The Iron Lance (23 page)

So there should be no confusion over his intentions, Alexius continued, adding, “We would have each nobleman here bear witness to our gratitude in accepting the return of this city to the empire. So that you may speedily continue on your way, we will reassume its administration and relieve you of its protection.”

He then granted the sultana and her servants and children safe conduct to Constantinople until word could be taken to Qilij Arslan, asking the sultan where he wished his wife to join him, The western lords were aghast at this extraordinary charity to an enemy. Lest the pilgrims harbor hard feelings over this settlement, Alexius promptly gave orders for the sultan's treasury to be opened and the entire contents shared out in equal measure among the crusade leaders; and further, that all the grain and produce of the markets to be distributed to the troops. The emperor took nothing for himself, save Nicaea.

While the emperor concerned himself with restoring the much valued city, the crusaders resumed their journey to the Holy Land in good spirits. Following the council in Raymond's tent, they departed Nicaea the next morning with highest hopes for a swift completion of the crusade—despite repeated warnings from Taticius and his guides that they had not seen the last of Sultan Arslan.

In the days to follow, they passed through deserted villages and abandoned towns—places that had once been flourishing market towns and important centers of local trade. The empty hills were strewn with ruined farms, and all along the road the
habitations had been burned to their foundations. Wells and vineyards, fields and forests, had all been destroyed; bridges had been broken, and cisterns and dams smashed, left to bleed out their life-giving contents to the desert-parched land. The few stream beds they encountered were dust-dry, rock-filled ditches. The further they journeyed inland, the more arid the ground became.

After only five days the water supply began to dwindle, and it was decided that the army must be split into two divisions in order to lessen the burden on the foraging parties which were having to range ever greater distances to find fodder and water. One division—consisting of the combined troops of Godfrey and Baldwin, Hugh, and all the Franks, under the leadership of Count Raymond—would range north of the road; the other—comprised of the armies of Robert of Flanders, and Robert of Normandy, Tancred and Stephen, along with the rest of the Normans and English, under the leadership of Prince Bohemond—would assume a parallel course seven miles to the south of the road.

This they did, and advanced through the low Bythinian mountains, encountering nothing more fierce than a few Seljuq raiding parties, which they promptly chased away without incident. Once through the mountains, Prince Bohemond's division found itself on a broad upland plain of low, rolling hills in sight of the Thymbres River, and a short distance from the ancient and now-ruined city of Dorylaeum.

Almost delirious with thirst, the parched pilgrims flocked in droves to the riverside. They threw themselves headlong down the banks and stumbled into the water, sinking to their knees in the cool mud. They jostled one another to put their faces into the water, the last climbing over the first, and all of them sucking down the life-giving liquid. The horses, getting the scent in
their nostrils, plunged chest-deep into the river where they stood with their noses sunk in the water.

When every last pilgrim had drunk as much as he could hold, they all turned their attention to replenishing every cask and butt and skin with fresh water. Then the children were joined by their elders as they bathed and frolicked in the shallows, splashing cool water over their blistered, sun-burnt bodies, making the nearby ruins echo with glad shouts and the sound of laughter.

As the meadow was full and green—the first good pasturage they had seen since leaving Constantinople—Prince Bohemond gave the order to halt and make camp. They grazed the animals on the wide rivermead and enjoyed a comfortable night. The next morning, after another swim and soak in the river, the crusaders moved on reluctantly.

They had only just reformed the line and begun the day's march when Sultan Arslan and the massed Seljuq warhost attacked and cut the crusader army to small, bloody pieces.

January 16, 1899: Edinburgh, Scotland

Caitlin and I were married in the spring of 1871. A few weeks after Angus and Libby were wed, my lovely Cait and I tied the knot and began a long and mostly sunny life together. I still saw Angus at the office, of course, and we still went to the club on the rare occasion, but we were both soon too preoccupied with the demands—financial and otherwise—of our burgeoning families to resume our old bachelor ways.

Our second wedding anniversaries saw two couples very much in love, and looking hopefully towards a prosperous and happy future. Then, only three short months later, Angus was dead.

Like so many others, he succumbed to the influenza epidemic which swept all of Europe that year. I knew nothing about his illness. I vaguely recall that he did not appear at work on Friday, and I did not see him over the week's end. By Monday morning, he was gone, having passed in the early hours of the night.

I was devastated. My best friend, gone for ever, and I never had the chance to say good-bye, to tell him how much his friendship meant to me. After the funeral, Libby and the child—they had a little girl less than a year old—moved back to Perth,
where her mother and father lived; and though she and Caitlin kept up a regular correspondence, it was never to be the same.

I bring all this up now, because, as I think on it, Angus' funeral was the turning point. I took part in the service, naturally, and as I read out the eulogy, I happened to look up from my reading to see someone standing alone at the back of the chapel. It was Pemberton. Grim and tall in a black suit, his coat over his shoulders like a cape, he was standing with his hands folded before him, his eyes downcast.

But just as I noticed him, he raised his head slowly and looked at me. Not, I mean, as one does when being addressed from a pulpit—I was delivering the eulogy, after all—but…and how can I describe this? He raised his eyes and fixed me with a most extraordinary stare. Although he was at the back of the chapel and I at the front, his gaze penetrated straight to my very soul and filled me with such sadness that I was instantly overcome and was forced to break off my prepared speech. I fear I muttered something incomprehensible in conclusion and sat down as a great crushing wave of grief washed over me.

Afterwards, when I had collected myself somewhat, I looked for Pemberton at the reception, but he failed to appear. Six months later we met again. Caitlin had taken the sprog—we now had a delightful little cherub named Annie to amuse and amaze us—to her aunt's house for a summer visit. I could not get away from the office to go with them, so stayed home, fending for myself. I was sitting in the smoking room at the club, reading the paper, and waiting for the dinner gong, when I became aware that someone was watching me. Glancing up, I saw Pemberton sitting across from me, and looking very much the way he had looked the day I'd seen him at the funeral.

“Are you alone this evening?” he asked, politely, but without preamble.

“Mr. Pemberton,” I said, “what a pleasant surprise. I did not hear you sit down. Yes, I am dining alone this evening—wife off to the country for a fortnight. I'm sick of my own cooking, so thought I might pop round to see if the Old Stag still provides a decent haunch of an evening.”

“Oh, excellent as ever, I assure you,” he replied. “In fact, I would be most gratified if you would join me for dinner. I have been wanting to talk to you for some time.”

“How very kind of you. I would be delighted, sir.”

The gong sounded at that moment, and the tall gentleman stood. “I have a table waiting. I hope you don't mind if we go right in. We have much to talk about, I think.”

Talk we did, to be sure. We spoke briefly of poor Angus' untimely death, as I expected we would, and he said, “I was very touched by your tribute to Alisdair at his funeral. I know his parents were very grateful for your friendship with him,” he paused, and added, “as was I.”

Conversation then passed to other things. Our discussion ranged the length and breadth of the British Empire, I think: Egypt, the Sudan, India, Hong Kong, and a few dozen other countries I can't remember. He seemed to know about, or have interests in, all these places, and spoke not as a causal observer, but as one with an intimate familiarity.

Much of what he said that night I found incredible. Indeed, I went home thinking I had passed the evening with a madman. Harmless, perhaps, but mad as a hatter. Definitely.

In the weeks and months that followed, however, I found myself returning time and again to something he had told me—a peculiar phrase he'd used, or startling observation he'd made—and little by little it began to make sense. Curiosity took hold of me, and I found myself wondering what else he knew.

I determined to see him again. As I did not know any other
way to get in touch with him, I left a note at the Old Stag, thinking that if he came to the club more regularly than I, the porter could give it to him next time he popped in. Sure enough, within a fortnight I received a reply. It came on gold-trimmed, cream-colored stationery, very expensive, and said, simply: “Delighted to see you again. Would dinner on the sixteenth suit? Best regards, Pemberton.”

Taking this to mean that we would meet at the club, I turned up on the night just before eight, and settled into my customary chair. By eight-thirty, I was beginning to think I'd missed the boat, when he came striding in. Looking neither left nor right, he marched to where I was sitting and shook me by the hand, apologized for being late, and pulled me with him into the dining room where, as before, he had a table waiting.

Our talk that night was no less wide-ranging than previously, but this time I listened most intently to all he said, and tried very hard to remember any detail he might mention about himself. At the end of the evening, I had learned very much about maritime exploration in Polynesia, and Renaissance philosophy in France, but almost nothing about my host. As we made our farewells, he took me by the hand and looked straight into my eyes, and said, “I wonder if you would care to make the acquaintance of two of my closest friends.”

This took me off guard, and I must have hesitated, for he said, “I see I've made you uncomfortable. Forgive me. It was only a thought.”

“No, no,” I protested, “I would be honored to meet your friends, Mr Pemberton. Truly, I—”

“Pembers, please. I feel we know each other well enough, don't you, Gordon?”

“Of course,” I agreed; and it seemed he had taken me into his confidence—an intimacy I was certain he did not bestow lightly.

“Splendid,” he said. We arranged a time for our next meeting, and bade one another good evening.

In the cab on the way home that night, I thought about what had taken place over dinner. Nothing of import, certainly. In fact, I felt distinctly let down. I suppose I had been expecting something extraordinary, and had to settle for the merely ordinary instead. Nor did our eventual dinner with his two friends seem remarkable in any way. They were agreeable enough gentlemen: one a short, well-upholstered Welshman named Evans, and the other a slender, gray-haired chap of French extraction by the name of De Cardou. Both were slightly “olde worlde” in a pleasant sort of way, and, like our host, refined and voluble, eager and able to talk about anything and everything, yet never giving away the tiniest detail of their personal lives.

I, on the other hand, despite my best efforts, seemed utterly incapable of holding back anything. The ease with which they pulled out of me the minutia of my existence—from my boyhood days to the workday office routine—was astonishing. The end result was that they learned a very great deal about me, and I almost nothing about any of them. Nevertheless, we seemed to have passed some unseen gate that night, for from then on I was the recipient of Pemberton's cordial attention. That is to say, I found myself increasingly in the orbit of his affairs.

There was, it seemed, no one he did not know, and whose good opinion he had not secured by some kindly act. The net result of this closer acquaintance was that my personal fortunes increased rapidly, if discreetly. Owing to a downturn in the wool trade at the time of my father's passing a few years earlier, I had inherited the unenviable position of satisfying several outstanding bills of credit. While I had been dutifully, if doggedly, paying off the creditors little by little, within a year of that watershed meeting, the previously limited horizons of my position had
expanded dramatically. Promotions and advancements came my way with remarkable rapidity,
and
with commensurate financial reward. Caitlin and I at last began to entertain some hope that we might yet attain to some small standard of luxury in which we might have the leisure to travel.

About this time, too, I began increasingly to have the feeling that I was being watched. Do not take from this that the feeling was disagreeable or malign in any way. Indeed, I hasten to assure you that it was not—much the reverse, in fact. I felt protected, as if unseen angels stood guard around myself, Caitlin and the children, ever ready to aid and defend us.

Nor was I mistaken. But it was not until many years later that I was to learn the fearful cost of this security paid out on my behalf.

In the following months and years, the curious friendship between Pemberton and myself was to develop in unforeseen ways as I gradually discovered him to be the hidden architect of my continued good fortune. At length, and quite by accident, I learned my secret benefactor was a widower long alone in the world. Thenceforth, I seized every opportunity to repay his philanthropy by including him in the small celebrations of our family life.

In short, Pemberton became an unseen presence in our household. Upon the birth of our second child, Alexander, I asked him to stand as godparent. He accepted with great enthusiasm, and turned up at the christening with a case of port for the lad's coming of age, and a silver spoon engraved with his name and a family crest. “It is the Murray crest,” he pointed out when Caitlin asked.

“Murray crest? You didn't tell me you were aristocratic, darling,” she replied light-heartedly.

“Believe me, I had no idea,” I answered.

Whereupon Pemberton became very serious. “Obscure it may be,” he said. “Yet, the Murray is one of the most ancient and honorable clans in the bloody history of our contentious race.” To the infant Alexander, nestled in Caitlin's arms, he said, “You can be proud of your heritage, lad.” Then, as if searching back through the mists of time, he placed his hand on the babe's forehead, and said, “May the holy light illumine your journey, and may your feet never stray from the true path.”

A curious benediction, you may think, but no more so than many of the things people are apt to say on such occasions, and offered with such sincerity that we did not remark on it at the time. As I came to know him better, and spent more time in his company, I found that he was often given to spouting strange little prophecies.

It would happen like this: a comment in passing, or an item in the evening newspaper, would catch his attention and he would offer a pithy forecast of the outcome—if it was in doubt—or the likely result of certain actions being carried forward into the future. In time, I came to heed his predictions and warnings for the simple reason that they most often came to pass exactly as he said they would. I do not mean to make him sound like a carnival fortune-teller reading the future; it was nothing so crude as that. In fact, prophecy is my word; he merely called them “projections,” meaning that he guessed.

Yet, his guesses, if not inspired, were at least the product of an exhaustive knowledge and a wide-ranging, not to say boundless, intelligence. Concealed behind his proper, elegant, but self-effacing demeanor was an intellect of considerable acumen and power. The more I came to know him, the more I respected and trusted him. Although the details of his past life and even his day-to-day existence were shadowy at best—I never learned where he grew up, for example, where he went to school, or how he had
come by the considerable wealth he apparently possessed—the sterling quality of his character was abundantly clear.

In all his dealings, I never found him less than kind and considerate. He was not only unfailingly honest, but deferential, patient, generous, and fair. If he showed himself a shrewd and ruthless judge of worldly events and the failings of men, yet never a cruel or derisive word passed his lips. His capacity for understanding and forgiving his fellow creatures was, I truly believe, well nigh infinite.

Do not imagine this mildness concealed cowardice; it did not. There was nothing of the craven's wish to avoid unpleasantness or conflict, much less fear, in his conduct. His convictions were often at odds with the prevailing attitude of the day, yet he held to them without vacillation. If this put him in contention with the mass of society, so be it. I never saw him waver. Pemberton, as I came to know and trust him, was that rarest of human beings: a good man.

That is why, on the evening when he asked me to join the Brothers of the Temple, I agreed without hesitation.

This singular event took place, as so often happened, in the lounge at the Old Stag. He had, as was his custom, treated me to a delicious meal, and we were lingering over our whisky and cigars when he said, “Gordon, my friend, I have a proposition for your consideration.”

“I would be pleased to give it my fullest attention,” I declared expansively. When I saw that he was quite serious, I added, “Feel free to ask me anything.”

“I have known you for some years now, and I like to think that in that time you have come to know me a little also. Indeed, I like to think that our association has not been without its modest rewards.” I swiftly assured him that our friendship was of great importance to me. He smiled, and said, “Then please, for
the sake of our friendship, I will ask you to keep what I shall say in the strictest confidence. Will you do that?”