Michael Jecks - Templar's Acre

Ivo joined him on occasion, and they would test each other’s swordsmanship. Baldwin soon learned that Ivo was a crafty old devil when it came to fighting.

Pietro, Ivo’s half-deaf servant, who was both bottler and doorkeeper, would come and watch them with a sour expression on his wizened old face. He appeared to consider it his bounden duty to keep others away from Ivo so that his master might enjoy as much peace as possible. When he saw Baldwin and Ivo fight, he would glower at Baldwin, and only ever smiled or clapped his hands when Ivo got close and nicked Baldwin’s arm or clothing.

‘Do you resent my being here?’ Baldwin asked him once, driven to irritation by the man’s cackling at his latest injury — a nasty cut over his forearm. He looked at it and grimaced. The skin had pulled away from the wound, white and foul like a pig’s flesh, he thought.

‘Eh?’ The old fellow screwed up his face and hooked a hand behind his ear, studying Baldwin speculatively. ‘Resent you? Why would I do that?’

‘You had a quieter time before I got here, I suppose,’ Baldwin said. He held out the bleeding arm so that Pietro could wipe away the blood. He wanted to shiver, but he refused to allow Pietro to see he was concerned.

‘You have no idea, do you?’ Pietro muttered coldly. ‘My family was in Lattakieh, and when that son of a diseased whore, Sultan Qalawun, invaded, they took my wife and children. You know what they do with women and children? My little girls will be slaves now. Ruined! And their mother, if she’s lucky, she’ll be kept well in a harem. If not, she’ll be working her hands to the bone in the fields somewhere, or sold off for menial work. I don’t know where they are, or what they do. All I know is, it was Master Ivo who saved me from life as a beggar. So if my praising him offends you, young master, so be it. I live and die for him.’

Baldwin was about to speak, when the old man turned away, and Baldwin saw the tear in his eye as he heard Pietro mutter, ‘I have no one else.’

There was one sight that shocked Baldwin beyond uttering. One morning, as he strolled about Montmusart with Pietro, he suddenly encountered a man clad in strange mail, with a conical helmet, and turban encompassing it, a spike protruding from the top. He was bearded and had skin as brown as a conker. It was like meeting with a demon, and Baldwin took an involuntary step back.

His hand on his sword’s hilt, the fellow swept past him with a haughty sneer that would not have looked out of place on a King’s herald.

‘Eh? What?’ Pietro snapped when Baldwin tugged at his sleeve.

‘He’s a Muslim, isn’t he?’ Baldwin whispered, his startled eyes fixed on the man.

‘So? Half the city is! There are many who prefer them as guards in any case,’ Pietro grumbled, half to himself. ‘Rich ladies who need protection will often have Muslims in their employ.’

‘Not Christians?’ Baldwin said, shocked.

‘There was a woman some years ago, who inherited vast wealth when her husband died. She was kidnapped by a Christian nobleman who wanted to take her as his wife by force. When he heard about this, the Sultan sent men to demand that she be freed. From that day on, she always had a guard of Muslims provided by him. Ironic, isn’t it? She felt endangered by the knights about here, but was happy enough with a bunch of heathens to protect her!’

‘I must go to the Temple,’ Ivo said, a day or so later. ‘Will you join me?’ He eyed Baldwin critically.

‘Certainly!’ the young man cried, wiping his face with the trailing hem of his linen shirt. He had been exercising with his sword, and in the heat had worked up quite a sweat.

‘That shirt was once white, I presume?’ Ivo asked drily.

Baldwin glanced down at it. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean it’s filthy. You should let the maid take it to be washed.’

‘I only have this one. Since the ship. .’ He had no need to continue. When he had lost all his money and weapons, his bag too had been taken, with his spare shirt.

‘I should have thought,’ Ivo muttered. ‘We must buy some cloth for a new shirt. In the meantime,’ he added as they left by the front door a short while later, ‘I have been summoned to meet with the Grand Master of the Templars. Sir Guillaume de Beaujeu is the most important man in the city, no matter what anyone says, so remain respectful.’

The two set off, and soon walked under the gateway in the old city wall, on past the Hospital, and down towards the Temple.

The streets here were bustling, with hawkers of all nations bellowing out their wares, men-at-arms striding about like minor barons, servants hurrying hither and thither — and beggars. Beggars were everywhere you looked: old men pleading from the ground where their crippled legs kept them, urchins standing in the way, holding out their hands, eyes enormous with hunger as they entreated all the passers-by, younger men with limbs broken or weakened by rickets, toothless youths with sores and skin diseases.

It was the same in any street in Christendom, Baldwin knew: he had seen enough beggars in his time, and yet there was something especially poignant about these people of different races. Their eyes seemed to scorch him with their demands, and he felt ashamed to walk past them.

‘You feel it too?’ Ivo asked quietly. ‘There was a time when I would ignore the poor, but here, I find it more difficult. There is shame in living here in the Holy Land and doing nothing for these unfortunates.’

Baldwin made no comment, but he felt their gazes on his back long after he had passed by.

The Temple was a glorious fortress, and Baldwin looked up at it in wonder as he approached. Before him were the two towers of the Temple, with a pair of smaller towers flanking each. On top of the lower ones stood a great gilded lion, as massive as an ox. In the sunshine, they were painful to look at, they gleamed so. They seemed statements of pride, power and wealth. His impression was confirmed by Ivo a moment later.

‘You see those lions? They cost one thousand five hundred Saracen besants. The palace there, that is the Master’s, and you see the tower over there, at the sea? That is where the Templars hold their treasure. No one would get to it there! It is said that that tower was built by the Saracen Saladin when he ruled Acre. If so, he had a good eye for a place of safety. It must be the strongest part of the entire city.’

They entered the fortress and Baldwin followed Ivo as he made his way to the Master’s Palace. Two Templars in their tunics stood at the door and opened it to allow Ivo and Baldwin to pass. It was huge. The paved floor stretched away to a great dais, on which there was a table. Ivo bowed and stood in the middle of the floor. It would have been impossible to go further because of the press of people.

Looking about him, Baldwin recognised faces here and there: men he had seen in the streets, one whom he was sure he had seen on the ship on the way here, but for the most part they were rich merchants who had all the obvious signs of their wealth, with bejewelled fingers and bright, cool silks that rustled softly. Baldwin was jealous of them, standing there in his grimy shirt and old tunic.

He noticed one man in particular. He stood, tall and very strong, clad in a white Templar habit. His head was bare, showing the fine greyish stubble, and making his thick beard look peculiar. He had piercing eyes, heavily hooded, and a manner of jutting his head forward that was aggressive and contemplative at the same time. His hands were hidden in the sleeves of his habit, and Baldwin wondered whether he held a weapon in them. There was something entirely warrior-like about him, and the idea that he was unarmed seemed wrong, somehow.