Templar's Acre

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Lucia had not expected the crowds. At first their appearance was not alarming, just surprising. It seemed impossible so many people could have poured into the alleys.

When the alarm was heard, Lucia was at the market with her mistress and two men. The sound was like the rushing of a torrent in full spate, and sent terror into Lucia’s heart. Lady Maria jerked her head, and they hurried towards the house, but even as they quickened their pace, a man hurtled from an alley, a bloody knife in his hand, his eyes wild. One of Maria’s men barged Lucia aside and cut at him. He died quickly, rolling in the dust with his hands at his throat.

Now they were running. Maria was panting, panicked, but Lucia was past worrying about her. This was awful: peasants had risen to kill the wealthy. It was a reversal of normality, as if the Day of Judgement was come. Lucia felt as though her heart must burst with horror when she tripped over a man with an obscene slash in his belly. She fell into his entrails and screamed, trying to wipe her hands clean on her emerald dress, but nothing would get the blood off; it was sticky, foetid, disgusting. Already the others were running ahead of her along an alley that should take them to the house, and Lucia suddenly had a clear premonition that they would enter and bar the door whether she was with them or not. Maria would not risk her property or life to save a slave.

Lucia lurched to her feet, weeping, but even as she sped along, she realised she had not taken the right route and must retrace her steps. It was already too late — too late — and she could not see Maria or the men, and she was all alone, and she could hear men approaching from the street where the house lay, and she couldn’t go down there.

Her heart thundering in her breast, she stopped and stared about her wildly. There was an acrid taste in her mouth, as though she was about to be sick, and her heart was racing.

And then she heard, and turned with a whimper to see Baldwin, accompanied by several men.

Baldwin saw her as the mob appeared. One held a bloody knife aloft, while in the front rank, three held skins of wine.

‘Sweet Jesus,’ one of Baldwin’s companions muttered.

The mob saw Lucia, and smiles overspread their faces. One had his hand at his cods, pulling his hosen down, when Baldwin and his men raced to them.

‘Back to your ships!’ Baldwin bellowed.

They didn’t listen. The would-be rapist spat on Baldwin’s boot, while the knife-wielder ran at him.

Baldwin stabbed the knife-man in the breast, his left hand grasping the man’s knife as he did so, then booted him from his sword; he kicked the spitter in the ballocks, and rammed his pommel into the face of the next. The crowd was forced onwards by the crush behind them, and Baldwin and the men with him had to hack and stab and bludgeon to hold their ground. It was a tight lane, barely wide enough for two horses abreast, and Baldwin lowered a shoulder, shoving the crowd back by using the nearest man as a shield, stabbing with the point of his sword. . but there was nothing he and his men could do to prevent the mob gradually advancing. They were too many, too reckless.

It was then, just as Baldwin thought they must soon be overwhelmed, that an unearthly shriek came from a nearby alley some yards behind the front of the crowd. Baldwin could see little of what was happening, but suddenly the press was lessened. There was another high-pitched scream, and this time he realised it was a war-cry. A sword hacked at the back of the man in front of him, and Baldwin stabbed from the front, and the man fell. Behind him stood a man in a pale tunic, with long-ish mousy-coloured hair. The man nodded at Baldwin, a lazy smile on his face, before returning to hacking and stabbing in a wild frenzy.

The newcomer’s intervention at the flank was enough to alarm many of the mob. At last, when six men lay dying or dead, the crowd began to pull away.

Baldwin wiped an arm over his brow, staining the linen with sweat and blood, and stared, until he was convinced that the mob was returning to the harbour.

‘Are you well, maid?’ he panted to Lucia.

She looked up at him.

Her veil had been torn away during her mad rush, and to him she looked like a terrified faun. Her green eyes were still startling, all the more so because her face was flushed, and her wide gaze was fixed upon him with so transparent a look of vulnerability that he felt he could take her up now and never let her go. He would battle the armies of Islam and Christianity alike to protect her.

‘I thank you, Master,’ he said to the stranger. With a man like this to help him, he would conquer any army. ‘My friend, I am glad to meet you. What is your name?’

‘Edgar,’ the fellow said. He paused, and then, ‘You can call me Edgar of London.’

Lucia was in a turmoil as the men walked her up the street and away from her mistress. She submitted, because it was clear she could not go home, not yet. The mob would rape her, maybe kill her. ‘What can I do?’

‘You must come with us,’ Baldwin said. ‘When the streets are safe, I will bring you home.’

She nodded. He inspired trust. Confident and tall, he strode ahead. He had a cut on his left arm, three of his companions were also nursing wounds, and the man calling himself Edgar of London followed.

Bodies littered many alleys and corners. At one, a man lay sprawled with a dog lying dead on his body. She saw Baldwin stop and touch the dog’s head. She shivered at the unseeing eyes on the dead man. It would be a long time before she could feel safe again in this city.

Unconsciously, she leaned against Baldwin. He was kind-looking for a Frank. Usually they stared at her with unbounded lust in their eyes, but this man did not. He made her feel safe. She was attracted to him.

The other, Edgar, looked dangerous. He scared her. Certainly he was bold, and courageous, but there was something in his eyes that frightened her, a cold unfeelingness like an avenging angel come to earth. During the battle in the street she had caught a glimpse of him, and saw only a terrible glee at killing that chilled her.

It made her realise that there was nowhere safe in the city. Not for her.

To be safe, she must return to Lady Maria as soon as possible.