Devil's Bargain (37 page)

Abruptly Richard shut off doubts and fears. War was a gamble. Let him cast the dice, then. With his eyes fixed on the open and beckoning gate, he said to the chief of his heralds, “Now.”

The man leaped to obey. His clear voice echoed through the hills and resounded from the walls. With a cry of trumpets and a thunder of drums, the first wave of the attack swarmed out of the hills and fell upon Jerusalem.

C
HAPTER
F
ORTY-TWO

R
ichard had intended to go in with the rear guard, but as the vanguard surged toward the gate, he could not bear to hang back so long. He clapped spurs to Fauvel’s sides. It hardly mattered if anyone went with him; his eyes and soul were fixed on the flicker of torchlight within the open gate.

He was neither the first to pass beneath that echoing gate, nor by far the last. Although he had never been in the city, he had committed its ways to heart against just such a day, praying every night and every morning that it would come to pass.

This was David’s Gate, the gate of the north and west, guarded by the Tower of David in which the kings of Jerusalem had lived and ruled and fought. The Tower seemed deserted, empty of troops and even of noncombatants. The Street of David that ran inward from it, nearly straight through the middle of the city until it reached the Beautiful Gate of the Temple on the other side, was as empty as the Tower, but for crumpled shapes that proved to be bits of abandoned baggage: an empty sack, a heap of broken pots, a chest with its lid wrenched off and nothing within but a scent of sandalwood.

Richard was deeply, almost painfully aware of the holiness of this place, the sanctity of every stone. The thing he wore about his neck, which he tried not to think of too often, had grown inexplicably heavy, as if its worn and friable stone had transmuted into the cold heaviness of lead.

He shook off the creeping distraction—it was not quite ghastly enough to be horror—and focused on the city about him. He was neither priest nor magician but a fighting man, and there was a fight ahead—that, he was sure of. But where? Not, he hoped, in every street and alley of this ancient and convoluted place.

There were signs of struggle along the street as he advanced, remnants of rioting, but as yet no bodies. He ordered his men to be on guard against ambush, sending a troop of them up to the roofs and walls and dispersing another through the alleys that converged on this broader thoroughfare. He had begun to suspect where the infidels had gone.

The Dome of the Rock was a great holy place of Islam. It stood where the Temple of Solomon had once stood, and protected the stone from which the Prophet Muhammad had been lifted up to heaven. It was not the heart and soul of their faith—that was in Mecca—but it, and the city in which it stood, were most holy and most revered in their religion.

It was also a great fortress and storehouse, built as a mosque and then transformed into the stronghold of the Knights Templar: the Templum Domini, the Temple of the Lord. Saladin had died within the confines of its wall. It could withstand a lengthy siege, even if the rest of Jerusalem fell—and then, surely, the defenders would look for hordes of reinforcements from the sultan’s kin in Damascus and in Egypt.

It had to fall quickly. Richard could not afford a siege.

He sent his vanguard ahead, with the second wave behind it, his own men from his own domains. The third rank, Henry’s troops and the knights of Outremer, would go in after a pause and sweep the city behind the rest, taking it street by street if need be.

They all had their orders, their plan of battle. It was in their hands now, and in God’s.

A quarter of the way between David’s Tower and the Temple, at last they met opposition: a barricade across the broad street and turbaned Saracens manning it. The Norman destriers ran over them. It cost a horse, gut-slit by an infidel who died under the battering hooves of the beast he slew, but none of Richard’s men fell, even when archers began to shoot from the rooftops. They were ready for that: shields up, interlocked as they pressed forward. Somewhat belatedly, the archers began to drop: the men Richard had sent to the roofs had finally come this far.

There were two more barricades between David’s Tower and the Latin Exchange, where half a dozen skeins of streets met and mingled. One barricade they broke as they had the first, but at higher cost: there were more men here, and more archers. They lost a man-at-arms there, arrow-shot in the eye.

The third barricade was broken when they came to it, all of its defenders dead. Either there was dissension within the late sultan’s army, or the citizenry had made their choice as to whom they wished to lead them. Past the fallen barrier, as they marched warily around the looming bulk of the Khan al-Sultan, they found the way clear, with only dead men to bar it. Walls on either side rose high and blank, windows shuttered, gates locked and bolted.

Richard was preternaturally aware of the force he led, as if it had been a part of his own body. He felt as much as heard the troop of Germans who ventured to creep off and begin the sack before the city was won. An English voice called a halt to them, and English troops barred their way. They snarled like a pack of dogs, but they were quelled, for the moment.

Morning was coming. The sky was growing lighter. He could see the Dome of the Rock floating above the walls and roofs of the city, seeming no part of earth at all.

No time for awe. Not yet. The Beautiful Gate was heavily manned. There were turbaned helmets all along the wall, archers with bows bent and aimed downward at Richard’s army.

He rolled the dice one last time. He sent for the rams, but while his messenger sped off toward the rear, he brought up the heaviest of his heavy cavalry, the German and Flemish knights on their massive chargers. The beasts were as fresh as they could be on this side of the sea, with the cool of the dawn and the cautious slowness of their progress through the city.

Richard addressed them in a voice that was low but pitched to carry. “I’ve heard that a charge of armored knights could break down the walls of Babylon, and those are three lance-lengths thick. This gate’s not near as thick as that. There’s not much room to get going, but we’ll give you all we can, and cover you with crossbow fire. Just break that gate for me.”

They eyed that great slab of wood and iron, sheathed in gold. Some smiled; some even laughed. Some simply and eloquently donned their great helms and couched their lances.

The rest of the army drew back as much as it could. It must have looked like a retreat: Richard heard whooping and jeering on the wall. The charge prepared itself behind a shield of English and Norman knights.

When it was ready, the crossbowmen in place, Richard raised his sword. As it swept down, the knights lumbered into motion. Their shield of knights melted away, then came together behind them.

Crossbow bolts picked off the Saracen archers with neat precision. The knights were moving faster now, building speed from walk to an earth-shaking trot. Lances that had been in rest now lowered. The few arrows that fell among them did no damage, sliding off the knights’ armor or the horses’ caparisons, to be trampled under the heavy hooves.

The Saracens above the gate hung on, though more and more of their number fell dead or wounded. The charge struck the gate with force like a mountain falling. Lances splintered. The destriers in the lead, close pressed behind, reared and smote the gate with their hooves. The knights’ maces and morningstars whirled and struck, whirled and struck.

They broke down that gate of gold and iron as if it had been made of willow withies, trampled over it and plunged through.
The second, less massive but still powerful charge thundered behind them, Richard’s English and his Normans chanting in unison: “
Deus lo volt! Deus lo volt!
”

A battle waited for them in the court of the Temple, mounted and afoot: the dead sultan’s gathered forces under the command of a prince in a golden helmet. That helmet had been Saladin’s, and the armor had been his, too; but he had never ridden that tall bay stallion, Richard’s gift to the great knight and prince of the infidels, the lord Saphadin. The first light of the sun caught the peak of his helmet and crowned him with flame.

Richard’s knights plunged deep into the waiting army of infidels. His lighter cavalry, his archers, and his foot soldiers were close behind them. The court could not hold them all. Over half waited in reserve outside, or had gone up on the walls to deal with the archers whom the crossbowmen had not disposed of.

It was a hot fight. The enemy had been herded and trapped here, but they had not been robbed of either their courage or their fighting skill. They contested every inch of that ancient paving, right up to the gate of the golden mosque.

Richard faced Saphadin there. The prince had lost his horse some while since. He set his back to the barred door; Richard left Fauvel behind to face him on foot, man to man and sword to sword.

In the months that they had known one another, this was the first time they had met face to face in battle. Richard was taller, broader, stronger; his reach was longer, his sword heavier. But Saphadin was quicker, and he had more to lose. He drove Richard back with a flashing attack. He was smiling, a soft, almost drowsy smile, deep with contentment.

It was the smile of a man who had decided to die, and had chosen the manner of his death. He was wearing himself into swift exhaustion. It was a grand and foolish gesture, showing off all his swordsmanship; he would know, none better, that Richard could simply wait him out.

Richard waited, keeping sword and shield raised to defend
against the whirling steel. He was aware while he waited of the battle raging around him. His men were gaining the upper hand, but they were paying for it. There were too many of them in too small a space, and their heavier horses, their weightier armor and weapons, were beginning to tell on them as the sun climbed the sky.

It had to end quickly. Richard did two things almost at once: he firmed his grip on his sword as Saphadin’s swirl of steel began to flag, found the opening he had been waiting for, and clipped the prince neatly above the ear; then, not even waiting for the man to fall, he spun and bellowed, “
Now!
”

Richard’s forces had been waiting for that word. Well before the echoes of it had died away, they struck. His archers and crossbowmen had won the wall, and began a withering rain of fire. In the same moment, his reserves charged in through the Beautiful Gate, swarming over the enemy, surrounding them and bringing them down.

C
HAPTER
F
ORTY-THREE

W
hen Mustafa and Sioned together saw how David’s Gate was open and the Tower deserted, they saw in it the darkness that was the Master of Masyaf. If he was not in the city, then his power was. And the spells on the garden were weakening rapidly.

As Richard pressed the assault on the city and the Temple, Mustafa slipped away into the darkness of the deserted streets. Sioned within him was dizzy and dazzled with the power that slept in these ancient stones. It was all she could do to keep her focus, to ride in his heart and not spin away into nothingness.

The spell of the city overwhelmed the faint song of the Seal, and that was well—but here where the Seal had been made and where the great king of the Jews had wielded it, it was waking. She could feel the strain in her wards, the bonds slipping free.

He was here—the Old Man himself. He had concluded his bargain with Eleanor: he had lured and tricked the infidels into the trap of the Temple, and opened the city to the Franks. There would be a price for that, and he would not be slow in demanding it.

Mustafa was a gifted tracker, but there was too much magic here. Just as it concealed the Seal, so did it conceal the Master’s whereabouts. He followed a trail through the Street of the Bad Cooks, holding his breath against the cloying reek of a hundred cooks’ and bakers’ stalls, but it ended in a blank wall and a barren door. There were only mortals cowering behind it, dwellers in the city who waited and hid and prayed that the sack, if and when it came, would not fall upon them.

Richard’s coming had been no surprise. The city was ready for him: the barricades up, the Temple fortified. Mustafa caught a rat in the shadow of a baker’s stall, a thief looking to steal the invaders’ leavings. He squeaked abominably, but amid the gibbering were a few words of sense. “One came before the sun set, and persuaded the emirs to take a stand in the Temple. He was most convincing. They were in despair; they grieved terribly for the sultan. They were driven like sheep.”

Dawn had come without Sioned’s even realizing it: his face was clear to read. He was telling the truth as far as he knew it. Nor was he an Assassin. The city was full of them, but this was an honest rat.

Mustafa let him go. He vanished into an alley.

Sioned had already forgotten him. A monstrous blow nearly smote her into the aether. The thread that bound her to her body stretched almost to breaking.

The serpent in the garden had roused from its long sleep. It lifted its head drowsily to assure itself that the stone it guarded was still safe. In the moment of her inattention, when she focused on the thief, the spell shriveled into mist. The serpent saw what it had been protecting, and rose up in hissing rage.

For a searing instant, Sioned knew the whereabouts of every Assassin in Jerusalem. They burned like embers in her consciousness.

Indeed he was here—the master of them all. He was terribly, perilously close to Richard and to the Seal. And, she saw as her magic stretched to take in the circle of men about Richard, to Ahmad.

Mustafa’s mount, in keeping with his sergeant’s guise, was a
Frankish cob, and speed was not its greatest strength. But it was sturdy and imperturbable, and for these streets, it was fast enough. It managed a quite acceptable pace, even a gallop as it came to the Street of David. It hurtled over and around barriers, flotsam, the all too frequent sprawl of a body.

They were riding into the battle now, a steadily rising clash and clangor, battle cries and shrieks of the wounded. Mustafa in Frankish dress, on a Frankish horse, met no opposition. No doubt the king’s army took him for a messenger.

The Beautiful Gate was down and broken. Men struggled in the ruins, packed so close together that they could barely move. Franks thrust inward; Saracens thrust them out again.

Mustafa left the cob with a pang of regret that quivered in Sioned’s consciousness—it was a loyal beast, and it would be lucky to survive the day—and took to the walls. He went up them with breathtaking speed and skill, finding handholds where Sioned saw only smooth stone.

She had never been more helpless than she was then, borne within Mustafa’s body, with her magic all scattered and her wits in scarcely better straits. She could focus on one thing: on finding the Old Man wherever he was hiding.

Daylight was well broken now, the morning advancing, and the heat rising. Mustafa heaved himself up over the rampart, found that stretch of it empty of defenders, and paused for breath.

From here he had a clear vantage over the court of the Temple. It was a mass of struggling men, tossing banners, swords and knives and spearheads now flashing brightly, now dark with blood.

Sioned found the king with the eyes of the heart, even before the eyes of Mustafa’s body could follow. He was up against the gate of the great mosque, locked in combat with a man in a golden helmet wound with a snow-white turban.

She would have known that one if it had been blind dark and if he had been in sackcloth. He was wearing the sultan’s armor and the sultan’s famous helmet—no doubt to hearten his troops, and to remind them of what they fought for.

She could not take time to watch the duel, however deadly
and beautiful it was. She slipped free of Mustafa’s body, rising on currents of power that swirled and eddied all through this place. The Dome was thick with spirits, the sky swarming with jinn and afarit, watching rapt as mortal men paid tribute in blood to the ancient powers.

The darker spirits and the shades of the dead were feeding on that outpouring of blood, and fattening on slaughter. She searched for one that was both dark and secret, rooted deep in earth and sending tendrils through the heart of the city.

It was hidden, but not well enough. She found it a scant man-length from the combatants, crouching against the wall of the mosque. It wore the semblance of a soldier of Islam and the face of a boy, young and feckless, clutching a bloody sword.

It was strangely dissonant to see that smooth face worn like a mask over old darkness. Sinan watched the duel with taut intensity. His spells were woven about Ahmad, a black and writhing tangle, breeding and nurturing despair.

They groped constantly toward Richard, but slipped past without touching, as if he were globed in glass. It would be expected that his mother would protect him whether he willed it or no, but as Sinan hurled stronger and ever stronger spells at him and he fought on untouched, Sioned watched suspicion dawn in those cold dark eyes.

Sioned struggled against the tides of the spirit, currents that tugged at her, urging her up and away from the dim and bloody earth. She could have the peace that the sultan had found; she could depart from all these cares and troubles.

It was not her time. She fought her way back down the spirals of air, gathering jinn as she went, until she hovered in a cloud of them, directly above Sinan’s head.

He looked up. The jinn were not afraid of him now that he no longer had the power of the Seal. His eyes widened. The sight above him was terrible: swirling wrath, edged with fangs.

The spell-web about Ahmad frayed and melted into air—too late: Richard’s sword was already in motion, smiting him down. Sioned lashed out with a wishing, to turn the blade, but Richard did not mean to kill, only to stun.

When she looked again, Sinan was gone. He had left nothing in his wake but a spell that, before she could guard herself, had caught her and snapped about her like a noose.

This was her death—of the soul as well as the body that she had abandoned. She did not greet it peacefully, although a moment before she had been ready and willing to slip away into oblivion. She struggled wildly, blindly, without knowledge or sense, only the pure will.

The jinn could not touch her. Sinan’s binding was set to trap any who tried—and they, pure spirit without flesh to anchor them, however tenuously, were even more subject to dissolution than she.

The battle below was ending. The warriors of Islam were dead or taken; the sack had begun. Faint and far away, Sioned heard the bellow of Richard’s voice, calling for men to take the lord Saphadin, to secure the Temple and the city, and to put a stop to the looting and pillaging. “Not here,” he declared. “Not this city. This is holy ground. Any man who rapes or sacks or burns within it will lose his head.”

He was not aware of her at all, even through the Seal. No one was. The one who might have sensed her was unconscious, borne away to captivity in the arms of strong English yeomen.

Unconscious was not dead. His magic was still there, freed of the bonds that Sinan had tried to lay on it. She was desperate; else she would never have ventured it. With the last shreds of her will and strength, she flung herself toward him.

Sinan’s binding strained. Her spirit frayed. If she judged this wrongly, with what little of her was left to judge, she would kill Ahmad with herself. The distance between them was a breath’s span, or a gulf between worlds.

There was little left of her but the will to reach him. Sinan’s working rent her, gnawing and devouring. Ahmad receded with all his bright magic, his knowledge and power. He was lost in darkness and dream.

Somewhere in the depths of it, awareness sparked. The light in Ahmad brightened; the power, the beauty of it, grew stronger.

Sinan’s spell caught hold of it. Too late to stop it, too late to protect her beloved—she could not even save herself.

Darkness swept over Ahmad. She sank down into it.

Lightnings cracked. The full force of Ahmad’s power smote the Old Man’s spell and shattered it—nearly taking Sioned with it. She would not have cared if it had. There was nothing left of her to care. But in the last instant, Ahmad caught her, enfolded her, and kept her safe.

She drifted in enormous quiet. It could have been death, but there was still a thin thread winding out of the light, and her body at the end of it, alive. She could not see Ahmad, or Sinan, or the army of the jinn. Yet she felt Ahmad like the warmth of arms about her, guarding her, slowly feeding her power and strength until she could sustain herself.

Her body was waiting. She was not ready to go back to it. She must not—Richard—

You must,
Ahmad’s will said,
or you die.

“Sinan will come for the Seal,” she said, shaping each word so that it was distinct. “My brother doesn’t know—”

He would not help her to hold back. He thrust her toward her body, so sudden and so strong that she could not resist him. She was locked in it, confined in flesh, before her will found itself again.

He had bound her there with a spell remarkably similar to Sinan’s, save that its chains were of light rather than darkness. There was less pain in it, and less fear, but no more freedom. She was trapped until he saw fit to let her go. No amount of struggle or protest would budge the working.

He left her there with a touch as soft as sleep, and a whisper of a promise. “Be at ease. All will be well.”

Ease was the farthest thing from her mind, but she had no choice. She was helpless to stir from this rampart of flesh, and all but emptied of magic. Richard would have to fight alone, unless Ahmad could help him—Ahmad, whose body was as unconscious as hers.

Trust,
he said.
Have faith.

Faith was a thing for people of the Book—for Christians and
Muslims and Jews. She was a wild pagan. She had only herself and the gods to rely on, and the gods were notoriously capricious.

Not mine,
he said as he slipped away.
Rest. Sleep. Be strong.

Easy for him to say, she thought sourly; but her heart was no longer quite so heavy. He had done that to her—that headstrong, arrogant man. “May your God protect you,” she said to the memory of his presence, “and bring you back to me.”