Templar's Acre

CHAPTER TWELVE

Their journey had been a great success, and the trader Abu al-Fida was glad as he paid off the leader of the caravan and took his leave.

Abu al-Fida smiled at his son. ‘You did well this time, Usmar.’

‘I had a marvellous teacher, Father.’

‘This is true,’ Abu al-Fida said contentedly.

He and his son had hired a pony, and now, with the proceeds of their sales in Damietta laden on the beast’s back, they began to walk along the narrow streets to their home. Many Muslims lived here, in the Christian city of Acre, but few had a past like Abu al-Fida’s. He had once been a warrior, but for him the days of lust and slaughter were closed away behind a sealed door in his mind. Once in a while he had awoken his darling Aisha with his screams in the night, but she would comfort him through his nightmares, and over time, his dreams had lost their virulence. It was many years now since Antioch’s fall, when he had clambered up over the rubble with his sword drawn, to deal death to the inhabitants. It was to escape his past that he had come here to Acre, to forget machines of war, to become a simple merchant. A man of peace.

He shuddered. It was peculiar that he should have begun to have such dreams again.

They were passing the castle now, and soon would be at Montmusart, where they would go along the alley to their little house. There, his wife and daughters would be waiting. It was a good place to live, a good city. Acre was rich, and had made Abu al-Fida comfortable. He had a good reputation.

Passing under the gate of the inner wall that separated Montmusart from the old city, he entered the lane that would take him to their house.

‘Usmar — you should buy a gift for your mother,’ he said with a frown.

‘I shall buy her flowers, Father.’

‘Very good. I will meet you at home.’ Abu al-Fida watched as his son hurried away. He smiled to himself. His boy, already twenty, was becoming a masterful negotiator in his own right.

He continued, anticipating his welcome, turning over in his mind different ideas for new ventures, and how he might make best use of his son’s skills, until he reached the house, and there he stopped.

He must have come to the wrong street, he thought at first. This wasn’t his home.

For where his house had stood only a shell remained, a twisted mess of charred and broken timber and rubble.

‘What has happened? Where is my wife?’ he called, but no one came. Only Usmar, who reached him gripping a brightly coloured rose in a clay pot.

‘Father?’ he said. ‘What has happened?’

Abu al-Fida did not answer. He fell to his knees, his hands scrabbling in the ashes and stone as if searching for his family.