Silk Road (21 page)

William felt the pony stumble. It tried to regain its balance, its rump jerking as it attempted to correct its mistake. William lurched sideways in the saddle, throwing the beast further off balance.

‘William!’

He heard the warning shout from Josseran. He slid from the saddle and with his back against the rock face he dragged on the reins, in a futile attempt to pull the horse back on to the path. Both the animal’s rear hooves were over the lip now.

‘Help me!’ William shouted at Josseran. ‘Everything is in there! Everything!’

The leather bag on the saddle contained the illuminated Bible, the Psalter, the vestments, the silver censer. William released the reins and reached for the saddlebag. He caught a giddying glimpse of bottomless grey clouds and frost-cracked granite walls.

He consigned his soul to God, his fingers refusing to release their grip on the precious Bible and Psalter. He screamed, even as he committed himself to death.

Strong arms closed round his waist, hauling him back from the edge.

‘Let go of it!’ Josseran screamed in his ear. ‘Let go!’

It was a moment that seemed to go on forever. No, William decided, after an age of soul-searching that took but the blink of an eye; no, I will not release my hold. I will die if I must. But I cannot forfeit the Bible and Psalter. Otherwise the journey here will be of no consequence and I will have failed the Lord.

He saw the horse fall, sliding down the rock slope, kicking desperately at the air. Then it was gone and he waited to follow it down into the chasm. Instead he lay on his back on the rock and ice, the Tatar witch standing over him, her face drawn in a grimace of frustration.

She shouted something at him in her heathen tongue. He clutched the precious leather bag to his chest, felt the reassuring weight and bulk of the Bible and censer inside it. Knowing that it was safe, he rolled on to his knees and shouted a prayer of thanks to the merciful God who had saved him for His higher purposes.

Khutelun stared at the Christian holy man, the pathetic bundle clutched to his chest. The barbarian lay beside him, unmoving. She knelt down and pulled back the hood of his cloak. When she took
her hand away there was dark blood smeared across her fingers. He had smashed the back of his head on the rocks saving this madman.

‘What is so precious in the package that the crow is willing to die for it?’ one of her escort growled. The crow: the name the Tatars had given the Christian shaman.

‘I don’t know,’ Khutelun answered.

The barbarian’s eyes had rolled back in his head. Perhaps he was dead. ‘Joss-ran,’ she whispered.

Inexplicably, a fist closed around her heart.

‘I
AM GOING
to give you the unction,’ William whispered. He kissed the precious purple stole for which he had risked his life and placed it around his neck. He murmured the words of the last sacrament, putting his fingers to his lips, eyes, ears and forehead as he repeated the familiar Latin benediction:

In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti . . .

They were in the lonely dwelling of a Tajik shepherd. Outside the wind growled and rushed, like the moaning of the Devil himself.

‘Now you will make your confession,’ William whispered, ‘so that you may be received straight away into heaven.’

Josseran blinked, but found it difficult to focus his eyes. The friar’s face was thrown into shadow by the orange glow of the fire. ‘I am not . . . going . . . to die.’

‘Make your confession now, Templar. If you die unshriven you will have to face Satan.’

Josseran tried to sit up but the pain pierced his brain like a knife and he cried aloud.

‘I shall make it easy for you. I shall make your confession on your behalf. Repeat my words. “Forgive me, Father, for I am a sinner. I have sinned in my heart, for I have harboured unholy thoughts about the witch, Khutelun. In the night I have abused myself while thinking of her and spilled my seed as I did so.” Say it.’

‘Damn you, priest,’ Josseran grunted.

‘You have lusted for her. It is a mortal sin, for she is a Mohammedan and a witch. You must be absolved!’

Josseran closed his eyes.

‘Say it! “I have spoken against His Holiness the Pope and against William, his vicar. I have uttered blasphemies.”’

‘I am not . . . going to die . . . and I do not need . . . your absolution.’

‘Open your eyes, Templar!’ Josseran felt the priest’s fetid breath on his face. ‘Before this night is ended you will come before your Father in heaven!’

My father, Josseran wondered, or God the Father? He did not know which meeting he feared the most.

‘You will come before the judgement and you will be cast down into the pit of hell.’ William raised his right hand, holding it in front of Josseran’s eyes. ‘Unless I absolve you with this hand! With this hand!’

Do it, Josseran thought. Why this stubborn resistance to the confessional?

He had waited until his father had been called away to a parlay in Paris. King Louis had called for another armed pilgrimage to the Holy Land to free Jerusalem from the Saracens. As a knight and liegeman of the Count of Burgundy his father was obliged to answer the call to arms.

That very night Josseran went to her in her chamber. And may God forgive me, he thought. Four times he had her that night, rutting like a dog, she panting underneath him, their sweat and seed spilling on to his father’s bed. Each time he coupled with her he heard the Devil laughing as he dragged him down into hell.

What could he have been thinking?

The next night he went again. The deeper he fell into his offence the less it seemed to matter to him. Sometimes, it seemed, the only way to ease the pain of the guilt is by sinning again.

He drowned his conscience in her hot, moist flesh. Was there also a trace of pride in taking that which belonged to his father, youthful arrogance persuading him that now he was the greater man?

‘Tonight you shall see Christ or you shall see Satan. What do you say?’

‘I have not . . . sinned with her,’ Josseran croaked.

‘You have sinned with her in your heart! It is the same thing!’

Josseran winced. ‘I am sure God lies awake in his heaven
worrying about my desperate and lonely pleasure in the darkness. Your God is worse than any mother-in-law!’

He heard the hiss of breath as William took in this latest blasphemy.

‘You must confess!’

Yes, confess, Josseran thought. Let him have his way. What difference did it make now?

The friar had removed the barbarian’s robes. His face was flushed but the skin of his shoulders and arms was like polished ivory. His chest and belly were covered with a fine matt of hair that shone like bronze in the firelight. His muscles were hard like corded rope.

The strangeness of him made her suck in her breath. Naked, he appeared terrifying, yet in some strange way, exciting too.

She could not think why the death of one barbarian offended her so. Her concern was surely just for her father’s anger should she fail to deliver her charges safely to Qaraqorum, as she had been ordered to do.

Whatever the reason, she could not let him die.

William heard a sound behind him and turned his head. ‘You!’

She walked in backwards, as she had done in Qaidu’s
ordu
. She sang a low, rhythmic chant in the infernal language of the Tatars. Three of her soldiers followed her in, their faces grim. Khutelun shuffled to the centre of the tent and knelt beside the fire, clutching her rag flail and tambourine, the Devil’s devices.

Her eyes rolled in her head.

He tried to cover Josseran’s naked body. ‘Get out of here!’ he shouted and grabbed her by the shoulders to eject her. Immediately her Tatar escort took him by the arms and dragged him outside. They tied his wrists with thongs and threw him on the cold ground to scream his protests to the lonely night.

William sobbed with frustration. The Devil was about to drag another soul down to hell.