Alys Clare - The Paths of the Air

Picking up the cue, Josse said, ‘There was in your company a young knight who, I understand, wanted to continue with the fight after you — er, after you had returned to your kin in Antioch.’

Gerome chuckled. ‘After I decided that battle and war were not for me,’ he corrected. ‘I admit it freely, Sir Josse. I was not born for fighting. I was at Hattin, you know. King Guy was captured, as were the majority of our leaders, and worst of all the Saracens took the precious fragment of the True Cross, which was both our inspiration and our rallying point. We were demoralized at Hattin, Sir Josse, and as we were driven back towards the coast the fighting was at best half-hearted. Although I am ashamed that I could not discover a brave warrior spirit within myself, I was not alone in preferring to creep away to lick my wounds. I was in fact wounded,’ he added with a touch of pride. Unfastening the ties at the neck of his chemise, he drew back the soft, fine linen to reveal a deep, purplish oval scar.

‘Spear thrust?’ asked Josse.

‘Yes. It hurt like the very devil, but our medical men got hold of some stuff the Arabs used and managed to restrain the infection. They said I’d have died otherwise, so in a strange sort of way, I owe my survival to my enemy.’ He gazed across the frosty fields, a faraway expression on his face. ‘Funny how life goes.’

‘Aye,’ Josse agreed.

‘Then, of course, the loss of Jerusalem made our King Richard set out to win it back,’ Gerome continued, ‘and we all know how that ended up. God bless him,’ he added, although the pause was too long for it to have been anything but an afterthought.

‘You returned to your cousin’s house in Antioch to recover?’ Josse asked.

‘Hmm? Yes, yes, that’s right. Aurelie and her girls made a great fuss of me and I confess I thrived on the attention. Oh, Sir Josse, you should have seen that house! Aurelie has lived all her life in Outremer, the fourth generation to make a home there, and, typically, her house shows the Eastern influence — well, it makes sense to adopt local ways. The place has a strong outer wall that shows a formidable face to the world, but once through the gates, you enter heaven on earth. She has inner courtyards where fountains play and where jasmine and roses scent the air. To keep you cool there are silk-draped divans set in the shade to catch the breeze. Her servants pad about on bare feet and they know precisely when you want an iced sherbet or a cool cloth on your forehead. And they all seem so happy, Sir Josse! I was a stranger but they cared for me with kindness and a smile on their dark faces.’

The great torrent of words stopped as Gerome paused for breath. Then he said sheepishly, ‘I am sorry. I loved Antioch, you see, and once I begin speaking of my time there, the images and the memories come flooding back and I can talk all day if someone doesn’t stop me. Usually it’s Maria,’ he added resignedly, ‘but then she has heard it all so many times.’

Josse had been carried along. But now he said, ‘I am fascinated by your descriptions, Sir Gerome. But I need to know more about your young knight.’

‘Of course you do! Well, like you say, he wasn’t at all happy about being dragged away from the fighting. You see, Sir Josse, I made a mistake. Hattin was so frightful that I thought my men would be pleased I was pulling them out! It never occurred to me that one of them would want to go on fighting. Anyway, he came to me and told me and I said he must go with my blessing. I said he knew where I’d be if he needed me and I wished him God’s protection.’

‘He intended to join one of the military orders?’

Gerome frowned. ‘It’s odd, because I’m sure I remember he saidWell, it doesn’t matter and obviously I was wrong. He was going to go straight to Crac des Chevaliers — it’s about a hundred miles from Antioch — and offer his services to the Knights Hospitaller. That would have been in the late summer of’87.’

‘So he joined the Order before King Richard took up the fight,’ Josse remarked.

‘Yes. They taught him much and turned him into a first-rate fighter with many skills.’

‘Could he use the crossbow?’ Josse thought he knew the answer, having already asked Thibault.

‘The crossbow? No, no; he was a mounted knight and he used the lance and the sword. He might have been able to use the longbow, I suppose.’

‘You saw him in action?’

‘Yes. King Richard arrived and won the great victory at Acre, and his successes alongside the French fellow’ — Josse was amused that Gerome did not even dignify King Philip with a name — ‘put new heart in us all. I marched my men south from Antioch to Acre and we joined King Richard’s great push from Acre to Jaffa. I heard word of my knight again on that long road, although they told me that he now wore the habit of a Knight Hospitaller and was known as Brother Ralf. We met up and prayed together on the eve of Arsuf. Oh, Sir Josse,’ he exclaimed, ‘what a time that was! We’d been marching through the Forest of Arsuf and we were all spooked by the rumour that the enemy was going to fire the trees and burn us all to death. Then we came out into the open and saw them there, great long rows of them, and I was frankly terrified. We set up our camp that night and they were so close that we could see the flames of their cooking fires under that vast, dark sky.’ Slowly he shook his head. ‘We all knew what would happen the next day. I was so glad to see Brother Ralf’s familiar face; he was four years older and infinitely more mature than when I’d last seen him, and his quiet confidence and firm resolve did me more good than all the prayers and exhortations of the priests.

‘Next day we rode into battle. It was a joyful victory, as of course you know.’

‘Yet you were unwell,’ Josse said.

‘Yes, I was. I had dysentery and I thought I would die. I do not recall much, being barely conscious during the worst of it. They said I was too weak to go on with the army and I was sent back to Acre, then on to Antioch to rest and recuperate with my kinfolk. They treated me very well, Sir Josse, in return for having been generous with them. They undertook to make sure I reached Aurelie’s home safely. To my surprise — I imagined he’d want to forge ahead with King Richard — one of my escorts was Brother Ralf.’ Gerome smiled. ‘He was not best pleased to exchange the nursemaid’s role for the warrior’s, but it was an order and he had no choice. He carried it out with a smiling face, caring for me as if I’d been his own father.’ He sighed. ‘And I who have no male children of my own loved him like a son. I always did and I always will.’

There was a contradiction here, Josse thought, for Thibault had given a very different picture. Brother Jeremiah and I spoke to Gerome de Villieres, Thibault had said. The man whom we seek is not there and there is no likelihood that he will visit in the future… the runaway caused grave offence to Gerome’s kin in Antioch… the lady Aurelie had cause to report back in the most gravely reproachful terms to her English kinsman.

He stared at Gerome. ‘I have been told that you and Brother Ralf had fallen out because he had offended your kinswoman Aurelie,’ he said flatly. ‘How can you love him like a son if this is true?’

‘One does not stop loving a son because of one rebellious act,’ Gerome said quietly. There was a long pause. Then he said, ‘I am not sure whether I should confide in you, Sir Josse, but I have been on this earth for a good many years and I flatter myself that I am a fair judge of men. I warm to you and I am inclined to tell you the truth. I hope, however, that by doing so I shall not endanger someone I care for.’

‘I cannot give you my word to act solely in your interests,’ Josse said quickly. ‘I am entrusted by the Abbess of Hawkenlye to take up the task of Thibault of Margat, Knight Hospitaller, and that is my prime concern.’