The Green Count Read online

  My new Armenian friend shook his head. ‘A bloody day. And many good people dead. We have a treaty with the Sultan in Egypt, of course, but nothing with this Turkish thief.’

  ‘You know him?’ I asked.

  ‘How do you come to wear a sword?’ he asked. ‘Franks are forbidden weapons.’

  I was no longer so young as to answer all the questions put to me by my elders. He was a strong, capable man of forty or so, and he’d seen some fighting; his long nose had been broken, he had scars on his hands and face, and he moved like a fighter.

  ‘I take it you know this Turkish thief?’ I asked again.

  ‘Uthman Bey? Everyone knows him, from here to Izmir. His first cousin is a sort of sultan among the Turks. Uthman has nothing but what passes under the hooves of his horses. But he is always plotting to rule something – a town, a city, all Outremer.’ My new friend smiled bitterly. ‘He and I have crossed swords before, and it is pure ill luck that he was here to take me.’ He blew air out of his cheeks. ‘And my sister. Look, Frank, we told the Turks that the woman was my mother. They don’t rape old women.’

  ‘Will he ransom you?’ I asked.

  The Armenian shrugged. ‘If he does, it will only be after I’ve been held a long time and properly toyed with,’ he said. ‘This little turn of ill-fortune will make his reputation, the bastard.’

  I introduced myself. He was Arnaud, and his surname was like a bowl of lemons, something like ‘Hasnus.’ All of them had old-fashioned French names, and they were all intermarried with the Lusignans and other crusader lords. It was somewhat remarkable; they wore French fashions; one of the men had a pourpointe cut and stuffed just like mine, with tight sleeves and a tiny waist, but they were swarthy as Saracens, three of them. Only Arnaud’s sister and the smallest of the knights were sandy haired.

  They kept me well away from the woman, as well, protecting her, it was clear.

  The Greek fathers – who I now discovered to be Greeks and Armenians, of course – served us food, and there were hours of conversation between the Armenian knights and the local priest, all in their own tongue. I couldn’t read their books and my nose hurt, and I went and slept, woke to eat, and slept again.

  The next day, after a good bath in the yard, I paid a woman to wash my clothes, and another to stitch me up a shirt and braes so that I would have a change and be not quite so foul. About the middle of the day, to my immense surprise, the Franciscan priest, Father Angelo, appeared. He exchanged a stiff greeting with my host in Greek, and then came and sat by me.

  ‘I am relieved to find you here,’ he said. ‘Your officer is concerned for you. Brother Marco sent me word that a Frank was here as a prisoner.’ He leaned forward. ‘You see what comes of fighting?’

  I touched my nose. ‘I did no fighting at all, Father. If I had, I would be dead. Does Fra Peter have some prisoners of his own?’

  Father Angelo nodded. ‘Yes, my son. The Greek knights captured six men.’

  ‘Were there any … people … injured? Any pilgrims?’ I asked.

  ‘Your question does you credit,’ he said. ‘But no. A few arrows fell near us, but you and your man drove them off.’

  I remember blushing. You’d think a hardened killer like me would stop blushing; it’s the red hair, I swear it. Of course, I cared no whit for the pilgrims. Or perhaps I do myself an injustice. I cared that they lived or died, but until then I had lived with the notion that one of those slim cane arrows had struck Emile.

  I laughed. ‘Don’t you think that knights are of some value now, Father?’ I asked.

  He did not give a pat answer. Instead, he looked … troubled.

  ‘Indeed, Sir William,’ he said. ‘It is fifty years and more since we lost Acre, and a hundred since Christians governed this city. My Order has had no choice but to develop other means of contesting the truth and acting as Christians than by the sword. You have a reputation as a man who thinks – surely you know what Jesus said about violence.’

  ‘Live by the sword, die by the sword,’ I said. I believe I touched mine. ‘It is the role of my ordo, and if I die by the sword, so be it.’

  He shook his head. ‘I do not think that Jesus meant that it was good for some men to choose to die by the sword.’

  Knowing that Emile was well restored me as water does a man in the desert.

  ‘I should know better than to dispute theology with a Franciscan,’ I said. ‘But the brothers who taught me to read taught me that one of the earliest of Jesus’s disciples was the centurion, nor is there a word of censure against his profession in all the Gospels.’ I held up my hand. ‘I do not mean to dispute with you, Father. We had a poor start. I will certainly listen to your sermons, but there are pressing matters. I am not the only prisoner here.’ I explained, and Father Angelo rose, troubled.

  When I was done, Father Angelo went to the Orthodox priest, and the two had words. I don’t think it was a pleasant conversation; it was clear enough to me that the two men scarcely tolerated each other.

  Father Angelo sat with me again. ‘I would like to move you across the road, to the Franciscan house,’ he said.

  ‘I think that I should stay here,’ I replied. It was my fancy that, because the Turks had been ordered to treat me well, they were more careful of the Armenians, and that if I left, things could go worse for them. I didn’t want to explain this notion.

  ‘They have beaten you,’ the Franciscan said.

  ‘We had … a misunderstanding,’ I said. ‘You note I am allowed to keep my weapons.’

  ‘I do not pretend to understand why,’ he said.

  However, despite the way he’d treated us in Jaffa, the priest was trying to be helpful. I rather liked the way he disputed. He was respectful of my views. Most priests treat knights and men-at-arms as beasts of burden.

  And I confess that I was aware of how often Father Pierre Thomas had hinted at similar beliefs about violence. I was troubled. By the Saviour, I am still troubled.

  At any rate, he was a better man than I had expected, and he agreed to let me stay in the Greek hostel, and even went so far as to send across the road for a small, un-illustrated book of sermons.

  I never did read it.

  That night, the Greek priest brought minstrels and dancers into his inn yard; most of them were Moslems, and I never did learn whether they were local, or travellers, or professionals. The dancing was difficult to understand at times and very easy at others; a woman took off some clothing in a blatant display of sensuality that was … too broad for me, and I am a soldier. Two men and a woman did feats of tumbling that I found very wonderful – at one point, when both men had their arms linked, the woman leaped up onto their arms and then somersaulted to the ground. I have seldom seen anything so good, and they might have made their fortunes in England. And I wished for Fiore to see the men; they were flexible beyond anything I have ever seen.

  Some time after the tumblers, I realised that the Armenian lady had joined us. She hid in a shadow under the eaves of the inn, wearing a long dark robe as many women wore there, but I saw her hair in a little lamplight. Perhaps it was the Holy Land, or my feeling for Emile, but her slim ankles and lovely hair did not fire me to do anything but help her.

  I went and stood by Arnaud. He laughed from time to time, but his mood was still grim. I could guess why.

  ‘I asked the priest to tell my captain to negotiate for you,’ I said. ‘And the girl.’

  He frowned. ‘You mean well, Frank. But … Uthman Bey will not give me up unless I give him a castle. Or perhaps my sister to be his wife or concubine.’

  I must have winced.

  Arnaud frowned. ‘It happens. There are more brides across the borders than you might think. My grandmother was born and raised in a Turkish camp.’ He looked at the ground. ‘Uthman and I are, in fact, cousins.’

  ‘Ah,’ I said. Well, anyone who has f
ought in Gascony and the Dordogne understands this sort of thing.

  Anyway, that evening wore on. The players seemed to have an infinite repertoire of tricks and shows; one of the men made a bean grow out of his nose, and we all laughed. It was during that trick when one of my guards accosted me. He ran a hand over my belly and muttered something.

  I had no notion of what he wanted, and I didn’t like his manner. I stepped back, hand on sword.

  Arnaud put his hand on mine. ‘Hold hard,’ he said. ‘He only wants wine.’

  Moslems are forbidden wine. And they love it. Well, fair enough, says I; Christians are forbidden adultery, and I’ve known men and women to make quite a practice of it, aye, and be in church for Mass. To each their own. I was down to my last silver sequin, but I went and fetched a pitcher of the passable red swill that the inn served, and I placed it carefully where the two Turks could see it. I smiled at the smaller man, who’d been kind enough to me, for a guard.

  They put the wine away before the dancing girl could writhe under a stick. And now the big man was back, touching me.

  ‘He thinks you have a pilgrim flask on you,’ Arnaud said. ‘Most Franks have some wine on them, all the time.’

  These are the odd things foreigners believe about you. I have never, that I can remember, had a flask of wine on me when I travelled. Easier to carry it inside me, ha ha! The Turk’s breath smelled of wine, and he was as annoying as a horsefly.

  But the Greek priest put another pitcher of wine in his hands and blessed him.

  I’d had a fair amount of wine myself, by then. But as I watched my two guards make arses of themselves – pawing at the dancing girl, mocking the tumblers, and beginning to sway – it occurred to me that we could simply escape.

  ‘We could knock their heads together,’ I said, ‘steal horses, and ride for Jerusalem.’

  Arnaud looked at me as if a bolt of lightning had struck me. ‘We’d be caught,’ he said, but he was already weighing different odds: long imprisonment, the humiliation of his sister …

  As I’ve heard better men than me say, these things have to be taken at a gallop or carefully planned. I was at a gallop. ‘They change the guards when the paynim priest calls them to prayer at full sunset,’ I said. ‘Now or never.’

  Arnaud was still working it out when I walked up to my two Turks and pulled their turbans off their heads. It is a mortal insult, and indeed, both had shaved heads with only a single lock dangling. Both of them rose, sputtering, and I slammed a fist into one head and then put a knee into the other’s nose. They fell to the floor, and I measured their pulses and felt their skulls and congratulated myself that they were not dead.

  If this failed, I wanted a chance at being forgiven. And the Franciscan’s words were at work on me, as were Father Pierre Thomas’s. I began to think about violence. I began to think of it the way a cook uses spice – use only what you need.

  Despite my care, the Greek priest was horrified. I think he gave serious consideration to sounding the alarm. Not that he was some infamous collaborator; he had his own people to think of.

  I did not. The inn yard gate was open for the players, and I went out as if I had every right to go out. Ramalie is not a big town, and I could smell the horses.

  They were picketed in ten or twelve long rows, a dozen or so mounts to each long rope, pinned deep in the ground at either end, in the flat open ground just north of the old town. Very close to my inn, in fact.

  There were guards – three of them. But these were bandits, not soldiers, and they were much like bandits in France. I tripped over one guard in the dark, and he cursed and rolled over, drunk and insensible. The other two sat by a fire, looking into it, too far gone to hear anything. I think they were sober; certainly they were deep in talk. I left them to it.

  I found the horse on which I’d ridden easily enough, and a dozen more, by the simple expedient of pulling a picket peg, carrying it into the darkness until I found the other end by touch, and pulling that one as well, giving me the whole horse line, if you see what I mean; every horse picketed on that line was now in my hand.

  Whoever had picketed the horses did slipshod work. Picket pegs need to be sunk deep. But their bad discipline was my lifeline.

  I had no idea what guards there were in the town. Uthman had a hundred men or more; he might have thirty men on duty. Or just the three.

  I cut the picket lines on the other horses. Horses are strange beasts; when you want them to stay put, they wander off; when you want them to run, they stand in the dark and chew on their grass. I chose the biggest by walking up and down and looking at them against the moon. It was that dark.

  Then I stabbed the big bastard in the haunch with my dagger. I didn’t stab deeply, but I drew blood, and the horse screamed in outraged innocence and bolted. His scream got the herd moving, and as their pickets were already pulled or cut, they began to move, first a dozen and then more, and the picket pins bouncing on the ground annoyed them, and struck the hooves and fetlocks of other horses.

  I was a bit too aggressive. I shouted and yipped like a Turk, and drew arrows – the two men at the fire were alert enough, by then. An arrow struck a horse, and it gave a long neigh of anger and snorted and tore off into the darkness, and the horses in my fist made fair to drag me to death along with the rest of the herd.

  Once again, I wished I had a bow, just to put the proverbial cat among the pigeons; a few arrows into that campfire and my Turks might have run into the darkness themselves. As it was, they thought they were under attack.

  The panicked horses raised an incredible dust cloud. Dust is the very devil at night; it is already dark, and you cannot see. Only smoke is worse. And I could not stay still; my little herd of stolen horses kept moving, and I kept having to go with them, because once I let them go they’d run free. One of my first lessons as a horseman – the horse is always stronger than you.

  I ran beside them, and ran beside them, and after a miserable mile of stubbed toes and full-out falls, I got a moment, caught my breath when a deep gully blocked my horses, and, with some luck, got both picket pins and managed to get them into the dirt. Any horse, with a little determination, could have pulled those pins, but I was out of options, and they were calming, and I walked among them for what seemed an eternity, whispering the sort of sweet nothings most men save for their lemans.

  I got up on the bare back of the Arab mare who’d carried me three days before. I cut her loose, and with only a single rope as a halter and guide rein, I rode back, cross-country, towards Ramalie.

  It was another hard decision – to stay, or ride. But my lack of plan was working so far; I had horses, and I had surprise. And a good sword, and in darkness, the best chance against archers. And no one was dead yet.

  I have noticed that in war, as in cards and dice, each success tempts you to risk again.

  The moon was bright enough to make out the white buildings, and the Greek inn still had lights in the yard. I left my little mare tied to an old stone column and crept in to find the town full of shouting. Arrows whispered in the darkness. I have no notion who they expected to shoot at. I expect that the Turks thought there were Mamluks out in the night, or simply other bandits.

  I climbed the back wall of the Greek inn and dropped from the red tile roof, thick with fungus, to the ground. My sword almost eviscerated me for my stealthy pains, catching between my legs and the naked point scoring the inside of my thigh. I’d lost the scabbard’s tip in the darkness. That’s what comes of wearing a gentleman’s weapon on a horse raid.

  The Armenians were there, by the gate, in a furious argument, and the woman was with them. I ran up to them, noting that the players had left, probably frightened, and the two guards were still lying like the dead. I hoped they weren’t dead, but that was not my first concern.

  ‘Come,’ I said in French.

  They followed me without argument.
Perhaps they were fools, but they got the gate open. Arnaud threw his sister over his shoulder like a Yule log, and we ran. There were shouts, and more arrows, but the Turks clearly thought that they were under attack; we were the last of their worries.

  We got the woman on the horse. I didn’t know her name, but I boosted her up, and far from being the useless thing I imagined, she got a leg over, astride, and clicked her tongue at my mount and rode away.

  Arnaud laughed.

  I was not laughing. The night was full of horses and arrows and now, Turks; they were emerging from their camp at the south edge of the village. Perhaps fifteen minutes had passed since I had stabbed the stallion. Uthman’s voice could be heard, roaring orders.

  I was lost. That is, I knew where the town was; but somehow, between climbing the back wall of the inn and coming out of the gate … And all the gullies seemed the same, and I was very tired.

  In a Chanson de Geste, everything just happens: you steal the horse, save the girl, kill the villain and ride. Well, my villain was organising a search just a bowshot away, and I’d lost my horses, and my sense of direction, and everything.

  There follows a singularly ugly period: I ran to and fro, and found nothing in the dust; a horse knocked Arnaud down when he tried to catch it, and broke his hand; the Armenians began to tell me that I had got them all killed. My nose hurt, my fingers and shoulder burned from other wounds and I could scarcely breathe, I was so tired.

  And then the girl rode out of the night. She sort of flowed out of the blackness on a dark horse, and her girl’s voice was clearly not Turkish, and she shouted for her brother. I knew his name, anyway.

  ‘Arnaud! Arnaud!’

  She cantered through us, and called something in Armenian. We all followed her.

  She had found the picketed horses. Of course she had. The smart little mare took her there. And she was smart enough herself; even in the middle of fear and darkness, she reasoned out that we needed the horses.

  Bah. I got myself up on another Arab, who didn’t love me. She didn’t make a real effort to be rid of me, though, and before my aching lungs had dragged in twenty more breaths, we were cantering across the flat plain by Ramalie, under the moon.