The Seal(14)

Etienne turned to a whisper that came between pants from the darkness.

‘It is I . . . Jourdain.’ A shadow moved towards them.

When it neared, what was visible of the young captain was his blond hair, lit up strangely in the meagre moonlight.

‘The horses are hid?’ Etienne asked him.

Jourdain got his breath back. ‘Behind that hill, there is a small deserted house, not far . . .’ He seemed to be smiling, since his voice had a note of lightness about it. ‘This is all a guarded business, then.’

‘Did you see anyone?’ Marcus pressed.

‘No.’

‘Well then,’ Etienne said, ‘we shall sit and wait for the galley.’

The night sounded with insects and Etienne felt a restlessness for Marcus to be off so that he could think upon the happenings of these last hours. He took up a handful of the coarse sand and let it fall between his fingers.

‘Where does the galley go then?’ Jourdain asked.

‘To Portugal,’ Marcus told him.

‘That is a small thing. What shall be found on the way there, that is what troubles me.’

‘Perhaps it shall find calm weather on the deep, respite from winds in trouble, rest and sleep,’ Jourdain put in.

‘Shall I turn to stone with numbness?’ Etienne told him. ‘You sound like the troubadours of my country, Jourdain!’

‘I have heard tell that all men from your land of the south are poets,’ he said. ‘Do you not remember one song?’

Etienne gave a half-smile to the darkness. This being out of doors and in the open air with brothers and a deed to perform gave his soul a semblance of youth, and he deigned to tell one. ‘Behold, the pleasant and longed for spring, brings back joyfulness, violet flowers fill the meadows, the sun brightens everything, sadness is now at an end – déjà les chagrins se dissipent!’

‘Well . . .’ Andrew slapped a knee. ‘That is a fine one!’

Etienne now regretted it. ‘It is only a memory.’ Then because he wanted to move on from such foolishness he said, ‘The wind picks up, if they do not hurry our deception will be discovered.’

‘Roger de Flor captains that vessel.’ Andrew had forgotten his merriment and became melancholy. ‘The deserter took the Falcon to the sea at Acre after he made his fortune from the old and weak, and never returned . . . full of fleeing merchants and weighed down with the town’s gold!’

Marcus grunted in return. ‘I found out his history – in the east he worked for Frederick of Sicily and then for Andronicus using mercenaries and Catalans to keep out Turks. He was made Admiral of Romania – they tried to assassinate him for his cruelty.’

Etienne rubbed his hands of sand. It seemed always to fall on him to ease Marcus’s spirit. ‘Here in Cyprus the Temple is thought cruel, and in the Holy Land also . . . It is the way of people that they despise those who are their saviours and soon forget the cruelty of the oppressors from whom they were freed – those men who raped their women and cut off the noses of their priests. At any rate, Roger de Flor saved your life at Acre, and he saves the Order now.’

Marcus shifted, kicking at the sand. ‘Saving my life is no more than any brother would have done, saving the Order is no more than any man paid well might do. At any rate it leaves a bad taste in the mouth.’

‘Well,’ Andrew remarked, ‘much more of this and we shall not know brother from foe.’

‘Roger de Flor,’ Marcus corrected him, ‘is not a brother since he has forsaken our Lord’s Sepulchre. That is not likely to meet easy punishment, not here and not in heaven!’

‘We have all forsaken it,’ Etienne reminded him.

‘It was not my choice, it was not your choice, Etienne!’

‘Perhaps it is our task to lose the Holy Land and to regain it again,’ Jourdain put in. ‘Since Aristotle tells that courage is born of pain.’

Andrew sniggered at the boy. ‘What oddities are visiting us this night! Poems and songs and philosophies! How long do you think you’ll live then, lad?’ He spat a wad at his feet. ‘The Holy Land is forsaken and the Order that has guarded it until now is disordered . . . our world is disordered and soon to be dismantled. There is no courage to be purchased from living a common life that knows no lofty task!’

‘Keep silent!’ Marcus was irritated. ‘Such words speak disquiet to our very hearts!’ ‘Our hearts, Commander, are disquieted more by the lack of words,’ Andrew gave back.

There was a sound then. The men made tense their muscles.

The black lapped against the beach and the breeze played at the edge of it.