The Seal (10 page)

When he returned
and Etienne saw that Gideon had bested the man at his bodily toils and was now
preventing him from shouting out with one hand while holding a long-bladed
knife to his throat, he made a sign at the Egyptian, trying to catch his eye,
and had to resort to throwing a stone at him. Iterius convulsed and trembled
further and nodded. Etienne motioned for him to mount a horse but Iterius threw
his superior a look of misery. The seneschal’s silent regard, however, caused
him to take himself over his horse in an unsteady fashion so that he almost
fell. Etienne and Jourdain mounted and followed behind, putting spurs to the
horses and pointing them upwards over the lip of land dotted with loose rocks
in a thunder of hoofs and a clatter that made a tempest of noise. This clamour
and stirring of dust in the bright, indolent heat verged on the sound of a
cavalcade and, being mixed up now with the wails of terror and pain emitted by
the captured man, being poked by Gideon with his long-bladed knife, it flushed
out three men one after the other, two with swords and one carrying a Turkish
mace.

‘What?’ cried
one man and Etienne saw only his eyes move from surprise to horror and become
fixed as his head came under Delgado’s blade. The head fell to the ground with
a thud and rolled forward, and the body, still moving, stumbled over it,
collapsed and was still.

Aubert for his
part took a jump onto the shoulder of the man carrying the mace. His short
knife he stuck through one eye and there followed a discharge of blood from the
face, accompanied by a throw of convulsions and screaming that would have sent
the Norman flying off the man’s back except that his boot became entangled in
the mace’s leather thong and he was drawn under as his victim’s body fell over
him.

Into this melee
of tangled bodies and horses came a third man headed for Etienne. Etienne
raised his sword and leant low over the neck of his horse. He took a sweep with
his broadsword and felt it make a deep cut; the man spun around but did not
drop his weapon, instead he gathered to him his wits and with a holler set his
sights on the flank of Etienne’s horse. Jourdain saw it and made for the man,
driving his broadsword into his back, but not before a blade was driven into
the animal. It gave a long terror-filled cry and collapsed over the body of its
assailant, taking Etienne with it. Etienne lay pinned between man and beast.
The pain in his leg shot upwards, branching across his abdomen, and it was all
he could do to prevent his head from falling into blackness. Jourdain came to
his aid and Etienne was only able to recover his bruised leg because the body
of his enemy had taken the brunt of the load.

Now there were
arrows flying through the air. One or, more likely, two men had grown some
intelligence and were now shooting from inside the church. Etienne and Jourdain
threw themselves behind the olive press to find that Iterius had already found
refuge there and lay moaning and whimpering with a quarrel embedded in his
calf.

From their
vantage point they could see that Aubert had freed his foot and was scampering
among the bushes near the aperture, to the place where stood Gideon who, having
long disposed of his victim, was watching the little war with interest from the
sidelines. The Catalan came up behind and passed the two men with a laugh and
climbed nimbly atop the roof of the church with his face all smiles and his
arms extended, like those of a performer or jongleur whose task was to provide
distraction from boredom.

Jourdain had
left Etienne to take what horses were not killed away from arrow fire. These he
tied to a low-hung tree some way off and moved
himself
to the other side of the aperture to watch Delgado balancing on the roof like a
cat. He smiled at the Catalan. ‘Eh Delgado, watch it doesn’t fall in!’

Beneath and in
front of the aperture arrows found the carcasses of men and horses that mingled
in the dust. Etienne, having a thought for his shield, moved from behind the
olive press on his belly, using the body of the horse as cover. The wooden
shield had been thrown from his hand as he fell and he was now about to take it
up and make a run into the ruined building when he heard a noise like wood
splintering, then a muffled cry and more sounds of scuffle coming from within.
He raised an eye and saw no Catalan upon the roof. The man, he realised, had
fallen through as Jourdain had warned. He saw Jourdain rush into the mouth of
the church then, and a moment later from out of the gloom there was heard a
cry, a snapping and then silence. Jourdain was first to come out with a grim
look, carrying a body, which he threw on the ground into the pile of dead
things.

‘I know this
man, his name is Pierre!’ he said to Etienne. ‘The blacksmith.’

Behind him
Delgado was dragging another man by the legs. The crossbow he held in his hands
he threw down at Etienne’s feet. His captive’s legs were let go and they fell
with a dusty thump. Etienne saw the man had an arrow through one cheek that
came out at the other. The Catalan dragged him by the hair to a kneeling
position and steadied him with a hand on the head, patting it and smiling.

‘Here is our
friend, Lord Etienne – he would not die and I have left him to you, so
that you may take the pleasure of it.’

Etienne looked
through the sunlight to the man, trembling and holding his jaw together with
both hands. Tears came from the eyes and blood dripped from the parallel wounds
on his cheeks.

Etienne
recognised him. ‘Jourdain,’ he said with a flat voice. ‘See this?’

Jourdain came to
him and looked at the man. ‘Why, if it isn’t Alphonse!’ the young captain said.
‘The disrobed scribe . . .’

The wounded man
raised his head and squinted away the tears and the sun, to look from Jourdain
to the figure of the seneschal.

‘You are in the
service of Ayme d’Oselier?’ Etienne said to him, frowning.

There was a
careful nod and a moan deep in the throat and more tears.

Etienne made a
squat and his abused leg gave a pang of dis-agreement so that he had to put the
other knee to the ground and use his sword to steady him. He was now at the
level of the man’s eye.

‘If your mother
could see you now, Alphonse,’ Etienne told him, ‘she would take back all the
food you gave her.’

The man moaned
and sobbed.

‘Listen to me .
. . it is your wish that I have pity on you, am I right?’

The man nodded.

‘You may not
speak, but I know you can write with quill on parchment, and so you will be my
messenger,’ he said. ‘Tell the marshal that if he wishes to see one more night,
he will leave this day and he will not look over his shoulder. Do you
understand? This day without so much as a look!’

The man closed
his eyes and nodded, for he understood.

‘Tell him I will
not be his judge, but God in his heaven.’

The man nodded
again.

‘Good.’ He leant
on the sword and stood, and to Jourdain he said, ‘Get his horse and let him
go.’

Jourdain dragged
the man to his feet, threw him on his horse and gave a loud slap to the flank
of the animal so that it bolted down the track with the man barely hanging on
with one hand and holding his face with the other. It would be a painful ride.

Etienne spat
dirt from his mouth and looked around. His head cooked in the sun and his eyes
hurt to see.

Gideon had a
blade in his hand and was pulling the breeches off one of the carcasses.
‘What?’ Etienne asked him.

‘The sacs, I
will cut them out,’ he said.

‘Sacs?’

Aubert smiled
solicitously to Etienne and motioned to the jacket made up of patchworks of
leather, which his compatriot wore over his chest. ‘
See it
,
lord
? Made of skin from the ball sacs of his enemies
– there is good protection in it.’ He was all matter-of-fact. ‘Your mail
is no match for it – it is magic!’

The Catalan
smiled all white teeth in a brown face and cocked his head to one side, looking
to Etienne from eyes shy of the sun. ‘Gideon is a heathen,’ he said, as merry
as a girl, ‘and will not meet our Lord in heaven.’

Gideon looked up
from his work and gave the Catalan a look full of malice. ‘You make fun,
Spaniard, but one day I shall cut out your sacs and I shall leave them for the
hawks and wolves since they shall be no good for anything else!’

Delgado
considered this with a serious face. ‘You are right, Gideon!’ he said. ‘For I
shall have withered all their magic from an abundance of use!’ He looked to
Aubert and to Jourdain and from him there came a laugh and he slapped his knee
and laughed again. ‘But yours, my Gideon! Yours shall have good magic from lack
of use because Norman women smell like goats in season and have the feel of
wrinkled prunes!’

Gideon grunted.
‘That is why I keep my magic for fighting.’ He had lost interest and was bent
upon inspecting his bloody acquisitions. He shook his head and threaded the
dead things onto a rope he wore around his neck. ‘They will need the sun or
they will perish.’

It did not seem
fitting to Etienne to let this savage mutilate the bodies of Christians, even
if they were no longer brothers, but Etienne’s head was full of strangeness.
This had been an odd day, and more oddities, he knew, were sure to find him
before it was over, and so he stood unable to make a resolve when a noise coming
from the body of the olive press made him turn away from the spectacle. It was
Iterius moaning. Etienne took hold of him by the neck and threw him to the
ground at his feet, snapping one end from the arrow and driving the other full
into his calf.

The man gave a
yelp and seemed to lose the power in his limbs. He let his head fall to the
dirt and from that position he said in a whisper, ‘Please,’ his long face
contorting into a grimace of terror. ‘I have done well, I have saved your life,
will
you not save mine?’

Etienne stared
into that face and put a boot on the chest. ‘So, you serve me like a labourer
in expectation of your wages! Or is it from Ayme d’Oselier that you should seek
payment?’

The Egyptian
shook his head and shook his head again. ‘No . . . you are my master, I will
serve you and I shall ask for nothing in return, for I am useful . . .’ He
paused to touch the calf lightly as if to assess what needed to be put
together. ‘I alone can make the antidote for . . . the Grand Master’s poison.’

Etienne squinted
in the light. All around seemed suddenly very still, all sun, haze and heat.
‘What are you saying? What poison?’ he said with suspicion.

‘They must have
guessed your plan . . . Lord Etienne, to remove the Grand Master . . . and they
desired to poison him before he left . . . I only knew of it afterwards but
then . . .’ There was an added pressure from Etienne’s boot and he continued,
‘Then . . . I didn’t know where the Grand Master had been moved to ... that is
why I came to you ... He may live only a day at the most . . . without the
unction.’

Etienne narrowed
his eyes and wiped the sweat from his brow and the corners of his eyes. ‘When did
it happen, this poisoning?’

The Egyptian
panted.

‘Answer!’

‘I think it was
yester-eve, after compline – they poisoned the water in the Grand
Master’s cell.’

‘How do you
know? And why have you not told me before now?’ he shouted, God’s righteous
anger bearing down upon Iterius, whose pathetic effort to get away only brought
the seneschal’s boot harder on his chest.

‘Please . . .
please . . . I saw it!’ he said. ‘The stars divulged their knowing to me . . .
but I did not know the accuracy of the portent until this very moment . . .
when I realised I had been right about the ambush.’

‘You mean you do
not know for certain? You are relying on the stars?’ Etienne stared and stared
into those downturned eyes. ‘It is my guess that you are a liar or a sorcerer
or both . . . each way I should have killed you before, so I shall kill you
now!’ He took out his sword and raised it over the man’s head.

‘No!’ Iterius
put out his hands. ‘Please, if you do this you shall condemn the Grand Master
to certain death!’

Etienne stood
poised upon this pressing thought, and began to wonder if he were once again
dreaming a strange and terrible dream. He harnessed his mind. If the Egyptian
was not lying, and assuming his portent accurate, which for now he must, his
Grand Master could have had recourse to drink from his flask at any time after
compline and before being moved to Salamis. Etienne had to calculate then, from
an hour after sunset the previous night – just to be sure. That being the
case it was now much past noon and they needed to circumvent Famagusta or risk
meeting more supporters of d’Oselier. That would take two hours at least. All
things going well it would take them a further hour riding slow in the hot sun
without stopping until they reached the bay where the galley waited. In this
case they had barely enough time to get to Salamis and have Iterius prepare his
unction.

There had been
too many things to think of these last hours and Etienne was beginning to feel
his bewilderment taking shape in the form of despair and he could find no logic
in anything.