. Will had been mortified to learn that the bodies of the knights had been burned after the executions; that only their heads remained in this world. But he still felt that if he could lay a part of the form that had once been his father beneath the ground, then both of them could rest.

The identity of his father’s head, however, had not yielded to his inspection, and by the time he had gone down the whole line twice, he had given up. In the end, the Bahri warriors watching on in silence, he returned to the fortress and took a shovel from one of the animal pens. Unhindered by anyone, having, after all, the sultan’s permission to be there, he worked his way through the scorching afternoon digging a grave for all of the skulls, until the sweat and the thirst and the pain in his arms left him delirious. Finally, as the sun had gone down behind the distant pink mountains, throwing the wide plain and the river into hazy shadows, redolent with the scent of the warm grass that hummed with mosquitoes, he turned the last of the earth over the grave. Then he had sat heavily on the ground beside it, too exhausted to think of any prayer to say.