Pagan's Crusade

  ‘This has to be dealt with,’ he says. ‘We can’t let this go on. I want you and Pagan on the door, sergeant. I don’t want any more people coming in. You can threaten them, if you have to.’

  My pleasure. Following Rockhead as he pushes his way to the door. Squeezing past great slabs of hot, sticky flesh, through steamy clouds of garlic and onions and spice and sweat and hot peppers. Whoof! What a stew! Rockhead uses his elbows, his knees, his shoulders, his fists. Yelps and squeaks from the targets. Then into the sunshine – and a sea of heads stretching out across the square.

  Christ in a cream cheese sauce.

  ‘Attention! Attention!’ Rockhead, the man with a voice like the fall of Jericho, can hardly be heard above the clamour – until he raises his spear. ‘Attention, citizens! Attention! The church is full! There is no more room! Please remain where you are!’

  Ominous mutterings, swelling to outrage. The bodies surge forward. Funny how you only see bits of them: a sagging bosom, a straining forearm, a mouthful of greenish, jagged teeth. One quick nod from Rockhead, and out with my sword.

  Whoops! That’s done it. They can’t fall back fast enough.

  ‘If you force your way into the church the people inside may suffer injury!’ Rockhead declares, trying to appeal to their better natures. Pointless, of course. When the going gets tough, there’s no such thing as a better nature – not in large and pious groups of people.

  Personally, I can’t see what all the fuss is about. So we’ll miss the Patriarch’s new outfit. So what? More like a blessing than a curse, if you ask me.

  ‘Quiet! Quiet!’ Voice from the crowd. ‘It has begun! Quiet, everyone!’

  Sure enough, the choir’s started. You can hear the singing, even from out here. ‘Laudamus te, adoramus te . . . ’ Chins sink obediently onto chests. A general easing of the noise, as the keener souls resign themselves to a beggar’s seat near the doorstep. Some arrange themselves on the ground, some lean against the limestone walls of the square, fanning themselves with their gauntlets. Some remain standing, heads bowed, hands clasped. And the flies settle down for a nice, long feed.

  Is there anyone out there I recognise?

  No . . . no . . . no. Not him. Not him, either. A tangle of greasy grey hair, like a dirty goat’s fleece. (No.) The face beside it – sallow and bony and pocked. (No.) To the right, an enormous black beard. To the left, a saffron silk turban over a pair of high cheekbones. A cloven chin. (No.) A missing eye. (No.) A smooth, flushed cheek just peeping out of a collar. Very nice. Very nice indeed. Lovely, the way these northern women dress. No veils. No shrouds. No layers and layers of clothing. Lots of lovely bare skin and hair, for all the world to see.

  Better watch it, though, or she’s going to get sunburned. In fact we’re all heading for a dose of sunburn, in this heat. The hoods are a good idea. Someone pulling his cloak over his head . . . And who’s that big, brown baldie beside him? Looks like Oswald the ostler. No. It can’t be. No – it’s not. Didn’t think so. Last thing I heard old Oswald had run off to Nazareth. After the unfortunate affair of the borrowed donkey.

  Ho hum.

  ‘Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered: let them also that hate him flee before him.’

  The Patriarch’s voice. Quite clear, surprisingly. Drifting out of the church like a wisp of smoke. Like the insidious smell of chicken manure. High and thin and strained. Not the kind of voice to reassure you in the face of bloodthirsty Infidel armies. Not exactly the ringing tones you’d expect. Makes you wonder if God will even hear him, let alone deliver us all from the raging heathen.

  We’d be better off at home, if you ask me. Packing our clothes and pots and jewellery and a spare pair of boots.

  ‘. . . Because of thy temple at Jerusalem shall kings bring presents unto thee. Rebuke the company of spearmen . . . scatter thou the people that delight in war . . . strength unto God . . . thou art terrible out of thy holy places . . .’

  A slight commotion. Scuffling feet; urgent voices; milling crowds behind us on the porch. A tight knot of people bursts from the shadows, demanding air, light, water, fire, help, anything. There’s a woman suspended between them, limp as a rag. Fainted, by the look of it.

  ‘Make way! Make way!’

  ‘A priest! Get a priest!’

  ‘She needs fanning! Somebody get a fan!’

  ‘Is she all right? What happened?’

  About five thousand people press forward to have a look. Rockhead waves them back with his spear as someone – a relative? – succumbs to hysteria. You have to admit, the victim doesn’t look too well. Her face is the colour of raw tripe.

  Heatstroke, probably. It’s like an oven inside that church.

  ‘Where does she live?’ (Rockhead.) ‘Does anyone know where she lives?’

  ‘She lives with him.’

  ‘I am her son. Her only son . . .’

  ‘Right.’ Looking around for Inc. ‘Kidrouk. You stay here. We need an armed escort on this one, or they’ll never get through the crowds. Hold your position. I won’t be long.’ (To the weeping relation.) ‘Calm down, she’s not dead.’ (To the white-faced son.) ‘We’ll take her home – or do you want to stop at Saint John’s hospital? It’s only around the corner.’

  ‘I don’t . . . I don’t know . . .’

  ‘Sergeant?’ Loudly, so he can hear me over the rabble. ‘Lord Roland says the hospital is full to bursting with sick refugees. He said so yesterday. It might not be a good idea –’

  ‘Home, then. Come on. And stay behind my back.

  ’ One thing you can say for old Rockhead – he certainly knows how to handle a crowd. It’s like watching Moses part the Red Sea, only Rockhead has to get in there and do it with his elbows. Straight through the middle, no ‘pleases’ or ‘pardons’, with the sick woman’s escort bringing up the rear. Quite fast, considering. And the bodies surge together again behind them.

  ‘. . . They that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Sion, which cannot be removed, but abideth forever. As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about his people . . .’

  The Patriarch, still droning on. Wonder if he’s noticed that his congregation is passing out from sheer boredom? Or maybe it isn’t boredom. Maybe it’s just his bad breath.

  Everyone’s more interested in the victim now, anyway. Discussing her departure in low, respectful voices. Craning their necks to catch a glimpse of Rockhead’s upraised spearhead as it lurches out of sight.

  Yawn, yawn, yawn. I wonder how much longer?

  ‘Jerusalem hath grievously sinned!

  ’ Christ in a cream cheese sauce.

  ‘Jerusalem hath grievously sinned, therefore all that honoured her despise her! Her enemies prosper, for the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions!

  ’ God preserve us. A voice like fifty thousand fruit pedlars screaming in unison.

  But where is it coming from?

  ‘The adversary hath spread out his hand on all her pleasant things, for she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary!’

  There he is. A tiny old man. A tiny old man the size of a grain sack, with a beard like the drifting cobwebs you find in stables – full of fleas and straw and dried dung. A tiny old madman, all waving hands and staring eyes.

  The sort of tiny old madman who isn’t going to shut up and sit still unless I knock him unconscious with something blunt and heavy.

  I mean, wouldn’t you know it? Left in command for the space of two heartbeats and this has to happen!

  Chapter 6

  ‘Let us lift up our hearts unto God in the heavens! We have transgressed and have rebelled! Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and destruction!’

  ‘Be quiet!’

  ‘Our end is near, our days are fulfilled, for our end is come!’

  ‘Shut up!’

  ‘Push off!’

  ‘The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Sion!

  ’ The Pa
triarch’s puny warble doesn’t stand a chance. Not against this mighty tide of sound. Pure, unbridled, skull-cracking sound. Such a big noise to come out of such a little old man. It’s uncanny.

  So what should I do? Should I drag him off ? Knock him out? Shout him down? (Impossible.) He doesn’t look very tough, but you never can tell with these maniacs. He might have the strength of Samson’s big brother.

  If I don’t do something soon there’s going to be a fight. That’s obvious enough from the hisses. And the shouts. And the fruit stones bouncing off his naked skull. Perhaps I should turn my back and let them do their own dirty work.

  But what’s this? Oh dear. Support from the spectators.

  ‘It’s true! It’s true what he says! Jerusalem has sinned with the heathen, and now we’ll all be punished!’

  A tall young foreigner. You can tell he’s a foreigner: the clipped beard, the fresh, white skin, the dull, muddy clothes on his back. Why do foreigners always dress as if they dye their clothes with vegetable scraps and store them in peat bogs? He has that red-eyed, raw-nerved, wild look – the look you see on penitent pilgrims staggering out of the drinking shops at dawn.

  ‘Jerusalem has sinned! You are all sinners! You wear heathen costume and eat heathen foods and take baths and shut up your women like Infidels! You even trade with the heathen! And now God has punished us all for your sins!’

  God help us. That’s done it. A gigantic slab of solid gristle shoots to its feet, as taut as a bowstring. Red-faced with rage. Deeply offended.

  ‘Sins?’ it roars. ‘What sins? You’d better shut your festering mouth, my friend, or I’ll damn well shut it for you!’

  Nicely put, but it’s pointless. The foreigner just ploughs on. Doesn’t even realise he’s risking a mouthful of knucklebone.

  ‘This is supposed to be a holy city, but look at it! Look at it! It’s a sink of vice! A pit full of thieves and cut-throats and whited sepulchres – !’

  ‘Are you calling me a thief?’

  All right. Enough’s enough. If I don’t do something now, I’m going to get a kick up the backside for letting five thousand innocent churchgoers spill each other’s brains all over the steps of the Holiest of Holies.

  But what the hell can I do?

  ‘Citizens! Citizens! People of Jerusalem!’

  Nobody blinks an eyelid. I might as well not be here. Time for the Kidrouk double-strength bone-breaker street alarm whistle. Guaranteed to burst eyeballs and shake the fleas out of a dog’s coat at fifty paces.

  ‘Twe-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-ep!

  ’ Whoops! That’s done it. You can practically see the hairs leap from their scalps and run for cover.

  ‘Citizens! You’re missing the Patriarch’s prayer –’

  ‘The Patriarch is a hypocrite too!’ (Christ in a cream cheese sauce. God curse that loud-mouthed foreigner.) ‘The Patriarch’s sins have brought this punishment upon us! He is the natural product of a corrupt and evil den of vile iniquity!’

  ‘Well of course he is. He was born in France. But that’s not our fault, you know.’

  Laughter from the locals. I wish I hadn’t said that. It wasn’t a smart thing to do.

  And sure enough, here comes the backlash. The backlash from France – broad, blonde and oozing out of his breeches.

  ‘What did you say?

  ’ ‘He said that Frenchmen were all hatched from the same dung-heap!’ A loud vote of confidence from the dough-faced creature with a voice like someone squeezing air from a wineskin. ‘Didn’t you hear? Or are you deaf as well as dimwitted?’

  The Frenchman turns and knocks him flat.

  Whump! Instant chaos. Fists flying. Women screaming. Someone banging someone else’s head on the ground.

  Good job, Pagan. Nice work. Marvellous.

  ‘Oi! Hey! Get off him!’ Go for the Frenchman. Pushed away – try again – grip on the arm – wham in the breastbone.

  Ow . . . ow . . . help. This is awful. Sword out. Pointless. Wave it around? Use the hilt? Stop this, for God’s sake! Somebody help me . . .

  ‘What on earth is going on?

  ’ Lord Roland.

  High on the steps, gleaming white, not very happy. Like a mother who’s found her children piddling on her newly washed bedclothes.

  Amazing what an impact he can have. Tempers cool. Voices falter. People release their grip on other people’s facial hair.

  ‘Pagan?’

  ‘Yes – yes, my lord –’ (Coughing.)

  ‘Where is Sergeant Tibald?’

  ‘He went – he had to escort the sick lady home . . .’

  Sobs from the tub of lard on the pavement. Blood all over his face and hands.

  Broken nose, by the look of it.

  ‘This is disgraceful.’ Lord Roland’s most ominous tones. ‘Disgraceful.’

  ‘He started it!’ (A shrill female voice.) ‘It’s the foreigner’s fault!’ But the Man of Marble doesn’t bow to popular prejudice. He’s above all that.

  ‘Brawling on the steps of our most holy place,’ he says. ‘There is no excuse for such behaviour. It will lose us the kingdom.’ Raising his voice. ‘I am shocked! I am shocked to the heart that you should stoop to such low and vicious acts. You came to pray, not to fight. If you call yourselves Christians you should kneel and ask forgiveness for this disgraceful exhibition, or leave these sacred precincts now!’

  Will they or won’t they? Yes, that’s done it. Down they go. Slowly, unwillingly, muttering into their folded hands. And Lord Roland standing up there like the Last Judgement, stony-faced.

  He throws me a look. You too, Pagan.

  Christ in a cream cheese sauce.

  ‘O Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness that thou mayest be saved! How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee?

  ’ The madman. Clearly visible over the heads of the kneeling multitudes. Lost in his own obsession.

  ‘That’s him, my lord.’ (Quietly, tugging at the cloak I just washed last week.) ‘That’s where the trouble started.’

  A nod.

  ‘I couldn’t march him out, my lord, because there weren’t enough men for an escort –’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ To the madman. ‘You! Old fellow! What is your name?’

  A brief silence. The lunatic looks startled – confused. His voice drops to a normal register. ‘I speak the lamentations of Jeremiah the prophet,’ he says.

  ‘Very well, Jeremiah. It is time to pray. We are praying to the Lord for His forgiveness. Will you kneel and join us, please?’

  And damn me – he does it. The madman actually does it. Falling to his knees without a word of protest. Meek as a lamb.

  Lord Roland the miracle worker.

  ‘. . . The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? . . .’ The Patriarch’s voice, audible once more in the stillness. Lord Roland bows his head. Piety reigns. The air’s so thick with it you could practically bottle the stuff and sell it to pilgrims.

  But who’s that across the square? A Templar sergeant. Rockhead? No. Gildoin.

  ‘My lord . . .’

  A gentle nudge, and Lord Roland raises his eyes. Sees Gildoin, who makes the sign of the trumpet. Some kind of message. An important message.

  Bad news, I’ll bet.

  ‘. . . Though a host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. Though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident . . .’

  Watching old Gildoin pick his way between the tightly packed bodies. Sliding and squeezing and burrowing. Quite a different approach from Rockhead’s. Less forceful. More flexible. But then he is a lot smaller.

  The approach of the little, leathery face, as dry and wrinkled as a dusty peach stone. Eyes like chips of jade. Mouth like a panther trap.

  No expression whatsoever.

  ‘Well?’ (Lord Roland.) ‘Quietly, please.’

  ‘My lord, there’s a messenger from Ascalon . . .’

  ‘Yes?
’

  ‘My lord . . .’ Gildoin licks his withered lips. ‘My lord, Jaffa has fallen.’

  What?

  Oh no. You can’t be serious. You can’t be. It’s impossible.

  Lord Roland takes a deep breath.

  ‘Who?’ he says. ‘Not Saladin.’

  ‘No, my lord, it was Saladin’s brother, al-Adil. He came up from Egypt, past Ascalon. Jaffa –’ ‘Is not so well defended. Of course.’

  ‘My lord, there were no terms. He stormed the city.’

  And we all know what that means. Wholesale bloodshed. God preserve us.

  Al-Adil, not seventeen parasangs away.

  ‘. . . Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart.’ The Patriarch’s drone. ‘Wait, I say, on the Lord. Amen.’

  ‘Amen.’ A gentle echo from the kneeling multitudes. Briefly, expressively, Lord Roland closes his eyes.

  God and all the saints preserve us.

  ‘Ascalon has fallen.’

  ‘What . . .?’

  ‘Ascalon has fallen. Ascalon and Gaza.’

  Bonetus, flitting past like a puff of wind. Grab him or he’ll disappear.

  ‘Wait! Stop! Tell me . . .’

  He looks strange – fierce – his brown eyes burning in his face. Sweat gleaming on his cheekbones. Blood pulsing under his skin.

  Breathless.

  ‘You want to know what happened?’ he pants. ‘I’ll tell you. Saladin came to the city walls with the King. The King and our Grand Master. Both of them pleaded for Ascalon to submit.’

  ‘What?

  ’ ‘Wait, just wait. It gets better. When the city refused to submit, it was stormed, and our noble Grand Master sent word to Gaza ordering our knights there to lay down their arms. Oh yes. And they did it too. Because these were orders, you know. Orders from the Grand Master. It’s against the Rule to disobey!’

  Christ in a cream cheese sauce. This is unbelievable.

  ‘Who told you?’

  ‘Who told me? Hah! Who told me? I’ll tell you who told me!’ (Is he going a little mad, I wonder?) ‘There are some Templars who don’t take orders from Gerard-de-Craven-Ridfort, Grand Master or not! They shouldered their weapons and escaped from Gaza to fight the Infidels even if it cost them their lives! They don’t let the fear of death come between them and their solemn vows! They don’t play games of ransom with the Holy Land! They’re going to stand and fight to their last drop of blood!’