The Sword of Damascus

The Sword of Damascus

Richard Blake

www.hodder.co.uk

First published in Great Britain in 2011 by Hodder & Stoughton

An Hachette UK company

Copyright © Richard Blake 2011

The right of Richard Blake to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

Epub ISBN 9781848947030

Book ISBN 9781444709667

Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

338 Euston Road

London NW1 3BH

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To my wife, Andrea,

and to my daughter, Philippa,

with deepest love,

I dedicate this novel.

Acknowledgements

The verse in Chapter 3 is from
Ad Puerum Anglicum
, by Hilary the Englishman (twelfth century). Translation by the author:

O pretty boy – gorgeous as the flower,

Shining like a gem – I’d have you know

How the beauty of your face

Seems to me the very torch of love . . .

The words spoken at the crucifixion in Chapter 28 are from the Koran, 5:33, translated by George Sale (1697–1736).

The words ascribed to Euripides in Chapter 39 are actually from John Milton,
Paradise Lost
, I, 263.

The story recounted in Chapter 40 is the, ‘Story of the Confectioner, his Wife, and the Parrot’, from
The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night
, translated by Richard Burton (1821–90).

The verse in Chapter 43 is from the
Diwan
of Ibn al-Farid (twelfth century), translated by R.A. Nicholson (d.1945),
Studies in Islamic Mysticism
, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1921.

The verse in Chapter 53 is from Virgil,
Aeneid
, Book VI, 6–7.

Now, when the purple morn had chas’d away

The dewy shadows, and restor’d the day.

Translation by John Dryden (1631–1700).

The Latin quote in Chapter 62 is from M. Tullius Cicero (106–43
bc
), First Speech against Catiline. Translation: ‘How long, O Catiline, will you abuse our patience? How long is your madness still to mock us? When shall there be an end to your unbridled audacity?’ Translation by the author.

The words ascribed to an ancient poet in Chapter 65 are actually from
Ozymandias
by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822).

Chapter 1

Jarrow, Thursday, 27 December 686

‘Is that wank on your sleeve?’ I croaked accusingly. The boy opened his mouth and stepped backwards through the doorway. I gave him a bleary look and carried on with pulling myself together. If I’d supposed I could hide that I’d been dozing, this was – all else aside – the wrong boy. Out of habit, I’d spoken Greek. Edward was barely competent in Latin. I leaned forward in the chair. My neck was hurting where my head had fallen sideways. The beer jug I’d brought with me into my cell was empty, and I was feeling cold again.

‘My Lord Abbot presents his compliments,’ Edward opened in obviously rehearsed Latin, ‘and begs your presence in the bell tower.’ His face took on a faint look of relief before lapsing into its usual blankness.

‘The bell tower, indeed!’ I grunted. ‘And Benedict imagines I can skip up and down his twelve-foot ladder as if I were one of Jacob’s angels. One day, if he’s lucky, he might have eight years of his own to every foot of that ladder.’ But I stopped. It was plain I’d lost the boy. I groaned and reached for my stick. As I finally got to my feet, he tied the threadbare shawl about me. I ignored the offer of his arm for support, and made my own way into the corridor.

As I came back to what passes with me for life, I noticed that the banging had stopped yet again. I looked round. My cell was only a few yards along from the side gate of the monastery. It was still barred. However, the buckets of water I’d suggested were filled and ready for use.

‘Do be a love, Edward,’ I said, now in English, ‘and have some more charcoal put in that brazier. It’s perishing in here. If I’m to live long enough to have my throat cut, you’ll need to keep me warmer than you do.’ I looked again at him. Wanking would have been pardonable in the circumstances. But it was most likely snot.

I gripped at the rail and looked down at the rain-sodden waste that is Northumbria. On better days, you can see from here all the way down to the Tyne. This wasn’t one of the better days. In the mist that had come up again, a few hundred yards was about the limit. There was a fire burning now close by the limit of visibility, and some of the northern beasts were dancing about it. I supposed they’d looted more beer from somewhere. Lucky beasts! I thought.

‘So, what is it that’s got all these old women in another panic?’ I wheezed. I spoke once more in Greek. This time, I got an answer.

‘It’s over here,’ said Brother Joseph in his flat Syrian accent. He guided me across the floor of the little tower and pointed down to a spot about fifty feet from the main gate. ‘The Lord Alaric will see that we do indeed have a new development.’

‘The Lord Alaric died when he left Constantinople,’ I said, now softly. ‘I must tell you again I’m plain Brother Aelric – born in Richborough, to die in Jarrow.’

‘It is as Your Magnificence wishes,’ he said, with one of his maddening bows.

No point arguing here and now, I thought. I looked out again into the mist. My heart skipped a beat and my hands tightened on the rail. Focusing isn’t what it used to be. But I could see from his hair that they’d got hold of young Tatfrid. He was one of the boys who hadn’t been able to make it through the gates before they’d swung shut. Now, he’d been dragged from whatever hiding place he’d found. They’d nailed him to a door and slit his belly open. His guts they’d arranged about him in the shape of an eagle’s wings and nailed them in place. How they’d kept him alive was beyond me. But if he was no longer up to screaming, he was still twisting. The door was propped up at the angle of a pitched roof, and more of the beasts were dancing in front of it. One of them was pulling at the boy’s trousers, and another was waving a knife up at us. It wasn’t hard to see what they had in mind. It was all noiseless, and, with the progress of the afternoon, white mist swirled thicker on the ground like insubstantial snow, hiding the lower halves of the cavorting bodies.

I swallowed and looked steadily down. Oh, I’ve seen suffering and death enough to fill many more years than I’ve been in the world. One way or another, I’ve caused enough of it myself. But it isn’t every day you see one of your best students butchered. Only five days before – no, it must have been just three – and he’d been construing Virgil downstairs. Now, the poor boy was – I forced myself to look away and turned back to Joseph.

‘Can you get an arrow into the right spot?’ I asked.

He looked and pursed his lips. He nodded and reached for his bow.

‘In the name of God – no!’ It was Benedict. He hadn’t followed the words, but the meaning was plain enough. He snatched at the bow and threw it down. ‘Has there not been enough killing?’ he cried indignantly in Latin. ‘If these benighted children have brought perdition on their heads, must we now do likewise?’

I bent slowly down and took up the bow. I gave it back to Joseph.

‘Take careful aim,’ I said. ‘We can settle things with the Bishop as and when.’ I stared at the Abbot until he looked away.

As Joseph fitted an arrow, there was a sudden commotion over on our right. It was the Chieftain and his retainers. They stood in a tight group, their cloaks pasted heavily about them by the fine rain. While I strained to see them properly, the herald stood forward and began another shouted message. The work of gelding laid aside for the moment, everyone nearby gathered round him to wave spears and shout fiercely at every pause.

‘What’s he saying now?’ I asked. Benedict had assured me their language was close to English. I’ve known many Germanic tongues, and most of them have been pretty close to English if you can hear past the different inflections. This one was beyond me. It might have been a dog down there barking away.