Eagle (16 page)

‘And you are as dumb as an ox, too,’ Yusuf added in Arabic.

‘Don’t overdo it,’ John growled. He approached Yusuf more slowly this time, keeping his hands up. Yusuf let him come, ducking and bobbing his head as John had taught him, so that he would not present an easy target. John swung high, and Yusuf ducked the punch, stepping in and delivering a right to John’s stomach. Yusuf stayed in close, hitting John twice more in the gut. But Yusuf’s fourth punch never hit home. John’s hand clamped down on his wrist. John spun Yusuf around and twisted his arm behind his back, wrapping the other forearm around Yusuf’s throat. Yusuf struggled to escape but could not break John’s iron grip.

‘When fighting a larger opponent, you must rely on quickness and deception,’ John spoke into Yusuf’s ear. ‘Strike and then move away. If you let him get close, you are lost.’

‘You haven’t defeated me yet,’ Yusuf growled. He bit down on John’s forearm.

‘’Sblood!’ John cursed. He pulled his bleeding forearm tight against Yusuf’s throat, choking him. ‘A wise warrior also knows when to admit defeat.’

Yusuf’s face turned bright red, but he continued to struggle. Finally, when his vision dimmed and he began to see spots of light swimming before his eyes, he went limp. ‘You win,’ he croaked. John let him go, and Yusuf fell to his knees, gasping for air. From the mosque nearby, the muezzin began his rhythmic chant, calling the Muslim faithful to their evening prayers.

‘I must go,’ Yusuf said between heavy breaths. He rose and collected the swords, hiding them under one of the loose flagstones
that formed the floor of the temple. ‘I never miss evening prayers.’

John nodded as he picked up his tunic and pulled it on. ‘I should return as well, or I will be missed at the evening meal. You fought well today, Yusuf.’

Yusuf smiled. Compliments from John were hard-earned.

‘Tomorrow we will meet in the stables,’ Yusuf said. ‘And I shall teach you.’

‘Until tomorrow, then. Ma’a as-salaama.’ Go with safety.

‘Allah yasalmak.’ God keep you safe.

John poured a bucket of water into the horse’s trough, and the chestnut stallion came to the edge of its stall and bent its head to drink. John scratched the horse between its ears, and it nuzzled at him, searching for a treat. Disappointed, the horse returned to the water. John leaned against the stall and watched it drink. He loved the compact, graceful Arabian horses. They were smaller than the bulky European chargers he had grown up with, but were surprisingly strong for their size. Yusuf said that they could carry more weight because their bones were denser. For the same reason, they rarely went lame.

John gave the horse a final pat, then hung the bucket from a hook next to the stall. His work in the stable was done. He still had to restock the kitchen’s wood supply, but he would have plenty of time to do so after his lesson. John climbed into the hayloft and sat to wait for Yusuf. Almost immediately, he began to sneeze. The loft was not the ideal place for their studies, but at least it was private.

A moment later, Yusuf entered the stables carrying two leather-bound tomes. ‘Greetings, John,’ he said in Frankish, then clambered up into the loft, the heavy books clutched under one arm.

‘Salaam, Yusuf.’ John had always had a gift for languages; he had learned Latin and Frankish with a rapidity that astonished the monks who had taught him as a child. His gift had not
deserted him, and he had picked up Arabic quickly. Yusuf’s Frankish had improved just as fast. Now, they spoke to  one another in a mixture of the two. ‘More reading?’ John sighed, eyeing the books.

‘If you can speak but cannot read, then you are little better than a savage.’

‘I can read Greek, Latin, Frankish and English.’

‘But not Arabic, the holy language.’ Yusuf handed the larger of the two books to John. Graceful, curving Arabic letters had been carved into the leather of the spine.

‘
The Chronicle of Damascus
,’ John spelled out. While he spoke Arabic well enough, he found it devilishly tricky to read. The flowing, snaky script seemed to blend together, making it difficult to determine where one letter ended and another began.

‘It is a history written by one of our greatest scholars,’ Yusuf told him. ‘Today’s topic will be of some interest to you; we shall read of the first crusade and the siege of Jerusalem.’

John opened the book at the marked page and squinted at the ornate, flowing script. ‘The army of the Franks—’ he read slowly, ‘more than ten thousand men strong, arrived before the walls of the Holy City on the ninth day of Rajab in the four hundred and ninety-second year since the flight of the Prophet Mohammed from Mecca to Medina.’ Yusuf nodded and smiled encouragement. ‘The Frankish .  .  .’ John’s eyebrows knit in frustration.

‘Warriors,’ Yusuf supplied.

‘We would say
chevaliers
– knights,’ John murmured. He turned back to the text. ‘The Frankish warriors are said to have—’

‘Wept.’

‘—to have wept to see the city that they had travelled so long to reach. They were led by Raymond of Toulouse, a giant of a man and a fierce warrior, and Godfrey of Bouillon, who would become King of Jerusalem. The Franks surrounded the city and lay—What is this word, here?’

‘Siege,’ Yusuf translated into Latin.

‘They lay siege. The Franks dashed themselves against the walls of the Holy City, but the mighty walls did not fall. Hunger and thirst plagued the Franks. In desperation, they marched—’

‘Barefoot.’

‘—barefoot around the walls of the city, calling on God for aid. On the walls, the defenders of Jerusalem also prayed to Allah, asking for victory. But it was not to be. The Franks built tall towers, constructed of wood from the very ships they had used to reach the Holy Land, and used these towers to break through the walls. The Holy City fell.’ John looked up with a grin. ‘I wish I had been there to see it. That was a glorious day.’

Yusuf frowned. ‘Read what comes next.’

‘The Fatimid emir fled with his army, and the Franks entered the city. The horror of their deeds will never be forgotten. Men, women, children: all were put to the sword. The slaughter was worst on the Temple Mount, where blood flowed in—in—’

‘The blood flowed in torrents,’ Yusuf supplied. He took up the narrative from memory. ‘Women were dragged from their homes and raped. Children were torn from their mothers’ arms and cast into the air to be impaled on the swords of the Franks. The Franks entered the Al-Aqsa mosque and killed all they found there, staining this holiest of places with blood.’ Yusuf’s voice shook with passion. ‘In the Jewish quarter, they forced the Jews into their houses of worship, which they then burned. Those who escaped the flames were cut down by waiting warriors. Smoke hung dark over the city. The cries of sorrow could be heard for miles. The emir, hearing them as he fled, fell down and wept, cursing himself for his failure.’

John shook his head. ‘The writer is a Saracen. He lies.’

Yusuf opened the second book that he had brought and read a nearly identical tale of carnage. John interrupted him. ‘What does this prove?’ Yusuf closed the text and handed it to John. ‘
Gesta Orientalium Principum
,’ John read from the title page. His
eyes widened. The author was William of Tyre. ‘I have met this man. He is a priest.’

‘A Christian,’ Yusuf agreed.

John said nothing. He had been told that the taking of Jerusalem was a glorious victory. The priest in Cherbourg who preached the second crusade had referred to the victory again and again, calling on the people of the town to take up the sword and surpass the feats of their forefathers. The priest had not spoken of slaughtered women and children, or of streets flowing with blood.

‘That is the nature of your great victory,’ Yusuf said. ‘The Christians are savages, animals.’

‘Not all of them. Our faith is one of love and forgiveness. It is Jesus who told us that if our enemy strikes us, we should not strike back, but offer him our other cheek.’

Yusuf nodded. ‘Your Jesus said much of great wisdom. He is counted amongst our prophets. But tell me: do the crusaders follow his teachings? They burn crops, kill women and children. They know nothing of medicine or literature. They do not even know enough to bathe. They are fanatics who blindly follow the Cross. Even you, John, you followed this pagan symbol from your home all the way to these lands. And why? To murder and pillage in the name of God. But your crusades are no business of God. Allah turns his back on such savage deeds.’

John frowned. Much of what Yusuf said was true. In his months in Ayub’s household, he had learned that the Saracens were nothing like he had been told. They were cultivated, learned and frequently kind, even to their slaves. Compared to Yusuf and his family, the men and women that John had known in Tatewic did seem like dirty savages. And it was true that many of the men who had accompanied John on the crusade to Damascus had fought for spoils or adventure, not for God. Even he had not truly come east to fight for Christ. He had joined the crusade to escape his past. But that did not make him a savage.

‘The Christian knights are men of honour,’ he said. ‘Savages have no honour.’

‘Honour?’ Yusuf scoffed. ‘Your knights have the honour of men who sell their fellow soldiers for a sack of gold. I was at the emir’s court in Damascus during the siege. The emir paid your men to move from the orchards, and they did. Such men know nothing of honour.’

John thought of the night long ago when he had seen Reynald in the clearing meeting with the Saracen. He thought of the heavy sack that Ernaut had carried. The facts fell into place. Reynald was the man the emir had bribed. That was why he had sent Ernaut to kill John: to eliminate the only witness to his treachery. John’s jaw clenched in anger.

‘Your knights are brave,’ Yusuf continued. ‘But it is the bravery of animals, not of men. They fight to satisfy their appetites, not for honour, and certainly not for God.’

John shook his head. ‘There are men of honour among us.’ He put the book aside and rose, brushing straw from his pants. He stepped past Yusuf and climbed down the ladder.

‘Where are you going?’ Yusuf demanded as John headed for the stable door.

‘I have had enough for today.’

John poured water over the back of the last of the five horses that Ayub’s mamluks had taken hunting that day. He had avoided Yusuf for the past week, ever since their lesson in the hayloft. Once Yusuf had come to seek him out early in the day while he was rubbing down one of the horses, but John had ignored him. He was not yet ready to confront Yusuf. His time in Baalbek had opened his eyes to another way of life. It was raising uncomfortable questions about much that he had taken for granted. Yusuf had given voice to those questions, and now all that had been so certain – John’s faith, the righteousness of his cause, the superiority of the Christians – seemed suspect.

John finished washing the sweat from the horse’s back and proceeded to scrape its coat clean. When he was done, he patted the horse a final time, grabbed his tunic from where it was slung over the stall door, and left the stables. He was passing through the narrow space between the east side of the villa and the outer wall when he heard a high-pitched giggle and froze, his pulse quickening. He looked about and saw Zimat, peeking out through the shutters of one of the rooms in the villa.

‘Salaam,’ John said as he hurriedly pulled on his tunic.

‘Salaam. I liked you better with your shirt off,’ Zimat added in Arabic. ‘I have never seen a Frank shirtless.’

John’s eyebrows shot up. He approached the window. ‘Haven’t you?’

Zimat’s golden cheeks flushed crimson, but she did not move away. ‘You—you speak our tongue,’ she managed. ‘How?’

‘I am not a total savage.’

‘I never said you were.’

‘But it is what you think of us, is it not?’ John insisted. ‘We are fierce warriors, monsters, savages.’

‘That is what I thought,’ Zimat admitted. ‘But you are different.’ She met his eyes. ‘You saved me.’

John looked away. ‘I only did what any knight would do.’

‘But you risked your life. You were lucky not to have been executed.’

‘I would do it again.’

‘I know.’ Zimat turned away. ‘Someone is coming,’ she whispered as she looked back to John. ‘I must go.’ But she did not move. John stared into her dark eyes, and she met his gaze without blinking. He leaned forward to kiss her. Zimat slapped him. ‘How dare you!’ she snapped and slammed the shutters closed.

John touched his cheek where she had slapped him, and a grin spread across his face. For just before the shutters had slammed shut, he had noticed that Zimat was smiling.

Yusuf sidestepped a punch from his younger brother Selim and grabbed his arm, spinning Selim around and placing him in a headlock. Selim struggled for a moment, then gave up and went limp. ‘Never over-commit against a larger opponent,’ Yusuf told his brother, then released him. The two boys stood with their hands on their hips, breathing hard. Yusuf wiped the sweat from his forehead as he looked up to the hazy-blue autumn sky, framed by the tall walls of the temple. The sun had sunk behind the west wall. They had been training for well over an hour.

‘You did well today,’ Yusuf told Selim. ‘You can go.’

‘You always send me away early,’ Selim pouted. ‘I want to stay.’

Yusuf shook his head. ‘What I do now, I must do alone, Brother.’

Reluctantly, Selim trudged out of the temple. Yusuf had brought him there every day for the past week. If John would not help him, then Yusuf would find other ways to train. Selim was still only a boy, but sparring with him was better than nothing. And teaching, Yusuf had found, forced him to think more carefully about what he was doing. Together, they practised swordplay and afterwards trained for hand-to-hand combat. Each day after Yusuf sent Selim home, he ended with the hardest exercise of all.

Yusuf took a drink from the waterskin, then walked to the centre of the temple and sat cross-legged on the worn stone floor. ‘Amânt-Allah,’ he whispered as he closed his eyes. God protect me. The first time he had tried this exercise, he triggered an attack that left him gasping on the floor of the temple until he lost consciousness. His other efforts had been only slightly more successful. Still, he would keep trying until he conquered his weakness. Yusuf closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and held it. He counted silently: ‘Wahad, tnain, tlâti, arb’a, khamsi.’ As he used up the air in his lungs, he felt the familiar panic. He could hear the thumping of his pulse in his temples and his heart began to race. He kept counting, forcing
himself to remain calm. ‘Tlâtîn!’ he whispered as he reached thirty and allowed himself to breath. But he did not gasp for air, even though his lungs burned as if he were suffocating. He forced himself to breath slowly and evenly. Gradually the feeling of suffocation faded. Yusuf grinned in triumph. For the first time, he had fought off one of his attacks.