Satan's Fire

Prologue

On the shores of the Dead Sea, where the djinns and devils rested from their constant war against man, stood the rocky, yellow-stoned eyrie of Am Massafia; the stronghold lair of the Sheikh Al-Jebal, the Old Man of the Mountain. The trackways to the Old Man’s lair were narrow, winding and secret, the shadow of vultures’ wings a constant presence. The final path, a perilous journey along a roped bridge above a yawning gorge, was guarded by Sudanese swordsmen with broad, razor-edged scimitars clasped to their waists. Once across this bridge of hell, however, and through the iron-studded gates, a visitor would enter a palace with mosaic floors. Cool courtyards, with fountains spouting ice-cold water, offered shade against the setting sun. Peacocks strutted and gaily coloured parrots shrieked amongst the rose gardens or rustled the leaves of the dark mulberry trees. Around the courtyard, wooden lattices, built against the wall, were covered with rare and exotic flowers which turned the dry air heavy with perfume, whilst thuribles, in corners or on shelves, poured amber smoke to the ever-blue sky.

Beneath the fortress, however, lay a different place: dark, hot passageways; galleries without light or air; only the occasional torch flickering against the blood-red rock. The dungeons of the Old Man of the Mountain housed many prisoners. Some had long died, the flesh falling off their bones which now turned yellow in the heat. Others had gone insane and crouched like animals in their narrow chained dungeons, crawling around like dogs, their eyes mad, their tongues constantly baying against the darkness. But, in one cell, the Unknown, the infidel knight with corn-coloured hair and light-blue eyes, squirmed on rotting straw and dreamed of vengeance. For only this, burning brightly within him, held back the Stygian blackness and the demons ever ready to carry away his soul. Hatred, anger and a burning desire for vengeance kept his wits together and body and soul as one. He refused to dwell on the silent horrors around him but lived constantly in the past, on that dreadful night when the great city of Acre had fallen to the Turks. Again and again he would recall the constant beat of the kettledrums as the Muslim hordes poured through the breach in the wall of the city. The armoured regiments of Mamelukes streaming across the ruined moat, over the bodies and broken engines, pressing back the wounded knights, forcing their way into the streets. The prisoner blinked and, lifting his arm, stared closely at the white scabs forming on his arms and legs. He closed his eyes and called on God for life: not a cure for his leprosy but length of days and the opportunity to wreak his revenge.

In the opulent, breeze-filled chambers far above the dungeon, the Sheikh Al-Jebal, the Old Man of the Mountain, sat overlooking a walled garden with marble fountains which tossed sparkling wine into the perfumed air. The Old Man, his eyes heavy with opium, stared down at the silk-carpeted pavilions and beautifully tiled porticoes, where his young men lay sprawled with their Circassian girls and dreamed hashish-filled fantasies of Paradise. So it was, every day, a time of Paradise until the Old Man issued his orders. Once the die had been cast, these young men, dressed in their white robes, red girdles about their waists, scarlet, gold-tipped slippers on their feet, would leave the fortress and go down into the valleys to wreak their master’s will. No one could ever oppose him. No one ever escaped his death sentence. Two daggers pressed into the pillows of their intended victim’s bed and, on the table beside it, a flat seedcake, a warning from the Old Man of the Mountain that his Assassins were about to do his will.

The Old Man turned, shifting his body on the purple silk divan between the naked, golden bodies of his concubines. They murmured in their drug-filled sleep whilst he stared up at the ceiling of the chamber, hard cedarwood, inlaid with gold and fresh diamonds. He felt restless and sat up, gazing round the room at the inanimate birds fashioned out of gold and silver with enamel feathers and brilliant ruby eyes. The sheikh’s hand went out to the table next to the bed where gold dishes and amber cups stood, filled with the sweetest wines or ripest fruit. He let his hand fall. He had drunk and eaten enough. He was bored and the affairs of men required his attention.

‘What does it profit a man,’ Sheikh Al-Jebal murmured, quoting the Christians, ‘if he gains the whole world but suffers the loss of his immortal soul?’

Yesterday messengers had arrived bringing news of the outside world; whispers from the busy markets of Alexandria, Tripoli, and even further west, from the land of the infidels. From Rome, Avignon, Paris and London. The sheikh got off the divan. He stretched and a slave, standing in the corner, hurried across, a white gauze cloak in his hands, he carefully wrapped this round his master’s shoulders. The Old Man ignored him as if the slave didn’t even exist. He walked across to a small alcove, pulling back the double-edged curtain of gold-embossed leather and stared down at the ivory chessmen.

‘It is the will of Allah!’ He murmured. ‘It is the will of Allah that I intervene in the game.’

He picked up the figure of the king and, cradling it against his cheek, went and sat on his throne-like chair. He thought of the infidel kings of the west: Edward of England, Philip of France, as well as his inveterate enemies, those monk-soldiers, the Templars, with their red crosses, great castles and immense power. He played with the figure of the king and smiled lazily.

‘It is time to go down,’ he murmured, ‘among the sons of men.’

England and France were on the verge of signing a great peace; the Templar order, ever ready, might exploit this peace and turn the eyes of the Western kings and princes to the regaining of Jerusalem and its Holy Places. Once again the fleets of Venice, Genoa and Pisa would be seen off the Palestine coast. The Templars would reprovision their castles and the great iron-mailed knights of the West would pour ashore to plant their standards above Acre, Damascus, Tripoli and Sidon, turning the whole coastline into a sea of blood. And there were other whispers. Strange stories, things the Old Man of the Mountain could hardly believe but hoped to act upon. He closed his eyes and whispered the three sacred messages of the Assassins, always dispatched to every one of their victims.

KNOWEST THOU, THAT WE GO FORTH AND RETURN AS BEFORE AND BY NO MEANS CAN YOU HINDER US.

KNOWEST THOU, THAT WHAT THOU POSSESSES SHALL ESCAPE THEE IN THE END AND RETURN TO US.

KNOWEST THOU, THAT WE HOLD YOU AND WILL KEEP THEE UNTIL THE ACCOUNT BE CLOSED.

He opened his eyes. Few men escaped such a message. Only one, Edward of England, whilst crusading in Palestine in the months before he became king: a poisoned knife plunged into his shoulder but, through God’s grace as well as the attentions of his wife, Edward had recovered from the poison. The Old Man of the Mountain played with the rings on his fingers. He must act on the secrets he’d learnt. But how, he wondered, could assassins be sent to Edward’s cold, misty isle? He toyed with the rings, watching the light dance on the precious stones, then lifted his head: there were more ways to sting a man than use a scorpion.

‘Bring up the prisoner!’ he whispered into the scent-filled air. ‘Release the Infidel, the knight we call the Unknown. He will do my bidding!’

Some three months later, Dames Cecilia and Marcia of the Order of St Benedict were journeying along the old Roman road leading to the gate known as Botham Bar at York. The daylight had died. Darkness was beginning to shroud the damp forests on either side of the road. The two good sisters, swathed in their brown, woollen robes, each riding one of their convent’s best palfreys, gossiped to hide their own concern. They were not truly frightened. Their guide, Thurston of Guiseborough, striding ahead in front of them, was a burly, thickset peasant. He carried a short, small buckler on his back, sword and dagger were clasped to his belt, and his burly fist held a club which would have dimmed the brains of an ox. Nevertheless, the two good sisters liked to frighten each other. Now and again, they would glance hurriedly sideways at the damp trees and recall the tales about how the Romans had built this road. How, in the cold, wet forest beyond, the ghosts of these ancient people clustered in the vine-covered ruins where the owl, fox and badger made their nests.

The good sisters’ fears became more real as daylight disappeared and the undergrowth on either side of the road became alive with night creatures. A boar crashed across the road, his wicked tusks scything the air. Vixens yipped at the rising moon and, from some hamlet hidden in the trees, a dog bayed dolefully against the night. The two good sisters edged their palfreys closer. Secretly they comforted themselves. Who would harm two women consecrated to God? In actual fact they put their faith in Thurston’s thick club as well as the king’s impending arrival in York. Because of that, the highways and forest tracks had been cleared of outlaws and vagabonds. Moreover, the presence of so many sergeants of the great Templar Order also kept the villains, rascals and wolves heads well away from the city of York. It was the Templars about whom the two good sisters chattered: those iron-clad men with their sunburnt faces, their chainmail covered by great white cloaks of wool bearing a six-sided blood-red cross. The sisters had just passed the great Templar manor of Framlingham and its shadow-shrouded buildings had prompted their conversation about these strange men. The Templars were soldier-monks, virgins dedicated to war, but also the holders of great wealth as well as mysterious secrets. The two good sisters had learnt all this whilst staying at their mother house in Beverley. In the refectory there the sisters had gossiped about how the great Templar lords had swept into the convent courtyard demanding provisions for themselves and their horses. How they had guarded so securely a covered wagon bearing a six-locked coffer which, so Mother Perpetua informed them, must carry some great relic of tremendous force.

‘Why else?’ Mother Perpetua had concluded, ‘had the wagon been closely guarded by knights, foot-soldiers and crossbowmen all wearing the insignia of the Order?’

Dames Cecilia and Marcia had spent their long journey speculating on the many rumours about the Templars. Now, as the owls began to hoot, they wondered if these same Templars had brought a curse upon the land.

‘We are definitely living in dreadful times,’ Dame Marcia declared. ‘Look you, Sister; where else have we had rain at seed times to smother the young crops and rot the wheat in the ear of corn?’

‘Aye,’ Dame Cecilia replied. ‘There’s talk of famine and hunger. How the poor are mixing chalk with their flour.’

‘And other stories.’ Dame Marcia chattered on. ‘Outside Hull, a vicar saw three witches come riding towards him, a yard and a half above the ground.’

‘And at Ripon,’ Dame Cecilia interrupted, eager to show her knowledge, ‘the noon-day devil was glimpsed under the outstretched branch of the yew tree, glaring, with horrid eyes, at the priory gates.’

The two sisters heard a sound on the road ahead of them. Dame Cecilia gave a small scream and reined in. Thurston strode on, cursing under his breath at these chattering women. He stopped and peered down the road.

‘It’s nothing,’ he murmured in his broad Yorkshire burr, ‘though. .’ He hid his grin and scratched his tousled beard.

‘What?’ Dame Cecilia snapped.

‘Well,’ Thurston replied slowly, thoroughly enjoying himself, ‘there have been rumours. .’

‘Rumours about what?’

‘Well, ever since those Templars came back to York,’ Thurston continued, staring into the darkness, ‘there’ve been stories of devils, in the form of weasels, riding huge, amber-coloured cats along these roads.’

The two good nuns drew in their breath sharply.

‘Or there again,’ Thurston continued, his voice dropping to a whisper, ‘outside Walmer Bar, the Lord Satan himself has been glimpsed. He was clad in a purple gown with a black cap upon his head.’ He walked back and stared up at Dame Cecilia’s wrinkled face. ‘His face was terrible,’ Thurston continued hoarsely. ‘He had the nose of a great eagle, burning eyes, his hands and legs were hairy and he had feet like a griffin.’

‘Now that’s enough,’ Dame Marcia interrupted. ‘Thurston, you are frightening us. We should be in York.’

Aye, Thurston thought, and we’d have been there an hour ago if it hadn’t been for your constant gabble and chatter about imps, Templars, demons and magic. He looked up at the starlit sky.

‘Don’t worry, good sisters,’ he called back over his shoulder. ‘Two more miles and we’ll be at Botham Bar; even sooner if you can make those palfreys trot a little faster.’

The two nuns needed no further urging. They dug their heels in, shouting at Thurston not to walk too far in front of them. Their guide strode on, quite pleased at teasing these plump, well-fed gossips who, ever since they had left Beverley, had spent more time talking about Satan than their devotions. Thurston stopped abruptly. A country man, a born poacher, Thurston knew the forest and could distinguish between what sounds and smells spelt danger and what to ignore. Now something was wrong. He lifted his hand, even as his neck went cold and his heart began to beat faster. A strange smell in the night air of smoke, fire and something else, smouldering human flesh. Thurston recognised that smell. He’d never forgotten the time they’d burnt the old witch in the market place at Guiseborough. The village had stunk for days afterwards, as if the old crone had cursed the air at the very moment of dying.

‘What’s wrong?’ Dame Cecilia shrilled, fighting hard to control her usually meek palfrey which had now become restless, as it too caught the smell.

‘I don’t know,’ Thurston replied. ‘Listen!’

The two nuns obeyed. Then they heard it: the mad galloping of a horse coming along the trackway ahead. Thurston moved them quickly to the side of the road just as the horse appeared, pounding along, neck out, ears flat against its head. Thurston wildly wondered whether he could stop the charging animal. The horse saw them and, skittering on the trackway, turned sideways then up, back on its hind legs, before charging on. As it did, Thurston’s blood ran cold: the severed legs of the horse’s former rider were still clasped firmly in its stirrups.

‘What is it?’ Dame Cecilia whispered.

Thurston crouched on the edge of the road, his hands across his stomach.

‘Thurston!’ Dame Marcia yelled. ‘What is wrong?’

The guide turned and vomited on the grass. He then grabbed the wine skin slung over the horn of Dame Cecilia’s saddle. He ignored their protests, undid the clasps, almost throwing the wine into his mouth.

‘We’d best move on.’ He put the stopper back, thrust it at Dame Cecilia and, without a backward glance, continued along the trackway. They rounded the bend and fearfully approached the fire burning so fiercely on the edge of the forest. Dame Marcia gagged at the terrible stench, her palfrey, unwillingly, drew close to the flames. Dame Marcia took one look at the fire greedily consuming the upper, severed part of a man’s corpse; she screamed and fell like a sack from her saddle, swooning in terror at the hideous sight.