Authors: Unknown
“I was introduced to him through my father,” replied Will. It was partly true. It had been James Campbell who first made contact with Kalawun on behalf of the Anima Templi.
“Your father ... ?” said Guillaume, shaking his head in confusion.
“Kalawun desires peace, my lord,” explained Will quickly. “He sees the benefit in it to both our peoples. The Mamluks rely on us for trade. Kalawun is on our side. He doesn’t want to destroy us.”
Guillaume gave a bark of scornful laughter. “It does not well matter what he wants when Baybars is the Mamluks’ lord and master. The sultan wants us gone from these lands. His people will follow him to that end.”
“Baybars won’t be sultan forever, my lord. Kalawun has influence over his heir, Baraka Khan. He believes he can bring the boy round to his way of thinking and that when he takes the throne, Baraka will be more amenable to our occupancy of these lands than his father.” Will pushed himself from the wall. “We have a chance, my lord,” he said earnestly, “to save Christendom in the East
without
bloodshed. But if the Stone had been stolen, that chance would have been dashed.”
“I am not a fool,” responded Guillaume harshly. “I wouldn’t have gone through with the plan had I not believed it could work. The Stone would have been used to gather support for a new Crusade. The West would have come to our aid if Baybars had risen against us.” But his words sounded hollow. He seemed to realize this, for his face crumpled in consternation. “I could see no other way,” he murmured. “I couldn’t sit here doing nothing, waiting for Baybars to end us. I was trying to protect us,” he finished defiantly.
Will took a chance. “What about the men you were working with, my lord? Why did they want to take the Stone?”
Guillaume glanced at him. “For the money,” he said bitterly. “Not for Jerusalem.” He seemed to debate whether or not to continue, then sighed gruffly. “What does it matter now?” He touched his hand lightly to his side again. “One of them tried to kill me. According to the infirmarer, he almost did. If the blade had cut any deeper ...” He didn’t finish.
Will was stunned.
“He believed that you were following my orders,” Guillaume went on. “That I tried to sabotage their plan. He told me of your involvement with Kalawun.”
“How did he know? Who is he?”
“Angelo Vitturi. You’ve met him.”
Will nodded slowly.
“As to how he knew, he would not say,” continued Guillaume. “But he has a contact in the Mamluk camp, the man who introduced us to Kaysan. Perhaps you were seen meeting with Kalawun? Or perhaps Kalawun himself let the information out.”
“I would be surprised if it were either. Do you know the identity of this contact, my lord?”
“Vitturi never told me. He and his associates were very guarded. They simply wanted me to choose men able to enter Arabia, make contact with Kaysan and attempt the theft.” Guillaume nodded at Will’s expression. “They were using me, of course. But I thought I could use them. I did not agree with their motives. A group of powerful merchants whose business lay in war, trying to revive their flagging profits at any cost, was abhorrent to me. But I believed I could make their plan work for us.”
Both of them lapsed into silence.
Eventually, Will spoke. “What are you going to do, my lord?”
Guillaume’s face hardened; then he let a long breath whisper through his lips. “I had thought to have you executed, William. I came here to try you myself, and had I found you guilty of what Vitturi accused you of, I was to have you hanged this very evening.”
Will tensed and had to clear his throat before he could speak. “And what is your decision, my lord?”
“You are guilty,” said Guillaume, after a moment. “Guilty of disobeying my orders, guilty of consorting with our enemy and responsible for the deaths of three of my men. Good men,” he added, nodding as Will hung his head. “But your motives were not self-serving. You did not seek to gain by your actions, nor did you intend harm against your brothers, or the Temple.” He crossed to the door using his stick and took hold of the handle. “The theft was not without grave risk; I always knew that, but with no other option that I could see, I would not let myself give in to that fear. But had we succeeded ...” He trailed off and looked at Will. “Perhaps God has been trying to tell me something? I refused to listen to my worries, but I cannot ignore two attempts on my life from the men I was involved with.” He opened the door and gestured through it.
“I’m free to go?” murmured Will, fearing to hope.
“I want a full report of what happened at Mecca,” said Guillaume harshly. “This time the truth. And you will be punished for your actions, William. I cannot ignore your gross insubordination, however noble you thought your cause.” He paused. “But not today and not with a hanging.”
“I thank you, my lord, for your mercy,” said Will, stepping, utterly grateful, into the briny underground air of the prison passage.
Guillaume said nothing, but gave a curt nod.
“What will happen to Vitturi?” asked Will, as they moved off.
“It is being dealt with.”
THE CHURCH OF ST. NICHOLAS, OUTSIDE ACRE, 14 JUNE A.D. 1277
The settlement outside Acre’s walls was a ruin. It had been for eight years, ever since Baybars had last appeared before the city with six thousand troops, planning to mount an assault. Unable, once again, to break Acre’s indomitable defenses, he had contented himself with the ambush and slaughter of a large battalion of Frankish knights, returning from a raid on a Muslim stronghold, and the destruction of the settlement. All that remained were a few rugged walls and crumbled foundations of houses, covered with tufts of scrubby grass, and the desolate skeleton of what had once been the Church of St. Nicholas. Children sometimes played in the ruins, although most were warned away by their parents, following a partial collapse inside the church a year ago, which had claimed the lives of two boys. The place was tainted with the stale air of decay and forlorn abandonment, the naked timbers that remained on part of the roof split and shriveled after a decade under the Palestinian sun. Scorpions, black and slick, scuttled over fallen masonry outside and disappeared into cracks in the stones as the church door, warped and stiff, groaned open.
“You took your time.”
Conradt von Bremen heard the voice before he saw the speaker, who loomed out of the shadows a second later, his black silk burnous making him one with the darkness.
“I was in urgent talks with a business associate of mine, Venerio,” replied Conradt, in his lazy, heavily accented Italian. “I left as soon as I could. But this place was difficult to find.”
Venerio swept past him and pulled at the door. It screeched over the uneven floor of the porch, was reluctant to close, then boomed shut. “Come,” he said gruffly, “the others are here.”
Striding around a latticed barrier of fallen beams, feet crunching on crumbled masonry, making prints in the layers of dust on the floor, Venerio led the German into what would have been the choir aisle. More beams littered the ground inside, some having shattered into dry shards and splinters, others leaning at uncomfortable angles against sagging pillars. Half of the west wall had come down, leaving a jagged silhouette against the blue backdrop of evening. The remaining timbers on the roof were steepled like bony fingers, large gaps between them revealing more sky. The sun had set an hour ago, slipping like a circle of butter into the horizon, and a single star, blunt and brilliant, had appeared in the vault of the roof.
In a space clear of much debris, in the center of the aisle, were three men. Two were sitting on blocks of fallen masonry and the third was pacing the floor. They all looked round as Venerio and Conradt appeared.
“We’ve been waiting hours,” snapped Angelo, halting his restless stalking, his gaze fixing belligerently on the German. “Where have you been?”
Conradt languidly brushed the flop of sandy hair from his brow. His flat blue eyes met Angelo’s. “I have explained my lateness to your father.” The rebuke was plain.
His pride prickling, Angelo started forward, but Venerio placed a hand on his son’s shoulder.
“Enough. We are here now.”
“Then let us begin,” came a singsong voice, as Renaud de Tours rose from the stone he had been perched upon. His small, round face looked up at the massive Venetian, his trimmed and neat hair blue-white in the dusk.
“Sit, gentlemen,” said Venerio, gesturing at the blocks of stone tumbled irregularly around the center of the aisle.
Michael Pisani stood gracefully, his lean face pinched with concern. “We have done enough sitting, Venerio.” He glanced at Conradt. “He would not tell us why he had brought us to this godforsaken place until you were here.” The sharpness with which he spoke the words couldn’t disguise the alarm that lay beneath them. “Explain yourself, Venerio,” he demanded. “Obviously all did not go well.” He gestured at Angelo. “The bruises on your son’s neck, the urgent summons, the fear that’s been coming off you both like a stench. What happened at the Temple? Is de Beaujeu dead?”
Venerio glanced at his son. There was a look of rancor in his face, unseen by the others but caught by Angelo, who scowled sullenly. “We aren’t sure.”
“What do you mean?” questioned Renaud quickly. “How can you not be sure?”
“Let him speak,” said Conradt, his usually torpid voice quickened by the news.
“Angelo stabbed de Beaujeu, but the grand master attacked him and he had to flee.”
“I do not think he would have survived,” Angelo said, looking at the men, whose faces were grim in the gloom. “He looked as if he were dying when I left him.”
“Looked as if?” murmured Michael, dangerously. “If there is even a possibility he survived ...” He trailed off.
“Angelo believes the wound to have been fatal,” said Venerio. “He is competent enough to know.”
“You aren’t certain though, Venerio,” Michael shot back, “or you wouldn’t have brought us to this place. What are you saying? That we cannot return home?”
“This is why we are here,” responded the Venetian. “To decide what to do.”
Conradt had been quiet for some moments, his sun-red face pensive. He now turned his ice-blue eyes on Venerio. “I gave you my decision when we met last night, after you told us of the knights’ failure to take the Stone.”
“You were outvoted,” snapped Angelo before his father could speak. “The others agreed that we had to kill de Beaujeu.”
“There was no proof that he was working against us, that this knight, Campbell, was acting under his orders by warning the Mamluks of our plan.” Conradt shook his head. “Why would de Beaujeu send his own men to Mecca if he knew the Mamluks would be there to stop them?”
“He would have had to make it look as though he were working with us,” said Venerio, coming to his son’s aid. “Or we would have known of his treachery when his knights failed to meet with Kaysan.”
“It is true,” said Renaud quietly. “We could not take the chance, Conradt. If the grand master was working against us, he could have ruined us. If the High Court discovered what we were planning and our reasons for it, we would have been finished, our property and estates confiscated, ourselves imprisoned, or worse.”
Venerio scanned them all with his imperious gaze. “What is done is done. If de Beaujeu is dead, the only one of us implicated will be Angelo. He is ready to leave, as was arranged.” He glanced at his son, who nodded.
“And what about the rest of us?” asked Michael. “We cannot all hide out in Venice under the protection of the doge, waiting for this to blow over. God damn it!”
Conradt’s growled response was drowned by an echoing
bang
that resounded around the church. All five men started at the sound. It was quickly followed by two other muffled thumps.
“What in hell’s name was that?” murmured Michael.
“Children?” said Renaud hopefully.
Venerio drew his sword and strode to the doors, which were obscured from view by fallen timbers. Angelo drew his own blade and made as if to follow, but he had only taken a few paces when the air was filled with faint hissing sounds. The church grew suddenly bright and the shadows were thrown back as four yellow balls of flame soared in through the gaps in the roof.
“Fire!” shouted Michael, staggering back as one of the missiles dropped toward him. It was a clay bottle, flaming from the top, which exploded in a liquid burst of fire as it impacted with the floor. A fiery substance spattered out around it, some of it spitting onto Michael’s robe. The Pisan shouted as the robe caught alight, the silk shriveling instantly. He tore the garment frantically from his shoulders, whilst around him the other missiles exploded, showering more of the flaming substance around the men and the debris-strewn church. It was Greek fire.
The broken beams on the floor were the first to ignite, blossoming into flame, crackling and splitting as the fire worked through them, spreading rapidly. The five men fell back shouting in alarm.
“The doors!” ordered Venerio.
“No!” yelled Michael, who had ripped off his robe. “They’re trying to drive us out. That’s what they want!”
“Who?” demanded Conradt.
But they all knew the answer. The Temple had found them.
Any argument over whether they should leave or not was cut short as two more missiles shattered into the aisle, whipping the blaze higher and wider. Seconds later, three flaming arrows thumped into the roof timbers high above them. The parched wood caught and flared.
“We’ll fight them,” said Venerio, through gritted teeth, heading for the doors.
But when they reached the exit, the thumping sounds they had heard only moments before became clear as the doors refused to budge. Someone had wedged the other side with something heavy. Try as they might, the men could not move them.
There was a
whump
as more of the timbers behind them caught alight. The interior of the church was now bright as day. A cloud of white smoke was rising, billowing to the roof, where a second fire had started, the brittle beams above turning black and cracking apart, sending showers of embers like glowing rain into the church below.