Blades of Valor (13 page)

“If it is not these actions for which I will despise you,” Katherine said to break a silence that had lasted since leaving Jericho, “then it will be for the taunting manner with which you treat us.”

“Your feelings concern me little,” Thomas said, now deadly serious. “And if you prefer rage to mockery, you shall have your wish. You and Sir William travel with assassins who tried to take my life. Lord Baldwin tells me he is my father and accuses you of being Druids, yet keeps from me his acquaintance with the two of you. Whom shall I trust? And why should your deceptions
not
fill me with anger?”

Thomas continued to speak, his voice now quiet and cold. “Immortals and Druids. Druids and Immortals. For too long now, I have been subjected to the whims of both sides. For too long now, I have been uncertain of the identity of the people who so mysteriously appear and disappear in my life. That changed, however, in Jericho, and for that, I owe much thanks to Lord Baldwin.”

Lord Baldwin croaked from his side of the fire.

“Surprise? Or twinges of convulsions?”

The croak became a groan.

Thomas stood quickly, moved to the donkey, and returned with a wineskin.

“Drink,” he ordered Lord Baldwin. “Three large gulps. No more. No less.”

The knight hesitated.

“Don’t be a fool,” Thomas said. “If I wished you dead, I would have killed you earlier.”

Lord Baldwin did as directed. Thomas took back the wineskin.

“Good,” Thomas said. “Your stomach shall settle shortly.”

Thomas patted the wineskin. “I expect Sir William and Katherine will be in need of this as well.”

“You are vile,” Katherine said tonelessly.

“The pot calls the kettle black,” Thomas replied, with equal lack of heat. “And I have a story to tell.”

Thomas settled again at the fire and then gestured at Lord Baldwin. “This man had spent every night of our travels in sound sleep. Until Jericho. Then, while he assumed I slept, he crept out. I followed. Much to my surprise, he reached an inn at the center of the town. I dared not remain too close, and it wasn’t until he left your room that I was able to slip over myself and peer through the keyhole. Much to my surprise, I discovered he had visited a certain knight and woman who had once held my trust.”

Thomas paused. “There was something unnatural in the manner of which those in the room were asleep. As if they had fallen suddenly. So I entered the room and discovered further that they had been cast into a spell of deep slumber. I assumed a potion, easily concocted with Immortal—or Druid—knowledge, had been used.

“I could only conclude that, though both sides have claimed to be Immortals, only one could be telling the truth. Which meant that one side must be Druid. For why else would Lord Baldwin do
such a thing unless he opposed you? My questions then became simple. Who is Druid? Who is Immortal?”

Katherine groaned and clutched her stomach.

Wordlessly, Thomas stood again and offered her the wineskin. “Three gulps,” he repeated. “No more. No less.”

She accepted the wineskin quickly. Thomas waited until she finished, then took the wineskin.

Before he sat, he offered the wineskin to Sir William. The offer was declined, and Thomas sat to resume the one-sided conversation.

“Who is Immortal?” he repeated. “A simple question that presented me a difficult problem. For lies are too simple, and I have been deceived again and again.”

He tapped his chin, as if thinking through the problem for the first time. “It took many hours, but, armed with the knowledge of my own training, I found a solution.”

“Poison,” Sir William said. His voice was strained.

Thomas brought him the wineskin as confirmation and waited while Sir William drank.

“Yes,” Thomas said when the knight finished. “Poison. There are many known to the Immortals and Druids. Some brutally fast. Some slow. And, as you well know, there are many potions to counter these poisons.”

Thomas smiled. “This one poison has proven to be the perfect answer. The convulsions strike once or twice a day and will worsen as death approaches. Unless the countering potion is taken.”

Thomas stopped and drank from the wineskin. “As Katherine and Sir William know, I too shared that same poison. For two reasons. You need not suspect the countering potion if I, too, drink it. And you will realize how important this countering potion is to your survival. For if we all need it, we will all stay together. One side”—Thomas pointed at Lord Baldwin, then shifted his finger to point at Sir William and Katherine—“must guard me from the other. For if I die, so do all of you.”

“How so?” Katherine challenged. “With you dead, we can merely share the potion.”

“And when it runs out?” Thomas asked. “How will you replace it? For the dozens of combinations of poison, there are dozens of countering potions. You will not live long enough as you seek the ingredients.”

Thomas held the wineskin high. “No, you will all guard me against the others. And you will all stay with me, for I shall continue to supply you with life.”

Lord Baldwin snorted. “Thomas, my son, for what purpose must we remain with these two traitors?”

Thomas’s face softened. “Would that I could believe you were my father.”

Yet his heart urged him in the opposite direction.
But if he is my father, then Katherine is a Druid. Can I bear that pain much longer?

Thomas took a moment to gather new thoughts. “From Lord Baldwin’s pouch, I have taken the letter from the old man,” he said. “It speaks of a great treasure. Together, we shall find it. In so doing, it is ensured that the true Immortals possess it.”

“The letter,” Lord Baldwin croaked, “is it not proof that I am with you?”

“It is not addressed to any of you. That you possess it says nothing.”

“Then how will you know which of us is an Immortal?” Katherine asked softly. “For I will tell you now that Lord Baldwin is the traitor, but you have no reason to believe.”

“Believe me,” Thomas promised. “I shall know. And the final convulsions of death from the poison shall be punishment enough for the traitorous.”

Twenty-Six

T
hey approached Jerusalem shortly after dawn. For two hours they had moved along the road in the pale light that preceded the rise of the sun above the hills behind them.

When the sun finally rose high enough to cast long shadows in front of them, Thomas began to feel an inexplicable mixture of joy and dread. For these mountains and hills, too, were as strangely familiar as the house of his boyhood in St. Jean d’Acre.

As the clouds began to break in the growing heat of the sun, Thomas found himself living the dream that had haunted him night after night since it had first visited his sleep on the plains of Jezreel.

The hills—as in his dream—were shrouded in gray mist.

The donkeys plodded ahead, but Thomas was scarcely aware, so riveted was he upon the view in front. And he wondered if indeed he were asleep and this a dream … 
the mist swirled, then cleared, and rays of sunshine broke through from behind him, sunshine that lit an entire city across the valley.

He rubbed his eyes, and when he opened them, the city walls were still there, the beams of light still dancing golden and silver on the curved towers tall above whitened square houses that spread in all directions along the plateau of the mountain.

Thomas half-expected, as in his dreams, that from the walls might come a dark figure, small with distance. It was early in the day, however, and no other travelers shared the road that wound down into the valley ahead of them and then up the other side to the city fortress that was Jerusalem.

Thomas did feel a peace as he beheld the Holy City, an almost mystical wave of joy.

With this peace came the fear of the dream. All Thomas need do, even in the brightness of the early morning sun, was close his eyes to see the figure and its face, and with that vision to feel again the trembling panic.

“Thomas, my son!”
he heard the figure call in his mind. Almost against his will, he closed his eyes and trusted the donkey to take him forward.

The wrinkles of the dark cloth folded around the figure. But still, the face was featureless and gray.

“Thomas, my son!” the stranger called again. “Are you an Immortal?”

Thomas jerked his eyes open, straining to swallow the word
Father,
and suddenly grateful that he was in the lead, that the others could not see his discomfort.

Thomas tried to forget the end of the dream, because he was awake and the donkeys were already beginning to descend into the valley at Jerusalem’s feet. But the ending of his dream was there, and he could not loose it.

The figure who claimed to be his father transformed into a dragon, yet before Thomas could scream, the dragon became Sir William, swirling out of sudden mists with a sword upraised.

Thomas shook his head vigorously and tried to rouse his anger and indignation. Anything to distract his thoughts.

Behind him, at least one traitorous enemy.

Ahead, the Holy City.

“It has been no easy task,” Thomas said, “to find scholars with knowledge of a Jewish rebellion that occurred a thousand years ago. Not when I am forced to slink from street to street with my face hidden, lest my light skin give away my identity among the Mamelukes.”

Thomas shifted the weight of a small sack from one hand to the other. He hoped his listeners would not see the wonder he felt to walk amongst the noises and smells and sights of this fascinating city.

His listeners were in no mood to appreciate any descriptions, something reinforced by Lord Baldwin’s next words.

“Two days I have suffered in this cramped hovel, waiting for you to return with food. Two days I have wondered whether Mameluke soldiers would burst through the doors or if they had captured and killed you, my only son. Two days of watching the traitors opposite me to ensure that all of us live. I ache to help you, to prove to you I should be trusted.”

Sir William sighed with weariness. “Lord Baldwin, it is no different for us.”

Thomas surveyed the room. All three did look exhausted. Dark rings under Katherine’s eyes showed the strain on her.
Yet does not diminish the beauty that shines from within.

Thomas closed his eyes against the thought.
I cannot believe her,
he told himself.
I cannot let my own heart betray me.

“How long must this game continue?” Katherine asked. “It is to the point that I almost prefer death to the nightly convulsions brought upon me by the poison.”

Thomas shifted the sack again to the other hand.

“Did you not hear me?” Thomas asked. “I said it
has been
no easy task. Now it is completed. I have secured a map and”—he held up his sack—“provisions from the market that will let us begin the last part of our journey.”

Thomas began to step past them into the other room. “Please begin to prepare for travel. In a short time, I shall be ready, and I wish to leave with no delay.”

He did not wait for their reply but stepped through the curtain that served as a door.

In the other room, smaller and as poor and bare as the first, Thomas moved to the uneven wooden table in the center.

He removed the provisions from the sack and set them upon the table. There were several dried roots, a handful of dried seeds, a vial of dark liquid, and a small clay bottle with a fine white powder.

Was there a movement at the doorway?

Thomas glanced up quickly but saw nothing. He began to shred the roots with a small knife, then froze at a startled scream cut short in the other room.

Before he could move, the curtain parted, and Sir William stepped through.

“You have no permission to enter,” Thomas thundered.

Sir William stepped aside as Katherine half-stumbled through the curtain.

“Nor you—”

Thomas stopped as he noticed the reason for Katherine’s clumsy movement. A knife was held against her throat. And Lord Baldwin was pushing her forward.

“Do you wish her dead?” Lord Baldwin asked softly from behind her. His wolfish smile, hidden for so many days, glinted again in triumph.

“Of course not,” Thomas said without hesitation.

“Then set upon the table your map to the caves.”

Thomas reached into his clothing and pulled out a small roll of parchment. He placed it on the table beside the roots.

“You had impressed me,
my son
,” Lord Baldwin said in conversational tones. His voice hardened immediately. “William, if you make another movement, this knife shall taste her blood.”

Sir William froze.

“Excellent,” said Lord Baldwin. “Now stand beside Thomas. That way I can see you both.”

Sir William joined Thomas at the table.

Lord Baldwin kept his left arm wrapped around Katherine. His right hand, which held the knife sharp against her throat, was steady.

He resumed his conversation.

“Yes, Thomas, you had impressed me greatly. Until your display of stupidity tonight.” Lord Baldwin studied for several minutes the various items on the table. When he was satisfied he had identified each, he nodded. “What else would you bring back from the market but more of the necessities of a countering potion? Especially if we are about to embark on our journey again?”