A scruffy lot, muttered Joe, trying to read the slogans on the flags and pennants.
From what he could make out between the cryptic symbols, the assembly was a gathering of a group called the Order of the Mystic Shrine, a society of Freemasons made up of men with high Masonic degrees. The speaker was saying that Masons from many lodges in many countries had made the long journey to Jerusalem to take part in this international conclave of the Order, the first ever held in the rock chambers beneath the western ramparts of the Old City that had long been popularly known as Solomon's Quarries, the spot where stonemasons in antiquity are said to have cut and dressed the stone blocks used by Solomon to build his temple.
And since we trace the origins of Freemasonry back to those very stonemasons, continued the speaker of the platform, it is truly a momentous event in history, albeit a secret one the world will never know about, for us to gather here and perform the mystical rites of our fraternal Order in the lofty chamber where Solomon's temple was hewed from the earth, a chamber which can honestly be said to be Solomon's temple in eternity, this spacious area where we now stand, once carved out and emptied by our brothers, being nothing less than the material form of the spiritual shrine we carry within us and treasure in common.
Flags fluttered and pennants waved. There were cries of here here, yes yes, more more, true true. The speaker smiled beneficently and raised his hand for silence.
By God that's cute, thought Joe, the complicated cant of stones. Cant as can and emptied quarries for heads. Mystical all right, at least to me. What's it all mean?
Haj Harun was urgently tugging him by the sleeve, so distraught Joe couldn't understand his frantic whispering.
What did you say?
I said we have to stop them now before it's too late, before they have a chance to return to their armies.
There may never be another opportunity like this, all of them in one room together, to be dealt with in a single blow. Come on. We have to go down there.
We'd be surrounded, whispered Joe. Black and Tans all over us.
When you're defending Jerusalem you're always surrounded.
But the odds are disastrous. Only two of us against two hundred of them.
When you're defending Jerusalem the odds are always like that, whispered Haj Harun hurriedly. They never get better and sometimes they get worse. Come on.
No, I still think we ought to wait for developments. Maybe they'll set fire to themselves or something.
Those peaked hats will be a definite fire hazard when the torches burn down a bit.
Haj Harun groaned softly.
But they killed a hundred thousand of us the last time. We simply can't let that happen again. The thought of it is making me hear noises in my head.
Steady man, whispered Joe, easy does it. No unwanted noises in the head at this critical juncture in history.
Noises, repeated Haj Harun desperately, I can hear them coming. Clanging their swords on the cobblestones and slaughtering the innocent until the streets are running with blood, oh it was horrible. The streets were knee-deep with bodies.
Haj Harun shuddered. Then his expression changed and he raised his head defiantly.
They were the ones who first made me wear my yellow cloak. I remember it now.
Why?
To set me apart. To try to humiliate me as a Jew.
Joe looked puzzled.
Are you telling me you're a Jew on top of everything else?
Haj Harun waved his hand vaguely.
When you've been around Jerusalem as long as I have, before people were divided into names like that, you're whatever the enemy wants to call you. But I absolutely refused to be humiliated. Instead I wore my yellow cloak with dignity. I've always worn it with dignity. But all the same, Prester John, the noises in my head are getting worse.
No, hold on. Close your eyes and they'll go away.
Noises, whispered Haj Harun and leapt to his feet. He sounded a tremendous blast on his ram's horn.
The faces in the hall turned up toward the ledge in astonishment. Haj Harun waved his ram's horn in the air and shouted across the chamber.
Walter the Penniless. I see you skulking down there, you and all the other scheming Franks planning a new conquest of Jerusalem. But it's not going to happen so give it up, I say, don't persist in your wickedness. This city is eternal and can never be conquered by you or anyone else, when will you ever learn that? So take your armed hordes away and never besiege us and starve us and kill us again. We won't be conquered. We simply refuse to be conquered.
Haj Harun sounded a second powerful blast on his ram's horn.
Hear me down there. If you absolutely refuse to withdraw I hereby challenge the bravest among you to individual combat. Step forward, he who dares. Tancred? Bohemond? Peter the Hermit? Raise your sword, any one of you, I'm ready.
Haj Harun sounded a third and final blast on the ram's horn. Joe reached out and tried to stop him, but before he could Haj Harun's spindly legs went churning out into space. His faded yellow cloak flared as he sailed out over the edge of the ledge and plummeted down toward the crowd of stunned faces below.
There was a heavy thud and a terrible cracking of bones.
Joe looked down, horrified. Haj Harun lay crumpled on the stone floor, feebly holding his ram's horn in the air. There was a shiny new dent in the top of his rusty helmet.
The Masons began to yell at each other in confusion. Flags and pennants and peaked hats surged forward as they pressed around the extraordinary apparition on the floor. One of them nudged Haj Harun with his foot and the old man twitched, letting out a low moan. He seemed to be trying to get the ram's horn to his lips for another blast, but he obviously didn't have the strength to move.
Alive, thought Joe. There's that at least.
All at once he realized they were both still wearing the handkerchief masks they had put on in the cognac cellar.
Oh help, thought Joe, two bloody bandits in the underworld, that's what they'll be thinking we are. Hired subterranean thugs and vicious cutthroats come to disrupt their silly revels and spy on their foolish games.
We're for it now and what would the baking priest be likely to advise at a time like this? Anything, that's the job. Anything, as long as it's fast.
Joe jumped to his feet and raised a clenched fist.
Hold it right there, he shouted, just hold it, you Freemasonry rabble. This is the Irish Republican Army you're looking at and this uniform is IRA combat issue for special underground warfare in Jerusalem.
We've had this quarry mined with heavy explosives for months waiting for you to turn up and reveal your fiendish anti-Jesuit plots, and now that we've heard them all we're taking our information aboveground and going straight to the pope, and dead is the fanatic who tries to stop us. Stand fast or I'll tell the old man down there to sound a fourth blast on his ram's horn, which is the signal for the apocalypse as sure as St John ever wrote the Word. One more blast from his horn and the bombs will blow and you'll all be on your way back to Solomon all right, the world well rid of your black anti-Catholic hearts. Freeze for your lives.
Joe leapt lightly to the floor and whirled in a circle, glaring at the stupefied Masons. Then he knelt and gathered up the miserable Haj Harun who had been crawling helplessly in circles, his helmet jammed down on his nose, so that he couldn't see, tears streaming down his face from the rain of rust in his eyes.
We won, whispered Joe in his ear.
We did?
Yes. Not one of them dared accept your challenge. Not Bohemond, not Tancred, not even that scheming scoundrel Walter the Penniless. Paralyzed with fear they were and they're going home without raising a sword. You did it. Jerusalem's saved.