Or the strange, curved blade of a Saracen knife.
18
He strode out into the middle of the glade.
Afraid though he was, it seemed a better option than skulking in the shadows, peering out nervously and waiting for someone to leap out and attack him. Besides, there was nobody there.
Was there?
He walked across to the shelter and glanced inside. There was a bedroll and what might have been a small supply of spare clothing, neatly folded. He wondered how this traveller had got there: on foot? On horseback?
Circling the glade, he looked for signs of a horse, or mule. Presently he came to a mound of horse droppings; they looked fairly fresh. It was beginning to look as if the visitor, whoever he was, had left his camp for the day, riding off on some pressing errand. Quite what that errand might be, Josse was not sure he wanted to know. Because, although it was but one possibility out of many, this man might be a killer. Might have murdered Prince John’s spy and old Galbertius’s servant, with swift, ruthless skill and no more compassion than if he had been slaughtering a pig to salt its flesh down for the winter.
Angry suddenly, Josse went to stand beside the campfire. He was on the point of shouting out, summoning whoever had made his camp here to show himself, when with no warning whatsoever there was a strong arm around his neck and the cold kiss of a blade at his throat.
A voice said, ‘Keep silent. If you try to call for help, I shall kill you.’
Josse made himself relax. ‘I will not call out,’ he said. ‘If you knew the forest as I do, you would let me yell all I want, because there is nobody to hear.’
‘You are wrong,’ the soft voice said. ‘But no matter.’
As he spoke, he removed the stranglehold on Josse’s neck and, with the blade still pressing in hard, was busy with his free hand tying Josse’s wrists behind his back. Then he exerted strong pressure on Josse’s shoulders and pushed him down to kneel on the forest floor.
With his prisoner thus disabled, finally the firm touch of the blade eased a little. Josse sensed the man move around behind him and, after a moment, he stood before him.
Josse stared up at his captor.
The man was swarthy-skinned, the flesh of his face an olive colour against the thick black beard. The hair of his head was also black, what could be seen of it; he wore a square of cloth over his head, held in place by more cloth wound into an elaborate turban. He was dressed in a heavy cloak of some deep-coloured material, fastened so as to hide whatever he wore beneath it. The eyes, dark, narrow, were heavily hooded and seemed to be elongated at the outer edges. Their expression was difficult to read; whatever the emotion they held, Josse was quite sure it was unfriendly. To say the least.
In his hand the man held a knife with a curved blade. Although slightly bigger than the one found lodged in the body of the dead spy, it was similar in shape and style.
‘What do you want of me?’ Josse asked. His voice, he was pleased to hear, sounded calm; his fear, he thought, did not show.
The man studied him for some moments. Then an expression of puzzlement crossed the dark face. His left hand — the hand not holding the knife — crept inside his cloak and, after some fumbling, seemed to close on an object concealed inside his garments. Wondering if he were about to draw out some weapon used for swift dispatch of victims, Josse closed his eyes and tried to pray.
It was interesting, he often thought afterwards, what sprang into a man’s mind when he was sure he was about to die. In Josse’s own case, the prayer was one of duty: dear Lord, of thy mercy and grace, help my brothers and my family and all at Acquin.
But that had not been what he had begged first. The swift instinctive prayer that had burst silently from him had been, please, Lord, protect Helewise.
But, this time, death had not come to claim him.
Feeling the blade busy at his wrists, cutting the cords that bound them, he opened his eyes. Just as the dark man, in front of him once more, fell to his knees and cried, ‘Forgive me, I beg you, forgive me! You should have said who you were, called out your name as soon as you came into the glade!’
Josse struggled to his feet. Disorientated, the relics of dread still close, he said simply, ‘Why?’
The man had pressed his face into the spongy leaf mould on the forest floor. Raising his head, he said, ‘Because you are the man I have been seeking! You are Josse, son of Geoffroi d’Acquin, and so far have I travelled to find you that my home is now but a dim memory.’
Josse held out a hand and helped the man to his feet. ‘What do you want with me?’
‘I have brought you what is yours.’
‘You bring-’ But Josse hesitated to mention the Eye. Instead he said, ‘I was warned that you sought me.’
‘Warned?’ The dark face creased into a frown. ‘There was no need of warning, for I mean you no harm.’ Then, suspicion clouding his eyes, the man said, ‘Who issued this warning?’
Josse was about to reply when the stranger, nodding his head, interrupted. ‘Do not trouble to tell me,’ he said coldly. ‘Save your breath, for I already know.’ Then, passionately, he went on, ‘He sees me, you know. He watches me, and I cannot escape his deep eyes. He knows that I come to you, he knows what it is I bear.’
‘John Dee,’ Josse breathed.
The dark man said, ‘I perceive not his name. But he allies himself with one who is important in your land, who bears power and ever seeks more. But, powerful though he is, he is accompanied by one yet greater than he, one who is a magus of rare ability.’ He paused. ‘One who is spoken of with awe even among the great sorcerers of my own land.’
‘Where is that land?’ Josse asked, feeling that he already knew.
The man said, ‘To you, my homeland is a part of the great region to the east of the Inland Sea, the area that you know as Outremer. But we call it Lebanon.’
The name was only vaguely familiar to Josse; he was ashamed of his ignorance, as if not to know of a man’s homeland were some sort of insult. He did not wish to dwell on the thought; hastening on, he said, ‘You did not know who I was at first, when you crept up on me. But then, quite suddenly, your attitude changed, as if you had been told who I was. What happened?’
Again the man slid his hand inside his cloak. ‘I knew,’ he replied. ‘Is that not enough?’
It wasn’t, not by a long way. But Josse felt that to pursue the matter would get him nowhere and might actually antagonise the stranger. He said quietly, ‘I see.’
The man smiled, his regular teeth white in his dark face. ‘I think not,’ he murmured. Then, as if making up his mind, he said, ‘I will tell you a tale, Sir Josse d’Acquin, Geoffroi’s son, if you have ears to listen.’
‘That I have,’ Josse said; too quickly, for the man’s smile widened at his eagerness.
‘Come and settle by the fire.’ The stranger took his arm. ‘I will spread skins for us to sit on, to keep out the ground’s chill.’ He hurried to his shelter, returning with two neat rolls tied with cord. Unwinding the cords, he laid out what appeared to be sheepskins, the short fleeces cream and tightly curled, unlike any sheep’s fleece that Josse knew of. ‘Sit!’ he said. ‘Be comfortable!’
And Josse, settling down into a cross-legged position by the fire, did as he was told.
The dark stranger waited until he had stopped wriggling before sitting down himself. Then, his movements far more supple and graceful than Josse’s, he sank down on the opposite side of the hearth and began to speak.
‘Long ago, a Persian king bought a beautiful sapphire with an eye in its depths,’ he said. His voice, Josse immediately noticed, had taken on the singsong tones of a professional storyteller, or perhaps merely of a man accustomed to entertaining fellow travellers by the fire. ‘He was drawn to it above every other stone in the merchant’s pack, so he trusted his intuition and bought it. He showed it to his magus, who told him that he had chosen wisely since the stone had power, and would bestow on its rightful owner many very useful gifts. So the king gave the stone to his jewellers, who shaped it and polished it until its shape was round and regular, pleasing to those who looked upon it. And, just as the magus had said, there in its depths, for those who had the patience to study it in silent patience, was its own eye, staring out at the beholder.