Brethren: An Epic Adventure of the Knights Templar (47 page)

As a bell clanged, summoning the rest of the oarsmen to the benches, Will turned from the emerging strip of land to look down over the crowded ship; his home for the last eight months.

The
Falcon
, with its five sister vessels, had set out from La Rochelle in early June of the previous year. With the slender warships were four uscieres—stocky, unwieldy vessels carrying horses, wagons and siege engines—and a Templar roundship loaded with bales of wool and cloth for trade in Outremer. The sea and sky had grown gradually darker as they had headed into the Bay of Biscay and the ships had lurched like drunken men over great, green waves, until, caught in the teeth of two storms, one of the horse-carrier ships had foundered. Will, being flung about on his pallet below deck, had been woken by a loud splintering sound. He had raced up on deck, along with Simon and a score of other drowsy men, to find that the usciere’s mainmast had snapped in half and smashed through the decks. Clinging to the side of the rolling, creaking warship, rain and salt spray lashing their faces, they had watched, helpless, as the usciere had pitched forward, plunging men and horses into the mountainous waters.

There had been little respite from the violent storms until the fleet had reached the Kingdom of Portugal, where they had limped into Lisbon, four of the ten ships damaged, two severely. Here, they were forced to remain for three months to carry out repairs and most of the knights and sergeants had gone by boat down the River Tomar to a town of the same name that was owned by the Temple.

For Will, it was the best thing that could have happened.

Earlier in the year, while Will lay sick in Orléans, Robert de Paris had been journeying to one of the Temple’s preceptories in the Kingdom of Castile, on business for the Visitor. When word had come that the Templar fleet had put in at Lisbon for repairs, Robert and several others had petitioned the Master to allow them to join the ships. Their request granted, they had ridden across country to Tomar. Robert had been billeted in the castle with Will.

In the mornings, they had trained together on the field outside the Templar castle that dominated the town. Will, whose muscles had grown languid and whose lungs burned when he climbed a few steps, had hardly been able to mount a horse, let alone hold a lance. But, gradually, the exercise and the Portuguese sun had breathed new life into him and as his muscles had strengthened and his skin darkened, his mind had begun to settle. One evening, as he and Robert had sat on the castle ramparts, looking out over the sun-drenched hills, lizards scurrying over the walls, Will had told him about the prostitute. He had spoken too of Garin’s part in it, although little of the reasons behind the treachery, just a mention of a manuscript Everard had had stolen. Robert had listened silently, then had passed Will a skin of Burgundy wine that he had confiscated from a sergeant.

After this confession, things had changed for Will. His desire for revenge for what Garin had done to him hadn’t left him, but he had managed to press it into a place inside himself where it wouldn’t plague him so persistently.

He had another place for Elwen.

During the day, training with Robert, fishing in the river, or talking with Everard and Simon, he had managed to keep her at bay. But at night, with nothing to occupy his mind, she had slipped often into his thoughts. Many dawns he had woken with a fading image of her face and a hollow space inside. At those moments, he had wondered about returning home, but the fear that she would not forgive him had prevented him, while, compelling him eastward, was a growing desire to see his father’s burial place.

When they had set out once more from Lisbon, two merchant galleys and a pilgrim ship had gone with them, the captains paying a tax for the armed escort to Acre. The seas had changed color the farther south they traveled, from the slate gray of the coast of France and the deep navy of the Spanish seas, to the emerald Portuguese waters and, finally, the azure Mediterranean.

“Is it what you expected?” asked Robert, climbing up the side of the rembata from the outrigger. He handed Will a skin, then clambered nimbly over the parapet. “Drink up. Last of the Burgundy.”

“What I expected?”

“Acre,” said Robert, gesturing to the city, which was now much closer. The oarsmen had begun to slow their pace as the ship drew near to a long breakwater that led into the biggest and busiest harbor Will had ever seen.

Will took a swig of wine, then handed the skin back to Robert. “It looks like Paris. Only yellower.”

“I think that lot are going to be disappointed,” said Robert, draining the wine and tipping his head toward a knot of sergeants clustered together on the quarterdeck. They were polishing swords and looking toward the city, their faces grim. “One of the crew was just telling me about some knights a few years back who refused to leave the ship because they thought they could see Saracens waiting for them on the beach. They started arguing about how they could get close enough to fire the trebuchet at the enemy without coming into range.”

“Were they Saracens?” asked Will, already smiling.

“No. A group of Templar sergeants waiting to help them unload the ship’s cargo. He said he sees it every time he comes. Half the men think they are stepping off the boat into a war.”

An hour later, Will, Robert and the other knights and officers from the
Falcon
were in one of the ship’s two pinnaces, being rowed ashore. Simon and Everard were in the other. The warships, the uscieres and the roundship had been anchored off the breakwater alongside the other galleys that were too large to enter the city’s inner harbor, which was crowded with merchant vessels. Will sat beside Robert at the pinnace’s stern and watched as one of the oldest cities on Earth was slowly revealed.

It was late afternoon and the light was golden. Acre’s walls, doubled and ranked by a series of towers, seemed to soak up the sun and glow. Timber, stone and mud-brick buildings lined the harbor and behind a packed marketplace beyond the city gates, the noise of which Will could already hear, rose domed churches, imposing towers and elegant spires. The rest of the city he couldn’t see because of the walls that encircled it, but he had an impression of opulence and strength. “What is that?” he asked one of the
Falcon
’s officers, an old veteran who had been born in the city. He pointed to a huge wall that spanned the sea’s edge before turning sharply and continuing into the city beyond. Great towers jutted from it. One of these, on the city side, was topped with four turrets, the pinnacles of which seemed to be made of gold. Within the vast walls, he could see the spire of a church and the rooftops of many grand, white stone structures.

“That,” said the veteran, following Will’s gaze, “is our preceptory.”

Will fell silent. Their preceptory looked like a miniature version of the city itself: immaculate, imperious and magnificent.

The pinnace reached the shore, the oarsmen jumping into the shallows to haul the boat onto the sands. The market Will had seen from the bay was, indeed, packed and noisy. This one, the veteran told him, belonged to the Pisans. There were others, run by the Venetians, the Lombards and the Germans, all of whom had their own quarters in the city, which were like separate states with their own laws, churches and government. It was as if, the knight said, they had each carved a piece out of their homelands to stick on this strip of sand. There were twenty-seven quarters in total: Montmusart beyond the walls to the north, which was where the general population lived and worked; St. Andrew’s, which was where the local Frankish nobility lived, many of whom had fled to Acre after the fall of Jerusalem; the Jewish quarter; the Patriarch’s quarter and so on.

Will tried to listen to everything the veteran was saying as they made their way up the beach behind the captain, but his eyes were telling him their own story and he found it hard to concentrate.

“Will!” Simon was hastening up the sands, his cheeks flushed. He was followed by the sergeants and crewmen from the second pinnace. “Have you seen them? Look!”

Will followed Simon’s finger to the marketplace and saw a line of the oddest-looking beasts he had ever seen. They were larger than horses and beige in color, with long necks and knobbly-looking mounds on their backs. A small crowd was gathering on the wall, people idling from the market to watch the knights disembark. Some lounged there, watching the knights with mild curiosity, then turned back to the stalls, more interested in the merchandise.

The first thing about these people that captivated Will was their clothes. Not only were they far more elegant in design than Western garments; clinging gowns and richly embroidered tunics for women; well-fitted hose and brocaded surcoats for men, the fabrics were also extraordinarily luxurious. There wasn’t a woolen cape, or a wooden clog between them, just silk, damask, soft linen and samite. Each and every one, even the children, looked like kings and queens at a coronation.

Will found himself unable to take his eyes off the crowd as he drew closer and further peculiarities started to become apparent. Initially, he had thought they must all be foreign by their sun-browned faces, the strange cut of their rich garments, the turbans they wore over their hair and their unfamiliar accents. But now he realized that some of them were speaking Latin, others English and French. They were Westerners. But they were mingling freely, and indeed laughing and joking, with tall, graceful-looking men with ebony skin, whose teeth showed incredibly white when they smiled, other men with olive skin, almond-shaped eyes and round faces, and men who looked like Hasan.

“Saracens!” Will heard one knight hiss.

A few of the others reached for their swords and looked to their captain, but he was striding through the crowd, unconcerned. Will caught sight of Everard, hobbling a little way behind. The priest was smiling.

The knights followed their captain in a daze, past stalls where black-eyed Venetians bartered with Muslim traders over timber and iron, and Bedouin, swathed in their keffiyehs, hawked casks of mare’s milk for fistfuls of bezants. There were sweet lemons and dates piled high on wagons beside stalls stacked with rubies, dyes, swords, silks, porcelain and soap. A Jew wearing spectacles laughed with a Greek merchant as he weighed a glut of sapphires in his scales. Dung and sweat, spices and balm suffused the air. The crowds jostled one another, calling out in so many different tongues and accents that Latin became indistinguishable from Hebrew, French from Arabic. Even as the knights turned aside from the market and walked the narrow, winding streets to the preceptory, every corner delivered a new vision. Glass in the round windows of a church captured the afternoon sun and dazzled them. Women wearing the barest of gowns lounged in darkened alleys and beckoned to them. Old men sat in doorways, wreathed in incense smoke and others sat at tables, playing chess on boards made of ivory and Egyptian glass.

By the time they reached the preceptory, the knights were so overwhelmed they hardly noticed the four lions made of gold that capped the turrets of the tower straddling the Temple’s massive gates. The knights guarding the entrance greeted them and ushered them through a smaller door that was cut into the gates. They stepped through into a busy quadrant bordered by large stone buildings. Will stopped just inside. His eyes darted over the men in the quadrant, seeking out the knights. But none that he saw had golden hair.

Robert tapped Will’s shoulder. “One of the officers has asked me to draw up a list of our names to give to the bailiff. I’ll come and find you when I’m done.”

Robert was led to a building where the Temple’s banner fluttered from a pole on the roof. Behind Will, the men who had been on the other warships poured in through the gate, most wearing the same bewildered expressions. Simon came to stand at his side as clerks appeared from the building Robert had entered and began to divide the swelling group.

“My father will never believe this. I’m not sure I believe it. Did we really see Saracens in the market?”

Before Will could answer, Everard came over.

“William, I want you to find out if Nicolas de Navarre is at the Hospitaller compound in the city.” Everard’s voice was more rasping than ever. His persistent cough, which had worsened after Hasan’s death, had been exacerbated by the long voyage and some days, he struggled to speak at all.

“Now?” Even Will, who knew how much the priest had been fixated on this moment since leaving La Rochelle, was taken aback by his single-mindedness.

Everard glanced around as a clerk approached them. “There are people I must see. I’m relying on you, William.”

“This way, brothers,” said the clerk, motioning for them to follow.

“I know the way,” said Everard, shuffling off ahead of the clerk.

“What are you going to do when you find Nicolas?” murmured Simon as they fell into line.

Will shook his head, distracted by the towering walls where knights patrolled the battlements, which were riddled with arrow slits and lined with mangonels and trebuchets. This preceptory was nothing like those in London, or Paris, or La Rochelle. He realized why. It wasn’t a preceptory: It was a fortress. “I don’t know,” he said, as they passed an armory where men worked at benches, sharpening swords.

Simon, throwing worried glances over his shoulder at Will, was led away with the sergeants to a row of buildings beyond the main quadrant. Will was taken with the knights past stables, workshops, a magnificent church that made the chapel at Paris look like a barn and a palatial structure that the clerk told them formed Grand Master Bérard’s quarters. They came eventually to a set of buildings surrounding a courtyard with a cistern at the center. Will was shown to a room with seven other knights. Comfortable-looking pallets lined the walls and each man had a wooden chest for his belongings. There was a perch for their mantles and braces for their swords. The blankets on the pallets were made of lamb’s wool and pillows had been placed at the head of each bed; not straw-filled sacking, but feather-stuffed linen. The stone floor was clean and covered with a woven mat. After months on the deck of the
Falcon
, it looked like a palace, but rather than take the opportunity to relax in the princely surroundings, Will, after depositing his sack on a pallet, headed out.