The blask rood

FORTY-ONE

De Bracineaux returned the axe to the Arab, and the two stood discussing the matter. My first thought was to call out to him, to let him know that I was here-but the sight of the Templar commander instructing Arab thieves in their own tongue was too strange and, as it seemed to me, sinister. I hesitated, watching silently.

I was still trying to decide what to do when I felt Wazim creep up beside me. Raising a finger to my lips, I cautioned him to silence, and then allowed him to peer around the corner. The instant he put his face to the grate, a strange thing happened: he sniffed once, and again, then froze, his eyes going wide with terror. He backed away at once and retreated down the passage. I went after him, pausing to retrieve the torch he had dropped. By the time I caught up with him at the junction, the pounding had begun again.

Grabbing hold of his elbow as he entered the adjoining corridor, I arrested his flight. 'Who are they?' I demanded. 'The Arabs-you knew them. Who are they?'

'Fida'in!' Wazim gasped.

'Are you certain?'

He nodded, his eyes still wide with fright. 'The smell,' he said. 'Did you not smell it?'

Now that he said it, I did recall a sweet pungency. 'I thought it was from the torches.'

'It is hashish. We must get away from here. If the Fida'in find us, they will kill us.'

Templars and Fida'in together? Were these not the fanatical sect that had caused the death of Yordanus' son, and the reason he had to flee Damascus? Any other time I might have doubted such an unnkely alliance. As extraordinary as it seemed, however, I knew Wazim was right.

What were they after in the caliph's treasure house? Not, I thought, his gold and silver-at least not entirely. The presence of Renaud de Bracineaux put the thought in my head that they, too, sought the Black Rood. The amount of plunder gleaned from the massacre was not great, but de Bracineaux would know that the capture of the Holy Rood was a greater calamity than the destruction of Bohemond and his troops.

The more my thoughts raced along this path, the more convinced I became that de Bracineaux's quest and my own were one and the same. If the Templars found the rood first, I would lose it forever.

'Please, Da'ounk, let us go. All the treasure in the world will do you no good if you are dead.'

'I care nothing for the caliph's gold.' I decided it was time to trust Wazim with the truth. 'Listen to me, my friend, there is something you must know.' I told him about the remnant of the Sacred Cross even now residing in the caliph's treasure house.

'By all that is holy…' breathed Wazim Kadi, lapsing into an astonished silence.

His reaction surprised me. I had not expected the Saracen to hold such reverence for a Christian relic. But there was no time to wonder about it now. 'That is why the Templars are here. They know Bohemond lost it, and they are here to get it back.'

'Then they will surely succeed,' concluded Wazim gloomily. 'We cannot subdue the Templars or the Fida'in, and we cannot fight them together.'

'I do not intend to fight them for it,' I told him. 'Neither will I stand aside and watch them grab it away again.' So saying, I slung the bundle of papyri over my shoulder and started off along the passage again, this time in the opposite direction, and with a heavy heart. I counted de Bracineaux a friend; in any other circumstances I would have hailed him and embraced him as a brother. But cruel fate, aided by Bohemond's folly, had placed us in sharp contention for the prize. If I got hold of the Black Rood first, I would not be giving it back to the Templars, or anyone else. I had made a sacred vow, and it was not in me to betray it.

'Please, can we leave now?' said Wazim, padding dutifully after me.

'Not until we find another way into the treasure house.'

'But there is no other way. It is a treasure house; there is only one way in.'

'That is what you said about the hareem.'

We hurried back to the first junction where the passage divided to the right and left. The left-hand side led back to the cistern, so I took the passage to the right. 'This way.'

Almost immediately, we came to an opening with steps leading up – into the hareem, I supposed. There was an unlit torch in a sconce beside the steps and, taking this, I handed it to Wazim, and continued on. After a few hundred paces, the passage narrowed and began to bend downward. There were two more openings off the main passage, one to the right, and one to the left. The one on the left was half the height of a man, and the one on the right was not much larger.

As we passed the opening on the right, a faint rush of air fluttered the torch flame; the air was warm and I could smell the scent of flowers. I put the torch into the opening, but could see little save a downward angled shaft and another vertical shaft directly above. Leaning into the shaft, I looked up into the connecting vent and saw stars in the square opening above.

There seemed no point in lingering, so we moved quickly on. The downward angle of the slope increased sharply; every few paces a step appeared, and then two, and then three at a time. No more junctions or openings appeared, however; nor did this tunnel of a passageway divide or branch off.

After a while, I lost heart and began to think Wazim was right after all. I came to a long flight of steps, the end of which I could not see in the feeble light of the torch, and there we paused.

'Why are we stopping?' asked Wazim a little breathlessly.

'Listen.'

Down the passageway-some distance ahead, by the sound of it -1 heard the ripple and splash of moving water-an aqueduct, perhaps, supplying water to the palace.

'It sounds like a stream. We have left the palace behind. It might be the Nile.'

'Perhaps,' I allowed, and started off again. The steps led down and down, and soon I could smell the water and feel the cool dampness on my skin.

The last few steps disappeared beneath the surface of the water, dropping away so quickly I was almost in the stream before I caught myself. A rusted iron ring protruded from the step on which I stood, and there was a rope tied to the ring. Bending down, I pulled on the rope, but it was secured to something heavy which remained out of sight beyond the small circle of light. Handing the torch to Wazim, I took the rope in both hands and pulled harder; there was a rippling sound and a boat came gliding into view.

Wazim took one look at the boat and said, 'This is the canal of Khalifa al-Hakim. It leads to the river.'

'You know this?'

He shrugged. 'I have heard of it. The canal was built many years ago -a hundred years or more. Al-Hakim was despised. He built many great things-the palace, the hareem, and the citadel… many things-but he taxed the people hard to pay for all these buildings and there were many riots in those days. They say he built this secret canal so that he could escape if the people ever revolted against him.' Indicating the channel, Wazim added, 'You hear many such things in the palace. Until now, I never believed all these stories.'

Time slipped away; every moment we wasted, the Templars' quest advanced unhindered, and mine faltered. Back we raced, taking the steps two at a time as they came, arriving breathless at the top of the passage. A few more steps brought us to where the two smaller openings joined the tunnel, and I decided to try the low one on the right-hand side first.

Once more, I gave Wazim the bundle of papyri and bade him wait for me. Going on hands and knees, I entered the opening; it was dry and dusty, and ended after only a few dozen paces. Unable to turn around, I backed up. 'It is closed up with brick,' I said upon rejoining Wazim. 'We will try the other one.'

Stepping across the passage, I entered the second opening. The roof of the tunnel was higher than the last one, though not so high that a man might walk upright, and it was narrow; after a few steps I was forced to turn sideways. A few more steps and I had to slide along with my back to the wall-difficult to do as I could not fully stand.

In this slow way, I proceeded along until I came to a tight, sharply-angled bend, beyond which all was darkness and I could see nothing. If not for the fact that I could feel cool air moving on my face, I would have turned back. Instead, I called Wazim to follow with the light, and, taking a deep breath, squeezed through the opening and waited for him on the other side.

The moving air made a faint but steady breeze which guttered the low-burning torch. 'It will go out soon,' Wazim observed.

'Give it to me,' I told him, 'and keep the other one ready.'

Once past the angled bend, the passageway opened out once more. We moved on and came to a small, three-cornered room, one side of which opened onto a steep flight of stone steps. The steps were set in a spiral which ended in a room identical to the one below, and with a narrow tunnel leading on in the opposite direction. We paused a moment to light the second torch; I retrieved from him my precious bundle and then moved along.

Just ahead, this new passage ended in a short downward flight of steps, and the shattered remains of a wooden door. The door had been barred, but the timber was old and rotten; someone had kicked their way through the lower half of the door, the fractured pieces of which were scattered over the floor inside.

Holding the torch before me, I squatted down, ducked through the opening, crawled over the broken bits of timber, and found myself in a small vaulted room containing stacks of slowly mouldering papyrus scrolls tied in braided cords. Moving quickly on, I proceeded through the arched doorway at the end of the room and entered a much larger room, this one filled with ceremonial saddles, bridles, and other such tack for horses and camels-row upon row of high-backed saddles trimmed in silver and gold, some displayed on standards, some merely heaped on the floor. There were scores of lances, too, most with cloth pennons and flags attached to their blunted ends; and in one corner, I saw four chariots, resting on their axles, their painted wheels stacked and leaning against a pillar.

'We have found the treasure house, Wazim,' I said softly. 'Now to find the rood.'

I had expected to find a single, hall-like room filled with the caliph's wealth and riches-a great jumble of objects, boxes, and caskets filled with coin and plate, bowls and cups, rings and jewelled ornaments, and the like. It was instead a very house: room gave way to room, with connecting galleries and corridors, halls, chambers, and storerooms. We passed quickly through the first two chambers and came to a long, double-vaulted gallery with a central row of pillars and low doorways on either side.

Upon entering this gallery, the pounding sound-which had been absent for some time-commenced anew; this time the blows were sharper, harder, more measured. I suspected that either newer, fresher troops had been assigned to the duty, or better tools had been found -perhaps both. I did not know how long the iron-bound timber could withstand such battering, but reckoned that we had little time to make our discovery and escape. There were many rooms to explore, but only one torch, and that would not last long. So, without an instant's hesitation, we started the search-beginning with the nearest rooms.

The first two chambers contained jars of various kinds; as the dust on the floor revealed no recent footprints, I did not bother looking further than the doorway. The third room contained rugs, rolled up or tied in bundles; the fourth room was full of caskets of many sizes, and at first I thought I might find some of the treasure that had come to Cairo with me, but again, the dust had not been disturbed in a very long time, so we quickly moved on.

Meanwhile, the crashing on the wooden door grew steadily louder, the blows falling harder and more rapidly, as if those on the other side were becoming more determined. We had searched but four rooms, and twice that many remained. At the pace we were making, the torch would burn out before we finished-if the Templars did not break through first. 'There must be an easier way,' I grumbled, darting towards the doorway of the next room.

And then it came to me… the dust on the floors-of course!

Abandoning the search of the chambers at the end of the gallery, I made directly for the rooms nearest the entrance. Holding the torch low, I saw that the chamber on the right-hand side had not been recently used. I cautioned Wazim to silence, and moved quickly to the other side of the gallery, passing the door which was now shuddering under the violence of the attack; I could hear the wood splintering as the axes thudded, and the grunt of the men as they hewed at the solid timber.

At the doorway to the last room, I paused and held the torch to the floor-holding my breath at the same time. And I saw it: a trail in the dust of the chamber floor caused by the passing of many feet. 'This way,' I whispered. I stepped into the chamber, and my heart sank.

It was not a chamber at all, but another gallery, and larger than the one we had just searched. The torch was already flickering as it burned the last of its fuel, and from the sound of the shuddering door, the Templars would soon be through. There was nothing for it, but to go on and hope for the best.

Holding the torch low, I moved as quickly as I could, following the trail in the dust. Once inside the gallery, however, the trail quickly dissolved as footprints scattered everywhere across the floor. It seemed to me that most of them tended towards the rooms on the left-hand side of the long, double-vaulted room, so that is where we began.

The first chamber contained a quantity of small wooden caskets-many carved and inlaid with mother-of-pearl; a swift inspection revealed the boxes contained cups, bowls, and ornamental bells. 'Hold this,' I said, giving the torch to Wazim. And, taking up one of the caskets, I dumped out the cup and carried the empty box back out into the gallery where I smashed it against a pillar. The wood was old and dry, and splintered easily into pieces. I instructed Wazim to break up the pieces still further, and hurried back for another. I did this with three more of the boxes, then heaped the broken fragments against the base of the pillar and, using a wad of cloth from the inside of one of the caskets, set the heap on fire with the torch.

'Stay here and keep the fire going,' I instructed Wazim. Taking up the torch, I hurried on.

The second room contained earthenware jars filled with perfumed oil, and in the third rolls and bundles of cloth of gold, and silver, and multi-coloured, richly patterned Damascus cloth. I looked in three more-each with similar items, but there was nothing I recognized as having come from Amir Ghazi's hoard.

As I rushed on to the next rooms, a great crash sounded from the main gallery. The sound seemed to fill the treasure house, resounding and echoing through the underground corridors. This mighty clash was followed by a long silence, after which the pounding of the axes resumed in earnest.

I quickly completed the search of the last three rooms-one was little more than a narrow alcove and contained nothing but a few pottery jars and, high up on the end wall, a large, square vent covered by a partially open iron-work grate. The other two rooms were each filled with items of ceremonial armour: stacks of painted wooden shields, bundles of tasselled halberds, sheaves of curved swords standing upright in wooden barrels, helmets ranged around the walls and floor in ranks. Upon examining the last room, I dashed across and started in on the opposite side of the gallery.

Feeling the grip of desperation tightening around me, I prayed, 'Great King, if you care about the honour of your name, help me to restore it now.'

In truth, I do not know what I meant by this; the words came to me and I spoke them out. The reply was immediate-if from an unexpected source.

'Da'ounk!' Wazim Kadi shouted behind me. I turned to see the little Saracen standing beside the pillar, the fire at its base burning brightly in the gloom of the gallery. He was pointing across to a chamber on the other side of the entrance. 'Look!'

I glanced where he indicated and saw the glow of a torch as it passed from view into the chamber.

'Did you see who it was?' I called, already running for the doorway.

'It was a father,' he replied.

At least, that is what I thought he said; it did not make sense to me, but there was no time to ask questions. I sped to the chamber and looked in. It was a large room with several columns forming aisles, between several of the columns someone had heaped up mounds of objects. There was no sign of the torch-bearing man Wazim had seen. Was it a trick of the light? Had we imagined it? Then I saw the gold-trimmed box containing Bohemond's head, and all questions vanished. Having carried that grotesque trophy all the way from Kadiriq to Damascus, I would have recognized its gleaming tracery and metal-bound edges in my sleep.

I started for the heap, just as another tremendous crash resounded from the main gallery-this one accompanied by a slow, creaking, cracking sound and a second clatter. I guessed part of the door had given way. It would not be long before the Templars and their Fida'in allies gained entrance.

I dived into the mound and, tossing the torch to the floor, began pulling things from the heap and throwing them aside. Many were objects I recognized, and this encouraged me greatly. But as the pile diminished, my hopes began to fade.

There came another enormous, walloping crash, followed by a long, groaning crack as another portion of the iron-clad door gave way. An instant later, the low-burning torch gave a last sputtering spurt and sizzled out. I raced back to the doorway, and called for Wazim to bring a piece of wood from the fire.

'They are getting very close now,' he said, handing the burning brand to me.

'So are we,' I replied. 'The relic is in this room somewhere.'

There came another tremendous crack on the door. I could hear the timber splintering as sections were ripped away.

'What would you have me do, Da'ounk?'

'Pray, Wazim.'

To my surprise the little jailer folded his hands, closed his eyes, and began chanting then and there. Leaving him to his prayers, I took the burning chunk of wood and, kneeling beside the casket containing Prince Bohemond's head, I unfastened the clasp and opened it.

The flickering light playing over the embalmed prince's frozen features made it seem as if he was trying to awaken from his serene and perpetual sleep. 'May God forgive me for what I am about to do,' I said, and touched the burning wood to the prince's stiff hair.

The resulting flame was much brighter and larger than I expected; due to the pitch resin in the embalming mixture, the waxen flesh burned readily. I watched for a moment as the flames licked across the contours of his face, singeing off eyelashes and brows, and painting his becalmed expression with a liquid glaze of shimmering flame. Satisfied that the flame would not go out, I picked up the box and carried it quickly along the colonnade to the next mound of plunder. There, by the light of Bohemond's flaming head, I began pawing through the trove-this time to Wazim's rapidly muttered prayers, which he interrupted long enough to urge me to hurry faster.

Two more booming crashes trembled the walls of the treasure house before I reached the bottom of the heap, only to come up empty handed. My frustration was eased by the thought that there was only one mound left and the rood must be there.

The casket containing the burning head was on fire now and too hot to pick up, so I shoved it with my foot to the next hoarded heap and waded in, scattering valuable objects right and left.

Crack! The door in the main gallery splintered and groaned.

'Hurry!' shouted Wazim. He was standing at the chamber doorway. 'They have made a hole in the door. I can see them now.'

'Over here!' I called. 'It has to be in this heap somewhere. Help me find it.'

Wazim hastened to my side and together we ploughed into the mound of objects. Heedless, I strewed costly objects everywhere; I tossed aside jewelled daggers, carelessly threw away a fine bow and quiver of golden arrows, and sent silver bowls and chalices clattering across the floor. And then, I found it: the rug in which I had wrapped the holy relic. I fell upon it at once and pulled it to me.

Even as my hand closed on the rolled rug, however, I knew my hope was disappointed. The roll was empty. The Black Rood was gone. Beneath the rug, I saw one of the gem-encrusted, gold bands that had capped the ends of the piece; the other gold band lay beside it, mangled and flattened by the bearer's clumsy feet. My poor heart rending with dismay, I stooped and retrieved the flattened band. There, in the dying light of Bohemond's burning skull, tears welled up in my eyes as my failure overwhelmed me.

All that time I had spent in captivity, nursing the hope, however tenuous, that I might rescue the sacred relic. But the Black Rood was gone.

'Da'ounk?' said Wazim. 'What is wrong?'

'It is gone,' I replied, letting the gold bands slip from my hands. 'We are finished.'

From the main gallery there came a final thunderous crash and the sound of splintered timber careening across the floor. A cheer went up from the soldiers on the other side. With that, the last of the flames gave out; the box broke into embers and the skull rolled onto the floor, empty eye sockets staring at me, lipless mouth grinning in grim mockery. The burned bone glowed red for a moment, and then that, too, disappeared in the darkness.

Wazim called me again. I made no reply.

There was nothing to say. The soldiers would be on us at any moment, and that would be the end of it.

I heard Wazim moving in the darkness, and felt a touch on my arm. I thought he meant to move me along. 'I am sorry, Wazim,' I said. 'It was all for nothing.'

Out in the main gallery, the last remnant of the door gave way and, with shouts of triumph, the Templars stormed into the treasure house.