Templar's Acre

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘Where is this?’ Baldwin asked as they strode up to the north of the city. It still rankled that he had been dragged from his game.

‘This is the Hospital. We’re going to my home in the suburb of Montmusart,’ Ivo said briefly.

Baldwin hefted the purse. ‘I must have made six shillings, at least.’

‘Think yourself lucky. They were going to take it all away from you.’

‘No, they were playing well — I just kept beating them.’

‘They were using loaded dice to give you plenty of rope to hang yourself. As soon as they were sure of you, they would start playing with a different set, and you’d have lost everything. All the coins you’d built up, all the spare coins, all their coins. It’s a common ploy.’

Baldwin gave a low whistle. Are you sure?’

‘I have lived here a long time.’

‘I had better warn Roger, then. If those others were cheating. .’

‘Not the sailors, boy! It was Roger’s dice you were playing with.’

‘But he’s a Templar!’ Baldwin said, outraged.

‘There are Templars and Templars. None are allowed to gamble. Roger Flor is a good seaman, but he’s no knight.’

Baldwin eyed the fortress beside them. ‘Are the Hospitallers better than the Templars?’

‘They are military Orders. Neither is better nor worse than the other. Both fight for what they believe in, however, and that sometimes puts them on opposing sides.’

‘How can that be? They both fight for Jerusalem, don’t they?’

Ivo grunted. ‘More or less. But Templars are allied to Venice; Hospitallers are more closely aligned to Genoa.’

‘Still,’ Baldwin said with a confused frown, ‘surely their aims must meet? The Genoese and Venetians want to help Christians, don’t they?’

‘They want to help themselves,’ Ivo said, looking at him. ‘This is the last great city of Outremer. You realise that? For hundreds of years we have fought over this land. First to win Jerusalem itself, but we lost her. Since then, we’ve tried to encourage crusaders like you to come here and fight for our faith, but all too often the crusaders themselves have been worse than the enemy.’

‘How can that be? We come to serve, that is all.’

‘Aye. But serve whom? It is greed, a desire to take lands or glory that inspires most. The others are the felons: murderers and thieves who come here in expiation of their sins. Some cause more harm than good,’ Ivo said with disdain.

Baldwin was silent. Ivo’s words sounded like a shrewd analysis of his own journey of redemption.

‘Why are you here?’ Ivo said, on cue.

‘I was persuaded by a priest,’ Baldwin said quietly. It was no lie. As he sat by Exeter’s sanctuary, it was the priest who had suggested pilgrimage to Jerusalem, there to fight and win absolution.

‘I see,’ Ivo continued, eyeing him askance. ‘The city has to accommodate people like you.’

‘Have you ever been there?’

Ivo nodded, and his face eased slightly at the memory. ‘Once. I visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and saw the birthplace of Christ. It made my life whole again.’

‘How so?’

‘None of your busines,’ Ivo growled.

Baldwin glanced at him. Ivo had his own secrets too, then.

‘You will find your way about the city quickly. Always look for the Towers. See, over there is the Tower of the Temple; here is the Hospital; at the top of the hill between the Venetians and Genoese is the Monastery of San Sabas with its own lands. You will need to be cautious when you are out on your own. Not all the people of the Kingdom want you here.’

‘So you said,’ Baldwin nodded. ‘People don’t like crusaders.’

‘You have the arrogance of youth. Many here hate pilgrims like you. Merchants and. .’

‘The merchants don’t want us?’

Ivo rolled his eyes. ‘Of course they don’t. Your arrival means disruption. Don’t you realise? Acre is the capital of all trading between Egypt and your home. If there is a war, how will they make their money? That is what this city exists for — money. Without trade, it wouldn’t exist.’

‘Surely it’s the centre for pilgrims too?’

Aye. And pilgrims bring money with them,’ Ivo said.

Are we leaving the city?’ Baldwin asked as a wall loomed before them.

‘No. This is the old city wall. The city has grown well in the last years, so a new wall was built to enclose more land for all the people.’

‘Where are we going?’

They walked under a tower in the wall, and out into a wide space.

‘This is Montmusart.’

Baldwin looked about him. Before him was a garden with olives, and beyond, the land fell away slightly, towards another huge city wall. In the enclosed ground were houses and gardens, with broad roads separating each. ‘It is beautiful,’ he said in wonder.

‘Yes,’ Ivo said.

But his voice was cold. Montmusart didn’t contain his wife and son.

Baldwin had suffered much from his long journey, and now he took the opportunity to rest and recover.

The city held endless fascination for him.

There were markets which specialised in silks and muslins, others which sold exotic foods, others still in which swords and armour were for sale. At one stall he found a delightful, light blade, with fabulous markings through the steel. Ivo, who was with him, sniffed at it.

‘It’s good in a fight without armour, but the steel is too flexible and light to do more than bounce from a mail shirt. For that, you need a good Christian blade formed from a bar of steel and hammered to rigidity.’

Baldwin reluctantly took his advice and invested much of the money won from Roger Flor in a two-foot-long simple blade with a broad fuller and undecorated cross. He was a knight’s son, and it was unthinkable that he should walk unarmed any longer.

With his new, well-balanced riding sword, he practised every evening, and soon the weakness in his legs and the pain from his head wound left him.

When he was a boy, his father had given him his first training in swordsmanship, and when he left home at seven to learn his duties at the de Courtenay household, much of his time was spent honing his skills. With a sword in his hand, he felt comfortable. His master employed a Master of Defence, who had enhanced his tactics, and his firm stipulation was that the young Baldwin should give up time every day to practise. He had taken that advice to heart.

Ivo joined him on occasion, and they would test each other’s swordsmanship. Baldwin soon learned that Ivo was a crafty old devil when it came to fighting.

Pietro, Ivo’s half-deaf servant, who was both bottler and doorkeeper, would come and watch them with a sour expression on his wizened old face. He appeared to consider it his bounden duty to keep others away from Ivo so that his master might enjoy as much peace as possible. When he saw Baldwin and Ivo fight, he would glower at Baldwin, and only ever smiled or clapped his hands when Ivo got close and nicked Baldwin’s arm or clothing.

‘Do you resent my being here?’ Baldwin asked him once, driven to irritation by the man’s cackling at his latest injury — a nasty cut over his forearm. He looked at it and grimaced. The skin had pulled away from the wound, white and foul like a pig’s flesh, he thought.

‘Eh?’ The old fellow screwed up his face and hooked a hand behind his ear, studying Baldwin speculatively. ‘Resent you? Why would I do that?’

‘You had a quieter time before I got here, I suppose,’ Baldwin said. He held out the bleeding arm so that Pietro could wipe away the blood. He wanted to shiver, but he refused to allow Pietro to see he was concerned.

‘You have no idea, do you?’ Pietro muttered coldly. ‘My family was in Lattakieh, and when that son of a diseased whore, Sultan Qalawun, invaded, they took my wife and children. You know what they do with women and children? My little girls will be slaves now. Ruined! And their mother, if she’s lucky, she’ll be kept well in a harem. If not, she’ll be working her hands to the bone in the fields somewhere, or sold off for menial work. I don’t know where they are, or what they do. All I know is, it was Master Ivo who saved me from life as a beggar. So if my praising him offends you, young master, so be it. I live and die for him.’

Baldwin was about to speak, when the old man turned away, and Baldwin saw the tear in his eye as he heard Pietro mutter, ‘I have no one else.’