Nexus Point (Meridian Series) (31 page)

       Maeve closed her eyes a moment, running Golems
through her own memory to recall the key events of the late Twelfth Century.
Byzantine History was her old college major, so
she found safe ground
there at once.
Isaac
Angeles II was Emperor in
Constantinople and he was already quarreling with the Pope by 1185. Frederick
was consolidating his power in Central Europe, and Phillip II Augustus held
France in the West. The Crusades were well underway, in fact most of Tripoli
and Palestine as far south as Sinai had been in Christian hands for some ninety
years. The Crusades!
Her pulse quickened as she realized the year 1187
was a pivotal year in that history.

       “Can we start a single year query on eleven
eighty-seven?” She raised her voice so Kelly could hear her in the next room.

       He huffed back, pointing at her keyboard,
clearly excited. “Hit your F12 function key. I just put the Arion Mini on this
baby and told the Golems to start honing on that time segment for live data feeds.
No sense having them fetch stuff on the Romans when we have a clear violation
right here. What’s up?”

       “The Crusades,” said Maeve, folding her
arms. “The Second has been finished for some time, but the Third is about to be
born—unless this changes things.”

      
“What?
I
thought we went over this during the first mission run up. Nordhausen was
adamant that the Crusades were too complex to tamper with. He said: History has
it’s imperatives. I’m afraid they simply
must
occur.” Kelly mocked a bit
to make his point, imitating Nordhausen.

       “History is bunk,” she gave him back Henry
Ford in reprisal. “We’ve all seen to the truth of that.” That look of
self-recrimination was building in her eyes again, a yawning, vacant doubt that
dispelled her elation and re-stoked the anxiety that had plagued her for months
past. “When you get right down to it you can mess with something like the
Crusades as easily as anything else, and apparently somebody is giving it the
old college try.”

       “Any idea what happened in eleven eighty-seven?”
Kelly sat down in the chair next to her, unwilling to wait for the data queries
to answer his question.

       “For starters,” Maeve began, “the whole
history of the Middle East and the conflict of the West with the Muslim world
was about to be turned on its head—and it all happened over a forty-eight to
sixty hour period, a real maelstrom at a place called the Horns of Hattin.”

       “Where’s that? Here, I’ll get a map query
running.”

       “It’s near the Sea of Galilee, above
Tiberias—the Gate of the West, as it was sometimes called from the Muslim
perspective. The Christians called it the Horns of Hattin, after two prominent
hill formations in the area.” She was already keying a specific search request
on one screen while Kelly brought up a map.

       “Here it is,” he said first. “A big battle
was fought there in early July, 1187. Take a look at the map. Looks like old
Saladin was about to lock horns with the Crusaders beneath those hills.”

       “Here’s an artistic rendition of the
battle—from the old database. I can’t get clean data yet from the new stuff.”

       The image came up showing a battle raging in
a sea of spears and lances. The two prominent hill features were evident in the
foreground and background: the Horns of Hattin. Kelly noted the image and then
returned to his map. “Looks like the Crusaders were hung out to dry,” he said.
“Saladin is coming at them from one side and this other force is enveloping
from the north.”

       “I’m not sure on the details,” said Maeve,
but I think the Christian Army had advanced beyond reach of good water, and
Saladin’s army was baring the way to the Sea of Galilee. It was an awful mess
in the end. Every castle in the Holy Land had emptied its garrisons to join in
this battle, and they were slaughtered by superior Moslem forces. Look up Harold
Lamb in the old database. He’s got good accounts of all this.”

       It did not take long for Kelly to come up
with some reference material. Lamb’s account was very colorful, and he read a
passage or two quickly on screen, summarizing for Maeve. “Looks like there was
some disagreement about whether they should fight this battle. Saladin had been
consolidating the Turks and the Kurds under a truce with the Lords of
Christendom up until now. Then some idiot, this guy called Reginald of Kerak,
raided the Sultan’s caravan and got Saladin really pissed off.”

       “The Wolf of Kerak,” said Maeve. “I remember
this now. Guy had just been crowned king in Jerusalem, but he took the crown
from his newly wed wife,  the sister of Baldwin—or rather she gave it to him. Men
didn’t think women could run things like kingdoms back then. Well, Reginald of
Kerak was instrumental in supporting that move in Jerusalem. Guy was a
spineless little wimp, it seems, and Reginald wasted no time advising him.”

       “Right,” said Kelly. “In fact he damn near twisted
his arm off the night before the battle. All the other Christian Lords were
against the attack, and Guy went along with them. Then, that same night, it
seems that this Reginald of Kerak and the head of the Knights Templars came to the
King and argued with him for hours.”

       “Guy changed his mind,” Maeve put in. “He
ordered the attack; the Christians got slaughtered, and Saladin had the whole
of Palestine prostrate at his feet.”

       “Nobody left to defend all those nifty
castles,” said Kelly, arms behind his head as he leaned back heavily in his
chair. His baseball cap was tilted off kilter as he spoke. “So who would be
trying to tamper with that event?” He wondered aloud, looking at Maeve with a
puzzled expression on his face.

       “Let’s see if your little Golems can paint
us a new picture,” said Maeve. “If an event of this magnitude changes, then the
transformation will ripple forward from this point in the continuum and become
a real tsunami by the time it reaches us here in the 21st Century. You were
wondering what Mr. Graves and company felt like when our mission succeeded for
them? We may be about to find out ourselves. We can’t keep the Arch spinning
forever, Kelly. God only knows what the world will be like when we turn it
off.”

26

The Sami brooded
in the Eyrie of Sinan. It was the one place
he knew he could linger undisturbed, for no man would dare to walk the gray
stair that led to the door, or chance his life on entering. Here he could sulk
until his master returned, and then he would undoubtedly be shamed before the
Kadi, and severely chastised for all he had done. Yet that was the least of his
crimes, he knew. The greatest measure was the cup he had spurned from the hand
of Sinan himself! He had been told to do a thing, to kill a man, and just when
he was ready to fulfill his charge, he had allowed the moment to slip from his
grasp.

       As he gazed out the high lancet window his mind
returned, burning, to the man who had escaped his wrath, Reginald, Arnat, the
Wolf of Kerak. Reginald was the oath breaker, who flouted the truce offered by
Salah ad Din and set himself as the mortal enemy of every Muslim soul.  It was
he who had dared to set foot upon the sacred soil of the Land of Muhammad; it
was he who raided the coasts of the Red Sea for months on end, burning the
coastal towns of the faithful and raging inland with his host of ravenous
knights.

       Each time the warriors of Islam
were able to challenge him in battle, he had escaped. Now he was harrying the
faithful again from his outpost at Kerak: Reginald, Arnat, the Wolf.

       Then, at long last, word came from Alamut on
the mouth of a single courier in the night. It was written: Reginald must die.
The charge was veiled in great secrecy and given to the Sami himself
. “Work this thing well,” said the horseman. “It
is
the will of Sinan himself that this be done. The hour and the day will be
revealed to you soon.” The man had given the Sami a ring of amethyst, marked
with the carven seal of Sinan.

       The hour and the day…
The Sami had paced and paced as the time drew ever closer. He had trained the
faithful
Fedayeen
in the manner of the deed, selecting out his chosen
best. All was
made
ready. Fast horses were
groomed in the stables, arrangements set and the route of approach was well
planned. Then, a day before the death party was to leave the castle, the
stranger had come upon them through the Well of Souls. The Kadi said he was
expected, a messenger from Egypt bearing scrolls of fate—yet no message was
found upon him when they pulled his chilled body from the waters and stripped
away the peculiar garments he was clothed in, as was the custom.

       The Sami was curious, and he allowed himself
a moment’s distraction when the man arrived, for he had been told by Sinan that
all who came through the Well were to be watched and closely guarded. So it was
that he went to the chamber of greeting that first night, watching secretly
from his place behind the lattice as the maids anointed the man’s body with
scented oils and dressed him in robes befitting an Amir.

       He remembered the strange light that seemed
to surround the man, an unearthly foreboding sheen that shifted like a glowing
mist. His eyes whitened at the sight, and he immediately knew that this man was
not the messenger the Kadi had been told to expect. Who was he then? Surely not
one of the faithful, for he called out in a strange tongue while he slept,
possessed by the consuming fever of the elixir of returning that was poured
upon his lips by the maids in the chamber.

       It was not the words of the faithful that he
spoke. Surely this man must be an enemy! The Sami sent at once to Alamut,
describing his fear and seeking permission to
kill
the man
while he slept. But it would be many days before the messenger
birds could return. If he lingered, he would miss his charge against the Wolf.
If he acted without sanction there would surely be consequences—unless the Kadi
agreed. Then he might justify his deeds to Sinan. He was decided. He would have
words with the Kadi concerning this man. He remembered how he had argued with
him, warning him of the danger in their midst. Then he spoke of the Wolf, the
devil at large on the land again, and a
dangerous
threat
to them all.

       “The man holds forth once more at
Kerak—astride the holy pilgrim’s road that leads to Mecca. No doubt he will
soon cast his malice and ire upon the innocent who walk that road. His hatred
of the faithful is boundless.”

       “We are at peace with
the Christians,” the Kadi reminded him. “Salah ad Din has made the peace
himself! Raymond of Galilee has given his word: A three year truce.” The Kadi
held up three fingers to emphasize his point.

       “Yes, I have heard as much,” said the Sami.
“Three years of waiting while Salah ad Din bends the ears of the  Atabegs of
his homeland and treats with the Sultan of the East. All the while the sacred
duty of
jihad
is forgotten. Thankfully, the sand in that clock runs out
now, and the truce will soon be at end. Who knows what mischief Raymond has
been plotting at Tiberias? You think it was  fairness and justice of heart that
moved him to plead for this truce? We placed a dagger by his pillow while he
slept, and the message was obviously received. He was  frightened, and shown to
be the coward he truly is.”

       “You have already heard the ruling of my
heart on that matter,” the Kadi remembered the anger in his words when he
spoke. “You were told not to interfere with the Christian Lords, and yet you
persist! You think it a small thing to ply your craft—yet it is
not
a
small thing. You think to advance our cause, yet now you have seen what results
when you act on impulse, and without guidance. If what you say is true, then
perhaps this truce would not have been offered were it not for your meddling.
So your own headstrong ways fold back upon themselves. Remember, it was you who
dared to send men to the tent of Salah ad Din himself, and that nearly brought
ruin upon us all when he marched his host to the very doorstep of this castle.
No one has dared to invade the sanctuary of these mountains for a generation,
yet you tempt the hand of a Great Mover, and bend his wrath upon us.”

       “It was fitting justice for what he did to
the brotherhood in Egypt. You, of all this host, should have seen the wisdom in
my actions. Did he not lay waste to the lodge of the Ismaili brethren in Cairo?
Did he not crucify their leaders and nail their broken bodies upon the gates of
the city? Such insult and atrocity cannot be overlooked—not even by one you
deem to be great, which has yet to be proven.”

       “You see only with the eye of the moment!”
The Kadi shook a finger at the Sami now, his anger rising. “Have you learned
nothing?”

       “We are here, are we not? Massiaf still
stands. Salah ad Din has gone away to unite the tribes. We frightened him away
as well. We have proven that not even a Sultan may trifle with us lightly. It
was my strong hand that decided the issue that day. If we had followed your
counsel we would all be beggars in the streets now.” The Sami smiled, clearly
pleased with his boast. After the assassination plot failed, Salah ad Din had come
to the high mountains to lay siege to the stronghold of the Assassins in Syria,
Massiaf. But the strength of that castle lay not in its walls, but in the
devious hearts and ways of the men within.