THE DAGGER OF THE MARTYRS

Steven Savile
&
William Meikle

A BadPress Publication

Copyright © 2019 Steven Savile & William Meikle

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and should not be construed as real. Any

resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever

without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied
in critical articles and reviews.
THE DAGGER OF THE MARTYRS
 1291
SYRIAN TERRITORIES

The pregnant woman screamed out her pain as the cartwheel hit a rut in the
makeshift track and threatened to spill her out into the dirt. Lilane felt a
cold hand cover her mouth to silence her. She smelled the old witch
woman’s potions where she’d worked the herbs and spices with her fingers.
The old woman leaned forward, so close there was no escaping her rancid
aniseed breath. Her lips brushed up against Lilane’s ear as the woman
whispered, “Quiet. No sound. Khalil’s men are too close. We have not come
all this way to be caught now; not when safety is so near at hand. Bite your
lip. Chew through your tongue. Do whatever you have to—but stay quiet.”
The next contraction hit hard. She gritted her teeth, clawing at the
wooden flatbed of the cart, and willed the cry to stay inside her. But it
wanted to come out. Breathing in ragged gasps, she tried desperately to
calm herself. She tried to focus on anything but the searing pain threatening
to rip her asunder.
Behind her head, the two Templars driving her cart conversed in
hushed tones. She caught snatches of their conversation before the desert
winds whispered it away.
“Forty-two days of bloody siege, ten more in this cursed desert. We
should have stayed and fought. Not run like cowards.”
The older of the two shook his head. “Al-Ashraf Khalil controls
Acre now. We couldn’t have held our position. It was time to leave. Khalil
would have been feasting on our balls by now, lad,” he said. “The Master
knows what he’s about. We need to trust him. And we are hardly walking
away paupers. With the treasures we are carrying we can go anywhere in
Christendom as wealthy men. Two days, that’s all. Two more days and
we’ll be at the dock, on a boat for Constantinople then away and clear for
Bologna and a life of whores and furs and good wines.”
“We had all that in Acre,” the younger Templar said.
 “Aye, lad, we did. But let’s not pretend you didn’t piss in your
armour during that last attack. At least you won’t do that back home in
France.”
The two men chuckled, softly so as not to pierce the quiet.
There were other voices too, only audible when the wind dropped.
They carried from a distance. Lilane strained, hoping to hear the one she
wanted to hear more than any other, her man, her strong man who had taken
her from her people, and promised her so much. He hadn’t come to see her
since the protracted birth pangs began.
“Oh, Lucian, where are you?” she whispered to the night.
No one came.

◆◆◆

They stopped in the morning, taking refuge in the shade of a small

grove of trees, resting the horses before the full heat of the day beat down
on them. There was to be no rest for Lilane. The contractions grew in
strength and frequency, and despite the old witch woman’s frequent
entreaties, she couldn’t stifle the cries of pain.
“Lucian,” she shouted, before the cold hand was once again pressed
at her mouth.
“He will not come, girl,” the old woman told her. “Not until it is
over. This is woman’s work. We are the strong ones here. Now, push.”
Lilane pushed.
At intervals the old witch woman gave her a pungent ball of
camphor and herbs to chew on. It tasted vile, but it gave a small distance
from the pain. That morning felt like a week.
Then, finally, blessed relief as something left her in a hot rush of
pressure and pain.
“You have a son,” the old witch woman said. Lilane was so tired, so
awash with the effort, that she didn’t realize the woman wasn’t talking to
her. A man’s voice answered.
“God be praised. Let it be known that I take this boy as my heir. His
name is Eden Moro De Bologna, and he will be raised a Templar.”
“Lucian?”
 Lilane forced herself almost upright, struggling against the
makeshift bedding they had laid down for her. She saw her love cradle the
newly born babe in his arms and walk away without looking at her.
“Lucian?”
The old witch woman turned back to Lilane concern in her eyes.
“You are not done here yet. There is another coming.”
The Templar stopped, his back still resolutely turned to the covered
cart, head bowed over the first child. The second child came with almost no
pain at all, just a gentle push, a feeling of relief and then a sudden empty,
hollowness in her lower belly.
“Another boy?” Lucian said from under the shade of the tree. The
child in his arms wailed and the new child joined in accompaniment, their
twin squeals echoing around the encampment.
“No. It is a girl. A beautiful girl.”
“What need have I of a girl?” The knight said. “Keep her quiet, or I
will have to do it for you.” He walked away, cradling his son in his arms.
“Lucian!”
Lilane tried to rise but the old witch woman pushed her down.
“There was too much blood. You must rest. If you move from here,
you will die before nightfall. And there is a babe to tend.”
And another already lost to me.
That was Lilane’s last thought for a while.
The old witch woman gave her another mouthful of camphor and
herbs, more this time, and within a few minutes Lilane fell into a deep
blackness where there was no pain.
There was no rest, either.
When she came slowly awake it was dark and they were alone in the
encampment. Horses, carts, the knights and her boy child were all gone like
shadows in the night. She only had his name to remember him by. That, and
one word, a promise of a future she vowed her daughter would live to see.
Bologna.
 1301
THE YAZIDI SANCTUARY

Samira climbed the steep mountain path, shooing the goats ahead of her.
They scattered and cavorted all over the hillside, but as long as they were
up here, they were safe; she was safe.
The rocky valley and the high mountains that bounded it were all
that Samira knew. They were her entire world. And that was how she liked
it. Tara, the old witch woman who had eased Samira’s birth, brought her
and her mother here almost ten years ago, and took them in as her own,
giving them sanctuary where others would have denied it because of her
mixed blood.
It was a simple life, but there was food, there was joy in it, and most
importantly, there was freedom. Samira’s mother spoke often of a man, and
a far-off place where she swore life was better, but she couldn’t imagine it.
From Tara she learned the ways of the herbalist, the plants, fruits,
nuts and seeds that might, in the right proportions be used for healing… or
for death. From the goats she learned the simple pleasures of running free
on the hill, an escape for when her mother’s sadness threatened to spill over
and overwhelm everything in her reach.
Today was one such day. The sun shone, the sky was clear, the air
not too warm, and a light breeze rustled the grasses. But all Lilane saw was
shadows and dust, and all she spoke of was a lost boy, and Bologna, a
mythical place of wonders that might as well be in the sky itself for all the
solidity it had in Samira’s young mind.
Samira doubted that mother even noticed her slipping away, so lost
was she in her past. She had taken her worries to Tara, but the old witch
woman merely shook her head sadly.
“Something broke inside your mother that day, girl,” the old woman
said, “something that no amount of my medicine is going to heal, for it a
sickness of the mind, and those run as deep as the Styx.”
 “Perhaps if I took her to this place, this Bologna?”
Tara laughed.
“That is no small journey,” she said, “and full of dangers for such as
us. The men of the Christ and Yazidi women do not mix well, girl, and they
are as like to burn us for witches as they are to love us. No, believe me, it is
best to leave such fantasies to your mother,” and then, kindly. “We wouldn’t
want her sickness to spread to you.”
It was hard to argue. But then it was always hard to argue with the
old woman. She had lived considerably more life than Samira, and her mind
was every bit as agile as a steel trap, even now.
Out on the hillside under the sky the sad shadows were driven away
for a while.
Samira ran with the goats, higher and higher until they reached the
glistening tarn. The old man, Javed, was already there, as always. He
looked up from his quiet contemplation of the water and grinned as Samira
approached.
“Thirty breaths today, little fish,” he said. “Thirty of my breaths for
one of yours. What say you?”
They had been playing this game for almost a year. At first it had
only been five, then the stakes increased and he’d offered ten. Thirty was
more than she’d ever attempted. Not that she was worried. She took a deep
breath and dived deep into the cold clear waters of the tarn disappearing
beneath the surface.
She hung, floating mere inches below the surface, watching the
rippling silhouette of the old man where he sat on his rock, shimmering and
wavering like a desert mirage as she counted. Ten was easy, fifteen too, but
by twenty she had to let a few air bubbles escape from her nose to relieve
the pressure; if Javed saw the bubbles break the surface, it counted as a win
in his favour. Twenty and five and her lungs burned, but she refused to rise.
Not yet.
At twenty-eight she could take no more and kicked for the surface,
breaking through with a splash and a huge sucking breath that filled her up
with cold and light.
Javed laughed.
“Twenty and nine,” he said. “But I am an old man and do not
breathe as well as I used to, so today, I think it is fair to say you win.”
 Samira let out a huge whoop of joy that echoed across the mountain
slope. Two of the goats raised their heads from grazing, curious at the
sound, but instead of turning in her direction as she would have expected
they bounded away, heading higher still up the hill.
“Someone is coming,” Samira said as she pulled herself out of the
water. She was soaked to the skin, but the mountain sun and wind would
have her dry before she started shivering.
Javed did not answer her.
He stood up on his rock to get a clear view over the valley.
She heard the rumble in the distance before he identified the source.
“Horsemen,” Javed said, staring down at the plain. “A warhost.”

◆◆◆

By the time Samira had scrambled up to the top of the path, giving her a
better view of the land below, the horsemen, thirty or more, were already at
the edge of the village.
“Men of the Christ,” Javed said at her side, nothing but bitterness in
his voice as he pointed out the red crosses at their breasts and on their
banners. Their armour gleamed in the sun. The thud of the horses’ shod
hooves on rock echoed long and loud along the valley.
She saw movement outside one of the village huts. It took her a
moment to recognize the distant figure as her mother, given away by the
cascade of black curls that flowed almost to her waist as she ran to meet the
newcomers. A single shouted name rose to join the sound of the echoing
hooves, so filled with hope it carried all the way to where she looked on,
stretched thin by the mountainside until it made no sense.
If this was the man from the fabled city, he hadn’t come to rescue
Lilane.
The lead horse did not so much as break stride as it drove her to the
ground, and the others charging in behind didn’t slow as they trampled her
already broken body against the sharp rocks.
Samira scrambled forward, starting to shout, but the old man
gripped her tight, one arm around her waist, the other hand clamped over
her mouth as he pulled her low to the ground.
 “Hush, girl. Don’t fight me.” She struggled against his arms.
“There’s nothing to be done but die if you go down, little fish, and I will not
let that happen. I like you too much for that.”
Samira squirmed, slippery as the little fish he nicknamed her, but the
old man was too strong for her.
“Watch and fill your heart with it,” he said. “Trust me girl, the day
will come where you need this memory to give you strength for what you
must do. No matter how hard it is, do not turn away. Watch the slaughter.
Remember.”
The Crusaders spared no one. They torched the village as they
pillaged, and put every soul to the sword, men, women and children, all
treated the same under the steel. Piteous wails ran up the valley side to join
the rising smoke. Not one Crusader fell. It was over in minutes, life wiped
out.
They rode back the way they had come, their banners snapping so
proudly in the wind. Once the thunder of hooves had faded, the valley lay
quiet and dead below.
It was only then that the old man released his grip on her. She
scrambled to her feet and ran like the wind, heedless of any danger on the
slope, slipping and sliding and skidding down the scree as she struggled to
stay on her feet.

◆◆◆

There was no one alive in the village.

Lilane lay on the rocky track, staring at the sky, Tara was face down
in the doorway of her hut, her legs blackened to a weeping crust where she
had tried to crawl out of the flames before dying. A mother had tried to hide
her baby beneath her furs, both were skewered clear through. Everywhere
Samira looked she saw a kindly word, a friendly face, a teacher, a singer, a
storyteller, all gone, taken into the wind by the bastards with their holy
cross.
Javed followed her down the slope. He didn’t run. There was no
need. It didn’t make a difference to the dead if he reached them in ten
minutes or ten hours.
 He lifted the bodies from where they lay, carrying them to the centre
of the small village where he began building a pyre.
Samira visited every hut to be sure no one had survived.
It was only when she was convinced that she was the last of her
people that she began helping the old man with the grisly task.
They left her mother and Tara to the last.
“I will carry this burden,” Javed said softly, “You do not need to do
this.”
Samira shook her head. “They are my dead,” she replied. “But I will
need help to bear them.”
He nodded without a word, helping her with her burden. They
worked side-by-side in silence, gathering more wood and kindling to fuel
the blaze, the last of the bodies added to the pyre, before Javed handed
Samira a brand to set it alight.
“It is your charge,” he said. “As it is your charge to avenge them,
should you take up the mantle.”
“Avenge? I am a child.”
Javed nodded. “That you are, and so was I when the Men of Christ
took my family. But I learned to fight. I even won, on occasion. I can teach
you all I know of the ways of the Fidai of the Nasari, as they were taught to
me, if that is your desire.”
“Will it make me strong enough to kill them?”
“There are many ways to kill a man without the need for strength. Is
that your desire?”
By the inflection in his voice she knew this was some form of ritual,
that she was making a promise. In her mind’s eye she saw that man of
Christ trample her mother down against the unforgiving rocks. She nodded
in reply to Javed’s question and felt the cold fury take hold of her heart in
that instant. “It is my desire.”
“Then it is my pleasure to teach you, little fish,” Javed said. “It will
not be easy. You will not be the same.”
“I will never be the same again,” she swore, and in that she was
right.
Samira lit the pyre and stepped back, watching her life burn away in
every mad cackle and snap of the dry kindling until there was little left of
Lilane and Tara but ash that would blow away on the mountain air.
 All she had left to her name was hate, and anger, and a place she
vowed she would visit to vent both, a place that was now carved deep into
her so it would not be forgotten.
Bologna.
 1301
THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR CHAPTERHOUSE, PARIS

“Move your feet, boy. You’re not chopping wood. It’s a dance. Move.”
Although the sword was only three-quarter size, it was heavy in his hands,
and Aymeric struggled to wield it with any kind of grace. He was more
inclined to brute force, swinging hard to hew great chunks out of the tree
trunk that stood in for an opponent rather than waste time killing it with a
thousand little cuts.
He’d been relatively happy with the morning’s exercises, but the
Master at Arms had other ideas. The barrel-chested man slapped Aymeric
hard across the backside with the flat of his own long blade. “Cut and
move, boy, cut and move. Have you learned nothing?”
Aymeric resisted the temptation to say something dumb, and instead
hacked another wedge out of the wood, and moved to side-step quickly, but
the sword had other ideas. Off balance, he staggered away to his right,
pulled by the weight of the weapon. He stumbled and fell to his knees. The
sword clanged loudly as it hit stone.
Shaking his head sadly, the Master at Arms cuffed Aymeric across
the back of the head with a leather-gloved fist. “Balance, boy. Do these
words mean nothing to you? Movement. Balance. These twins make a
swordsman. Now get up and do it again. And keep on doing it until you get
it right.”
Ignoring the bruises and the warm ache in his muscles, Aymeric
hefted the sword, moving it from hand to hand as he rolled his shoulders,
working his muscles. He raised the flat of the blade up before his face, as
though honouring an opponent, and then with blistering speed made a
savage sweep, the blade cutting at the pulp of the tree. This time, rather than
hammer the blade deep into the wood, he compensated correctly, shifting
his weight and balance on the balls of his feet, and moved nimbly to the
left, reversing his swing to deliver a deeper cut to the other side of the tree
trunk.
The Master at Arms said nothing, but smiled, which was enough.
This then was Aymeric’s young life. Sword practice in the morning
until he was too tired to lift the weapon, Latin and Greek after lunch,
language, history and philosophy, then more sword practice in the evening
before supper, prayers and duties in between, and finally bed in the
aspirant’s dormitory.
So, it had gone for several months, but today was different.
Today he was excited, and distracted, which was the main cause of
his blunders at practice.
“Go and get yourself cleaned up. Your father is waiting for you in
the refectory.”

◆◆◆

His father sat at alone at one of the long trestle tables.

There were a dozen young aspirants in line to receive their bread
and vitals at the far end of the courtyard. Aymeric eschewed eating, instead
joining the man at the table. He hadn’t seen father in almost a year. He had
aged hard in that time. There was a deep-set weariness about the man.
Aymeric sat. For the first time in his life, it was obvious that his father was
getting older. It wasn’t a comforting thought.
“It is time we had words, my boy,” Lucian De Bologna said. “Boy?”
He inclined his head, studying Aymeric across the table. “You’re hardly that
anymore, are you?”
“I am still your son.”
“That you are. But more than that, you will be a man soon, and a
man should know his beginnings.”
“I know all I need to know,” Aymeric said. “You are my father.”
The man smiled, but there was a melancholy sadness about that
smile that threw Aymeric. He couldn’t recall seeing such vulnerability in his
father before.
“It is kind of you to humour an old man, but I have had time aplenty
to dwell on this and come to my own truth. You deserved to know your
mother, and that you didn’t is my fault. I failed you both. All I can say is
that I was young and foolish, and I repent my failings before the Lord every
day. He may forgive me, but I never will.” Before Aymeric could answer,
his father went on, describing the flight from Acre, and the woman and
child who were left behind in the dark.
“Did they…die?” he asked, softly, once the tale was done.
“I do not know. I will never know, and it eats at me like a festering
wound. But it is not them that concerns me at this juncture, at least not only
them. I came to ask you two things. One, and the first, is your forgiveness.
Do I have it?”
“Of course, father. Gladly given. No son has a better father.”
“And no father has a better son,” Lucian replied, although the
sadness did not leave his eyes. “The Master at Arms tells me you are
progressing well.”
Aymeric smiled at that.
“It is more than he tells me,” he replied. “Only this morning he
likened me to an ox.”
“Better that than a sow,” Lucian replied, and suddenly a cloud lifted
from between them. Aymeric was glad to see his father smile.
“The second thing?”
The man grew serious again. “Walk with me, son,” he said. “And we
shall talk, man to man, for this requires a man’s decision.”

◆◆◆

They did not speak again until they stood on the turrets of the Grosse
Tour, looking out over the sprawling city.
“There is a change in the air,” father said. “I can feel it in my bones.
The Order is strong, too strong perhaps for the liking of the Pope or the
King. A challenge is coming. I fear we will be forced to make hard choices.
Ones that might require choosing between duty to the King and duty to the
Lord.”
“That is no choice at all,” Aymeric said.
“The King and the Pope might not see it that way.”
“We all serve the Lord’s will.”
Lucian looked sad again. “That we do, my boy. That we do. You
already know enough of your histories to understand the ways of men and
power can so easily be corrupted from the way of the Lord. The time is
coming, maybe not this year or the next, but it is coming. And that is why I
brought you up here, to look over this place, and to consider what lies
ahead. You are on a path here in the Chapterhouse, one that leads to service,
and the highest calling I can imagine. But you have your own choices to
make, after all it is your life to lead, son, not mine to impose on you. So, I
give you this, last chance. You may leave this place and go to Bologna. My
mother would be glad to meet you, finally. You would want for nothing, and
you could live a life of learning and take over the management of the lands
when you come of age.”
“Or?”
“Or you can stay, stay here, work hard, live frugally, and follow me
in the Order, to fight for what is right, and when the time comes, die with
that sword in your hand.”
Once again there was not the slightest hesitation in Aymeric’s
response. “That is no choice at all, father.”
 1307
THE YAZIDI VALLEY

“Again,” Javed said. Samira drew back the bow and sighted down the hill
on the sack of grain that she knew was there. She could barely see the
silhouette in the gathering gloom. The sun had gone down ten minutes ago,
and the last of its influence left the sky as stars appeared in the dome above.
She calmed her breathing, feeling her pulse in her fingers where
they held the string. She concentrated on the tension in her arm, following it
out to the arrow, and on the journey it must take.
Every day of the last five years had brought her to this place of
stillness.
She felt the ripple of the breeze in her hair and compensated her aim
for it, then moved a fraction more when the evening chill came.
She breathed in, held that breath for three seconds, the loosed it, the
arrow eager to fly. Just as she let go, Javed screamed wordlessly in her ear.
The arrow whistled wide of the mark, disappearing into the night to clatter
off a rock somewhere.
The old man laughed at her cursing.
“You’re a bastard, Javed.”
“That I am, little fish,” he cackled, infinitely amused by her miss.
“We have trained the body, but the spirit still has much to learn. It is time
we made a start on that.”

◆◆◆

She followed Javed back up the hill, but rather than head for the
sheltered cave she had called home for the last five years, the old man
stopped by the side of the tarn.
 “Sixty of my breaths for one of yours.”
It was not a request; she had learned, from many beatings, that
refusal was not allowed, even when the order came at the end of a
strenuous, muscle aching, lung bursting, day.
In the cool of the night, she knew that diving into the tarn fully
clothed would only lead to a freezing night beside the tiny fire that was all
Javed would allow in the cave mouth, so she stripped off and plunged,
naked, into the black waters.
She hung, just under the surface, maintaining her position with only
small movements of palms and feet, counting out the time in her head. Sixty
would be a new barrier; until tonight fifty-five had been the most he had
asked of her, and that had been a day when she was rested and strong. She
still felt the tension of that last bow-pull in her arms, and tried to relax,
knowing that any movement, any strain of muscles, would only use up what
precious little gasps of air she had left inside her.
She looked up, but there was nothing to see within the shifting
blackness, above, ahead and below.
Panic threatened to rise.
For a second she was unsure of her bearings, unable to tell up from
down.
She pushed such thoughts away.
Calmness was what was needed.
Calm and focus.
Her mind began to drift to thoughts of Bologna and revenge. Her
hate bubbled, never too far from the forefront of her thoughts. A twenty-
five count, but already her thinking was muddled and her chest craved air.
Thirty-five. Something moved above her in the darkness.
A spear lanced through the water, its tip slicing a shallow wound,
small, but intensely painful, in the muscle of her left biceps. Samira stopped
paddling with her hands, letting a few precious bubbles of air, and sank
lower, judging herself out of reach of Javed’s taunting.
Forty-five, it would be good for a good day, but not enough for this
dark night. The urge to breathe was almost overwhelming, and everything
was dark, a deep black in which nothing existed but her pain, her hate, and
her will not to fail the old man. She sank farther into the waters, but barely
noticed. She felt slight eddies in the water over her head; Javed trying to rile
her into revealing herself.
 Not tonight.
Fifty-five.
Now she wasn’t alone in the dark.
Her mother Lilane smiled at her.
Thunder roared in her ears, as if a great storm rushed thorough all
her empty spaces, and her chest felt like it was buried under a slab of stone.
She began to let the last of her air leak out between her lips as she
began to rise.
Fifty-six.
Off to her right the moon was high in the night sky, lending a silvery
shimmer to the surface above her. The temptation was to kick fast, to take
that first precious gulp under the sky.
But not yet.
Fifty-seven.
She could reach out and break the surface with her hand if she
wanted to.
Fifty-eight.
Javed’s spear came lancing down again, aimed square at the middle
of her chest. Without thought, she grabbed at it, hand closing around the
wooden shaft, and tugged hard; and was pulled harder in return as Javed
almost lifted her up and out of the tarn, her head breaking the water.
Her body betrayed her by swallowing down a huge, gulping, breath
as soon as that precious air was there to be breathed.
Javed let go of the spear and Samira flopped back into the tarn with
a splash.
When she rolled over and looked up again, the old man was gone
from his perch on the rock.
By the time she got herself dressed and walked up to the cave, Javed
had the small fire going, and sat by it, his back to her, not speaking as he
stirred a pot of thin goat stew.
“I am sorry,” she said. “It was the spear. It would have gutted me if I
hadn’t moved.”
“You should have let it, rather than give away your position,” the
old man said. “You had your command, and you did not obey. What kind of
servant of Allah do you wish to be?”
This was an old argument, ground they had covered on many dark
nights.
 “I serve no one but you.”
“Then learn when to breathe, and when not to breathe,” Javed
replied. “For the breath is all we have that is ours, and if we let another
control it, we are lost.”
He repeated what he had said earlier out on the hill.
“We have trained the body, but the spirit still has much to learn.”
It was a lesson that was taking a long time for her to master.
But she would.
For six years she’d undergone physical training so strict that there
were days, weeks even, when she wished that she were dead, especially in
those first years.
“A hundred of my breaths to the tarn and back,” Javed would say,
and off she would run, head down, arms and legs pumping furiously as she
drove herself on faster and faster, the goats bounding with her, no time for
thought, all focus on fleetness and sound footing. It took a year to reach the
old man’s target, and another year before she could do it carrying an adult
goat across her shoulders, with it bleating in her ear with every step, but she
did it, every morning before breaking fast.
After breakfast had come weapons training, with Javed proving to
be the master of blade and bow, spear and shield. He fought her like a
Roman would, or a Greek, or a blond barbarian from the north. He fought
like a mounted man, like a man on foot, like an injured man, like a dying
man. And Samira learned, not how to fight them, but how to kill them, as
quickly as possible and with the minimum of effort. That was a different
lesson. She learned the dance of the blade, became proficient in its steps,
although never entirely to Javed’s satisfaction. Her greatest success was
always with the bow; she had the eyes of a predator, the patience akin to
that of one of the great night owls, and over time her skills with the arrows
even impressed the old man.
Lunch was goat or fish and whatever berries and roots could be
gathered from the mountain, then it was time for more training, sometimes
in the tarn, more often on the hill. The old man taught her how to climb a
sheer face of rock, when to grip it like a lover, when to lean away from it to
give it space. She carried endless pails of water up and down slopes. She
ran with the goats. She walked untold miles in the sun, even more miles
under the great cape of desert stars.
 The old man taught her languages; Latin and Greek, the Frankish
tongue spoken by the men of Christ, the many dialects of the mountains and
deserts, even a smattering of the outlandish speech patterns of the Mongol
horsemen far to the East.
And she had listened, taking in everything the old man had to say.
She would need it all when she got to Bologna.
Until this night she had thought she was almost ready. But it
appeared the old man did not agree.

◆◆◆

After supper, over a brew of strong tea, Javed spoke and Samira
listened.
Some nights he spoke of war, relaying details and strategies of great
battles of the past. On other nights he spoke of his own life as a young man,
in service to a master of his own. Sometimes, but not often, he spoke of the
men he had killed, and their bravery. But most often of all, he spoke of
service, obedience, and the will of Allah. Samira would not, could not bend
from her hate; Bologna was too big in her mind to let anything in,
especially not a god who had allowed a mother to be so casually slain, and a
daughter so casually abandoned.
But tonight, she would not argue.
She had failed the old man at the tarn; she would not fail him twice
in the same day. So, she listened, and a story unfurled.
“There was once a Man of Christ, a great man, known among our
people as Al-kond Herri, a ruler of Jerusalem when it was held by their
kind. He sought out Rashid ad-Din Sinan, The Old Man of the Mountain in
al-Kahf, to demand an annual tribute, promising war and death if his terms
were not met and reminding Sinan that his army was vastly superior in
numbers and arms. The Men of Christ held the stronghold of the Holy City.
“Sinan replied that his army might be smaller, but it was far stronger
in spirit. He signalled to a Fidai standing at the highest point of the castle.
“The Fidai called out ‘God is Great’ and dived, headfirst, down, far
down, to perish on the sharp rocks in the valley below.
“‘Why would a man do that?’ the Man of Christ asked?
 “‘Because his God wills it, and because the man’s spirit is the only
thing important to him.’
“He motioned again. Another Fidai took the place of the first, and,
with a cry of ‘God is Great’ he too leapt, gladly, to the rocks below.
“‘Every man in my service is willing to do this for their god,’ Sinan
said. ‘Is yours?’
“When the Man of Christ left Sinan and the mountain, it was under
terms of peace between them, and he never again returned with offers of
war.”

◆◆◆

Samira knew only too well what she was supposed to take away from
this particular story.
“Surely, master, after all these years you do not doubt my spirit?”
Javed looked up over the top of his cup.
“I do not doubt your hate, little fish,” he said. “But hate only goes in
two ways; it either consumes or is burnt out. And neither way goes well. It
is not your will I am concerned with; as you say, it is strong enough for
what you require of it. No, by spirit I mean your ability to take a stand when
all is hopeless, to die if that is what is required, or to live, if that is required
more. Spirit is more than will, more than hate. Spirit is the breath of life and
is not to be burned away on the whims of emotion.”
“I do not understand,” Samira said.
“But you will, little fish. I promise you that. We shall begin in the
morning.”
 1307
THE STREETS OF PARIS

Aymeric’s heart thudded hard in his chest, the blood pounding through his
flesh. He heard it as drumming in his ears.
His legs were weak beneath him, but it was excitement he felt more
than anything as the Great Gate of the Chapterhouse swung open to allow
the Templars and aspirants access to the city beyond.
The call to arms had come only five minutes before; the King was in
peril, the Order was needed.
Aymeric’s father organized the troops required for the mission,
raising a dozen of the seasoned old hands, and a dozen of the more capable
aspirants, Aymeric included. There had been time for only the simplest of
briefings in the courtyard. “There is a revolt in the city. The King is cut off
from the bulk of his guard. Haste is required, for the mob calls for Philip’s
head.”
“Then we must ensure they do not get it!” one of the younger men
called.
“Indeed, but heed my words, there is to be no killing here today, no
matter how nasty things turn. These are our people, and like the King
himself, they are under our protection.”
There had been no dissent, and the gate was opened to them.
They hurried through the streets, hooves sparking on the cobbles,
the crowds parting ahead of them, as they rode deeper into the city, towards
the rising sound of riot and the baying mob.

◆◆◆

They found the King trapped in a market square in the centre of the city.
 His guardsmen were packed in a tight circle around him, steel
drawn, shields raised, but despite their swords and mail, the angry crowd of
townsfolk with nothing more than clubs, crude cudgels, pitchforks and
scythes had them pinned down, besieged and hemmed in on all sides.
The mood was ugly.
This King had never been well liked, and in recent months the
dislike had turned to a deeper, darker, hatred with his extravagances in stark
contrast to the trials and tribulations crippling the honest, decent people of
the city after a harvest ruined by a damp summer, hardship made worse by
brutal taxation in terms of tribute to both the Crown and Church.
Over the last two weeks more and more people had gathered in the
city from outside Paris to protest at the King’s door. Now, mere sight of
Philip had proved too much for them, and the ill-feeling had spilled over
into riot.
Three of the mob already lay, bloodied and cleaved at the King’s
Guards feet, and the clash of sword against wood and metal rang loud
around the square.
The crowd pressed ever closer, baying like a pack of dogs for blood,
furious in their frenzy to get at the King and tear into him.
Aymeric’s father led the men of the Order into the square.
Lucian De Bologna’s voice cut above all other noise when he
shouted, “Desist. Lay down your weapons. In the name of the King.”
The mob fell quiet, but Aymeric saw the anger still blazing in their
faces. A hefty man in a leather butcher’s apron brandished a long heavy
knife. He waved it in Aymeric’s face. The urge to run him through his fat
belly was there, but his training, and his father’s command in tandem with
it, was enough to hold his blow in check. For now.
The aspirants of the Order walked slowly into the centre of the
square, while the Knights themselves rode slowly into position. Aymeric
realized that his father was ensuring that all present saw their weaponry,
their mail armour, but more than that, the strength of their resolve. There
might only be two dozen of them, but fear and intimidation made it seem
like they were legion. It was the aura of strength would keep the mob at bay
while they got the King to safety.
His father reached the ring of the King’s guardsmen.
“Your Majesty,” he said, loudly enough for all in the crowd to hear.
“It is too far through the mob to the palace. The men of the Order offer their
protection until such time as your full guard can be called. Will you accept
it?”
Aymeric excepted the King to be grateful for a rescue, but he saw
doubt in the man’s eyes, and more than a hint of fear.
Doesn’t he trust my father?
Or is it the Order he is afraid of?
There was more going on here than he was immediately
understanding, but Aymeric didn’t have time to ponder on the implications
of that look. The angry mob, sensing their quarry might be slipping through
their fingers, found their voice again. Brutal, brash, raw, the cries went up
again, and the crowd on the north side of the square surged forward, as
though an unspoken attack had been signalled.
That was all the incentive the King needed.
He looked Aymeric’s father in the eye and nodded. “I accept your
offer of hospitality,” he said. “But only until the body of the guard can be
brought to me.”
Lucian nodded back in return, then addressed the King’s guard.
“We will shelter his Majesty in the Chapterhouse and keep him safe.
You must fetch your brothers and return as quickly as you are able. But take
care; this throng is in an ugly mood.” The King’s men left, taking the
western exit, having to bully and shove their way through the press of
bodies to make their escape.
The unruly mob on the northern side swarmed in closer and closer
to the men of the Order. It would be so easy for first blood to be spilled, and
it all go to hell, but Lucian was not about to lose lives here if they could be
saved. He waited until he was sure the King’s Guard had retreated, before
turning to the Templars.
“To the Chapterhouse,” he said. “And remember, there will be no
killing here today. We protect the King, and we protect the people, each is
as important as the other.”
Lucian did not see it, but Aymeric did; the King was not at all
pleased with that edict. There was pure loathing in that look. Lucian would
be as well to watch his back in future. Aymeric wondered if his father
hadn’t made a powerful enemy that day, then had no time for anything but
movement and action as the men of the Order, with the King in their centre,
left the courtyard on the southernmost side, shielding the monarch from the
angry mob on the journey back to their Chapterhouse and safety.
 ◆◆◆

It didn’t take long for Aymeric to realize that obeying his father’s order
not to kill wasn’t going to as simple as it should have been; the streets were
narrow and the mob had them penned them in on every side, pressing up
into their faces, all rancid breath and rage. Every yard gained toward the
Chapterhouse was bitterly earned.
A youth, no older than Aymeric himself, shoved a long-hooked
scythe over the young knight’s head in a wild attempt to leave the King on
his backside looking stupid.
Aymeric halved the wooden shaft with one sweep of his sword.
All his training and instinct demanded he pivot, swing, and cut again
—the assailant’s neck was exposed. Not only was he vulnerable, he had no
great skill with his broken tool. He would make an easy kill. Aymeric’s
muscles, the movement ingrained, had already started to execute the killing
blow. It was all he could do to turn the blade so that the flat rather than the
edge caught the lad’s skull, but even that was enough to fell him. He hit the
cobbles, blood at his ear and in his hair.
It was the first cut Aymeric had made in anger. He felt no remorse
for it, and never gave it a second’s thought. He didn’t have the luxury. Even
as the boy fell, Aymeric was forced to counter another desperate attack,
slamming the hilt of his weapon into the forehead of a screaming, spittle-
flying face of a lunatic desperate to take a bite out of his neck.
He followed in, delivering a brutal kick to the groin of a peasant
taking a wild swing of his own—with a cudgel at the King’s head. Even
before that man had fallen, he’d hamstrung another with a cut that would
have taken the leg clean off if he hadn’t pulled the full of weight his blow.
All around him the mob screamed and bayed and jostled, and now
there was blood, which only made it more dizzyingly insane. They fell,
injured, unconscious, bloodied…but not dead.
Yard by yard the Men of the Order fought a tightly controlled and
disciplined path through the city streets, while the King cowered, tears
staining his dirty cheeks, pathetic and humbled, in their centre. He fell and
needed a hand to help him back to his feet. The front of his robes were
smeared from chest to knee in manure and muck. The man wiped at it, then
look in horror at his hands, the crap on them worse than the horrors
threatened by the hoes and ploughshares.
Aymeric saw his father look over, a grim smile crossing his face
before he had to fend off another attacker.
If nothing else, this was a day of learning. Just as it had been
painfully obvious the King did not care for his father, there was no
mistaking the fact that the distaste was entirely mutual.

◆◆◆

It took more than an hour of fighting to forge a pathway through the

streets to reach the Chapterhouse doors. As they neared, more Men of the
Order came, securing the streets from the masses. The wall of red crosses
advancing toward them, swords raised, drained the mob’s courage.
Outnumbered, outmatched, their angers gave way to sensible fears, and they
scattered, running like rain off a slate roof.
Aymeric, at the King’s side, helped hurry the man inside the gate,
across the courtyard and into the safety of the Great Tower, glad it was
finally over.
Aymeric assumed that would be an end to the day’s excitement, but
as the other aspirants were dismissed, he was told to linger.
He joined his father, the two of them showing the King into the
chambers normally reserved for the Grand Master of the Order.
“My guards must be brought to me,” the King said before the door
was even closed, “I require clean robes; the best quality that you have and
none of your tabards or smocks with that vulgar cross of your order. I am
your King, so before you open your mouth to argue with, Knight, you
would do well to remember that.”
“I am unlikely to forget it, your Majesty,” Aymeric’s father said,
with no effort to mask the sarcasm in his voice. The King was either too
stupid, or too distracted by the horse shit, to realise he was being mocked.
“And draw a bath, for God’s sake, I need to get this smell of shit off
me,” the King said.
“And water will do that?”
The monarch bristled. “Just because I have accepted your
hospitality, does not mean I will accept your insolence.”
 Lucian nodded. “As your Majesty pleases. I only meant you might
require some perfumes or scented soaps. I have some experience with
animals.” If looks could have killed, the knight would have clutched his
heart and fallen. “But, be that as it may, it would be remiss of me not to
note that our hospitality is the very least you have accepted from us in
recent times. You owe us for your throne. So, forgive me for being blunt,
but I am a believer that debts ought to be settled in a timely manner, even if
His Majesty is not.”
And with that, without waiting to be dismissed, Lucian headed for
the door. Aymeric thought it best to follow. His father walked, not down the
stairwell to the courtyard, but up, to the platform at the turrets overlooking
the city.
To the north, smoke rose in many of the districts, and large fires
burned. He recognised one such pyre as the square where they had rescued
the King.
“There is a lesson here, boy. This is what happens when weak men
rule,” Aymeric’s father said. “A King, a true noble man, commands the
respect of his people or he is no King at all.”
The inference was plain; in his father’s eyes Philip was no King at
all.
“What did you mean, father, about the King’s debts?”
Lucian stared out over the smoke clouds rising over the city.
“A time of reckoning is coming, boy. Our Order has shored up this
feckless child’s base nature for too long, propping up his failures with our
gold, lands we have subdued on his whim, and treasures we have recovered
that, believe me, are beyond imagining. He has a debt to us that must be
repaid. The Order must maintain its own power. But this King only knows
how to take. So, he must be made to face the consequences of his greed. To
do otherwise tells that bastard he can ignore us. And that can’t happen.”
“You will stand against the throne?”
“In the name of what is right, always.”
Aymeric’s head spun. This was a new reality, but before he could
even begin to wrestle with the implications this revelation presented, his
father said, “I have another thing to ask of you,” Lucian said, finally turning
away from the view. “Will you take first guard at the King’s door? I need
someone I can trust watching over him.”
 His heart swelled with pride; his throat choked up and he almost had
to whisper the answer, but it was the same one he had given, years before
on the same spot.
“I will serve.”

◆◆◆

Aymeric stood guard for three days and nights at the door to the Grand
Master’s chambers, his only breaks for food and four hours of sleep at a
time. Out in the city the rioting continued with a ferocity that cut right to
the heart of dissatisfaction. The people out there weren’t just angry. It was
more than rage driving them. Rooted deeper. So many of the ancient
dwellings had stood since the foundations of the grand city were laid now
burned, others were already ash on the ground. The cowards who hid
behind their walls had fled to their country estates. The King’s Guard had
not come to the Chapterhouse; rumours were rife that the palace itself was
under siege, the King’s Men forced to fight a desperate defence.
The King didn’t take well to his confinement.
He railed against his protectors, spitting curses and stamping around
the quarters every bit as petulantly as Lucian had predicted he would. “Am
I guest or prisoner here, tell me that, and remember you are talking your
King.” he demanded, facing off with Lucian. He hadn’t taken the news he
must stay at least one more night well.
“Which one would you prefer, your majesty?” Lucian asked, not
bothering to mask his enjoyment of the other man’s frustration.
The King slammed the chamber door in his face.
Later that same night, while Aymeric was alone on the landing,
guarding the door when the unmistakable sound of splintering wood came
from within the chamber behind him. His father’s orders had been explicit;
he wasn’t to let anyone enter the room. There were plenty beyond the
Chapterhouse walls who would take delight in dragging the King’s corpse
through the streets to the howls of derision and delight from their riot. He
steeled himself, ready to fight to save the man.
He opened the door.
The King stood by the left-hand wall of the chamber, one of the
wall’s oak panels at his feet. There was a hollow dug into the stonework
behind the panel. There were still several scrolls inside. The King was in
the process of secreting something inside the folds of his robes.
Aymeric knew better than to accuse a monarch of wrongdoing, even
here in the Grand Master’s Chambers, so he merely walked over, picked up
the wooden panel, and hammered it back into place with the hilt of his
sword, making sure it was firmly fixed into place. The King, for his part,
would not look Aymeric in the eye. He crossed the room to stand by the
fireplace until the young aspirant turned to leave.
“You saw nothing untoward here, boy,” Philip said. “There is
nothing to report. That is the command of your monarch. Do we have an
understanding?”
In the morning, Lucian arrived with the King’s Guard, who finally
led a contented King off and away through the quieter streets.
The reason behind his change of mood became clear when the
broken panel and missing papers were discovered.
“Hell’s teeth!” Lucian spat, barging passed Aymeric and rushing
through the passages to the chambers and the damaged panelling. By the
time Aymeric caught up his father had heaved the oak off the wall and
thrown it aside, and was on his hands and knees rifling through the scrolls.
He only read as much of the contents as he needed to identify them before
discarding them, until there were none left to discard. He stuffed them all
back into the concealed safe place.
“He has it, damn his bastard black heart.”
“Has what?”
“He knows everything.” It wasn’t an answer, but it was the only one
he was getting. Lucian stormed away, face like thunder.
Aymeric did not know what he’d allowed to happen, or what the
King had stolen from them.
But he knew it wasn’t good.
 1307
THE YAZIDI VALLEY

Samira stood in the blackness, as blind as she would have been under the
night-black waters of the tarn. At least here she knew which way was up
and which was down. She felt the cold, damp rock under her bare feet.
Those two things were the sum total of what she sensed around her.
She breathed, softly and slowly.
Although she knew that Javed had left the cave some minutes ago to
cover the entrance to ensure that the desert moon’s light could not penetrate
it. The old man was both silent and cunning. And after the attack at the tarn,
she wasn’t about to trust him.
She listened intently, but the only thing she heard was the thud of
her heartbeat, as loud as a great drum in the absence of any other noise.
Be still.
That was the only command Javed had given; there had been no
mention of any number of breaths. He hadn’t called her by that affectionate
pet name. He had given her a single command.
Be still.
She stood, her eyes not adjusting to the darkness without a glimmer
of light to help. She knew the hearth was three feet in front of her, knew
that the rock shelves on which they made their beds were behind her and to
the right, and that there were goatskin bags of water alongside dried meat
and filleted fish hanging from ropes to her left. But she could see none of
these things. She could smell the fish, and taste remnants of smoke from the
fire at the back of her throat.
Suddenly that was all she tasted; the smoke, and resultant dryness at
her tonsils threatened to make her cough.
Be still.
It was as if she heard the old man’s demand loud in her head.
 But now that she had smelled the smoke and the fish, every smell in
the cave swarmed her senses. The damp furs that served as bedding reeked
of wet goat; the strong black tea that Javed drank in profusion, the sweet,
almost honey-like water that dripped constantly at the back of the cave. The
darkness was alive with aromas, not all of them pleasant. There was
something else, something she couldn’t place at first, even as she
concentrated on it, trying to discern its true nature: her own sweat, running
freely in the warmth now that the cave was sheltered from the mountain
winds.
Be still!
The command was more insistent now, angrier. Demanding. She
pushed any and every thought from her mind, focussing only on her next
breath. It was the same technique she used when floating under the surface
of the water. One by one she closed down her senses; the smells went first,
dispelled into the dark, followed by the sounds, the drum of her heart fading
into the far distance as she banished it. There was no need to close her eyes
against the dark, but she did so anyway, and dispatched the yellow and
green and red flashes that hid there away to join her heartbeat in the far
away place. She felt the cold rock underfoot. She sent the cold spinning
away from her.
There was nothing.
She closed her mouth, barely breathing, slowing with each breath
until her body found the rhythm it needed for the dark.
Finally, she was still.
A cold hand fell on her shoulder.
Samira’s screams echoed across the mountainside.

◆◆◆

Javed’s laughter was every bit as loud as he pulled the goatskins aside
and let the sun into the cave. Samira looked frantically around their
dwelling; she was alone.
“Somebody touched me,” she said, moving to join the old man in
the welcome warmth of the sun at the entrance.
 The old man laughed again, then coughed and had to catch his
breath.
“Your spirit has made itself known to you,” he said. “You have felt
the breath of creation that lies within you. Be at peace, little fish. There is
nothing to fear apart from what you carry every day, what you have carried
every day since birth.”
He set a fire in the stone hearth and began brewing a pot of his
strong black tea. He motioned Samira to join him.
“It did not feel like some disconnected spirit,” she said when she sat,
cross-legged, across the fire from him.
Javed smiled.
“That is because it is yours,” he said, “and part of you knows that to
be true by instinct, if not by thought.”
Samira remembered the cold touch of the hand on her shoulder.
There had been no malicious intent there, she was sure of that. But how
could she know that?
“I do not believe in spirits,” Samira said boldly.
“That is of no consequence,” Javed said. “But if you refuse to use
what the breath of Allah can give you, you will be leaving your best
weapon sheathed, and will never fully be Fidai. It is the last thing I must
teach you, and the lesson is a long one, but if you do not wish to learn, you
may leave.”
The last three words struck like ice in her heart.
“Where would I go?”
“Your fabled Bologna, perhaps?” Javed said. “But as your you’re
your friend and master, it is my duty to tell you that you are not ready for
that trial. You know too much about too little, and too little about too
much.” She heard the admonishment in the old man’s voice. That, and
disappointment. Samira took the cup from him when it was offered and
bowed her head.
“I am sorry, master,” she replied. “As you name me, I am but a little
fish. Please, tell me about my spirit, about the breath of Allah and the magic
of creation, and how it connects. I wish to learn all of it, so that I may
understand.”
“It is not a thing of telling,” Javed said. “It is a thing of doing. What
you need to know is in the darkness, in the stillness of that place. When you
are ready, we will try again.”
 Samira cradled the hot tea, trying to draw every part of its warmth
into her. She wasn’t ready to feel that cold hand on her shoulder in the dark.
I might never be ready.
 1307
THE PALACE, PARIS

Aymeric stood alongside his father. Ahead of them, a tall red-bearded

Templar Knight, Hugues de Pairaud, and his father’s left hand, Theirn
Charbonneau, a Knight Sergeant, stood at the main gate of the King’s
Palace. On either side of the heavily defended causeway, men at arms, the
King’s men, stood, swords drawn, or bows raised.
“I need you to bear witness to what you saw yesterday in the Grand
Master’s chamber,” his father said.
The thought of accusing the King as a thief mad him sick to the
core, but he had promised to serve, and serve he would. Whatever the cost.
The walk through the pre-dawn streets had been a strange one. They
had been cheered on their way by the few townspeople up and about their
morning tasks. The air of violence was gone from the city, but not forgotten.
Standing before the huge iron gates it was different. The anger lingered in
the swords and arrows of the King’s men. Aymeric felt vulnerable despite
the full mail he wore beneath his tabard and cloak.
“What is your business?” A rough voice called from the other side
of the portcullis barring the way to the inner courtyard.
De Pairaud answered, his voice echoing around the causeway. “We
seek an audience with Phillip. We are on the business of Jacques de Molay,
Grand Master of the Knight’s Templar. There are debts to be repaid and
wrongs to be corrected.”
Aymeric noted the slight shift in his father’s demeanour. The warrior
was on edge; alert, despite remaining perfectly still. His gaze flicked
between the portcullis, the defences above it, and the armed men on either
side of them. Aymeric allowed his hand to fall onto the hilt of his blade
where the steel was scabbarded on his hip. He had no intention of drawing
the weapon. They weren’t here in numbers to fight. This was a time for
talking, if the King was willing to listen.
 Aymeric began to suspect they had walked here for no reason; the
portcullis remained resolutely closed against them. But they waited. And
they waited. And finally, as the sun rose over the causeway, the immense
iron portcullis rose slowly, just high enough to allow entry.
They walked beneath the huge stone arch into the courtyard.
No sooner were they through than the portcullis fell again, locking
them within the King’s stronghold. The Knights were surrounded on all
sides by heavily armed guards, but no one dared suggest they surrender
their weapons. Aymeric waited, not sure what to expect. It was a servant,
not a soldier, who eventually showed them the way to his Majesty’s
staterooms.
Perhaps the King wanted to talk after all?

◆◆◆

Aymeric had thought the King’s chambers would match the opulence
and splendour of the Grand Master’s quarters in the Chapterhouse, but the
room they were shown to was stark and bleak. Cold grey stone ran damp
and a chill wind swept through windows open to the elements.
Philip the Fourth sat on a tall golden throne. Aymeric saw the flakes
where the gilding had peeled off to expose the rotted timber beneath the
veneer of wealth. If ever there were a metaphor for this man and his
kingdom it was this. In this dour chamber, with the huge drapes blocking
out most of the sun, the King himself looked diminished on the decaying
throne. The fact that he was already small of stature, and frail of bone
meant he looked like a child sitting in a man’s chair, pretending at majesty.
It was a pitiful sight where it should have been an awe inspiring one,
Aymeric thought, walking the length of the room to stand before him.
The man didn’t acknowledge their presence until De Pairaud, his big
red beard bristling, brought all four of them to a halt, several paces short of
the throne.
“Why have you come here?” Phillip asked, finally looking up.
De Pairaud answered. “We bring a message from the Grand Master
of our Order,” the redheaded Knight said.
“Oh yes?”
 “He demands restitution of all debts owed, all lands seized and all
treasures held in bond by the Crown.”
“You would make demands of your King?” Phillip said, shaking his
head as though he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. “Here, in his
own house?”
“We require restitution,” De Pairaud repeated. It was obvious that
the big man was struggling to keep calm. “If it is not forthcoming, we will
be forced to take action, repatriating the lands we have lent, and the monies
you have squandered.”
“You dare to threaten me?”
“It is no threat. We merely ask for what is owed,” De Pairaud said,
and Aymeric noted a tremor in the big man’s voice, the anger bubbling up.
“Owed?” Phillip replied, almost shouting as he rose in his seat.
“Owed? It is you who owe me! You have a debt of duty and service to your
King. But do you fulfil it? No. Your precious Order has been plotting
against me all this time.”
He took out a scroll from inside his robes and made a show of
unrolling it. He licked at his lips. “Or are you going to deny the evidence,
written in Molay’s own hand, detailed plans for the sequestering of lands in
the Languedoc for a City State of Templars? The Holy Church has
forbidden the Order from any such activities, and Molay knows it. Does he
intend to go against both Pope and King?”
“That is not why we are here, your majesty. We are…”
The King’s rage boiled over. “But it is why I am here. I am God’s
servant in this land, not you. And this…” He stood from the throne, stepped
down off the dais, tore the scroll to scraps and threw them in De Pairaud’s
face. “This heresy shall not stand.”
De Pairaud’s hand moved instinctively toward his sword, but the big
man was held back by Aymeric’s father’s firm grip on his wrist. “This is not
the time,” Lucian assured him.
“This farce is over,” Phillip said. “You may leave, and trouble me no
more with your talk of debts and restitution, for there will be none.
Furthermore, I am of a mind to admonish your Order. I shall consider your
punishment; a decree will be forthcoming.”
De Pairaud’s anger could not be contained. He took a step towards
the King, his hand an inch from flying. “Do not do this. It will not go well
for you.”
 Phillip showed no such restraint. He slapped the redhead, hard on
his left cheek, the skin flaring to match the colour of the big man’s beard.
“That was a mistake,” Pairaud said, coldly. It was as though the
shock of the challenge had centred the big man, calming his temper.
“Who are you guttersnipes and warrior monks to tell me what I can
and cannot do? I am your King, and you shall bow before me. Bow, or die.”
“The Order only bows before God,” Aymeric’s father said, holding
tight to the redhead’s arm to prevent Philip’s blow being answered.
The King shouted in Lucian’s face.
“Then death it is. Just remember this, you made this choice. It could
have gone differently for you. Now, go and prepare yourselves, for if it was
restitution you required, I am of a mind to give it to you.”
“Do not act in anger, your Majesty,” Lucian said. “We apologize if
you have taken offence, but…”
“Shut up, warrior. Your words will not be heard.” The King turned
his back. The audience was over.
Lucian had to drag De Pairaud away. Aymeric realise that without
his father’s presence the redhead might well have cleaved the King in two
there and then and be damned with the consequences. It didn’t bear thinking
about.
The three older knights made for the door, with Aymeric following
along a few steps behind. He was lost in thought, wrestling with the
implications of what had just happened, which meant that he was not
paying full attention to his surroundings.
He walked straight into someone coming through the doorway in the
other direction. Aymeric had to look up to look into the man’s thin face, and
saw a pair of dead, dark eyes stare back at him from stony, chiselled
features that had spent too many days in dark places long hidden from the
sun. The man’s eyes were buried deep in their sockets, and his cheekbones
looked ready to split the paper-thin skin. Aymeric had seen rats show more
emotion, although the man cursed, loudly, addressing Aymeric’s father.
“Keep your brats under control, Templar, lest I choose to do it for
you,” he said.
Aymeric’s father did not answer.
No one spoke until they were once again out in the causeway
beyond the portcullis and safely free of the King’s house and making their
way back to the Chapterhouse.
 “Who was that man on his way to see the King?” Aymeric asked.
“That, lad, was Bernard Gui of Toulouse, the church’s Head
Inquisitor. Mark his face. He is nothing short of a rat bastard, lad.”
 1307
THE YAZIDI VALLEY

Samira stood in the dark.

It had taken her all day to bring herself to face it, but she had made
her choice years before to obey and learn, this was merely another step on
her way to Bologna. At least, that is what she tried to tell herself as Javed
pulled the goatskins into place across the cave entrance, plunging her once
more into the quiet black void.
It might be night out on the hill, but it was darker still, here in the
confines of the cave.
“The breath of Allah is your part of the grace of God,” Javed had
said over more of the strong black tea at supper. “And it is as unique to you
as your skin, but is still part of the whole, the all powerful one’s gift to that
which was first made. It is breath, it is spirit, it is the whisper of creation,
and it knows all, it sees all, and it will tell all, should you learn how to ask
of it.”
“And how do I ask?”
Javed had laughed at that.
“Before seeking to bind it to your will, you must learn to believe in
it, little fish.”
So here she stood again, in the dark, in the quiet, with the smell of
black tea in her nose and more than a hint of fear in her heart.
At least the tea masks the smell of fish.
She went through the ritual as she had done before, closing her
senses one by one, and banishing the smells, sounds, feel and sights of the
cave swirling away from her into the dark. Her heartbeat was the last to
leave her, the dull thud of the drum echoing in her chest, persistent and
insistent for long minutes before she was finally able to dispel it.
 Then there was only the fear to deal with, the cold, bone shaking
trembling in her legs and tightness in her shoulders as she tensed, waiting
for the return of the cold hand on her skin.
“It is part of you,” Javed had said, but that was easy to hear, less
easy to believe.
“You dream, do you not, little fish?” the old man had asked, and
Samira nodded. “Well then, you already know the breath moves inside you,
for your dreams are its dreams and one and one are all the same.”
None of it made much sense.
It is not a thing of telling, it is a thing of doing.
And at the memory of those words, finally, she found her still place,
the quiet, lonely spot in the dark that was solely hers. She sank into it,
gratefully.
She didn’t recoil when the cold touch settled on her shoulder again.
This time she steeled herself, drawing on her curiosity to examine it
dispassionately, concentrating on the roughness of the skin, and hearing
something new in the absolute darkness–her spirit, if Javed was to be
believed–exhale and inhale. Her senses returned. She could smell its breath
in her face.
It smelled of black tea.
“It is yours,” Javed had said. “If you have a question, you only have
to ask.”
She knew what she was going to ask. She had held the question in
her mind all of these long years, waiting for the right moment.
She whispered it to her spirit, there in the dark.
“How do I find Bologna?”
There was a curious doubling sensation in her mind.
Her rational mind knew that she stood in the dark of the cave on the
rocky mountainside. But she was also, somehow, somewhere else, looking
down on a strange scene that the struggled to give meaning to. It had the
strange otherwordly feeling of a dream, yet the sights, sounds and smells
spoke all too clearly of its really.

◆◆◆
 The room is full of hot steam and cloying odours; a high sweet perfume,
like spring flowers, but far more heady and exotic to Samira’s senses. The
steam slowly cleared around her and she found herself looking down her
high vantage to a water-filled room containing half a dozen huge stone
baths full of bubble and froth as if heated from somewhere below.
She did not understand, but did not waste her energy trying to for fear
that it would pull her out of the vision.
A large pale-skinned man, with a mane of flame-red hair and a
beard to match that fell halfway down his broad chest, walked into view
through a doorway. Samira has never seen hair like it. Flame red. It takes
several seconds for her to realise that he is naked. His flesh is covered in so
many small scars they might as well be his armour. He is a giant of a man,
but there is no fat on him. He has the taut, corded body of a fighter and one
who works to stay that way. He crosses to the far side of the room and
ladles more water onto the cone of hot coals, sending more steam and
perfumed fumes hissing and billowing into the air before he settles down
into one of the great stone baths.
She watches the man as he lies there luxuriating in the heat and
comfort of the water, his hand idly rubbing at his belly. He is not content.
Something worries this man, Samira can see it in his eyes. Even so the
steam and the perfumes work subtle magics on him and he finally relaxes,
and even goes so far as to close his eyes.
It is his undoing.
Five men, all of them armoured and wielding wicked swords,
surround the bath before he realises that they are there. Samira understands
the words spoken by the largest of the five newcomers, although they sound
strange to her ears.
“Hugues de Pairaud, you are charged with heresy against the Holy
Church, and conspiracy against the Crown. You will come with us to
answer for it.”
The redheaded man nods his head, and casually reaches up a hand,
as if seeking aid to get out of the large bath. The youngest of the
surrounding men drops his guard and offers his left hand. It is all the
welcome that De Pairaud requires. In one lithe movement he pulls the
younger man off balance, toppling him forward into the tub. As the redhead
climbs out over the rim it is over the floundering body of the youngster, face
down in the water, his sword already in De Pairaud’s hand.
 And now it was one against four, naked against armoured, but the
redhead fights with a swift silent ruthlessness that almost wins the savage
conflict despite all of the disadvantages arrayed against him. Samira
cannot help but marvel at his calm, and the way he always grasps the
limitations of his surroundings; how much space he has to make his dance,
how to draw opponents in to areas where only one to one combat is
possible. Blades clash, steel on steel echoing around the bathhouse. The
redhead moves among the steam and spilled blood like a great, prowling
cat. He has already dispatched one of the five to meet his God, and
although the soaked youngster has climbed out of the bath to join his
brethren, Samira, having seen the big man fight, does not fancy their
chances of leaving the place alive.
Javed is right. I am not ready to fight such a man as this. Even as
she thinks it, the battle swings away from the redhead, the wet tiles not
suitable for fancy swordplay, and while the attackers get a measure of
traction from their leather shoes, De Piraud’s feet are bare, and finally
betray him. He lunges, skewering another of the attackers in the groin and
twisting the blade hard. He lets out a cry of triumph, the first sound he has
made since rising from the bath, but his left foot slides on a patch of spilled
blood and gives way from below him.
The three remaining men are on him in an instant. Samira thinks
they will finish him there and then, but, apart from a few swift kicks meant
to hurt, but not disable, they hold their blows.
“Our master, Guillaume de Nogaret has business with you,
Templar,” the largest of the remaining attackers says, and spits in the
redhead’s face.

◆◆◆

They drag the dazed Templar away.

Samira, or whatever part of her she now inhabits, goes with them,
soaring, a silent, cruising bird above their head. They throw the redhead
over the back of a waiting horse and gallop, full pelt, through tight narrow
streets that appear to Samira as tall, looming canyons of blackness framed
against a slate-grey sky.
 They approach a tall stone building, and at first Samira fears
following them inside, fears being trapped there in the rock unable to return
to the cave on the mountain. But her spirit has no such reluctance, and in
the blink of an eye she is again elsewhere, hanging silently, invisible, above
the redhead once again.
But this time, he is very far away from the relaxation of a hot bath.
He is strapped to a long table, still naked to the world, arms and
legs outstretched to expose every inch of scarred flesh. An old man, almost
as old as Javed, stands over him. In his right hand she sees an iron poker,
its tip white hot, just starting to fade to red. He applies the poker to the soft
flesh on the inside of the Templar’s left thigh, pressing it down, holding it
there as the skin sizzles and sears. The redhead grits his teeth against the
pain, determined not to show weakness as the poker is pressed tighter.
Samira can smell the burnt meat, the singed hair, but she cannot
drag her eyes away as the big man finally breaks his silence.
He screams, over and over again.
“Good,” the old man says. “We can begin. Tell me, Templar, when
did you first renounce Christ?”
As the redhead’s screams grow ever more frantic, Samira drifts, up
and away, her sight darkening and blurring until she is once again in
darkness, smelling the tang of black tea, the Templar’s cries fading away
somewhere far distant.

◆◆◆

But the spirit is not yet done with her.

She feels its breath on her face again, and the darkness swirls.
When Samira looks again, she is high above a throne in a grey
austere room. Gold gilding, bare in patches, trying to hide the rotted wood
inside, but it cannot disguise the hate and fury that drive the slight figure of
a man who sits there.
There are three men standing to attention before the throne. One of
them is the old man she saw torturing the redhead.
“So, de Nogaret. Has the Templar confessed?” the slight man asks.
“In full, your Majesty. He has returned to the fold of the Church and
confessed to the vilest of heresies. Furthermore, he freely admits to
conspiracy against your throne and the Pope, both by himself and by his
brethren in the Order. We have his name on it.”
The King turned to the man standing to De Nogaret’s left, a tall,
cadaverous figure with dark, sunken eyes and a pale, almost ghostly face.
“Well, Gui, it has come to pass as you said it would. God is not
pleased. We have enemies of the faith in the kingdom, and you have my
decree. Take de Marigny with you and see that my will is done. I want these
heretics in my dungeons before the day is out. The Lord wills it.”
“The Lord wills it,” the cadaverous man replied. He bowed and left
the room.
Samira expected her spirit to follow him, but it appeared she had
been shown all that needed to be shown for now, for even as the man’s
footsteps receded away on the stone floor, so too did Samira recede, until
she stood in the dark, smelling fish and black tea.

◆◆◆

“Was your question answered, little fish?” Javed asked as he brewed

more tea.
“I don’t know. I witnessed many strange things,” Samira replied.
“But I do not see how they can relate to my future.”
The old man studied her for a moment, then offered his familiar
vague wisdom. “The world beyond this mountainside is full of strange and
often wonderous things. I have no doubt that you will discover just how
strange and wonderful in time. But, perhaps your spirit did not understand
your question, or more accurately, you do not completely understand it
yourself?”
She told Javed what she had seen in her vision, trying to remember
even the smallest details in case they were more important that the greater
play she had witnessed.
He supped tea, sitting in silence for a long time before answering.
“It is their way to fight among themselves, these Men of Christ, as if
one interpretation of their God is somehow superior to another. It will be
their undoing, in time.”
“But who were those men? Why was I shown them?”
 Javed shrugged.
“She is your spirit. You will have to ask her.”

◆◆◆

They drank tea in silence for long minutes, the tang of the hot brew
doing much to ground Samira back in place, here on the mountainside.
There was part of her now that wanted to fly, and would always want to fly,
soaring like a bird in the dark canyons of strange cities, but to succumb to
that desire would be to turn her back on the cave, her life here and,
ultimately on Javed. She was not ready to do that.
“Tell me about the spirit,” she said. “I know you call it a doing
thing, rather than a telling thing, but there must be some tales you can
impart, some history?”
Javed laughed.
“You already know some of the stories, you just haven’t recognized
their true nature. What do you think was to be found in those magic rings
and lamps you were always so eager to hear about?”
“Those were Djinn,” Samira replied, remembering the tales of her
childhood. Javed laughed again.
“And what are Djinn, but spirit and breath?” She thought about that
for a moment. “For just as we Fidai can control the spirit and bend it to our
will, so there are those who would steal it from us and bind the spirit to
them. Beware traps, both in this place and the next, little fish, for either
could prove to be your downfall.”
The tea had gone straight to Samira’s head. She felt her senses
swimming, as though all she needed to do was close her eyes and she might
spin off into the darkness again, flying. Soaring.
“How do I bind it to me?” she asked. “How do I make it mine?”
“You have already begun,” the old man replied. “Tomorrow, we
shall see what both of you have learned, and prepare the way for what
comes next.”
When Samira put her head down to sleep the darkness called to her
once more, but she was too afraid of being lost in the tall dark canyons to
risk letting herself go.
 “What has all of this to do with Bologna?” she asked the darkness.
The last thing she saw before sleep took her was more like a dream
than any of the previous visions. There were no smells or sounds, and
hardly any light, a single flickering candle which was barely enough to see
the sleeping boy, his mop of black hair spilled on the pillow.
The moon came out from behind a cloud, and as the silver slipped
across the boy’s sleeping face Samira saw her mother there.
 1307
THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR CHAPTERHOUSE, PARIS

Aymeric dreamed of high mountain valleys and a dome of sky the likes of
which he had never seen.
He smelled fish, smoke, and wet animal in his nose, and tasted black
tea on his lips.
It was so real.
He woke in confusion to the sounds of fighting. It took him a
moment to realise that it came from the courtyard below his dormitory.
Aymeric clambered out of bed and crossed to the window. He wore
a thin white cotton nightshirt; his day clothes were folded atop his mail, at
the side of his bed. His first instinct, born of years of training, was to reach
for the sword that had lain at his feet. The feel of the weapon and the weight
of it in his hand did much to quell the growing sense panic as the rage of
combat grew louder in the stairwell outside the sleeping quarters.
All around him other aspirants reached for their weapons.
Some struggled to dress themselves, while two, still in their night
shirts, made for the windows, considering flight.
“To me,” Aymeric shouted, without second thought. Together they
were strong, alone, fractured, they were weak. “Grab your swords. Now.
Don’t waste time with anything else. The Order needs us.”
He moved to where Guillaume de Bois still struggled to climb out
onto the window’s ledge, and grabbing a fistful of night shirt, dragged the
boy back inside and threw him to the ground. He showed Guillaume the tip
of his sword, inches above his chest. “Any of you who will not fight, will
die here, right now,” Aymeric said, with both command and power he did
not feel. The room fell quiet. His voice was not that of the callow youth he
had been until a moment ago. It was the voice of a Templar Knight.
The clash of steel on steel was loud on the other side of the
dormitory door.
 “Be true,” Aymeric said, somehow keeping the tremor out of his
voice as he demanded they, “Stand, for the Order.”
The door slammed inward.
The fight was upon them.

◆◆◆

Aymeric recognised all too well the livery of the men in the doorway:
King’s men. He was sure he had seen one holding his bow drawn on him as
he had walked along the causeway yesterday.
Father was right. There was a fight coming.
The King’s men spilled into the room, three of them coming straight
for Aymeric, as though they had identified him as the lion at the heart of
these lambs. Aymeric concentrated on the man on the far right of the three
and lunged into an attack. The warrior slashed, and Aymeric parried, aware
in that brief exchange that his opponent was no swordsman. Aymeric
feinted to go under his sword, then twisted his wrist and went over it. The
steel felt like an extension of his arm as it slid through the man’s throat.
With little more than a twitch of the wrist, Aymeric sliced his jugular and
sent the warrior gurgling to the ground.
He sensed rather than saw movement to his left and reacted
instinctively; turning and ducked in one fluid movement as a sword
whistled through the air inches above the top of his head. The middle man
advanced, sword swinging wildly. Again, this was no swordsman, but he
was big and fast. Aymeric blocked the blows as they rained down, the
heavy sword sending shockwaves the length of Aymeric’s arm with every
impact.
The third man was slower to come forward, watching, weighing his
blade in his hand, looking for the moment to throw himself onto the front
foot and look to end Aymeric’s stubborn resistance.
Aymeric had to finish this fast.
The big man drew his sword back to swing again, the veins in his
neck bulging as he put all of his immense strength behind a single savage
swing. Aymeric read his intention, and ducked inside the wild blow,
stepping in so close he could taste the foul reek of cloves on the big man’s
breath, and smashed the pommel of his sword up into the man’s mouth,
feeling them crush wetly against the force of the blow.
The big man let out a howl, spitting three broken pegs of tooth, but
he had the weight advantage, and despite the pain, pushed Aymeric away,
putting space between them. Even as Aymeric staggered back two steps, the
big man came on, swinging.
Aymeric let him come, rocking back on his heel just as the big
man’s bastard sword seemed set to cleave his skull, throwing himself to the
side. The momentum of the swing carried his foe forward, off balance. As
Aymeric adjusted, he thrust the point of his blade deep into the man’s side,
opening him up. There was moment where surprise and death met on the
big man’s face, then Aymeric kicked him over to the floor and dragged his
sword clear of the bloody wound. There was no final blow. The sword fell
from the dead man’s hand, the flat of the blade clattering on the floorboards.
Blood gathered around it.
Aymeric stepped into the blood, bringing up his blade to defend
himself from the third man.
All around the dormitory the battle raged.
Too many of his friends had fallen to the King’s men.
Some, still in their bed-shirts, were already being herded out of the
door.
Aymeric couldn’t help them.
The last man advanced, snarling at him, like a cornered wildcat.
“Fancy blade-work, lad. Let’s see if you’re as good as you think you are.”
“I’m better,” Aymeric said, the only two words he was going to
allow himself in this exchange.
This man was different. It was obvious in his balance and the way
he carried himself. He wasn’t some bowman given a blade, he was a
swordsman. There was no rush and wild swing.
Aymeric circled him, trying to stay calm.
“That’s two fine men you’ve dispatched there, boy. I don’t think the
King will care too much if I send you to join them.”
The man sent his blade out in a quicksilver flicker that Aymeric
barely managed to turn aside as its tip was over his heart. The blade drew
blood. It was only a nick, but the muscle stung where it was parted.
Aymeric turned defence into attack, lunging forward rather than
trying to sidestep. The attack caught the King’s man off guard, but before
Aymeric’s stroke could do any serious damage, he threw himself to the side.
Aymeric’s blade sliced across his ribs, a cut for a cut. A couple of inches
deeper and it would have taken the man through the heart. The King’s man
came back at Aymeric hard, throwing himself into the attack with the young
aspirant barely able to fend off the savagery.
The clash of steel echoed around the room.
They circled, feeling each other out, searching for an opening.
Neither man took any risks. Blows were traded. Easily parried. No real
danger behind any of them. Aymeric was tiring. He had no way of knowing
how strong his opponent was, really, or how much longer he could match
him, but the other man was breathing hard. They used the room’s sparse
furniture to block and unbalance, the world reducing down to these four
walls. Back and forth. Each swing fended off. The sword grew heavier in
Aymeric’s hand with every swing.
He had no choice but to risk a feint, and hope it didn’t leave him too
exposed; it had worked on the training ground as often as it had failed him.
But this was different. He wouldn’t take a slap from a wooden practice
sword if he screwed this up.
Aymeric stepped backwards, as if retreating before the ferocity of
his foe’s unrelenting attack, and let his right leg give under him. That was
his lie, and he sold it, feigning a stumble and letting his sword hand go
down towards the floor as though he was spent.
As he hoped, The King’s man bought his weakness and went for his
suddenly exposed left side.
Aymeric ignored the scything blade as it swept down, and, with a
straight arm, punched his sword upwards, catching his opponent under the
ribs and driving the blade in, deep, pushing through to cleave his heart.
He fell, already a dead weight pinning Aymeric to the floor, and the
young knight had to use all his remaining strength to push the corpse off
him.
Gathering his wits, he stood upright.
The tall, cadaverous man he had walked into in the King’s
Chambers, Bernard Gui, stood in the doorway, a thin smile on his face.
“You are your father’s son, that is plain to see,” the Inquisitor said.
“But I must ask you to yield, boy. We do not mean to kill you, but if you
continue to resist, we will have no option.”
 There was a further commotion in the hallway outside the
dormitory, and Aymeric heard his father’s voice yell out.
“Aymeric!”
Aymeric rushed forward, sword raised.
He never reached the door.
Bernard Gui stepped, quicksilver fast to one side, brought his own
blade round, and struck the boy, hard, over the left ear with the flat of the
weapon.
His father shouted from a great distance, but he was too far away. It
became too dark, too quiet, as Aymeric fell to the floor, lost. Damned.

◆◆◆

Aymeric had no sense of how long he was unconscious, but as his

senses began to return they were fractured, offering snatches of life
interspersed with the empty dark.

He stumbles on the way down the Chapterhouse stairwell. The steps are
slick with blood. He hears grunts and groans and peculiar muffled impacts
that he realises are bodies being tossed down the stairs by the King’s men.
There is a growing pile of corpses on the lower landing; aspirants and
Templars entwined in death as they never were in life.

He is marched, barefoot and half-naked through the Parisian streets,

vision churning and spinning. Everything is so very different from the proud
walk he had made with his father just the day before. The townspeople who
had cheered spat and jeered now. He felt something—a raw hen’s egg—
break against his cheek. His legs betray him and he stumbles again, almost
falling this time, only to take a brutal kick in the upper thigh that deadened
his leg, leaving him to limp the rest of the distance.
All around him men, and boys, of the Order walk silently, some
shuffling, broken, others still proud, walking tall and staring straight ahead.
He counted at least fifty heads, but surely twice that number have
fallen in the Chapterhouse. He fears the worst for his brethren.
 As they near the causeway leading to the King’s palace, Aymeric
searched the faces for his father. He is not there. In every face he a stoic
acceptance of their plight. They know that pain and death await them at the
end of the march. There is no doubt in their minds. But they are Men of the
Order, Knights of God. They will face what is to come as they always have,
with strength and honour. Aymeric can only hope he is strong enough to die
alongside them without shame before the angry King and his mocking men.

◆◆◆

Aymeric was only half-conscious when they bundled him into a cell. He
shared it with four of his fellow aspirants, including a sullen-faced
Guillaume de Bois, the youth who had tried to flee through the dormitory
window.
“Have you seen my father?” Aymeric asked, dreading the answer.
“Did he fall?”
De Bois shook his head, but another voice broke in.
“I saw him. He was ahead of us when they brought us in here.
Bernard Gui took him deeper, down to a lower level.”
All five of the boys fell quiet. They had heard foul stories of the
Inquisition. Hellish screams came up from the deep places far below, telling
their own truth.
 1307
THE YAZIDI VALLEY

“Fifty breaths, little fish,” Javed whispered from somewhere in the dark.
Samira couldn’t pinpoint his location from the sound. She had been
explicitly told not to. Her new era of training was begun. This was
different; it wasn’t focussed on physicality or fleetness of foot. It demanded
fortitude of spirit and will. And it was by far the most difficult trial so far.
She stood with her back to the cave entrance, a pitch-dark night
behind her and the silent depths of the cave ahead. Javed was somewhere
cloaked in the dark. He had just promised to attack. Now it was down to her
to identify his position and hit him with the weighted stick before fifty of
his breaths had expired. Failure meant carting buckets of water up and
down the hillside from dawn ‘til dusk tomorrow.
She had wasted five breaths already and had no idea how to
proceed. She strained to see any sort of geography within the dark, trying to
piece together from memory and reality the layout of the cave, and place
him. The problem was she could stand there for a hundred, a thousand
breaths and still not see the old man.
She needed to think differently.
“Use the breath of Allah,” Javed had said. “It will lead you to me.”
She called on her ritual, closing down her senses one after the other,
the last thing to go not her heartbeat this time, but rather the thing that had
been at the forefront of her mind all day: a pale faced youth with a black
mane of hair and her mother’s face.
At twenty breaths, she reached the calm centre of her being, and felt
the breath of her spirit in her face. Every muscle and tendon sang. Every
instinct was to demand more answers about Bologna, about the black-haired
youth, and about the dark canyons of the stone city. But Javed had given her
a task, and she didn’t intend wasting another breath if it meant spending
tomorrow on the mountainside carrying water.
 Twenty-five breaths now, she realised, half of her allotted time gone
already.
“Find Javed,” she whispered, and felt the cold hand of her spirit
touch her cheek, before it too was gone into the blackness.
There was no sense of doubling this time, no seeing through the
spirit’s eyes, her sight rushing away from her, but instead she realised that
she could track its breath in the darkness, a sigh like the lightest mountain
breeze, a series of ripples in the black like the waters of the tarn disturbed
by a pebble.
Thirty breaths.
Samira followed the ripples as they moved through the cave, until
they met and bounced against a different disturbance, another series of
ripples emanating from the far wall where the drying fish hung.
Forty breaths.
There.
There was no thought in her movements; she stepped to one side
quickly in case her own position had been given away, then raised her arm
and threw the stick underarm.
Forty-five breaths.
She heard it clatter against the wall at the same instant she saw the
ripples in the darkness fracture and dissipate leaving only silent dark
behind. Even the soft breath of spirit was no longer audible.
“Got you,” Samira said aloud.
Fifty breaths.
“And I have you, little fish,” Javed said, and laid a cold knife
against her throat.

◆◆◆

“I do not understand,” Samira said.

She sat across a newly lit fire from Javed. The old man worked with
careful precision, preparing a fresh brew.
“What did you ask of the breath?” Javed said.
“I asked it to find you.”
 “And it did as it was bid,” Javed replied, “as best as it knew how to.
Remember, little fish, you are not the only one who holds the breath of
Allah. Now you know how to find mine.”
“But it was not in the same place as your body,” Samira said.
“And neither was yours,” he replied with a gentle smile. “I cheated,
just as you did.”
“So, I won?”
“No, little fish, you lost. The knife to your throat was proof of that.”
“Which means I still have to carry water tomorrow.” It wasn’t a
question.
Javed smiled and passed her a crude cup filled to the brim.
“Of course,” he said. “Assuming you have the breath for it?”
 1308
THE PALACE, PARIS

Aymeric and the others lost track of the days, even weeks.
They had been surprised when the faint sounds of Christmas bells
reached them from the churches in the streets outside; their captivity had
stretched into months and showed no signs of coming to an end.
They were starved of news of their brethren. The intermittent
screams of pain and anguish clawing desperately up from the dungeons
were the only proof that any of the others survived. Their jailers never
spoke to them. They arrived twice a day to deliver filthy water, thin gruel
and stale bread. It was the only food they had eaten these past months.
Always the same meal. There were no blankets, and they hadn’t been
offered fresh clothing since they had arrived. Their night shirts were fouled
and filthy. It was deliberately dehumanising. During the cold nights the five
of them huddled in a group in the corner furthest from the exterior wall,
taking turns to be the innermost for a blessed hour of a shared warmth.
Guillaume de Bois wasn’t adjusting well to their imprisonment.
Although the others were weakened by the poor sustenance, but their spirits
remained strong, and true to the Order. But de Bois was weak. His instinct
to flee wasn’t a solitary moment of cowardice, it was an indication of his
true nature. The man was a coward to the core.
They were awoken one morning, months after the Christmas bells,
to the sound of de Bois clattering on the iron cell bars with their pewter
water jug and screaming, “Let me out of here,” at the top of his lungs. And
the death knell, a promise he should never have made. “I will confess to
anything. Whatever you want. Just let me out of here, that is all I ask.”
Aymeric heard hurried footsteps on the stairs, rushing up from
below. He had no time to consider any other options, so did what was
required of him to protect the Order.
 Aymeric stood, stepped up behind de Bois’s back and, before the
youth even realised he was there, took him by the neck, with an arm across
his throat, and twisted, hard.
The sound of bones breaking was loud even above the noise of the
guards arriving. He released his grip and de Bois fell, glassy eyed and
already dead before the jailers could unlock the door.
The cell gate opened; the first time since they’d been bundled inside
all those months ago, and two jailers came in to drag the dead youth away.
Aymeric steeled himself, ready to launch a desperate bid for escape, but a
cold chuckle from the doorway put paid to any thoughts of freedom.
The cadaverous figure of Bernard Gui loomed in the doorway, his
hand resting casually on the hilt of his sword.
Three more armed men stood at his back, blocking any chance of
escape.
“I had thought to spare you the ordeal, my young ox,” Gui said,
“after all, you are merely aspirants, not yet avowed on the dark satanic path
of your Templar brethren. You might have spent out the rest of your days
here, not free but at least free from pain.” He kicked at de Bois body as the
jailers dragged it away. “But now I see that there is a man’s spirit in your
veins, and a man’s spirit deserves to be tested against the forge to prove its
worth. Or lack of.”
Gui turned to the three men behind him.
“It is time for a family reunion, I think. Bring him.”
Aymeric saw his fellow aspirants tense, ready, against the odds, to
take on a fight. He shook his head. Now wasn’t the time. “Rest easy,
brothers. I will have no more of your blood on my hands.”
“A wise choice,” Gui said, turning his back.
They led Aymeric away, through cold stone corridors and down the
winding steps to the dungeons.
A man’s spirit deserves to be tested against the forge to prove its
worth.
Aymeric prayed as they descended.

◆◆◆
 It got warmer as the lower they walked. At first it was a welcome
respite from the bitter cold of the cell, but it quickly became a terrible
glimpse of what awaited below. The air was arid in Aymeric’s throat, and
tasted of burnt meat and ash. A scream like a ghost chased away up the
stairwell and past him, then another. Aymeric felt the warmth on his hands
and face, hotter now than even the fiercest summer sun.
They reached the foot of the stairwell, and half-dragged half-pushed
Aymeric passed cell after cell. Each one contained men that he had known
in what seemed like another lifetime now. None called out, there were no
words of encouragement or strength. They barely moved so much as to
acknowledge him. These were beaten men, but they were not broken. He
felt their eyes on him as he was bullied into the central chamber of the
lower dungeon; the domain of the Inquisition.
Gui stopped before a long table. “Say hello,” he said.
It was only then that Aymeric recognised his father, and that was
only because of the mop of black hair, now shot through with grey, that
spilled over the table’s edge. What Aymeric had at thought was a slab of
meat was Lucian de Bologna’s body. The flesh was a mass of burns,
bruises, weeping sores and tiny wounds, but his father’s eyes were clear as
he turned his head and saw Aymeric standing there.
“Be true, boy,” was all the Knight said.
Aymeric could barely see for tears as they strapped him down to an
adjoining table.
Gui bent over him.
“I will not confess,” Aymeric said, sounding far braver than he felt
in the face of his father’s suffering. “You may do with me what you will.”
“You are quite right, I may,” Gui answered and moved to the centre
of the room where a great forge was kept pumped and white hot. He drew
out a thin poker, its end glowing bright in the dim light in the dungeon.
“But it is not your confession I need.”
Aymeric couldn’t help himself, “What do you need?”
“From you? Only pain.”
Gui showed Lucian de Bologna the hot poker, but instead of using it
on the Templar, he bent, and stroked the tip of the iron along the length of
Aymeric’s nightshirt, from sternum to groin, burning the material away into
ash. The embers seared into Aymeric’s pale flesh. He gritted his teeth
against the pain, determined not to give Gui the satisfaction of his pain as
the torturer pushed away the charred remnants of his clothing, leaving him
naked on the table.
Gui addressed Aymeric’s father.
“You have shown great strength in protecting your faith and your
duty. I actually admire that, Templar. You are nothing if not stubborn. But
there are more ways than one to break a man. I think it is time for us to
really hurt you, Lucian. I wonder if you have the same iron will when it
comes to watching your boy die?”
He went back to the forge and fetched another poker, the tip as
white as the first. And again, he showed it to the older Knight before
leaning over Aymeric.
“What do you think the boy prizes most?”
He waved the poker near Aymeric’s face.
“His eyes?”
Aymeric felt the skin around his cheeks and nose sear and blister.
“His tongue, perhaps? Boys do so love to talk.”
Gui moved the poker lower. Aymeric lost sight of it as it went rolled
lower, below the rise and fall of his chest, and felt his balls tighten
involuntarily as the heat washed over his inner thighs.
“Or his cock? Boys do so love to fuck, don’t they? Even those holier
than thou, like you, Templar. You swear your oaths to God and sire bastards
wherever you go to kill. So, what say you, Lucian de Bologna? Shall I take
your son’s manhood and end your line right here? It would be a mercy.”
The poker lowered, and Aymeric fought not to cry out as the hairs of
his balls burned. The heat was unbearable. Gui flicked the poker to one
side, searing a finger length burn into the soft meat of Aymeric’s inner thigh
that flared with such a white heat that he couldn’t stifle the sudden pain. His
cry echoed around the dungeon.
“One inch to the left and it’s gone. One inch, it’s not so much,” Gui
said, and seared another burn a finger’s width higher up Aymeric’s thigh.
This time Aymeric bit down on the pain, and barely whimpered.
But the damage had been done.
“Enough,” Lucian said from the other table. “Leave the boy. You
shall have what you need.”
“Father, no. I can stand it.”
“Aye, lad, I know you can,” his father replied. “But I cannot. What
kind of father would I be if I let you suffer agonies that are rightfully mine
to bear?” Lucian turned his head to address Gui. “I have your word that the
boy will live?”
“You have it,” the cadaverous torturer said. “I cannot offer him
freedom, but he will not be harmed while he is under this roof.”
Lucian nodded.
“It will suffice. Call for my priest. I would make my confession in
the proper manner before God before I make it before you.”
“It shall be done,” Gui said.
Aymeric struggled when they undid his bonds, trying to fight against
the arms pinning him down, before Gui’s men dragged him away. He
damned the Inquisition as the spawn of Satan, but Gui merely smiled; he
had everything he wanted. Lucian de Bologna was broken.
 1308
THE YAZIDI VALLEY

Spring came to the mountains, but it did not bring good health to Javed.
Over the winter he developed a hacking cough that refused to be
salved, despite their combined knowledge of the healing powers of plant
and herb. The old man looked every year of his age as he walked, stooped
and slow, down to the tarn to sit on his favourite rock while Samira trained
in the thin sunshine.
He had not lost any of his wits though and refused to be coddled or
mothered.
“I am an old man, and I am dying,” he said, bluntly. “Both of these
things are true. And natural. It is what old men are good at. But I am not
done yet, little fish. I promised to see your training to completion. I am a
man of my word. I do not break promises.”
He had leaned heavily on a spear as he came down the path, and
now he used it to point down into the dark waters.
“Seventy of my breaths for one of yours. And do not think that I will
breathe faster now that I am dying. It is my body that is weak, not my
spirit.” He smiled crookedly, showing tea-stained teeth.
Seventy was once again more than she had ever done, but she
sensed an urgency in the old man, a need to push her hard, and knew that he
was afraid time might make a liar out of him. She too made a promise, in
her heart.
I will not let him down again.
She disrobed and slid without a splash into the dark waters that still
retained their winter chill.
“Count as slowly as you like, old man,” she said, before sinking
under. “I am not coming up until I am ready.”
Samira saw the refracted shape of the old man peer down at her
from his perch, and allowed her body to sink lower, until she stood on the
rock bottom of the tarn, the surface a glistening plate of fractured silver
high over her head.
Twenty breaths.
She called up her ritual and closed down her senses one after the
other, no sight, sound or feeling penetrating her calm centre. The water
moved, sending a warmer current at her cheek as the breath of Allah made
its presence known.
Rise, Samira commanded silently, and the spirit began a slow ascent
away from her.
Forty breaths.
She felt no discomfort, only a quiet calm.
She saw through her spirit’s vision, watching the shimmering
surface come closer, as if it were sinking towards her rather than she rising
up to it. The old man was still on his position on the rock.
Fifty breaths.
Her spirit was just below the surface now, and Samira, still on the
bottom, kicked off gently and allowed herself to rise, slowly, taking care to
keep the spirit between herself and the shimmering figure of the old man
high above. When she reached what she judged to be the halfway point, she
twisted and swam off to the side of the tarn, some six feet and more to the
left of Javed’s position, and hung in the water, calm, untroubled. Waiting.
Sixty breaths.
She was not at all sure her plan would work, but she had seen the
ripples in the dark in the cave, and noticed how they interacted with Javed’s
spirit. She called on the breath of Allah, which still hung just under Javed’s
perch, and commanded it to make itself known to the man above it.
Seventy breaths.
The water shifted as if a strong current suddenly washed though the
tarn. Up above, Javed spotted the disturbance, and, bending over, stabbed
down hard into the water with the point of his spear,
At the same time, Samira climbed silently up out of the tarn, well to
the left of Javed’s position. She circled as soft and quiet as a moon-cast
shadow and came up behind his position as he was still stabbing the weapon
into the water.
“Seventy five, old man,” she whispered into his ear.
Javed was so astonished, he toppled forward, off balance, and fell
head first into the tarn.
 They were both laughing as Samira pulled him back up and out onto
the rock.

◆◆◆

It was the first time she had bested the old man in the years of her
training, but she felt no joy at her little victory.
The soaking in the tarn had worsened Javed’s cough over the
coming hours to such a degree that flecks of blood showed in his spit as
they made their way back up to the shelter and warmth of the cave. Worse
though, was when he allowed Samira to make the strong black tea,
contenting himself with lying – not sitting – on the ground beside the
hearth.
“We could go down to the village?” Samira said. “It might be more
comfortable for you?”
He waved her away.
“What need have I for comfort? This is my home. I have lived in
mighty cities, small towns, villages and caves, little fish. And of all of them,
here is where I choose to be. So, if my end is indeed coming, then I will
face it on my own terms, in the place of my choosing. Now, we will speak
no more of it.”
It was the most he had spoken in several hours, and it left him weak
and weary. The warmth of the tea and the heat from the fire did little to
revive him, but he had things he was determined to say.
“You did well today, little fish, but the cold truth is you have only
beaten an old man long passed his prime. Remember the redheaded Man of
Christ you saw in your vision? Do you think you would have bested such as
him with your trickery?”
It was a sight that still haunted Samira’s dreams, the way the naked
man had gone about his killing in such a controlled, efficient manner. There
had been a fury to it, but not some wild anger, it the redheaded warrior was
driven by cold fire.
She shook her head.
“I am not ready. And I will never have his height, strength or reach.”
“That is not why we train, little fish. We do not train to fight toe-to-
toe. We train to kill in Allah’s name. That is different.”
 “And then I shall always fail, for Allah does not speak to me.”
“And yet he has given you his breath, to use as you will, without
asking for anything in return. Is that not in itself a way of telling you that he
loves you?”
The old man fell quiet again. He always had a way of twisting any
talk of Allah to his favour, but Samira couldn’t bring it in her herself to
believe; the hate was cut too deep in her heart. There was a burning need
within her to see revenge for the deaths she had witnessed in a God’s name.
She was about to tell Javed that, for perhaps the tenth time, but the
old man had his eyes closed, and was breathing softly.
“I cannot pledge my allegiance to your god, old man,” she said, and
bent to kiss his cheek as she covered him with a goatskin blanket. “But I
can pledge it to you, father.”
 1308
THE PALACE, PARIS

Aymeric had expected to be thrown back into the cell with his fellow
aspirants, but when he was taken up the stairs it was to the same cell, only
now it was empty, and the smell of blood, piss and shit hung heavy in the
air. A new layer of clean straw covered the stone floor, but it could not
mask the fresh stains.
“My brothers, where are they?” Aymeric’s question earned harsh
laughter from his jailers.
At least they did not leave him naked, although the rough garment
they gave him was barely more than a burlap sack with holes for head and
arms. It chafed sorely against the burns in his thighs if he moved the wrong
way. But his discomfort was nothing against his distress at the choice forced
upon his father, and the tortures the man had so obviously endured under
the Inquisitor’s pokers.
Aymeric vowed there in the dank gloom that he would face Bernard
Gui again.
And next time, the Inquisitor will not smile so freely.
It was an easy promise to make, a harder one to keep, but the
younger man had a lifetime to make sure that he did.
He huddled against the wall in the dark, waiting, knowing that it
was only ever going to be a matter of time before he was dragged back
down to the dungeon and the heat of the forge, if not today, then tomorrow
or tomorrow or tomorrow. For now, there was only silence. There were no
footsteps on the stairs, no distant screams.
Aymeric’s burns pained him sorely. Coupled with his weakness
brought on by the long incarceration, he drifted in and out of fitful sleep,
drawing no real rest from it, though it was a small relief from his plight. He
dreamed again of clear blue skies over mountaintops, dry valleys and thin
streams, and a dark, ice-cold tarn where something swam he thought he
should recognise.
But each time he awoke he was still in the same place, still in the
cell. He remembered Gui’s words.
I cannot offer him freedom, but he will not be harmed while he is
under this roof.
It was an empty promise; Aymeric realized that now, for to break it,
all Gui had to do was have him transferred out of the Palace and put under a
different roof. But it would not be today, at least, for the sun was going
down outside over Paris, and with the dark came an ominous quiet that was
in many ways more disquieting than any screams.

◆◆◆

He woke from a fever dream into almost perfect darkness, raised out of
slumber by a sound from somewhere nearby.
“Who’s there?” Aymeric asked the darkness.
“A brother in Christ and defender of the Temple,” came a whispered
answer. “Now keep quiet. We must be quick.”
The noise Aymeric had heard had been the soft clink of a key being
engaged in the cell door lock. The mournful creak as the door was pulled
open sounded far too loud in the still of his prison. A man stood in the cell
entrance, holding a masked lantern that offered a spear of light.
“Put this on,” his rescuer said, tossing something soft towards him.
The voice was as young as Aymeric himself, the speaker’s face obscured
where a hood hung over it. Aymeric caught the garment and slid it over his
head; it was a long, hooded, monk’s habit similar to the one worn by the
other man.
“Follow me,” his rescuer said. “And if anyone speaks to you, say
only ‘Pax vobiscum’ and make the sign of the cross. You are a novice in my
charge, and no more will be expected of you. Do you understand?”
“Yes… but my father…”
“Is the one who has sent me here. No more questions. The man I
have paid has promised to look the other way for two minutes, no longer,
and the time is almost up. We must leave now or we never will.”
“But my father…” Aymeric said again.
 “… is too well guarded, and we are not armed. You are the one
being rescued here, not he. Come!”
Even then Aymeric might have gone down instead of up when
leaving the cell, but after less than half a dozen steps his legs betrayed him,
and he would have collapsed to the floor if his rescuer hadn’t held him up.
“I can only offer my support as we do not meet anyone,” the man
said.
“Then pray, brother, that we do not meet anyone,” Aymeric replied,
even his voice weak. “I do not know how long I will be able to stand
unaided. The tortures wrought on my legs have taken a heavy toll.”
His rescuer provided a shoulder to lean on, and Aymeric started up
the stairwell, each rising step like trying to pull his feet clear of thick mud.
The burns in his thighs wept and blood that ran hotly down his legs.
“Are you so keen to stay here, brother, that you drag your feet?” his
rescuer said when they reached the first landing. “Your father has confessed
to terrible crimes, renounced the Order and betrayed his sacred vow, all to
buy you this one chance at freedom. Do not waste his sacrifice.”
Aymeric suddenly realized that this must be the priest that his father
had asked for; even under the eye of the Inquisitor, the plot for Aymeric’s
escape was being hatched. He was in awe of the man. It wasn’t difficult to
see through the priest’s attempt to rile him; but he was right, his father had
given everything for this, even his immortal soul, and that was enough to
give him strength, for a while. His newfound purpose allowed them to
climb to the top of the stairwell and look out over the dark inner courtyard
of the King’s Palace to the guarded portcullis, and the causeway that led to
freedom beyond that.
“Now what?” Aymeric asked.
His rescuer did not pause, although he stepped away from Aymeric’s
side, removing his support, and headed off across the courtyard. Aymeric
had no choice but to follow, limping like a wounded beast following its
master. Every new step brought a fresh flare of pain with it, movement
pulling at his burns. By the time they crossed the courtyard and stood in the
striped shadow of the portcullis, he didn’t think he could manage a single
step more. There was no fight in him.
The huge gate was wound open at their approach, the two holy men
waved through with barely a second glance.
 “Pax vobiscum,” he muttered and made a sign of the cross at the
guards, who didn’t so much as look his way. A few shuffling steps later
they were free and clear out on the causeway, but Aymeric couldn’t collapse
no matter how desperately he longed to. He forced himself to walk tall,
following his rescuer until they were safely out of sight of the Palace guard.

◆◆◆

Aymeric slumped, completely spent, against the nearest wall.

His rescuer let him rest as long as he needed to catch his breath.
“I give you thanks, brother,” Aymeric said when he finally found his
voice.
“Do not thank me,” the youth said. “Thank your father. I am merely
following my own master’s orders.”
“Your master? One of the Templar Masters is still free?”
The youth laughed softly.
“No, you misunderstand. I am Yannick, of the Priesthood, and I
serve Reynard. He is no Templar. But he is my master none the less.”
“What does he want with me?”
“That, you will have to ask him. All I know is that your father has
influence in the Poor Quarter, enough to have me come here and fetch you.
You are lucky that I am known in the Palace and can come and go.”
“That is a blessing.”
“It is. But you are far from free of danger; they will search for you
when they find you gone, you are your father’s son. They will come looking
for you, leaving no stone unturned. Now, come. We must get you to safety.”
Once more Aymeric was forced to lean heavily on the youth’s bony
shoulder. Even so, he could barely manage more than a hobble.
The streets were quiet and empty. They made good time, despite his
weakness, passing among the wealthier properties around the palace and
heading south across the bridge to the poorer, more tumbledown housing.
Still there was no respite for Aymeric, for Yannick, half carrying the young
Templar, took them through the maze of hovels, huts and covered stalls that
comprised the poorest slums of the old city.
 By the time Yannick came to a halt outside a ramshackle building
far south of the main city wall, Aymeric was almost too exhausted to stand.
Slumped against the wall he damned near coughed his guts up. It took him
several seconds to stop, and gather his wits enough to notice that he had
been brought to a church, albeit one far removed from the magnificent
edifices to be found further north. The stonework was of flint and mortar,
decayed and fallen in places, and obviously of great age. A jagged needle of
tumbled stone was all that was left of a former bell tower, and the oak door
on which Yannick rapped out a signal looked to be as old and decayed as
the church itself.
The building dominated the south end of a square of buildings of
equal age and decrepitude. A young child, so filthy that Aymeric couldn’t
tell if it was boy or girl, looked on from across the street as the huge door
creaked open and Aymeric was half-carried into the church.
A tiny man wearing priest’s robes that had seen their best days
decades before, and with the longest, straggliest beard that Aymeric had
ever seen—it reached to the old man’s rope belt—stood just inside the
doorway, as if he had been waiting for them.
“The son of my friend is my son,” the old man said with a broad
smile. His voice was little more than a harsh cackle, but there was
surprising iron in the hand that gripped Aymeric’s wrist in welcome. “I am
Reynard. My home is your home for as long as you need it.”
Aymeric tried to return the old priest’s grip, but he had no strength
of his own.
Finally, spent and used up, he let the weakness take him.
Blackness gathered at the edges of his sight, and he fell into the
dark, safe for the first time in as long as he could remember.
 1308
THE YAZIDI VALLEY

Javed’s health was failing him, but there was enough will and
determination in the old man that he found the strength to bark orders and
demands for Samira’s training.
“You have found your breath, little fish,” he said. “And she has
heard you. Now you and she must become as close as sisters and learn to
trust each other, to rely upon each other’s strengths – and weaknesses. To
do that you will need to spend time together, alone in the dark. You will go
down into the village for three days and three nights. Choose a hut, close
the door, cover the window, and stay there. During those days are allowed a
single cup of water a day to quench your thirst. You will not eat.”
“What am I to do for three days in the dark?”
“Listen to your breath. Have your breath listen to you. This is a
conversation you must have alone; I cannot help you.”
The old man coughed, and fresh blood bubbled at his lips.
He wiped it away angrily.
“Go, little fish. I will count the breaths until your return.”
“But I cannot leave you. You are ill.”
“I am as well as I am ever going to be again,” Javed replied,
truthfully. “But if it will please you, I promise to stay in the cave, eat stew
and drink tea while you are gone.”
“And keep the fire lit?”
Javed smiled.
“Not that you will be able to see it from below, but yes. My old
bones grow damp and cold, so I will keep the fire going. Now go. We will
talk on your return.”
Samira took nothing but a goatskin of water and what she wore with
her and descended the hill track towards the dead village below.
 ◆◆◆

Samira hadn’t been in the village in all the years since the Men of Christ
ravaged it, despite it only being no more than a hundred steps to the west of
the stream were she fetched their water.
She had barely even looked toward the huts in all that time, but now
that she did so, she saw that wind and weather was doing its best to erase
what was left from the face of the valley.
Most of the small buildings had fallen in, some weakened by the fire
that had raged there, others through neglect and the ravages of time.
It seemed somehow apt to Samira that one of the few huts still fully
standing was the one she and her mother had been given when they had
arrived. But what she wasn’t expecting was the wash of emotion that hit her
as soon as she entered the small hut. Everywhere she looked, memories of
her lost life lay strewn on the floor; a corn doll mother had made for her just
days before the raid, the clay jug from which she had drank herbal teas in
the mornings, now smashed beyond repair. A woollen shawl, her mothers,
now green and covered in moss and slime lay over a solitary chair, and her
bed, what was left of it, was a damp mess, the straw long since dried out,
and now far too small for her to lay in.
The unexpected tears almost blinded her. Her throat constricted,
meaning she had to fight for each deep breath. It took several long minutes
to subside. She gathered up everything loose from the floor and threw it out
of the doorway before shutting herself inside. She used the old shawl to
cover up the single small window, then sat, cross-legged, almost central in
the middle of the hut, over the spot where their fire used to be set. At least
the floor was dry underneath her, but she was already missing the old man,
their fire, and his black tea.
She sat for some time, watching the play of light and shadows on
the wall before she felt calm enough to begin. She felt the breath of Allah
on her face almost as soon as she closed her senses off and found her calm
centre.
“What do we have to tell each other, I wonder,” she said, self-
conscious about speaking aloud while sitting alone in an empty room. Her
spirit had no such qualms. In Samira’s mind’s eye she watched it move
around the confines of the hut, a distinctive ripple in the fabric of the world.
She remembered what Javed had said.
“A conversation is supposed to work in both directions,” she said,
aloud again although she already knew from her experience in the tarn that
the spirit would hear her, even if she only communicated in silence.
The ripple continued to circle her, around and around, faster and
faster until it was almost dizzying.
“What do you want from me?” Samira said into the dark. Her words
echoed back at her, as if from a great distance, in a voice that was her own,
yet was also something else entirely.
What do you want from me?
The conversation had begun.

◆◆◆

Samira quickly discovered that her spirit was like an inquisitive child,
constantly seeking answers, difficult to keep on a single train of thought,
and full of joy at the wonders it found around it, as if it had just been freed
from a long confinement. Samira spoke to it, of her training, of Javed and
her love of the old man, and the small part of the world in which they spent
their time. She talked of her hopes and fears for a future that stretched
ahead of her as dark as the gloom inside the hut where she sat. Every word
she uttered was repeated back to her in a whisper that steadily became
louder over the course of that first afternoon.
Just as darkness fell, so Samira finally fell silent, her throat dry from
talking. She felt the breath on her cheek, inhaled, and was once again alone
in the hut; all sense of another presence had gone, and the first conversation
appeared to be over.
Samira took a long slug of water from the goatskin to ease her
throat, stood, and stretched limbs that had grown stiff from sitting still for
too long.
Something caught her eye, a movement near the window where the
woollen shawl hung. At first, she took it for a gust of wind moving the
material. Then she saw it again, a ripple running over the wool, not
dissimilar to the one that her spirit made in its movements, yet different,
distinctive in its own way, enough for Samira to know it was nothing of
hers.
“Javed?” she asked, thinking that the old man had sent his breath
down the mountain to watch over her. But this felt different again, it did not
taste like her master.
The ripples continued to run out from the woollen shawl, dark
shadows that quickly filled the hut, darting and cavorting around Samira as
if in a frenzied dance. Samira felt no fear; there was no sense of imminent
attack, just curiosity, as if this new thing, like her spirit, had just been freed
and wished to learn.
Samira instinctively knew what was needed here. She closed her
senses down one by one and calmed herself quickly – just as swordplay
came easier with practice, so this too had become as simple as taking a
breath – and called on her spirit.
She felt her dark sister breathe on her cheek.
It was joined by a second, colder breath, and a single word,
whispered in the dark.
“Lucian?”
Samira’s spirit answered for her.
Mother?

◆◆◆

Two sets of ripples, each obvious and individual, ran in intersecting

shadows inside the confines of the hut, as if two pebbles had been dropped
into the still waters of the tarn, allowing patterns to form, break apart and
reform in dizzying combinations.
Mother.
Samira’s spirit spoke, and the breath of Allah ran fast in the room,
gathering in the other ripples, a fisherman casting a net for his catch. Samira
felt a warmth envelop her – like being wrapped in a woollen shawl. She
smelled the perfumed oil her mother always used on her hair, heard a
whispered lullaby of love and longing in the far distance, and caught a
single, fleeting glimpse of a mother’s smile as her dark sister brought
another’s breath inside her to join them.
Samira had thought her mother to be lost to her completely.
 She had just been proved wrong, and now they would never again
be parted.
 1308
THE POOR QUARTER, PARIS

Aymeric’s rehabilitation from his ordeal in the Palace cells was slow and
frustrating.
He woke that first afternoon to find his wounds had been tended,
and that he had been dressed in a simple cotton tunic and trousers that,
while not anywhere near new, were clean. It felt good to be in proper
clothes again. He lay on a pallet of straw in an austere room that was barely
longer than he was tall, and the same again wide. The only décor was a
plain wooden cross on the wall, the room’s single window a small, plate
sized opening high above the bed, too high to see through, that let a small
sliver of day into the chamber.
He tried to swing his legs out of the cot, intending to stand, but the
sudden wave of nausea and dizziness forced him onto his back. He didn’t
move for the longest time, concentrating on the deep, slow breaths that
helped his master the nausea.
As if summoned by the mere thought of food, the old bearded man
came shuffling through from a larger room beyond, carrying a steaming
bowl of stew and a small loaf.
Aymeric wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep anything down, given the
fresh bout of dizziness as he struggled to sit, but the stew proved to be
hearty and hot, despite the lack of meat, and the bread was far fresher than
anything he had eaten in months.
It might not be ambrosia, but the restorative powers of a simple
bowl of soup and bread was undeniable; he felt considerably stronger for it,
even though he realized he’d wolfed it down without saying Grace, and
with no manners whatsoever.
The little priest’s eyes creased with laughter.
“Do not worry yourself, lad. I am sure the good Lord will happily
forgive your transgressions, given the circumstances. Now, you will have
questions, I’m sure. I will do everything I can to give you answers, though I
am not sure they will be satisfactory. For now, though, rest. I have seen
newborn babes with more strength than you.”
Over the course of the next hour Aymeric learned that his host,
Reynard, a priest – shepherd was what he named himself, although his
connection to the Holy Church appeared to be tenuous one at best – ran the
poor quarter as something of a personal fiefdom. He was allowed to do so at
the pleasure of the Templars, in return for favours when required from his
team of itinerant priests, thieves and beggars, who had access to places in
the city where the Knights themselves could not travel.
Aymeric was one of the aforesaid favours.
“But it was a favour I was more than happy to oblige,” Reynard
said. He sat on the edge of Aymeric’s cot, his beard bundling in his lap like
a sleeping cat. “I have known your father since he was your age, and we
have helped each other where we can over the years. More than that, I
consider him, not only an ally against the King’s whims and misfortunes,
but a friend, one of the closest I have.”
“We can’t leave him to mercy of the Inquisitor,” Aymeric said.
“That man has no mercy,” Reynard replied, “But we must move
with care. To rush, and betray our hand, will do him no good. Getting you
out of that damned place was hard enough. Your father is more carefully
guarded, and if I know Bernard Gui, he will be driven to rage by your
escape, and look to take that anger out on your father.”
“I can’t sit by and do nothing,” Aymeric replied, frustrated.
“Ah, my boy, you can, and you will, at least until your strength
returns. Courage. We must be as wildcats stalking tender prey in this game.
You have more friends than you know – and more enemies than you can
count. Your Order is scattered, broken for the moment. We must retrench
and rebuild before we strike back if we wish the Order to rise again.
Foremost, we must disprove this King’s foul lies and unravel the whole
basis of his attack on your brothers and your Chapterhouse. Such evidence
will not be easy to come by, if indeed it can be found. For this moment, all I
can offer you is a sanctuary.”

◆◆◆
 Hope was all that sustained Aymeric over the long weeks to come.
One of his burns festered and wept sorely, needing the holy man to
cut out of the infected part, which further weakened him to the point where
there was more concern than smiles on the old priest’s face during his
frequent visits.
Aymeric spent the best part of a week tossing and turning in sweat-
fuelled fever dreams, and even after the fevers broke, he was left weaker
than he ever had been in the cells.
But the stews were hearty, and he had his fill of fresh bread and
surprisingly fine goat’s cheese. Slowly, his health, if not his strength
returned. He was haunted by constant demons, each spawned by the trials
he knew his father still suffered in the King’s cells.
By late spring he was able to get out of the cot but couldn’t maintain
any sort of physical effort beyond shuffling around inside the confines of
the decrepit old church. It was almost June before he managed to take a
walk outside in the sunshine and feel its warmth on his face. And even then
it was several more weeks after that first walk before he had the energy to
wield a sword and reacquaint himself with his practice regime.
It was mid-summer before he felt close to recovered, and still a long
way from himself, but, sword in hand again, the honest sweat of exertion
peppering his skin, Aymeric bristled against the in action. The wrongs done
to his family and his Order demanded justice. Nine long months had passed
since the raid on the Chapterhouse. Nine. And still the small priest with his
peg-toothed smile counselled care and caution.

◆◆◆

“My father has suffered long enough,” Aymeric objected.

He sat at a table breaking bread with Reynard and Yannick. The
heady wine that accompanied the meal threatened to go straight to his head.
He was careful not to allow himself that release.
“Moves are afoot, lad,” Reynard assured him. “We have reached out
to gather the scattered remnants of the Order. I have quietly let it be known
to the Royal Guards that thoughts of rebellion are stirring out in the streets
and that they will soon be faced with outright anarchy as the mob seeks to
tear down those palace walls and burn the place, such is their anger at the
increased austerity they are forced to live under. That is not exactly true, of
course, but the King doesn’t know that, and my ears in the palace tell me
that he is worried enough to have Gui out looking for ringleaders to root out
an punish.”
“That is all?” Aymeric said, not seeing the bigger picture. “It is
amusing that the King is scared, but how does that gain my father or my
brothers any sort of respite from the white-hot pokers and other tortures of
the Inquisition?”
Reynard sighed, and took a long drink of his wine before replying.
The ruby red wine spilled a wet trail down his beard. Aymeric tried not to
look at it because it looked too much like blood.
“Patience. I have been gathering my resources,” the old man replied.
“The King is scared, yes, but far more importantly, he is bankrupt. With the
right amount of leverage and gold, I trust we can buy your father’s
freedom.”
“How could it be that easy? Just to offer a few coins?” Aymeric
shook his head.
“Money is still what makes the world go around, my young master.
Palms crossed with gold, wheels greased in return. That is how this city
works. If we can leverage that hardship and buy Lucian’s freedom, then we
have somewhere to begin, but we need more. We need something we can
tell the Pope in Avignon or the Church in Rome that will discredit the Kings
assertions, and that will cost more than any one man’s liberty. Trust me, lad.
I have people working day and night on this riddle.”
“But it is all taking too long,” Aymeric said, his frustration obvious.
“I need to do something now.”
The old man didn’t speak, but Yannick did.
“I believe our young Templar is ready to earn his keep,” the younger
priest said. “With your permission, Master, I will take him on the blood
walk tonight.”
“It would be good to show him we are not just talkers,” the older
man agreed.
“Blood walk?” Aymeric asked, but Yannick just smiled in reply.

◆◆◆
 They left the old church at sundown and headed north into the city
itself.
Both Aymeric and Yannick were dressed head-to-foot in monk’s
habits, hoods pulled forward to mask their features in shadow. They walked
slowly, deliberately, chanting Latin prayers as they went, both as disguise
and to bury any inadvertent clinks and clatters from the clay pots they
carried hidden beneath their robes.
“Pig’s blood,” Yannick had explained, handing tow pots to Aymeric
before they left the church. “You don’t want to get any on your habit, the
stains are a swine to get out and Reynard will make you do the laundry for a
month.”
Under the habit Aymeric wore only a thin cotton tunic, and a leather
belt to which he attached a long knife in a woven sheath. Given a choice, he
would have worn a sword, but Yannick had forbidden it.
“This is a night for care and deception, not swordplay. All of your
fancy moves will be for nothing if we are discovered about this business.”
So, they walked, chanting, through streets filled with people who
paid them no heed at all. It was a perfect disguise. The city was full of the
religious, the penitent, the just and the unjust, and two more were barely
worthy of attention.
They walked as far as the richer houses in the environs of the Palace
before Yannick drew Aymeric aside, into an alley. The crowds were thinner,
their presence more likely to draw attention here as they walked among the
dwelling of merchants, counts and noblemen.
Yannick watched and waited, making sure the street was empty and
quiet, before he led Aymeric to the nearest door. It was a new piece of
heavy oak, polished until it seemed to gleam in the moonlight.
“Fat Count de Villas is very proud of his new door, or so I have
heard.” Yannick said with a mischievous smile. He took out a clay pot, and
dipped his fingers in it, using the tips to daub a tall and wide cross on the
wood, with the letters XP in more dripping red below.
“The Templars are about in the city tonight,” Yannick said. “Best be
careful, lad.”
Over the course of the next hour they daubed the crosses and the
letters of Christ on doors all throughout the streets surrounding the palace,
more than once having to move on quickly and silently as they heard the
approach of the King’s guards.
 “There are more of the dogs around than usual,” Yannick said. “I’m
thinking we’d be wise to move on.”
“One more,” Aymeric replied. “Just the one and we’ll be gone. I
promise.”
“You have a particular house in mind?”
“I do. Where does Bernard Gui rest his head?”
Yannick laughed, thinking that Aymeric must be joking, then went
quiet when he saw the set of the young man’s jaw and realised he was
deathly serious.
“The Inquisitor is not a man to rile unduly,” Yannick said.
“There is nothing undue about this,” Aymeric replied. “I have
looked into his eyes. I know the darkness at the heart of the man. I would
test his spirit.”
Yannick again took his time replying.
He looked Aymeric in the eye.
“He lives in the dwelling annexed to the Palace proper. There will
be guards at every turn.”
“Then we must be careful,” Aymeric replied, echoing Yannick’s
own earlier words back to him. “Our blood walk will have been for nothing
if we are discovered about this business.”

◆◆◆

Yannick led them through as many back streets and side streets to the
start of the causeway leading to the Palace’s great portcullis. He sniffed and
pointed out a tall stone building that was a mirror of its owner, skeletally
thin, towering over the riverbank to their left.
“Are you sure about this?” the young priest asked.
From their position in the shadows, they watched two guards within
twenty steps of the doorway of the dwelling. There were sure to be more.
“We can’t walk up to the front door,” Yannick said, but Aymeric had
other ideas.
Aymeric reached inside his habit and took his knife from its sheath.
“We kill the guards. I can do both if you are not willing, but it will
go faster if we take one each.”
Yannick smiled thinly.
 “Believe me, I have no qualms bringing death to this lot. I had
thought you might.”
“I am not the boy I was, they saw to that,” Aymeric replied, and
secreted the knife inside the sleeve of his robe. Without another word he
walked out onto the causeway, already chanting his remembered Latin
prayers.
Aymeric walked past the nearest guard, leaving him to Yannick’s
blade, and headed directly for the second.
The man looked up at Aymeric’s approach.
“You cannot be here. This area is under curfew.”
Aymeric stepped up closer, and raised his right hand as though to
deliver a blessing, though at the same time he released the knife from his
sleeve into the left. “Pax vobiscum,” he mumbled, and made the sign of the
cross.
The guard’s eyes followed that movement, drawn away from the
knife as Aymeric brought it up. The bladed flashed silver in the moonlight,
the guard’s blood almost black as it poured down his chest.
It was red enough when Aymeric used it to paint the cross on the
Inquisitor’s door.
The message would not be missed.

◆◆◆

“Was I talking to myself, young master? Do I, perhaps, live only for the
sound of my own voice? Because I could have sworn my last words to you
were of caution, telling you the night was one for care and deception, not
swords? Or did I imagine that warning? Perhaps I am losing what little is
left of my mind?” Reynard asked.
The three were once again breaking bread over breakfast in the old
church, and Yannick had just recounted the tale of their blood walk.
“I marked your words, Reynard, and took your counsel to heart.”
“But chose to ignore it? Well, killing the King’s guards in the
shadow of the Palace and taunting the Inquisitor so openly is nothing short
of madness. That cross wasn’t just painted on Gui’s door, it was painted on
us, making us a target for his wrath… But, perhaps your youthful folly has
achieved something all my guile could not.” Reynard removed a scroll from
within his robes. “These were nailed to all Templar properties at first light,”
he said. “It charges the Order with heresy and treason and signals the
seizure of all Templar assets throughout the realm, by order of the King. It
appears you have forced his hand.”
“And the Pope?” Aymeric asked.
“The Holy Church has not yet made its move. There are several
illustrious signatories, but no Church men, neither of Avignon nor Rome.”
“At least not yet.”
Reynard drew his finger down the list of names on the scroll.
“The Church may yet be convinced of the King’s perfidy in this
matter,” he mused. “I know one of the Counts named here, or know of him
at least, a weak man and easily led. He might be persuaded to see the error
of his ways, if properly asked.”
“And how do we ask him properly?” Aymeric asked.
Reynard smiled.
“After last night, I believe it is time you had a lesson in guile, young
master,” he suggested.

◆◆◆

Later that evening Yannick and Aymeric walked back into the city,
heading not this time to the rich quarter but rather to the lanes of taverns,
inns and brothels that lined the north bank of the Seine.
They were dressed simply, as labourers headed for the city in search
of pleasure, but each carried a long knife under their shirt.
“How do we know this Count Berton will be here?”
Yannick laughed.
“He is always here. His vineyards make him money and he spends it
here on wine and young girls, the younger the better, either of which he
could have on his country estate without paying. He is a simple man, with
simple pleasures. He will not be hard to find.”
Yannick’s prediction proved true. Less than an hour later they found
their Count in a riverside tavern. He was clearly drunk, and losing heavily
at a game of dice, but he didn’t seem to mind in the slightest, as he had half-
naked girls cuddled up on either side of him. Aymeric recognised the dark-
haired girl on the left; he’d first seen her, caked with dirt, on his arrival at
the church on his rescue. Now he’d seen her again that very afternoon,
when Reynard introduced them.
Her name was Coralie.
And she was bait.

◆◆◆

Their plan was a simple one, but it worked to perfection.

Coralie lured Count Berton out of the tavern to a back room with the
promise of pleasure. Yannick brained him with a hefty blow to the back of
the skull with a cudgel, and Aymeric helped manhandle the man, none too
carefully, down a long flight of hard, stone steps to the tavern’s cellar that
Reynard had procured for the night.
Then all they had to do was don hoods to conceal their features and
wait for the Count to awaken.
A bucketful of dirty river water to the face helped usher things
along. The ruddy-faced man spluttered and cursed, and delivered all manner
of exclamations, warnings and threats as he shook his head, trying to rein in
his senses. Reynard, unmasked as if uncaring who might recognise him, sat
on a stool opposite, and waited silently until the Count fell quiet, all bluster
suddenly leaving him as he realised the true nature of his predicament.
“Now we can begin,” the old priest said softly. “I have seen your
name all over town today, Berton. Tell me, what did the King promise you
in return for your slanders and libels?”
“I have nothing to say to you, priest,” the Count said, although his
eyes betrayed his fear.
“He bought you, I know he did.”
“That is between me and my King.”
Reynard casually removed a long needle from his robes, and,
making sure the Count’s eyes were on him, tested its point against the ball
of his thumb, drawing a globe of blood that he wiped away on his beard,
leaving a red streak in the white. “Your God takes precedent over that
croaking royal toad,” Reynard told him. “Or have you forgotten your debt
to the church so quickly?”
 The Count’s reply was almost a whisper.
“You are an emissary of his Holiness?”
Reynard smiled.
“I am his humble servant in all matters,” he said. “And at this
moment, he desires exact knowledge of your agreement with the King. If
you tell me here and now, you may be able to avoid the Inquisitor’s toys.”
“But Gui was there when I signed,” Berton bleated, then fell quiet,
suddenly aware of his indiscretion.
“Gui was with the King when the decree was issued? Tell me. Your
Pope demands it.”
Reynard showed the Count the needle again. Eager to please, the
man nodded quickly.
“And the King’s man too, de Nogaret.”
“And what evidence did they have to prove their assertions of the
Order’s guilt?”
“They had confessions.”
“But a man may confess to anything when the pokers are hot
enough. The King knows that. The Church knows that,” Reynard mused.
“So, Phillip needed the backing of his noblemen. Of people like you. What
did he offer for your name?”
“A closure of all debts to the Crown, and the promise of lands in the
west. Templar lands.”
“Which are not his to barter with. You will swear to this in front of
the Pope if required?”
“Of course,” Berton said. “I hold my God before my King, always.”
“We will hold you to that. But for now, go. And remember you have
made a promise here tonight. One that Mother Church will expect you to
keep.”
Reynard stood, moving his stool aside, and motioned to the open
doorway. Berton did not need a second telling. He rose and, not quite
running but desperate to get out of there, made for the exit.
Aymeric moved to stop the man fleeing, but Yannick took his arm in
a grip so tight he could do nothing but watch the Count leave.

◆◆◆
 “Why let him go?” Aymeric said later, once they had made the long
walk back to the church.
“To see what the King does next,” Reynard said calmly. “He is
going to react, it is the how that is going to be interesting. You can be
assured the Count will go straight to him. What happens next will reveal his
strength of purpose. He showed his hand with his decree. Now we have
shown ours. It is his move.”
Their answer came quickly.
Count Berton was discovered in the early morning, face down in the
Seine. His throat slit, the muscles pared away from the bone so deeply that
his head was all but parted from his body.
His corpse was completely naked, the fresh burns on his inner thighs
clear for all to see.
 1308
THE YAZIDI VALLEY

Throughout the spring and well into the summer months Samira spent
most of her time in the dark with the breath of Allah. They were coming to
understand each other now, each aware of their part of the whole, such that
they moved as one, acted as one, and the spirit was as much a part of
Samira’s armoury as her hands or her feet. Her training was completed in
solitude now, either out on the hill under the stars, or in the depths of the
cave with skins over the entrance.
Javed didn’t participate, the old man was not fit for much beyond
sitting in the sun and drinking cup after cup of the potent black tea he
brewed. She was long of the opinion that the medicinal brew was the only
thing keeping him alive. He coughed more frequently now, the blood
coming every time, but his eyes remained stubbornly full of life and his
wits had never left him as he barked out orders for her to follow.
“I am good for a while longer yet, little fish,” he assured her
whenever she asked, but she watched him when he didn’t know she was
looking, and there was no denying how frail he had become. She did all that
she could for him. The fact that he allowed her was evidence of just how ill
he had become. But there was no doubting that he was still the master, and
she very much his apprentice when it came to matters of the spirit.
“So very close, little fish, you grow stronger with every passing day.
Soon,” Javed promised one summer evening as they sat at the cave entrance
watching the dance of the heavens overhead. “There two more things
required of you, and one required of me. Then our time together will be
done.”
“I am not ready,” she said, though in truth she felt like she would
never be readier than she was now.
“Two things, then you will be. The first, is a doing thing, and one
you must face in order to become Fidai.”
 “What is that, master?”
He smiled sadly, as though knowing she would not like his answer.
“You must ask your spirit that same question you asked it when you first
knew of its existence. You both understand the other now. The vision, if one
is given, will be true, and will show you the way of your heart.”
“My heart is here, with you.”
“And mine with you, little fish. But it will not always be so, this we
both know. All things pass. It is time you learned to face that and become
Fidai.”
“And if I do not choose to face it?”
“Then it will come to pass anyway, and you will not be prepared,
which would be nothing short of a waste of every day we have spent
working together. I hope I have not wasted my last breaths?”
“No, master.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
Samira bowed her head, not out of deference, but rather so that
Javed would not see her tears. She didn’t speak again until they had been
dried by the evening winds.
“Cover the entrance,” she said. “I go to seek my fate.”

◆◆◆

In recent months, finding her calm centre had become second nature. It
was as easy as breathing. And as natural. But tonight, her mind refused to
settle. She was forced to resort to the ritual for the first time in weeks,
closing her senses down one by one and banishing all thoughts of Javed’s
death into the darkness. It was only when she had completely divested
herself of mortal concerns she felt the cold breath on her cheek, and the
touch of a hand in her hair.
“How do I find Bologna?” she whispered.
As there had been the first time, there was a curious doubling
sensation in her mind, a rushing sensation as she divided, her soul given
flight; Samira still stood in the dark of the cave on the rocky mountainside,
but she was again somewhere else, looking down on a scene that no longer
seemed quite so strange to her.
 She hovered high above a dark, stonewalled cell, with a single high-
barred window and a heavy oak door. There was a single narrow slot for
food and water to be pushed through. There are two men present, a small,
wizened old man wearing the robes of a priest and with the longest beard
she had ever seen, and another that she thought she recognised as the youth
with her mother’s face. But this is an older man, with the same mop of thick
black hair, although his is streaked with grey. The priest speaks, and the
voices, although whispered, are ring clear and carry well enough to be
heard from Samira’s position high above.
“My counsel is simple, Lucian de Bologna: you must recant your
oath. You have no choice. You must turn your back on the Order.”
Samira felt a shiver run through her at the mention of the name; a
name, not a place, and a father, finally found.
“I cannot,” the black-haired man replied. “And not for my own
sake. My enemies will not stop until they have found and killed my son. I
cannot allow that.”
“Your boy is safe with me, you have my word. And if you recant, I
can make a petition to King and Church. The King does not yet have Rome
or Avignon on his side. His position is still precarious, and he is still
bankrupt. I have enough monies to buy your freedom, monies that will turn
the King’s head. But first you must recant.”
The black-haired man was quiet for a time before speaking.
“And then what? I speak some empty words? The Order is broken.”
“Fractured, not broken,” the old man said. “And it can rise again.
Free, you can go to Rome and petition the Holy Church. I can provide proof
that the King has attacked your brethren out of spite, and you will be able to
make your case.”
“It will not be enough.”
“But it will be a start, my friend. So, I ask you again, will you
recant?”
“If you ask it of me, Reynard, I will. Tell me, will my oath-breaking
free my brothers?”
The old man shook his head.
“That much is beyond me. But I can remind His Majesty that the
Church is not convinced of the efficacy of his actions. That should ensure
the tortures cease, at least for a time.”
“That is not enough.”
 “Perhaps not, but it will have to suffice. Our first task is to get you
out of here. I shall go directly to the King to make my plea… and offer up
payment.”
“God’s speed, my friend, the black-haired man says, and rattles the
chains with which he is attached to the dank wall. “You know where to find
me.”

When the white bearded man, Reynard, left the cell, Samira travelled
with him, through corridor after corridor of the immense dungeon, each
cell reeking of dark misery and torment. She saw blank eyed men, cruelly
beaten, burned and brutalized, staring out through the bars, begging the
priest to help them. But the bearded man keeps his gaze straight ahead,
walking with tears in his eyes as he abandons them to their fate.
He climbs a seemingly endless stairway of stone, a work of man that
Samira can barely imagine as possible, emerging through the door to a
room that, when he enters, Samira recognises, just as she recognises the
slight, frog-faced man on the battered throne.
She watched and listened as the priest made his case for Lucian de
Bologna’s freedom. She has no real grasp of the intricacies of the argument,
but she sees the King’s greed plainly written on his face, and a release is
bartered, although the tall man at the King’s side, the cadaverous,
dangerous man she also recognises, is not pleased with this turn of events.
When the priest leaves, she expects to follow, but her spirit is not
done here.
It lingers, while the cadaverous man speaks to the King.
“He should not be freed, my Lord,” the man says.
“You have made your feelings well known on the matter, Gui. But
the priest’s money is welcome. And it is not as if de Bologna needs to be free
for long, now is it? We merely gave our word to free him. Where did it say
in our agreement that his liberty would last beyond this day?”
Bernard Gui smiles, and Samira follows him, not the priest, as he
exits the King’s chamber, watching the Inquisitor command his men.
“You are to follow de Bologna when he leaves, but do not make
yourselves known. Find where he is taken, and watch those doors closely. If
I have judged the man right he gather his rogues to his side. We must be
ready to strike.”
“Yes, your holiness.”
 The cadaverous man’s lip curls into a sneer. “Find me his get. We
will need him; I was too lenient the last time. This time, the son and the
father will go to their deaths together.”
“As you wish…”

The spirit had shown her enough. Once again Samira’s second self was
given wings and soared, flying like a falcon through dark canyons of stone
under a slate-grey sky, the winds rushing through her, all around her, so
vital and alive, as she rose, banking and rolling into clouds before diving,
impossibly far, blinking, and looking out over the cave just as Javed pulled
back the goatskins covering the entrance.

◆◆◆

She recounted her soul walk to the old man as they sipped steam-
wreathed tea over a freshly lit fire. They huddled towards the rear of the
cave to avoid a thunderstorm raging in accompaniment to her story.
“It appears you have found your father, little fish,” Javed said.
“The only father I need is here with me now,” she replied, and
smiled.
“This pleases me, my child, but the truth is you have indeed found
your Bologna?”
“He is not what I expected. In my mind he was a warrior and a man
of influence, but my spirit showed me a broken soul living in a cell. I
should hate him, but I do not. I pity him.”
“Such is the way of things,” Javed replied. “The world turns, and
men change.”
“But I cannot forgive him. He abandoned my mother to her fate. He
is still that man.”
“Yes, he is, but there are many other men within him now, each
shaped by the choices of the life he has led. A man becomes many things
over the course of a life. Would the man he is now make the choices the
man he was that day? I do not know. But I am not the one you need answers
from. Assuming you are still determined to find him?”
Samira nodded. “I will have my answers.”
 1308
THE POOR QUARTER, PARIS

Aymeric’s father was a shadow of the man he used to be.

His incarceration and the months of long torture had diminished
him. He was shrunken in stature, his muscles withered, skin slack. Aymeric
realised, for the first time in his life, he looked the man straight in the eye
when they stood talking.
There was grey in father’s hair and beard now too, and a haunted
aspect to his eyes that spoke of twin ghosts, uncertainty and fear.
And yet, dressed in his simple white surplice, and once again
carrying a sword, the proud Templar he had been still showed, like an
entirely different ghost.
“I will go to Rome as soon as I am fit to ride,” Lucian said over
breakfast at the long table in the church. He ate with a ravenous appetite,
not worrying about the niceties of table manners. His gut had not been full
for months.
“Not Avignon? Not the Pope?” Aymeric asked.
Reynard answered. “The Pope in Avignon is not to be trusted, young
master. He is too close to the King, too enamoured of gold and fine silks for
a man of the Church. While Rome suffers from much the same problem, at
least they are capable of independent thought, and reason, and might be
more easily convinced.”
Lucian turned to Reynard. “You said in the cell that you have
evidence I might present?”
“I do.”
Reynard recounted the confession they had extracted from the Count
in the cellar under the tavern.
Lucian shook his head. “That will not be enough. We need more
than one man’s word to go against the King. We need more. The signed and
witnessed confessions from the heart of the King’s retinue, at the very
least.”
“Hmmm… There is Gaston LeClair,” Reynard mused. “You were
boys together, even friends once. He might recant, should you ask it of
him?”
“Gaston is a fat, weak old man drinking himself to death in his
vineyards in Chinon. It is too far and besides, his is not one of the
signatories.”
“Perhaps not. But he has the ear of the King.”
“Best to find someone in Paris,” Lucian argued. “This must be done
quickly, if it is to be done at all.”
All of them round the table fell quiet.
This time it was Yannick who spoke first.
“I might know a man.”
“Go on,” Reynard said.
“He frequents the taverns of the north bank, and he is never short of
coin.”
“Who is this wealthy soul?” Lucian asked.
“De Nogaret, the spymaster’s man. He has been privy to the tortures
of the men of the Order, indeed, he claims to have carried out many
inquisitions on behalf of his masters, and has been boasting of it just this
past night.”
The knight leaned forward, elbows planted on the table top, the
ghosts banished. In their place lurked demons. “You can take me to him?”
Lucian tried to stand, but was so weakened he sank back to his seat.
Aymeric stood.
“Yannick will take me, father,” he said. “I will fetch de Nogaret’s
man for you.”
“I cannot ask this of you, son. You are still just a boy,” Lucian said,
but Reynard put a hand on the Templar’s arm.
“Look at him, Lucian. The boy was taken while you were a guest of
the King. Take a good long look at the man who was stands in his place.”

◆◆◆
 It was still an hour before noon when Aymeric and Yannick entered the
tavern on the north bank. The place was busy, crowded full with patrons
intending on getting ale and pies inside them as fast as could be managed.
Wenches plied their wares openly at the tables, and naked children ran
everywhere, stealing scraps and fighting over tossed bones like dogs in the
dirt. Oil lamps in sconces on the walls tried their best to shed light on the
gloom, for there were no windows, just a hole in the roof high above.
Aymeric and Yannick, once again dressed as monks, took a
relatively quiet table in the darkest corner of the room, and settled in for a
wait, each cradling a flagon of ale. Yannick saw Aymeric’s disgust at the
scenes around them and laughed.
“This is real life, brother,” he said, smiling. “A far cry from the
sanctuary of your Chapterhouse, is it not?”
Aymeric smiled, and supped from the flagon.
“Not so different, the ale is better though,” he replied. “And it has
been a long time since I was last subjected to a beating from the Master at
Arms, but I do miss my brothers. I would have them free, those few that
still live and breathe.”
“We are making progress, brother,” Yannick replied softly. “Nothing
is as fast as we need it in our hearts, but our heads are wiser. Your father is
free, the king is scared, and soon Rome will hear of his perfidy. The Order
will rise again.”
“From your lips to God’s ear.”
They clunked their flagons together in agreement, and in hopes of
better days ahead. They spoke, quietly, or rather Yannick spoke, and
Aymeric listened, of the young priest’s fears for the people of the city, of
Reynard’s far from conventional approach to the tending of the flock, and
of dream he had, a future when all might prosper, and not merely Kings,
Counts and aristocrats.
“Paris will see the day,” Aymeric said.
“Perhaps, but I fear not within my lifetime, or for many lifetimes yet
to come,” Yannick replied.
The young priest looked so distraught at the thought that Aymeric
would have attempted to comfort him, with talk of fellowship and honour,
but before he could speak the tavern door opened and a burly bear of a man
walked in. Seeing him, Yannick’s fingers tightened on the handle of his
flagon, and Aymeric knew immediately that the bear was the man they had
been waiting for.
He wore the garb of a King’s man, the black tunic offset with red
trim that immediately identified him to anyone in the city, and he moved
with the swagger and confidence of someone used to lording it over the
commoners. His chest was as broad as a barrel, each of his arms as thick as
ham hocks, and his scalp was shaved, whether to avoid lice or to exude an
air of menace it didn’t matter.
Aymeric wished he’d brought a sword. He watched the man for a
minute, realising that he was already far gone in his cups. He slurred his
words as he loudly demanded more ale and a wench at his table.
Yannick raised a hand to tell the barkeep that he would pay, and then
motioned the big man over to join them.

◆◆◆

Aymeric had to shift over on the bench to allow the big man to sit, and
immediately wished he could move even farther, because the man reeked of
stale ale and piss, as if he’d taken a bath in the tavern’s latrine.
“Who’s your friend?” the newcomer slurred, jerking a thumb
towards Aymeric. “He’s a pretty one.”
Yannick took a flagon from the barkeep and slid it across the table.
He ignored the last comment and got straight to the point.
“I have someone who’d like to speak with you, Jehan. He’ll pay
good money, better than you have a right to expect, certainly more than
enough to keep you in ale and whores for a month.”
“I don’t know about that. I can drink a lot of ale in a month,” he
grinned, “And my other appetites are far more voracious… but I can be
convinced… why don’t you give me your pretty boy here?”
“He’s not for bartering,” Yannick said. “My man needs
information.”
“And what sort of information is worth a month’s whoring?”
“He wants to know what’s going on in the King’s cells.”
The big man downed most of his flagon, a good quarter of the ale
running out the sides, down his chin and over his broad chest, burped
loudly, and smacked the vessel on the table. He raised a hand, calling for
another.
“What’s going on in the King’s cells?” Jehan’s words bellowed
across the taproom, loud enough for everyone to hear. “I’ll tell you what’s
going on. The bloody Templar scum are getting what’s been coming to
them for years. They’re not lording over us now, are they? No. They’re not.
You know what they are doing?”
“What are they doing, Jehan? Tell me.”
“They’re getting fucked up the arse with a red-hot poker. That’s
what they’re doing.”
He made a ramming movement with his hand and bellowed another
brutal laugh.
Aymeric’s hand moved instinctively to his dagger, but Yannick was
quick to stop him doing something he wouldn’t live to regret.
“He is an honest man, my patron,” the young priest said. “A man of
his word. If you will only come with us…”
He never got to finish the sentence. The big man threw the dregs of
his beer in Yannick’s face, then swung a drunken punch that the priest was
easily able to sway away from.
“What kind of man do you think I am,” Jehan bellowed. “I will not
be bought.
He made a grab for Aymeric, causing him to lurch back and try to
twist away. Close up, he realised that Jehan wasn’t drunk at all. The big
man’s eyes were clear and full of malice as he grasped Aymeric by the
throat, thick fingers sinking in to the soft flesh, and shoved him, hard,
against the stone wall. The impact drove all the breath from his body.
The distinctive song of swords being drawn echoed around the
tavern, as wood scraped on stone as stools and benches were pushed aside.
In only took a couple of seconds, three wild jack-rabbit poundings of the
heart, and the two young men were surrounded.
Instead of setting a trap for de Nogaret’s man, they were snared in
his.

◆◆◆

Yannick was the first to move, wiping the suds of ale from his beard.
 It was a casual, inconsequential little thing, but it presaged an explosion
of movement and muscle; he threw over the heavy oak table, putting it
between himself, Aymeric and the rest of the false patrons of the tavern. It
wasn’t much in the way of a barricade, but it did push them into towards the
tight corner and gave Aymeric a few precious seconds to get to his feet.
Rising, he drew his dagger. It was never going to be enough of a
weapon to fight their way out of the ambush, but it was better than flailing
around barehanded.
Several of the patrons threw off grubby outer garments to reveal the
familiar red and the blacks of the King’s men they wore underneath; more
moved hastily for the exit, knowing what was about to happen and not
wanting to be caught in the middle of it.
It took no more than five seconds for the taproom to fall into
silence; Aymeric and Yannick faced a dozen warriors, each armed with
heavy swords that made a mockery of the two knives they brandished in
self-defence.
Jehan, a true brute of a man, bellowed out a laugh at the sight of
their pitiful resistance.
“Come quietly, lads,” he said. “We have orders to bring you in alive.
Alive doesn’t mean we can’t mess you up if you get any dumb ideas about
making a fight out of this.”
Aymeric matched the brute’s gaze, not backing down. He felt the
slick of sweat around the hilt of the knife.
“You talk too much,” he remarked, mustering as much bluster as he
could before he delivered a threat of his own. Hopelessly out-matched,
escape cut off, the young knight smiled. “Are you frightened? You should
be, your steel against two brothers of the Order? You are signing your own
death warrants.”
The big man sneered, lunging forward, but even his weight wasn’t
enough to overturn the heavy table. He hit it like he’d just run into a wall.
He swung his blade in a wild arc that Aymeric ducked beneath, stepping
into the big man’s frenzied attack. Inside, Aymeric thrust his knife deep, but
Jehan man saw it coming and twisted savagely, barely managing to avoid
the deadly thrust; even so the short blade slammed into his shoulder,
making him scream. His grip weakened on his blade. As he staggered
backward to his men, with Aymeric’s knife still buried deep in his shoulder,
he dropped his weapon.
 Aymeric moved lightning-fast, claiming the blade for his own.
He made a few practice strokes, whipping the weapon around in a
tight figure eight. “A piss poor weapon,” he mused. “No balance. A brutish
blade for a brute of a man. But it will do. Now, who wants to die first?”
Gripping the hilt of the blade in his shoulder, Jehan gritted his teeth
and heaved it out of the muscle, and with the tip of the bloodied blade
motioned two of his men forward. True to his word, the brute really did
want them alive; the fact that they held back rather than all twelve coming
on at once, they came at them two at a time. Aymeric exchanged a glance
with the priest, the pair reaching an unspoken understanding.
We can use this to our advantage.

◆◆◆

The two King’s men stepped forward cautiously, wary after seeing how
easily Aymeric had taken the sword from Jehan, and not wanting to get the
sharp end of the stolen blade buried deep in their guts. They were drawn
towards the threat he posed, which was their undoing.
Aymeric engaged the nearest one, stepping in to cover the priest as
Yannick leapt over the table and slit the second’s throat. It was over in a
matter of seconds, the priest moving with the pace and predatory grace of a
striking scorpion. The priest was back behind the stout oak barrier before
anyone else moved.
There was a moment of shock. Aymeric’s man half-turned towards
his fallen comrade, exposing himself to Aymeric’s weapon. He dispatched
the King’s, running him through the heart with a single straight arm thrust.
“Not going well for you, big man,” Yannick observed. “Who’s next
to meet the devil?”
The big man had a meaty hand clamped over the ragged tear in his
shoulder, attempting to staunch the flow of blood.
He growled at the remaining guardsmen.
“Fetch the pretty one,” he said. “I want my sword back. Kill his ugly
friend.”
“You want the sword? Come and get it yourself,” Aymeric replied,
“I’ll happily put another hole in you.” It was the last thing he said for a
while, conserving his breath for the fight as the remaining nine guards,
hoping for strength in numbers, pressed their attack.

◆◆◆

For the first few seconds of the melee, Aymeric and Yannick had the
benefit of the barrier provided by the table.
But that couldn’t last.
The press of bodies quickly became overwhelming, sheer numbers
too much to defend, despite Aymeric hewing the lower part of an arm off
one over enthusiastic attacker, costing the man his weapon as he took the
arm at the elbow. He sent another reeling away clutching at a huge wound
in his belly, sword forgotten as he tried to keep his guts from unravelling.
Yannick darted forward, stabbing at vital organs with ruthless
efficiency, his small blade opening up flesh wounds with every thrust and
cut, but for all their damage it was painfully obvious they wouldn’t be able
to withstand the attack for long enough.
“Listen to me,” Yannick said, breathing hard as he drove the dagger
up into the armpit of another King’s man. “You need to go. Make for the
church; if they have ambushed us here, they know about the link between
Reynard and your father. They will not be safe. You have to warn them.”
Aymeric parried a blow should have pierced his heart, and threw
himself into a brutal return, knocking a guard’s weapon aside and
skewering him through and through.
Two more attackers stepped into the fallen’s place.
“You have a plan?” Aymeric asked.
“Always. Now go.”
Aymeric barely managed to avoid a scything cut that looked to open
his throat, ducked and thrust at the same time, more in hope than
judgement, and was rewarded by the feel of blade sinking into flesh, and a
grunt of pain as another guardsman fell.
The attack backed off a few steps, dragging their wounded across
the blood-slick floor with them.
Four men lay dead on the other side of the table, and two more were
so badly wounded they were effectively out of the fight.
 The big man, Jehan, wore his anger like thunder.
Aymeric shook his head, “You wish to yield? Perhaps you need to
send for reinforcements? We can wait.”
Before Jehan could answer, Yannick leapt over the table, dragged an
lamp from the wall, and hurled it, splashing oil and flame at the big man’s
feet.
Jehan recoiled instinctively, as the priest repeated the manoeuvre,
sending a second lamp spinning to burn among the remaining attackers.
“I said go!” the priest yelled, and Aymeric broke for the door,
surging out into the street. He didn’t hear the scream until he was across the
threshold. He turned, casting a desperate look back over his shoulder to see
Yannick caught in a bear hug. The big man’s black and red tunic was full
aflame, Jehan lost in a raging fire that was already consuming him. But he
had Yannick caught tight and wasn’t letting go. The priest burned with him.
The fire stripped his beard and then the skin from his face and he too was
lost in the flame.
Aymeric couldn’t help him.
He ran, heading for the bridge and the road south, tears stinging his
eyes every step of the way.

◆◆◆

For the first half mile he heard yells of pursuit but once he was over the
river he lost them in the warren of the south side alleys, taking a circuitous
route through the worst of the byways of the city, making good time back to
the old church in the poor quarter.
He was too late.
The King’s men had mounted a two-pronged attack, and where they
had failed in the tavern, they had more than succeeded here in the old
church.
The houses on the square were reduced to smoke blackened ruins,
some still burning in places. Bodies lay strewn in the mud, unarmed men,
woman and children put to the sword and left for the dogs. He walked
amongst them, looking at the faces he had come to know well over the last
months, and stopped beside the corpse of young Coralie. She was naked,
her flesh bearing the brutality of a severe beating. It was obvious she had
been brutalized before the mercy of death had been granted with a sword
stroke.
He stepped over her, walking towards the steps of the old church.
He couldn’t look around. There was too much suffering all around
him. He needed to concentrate on the simple act of putting one foot in front
of another as he walked towards the inevitable, not wanting to see the
bodies waiting for him inside the church, but with no choice but to seek
them out.
He heard something then, a voice.
Someone moaning from inside the church—and for a moment dared
to hope.
He ran up the steps, calling out, “Father?” at the top as he set foot
inside the horrors of the ransacked church; holes were punched in the wattle
and daub walls, pews overturned and smashed to kindling, and the old altar
had been tumbled over and its stonework strewn over a wide area.
He found Reynard lying among the rubble, blood in his beard, at his
chest, and bubbling at his lips as he tried to speak.
“It was Gui,” the old man managed, barely a whisper of words.
“He… took… the relics.”
“I care nothing for relics,” Aymeric said. “Where is my father?”
The old man grabbed for Aymeric’s hand and held it tight.
“Safe… away to Rome,” Reynard said, closing his eyes. “Thank the
Lord…” The old man coughed, watery blood spilling from his lips.
“Lie still, old man,” Aymeric said. “I will fetch help.”
More blood flowed as a strange sound came from the tiny priest’s
mouth. It took him a moment to realise that Reynard was chuckling.
“I am beyond… I go to answer… for many sins… forgive me.”
“The Lord will see what is in your heart,” Aymeric promised, but
Reynard was no longer listening. The grip on Aymeric’s hand went slack,
then fell away. The old man was gone, staring into the eyes of his God.
Aymeric bent and closed the eyes.
“Rest well,” he said, stroking Reynard’s head. “I will pray to the
Lord for your soul, may you find peace. There can be no such grace for me,
I fear. I must become your vengeance on this earth. The first step to revenge
is the path to Rome, and the Holy Father. But first, I must go to Chinon.
There is a fat old friend of my fathers’ who must answer for his perfidy.”
 1308
THE YAZIDI VALLEY

It was high summer, yet Javed kept the fire lit at all times, complaining of a
bitter cold that had settled in his bones.
Most of Samira’s time was spent honing and perfecting tasks he set
her, practicing movements that had become second nature to her over the
years she had spent in his company.
One clear night, when the cape hung high overhead in its full glory
in the firmament, they sat, drinking tea in the cave mouth.
“You are almost ready, little fish, grown strong in body and spirit. I
could not be prouder of you if you were my own flesh and blood. Now, I
have a story to tell you, and you have a task to perform. Of necessity one of
these comes before the other. Mark my words, think on them, and do not
interrupt; I only have the strength to tell this once.”
“I will listen,” she assured him.
“It was on a night much like this, when I had measured the same
number of years as you have now…” he began.

◆◆◆

“I was in the service of a great man, Muqaddam al-Din, Commander of

Alamut, a fortress many miles north and east of here, in the shadow of the
mountains south of Mosul.
“My days were spent in training, much like yours have been here,
little fish, and my nights in the great library under the mountain, learning of
all that has gone on before. This library was the single most important
treasure of our faith, a repository of learning stretching back to the first
Iman and beyond, and it was considered a great honour even to be allowed
to walk its halls. Night after night my master instructed me in the ways of
the spirit in the central chamber, while the shades of past masters looked
down upon us.
“We were safe and secure there, in our mountain fastness, but all
was not well in the land, for Hulagu Khan and his hordes of horsemen
rampaged over field and hill, claiming all before them in the name of the
Mongol Empire. The Men of Christ turned a blind eye to the Khan’s
pillaging, for Hulagu was friend to their God, having a wife in the faith, as
well as one of his most trusted generals. What was certain was that he was
no friend of Allah.
“Our Iman, Rukn al-Dīn Khurshāh, did his best to placate the
Eastern devil, making a show of surrendering some of the minor castles and
strongholds while always being mindful to keep Alamut strong. But the
Khan was no fool and saw through the Iman’s subterfuge. The Khan
pressed on before his attacks were hampered by the early snows and
surrounded the Iman’s main residence. Fortified though it was, it could not
stand against the Khan’s great siege engines and overwhelming numbers.
Finally, after four days, the Iman surrendered on agreement of safe passage
for him and his family. The order went out along the Alamut valley that all
castles and fortresses were to comply with the will of the Khan.
“The Mongol prince Balaghai brought his forces all the way to the
base of our fortress and demanded that we surrender. We of the Fidai did
not take kindly to such demands, especially from enemies of the faith, but
my Master would not go against the will of his Iman in the matter and
ordered an evacuation of our stronghold. He took great pains to ensure that
all women and children were seen to first, the welfare of his people
foremost in his mind all that long day. It was only later, as it came time for
the last of us to leave, that his thoughts turned to the library and the
treasures therein.
“He took me down to the chamber where we had spent so many
nights in training, and we had a last look at that great room.
“‘All of this will be lost to history if we give the horde access to it,’
he said, and I saw the heaviness of his heart. ‘These Mongols have no
respect for our past, only their own; such is the way with all conquerers.
But they will not have it, for there is treasure here even greater than that
which is written.’
“He led me to an antechamber, a place that had previously been
denied to me, and opened a great, bejewelled chest—a magnificent treasure
of its own—and inside, on a bed of red velvet, sat a dagger, a plain blade
with the hilt only adored with a single, thumbnail-sized green emerald. He
passed it to me. It felt hot in my hand despite the chill in the chamber.
“‘It may not look like a treasure,’ my master said. ‘But this is the
Dagger of the Martyrs, and it is sacred to all Fidai, having come down to
the faithful from Hassan-i Sabbāh, may his memory be blessed. It cannot be
allowed to fall to the Mongols, for they would only see its worth in gold,
not its value to hearts and souls.’
“‘I can ensure its safety, Master,’ I promised, but he shook his head
and took the blade from me.
“‘This task falls to me alone,’ he replied. ‘I brought you here to bear
witness, so that you will know what needs to be done when the time
comes.’
“My master closed the chest, leaving the dagger inside, and led me
back to the doorway of the library, an archway of antiquity that dated back
to the hewing of the first fortress out of the mountain rock. He slid a stone
aside and showed me a lever set inside an alcove.
“‘This can only be locked from within,’ he said. ‘So, I will remain
here to guard the treasures. Do not fear; the Khan will not find me, although
he will try, for all of my masters before me are with me in spirit. Only one
who understands the breath of Allah may enter here from this time onward.
Now go; the Iman will have much work for you in the years to come. If it is
Allah’s will, there may come a day when it is safe to return; but I cannot
foresee that for you. You will know when the time comes.’
“With that, he pushed me out of the library and, with the same
movement, pulled the lever in the alcove. A slab of stone slid down with a
rush and when the dust settled there was a solid wall where the doorway
had been. I called out for my master, testing the wall with my hands, but
either the rock was too thick, or he chose not to reply; I will never know
which.
“You can imagine the Mongol prince’s rage when he could not find
the legendary library and its treasures. His horde ransacked and burned the
whole fortress, tearing it apart brick by brick in their search for it, but my
Master had spoken truly; the library is hidden from the faithless. It is there
yet, lying in the dark deep in the mountain, waiting for one of the spirit to
uncover its secrets.”
 ◆◆◆

Javed stopped to make a fresh pot of tea, and Samira realized the tale
was done.
“You can’t leave the story there, what happened next?” she asked.
“Life. Death. The same as always happens. The Khan killed the
Iman, I went to Cairo into the service of the Caliphate, and I grew up. But
that is not the reason I have told you the tale. I am old now, and my master
was right, it does not fall to me to fulfil his wish. I would not survive the
journey. But, when you are ready, you shall do it for me.
“This is your final test, after which you will be Fidai, and no longer
need my wisdom, little fish. Go to Alamut, open the lost library and walk
amongst the spirits of our masters. Find the Dagger of the Martyrs and
bring it back to me. I wish to hold it, one last time before I leave this life.”
 1308
CHINON

The walk from Paris was a sobering experience for Aymeric.

He wasn’t prepared for the scale and depth of poverty that assailed
the country outside of the great city on the Seine. He had understood on an
academic level that the peasantry lived lives of desperation on the edge of
starvation but understanding it and walking amongst that same desperation
was another thing entirely. Every mile he walked it grew worse. That he had
nothing to give to any of the skeletal, sad-eyed children dogging his steps
with their grubby hands out, made the ache in his heart unbearable.
The King shall pay for this, he vowed, not knowing how the weasel
king could be forced to pay up his debts to his people, only that he was
going to find a way to make it happen. He had to. For all of these people.
For ten days he had walked through a land bereft of hope.
He ate what he could forage, some fruit, a handful of berries here
and there, silver-scaled fish tickled from their hideaway under rocks, turnips
and other root vegetables he traded a day’s labour for, and, one blessed day,
breaking bread and sharing wine with a fellow traveller kind enough to take
pity on him.
Ten days of trudging in all weathers, on the rutted tracks that passed
as roadways outside the city.
Ten days of solitude, only the sounds of France to keep him from
going out of his mind.
Twice already he had been beset by brigands, but these were no
trained fighters, they were desperate men. The first two, he sent on their
way unharmed, but for a few bruises and a battered ego. The second time
was worse; three grown men met him on the road, standing in his way.
They refused to give way, drawing knives as they spread out, making it
harder for him to face all three at once, then mounted an attack.
 Shame burned in the young knight. He hadn’t wanted to kill them.
He took no pleasure in it, but they were driven beyond despair and hunger,
and wouldn’t back down, no matter how many chances he offered to save
themselves. They gave him no choice. It was a lesson hard learned; just
how far men in extremis are prepared to go, far beyond the point of no
return.
By the time he reached the outskirts of Chinon, he was tired, and
weighed down by the troubles of the world through which he had travelled.

◆◆◆

Chinon was the site of a de Bologna summer home; his father had
spoken of it as a haven of happy memories, of fishing for trout, hunting
deer and boar and of a large, open house full of sun and laughter.
The house would see precious little laughter from now on, for
Aymeric arrived at the premises, having been directed by an innkeeper, to
find it derelict and burnt out, only the outer shell of two walls remaining.
The King’s decree was nailed to a tree at the gate. This was a different
scroll from the one he had read in Paris, and on perusing the signatories
Aymeric immediately saw a name he knew—a name that was the very
reason for this detour that took him far off the road to Rome.
The decree declared all of the de Bologna lands in the area,
including all small-holdings, serfs, taxes and livestock to be now under
control of the Crown, and all members of the de Bologna family were
considered outlaw, and subject to the King’s justice if apprehended.
The King’s representative in the region had signed it at the bottom
in flowery script.
Gaston LeClair.

◆◆◆

In contrast to the black ruin of the de Bologna property, the LeClair

estate was verdant and prosperous. Vineyards stretched for mile after mile
on the slopes of rolling hills, and the peasantry, in contrast to many he had
seen on the road, appeared better fed than most.
 Aymeric surveyed the large estate from atop one of the hills.
The main house, a squat stone building of some age, sat almost in
the centre of the vines, among a series of outbuildings he assumed stored
the wine vats.
Guards patrolled the perimeter of the house itself at regular
intervals, four men, all carrying swords, all armoured, as though they
expected trouble. They would be a different proposition from seeing off a
few starving brigands, and Aymeric knew better than to walk rashly on
down to meet them head on. Stealth, rather than brute force, was the order
of the day.
He sat in the branches of a thick-boled tree on the hill, watching the
house until the light went from the sky and everything grew still. Moving
silently, he crept between the rows of vines, changing over into a different
lane every few hundred yards, staying low so that even if he was spotted he
might be taken for a deer or pig.
By creeping almost on his belly, and with his sword strapped across
his back, he was able to creep up within ten paces of the house itself.
Now came the difficult part; those last ten paces.
The easy thing to do would be to sneak up behind a guard and slit
his throat quietly, but these weren’t the King’s men; these were merely
country folk pressed into the service of their Count, none of whom had
drawn their swords in anger. His sense of fair play, and the fact that he
hoped win the Count over by persuasion rather than force, stayed his hand.
They worked in rotation in pairs, and not too efficiently at that, for
they left two distinct blind spots of several seconds each on either side of
the house.
Aymeric picked his window of choice nearest to one of those spots
and waited, crouched low at the edge of the vines.
As soon as the guards passed, he moved, padding across the open
space unheard and unseen.
By the time the second pair of guards came around the corner,
Aymeric was already safely standing in the shadows inside the open
window.

◆◆◆
 He stayed still for several breaths, letting his heart slow and his eyesight
adjust to the gloom in the room.
Aymeric untied the sword and carried it, blade raised ahead of him
as he padded through the room.
The bedchamber he had entered hadn’t seen use in some time; dust
hung in the air and lay thick on the cold floor. A flickering light showed
under the closed door in front of him. Aymeric made for it and stood,
listening for movement on the other side, before carefully pushing the door
open a few inches. It was just enough to give him a view into the room
beyond.
A large fat man sat with his back to Aymeric, bent over a desk,
writing on parchment with quill. His fleshy buttocks, unconstrained by the
thin nightshirt, hung over the seat of the chair on either side, and wobbled
with each of the man’s movements. Aymeric stepped up behind him, still
unheard, and whispered in the man’s ear.
“The brethren of the Order send their regards.”
LeClair, for it could be no other, nearly soiled himself, his bones
doing their damnedest to jump clear of the skin constraining them. The fat
man knocked over a pot of ink and sent flecks of the black flying all over
the desk, his parchment, and down the front of his nightshirt.
Candles under which he’d been working guttered and spluttered, but
stayed lit.
Aymeric saw the scream start to form in the fat man’s mouth, and
punched him, none too gently, in the stomach to steal the wind from his cry.
LeClair buckled, but Aymeric stopped him from sinking back down into his
seat. His eyes never left the sword. Aymeric motioned for him to move to
the bed that dominated the other side of the room.
It was only after LeClair rolled, none too gracefully, onto the huge
mattress that Aymeric lowered the sword, although he kept it hanging
loosely by his side, occasionally tapping it against his boot so that LeClair
wouldn’t grow too comfortable.
“Friend of my father,” the young knight said softly, shaking his
head. “I thought him a better judge of character.”
For the first time, LeClair’s gaze left the sword to look Aymeric in
the face.
“You’re Lucian’s boy?”
 “I am. And I am only alive to tell you due to the deaths of good
men, and with no thanks to you, and your lies for the King.”
LeClair spluttered, spittle flying from too wet lips. “Phillip assured
me there would be no ill-treatment. Surely house arrest is no great burden
for Templar knights?”
“House arrest? The King’s dungeons are no house, and the torturous
Inquisitors no hosts.”
“Dungeons? Inquisition? No. No that can’t be… The King
promised…”
“The King lied,” Aymeric said, trying to keep his voice calm.
LeClair shook his head. “No. I don’t believe you,” LeClair said.
“Then believe this.” Aymeric lifted his tunic to show the burn scars,
still livid, on his thigh. “Two burns, nothing compared with the hell my
father has had to endure as a reminder of your friendship.”
“I have no words.”
“No lies you mean?”
“All that matters is that he is alive?”
“Indeed, he is, but no thanks to you. The Order is banished and
accused of heresy and conspiracies against God and the Crown. You have
helped the King lie to the Church, and why? To feather your own nest.” The
fat man made to object, to explain, justify, but Aymeric silenced him. “Now
it is time for confession, Gaston LeClair. If my father’s friendship ever
meant anything to you, you will recant everything you were signatory to on
the King’s decree.”
LeClair went pale. “I can’t do that… The King will have me killed.”
Aymeric laughed bitterly. “You think I will do less? I could have run
you through before you even knew I was here. I can finish you here and
now. And if I should die, the men of the Order will form a line for the
privilege of taking my place. So, ask yourself this, LeClair, which of us do
you fear most? A wretched weasel of a king, or the man with the sword to
your throat? And when you’ve answered that question for yourself, answer
this one for me: will you recant? For the sake of Lucian de Bologna and the
friendship you so casually betrayed?”
“I will answer to God for that,” LeClair said.
“And sooner than you might like,” Aymeric said, raising the sword,
just a few inches, but they were more than enough to hold LeClair’s
attention. “One last time. Will you recant?”
 LeClair sighed. He shook his head. “You need to understand, boy, it
won’t matter. I can say anything, sign anything, the King will not listen,” he
said.
“But the Church will, if you confess that you lied. They will have to
listen.”
“All I can think to do is write to the Cardinal in Chinon Cathedral
begging forgiveness?” LeClair said, his voice rising to a wheedling whine.
“He might listen. He is a friend to your Order. Even so, I can’t see it
changing your father’s fate.”
“It will have to suffice,” Aymeric said. “I believe you have a
confession to write,” he said, standing over the fat man.
Over the next hour LeClair laboriously inscribed a detailed
confession of all the lies he had told in the King’s name, outlining how the
King’s deceit in issuing his decree against the Templars had served to steal
family estates and benefit the pauper king.
Aymeric read it through once the ink had dried, nodding to himself
as certain points were made clear.
“I will deliver this to the Cardinal personally. It might even be
enough to save your immortal soul,” Aymeric said. He looked down at the
poor frayed tunic he’d worn since leaving Paris. “But I cannot go looking
like this. I will need tunic, armour, and a horse.”
LeClair almost smiled.
“That much I can give you, for the sake of the friendship your father
and I shared. I was once a much slighter, much happier, man. You can have
my armour, my sword, and any horse you desire from my stables, with my
blessing. May it serve you well. All I can say is that I am sorry. It isn’t
much, but I mean it. I didn’t know.”
Aymeric saluted with the sword blade flat to his forehead.
“Ignorance is no excuse, LeClair, but perhaps my father wasn’t a
poor judge of a man after all,” he said.

◆◆◆

Aymeric cut a different figure on leaving the LeClair estate.

 He sat high on a handsome, strong horse, wearing armour that,
although old, had been kept oiled and rust free. His clean white tunic
seemed to shine in the sunshine. He wore a different sword at his hip,
choosing not be to reminded of Yannick’s sacrifice in the Paris Tavern
every time he handled the weapon, and had LeClair’s signed confession in a
leather pouch under his shirt.
It was a five-mile ride into Chinon itself, but for the first time in
months, Aymeric found himself enjoying every minute of it.
That feeling of wellbeing lasted as far as the gates to the cathedral.
Chinon Cathedral was a church in all but name, albeit slightly larger
than other rural places of worship. It had no great sense of either age or
presence, but it was well guarded nonetheless.
Aymeric was stopped at the gate by two surly men who looked him
up and down sourly.
“What is your business here?”
“I am Aymeric Moro de Bologna and I have come from Paris to
speak to the Cardinal. I carry important documents that he needs to see
immediately.”
The second guard moved to flank Aymeric on the opposite side of
the horse from the first.
“Let’s see the papers then.”
“They are for the Cardinal’s eyes only,” Aymeric replied, and put a
hand on the hilt of his sword. The threat was implicit.
The guard looked him up and down again, as if assessing Aymeric’s
strength of purpose. He didn’t like what he saw. A minute later Aymeric
was through the gate and tethering his mount at the main door of the
cathedral itself. Five minutes after that, he was shown into the Cardinal’s
chambers.

◆◆◆

The Cardinal cut an austere, grave figure, sitting on a tall throne – a

better throne than the one occupied by the King in Paris, Aymeric noted –
dressed in red velvet robes that covered him head to toe so that only his
head looked in any way real, like some grotesque puppet show. His beard
was trimmed neatly to a lengthy point, and his bald scalp was dotted with a
map of liver spots amid thin wisps of hair. His eyes were deepest blue, and
clear as spring water as he watched Aymeric approach.
“I do not have to ask after your parentage, lad,” the Cardinal said,
“for it is written as clear as day on your face.”
Aymeric knelt in front of the aged man and produced LeClair’s
confession from inside his shirt.
“If you know my father, then you know he is a good man, unjustly
vexed by a weak King. I have here a confession, signed by Gaston LeClair
that will clear his name, and that of my brethren in the Order.”
The Cardinal took the scroll from the pouch and read it before
replying.
“Would that it were that simple,” he said, sadly. “But this is enough
for me to at least do something. Your father is indeed a good man. I am
troubled by his incarceration.”
“Then rejoice,” Aymeric said, “for he is freed from his cell and even
now on his way to Rome to petition the church. I only ask for your help in
ensuring the veracity of this confession is confirmed.”
“Lucian is on his way to Rome? That is better news than I hoped,
young man. And in that case, I can help you, far more than you have
requested.”

◆◆◆

When Aymeric rode from Chinon the next morning he carried a letter
from the Cardinal, who, in the light of LeClair’s confession, had signed a
decree absolving the Templars of all heresy and condemning the King for
his actions, putting the holy man directly at odds with the Crown. It was a
brave move. One that the Cardinal had repeated three times, writing one
missive to send to Paris, one to go to the Pope in Avignon, and the third for
Aymeric to take to Rome.
“It will not be enough for the King,” the Cardinal had warned him
as they parted. “But it should sway both Pope and Rome, I pray. With those
two against him, even Phillip will have to recant.”
 Aymeric left Chinon on the long road to Rome with hope in his
heart.
It felt like victory.
The first in a very long time.
 1309
ALAMUT

Samira stood below the ruins of Alamut fortress, blinking in the late
autumn sun. Even this late in the year sun beat down hard on her, making
her skull feel like it had been gripped between rocks that were intent on
crushing the bones to dust.
“You must be there on the day of the third new moon after
midsummer,” Javed had said when they parted, almost a full month
previously. “That is when your spirit will be most able to penetrate the
mountain’s secrets.”
Samira had wanted to say no, to stay in the cave with him; Javed’s
health had continued to deteriorate over the long months since he told her
his story, and the change in him was extreme. He spent most of his days
huddled inside layers of furs, hunched over the fire and infusing his body
with pot after pot of that black tea of his, like an addiction that demanded to
be fed. Every morning he coughed up blood, and there was more in his
waters when he passed them.
“You will die, father,” she said.
He had laughed at that.
“As will you, my not so little fish. All things must pass, from the
smallest to the mightiest. If it is Allah’s will, then it is Allah’s will. Who am
I to deny it?”
When he told her it was time to go, they argued, long and hard, but
in the end it was his call to her duty as a daughter that swayed her.
She just had to trust that his desire to see the dagger and hold it in
his hand once more would be enough to keep him alive while she brought it
to him.
That simple logic sustained her in the long trek over mountain and
desert that had finally led her here, under the tall crags and broken turrets of
the ruin of Alamut.
 She was dressed as the old man had taught her; in robes that
concealed her sex but were comfortable for both walking and fighting in,
earthen colours to hide her from prying eyes if needed, and easily cast off if
required for fight or flight. She carried a single long knife, but Javed had
ordered that it only be used for cutting food, or wood for a fire.
“Any fool can kill,” were his last words to her by the cave mouth.
“Avoiding bloodletting is what makes a true Fidai. Return with the dagger
without spilling a drop of a man’s blood, and you will join me in the ranks
of the chosen.”

◆◆◆

She had followed the map in her mind this past month, etched there in
memory from Javed’s tracing of it in the earth of the cave floor. The old
man had drawn true; his memory of rivers, valley, mountain paths and
forests had led her straight here, on the appointed day for her task.
The fortress loomed high above her. The broken turrets were
indistinguishable from the sharp shards of rock that encircled the top of the
mountain.
She tugged off the scarf that covered the lower half of her face and
took a swig of water from her goatskin.
Even the water was warm now, but at least it washed away the dry
taste of hot sand for a while.
Samira was careful not to take too much; there was no sign of a
spring in the area, and it might be a long walk before she could replenish
the goatskin.
She moved into the shade of a tall tumbled rock in order to get a
better look at the path ahead of her. A track, wide at this lower point, wound
its way up the mountain through what had once been a fortified causeway
but was now only broken stone and crumbling ruins. Javed had told her that
to reach the hidden library she must first ascend to the highest point of the
mountain. Her heart sank at the prospect, for the way was steep, the
mountain was high, and the sun was unrelenting. But tonight was the night
of the new moon; she had to be at the top before it was above her in the sky.
She left the relative shelter of the tall rock and started to climb.

◆◆◆
 For the first hour it was no more difficult than carrying water to Javed’s
cave, but as the afternoon wore on the heat became oppressive, the sun-
baked rocks radiating warmth back at her so fiercely she was being slowly
roasted from the outside in. Samira took what little rest she could find in
pockets of shade, but even then the air burned in her nose and throat with
every breath.
She stopped at what she gauged to be almost halfway and was
dismayed when she looked upward; the path ahead was steeper still, and
fallen rock and rubble made it treacherous. She would be forced to clamber
more often than walk. She tore two strips of cloth from her scarf and
wrapped them round her hands for protection, and took another swallow
from her dwindling supply of water, before she once again headed up.
As she had feared, the tumbled rocks made for poor terrain and
despite the cloth protection her fingers and palms were raw and sore after
only a few minutes. The heat bore down on her like a physical weight.
Samira climbed higher.
She eventually gained respite and shade when the sun descended
beyond the far side of the mountain from her track, but it took an hour after
that for the heat in the rocks to dissipate.
By the time she reached the tumbled ruin of the main fortifications
at the mountaintop, she was spent.

◆◆◆

Samira sat, breathing heavily, on a long piece of worked stone, and

drank down almost half of her remaining water to stave off the surge of
dizziness threatening to overwhelm her. It was several minutes before her
breathing calmed, her heart ceased to drum so heavily, and she was able to
look around and take in her surroundings.
In its day the fortress must have been impregnable, sitting as it did
at the very top of the mountain, with sheer cliffs on three sides and a
heavily fortified gateway at the end of the causeway. That gateway was
reduced to piles of broken stone and rubble, some of the stonework showing
the tell-tale scorch marks of extreme heat, not from the sun, but from
deliberate burning.
She remembered Javed’s story; the takeover of the fortress had been
a peaceful one, and there had been no battle, no decayed bodies of the dead
disturbing the high peak. But that hadn’t stopped the Mongols from
completely sacking the towers and turrets, whether in search of the fabled
library, or just to ensure no enemy might use it against them it could not be
told at this distance in time.
She sat on the long stone for some time, letting the cool mountain
breeze that rose up in the evening air revive her.
She moved when the breeze only served to remind her of Javed,
alone in his cave, sick and waiting for her return.
I am coming, father. It is almost done.
She began a search of the ruins, looking for a stairwell that would
lead her down to the mountain’s heart.

◆◆◆

Her search took longer than she would have hoped.

The moon came up over the low hills in the horizon, the merest of
thin slivers showing of the crescent. Samira considered calling on her spirit
to show the way, but she was exhausted, and knew that the breath of Allah
would be needed once she reached her final destination.
She was rewarded for her perseverance by the new moonlight,
casting light on a spot previously lost in shadow. It showed her the way. A
darker area on the ground proved to be an opening, little more than the
width of her shoulders, leading down to a set of stone steps beyond.
She squeezed through, feet first, and fell to a rocky floor several feet
below. The only light was a dim glow from the opening she had come
through, but Samira had no qualms about descending into the darkness;
Javed had taught her there was nothing to fear for a Fedai, indeed, the dark
was their friend. Samira embraced it and started down the stairwell.
Her every sense was alive.
She felt the cold rock of the stairs underfoot, the roughness of the
walls at her fingers.
 She tasted soot and dust, stirred up by her movements, and smelled
the musty odour of rot, faint but unmistakable.
The only sounds in the dark world was the pad of her feet on the
stone and the soft breath in her throat as she descended.
If nothing else, the Mongols had been thorough in their destruction.
The mountain was riddled with chambers, but Samira found nothing in any
of them but burned remnants of rugs, furniture and beds, and soot-stained
walls where the fire had raged.
There were still no bodies, no sign of violence, but Samira did not
relax or drop her guard, remembering her training. She crept down through
the dark passages and chambers, moving swiftly, a shadow in a place where
there was nothing else.
She sensed that time was getting short; this search was taking longer
than expected, the chambers under the mountain being larger and more
extensive than she had imagined. Then she smelled it again; the taint of rot,
stronger here than it had been at higher levels.
She headed deeper, confident on the stairs now despite being
completely blind in the blackness.

◆◆◆

The smell of rot grew worse. The air was cold here, reminding her once
again of winter on the hillside in the cave, but there was little of any
mountain freshness in it; it tasted old and stale in her throat.
Something died down here.
Javed had said that everyone had been allowed safe passage; then
she remembered the story, of the sealed library, and the Master who had
stayed behind.
She was getting close now.
After one more flight of stairs she reached the deepest point in the
mountain. The steps levelled out into a small chamber barely as wide as she
was tall. The smell of rot was strong here, and although the walls were all
smooth with no apparent doorways or even cracks to be felt in the stone,
Samira felt something move inside her as the breath of Allah responded to
the place.
 She closed her senses, seeking her calm core. Seconds later her
spirit caressed her lightly on the cheek, and she felt the breath in her face.
“Find me the dagger,” Samira whispered.
 1309
ROME

“This day has been a long time coming,” Lucian de Bologna said, neither
triumph or tragedy in his tone, though he felt the weight of both on his
shoulders. “Do not do or say anything unless I say so. We have waited too
long to waste this opportunity in hasty words or action.”
Aymeric nodded and put his hand on the hilt of his sword, needing
the reassurance of the weapon.
It had been more than a year since he’d arrived in the small Rome
Chapterhouse of the Order with the Cardinal’s pardon. He’d expected to
deliver it, have it recognized as truth, and be able to return to Paris in
victory.
But life didn’t follow such neat pathways.
The Church did indeed recognise the Cardinal’s decree; but it
wanted more, from both the Order and from the King in Paris, before
coming to a final verdict. Aymeric’s father worked day and night amassing
what documents and letters he could find to provide heft and weight for his
argument, while Aymeric clicked his heels in the streets, monuments, and
more than a few taverns, of the old city growing frustrated that nothing
seemed to be happening. In his mind he’d imagined some sort of terrible
swift justice for the weasel king and a triumphant return for the knights to
their Parisian home.
But even after his father announced he was ready, the Church
waited…and waited until the King’s men arrived in Rome; Aymeric saw the
red and black tunics in several of the taprooms and churches, although both
Templars and guards had more sense than to start a fight in the home of the
Holy Church. They eyed each other guardedly across the tavern tables,
muttering curses and spitting epithets without actually coming to blows.
Aymeric walked the city, marvelling at the mixture of ancient and
modern thrown together in a wondrous jumble that existed as something
almost mythic in his mind. He stood on the Senate steps, strode in the
Colosseum arena, rode many miles of the Appian Way and watched the
chariot races from the spina.
Although the city was magnificent, it was not home.
Aymeric pined for the stark simplicity of the Paris Chapterhouse,
and often thought of the wellbeing of his brethren still in the hell of the
King’s dungeons. He imagined their suffering and wondered how it was
possible any of them could survive this long.
The endless wait ate at his soul.
And then, one day at the end of a long hot summer as the leaves
turned and the winds chilled, a messenger came with news for his father.
A council had been called. Testimony would be heard.
The Order would finally get justice.

◆◆◆

He stood at his father’s side outside the council chamber in the inner
sanctum of the holy city itself, waiting to be called. A wait at the end of a
wait. He breathed deeply, steadying himself. Knowing that any second now
the door in front of them would open and they would be summoned into the
chamber, to face the court, all of the waiting over.
“Will the Pope himself be present?” Aymeric asked.
“No, son. The Holy Father remains in Avignon, where he feels most
safe. He will not make a decision as far reaching as this will prove to be. It
must be the work to other men, so that should it go against the Church he
will be able to say he had no hand in it. Just as Phillip is a weak King, I fear
our Pope does not have the stomach to rule wisely. Now hush. They come
for us. Be a Templar, not a son, this day.”
Both Aymeric and his father were dressed for the occasion. Aymeric
in his borrowed mail and greaves, but had a new tabard, as white as snow
and showing the red cross of the Order on his chest, matching his father’s.
Behind the two of them stood two young aspirants from the Rome
Chapterhouse, each with arms laden with ledgers and scrolls, evidence to
support their case.
 Aymeric carried a tall helmet in the crook of his left arm and kept
his hand on the hilt of his sword as they followed the page into the Council
Chamber, their footsteps echoing long and loud in what was otherwise an
expectant silence.
The chamber itself was a long thin one, with seating stacked along
the walls three persons deep, allowing an audience of several hundred to
watch from the galleries. Every seat was taken, with the ranks of clergy
interspersed between the red and black tunics of King Phillip’s men from
France.
Aymeric and his father were the only two wearing the colours of the
Order.
The fifty paces it took them to walk to the head of the room where
they stood before the judiciary. Those fifty paces felt like the longest walk
of Aymeric’s life.

◆◆◆

Three Cardinals were to be their judges; all three of them old men, as
aged as Reynard had been, with beards nearly as long and with soft, tired,
eyes that had seen too much of the world and its pain. The one in the
middle, who father had told him would be Motta of Naples, address
Aymeric’s father directly.
“Lucian de Bologna, you have been called here to offer testimony to
answer King Phillip’s charges of heresy, treason, and conspiracy to pervert
the authority of the throne. Are you ready to present your evidence in
rebuttal?”
“I am, your Eminence,” Lucian replied. “I bring ledgers which will
confirm the outstanding debts owed by Crown to my Order, along with
affidavits confirming that the King has denied payment and restitution at
every instance he has been requested. I have at hand a confession from
Chinon that tells of the King’s perfidy and lies in his attacks on the Order.
There is a decree from the Cardinal of Chinon absolving the Order of all
blame, and I have sworn testimony of the confession of a King’s Man in
Paris to the nature of the King’s crimes. All of these can be produced in
detail, if you so desire.”
 “We so desire,” the Cardinal replied. “Please, begin.”
Lucian turned toward the aspirants at their back and took a hefty
ledger from their stack. He spoke softly to Aymeric before returning to face
the Cardinals.
“This is going to take some time,” he said.
“If it means procuring the freedom of our brethren, it is time well
served,” Aymeric replied, and his father smiled.
It was the last smile seen in the chamber for the rest of that first long
morning.

◆◆◆

When the proceedings broke up for food some hours later, Aymeric saw
the first signs of true concern in his father’s expression. He was a worried
man.
“They continue to delay and obfuscate,” Lucian said, shaking his
head bitterly. “There are dark undercurrents here that I cannot see. I sense
them, though, boy. There’s no denying they are at play.”
“But we have all the evidence,” Aymeric replied. “What can they
have in rebuttal?”
“They have before them the signed confession of Jacques de Molay,
Grand Master of the Temple, although that has since been retracted.
Alongside that they have the testimonies of Hugues de Pairaud, Geoffroi de
Charney, Master of Normandy, Ilugues de Peraud, and Godefroi de
Gonneville, Master of Aquitaine. Hell’s teeth, they even have a confession
from me.”
“Extracted under torture. Your body bears the scars in evidence, and
all of which have since been recanted,” Aymeric replied.
“Aye, lad. But the words were said, nonetheless, and they were
written down and can be read by anyone who wishes to read them. They
become a truth of their own. They also have the sworn word of the King,
which, like it or not, carries an authority we cannot emulate. There are
whisperings among the gallery,” he lowered his voice, “which, if they are to
be believed, promise the King has more that is yet to be revealed, although
what he can accuse the Order of that might be worse than our supposed
crimes, I do not know. But, no, lad, I do not like the feel of this. Something
is rotten. Take a look around you, there are far too many King’s men in this
city for my liking. It’s not right.”
“What can we do?”
Lucian sighed sadly. “We do what we have always done, my boy. It
is the way of the Temple. We stand, and stay true, to Christ, the Temple and
our brothers. Nothing else matters. Ack, do not listen to me, son. I am tired
and seeing conspiracy where there may be none to see. You are right, our
testimony is our strength. Our words are the truth. We need to believe in the
truth. This afternoon I shall tell them of Gaston LeClair and bring out the
pardon; the Cardinal of Chinon has many friends in this city. His words will
be respected and listened to; we have that much, at least, in our favour.”

◆◆◆

During the afternoon, Aymeric watched the faces of the Cardinals and
those nearest to the judiciary while his father laid out the evidence, trying to
read them. Their expressions didn’t change from one minute to the next,
giving him the impression that they were indifferent to every truth the Order
had to offer.
They have no intention of acting on our evidence, he realised. Their
minds are already made up.
Although it was little more than a feeling Aymeric had, there was
the ring of truth to it; the more faces he examined, the more he saw to
support his theory. Even as his father related LeClair’s confession the
Cardinals remained unmoved, as uncaring and unforgiving as the great
statuary in the city beyond.
Aymeric readied himself to produce the Chinon pardon, which he
carried in its leather pouch under his vestments, waiting for his father to
request it.
But the request never came.
Aymeric caught a movement beside the leftmost of the Cardinals,
and saw a stout, black-bearded man of the King’s men stoop to whisper in
the judge’s ear.
 His father’s speech faltered and his whole upper body stiffened,
before he remembered himself and continued with his evidence.
The bearded man had noticed the Templar’s discomfort, and right
there, Aymeric saw only the second smile of the day in the council chamber,
and it was so much colder than the first. Whatever had just occurred, it had
greatly pleased the King’s man. Aymeric was sure that was not a good
omen.

◆◆◆

“You knew that man,” Aymeric said later that evening when they had
retired to the quiet Chapterhouse.
“Which?”
“The King’s man that spoke some secret to the judge.”
“Aye,” Lucian said.
The day had not gone well; Lucian had talked for hours, the
Cardinals had listened, but no one else had spoken, and a judgement
seemed as far away as ever from being forthcoming. Aymeric could not get
the King’s man’s malicious grin out of his mind.
“I have misjudged the tenor of Mother Church,” Lucian confessed.
“But it is too early to despair; I have today learned that the Knight’s
Hospitaller in Bologna have acquired new evidence that will surely sway
the matter in our favour.”
“What kind of evidence?”
“I do not know, but it comes from Barbarossa, the Bailli of the
Auberge. He is a good man and would not mislead me on this. I am
entrusting you with this, my son. You must go to him and collect whatever
evidence he has uncovered.”
“You would send me away from you?”
“I can only send you,” Lucian said bluntly. “There is no one else in
this city I trust. It is not your father speaking, but your Captain. The Order
commands you in this matter, Aymeric.”
Aymeric saw the subterfuge in his father’s eyes.
“But it is my father speaking, isn’t it?” he said softly. “You did
know that man, and that is why I am being sent away. It is a liar’s mission.”
 The older man shook his head. “No, son, I spoke truly in that I trust
you and no one else,” Lucian replied. “But I do know the man. He is Domic
Cantella, a foul creature who lives only to inflict pain in others, and one of
Gui’s Inquisitors; I had the pleasure of making his acquaintance in the
torture chambers under the palace…many times. If he is here, and has the
ear of the Cardinals, then matters are worse than I thought. That is why I
need Barbarossa’s testimony, and I need it as fast as it can be brought.”
Aymeric believed his father, but even so knew he was not getting the
whole of truth. But he was a man of the Order, vows taken or not, and his
Captain demanded duty of him. He had no choice but to travel to
Barbarossa.
He left his father perusing the evidence that would be needed the
next day and headed for the stables to prepare his horse for the long
journey.
 1309
ALAMUT

Samira watched through her spirit’s eyes as it approached the featureless

stone wall ahead of her. It was no longer pitch black, but more like walking
in a shadow world—a gloomy, starless and moonless twilight before a rain.
She moved toward the wall, until her nose came within a whisker of
touching the stone, and was then repulsed, a heavy force pushing her
backward and away.
It went black again, thick, velvety darkness that enveloped her; her
breath failed her in that moment and a crushing heaviness gripped at her
chest.
Her spirit flew at the assault, and Samira flew with it, a wild
fluttering through high clouds and moonlight, lightning and crashing
thunder, soft, warm rain then stars, looking down into a sparse room, empty
save for one man, leaned over a desk reading.

◆◆◆

She recognised the mop of black hair streaked with grey first. It was
the man who sired her; she refused to think of him as her father. He is
engrossed in some detail in the ledger in front of him on the table, so
doesn’t see the three men that enter the chamber behind him until it is too
late.
He turned at some sound Samira could not hear. He is unarmed, and
the three newcomers all carry swords. They wear black tunics trimmed with
red, and the largest of them, a stout, black-bearded brute of a man, spoke
first.
 “You will not find your answers in your ledgers, de Bologna. Your
fate is already written elsewhere.”
Lucian de Bologna, unarmed and outnumbered, seemed calm and
composed to Samira, her eye trained through her years with Javed. She saw
the coiled menace of a fighter in him, waiting for the moment to make a
telling strike.
“You are a long way from your lair, Cantella,” he replied.
“I shall be in Paris long before you ever see it again,” Cantella
replies. “You or that pretty son of yours.”
The mention of the son enrages de Bologna. He leapt, catching
Cantella off guard with the sudden fury of his attack. He got inside the
bearded man’s guard and floored Cantella with two quick punches and a
thundering kick between the legs. The two others were not slow in
responding and, even as de Bologna disarmed Cantella and turned to run
one of them through, the third lands the killing blow, a scything swing that
near-decapitates the Templar, leaving the floor of the chamber awash with
blood.
Cantella rises slowly and groggily before kicking the Templar’s
corpse, then checks for his own man’s pulse.
“Into the sewer with them both,” he says. “Be quick about it. And
wash out this mess. It must look as if the Templar has realised he is beaten
and fled the city in fear of his life.”

◆◆◆

Once again the sensation of flight soared through her mortal body, her
soul walk taking her up through narrow canyons, past great statues of men
she did not know. She climbed high above a city of seven great hills
through wind and rain and storm before blackness, deep, velvet blackness,
and the smell of rot in her nose as she stood in the chamber, returned wholly
to Alamut.
He is dead.
She couldn’t find any part of her that might grieve the loss, but
knew that her fabled Bologna, and the answers she sought, were further
away than ever before.
But first, my true father awaits me.
 She put the vision out of her mind, returning her attention to the
matter of the hidden doorway.
The Dagger of the Martyrs was almost within her reach.
 1309
ROME

The attack came as soon as Aymeric left the Porta Flaminia behind and
rode beyond the ancient wall of the old city.
Although he was mounted and they were on foot, the ambushers had
the benefit of surprise and numbers, and he was forced to a halt in a wooded
valley, surrounded by five men clad in the red and black of the King’s
guard. He didn’t recognize any of them.
He took the first man easily enough, the attacker carelessly trying to
grab the horse’s reins, and having the meat of his neck opened with a
vicious down-chop from Aymeric’s blade. Aymeric’s small victory was
short lived; the splash of hot blood spooked his mount, causing the big
horse to buck and rear.
He struggled to stay in the saddle.
The high hooves kicking out gave him a momentary advantage as
the attackers dispersed, avoiding the flailing hooves, but it didn’t last. They
were back at him seconds later. Aymeric almost cleaved another’s head in
two, despite the iron helm protecting the man’s skull, and nearly lost his
weapon in the process, with the blade getting caught in the mangled iron
and shattered bone. It took all of his strength to heave it clear, which was
enough to unbalance him and leave his flank open to attack. A sword stroke
cut at him. His borrowed mail saved him from the worst of it, though he felt
several broken rings dig into his flesh and hot blood run freely down his
side.
The horse was spooked, making it more of a hindrance than boon as
the three remaining attackers hewed at Aymeric’s legs, smart enough now to
keep their distance and remain just out of reach of this weapon. Trying to
calm the beast, he waited for them to make another move. It came: one
attempted a cut, nothing lethal, the steel snaking out for his side. Rather
than parry, he rolled, sliding off the saddle on the opposite side of the
animal, falling in a controlled tumble. He rose in time to make a sweeping
blow under the horse’s legs that hamstrung his attacker.
And then there were two.
The horse took fright at another fountain of blood gouting and
galloped away. He let it go. It had served its purpose.
The last two looked down at where their cohorts lay dead at their
feet; the corpses looked like they were trying to crawl in the mud, desperate
to flee the reaper.
Aymeric showed them his sword.
“You played your hand and lost,” he said. “With five, you had a
chance. With two…?”
They didn’t stick around to die.

◆◆◆

Aymeric watched the hamstrung man try desperately to crawl away,

digging his fingers into the mud to haul himself forward. It was a pitiful
sight to behold. Aymeric put a foot on his back and forced his face down
until his mouth and nose touched the mud.
“You can die here, right now, or you can live. I don’t care which. I
am collecting ghosts to dog my heels. One more or less doesn’t change how
haunted I become. You’re King’s men, that much is plain to see. But who
sent you this night; who gave the order?”
The man gasped, struggling for breath.
Aymeric pressed his foot down harder, grinding the man’s face into
the dirt and holding it there for a count of ten, before he let him lift his head
to breathe.
“Domic Cantella,” the wounded man shouted in a frantic attempt at
saving himself from being forced to eat more mud. “It was Cantella. He
said he would take the father if we got rid of the boy.”
Aymeric raised his sword, ready to deliver the coup-de-grâce but at
the last thought better of it.
“Go. Run. Maybe the cowards will be waiting down the road,
maybe not, but you should at least make it to the city walls. Don’t think
about coming back here or I will end you. That is my solemn vow. I am
giving your life back, don’t waste it.”
 Aymeric let the man crawl off but judging by the wide streak of
blood that trailed in his wake, a quick death might have been more merciful.
Aymeric looked up along the road to the south.
The city was less than a mile away; and if the King’s man was to be
believed, his father was in danger. He could run back there… add his sword
to Lucian’s defence… His horse was gone, fled with everything he had
packed for the trip; his provisions, blankets and change of clothing. He was
left with what he stood in; his mail, greaves, plain tabard and undershirt,
and the sword, which he sheathed in the scabbard at his hip.
Every fibre of his pleaded him to return to the city to his father’s
side.
But he knew logically he didn’t stand a chance of getting to Lucian;
the guards at the gate would take one look at him and either turn him away
or throw him in a cell. Besides, he had his duty, a direct order from his
Captain. To disobey was to turn his back on all he believed in, on how he
had been raised, on the man his father thought he had become. He could not
go back.
He checked to make sure the Cardinal of Chinon’s pardon was still
in its pouch hidden away beneath his garments, then turned his back on
Rome and headed north, full of grief, burdened by sorrow, made strong by
duty.
 1309
ALAMUT

She closed off her senses and found her calm centre once again.
Her spirit caressed her cheek and she felt the breath of Allah in her
face. It was a comfort, of a kind, after the murder and death she had been
forced to witness.
“Find me the dagger,” Samira whispered.
The blackness rippled, and again Samira saw through the eyes of her
spirit breath as it approached the smooth stone. Once more she was met
with resistance, an answering ripple, stronger than her own, a barrier, but
she pushed forward, feeling the grain of the stone and the cold trapped
within it as she passed inside, through the entrance and into the chamber
beyond.
She stood in spirit inside the Great Library of Alamut, sealed these
past fifty years ago and more.
And she was not alone.
The gloom filled with ripples, as if a child threw stone after stone
into a still pond, the refraction patterns melding and merging and reforming.
The whole great chamber of the library danced with a shimmering of light
and shade, like moonlight on the water of the tarn she had left behind.
She was questioned, and her spirit answered; recognition came
immediately, as the breath of many dead Fidai, gathered here in spirit in the
old place, welcoming one of their own into the fold.
She was shown wonders; philosophies and histories, maps and
journals, great works of faith hidden here until those with the skill to use
them wisely might find them once more. She walked among stack after
stack, the work of centuries of great minds that the world thought lost, and
was led toward her goal.
The ripples gathered and merged, becoming a single, darker shadow,
curiously man-shaped, that bent and lifted the lid of an ornate chest in a far
alcove.
There, lying on a bed of velvet, lay her prize, a simple dagger with
an emerald embedded in the hilt; the Dagger of the Martyrs.
But here, in her spirit, Samira realized with dismay that although it
was within reach, it was not within grasp. She could not lift it with her
ethereal hand.

◆◆◆

As if realising her predicament, her spirit returned to her in a single

breath.
Samira felt a pressure, something pushing against the air, and
slowly, steadily, and with the sudden release of an overwhelming reek of
rot, the great slab of stone lifted to allow her physical body entry.
She heard a mechanism grate and groan, straining as the stone
creaked, surely ready to drop at any moment.
She did not hesitate.
Stepping inside, and over the dry, virtually mummified corpse in the
doorway, she made straight for the alcove containing the dagger.
As she lifted it from its bed, she heard a whisper in her ear, and felt
breath on her cheek, not one but many, the breaths of a host of souls
standing at her shoulder.
They spoke only one word, but Samira knew it was a welcome and a
farewell in the same breath.
Fedai.
The stone fell back in place with a dull thud as she left.
Samira hid the dagger in the folds of her clothing and began the
climb back up to the light.
 1309
ON THE ROAD TO BOLOGNA

Aymeric had barely covered two miles before he had to stop.

Any hopes he had of finding the horse had long since faded; it was
off and lost somewhere in the night. The burden of his ring mail shirt was
too heavy to bear for any great length of time on foot while injured. He
trudged, he stumbled, he dragged his feet, and then he couldn’t manage
even that. He hadn’t stopped to tend his wounds. If he continued to force
himself to march, he would be on his knees long before morning. And
carrion fodder before much longer.
He moved off the road, stumbling into the thin forest to hide from
any prying eyes that might have been watching.
He did not have the wherewithal to light a fire, or the strength. All
he wanted to do was close his eyes. The night was warm enough. He didn’t
feel a chill as he stripped off the mail shirt, struggling to pull it over his
head. He had to pull it away from his side where the links had become
sticky and embedded in his flesh and damned near screamed as white pain
lanced though him, but he bit down on it. There was enough light to see that
the wound, while bloody, wasn’t deep. That was a small mercy. The blow
had barely pierced the skin, and now, having taken off the mail, the pain
lessened considerably.
Ten minutes of foraging enabled him to find both water and several
handfuls of overripe berries. They were a simple bounty but did much to
raise his spirits.
He washed the wound out and bound it tightly with strips of cloth
torn from his undershirt.
Aymeric made the only choice he could; he left the mail and greaves
in the trees. It felt as though he was abandoning a part of his identity with it,
but he kept the white tabard with the Templar cross emblazoned on it,
stuffing it into his shoulder bag. He could live without the armour, no
matter how fine it was. It had served its purpose, keeping him alive this
long.
Unburdened by the weight, he set off for the road again.
He walked no more than two hundred paces when he heard the
distinctive thunder of distant riders, getting closer.

◆◆◆

Aymeric moved off the road, wincing at the sharp pain in his side as he
hunkered down in his hiding spot in time to see a dozen men of the King’s
Guard ride past.
He was under no illusions. There was only one reason for them to be
on the road that night; he had let two men walk away from a fight, and it
hadn’t taken long for them to report their failure.
He was being hunted.
He waited until the drum of the hoof-beats faded into the distance
before leaving the safety of the bushes. Even then, he kept to the side of the
road and moved cautiously, listening for sounds of approach and watching
constantly for signs of ambush.
A mile farther up the road he heard voices and moved to the side,
edging forward into the undergrowth until he saw the flickering red of a fire
ahead of him.
It would be an easy enough matter to move even deeper into the
woods, creep in a cautious circle around the campsite, the silhouettes of the
enemy etched onto the night by the flame, and pass on by. But easy enough
didn’t make it the right choice. There was a chance of precious information
here, and in the currency of his future that was valuable than gold.
He inched forward on his belly, making himself as small as he
could, and ignoring the sudden flare of pain from his wound. It took more
than ten minutes of pained belly-crawling through bushes and grass, but
finally he was close enough to make out the strains of conversation, and
well enough hidden that they had no idea that their quarry was within
spitting distance.
“I’m telling you, he’s dead in a ditch somewhere. We found the
horse, didn’t we? You saw the blood on the saddle.”
 “Sure, I saw blood, but I’m telling you that a dead man didn’t
hamstring Jacques and leave him on the road,” came the reply. “He’s behind
us somewhere, between here and the city. We need to double back and flush
him out.”
“Why does Cantella want him so badly, anyway? He’s just a boy.”
“He’s de Bologna’s son. That makes him a symbol the Templars can
gather round.”
Somebody spat into the fire. It sizzled on the hot stone, evaporating
in less than a second.
“Templars. You say that like it’s supposed to mean something. It’s
all bullshit. They’re pretty boys and arse bandits, the lot of them.”
“That’s as may be, but they’ve got the King’s bollocks in a vise as
long as that lad is alive. And that is why Cantella is so determined to see
him dead. The Inquisition had the pair of them. The King has not forgotten,
or forgiven, their escape. You need to listen more. Cantella isn’t going to let
this lad walk. He will harry and hunt him forever. He won’t know peace
until he is dead. Same goes for the rest of the de Bologna family. Their lives
are worth nothing. Cantella, and his master Gui, want them removed from
the face of the earth.”
Aymeric stayed in cover, listening to their fireside chat for over an
hour but heard nothing beyond the common complaints of all military men
in the service of tyrants.
He crept away, heading north through moorland and wild grass,
allowing the stars to guide him.
He could no longer trust the road.
 1309
ALAMUT

Samira rested in the uppermost chamber within the mountain, needing a

few hours of well-earned sleep. The stars looked down on her through the
shoulder-wide opening above.
She only woke when the light improved, announcing dawn over the
Alamut valley.
She wanted to be off this pile of rock and find some water before the
heat of the day made movement an ordeal. Her goatskin was all but empty.
She jumped, catching the edge, and pulled herself up through the opening.
Samira stood on the mountaintop.
She smelled something different in the air, a musky, animal odour
that smelled like goat.
When the breeze fell to a whisper, she heard a new noise: a loud
murmur and rumble like distant thunder.
She scrambled up onto the same long stone she’d rested on the night
before, and looked down into the valley immediately below her.
Where it had been a barren, dusty channel of dry rock before she
had delved into the mountain, the entire valley was now full of black
horses, squat tents and a milling throng of men.
A Mongol army had descended while she was in the library, and
even now a score or more of them were approaching the base of the
causeway, intent on climbing the mountain.
She couldn’t go down that way.
Javed had taught her how to hide in plain sight, but that worked best
in the darkness of a cave or the gloom of a cloudy day; here, under the
unflinching glare of the sun, disappearing was that much more difficult.
The causeway itself was too narrow, with too few hiding places in
the rocks.
Samira needed to think.
 The first thing she needed to do was find an alternative route off the
mountain.
The southern ridge that ran just below the ruined fortress along the
valley looked to be the fastest way, but it also carried the most risk as it was
narrow, precipitous in several stretches, and more worryingly, exposed to
the skyline. The northern slopes appeared to be more passable, despite
being higher, and snow-capped in places. But more horsemen were arriving
every minute from the north, meaning escape in that direction was a forlorn
hope.
She had no thought of peril; it did not help and merely wasted
valuable time.
She set off at a fast pace, clambering silently down towards the
southern ridge even as the Mongols climbed the causeway. The point where
their path crossed hers was some hundred yards below her current position.
It was going to be touch and go which of them got there first.

◆◆◆

She descended as quickly as caution would allow, arriving at the

crossing where the causeway met the southern ridge seconds ahead of the
climbing tribesmen. It was barely enough time to find a tall rock to give her
cover.
She had to crouch, taking refuge behind it, and couldn’t risk a look
for fear of discovery. She heard them well enough, their feet shifting
pebbles and rock fragments, scuffing them tumbling away down the slope.
The voices, strange and guttural, yet understandable after Javed’s patient
teaching, casually spoke of women and horses, and grumbled about the
climb and the heat.
They were not looking for her. It was just ill-fortune that they had
been sent to check the mountaintop.
Samira let them pass.
She thought for one wild second about scrambling down the rest of
the way now the men were above her but dismissed the idea pretty quickly;
she risked being caught between the devil and the anvil of hell if a second
groups followed the first up. No. She stuck to her original plan. Once the
men were out of hearing above her, Samira headed swiftly for the southern
ridge, with each rushing footstep expecting to hear a cry at her back to tell
her she had been seen.
The descent took her down the slope for a hundred paces, then she
had to climb again, clambering up a rocky sheet of scree and loose stones
that led to the main ridge.
She moved quietly, sacrificing speed for sure footing and stealth,
grateful that her simple clothing would blend her in with the surrounding
rock should her movement catch the eye of one of the tribesmen.
Her gait aped that of a goat, a technique mastered on the slopes of
home.
She had almost reached the top of the slope and could see the start
of the ridge only yards above her when an errant rock, not as well wedged
in place as she had thought, slid from under her hand. It tumbled off down
the mountainside, taking a rattling scramble of pebbles and scree with it.
She bleated, mimicking the cry of a panicked goat, but it was too
late.
She had been seen.
Seconds later the first arrow clattered into the slope, skittering off
the rock less than a foot from her face.
Samira didn’t wait to see if there would be a second.
All thought of caution gone, she pushed herself forward, sprinting,
arms and legs pumping furiously as her entire world was reduced to
reaching the ridge above her. She didn’t care that her headlong flight kicked
off a small avalanche, a whole section of scree falling off the slope in a
rush. A scream rose up from below. She chanced a look down. One man fell
away out of sight, rolling and tumbling among the falling stones. Four more
had already started up the slope toward her.
As she pulled herself up onto the ridge another arrow whistled past
her head, so close she felt the sting against her left ear.
There was an opportunity here and now; she could keep the high
ground and wait for them to come to her, then pick them off one by one as
they came over the ridge to the top.
But she had made a promise to the old man, no bloodletting. That
was her challenge. And that would be hard to keep in a fight to the death.
So, instead, she turned and ran on, racing the tribesmen across the
mountainside.
 Her only thought was to be out of range before they reached the
narrow track. She raced across the jagged peaks of the southern ridge.

◆◆◆

She fled along the high tops, leaping where she could not run, climbing
where she could not leap.
At another time she would have been exhilarated by the chase, filled
with the view, the wind and the light, but the sun beat too fiercely here, and
the wind blew too hot and too strong; she couldn’t give herself completely
to the act of running for the sheer joy of it when at any second she could get
an arrow in the base of her spine.
Again, she thought of coming to a halt, standing her ground, but the
ridge was too open. There was nowhere she could see that would serve to
lay any sort of trap. She didn’t look back. She didn’t need to. She had
counted the breathes; by now, the following Mongols would be close to
coming up over the top to join her on the ridge.
And she wasn’t out of range of their arrows.
She ran faster, taking more risks than Javed would have allowed her
at home. As threw herself across a leap of eight feet over a dizzying drop to
the valley floor, a clatter sounded only feet behind her as the arrow rattled
against stone.
She took the next expanse of ridge even faster, abandoning all
pretence of care, leaping and bounding, and resorting to precarious holds
that would have frightened the goats.
Samira focussed on the point ahead of her where the ridge dipped
lower. Reach it and she would be able to reach a path to the valley floor; but
first she had to get there before she got herself killed.
She leapt for a hold on a tall slab of stone, a fifteen-foot sheer block
that she needed to get over fast; another arrow struck, this one only a foot
from her face. She lost her grip, and as she was about to scramble for it,
heard the old man whisper to her; memory or spirit breath, it mattered not,
for the advice was sound.
You must know when to embrace the rock, and when to give it space.
 Samira allowed her body to swing loose, hanging with only two
knuckles of her right hand wedged in a narrow crevice, and tried to find
calm, balance.
Samira looked up, not down, seeking her next hold.
She saw it and made her move.
Samira hauled her body up even as another arrow sparked off the
stone where she had been a second before.
But, as if merely recalling the old man’s advice had triggered
something inside, she could clearly see the path she needed to take. She
scrambled up the rock, not like a goat, but like one of the desert lizards, so
sure of itself it had no thought of ever falling.
Samira reached the top of the tall slab and chanced her first look
back.
Her pursuers were still following, but when the nearest of them shot
another arrow in her direction, it hit the rock a long way below her feet.
She had gained some time.

Gained time was of no use if she didn’t exploit it.

She turned her back on the pursuit and headed for the spot where the
ridge dipped to meet the lesser slopes.
She found a goat track that wended its way all the way down
through the rocks and scree.
Descending was more difficult than climbing, both harder work on
the muscles at the back of the legs, which were already screaming for
respite, and more treacherous with the scree shifting beneath her feet as she
rushed, knowing any slip might send her tumbling away with the rubble all
the way to the valley floor.
She only looked up when she reached a bend in the track, standing
on flatter ground, and took a moment to catch her breath. She saw no sign
of pursuit. She could only hope they had been beaten by the tall slab.
She looked down; and her heart fell.
More Mongol tribesmen were riding in through the valley mouth to
the south; a horde.
If she continued on her current path they would see her before she
had any chance of making good her escape.
 The only route open to Samira was south, along the side of the
mountain, traversing another treacherous scree slope.
She wasted no time worrying about it, scrambling along the flat-
footed, zigzag track towards the loose stones, breathing hard.

◆◆◆

Her going was much slower now, needing to rely on stealth rather than
speed. She minimized her movements where she could, trying to avoid
drawing any attention from the riders below. She could only hope that her
garments provided enough camouflage against the rock for them to miss her
as she moved. She headed steadily south, staying high on the hill, not
daring to attempt any passage to the lower slopes while the horsemen still
filled the valley.
Licking her parched lips, Samira saw rock rather than scree ahead,
offering surer footing. Instinctively she wanted to rush towards it, but that
instinct had been beaten out of her by the old man; she maintained her slow,
careful pace, inching closer to safety.
She almost made it, but no more than ten yards short of her goal
another arrow struck the scree at her feet.
It came from above her; she had been outflanked.
The impact of the shaft on the scree was slight, but enough to
dislodge a handful of pebbles, which in turn gathered more gravel and
stones in a small avalanche that became a rushing torrent of stones tumbling
off down the slope.
The noise of shouting rose from far below; she had been spotted.
All thought of caution gone, she took a hasty step forward, and lost
her footing, becoming the catalyst for another avalanche as she went
sliding, then rolling and tumbling, downward in a river of stones.

◆◆◆

It felt like it took forever.

 She landed heavily, bruised and battered, brought up short by a
shrub of thorns that snagged, entangled and enmeshed her in its clutches.
She was still trying to escape when a dark shadow loomed over her.
The punch that slammed into the side of the head took her away into
blackness before she could fight back. The last thing she heard was more
words in the guttural dialect of the Mongols.
“We have caught a spy. Take him to the camp; the Khan will want to
interrogate him.”
 1309
ON THE ROAD TO BOLOGNA

Aymeric woke from dreams of running, fleeing something unseen in high,

vertiginous places, his heart thundering as hard as if the effort was real and
not nightmare fuelled.
He’d snatched some sleep in a grassy hollow. It was still not quite
noon judging by the position of the sun. He’d been intending to wait out the
day and travel only by night, but something had woken him. It took a
moment to isolate the sound of several hounds, their voices raised in the
howl of the chase. The noise got him up and moving fast, running faster
than in any dream.
Dogs. The King must want me badly if they have sent for dogs…
He ran north, plunging headlong through thin forest, thinking only
to put distance between himself and the dogs. Behind him, the howling kept
pace with him.

◆◆◆

He’d walked almost ten miles north of where he’d come across the
King’s men’s camp the night before when tiredness overtook him. It
narrowly beat the dawn. He’d only slept maybe five hours; not enough rest
for a wounded man in any circumstances but devastating for a man being
harried by chasing hounds. It wasn’t as though he had a choice; there was
too many of them to fight, wounded or not.
A dark thought struck him then:
They know I am injured, that is why they have called in the dogs;
they have got my scent from where I bled on the saddle.
 He needed to find some way of masking the taint of blood,
otherwise they would relentlessly hunt him down no matter how far he ran.
It had been a dry season in the countryside around Rome. There
were no rivers to speak of in the forest where he walked. He had seen little
in the way of streams, not even a rivulet.
As he ran, Aymeric tried to gauge the lie of the land, thinking to
head for an area with the best chance of having running water, but the
forest, although light, was still too thick to see more than a few hundred
paces in any direction.
He found a deer track heading north and followed it, hoping that it
might lead him to water.
The track stopped at a dried-up watering hole, the mud caked hard
without the barest hint of moisture. If he stopped and dug deep, he might
find the clay beneath to be wetter, but he didn’t have the time.
The hounds bayed again, closer now.
Aymeric ran.

◆◆◆

The trail led him to the foot of a tall hill. Going up would be suicide, it
was open ground. But to skirt it, he’d be going diagonal to the chasing pack,
meaning they would be on him so much quicker.
He didn’t hesitate or slow, deciding on the run. He veered west,
away from where he knew the road lay, opting to take his chances in the
woods rather than risk being caught on the open road.
The baying hounds were much closer already, moving relentlessly
on, and alongside their baying he heard the shouts of their handlers, urging
the dogs forward for the kill.
At least they will not be mounted; this is no terrain for horsemen.
And with that thought, Aymeric had the makings of a plan.
Assuming they were the same men he had seen in the encampment
the night before, they had left their horses somewhere back there, maybe
even at the camp itself… It meant doubling back and going back the way he
had come, but there was a chance he might steal a horse, and that was a
chance he had to take because he couldn’t outrun the hounds forever.
 Gritting his teeth, the young knight forced more speed out of his
tiring legs, before he began a slow circle southwards, trusting to his
judgement, and luck, that he could find the campsite before the hunters
found him.
 1309
ALAMUT

Samira was still groggy when they dragged her into an open clearing in the
centre of a circle of tents. One of them was considerably larger and grander
than the others. The Kahn’s tent. They had bound her hands behind her
back. When she tried to kick out, she got a boot in the stomach as a reward.
The kick crunched in so hard she lost all her breath, and bent double…
which caused the Dagger of the Martyrs to fall from her clothes and land in
the dirt at her feet.
She saw his legs first, bare to the elements from sandals to a short,
woven kilt that barely reached his knees; as brown as old leather and corded
with muscle, they were the limbs of a runner and fighter.
The man bent to lift the dagger; on his upper body he wore a leather
jerkin, cut at the shoulders to expose arms as solid as trunks of wood, blue
veins showing in tough, sun-hardened skin. His face was tanned, creased
and beaten by wind and weather, his blue eyes, clear as the tarn in spring.
He stared at her.
“A fine dagger indeed,” he said in his rich dialect, “and far too fine
a weapon for a sand rat like you. Or perhaps you are a spy after all? And a
thief, I would judge, digging around in this sacred place for plunder?”
Samira showed no indication of understanding. Instead, she did
what she hoped was a fair impression of the thief he thought her to be,
caught, frightened and desperate. Her thought process was simple; convince
them she was what they thought and with luck they would drop their guard.
She would only need one chance to make good.
The newcomer – their leader, she assumed, or one of them, given the
deference being paid to him by the others standing in the circle, slid the
dagger into the band of the broad leather belt of his kilt. He lifted Samira by
the scruff of the neck, one-handed, and threw her back to the ground,
hawking and spitting at her.
 “Thief or spy, no matter; I have no use for either. The problem, for
you, is that I cannot allow either possibility to go unpunished. A thief, we
cut the hands off, a spy we put the eyes out and cut the tongue out. Like I
said, it matters not which fate befalls you, but I would hate for you to suffer
the wrong punishment,” and to one of the lithe warriors beside him, the man
said, “I know, the cauldron is on the boil... perhaps our new friend will
squeal when there’s some heat beneath him.”
Before he’d finished talking, two men grabbed Samira by the arms
and dragged her off toward one of the tents. A large metal pot sat atop a
roaring fire, steam rising from inside it. It demanded all of Samira’s training
not to lose her wits at the thought of going in there, kicking and screaming.
She slumped in the men’s arms, closing off the fight or flight instinct. She
banked on them thinking she had fainted at the prospect of being boiled
alive and let then carry her closer to the fire.
As she’d hoped, they unbound her, intending to strip her clothing
before submerging her in the boiling water.
She let her body go limp and fell toward the ground as the first knot
slipped.
One of her two guards let out an oath and bent to pick her up.
With no weapons beyond her hands and feet Samira was still a lethal
foe; she straight-fingered him, hard, in the left eye, gouging her index finger
in deep with the broken nail doing serious damage, and kneed him even
harder in the bollocks as he buckled, making sure he wasn’t getting up in a
hurry.
She pivoted to face the other man, driving her forehead into his face
even as he recoiled. He was faster than she’d anticipated, her blow catching
him on the broad plain of his forehead rather than the soft stuff of his nose.
It hurt, but it wasn’t about to blind him with pain.
He grabbed at her, trying to envelop her in a huge bear hug and drag
her in close where she couldn’t hurt him, but she was too fast for him. He
grabbed a hold of her robes, and as she twisted, tore them away from her
shoulder to her waist.
“Stop!” a voice bellowed, the word echoing around the valley for
seconds after all else fell into silence.
Any hope of escape was lost; Samira stood inside a close-packed
ring of tribesmen, naked from the waist up.
 ◆◆◆

The Khan strode forward to stand face to face with her.

He pulled the covering away from her face to reveal her hair.
“A girl, and a not a horse at that,” he said. He held the point of her
chin so that she looked him in the eye.
Samira spat in his face.
He let it run off this cheek and smiled.
“But, like the most spirited horse, easily broken. We shall need to
find a goat for the pot now. We don’t kill women unless we really have no
choice… we have better uses for them.”
Samira kept up her act, pretending ignorance of his language. That
only earned another laugh from the gathered crowd who liked the idea that
she had no inkling what the night held in store.
“You will understand me well enough later, woman. You have my
promise on that.”
She didn’t doubt him for a second. There was something unutterably
vile about the man and the way he threatened sexual violence as a tool of
power.
If he touched her, she would kill him, her promise to Javed be
damned.
Another tribesman entered the circle of men, joining the Khan;
unlike the others who were dressed like the Khan in kilts and leather, this
one, despite the blistering heat, wore head to toe furs, orange and black,
from some great beast Samira could barely imagine. The man’s skin was
pale and pock-marked where the others were weathered, clean-shaven with
scraps of wispy hair eked over a bald head. His mouth was too wet, too red,
and when he spoke it was with a heavy lisp. He had no teeth, only a
weeping sore the length of both gums.
“This is a bad omen, my Khan,” he said, waving a skeletal hand
towards Samira, his dirt-ingrained nails stabbing the air. “I have seen the
girl and that dagger in my dreams. We must leave this place immediately.”
“Doom and death, that is all you ever see, shaman,” the Khan
replied. He still hadn’t taken his eyes off Samira. She had no liking for what
she saw when she met his gaze; a naked lust and fire she had no idea how to
quench.
 “She must die,” the shaman repeated, insistent.
“We do not kill women, shaman.”
“And yet we must kill this one. And do it now. I have seen this.”
The Kahn shook his head. “You wish me to break our laws for the
sake of a girl and a dagger? What madness is this?”
“I can show you,” the shaman replied. “Fetch a horse and I will
read. You have always trusted my readings, have you not?”
Finally, the Khan took his gaze away from Samira.
“So be it. You have not failed me before now,” he said. “See that
you do not begin now.” The Khan clapped his hands and a moment later a
fine stallion was led into the circle. It was a beautiful creature; one of the
finest of the horde. The Khan soothed the skittish animal, gentling it with a
kindly touch, stroking its neck even as he spoke soft words in its ear… then
bent rammed the Dagger of the Martyrs through its thick hide, gutting the
horse from chest to pizzle with one sooth swiping cut.
“A fine blade indeed,” he said, even as the horse’s innards slithered
and roiled in a steaming pile on the dirt.

◆◆◆

The shaman knelt, the hem of his furs deep in the gore, and ran his
hands through the guts, red soaking him from fingertips to elbow as he
worked through them reading whatever fate he imagined in the bloody
loops. He lifted a long white-slick coil to his lips, sniffed then licked it,
caressing the intestine before he took another loop between his hands and
tore it apart; the stench was overwhelming.
The shaman smeared shit and blood and slime all over his cheeks
then turned to the Khan, grinning wildly.
“You see, my Khan? The reading is all too clear. The girl must die.
If she lives, then you will never leave this valley. The spirit animals mark
this as the truth.”
The Khan grunted, looked at Samira, then back at the shaman.
“You would really have me break one of our most sacred laws?” he
asked, shaking his head like he couldn’t quite believe what was being
demanded of him by the holy man. He still had the Dagger of the Martyrs in
his hand.
“It is necessary, my Khan,” the shaman said, still caressing a long
coil of bloody intestine like it was the finest treasure he knew.
“Perhaps not,” the Khan said. “Though if I must break a holy law, I
prefer to break this one.” He stepped forward and rammed the blade into the
shaman’s gut, an inch above his cock, and drew it up in a single swift stroke
that matched the one that had killed the horse. Even as the man stared,
unbelieving at his own blood coursing, the Khan tore off the furs and
reaching in, opened the shaman’s pale distended belly, letting his guts spill
alongside those of the dead horse.
“I like this reading better,” the Khan said, wiping the dagger clean
on the discarded fur. He put it back in his belt before addressing Samira.
“You shall be brought to me later, little one. I have payment to extract; you
owe me a horse.”
 1309
ON THE ROAD TO BOLOGNA

Aymeric managed to stay ahead of the chasing pack the whole afternoon,
sometimes by doubling back on his track to confuse the scent, other times
by putting on sustained bursts of speed which gained him time, but drained
his strength.
He gained more time when he chanced upon a verdant patch of wild
mint and garlic, in which he rolled, and gathered clumps of flowers and
leaves to bind against his wound, masking the smell of blood. It stung every
bit as sharply as the bite of a blade, but the wound was still bleeding, and as
long as it did the hounds would follow the scent.
By mid-afternoon he came across a stream heading south that he
was able to follow for several miles, wading at a fast walk to avoid the
noises of splashing.
The sounds of pursuit faded into the distance and Aymeric made
good time. The passage of the sun and his internal compass always leading
him south.
After another hour he began to recognise the terrain, the shape of a
hill, or a tumbled tree he remembered negotiating on his way north. He
slowed, not wanting to stumble into a lookout unawares. All was quiet.
There wasn’t even the distant baying of the hounds to disturb the forest.
He’d gained more time. He could only hope that it was enough.
He unsheathed his sword and walked forward, alert to the smallest
sound or movement.
He found the campsite.

◆◆◆
 Aymeric crept forward, eyes on the clearing ahead. The cover was good.
Plenty of thick undergrowth, brambles and bushes to hide him.
There were more than a dozen horses, his own included, tethered to
a tumbled tree on the far side of the clearing.
He saw the lookouts, two men, both sitting with their backs to him,
huddled over a stewing pot on a small fire. It would have been a simple
enough matter for him to make off with his horse. But he wouldn’t get far
before they raised the alarm.
He considered his options. Subduing two men in silence was never
going to be an easy task, wounded, even with the element of surprise, it
harboured considerable risk. It would be easier if he simply crept up behind
the nearest one and ran him through; these were King’s men after all and
deserved little in the way of favours. But that did not sit well with him.
Aymeric killed in cold blood before, back at the door to Bernard Gui’s
quarters in Paris; but that had been deliberate, sending a message to the
Inquisitor. Here, was different. There was no message. It was cold-blooded
murder, and Aymeric found he did not have the stomach for it.
He stepped out from his cover and walked towards the fire, getting
to within four paces of the men before he was seen.
The leftmost man nearly jumped out of his skin, scrambling
backwards into the fire, and spilling the stewing pot into the flames—which
were quenched with a steaming hiss that sounded impossibly loud in the
quiet glade.
Aymeric showed them his sword.
Both men were armed, but had their own weapons sheathed. The
time it took to draw them was more than enough to see them enter the
afterlife. They didn’t reach for their swords.
“Wise,” Aymeric said. “I am going to bind and gag you, and take my
horse now,” Aymeric said, keeping his voice calm and soft. “If you don’t do
anything stupid, you live. I trust you are fond of life?”
The two men did not speak, but Aymeric saw their fear plain
enough. This particular battle was won without spilling a drop of blood.

◆◆◆
 He had them sit back-to-back and bound them quickly, tying their hands
and feet with rope he found in one of the saddlebags. Gagged, he ensured
there were still no signs of pursuit, then rifled the campsite searching for
anything that might be scavenged. He found bread, cheese and a full
wineskin, all of which he stashed in his own saddlebags with his bedroll
across the back of the horse.
He found two mail shirts, both decent, but both too small for his
frame, so he left them be.
Aymeric considered returning south now, to reclaim his abandoned
armour, but decided against it. Too much risk involved backtracking that
far. He walked down the line of tethers, liberating each of the horses, then
scattered them with harsh slaps on the rump to drive them off, before got on
his mount, offering the two gagged guards a salute with his sword, and rode
off through the undergrowth, heading north.
There were no sounds of pursuit.
 1309
ALAMUT

Samira was taken into a large tent adjoining that of the Khan. There were
twenty of more women inside, none any older than Samira as far as she
could tell.
She was watched closely by the two brutish tribesmen guarding the
main entrance, but Samira had no thought of escape, not yet, not when the
Khan still wore the Dagger of the Martyrs in his belt.
That the Khan was a killer wasn’t a surprise; she’d seen no remorse,
no hint of pity in his eyes as he’d dragged the blade free. He’d killed the
shaman as easily as he’d killed the horse.
He will be a hard man to best in a fair fight.
She almost heard Javed’s chuckle at that thought, and knew what
her Master’s response would be.
Fair fight? There is no such thing. There is only your will against
theirs. Always ensure that yours is the stronger, little fish. Always.

◆◆◆

The other women were keen to tell Samira what to expect, though to her
ears their stories sounded more like threats than promises. Even so, Samira
maintained her deception, pretending not to understand as they washed and
bathed her and clucked around like hens. The women rubbed scented oils
into her skin, and dressed her in fine shirt and pantaloons comprised of
three layers of bright silks. It felt as soft as goat’s kid hair to the touch, and
as light as a mountain breeze, and left her feeling naked despite the layers.
While the women combed her hair over and over again, they
laughed at the Khan killing the shaman, as though the old man had deserved
his master’s wrath for daring to suggest the gods weren’t with them; they
seemed more concerned about the fate of the horse, which was a fine beast.
A champion of the horde.
Finally, after what felt like an age, the light went from the sky
outside, and the women fell quiet, leaving Samira to her own thoughts. She
needed to retrieve the Dagger of the Martyrs; she could not return to Javed
without it. And that meant taking it from the Kahn.
But at that moment, she did not see how it could be done.
The Khan sent for her as the sliver of moon rose up over the valley,
etching the sharper edges of the landscape out in silver. She was led the
short distance from one tent to the other, flanked on either side by armed
tribesmen who would be happy to honour the dead shaman by sending her
to death if she showed any hint of resistance.
She walked into the Khan’s tent calm and focussed; she needed to
be there, no matter the risks it threatened. In her mind it was just another of
Javed’s training exercises, a task to be performed and rated, no different
from all the others over the long years. She found her calm centre and
parted the tent flaps to allow her entry to the Khan’s inner sanctum. As soon
as she was inside the dim light in the interior offered her hope.

◆◆◆

“You still owe me a horse, little one,” the Khan said. She had no liking
of the way he diminished her with the epithet; little one made her sound
helpless and weak, with no affection. It wasn’t like Javed’s little fish, which
she had grown up with all of her life and wore as comfortably as her own
name.
He reclined on a bed of thick furs.
The whole interior of the tent was lined with either fur or leather. It
was a bewildering array of animal pelts. Samira recognised goat of course,
and bear, for Javed had killed an old one on the hill some years past, but as
to the nature of the rest of the beasts, some were more confusing. A single
oil lamp at the head of a great bed was the only source of light. The glow
was enough to reveal the Khan’s naked body. His leathery skin was the
same tone of deep, wrinkled brown all over, and gleamed where he had
been oiled in readiness for the night. His clothing: kilt, belt, jerkin and the
Dagger of the Martyrs lay in a small folded pile. She noted that he kept it
near his right hand, where the dagger might always be in easy reach.
He is right not to trust me, Samira thought.
“Come here,” the Khan said, but Samira maintained her pretence of
not understanding, and did not move forward until he motioned her on with
a curt wave of his left hand, summoning her to his side.
Samira took a slow step towards the bed, intent on not betraying her
emotions. She did not want him reading her. Or, rather, she wanted him to
misread her. To think she was coy. It was something she’d practiced with
Javed.
“You would do well to learn,” the old man had said on many
occasions, “for you have an advantage that a man would not have in your
place; the pretence may gain you a precious moment, and that is all you
need to strike.”
Without a weapon in hand any strike was going to be difficult
against such a man of the Kahn’s physicality; but Samira had a plan
fermenting that might just add an element of advantage. She had the upper
hand already in this dance, although the Khan did not know it.
As she took another step, she closed her senses, drawing on the
spirit she knew so well. The breath of Allah felt cool in her face, its touch
dry and soft at her cheek.
“Turn down the lamp,” she whispered.
“What did you say, girl? Come here. I tire of this game.”
The Khan motioned her to join him on the mattress of skins. The
lamp flickered, and the light dimmed to only the barest flicker of flame, like
a distant fire on a mountain slope, too dim to cut through the blackness.

◆◆◆

The Kahn cursed as the tent was plunged into near total darkness.
“Stay where you are, girl,” he ordered. “I will have someone light
the lamp.”
Samira smiled, knowing this was her moment, and spoke, in the
Khan’s own language, her girlish giggle purely an act. “But my Khan,
surely we have no need if others. You can find me in the dark…”
 The Khan liked that. “So, you are not some little mute after all, little
one? I tell you what I will do with you when I find you; I will split you
from gash to tits like a cord of wood before I am done having my fun with
you.”
“Ah, but you shall have to find me first, my Khan,” she said, then
fell quiet, moving swiftly, on feet of air, to the Khan’s left, ensuring that he
could not track by her voice alone.
She found her calm centre again, and opened her spirit eyes; her
breath stood on the other side of the tent near the oil lamp. The ripples of its
presence were starkly visible against the dark furs. The Khan hadn’t
remained still, he moved to his right. Samira saw him stoop to claim the
Dagger of the Martyrs. Through her spirit eyes the emerald at the hilt
shimmered and glowed; the Khan did not know it, but his fear made him
even easier to track.
“I do not like games,” the Khan spat, all easy flirtation gone from
his voice. “I think I will simply gut you the way I gutted the shaman. I don’t
need to fuck you.”
Samira wasn’t about to bite.
She kept moving, circling the mattress of skins. The Khan’s
twisting, shifting, posture betrayed the fact that he had no idea where she
was. Enjoying that, she crept round until she stood no more than three feet
behind him, close enough to prickle the fine hairs on the nape of his neck
with her breath; he still tried to peer into the darkness at the other side of
the tent, assuming she would run. It was the natural reaction against his
power; flight. But there was nothing natural about this little fish.
Samira whispered, so softly it was little more than a breath, “Let the
flame rise.” And saw the ripple of her spirit moving. In the same instant that
the oil lamp flared bright, she leapt onto the Khan’s back, wrapping her legs
around his waist and her left forearm across his neck, locking it in place
with the grip of her right hand. The Khan thrashed, threw himself back
trying to knock the wind out of her, but the mattress of soft furs of the floor
deadened the blow and left the Khan rolling on the floor, with Samira
locked to his back like a parasite.
She tightened her grip, cutting off his breath so that he could not
find his voice. His thrashing became frantic but once again the soft furs on
the floors deadened the sound, and if any guard should take note, they
would only mistake it for the rape he’d intended for her.
 The Khan died ignominiously, farting and pissing himself at the
same time as the last of his life went out of him.
Samira broke his neck before she let him go; just to make sure.

◆◆◆

She stood, breathing softly, listening.

There was no alarm, no sound of running guards.
She retrieved the dagger from the corpse, then stripped and dressed
in the dead man’s clothes; the Khan’s kilt, belt and jerkin would offer
warmth in the desert night. Before she left the tent, Samira knocked the oil
lamp over, spilling flame on the furs.
She was off and away, slipping quietly into the night as the fire took
hold in the Kahn’s tent and, finally, heard shouts of alarm behind her as the
flames licked at the night. By then Samira was mounted and riding away as
fast as she dared, south down the Alamut valley.
She looked back over her shoulder once, to watch the Khan’s tent
burn and thought grimly: Now I owe you two horses.
She turned her gaze in the direction of her mountain home. The task
was complete, and she had done as Javed asked. She had spilled no blood,
and she had retrieved the Dagger of the Martyrs.
 1309
BOLOGNA

Aymeric arrived in Bologna more than two weeks after his run in with the
King’s men.
The risk of heavy patrols had necessitated a circuitous route,
travelling mainly on byways and rough tracks to avoid being caught on the
open road. Mercifully, he’d seen no sign of pursuit since leaving the men
tied up at the campsite; his hope was that they had given up the idea of
chasing him so far from Rome, and gone back to tell their master he was
gone.
He’d stopped briefly in Florence, hoping to find information in the
Chapterhouse of the Order there, but the place was a shell. It had been
emptied, the corridors bearing the scorch marks of the fire that had been set
as. He didn’t linger. The only news he garnered was that the Order was in
flight; there were rumours of treasure being spirited away in the night to
boats fleeing west, but such rumours were nothing new. He had been born
on a similar night, after all.
Aymeric was none the wiser by the time he rode into Bologna. An
early winter chill blew down from the north, bringing with it a fine drizzle
that did little to improve his mood. The wound in his side still ached, the
hours in the saddle meaning it hadn’t had sufficient healing time. He was
constantly hungry, forced to live on the scraps he could scavenge, and the
charity of the few travellers he had met on the road. His clothing was damp,
muddy and torn. He needed a wash, a decent meal, and information. The
first two would have to wait, for the third was by far the more important,
and the reason he had left Rome in the first place. That was why he made
for the Auberge of the Knights Hospitaller rather than seeking out his
father’s family home; he prayed that his father spoke truly and that Renfeld
Barbarossa the Bailli held the secret that would be the salvation of the
Order.
 ◆◆◆

Barbarossa was the commander of the knights in this bailiwick, one of

eight in Christendom, and one of the richest. The opulence and splendour
was evident even at the huge marble gateway to the Auberge.
Despite his rough and ready demeanour, the guards allowed him
entry when he took his tunic from his satchel and told his lineage. He did
not show the scroll from Chinon.
“Your commander has information that my father needs in Rome,”
Aymeric explained, seeing the look that passed between the guards. He did
not understand it, for surely it was pity he saw in their eyes?
He rode along an avenue of tall poplars to a magnificent two-storey
house in the centre of the grounds. The whole estate was heavily guarded,
as though expecting an attack at any moment. Each man wore the white
cross on black tabard that denoted their order. Everyone looked clean and
polished, and Aymeric felt like a beggar in their kingdom, coming looking
for scraps.
He dismounted at the main entrance to the house. He w was shown
directly through to an antechamber for an audience with the Bailli,
Barbarossa.
Barbarossa was a giant of a man, broad across the chest that was a
stark reminder of the the strength of his youth, but with a belly grown stout
on good living and luxury. He wore the tabard of the Hospitallers, stretched
tight over his gut. Unlike the Templars, he went clean shaven although his
hair, black with strands of silver, hung like a well-oiled cape across his
shoulders. He sat at a large ornate desk in a room lined with fine tapestries,
thick woven rugs and mounted heads of victims of the hunt; boar and deer,
wolf and bear. There was no mistaking the wealth here in this heart of the
Order. He looked up at Aymeric’s entrance.
“So it is true… You truly are your father’s son, boy, that is plain to
see for anyone who chooses to look. But why have you come here? This
land is not safe for men of the Templar.”
“You know why I have come, Bailli,” Aymeric replied. “You have
information my father needs in Rome. You sent word did you not? He sent
me here to retrieve this evidence. I would have it and make haste to return
to the council.”
Barbarossa did not reply, but his eyes betrayed the same pity and
sadness Aymeric had seen in the guards.
His heart twisted, knowing the pain that what was to come even as
as Barbarossa waved him into a chair across the desk from where he sat.
“There are things you need to know, and things you do not know,
lad,” the Bailli began after Aymeric was seated. “Firstly, you should know
that I sent no such word to Rome; I had nothing to tell your father that he
did not already know. No evidence that might save him beyond what he
already possessed. Though I have come into new information, brought from
that city this past week, via an emissary from the Holy Church who is on
his way to Paris.” Barbarossa looked grim. “The news is not good for you,
young de Bologna. The court in Rome has denied your Order’s petition, and
your father has been reported missing; he has not been seen since the night
you were last seen with him before the court. Your Order is now being
represented in Rome by the Archbishop of Sens, Philippe de Marigny.”
“De Marigny? But his brother is one of the signatories on the King’s
decree,” Aymeric said, disbelieving. “He is no friend of the Order.”
Barbarossa spoke quietly, deliberately.
“The Order has few friends in these troubled times, lad.”
“And my father?”
“As I said, missing. But I am no fool. I read between the lines. He
will never be found.”
Aymeric knew only too well what that meant.
“He is dead?”
Barbarossa did not reply.

◆◆◆

A servant arrived bearing bread, cheese and wine, a veritable feast after
the road. Aymeric was in no position to turn down the Bailli’s hospitality
without giving offence, although it was uncomfortably given. The big man
didn’t want a Templar under his roof.
“You said is, the emissary is on his way to Paris, not was. So I take
it he is under this same roof? I would very much like to speak with him,”
Aymeric said after the food was cleared away, leaving the each with a tall
cup of wine.
“And no doubt he would like to speak to you,” Barbarossa replied.
“But not a cosy fireside chat. He would see you in the dungeon again,
strapped to the table for torturous confession under the pokers of the
Inquisition. Have you not realised the full extent of your troubles yet?”
“What else has this emissary said?” Aymeric asked
Barbarossa again took a time before replying.
“I cannot lie to Lucian de Bologna’s son,” he finally said, “for your
father was like a brother to me. The church has offered the Hospitallers a
share of Templar lands and assets. We are to have the Italy and Provence
tongues, a full quarter of your Order’s holdings.”
“In exchange for your aid in prosecuting the King’s case?”
Barbarossa nodded.
“Although I have said I cannot promise that, I can only promise not
to stand in their way.”
Aymeric’s grip tightened around the goblet in his hand as he
considered throwing his wine in the man’s face. It would have been a
mistake. He fought down his anger. “Friend of my father indeed,” he replied
sarcastically, instead.
“This is a political game now, lad, you need to grasp the full
implications of that and what they mean for you,” the Bailli replied.
“Believe me, you would be better off out of it. Visit your family home; you
have a grandmother there who has never seen you, and there is a tutor of
your father’s in the University, old Barberino, who would be happy to teach
you philosophy until he dies. You could still have a good life.”
“I will not, I cannot, step aside. The honour of the Order is at stake.”
“What is honour to a corpse, lad? Believe me, whatever honour the
Order had is long lost,” Barbarossa replied. “It was lost when the people
learned what was found below Reynard’s altar in Paris.”

◆◆◆

Aymeric was not sure he had heard properly.

 “Reynard’s altar? They left poor Reynard dead, run through, on that
very altar. I know. I was there. I saw the offal and the blood. I walked in in.”
“I would not tell that to a soul outside of this room,” the Bailli said,
“for the King’s case has been bolstered by what was found.”
“Bolstered? It will not be bolstered when they see this.” Aymeric
removed the Chinon scroll from its pouch under his shirt. “This is a full
pardon for the Order, signed by the Cardinal of Chinon.”
“You may as well rip it up,” Barbarossa replied. “These new
heresies are too great to be swept aside. Reynard has done for you all.”
“And I tell you, Reynard was a good man. There was no heresy in
him beyond a desire to help the poor rather than the rich.”
“That is not what Gui has said, not what the King has said, and not
what the Church has now agreed upon. Reynard was harbouring the devil
himself, in the form of the head of Baphomet. They have the head on
display in the King’s Palace in Paris to prove the Templar perfidy. There are
confessions, from men of your Order, that it spoke to them in ceremonies in
the crypt, that they kissed the Devil’s cock and renounced Christ, that they
spat on the Cross, and that Reynard was the master of these ceremonies,
ceremonies that involved De Molay himself. Even your father’s name has
been mentioned.”
“No. My father was a good Christian, and a Templar,” Aymeric
replied. “And any man who says otherwise will have to fight me to prove
it.”
“Do not go looking so easily for a fight, young master, for one is
coming for you if you do not step aside, here, today. “
“Is that a threat, Bailli?”
The big man sighed.
“No, Aymeric Moro de Bologna, it is a warning, from a friend of
your father. Take it in the spirit in which it is delivered. I could have you
secreted away and on a boat to Valletta before the week is out if you wish?”
Aymeric shook his head, and Barbarossa sighed again, knowing it
was a lost cause.
“Then go and see your grandmother. She at least will be pleased to
see you.”
 1309
THE LONG ROAD HOME

Samira had been riding for two weeks, and judging by the changing
landscape thought she might be home in three more days, when the Mongol
horse went lame, turning its leg in a hole in the dark on the way up a rocky
slope.
Samira did not know enough about horses to tell if the injury was
permanent, but she knew she did not have it in her heart to kill the beast, so
she removed the saddle and halter, and gave it its freedom.
While she prepared a fire in a secluded hollow and got ready to
make a meal of a goat she had trapped and berries she had foraged, the
horse wandered off in search of grass.
She never saw it again.
Samira felt raw and saddle weary, and sorely missed the familiar
comforts of home; she pined for Javed’s black tea, and to hear him talk as
the stars hung overhead, wondering what stories he had left to tell from his
rich life. Now that she would have to walk, it would take longer to return,
three days becoming more than a week.

◆◆◆

After her meagre meal – the goat too dry and stringy where it had died
frightened and tense, and the berries overripe this late in the season –
Samira crouched by the fire, staring into the flames. She thought through
the moments of the Khan’s death in her mind. It was her first kill, and she’d
expected to feel something, whether remorse or exhilaration, but instead
there was nothing beyond a sense of finishing the task she had been set by
her master. She had been more afraid of losing her footing on the high ridge
than she had been of the Khan when she’d faced him in the dark
Is this what it will always be like? She wondered.
A single word came to her in reply, whispered in the breeze.
Fedai.
She looked up.
A shadow, no more than a wisp of darkness among many others, sat
across the fire from her, but the ripples it made in the space it occupied
were as distinctive and familiar to her as the back of her hands.
“Father?”
It did not speak again. A breeze came up off the hill and the
shadows were dissipated as it blew through the hollow.
Samira broke camp quickly, snuffing out the small fire with scuffed
up dirt. She covered the ashes, leaving no trace of her presence.
She left the hollow at a run.
A week was going to be too long; Javed needed her now.
She sped down the slope in the dark, unheeding of the danger,
willing him to stay alive.
 1309
BOLOGNA

Aymeric’s grandmother shed tears of joy at his arrival, tears that quickly
turned to pain when he told her what little he knew of her son’s fate.
The estate was larger than he had ever imagined it, a sweeping
hillside of olive groves and vineyards, a wooded valley where the hunting
would be testing and the game plentiful, and, high on the slopes, a long blue
lake, with a villa at the far end.
He’d been told the villa was Roman, from the days of Empire, but
hadn’t realised how magnificent it would be.
He felt like an imposter when he rode through the gates but was
immediately treated as Lord and Master here.
His grandmother was as aged as old Reynard but had lived a more
sedate life. The wrinkles around her eyes, and the silver in her hair betrayed
her, but she could pass for a woman several decades younger than her years,
despite the puffy redness left by her sore weeping.
They sat together on a balcony overlooking the lake and valley
beyond.
Aymeric had been bathed and dressed by a manservant, which was a
new experience for him, and one if he was honest, he did not entirely enjoy.
He had been fed and watered; fresh bread, olives, hard cheese and thin cuts
of meat, washed down with a sweet heady wine that he was careful to sip.
Now, sitting on the balcony, he felt more content than he had in many
months. There was temptation in this life. It would be easy to do as
Barbarossa had urged, and simply live here, but he had work to do in Paris.
His grandmother seemed to read his thoughts.
“You could stay, you know,” she said, with the sad smile of someone
knowing her offer was about to be refused. “This is all yours, your
inheritance by rights.”
 “I could, nonna, but for how long? The Church is stripping the
Order of its assets. There will come a day when they turn up here with their
swords, looking to claim this place too. And when they do my presence
here damns you and everyone else in this place.”
“The Cardinal of Bologna is a friend,” this grandmother said. “He
will not allow it.”
“One thing I have learned this last year is that cardinals can be
persuaded…and those that can’t be persuaded can be replaced,” Aymeric
replied. “Greed conquers all friendships.”
She touched his cheek gently.
“So much anger,” she said. “And so much like him it breaks my
heart to look at you. He would not want you to take undue risks, you know
that?”
“He was a man of fidelity and honour, nonna. He was a man of the
Order. It flowed through his veins. If I am truly his son how could I turn my
back on that duty? Why would I even want to?”
“Even when there is no Order to speak of?”
“I still have the pardon from Chinon, the words that expose the lies
of the King and his men. That will mean something, it has to. I must return
to Rome and make them listen.”
“Then you will not go alone,” his grandmother said. “I will find men
willing to accompany you; you are my flesh and blood, the last of us. I will
not lose you as I lost your father, not so soon after finding you.”
Aymeric smiled. “Companionship on that long road would be most
welcome,” although it was not the road itself he was thinking of, but the
King’s men and their hounds.
“It will take me several days to make the arrangements,” she said.
“Rest, take the time to regain your strength. I see the toll the journey took
on you. You need some meat on your bones, boy.”
He smiled at that. “Keep feeding me this well and I will happily
grow fat.”
“You should visit the University. Old Barberino has the sharpest
mind in the country. I trust he will give you wise counsel; he was your
father’s tutor, and has been a family friend for nigh on fifty years. You can
trust him.”
When they parted, nonna had tears in her eyes again.
“One more thing, son of my son, a favour for an old woman.”
 “Anything, nonna,” he promised, and the tears came stronger,
although her voice was strong and firm.
“Bring him home to be laid in the ground with his kin? Promise me
that if you get the chance, you will bring him back to me?”
It was a promise he was happy to make, even though there was little
chance of being able keep it.
 1309
THE YAZIDI VALLEY

Night had already fallen by the time Samira ran into the valley.
She could barely make out the darker domes of the village huts in
the gloom.
There was no flicker of flame up on the mountain slope above.
She had run for four straight days, over hills and through desert
lands pausing only to find water and snatch more overripe berries where she
could. Every part of her screamed in pain and burned from exertion, she
was so stretched and dried out she might snap like a dry twig if caught in a
strong wind. But none of that mattered; all that mattered was the old man up
above, and home.
She rushed up the familiar sand track without thinking about her
footing in the darkness; she knew every step intimately, the path seared into
her soul from years of familiarity.
She arrived in the cave mouth with the Dagger of the Martyrs in her
hand.
“Father? I have brought you a gift,” she said, stepping inside.
No one was there to answer.
The cave was empty, and the hearth lay cold; it hadn’t seen a fire in
several days at least. She tested the ash. Longer, probably. Samira made a
quick search of the cave; the goatskins all hung on their strings, the fishing
nets too, and the fur cloak Javed used when walking on the hill in inclement
weather was folded at the foot of the alcove he used as a bed. The straw bed
itself was as cold as the hearth; nobody had slept here in a while.
Panic rose in her that she struggled to quell.
He is on the hill somewhere, tending the goats. He has to be.
She was tempted to rush out into the dark but remembered there was
an easier way. She sat cross-legged by the cold hearth and closed her senses
one after the other; it was harder this time than it had been in a long time, as
she faced down her fear, but it was there, the breath of Allah felt cold in her
face, its touch like ice on her cheek.
“Find our father,” Samira whispered, then closed her eyes to see
with the spirit sight.

◆◆◆

She rushed out in spirit, her flight taking her over the mountain slopes,
as clear to her now as though broad daylight. She moved fast, like a hunting
hawk quartering each piece of ground below before moving on, moving
every higher up the hill.
It was colder up here, silvery ice coating the sparse grass and rock,
but Samira felt no trace of it as her spirit soared.
Father? Where are you?
Then she sensed a familiar ripple at the highest point of the slope,
beside the tall stone where Javed so often sat to survey the surrounding
lands.
Father!
She opened her eyes and ran out of the cave, bounding up the slope,
her haste scattering the grazing goats in all directions.
The old man sat at the base of the tall stone.
He said nothing as Samira knelt before him.
“Father?”
He did not reply; he would never reply again, for he was frozen in
place, thick frost coating beard and hair. The mountain crows had got to
him, leaving black holes dripping with frozen blood trails where his eyes
had been. He’d gone sitting in his favoured spot, looking down the valley.
Waiting for her return.

◆◆◆

She gave Javed to the winds on the top of the hill, burning him on a
pyre with the Dagger of the Martyrs laid on his chest.
Afterwards it was the only thing left whole.
 She crushed the old man’s burnt bones between stones and scattered
the ash on the mountainside, saving the last handful for herself.
Later, back in the cave, she mixed the ash with a brew of strong
black tea and drank it down, saving part of him inside her forever.
But she did not feel the old man’s spirit enter her or sense his
presence in the cave.
He had said his goodbye around the campfire four nights past; it was
the only farewell she was to get, though he had named her Fedai.

◆◆◆

She walked off the hill the next morning, not looking back lest tears
blind her. She carried a rolled up blanket and a goatskin of water, which
along with the clothes on her back and the Dagger of the Martyrs tucked
into the belt of her kilt was everything she owned as she walked out of the
valley.
The blade was tarnished where smoke and flame had blazed around
it.
As she left the valley, there was but one word in her mind, an old
word, but the fire still burned in her at the thought of it.
Bologna.
 1309
THE UNIVERSITY, BOLOGNA

The next morning Aymeric left his grandmother making preparations for
his return to Rome and rode the ten miles back into the city. The centre of
learning lay in a sprawling, open area in the oldest part of Bologna. The
University comprised a clutter of buildings spanning the ages from Imperial
Roman times to the present, some in considerably better repair than others,
but all conveying a sense of gravitas and import that left Aymeric feeling
humble as he rode between them.
He sought his father’s old tutor, Francesco da Barberino. This time,
at least, he was dressed more appropriately than his audience with the
Bailli, having been provided with a suit mail, greaves and a clean tunic;
he’d insisted on wearing the tabard cross of the Templars, despite his
grandmother’s protestations. He rode the same horse that had served him so
faithfully since Rome but carried a new sword. Like the armour, the blade
had belonged to his long-dead grandfather. Aymeric had avowed on taking
it from nonna that he would not rest until the blood of his father’s killer
stained the blade red.
She had nodded, understanding.

◆◆◆

He had no trouble finding the old man’s chamber; people, on seeing the
cross on his tabard, were all too keen to help, and make haste in the other
direction as Aymeric journeyed deeper into the old university.
He came to a stop outside a squat stone building that looked like it
could well predate even the earliest days of the Empire and tethered his
horse to a gatepost.
 He didn’t knock on the door as he entered.
The place felt empty; a long hallway stretched away from him, with
four doors on either side.
His footsteps echoed on the cold flagstones.
But still no one came.
He tried the nearest doors, believing he had found the room he had
come to visit on his second attempt. He opened the door wide and entered a
tall, two-story library crammed on every shelf with scrolls, parchments,
illuminated manuscripts and maps. The air held that musty aroma of
wisdom. A long oak gallery ran around the upper floor and the ceiling was
bowed, also wooden, giving the impression the room had been covered by
an upturned boat. Thick, brightly patterned rugs covered the floors, and
faded tapestries, long past their vivid bright best covered any patches of
wall not already hidden by the oak shelving. It was by far the most
impressive collection of learning Aymeric had seen, dwarfing, in
comparison, the library in the Paris Chapterhouse.
A figure sat, head bowed, in a tall, winged chair by a fire that was
roaring high in the hearth to stave off the first chills of winter.
It was only as Aymeric walked towards the fireplace he realised the
old man he was meant to see would be grey haired. The figure in the chair
was stout, dark haired and black bearded.
When the man looked up and smiled, Aymeric recognised the
malicious grin more than anything else; this wasn’t a professor. It was
Domic Cantella, the Inquisitor’s man.

◆◆◆

“Ah, young Templar, I was beginning to think Barbarossa had you

wrong, but it seems he is a better judge of character than I gave him credit
for,” Cantella said, rising from the chair.
Realisation hit Aymeric hard.
“You? You are the emissary from Rome?”
Gui’s man bowed at the waist.
“At your service,” he said sarcastically. “Did you think the
Hospitaller to be your friend? I would have thought the one lesson these
long months of betrayal would have rammed home to you is that friendship
that is easily bought is no kind of friendship at all.”
All of Aymeric’s training told him that this man was dangerous; he
held himself like a fighter, watchful for an attack yet relaxed and ready for
action should it be required. In build the Inquisitor’s man reminded
Aymeric of his old Master at Arms in the Chapterhouse. A man he never
even came close to besting.
Cantella must have seen something of Aymeric’s thoughts in his
eyes.
“You do not want to fight me, boy,” Cantella assured him. “And I do
not want to fight you. I came here to make you an offer.”
“There is nothing you can offer me that I can possibly want, unless
you can bring my father back from the grave, reinstate the Order, releasing
my imprisoned brothers with a full pardon and apology from the Crown.”
Cantella laughed. “A big ask, young Templar. I like that.” Aymeric
noted that the man had a hand on the hilt of his sword, and that he was
wearing mail under the red and black tunic. Despite his words, he had come
prepared for a fight. “Nevertheless, I do have an offer, and I would urge you
to take it. Like Barbarossa said, you could have a good life here. Stay here
in your homeland, farm cattle, grow olives, drink wine and grow fat with
serving girls happy to suck your cock. Leave all thoughts of the Order in the
past. You have the word of the King and the Church that they will not
pursue any further charges against you or your family.”
“A generous offer, I am sure, to keep what is already mine. And if I
do not concur?”
“Then the full weight of Church and Crown will fall upon you and
yours, and the name de Bologna shall be wiped from the annals of history.”
That malicious smirk was back again.
“My father would never agree to such terms,” Aymeric replied.
Cantella laughed. “But your father always was a stubborn fool. You
do not have to share his fate, but if you are so eager, I can dump your corpse
in the same shit smelling sewer where I left his.” There was no offer, of
course. There never had been. Cantella proved that by drawing his sword
from its scabbard. “I have changed my mind. A different offer. Die like a
man, or die like your father, which would you prefer?”
 ◆◆◆

“You are the only one dying here today,” Aymeric said, and drew his
grandfather’s blade.
They faced each other across the floor of the library.
“What can you hope to achieve, boy?” Cantella said, starting to
circle to his left. Aymeric went left too, maintaining the distance between
them, watching the way Cantella’s muscles moved.
“I have this,” Aymeric replied, and, one-handed, took the Chinon
scroll from its pouch around his neck. “A full pardon from the Cardinal of
Chinon.”
“The former Cardinal of Chinon,” Cantella replied, that malicious
smirk spreading like a slit throat across his face. “The new cardinal does not
share the previous holy man’s enthusiasm for your cause, I am afraid. Your
scrap of paper is worthless.”
Cantella circled faster, stepping closer now, leaving only four paces
between them.
Aymeric shoved the scroll back inside his undershirt, not taking his
gaze from his opponent for a moment. It was impossible to miss how lightly
the stout man was able to hold the sword; he had the strength of a bull in
those broad shoulders and would not tire quickly. Aymeric was already
weakened by his still-unhealed wound. His only advantage, if he had one,
would be speed of foot. He wasn’t about to make the first blow. They
circled each other again, each gauging the other.
Cantella took another step closer, only three paces between them,
almost within reach of a thrust. “I tire of this dance, boy. Are we men or
whores dancing all pretty? Come, let us get this over with, for I am already
late for my lunch.”
Aymeric didn’t waste energy on words. He kept circling,
maintaining the distance between them.
“Talk is for the pillow, not battle,” his Master at Arms had said, an
adage that had happily beaten into Aymeric with the flat of his blade in the
practice yard.
He didn’t intend to take an easy beating here.
But Cantella didn’t have the patience to make another circuit of the
room. He stepped forward, raising his sword, two-handed, high above his
head, and lunged with sudden fury into the attack. Aymeric barely managed
to get his guard up and block the savage blow, the force behind it
shuddering through his arms. He felt the hilt twist, trying to escape his
grasp, and clung onto it.
Battle was joined.

◆◆◆

The clash of blades echoed and rang, loud in the confines of the great
library. It took no more than four blows for Aymeric to know Cantella was
the better swordsman. It quickly became less of a battle and more of a
desperate struggle for survival as the Inquisitor’s Man pressed hard at
Aymeric’s defences, testing them with his brutality. Cantella’s muscles
corded, sweat glistening on his skin as he launched another attack that saw
his blade scythe through the air where Aymeric’s head had been a heartbeat
before. And again. And again. In less than two minutes of battle joined, the
only thing keeping Aymeric alive was his footwork; his ability to keep
moving just far enough to lean and sway away from Cantella’s savage
strength, and when he had no choice, taking the full impact on his inherited
blade. Each blow hammered through him, taking their toll.
Cantella smiled widely, enjoying himself. “You move well, and
you’re quick, but a swordsman needs strength. You would be better served
as a dancer. It’s disappointing. I had hoped you’d put up more of a fight.”
He stepped into another attack, his blade flashing faster than before,
a combination of three sharp blows forcing Aymeric onto the back foot as
he tried desperately to keep Cantella at bay. He couldn’t last. Not like this.
He needed something to change, trying to recall what he’d seen of the
layout of the place as he’d entered the library. There had to be something he
could use to his advantage. Dying here, at this man’s hand, would be the
bitterest failure.
Aymeric blocked and parried four more cuts, each one beating him
into a retreat that continued all the way across the floor of the library. He
was being driven toward a corner. If he allowed himself to get trapped he’d
be cut down in seconds.
He was tiring.
 It would be so easy to just cast aside his sword and let the inevitable
end come with a single brutal cut, but he wasn’t ready to die yet.
Aymeric dredged some last strength from his bones and took the
fight back to Cantella, raining down a series of high two-handed overhead
blows that, for a fleeting moment, caught the Inquisitor’s man off guard, but
there was no way Aymeric could keep the onslaught up.
Cantella’s defence held.
And then the balance shifted again, and Aymeric was driven back by
a single savage swing that would have cleaved him in two if the metal had
bitten.
He took the only option open to him, dropping his guard for a
heartbeat as he moved to one side, retreating towards the stairway that led
up to the balcony; Cantella’s wide-swinging attack would be hampered on
the steps. It wasn’t much, but it was the only thing he could think of. Every
muscle burned. His breathing came in ragged gasps. Facing him, Cantella
suffered no such weakness. The man was a mountain. Mountains did not
fall to men like him.
Aymeric took a deep cut to his left biceps, but was able to turn, with
his back to the stairs, and hold his position.
Hot blood ran down his arm.
A second cut opened a line across the back of his hand.
He was slowing.
“This is almost over, boy,” Cantella goaded, aiming a blow at
Aymeric’s head that he barely managed to turn aside, his wounded hand
screaming through his nerves. “If you have a prayer to say, best say it now.”
Aymeric backed away, he heels coming up against the first step, and
continued up the steps, trying to buy time to catch his breath, but he was
tiring fast now. Every blow sapped more of his precious strength. There was
an inevitability about it. He stared into the face of death and it wore that
malicious grin that had haunted him ever since he’d first seen it.
He stopped on the upper landing.
He had nowhere to go except along the balcony itself.
Cantella came on remorselessly.

◆◆◆
 Aymeric could barely lift his sword.
He retreated along the gallery, pulling down books and tapestries
with his blooded hand, doing everything he could to throw obstacles into
Cantella’s path that did nothing to stop the Inquisitor’s man’s relentless
attack.
There was no escape; he didn’t have the energy left in him to leap
over the balcony, and the fall, onto stone floor, would likely break his back.
So the choice was death on one side or death on another. Did it really matter
which he chose?
The wound in his flank had opened again; he felt warmth flow
inside his shirt. Blood dripped heavily from the deep cut in his left arm.
Cantella saw all of this, and came on, pressing another attack that
pushed Aymeric all the way down the balcony until there was nowhere left
to go. He backed up hard against the tall stack of shelves.
“All mocking aside, boy, you had the makings of a decent
swordsman,” Cantella said. “Shame that you will not live to fulfil that
potential.”
Aymeric had one last ploy to risk before he met his maker, the same
risky trick he had last pulled the night the Chapterhouse was raided. He
feigned weakness, dropping to one knee while allowing his grip to loosen
around the hilt of his grandfather’s blade, hoping that Cantella would come
in for the kill, opening himself up to disembowelling killing thrust.
Cantella wasn’t fooled.
He stepped backward rather than forward, and swept Aymeric’s
blade aside. The blade clattered out of his hand, spinning away over the side
of the balcony to fall to the stones so far below. Cantella brought his sword
back in a cut rather than a thrust, the steel biting deep in Aymeric’s side,
driving the rings of the mail shirt into his flesh.
Aymeric fell, toppled by weakness and the weight of his mail.
It was done.
Cantella leaned over him and pulled the Chinon scroll from inside
his clothing.
The Inquisitor’s man took the scroll from its pouch and ripped it into
pieces that he scattered over the balcony.
“You should have taken the offer, lad,” Cantella said, and plunged
his sword into Aymeric’s belly, cutting though mail and flesh equally easily.
 Aymeric Moro de Bologna heard the tip of the weapon thud as it
emerged through his back, hitting the wood of the floor, and felt the cold
steel inside him, then warmth of life leave him as Domic Cantella pulled
out the blade.
He tried to rise, but only managed to roll over, looking down into
the library as Cantella walked through the fabled hall of learning, and out
the door.
Aymeric’s lifeblood dripped away down off the balcony.
He watched it go, falling to mingle with the scraps of the Chinon
pardon, life and hope scattered on the cold floor in the red rain.
I will not die here… he thought, pitifully. I refuse to…
 The stories of Samira and Aymeric
CONTINUE IN

BLOOD OF THE MARTYRS

 Thank you for reading DAGGER OF THE MARTYRS. If you enjoyed this, please think about
visiting the review site of your choice and leaving a few kind words. Books like ours live and die
based on word of mouth.
Steven Savile has written for Doctor Who, Torchwood, Primeval, Stargate, Warhammer, and other
popular game and comic worlds. His novels have been published in eight languages to date and have
sold over half a million copies worldwide, including the international bestseller SILVER and the
fantasies GLASS TOWN and COLDFALL WOOD. He has won multiple awards for both original
and tie-in fiction.

William Meikle is a Scottish writer, now living in Canada, with more than thirty novels
published in the genre press and over 300 short story credits in thirteen countries. He has books
available from a variety of publishers including Dark Regions Press, Crossroad Press and Severed
Press, and his work has appeared in a number of professional anthologies and magazines. He lives in
Newfoundland with whales, bald eagles and icebergs for company. When he's not writing he drinks
beer, plays guitar, and dreams of fortune and glory.