The Seal(19)

But his lord Etienne stood over him with his face full of danger. ‘Are we to find menace upon the road ahead of us?’

The sergeant pushed himself up onto his knees, attempting to gather his wits. ‘Yes.’

Having somewhat recovered, he contrived to stand but found himself swaying before the sound of laughter that came as if from the trees. It was a sound absurd and unsuited to his circumstances and as he stood, uncertain, he tried to guess if it were coming from God or man. With one eye then, he saw that the Normans and the Catalan were off their horses and laughing like anything. Jourdain was standing next to the seneschal wearing a grin. This joviality filled him, therefore, with a slight but logical irritation that was moderated by the frowning face of his superior and the possible hurts which awaited him.

He heard Etienne tell the Normans to get back on their animals whereupon he returned his attention to Iterius who was curving and bending and swaying. ‘Are you a king’s spy, or a spy for the Temple bankers?’

‘None of those.’ Iterius was shaking his head and spitting blood from his mouth.

Etienne rubbed the sweat from his neck and Iterius realised that his superior found this game of questions peculiarly annoying.

‘What then?’ he said.

The Egyptian, his face now patterned in different shades of red, answered, ‘Myself. I am come to warn you, of d’Oselier . . .’

‘Warn me?’ Etienne pushed the Egyptian with a finger and sent him into a dance of balance that ended once more in a humbling fall. ‘When were you to warn me? After the arrow had found my back?’

Iterius raised his head a little, seeing two seneschals of the Order observing his familiarity with the ground. ‘He is against you,’ he managed to say, ‘he rallies men to his side . . .’

His lord seemed to be teetering on the brink of sending his face once more into that dirt and Iterius cowered.

‘How comes to you this intrigue?’

Iterius closed an eye in his wounded face in order to see one seneschal. ‘I am not alone who knows it, but I am alone in who comes to warn you of the slaughter that awaits you upon this road . . . on the orders of d’Oselier.’

The seneschal frowned. ‘I think you a self-seeker, whose ears are pressed to doors for your own designs.’

Iterius wore a look of amazement which he cleared by shaking his head. ‘I am a loyal dog, who will stop at nothing to save his master.’ Whereupon he smiled a bloody smile and let his head fall back into the wet dirt. Looking upward to the dome of the sky he felt a confidence, despite his hurts, in his brilliant deceit.

In a sudden, he heard a grunt and found that it came from him since he was being grabbed by the middle and thrown upon the horse like a sack of dung. By the time his eyes came together the seneschal and Jourdain were already upon their Arabians.

‘Where is the snare?’ Etienne asked, pulling up his horse.

The Egyptian swayed. ‘At the hillock near Ayios Memnon, at the ruined church.’

The seneschal turned his back without further conversation and urged his animal forward.

Disconcerted, Iterius, who had been left to his devices, called out after the Templar and the mercenaries, ‘Will you not turn around, Lord Etienne? Take another way?’

‘No,’ Etienne said without looking back. ‘We run out of time. We shall face them, warned as we are and ready, and you shall be at the head.’





6


THE OLD CHURCH

Which is he that betrayeth thee?

St John 21:20


As promised, Etienne and his men travelled the road that followed the sea with Iterius at the head. When they neared the place where the Templars were said to be lying in wait, the men tethered their horses to low-grown bushes before a loop in the road and made their way up the sandy incline on their bellies. Etienne was first to gaze over the rise. There he saw the familiar ruins of the old church with its cavernous mouth jutting out from behind twisted, withered trees and beyond to the wider view of the barren plains of the peninsula.

Sun daggers sliced his back and worried their way under his dark attire. Sweat trickled over his eyes and dripped wet onto the dirt, hot as an oven beneath him. He felt awkward and heavy, out of breath. His body, caught between youth and old age, clung to muscles and sinews strapped over worn-down bones. He got his breath back and looked beside him to Jourdain. The young captain was flushed and full of life. He had all his life ahead of him, such as it might be, and Etienne felt pity for the boy, seeing himself in that face. Twenty years of this would wear out his soul and his body would follow, so that he too would some day come to feel sadness when gazing into a youthful face. All that would come to him if he did not die before.