Brethren: An Epic Adventure of the Knights Templar (34 page)

“It isn’t here.”

The Dominican turned.

Pierre lifted his head groggily as Gilles shook the empty sack over the trestle. His poetry was scattered across the board, but of the Book of the Grail there was no sign. Nicolas de Navarre began to rifle through the parchments as Gilles strode over to Pierre.

“Where is it?”

“What?” said Pierre, dazed.

Gilles snatched out his hand and took hold of Pierre’s chin. He forced Pierre’s head up roughly. “Where is the book?”

Pierre made a few choking noises, his Adam’s apple bobbing wildly in his throat.

“Friar Gilles.”

The Dominican glanced around distractedly. Nicolas de Navarre had finished going through the parchments and had come over to where the knights were holding Pierre.

“Perhaps I should have a go,” offered the knight.

Gilles looked as if he were about to argue, then stepped away.

Pierre’s breaths were rapid as Nicolas moved forward. The knight had a crossbow and a dagger hanging from his belt, along with his sword. “It’s in my bag!” blurted Pierre, before Nicolas had even spoken.

“I’m afraid it’s not,” said Nicolas mildly.

Tears began to well in Pierre’s eyes. “Please! I didn’t even write it! I swear!”

“I believe you,” said Nicolas. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “If you cooperate with the Dominicans you have a chance to escape with your life, but you must tell them where the book is. If you do not, they will be forced to kill you for being a heretic and will hunt down the book without your assistance. They will no doubt start by visiting your family in Pont-Evêque.”

“My family?” murmured Pierre.

Nicolas dropped his voice further until it was little more than a breath on Pierre’s cheek. “If they do not find the book there, the Dominicans will strip them and tie them to stakes in the town square. Your father, Jean, your mother, Eleanor, your sisters, Aude and Kateline. They will each be daubed in oil and roasted over a charcoal fire, so slowly that they will be able to watch their flesh char and split and their own bones blacken and drop out of their feet and their legs and their…”

“No!
My God!
I put the thing in my bag earlier! I was in my room. I put it in my bag.
I swear!
”

Gilles, who hadn’t been able to hear what Nicolas had said, looked impressed at the outburst. “Then where is it now?” he demanded as Nicolas straightened.

“I don’t know! I haven’t taken it out! It should be there, I don’t understand why…” Pierre stopped.

“What?” said Nicolas quickly.

Pierre raised his head. “There was a girl, a servant. She came to my room wanting to talk about poetry.”

“She could have taken it? Is that what you’re saying?”

“I left the room, not for long, but…” Pierre nodded. “Yes. She could have taken it.”

“Who is she?” snapped Gilles.

“Grace.”

“One moment, friar,” called Nicolas as Gilles made for the doors. “What does she look like?” he asked Pierre.

“Tall. Slim. Long gold hair. Pretty.”

Nicolas went over to Gilles. “There must be hundreds of servants here, friar,” he said quietly. “I will find the head steward and ask him where this girl is. I suggest you take the troubadour to his rooms and search them to make sure he hasn’t left the book there by mistake, or is lying about this girl and has hidden it. Also, I expect the king will have been told of our arrival by now. He will want answers.”

Gilles frowned at Nicolas’s forthrightness, but acceded with a stiff nod. “Very well. But you will bring the girl here if you find her. I will want to question her myself.”

“As you wish.”

Nicolas waited for the other knights and the two Dominicans to escort Pierre forcibly out of the hall, then left himself. After asking one of the servants still lingering at the back of the hall where the steward’s quarters were, he moved quickly through the wide passages, past courtiers and officials, ignoring the curious glances his white mantle drew. But when he reached the steward’s room—a small but well-appointed chamber on the lower floors—he found it empty. Nicolas paused in the corridor outside, wondering whether to wait, or to search for the man elsewhere. A breeze was coming through the windows that flanked the long, gloomy passage. It smelled of the river. It was approaching dusk and the sky was overcast. The windows looked down over a narrow, walled alley that spanned the palace compound, separating it from the river at one end and the streets of the Cité at the other. There were arched openings set into the wall. One of these openings led onto the riverbank. Nicolas, who had a clear view over the wall to the banks beyond, caught sight of a man in a gray cloak striding quickly away from the palace toward a long line of oaks that bordered the water’s edge. The man glanced around briefly, then disappeared in the tree cover. Even in the fading light, his dark skin was apparent.

A
fter taking a shortcut along the banks of the Seine to the bridge, Hasan crossed the river and entered the twisting streets of the Ville. In the gathering dark, he moved swiftly past the knots of people heading home after a day’s labor, his cloak snatched at and buffeted by the wind that had picked up over the course of the afternoon. The ground was slick with mud, pocked with footprints and hoofprints and lined with the deep runnels of wagon tracks. Low, rolling clouds threatened rain. Moving steadily northward toward the city walls, Hasan entered the labyrinthine back alleys that cut a warren through the Merchants’ Quarter. The Book of the Grail sat flush against his spine between his hose and his belt, concealed by his cloak. He had seen Templar horses hobbled outside the palace gates and had decided to avoid the main routes.

Most of the workshops in the quarter were closed for the evening, the owners having retired to their dwellings above to ready themselves for the All Hallows service, dedicated to the saints, but a few laborers were working late. Passing a blacksmith’s, a ropemaker’s and a tannery, Hasan caught snatches of firelight behind closed shutters and heard sounds of a hammer clanking on iron, the rustle of a broom across a floor, the scrape and swish of metal on leather. He stopped at a junction. The quickest way lay ahead, down a long, winding alley that passed alongside a church, but the entrance was partially blocked by a pile of large stones, and scaffolding had been erected against the side of the church. After a brief pause, Hasan skirted the stones and entered the alley, weaving between the poles, dust from new-chiseled masonry stinging his eyes. The towering lattice of struts and poles quivered in the gusts of wind. Up ahead, the writhing flames of torches made huge shadows on the alley walls. Hasan heard voices, laughter and the squawking of a bird. He moved out from between the last of the scaffold poles and saw a group of youths blocking the way. Some were standing, others were crouched down forming a tight circle outside the open doorway of a masons’ lodge. They all wore white aprons. The squawking sound was coming from two cocks. Approaching, Hasan saw the birds being thrown into the center of the circle. The screeching reached a feverish pitch as the birds danced and pecked and clawed one another bloody. A short distance beyond the youths, the alley opened out into a square and, beyond that, lay Temple Gate.

Hasan moved close to the wall and inched his way past the group to the screams of a bird in its death throes. A few of the youths cheered, or booed as the bird was silenced and coins were tossed onto a barrel. One, who looked to be about eighteen, cursed and slouched back against the wall. He was lean and lupine with a patchy black beard and droopy, sunken eyes.

Hasan felt a few drops of rain. There was a hiss as the water hit the torch flames. “Excuse me,” he murmured, squeezing between the lean, black-haired youth and the rest of the group. A few of them glanced at him.

“Hey.”

Hasan looked back.

The youth by the wall was studying him. The youth’s gaze was hooded, his expression suspicious. “You shouldn’t have come that way. You might have knocked one of the joists out of place.”

“I will go the other way next time.”

There was a pause.

“Where are you from?” asked the youth.

Hasan didn’t respond, but kept on moving, pushing carefully through the last of the masons who were collecting and distributing their wagers.

“Hey!”

Hasan glanced around to see the lean youth push himself from the wall and move after him. More of the masons were looking round.

“I asked you where you are from.”

“Lisbon,” said Hasan. He gave the youth a polite nod. “Good evening to you.”

“If you’re from Lisbon, I’m from Paradise.”

Hasan kept on walking. He heard an incoherent murmur of voices behind him and a few sniggers.

“I’ve seen your like before, Dark-skin.” The youth’s voice was louder now, more confrontational than curious. His footsteps made squelching noises in the mud. “And they weren’t from this side of the sea.”

Just before Hasan reached the end of the alley, he glanced briefly over his shoulder. The youth was still following, slowly, yet purposefully, along with several of his companions, the group staging the cockfight having thinned out. Hasan quickened his pace, but before he could step into the square, three youths wearing masons’ aprons appeared in his path. They seemed slightly out of breath. Hasan recognized them as part of the group. They must, he realized, have gone through the front of the lodge and come at the square from a parallel alley to cut him off. His apprehension turned slowly to fear. One of the youths appeared nervous and was hanging back, but the expressions on the faces of the other two were grim.

Hasan halted. “What is it that you want from me?” he asked them, speaking calmly. “I am in a hurry.”

“Doesn’t sound like he’s from Lisbon either, Gui,” said one of the youths in front of him, obviously addressing the lean man.

Gui came forward until he and the rest of the masons had penned Hasan in a circle. There were nine of them in total. Two held torches. The rain was falling harder now. Beyond, in the square, a little girl was sitting on the step of a pokey, ramshackle building. She had a wooden doll in her hand that she was walking across her knees. Other than she, the area was empty.

“I’ve known people who’ve been to the Holy Land,” said Gui, addressing Hasan in a low voice filled with hostile contempt. “I’ve been told what things your kind does to Christian women and children. And you think to come here and walk through our streets, our places of work, our homes? The king makes Jews wear a mark so we all know who they are. Where’s your mark, Saracen?”

“I am a Christian,” said Hasan. He was still speaking calmly, but he could feel the menace coming off Gui like a cold wind. It made him shudder inwardly.

Gui spat on the ground. “You think our God wants you? A black sheep in His flock?” He took a step closer. “Last month, a messenger came to my mother’s house from the preceptory of the Hospitallers. The messenger told her that her son,” Gui jabbed at his chest with his finger, “
my
brother, had died when their fortress of Arsuf in the Kingdom of Jerusalem had fallen to the Saracens. He was an apprentice mason there.” Gui’s sunken eyes were bright in the torchlight. “I’d never seen him so happy as when he left on one of their ships. After your sultan, the one the knights call Crossbow, had finished with the Hospitallers, he killed the rest of those inside. My brother’s head was hacked from his shoulders, his body left to rot. He was fourteen. My mother cannot
speak
for the grief of it. And yet here you are, one of his murderers, making yourself at home in our city.”

“I am sorry,” said Hasan quietly. “I truly am. I too know people, good people, who have died in this war. But, I promise you, Baybars Bundukdari is not my sultan. I have never fought for him, nor sworn allegiance to him. My home is here and has been for many years.”

“He’s lying, Gui,” said a voice behind him.

“I swear it,” said Hasan quickly, turning to the grim-faced youth who had spoken, “I am…” His words ended in a grunt as someone shoved him roughly from behind. Hasan lost his balance and stumbled to his knees. The mud seeped icily through his hose. He pushed himself up, then collapsed with a winded gasp as a boot came crashing into his side. He curled around the pain and felt another pain in his head, his other side, then his back, which was cushioned slightly by the wedge of the book. His nose filled with the reek of putrid mud and human waste, his face and hands were coated in black slime. Gui was hovering above him. Hasan caught sight of his face, twisted with rage and grief, as the boot came in again. As it sailed into his face, he felt his nose break. Blood flooded his throat. He gagged. Someone was shouting.

“Gui, don’t! You said you just wanted to scare him!”

Hasan twisted away. His eyes were streaming. The blurred shape of Gui loomed over him. He reached inside his cloak, his fingers curling around the hilt of his dagger. He pulled it free, blinking blood from his eye and swept it round toward Gui’s legs.

“He’s got a knife!” one of the masons shouted.

Gui sidestepped the strike, just in time, and leapt backward. The other youths had backed away. Hasan, blood pouring from his forehead, his nose and mouth, stumbled to his feet, dagger poised. Half blind, his body singing with pain, he turned and staggered toward the cluster of youths blocking the alley mouth. They parted, steering away from his blade. But as Hasan ran for the opening his foot skidded in the mud and he went down, dropping the dagger. One of the masons shouted and grabbed him, hauling him up by the arms before he could reach for it.

“No!” yelled another, as Gui lunged for the fallen blade.

Snatching it from the mud, Gui ran at Hasan, who was pinned against the chest of the youth who held him.

Hasan felt a fierce pain in his side as Gui thrust the dagger into him. He saw Gui’s eyes, filled with hatred, widen, then flood with fear. Gui stepped back, leaving the blade in Hasan’s side.

“Jesus, Gui!” cried one of the youths. “What have you done?”

“Come away!” shouted another, pulling Gui by the arm.
“Come!”

Hasan sank to the ground as the youth holding him turned and fled with the rest of the group. He tried to push himself up, fighting against waves of sickening, crushing pain, but only managed to crawl a few paces into the square. His fingers clutched at the hilt of the dagger, but he didn’t have the strength to remove it. Blood gushed hotly over his freezing hands. His cowl was again whipped back by the wind. The little girl on the step of the building opposite was staring at him.

“Help me!” he croaked.

Her mouth formed a wide, shocked oval, which became a scream, then she dashed inside, clutching her wooden doll. Hasan groaned and sank forward into the mud as the door to the house slammed shut. He thought of Everard waiting in the preceptory and the Book of the Grail felt like a stone on his back, pressing down on him. He felt his consciousness slipping away, draining from him like blood, like breath. The rain drenched his bared head and trickled down his cheeks, mingling with the blood and the tears. The distant bells of Notre Dame began to toll the call to Vespers, shortly followed by the bells of all the other churches in the city, summoning the citizens of Paris to their feast day prayers.

“It should be around here somewhere, if the report was right.” The speaker, a brawny man called Baudouin with thick sandy-colored hair and a square-shaped face, jumped down from his horse and passed the reins to one of his two mounted companions. His scarlet cloak, the livery of a royal guard, was soaked through. “Give us that, Lucas,” he said, gesturing to the torch his comrade held.

“We should have had the provosts look into this,” said Lucas, the youngest of the three, irritably as he offered the torch. “God damn this wet!”

“It isn’t the provosts’ duty to look into murder,” replied Baudouin, scouring the area, which, save for the erratic sphere of light cast by the sputtering torch flames, was pitch-black. The square was eerily quiet, except for the wind and the hammering rain. The windows of the cheap, ramshackle tenement buildings that surrounded it were dark; most of the inhabitants were still in church for the evening service. Baudouin moved forward, holding the torch aloft and blinking the rain from his eyes. “That unhappy duty falls, unfortunately, to us.” He turned and grimaced at his comrades. “The good old captain’s men.”

“I’d like to see him out here,” growled the third man. “Instead of sat on his fat ass by his fire in the palace.”

“Oh, I think he’s got enough things to worry about, Aimery, with the uproar caused by that troubadour. He’s earning his keep tonight for sure.”

“Yes,” Lucas piped up eagerly, “what was that about? I saw a company of Templars with the king just before we left. They were arguing.”

Baudouin shrugged uninterestedly. “Something about the troubadour being a heretic, so I heard. The inquisitors took him away for questioning.”

Lucas shuddered. “Suddenly our situation doesn’t seem so bad.”

“What’s that?”

Baudouin looked round to see Aimery pointing to the mouth of an alley. He could just make out a humped shape on the ground. He went closer, the torch flames flickering madly in the wind. It was a body. Baudouin bent down and shook the man’s shoulder. He didn’t move. “Hold this,” he said, passing the torch to Aimery, who had dismounted and was coming over. As Aimery took the torch, Baudouin turned the body over.

“Christ!” exclaimed Aimery, crossing himself as the man’s face was revealed. “It’s a Saracen!”

Baudouin saw the hilt of a dagger protruding from the man’s side. His eyes were open, staring into the rain. Between the smears of mud, his face was grayish blue in color, livid with bruises, his beard matted with congealed blood. “Poor soul.” Baudouin opened the man’s cloak and gave him a cursory pat-down, but could see nothing on him apart from an empty scabbard that looked as if it might fit the dagger. “Killed with his own weapon by the looks of it. We should ask around. Maybe someone saw who did this.”

“They’re all in church,” responded Aimery grudgingly. “The woman who reported it just said she heard shouting, then saw him lying in the alley. She didn’t see who did it. We’ll tell the captain and he can decide whether we investigate further. But I doubt he’ll want to waste time or men on this.” He shrugged, looking at the body. “I doubt anyone will miss him much.”

Baudouin sighed, then nodded. He wiped the wet from his face with his sleeve. “Help me with him then. I’ll have to tie him to my horse. We’ll take him for burial.”

“Where though?” said Aimery, not getting any closer to the body.

“Not in a churchyard, that’s for certain,” said Lucas, moving up behind them. He had tethered the horses to a post outside a tannery.

“We’ve got to put him somewhere,” said Baudouin.

They all thought for a moment.

“The lepers’ graveyard,” said Aimery finally.