Brethren: An Epic Adventure of the Knights Templar (24 page)

“In a moment, sergeant,” said the knight calmly, “I’m going to let go and you are going to sheathe your sword.”

Will, trembling with the anticipation of battle, hesitated. Then he nodded.

The Templar dropped his hold and watched Will slide the falchion through the loop in the belt. He then looked at the five Hospitallers. “What is the cause of this disturbance?”

Rasequin had lowered his blade at the appearance of the Templar, although his baleful gaze was still fixed on Will.

The older knight inclined his head politely. “It was a misunderstanding. The lad here,” he gestured at Will, “spilled our comrade’s ale.”

The Templar looked back at Will. His eyes were a cool, lucid blue and seemed all the paler in comparison to his long black hair and beard. He looked to be in his mid-forties. His face was strong and handsome and there was an olive tone to his skin that suggested he had spent some time in warmer climes. “Well?”

Will met his stare. He had seen the knight in the preceptory, but they had never been introduced and he didn’t know the man’s name. “It was an accident, sir.”

“Would an apology not have served instead of a duel?”

Will opened his mouth to defend himself, then thought better of it. “Yes, sir.”

The Templar put his hand into a leather pouch hanging from his belt and drew out a gold coin. He went to Rasequin and handed it to him. “I believe this will compensate for any inconvenience caused.”

Rasequin grunted something inaudible, but accepted the coin.

“It more than suffices, brother,” said the older knight. He gave another nod and gestured to his comrades. “Let’s go.” They moved off down the alley, Rasequin staggering between them.

Will, watching them go, was taken aback at how easily the situation had been resolved; the Hospitallers could have made a formal complaint against him, or demanded an official duel to settle the matter. He wouldn’t have been surprised if they had. The Hospitallers weren’t known for their clemency when it came to the Templars. Every chance they had, they would impede Temple business, or argue against the Order; complaining to city officials that a watermill belonging to the Temple had flooded one of their fields; arguing that Templars were taking up more space than they in the marketplace with the wool stalls; alleging that the Temple had bribed church officials and taken possession of an abandoned church, from which to collect alms, which the Hospital had already secured. And yet, for all their complaints, they still adopted many of the Temple’s practices. The Order of St. John, established prior to the First Crusade over twenty years before the Temple was founded, had been created with the sole aim of providing care for sick pilgrims in the East. But soon after the Temple’s establishment, the Hospitallers had begun to emulate the Order in military functions, castle building and economic drive. Their initiations were based on Templar inceptions and even their mantles, with the splayed white cross, were, according to the Templars, just another imitation.

“What did you think you were doing, sergeant?”

Will looked at the knight. “I’m sorry, sir, I was wrong and I was rash and…” He kicked at a stone on the ground, then swung his gaze back to the knight. “I’m lying, I’m not sorry. I apologized and he wouldn’t accept it. The Hospitaller drew his blade before I did.”

“So you drew yours in self-defense?”

“No,” admitted Will after a pause. “In anger. I wasn’t going to wound him,” he added. “I just…” He trailed off. It had felt good to draw his sword. Training on his own wasn’t the same as facing someone in a fight and he missed that pure, uncomplicated thrill. But now it was over, he just felt foolish.

“It wouldn’t have been much of a fight,” said the knight. “Your opponent could scarcely stand.”

“I know. I suppose I wanted to humiliate him.”

“Aquila non captat muscas.”

“An eagle doesn’t hawk at flies?”

“Indeed.” The knight held out his hand. “My name is Nicolas de Navarre.”

“William Campbell,” said Will, accepting the man’s hand, which was ridged along the palm with calluses, caused by the frequent handling of a sword.

Nicolas nodded. “I’ve seen you in the preceptory. You are a sergeant under the priest Everard de Troyes?”

“You know Sir Everard?”

“I know his work. I’m a collector of rare books, or I was before I joined the Temple. I’ve tried speaking with Brother Everard on several occasions, but he seems somewhat…”

“Rancorous?” offered Will.

“Reclusive,” said Nicolas with a smile. He glanced around the alley. “What were you doing down here?”

“Getting fresh skins. We’re working on some new translations.”

“Anything interesting?”

“Only if you’re fascinated by the medicinal properties of olive trees.”

Nicolas laughed. “Well, I won’t keep you from your work. Good day to you.” He paused. “A word of advice, Sergeant Campbell. Be careful about who you draw your sword against in future. The next man might not be so easily dissuaded from spilling your blood.”

“Can I ask, sir,” called Will, as the knight turned to leave, “whether you plan on speaking of this incident to my master?”

“What incident?” Nicolas smiled, then headed down the alley.

O
mar looked up at the towering white-gray fortress that loomed from its promontory of rock. The soldiers on Safed’s battlements were no bigger than ants from this distance, though these ants had teeth and in one charge alone the Mamluks had lost over fifty men to their arrows. Omar studied the sheer, indomitable walls. If there was one thing that could be said for the Franks, it was that they knew how to build a castle. Their architecture was neither as beautiful nor as elaborate as the Mamluks’, but, like the Franks themselves, it was dour and tough. Omar turned and headed for the pavilion at the center of the camp.

As Omar entered, Baybars looked up. Two of the sultan’s eunuchs were pulling on his polished chainmail coat, another was standing by with his sword belt and sabers. Except for the attendants, the pavilion appeared deserted. Behind Baybars, the throne stood empty, the heads of the lions that capped its arms gleaming in the lantern light. Omar heard a grunt come from the shadows. He made out the form of Khadir curled up on a blanket. The soothsayer muttered in his sleep, rolled over and began to snore.

“My Lord Sultan,” said Omar, approaching Baybars and bowing.

Baybars dismissed the attendants and fastened the coat’s clasp at his neck. “Omar,” he greeted, frowning. “I’m pleased you could join me. Finally.”

Omar bowed his head. “I was sleeping, my lord. I’m sorry.”

Baybars laughed, his blue eyes glittering. He embraced Omar. “It’s still so easy to bait you to my hooks.” He stepped back, leaving Omar with a taste of the oil that perfumed his skin, and walked over to a perch where his gold cloak, brocaded with inscriptions from the Koran, was hanging.

Omar watched him pull the cloak over his muscular frame. Baybars’s appearance had altered little in the six years since he was enthroned as Sultan of Egypt. Other than the few streaks of gray in his hair and beard and the deeper lines on his cheeks, he looked the same. It was on the inside, Omar knew, where most of the changes had taken place.

Omar had hoped, once Baybars’s ambition to rule was realized, that the weight of responsibility that came with the position of sultan would temper him. But, as sultan, Baybars had become more determined, violent and unpredictable than ever. Even the birth of his son had done nothing to calm him. Baraka Khan, five years old and heir to the throne, had been born in the year after Baybars’s accession. Since then, his father had all but ignored him, saying that he belonged with his mother until he was old enough to be trained to fight the Franks.

Omar knew that his friend was still there, but it was as if Baybars had been split in two. One half of him was still capable of goodwill; appreciative of beauty and deeply religious, he had restored both Cairo and the caliphate, appointing a Bedouin as leader of Islam. But, more and more, this half was overshadowed by the other, which was ruthless, cunning and utterly merciless.

In the year after his enthronement, Baybars had executed Aqtai and the rest of Kutuz’s old supporters and had wrested Aleppo from the governor Kutuz had appointed, under the pretense that the governor had been planning a rebellion. He had gone on to take Damascus, Kerak and Homs from their respective rulers and had made an alliance with one of the Mongol generals, clearing his path to war against the Christians. Since then, he had set out from Cairo at the head of his army, three times, to fall like a hammer upon the Franks.

Omar had no love of the Franks; he wanted them gone as much as anybody and, in war, death was inevitable. But it was the pleasure Baybars had taken in the pain of his victims that troubled Omar. He had feared, more than once, for his friend’s soul.

“You have the look of a man weighed down with worries, Omar,” said Baybars, buckling his sword belt at his waist.

“No, sadeek. I’m just tired.”

“If all goes well you should sleep better tonight. I have met with the governors. The regiments are in position. We will focus our attack on the gate, which we damaged during our last strike, and on the outer walls at the other end of the fortress. The simultaneous assaults will stretch and divide their forces, allowing us to get close enough to make a third strike on the central section. If we succeed in breaching the walls a regiment will be standing by to enter the outer enclosure. They will thin the herd before the knights have time to fall back to their keep. I also have another surprise in store for them. It won’t kill them, but it will serve to suck their spirit.” Baybars paused, studying Omar’s expression. “You have doubts?”

Omar avoided Baybars’s gaze. “They have repelled us twice already. Can we accomplish this plan without losing a great many more of our men? I wonder whether we should concentrate on a less formidable target? Then, when Amir Kalawun’s forces rejoin us from Cilicia we can return at full strength and…”

“Kalawun’s campaign against the Armenian Christians will take too long for us to wait. Our aim when we set out was to destroy the Franks’ seat of power at Acre. We failed in this and the men need a victory. I specifically chose to attack Safed because it is so formidable. Our triumphs over the Franks these past years have been answered with defiance and arrogance. Our enemies are concerned, but they do not truly fear us yet.”

“No?” questioned Omar, remembering the terror on the face of every Christian he had helped to massacre.

“Do you recall, Omar, when I agreed to an exchange of prisoners with the Western barons? The Templars and those they call the Hospitallers refused, saying that the Muslims they held captive were too valuable to them as slaves to be released.” Baybars paced the pavilion, his belligerence rising. “They haven’t taken me seriously yet. But they will. When we have sacked their towns and villages it has been a blow to them, yes, but the fall of one of their greatest fortresses will crush them.” He closed his fist around the air. “I will prove to them that no fortress and no knight is untouchable.”

Omar went to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I know you will, my lord.”

After a moment, Baybars put his hand over Omar’s and nodded. “Come. It is time.”

The two of them left the pavilion as dawn broke over the Jordan Valley. Joining the rest of the Bahri regiment, they mounted their horses and rode down to the front lines. All the men’s eyes were turned to Baybars, the Crossbow, as he rose up in his saddle and lifted his saber to the sky, his gold cloak flying out in the breeze.

SAFED, THE KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM, JULY
19, 1266
AD

James was with a company on the outer walls when he saw the sultan ride down to the front lines.

“Stand ready!” he shouted to the men around him.

The archers fixed their combined gaze on the troops below them, bows taut, and the Syrian soldiers at the mangonel tightened their hold on the ropes that would release the beam. The first rays of sun appeared in the east and heat came washing like a wave across them. James looked southward to see the mountains flushing pink, then red. These sunrises usually filled him with an immense sense of joy: a feeling that he was standing in God’s land, watching a miracle unfurling beneath him. But, now, the distant mountains were a bad omen. There, over seventy years ago, beneath two towers of rock called the Horns of Hattin, the Muslim forces had destroyed a Christian army. Still farther south was the site of the Battle of Herbiya and another Christian defeat. In every direction lay fields and towns, rivers and fords where their forces had been cut down by the defenders of Islam.

James caught the gaze of Mattius, who was standing some distance along the walkway with another company. Mattius raised his sword. James returned the salute, then forced his eyes back to the army.

“God be with us,” he murmured.

The thunderous roar of the Mamluks drowned out his words as the warriors answered their sultan’s battle cry. And the first assault crashed like a storm upon Safed.

The mandjaniks were drawn forward, their positions covered by Mamluk archers, who returned volleys of arrows at the soldiers who fired down at them. The missiles hissed through the air from both sides, striking stone, shields, grass and flesh. James ducked as one sailed over the parapet to clatter on the walkway behind him. After the arrows came stones. The beams of the mandjaniks rose and fell, whipping up to strike the crossbars and flinging their loads toward the fortress. Several of the missiles bounced off the walls and crashed, or shattered on the rocks below. One, however, hit the far corner tower at tremendous height and speed and James, some distance away, felt the wall beneath him tremble. The stone fell back to earth, taking a small section of the tower with it. James watched as soldiers, who must have been on the inner staircase, dropped through the fissure. Rock and men smashed on the ground below. James clenched his fists as he saw a sergeant, barely more than a boy, tumbling over and over into the void. He closed his eyes before the boy connected with the rocks beneath. He wanted to shout down over the ramparts and command them all to stop. But gone, for the moment, was any hope of negotiation. They were all in this now. Every man here was fighting for his life.

The cat was rumbling up the path toward the gate, the Mamluks hauling on the ropes. An arrow caught one of the rope-pullers in the neck. He fell back with a shriek, his body falling down the steep hillside, but another was there to take his place. The cat disappeared from James’s view as it cleared the distance from the path to the walls. Some moments later, he heard a deep thudding echoing from the barbican. It sounded like a giant pounding a fist upon the gate.

“Sir!”

One of the Syrians was pointing over the parapet. Following the man’s gaze, James saw seven mandjaniks being moved across the ground toward the central section, the section he was manning. James’s company was one of only three in the immediate vicinity. Most of their forces had been diverted to the gate and the far corner, on which the twenty remaining Mamluk engines were being concentrated. He cursed, then turned to the soldiers, who were looking to him for orders. “Archers ready,” he said calmly. He nodded to the soldiers at the mangonel beside him. “Fire when I give the order.” He turned to Mattius to shout a warning, but his comrade had already seen the danger and the company was ready. James looked back at the approaching engines and raised his hand. “Wait,” he murmured to his men, while the mandjaniks were set down and the Mamluk soldiers moved in behind them. “Wait.” The Mamluks took up the ropes and James dropped his hand.
“Fire!”

The beam of the engine beside him flew up at almost the same time as the two other mangonels along the wall. Arrows whizzed down in the wake of the three huge stones that went sailing over the parapet. Some of the Mamluks saw them coming and tried to run, but it was too late. One of the stones missed its mark, but the others were direct hits. There was a bright flash of light as a burst of fire erupted across the other mandjaniks and the soldiers manning them. The mandjaniks had been loaded with clay pots filled with Greek fire: a flaming mixture of naphtha, pitch and powdered black sulfur. The fiery matter clung to the other engines, setting them and the men who were manning them alight. The Syrian soldiers on the wall with James roared in jubilation as the Mamluks fell screaming to the ground, clothes, hair and flesh burning.

“Deus vult!”
they yelled as one. God wills it.

“Dear God,” murmured James. He looked over at Mattius’s company, all of whom were reveling in the victory. His friend was yelling the war cry, teeth bared in an ugly grimace. James understood how they felt; it was impossible not to feel triumphant when your life had been spared, even when bought at the price of another’s death, but however glad he was to be alive, James could not bring himself to celebrate. Mattius was grinning at him, opening his mouth to call out. James watched his friend’s expression change. Mattius’s grin vanished. His mouth and eyes opened wider. At the same time, James heard a soft whistling coming closer. The sound reminded him, in the second it took for him to turn, of the sudden gusts of wind that would cascade across the moors near his home in Scotland. His eyes locked on the large, dark shape flying toward him. They had not destroyed all of the mandjaniks; one, loaded with a huge stone, was still operational. James called to the soldiers around him, who were cheering and punching their fists to the sky, as he turned and ran. His feet moving nightmarishly slowly, he made it only a few yards when the strike came. He didn’t even have time to cry out as a wave of stone and blood struck his back, sending him flying. He crashed on his stomach with a winded gasp. After the thunder of falling masonry, a grisly rain pattered down around him. Torn limbs with shreds of clothing still attached, a hand, shards of bone and gristle; it was all that was left of the Syrian soldiers. James turned his head to one side, the stone grazing his cheek. He tried to lift himself up on his hands, then collapsed.

He didn’t know how long he lay there. Later he was told it was only moments, but it felt like a lifetime before strong hands grasped his arms and lifted him to his feet. “Am I dead?” he asked of the man whose white-bearded face swum into his vision.

“Not yet, praise be to God.”

James’s head began to clear. He turned to the man whose arm was tight around him, leading him, half dragging him, along the walkway. He swallowed with difficulty. His mouth and throat were coated with dust. “Mattius,” he groaned. “What happened?”

Mattius continued pulling him. “Not here. We have to get you to the infirmary.”

“No.” James came to a stumbling halt. “No,” he said again more firmly. He removed Mattius’s arm from his shoulders and leaned against the parapet. “I’m fine.”

Below him, the arrows and stones were still flying up from the field at the other end of the fortress, but with six of the seven mandjaniks now smoldering, the Mamluks were unable to mount an effective assault on the central section.

“I’m no physician,” replied Mattius, putting a hand on his shoulder, “but fine isn’t a diagnosis I would offer a man drenched in blood.”