Brethren: An Epic Adventure of the Knights Templar (10 page)

The three of them turned as a woman ran screaming from a hut opposite. Part of the roof had collapsed inward, sending a shower of sparks into the sky. The woman was clutching a small white bundle to her breast. When a soldier ran toward her, she darted to one side and tried to go around him. But he was quicker. His sword plunged into her stomach and back out in a crimson arc of blood. The bundle slid from the woman’s grip as she collapsed in the dust and the soldier looked down in surprise as he heard a high mewing sound. He flicked back the white cloth with the point of his sword and found a baby wrapped within it. The soldier looked about uncertainly and saw Baybars.

“Amir?” he called, gesturing at the infant who was now screaming. “What should I do?”

Baybars frowned. “Were you planning on suckling it yourself?”

Some of the nearby Mamluks laughed.

“No, Amir,” said the soldier, red-faced. He raised his sword.

Omar averted his eyes as the blade stabbed down. It might have been a mercy to kill the infant, which would have died a much slower death from exposure or starvation if left, but he didn’t have to watch. When Omar looked back the soldier was walking away and a stain was spreading out around the baby, turning the white cloth red.

Baybars’s gaze fell on the church. The doors were closed; no one had taken the building yet. “Come,” he said to Omar and Kalawun, striding across to it. The church doors squeaked open as he pushed them, then jammed against something on the other side. Inside, Baybars heard a man’s voice, shaky yet defiant.

“Stay back, you devils!”

Shoving his shoulder against the wood, Baybars forced his way through. The bench that was blocking the doors screeched on the stone floor as it was thrust backward. Drawing his saber he entered, Omar and Kalawun close behind him. Baybars took in the chamber at a glance. The church was small and unadorned save for a rickety altar at one end above which was suspended a carved wooden crucifix. Behind the altar, brandishing a weighty-looking iron candlestick, was an old priest clad in shabby robes. The chamber was crudely lit by the amber glow that came in through two window-slits in the walls. Outside, the village was in flames.

The priest pointed the candlestick at Baybars. “Stay back, I tell you!” He was a scrawny-looking man, but there was power in his voice. “You have no right to come in here. This is a house of God!”

“Your church, priest,” replied Baybars, “is on our land. We have every right.”

“This is God’s land!”

“You and your kind are ants, busy building your churches and castles with no thought of where you are, or what you do. You are a pestilence.”

“I was born here. My people too!” cried the priest, waving his hand to the windows where the crackling and spitting of the fires could be heard.

“Sons and daughters of the Franks. There is Western blood in you all. It is a taint you cannot deny.”

“No!” shouted the priest. “
This
is our home!” He stepped out from behind the altar and lashed the air with the candlestick.

Baybars leapt forward, his saber cutting high. The priest ducked, but the mighty blow wasn’t aimed at him. The blade severed the thin rope that held the crucifix, which fell to the floor before the altar with a clatter. Baybars stamped on it, his heavy boot snapping the figure of Christ in two.

The priest stared at him, aghast, as he bent and picked up one of the pieces. “You may have been born to these lands, but you carry the infection of the West.” Baybars tossed the half-cross aside. “What we do here, now, we will do all across Palestine.” He strode to the priest and knocked the candlestick from the man’s grip with the flat of his blade. The priest went pale and trembled as the tip of the saber came to rest at his throat. “Your God, priest, shall weep at the sight of His churches and relics in flames. The ashes of Christendom shall scatter in the winds and its passing will be as a sweet breath across all Muslims.”

“You will die trying,” whispered the priest. “The warriors of Christ will crush you.”

Baybars thrust forward, the blade piercing the priest’s throat and on, harder through bone and flesh. The priest gave a brief, gagging cough and his body buckled as the blade came out the other side. Baybars twisted the hilt and blood spilled from the priest’s mouth. He wrenched the sword back and the priest collapsed sideways, crashing through the altar and onto the floor. Baybars lifted the blade and hacked at the body, the blade falling again and again until the stones were awash with blood. His breaths came short and sharp and his eyes were wild in the flame-light. He would have his retribution! He would take it from them all! Baybars whipped around as he felt a tight grip on his arm and saw Omar. He staggered back, his chest heaving.

“He is dead, Amir,” said Omar.

Turning from the mangled corpse, Baybars reached into the pouch at his side and pulled out a rag. He looked at the questioning faces of Omar and Kalawun as he cleaned the blade. “Well? Do you want to talk, or not?”

Kalawun stepped forward. “Omar has told me of your plan, Amir. I will stand with you when the time comes.”

Baybars nodded his thanks. Kalawun had been enlisted in the Bahri regiment two years after himself and Omar. He had followed them through the ranks and proved himself at Damietta when he had helped kill Turanshah. “Your loyalty will be rewarded.”

“It won’t be easy,” said Omar. “The sultan is rarely without his guards. It may be best for us to wait until we are in Cairo.”

“No,” said Baybars firmly, “it must happen before we arrive in the city. Kutuz cannot be allowed to reach the safety of the citadel, he will be even more sheltered from attack there.”

“Poison perhaps?” suggested Omar. “We could pay one of his pages?”

“There is too much risk in that. Besides, I won’t pay another for what I can do myself.”

Baybars finished cleaning his saber and jammed it into its scabbard.

“What do you propose, Amir?” asked Kalawun.

“We will strike when we reach Egypt. After crossing the Sinai we make camp at al-Salihiyya. The town is only one day from Cairo and Kutuz will be less wary so near his city. If we can draw him from the majority of his guards we’ll have our chance.”

Omar nodded slowly. “I agree, but I’m still unclear as to how you will secure the throne once the sultan is dead. Surely one of his governors will…?”

“Khadir will attend to it,” Baybars interrupted.

Omar looked concerned at this news. “Your soothsayer is best kept on a tight leash, Amir. I’ve heard that the Order of Assassins expelled him because he was too bloodthirsty, even for them. He’s a hazard.”

“He will see that the task is done. Are you with me?”

“Yes, Amir,” said Kalawun.

Omar nodded, after a pause. “We are with you.”

“Amir Baybars.”

The three of them looked around as a soldier appeared in the doorway.

“The village is taken,” said the soldier, bowing. “We’re loading the wagons.”

“Come,” said Baybars to Omar and Kalawun as the soldier disappeared. “Let’s take the sultan his last plunder.”

Together they strode from the church. Flames darted into the sky as the last of the women and children were herded into the cages, encouraged by the swords of the Mamluks.

Kutuz turned in his saddle and stared into the darkness. The hills that rose up from the Plain were crowned with a faint orange halo. He could just make out the tongues of the fires that signaled that Baybars had taken the settlement. Kutuz swung his gaze back to the road and rubbed at his neck. His shoulders were knotted and not just from the long day’s ride.

For several weeks now, uneasiness had been gnawing at him, growing steadily worse since they had left Ayn Jalut. He’d had doubts before then. But Baybars’s audacity in asking for the governorship of Aleppo proved beyond question the scale of his ambitions. After Kutuz’s refusal of the request, he had expected Baybars to be angry or bitter; the commander’s subsequent calm had unsettled him. Kutuz drew a long breath and scanned the ranks until he saw his chief of staff, several rows behind him.

“A word, Aqtai,” he called loudly.

The fleshy, olive-skinned man looked up at the summons and trotted his horse through the ranks. “My Lord Sultan?”

“I require your advice,” said Kutuz, as his chief of staff drew alongside him.

“How may I be of service, my lord?” asked Aqtai in an oily tone.

“There is a splinter beneath my skin. I want it removed.”

J
acques took a goose quill from the clay pot on the solar table and rolled it absently between his thumb and forefinger as he studied his nephew. “Did you know that your father and I had won two of these tournaments by the time we were your age? You have been here for two years. It’s time for you to win.”

Garin looked up, surprised by the mention of his father. Jacques rarely spoke of his dead brother. “It will be the first real chance I’ve had, sir,” he said quietly. “I was ill last year and the year before I had only just started training.”

“This year will be different, won’t it?”

“I will try my best, sir.”

“Make sure you do. I mentioned you to our guests this morning and the masters of our kindred strongholds are expecting great things of my nephew on the field.”

Garin swallowed back the dryness of his mouth. That morning, the Masters of the Scottish and Irish preceptories had arrived with their knight-escorts for the chapter general that would take place in four days. The chapter was convened each year to discuss Temple business in Britain and the day after would see the tournament that was held in honor of the meeting.

“The competition will be fierce, sir. Will is a good fighter and…”

“Campbell is a peasant,” snapped Jacques, closing his fist around the quill. “You are of the family de Lyons. When you stand for the position of commander your record must speak for itself. Campbell will never be a commander. It isn’t important for him to win. But, for you, it is imperative.”

“Yes, sir.” Garin went to chew on a fingernail, then clasped his hands tightly behind his back. His uncle hated that habit.

Jacques sighed and sat back, tossing the quill to the table. “You have a duty to your family. Who else will uphold our name now that your father and brothers are dead? My days of glory are spent. Your mother has seen the demise of her husband and sons and with them the dream of restoring this family to its rightful place in the ranks of the kingdom’s nobility. She puts a brave face on it, Garin, but Cecilia told me she cries herself to sleep most nights in that damp hovel. She once had jewels, perfumes, gowns; everything a woman of her status should have. Now she just has memories.”

Garin fought back tears. He had never seen his mother put a brave face on anything. Her expressions had always told him everything she was feeling: anger, misery, bitterness, frustration. It physically hurt him to think of her crying at night in her bedchamber, startled by the scratch of birds in the roof, the shifting and settling of floorboards. On the small estate in Rochester, paid for by the modest pension she received from the Temple, there were three maids to cook and clean for her, but Garin knew they were a poor substitute for the army of servants Cecilia had commanded back in Lyons, where his father had been a wealthy, secular knight, before joining the Temple.

“I will make it better for her, I promise, sir,” he whispered.

Jacques’ voice softened a little. “Your mother and I have spent much time and effort making you fit to carry this burden. Since you were six you’ve had the best tutors she could afford and now you have the benefit of my tutelage. In my years of service to the Temple I have gained much experience. You can benefit from this, if you’re willing to learn.”

“I am willing.”

“Good boy.” Jacques smiled, his eye wrinkling at the corner.

Garin was startled by the expression. He took an involuntary step back as his uncle rose and came around the table toward him.

Jacques put his hands on his nephew’s shoulders. “I know I’ve been hard on you these past months. But it’s for your own good, you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“There are considerable prospects available to you here, Garin, greater even than a commandership.”

“Greater, sir?”

Jacques didn’t respond. Taking his hands from Garin’s shoulders, he stepped back, his smile vanishing. “Now go. I’ll see you on the field at practice.”

Garin bowed. “Thank you, sir.” He turned to leave, his legs feeling watery.

“Garin.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Make me proud.”

As Garin left the solar and headed to his quarters, he was under no illusion as to what his uncle had meant.
Make me proud
was just another way of saying
do not fail me.

Finding the dormitory empty, Garin shut the door and leaned against it. One of the preceptory’s cats was sitting in a patch of sunlight below the window. On the floor beside it was a bird. Its tiny eyes were half lidded and lifeless, entrails hung in purple-blue lines from its stomach. Garin bent down as the cat came toward him and wove around his legs. “You are supposed to catch rats,” he chided, picking the animal up and walking over to his pallet where he sat down. As Garin lay back, the cat stretched out on his stomach and he stroked its soft, black fur. He was going to be a commander in the Temple, but he envied sergeants who had no such grand destiny. He was tired of living on the knife-edge of his uncle’s anger and tired of his name like a stone around his neck.

The cat, still spirited from its kill, swiped at him. Garin sat up with a wince, watching scarlet beads of blood well in a line across the back of his hand. He stared at the blood, surprised by its brightness, as the cat settled down in his lap and began to purr. His uncle said that to be a commander you had to be ruthless. You had to bear pain and hardship and learn how to deal it out to others. Garin bit his lip, but couldn’t stop the tears. Burying his face in the cat’s warm fur, he surrendered to them.

Taking a shortcut through the chapel grounds on his way to the knights’ quarters, Will threaded between the gravestones that jutted like teeth from the grass. Vaulting over the low wall that separated the chapel from the orchard, he had gone only a few paces when he was halted by the sound of a young girl singing. Though he didn’t understand the words, he recognized the language of Owein’s homeland. The girl was walking between the trees. She paused in a patch of sunlight and crouched down, reaching for an apple in the grass. Will had heard of sister preceptories in the Kingdom of France, but for a woman to enter one of the Order’s principal strongholds was strictly forbidden according to the Rule and it was as if this girl had slipped in from another world. Will, staring at her, realized that he had seen her once before. It had been about eighteen months ago, shortly after his father’s departure.

James Campbell had not long returned from a brief trip escorting Humbert de Pairaud to the Temple’s preceptory in Paris when he had summoned Will to his chambers and told the boy he would be leaving for Acre. Will had begged to be allowed to go with him, but James hadn’t relented. On the morning of his departure, three weeks later, he had held Will’s hand, just for a moment, then, without a word, he had climbed the gangplank onto the warship that was moored at the Temple’s dock. Will had remained sitting on the dock wall until late that evening, long after the ship had gone and the Thames had turned from gray to black.

The day after, he had begun his apprenticeship under Owein. The knight had been sympathetic to Will’s situation, but only a few days later he too had left, suddenly. He had been gone for over a month and Will had been temporarily placed under Jacques’ mastery. Will had never known where Jacques’ unfathomable dislike of him came from, but during those few weeks and ever since, the knight had made it plain that he thought Will no better than something he might scrape from the bottom of his boot. What had made Jacques’ treatment of him worse was that Owein and his father had always seemed to like the knight. It had felt like a betrayal.

Will had been working in the stables when Owein had returned late one evening. He had been surprised to see a girl of about his age perched on the destrier behind his master. The two of them had been met in the stable yard by Humbert de Pairaud. The girl, who had jumped down from the massive horse without aid, was tall and thin, lost in the folds of a travel-stained robe several sizes too large. Her hair hung in a tangled mass down her back and her pale skin was stretched taut over the raised bones of her cheeks. She had seemed to Will to be a cold, wild creature, her large, luminous eyes darting everywhere, even to the Master whom she had studied intently as if it were her right to do so. She had left the next morning. When Will had asked who she was, Owein had said that she was his niece and that she could no longer stay in Powys, but he had refused to be drawn further on the matter.

How different Owein’s niece looked now. Willowy rather than gaunt, her cheeks fuller and her skin, defying fashion and modesty, still bronzed from the summer sun. While most girls would wear their hair pinned beneath a cap, hers hung loose around her shoulders, gleaming like copper-gold coins. As Will walked toward her, the girl looked up and paused in her song. She rose to her feet, the skirts of her white dress gathered in her hands, heavy with fruit she had collected.

“Hello.”

Will was silent for a moment, unsure of what to say. “You are Sir Owein’s niece.”

“I am.” Her eyes, a much paler shade of green than his, sparkled. “Although I prefer to be called Elwen. Who are you?”

“Will Campbell,” he replied, discomfited by her searching gaze.

“My uncle’s sergeant,” she said with a slight smile. “I’ve heard about you.”

“You have?” said Will, trying to sound nonchalant. He folded his arms across his chest. “What have you heard?”

“That you come from Scotland and you’re always in trouble because your father is in the Holy Land and you miss him.”

“You know
nothing
of me,” spat Will, “and neither does your uncle!”

Elwen took a step back at the flare of anger from the boy. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Will looked away, fighting back the temper that came on him so suddenly. “You’re just a girl.” He kicked moodily at one of the fallen apples. “What would you know of anything?”

Elwen straightened. “More than a boy who spends his days hitting things with a stick!”

They stared at one another in silence. A shout made them both turn. Will swore beneath his breath as he saw the priest who had presided over the morning office striding toward them, black robes skimming the grass.

“In God’s name, what is this?” bellowed the priest, glaring at Will.

“We were talking,” said Will. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Elwen was staring stonily at him.

“And why, sergeant, are you
talking
when there is work to be done?” The priest scowled. “There shall be discipline within these walls lest we fall to the ways of the faithless. In indolence and disobedience you will find the Devil. These are his workings and they are an affront to the work of our Lord.”

Elwen stirred. “We were just…”

“Silence, girl!” snapped the priest, spinning around to look at her for the first time. “It was with great reluctance that we agreed to Sir Owein’s request to house you here.”

“My guardian has a sickness. I had nowhere else to go.”

“The Master assured us that you would remain in your quarters. But I see that your presence is…” The priest stopped as he noticed the fruit gathered in her skirts and, below, her bared, brown legs.

Will was delighted to see a deep blush bloom on his cheeks.

“And what’s this?” seethed the priest, jabbing a finger at the apples. “Stealing, are you?”

“Stealing?” Elwen feigned a shocked expression. “Of course not. I was hoping the servants could make something sweet of them for the Master.”

Flustered, the priest opened his mouth, then shut it again.

“It seems a shame to let them rot, doesn’t it?” suggested Elwen sweetly, holding out an apple to the priest.

Will had to hide his smile with his hand. As Elwen caught his eye, her face softened slightly.

The priest looked at both of them, his brow drawn in suspicion. “To your duties, sergeant!” he ordered finally. He turned on Elwen. “As for you, I’ll convey you to your quarters where you’ll remain. The Master, God keep him, may see fit to bend the Rule according to his will, but I’ll not stand for such flagrant violation of his charity.”

He went to put his hand on her arm and then stopped, inches from her skin, as if afraid to touch her. The priest had no need to usher her. Elwen, skirts still laden with apples, strode off ahead of him.

Will, shaking his head admiringly at the girl’s audacity, jumped over the orchard wall and entered the main courtyard. Before the afternoon office there was something he had to do; something he’d been putting off for too long. Write to your mother, his father had said before leaving. It had been the only request made of him and, as yet, Will hadn’t acted upon it. The memory of their parting back in Scotland, his mother’s lips brushing lightly against his cheek and her thin smile, still haunted him. But time was marching on and at least now he had something good to tell her: that he had borne his master’s shield at a parley with the king.

Will knocked on the solar door, hoping it would be Owein and not Jacques who opened it. He waited, then knocked again, harder this time. Still there was no response. After checking the passage, Will opened the door cautiously and looked inside. The solar was empty. He went to pull the door to, then stopped as he saw a stack of parchments on the table. A dove, perched on the window ledge, flew off as he entered.

The sheaves had been placed in three piles. Will picked through them quickly, looking for a clean sheet. All of the skins had been used. Some of the writing, he noticed, was in Owein’s flowing hand, some in Jacques’ spiky scrawl. He paused, holding one of the parchments, as he saw the king’s seal stamped in red wax, at the top of the skin. Will looked to the door, then back to the skin. His eyes moved curiously over it. The letter, addressed to Humbert de Pairaud, was a request that the knights reconsider their demand for the pawning of the crown jewels. Will, disinterested after the first few lines, flicked through the last skins. These were records of Henry’s debts and were a little more interesting. Will let a soft whistle out through his teeth as he saw how much the King of England had borrowed from the Temple over the past few years. After a moment, however, he made himself put the skins down. His gaze fell on the armoire. Padding over and opening the double doors, Will found a small stack of fresh skins on one of the shelves. He reached in to take one and, in doing so, dislodged the pile. As he bent to straighten them, he noticed that one had writing on it. He folded the fresh skin, stuck it down the back of his hose, then pulled out the cracked, yellowed parchment, mildly curious as to what it was doing in the middle of the blank sheets and not in the pile with the other letters. The writing was in Latin, but what caught Will’s attention about the neat script was that it didn’t look natural, as if the writer had purposefully tried to disguise his or her handwriting. He checked for a seal, but, and again this struck him as odd, there wasn’t one, nor was it addressed to anyone. There was, however, a date.