The Leopard Sword

Table of Contents

 

 

VIKING
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers,
345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood,Victoria, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2
Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England
Published in 2001 by Viking, a division of Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers.

Copyright © Michael Cadnum, 2002

All rights reserved
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Cadnum, Michael.
The leopard sword / Michael Cadnum
p. cm.
Summary: A knight's squire, exhausted from the Crusades, must use his sword
to fight attacking infidels during the return voyage to England.

eISBN : 978-1-440-68485-2

[1. Knights and knighthood—Fiction. 2. Crusades—Third, 1189-1192—Fiction.
3. Middle Ages—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.C11724 Le2002 [Fic]—dc21 2002018933

 

 

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or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both
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for Sherina
♦
Tide so high
our boats part
the treetops

The
San Raffaello
began her turn, her oars churning the water.

But then a wind off the sea came up, and small boats continued to gather nearby, impeding the oars—boats filled with camp followers and Templar knights, all crying farewells. The last load of war booty had been heaved up onto the deck from the tenders, and now servants gathered the chests and leather bags. Beyond, on the horizon, a line of Saracen war vessels blocked our route, and despite my private prayer I knew there would be a sea battle before night.

But as yet most of us gave the enemy no thought. We crowded the landward side of the galley, our eyes on the army camped along the shore of the Holy Land we were putting behind us, the Crusading force of King Richard Lionheart and the distant, half-hidden sulk of the Saracen tents. I stood beside my tall, brown-haired friend Edmund, both of us leaning out over the ship's side so that we could gaze back at the gleam of afternoon sun on helmets and spear points, everything that we were leaving.

Nearly every capable fighting man in Christendom had joined in the effort to free Jerusalem from the grip of the Infidel armies, and that struggle was far from over. But we were a ship of wounded and disease-wracked knights and squires, our warring done. Many of us were not expected to live to see the Greek island of Chios, our first port of call on our long voyage back to England.

My master Sir Nigel raised his voice. “Hubert, it's a pleasure to taste salt after all that fly-dirt,” he told me, strong feeling straining his voice as he turned away from the sight of the Crusading army, blinking tears.

I was quick to agree with him, but I knew his heart.“Seawater is a cure for our ills, my lord,” I said in apparent agreement.

But a squire empties his master's chamber pot, when servants are sick or few, and a squire hears his knight cursing demons in his sleep. I knew Sir Nigel was brokenhearted at leaving the fighting.We had spent long weeks laying siege to the walled city of Acre, and had clashed with our enemy when the city fell, and later at the bloody battle at Arsuf. Loyalty and custom required our departure with our sick and war-battered companions. Sir Nigel cradled his heavily bandaged arms, unable to hide his tears, forced by his injuries to depart before Jerusalem could be won.

The captain sang out orders in Genoese as Sir Rannulf made his way through the battle gear and treasure on the deck, crutch-propped warriors and yelling ship's mates, calling through his scarred lips for Edmund. My friend was quick, joining his master and Edmund's own man Osbert, gathering together the goatskin bags of silver-chased scimitars and knives. As I hurried over the slatted vents in the wooden decking, I caught the odor of the rowers, a sharp, pungent whiff of sweat and human soil, and a waft of body heat.

I joined Edmund in securing our baggage, lashing it together, as a tall young squire called Nicholas de Foss asked, “Whose gear is this?” He indicated our equipment, hauberks and shields Edmund and I had fastened tidily together.

It was true that our gear occupied a central place on deck, but Sir Nigel and Sir Rannulf were knights of good name, and servants and mariners avoided it without complaint.

“It's in the way of every man here,” said Nicholas. He was golden-haired and freckled, older than my own eighteen years and a good two handsbreadths taller. He spoke quietly, with an evenhanded disdain for me—something we often encountered from the Franks, but unusual from other Englishmen.

Then his master limped into view, a large man with a set frown, a square jaw, and a dazzling blue tunic, dark along the hem with long-dried gore.“Move all this,” said the squire, in an even harsher voice, now that his master could hear, “so my master Sir Jean can walk the deck unhindered.” He offered me the subtlest glance of apology as he spoke, performing his duty.

Jean de Chartres had toppled off his warhorse while drunk, and sprung a sinew in the days before the city of Acre had fallen. Sir Jean's leg had swollen so he could not fit it into his mail leggings, or force it into a stirrup. During the battle such sick and injured knights had been forced by their wounds to labor in the rear, their lances angled proudly but far from any living enemy. Rumor had it that Sir Jean had nearly killed a young washerwoman for spilling water on his poor share of war spoils—a worn carpet, a hard-used Saracen saddle, and a few worn coins. Men said he had beaten his previous, Frankish, squire with a mailed fist just before the battle's end.

Now Sir Jean listed from side to side as he walked, his jaw outthrust, a sack of wine seeping through its seams at his side. As the ship heaved upward and gently fell again, he nearly toppled, and Nicholas caught him to keep him upright.

“We'll all need our armor soon, Sir Jean,” said Sir Nigel evenly.

Nigel carried one broken arm in the other, having fallen off his warhorse giving chase to a Saracen emir after the fierce battle. My master was a very different man from the knight who had set forth from England just a few months ago. His close-cropped hair was shot through with more silver than before, and despite all the pain he must have felt, he wore a look of solemn acceptance. Suffering can be a gift from Heaven, and Nigel never asked for pain-dulling poppy wine, although we had a clay bottle of it. His broken arms had been set and bound by a Templar surgeon, who pressed the medicine on us and told us to pray for the help of the Archangel Michael himself, patron saint of the injured.

“Those of us still willing to fight,” Jean of Chartres was saying, “will enjoy the opportunity.” Talk was that he had outstanding gambling debts in his homeland that few knights could afford. Nearly all his worldly treasure was in the slack, nearly empty purse at his belt.

I made a point of studying the seven Infidel galleys, embarrassed on behalf of the Chartrian knight. The Infidel ships were no longer so far away. Edmund and I had studied these menacing vessels from the shore, and Sir Nigel had explained that these particularly deadly ships were called
gallea sottile,
galleys built for ramming other ships.

“For men of courage like us, there is still blood to spill,” continued Sir Jean in Norman French, emphasizing
courage
and
sangre
to anyone who would listen.

Many men had hoped to die in service to Our Lord, not because they hated life, but because the Church had promised that all those who fell in such battle would win Heaven. Sir Jean's tone was less belligerent now, as he fingered the yellow bird stitched onto the front of his tunic. A corner of the bird emblem—a swift, I thought—had come loose, and he tried to press it back into place.

I was thankful that I had buried the sprig of dried rue my mother had given me on a hilltop from which the Holy City could be seen. I would never set foot within the sacred walls, but I prayed I would live to see my family at the end of my travels—and not lose my life now, at the hands of Saracen seamen.

“There is no shortage of courage,” Sir Nigel was reminding Sir Jean, “anywhere among us.”

“The little squire here,” said Nicholas, indicating me with a nod and something like a smile, “was the picture of courtesy just now, agreeing to shift these bags.”

There are taller men, and there are shorter men. I nudged the sheathed sword lashed onto a trunk at my feet, secure with our other war gear. I knew too well what it was like to cut flesh with a sharp edge, but just then I was willing to do it once again.

The two knights eyed each other. “I have taught him knightly patience,” said Sir Nigel. “But he's the son of a prayerful woolman, and he learned fast.”

“How wise of him,” said Sir Jean.

If an enemy had not been available in the distance, all of us would have found reason to fall upon each other.

But our vessel gained momentum, and even the shrillest-voiced servant fell silent as we craned necks and half climbed the hot-board—the freeboard planks that kept waves from washing the deck—to watch the enemy ships ahead of us, no longer so far away.

One voice in a London accent lifted high in a fervent Our Father, the holy Latin silencing and shaming what had been the bitter squabbling among us, none of us happy to be leaving the Crusade.The prayer done, Sir Nigel knelt to our bundled equipment, and with his weak and injured arms tried to undo the knots.

“Outfit me in my armor,” said Sir Nigel, as I knelt to help him, “and buckle on my sword.”

All around us came the sounds of jingling mail and creaking leather, and the low, rhythmic chime of whetstones against blades.

A Christian ship, tacking hard and leaving a wide wake, was driving west far ahead of us. Even though the Saracen galleys closed fast, I told myself that the enemy vessels would be no match for the
Sint Markt,
a sturdy Low Country freighter.