Crusade (69 page)

Rose shrugged nonchalantly, not willing to be caught out. “I just thought you might like to try them.” But she shot him a swift, hopeful glance.

He chuckled and let her pull him toward the stall. The man behind it beamed at Rose and pointed to the candies, speaking the Venetian dialect. Will surveyed the bustling market as she answered him. Rarely had he seen the Venetian quarter so busy.

Since early August, trade caravans from Syria and Palestine had been rolling in through Acre’s gates, flooding the markets with a glut of produce. The harvest in the Galilee had been one of the best in recent years and since the truce had been reestablished between Sultan Kalawun and Acre’s rulers, trade had recommenced in a rush. After the unprovoked sack of Tripoli, the previous year Acre’s citizens had waited in dread for the Mamluks to come for them. But when only straggling lines of refugees from the devastated city appeared, seeking sanctuary, they began to relax. Several months later, a delegation had ridden up from Cairo with a new offer of peace, which Acre’s government had readily accepted.

With the arrival of the trade caravans, the city’s population had swelled dramatically. No one could remember having seen it so crowded. The markets were mobbed with merchants: native Christians, Arabs, Turks, Greeks, bringing indigo from Iraq, swords from Damascus, iron from Beirut and glass from Egypt. The stalls in the Venetian, German and Pisan quarters were stacked with dyes, ivory, madder and olive oil; and goats and sheep packed into pens filled the blistering air with their frantic bleating. If this wasn’t enough, earlier that week, twenty-five galleys from Italy had sailed into the harbor and the dockside taverns were now packed to bursting point with several thousand peasants from Lombardy and Tuscany, who had answered a call to Crusade. The government at Acre was not best pleased. Where, they demanded of the Crusaders’ leaders, were they supposed to house these recruits, few of whom, it appeared, would be any use in the military whatsoever? But, despite their protests, room had been found, with men forced to sleep outside, on rooftops and in gardens, to many a welcome alternative in the stifling August heat.

“Can I have some money, Father?”

Will smiled at Rose and dug a hand into his pouch. He rarely had money himself, but Elwen had slipped a coin into his hand when he and Rose left the house. It was a ducat, one of the first of the new gold coins minted in Venice. It pleased him to do something so ordinary, yet so meaningful, as buy his daughter something she wanted. He was pulling out the coin when he heard shouting, rising above the noise of the crowds. Looking for the source, he saw four men dragging a fifth figure out of a building down a nearby side street. The man was fighting his captors wildly, but between them the four forced him to the ground, whereupon they began kicking and punching him savagely. A few people near Will tapped the shoulders of friends and pointed, but no one seemed willing to step in.

Hearing the man on the ground utter a strangled cry, Will handed Rose the ducat. “Wait here,” he told her firmly, then hastened around the sweet stall. He sprinted down the side street and grabbed one of the attackers, who had just kicked the downed man in the head. Will hauled him roughly away, then barreled into one of the others, shoving him aside. The man grunted in surprise, then rounded on him. He growled something in Italian and, when Will didn’t move, came at him, fists raised. His three companions stepped away from their victim and were now focused on Will. The smell of wine was strong on all of them. Will drew his falchion. The man faltered.

“Father!”

Will started at the cry and turned to see Rose, two candies wrapped in colored paper in her cupped hands. Her mouth formed a shocked oval at the sight of the sword in his hand and the four men advancing on him. Whilst Will was distracted, one of the men kicked the sword viciously out of his hand. As the falchion clattered away and Will shouted in pain and surprise, the man moved in. But his victory was short-lived when Will ducked his first clumsy punch and slammed a fist into his face, knocking his head back with the force of it and breaking his nose. Staggering away with a howl, the man caught in the legs of his victim, still lying facedown in the dust, and sprawled to the ground beside him. Will went for his falchion before any of the others could move. The man on the ground scrabbled backward, then got to his feet and fled with his companions as Will advanced. He watched them go, then sheathed his sword, gritting his teeth against the pain in his hand where the man had kicked him. Will bent down over their prostrate victim. “Stay there, Rose,” he called over his shoulder, hearing light footfalls approaching. He turned the man over and heard a small gasp behind him as his face was revealed, slack, bleeding, and disagreeably familiar. It was Garin. Will glanced around. “Rose, I told you to ...” He stopped, hearing a groan come from Garin.

Garin’s eyes flickered, then opened. His pupils were glazed and unfocused. His beard was matted with blood where his lip had split. There was more of it in his hair from a cut on his scalp. “Get away from me!” he snarled. Will tugged down the front of the kaffiyeh so Garin could see his face, but the aggression didn’t leave Garin’s eyes as he recognized him. “What are you doing here?” he rasped, trying to sit.

“Get up,” said Will bluntly, holding out his hand.

Garin muttered something obscene and pushed Will’s hand away; then he seemed to see Rose for the first time. She was staring at him, the candies still clutched in her palms. Suddenly, his expression changed. He smiled, showing a row of bloodstained teeth that caused the girl to take an alarmed step back. “Beautiful Rose,” he crooned, grasping Will’s injured hand roughly and hauling himself up. “You grow bigger every time I see you.” His words were slurred.

Will pulled away from Garin’s painful grip. “You’re drunk.”

Garin put a hand over his heart and staggered back. “Never!” He rolled his eyes and then lurched forward, casting drops of blood across the ground as he swayed and leered at Rose. “I think your
father
might be a bit upset with me as usual,” he said in a stage whisper. He laughed bitterly, then grew serious. “But you’re not, are you, Rosie?”

Will stepped in front of his daughter. “Why did those men attack you?”

Garin let out a beleaguered sigh. “I expect because of these,” he said thickly, holding out his palm to reveal two black dice. He chuckled as he tossed them to the ground. Both came up as sixes.

Will shook his head disgustedly. “Just go home, will you, and sleep this off.”

“Home! Where the hell is home? I’ve got no home. Just a flea-ridden hovel.” Garin thrust a hand in the direction of the docks. “It’s madness down there. Those Lombards have taken over. Fights every night and the taverns crammed to the rafters with peasants. There’s no room to swing a whore!” He threw back his head and cackled.

Will winced and put his hand on Rose’s shoulder. “Perhaps you should think about going back to London then, as I’ve told you before.”

Garin snarled at him. “Stop trying to save me, Saint William.”

“Why are you still in Acre, Garin?” responded Will in a clenched voice. “It’s not as if there’s anything here for you.”

“It’s not
your
pissing city,” Garin snapped back. “And besides, I’ve friends here. You, Elwen.” He grinned. “Rosie.”

“I’m not your friend,” said Rose, her voice cool.

“Rose,” murmured Will.

Garin grimaced. “Now, that’s not nice. Rosie, sweetheart, did your father ever tell you we were friends when I was a Templar?” He leaned forward and poked Will in the chest. “I saved your life, Campbell. Three times!” He counted off on his fingers, not seeing the anger seeping into Will’s eyes. “When Rook wanted to poison you in the brothel so he could go after the Book of the Grail and I drugged you instead. When we were at Antioch and the Mamluks were all over you. When you were in the desert and—” He clapped a hand over his mouth, his eyes going wide. “No, no, wait! That was someone else.” Laughter burst out from between his fingers. It vanished quickly. He licked his split lip and spat blood on the ground forcefully.

“I won’t pay Edward his money, Garin. Your decision to loiter around Acre without purpose isn’t going to change my mind. Go back to your master and tell him.” Will’s gaze hardened. “Tell him he’ll get nothing from me or the Anima Templi for his aggressions on Scotland.” With that he started to walk away.

“Always the champion, aren’t you? Always trying to save everyone!” shouted Garin, stumbling after him. “But you’re as flawed and desperate as the rest of us. You pissing
hypocrite!
”

Will whirled on him, fury now taking him in its eager, scarlet grasp. “Stay the hell away from me.”

“You took oaths, Will! Chastity, poverty, obedience. You knelt on the floor of the church in Paris and swore those vows to the Temple. How many have you kept? Chastity?” He laughed madly. “I think that one bolted from the stable a long time ago, didn’t it? Poverty? Now you steal from the Temple’s coffers to fund your own secret mission. Obedience? Well, we both know that’s never been one of your strong points.” Garin was raving now, spittle and blood flying from his mouth, along with the venom. “You’re as much of a slut-swiving, oath-breaking, lying, cheating son of a whore as I am, and don’t you
ever
forget it!”

That was it. Blind to all else, except the hateful man in front of him, a man he had once cried and laughed with, a man he had shared secrets with and whose life he too had saved, Will struck out savagely. His fist caught Garin squarely on his injured jaw, knocking loose a tooth. Garin reeled away, took a few staggering steps, then went down like a felled tree. A cloud of dust flew up around him as he struck the ground.

“I should have let them kill you,” seethed Will, towering over him, ready to strike again.

“Don’t!”

Will jerked around to see Rose. Her hands had flown to her face and she had dropped the candies. All the fury and hatred inside him drained from him at once, leaving him shocked and shaking.

As Garin looked up at Will, his dark blue eyes glinted in triumph. “See,” he murmured thickly through a mouth full of blood, “you are like me.”

Will didn’t respond, but walked away, taking Rose by the arm.

Garin watched them through hooded eyes. Go home, Will had demanded.
Go home.
Will thought he still had a place back in London, a position and a home to go to. But, in truth, he had severed that tie a long time ago, sick of Edward’s control over him, of all the years of false promises and insults and threats. Since then he had been filled with the possibility of hope, the possibility of a different life, of being a father to a child. That, more than anything, had cemented his decision to stay in Acre. Last year, some of the king’s men had come looking for him, but he was forewarned and left the tavern he had been living in, where he made enough to eat and drink by gambling and stealing. He had gone into hiding, growing his beard long and full so that it covered his face, sleeping in shacks and hovels, moving from place to place, as nomadic as the desert tribes. Ironically, his years in service to Edward provided him with the skills he needed to keep hidden, and although he still feared the sound of footsteps in alleys behind him and the thought of a knife in the dark, he had managed to remain lost and anonymous, and out of Edward’s reach.

Garin’s gaze went to the candies Rose had dropped, which had rolled free of their colored wrappers. He crawled forward, grunting with the effort, and grasped one of them. It was warm and sticky from where it had rested in her hand. Slowly, he put the candy to his mouth and bit down. And the pain and the blood and the grit of the sugar and the street were all bound up in its aching sweetness.

“Father.”

Will pulled his kaffiyeh up roughly as they moved back into the crowded marketplace.

“Father!” said Rose, sharply now.

Will halted. “What is it?”

“You’re hurting my arm!”

Will stared into his daughter’s scared and angry face and, at once, let go. “I’m sorry.” He put his hands on her shoulders. “You shouldn’t have had to see any of that.”

Rose’s expression changed as she looked at him, and now her fear was different, gentler: the fear of concern. “If Garin ever comes to the house, Mother always shouts at him and sends him away, and you get angry if we meet him in the street and he talks to you, even if he’s courteous. Why?”

“I don’t want him in my life, Rose. He did some things that deeply hurt your mother and me years ago, and although I’ve tried, I’ve found I cannot forgive him.”

“But you were once friends? When you lived in England?”

“Yes. But things changed between us long ago. We’re different people now.” Will’s voice roughened. “No matter what he says.”

“Those things.” Rose paused and pursed her lips, then met his eyes. “Those things he said about you, about you breaking your oaths. Did he mean them?”

Will exhaled wearily. “In some senses, yes. But not in the way that it sounded.” He paused, unsure of what to say. He and Elwen had explained the Rule of the Temple to their daughter: how, as a knight, Will was forbidden from marrying or being with a woman, and how the Temple must never find out about them. But they had kept silent about Will’s role in the Anima Templi. Rose was intelligent for her age, but she was still only twelve, and they didn’t want to burden her with secrets. “Garin isn’t a good man, Rose. Not anymore.” He grasped her arms gently. “He isn’t to be trusted. All right?”

Rose studied him with her intent gaze. “Is he going to stay here until you give him money?”

“I hope not.”

“Why can you not give it to him if it will make him leave?”

“Because of what he will do with it.” Will smiled tiredly at her inquiring frown. “Garin’s master, King Edward, attacked Wales, where your mother was born, in order to secure more land for himself. It is rumored he has a similar desire to rule Ireland and Scotland. The king of the Scots died four years ago and his heir was his granddaughter. The last we heard was that Edward was planning to marry his son, Edward of Caernarvon, to the girl. The kings of England and Scotland have had good relations in the past, but I fear for the country with Edward’s interference. There are men in Scotland who would, I believe, resist his rule, and I do not want to see what happened to Wales happen in my homeland. If I give Garin money, the king could use it to fund a war, as he has in the past.”