Authors: Unknown
Khalil wasn’t listening. He had stopped pacing and had gone still. “You will lead your people to war, Father. You will march on Acre and destroy the Franks’ last base.”
Kalawun’s brow knotted as he turned to his son.
“You will do it,” murmured Khalil, “because it is necessary and because it is the right thing, the
only
thing, to do. You will do it because your people demand it and because the Franks deserve it. And you will do it because if you do not, I will tell the men in that council chamber that you are a traitor.”
“What?”
“I heard you!” shouted Khalil, emotion rushing back into his voice as his father stared at him aghast. “When the Christians came here, I hid and I watched you! I heard you talking to the Templar . . . heard him speak of how you had been working together all these years, working against Baybars, against our people. Against
me
!” He was striding again now, his hands flying as he spoke. “I kept it secret all these weeks, knowing that your life would be in danger were I to reveal it to anyone. I kept it hidden because I wanted to give you a chance to do what is right by your people. But now I see I have no choice.” His voice cracked and almost broke. “You are giving me no choice!”
“You are threatening me?” whispered Kalawun, jarred to his core.
Khalil took a step toward him, then stopped. “You have been bewitched, father. How could you work with the Western invaders? With a
Templar
? These people murder us, defile our temples and assault our cities. They have been doing so for two hundred years. The only reason this knight wants peace with you is because he and his kind want to retain a position in the Holy Land that they can strike at us from. If we give them long enough, they will regroup and try to take what Baybars and his predecessors managed to rip from their grasp.” Khalil shook his head slowly. “Somehow, you have lost sight of this truth, Father. You have lost your way.”
“Why can we not have peace with these people?” demanded Kalawun, going to his son and grasping his shoulders. “
Why?
We trade with one another, share ideas and inventions; much of what is sacred to us is also sacred to them. Why do we have to be enemies? I know this is not the Franks’ land; I know their people came to take it by force. But is it ours? I was a slave, Khalil, born hundreds of miles from here. It is any more my land than Franks’ who have been here for generations? Ourselves and the Christians have been in this war for so long we have forgotten why we are fighting it!”
“We fight because we have to, because if we don’t the Franks will take our lands and our livelihoods. It does not matter where you came from, where any of us came from. As Sultan of Egypt and Syria you now have a duty to your people,
Muslim
people, to defend them from harm.” Khalil pulled away from him. “And you will do your duty.”
Kalawun stared into his son’s unyielding gaze for a long, aching moment. Then at last, numb and defeated, he followed Khalil out of the gardens and back into the palace. His head pulsing, he stood before his court and, in a voice as faint as a breeze, declared war on the Franks. And the solid, unified cheer that erupted around the throne room following his words was a hammer to his heart.
As soon as it was done, preparations were set in motion. The generals wanted to discuss the strategy of the campaign, but Kalawun postponed any further discussion until tomorrow. Leaving the throne room buzzing with anticipation, he retired to his quarters, avoiding his son’s gaze as he swept out. Once in his chambers, he dismissed his servants and went to his desk. Snatching up parchment and a quill, he sat down to write. Two days after he had been given notification that Acre’s rulers had refused his demands, he had received a message from Will, begging for more time to persuade the government. The grand master, he said, had written to the visitor of the order in Paris, summoning extra funds. Guillaume de Beaujeu planned to pay the sultan out of the Temple’s coffers if the government wouldn’t listen. They just needed more time. But time was one thing Kalawun could no longer give them.
If you do not want to see my army on your horizon,
he scribbled furiously,
you will convince your government to change its mind.
By the time he had finished writing, the pain in his head was so bad he could hardly see.
AL-SALIHIYYA, EGYPT, 10 NOVEMBER A.D. 1290
“How is he?”
“Not good. I have given him drugs to ease his suffering, but there is nothing more I can do. I fear it will not be long now.”
The voices were soft, apologetic. Kalawun heard them as if in a dream, unreal and distant. He felt cocooned by the warmth of his bed, by the opiates drifting through his system. He knew he should be concerned by the voices and by what they were saying, but he felt just a pleasant, warm detachment. The pain had receded, chased away by the drugs. It was now a point of crimson brightness in his mind. He could sense it, but he was removed from it. He felt a shift on the bed beside him. A cool hand was placed on his brow.
“Father? Can you hear me?”
Kalawun wanted to stay in the velvet darkness, but as well as the pain, he could sense other things, worry and purpose, crouching nearby, and these were closer, demanding his attention. His eyes slid open and pain took a step nearer. Even though his quarters were only lit by two low-burning braziers, the dull glow still hurt him. Khalil was sitting beside him on the bed, his face shadowed.
“I’m dying.” It was more of a statement than a question, but Kalawun still felt numb as he said the words.
Khalil looked away. “Yes.” His voice was strained.
Kalawun lifted his hand weakly and raised it to his son’s face. His skin felt smooth. It still had youth to grace it. “Will you do something for me?”
Khalil put his hand over his father’s. “If I can.”
“Do not attack the Franks. Give them a chance to make amends. Show mercy.”
Khalil tensed. “We are committed.”
“No, there is still time. We do not have to give the order for war.”
“You already have given it. You summoned the troops, built siege engines.” Khalil stared at him. “We are in al-Salihiyya, Father. We are about to cross the Sinai.”
Kalawun’s gaze drifted past him, and now he saw that what he had thought were the walls of his palace quarters were in fact the cloth sides of his pavilion. And it all came back to him.
The last three weeks had passed in a blur of activity as the generals worked ceaselessly to ready the army for war. Kalawun’s heart was not in it, and every order for provisions and armaments that he signed, every messenger he sent out, he did so unwillingly, as all the while he waited for Will to respond to his letter. But the generals were impatient, wanting to march on Acre before the winter rains set in across the Palestinian hinterland. Once they made their camp outside Acre’s walls, they could summon more troops from Aleppo and Damascus. The harvests were in; the towns well stocked. It was, they had said, a good time to leave.
“We have to turn back,” said Kalawun, his fingers moving to tighten around his son’s. “I haven’t given them enough time. Campbell will persuade them.”
Khalil pulled his hand from his father’s grip. “Campbell?” he demanded. “The Templar?”
“The Franks will agree to our demands. He will persuade them.”
“No, he won’t,” said Khalil bluntly, rising.
“I wrote to him,” said Kalawun, struggling to sit up. “I told him that we were coming, that he needed to convince his government to concede.”
“I know.”
Kalawun’s brow furrowed. “What do ... ?”
“I am not a fool, Father,” snapped Khalil, rounding on him. “I made sure to intercept any message you sent out after you had given the order. I know you only gave it because of my threat.”
Kalawun closed his eyes.
“I destroyed it,” continued Khalil, looking at him. “The Franks will not pay because they do not know that we are coming for them. And by the time they do, it will be too late.”
“Why?”
“Because I had to.” Khalil sat beside his father again and took his hand.
Kalawun tried to turn away from him, but he was too weak. “When you die, Father, I want our people to remember your name with honor. I want them to know that you loved them, that you never faltered in that love and that you would always do what was right by them. I will see that your name lives on in history, that our people remember you well.”
“It is because I loved them that I did this,” whispered Kalawun. “Can you not see that?”
“I know you believe this,” said Khalil quietly. “But it is a delusion. Father ...” He swallowed back his emotion and made himself look upon his father’s gray, desolate face. “It does not matter what you and a handful of Christians believe. The very fact that this Templar would have to convince his own government to make reparations for the atrocity in Acre shows that his people are no more willing to engage in this foolish peace than your own are. Ideals will not safeguard us, not while our enemy remains in these lands to threaten us. Only a heavy hand and an iron sword will protect them from the Western invaders.”
Kalawun let his head fall back onto the pillow. “Nasir was right,” he breathed. “We are all slaves. Slaves to duty, to faith, to revenge. I do not want to be a slave anymore, Khalil, a slave or a warrior.” He closed his eyes.
Khalil was speaking again, earnestly, passionately, but Kalawun blocked out the sound.
Behind his eyelids, he sought that softness, turning away from the sharpness of fear and disappointment and regret. He ran from them, retreating inside himself, seeking solace and comfort. Allah had not forgotten him. He could feel the moment descending on him, filling him with perfect calm.
And somewhere in that deep dark, that fathomless space inside him, Kalawun found what he was looking for in the smiling faces of Aisha and Ali, whom he summoned with his last breath to come forward and take him into Paradise.
Khalil sat beside his father for some time after his chest had ceased to rise and fall. A charcoal in one of the braziers split with a hissing crack and sparks fizzled in the air, brief and bright. Khalil leaned over and whispered the Shahada in Kalawun’s ear. After it was done, he stayed there for a while, smelling the sweet oil in his father’s hair. Then, his grief done, he rose. Outside, the army awaited their new general. But they would not be marching this dawn. Kalawun had believed the army would not be needed, that in the end peace would prevail, and the generals had believed that they couldn’t delay if they were to avoid the harshest months of winter. Because of these things, they had too few troops and not enough siege engines. Khalil knew they would need every possible resource if they had a hope of taking Acre, and not just Acre, but every last castle and town where the Franks still resided. No, he wouldn’t march his men yet. They would wait out the winter here and gather more forces. Then, one final push, one final, massive push, and it would be over. Zengi, Nureddin, Saladin, Ayyub, Baybars: he would follow in their footsteps and finish what those before him had started. It was time to end the Crusades.
45
The Venetian Quarter, Acre 30 MARCH A.D. 1291
“I wish you would listen.”
Elwen, packing silk sheets into a chest, paused to look at Will. “I am listening. But you haven’t changed my mind. I’m not leaving.”
Will left the window and crossed to her. “I’m serious, Elwen.”
She shook her head as she pulled the cover from Andreas and Besina’s bed. “So am I.”
Will felt his frustration grow as he saw the resolve in her face. He knew that he wasn’t going to be able to persuade her and was irritated both by her unwillingness to listen and his own inability to convince her. “Think about Rose,” he said after a moment. “Think about our daughter.”
“I am,” replied Elwen, folding the sheet. “Andreas’s physician believes she is too weak to travel. We shouldn’t risk it, he said, and I agree.”
“How much safer will she be here?” Will pushed a hand through his hair. “When they come, I’m not going to be able to protect you, either of you.”
Elwen placed the sheet on top of the others in the chest and went to him, cupping his cheek with her hand. “We have more than a thousand knights to protect us. Acre is strong, Will. Have faith.”
“Since the ships have been carrying citizens to Cyprus, our forces have dwindled to fewer than twenty thousand fighting men. You know the Mamluks outnumber us.”
Elwen frowned at him. “What would you have me do? Take our daughter on a ship for months on rough seas without a physician or proper supplies, or keep her here until she is well enough to leave? Besides,” she added brusquely, “I’m not going without you, and as you’re not prepared to leave, neither am I.”
“I have a duty to this city, Elwen. I have to stay.”
“And as your wife I have a duty to you.”
There was a knock at the door. It opened and Catarina appeared. She smiled at Will, then went to Elwen and spoke softly in Italian. Will, watching them, was struck by the memory of Elwen ushering Catarina out after the girl had caught them kissing. It didn’t seem possible that fifteen years had passed since that day, but the evidence was in front of him in the faces of Catarina, now a grown woman, and Elwen, the mother of his child. It gave him a sense of sadness, but he couldn’t quite say why.
“Rose is awake,” Elwen told him. “I’ll check on her.”
When they had gone, Will went to the window and looked out. Two men stood in the street below talking, cloaks pulled tight around their shoulders. It had been a brutal winter, and even now, this far into spring, the air was still chilly. For weeks, sleet and rain had whipped the coastline mercilessly, and March brought strong winds that sent ragged clouds to cast huge shadows across the plains, churned to an icy sludge outside Acre’s walls. Sickness blighted the city and surrounding settlements, with one particularly virulent fever killing over one hundred children. Rose had come down with it last month, and for several weeks, Will and Elwen thought they had lost her. Those nights had been some of the worst of Will’s life; awake and pacing his quarters in the Temple, imagining his daughter lying not half a mile away, shaking and sweating. The pure, maddening fear of it; not being able to be there, or help her, not knowing whether a message would be waiting for him at the gate when he went down for Matins, telling him she was dead. But she was strong and had survived the worst of it. Now Rose was on the mend and the weather was becoming milder, but rather than bringing relief these warmer, drier days and lighter nights held a growing sense of menace. The mud on the roads was drying, hardening, able to take the weight of an army. If Will closed his eyes, he fancied he could hear them: the stamp of thousands of booted feet; the jangle of bridles and chain mail; the rumble of the siege engines’ wheels, the thudding drums.