‘Aye,’ said the knight who had broken the news. ‘I know that.’ He hesitated, then said, ‘We have a small packet of his belongings. Someone said he’d spoken to you of his home — where he came from, his family, that sort of thing. So we wondered. .’ He trailed off, as if what they had been wondering was too outrageous to be spoken of.
But Geoffroi was holding out his hand for the package. ‘Of course,’ he said quietly. ‘I will see that they receive it.’
Then he crept away to grieve alone and to pray for the soul of his bluff and kindly Englishman.
Sleep did not come readily to Geoffroi that night. Although he was exhausted and sore from bruises, small cuts and aching muscles, his mind refused to switch off and allow him to rest. Images of the day flashed repeatedly before his eyes. A Turk’s face, brown under the vivid purple and red of his headdress, teeth bared in a howl of fury as he charged. A French knight staring down, with a bemused expression, at the place where his right forearm used to be. A group of Muslim horsemen who seemed to move as one, galloping on such a beautiful, smoothly curved path that the movement could have been choreographed.
A child, lost in the midst of a battle, with wide brown eyes and half of his face stained bright red.
Herbert of Lewes bleeding to death from a severed artery in his neck.
For all that Geoffroi had not been a witness to the last scene, it was the one that haunted him most.
He had lain down to sleep a little apart from the other men; he had felt the need for solitude, or as near to that state as you could get in a camp full of soldiers. Now, listening to the steady breathing and the snores of those lucky enough to be fast asleep, and to the cries and muffled shouts of those in the throes of nightmare, Geoffroi turned his back on them all and closed his eyes.
He must have slept because, when some small sound alerted him, he woke from a dream.
He lay absolutely still and listened.
Nothing.
Hunching his blanket over his shoulder — the night was totally dark and quite chilly — he settled down again.
Then, shocking him so profoundly that he felt his heart leap against his ribs, a hand came down tightly and firmly over his mouth. He cut off short his instinctive lurch as he felt a steel point at his throat and a deep, hoarse voice, heavily accented, hissed right in his ear, ‘If you move I shall kill you. If you do exactly as I say, I swear you shall come to no harm.’
Very aware of the knife’s point, Geoffroi gave a very small nod. Then a hood or a bag of some sort was put over his head, his hands were tied behind him and his assailant took firm hold of his elbow and helped him to his feet.
He was led, he presumed, the short distance to the edge of the sleeping enclosure, and made to exit it by rolling over on the ground so as to pass beneath the rope which cordoned off the area. Then, still with the knifepoint at his throat and his abductor’s tight grip on his arm, he was taken to a horse and bundled on to its back. Somebody was astride it already, and this someone wordlessly hauled him up and settled him. Now another knife was at his throat; he did not, for the moment, see any way of escape.
So he just sat there.
The two horsemen quietly moved off. Geoffroi was aware of some small sounds — what had happened to the watch, for the good Lord’s sake? Where were the guards? Why had nobody spotted two men on horseback abducting a Frankish knight? — but then, after a time, there was nothing but the sound of the horses’ hooves cantering over the ground.
They rode for some time. Then Geoffroi was aware of a light ahead; it was no more than a glow that he could vaguely make out from beneath whatever it was they had used to cover his head. The light steadily grew in brightness, resolving itself into two, three and then four separate glowing patches.
Then the horses’ hooves were clattering on stone. Someone called out — another added his voice — and the men on horseback called back. They spoke in a language or dialect that Geoffroi did not know. Geoffroi’s horseman reined in his mount, and hands were suddenly around Geoffroi’s waist and helping him — surprisingly gently — down to the ground.
He sensed the presence of other people, but none of them spoke. His horseman said something to the man who had taken Geoffroi from his tent, and he answered. One of them laughed briefly.
Geoffroi thought, if they have brought me to my death, then they seem very relaxed and cheerful about it. He remembered the careful hands that had helped him off his horse and decided that it could just be possible that they weren’t going to kill him.
But if not, why had they brought him here?
And where exactly was here?
Then the man who had come into the tent said, ‘Come. You come with me now. I shall take you.’
Once again he took hold of Geoffroi’s elbow and led him away. Their boots rang out on some hard stone floor, or at least Geoffroi’s did; his companion seemed to be wearing soft-soled shoes. Geoffroi became aware of a scent. . sweet, slightly spicy, not at all unpleasant. . and he thought he heard the faint crackling of a fire.
They walked for some time, in darkness, in light, in darkness again. Then they must have emerged from a passage, perhaps, into a larger area, because Geoffroi was suddenly aware of a sense of space around him and a lot of light. He could hear the sound of running water. The sweet smell was stronger now, and slightly different. . there was a tangy, musky element to it now. . was it sandalwood?
The man beside him was saying something — a greeting? — and he pushed Geoffroi’s head down so that he bowed.
That was the final indignity.
To be forcibly removed from his tent in the middle of the night with a knife at his throat and taken miles away on a fast, silent-footed horse was one thing. To be marched through long passages with a hood over his head was just about tolerable.
But to be made to bow to someone he couldn’t even see, well, that was too much.
Geoffroi wrenched himself away from the pressure of the man’s hand and stood up tall and proud. In a loud voice he said, ‘Let me see who it is to whom you would have me bow, and judge with my own eyes whether I deem him worthy.’
There was a stunned silence. For a dreadful moment, Geoffroi thought he had gone too far. He could almost hear the soft scrape of a sword drawn from its sheath, the muted whistle as it descended to sever his head from his neck. .
But then somebody laughed. A rich, happy sound.
And a deep voice said cheerfully, ‘Quite right, sir knight. Why should a valiant man bow to an invisible shadow?’
He must have made some gesture, for immediately the rope binding Geoffroi’s wrists was cut and the hood was taken off his head.
Blinking in the sudden bright light — there must have been thirty or more candles burning in glass lamps — Geoffroi stared around him. He was in a cool, marble hall, with arches along two sides open to the night air, and in the middle of it a fountain played. There was a small fire in some sort of brazier, and the sweet smell seemed to emanate from the soft coils of smoke rising from it.
There were about a dozen people in the hall. Some, standing perfectly still in the shadows, appeared to be servants, or perhaps guards. The two men either side of Geoffroi, dressed in heavy hooded cloaks, must be the pair who had brought him here.
In front of him was a set of pure white marble steps, on top of which stood a divan covered in rich burgundy-coloured cloth. Extending down from the divan and down the centre of the steps was a runner of fine carpet, decorated with a geometric pattern in shades of purple, violet, rich yellow and dark red. Two more servants sat at the foot of the steps. Another stood at the top, beside the divan, holding a tray on which was a brass pot, a tiny cup and a plate containing small titbits of some sort of food.
On the divan, beringed hand extended to take one of the titbits, sat a plump man of perhaps sixty years. His round face under the elaborate, multicoloured headdress was beaming, making his small, dark eyes all but disappear behind the bulges of yellowish flesh around his eyelids. The wide skirts of his garments — made of rich, vivid silk, shining in the candlelight — had been carefully arranged on the divan around him.