The Spymaster's Protection (47 page)

“Has the bleeding stopped?”

“Somewhat.”

Lucien looked toward his friend’s leg and saw that it was so,
then squinted through the glare of the sun and saw the king, some of the more
prominent barons, and the Grand Masters of both orders being led into the
sultan’s tent. Their fate promised to be much more merciful than what awaited
all the rest of the warrior monks languishing on their knees to either side of
Lucien.

Never had he regretted his lack of wealth or family
connections more than at that moment. The men under the shade of the sultan’s
tents would be held until ransomed, then returned to their loved ones. Lucien
knew the fate of all those out here on their knees in the center of the camp.
They wouldn’t live to see the sunset this day.

By all that was holy, he had never been afraid to die! But
today he was terrified of it. Today he had someone to live for.

Gabrielle, forgive me for failing to keep my promise to
return to you!

An image of her as he had last seen her rose in his mind.
She’d been smiling valiantly, but beneath her smile, he’d seen how frightened
she had been for him.
Ah, God, a lifetime with her was not to be then!
More than the heat, the thirst, and the pain, that thought threatened to crush
him beneath its bitter truth. Naught could break him, but that; knowing that
he’d never hold her in his arms again or know the joy of her beside him every
day.

A strange burning began at the back of his eyes, and Lucien
realized it was tears; the first he’d shed since his parents had died. He
dropped his head, wondering how in God’s name his dehydrated body could produce
water. But to his shock, they brimmed enough to fill his eyes, then dropped
onto the sandy soil beneath his unprotected kneecaps, their precious liquid
good to no one. Bending his head, he let them fall, unashamed to expend them
for the woman he loved.

His grief evolved into a silent petitioning prayer as he
squeezed his eyes shut.

“Lucien, look at that.”

He lifted his head slowly, swaying from dizziness. Across from
him, Saladin was offering King Guy a cup of something to drink. Lucien was
reminded of the Arab custom that allowed life to a captive when the captor
offered him food and drink.

He wondered if the food and drink Saladin and the Blue Wolf
had offered him and Gabrielle in Damascus covered his current circumstances,
then laughed bitterly at himself for grasping at such shards of hope.

After taking a long draught, the king passed the sultan’s cup
to the man standing next to him. For the first time, Lucien realized it was
Reynald de Châtillon. God, what bitter irony that he should live and Lucien
should die! He looked closer, but found no sign of Gabrielle’s father. He
wondered if Armand had died in battle or escaped.

“I did not offer that cup to the likes of him!” Saladin
roared, suddenly reaching out and slapping the cup from Reynald’s hands. “This
criminal does not merit my safe-conduct.”

Lucien could not hear exactly what the Lord of Oultrejourdan
said in reply, but he could tell by the tone it was arrogant and derogatory.

Saladin glared at him, concealing a barely controlled rage,
then turned to the Templar Grand Master, who was standing next to de Châtillon.
“Master de Ridefort, know you what I intend for your brothers behind you?”

For the first time, the Grand Master turned around to give
notice to the men strung out on their knees in the dirt.

“I intend to rid our people of this plague upon our land. You
and your monks have given this false kingdom of yours life far beyond what it
would have otherwise had. Today I correct that. Though our faith decrees that
conversion under threat of death is contrary to the will of Allah, I will ask
each of them to convert to the true faith. All those who refuse will be
executed; some here and now to show you how I will wipe your soldier monks from
the face of Palestine, the rest later, in Damascus, for there are too many to
slay today. My men are tired.”

To demonstrate his resolve, the sultan raised a hand and
called out an order in a loud clear voice. Lucien looked to the far end of the
line. The first brother, a knight of the Temple Lucien recognized as a young
man from England, newly arrived but months ago, was drug forth a few feet. His
prayers could be heard even from where Lucien knelt. The Blue Wolf emerged from
the sultan’s tent. He strode up to the young knight and asked in heavily
accented Norman French if he would convert to Islam. The young man called out a
brave
nay
.

Lucien wanted to turn away, but like the others, he did not.
All honored the bravery of the Templar with their witness.

The executioner was a giant black skinned Mameluk, a warrior
slave that wielded an enormous axe shaped like a long, wide curving Arab sword.
At least death would be swift, Lucien thought, as he watched the gleaming blade
lifted high in the air. The Blue Wolf looked to his sovereign. Saladin nodded.
The Turk gave the executioner the nod.

In a single stroke, the great scimitar struck the head from
the Englishman’s neck, leaving it to roll across the ground, toward the
sultan’s tent. The sultan yanked it up by its long beard and swung it before de
Ridefort.

“See you, what you have wrought?” Saladin inquired in angry
demand, his voice rising so all could hear. “Will you
beg
mercy for your brethren? Will you call for them to convert to Islam to save
their lives? Will you lie down your arms and return to whence you came?”

The questions rolled off the sultan’s cultured tongue with
increasing fury. De Ridefort replied with a snarl of rage. “Knights of the
Temple of Solomon are prepared to die for their faith. They will not convert to
your filthy religion! They will go to meet their God with glad hearts.”

Glad hearts?
Lucien thought with dismay. Many, most
especially himself, would not go so gladly. But the Grand Master was correct
about one thing— out of the several hundred Templars and Hospitallers taken
captive this day, none would renounce their faith and convert to Islam.

When it became his turn to convert or die, he would meet his
death with his belief in the one true Lord intact. Though he loved Gabrielle
beyond all else, he could not relinquish his faith for her; his brotherhood in
the Temple, aye, but not his faith. He may not have joined the Order out of
faith, but his life was rooted in it.

Conrad seemed to be reading his thoughts. “You will not….”

Lucien knew what he asked. “Nay, brother, I will not disavow
the Almighty.”

“I hope they take us to Damascus,” his friend murmured.

“It will be a more merciful death here, swift and over with
quickly, without pain. I have been in the prison at Damascus. They will make us
suffer badly there.”

Conrad sucked in another gasp of pain as he twisted at the
waist to see his friend more clearly. “I am sorry about Lady de Châtillon,
Lucien. I wish you could have…”

“I will meet her in eternity… if God mercifully accepts my
tarnished soul.”

“You are a good man, Lucien de Aubric. He will.”

Lucien wasn’t so sure, but he prayed Conrad was right. An
eternity with Gabrielle was all it appeared he would have left of her.

When the Blue Wolf walked down the line and stopped randomly
at the next man, he ordered him brought forth. It was another Templar, an older
knight, a field commander.

“Well, what say you, de Ridefort? This one does not convert,
either. Will you beg for his life? Will you beseech him to accept Islam?”

Lucien was not surprised that the sultan taunted the Grand
Master so. He was a man he held in great enmity.

“Tell the damned infidel to go to the devil that spawned him!”
Reynald de Châtillon shouted out to his comrade, the Grand Master, as he spat
at the sultan’s feet.

With a snarl of rage, Saladin, Defender of the Faithful,
usually known for his patience and deliberation, grabbed a sword from one of
his generals. “For all that you have done to my people, my family, and even
your own people, to the fires of hell with you, Reynald de Châtillon!” he
thundered as he swung his long curved blade and struck off the head of the Lord
of Oultrejourdan.

While the captives inside the tent, on either side of Reynald,
cringed in terror, Saladin dipped his finger into the dead trunk of the body,
at the headless neck, and smeared his enemy’s blood on his cheek. “I have taken
the vengeance Allah commands. The rest of you will not be harmed, but will be
held at Damascus to await ransom.” Turning, he looked directly at King Guy. “A
king does not kill a king,” he informed him, then turned his attention on
Gérard de Ridefort. “You will accompany me, monk. I have use of you still.”

At the lifting of the sultan’s hand, the king and the nobles
were taken away, while the Grand Masters were seated in backless chairs facing
the execution line before them. Saladin disappeared as de Châtillon’s body was
being taken away. A few minutes the baron’s head reappeared, mounted on a stake
that was shoved into the ground before the sultan’s tent.

Lucien stared at the gruesome memento of the sultan’s fury,
unmoved by Reynald’s horrific fate. For all he had done to the kingdom, for all
the truces he had broken, the lives he had shattered, particularly his wife’s
and prematurely born child’s, he had met a just end, to Lucien’s way of
thinking. At least now, Gabrielle would be safe from him. That gave Lucien
great peace as the Blue Wolf advanced down the line of Hospitallers and
Templars, toward him.

Beside him, Brother Conrad was praying rapidly and fervently,
repeating the Lord’s Prayer and David’s twenty-third Psalm over and over.

A dozen men from both orders lost their heads during the next
half hour. Only one converted. As he was led away, de Ridefort and some of his
brethren condemned him to eternal damnation. Lucien could not find it in his
heart to lay blame at the man’s feet. The smell of blood congealing in great
red-brown pools and the grisly sight of severed heads littering the sand tested
the strength and fortitude of them all.

Even though he was nearly senseless from the blistering heat
and lack of water, Lucien held himself as erect as possible. His tongue was too
thick from thirst to speak to Conrad anymore. His brother had to be in worse
shape, for the sound of his prayers had long ago become only a whispered rasp.
Lucien guessed they were still being silently completed, though. Conrad was a
man of much greater faith than himself. He wanted to turn and offer his friend
encouragement and solace, but he did not have the strength to do so.

Before them the Grand Masters sat and watched. The Hospitaller
Grand Master had been driven to cries for mercy many times, only to be severely
berated by de Ridefort for being a coward and showing such weakness. The
bastard had not even grimaced when his brothers’ heads had been struck from
their dirt and blood encrusted bodies. He sat like a stone, as if he felt
nothing. But why should he? He knew he would likely walk away from this
tragedy. What were a couple of hundred more lives? In his career as Grand
Master of the Brotherhood, he had squandered hundreds more than this. Damn his
soul! Lucien raged silently.

When the executioner came within two men of him. Lucien
grinned in defiance as the giant looked maliciously toward him and Conrad.
By
God
, Lucien, thought,
I’ll not go to my death meekly!

“General Gökböri!” He shouted the emir’s name loudly, in
perfectly inflected Arabic. “Is this how the great Blue Wolf and his desert
lord treat one they have shared food and drink with?”

Across from him, Lucien saw de Ridefort rise and shout out his
name. “De Aubric, you disavowed whoreson! You do not deserve a martyr’s death
as do those alongside you.”

The sultan had reappeared and sat in the back of his open
tent, in council with his other commanders. When he heard the Templar Grand
Master bellow out Lucien’s name, he rose from his silk cushioned chair and
walked out to the row of kneeling captives.

Muzaffar al Din Gökböri was well over six feet tall, a man
built as solidly as a bear, but as lithe as the lion he was often referred to.
Beside the giant executioner, he did not look nearly as small as everyone else.
The shadow both men cast over Lucien as they stepped up to him encompassed
Conrad as well, and was most welcome.

General Gökböri reached out and hooked a finger into the gold
chain that glittered around Lucien’s neck. His ungauntleted hand pulled it out
from under Lucien’s blood-drenched undershirt. The finely carved gold crescent
moon inset with its sizeable clear stone looked tiny in the emir’s big hand and
winked brilliantly under the desert sun.

Finally he dropped it back against Lucien’s chest and stared
at him for several long moments. Lucien could feel Conrad tense beside him.

“What are you doing here, with these Templars, Lucien de
Aubric?” Gökböri demanded.

Lucien had to tip his head back a long way to look up into the
emir’s face. As he had been the last time he had seen him, the Turk was dressed
in a long red leather hauberk. Only this time, he was wearing a steel cuirass,
upper body armor that covered the breast, back and hips. He wore no headscarf
or helmet, and his long black hair was woven into multiple braids down the
back.

“I was captured with my brothers as I defended my friend’s
back and he mine,” he answered simply, nodding toward Conrad.

Saladin stepped up beside his general. He was now attired in
loose lightweight robes of red and yellow silk, with his traditional yellow cap
still atop his dark head. “Spymaster, you are a disavowed Templar, are you
not?” the sultan demanded. “You do not belong here anymore. And I
have
broken bread and shared drink with you. No harm shall come to you.” He looked
to his general and nodded toward Lucien. “Release him.” Then Saladin turned and
headed back to his tent.