The Hostility of Hanno: An Outlaw Chronicles short story (2 page)

Alan nodded and walked over to the table at the end of the room. His wounded belly had been strained in the act of lifting
the heavy-set Bavarian on to the bed, and he checked it and was pleased to find no fresh blood; for all his discomfort, he
was nearly mended. From a tall earthenware jug, he poured out a pint beaker of cool water and brought it over to his neighbour.
The man took it and sank the contents in a single draft. He put the beaker on the round table between them and gave Alan the
smallest of grunts by way of thanks.

The sun reflected off the Mediterranean as if it were a mirror, almost blinding in its intensity. Alan Dale sat under a huge
red-and-white-striped awning, at a table on the western promenade just outside the walls of the citadel of Acre, drinking
twice-watered wine and eating slices of cool melon. His eyes ached from the glare but he had chosen this spot because he relished
the cooling breeze that came straight in from the sea. Behind his back the city was quiet; most of the local folk, Christian,
Jew and Muslim alike, had taken to their beds to escape the battering heat of mid-afternoon, and the holy soldiers of the
Great Pilgrimage – now only Englishmen, Normans, men of Maine, Anjou and Aquitaine, and a few Italians, as King Philip of
France and Duke Leopold of Austria had returned home – usually followed their example. It was almost too hot to think. But
Alan had spent too long abed over the past few weeks to desire his cot, so he sat in the shade, with his back to the high
white ramparts, looking out over the low wall that separated the promenade from the shining blue sea and enjoying the breeze.
Indeed, he was not the only mad soul in Acre who had refused to retire for the afternoon. A few of the hardier Arab stallholders
on the other side of the promenade were still at their posts, determined to be on hand to sell their trinkets, fruit, cool
drinks and gaudy clothing to any passer-by. Alan’s eye was drawn to a short sturdy figure in a black leather jerkin who walked
the promenade with the trace of a limp in his left leg. He was bathed in sweat, half-blinded by the glare and his shaven head
was the colour of a well-cooked lobster. Alan recognized him as the man who had occupied the cot beside him some weeks before
in the infirmary. He had disappeared – one day Alan had woken and found the man gone, with no warning, no goodbye – but here
he was walking stiffly along the promenade past the line of stalls, his head lowered, his shoulders hunched against the heat,
his gait determined. For a moment, Alan thought about hailing him, but it was too hot for even the slightest exertion, and
he remembered the man had been unfriendly to the point of rudeness, and so he held his tongue and watched him slowly approach,
draw level and move onwards without apparently noticing his former neighbour.

***

Hanno paused at a stall selling headscarfs in a rainbow of bright hues. He saw the English boy across the promenade slumped
on a stool with his back to the battlements and his long legs extended but had no particular desire to speak to him. He knew
that his head was being burnt raw by this God-damned merciless heathen sun, and that he ought to purchase some form of covering,
but he could not let himself be got up like some foreign nancy-boy just to avoid a touch of sunburn. Why were there no decent
woollen hoods for sale in this damned country? Even a floppy leather countryman’s hat would have done the trick – but there
seemed to be nothing for sale but these absurd-looking turbans. He fingered the silky material of a turquoise scarf – he would
look like some painted harlot if he were to wrap this frippery around his head. But, on the other hand, it might make it harder
for the Chiavari men to spot him …

Alan watched idly as the surly Bavarian pawed a trailing strand of fine silk. That man badly needs a hat, he thought. Or some
hair. He smiled at his own thoughts, and then straightened in his seat, jolted out of his torpor by the sight of a young Arab,
not much older than him, watching the German out of the corner of his eye from the next stall along. The Arab was examining
a brass cooking pot, tapping the bottom and holding it up to the sunlight. But Alan could see by his covert glances that the
true object of his interest was the shaven-headed thug three yards away. Alan was entranced. He knew exactly what was happening
– his former ward-fellow was being stalked.
Not so long ago, Alan himself had been a predator of the same ilk as the Arab boy, and he had stalked his prey in a very similar
manner. His only dilemma was whether or not he should warn the ill-mannered brute. It was none of his business, and he was professionally interested in seeing how the Arab
would accomplish his task, yet the Hospitaller physician had said that the man Hanno was alone in Acre, that he had no comrades,
no friends at all; perhaps he owed it to him as a fellow Christian, as a fellow pilgrim in the struggle to recapture Jerusalem,
to warn him.

The Arab casually strolled to the stall selling brightly coloured scarves and positioned himself beside and a little behind
Hanno who was by now leaning forward speaking loudly and angrily to the stall keeper, doubtless trying to make himself understood.
As Alan watched, he saw a stealthy brown hand reach out, low down, level with Hanno’s hip, and a knife flashed in the sunlight.

‘Hey, Hanno! Behind you!’ shouted Alan.

And the Bavarian moved, faster than a striking viper. He turned in a tight circle, right elbow leading, a blade already in
his hand, his arm uncoiling – and he slammed a dagger with astounding accuracy into the throat of the Arab standing behind
him, then ripped it sideways and free of the flesh in a shower of red droplets. The young man screamed, a horrible wet, choking
noise, and dropped to his knees, both hands flew automatically to his half-severed neck, one dropping a short knife, the other
a brown leather purse containing no more than a few pennies that just moments before he had freed from Hanno’s belt.

Hanno ignored the dying man at his feet and the gush of blood over his boots; his head snapped left and right, his feet had
assumed a fighting stance, the bloody dagger was cocked and ready in his right fist – but there were no enemies to be seen.
Indeed, the walkway was almost deserted. Hanno looked over at Alan, and he lowered his shoulders and smiled, showing a ragged
set of yellow-grey teeth. He lifted the gory dagger to his brow in salute; bent and retrieved his purse from the Arab’s slack
lap, and sauntered down the promenade as carefree as a child.

The stallholder’s face was the colour of ash; he knelt beside the stricken thief on the stone flags of the promenade flapping
his hands in shocked panic but unable to make any noise at all. Alan realized that his own mouth was hanging wide open. He
shut it abruptly, fumbled a coin on to the table for his food and walked jerkily away.

***

The wine was sour, barely drinkable, but Alan was determined to finish this jug and another. The anger he felt in his belly
at the ruthless, money-grubbing behaviour of his lord demanded the fruit of the grape. He drank alone, in a tavern in a strange
quarter of Acre that he knew none of his company of green-cloaked English men-at-arms and Welsh bowmen were likely to visit.
They always drank in one of the dives near the airy sea-palace that his lord had commandeered, so as not to have too far to
stagger home with a bellyful. Alan was grateful to be alone – he’d dismissed his servant with an angry word and stormed into
the night looking for wine, lots of it, nursing his anger like a baby at his breast.

He finished his cup and refilled it. He could feel the liquor coursing through his veins and igniting a glow behind his eyes
and he began to relax a little. He looked around the room. It was a dismal place: a low, square room with a counter at one
end filled with bottles and casks where a dwarfish man in a greasy robe grinned and bowed at him. There were a dozen other
drinkers huddled on benches around the edge of the room, and some at the other tables; many were clearly European but a good
proportion were local; none, it seemed, wished to engage with any of the other souls there. Alan was glad of that; he was
also glad of the poniard he had in a sheath at his waist, a foot-long blade of fine Spanish steel. Since it had fallen to
the Christians, Acre had become a wild and dangerous place after dark, with pilgrim throats cut daily for the silver in their
purses, sometimes just for their clothing or boots. Every morning at least one or two bodies were discovered slumped, stripped
and blood-streaked in the winding alleyways of the old city. Certain parts of the city were declared off-limits; the Christian
soldiers were warned not to drink alone, or with strangers, and always to keep a hand on their purses. Good advice – which
Alan utterly ignored. He fiddled in his own purse and produced a coin. He tapped it on the table and pointed at his jug. The
little proprietor nodded and bustled over to sweep the jug from the table and hurry away to refill it.

‘I buy this!’ said a hard voice, and Alan noticed a muscular weight beside his elbow, and the dull shine of candlelight off
a heat-blistered bald head. Hanno pulled up a stool and took a seat by the Englishman. ‘I say thank you. For warning.’

Alan nodded. ‘You have learnt some English?’ he asked.

‘A little. I not perfect. It too difficult …’ Hanno finished his sentence with an unintelligible stream of Bavarian that seemed
to be packed with the vilest profanities. Then he sat down on Alan’s left and filled a beaker for himself from the jug. The
two sat in silence for a while, sipping the execrable wine, unable or unwilling to find an area in common suitable for conversation.
Finally, Alan spoke. ‘You know, Hanno, there was no need to kill that boy on the promenade,’ he said mildly. ‘He was a cut-purse:
he presented no danger to you, only to your silver.’

Hanno looked utterly perplexed. Alan tried again, speaking a little more loudly and slowly as was his habit with foreigners
who did not have the wit to understand him, and miming a little on some of the longer words. ‘The boy. He was a thief; he
not want harm you. Thief. Take purse. Steal. You do not need to kill him.’

Hanno looked at Alan as if he were mad; then filled his beaker to the brim with wine. And while Alan drew breath to try once
again to make his point anew, a fresh voice broke in: ‘But Hanno likes to kill, don’t you, Hanno?’ The stranger, who was standing
on the far side of the table, followed this with a stream of German, which Hanno evidently understood but did not care for.
He was glaring at the stranger, a man with a long face, long black hair and yellowish skin. Alan could see that the man had
a fighting axe tucked discreetly into his belt at the back, the curved head just visible in the gloom.

Without the slightest invitation, the stranger hooked out a stool with his foot and sat down. Alan was suddenly aware of two
other men, big, indistinct figures who had shifted from their positions against the wall and were now paying a little too
much attention to the three of them at the table. His spine itched.

‘You go now,’ said Hanno, pushing hard against Alan’s left arm. ‘Go away. This man is no good man. You go now.’

‘Yes, off you go now, sonny,’ said the stranger. ‘Old Johannes and I have some pressing business to transact.’

Alan did not move. ‘I haven’t finished my drink,’ he said, wrapping the fingers of his left hand around the beaker. His right
hand lay casually in his lap beneath the table.

‘You finish up your drink and run along, there’s a good lad,’ said the man.

‘Who are you to be giving orders?’ Alan’s mouth had tightened to a grim, determined line. He remembered his earlier anger
at the barbarities of his lord, and found that he was perfectly happy to redirect his rage at this yellow-faced stranger.

‘I am Rudolfo Chiavari – and these are my brothers, Sergio and Roberto.’ The man jerked a chin at the two shadowy men who
by now were standing behind Alan and Hanno. The young Englishman stared hard at Chiavari, trying to keep any trace of shock
or fear from his face.

‘I see that you have heard of us – that is good. It will make things more simple. So now, finish your drink and go. There
need be no trouble between us.’

Alan did know of the Chiavari brothers, a vicious gang of five siblings and their followers, all cut-throats and thieves who
served in the Italian contingent under Ubaldo Lanfranchi, the Archbishop of Pisa. They had been in the Holy Land longer than
most of the other Christian forces and had built themselves a reputation for ruthless dishonesty, outrageous thievery, extortion,
murder and mayhem that was a disgrace to their noble cause. For a moment, Alan considered getting meekly to his feet and leaving
that tavern, which now stank of menace. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see drinkers hurriedly finishing their drinks
and making for the doorway. He owed nothing to Hanno – he had already gone out of his way to be kindly to him on two occasions
with scant thanks. There was no bond between them, nothing to stop him walking away. It was the right, the wise, the sensible
thing to do.

‘What business have you with my friend Hanno here?’ asked Alan. All his senses were extended: he was listening for any sound
of movement from the men behind him, while keeping his eyes fixed on the fellow sitting across the table. The bar had nearly
emptied. Even the obsequious dwarfish owner had found some hole to burrow into. Alan felt the chilly fire of battle ignite
in his belly. His mouth was dry, the thrill of mortal peril puckering the skin on his arms and neck.

The dark-haired Rudolfo smiled like a satisfied wolf. ‘Since you ask, your friend killed my brother Petrus, in a common brawl,
in a place like this up in Tyre, over some fat slattern who brewed ale there.’ The man looked around at the dingy surroundings.
‘Yes, he died in a place very much like this one. Petrus was a drunken sodomite, a lazy, useless, foul-mouthed slug-abed much
of the time, but he was my brother, and you know how these things are. So, will you go now, and leave us to our business,
sonny? Absolutely your last chance.’