Doctor Who and the Crusaders (8 page)

‘But they told me… he said… she…’ El Akir tailed away, as he realized the trick that had been played on him. He turned and looked at the smiling faces of Sir William and Barbara.

The scar on his face suddenly showed up a livid red as the blood drained away from his face. Dark though the texture of his skin was, it visibly paled and his eyes took on an extraordinary glow of venomous hatred. Before he could utter the thoughts which showed so plainly on his face, Saladin stepped through the curtains.

‘It seems you are the victim of a pretty deception,’ he murmured. El Akir made his obeisance.

‘At least we have the English King,’ he replied, and then stared as Saphadin shook his head sorrowfully, and Saladin smiled.

‘This is not King Richard,’ said Saladin. ‘A blacker head of red-gold hair I never saw.’ Saladin moved across to Barbara
and stared into her eyes, liking the fearless way the girl returned his attention. ‘You have the better bargain, brother. She may not be the Princess, but her beauty lights the room.’

El Akir started to speak and Saladin held up a hand sharply, getting the silence he commanded.

‘I do not wish to listen to you!’ he said scathingly, and then he turned to Sir William, ‘but I will hear what you have to say.’

‘Mighty Sultan, know that I am Sir William des Preaux and to aid my King’s escape I shouted out his name and took his identity. This lady, Your Highness, has no part in this affair, except to aid my pretence. I beg of you to look upon her kindly, whatever fate you have for me.’

Saladin nodded slowly. ‘I salute your chivalry, and your words do not go unheeded.’

El Akir stepped forward, plucking at Saladin’s sleeve.

‘Hear me! Let me make some good. This woman can be made to entertain you. I can have her dance on hot coals, run through a passage made of sharp-tipped swords or any of a hundred ways in my mind, all for your amusement.’

Saladin thought for a second or two and then looked at Barbara gravely.

‘What do you say to this?’

Barbara knew she was being tested as a person, and was determined not to hurry her reply. She also knew that Saladin would be disappointed if she begged for mercy, although she felt he probably expected it. Barbara was never one to take the course people anticipated.

‘It sounds to me,’ she said at last, ‘like the punishment for a fool.’ Saladin’s eyes betrayed his interest. ‘And which of us here is the most foolish?’ she added.

The words hung in the room in the silence that followed, all heads turning towards El Akir. For one, frightening moment,
he really believed that the punishment he had so vividly described would fall on himself. He started back, fear written plainly all over him. Saladin turned away contemptuously and sat on the low seat, exchanging an eloquent look with his brother.

‘El Akir,’ he said, ‘I can devise my own pleasures. Go with Sir William and let me hear you have treated him as an honoured guest. Let him take all liberties,’ and he smiled in a friendly way at the Knight, ‘except of course, liberty itself.’ He waved a hand and the two men left the room silently. Saladin beckoned Barbara to come nearer.

‘Are you afraid of me?’

Barbara shook her head and Saladin turned to his brother in mock surprise.

‘If I cannot make women tremble, what hope have we to win this war?’

Barbara said, ‘I know of no person who doesn’t hold you in respect. There is a most healthy regard for your generalship, My Lord. I am not a man, so perhaps I don’t fully understand what wars are all about, but I feel men of character do not care to fight against cowards.’

‘There’s philosophy here,’ murmured Saladin.

‘And wit, brother,’ added Saphadin.

‘Indeed. Now tell me the truth,’ said the Sultan. ‘You are not of these lands, yet you appear to be a stranger to Sir William.’

‘I am… a traveller. I was with three friends. We arrived in the wood.’

‘You rode into the wood?’

‘No.’

‘You walked into it,’ hazarded Saphadin. Barbara shook her head, wondering how she could explain enough without asking too much of their credulity.

‘We arrived. In a box.’

‘Ah! You were carried into the wood.’

Barbara felt it wise to agree with Saphadin on this point. Saladin sat back, rubbing a hand on his chin.

‘A reluctant story-teller!’

‘I could tell you… that I came from another world. Ruled by insects. Or that my friends and I recently visited Nero’s Rome. Before that, that we were in an England far into the future.’

Saladin nodded slowly.

‘I understand. You and your friends are a band of players? Entertainers? You are the story-teller?’

Barbara merely inclined her head, thankful to have found a way to justify her existence, without entering into a long and involved pattern of lies.

‘Frankly, I tell you,’ said the Sultan, ‘you are an encumbrance. I do not dispense life and death lightly but you have no place in my military headquarters. A wise man would rid himself of you quickly and cleanly, and have done with it. So either you must serve a purpose here, or you have no purpose. We need diversion here and you shall provide it. If you succeed, you shall receive every kindness and comfort possible, and come to no harm. You shall grace my table tonight, with clothes more suitable to your new station.’

Barbara looked a little troubled, not quite understanding what Saladin meant.

‘You are a self-confessed story-teller,’ he said. ‘If your stories beguile me, all will be well.’

Barbara said, ‘Like Scheherazade?’

Saladin leant forward, a grim smile on his lips.

‘Over whose head, you will recall, hung the sentence of death!’

As El Akir waited in the courtyard of Saladin’s headquarters at Ramlah, cursing for allowing himself to be made a fool of by his prisoners, a tall, richly-dressed merchant sat drinking at a table. El Akir had noticed him as he strode out of the palace, dismissing him as one of a dozen foreign merchants who sought to make profit from the war.

It is always hard to understand a man without saving graces. All human beings have facets which make them admired, as much as those they may possess which dismay or repel. Those who knew El Akir found nothing to recommend him, for they recognized in him a man saturated with guilt, so much so that his life could only continue by laying extra evils, one above another, as if the man were tortured by the foul deeds he had committed and had to hide them by inventing fresh crimes; and far worse ones at that; curtaining off yesterday’s depredations with new villainies.

All these things Luigi Ferrigo recognized; if not the actual details, certainly enough to know the type of man, for he was an expert judge of a particular sort of human nature. Ferrigo’s fault lay in his total inability to apply his judgement to all manner of men. Put him in the company of fools, cowards, villains or the greedy and he would find a way to make each one his cat’s-paw. Introduce him into a gathering of talent, honesty and good endeavour and he would withdraw within himself, become unapproachable and remote. So, as each man instinctively chooses the path in life he thinks will take him quickest to whatever his desires may be, Ferrigo’s way was
shadowy and devious. Some said of him that he’d rather earn one gold piece by guile than a fortune by straightforward dealing, while others were convinced he was so filled with the lust for riches, he would rise to any height, or sink to any depths to make a profit.

A woman came out of the palace, keeping to the shadows of the arched walk surrounding the courtyard. Luigi Ferrigo sat back in his chair, giving every evidence of sleep, while El Akir, seeing the woman he had been waiting for, drew himself into a small alcove. As she passed by him, he stepped out and gripped her arm. She gave a little shriek of fear and would have fallen to her knees, if he hadn’t held her upright, his fingers pressing into the flesh of her arm painfully, almost bringing tears to her eyes.

‘Sheyrah,’ he whispered fiercely, ‘where is the foreign woman? Tell me and you shall be rewarded.’

The woman stared into his eyes, frightened at the depths of hatred she saw. He shook her arm impatiently and with his other hand produced a ring from the pouch at his belt, a heavy thing of silver, clasping a large and beautiful yellow stone.

‘Take it! Tell me! You are attending her, I know you are – the Sultan ordered it.’

As if the mention of Saladin gave her courage, she pulled her arm away and stepped back, rubbing the place where his fingers had gripped her. El Akir licked his lips and tried a slightly different approach. He held up the ring, so that it caught the light, and spoke more gently.

‘Bring the foreign woman to me, Sheyrah, and you shall have this.’ He looked at her to see what effect he was having and then took a step forward towards her as she shook her head stubbornly.

‘Then deserve my enmity!’

‘My Lord is greater than you,’ Sheyrah said defiantly. El Akir’s hand holding the ring bunched into a fist and raised slightly in the air. Sheyrah cowered back, expecting the blow, when suddenly Luigi Ferrigo appeared, fanning his face with his hand, as if he had decided to try the cooler pleasures of the shade of the archway. El Akir’s hand dropped to his side and Sheyrah hurried past him, disappearing into another part of the palace.

‘She was a fool not to take the ring,’ said Luigi casually and El Akir, who was just turning away, stiffened and swung around. ‘But perhaps you were asking too much for it.’

The two men sized each other up for a few seconds and the Genoese knew he had the measure of his opposite number.

‘I have some wine on a table over there,’ he stated pleasantly.

‘Why should I drink with you?’

‘Because I have something to ask of someone. If only I knew their price.’

El Akir found himself being led out of the shadows and across the courtyard, ushered into a chair and given a cup of wine. He took it with a bad grace and drank deeply, liking the gentle richness of the amber liquid, which held a stronger body than the rougher wines he usually drank. Ferrigo added some more wine to the cup generously.

‘This is a wine of France, a sample of some stock I carry in my ship which rests today at Acre. If you like it, I have a skin of it to give you.’

‘I’m not bought by you, merchant,’ growled El Akir. The other shook his head in pained surprise.

‘The servants here have told me something about you, El Akir. You are an Emir, rich and prosperous already, with an army of your own. You have, I hear, a fine palace in the town of Lydda, a short ride from here. You do not think I imagine I can buy a person such as you with a skin of wine.’

‘You know a lot. Why have you asked questions about me? Who are you? What are you doing in Ramlah?’

The merchant listened to all the questions tolerantly, taking a small drink from his own goblet, his eyes never leaving the Emir’s face.

‘I have travelled a long way to speak with your Sultan; a rather weary journey. Neither Saladin nor his brother will receive me. As to who I am, well, I am a merchant, as you guessed, and my business is to buy and sell.’

‘It’s nothing to me,’ said El Akir, shaking his head a little as the strong wine began to take effect. ‘I’m leaving Ramlah.’

‘Returning to your palace at Lydda?’

‘Yes, if it’s any of your affair!’

‘Perhaps what holds you here is my affair.’

The Emir stared truculently across the table and got to his feet, an oath forming on his lips at the confusing way the stranger was speaking to him. Yet something in the other’s manner stopped him and made him resume his seat again. Ferrigo smiled without any sign of triumph.

‘We both have reasons for being in Ramlah, El Akir,’ he said softly, leaning across the table. ‘Can we not help each other?’

‘Tell me your reason first,’ said the other cautiously.

‘Profit. I wish to arrange a safe conduct for caravans of goods to and from the Sultan’s headquarters, from Ramlah to Tyre and back again.’

‘We are at war,’ replied El Akir stupidly, shaking his head again to try and clear away the wine fumes.

‘Conrad of Tyre has fallen out with the King of the English and is sending an emissary here to make peace with your Sultan. Every army needs supplies and luxuries, while someone can be on hand to buy the booty captured in battle.’

El Akir nodded, trying to look intelligent. A fly buzzed around his face and he made an ineffectual jab at it with his hand.

‘What is my part in this?’ he said at last.

‘Arrange an audience with the Sultan or his brother. I cannot pass the men who surround them.’ Luigi Ferrigo lifted his goblet of wine and stared at the rim of it intently. ‘But how could I return such a favour?’

‘There is a woman here, an English one, who has made me look a fool,’ the Emir blurted out. ‘I want to take her to my palace at Lydda. We’ll see who the fool is and who the master there. Help me – and you shall see the Sultan.’

There was a silence for a few seconds as the merchant raised the goblet to his lips and drained it, wiping his mouth delicately afterwards with a piece of silk he kept at his belt.
He stood up.