Crusade (34 page)

Elwen took the pouch and waited until the people beside her had shuffled out of their places before making her way down the crowded aisle to where the priest was talking with several members of the congregation. One of his acolytes held a wooden box with a hole cut into the top. He nodded quiet thanks to those who paused to place a few pennies inside, charitable donations for the poor. Elwen shook three gold coins into her hand, noting Andreas’s generosity.

The acolyte’s eyes widened a little when she dropped them in. “Thank you,” he said earnestly.

“They’re from my master, Andreas di Paolo.”

“He will be remembered in our prayers.”

Elwen crossed to one of the side aisles where the crowds were thinner. She had to pause behind a group of people as the last of the congregation trickled out into the amber evening. Someone grabbed her arm. Turning, startled, she found herself staring at Will. He wore the cowl of his black cloak pulled over his head and his face was shadowed. “What are you doing here?” she whispered.

“I had to see you.” His expression was tense.

“What is it? What has happened? Is it Everard?”

Will realized that the last Elwen knew was that the priest was dying. He hadn’t seen her since that day in the market, almost two weeks ago. “Everard’s fine. He lied about being ill.” He shook his head impatiently as she frowned questioningly. “I’ll explain another time. It isn’t important now. Listen, Elwen, I have to leave Acre for a while.”

“Where are you going?”

“That doesn’t matter. I just needed you to know.”

Elwen stared at him for a long moment, then removed her arm from his grip. “No, Will, that isn’t good enough. You cannot come in here like this, tell me you’re leaving and expect me just to nod and smile and bid you good-bye without being told anything of where you’re going or why, or for how long.”

“I don’t know that.”

“You don’t know where you’re going?” she said bitingly.

“For how long. I don’t know for how long. Maybe a few weeks, maybe longer.”

“No,” she repeated, louder now. An acolyte looked reprovingly over at her and began to head in their direction. “You’re not going to keep doing this!”

“Elwen,” Will hissed as she pulled away and headed for the doors. He tried to grab her, but she had gone. Pushing his way through the last few stragglers, Will followed her out into the balmy air, down the steps into the street. “Elwen!”

She turned on him, stopping him in his tracks with the anger in her green eyes. “I cannot do this anymore, Will. I
cannot
.”

People were glancing curiously at them.

“Elwen.”

They both turned at the voice to see Andreas standing there with his family. Catarina waved at Will, who avoided the Venetian mercer’s stern gaze.

“Andreas,” said Elwen, falteringly.

“We’ll meet you back at the house,” Andreas told her, taking his wife’s arm.

Besina, who had been frowning at Elwen, looked inquiringly at her husband, but let herself be led off.

Elwen watched them go, her cheeks flushed. Her anger seemed to drain from her, her shoulders slumping. “Why are you doing this to me?” she said tiredly, looking back at Will.

As he saw the hurt in her face, Will wanted nothing more than to sweep her into his arms and hold her there until that pain was driven out. But he refused to allow himself to give in to that. He had to be stone and steel. He had pledged himself to the Anima Templi, to the work his father had begun. He couldn’t turn his back on that, not when he knew what was at stake. He was the one who had discovered the truth about the Stone. He was the one who would stop the theft from happening. “I didn’t want to leave without telling you. I didn’t want you to wonder where I was. But also I need you to know that I cannot tell you more than that.”

“And I need you to know that I do not accept that.” Elwen drew in a rapid breath, then let it out slowly. “I’m leaving you, Will.”

Will stood there, stunned, and watched her walk away.

Then, his feet were taking him forward and he was racing toward her, not caring that his cloak had come open and the white of his surcoat was revealed beneath. “I’m doing this for you!” She kept on walking, but he grasped her and turned her forcibly to face him. “I’m doing this so that we
have
a future. If I don’t ...” He lowered his voice. “If I don’t, then none of us will. Acre is in danger, Elwen, great danger. I have to go for all our sakes.”

Elwen searched his eyes for a lie, but found only the intensity of truth. “What danger? And why you?” she demanded. “Why not someone else? I need a reason to stay, Will. So far all you’ve done is scare me.” Her brow was furrowed. “
Tell
me.”

Will looked at her desperately, then his jaw tightened and he led her into an alleyway close by. “You cannot speak of this to anyone else. I mean it. If you do, you could jeopardize everything.”

“I give you my word.”

Elwen remained silent as Will told her that men, the grand master possibly among them, were planning to steal the Black Stone of the Ka‘ba, a plan which, if accomplished, would plunge them all into the bloodiest war they had ever known. He told her how he had discovered this plan, aided by Everard and, without mentioning anything of the Anima Templi or Kalawun, explained how he had formed a relationship with a Mamluk high up in the Egyptian Army, whom he needed to warn.

When he had finished, Elwen’s face was grave with concern. “You’re going to Cairo?” she murmured. “Alone?”

“I leave tonight. These people need to be stopped. They cannot be allowed to do this. It will be the end of everything if they do.”

Elwen was shocked to feel a sudden hope for this. If the Mamluks came for Acre, the Christians wouldn’t stand a chance. They would all be forced to return to the West and then the knights,
Will
, would have nothing left to fight for. It would be over. All of it. But she pushed the foolish hope aside, knowing that it wouldn’t be like that. The Christians wouldn’t just give Acre up; they would fight tooth and nail to the death for it. They would die by the thousands. “I don’t want you to go,” she whispered.

Will drew her into his arms. She tensed for a second, resisting, then softened in his embrace. Raising her head, her lips found his and they kissed, lightly at first, then more ardently. As she opened her mouth over his, their tongues moving together, Elwen pushed back his cowl with her hands until she reached the nape of his neck, where his black hair was curled and damp from the heat. When she grabbed at him, her nails scraping skin, she heard a strained, almost animal noise come from deep within his throat. Lifting her up, Will pushed her against the alley wall. His black cloak fell from his shoulders to pool like a puddle around his feet as she wrapped her legs about his waist, her skirts slipping up. She held on tight.

“Do you love me?” she whispered fiercely.

He dragged off her coif to release her hair. “Yes.”

As the bells of San Marco began to toll the hour, they made desperate love in the alleyway, where rats scurried in the rubbish heaps and shadows closed around them like a veil.

THE CITADEL, CAIRO, 26 MAY A.D. 1276

“Where is she?
Where?
”

Kalawun pushed past the guards who had escorted him into the harem palace and sprinted down the passage, sending servants scuttling out of his way. Seeing a knot of people clustered outside a chamber, the door of which was open, he barged through. Baybars’s wives, Nizam and Fatima, were by a bed with one of the palace physicians. Nizam turned as he came forward. Her expression was as hard as ever. “Amir,” she began.

Kalawun took no notice, but rushed to the bed, where a body was lying. He looked down upon his daughter’s face and shock twisted freezing hands around his heart. Aisha’s brown eyes were wide and staring. Her skin was waxy in the light of the oil lanterns, cast with a bluish tinge. His gaze traveled the length of her, taking in the stiffness in her limbs, the hands locked in clawed fists. Then he returned to her contorted face, her open mouth, the tongue protruding, purple and swollen. His first thought, which followed the initial shock with an odd detachment, was that she had been strangled. But there were no marks on her neck. He reached for her, then drew back with a jolt as his fingertips brushed her skin. She was cold.

“Did you say the Shahada?” he whispered, not looking round.

“We only found her a short while ago,” replied Nizam.

The physician took a step forward. “I would estimate, Amir Kalawun, that she has been dead for some time, perhaps as long as four hours. I’m afraid it would appear that your daughter choked on her food.”

Kalawun paid him no heed, but leaned forward and breathed words into his daughter’s ear.
“Ashadu an la ilaha illa-llah. Wa ashhadu anna Muhammadan rasul-Ullah.”

“Where is my son?” Nizam demanded of someone behind him. “Have the servants not found him yet? Baraka should be here.”

Beyond the voices of Nizam and the other women, Kalawun could hear shrieking, but his mind was now collapsing in on itself, folding down in anguish, and he neither knew nor cared where it was coming from as he gathered his daughter’s lifeless body into his arms. His cries felt as though they were being wrenched from him, each one containing the rawest grief and the purest loss, painful in the extreme as they were torn from his throat. Tears blinded him as he rocked with her. The shrieking continued. Dimly, he heard Nizam’s sharp voice.

“Remove it!” she was shouting. “Get that thing out of here!”

Through his streaming eyes, Kalawun saw a tiny brown shape hunched on the chamber’s window ledge. The monkey’s whole body was quivering, its amber eyes wide and terror-stricken. It was screaming. A eunuch approached and tried to reach up, but the monkey leapt backward and jumped onto the window grille, where it clung wretchedly. As Kalawun’s gaze moved away, he caught sight of a platter of food and a goblet on a tray near the head of the bed. It looked like it had been pushed hastily aside, the goblet lying on a half-eaten pile of dry, yellow rice. The eunuch was still trying to capture the monkey. Something brushed through Kalawun’s mind, a pale ghost of a thought. It formed into a specter, rising dark before him. Abruptly, he let Aisha down on the bed and stood. “Who brought her the food?” His voice was weak and at first didn’t carry above the monkey’s cries and Nizam’s harsh orders. “Who?” he demanded when no one answered. He turned to them as they fell silent. “Who brought her this?”

“One of the palace servants,” replied Nizam, “before salat. She had asked to be left alone. One of the girls came in to clear the tray and found her on the floor.”

“She retired early to her bed,” added Fatima, unable to meet Kalawun’s intense gaze, “saying that she wasn’t feeling well.”

“Before she ate the food or after?”

Nizam frowned. “I do not understand what you—”

“Tell me!” raged Kalawun, making her start and step back a pace. “Did she say she was unwell before or after she had eaten?”

“Before,” said Fatima.

Kalawun faltered, but he shook his head. “Find me the eunuch who brought her the food. I want to question him.” He turned to the physician. “You will check it for poison.”

“Poison?” began the physician.

“It cannot be,” said Nizam firmly, recovering her poise. “When I came in, I found that vermin eating the food.” She gestured at the monkey, which the eunuch had given up attempting to grab. “It would be dead by now if the food was poisoned.”

“What about the drink?” Kalawun stooped and snatched up the empty goblet, he sniffed inside, then passed it to the physician. “I want this checked. Now!”

“Amir, with all due respect, without the presence of any liquid, no tests can be accurately performed.”

But Kalawun was already pushing his way out of the room. The nervous women thronging the doorway fell fearfully back. His face was murderous as he made his way out of the harem and across the courtyard into the main palace buildings. His suspicion had become certainty, and his grief now towered like a vast wall of water behind a dam of rage. He walked swiftly, running when he reached the stairs, heading down into the lower levels. Kalawun found Khadir curled on a filthy blanket in his den, snoring. He woke the soothsayer with a kick. “Get up!”

Khadir leapt to his feet. He hissed, then yelled as Kalawun slammed him against the wall.

“What did you do to her?
Tell me!
”

Khadir screeched, his white eyes huge with fear, thin arms flailing, struggling vainly to push against Kalawun’s muscular form. Outside in the passage, a servant, hearing the commotion, looked inside the storeroom. Seeing Kalawun attacking the soothsayer, he rushed off. Kalawun’s eyes alighted on the timber shelf, lined with strange objects and jars of colored powders. Pushing Khadir roughly to the floor, he dropped down and began grabbing at jars, pulling off their cloth coverings. Khadir wailed in protest as Kalawun held each to his nose, before throwing them aside, sending golden and rust-colored dust across the floor and blankets. Glass shattered as, one by one, he discarded cinnamon, clove, cardamom, ginger. He then swiped at the other objects lining the shelves, sweeping them all off, the fragile skulls breaking, glass beads cascading. As Khadir fell on him, Kalawun threw him off and pinned him down on the blankets, his hands wrapping around the old man’s scrawny neck.

Kalawun didn’t hear the shouts in the passage outside, or the running footsteps; he only heard Khadir’s choking, rasping noises as he tried futilely to breathe. Hands gripped his arms. He felt himself being hauled backward. “No!” he shouted, his hands still squeezing Khadir’s neck. The soothsayer’s face was purple and his eyes were bulging. Kalawun felt a muscular arm lock around his own neck, tightening his airway, stopping up breath. Instinctively, he let go of Khadir, who flopped back on the blankets, gasping desperately. Grabbing at the arm around his neck, Kalawun just managed to turn his head enough to see that it was Baybars who had hold of him.

“Enough, Kalawun,” said the sultan.

“He killed her,” panted Kalawun, his eyes alight. “My daughter’s dead and he killed her!”