Kingdom (2 page)

Heraclius’s eyes betrayed an eager excitement as he watched John squirm. ‘The pear of anguish is an ingenious piece of work, especially useful for punishing blasphemers and oath breakers. First, your jaw will dislocate.’ Heraclius gave the wing nut another twist, forcing John’s jaws further apart so that they began to ache. ‘Then the skin of your mouth will tear, disfiguring you.’ He gave another twist. John’s jaw felt as if it were going to snap. His fingernails dug into his palms as he fought the pain. ‘If I expand the pear all the way, then you will never lie again: you will be unable to speak.’

Heraclius reached out to give the wing nut another turn, but stopped at the sound of booted feet approaching. A dozen soldiers in mail entered the torture chamber, a tonsured priest in black robes at their head. John recognized the priest; it was William of Tyre, who John had met long ago when he first came to the Holy Land.

‘Stop!’ William demanded. ‘Leave that man be!’

Heraclius turned. ‘The Patriarch turned the Saxon over to me. You have no authority here, William.’

‘I have the King’s backing and the King’s men. That man is a noble. If he is to suffer then he must first stand trial before his peers.’

‘The Saxon killed our men. He threw his lot in with the infidel Saracens. He must be made to suffer if he is to be redeemed!’ Heraclius reached again for the wing nut at the end of the pear.

‘Stop him!’

Two guards grabbed Heraclius’s arms and pulled him away. William went to the rack and pulled a lever, releasing the tension on the ropes that bound John’s hands and feet. The guards removed the pear and began to untie John’s bonds. He groaned in relief as he gingerly flexed his arms and legs, and then gasped as a stab of pain shot through his left shoulder. William helped him to sit up just in time for John to see Heraclius being dragged from the room by two soldiers. At the door Heraclius managed to shrug them off. He turned to face John and William.

‘This is not the end!’ Heraclius spat. ‘The Saxon betrayed his oath. I will see that he goes before the High Court. And mark my words, William: he will burn!’

John awoke to the sound of a door creaking. He blinked against the bright light streaming in from a window above his bed. Yesterday, after his feet had been bandaged, he had been carried to this tiny room in the compound of the Knights Hospitaller. Overcome with exhaustion and pain, he had passed out as soon as they laid him in his bed.

Now he stretched out and rolled over, away from the wall. The door to the room was open and a lean young man in monk’s brown robes stood in the corner. The monk was clean-shaven and tonsured, and had sunken cheeks, a weak chin and protruding eyes. He reminded John of a praying mantis. He was sniffing at the contents of the bronze chamber pot. ‘His black bile is weak,’ the monk murmured to himself.

‘Who are you?’ John sat up, wincing at the pain in his left shoulder.

The monk looked up from the chamber pot. ‘Ah, you are
awake
. Good. My name is Deodatus, and I am a doctor. Father William has sent me to tend to you.’ He approached and nodded towards John’s feet. ‘May I?’

John swung himself around so his feet hung off the bed. Deodatus began to unwrap the bandages. The soles of John’s feet were covered in angry, red blisters that oozed a sticky, clear fluid. Deodatus touched one of the blisters, and John winced in pain. ‘Your flesh is hot. Your humours are out of balance,’ the doctor said gravely. ‘I understand you were subjected to the rack?’

‘Yes. I cannot move my left arm without pain.’

The doctor grasped John’s left wrist with one hand and placed his other hand on John’s shoulder. As Deodatus lifted the arm, a stabbing pain shot through John’s shoulder, as if a white-hot iron had been plunged into the joint. ‘’Sblood!’ John cursed through clenched teeth.

Deodatus shook his head and then went to a small, leather-bound trunk. He took out a handful of dried roots, a mortar and a pestle. He murmured the Pater Noster as he ground the root to powder.

‘What is that?’ John asked.

‘Daffodil root for the burns on your feet. It will draw the heat out.’ The doctor finished grinding the root and went to the chamber pot, from which he scooped out some faeces. John’s eyes widened as the doctor placed the faeces in the mortar and mixed it in with the daffodil root. The doctor approached the bed with the foul-smelling mixture.

John drew back his feet. ‘Keep that away from me!’

‘The faeces will help to restore your black bile,’ Deodatus assured him.

John’s nose wrinkled in disgust. ‘Do you have any aloe?’

The doctor raised his eyebrows. ‘Aloe?’

‘A plant. It helps to cure burns. The doctor Ibn Jumay says—’

‘A Jewish doctor?’ Deodatus huffed. ‘His medicine will send you to the grave.’

‘I’ll take my chances with Jewish medicine. Keep that shit away from my feet.’

‘Very well. But you are still too sanguine. I must bleed you to reduce your heat.’

‘No,’ John replied firmly. ‘You will not.’

Deodatus spread his hands. ‘If you will not accept my aid then I cannot be responsible for the consequences. At least allow me to treat your shoulder. I fear the damage will fester, drawing foul humours to it.’ Deodatus reached into his trunk and pulled out a short saw. He tested the blade with his thumb. ‘The arm must come off.’ Deodatus stepped over to the bed. He gripped John’s shoulder and brought the saw blade down towards the joint. ‘This will hurt.’

‘Yes, it will.’ John grabbed the doctor’s cowl, pulled him forward and head-butted him. Deodatus stumbled back, his eyes wide and his nose dripping blood.

‘You’re mad! You’ll die if I don’t take the arm.’

‘Then I’ll die. If you touch my arm again, you’ll join me.’

‘Damned fool,’ Deodatus muttered as he hurriedly closed up his trunk and tucked it under his arm. ‘God help you!’ On the way out he bumped into William.

William watched the doctor go and then turned to John, eyebrows raised. ‘What happened?’

‘The man is a quack. He doesn’t know the first thing about medicine.’

‘But that is the court physician!’

‘A quack,’ John repeated. William looked as if he would pursue the matter, but then shrugged. John met his gaze. ‘I owe you my thanks. Were it not for you, I would still be in that dungeon.’

‘I did not do it for you. You may be of some use to us. But first we must save you from the hangman’s noose. The High Court meets tomorrow to hear your case. I will defend you.’

‘Why? All that Heraclius says is true. I chose to fight for the Saracens.’

‘I do not share Heraclius’s belief that suffering is the only road to salvation. Whatever sins you have committed, you should be given the chance to redeem them in service of the Kingdom. But if I am to defend you, I must know the truth. How did you come to be in the service of the Saracens?’

John closed his eyes, his mind racing back to his first days in the Holy Land. ‘I came as a soldier with the Second Crusade. I was captured at the siege of Damascus and purchased by Najm ad-Din Ayub, now the wali – the governor – of Damascus. I served as a household slave and then as the personal servant of Ayub’s son, Yusuf. After I saved his life, he freed me.’

‘And why did you not return to your people?’

‘Return to what? The lord I had served, Reynald, betrayed me at Damascus. It was because of him that I was captured. And the Frankish soldiers I had fought beside were brutes. Yusuf was different. He was cultured and kind. He was my friend.’

‘So when you were captured at Butaiha, you were fighting for this Yusuf. He was your lord?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then I will argue that you merely did your duty as a liegeman.’

John’s forehead creased as he thought of the men who had died at his hands. ‘But I broke my crusader’s oath. I killed Franks, more than one. I deserve to die.’

‘We have all fallen short of the glory of God, John, but death will not wash away your sins. You can only redeem your soul through action.’

‘How?’ John demanded bitterly. ‘It is not only Franks that I killed.’ He paused, thinking back to his home in England, to the manor of his childhood. ‘I killed my brother.’

‘Surely you had a reason?’

‘He betrayed my father to the Normans in return for land. My father was hanged, along with a dozen other local thanes.’ John shook his head. The reasons seemed almost unreal now, so
long
had it been since John saw England. Yet the reality of his brother’s death was always fresh in his mind. ‘He was a bastard, but he was my brother. I killed him, and nothing I can do will bring him back. It will not bring any of them back.’

‘No, but you can save others. God has sent you to us for a reason. You have lived in both worlds, East and West. You have spent years at the court in Aleppo. You can speak to the Saracens as we cannot, understand them as we cannot. You can help to bridge the gap that divides us. That is your one true chance at salvation.’

‘And if I die? Will the fire not wash me clean, as Heraclius says?’

‘Look into your soul. Do you believe that suffering will save you?’

John thought back on his years in the Holy Land: the brutal march to Damascus; his capture and near death; the beatings he had suffered as a slave; his torture at the hands of Heraclius. None of it had washed away his guilt. He met William’s eyes. ‘Show me what I must do.’

‘First we must get you through this trial. You have but to answer truthfully any questions that are asked of you.’

‘What are my chances?’

‘God does not deal in chance. We must trust in Him. I will come for you tomorrow, when it is time.’ William turned to leave.

‘You did not answer my question, Father,’ John called after him. ‘What are my chances?’

William looked back and shook his head. ‘Not good. Heraclius has stacked the court against you. And the punishment for treason is death.’

The bells of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre were ringing to call the canons to morning prayers as John hobbled after William into the audience chamber where the High Court was meeting. He was barefoot, and the thick rugs that carpeted the floor were
a
blessed relief to his blistered feet after the hard stone pavement of the courtyard. The members of the court waited on the far side of the room. King Amalric sat on a simple wooden throne, the dome of the church visible through the window behind him. He was young, perhaps John’s age, but whereas John was lean and fit, the king was heavy-set, pudgy even. He had a ruddy complexion, straight hair the colour of straw and a slightly darker beard. His piercing blue eyes met John’s across the hall, and the King laughed suddenly, a clipped laugh that sounded loud against the silence of the hall. With a start John realized that he had met him before. When he first arrived in the Holy Land, John had attended a meeting of the High Court, and Amalric – only a child at the time – had been there. John had never forgotten that peculiar boy with his clear blue eyes and strange laugh. Now Amalric was king.

Two men framed the throne, and Heraclius sat beside two others on one of the benches that ran along the side walls. A single man sat on the bench opposite them. ‘This is the High Court?’ John whispered to William. ‘The last time I attended there were hundreds of men.’

‘Only four are needed for a quorum.’ William gestured to John’s right, where a dour, bony man dressed in gold-embroidered robes sat beside Heraclius. ‘That is the Patriarch of Jerusalem. He is the one who turned you over to be tortured.’ Next to the patriarch was a dark-haired man with a thick beard and unruly eyebrows that met in the middle. Over his mail armour he wore a black surcoat bearing the Knights Hospitallers’ distinctive cross: four white arrowheads, all touching at the tips. ‘Gilbert d’Assailly is Grand Master of the Hospitallers. He is an Englishman like you, but don’t expect any mercy from that quarter. He hates the Saracens with a passion. I have more hope for that man there.’ William pointed to the opposite side of the hall where a man with steel-grey hair sat straight-backed, wearing a white surcoat emblazoned with a red cross. ‘Bertrand de Blanchefort is Grand Master of the Knights Templar, and he
is
a man of reason. As for the King, his constable Humphrey and the seneschal Guy’ – he waved to the two stern, middle-aged men flanking the throne – ‘I do not know where they stand.’

They stopped a dozen feet from the throne, and John and William both knelt. ‘Rise,’ Guy commanded in a harsh voice. Judging from his olive skin and slight build, John guessed he had Saracen blood in him. As seneschal, it was Guy’s duty to preside over the court. ‘Present yourselves.’

‘I am Iain of Tatewic, called John.’

‘Silence!’ the seneschal snapped. ‘You have been accused of oath breaking. You are not to speak before this court.’

John opened his mouth to reply, but William shot him a warning look. ‘I am William of Tyre. I will speak for the accused.’

‘Very well.’ The seneschal nodded towards Heraclius. ‘The accuser will present his case.’

Heraclius rose, bowed to King Amalric and then stepped to the centre of the hall. He cleared his throat. ‘This Saxon, John of Tatewic, has betrayed his crusader’s oath, betrayed his faith and betrayed the Kingdom. He served the Saracens of his own free will. By his own admission, he fought with them at Banyas and Butaiha, killing dozens of his fellow Christians. He has committed treason against the Kingdom and sacrilege against the Holy Church.’ He paused to look each judge in the eye. ‘For justice and for the salvation of his soul, he must die for his crimes.’ Heraclius bowed again and returned to his seat.

The seneschal looked to William. ‘What does the accused say to these charges?’

‘He pleads innocent to treason and sacrilege.’

The seneschal looked to Heraclius. ‘I understand you have a witness?’ Heraclius nodded. Guy raised his voice to address the armed men at the far end of the hall. ‘Guards! Bring the witness.’ A guard stepped out and returned a moment later with a short man in a loose-fitting burnoose. He had close-set eyes and a
turned-up
nose that gave him a piggish appearance. A gruesome gash ran along the left side of his face from his hairline to his jaw. The wound was recent, still angry and red, oozing blood near his temple. The man passed John and bowed before the throne. ‘Present yourself,’ the seneschal ordered him.