Knights Templar - Temple And The Crown Part 29

"That is the great lighthouse," he explained. "It's sometimes called the Pharos, because that's the name of the island on which it's standing. In times past, its beacon shone night and day, marking the safe route in and out of the harbor."

"It's a lighthouse?" said a traveler from Parma.

The captain squinted at the speaker as though he were slow-witted. "Don't tell me you haven't heard of the great lighthouse of Alexandria. It was one of the Seven Wonders of the ancients."

"It's a miracle that it's still standing," Torquil said, gazing at the lofty structure. The lowest of its three sections was square, the middle section octagonal, and the topmost stage circular, the whole of it rising to a height of several hundred feet. The marble surfaces were stained with time, and here and there the masonry was visibly crumbling.

"So, why is there no light now?" the German monk asked.

The captain shrugged. "The Arabs didn't understand the purpose of the re?ecting mirror. They carried it off and never replaced it. Now, no one even bothers to light a ?re up there by night."

To Arnault's searching eye, the lighthouse looked considerably more derelict than he remembered from his last visit to Alexandria.

"It looks like it's starting to collapse," he remarked.

"A recent earthquake shook it up badly," the captain said, "and no repairs have been planned so far." He sighed gustily. "It's a sad sight for a sailor to see such a beacon sliding into ruin. The Arabs aren't seafaring folk. They're far more concerned with their new capital at Fustat, on the Nile."

Beyond the island of Pharos, at the far side of the harbor, Arnault recognized a pair of huge obelisks that dominated the surrounding buildings: called the Needles of Cleopatra, brought here from a southern city in honor of the famous queen. But for Arnault, all at once they were eerily reminiscent of the twin towers of Notre Dame, reminding him yet again of the horrors that were taking place back in Europe.

The deck s.h.i.+fted beneath their feet as the s.h.i.+p tacked westward.

"Why are we turning away from the harbor?" the Italian traveler inquired.

"The great harbor is reserved for the Faithful," the captain said with a sour grin. "We In?dels have to use the smaller harbor, up ahead-and we'll be charged extra, even for that privilege."

As they cleared the harbor mouth, the crew dropped sail and used the oars to guide the vessel to the dock. Galleys and merchantmen from a dozen lands jostled by the quayside, here to trade metals, grain, spices, and silk.

Beyond the warehouses and customs of?ces that lined the harbor, the sunlight against marble-and-plaster buildings re?ected with such brilliance that it almost hurt the eye to look at them. Off to the south, the silver sheen of Lake Mareotis and the ca.n.a.l that connected Alexandria to the Nile ?ashed mirror-bright.

Though it was no longer Egypt's capital, Alexandria was still a bustling city. When Arnault and Torquil disembarked, traveling packs over their shoulders, they were almost swept away in the boisterous crowd that was milling around the harbor.

A polyglot hubbub dinned in their ears as they walked, the mixed tongues of Arabs, Berbers, Copts, Melkites, Italians, Frenchmen, and Germans. Jewish merchants and Arab traders vied with one another to offer the best price on the newly arrived goods, while of?cials acting on behalf of the city's governor supervised the unloading and collected duty on the cargo.

The streets beyond the waterfront were only slightly less congested, but Arnault made his way through the city as con?dently as if he were walking down the avenues of Paris, Torquil sticking close beside him.

When he came to the house he was seeking, he found the door ajar to let the air ?ow freely on this hot day.

Arnault tapped twice and stepped inside. Torquil followed, careful to close the door securely behind him.

Inside, a s.h.a.ggy-haired man was hunched over a workbench beside an open window on the far side of the room, applying a small, pointed instrument to the edges of a disk of copper. Only when Arnault was standing right over him did he look up and then leap to his feet, dropping his tools. His look of shock turned to one of joy when he recognized the face of the intruder.

"Arnault!" he cried, ?inging his arms around the knight and pressing him to his breast. "My dear friend, I had not foreseen to greet you again before Heaven!" He spoke in broken Latin with a thick Coptic accent, but that did nothing to obscure the hearty affection in his voice.

He released his hold and stepped back. "I have heard of the great badness taking place, of your slain brothers. Surely G.o.d Himself has placed a protection over you, to bring you safely here."

"I believe that truly," Arnault said, summoning a smile at the remembrance of other times, other greetings.

"But, who is this?" said the s.h.a.ggy man, tugging at his curly, gray-streaked beard as he scrutinized Torquil.

"This is Torquil Lennox, one of my confreres," Arnault explained. "Torquil, this is the good friend I told you about: Matthias the coppersmith."

Torquil was wary that he might be swallowed up in another of the Copt's enveloping embraces, but to his relief Matthias merely bowed and beckoned the two men to follow him into a back room. Here he fetched ?gs, dates, olives, bread, and wine, pressing them not to speak further until they had eaten.

"You look as if you had fasted a year," he complained, with a reproving shake of his head. "I cannot bear to behold you until you have ?lled your bellies-though you may tell me of the tedium of your voyage, if you wish."

They eschewed tedium in favor of eating. Matthias, once he was satis?ed that they were properly fed, consented to listen to their tale. Without revealing the true purpose of their journey, Arnault told him of their destination.

Matthias tugged at his unruly beard with one hand, absentmindedly juggling a date with the other.

"A long way lies ahead," he said, "but at least now you will not fail from starvation on the ?rst leg. Now that the Holy Country is under the rule of the Mongols, there are new things to fear. The trade routes still thrive, but there is more unruliness, more danger than before."

Torquil knew that the Mongols had swept down through Baghdad and taken Jerusalem itself, overwhelming the Arabs just as the Arabs had swept across the Christian land centuries before. Whether that would make their mission easier or more hazardous, Torquil had no better idea than the coppersmith.

"Only when we get there will we know what is going to happen," Arnault said, with a philosophic shrug.

"We must go, regardless-and there's no sense trying to play the prophet."

"Ah, but what money I could make in the markets, if I could." Matthias grinned as he tossed the date into his mouth and chewed. "Still, whoever rules where, trade goes on as rightly as the winds blow. A caravan departs for Mecca in two days' time. For two poor pilgrims such as yourselves, even Christian ones, to place themselves under its protection for part of their journey would be no very strange thing."

"That gives us a couple of days to gather some further intelligence," Torquil said.

Matthias made a disgusted noise at the back of his throat. "It gives you two more days to eat," he insisted. "In Jerusalem or in Mecca, the great G.o.d wants to be wors.h.i.+ped by men, not skeletons."

In spite of all the hards.h.i.+p and danger that lay ahead, Torquil could not help chuckling at the Copt's good humor, and Arnault found himself heartily joining in.

Chapter Twenty-nine.

1310.

THE TWO TEMPLARS SET OUT EASTWARD, FOLLOWING THE ancient trade route between Egypt and Arabah, which had been known to the Romans as the Via Maris. On foot, it was a long, hard journey, compounded by the necessity to keep their true ident.i.ties a secret from those around them; for Western knights would ?nd no welcome among those who had been their sworn enemies. Accordingly, the pair had maintained their guise as pious Western pilgrims, their travel scrips adorned with a variety of pewter pilgrim badges and the c.o.c.klesh.e.l.l emblem betokening a visit to the shrine of Saint James at Santiago de Compostela. For desert travel, this attire was modi?ed by the addition of hooded burnoose and kef?yeh, the sun-s.h.i.+elding head covering that also served as protection against blowing sand.

Their swords they disguised amid the bundle of poles and stakes that supported their tiny travel tent; the dirks they wore beneath their robes were formidable stabbing weapons, almost as good as a short sword, and could be explained by Torquil's Scottish origins. Such blades were entirely reasonable accoutrements for travelers on the pilgrim routes; and the iron-shod pilgrim staff that each of them carried could also serve as quarterstaff or even halberd for defense.

Even as pilgrims, their travel must be wary. Moving from oasis to oasis, village to village, the two of them traversed the arid wastes of the Nile Delta like men crossing a dangerous river by a series of precarious stepping-stones. When possible, they traveled in the company of caravans, for safety and anonymity lay in numbers, and the Muslims respected the inst.i.tution of pilgrimage even by those of other faiths. Only after many weeks of travel did the two Templars at last enter the wilderness of Judah, the southern gateway to the Holy Land.

The timeless landscape had changed but little since their last sojourn there, nearly twenty years before.

Two days' journey to the north, by Arnault's reckoning, lay the heavily salted waters of the Dead Sea.

Nearer at hand, bleak desert surrounded them on all sides, stretching to every horizon in wind-scoured ridges of sand and stone. Arid breezes raked up sheets of grit that stung the eyes and clogged the throat.

Here and there, rocky crags and sheer escarpments reared up like cyclopean ruins.

The leader of their present caravan, a Muslim captain named Qasim, was in the pay of a consortium of merchants whose goods he had been hired to protect: coffee and copper, honey and salt bars, bales of cotton, carpets, leather, and ivory. So far, the only hazards had been hunger and thirst and the danger of losing their way. From these, Qasim had protected them well. He knew every spring and well along the route, and where to stop to renew their supplies. And he knew the stars in the sky as well as a man knows the rooms in his own house.

In addition to the armed guards and the drovers who cared for the pack animals, and the merchants themselves, a score of other pilgrims accompanied the caravan, Jews as well as Muslims, and even a few other Christians. But though it was Qasim's duty before Allah to protect all these human charges, they received none of the personal attention he gave to the animals-the camels, mules, and donkeys, at least two hundred of them in the long train, in addition to the horses of his men-all of them giving off a pungent reek in the desert heat. Qasim was being paid to see that the goods reached their destination safely-and for that, he must keep his pack animals ?t and strong, regardless of what happened to the people. Arnault and Torquil had observed the care with which he inspected each animal at the beginning and end of every day, overseeing their care and feeding, making sure none suffered from saddle galls or foot problems.

"I suppose we ought to tell Qasim we're leaving in the morning," Torquil said to Arnault, as the two of them trudged along beside their pack donkey. "On the other hand, I doubt he'd much notice our absence, if we just slipped away. We've only two legs after all-not four."

"Aye, he does love his animals," Arnault agreed. They spoke in court French, unlikely to be understood by any of their companions, and had been careful not to reveal that they both were ?uent in Arabic, Arnault more so than Torquil. "Concern for animals is a virtue of their religion. I've heard it said that Mohammed once cut the sleeve off a robe he was wearing, rather than disturb a sleeping cat."

"Did he, really?" Torquil replied, falling silent to think about that as they continued to trudge along.

Off to one side, Arnault watched a miniature whirlwind touch down brie?y and stir up sand, then lift again and spin off in another direction.

"If you're reluctant to leave the caravan, just say so," he said, after another little while. "It does mean striking out on our own, but I can't help feeling we'll be safer, now that we're getting nearer our goal. I campaigned in this vicinity when I ?rst took my vows. It's looking more and more familiar."

"You couldna prove it by me," Torquil quipped, for his own experience in the Holy Land had been somewhat more limited than Arnault's. "We haven't any deserts in Scotland.

Still, it's certainly true that every day we stay with the caravan, we run the risk that someone is going to discover who we really are. I don't think they'd be so hospitable to a pair of Western knights as they have been to two innocent fellow pilgrims."

"Aye, they do respect a man who undertakes a holy journey, as they themselves are doing-even though we're Christians. It helps that all of us are People of the Book-Christians, Muslims, and Jews. A pity we keep having to ?ght wars to remind ourselves of that."

"Aye, it is." Torquil squinted against the sun to scan the distant horizon with disfavor. "I confess I'll be glad to put this rough country behind us."

"Aye, this is typical bandit territory," Arnault agreed. "Far enough into the desert to be clear of military patrols, yet still within reach of civilized outposts when they need a source of supplies or access to a market."

A growing plume of dust was rising in the wake of the pack animals, increasingly bothersome as the caravan pa.s.sed through an area of ?ner sand, approaching a ridge of higher ground. The two men fell silent, the better to listen, veiling the lower halves of their faces in folds of their kef?yehs. But as they continued trudging along, both men kept increasingly sharper watch on the cliffs and ridges ahead. It was Torquil who ?rst spotted the telltale ?icker of movement partway up the side of a neighboring crest of high ground-though Arnault was already turning in that direction as Torquil focused his full attention on what he thought he had seen.

"Uh-oh," he muttered. "Did you see that? I think we may have company."

He jutted his chin vaguely toward the spot in question, though he did not change the carriage of his head.

Narrowly scanning the ridge in his turn, Arnault was able to pick out two bearded faces peeking out from behind a scrim of tumbled boulders.

"Do you see them?" Torquil murmured.

Arnault half turned his face back toward the younger knight, but his eyes never left his quarry.

"I see them."

"What do you think?"

"I think," said Arnault, "that we had better warn the captain. I would guess that they're a.s.sessing our numbers. Make sure our swords are accessible, but don't uncover them yet."

Leaving Torquil with the donkey, Arnault headed toward the front of the caravan, extending his long-legged stride to move quickly without appearing to be in a hurry. Qasim had been riding up and down the caravan, and was currently toward the front, mounted on a wiry chestnut mare as lean and weather-hardened as her master. He turned in the saddle as Arnault came abreast of him and laid a hand brie?y on his stirrup, at the same time pulling down the swath of fabric veiling his lower face.

"We are being watched," Arnault announced in brisk Arabic. "Two men lurking in the rocks atop that hill." He jutted his chin in that direction. "I very much doubt they are alone, or that their intentions are benign."

The caravan captain gave him a supercilious look but kept his mare moving forward. If he was surprised at Arnault's sudden display of ?uency, he gave no sign of it. Casually, seeming merely to adjust his headcloth, he bent his gaze on the ridge the Templar had indicated. But during Arnault's progress up the line of march, the two scouts had disappeared.

"Your eyes play tricks on you, in?del," Qasim murmured contemptuously. "You are not accustomed to the brightness of the sun."

"Look again," Arnault insisted, "and then look around us. Is this not a perfect spot for an ambush?"

Qasim scowled. "How would you, a pilgrim, know of such things?"

"I was once a soldier, until G.o.d led me into the ways of peace," Arnault improvised. "I am making this pilgrimage to atone for the sins of my past."

"Allah loves a soldier," the Arab responded with a curl of his lip. "The Prophet Mohammed-blessed be his name- rode at the head of his army and conquered half the world. You cannot say the same of your Nazarene."

Arnault bit back his exasperation and cast a sidelong glance at the ridge. This was no time to argue religion. He spread his hands in a gesture of conciliation.

"Should a wise man not accept true counsel, whether it comes from a caliph or a beggar-or even from an in?del?"

The Arab once again scanned the ridge with eyes long accustomed to the desert glare.

"You were a soldier, you say?"

Arnault nodded. "Do you see something?"

"I see that there are carrion birds among the rocks and thorns to our right," Qasim noted grimly, "but none upon your ridge to our left. They antic.i.p.ate the dead, perhaps, and avoid the living."

Suddenly clapping heels to his horse's sides, he wheeled the animal around and raised his arm as he gave a ululating cry. His hors.e.m.e.n scattered from where they had been riding in bunches amid the line of march, res.p.a.cing themselves along the line, and the caravan lumbered to a halt. Donkeys jibbed and camels jostled one other with bad-tempered snorts. Querulous protests broke out among the merchants.

"Why are we stopping here?"

"This is no place to make camp!"

Before Qasim could bellow for silence, a warbling chorus of battle cries split the desert air as the western ridge came alive with ragged shapes, mostly on foot, the desert sun glinting off a motley a.s.sortment of swords and javelins. Brandis.h.i.+ng their weapons, the bandits yelled and stamped their feet.

"We do not take fright so easily as that!" Qasim declared. "If these dogs want booty, they'll have to ?ght for it!"

Drawing a thin, curved sword, he barked out a staccato string of orders. Goaded by urgency, the twelve men under his command swiftly marshaled the caravan into a tight circle.

Donkeys, mules, and camels were forced to their knees, forming a living barricade. The merchants and pilgrims took shelter among them while the Arab guards drew their weapons and braced themselves for defense.

Arnault joined Torquil and their fellow travelers in the middle of the circle. Torquil was hesitating over the wrappings that disguised their swords. Howling like dervishes, the bandits left the shelter of the rocks and poured down the slope toward the caravan. In a lightning tally, Arnault counted two dozen black-robed ?gures on foot, led by three men on horseback.

"This doesn't look good," Torquil muttered. "Other than Qasim's men and ourselves, I doubt there're half a dozen amongst the rest of us who can ?ght-and if we ?ght."

"I fear it's a little late to be worrying about our disguise," Arnault replied, as he whipped the wrappings from his sword and pulled it from the scabbard.

Some of Qasim's hors.e.m.e.n were armed with bows as well as swords-wicked little recurves with the power to pierce armor-and loosed off a volley of arrows. The brigands, though they wore no armor, were undeterred, and closed in, howling, as they ?ung themselves at the barricades. Half a dozen in the ?rst wave were cut down in their tracks. But as the range became too close for bows, and more bandits came surging forward with swords and javelins and even cudgels, Qasim's men charged into them with swords, slas.h.i.+ng and hacking.

Two of the caravan's defenders fell wounded. A number of the Muslim pilgrims dropped to their knees and began offering up wailing prayers to Allah. Pus.h.i.+ng their way through the mostly unarmed travelers, naked broadswords now in hands, Arnault and Torquil raced to join Qasim and his men. The caravan captain ?ashed them a sharp look, but didn't question their aid.

"You say you were a soldier," he shouted to Arnault between hacks at attackers. "I hope you have not forgotten the art!"

Bandits were swarming on all sides. A pilgrim screamed as a bandit stabbed him from behind. Arnault and Torquil ran to where the attackers were most numerous and drove them back with b.l.o.o.d.y sweeps of their broadswords. When one of the riders tried to overleap the barricade, Arnault brought the horse down with a cras.h.i.+ng blow of his sword pommel to its skull. Its rider went ?ying, and Torquil cut him down before he could recover from his fall.

Fighting back-to-back, they could hear Qasim alternately bellowing encouragement to his men and raining curses upon his enemies. An enemy horseman rode straight at him, but the Arab captain yanked his nimble steed aside and ?ung a dagger that caught the raider in the back as he rode past.