Authors: Unknown
Will wrenched his arm from Angelo’s grip and went to Guido as she raced down the passage.
“My husband!” she was screaming. “My God,
what have you done!
” She flew at Angelo, who caught her by the wrists and turned her expertly, pinning her arms remorselessly behind her back.
Will crouched beside Guido. There was a neat, bloody hole in his chest. Will was about to rise, when the merchant’s eyes opened. He gurgled blood down his chin. He was groaning, his eyes wide, bulging. No, not groaning, Will realized. Guido was speaking, trying to form words. His wife’s shrieks and Angelo’s curses echoed around the chamber, drowning him out. Will put his head closer.
“You and your grand master will burn,” came the words, forced through Guido’s lips. “The Black Stone will be your downfall, not your salvation. I swear it. I
swear it!
” He dragged in a whistling breath, then slumped and lay still.
Will sat back on his heels, as Guido’s wife collapsed in Angelo’s grip and began to sob. Angelo let go of her and she slid to the floor.
The Venetian turned to Will. “Escort me back to your grand master, Commander Campbell. I have the information he wanted. We are finished here.”
Ignoring Angelo, Will went to Guido’s wife and helped her to her feet. Her face crumpled as she saw her dead husband. “I’m sorry,” Will told her quietly. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”
She pursed up her lips and spat in his face. Throwing herself down by her husband, she cradled his face in her hands.
As Will wiped the warm wad of spit from his cheek, he met the black eyes of Angelo Vitturi. The Venetian stared at him for a moment, before heading from the room. Will let him go, then followed, leaving the Soranzo family with the dead body and their grief. Walking numbly into the night air, Guido’s final words echoed back to him.
The Black Stone will be your downfall, not your salvation.
12
The Venetian Quarter, Acre 16 MARCH A.D. 1276
The warehouse on Silk Street was cool and dark. It always was, even at the height of summer, the shutter closed over the window to protect the rows of fabric from fading in the light. Elwen breathed in the familiar smell of the place. The warehouse had a rich, almost sweet odor. Hundreds of bolts of cloth lined the shelves, ready for transportation to Venice and from there to cities across the West. Elwen walked the rows, counting the bolts, a last check before they were secured for shipping. She ran her hand over a roll of luxurious samite, a favorite of her former mistress, the queen of France, who for years had been one of Andreas’s best customers.
Elwen looked round as Andreas muttered something. He was shuffling through a pile of papers on the workbench that she had tidied earlier.
“Where is the ledger for the stock?”
Elwen moved over to the shelf behind the bench, stood on her toes and pulled down a thick leather-bound book.
Andreas smiled as she handed it to him. He was a large man, not fat, but broad around the shoulders, with big hands and a long face, framed with hair the color of tarnished metal. “I do not know how I managed before you came,” he told her, licking his thumb and flicking through the ledger. The early pages were filled with his careless scrawl, the later ones with rows of orderly numbers printed in Elwen’s neat script. He ran a finger down the list on the last page. “You checked each bolt is recorded?”
“Twice.”
Andreas nodded, pleased. “I will take this to Niccolò so that he can oversee the loading tomorrow.” He shut the book. “We should do well with this shipment.”
Elwen smiled to herself as he stowed the ledger in a bag and began to whistle a tune. She liked to see him happy, liked that things were going well for him and his family.
Andreas was a first-generation mercer, who had started in the trade twenty-five years ago. He had spoken of how hard it had been to build the business, setting himself against already established and powerful Venetian families. His father had instructed him in accounting, expecting him to follow in his footsteps, but Andreas, an unwilling pupil, was captivated by tales of distant kingdoms told by the merchants whose books his father kept. He had listened in awe to hear them speak of slaves who dove for pearls off the Arabian coast, rising out of incandescent blue waters with fistfuls of coarse gray shells to buy their freedom. He hung on every word as they told stories of strange beasts and blue mountains, a red moon rising over a desert, whispered tales of perfumed, ebony women. Elwen, listening to Andreas speak of his early life, had recognized that lure.
For years she had wanted to travel, restless wherever she had lived, whether the cramped two-roomed hut in Powys she had shared with her silent mother or the echoing gray halls of the royal palace in Paris. Once, she had asked Andreas whether he found the reality to be as good as the dream.
“Better,” he had replied. “For in the dream I did not have such a beautiful wife and children.”
Elwen had nodded, but kept silent. Her own reality was somewhat different to how she had imagined.
Andreas set the bag on the table. “I know it has been busy of late and that I haven’t shown you how to keep the accounts, as I promised.” He held up a hand as Elwen started to speak. “But I do have something I want you to do for me in the meantime. The spring fair in Kabul, I need you to go in my place. Niccolò is going to Venice, the Easter market will soon be upon us, and with Besina about to give birth I simply cannot leave her, not even for a day.” He smiled at Elwen’s expression. “You are surprised?”
“I’ve never bought before.”
“Of course you have.”
“With you,” she responded.
Andreas shook his head. “You do not know your own talents, Elwen. I have watched you.” He tapped the corner of his eye. “I see how good you are.” He regarded her as she frowned thoughtfully, appraising the situation. He had not made the decision lightly, and she would not accept it lightly.
Elwen had a quick mind and a desire to learn, but that wasn’t what made a merchant rich. You had to know how to charm, to barter, to sell, and at these she was a natural. The local suppliers in Acre’s market loved her. When he had taken her there for the first time to show her how to judge the quality of the cloth, Andreas had been astonished to see the prices falling when she tried, with a sweetly embarrassed laugh, to ask her questions of the sellers in the few words of Arabic she knew. Afterward, when she confessed that she had often been sent into the markets in Paris to buy little luxuries for the queen, Andreas had seen an opportunity.
“Is it safe?” Elwen asked him. “On the roads?”
“I wouldn’t send you if it wasn’t,” Andreas replied. “The treaty that was signed with Sultan Baybars grants us all safe passage on the pilgrim roads in Palestine. Kabul is less than a day’s ride from here and you will have Giorgio and Taqsu with you.”
The men were Andreas’s escorts, who drove the wagon when he traveled to suppliers to buy the silks. Giorgio was a retired Venetian soldier, once a member of the city guard, and Taqsu was a former Bedouin slave whom Andreas had bought in Acre’s market fifteen years ago. He had freed the young Bedouin the day after and had offered to pay him a wage. Taqsu had been with him ever since and acted as guide and interpreter. Elwen knew and liked both men.
“You can take Catarina,” Andreas added, seeing that she was going to accept. “Besina needs her rest. Besides, I take Catarina every year and she’ll be disappointed if I don’t let her go.”
“All right,” said Elwen, now smiling. “Thank you,” she added. She gestured at the shelves. “Everything is ready. Do you need me to do anything else?”
“We are finished with work for today. But I need to talk to you about one last thing.” Andreas leaned against the workbench. “This man you see, Elwen. Who is he?”
The words shocked her as much as if Andreas had just slapped her. There was no time to hide her guilt or fear; they were etched into her face in her flushed cheeks and open mouth, in her startled green eyes.
“Catarina told me,” he said.
Elwen hung her head. “Andreas. I am sorry. I ...”
“You are not in trouble. Indeed, I am pleased.”
“Pleased?”
“You are a beautiful woman, Elwen. But you are almost thirty. You’ve been alone too long. Besina was married to me when she was fourteen and she has brought the greatest joy to my life.” Andreas shook his head. “At least now I understand why you spurned Niccolò’s advances.”
Elwen flushed even hotter. “It wasn’t that I didn’t . . .” She paused, struggling to find the Italian. Sometimes the language flowed like water; at other times, particularly when she was flustered, it felt slow, clumsy. “I was flattered. I just ...”
“You don’t have to explain it to me. But I do need to know, when you marry, will you still work for me? Will your husband allow this?”
Elwen dropped her eyes. “He is a Knight of the Temple, Andreas.”
Andreas looked shocked. “A Templar? Catarina did not tell me this.” He blew through his cheeks. “Now I am not so pleased for you. This is no life. To live in sin, in secret? Do you want to lose your chance at children? At a family?” His voice softened. “I think of you as a daughter, Elwen. I want you to be happy. If this man cannot offer you that, then I pray you find someone who will.”
“I can’t help the way I feel.” Elwen’s eyes were fierce and bright. “I wish I could, but I’ve loved him since we were children. We grew up together in France. We were betrothed once.”
“Before he was a knight?”
“He asked me to marry him on the day he took his vows. I know,” she said ruefully at his incredulous expression. “We were going to do it in secret.”
“What happened?”
She sighed heavily. “It is a long story. It is enough to say that he was betrayed by a friend and did something that hurt me very deeply. It wasn’t really his fault, but we ended that day and he came here to Acre and I stayed in Paris.”
“And now you are back where you started?”
Elwen gave a humorless laugh. “Except with more lines on my face.”
“Will he not leave the order for you?”
Elwen was quiet for a pause. “No,” she said finally. “I thought he might for a while, but not anymore. He is a commander now. He waited to become a knight for so long. It was what he always wanted. I think . . .” Her brow furrowed. “I think if you took away the mantle, you would take away part of him. If he wasn’t a knight, he wouldn’t be Will anymore.” She shrugged. “Surely, if I love him, I should love every part? I should want him to be happy, shouldn’t I?”
“But where does that leave you?”
Elwen pushed off her coif and ran a hand through her hair, tousling it.
Andreas was looking thoughtful. “I have heard of men joining the Temple with their wives.”
“Only if they are already wed,” Elwen corrected. “They can join the order, but cannot wear the white mantle, and if they take the vow of chastity they cannot share a bed with their wives. If any of the masters knew Will was visiting me, he would be stripped of his mantle and expelled. And anyway,” she added resolutely, “I have no desire to join the Temple. Life as a nun in a monastery is no life for me.”
“And a secular life is not for him. So what do you do?”
Elwen twisted the coif absently around her finger. “I don’t know, Andreas.” She closed her eyes. “I really don’t know.”
THE TEMPLE, ACRE, 16 MARCH A.D. 1276
“You seen Elwen recently?”
“Keep your voice down,” murmured Will, hopping down from the bench where he’d been sitting.
Simon’s head appeared from around the horse he was grooming. “Sorry.” He went back to rubbing the brush down the beast’s flanks. “There’s no one who can hear though.”
Will glanced along the vaulted stone stables. The stalls here were for destriers: the massive war chargers, ridden by the knights, that in battle would be armored just as their riders. The palfreys and packhorses used by the sergeants and for light riding were housed in an adjacent stable. “All the same,” he said, looking back at Simon, “I’d rather not speak of it.” He adopted a smile. “I came to see you. I haven’t had much time for friends of late. Now I have a spare minute, I don’t want to spend it talking about me.”
Simon pulled a face. “I wish you would. It’s not like I’ve much to tell you stuck in here all day.” He straightened and wiped his forehead with his arm, smudging dirt across his brow. “Though I was speaking to Everard yesterday.”
“Oh?”
“He seemed vexed. More so than usual.”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing much, he just wondered if I’d spoken to you. He wanted to know where you were.”
Will frowned. “He hasn’t come to see me.”
“You know Everard. I reckon he just wanted me to tell you, you know, so he didn’t have to summon you himself. Wanted you to go to him.”
Will rubbed absently at his chin, his beard grazing his fingertips. “I haven’t had time to see him, not since we found the grand master’s attacker.”
“No?” Simon cocked his head. “Yet you’re hanging about in here, not wanting to talk about anything?”
Will didn’t answer. It was true; he had been avoiding the priest. Everard would want to know what happened at Guido Soranzo’s house; would have heard the rumors, may have even heard, through the seneschal, that a man named Sclavo was being held in the dungeon in connection with the assault on the grand master. Will had never been any good at fooling the priest. Everard would know he was hiding something.
Since he had returned from Guido’s, Will had thought, several times, of going to the priest and telling him everything: about Sclavo, about the grand master’s decision to send a noncombatant to interrogate their suspect, about Guido’s final words. But concern for the old man stopped him. Everard was frail, unwell and already burdened with worry over the possibility that King Edward might be working against them. The prospect of the grand master being involved in something underhand might push him to the edge. And for what? All Will had to go on were the cryptic words of a dying man. Before he faced Everard, he wanted more.
He had scoured his mind for any meaning behind Guido’s oath, but was none the wiser. He had never heard of any black stone, nor did he understand why the grand master would burn because of it. There was only one person, other than Everard, he could think of to ask—Elias, an old rabbi who owned a bookshop in the Jewish quarter. He and Everard had been friends for years. Elias knew of the Anima Templi and had helped them find rare treatises for translation, on occasion using his shop to disseminate knowledge that the Brethren wanted spread. He dealt in books on everything from history to medicine, from astrology to strange magic practiced by tattooed desert men. He seemed to know a little something about most things. Will just needed to think of a way to ask him without it getting back to the priest.