Authors: Unknown
“They face execution here also, Nicholas,” said Theobald Gaudin sternly, beside Will.
“Only when their guilt has been ascertained,” responded the patriarch. He shook his head. “And the monies the sultan asks for are simply too high.”
“With respect, what price would you put on the lives of those slaughtered?” demanded Guillaume.
Will found himself nodding vigorously, as if to lend credence to the grand master’s words.
The patriarch, however, wouldn’t back down. “There is no price high enough to compensate for those deaths, Master Templar, as we both know. The sultan knows it also. The money we give to him would most likely be used to fund a war against us in the future. We should not arm him out of our own pockets. Let us find another solution.” He spread his hands. “Perhaps if we send him the Muslims from our jails?”
“Kalawun has given us his terms,” said Guillaume firmly. “We not do have time to barter with him. We are in no position to negotiate.”
“What about Kabul?” It was an official from the High Court who had spoken. A few people turned to look at him, but his gaze was fixed on Guillaume. “What about the atrocities the Mamluks committed in their attack on the village? Men butchered? Women and children defiled?”
“That’s right!” someone else interrupted. “Hundreds of Christians were killed then and the Mamluks placated us with a few bags of gold!”
Guillaume threw up his hands as others nodded and called out in agreement. “Are you not listening? What happened in the past is irrelevant. Unless we give in to Kalawun’s demands, the Mamluk Army will march on us and Acre will face destruction!”
The crowd was pushing forward now, fists clenched and lifted as men tried to make themselves heard. Will tensed even more, seeing the sea of angry, resentful faces swelling in front of him. He looked at the grand master, who stepped forward to meet them, hands raised behind the altar like a desperate priest trying to save his congregation. There was irony, Will realized, in the fact that the one man now trying to safeguard the city had put it in such grave danger only thirteen years before. But Guillaume de Beaujeu was no longer the same man who had tried to steal the Black Stone in an attempt to launch a new Crusade. He had seen the error of his judgment the day he learned of the plot’s failure; had almost died because of it.
In the years since, he had learned to be a diplomat as well as a general. It had not come easy, and his passion and ambitions could still run away with him, but he solved more disputes than he started and he’d learned to listen as well as to lead. He had lost some of that fiery, unpredictable energy and had become more measured in his dealings. Guillaume wanted Acre to survive, wanted Christendom to maintain its hold in the Holy Land, and Will’s relationship with Kalawun offered him a chance to work toward this, without violence. The fleet he’d had built, years ago had never been sent to blockade Egypt, the ships instead used to transfer goods and pilgrims. But very few people were aware of this change in the grand master and that was apparent now, as the men in the church harangued and challenged him.
“Listen to him, god damn you,”
Will murmured beneath his breath.
Then, within the turmoil, one clear voice was lifted louder than the others. “Master de Beaujeu is right,” said a stocky, broad-chested man, nodding brusquely to Guillaume. “We should accept Kalawun’s terms. It is a small sum to pay for our continued existence.”
The church went quiet.
Will looked in astonishment at the man who had spoken in Guillaume’s defense. It was the last person he had ever expected to do so. It was Jean de Villiers, grand master of the Knights of St. John. The Temple and the Hospital had been bitter rivals for decades. If there were two opposing sides, they would be on them. Like the Genoese and the Venetians, theirs was a hatred ingrained in the fabric of their communities, inherent in their histories, caused by competition and feuds not forgotten. Will stared out at the crowd, holding his breath in the silence, certain the fact that the two grand masters were in agreement would make a difference to the outcome of the council. But although many people were visibly surprised, tempers, he soon realized, were running too high to be extinguished, even by this unexpected turn of events.
“How will we find the funds?” asked one of the magistrates. “Our citizens will not pay them. Whose coffers will be drained?”
This question resulted in a barrage of shouting as everyone tried to make himself heard.
“Acre’s walls can withstand an attack! Let the Saracens dash themselves upon our ramparts in vain!”
“Do not give in to their demands!”
“No fortress, no city can withstand a prolonged attack indefinitely,” countered Guillaume. “We have weaknesses. We are not invincible.” His voice was becoming hoarse with the effort. “Western forces took this city from the Arabs two centuries ago! How complacent you have become to forget this. And complacent without reason. Tripoli, Antioch, Edessa, Caesarea, Jerusalem.” He punched a fist into his palm as he named each city. “All of them gone, fallen to the Muslims. Acre is our last stronghold, by God!” he roared, as they tried to argue over him. “If we lose it, we will lose the Holy Land!”
“The West will not forsake us,” barked the bishop of Tripoli, turning to the crowd in defiance of Guillaume. “Do not listen to the Templars. If the Saracens come, our people will send men and arms to aid us. The Church of Rome will not let the Holy Land fall to the infidel. And neither,” he said harshly, looking back at Guillaume, “will our God.”
Guillaume’s eyes flashed. “There is a time for faith, Bishop, and a time for action. It would be a foolish man who stood on a battlefield and faced an army with a Bible in his hands. We are here to do the bidding of our Lord Almighty, but it is through deeds, as well as piety, that we serve Him. We cannot hold back the Saracens with prayers alone. Even if the West were to send aid, it would not come in time should the Saracens move against us. And it was the West, brothers, who sent us the very men who may have sealed our doom. Why do you think only shepherds and farmers came on this Crusade? Because no one else would!” His voice cracked across them. “The West no longer cares, embroiled as it is in its own wars and politics. We stand alone, Brothers!”
“We aren’t your brothers,” shouted someone near the back. It was a Teutonic Knight. “We weren’t your brothers when you made certain King Hugh of Cyprus was removed from the throne and that your cousin d’Anjou succeeded him, an action which caused a civil war in this city. You did it for your own sake, for the sake of the Temple, without regard for anyone else. You and every grand master before you have been at the heart of every political problem in this kingdom! You’ve started wars to fill your coffers and fulfil your own agendas! Why should we listen to you now?”
Guillaume took a step back at the wave of accord that washed through the crowd at this, their cries almost seeming to slam into him physically. He opened his mouth, but no words came.
Will could stand it no longer. Rage exploded inside him, sending him striding to the edge of the dais. “You are fools, every one of you! I have been to Cairo. I’ve seen the fury in the eyes of the Muslims. If you do not accept these demands, I swear by God there will be war, and we will fall!” He felt a hand on his arm, drawing him back. It was Theobald Gaudin.
“This isn’t your place, Commander,” Theobald warned, his voice lost in the rising tumult.
“They have to listen!” Will told him, flinging a hand at the fraught crowd.
Guillaume was stepping forward again, calling for them to heed him.
Someone threw an apple at the dais. It missed Guillaume, but the
thwack
of it against the back wall of the church was enough of a signal for Theobald Gaudin. He let go of Will and drew his sword. “We need to leave, my lord,” he shouted to Guillaume. “This is out of hand.”
“You’re a traitor to your own kind, de Beaujeu!” someone yelled.
Now Will also drew his sword. Things had gone beyond reason. Next it might be a rock or a dagger thrown. Between them, he and Theobald hustled the grand master down from the dais. As the crowd surged toward them, unwilling to part, the rest of the Templars unsheathed their blades. This provoked a chorus of jeers and shouts.
“The Templars are better Saracens than they are Christians!”
“They should have crescents on their mantles, not crosses!”
“Traitors!” A shout went up. “Traitors!”
But the crowd parted reluctantly before the blades, and the knights forced their way out, the scornful shouts following them through the doors and into the gray, windy afternoon, where they went swiftly to their horses. The other knights began to mount, but Guillaume hung back, clutching hold of Will.
“Is this what we have come to?” he demanded, his eyes feverish. “All those who died protecting Christendom’s dream, and now, after two hundred years, we throw it all away for the sake of one gold coin each?” He gripped Will’s shoulder hard. “Did they sacrifice themselves for this? Your father? Our brothers? Did our people drown in the blood of Jerusalem for nothing?” He hung his head, seeming barely able to hold it up. “How the knights of the First Crusade, how our
founders
must be turning in their graves! How God must turn from us, our greed, our vanity. Two hundred years and this is how it is to end? Not on a battlefield, with soldiers against soldiers. But with the senseless slaughter of innocents in their homes, in peacetime, by a group of ignorant, starving peasants who came here looking for a better life?” He laughed. It was a broken sound. “Is this truly how it ends?”
Will didn’t speak. Wasn’t this how most wars ended, and started? Only the pages of history books and men who wanted to be heroes remembered the blazing banners and noble warriors who had gone before. The people faced a different reality. The songs and the stories spoke of bright helmets and swords, brothers in arms and God and glory. They didn’t speak of the silent millions who faced brutal, anonymous death. After two hundred years of slaughter on both sides, to Will it made a perverse sense if this was how it was to end.
“Dear God, save us,” groaned Guillaume, almost dropping to his knees. Behind them, the cries of the crowd, now spilling out of the church, stung their ears. Theobald and Peter went toward the grand master.
Will grasped Guillaume to stop him from falling. For a moment, he cursed Everard for dying, for putting him in this position and leaving him. But then he felt Guillaume’s hands clutching his own and sensed the strength in his own arms. He was the head of the Anima Templi. He was a husband and a father. “It isn’t over yet, my lord,” he said sharply, moving his head to force the grand master to meet his gaze. “It isn’t over yet.”
44
The Citadel, Cairo 20 OCTOBER A.D. 1290
Kalawun pushed his way through the doors and lurched into the garden. The sunlight flared in his vision. He put a hand over his eyes as he
headed deeper into the grounds, past spindly trunked palms and garish flowers. He followed a water channel cut through the stone walkway that led him to the center of the gardens, where a pool lay, inky in the shade, filled with slow-moving fish. Kalawun sat heavily on one of the stone benches around the pool and put his throbbing head in his hands. His skin felt dry and cold. A plug of nausea clogged up his airway, and he had to fight away an urge to vomit. The sickness used to be worse in the mornings, but now he seemed to feel it right through the day. The medicine his physician had given him wasn’t working. It hadn’t been working for months.
“My lord?” There was the sound of hurried footsteps. “My Lord Sultan?”
Kalawun sat up, grimacing with pain, and saw Khalil appear through the trees. His son’s face was grim, and for one terrible moment, Kalawun found himself wishing that Khalil not Ali had succumbed to that fever. Ali had been fair and honorable and filled with a sense of joy in life; he might have believed in the cause. Khalil was surrounded with a cold wall of faith and duty that Kalawun had never been able to penetrate. He wondered if he should have looked for another successor when Ali died. But these were desolate thoughts. Kalawun let out a hiss of breath and squeezed his eyes shut. He loved Khalil. He still had hope that they could find a common ground.
“What is wrong, my lord?” said Khalil, heading over. “Why did you leave the council? The men are keen to receive the order for war.” He gritted his teeth. “How dare the Franks refuse your terms! They will pay dear for this.”
“I needed time to think, Khalil. I needed air.”
“Time to think about what?” murmured Khalil, standing in front of him. When Kalawun didn’t answer, he gestured to the palace, stark and white behind them. “The men are waiting, my lord.” Still, Kalawun said nothing. “Father, please,” said Khalil, frustrated, “why do you not answer?”
Kalawun met his stony gaze. “I have made my decision,” he said quietly.
“Then let us announce it. We have much to prepare and little time.” Khalil turned toward the palace, but halted when Kalawun didn’t rise.
Kalawun looked up at his son, wincing at the stabbing sensation between his eyes as the light hit them. “I will not declare war on the Franks.”
Khalil said nothing for a moment, confusion turning to anger across his face. “In Allah’s name, why would you do this? The Franks have refused your terms of reparation for the atrocity at Acre. They have ignored your ultimatum. You have to attack them!”
“Do not forget to whom you are speaking, Khalil,” responded Kalawun sharply. “I am sultan and my word is law.”
“The court will not let you do this,” said Khalil, pacing ferociously. “They will not accept this decision. The Franks slaughtered Muslims in the hundreds, breaking the treaty. Your men will demand that we now take action!”
“I listened to others when it came to Tripoli and I have regretted that action every day since. I will not make the same mistake again.” Kalawun rose with effort and walked around the pool. He looked to the sky, then laughed forlornly. “I miss Nasir.” He looked at his son. “Do you think that strange? He betrayed me terribly and yet I miss him. I do not think I would have killed him had he survived Tripoli. I do not think I would have been able to bring myself to do it. I have seen so many die around me. Aisha, Ishandiyar, Ali, Baybars, Nasir. Sometimes, I wonder why I am still here. Perhaps Allah has forgotten me, Khalil?”