The Paths of the Air (34 page)

‘
What is he?
'

There was an instant of perfect silence.

Then: ‘Hisham is an alchemist. The treasure with which he lured us into the desert that night was a deadly formula he's discovered.'

‘What is this formula?' Josse whispered fiercely. ‘
What does it do?
'

John was watching him as if, even now, he was reluctant to confide the secret that he had borne for so long. Then with a sigh he said, ‘It makes a black powder. If it is compressed and set alight, it explodes. If the balance of materials and the method of operation are accurate, it hurls a heavy object with incredible force.'

Dear God
 . . . The soldier in Josse conjured up instant images. Heavy objects hurled with great force into buildings. Into men. Blasting them apart. ‘It's the devil's work,' he breathed.

‘I don't believe in devils other than human ones,' John said calmly.

Josse still could not accept what he was hearing. ‘But – are you sure?' he demanded. ‘You only have this Hisham's word for it, and—'

John interrupted. ‘Hisham arranged a demonstration that night,' he said. ‘And to make sure I wrote it down correctly, I have tested it myself more than once. My latest attempt was not long before Paradisa and I arrived in England.' He pointed to the huge wound on the underside of his chin. ‘I was careless, though, and I almost blew myself up too.'

‘How do you make it?' Josse whispered. Horrified though he was, still he was fascinated.

‘You mix brimstone, saltpetre and charcoal in a very specific ratio. It's difficult to get the right quality of saltpetre – it's that stuff that seeps out of cellar walls, which is how it got the name salt of the stones – and usually it has to be manufactured out of urine and excrement. I wrote all this down. Hisham was very thorough because he knew his formula was not going beyond those silken walls. It didn't matter if his servants heard because, as I told you, much of it was in Latin and they did not understand. As for the monks, Hisham knew we'd all be dead soon.'

‘As indeed you would have been but for your childhood greed,' Josse said slowly. He was trying to take it all in. ‘And you have this piece of parchment still? The formula is safe with you and nobody else has had access to it?'

‘I have it and until this moment I have shared it with no one but Paradisa.'

‘But the fat man – the alchemist Hisham still has it!'

John shrugged. ‘He does not have the parchment from which he read it. I destroyed that. I threw it on the fire and watched it burn. He may have another copy but I doubt it; I judge by how desperately he tried to capture me that I now have the only one. His motive in sending Kathnir and Akhbir after me may have been simply to make sure the secret of the formula remained his alone, but I have come to think that it was more than that.' He paused. ‘I said that Hisham had discovered this terrible thing, but I believe it was someone else's discovery. All Hisham had was the formula, and God alone knows how he got his hands on that.' His light eyes on Josse's, he said quietly, ‘I do not think he can make this powder by himself. I believe that he needs my copy of the formula and I will not let him have it.'

There was a short silence. Then Josse said, ‘Kathnir and Akhbir have failed. They will not catch you now.'

‘That is true.'

‘And Thibault, for all that he lies but the length of this room away, has no idea that you and what you carry are right here within his grasp.'

John shrugged. ‘I have eluded Thibault this far. I am now very near to the point when I shall give the formula into the dependable hands I envisaged back in Outremer. Then it will be safe at last and I can rest.' He closed his eyes.

Questions threw themselves around Josse's head but most of them could wait. Very quietly he said ‘John?' and when the young man grunted a response, he said, ‘They must not be allowed to have this frightful weapon, must they? If it is as terrible as you make out, it must be kept from the Saracens
and
the Hospitallers.'

‘It
is
terrible,' John said, his eyes still closed. ‘Warfare out in Outremer is a constant, brutal, savage and cruel waste of human life. If this black powder were to be added to the weaponry of either side, I believe that the entire Holy Land would be blown to pieces.'

‘In which case it must be kept from them,' Josse said, half to himself. Then: ‘John, wherever these dependable hands that you spoke of are located, I will help you take your secret to them. I give you my word.'

It seemed to him that John Damianos smiled faintly. Then shortly afterwards a soft snore emerged from his slightly parted lips.

It was dark when Josse woke up and at first he did not know what had awakened him. He heard a quiet voice say in his ear, ‘Do you want to see it in operation?'

Then he knew where he was, who was talking to him and what the words meant. With a nod he got out of bed and, throwing his cloak over his linen shift, picked up his boots. ‘There's a small door just along here,' John whispered. ‘I've already checked and it's possible to unlock it.'

They slipped out between the curtains. The nun on night duty was dozing in her chair and did not wake up. They crept past another curtained-off area and then Josse saw the little door. John was already working on it and very soon it stood open. John hurried out, Josse behind him, and they paused to put on their boots. John's satchel hung at his side beneath his cloak.

The sky was still partly cloud-covered but the moon was waxing towards the full and gave adequate light. John, Josse noticed, had a pitch torch in his hand. They walked quickly over to the high wall and John went unerringly to one of Sister Tiphaine's fruit trees where it was possible to shin up and climb over to the world outside. Josse wondered as he jumped rather painfully down the other side how they would get back in again. He asked John, who replied, ‘There's a place I know. Trust me, Josse.'

They made their way south, where the open ground soon broke up into hillocks and shallow valleys. They came to a little dell, separated from the Abbey by a narrow ridge crowned by a trio of birch trees. John ran down into it and opened his satchel. He found a piece of flattish stone and, concentrating hard, took out three small, lidded earthenware containers. Using a little wooden spoon, he measured three separate piles of the contents: one was black; one was silvery-white; the third was bright yellow. He mixed the three together until their separate identities had disappeared and they formed a fine black powder. Then, moving away from the stone and turning his back, he struck a flint and lit the pitch torch. He said to Josse, ‘Stand back.' Then he put the flame of the torch into the black powder.

There was a brilliant flash, a loud bang and a sudden acrid-smelling cloud of smoke.

‘Dear God!' Josse breathed. ‘You have harnessed the devil, John!'

John grinned. ‘No I haven't. This is an entirely human discovery. Hisham is an alchemist and he deals with other men like him. Someone must have discovered this formula when investigating the possibilities of three separate substances.'

‘It's similar to what they call Greek fire, is it not?'

‘No, it's nothing like it,' John replied. ‘Greek fire is a mix of tar, brimstone, resin, oil and quicklime. It burns fiercely and if you throw water on it you simply make it burn all the harder. They shoot it out of tubes fixed to the bows of ships, or else put it in pots which they hurl on the ballista. It's a fire that doesn't go out, Josse, and it has been known of for a long time. This black powder –' he indicated the stone, whose surface was bare and now bore a large dark stain – ‘is unique because it has a secret force in it.'

‘A force?'

‘Yes. Watch.'

John delved in his satchel again, this time coming up with a brass tube about the length of his hand and as wide as his two thumbs. Carefully he mixed more of the black powder, crouching over his task so that Josse could not see what he was doing.

He straightened up and turned to Josse. ‘It isn't that I don't trust you, Josse,' he said apologetically. ‘But this part I worked out for myself from references in Hisham's long description and, if you don't mind, I won't reveal what I've discovered, even to you.'

Touched by that
even to you
, as if he had become someone special in John Damianos's fugitive life, Josse said, ‘Aye, I understand. And I don't mind.'

John nodded. Then he took a breath and squared his shoulders. With a nervous grin, he said, ‘This is how I burned myself. I tried to do this with a wooden tube and it blew up.'

‘You mustn't—'

But Josse never finished his protest.

John had somehow touched the torch flame to the black powder inside the brass tube, for there was another loud bang and a bright gout of fiery smoke flew out of the end with the speed and the brilliance of a shooting star.

Josse stood, amazed.

‘And look what else it can do,' John said eagerly. Once more crouching down so that Josse could not see, after a moment he held up the tube again and this time as the powder inside exploded, something small and hard shot out of the end of the tube. Josse heard a thump as it embedded itself into one of the trees.

‘What was that?'

‘Just a stone. Want to see it again?' John was smiling broadly now and Josse found that he was too.

‘Aye!'

‘It's nowhere near accurate,' John said as he mixed his powder, ‘and in these small amounts the propulsive force isn't very great, but just think of the potential.'

‘I prefer not to,' Josse said gravely. Watching these experiments was all very well but already he understood why John had to protect this incredible secret. And why Hisham should have sent his warriors so far to get it back.

John had prepared his tube again and was on the point of putting the flame to it. Then a dark figure appeared from between the birch trees. He carried a sword and a knife and he was advancing down the slope into the dell. He said, ‘You should not have made yourself so visible, Brother Ralf. Your loud sounds and flashing lights have drawn me to you like a moth to a candle.'

Josse was not wearing his sword. He was armed with nothing more lethal than his knife. He stood at John's left shoulder, just behind him.

‘You have your knight with you, I see,' said the man. ‘No matter. I recognize him and I shall kill him too, for he murdered my companion Tancred.'

‘Your Tancred would have killed me!' Josse protested, adrenaline making his voice loud and fierce. ‘It is not murder when a man kills in self-defence.'

‘No, indeed, but Tancred is dead all the same.' The man was close now. It could only be a matter of moments before he was within sword's length.

‘Go back, William,' John said. He sounded surprisingly calm. ‘You are here only because Leo Rubenid pays you to do his foul deeds. Paradisa would suffer an unspeakable fate were she to be returned to him, as you very well know. Can you not find pity in your heart for her and let us be?'

William shrugged. ‘I do as I am commanded,' he said coldly. ‘If people suffer, it is not my concern.'

‘How do you plan to get her all the way back to Outremer, even if you manage to kill me and Josse here and then remove her from an abbey full of nuns without anyone stopping you?' Still John sounded calm.

‘I know where she is sleeping,' William said coldly. Josse felt a shiver of dread. ‘I can be inside that room and render her senseless before she knows what is happening. Then down to the coast and a ship in which to sail home. Bound, gagged and locked in a cabin to which only I have the key, there will be no escape for her.'

‘You have it all worked out,' John said, still in that reasonable voice. Only Josse, standing right beside him, could tell what an effort it was.

‘Of course,' William replied. ‘I am a professional, hired and well paid to carry out my task. I do not intend to forfeit the remainder of my reward.'

‘You speak of a living, breathing woman.' Now there was emotion in John's tone. ‘Have more respect!'

William laughed. ‘Respect? Picture her in a few months' time when the scum of the ports of Outremer have been through her. She'll be naked, humiliated, filthy, poxed and foul. There won't be anything left to
respect
then.'

Josse sensed John go tense. ‘In that case,' he said, calm once more, ‘I shall just have to kill you.'

The bang and the flames followed so quickly on his words that Josse could not work out how he had done it. But William lay on the ground with a small hole above his left eye. It was rapidly filling up with blood.

John flung down the brass tube and swooped down on his victim. ‘Is he dead?' Josse demanded.

‘No. He is still breathing, but shallowly.' Without turning round John held out his hand. ‘Your knife, please, Josse.'

He was proposing to slay an unconscious man. That could not be. ‘No,' Josse said quietly. ‘I am sorry, John. I cannot provide the weapon that murders a defenceless man.'

John had spun round, his face furious. ‘But you just heard him say what he'll do if he escapes! Would you have my death and the knowledge of what will happen to Paradisa haunting you as William slays you?'

‘We will bind him and take him to Gervase de Gifford for judgement and punishment!' Josse cried. ‘That is the right thing to do, John. I will not be a part to this cold-blooded murder which—'

William thrust himself up off the ground. With incredible speed he clasped John firmly around the neck and, rapidly moving his knife from his left hand to his right, slashed it at John's wounded throat.

He is going to kill him before my eyes, Josse thought.

Then there was no more time for thought.

He drew his knife and with all his weight and power behind it drove it down into William's chest, coming in from immediately to the right of where John lay clasped against him.