B00Y3771OO (R) (26 page)

Sir Kevin Hage had realized the same thing his friend had; Tripoli had been under siege for over a month now, a bone-dry city in a dry and mysterious land. Overrun by Mamluks, Turks, Mongols, and more exotic tribes pouring in from the north and east, the last remnants of the Christian brotherhood in the Levant was trying to rid the city of the new legacy of invaders. But they were outnumbered; it had been a seemingly futile effort thus far.

Kevin and his companions, Sir Adonis de Norville and Sir Thomas de Wolfe, men he had grown up with and had now come to serve with in this strange and exotic land, the last crusade of an empire who had all but given up the quest, had been well out of England for over six years. From the snows of Wales to the searing sands of the Levant, it had all been quite an adventure, an adventure that has seen Hage acquire a reputation not only from those he fought with but from those he fought against. A man who fought with no fear, no emotion, and a hint of untapped vengeance. A man the Templars and Hospitallers alike had learned to use as a strike weapon, an assassin. Like a scorpion, Hage was often undetected until it was too late and by then, the target was dead before he realized what had hit him.

By then, it was too late….

Now, it was nearly too late for the man known as the Scorpion. Kevin looked around; they were on the north side of the city, having gained admittance by killing several gate guards at their post protecting a smaller but strategic postern gate that led into the walled city.

The lure of a possible surrender had drawn Kevin and his companions to the gate, as directed by the commander of the order of the Templars that Kevin sometimes fought with. Being English, and not officially a Templar or a Hospitaller, he fought with them when mood suited him, or when they would pay him well enough. Now, this directive he had received to collect surrendering enemy commanders, with a massive payment to boot, was coming to smell of an ambush. Already, their passage into the city had not been easy. Now he was wondering how easy it would be to get out.

“I believe you are correct,” Kevin finally muttered, turning to Adonis; his tall, blond companion was red in the face from sun burn and heat. “De Clemont paid extraordinarily well for me to take on this task; it did not occur to me that it was because he knew he would eventually get his money back when my dead body was brought to him.”

Adonis nodded, his expression edgy, as he motioned over Thomas de Wolfe, who had just dispatched two rather violent Mamluks. When de Wolfe kicked the bodies before stealing all he could carry off of them, he made his way back over to Kevin and Adonis.

“This is a trap,” Thomas said; dark, with hazel eyes and big shoulders, he was one of the sons of the legendary William de Wolfe and possessed all of his father’s great cunning and skill. His gaze was on Kevin. “If we venture further into the city where we have been directed to go, it will mean death for us. All of this… it has been far too planned.”

“We know,” Kevin murmured, looking around to see if any more assassins were about to pop from the shadows of the ancient city. “We must leave and leave quickly.”

Adonis looked around him with the same hunted look that Kevin had. “We cannot return to de Clemont,” he said. “The man put you in this position. If we return to him, then we return to our deaths.”

Kevin knew that. He sighed heavily, wiping the sweat off his bristly scalp. “Not even those we have fought with for six years trust us any longer,” he said. “If they are trying to kill us, then I believe our time here is done.”

Thomas nodded, shoving the coinage he had stolen into the purse in his tunic. “They fear you are no longer under their control,” he said. “You killed de Evereux….”

“He tried to kill me.”

“Even so, rumor spread that you had been hired to kill him by the Mamluks.”

Kevin grunted. “I killed the man because he was an unscrupulous French bastard who tried to steal some coinage from me,” he said as if the entire thing was ridiculous. “When I confronted him, he tried to kill me. I killed him in self-defense.”

Thomas knew that; so did Adonis. “But he was de Clemont’s cousin,” Adonis muttered. “Everyone knew he was an immoral fool but when you killed him, they sided with de Clemont out of fear of the man. One does not side against his leader and live to tell the tale.”

Kevin was well aware. Clearing his throat softly, he looked around the dusty old walls of the antique city, walls the color of sand. Everything here was the color of sand; he hadn’t seen green grass in over six years. At that moment, he realized that he missed it very much. He wanted to go home. He was tired of this place, its dirt and heat and lice. He wanted to see the green grass of home again.

“Then it is done,” he said quietly. “We gather our possessions and we leave. We can do no more here and I refuse to lose my life on these barren sands, stripped of it by men who are unworthy of my legacy.”

Neither Thomas nor Adonis argued with him; they, too, were glad to be leaving these desolate lands. They had only come because of Kevin, a man they had grown up with and a man who, six years ago, had lost the love of his life to another. Kevin had been aimless, directionless, and left with a massive hole in his chest where his heart used to be. At the request of Kevin’s father, Sir Kieran Hage, Thomas and Adonis had stayed with Kevin and, at his side, had eventually found their way to the Holy Land in search of wealth and adventure.

But for Kevin, he was in search of something more, something to fill that big hole in his chest. The lost love had drained him of everything he had ever been capable of feeling and in that state, he became a mercenary for the Christian armies that were still trying to rid the Holy Land of the infidels. But he quickly found that there wasn’t enough money to satisfy him or supply what he was lacking. Therefore, his early days as a mercenary transformed into something else, something dark and dangerous.

Kevin became a man who would take money to kill other men; it didn’t matter who these other men were to him. As long as he was well-paid, he would do any task. Nothing was too great or too difficult. It was in this guise as a paid assassin that Kevin achieved something he never imagined he could. He became Death.

That hole in his chest where love used to linger was now filled by destruction and disappointment in what life had dealt him. The disillusionment of life had changed him, turning his soft heart and kind ways into a darker shadow of his former self. With dark hair shaved to the scalp and a massive tattoo of a scorpion that a Turkish artist has etched onto the left side of his back that had both terrible claws designed so that they were embracing his enormous left shoulder, Kevin Hage was no longer the pious, gentle knight those around him had known and loved. Kevin had died those six years ago and something else had taken his place.

The Scorpion was born.

“O thou noble maid! till I exalt myself to the heights of glory with the thrusts of my spear, and the blows of my sword, I will expose myself to every peril wherever the spears clash in the battle-dust—then shall I be either tossed upon the spear-heads, or be numbered among the noble in my quest for your beloved heart.”

~ 13
^th
Century Arabic Love poem

Chapter One

London

October 1289

“I
would like to know how the king even knows of me,” Kevin said. “How on earth could he send word to see me?”

The question hung in the moist sea air. The cog that Kevin, Adonis, and Thomas had taken from Calais had come ashore at the white cliffs of Dover on a surprisingly mild fall day. The gulls hung in the sea breezes overhead as the knights, and several other passengers, disembarked as close to the shore as possible. Kevin disembarked with his horse, a spectacular white stallion he had purchased in Tyre, bred from the ancient Arabian stock crossed with the heavy boned Belgian warmbloods that the Crusaders had brought with them. The result was a smart, powerfully built, and astonishingly fast animal with a luxuriant dark gray mane and tail.

The horse could swim, too, among his many talents, so Kevin literally had the horse jump off the boat and swim to shore, which he happily did. Since no man other than Kevin could ride the horse much less approach it, Kevin simply followed his horse up onto the shore, grinning as the animal bolted up the rocky shoreline, kicking up his heels, before turning around and returning to his master. Like a dog, he followed Kevin obediently as the man took his baggage off the small skip they had lowered from the side of the cog.

This area of the shoreline was where boats from Calais disembarked so there was the usual amount of boat traffic and officials demanding tariffs. It smelled heavily of musty rocks and salt, the scent of the sea backed up against the cliffs. Bags in hand, Kevin stood before a man bearing the colors of Edward, the king, with the blue and red shield embracing golden royal lions, a messenger who seemed out of place among the salty seamen and aggressive tax collectors. The man had just informed Kevin of the king’s wishes and Kevin was understandably confused.

“Rumor of your return to England precedes you, my lord,” the messenger said. “All of England has heard of the Scorpion and our king, the consummate warrior, respects the reputation you have built for yourself. He wishes to see you for himself.”

Kevin peered at the man dubiously. “How did you know me on sight?”

The messenger pointed to one of the several tariff collections milling several feet away, arguing with some of the cog captains that had come ashore.

“You are distinctive, my lord,” he said, pointing to Kevin’s neck. “Your boat captain noticed, too. If I was a man given to wager, I would guess those claws on your neck are scorpion claws. I
am
addressing the Scorpion, am I not?”

Kevin grunted; the right claw of the massive scorpion on his back came up on the left side of his neck. Instinctively, he ran a finger along the leather collar of his tunic as if trying to hide the claw that could not be hidden. There was no use in denying the obvious.

“I am Hage,” he said, vaguely. “What does the king wish to speak with me about?”

The messenger was good at his job, seasoned and capable of standing up to me who were fearful, stubborn, or even intimidating. “He has not discussed that with me, my lord,” he said. “I would suggest you travel to London immediately to find out. He is in residence at the palace at Thorney Island.”

Thorney Island
. Kevin turned to look at Adonis and Thomas, who were gazing back at him in various stages of confusion and perhaps even doubt at the messenger’s words. But Kevin didn’t doubt the man; he knew Edward’s tunics. He’d seem them many times. Unless this was a spy who had stolen a royal tunic and was trying to lure him to his death, at the palace at Thorney Island no less, he believed the man. He had no reason not to. Better not take the chance it that the king really had summoned him. Therefore, he waved the man off.

“Very well,” he said. “If you reach the king before I do, tell him I am on my way.”

The messenger bowed sharply. “Excellent, my lord,” he said. “The king will be pleased.”

With that, the man spun on his heel and took off across the rocking shore, dodging seamen and passengers alike as they disembarked from the cogs off short. As Kevin went to saddle his horse, Adonis followed him.

“Summoned by the king?” he repeated quietly, looking around at the rabble that was milling about on the shoreline to make sure no one had heard the messenger. “The last time you saw Edward was in battle in Wales and he believed you to be someone else.”

Kevin put the saddle on his horse and adjusted the cinch strap. “I am well aware.”

“He thought you were a Welsh insurgent.”

Kevin nodded. “That is true,” he said, thinking back to that dark night when he’d had a great adventure and a seriously close call against the king of England. “He thought that I was Bhrodi de Shera, the last hereditary king of Anglesey.”

Adonis, too, thought back to that rather harrowing night of battle. “You donned the man’s armor when he was wounded in battle so that the Welsh would not lose heart against the English,” he muttered. “You did it because Penelope asked you to.”

Kevin didn’t want to think back to that part of the circumstances but he had no choice; even mentioning Penelope de Wolfe’s name, six years later, still brought pain.

“I did it because she wished it,” he murmured. “I did it because I loved her and I did not wish to see her miserable when her husband was wounded in battle. The deception nearly cost me my life.”

Adonis nodded faintly; he glanced at Thomas as the man came upon them, listening to the conversation even as he was straightening out the knot of his horse’s reins.

“I was there that night,” Thomas put in. “Lest you forget, Kevin; I was there. I saw almost everything. Edward captured you and had it not been for my father and your father, you would have been in very serious trouble posing as an enemy Welsh prince, in front of the king no less. My sister should not have asked that of you. What will happen now when you show up to London and the king recognizes you?”

Kevin shrugged; he wasn’t particularly concerned about it. He was more concerned about the fact that Penelope de Wolfe was on his mind now and he didn’t want to be thinking about her the entire ride into London.
Damnation!
He thought angrily. It had taken him nearly every day of those six long years in the Levant to forget her; could a brief mention of the woman once he was on English soil undo all that had been done to erase her from his mind once and for all? He wondered.

“It was dark that night,” he finally said. “I had more hair than I do now and was dirty, beaten, and dressed in another man’s armor. I doubt the man will recognize me”

Thomas grunted in disapproval. “You are taking a terrible chance.”

Kevin looked at him. “I do not have a choice,” he said. “You saw for yourself; the king as summoned me. If I refused, I will be in greater trouble.”