Templar's Acre

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Lady Maria reclined on a couch covered in silken cushions. A fresh pomegranate lay opened on a silver dish before her, and she speared a seed with a pin as she eyed Baldwin. She was a most disconcerting lady. Her eyes were coldly calculating, but now, with her veil removed, Baldwin could see how finely her face was moulded. Her lips closed about the pomegranate seed.

‘Why do you come here?’ she demanded. ‘To insult me? I can have six men in here at the click of my fingers.’

‘I insult no one, lady.’

She saw Uther. ‘What is that cur doing in here?’

‘He is my dog.’

‘You collect any waifs and strays?’ She laughed quietly, but made no move to call her men. Besides, there were already three men and five women servants moving about the garden. She was not without a chaperone. ‘You think you can come here and question me?’

He had knocked on the door to ask about Lucia, but as soon as the door opened, the porter indicated that he should enter, and led him out here to the small garden courtyard. It was silent, apart from trickling water and the wind in the little trees. Almonds and lemons, he saw. It was a peaceful enclosure, but he felt endangered from the moment he entered. He remembered his last visit.

‘You are a strange man,’ she said. ‘You have been held here and beaten, yet you return to ask me about her. Why, do you think you are safer now than before?’

‘I do not. But I would speak with Lucia. Where is she?’

‘Did you think to court her?’ She smiled at that. ‘How sweet! How endearing! A slave wooed by a reckless crusader! That would make a wonderful tale: many would be touched by it. So, you are not interested in money and property, then? You do not care about her being a nothing, a simple chattel.’

‘I care nothing for that. But I do love her, madame. I would be honoured to take her hand.’

‘Then we would have to discuss her value, would we not? How highly do you value her, I wonder? Would you offer anything for her? That ring, for instance? Yes, I heard how you recovered it from Buscarel. Or your sword? Would you give away your sword to buy her freedom? No, I thought not. You set no great value upon her, do you?’

‘I esteem her highly,’ Baldwin said stiffly. ‘But I do not think a man or woman’s life to be worth pennies.’

‘Nor do I, Master,’ she said tartly. She adroitly stabbed another pomegranate seed and popped it into her mouth, eyeing him narrowly. ‘I think a slave is worth much more than mere pennies.’

Baldwin felt miserable. She would inflate the price to a ridiculous amount. ‘I would pay anything you consider suitable.’

‘All I need do is name my price?’ She laughed. ‘You are so young, so noble, so ignorant! You think it polite to ask a woman what she would have, in the hope that she might be generous to you? This is the East, Master. Here men are used to negotiating. So am I.’

‘I agree. But I would not insult a lady. It would go against my concept of chivalry.’

‘Chivalry? Yet you are no knight, nor even a squire. What exactly are you, I wonder?’

‘My father was a knight, and so is my brother.’

‘So that is why you are here. Another sad English knight who suffers under the yoke of primogeniture. Your brother inherited your father’s estates, and you were forced to make your own way in the world. That is why you came here.’

‘Yes,’ Baldwin said, seeing Sibilla’s face, but without pain. He suddenly realised that his desire for Lucia had overwhelmed his affection even for Sibilla. He could recall her face, but it was Lucia’s which intruded upon his thoughts. It was a matter of dishonour that he had killed Sibilla’s lover. Suddenly he felt a depth of shame at that murder, an overwhelming appreciation of a crime he would never be able to escape.

Maria shook her head patronisingly. ‘You are the biggest fool I’ve ever met. A woman can be bought for so little out here: a brief liaison, a hurried encounter in an alley or a room, but no: you seek an affair of the heart. Very chivalrous.’

‘You sneer.’

‘What do you expect? You think you can marry her kind? You think you may take her up and ride to some glorious future in which you and she live in peace forever?’

She suddenly swept her legs from the couch to the floor and stood. Shorter than he by at least a head, yet she exuded power, and as she stepped towards him, it was hard not to step away. He felt much as he would on encountering a snake: she had the same lissom grace — but it was more than that. There was a sensual tension in her that was alarming. He had never been seduced by an older woman. His experiences included younger maids from the stews in Exeter and the taverns here in Acre, and immature fumblings with willing peasant girls at Fursdon. This was entirely different. Maria was offering herself to him, and he did not know how to respond. He dare not offend her.

‘My lady. .’ he began.

‘You prefer her to me? You would take my slave and make her your woman? And what then? What would happen to you both? Would you live contentedly, or would you find that each day your friends would look down upon her a little more, until it was difficult to leave your home, since you had married a mere slave-girl. One who had been purchased. And so you would sit in your cold home, with her, and never mingle with your lords and important comrades. Until the day when you realised that you hated her.’

She had approached so close now that her breath was upon his face as she spoke. Her head was tilted up so that she could look at him, and he imagined he could feel the warmth of her body. It sent heat to his heart, to his belly, his loins.

‘And when you realised that, Master Baldwin, what then? Your life would be over. You would be stuck in your hovel with your slave, and you would be forced to the whores at the inns. Or do you think you would remain here? I assure you, here we do not believe in nobles who have married their maids or slaves. Perhaps a great lord could do so without being punished socially, but for most, the men must marry good wives. If they want their little strumpets, they can have them, but only as a diversion, to toy with, without broadcasting the fact. If you tried to marry her here, you would become a source of amusement. A joke.’

‘Then what would you have me do?’ he asked.

She smiled up at him, and cocked an eyebrow. ‘Am I so repellent?’ she asked. ‘I am better than a slave girl.’

It was too much. He recoiled, thinking of the moment when he had woken and discovered her with Buscarel in the room with him, the feel of the bruising and pain, the sight of the brazier.

There was pain in her face at his rejection. A great spasm passed through her, making her quiver like an aspen in a gale — and then, a veil seemed to draw over her eyes, and she stepped away. The moment was over, and she returned to her couch. She bent and took up another pomegranate seed, and for a moment he thought she was going to offer it to him, but she didn’t. She placed it into her mouth, and sucked it.

‘You will never have her. She is my slave, and now I see what she is worth to you, I will keep her.’

‘Please, let me see her. May I just speak to her?’

‘No. She is not here. I have sent her far from the city, and I doubt if you could find her. But if you do, if you try to take her: hear me! I will have her put to death!’

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Abu al-Fida stood at the junction of the roadway and studied the immense catapult. The great sling that would release the massive rocks and pots of Greek fire was the largest Abu al-Fida had built, a great deal larger than the machines used against Antioch.

Huge beams from the forests north of Venice had been cut, laboriously brought down from the mountains and floated along the great rivers, until they arrived at the city built on water. They had been sailed across the Mediterranean, then loaded onto wagons and brought here, to Kerak, where, under his supervision and with the ready help of hundreds of craftsmen, the beams had been cut and shaped. Adzes of many types had squared the sections of timber, and a ropemaker and his men had taken the bundles of hemp and created from them a wonderfully strong series of ropes. Already it was completed.

Abu al-Fida knew that there was only one last proof of his workmanship. He clenched his fist and punched. The chief gynour nodded, and waved the others away. When they were safely removed, he looked about him one last time, and then pulled the pin from the restraining rope. There was a slithering of leather, and as the huge counterweight dropped, the long arm rose, dragging the sling after it, the rock caught within its embrace. It swept along its trough, then up, until the sling released it and the stone flew up and forward.

He had selected as his missile one of the largest rocks he could find, and the task of shaping it to be more nearly round had taken much time, but he knew that just as a stone flung from a sling should be rounded and smooth, so should the missiles from this great machine. And now he felt a sense of pride to see how the great lump of rock hurtled onwards.

It rose as smoothly as a heron leaving the water, climbing ever higher, until it reached the zenith of its trajectory some two hundred yards from the machine, before crashing down to fall three hundred yards away.

‘Load it again,’ Abu al-Fida said quietly.

The men reached for the windlass, and as soon as the counterweight was still, they began the laborious task of hauling the arm down again. In a matter of minutes, the arm was locked, the steel pin holding it down. Masons rolled the second of the great stones to the channel, and the sling was looped over it.

He punched his fist again, and the arm swept up. The stone flew high and straight, and fell with an audible crack only twenty or thirty paces from the first.

Abu al-Fida smiled. It was the first time he had done so since the death of his son, but now he could see the result of his efforts, he was content. This machine would break the walls of Acre as easily as a man crushing an egg.