Templar's Acre

EPILOGUE

30 May 1291

He woke again to the creaking of the ship, alongside the sounds of men vomiting and women weeping. His leg was giving him a deal of pain, and he wished he could rise, go to the upper deck and see where he was.

‘Master Baldwin?’

‘Edgar?’

‘What happened to you?’

‘I broke my leg.’

‘And the Temple?’

Baldwin recalled that hideous sight: the collapsing building, the smoke and dust. For a moment he could remember the first view he had had of Acre — the city of gold rising over the seas, a place of elegance and culture. It seemed inconceivable that it could have disappeared in a matter of days. In place of the city of gold was a city of the dead.

And he remembered the slow smile on Sir Jacques’ face, his kindness and gentle humour; Ivo, his good companion, the man who had rescued him on arrival and given him a home; Ivo’s irascible bottler, Pietro; Buscarel, the man who had been Baldwin’s enemy and who became his friend; Hob, and the other men of his vintaine.

And he thought of Lucia. The woman whom he loved.

‘The Temple’s gone. It’s all gone. The city, the people, everything,’ he said, and closed his eyes against the tears that trickled from them, running stickily into his temples. He rolled with the ship, keeping his sobs at bay, thinking life could not hold anything for him that could replace all he had lost.

‘I’d like to kill that bastard,’ Edgar said after a while in a musing tone.

‘The Sultan?’

‘No. He was doing what he had to. No, I meant Roger Flor, taking the ship and all the women. I’d bet he took all their money, too. I wonder what happened to that bastard. Where has he gone?’

Roger Flor at that moment was sitting in a tavern.

Cyprus was an island he appreciated, and rarely more than now. He had a purse full of money, he had a ship, and he had enjoyed the affections of three ladies on the journey here. A man needed such diversions.

‘So, do we sail for France?’ Bernat asked.

‘France. . Yes, we could,’ Roger Flor said pensively.

‘We could go to the Temple. We do have a ship.’

‘Oh yes, we have a ship,’ Roger Flor agreed, and poured himself more wine. ‘We have a ship, and the ability to sail anywhere. Now that the Muslims have control of all the ports and harbours off the Holy Land, there are ships full of valuables sailing from Cairo each and every day. .’

‘You want to turn pirate?’

‘No. I want to turn rich.’

Bernat stared, and gradually a smile broke out over his features. ‘I’m in too.’

Roger Flor grinned back and passed a cup to him, filling it.

‘A toast,’ Roger Flor said. ‘To the men of the Temple. They can survive in future without my aid.’