IV

 

 

DRIPPING, STINKING – BUT alive – they crawled out of the ragged, square opening in the crooked alleyway off the Street of Herbs and flopped exhausted into the street. At the sight of them, a thickset woman – the only human to witness these weird creatures emerge from the ground – screamed and fled, her basket bowling across the cobbles, strewing a trail of white linen. As they lay panting, Gisburne took advantage of the gift, and, dragging a veil towards him, attempted to wipe his hands clean of the stink of Jerusalem. Only then did he realise that the scabbard at his side was empty. He scrabbled at his belt – an irrational and futile gesture.

“My sword. It’s still down there...” He’d lost the crossbow, too. The hurdy gurdy, naturally, was still miraculously attached to him by its strap.

“We are not going back for it,” wheezed Galfrid.

“Damn it...” spat Gisburne. That sword had been with him since Boulogne.

Asif, still struggling for breath, gave a deep laugh. “Just give thanks that we still have our lives, my friend! A sword... That can be replaced.” Then, after a moment, he frowned and added: “What did he mean ‘something more elaborate’? What could be more elaborate than the destruction of an entire city?”

“He is a madman,” said Gisburne. He disentangled himself from the hurdy gurdy and tipped out a quart of filthy water. “Who knows what he means?”

As Galfrid lay there, he suddenly reached towards Gisburne and took a tight fistful of his tunic. In one hand he still grasped his trusty pilgrim staff, as if battle was not yet over. “Swear to me...” he said, an oddly wild look in his eye, “that next time, you will not let him live. Even if it means leaving me to die.” During all the months they had tracked Tancred, Galfrid had gone about the task with apparent ambivalence. But Gisburne had always suspected that it was an act. A façade intended to keep his darker feelings contained. Now, the façade had collapsed. “Swear it!’ he said, and shook Gisburne by his tunic.

“I swear,” said Gisburne. Galfrid let his grip loosen and his head droop.

Gisburne sighed heavily. “I failed,” he said. “I had him. He was literally in my grasp... And I failed.”

At that, Asif gaped. “Failed? Failed?” He fell flat on his back with laughter. “You have saved Jerusalem! Would that we could all fail so well!”

“But that madman is free. Still alive...”

“You don’t know that,” said Asif. “Not for certain.”

But Gisburne did. He felt it in his bones. The other knights, he was sure, had perished; the deluge had taken them. But Tancred clung to life.

“I will not make the mistake of assuming it,” said Gisburne. “Not this time. But we will track him again. He can’t escape us forever.”

Asif sat up and threw off his gauntlets. They landed with a splat upon the stones. “Ah, the world is full of madmen,” he said dismissively.

Gisburne rubbed his face with the linen and threw it aside. “One of whom, even now, returns to resume his place upon the English throne.”

“You mean the Lionheart?” said Asif. “Your King Richard?”

Gisburne simply gave a gloomy nod, and rose upon unsteady legs.

“But you have heard the news, yes?” said Asif.

“Of course,” said Gisburne with a frown, hauling Galfrid to his feet. When they had left England at the end of December, there had been no news of Richard for nearly three months. It was known his ship had set sail from the Holy Land in early October. It was reported to have stopped at Cyprus before continuing west, bound for Marseille, and he was expected back in England by Christmas. But the ship never arrived. There was no word, no sign. It was known that there had been violent storms in the Ionian sea, and when Gisburne and Galfrid set out for the east, many were convinced that the King was dead. Prince John’s star, it seemed, was in the ascendancy. Then in Acre, Gisburne had learned from a Venetian captain that the King’s ship had been blown ashore in Northern Italy and that he had continued overland. It seemed that, against all the odds, the charmed Richard had lived to fight another day after all. “The King makes for England as we speak,” said Gisburne.

“No!” said Asif. “He is taken captive – by his most hated enemy...”

Galfrid and Gisburne stared at each other. “Saladin?” said Gisburne.

Asif laughed. “Salah al-Din? Hate Richard? Salah al-Din sent him fruit and horses when he was in need! No – Leopold, Duke of Austria...”

The two Englishmen were stunned into silence by the news. Neither knew what this would mean for the kingdom, nor what they would find when they returned.

As they walked along the dark street, there came a terrible shriek of torment, which was rapidly taken up by other voices. At first, they feared that this was Tancred’s doing – that they had failed after all, and that even now, disaster was sweeping the city.

But no, this was something else... Not terror, but grief. Arab women wailed. Ahead of them, a man was beating his chest in anguish, while several more threw their hands up in despair, all of them shouting, many with tears streaming down their faces. Others spilled out of houses and joined the commotion. Gisburne’s grasp of the language was not sufficient to make proper sense of what they were saying, but he could pick out a few words: the end, disaster, death. He looked at Asif – and saw utter shock writ upon his friend’s face. The Arab muttered something under his breath, then turned to Gisburne.

“Salah al-Din is dead,” he said.