I had just slipped off my gloves and taken up the stylus when a movement caught my eye. A bird, the size and colour of a crow, was flying in low swooping arcs across the hillside. Occasionally it stopped and landed on a boulder. It was the only living creature in the immense, frozen landscape, and I wondered what it found to feed on. I watched the bird come closer until it settled on a rocky outcrop below me. I turned my attention back to the work in hand and began to scratch out a diagram of our route for the past three days. The wax tablet had hardened in the cold and the metal point of the stylus skidded on the brittle glazed surface. I pressed harder, the wax chipping and flaking. I engraved the main line of the route then started to mark the location of the mountain villages I had seen and the distance between them. The air was so still and the silence of the mountains so absolute that I clearly heard the sound of claws scrabbling on rock as the bird settled on the crest of a boulder, not six feet from me. It cawed loudly. Its voice came back as an echo from the far mountainside.
I ignored the bird and worked on, head down. I was anxious to finish my work before the Saracens thought I was overdue and came looking for me. After a short while I heard the soft flap of wings as the bird flew away. Then came a tiny clink, the sharp sound of a pebble falling on rock. I vaguely thought that the sun melting the snow must have released a stone lying on the crust.
I was concentrating so fiercely on my work that I was shocked by the loud crack as something smashed into the boulder close to my head. I jerked back and felt a sharp sting on my cheek. A round pebble, the size of a hen’s egg, fell to the ground beside me.
I dropped my writing materials and sprang to my feet. Fifty yards away and slightly up the slope a shaggily dressed man was standing and whirling a strap around his head. I recognized a slinger and threw myself to the ground just as he released his second missile. I heard it whirr overhead. If it had struck me in the head the blow would have split my skull.
Seeing that he had missed, my attacker turned and began to run, dodging from rock to rock up the hillside.
A cold rage seized me. This attack was too similar to the murderous assault in the forest to be a coincidence. This time I would not let my assailant get away. I picked up my bow, nocked an arrow to the string, and then turned to judge the distance to my target. The slinger had not gone far. He had chosen to run directly uphill, thinking no doubt that he could outdistance any pursuit, and his decision had slowed him down. Evidently he had not noticed my bow lying on the ground beside me. He was running straight, not bothering to weave from side to side. He was an easy target.
Taking a deep, slow breath, I took up the tension on the bow and waited. It was like one of the archery exercises that Osric had made me repeat so often in the royal park of Aachen. My target was a dark, shapeless figure, bundled in heavy fur clothing, moving steadily and predictably up the slope away from me. In another few yards he would cross an undisturbed patch of snow. I waited until he was halfway across the white background and clearly outlined. Then, in a single controlled movement that concentrated all my rage, I drew the bow to full extent, aimed and released, watching the arrow fly up the hill.
The arrow struck the slinger squarely in the back. He pitched face forward into the slope. There was a moment’s pause as though he was embracing the mountain, then his body slithered back down a few feet in the snow and came to rest.
I put the bow down. My hands shook for the first time as I collected up the writing tablet and stylus, put them away in their wooden box, and then hid them safely out of sight inside my coat. I retrieved the bow and the second of the two arrows, though I knew it would not be needed. Then I began climbing towards the man I had struck down.
There was a shout from the hillside below me. One of the Saracens was calling my name. I did not answer but kept heading upwards, taking deep deliberate breaths, each step breaking through the crust of snow.
I reached my victim. He was still lying face down, the feathered shaft of my arrow protruding a hand’s span from the grimy fabric of his heavy wolfskin jacket. I had struck him square between his shoulder blades. Callously I put the toe of my boot beneath him and turned him so he lay on his side. He was a man of middle age, his face gaunt with hunger and burned dark by the sun. A few strands of dirty grey hair straggled out from under a tight-fitting cap, also of wolfskin. A long scar, perhaps the result of a sword cut, ran from his left ear to the side of his mouth. He was breathing but only just. I had never seen him before.
I kicked him hard in the ribs.
‘Who sent you?’ I snarled.
His eyes opened, revealing dark brown irises, and he mumbled something in a strange, spiky-sounding language.
I kicked him again, more viciously.
‘Who sent you?’ I demanded.
He had not long to live. My arrow, large and heavy enough to have brought down a bear, had transfixed the man. The bloody head, three fingers’ width of sharp iron, emerged from the front of his coat which he had wrapped tight around his chest, using his sling as a belt.
I felt a hand on my elbow and turned to see Husayn. He looked shocked, staring down at the dying man for several moments before turning to face me.
‘Are you hurt?’ he asked. I put up my hand to my cheek. It came away streaked with blood. The first slingstone must have knocked a chip off the rock where I was sitting, and the flying shard had cut my face.
‘Who is this wretch?’ I asked angrily.
The wali bent down and asked the man a question, speaking in the Saracen tongue.
He got a faint reply, again in that strange-sounding language. Then there was a choking sound. A grimace of pain passed across the battered face, the eyes were now shut in agony.
‘What did he say?’ I demanded.
Husayn straightened up.
‘He’s a Vascon. I recognize the language but he is too far gone for me to make out the words.’
‘Search the bastard,’ I growled. ‘Maybe we will find a clue about who sent him.’
By now Osric had reached us. He knelt down and began to rummage through the man’s garments. He found only a pouch containing half a dozen sling stones, a lump of hard cheese in one pocket, and a knife with a short stubby blade in a wooden sheath. By the time he had finished, the man had stopped breathing, choking on his own blood.
‘A brigand, surely,’ said Husayn.
‘Then he was a foolish one. He was on his own,’ I pointed out.
Osric looked to me for instructions.
‘What do you want done with the body?’
‘Leave it for his friends, the bears and wolves,’ I said sourly and began making my way down the slope back towards our horses. I did not want to stay a moment longer in that grim place and I needed to puzzle out who could have arranged the attack. Ganelon and Gerin were many miles away. My immediate suspect was Husayn, though the wali seemed genuinely shocked by what had occurred.
Husayn said little for the rest of that day’s ride. The incident had delayed us and we were obliged to push our horses hard to reach our destination that night, a smoky shepherd’s hut that doubled as a way-station for travellers. Fortunately the shepherd was there, and he lit a fire and prepared a pot of mutton broth for his visitors. With hot food inside me, I asked Husayn to tell the shepherd that we had left a dead man in the pass. I hoped that it might lead to some information.
Husayn relayed the information and the shepherd gave me a sideways look, furtive and mistrustful. Then his face closed and, without a word, he got up and left the hut and did not return.
‘Is he a Vascon, too?’ I asked Husayn.
‘He belongs to one of their mountain clans.’
‘And you speak their language, as well as Latin? I’m impressed.’