The Green Count Read online

  Nerio questioned the two Gascons. He wasn’t nice about it. But the boy said they’d been hired to have an ‘incident’ and the Gascons eventually admitted to it, trying to pass it off as a bit of fun. I handed them over to l’Angars and we – that is, the four of us – assumed it was one of the Hungarian’s men. We tightened our watch.

  But we had to stay in the streets, and we moved from fight to fight to attempted rape, breaking men up when they fought each other, attempting to patch up relations when an archer ripped the veil off a Moslem woman. It made it harder, wondering if there was an assassin waiting in the shadows. We sent Marc-Antonio to Ser Jason with our suspicions. And then we went back to policing our people.

  L’Angars impressed me by doing the same. Perhaps two days in the most sacred shrines had changed him; perhaps I had misunderstood the Gascon. But he, too, rallied some knights and patrolled the streets. I’d like to think we paid a little penance for Alexandria. We rode our own people hard. I knocked a man out with my pommel; Fiore choked another with his sword blade, when a tiny twist of his wrists would have killed the man.

  At any rate, at the end of each of those days I collapsed. I slept the clock around, and Fra Peter was in the streets in my place, battering our men into their barracks and then into the churches and shrines.

  On our fifth or sixth day, Fra Daniele was shot with a crossbow. He was walking to the Holy Sepulchre, unarmoured. The bolt went into his gut, and he died.

  We were the same height. And he had red hair.

  So much for the Holy City.

  And yet … it was the Holy City. Most of our people had been almost a week in the Holy City before I began to visit the shrines, but murder and mayhem could not keep me from the greatest sights in Christendom. I meekly joined one of Father Angelo’s groups for three glorious days, and in the company of men I might ordinarily have despised – routiers as bad as I had ever been, including the very lout I’d knocked flat with my pommel. I went to the Garden of Gethsemane, and there stood vigil. And although it’s probably a sin to say it, the Apostles may have been good men, but they were poor knights; with forty men on that hillside, murderers, thieves, and reivers every one, not a one fell asleep all night, and the Gospels say that all the Apostles slept, even Saint Peter. The man I’d knocked out with my pommel was kneeling by me. It was a long night, with your knees feeling the weight of all your sins.

  We were not commanded to be silent, and my companions were quite voluble – griping, like all soldiers. The lout was a small, ferret-faced Gascon named Pierre Lapot, and he seemed to bear me no ill-will at all; indeed, I thought he was seeking my favour.

  ‘I am a bad man,’ he said in his lisping Gascon-French, about halfway through the night. ‘But by the Christ, monsieur, had I been with Sir Jesus here, the Romans and Jews would have had a fight to take my captain.’

  I suppose it is bad theology, but I agreed with him, and so did the other voices in the darkness, even John; I was surprised to hear him there, and I could not see him, for it was full dark. They lock you in; there’s no light but a pair of tapers on one of the side altars, and there’s a great deal of incense – or was that at the Sepulchre? In truth, I can’t remember. I was tired, and yet utterly happy. And the men I stood that vigil with, and the next night, at the Holy Sepulchre – they became my companions for many years, as you will hear.

  The next day we bathed, and were given white garments by the Order, and those of us who were knights renewed our vows. And Lord Grey knighted a few men. Then we did the Stations inside the Holy Sepulchre. Even though a man might see that the church had once been mightier and more noble, even though it was plain to me that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was not itself as grand as churches in Verona or Venice, it mattered not. What was inside was glorious, and the weight of sin that was lifted …

  Bah, you all want tales of fighting. Not of my pilgrimage.

  But I will tell you one story, and that’s about the darkness of the Holy Sepulchre, which is a different and more profound black than the Garden. We knelt, almost a hundred of us, in our plain white gowns. Men shifted, men farted or belched or coughed – we are all sinful mortals, and human. But the silence was great, and the smell of frankincense was everywhere, and it was possible to imagine a great deal, and despite your companions all around you, every man was alone with his conscience. And that wears; the long night, the total darkness, and your thoughts, going like a stampede of horses, or slowly in meditation; some men chanted from time to time, and one repeated the Paternoster over and over and over, as if a talisman.

  It was l’Angars who spoke up first. ‘Oh God,’ he said, ‘I did it. I killed the nun, and took the gold paten from her. Oh, Jesu, save me. I killed a nun for what she carried, and I sold the paten.’

  And another voice said, ‘I killed a babe, and the mother. Christ, I killed the mother …’

  And I heard my voice say ‘I killed a boy, in Bohemia.’

  The horrors we voiced – and they were not a few, once l’Angars started us on that road. A hundred bad men have a tale of sins it would be hard for any other hundred to match; and men told stories to the darkness that I would hesitate to recount even now, and I hoped that they were lying. And the voices went on, so that it was possible to grow tired of listening to the atrocities we had committed – this one for the English, that one for the king of France, or the Holy Roman Emperor.

  Eventually, our voices trailed off, and we returned to silence, and I prayed. I prayed fervently; I imagined myself at the very cradle of the newborn child, and I imagined myself as a man-at-arms of the Wise Men, as I often did. The world of the Gospels was so imminent in the Holy Land, it made my meditations somehow practical; I could now imagine a stable, horses, the colour of the earth and the shape of the buildings in the Holy Land.

  When they came and unlocked the doors, we were all searched, because so many Christians attempted to use tools to pry bits of the walls, the floor, the old mosaics, the wooden beams that supported recent damage. The Holy Sepulchre was gradually being pulled to pieces by pilgrims, which seemed to me to be a rare allegory of the Christian condition. Regardless, I left the hall in a state of exultation – the night had been glorious, and I truly felt lightened of my sins. I crossed eyes with l’Angars and I could see he felt the same. And outside, we embraced, or clasped hands – oh, a few damned souls slunk away, but for most of us, it was like rebirth.

  And you might ask if I was not beside myself with fear, for myself, for my lady love, with assassins abroad. But Jerusalem is … Jerusalem. I took what precautions I could and trusted to God and Ser Jason. I was not going to cower indoors while I had a chance to visit the place where my Saviour suffered his passion, or preached.

  On my fourth or fifth day in the city, men began to speak of leaving. Syr Giannis returned from a long scout to the south, with a rumour that the Mamluks were sending a large force. Our Venetian capitano, who, by the way, had arranged for me to have the fine lodging I had with the bishop – it was a fine lodging: a clean straw pallet and space to lay out my leather trunk and change my clothes, in a hallway, with Marc-Antonio and Fiore by me. Nerio had a room—

  I digress. The Capitano was afraid for his cargo already, and wanted us gone to the coast.

  I must mention, to make you smile, that Jerusalem defied even Nerio’s lechery. He was very pious while he was there, it’s true, but if there was a woman to be had inside the Holy City, I never saw her and neither did Nerio.

  At any rate, I rose from my knees after my second straight night of vigil to spend a frustrating morning dodging irate archers – and Franciscans too – to find Emile. She and her household had toured the shrines as a group, as great lords and ladies do. And no one knew where they had gone.

  It turned out that she had taken a party outside the city, to see what pilgrims call ‘The Saint George’. Lydda was a hamlet not far from Ramalie, where Saint George had been martyr
ed. There were guides, and Emile had taken her people there. I never saw it. I was delighted to hear that both Greek knights had ridden out with her, and jealous, too.

  There was nothing I could do to catch them up. Some of ‘my’ men-at-arms, my new comrades of the long, dark vigils in the Sepulchre, wanted me to lead them to Bethlehem. The Franciscans were against it; Bethlehem and the towns around had many Moslems, and I think that Father Angelo quite rightly feared that former routiers might simply massacre Moslems for sport or profit.

  Fra Peter said that they were gathering forage and information for the trip back to the coast, and ordered me to bed. I obeyed. I hadn’t slept a night through in three days.

  I dreamed of angels. I will never forget that dream – angels that flew into my eyes. I do not know if it was a dream from God – if perhaps something blessed me in the darkness of Jerusalem. But I awoke to joy – joy doubled and redoubled, as I was informed as soon as I was awake that Fra Peter was awaiting me with Emile.

  I washed, threw on my arming clothes, and ran to the bishop’s hall. I pushed past an ugly spat between an Armenian priest and a Greek one; it was one of the enduring small humiliations of the Holy City to watch all the kinds of Christians at odds. Throw in worldly politics and an assassin and the holiness should have been sensibly diminished.

  In this case, some of the Armenians and a few Greeks had accepted various forms of ‘union’ with the church in Rome; most abhorred ‘union’, and all of us, more than they hated the Turks or the Mamluks. I leave this to priests.

  But when I went to the hall, I found Fra Peter, and Emile, and Arnaud and Eugenia and Sister Marie too – a surprising collection of my friends.

  But sometimes things happen when you are asleep. And, of course, there were not so very many Christian women in Jerusalem, nor noble ones. Arnaud’s sister had been put in the same convent where Emile stayed, and Bernard and Jean-François had become fast friends with Arnaud, who had led them to Saint George.

  I wondered if I had been caught in one of my many sins. All of them were seated on stools, except Fra Peter, who looked for once, like a great lord and not a military hermit. The Venetian capitano, Bembo, was seated with them, as was the Franciscan priest and the Orthodox bishop.

  I looked at Emile. She looked straight back at me, without dissimulation. I know we both grinned like fools; I know that any person in the hall would have known in that moment that we were lovers.

  Fra Peter cleared his throat. ‘Sir William,’ he said.

  I bowed.

  Marc-Antonio appeared with a stool, and suddenly it was less like a tribunal. My back hurt. I had, in fact, taken a wound in the fighting at Ramalie – a cut to my back, right through my arming coat. Sitting slightly hunched on a stool was the very worst thing after a night’s sleep.

  Fra Peter stroked his beard. ‘I understand you intend to wed this lady, and she has accepted you,’ he said. If I mentioned that his eyes burned into mine, I would do him no injustice. He wasn’t angry, but he wanted answers. But he was a good man, and kept his questions for a more private time.

  ‘It is my most fervent desire,’ I said.

  Fra Peter winced. ‘In Jerusalem?’ he asked.

  The Franciscan looked embarrassed, and the Venetian, amused.

  Fra Peter shook his head, as if dismissing my human frailty. ‘Ser Bembo wants to start for the coast,’ he said.

  I assumed they were delaying my wedding – to which, let’s be honest, I had given no thought whatsoever in the last three days. ‘Yes?’ I asked.

  Fra Peter shook his head. ‘I am going about this badly,’ he said. ‘Ser Arnaud and his people require an escort to return to their own lands. Lord Bembo has declined to take them by ship.’

  Bembo shook his head. ‘I have not declined,’ he said, a trifle pettishly. ‘The wind declines. It is early spring. I could wait weeks for a wind to take me north, and another set of weeks for an east wind to take me back to Cyprus, much less to Venice.’

  Fra Peter could fight from the deck of a galley, but he was not one of the Order’s sea captains. So he shrugged. ‘I mean no slight on your honour,’ he said. ‘But they must go home.’ He looked at me. ‘Your lady has suggested that you might volunteer to escort them home to Cilicia.’

  ‘With me,’ Emile said. Her smile said more. ‘And my knights.’

  Fra Peter looked at her a moment. He was never easy with women, and somehow, I had the feeling that Emile frightened him. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And any of the … hmmm … Crusaders who would care to accompany you.’

  Ser Arnaud nodded. ‘We would, of course, pay wages. And be deeply grateful.’

  Well, there it was – a military expedition, through enemy country, in the Holy Land, over uncharted roads, with my lady love at my side? I laughed aloud.

  ‘Certes, gentilhommes et mesdames, but you have chosen the right man.’ I rose and bowed. ‘I would be delighted.’ I looked at Arnaud. ‘There must be serious issues of food, fodder, water, and routes.’

  Arnaud’s smile was broad; he meant it. ‘You are a soldier,’ he said. ‘Many of you Franks are … Never mind. Yes, I will discuss all these things. Bless you. I will see you well paid.’

  Emile nodded graciously, the great lady every inch of her. ‘We will have our own little crusade,’ she said. ‘I will see this splendid maiden to her home, and Sister Marie and I will see all the places in Syria we’ve talked of.’ She rose, and all the men rose; she curtsied, and we all bowed, and she swept out of the hall with Eugenia and Sister Marie, pausing only to say a few words to Jean-François.

  Fra Peter didn’t follow her with his eyes, and neither did Father Angelo; all the other men did.

  ‘This will be very dangerous, William,’ Fra Peter said, ‘but essential. If you will get us a report of the coastline, we will be better prepared for the spring season. Sabraham will be with you.’

  I confess that as soon as Emile swept from the hall, the weight of the idea fell on my shoulders, and as soon as Fra Peter said ‘Sabraham’ some of the weight lifted.

  Fra Peter proceeded to give me exact orders, and some advice as to my route, and Lord Bembo spoke to me about the ports – especially Acre and Tyre. The near-collapse of Mamluk authority changed everything, of course, and what Arnaud brought to the conversation was the possibility of active support from Cilicia, which was already a close ally of Cyprus.

  ‘I must caution you against too much … enthusiasm,’ Fra Peter said, at the end. ‘There is a rumour up from the coast that the Green Count is in Venice, and his expedition is not going to Cyprus, but to Turkey or even to Constantinople. It is being said in Europe that we failed – that we lost Alexandria through cowardice.’

  At that moment, I cared nothing for the Green Count, or the king of France, or even the king of England. I probably shrugged.

  ‘In late spring, the voyage from Cilicia to Cyprus is nothing,’ Fra Peter said. ‘But you have my permission to go to Rhodes directly if that speeds your purpose. It is a tall order, Sir William. And I will not hide from you that none of my brother knights wants the job. Only Fra Daniele would have been—’

  The Venetian captain favoured me with a smile full of nuance. ‘Perhaps, as humble men, they recognise that Sir William is the correct man for a role that requires … some thought. Perhaps some … dissimulation.’

  Fra Peter spread his hands. ‘I feel like a parent sending a small boy into the world,’ he said. ‘I realise that must seem unfair. And I have never been a father. But, William, this is a very difficult empris. If I could dissuade the countess, I would. But she is set on it. And she has her own people – passports signed by every crowned head in Europe. And indeed, should you run across the Green Count, she is our best ally – one of his own Savoyards, who is dedicated to the Cross and the Crusade and knows what King Peter seeks to do. I know you will protect her with your life; I say, protect her with y
our head, and not your heart.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Very well. William,’ and here Fra Peter looked at the other men, as if willing them to leave the room, ‘I had hoped to speak a few words to you in private.’

  Bembo was a man of good manners; he rose, smiled, shook my hand and Fra Peter’s, and congratulated me. He told me to pay him a visit in his room before we quit Jerusalem.

  Father Angelo nodded. He rose and walked from the hall.

  The Orthodox bishop had yet to speak a word. I bowed to him, and Fra Peter and I walked from the hall to a close room, where I leaned against a chalk-white wall and Fra Peter fidgeted with a wall hanging.

  ‘You know, William,’ he said, after a time. He looked at me seriously, neither smiling nor frowning. ‘You know, I never really understood how deep you were with the countess until just now. And I deceived myself, I think. I had rather hoped that tonight or tomorrow, on the altar of the Holy Sepulchre, I would make you a Knight of Saint John – the first knighted here in an hundred years.’

  There are too many moments like this in life – the moment where two paths separate, one going one way, and the other another way.

  But there was never a choice, for me. Celibacy would have been a hard road for me, at any time; nor, I think, could I have been like de Heredia, with a mistress or three, and bastards learning to be bishops and knights. I can be a fool and a hypocrite, but I like to be so by error and not with grim determination.

  But I was not being offered the choice between the Order and fornication; I was being offered the choice between the Order and Emile.

  It was never a choice.

  Fra Peter smiled then. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I saw you look at each other. Forgive me – I loved a woman once. She died, and I am here, with no regrets. But I have known love; I knew what passed between you. So tell me – did you kill her husband?’

  ‘No,’ I said. Sometimes the truth is simple. But the blood rushed to my face; of all men, he should have known I was innocent of this.