Devil's Bargain (38 page)

C
HAPTER
F
ORTY-FOUR

B
y noon of that endless day, it was done. The Temple of the Lord was taken. The defenders paid the price that the knights of the Kingdom of Jerusalem had paid at the slaughter of Hattin: the high ones died or were held for ransom; the ordinary troops were bound and led away to be sold into slavery.

Saphadin was alive and reasonably well. Master Judah had taken charge of him, under heavy guard. Richard had no intention of letting him go; he was far too valuable a hostage.

For the moment he was safe. Richard’s men admired him greatly, as the great knight and prince that he was. The Old Man of the Mountain was another matter. Richard could not be certain that Saphadin was not the Assassins’ next target.

Richard would have to trust the vigilance of his guards to keep the sultan’s brother safe. For now he had a conquest to secure.

His army was under control. There were a few Frankish heads on pikes among the heads of Turks and Kurds, and more
than a few would-be pillagers who had discovered the fear of God.

Then at last he could go to the place that he had dreamed of for so long. He did not want to make a spectacle of it, but as he mounted Fauvel and rode back through the city, he found himself at the head of a swiftly growing procession. All of his men who were not preoccupied with the aftermath of battle, and a good number of the people of Jerusalem, had fallen in behind him. They were singing—raggedly at first, then a lone determined voice lured them into a chorus.

It was Blondel’s voice, a little ragged with exhaustion, but clear and strong. He offered none of his secular songs now, no love songs or even songs of war, but the great anthem of Mother Church:
Vexilla regis prodeunt.

Indeed the king’s banners advanced in processional, claiming the victory and claiming Jerusalem. He entered the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and found it dim and hushed and redolent of old stone. The infidels had not defiled it, except to take down every cross and crucifix. The vigil lamp above the Sepulcher was burning—miraculously, men would say later, but Richard saw the monk who lit it.

His heart was full. Some of those behind him advanced on their knees, weeping and beating their breasts in an extravagance of devotion. He was not so saintly. He walked toward the tomb that had inspired so much passion, that he had won back for Christendom.

It was a low, dark, unprepossessing place, seeming small to hold so much sanctity. Its emptiness was its holiness: the absence of the body, the memory of the one who had risen from it. He could think of no words to say to it or the God who had lain in it. He laid his sword on it, wordlessly; knelt for a while in contemplation; then rose.

The crowds in the shrine drew back. He barely noticed. He walked out as he had walked in, alone within himself.

It was near dark when he emerged. That surprised him. He could not have been in the shrine for as long as that—but the sun was gone, set in blood, and the stars were coming out.

A flock of people waited for him. He only took notice of the squire who knew where he could find a bath, dinner, and a bed for an hour or two before he went back to securing the city.

Those were in the Tower of David, in what must have been the royal lodgings before the fall of the kingdom: rooms wide and airy for a castle, fastidiously clean, and about them still a hint of eastern perfumes. Maybe Saladin’s ghost would walk those halls tonight. And maybe not. Richard cared only that the basin for the bath was full and the water hot, and dinner was waiting, and the bed was ready, clean and fresh with herbs.

The bath was bliss on his aching bones, his bruises and the few small wounds. The servants were deft and quiet; one of them was adept at soothing away aches and the raw strain of exhaustion. He sighed and closed his eyes.

“So, king of Franks,” said a soft voice in his ear, speaking Latin with an eastern accent, “are you satisfied with your victory?”

Richard was abruptly and completely awake. The Seal on its chain, which he had all but forgotten, weighed leaden heavy. He knew who knelt behind him—knew as if the man had come before him in the hall of audience, with heralds announcing his name. The Old Man of the Mountain had wielded his magic yet again, passing walls and guards as if they had been shadows.

Richard kept his eyes shut, his body slack. He was thoroughly vulnerable here, naked in the bronze tub, and no weapon in the room, not even a knife for cutting meat.

Sinan went on bathing him with a servant’s skill. He shuddered in his skin, but he would never, for his life’s sake, let the man see him flinch.

“Did I not do well?” the Old Man asked, still in quite good Latin. “Have you complaints of the gift I gave you?”

“I have no complaints,” Richard said, deep and slow, as if half in a dream.

“Now you will do your part,” the Old Man said.

“My . . .” It was hard not to open his eyes and glare. “Surely you mean my mother’s?”

“Yours,” said the Old Man, “as she promised me.”

Richard kept his hands at his sides, although they had clenched into fists. He would not, as he yearned to do, clutch at the Seal on his breast.

The Old Man did not touch or attempt to take it, though his hands had been wielding the sponge within a hair’s breadth of it. Could it be that he could not see it?

He must know that it was there. It had been his until Sioned stole it, and even Richard in his willful ignorance knew that magic called to its master.

The natural outgrowth of that thought, that the one who wore the Seal was its master, was more than he could face. Yet it might save his life.

He felt a cold soft kiss at his throat, and the faintest, barely perceptible sting of the dagger’s edge. “Remember,” Sinan said. “I can follow you wherever you go, find you wherever you hide. Keep the bargain and your life is sacred to me. Break it, and you die.”

“I made no bargain with you,” Richard said.

“It was made for you.”

“What—who—”

Sinan’s voice had a smile in it, a flicker of cold amusement. “What! You never knew? Or did you choose not to know?”

“Your words are wind,” Richard said. “Wind and emptiness.”

“So that is how you do it,” said Sinan. “Your mother treats with Iblis. You preserve your Christian purity by blinding yourself to her machinations—even as you profit from them. She pays the price. You reap the rewards. How fortunate for you—and how convenient.”

Wind, thought Richard with every scrap of control that he could muster. Emptiness. He would not be provoked into rage, not now, not by this of all his enemies. He must be strong; he must be cold. He must—yes, he must turn away yet again from the truth of what his mother was, for her sake as much as for
his. When the time came he would face it. But not now. Not in the midst of so deadly a battle.

His skin prickled with more than the cooling water of the bath, or even the touch of the knife. Something had changed. Someone—there was a new presence in the room. He opened his eyes at last, but there was nothing to see. The newcomer was behind them both.

“My dear young spy,” Sinan said. “Come round where we can see you. But slowly, and no daggers, please. I should not like to be startled and cause my blade to slip.”

Mustafa did as he was bidden, although his demeanor was hardly obedient. Blessed fool: he had been trying to creep up on the Master of Assassins.

It was brave of him, and could be deadly—and it distracted Sinan. Richard felt the momentary waver, the slightest slackening of the pressure at his throat. He surged up and round, in a whirl of water.

The dagger flew wide. The Old Man smiled up at Richard. His eyes were dark, full of dreams. Maybe Richard wore the heart of his fabled power, but he was still a sorcerer of great strength and guile.

Richard dared not take his eyes off the man, even to warn Mustafa against taking rash action. He had to trust the boy’s good sense.

Sinan’s eyes were a sky full of stars. They beckoned him, beguiled him. They tempted him to fall into them, mind and will, heart and soul.

This must be how he ensorcelled his Assassins. Was that what he would make of Richard? An Assassin king—a royal slave. What beauty; what irony.

What insanity. Richard wrenched his eyes away, keeping Sinan on the edge of vision, on guard against further treachery.

Sinan’s breath hissed. “You,” he said. “You . . .”

The Seal flared into sudden, searing heat. Richard cursed and clapped his hand to it. It was cold under his palm, white-hot on his breast—weird dissonance, yet it helped him focus. He felt Sinan’s will like a blast of wind outside of a tent:
buffeting the walls, teasing him with fits and gusts, but he was spared the worst of it. The Seal was his protection.

Sinan mastered himself with an effort that contorted his face for a moment into a demon’s mask. “You have something of mine,” he said. “It was stolen from me: a thing of little value, but very dear to me.”

“I know what it is,” Richard said bluntly.

The Old Man’s eyes narrowed and began to glitter. “Indeed, king of Franks? But do you know how to master it?”

“Odd,” mused Richard. “My mother asked the same question. She wanted it, too. What can you give me that she can’t?”

“Your life,” Sinan said.

Richard laughed. “Why, messire! She gave me that life—which gives her a prior claim. Try harder.”

“I gave you Jerusalem,” Sinan said. “I opened its gates. I lured its defenders into the Temple, ripe for the slaughter. Surely that is worth the seal of a king who died two thousand years ago? If it is a seal you wish for, I can give you one far newer and more beautiful, and well endowed with power and glory.”

“Well then,” said Richard, “why not make yourself one, if it’s as easy as that?”

“Because,” said Sinan, “it has certain capabilities of which I can well and thoroughly avail myself, but which are of little use to you.”

“Ah,” Richard said. “You need it to hold your realm together. It’s your key to the garden, isn’t it? And it’s much easier to keep all your slaves in thrall, if you have help. Still, messire, you are a powerful sorcerer, even I can see that. Surely you can make do.”

“I can do that,” Sinan said, “but I would prefer not. What price would you like from me? Another conquest? Damascus, perhaps? Cairo?”

“That is tempting,” Richard said. “Can you give me the whole house of Saladin, with all his kin and kind?”

“It can be done,” said Sinan.

Richard nodded, rubbing his beard as if in reflection. He kept his eyes on Sinan. Mustafa, apparently forgotten, was easing
slowly round, out of the Old Man’s sight. His hand was empty, but it hovered near where, Richard happened to know, he concealed one of several sharp and deadly knives.

Richard hated haggling, and he had little love for diplomacy—it was only haggling for princes. But if it would engage Sinan until Mustafa could sink a dagger in his back, Richard would do it and gladly.

“I still cannot be killed,” Sinan said with his serpent’s smile. “That much power I have, and keep.”

Mustafa paused, but only briefly. He would test that assertion, his expression said. This after all was a master of lies.

“That is truth,” said Sinan.

“What is truth?” Richard asked: a very old question, which had been asked in this very city, by the one who had lain in the Sepulcher.

Mustafa was still in motion. The Old Man whipped about. Richard saw the flash of metal, and a darker, stranger thing, a blood-red gleam.

Sorcery. The Seal stirred on Richard’s breast. He started violently, perilously close to casting it off—God, he hated magic! But when his hand tightened on it, he found himself clutching it closer than ever. All the hairs of his body stood on end. The deep part of him, the part he would not acknowledge, quivered and began to wake.

Mustafa twisted away from the Old Man’s blade, but the bolt of sorcery caught him a glancing blow. His gasp was more eloquent of agony than any shriek.

Richard did a blind thing, a mad thing, a thing completely without thought: he ripped the Seal from about his neck and flung it at Mustafa.

Dagger and sorcery dropped alike. Sinan leaped up as lithely as a boy, reaching to pluck the Seal from the air.