James Patterson - The Jester

I turned. There was another Tafur. He had a black cross painted on his helmet, but his visor was up, revealing a cold, scarred face that I thought I had seen before.

But it was not the face I was focused on.

The bastard was holding Emilie.

“LET HER GO,” I told him. “This isn’t her fight.”

The Tafur was large and strong, and he twisted Emilie roughly by the hair with his sword edged into her neck. His dark hair was long and greasy and fell over his scarred face. A cross was burned into his neck.

“Let her go?” He laughed. The Tafur twisted Emilie harder. “But she is so pretty and sweet. What a treat she’ll make for me.” He inhaled her hair. “Like you, I am not used to sifting my pole through such highborn trash.”

I took a step toward him. “What is it you want from me?”

“I think you know, innkeeper … I think you know where we have met once before too.”

I focused on his hard, laughing eyes. Suddenly the past rocketed through me. The church in Antioch.

He was the bastard who had killed the Turk.

“ You are the one doing these terrible deeds?” The Tafur grinned in recognition.

“ ‘You are free’ … innkeeper. Do you not remember? When I saw you last you had an infidel about to plow your ass. But enough of old times.” He forced Emilie to her knees. “I would be happy to let her go. You only have to hand over what is mine.”

“Tell me what you want!” I shouted. “You’ve already taken everything I have.”

[290] “Not all, innkeeper.” He forced Emilie’s chin up and edged his silvery blade along her neck. She sucked in a gasp. “Where is it? Her future awaits.”

“Where is what?” I screamed, I looked at Emilie, so helpless there. Anger flared in my blood.

“Do not toy with me, Red.” The Tafur glared. “You were there in Antioch, the church. I saw you. You were no more praying than I was. Quick now, or I will ram my blade through her pretty skull.”

I was there … Suddenly it came clear to me. The cross. The gold cross I had stolen from the church. That is what this was all about. Why so many people had died. “It is buried on the hill,” I said. “Let her go. It is yours.”

“I will not barter with you.” The Tafur’s face began to twitch with rage. “Hand me what I want, or she will be pig slop, and you next.”

“Then take it. I stole it from the church. It was just a trinket to me. I don’t even know what it is, what it signifies. Just let her go and I will bring the gold cross to you. Just let her go.”

“Cross…?” I could not tell if it was confusion or rage that shook his lips. He dug the blade into Emilie and spat, “I do not want your fucking cross, not if you took it from Saint Peter’s ass. You know very well what prize you hold.”

“I don’t know!” My head was spinning. Panic shot through me. “I do not have anything else.”

“You must.” He jerked Emilie’s head back.

“No!” I cried. What else could it be? I looked at this monster. Black Cross. He had killed Sophie. He had tossed my son into the flames. He had taken from me everything I loved. And now he would do it again. For what? For a thing I did not have!

“Whatever it is, is it worth following me all the way back from the Holy Land? Slaughtering innocent villages and children? My wife and child?”

“It is!” His eyes lit up. “Those souls are meaningless compared to it, and a thousand more like your wife and seed. Now , [291] innkeeper!” he yelled. “Or I will rid the world of yet another you claim to love.”

“No.” I shook my head, at first numbly, then with rage. “You will not take anything else from me.”

I looked at Emilie. Her eyes bravely met mine.

I knew if I charged him, he would not kill her. It was me the Tafur needed. I was the path to his precious prize, not her. He would not risk leaving himself unguarded. I gripped my staff firmly in my palms. It was all I had, this stick against his sword. And my hands. And my will.

In the next breath, I screamed and charged the bastard.

I SWUNG MY STAFF at him with everything I had.

In the same instant, Black Cross flung Emilie aside and readied himself for my blow. He was huge and agile, and blocked it easily with his sword.

“What is this prize,” I screamed, smashing and flailing my staff at all angles, “that you would murder people who had never even heard of it? Was it worth my wife, my little son? Or even the most worthless soul you stamped out in your way?” I swung at him again and again. For Sophie. For Phillipe. Each blow crashed harmlessly against his sword. I thought my staff would surely split, or that at any moment I would feel the sword run through my gut.

“Is this a pretend, jester? Do you mock me again to explain the meaning of the prize you stole?” He forced me backward and began advancing, swinging his sword with half strength and forcing me to block the blows with the staff, the wood rattling in my grasp.

“I do not have it,” I shouted. “I never have. You are mistaken.”

He swung at my legs and I darted back. His sword chipped slivers of wood off my staff. “You were there, jester. The church in Antioch. We all sought it out. Do you think these nobles were fighting for the souls of a few nuns? You were there for [293] what, jester, mass? You try to tell me you don’t know that the relic you fought the infidel for, which lay for centuries in that vault, was not the same used to sacrifice our Lord, and stained with His holy blood?”

I had no idea what he was talking about. He cut at my torso. I blocked it again, the blade slicing against my hand, but it was only a matter of time before he landed the blow that would do me in.

“Did you sell it? Have you profited by some Jew? If you have, your death will only be more warranted.” He swung again, this time knocking me backward to the ground, shattering another piece of my staff, which I barely held up now in defense.

My knuckles bled. My mind ricocheted back and forth. “I do not have it. I swear!”

He swung again, the brute force of his blow almost breaking the staff in two. I knew it could sustain only a few more hits.

I heard shouts behind me. Emilie was screaming. She tried to leap on him and ward him off, but he flung her across the ground as if she were a toy.

The Tafur’s eyes flashed. “Give it to me, thief, now. For in another minute you will surely be in Hell.”

“If I am,” I said, whacking my stick at him, “it will only be to welcome you.”

I was done. Out of breath and strength. I blocked his blows, but each one hacked a little farther into the staff. I wanted with all my heart to kill this man-for Sophie, for Phillipe-but I didn’t have the strength.

He kicked me into a ditch off the road. I looked about for a weapon, anything to fight him. He raised his sword above my head. “I give you this final chance,” he grunted. “Produce it. You can still go free.”

“I have nothing,” I yelled at him. “Can’t you see that?”

He came down with his sword. I think I closed my eyes, for I knew this last, desperate defense would not hold. A chunk of [294] my staff shattered. To my astonishment, a patch of metal showed through.

Black Cross slashed at me again and again, yet each time, the staff miraculously held. The wooden rod split open like a casing, revealing something underneath.

Iron.

My eyes clung to it. I was staring at the long, rusted shaft of an ancient spear.

The Tafur stopped, his gaze transfixed. The spear shaft led to a molding in the shape of an eagle, a Roman eagle. The blade that came from it-dark, blunt, rusted-was encrusted with a bloodlike stain.