'Well done, Wazim,' I called, hurrying to join him.
At our appearance, the Arab straightened. Wazim, glad to be relieved of this dangerous duty glanced around at us, taking his eyes from his captive. The spearhead wavered and dipped as he turned. It was a fatal mistake. The Fida'i darted forwards and, before I could call a warning, reached behind his back and whipped out a slender dagger. Wazim, sensing the attack, raised the spear, catching the Arab in the pit of the stomach.
I watched in horror as the Fida'i grasped the spear and held it, then, with a great sweeping motion of his arm, drew the knife blade across Wazim's throat. The two of them fell to the ground together, one atop the other.
Padraig rolled the dying Arab aside, and I knelt over Wazim Kadi. I took his hand and he looked up at me and smiled. He moved his mouth, but he could not speak. 'I am sorry, my friend,' I told him. 'Go with God.'
He gave out a little sigh and his life passed from him. Padraig and I knelt beside his body for a time. Like the good Cele De he was, Padraig stretched his hands over the body, one palm at the forehead, one at the heart; he spoke a rune for the dead, and then prayed our friend on his way:
'The sleep of seven joys be thine, dear friend.
With waking to the peace of paradise,
With glad waking to eternal peace in paradise.'
We hurried on with our search, scouring every last corner of the house, yard, and outbuildings until we were satisfied that there were no more intruders to be found. Padraig put his hand on my shoulder. 'It is over.'
'No,' I told him. 'There is one more.'
Taking up Wazim's spear which Padraig had removed from the dead Arab, I crossed the courtyard and opened the gate to find the last of the Fida'in crouching beside the wall. He was rocking slowly back and forth, cradling his crushed arm across his body. He turned his head and looked at us as we stepped out onto the road. His eyes were half-lidded and his movements sluggish as he made to stand.
Padraig, holding out his empty hands, slowly advanced towards the injured Fida'i. 'Peace,' he said. 'Salaam.'
The Arab fumbled at his belt with his good hand and brought out a knife. Holding it at arm's length, he uttered a low growl of warning, his speech slurred and muttering.
'It must be the hashish,' I told Padraig, stepping quickly beside him.
'The killing will stop,' said Padraig, extending his hand once more. 'Give me your weapon.'
At that moment, a cock crowed in the yard of a house down the road. Away in the east, night was beginning to fade. The Arab made a clumsy swing with the knife to keep us back and then leaned against the wall, his face to the rising sun.
'Give me the knife,' said Padraig, extending his hand.
The Fida'i looked at us, his dark eyes glazed with drugged hatred. He drew a deep breath, put his head back.
'La ilaha ilia Allah!' he shouted, and then turned the knife on himself, plunging it into his own heart. He slumped backward to the ground and rolled onto his side. A tremor passed through his body, and he gave out a groan which ended in a death rattle. And then it was finished.
After a moment, I bent down and removed the knife. 'Great of Heaven, I pray that was the last of them,' Padraig said quietly.
'Amen.'
'How did they know where to find us?'
'Do you wonder?' I asked. I saw it so clearly in hindsight I could only marvel at my blindness to now. 'They must have been watching Yordanus' house in Famagusta. When he returned to Paphos, they followed him here.'
'But who could have sent them to Fam -' the priest began, and then halted. '… de Bracineaux.' Padraig turned to me, his face illumined by day's first light. 'You knew this would happen.'
'No,' I replied, shaking my head sadly. 'I feared it only.'
'Now that they know where to find us,' Padraig surmised, 'there is nothing to stop them sending more Fida'in. The Templars will not rest until they have achieved their aims.'
'We cannot stay here,' I said. Suddenly exhausted, I passed a hand over my face. My arm was throbbing, and I could feel the beat of pain in my head and all down my side.
The cock crowed again, and then everything grew strangely quiet. I swayed on my feet and my vision blurred. I looked at Padraig and I saw his mouth move but could no longer hear him speaking to me.
I remember very little after that. Only darkness, and a sense of tranquil motion… and then, nothing.
FORTY-NINE
Dearest Caitriona, my life, my light, my hope. If not for the poisoned blades of the wicked Hashishin, I should have been home long since.
As it is, I have been forced to endure another captivity-this time in a bare little cell within the walls of Ayios Moni. Abbot Demitrianos will forgive me for saying that while my clean, bare cell may be poorer by far than the sumptuous chamber I had within the caliph's palace, this new confinement is eminently superior in every way. I have had nothing but the best of care since my arrival these many months ago. Indeed, I do not hesitate to say it: if not for the healing skills of the monks here, I heartily doubt whether I would be drawing breath, much less lifting pen to write to you now, my soul.
Although I chafe at captivity once more, I endure with a high and hopeful heart, and thus resume the work which has occupied me during my long sojourn hi Outremer. Kindly Brother Tomas visits me daily, bringing the list of difficulties his diligent scribes have encountered in their patient work of copying my poor scraps of ruined papyri onto fine, clean parchments. Sometimes it is a word they cannot read owing to the deterioration of the brittle and delicate papyrus; just as often, it is likely to be my ham-fisted script that has brought them to distraction.
Thus we sit together, the gentle brother and I; he asks me to supply the meaning which has perplexed them, and I embellish the tale with remembrances refined by hindsight. My indulgent taskmaster does not like it when I try to improve upon what I have written. He insists that it must be rendered as first I set it down. This, he tells me, assures a purity of authenticity-something the fastidious brothers seem overly keen to preserve, it seems to me. But then, I am no scholar, nor ever likely to be. Still, I cannot help myself; the memories come thick and fast, so vivid and clear; the more I tell, the more I remember. My patient scribes take it all down without complaining and, like busy weavers, make a whole cloth of ragged patches. So my tale grows in the making, expanding beneath the good brothers' diligent hands.
Abbot Demitrianos comes to see me every day also. He tells me that for the first few weeks I was, as he puts it, not of this world. Nor was I of the next world, either, I confess, for I remember nothing save recurrent periods of light and dark-days, perhaps, except they spun like the alternating spokes of a fast turning wheel-and this along with the soft and distant murmur of comforting voices, often with the scent of fragrant smoke. They say I hovered between life and death, and the times I smelled the smoke was when I drifted close to the heavenly altar and partook of the incense of paradise.
As to that, I cannot say I am the wiser for it. Any glories that might have been glimpsed through the veil were certainly lost on me; the all-obscuring shroud remained in place, secure from my prying eyes. Thus, the secrets of the Hereafter are safe for another season.