00 - Templar's Acre (6 page)

‘Only three dead? You have done well,’ the Marshal, Geoffrey de Vendac, said. ‘Any other troubles?’

‘We had to save a ship of pilgrims.’

The Marshal nodded. He was slightly older than Ivo, strong and moderately tall, with a grizzled beard and brown eyes in a square face.

Ivo knew him well, but never took advantage. The Templars were the most powerful force in Christendom, because they answered to God and the Pope, no one else. Not even the French King had an
army to compare with their Knights. But the Marshal had lost much of his confidence in recent months. He had been in Tripoli during the siege, and Ivo knew he felt guilt for surviving when so many
innocents had died. People like his wife Rachel and their young son Peter.

‘Pirates?’ the Marshal asked.

‘Genoese.’

‘They’re a menace to all shipping,’ the Marshal said, scowling. ‘They plunder without thinking they harm all Christians.’

Ivo shrugged. ‘It’s always been the way between Venetians and Genoese.’

‘It has grown worse in the last year.’

Ivo nodded at that. The Genoese blamed the Venetians for losing Tripoli, and their rivalry had once more exploded into open war at sea.

Their business concluded, Ivo was gathering his pack before leaving, when the Marshal asked quietly, ‘Is there any news?’

Ivo shook his head. ‘There can be none,’ he said with fierce certainty. He thrust the last items into his bag and pulled the strap over his head. ‘They are dead, Marshal. You
know that as well as I do.’

It was more than a year ago that the Marshal himself had brought the news that Tripoli was overrun.

Ivo had not expected it. No one had. At the time, the Egyptians had seemed content. They had taken castles, towns and villages – the whole of Outremer was open to their attacks – and
then they took Tripoli too.

Ivo had heard much about the attacks. How massive catapults were erected and were firing their missiles within hours. A corner tower crumbled, then a second between that and the sea, and
suddenly the whole city was open to assault.

The Venetians were blamed because it was they who pulled out first. They grabbed their money, crammed their goods on board their ships, and sailed away with their men-at-arms. The Genoese,
fearing the Venetians had learned of some imminent disaster, took to their own vessels. Seeing the galleys of both leave the harbour, it was plain that the city must fall. Women wailed in despair,
men stood shocked, watching their allies flee.

But not for long.

Muslim soldiers scaled the rubble where the wall had collapsed, and were over it and into the city in no time, slaughtering the men, capturing women and children for slaves. Some inhabitants
managed to make it to the little island where St Thomas’s Church stood, praying for sanctuary, but the Muslim cavalry saw them and waded out to the island.

Not a single Christian escaped that carnage.

Tripoli had been a beautiful city. Wide roads, large houses, great churches and markets, and now, all was destroyed. The Sultan had declared that Christians would never again live there, and had
ordered that every stone should be removed. And as he had commanded, so had it come to pass. The city in which beauty had reigned was a place of rubble with, here and there, the bones of the
inhabitants showing bleached white.

Ivo knew. He had seen it.

‘I am sorry, Ivo,’ the Marshal said. His eye held a tear. He blinked it away.

Ivo replied stoically, ‘It’s nothing.’

‘You have my prayers.’

‘I’m grateful, but save them for the people here. Acre is his next and last target.’

‘Prayers will aid those who seek to help themselves,’ the Marshal said. He crossed the floor to a sideboard, filled two mazers with wine and passed one to Ivo. ‘We must do all
we can.’

The door opened, and Ivo turned to see Guillaume de Beaujeu, the Grand Master of the Order. He bowed deeply.

De Vendac passed his own mazer to his master, and poured a third.

‘The horses are here?’ asked the Grand Master.

He was a tall man, immensely powerful, with broad shoulders, the thick neck of a knight used to wearing a heavy steel helm, and a sun-bleached beard. His head was bald above his handsome, Viking
face. Ivo knew him to be courageous, but also sly and shrewd when it came to politics. It was said he had spies even in the court of the Sultan at Egypt.

‘We lost only a few, Grand Master,’ Ivo said.

‘Good. We have need of as many as we can find.’

‘It is not only mounts. We need men,’ the Marshal pointed out.

‘We have messengers riding to the Pope and all Christian kings,’ the Grand Master said, and drained his cup, adding more quietly, ‘But whether they can help, I doubt me. We
lost too many at Tripoli.’

Walking from the Temple’s gates and out into the bright sunlight, Ivo was content to know that there would be more work for him. The weight of the coins in his purse was a comfort. There
was a truth and honesty in money – and money bought wine and forgetfulness.

He kept on towards the cathedral. The Patriarch of Jerusalem had based himself here since the capture of his city. Ivo had a notion to go there and pray for his wife and son. When he had visited
the ruins of Tripoli, he could not find their bodies among the piles of skeletal remains to bury them. He just hoped their deaths had been swift.

The moment of stillness was all too fleeting. Baldwin turned, but behind him he heard a bellow from the Genoese, and two more shipmen set off in pursuit.

There was one alley, which Baldwin might reach. He bolted for it, his boots slapping on the paved square, panting already with the exertion. The heat was not oppressive, but the humidity was,
and he felt the sweat bursting out all over his back, under his arms, across his chest. He would give anything for a long draught of water from the stream at Furnshill. Just the memory of that
chill, refreshing liquid was a torment. He slipped at a corner, and pelted up a second passage, narrower than the first. With no idea where he was heading, he simply kept running, his feet beating
a regular tattoo.

In the shade of the alleys, he ran at full tilt, surging past traders, women, urchins and hawkers of all types. One man he butted into lost all his goods from a wicker basket, and hurled abuse
after Baldwin as he raced off again, his wound pounding with each step, his head feeling that it must burst.

There was a roaring in his ears, and the hot air scalded his throat. He was using muscles that had grown moribund during his long sea-passage and did not know if he could keep running. Pain
reached along the top of his thighs, and when he turned a corner and glanced back, he saw that the men were catching up. Gritting his teeth, he pounded onwards.

After another thirty yards he found himself in broad daylight in a wider thoroughfare. Ahead he saw a mass of people and was deafened by their cacophony: shouting voices, rattles and squeaks,
the thunder of cartwheels and hooves. A glance behind showed his pursuers within a matter of yards, and he continued at a breakneck speed, hoping to lose them. Each breath was painful, not helped
by the dust and sand in the air. Twenty yards, fifteen, and he had to leap over a boy who scrabbled in the dirt and yelped as he passed, and then he was in the street. He joined the throng, making
his way past carts and donkeys, until he was in the midst of the people, and there suddenly caught sight of the magnificent church of St Anna’s.

With a quick glance behind him that showed his pursuers were out of sight, he hurried on towards the cathedral.

A man stood in front of him. It was the Genoese.

He gripped his long knife, grinning, and called to his friends. Baldwin unthinkingly put his hand to his scabbard, only to remember that his sword had been taken along with his purse and his
ring.

The knife moved from side to side like a serpent, and Baldwin could only stare in horrified fascination. He dared not look behind for the other men.

There was a shout as a stall-holder saw the flash of the blade, and men called to each other in some foreign tongue. The Genoese snarled something, and Baldwin had just steeled himself to try to
wrest the knife from his hands, when he heard a gentle cough.

‘Master Baldwin, I see you have some difficulty. May I help?’

Baldwin threw an agonised glance over his shoulder to see the white-clad knight again. Jacques d’Ivry’s eyes held a menacing gleam. His thin features were set as he moved to
Baldwin’s side, his hands resting on his sword-belt, head jutting as he studied the Genoese.

‘This man attacked our ship,’ Baldwin panted. ‘He killed many of the pilgrims.’

‘I see,’ Jacques said, without taking his eyes from the Genoese. ‘Master, I think you should put away your blade before you cut yourself.’

The Genoese hesitated, but when he saw the Leper Knight’s hand move to his sword-hilt, he rammed his blade back into its sheath, turned on his heel and strode away, muttering curses.

‘Master Baldwin, would you object to my walking with you?’

Baldwin shook his head, unable to speak coherently for a moment. The confrontation had left him shaken, so soon after the battle at sea.

‘Please, tell me how you know that gentleman,’ the Leper Knight continued.

Baldwin told Sir Jacques about his journey and the attack at sea that had been driven off by the
Falcon.
‘There was a man there who lent me money – an Englishman called
Ivo.’

‘Ivo? Ah, I see. He would have been aboard the
Falcon
with Roger Flor. A Templar crew. That explains how you were saved from two Genoese ships,’ Jacques mused. He smiled
down at Baldwin, and then pointed. ‘Now, master, I think you are safe enough. That rather magnificent church at the other side of the square is your destination. If you ask inside, I am sure
that you will be helped. Now, once more godspeed, my friend.’

Ivo de Pynho walked to the west door of the cathedral and stepped inside the cool interior. When the Patriarch of Jerusalem had been thrown from his city by Saladin, he
commanded that the Church of Santa Anna should be torn down and rebuilt as a proof that the Patriarchate would not easily be dislodged from the Holy Land.

Now Santa Anna was a memorial in stone of the oath sworn by so many knights, that they would retake Jerusalem in the name of Christ.

Ivo’s head had been aching since leaving the Temple, and now he sagged with relief, dipping his fingers in the stoup by the door and crossing himself as he faced the altar. Here, in the
cool nave, he could remember his wife Rachel, and little Peter, for a while. But not with an easy heart, since he had not been there when they needed him most.

The light poured through the coloured windows before him, and splashed over the floor like red, green and blue paints. It sparkled soothingly from candlesticks and the gilded icons. He walked
past merchants haggling, past men gambling on the floor, a couple arguing viciously about the husband’s wandering eye, to a pillar where he leaned, his eyes fixed on the statue of the
Madonna. Her beautiful face was calming, but his loss was a tearing pain that would not leave him, and even She was powerless to help him. Not even Christ and all His angels could ease it.

He stared, almost expecting a miracle to strike him. Perhaps Rachel would appear, or Peter. No. If he was still in Jerusalem, maybe he might see a vision of them, but not here. Ivo sighed to
himself and turned to leave the cathedral – but even as his eyes fell on the gamblers, he recognised Roger Flor, and beside him a familiar face.

Baldwin was playing at dice, and as Ivo watched, a broad grin broke out over the young fellow’s face.

‘Look at that! Look at that!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’ve won again!’

Ivo walked around the gamers, noting who the other men were. Two were clearly sailors; a third he recognised as Bernat, Roger Flor’s henchman.

‘Come, Master Baldwin, you must give us a chance to win back our losses,’ Roger was saying, and Ivo saw the look he gave his companions.

Ivo knew it was hard to adhere to the Templar rules laid down by St Bernard. There were strict orders that Templars must avoid gambling. Chess and backgammon were barred, and only merrils
occasionally permitted; when a game of chance was allowed, it was only for relaxation. Discs of candle-wax were used, never money, for Templars had taken the vows of poverty, as well as chastity
and obedience, the same as any other monk.

Ivo sidled round and glanced at the piles of coins. Roger Flor had a small heap in front of him, and now he eagerly placed more in the middle, while Baldwin happily equalled his wager. Two
sailors followed suit, and Baldwin picked up the dice and began to rattle them in his fist. When he flung them down, there was a stunned silence for a moment, and then Baldwin grinned and took the
pile and scraped it to meet his other coins.

‘This game looks like fun,’ Ivo declared loudly, hands on his hips.

‘Master Ivo,’ Baldwin said, looking up at him. ‘I’ve been really lucky. You wouldn’t believe it, but I’ve won almost every game!’

‘True, I find it very hard to believe,’ Ivo said, staring at Roger.

‘Something wrong, Ivo? Or do you want to join our party?’ the shipmaster asked.

Ivo looked at Baldwin again. A strange feeling washed through him: a vague memory, perhaps, of the man he had been when he first arrived here by ship.

Baldwin was beaming up at him, and Ivo was suddenly reminded of his son’s face. That same innocent glee, fixed in the moment, without any concern for the future – it was there in the
young man’s eyes. Ivo felt a shiver run down his spine as he recalled his thoughts moments before. Could this be a sign from the Blessed Virgin? On a whim, he made a decision. He would
protect this fellow while he was in Acre.

‘No. This has been a good game, but it’s time for my young friend to come with me. Pick up your winnings, Master Baldwin.’

‘Oh,’ Baldwin said, crestfallen. ‘I was just . . .’

‘He doesn’t want to go yet, Ivo,’ Roger said. ‘Leave him for three more games and we’ll look after him.’

‘No. He will come with me now,’ Ivo said, stepping in front of Baldwin, who toyed with a coin but made no effort to collect the others.