Deathgrip Page 25

  But he had aged these past few years. He now understood. He had glimpsed Hell.

  And had quite possibly brought a piece of it home with him.

  Abbot Baldwin led him out a side doorway of the abbey, to the separate building of the cloister. Far more austere than the sanctuary, its rooms given to studies by the younger brothers and their teachers, while older monks hunched at writing tables, painstakingly copying scripture and other manuscripts. The nearest, Walter saw, was illuminating one page in a vast book, using a brilliant blue ink tinted with crushed lapis lazuli. The brother’s work was as beautiful as any art in any cathedral in which Walter had ever set foot.

  “Brother Maynard,” the abbot called.

  Old he was, indeed. A crusader of some forty years past, and he would not have been a novice knight even then. Stooped now, his face a mass of taut wrinkles, hair in white wisps, his blue eyes faded by a desert sun and time. But his hands, from the robe’s sleeves, looked strong and steady. Hands well-used, and of talent.

  Abbot Baldwin introduced them, and Maynard gazed into Walter’s face with a knowingness that made him feel as if all his secrets were bared. Every stroke of his sword, cleaving life from another’s body.

  “Not long returned from the Holy Land, are you, sir,” he said. “Even through the beard, I still see the bones of your face.”

  “My appetites are not what they once were,” Walter said, and it was true enough. He had little stomach for eating when memories were strong, and questions stronger.

  The abbot suggested they retire to a smaller room where the relics were kept, where Maynard had labored over them to unlock their messages. When they were alone, the brother looked to him once more.

  “I dare say I have been as curious to meet with you, as you must be to meet with me,” and then Maynard collapsed onto a rude stool, shaking his head over the writings. “God’s mercy upon you, what manner of people did you take these from?”

  Walter looked at them, arranged on the stout table. Clay tablets, baked by the sun into brown brick, inscribed with a most peculiar form of writing. Carved stone, black diorite, with a distinctly different writing. A few works of art, mosaics of shell and stone and metal. Brought here three months ago on Walter’s last trip.

  “Brother Maynard,” the abbot said sharply. “Your Christian duty is not to act as inquisitor to a servant of the king.”

  The monk looked pained but held his tongue. Benedictine Rule meant obedience. He pointed to the hardened clay, inscribed by some hand with unreadable wedge-shaped marks.

  “This language is unknown to me,” he said, then pointed to the stones. “But these are writ in Old Persian. I learned it from a Moslem scholar before being ransomed from their captivity.”

  In his faded blue eyes was an unspoken thought, just between crusaders. This stern abbot who preached the spilling of heathen blood would never understand, for he had never been there. And Walter knew this old monk had come to learn the same thing he had: The Moslems … they were not the God-hating dogs we were told they were. Noble heathens, at worst. Sons of the same God, at best.

  It had been an uncomfortable revelation.

  “These stones tell of a yearly ceremony enacted by the people of a Babylonian city, in the land between two rivers,” Maynard went on. “The ceremony was to honor a bargain the people of an earlier great civilization had struck with spirits they feared. This bargain gave homes of flesh to the spirits, and spared their land from the worst of famine, and pestilence, and war, and death.”

  “What earlier civilization?” the abbot said. “We know of none who lived there before the Babylonians. Could this be Egypt?”

  “It speaks of two great rivers, not one. As for the land itself, it does not say. But its people called themselves ‘the black-headed people.’” Maynard reverently touched a finger to one of the clay tablets. “I dare say these would hold more answers, but could I read them.”

  “What of the ceremony?” Walter asked.

  “Once a year, with summer at its worst, they would select four men and ritually drive them from the city into the desert to spend a night. And give thanks to their gods for sparing them.”

  Walter looked at one of the mosaics, which now made sense. A long panel inlaid with carved shell and lapis lazuli, carnelian and gold. It depicted four naked men, each tied to his own chariot, drawn by donkey and escorted by helmeted men with spears. Could these be representative of the very first?

  “Driving them into the desert each year,” said Walter, “this sounds akin to early Hebrew law, when the priest would drive a goat into the desert for the atonement of their sins.”

  Maynard nodded sagely. “But did not the Babylonians come to live before Hebrew law and its ritual of the scapegoat?”

  “I will not hear of this!” cried the abbot. “Brother Maynard, you come close to speaking heresy.”

  He admonished further, then dismissed the monk, with downcast eyes, back to his duties. Maynard obeyed, meek as a lamb, and Walter found it pathetic — this man of elite birth, an honored warrior of Christ, spoken to like a churlish child. His life so changed that he would accept it without so much as a blow in return to defend his honor.

  Walter thought it strange, too, what things these priests would tolerate, what things they would not. Love and mercy, they preached incessantly. A century ago they had frowned upon tournaments and their violence, which trained young knights in the ways of war. They’d frowned upon the feuds and battles between English and French, decried these knights of Christendom, slaying one another for the sake of an earthly kingdom, saying it caused rejoicing in Hell. Then Pope Urban II had preached a new war in the east, to recover the Holy Land and the Holy Sepulcher from infidels, and all at once to make war was sanctified. How much better for these same knights to die in waves of their own blood, drawn by infidels, on behalf of a celestial kingdom and in defense of the Catholic faith.

  This the priests could accept. When mere words could cause them to tremble with rage.

  Abbot Baldwin wished to continue outside, led him to another exit and into the garth, a courtyard surrounded on all sides by the cloister. And here they stood, grass underfoot again. Sun overhead, that same sun that had blazed him in the east. It knew more mercy here.

  Walter had seen horrors that went beyond the fortunes of war. After the fall of Acre two years ago, surrender terms dragged on, and King Richard — named the Lion-Hearted by his troubadours — had ordered the slaughter of twenty-seven hundred Moslem prisoners he could not feed. Walter had taken part, as was his duty, but could find no glory in this. Beheading men bound by ropes, where was anything resembling honor in that? But it had not stopped there. The Moslems, knowing the plunder of a conquered city was imminent, would often swallow what treasure they could. The knights of Christendom knew it too, and Walter saw them hack the Moslems’ entrails open in search of gold and jewels. Saw them burn the bodies and sift the ashes in case more had escaped their attention.

  A century ago, the Holy Father in Rome had assured the salvation of any warrior who battled east for the sake of the Church. Had promised absolution of all sins committed while there.

  But how could God pardon such wanton greed as that?

  He wanted to ask the abbot. But did not bother.

  Abbot Baldwin had, three months past, heard the circumstances by which Walter had come in possession of the relics, but asked to hear them again. It was of renewed significance, with Maynard’s labors.

  So Walter repeated the tale of how the knights, under King Richard, had fought south after the fall of Acre. Coastal cities along the Great Sea, falling to the crusaders as they fought their way to the Judean hills, for the ultimate prize of Jerusalem.

  In Joppa, Walter and others had stopped to cast Moslem relics from a church, to restore it to its rightful God. These saviors had taken time to explore, and a passage was found to lead underground, beneath the church, with stairs of cut stone.

  And there they had been found. The inscr
ibed stones, the ancient artwork. And four who dwelled there. Three women, one man. Saracens, all. With eyes that looked old enough to have gazed upon Adam himself.

  Walter had been well back in the line of warriors, and remembered that long, long moment in which Christian and Moslem had stared at one another. The surprise of both sides. Now, thinking back, perhaps mercy would have been granted had the knights not been so new to Palestine. Those who had been living here had in many places come to a kind of peaceful coexistence with the Moslems, a tolerance that shocked and offended newcomer warriors.

  Still, the Moslems had been first to move. Three women, one man, falling upon the soldiers in this cramped chamber lit only by torches. Unarmed, seeming only to wish to touch the bare faces and hands of the nearest soldiers, who cried out as it happened, who struck with weapons even as they screamed, and Walter remembered wondering what could be happening to them. These soldiers showing mortal terror, as if their very souls were in peril despite the promise of a Pope some hundred years before. One screamed of spirits. As these four Moslems were quickly put to the sword, they no longer fought…

  And they even appeared gladdened.

  In spite of themselves, it soon became apparent that these normal men at arms had been granted the ability to become workers of miracles. Frightening miracles, at that, by the mere touch of hands. The touch of one bringing death. The touch of another blighting a tree with withering rot, never to grow again. The touch of yet another inciting others to fury and berserker rage…

  While that of the fourth could act one of two ways. Illness and injury could be inflicted, yes, but these could also be healed. As Walter watched him place his hands upon wound and skin rot, to restore them whole, he’d wondered if this curse was completely evil? Could there not be good at its heart, even though it looked to be pure witchery?

  The poor men were well terrified even of themselves, and the rest were quick to shun them.

  “What of these men now?” asked Abbot Baldwin.

  “They made willing prisoners. They fought not when we put them under rope. I brought them back on my ship. And they are yet my prisoners, in the hold in my castle.” Walter hung his head, remembering the treatment these men, now outcasts in their own land, had endured under his guard. “They will not die. I had them put to the sword, and no wound was mortal. I had them bound and cast into a river, as we might try a witch with the ordeal by water. Their bodies were accepted by the water, and while they sank to the bottom and we left them there, these men would not drown. And if we try to put them to the torch, the flame only burns the clothing from their bodies and leaves even their hair unscorched.”

  “And what of holy sacraments?” the abbot said. “Do these have effect on them?”

  “They take of communion daily, they long to save their souls.” Walter looked to the ground, the sky. Birds in flight, circling overhead; they reminded him of the eaters of carrion in that far land. What a feast holy war had given them. “I cannot hold them for much longer, Abbot. Their presence alone is frightening enough to my own garrison. My knights may soon find reason to seek another lord, despite their pledges of ost. I’ve heard grumblings enough.”

  Baldwin pressed fingertips together, his lips pursed, his brow furrowed. Thinking, weighing matters of church and state. While from the abbey’s short tower sounded the tolling of the bell. Day’s work was done. While duty continued.

  “Time for vespers,” the abbot said.

  “Come morning, when I take leave, I would like to take an answer with me. What do I do with them?”

  Baldwin held up one finger, silence. “This is no decision for one such as I. This is more a decision for a king.”

  “We have no king, and you know it.” Richard the Lion-Hearted was still captive; his officer of the crown was having trouble enough just trying to raise the ransom. Walter looked with scorn down upon the cleric. “This is no decision for a nobleman, either. I have done what I do best, and it failed.”

  The abbot sighed, and clearly he wished he were elsewhere. Presiding over the routine in his safe little world. “Then allow me the time to send a missive to Rome. If this is to become the responsibility of the Church, then the decision should be papal. Now, please? It is time for vespers.”

  He was gone in moments, leaving Walter beneath the sky, surrounded by cloister. Alone, to contemplate the peculiar fortunes of holy war. A better thinker these days than the man who’d first assumed lordship of his barony a decade past. He had done little thinking then, had more taste for shows of strength.

  Before sailing from Marseilles for the Holy Land, he’d been with King Richard’s entourage in Tours. There the monarch had been given the traditional pilgrim’s staff for the journey. When he leaned on it, it had broken. A terrible omen.

  And rightfully so. The triumphs of Acre and Arsuf and other cities had been but fleeting. There had been illness. Starvation. A decimated, demoralized army was all that remained to look upon a fortified Jerusalem, beyond their capabilities. In Acre, Richard had the brashness to tear down an Austrian banner raised by Archduke Leopold, then cast it publicly into the latrines; last December Leopold had captured Richard on his return home and turned him over to the Holy Roman Emperor for ransoming.

  Such plagues of ill fortune did not stir much faith that God willed their cause after all. And now this frightful and ancient legacy had come home with them.

  A three-year truce had been negotiated with the Saracens, allowing free passage for those on pilgrimage. But he feared the world of Islam would never truly trust Christendom again, not after what had been done to the captives at Acre. The Moslems seemed to have long memories — and perhaps with what their world had finally freed itself of, if Brother Maynard were to be believed, their laughter would now be loudest of all.

  Such legacies to leave. In the name of God.

  He got his answers in the autumn of that year.

  True to his word, Abbot Baldwin of Widdershank Abbey penned a letter to Pope Celestine III, dispatched to Rome by messengers who then waited for his reply. Baldwin then sent them from Huntingdon down to Kent with papal instructions.

  Let the prisoners go. But with conditions.

  Baron Walter pored over the documents again the night after their arrival. Colder nights now, longer, while the coming winter lay ahead like a wolf pack. Supper eaten, the chamberlain preparing his bed, he often spent evenings in the great hall of the castle, sitting in a vast chair before a blazing fire. Warmth was drawn where it could be found, and how he had once longed for England’s chill when the desert sun threatened to bake him to his bones. His daughter Caroline played in a corner, watched by her nursemaid.

  Daughters of gentle birth were usually sent away to be brought up in the home of another nobleman, or in a convent, but Walter had no heart for that. Caroline was in her fourth year, and damn custom if it meant parting with all he had left of his wife. Death had taken her while giving this child life, and while for a time he had thought to hate his daughter for that, there was too much of her mother in her face for hatred.

  Even if his Nicolette had been lost before bearing him a son and heir. He could marry again, could father sons. In time. But this new wife, whoever she might be, would be coming to his home under a sore disadvantage. A lover’s heart never forgot its sorrow for the woman once truly loved.

  The documents, papal dispensations…

  The aged pontiff’s position was that the Church could tolerate no living challengers to its history and tenets. Nor would it acknowledge demands, real or imagined, made by lesser spirits in the Holy Land. Enough pagan schisms and sects had arisen around heretics, without adding what these four creatures, however Christian their birth or mission to Palestine, might do.

  Therefore, if they could not be killed, then they were to be released. Separately, one man at a time, and driven each in a different direction, so that they did not unite again. They were to be kept ignorant of all relics pertaining to the origins of their predecessors. And
in the case that there were some spiritual balance to be maintained, perhaps it would be right and proper to see that it was indeed kept. Not, of course, that the Church officially condoned such paganism. Matters such as this were best kept hidden from public knowledge.

  To insure such secrecy and to oversee the pontiff’s latter directives over the course of time, Walter of Kent and the Abbot Baldwin of Widdershank Abbey were charged with the task of founding a new order. While in the elitist tradition of crusading orders already founded — the Knights Templars and the Hospitallers, the Knights of St. John — they would be cruciati of another type, who would follow these four scapegoats, so named after their animal predecessors under ancient Hebrew law, and observe them from near and far. Who by papal approval were to take whatever action was needed to accomplish their directives, and would never let their true work be known to those outside the order.

  In this endeavor, at least, knight and churchman were truly brothers. The Knights of the Order of The Quorum.

  Such was the last that Celestine III, this Servant of Servants, would ever deign to speak on the subject.

  He wishes us to be mercenaries in our own land, Walter thought. Even against our own people, if it comes to that.

  The responsibility was an awesome one, best entrusted to a man of iron. And if it had fallen to him by his decision to tread a stone stairway beneath a profaned church, then so be it.

  Abbot Baldwin had consented to letting Brother Maynard write a complete record of what the carved black stones had to say. The history, and warnings passed along by oral tradition, supposedly revealed to a priestess of those who called themselves the black-headed people.

  The embodiment of their deity of war was to be kept from the land’s rulers if disaster were to be avoided.

  The embodiment of their deity of famine was to be kept from their own harvest.

  The embodiment of their deity of pestilence was to be kept from a barren woman…