‘You were in the fighting?’ Helewise asked.
‘Yes, my lady. I was in the army that took back the great fortress and port of Acre from the infidel and the English monk was of my company. We rode together on the march from Acre to Jaffa and we fought at the Battle of Arsuf, where the Hospitallers formed the rear guard; we and the Templars took it in turns to be the advance guard and that day it was their turn. Despite this, it was our Grand Master himself who led the charge.’ His face glowing, he added quietly, ‘The English monk and I rode side by side.’
Helewise, glancing at Josse, noticed that his face too was alight with excitement. Men, she thought.
‘As we routed the last attacking Saracens, the English monk encountered an old friend. It was his former lord and he had been stricken with dysentery. He was so unwell that he could not sit his horse and the Englishman was ordered to take him back through the lines to where he could be treated. But the lord showed no sign of a speedy recovery and it was decided that he should go back to Acre and thence to his kinsman’s estate in Antioch. Our army was indebted to him; he had supplied a strong force of knights and men-at-arms, most of whom remained to fight with us, and in recognition of this the Hospitallers were ordered to provide an escort to see him safely home. The English monk was selected to care for his lord, and although the task was not to his taste and he would have preferred to remain with the army, he had to do as he was told.’
‘Was that the last time that you saw him?’ Helewise asked.
‘No, my lady. When the fighting was over and King Richard set sail from Acre after the Peace of Ramla, we returned to Crac des Chevaliers and quite soon after that I was posted to Margat. The English monk turned up there one day late in 1192. He had, apparently, been there on and off for the past year, alternating his duties with nursing his lord back to health in Antioch. By December his lord was well enough to go home to England and our monk, not wanting to go with him, came back to us.’ Thibault frowned. ‘He was different,’ he said. ‘Something deep within him had changed. He was still dutiful and conscientious; he took on any duty that was laid upon him, however arduous, without complaint and he would carry out the task to the best of his ability. But it seemed to me that his heart was no longer in it.’
‘And it was at this time that he was selected for the mission in the desert?’ Josse asked. ‘The prisoner exchange that went so wrong?’
‘Yes,’ Thibault replied. ‘I selected him to be part of the escort because I thought that the experience would be something out of the ordinary. Something with a dash of excitement, which might help him draw the sundered parts of himself back together again.’ He looked at Helewise. ‘My intention was good,’ he said quietly. ‘But it ended, as you know, in disaster.’
There was a short silence, as if all three were honouring the memory of those who died. Then Josse said, ‘Thibault, it seems that you liked this English monk?’
Thibault closed his eyes, his expression grief-stricken. ‘I did. He was a good man and I both liked and respected him.’ He opened his eyes again and glared at Josse. ‘I find it all but impossible to believe that he can have acted in such a cowardly way!’ he burst out. ‘He was the last man I would have expected to run away and leave his dead and dying brethren to their fate!’
Helewise had remembered something. ‘Did you not tell us that there was something odd about the dying brother’s last words?’ she asked. ‘Brother James, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, Brother James. And you are right, my lady. I had the impression that James was trying to say that Brother — that the English monk had done well to run off as he did.’ He shook his head. ‘I have thought about it so much — if only poor Brother James could have explained more thoroughly! — and I cannot envisage a situation where running away was the right thing.’
‘Perhaps-’ Helewise began. But then, aware of the two fighting men beside her, both of whom knew so very much more about these matters than she did, she stopped.
Josse said, ‘Go on, my lady. What is your thought?’
‘Oh — I am sure it is nothing.’
‘Tell us, anyway,’ Thibault invited. ‘It cannot be more far-fetched than some of my ideas.’
She returned his smile. ‘I wonder whether something even worse would have happened if this English monk had stayed with his brothers. If they had each received a fatal blow and he had escaped injury, he would have been the only Hospitaller left to carry out the mission.’
‘The prisoner exchange, you mean?’ Josse asked.
‘Yes. You said, Thibault, that the knights and men of your Order are renowned for their obedience?’
‘Yes, indeed.’
‘Then as the sole survivor, would not this Englishman have taken upon himself the task of fulfilling the mission?’
‘Ye-es,’ Thibault said slowly.
‘The knights and the enemy had both suffered many casualties,’ she said, excited. ‘You said, Thibault, that the surviving enemy removed their dead and injured?’
‘That is correct,’ Thibault confirmed.
‘It must have been a terrible fight,’ she said. ‘In the midst of it, the Englishman could have seen that although it was too late to help his brethren, he might still get the prisoner away to be exchanged at a later date. Wasn’t that the purpose of the night’s excursion?’
Thibault was thinking. ‘I suppose it could have happened like that,’ he murmured. ‘It is possible that the English monk regarded the order to guard the prisoner as more important than attending to his brethren.’ His eyes lit up. ‘He might even have been ordered to take the prisoner away — perhaps that was what Brother James was trying to tell me!’ He turned to Helewise. ‘Thank you, my lady. You have given me something to think about while I lie here.’ He added something else; she was not sure she caught the words but it was enough to make her feel a sudden heat in her face. She turned away and suggested to Josse that they leave Thibault to rest.
She thought he said, ‘I was wrong about you. You are a woman to reckon with.’
She would have to confess and do penance for the sudden rush of pride the remark had brought in its wake…
Outremer, September 1194
He had to get away.
Those few who were left alive of the enemy had removed their dead and wounded and gone. He had heard their wails as they had ridden away. The servant with the deep cut to his cheek had stemmed the blood and managed to get the fat man to his feet and outside to the horses. The fat man, groaning and wheezing, had been clutching his right arm, into which Brother Andreas’s sword had bitten deeply as the fat man drew his vicious, curved knife and sliced into Brother Theobald’s throat. The fat man would live; Theobald would not.
Brother James was still alive — just — although the poor man could not have very long. The young man knelt beside him, his face close to James’s mouth, for he could see that James was trying to talk.
‘You must — go,’ he whispered.
‘No! I will look after you until help comes!’
‘NO. That is an order and you will obey me. Take the prisoner and go.’
‘But-’
Brother James steeled himself for a last effort. ‘If you stay here, others will come and they may arrive before our brethren come looking for us. Then you too will die, the prisoner will be lost and, most important, that which you now carry will not reach its destination.’
‘I can’t leave you!’ he whispered.
‘You must,’ Brother James said. ‘God bless you, my brother, and keep you safe.’ Then, with one last direct look into the young monk’s eyes, his lids fluttered down and he turned his face away.