Chapter One
YORK
1336
The young man strained his eyes in the murky darkness. A sliver of light drew slowly across the floor of the hallway, briefly illuminating the cold stone slabs that hid the clay beneath. The old stone was a maudlin shade of grey. He was a part of this place now, as much as that rock, or those iron bars that caged him within.
The chains that bound his bony wrists dug mercilessly into his skin. The flesh had begun to peel away, and a new darker stinging sensation echoed up his forearm, jolting against his elbow. Perhaps it was the constant shivering that made it pain so.
He was damp and filthy now, his hair and jerkin running with fleas. They bit him mercilessly. Open wounds had appeared on his left leg, and the prisoner could hear the buzzing of flies somewhere in the dark. The next time he lost consciousness, he knew they would come to lay their eggs. Perhaps they were as unreal as he was. It was too cold for insects anymore, yet he heard them buzz anyway. It was hard to know what was real or imagined in the darkness. Every distant sound carried sinister undertones.
His mind began to bring dangerous thoughts, and fevered imaginings.
There were rats, but they stayed away from him. Hunger swelled in his belly, and perhaps they sensed it. Jessop was starving. If they didn’t give him something soon, he doubted he’d last long enough to hang. The cramps in his belly had grown, yet there was nothing in him to soil himself with. His stomach distended, a vast potbelly growing between his legs. His ribs were ivory cages against his waxy pale skin.
One beetle had disappeared into his mouth in the long stretching days of nothingness since his jailer had last given him a bowl of sloth. You wouldn’t feed it to a dog, the young man thought bitterly. The bug had been bitter, but he had savored every last morsel. His tongue had flicked out, stopping any of the bug’s life juices escaping him.
Since that feast, Jessop had been reduced to eating the moss from the dungeon wall.
It brought on feverish dreams of his mother, rising from her deathbed, her skin cold and clammy. Two coins had fallen as she rose, and her eyes beneath were milk white and soulless. He had screamed in the darkness then, and other denizens of the underground had joined in his hopeless cacophony.
Track, his jailer had come then and beaten him, leaving him sobbing and broken, crying for his dead mother.
Track, that fat oaf. How he longed to strangle that excuse for a man. He was not violent by nature, but that man had reached in, and drawn it from him. When they had brought him here, whipped and naked, he had saw how the jailer had stared at him.
Jessop was the son of a whore, and he knew the look well. The Jailer had come that night.
“I could make it easier for you,” he had promised.
“If you unsheathe your sword, fat man,” Jessop had replied, “I will separate it from your body.”
He had clicked his teeth for added effect, and the man had stepped back. Since then, Track was scared of him, the whoreson, the devil child. But he no longer worried about Track, or anyone else for that matter. Jessop was diseased and dying. He laid his head back against the cold stone, and coughed deeply. The sound of his lungs had begun to scare him, a booming sound of decay in the darkness.
****
He had been a thief all his life. From the cradle, and now to the grave, it had been bred in him since he had first suckled his mother’s tit. Raised in an Inn near the west wall, he had never known his father. Truth be told, it could have been one of a hundred men. But York was not the South, and he had not been expected to follow his mother’s calling.
She had been a Queen among women, a rare beauty. She was no courtesan, but she was no soldier’s whore either. More than one nobleman had spread his coin upon her sheets. A modest bag of gold, lay secreted under the floorboards of the Inn, it contents known only to them. A thousand times she had told him, they would head east on wings of that bags bounty, but though he had been a child, Jessop had not really believed it. There was York, cold York. The snows that came each winter on the northern breeze were as familiar to him as the faces of that filled his life.
Between them, whoring and petty crime had led to a comfortable life of sorts, but in the end it also lead to his Ma’s doom. She had opened one door too many, and Death had come in the robes of a nobleman, with a bowl shaped haircut that spoke of his Norman heritage.
Though Jessop was an urchin, his hands were soft. Early in his life, his mother had taught him the art of confidence. He could both read and write, unheard of amongst his peers. He learned to sing, and had the voice of an angel until his voice broke summers past. The girls of the Inn had lamented the passing of his voice, but of course they had misunderstood. The art of song had helped him begin to pick up accents and languages. All the better to play the part of a thief, or a conjuror of false promises.
His old Ma had never wanted him to stay in the north, forever a slave to his birth. That’s why she had hidden that gold, and grown it from a sapling to an oak tree. The money was for him, not them. That had been the truth of it.
****
In moments of near lucidity, Jessop began to realize he was slowly going blind. There was not much illumination in this place, only the dawn brought through any true light. Even then it was a grey murky thing. A sliver of sun came for the briefest of moments, and he would stretch his bare foot through the bars, relishing the burning sensation on his naked skin.
The sunlight was an illusion. It had begun to grow colder, if such things were possible. His breath began to become a visible thing, a puff of ethereal smoke. Down in the depths of the castle, the air was full of moisture. The rags he wore began to smell worse than he did. The cloth had begun to rot.
Jessop learned to accept that he would die here, a few scant months after his mothers passing. They would not even hang him for trying to avenge her death. He had been dropped into the darkness, and forgotten about. He was a creature of no importance.
Jessop thought of his friends and adopted family around the keep. He tried not to think too much about the Inn, and the warm fires that burned in the hearth. His mouth began to water at the thought of a cauldron of stew bubbling above the flames, potatoes and onions bobbing up and down as a wooden ladle was dipped in. Oh, he could almost taste the soup.
He remembered swimming with his friends, naked in the cold of Foss River, the water drawing his skin around his frame, until his ribs seemed to poke through. Last summer, Alfred had drawn him down to its undulating waters. He had been a good friend, more like a brother. They had been close since he had clung to his mother’s skirt. Jessop still remembered the two of them sitting on the muddy banks, their teeth chattering as late afternoon passed.
“I cannot stand this,” Alfred had said that day. “This life set before me.”
Jessop had looked at him then, long and hard. His friend was soft and gentle, a dreamer of boyish dreams. Yet his words were haunting, spoken from a friend’s mouth.
“What else is there?” asked Jessop, but Alfred had not really listened.
“Next summer, I will go south and join the Kings army. See some of the world. Get away from here…”
Jessop had sighed as he lay back on the grass. His friend was a dreamer; there was no other truth than that which they lived. He had always been a good thief. That was the reality. The proof was that he had never been caught. And he would remain a stealer of coin and confidences until the day he died.
Last harvest moon Alfred had been hung from an old oak tree for stealing a pheasant from some Earl’s estate. His family had been starving, as the tithes had grown too high, and Alfred had grown bold, or desperate.
Jessop still remembered how the young man’s skinny legs had swung in the breeze. He had cried bitter tears for Alfred, and he realized now his innocence had died with his friend. He had vowed that cursed day to never share the same fate.
****
Madness came in the end.
A cool morning of no import, he anticipated the brief warmth of the sun. He had fallen to patterns, religiously followed. It broke the day into segments, and it kept some semblance of reality. He was becoming a ghost.
Jessop was emotional, and he thought of his dead mother. How he had failed her, as he always knew he would. Apple of my eye, she had oft mocked him. He saw her now, partly, a fugue of his worsening vision. It had spread to his mind, this physical malaise. Today she was blurred, stockier, and less ethereal.
He squinted his eyes as alien light flooded his magical kingdom. Jessop raised a caked hand to protect his eyes. He sat there for a time, allowing more of this strange new light to enter the periphery of his vision.
This apparition was still here, and worse it spoke. “Master Jessop I presume?”
He couldn’t speak at first. Instead the young man’s voice croaked in his throat, and his eyes squinted. They began to water, and he was shocked there was enough fluid left in him. He could not make out the face of the thing that stood at the gates of his cell. The Devil had come for his soul.
“Who are you?” he managed to whisper.
“Why I’m an angel come down from heaven to rescue you. I believe you have an engagement with a certain fellow with a very unflattering mask. And a rather overused rope.”
Jessop stood up, and found he was swaying. He had to reach for the bars to balance him. “You’re an angel?”
“Of course I’m not, you fucking bumpkin.”
“What… why…”
“Are you a simpleton?”
Jessop felt like throwing up. “Please… please, I don’t understand.”
“I’m here to rescue you, Numpty.”
The cell door swung open. The man stepped into the darkness, and put his arm on the Jessop’s shoulder. “You smell of piss and shit boy,” offered the man.
He looked like a soldier, Jessop saw. He allowed himself to be lead into the dim light of the corridor. Jessop saw the Jailer, Track, lying prone on the floor. Whatever was happening here was real. Jessop shook his head. In one mean spirited maneuver, he kicked out at the man lying on the floor. A meaty oomph reached his ears, and he knew the Jailer still lived.
“Ah,” said his rescuer cheerily, “you’ve meet Track, I see. Knew him as a boy myself- always knew he’d amount to no good.”
“You didn’t…”
“Kill him?” asked the man in a chilling matter-of-fact tone. “No, I had no beef with old Track.”
The man studied him frankly, thought on something, and then shook his head. Jessop’s first instinct was indeed correct. This man was a warrior. He stood six feet tall, with a mane of black hair, and a freshly grown beard. He wore a great cloak, but underneath it, Jessop could see leather armor of some sort.
“Can you speak properly?” the soldier asked.
Jessop shook his head, and then raised his hand to show his parched throat.
The man nodded. “That’s good, at least your mind is not gone. Dungeons can do strange things to a man. My name is Rolf.”
He squeezed Jessop’s arm. “Forget the questions, answers will come later.”
The soldier covered the young man in a coarse cloak, and began to lead him through a myriad of corridors. Jessop had never been in the inner keep before, nor could he truly see it, so bad had his vision become. They did not go near populated parts of the castle, and the one time Jessop heard muffled voices, he felt a hand in his chest pushing him against the cold wall, and into the darkness. Upwards and upwards they went, until he reached the blue morning sky. He felt suddenly weak, and began to cry. Jessop had never believed he would see the sky again.
The strange soldier looked at him silently, but left him to his weakness. They stayed like that for a time, until the man spoke again. “Do you know the name of the man you stabbed?” he asked.
Jessop was bent over, but he looked up, his expression growing surly. “De Lacy,” he said. “He killed my mother.”
The soldier nodded once. “A Kingsman.”
“You know of him?” asked Jessop, and after some thought the man nodded once. “Will you kill him?”
The soldier gripped his arm suddenly. “That’s for the Captain to decide,” he said cryptically, “not for such as you or I.”
“Then why did you bother saving me?” asked Jessop, the distress showing in his voice.
“Save you?” laughed Rolf. “You were better off in the dungeon.”
Jessop blue eyes grew wide. The soldier gripped him suddenly, and lifted him as if he were a bag of feathers. In one swift movement, the soldier called Rolf threw Jessop from the wall of the castle, and into the abyss below.
****
The ground rushed towards him, and it felt like he was trapped in a dream.
He didn’t even have time to scream, before the former thief went into the refuse of the keep. His head took a fair bang, and Jessop was forced to gasp. In hindsight, that proved a rather disastrous idea. Rotten fruit and spoiled meat filled his mouth, and the young man gagged reflexively. He was totally disorientated, his head whipping left and right like a marionette. The smell of rot and decay was everywhere, as he finally realized where he was. Horror and repulsion vied for ascendency. Jessop had no point of reference, and he was trapped. Everywhere he turned, he found shit and rotting vegetables. Rats scampered in every direction.
He felt two meaty hands grip the fabric of his jerkin, and finally he was pulled free of his prison.
Jessop lay in the dirt, curled up in a ball. He used his filthy jerkin as best as he could, to wipe the gunk that caked his eyelids. A man in a cassock stared down at him. It took Jessop a hairsbreadth to realize the portly man was a monk. He was totally at sea, thunderstruck into silence. Barely minutes before, he had been chained in a dungeon, but now he lay on his back outside the confines of the castle. It towered above him, and his eyes widened when he realized the distance he had fallen.
The monk was saying something, but Jessop soon realized he had no idea what language the man was speaking. He wasn’t sure if the bang on his head had jumbled his brain, but his concerns were soon verified.
“You… come,” the monk said in a stilted Saxon tongue.
Jessop shook his head reflexively, but still followed where the man lead. His back felt stiff, yet the mere taste of fresh air on his tongue liberated him. He limped after the portly monk, throwing furtive glances over his shoulder. Surely this madness would end soon. Soldiers would flood from the keep, and a crossbow bolt would pierce his chest, ending the pathetic life of Jessop Asgard.
No one came, and the glorious morning sun continued to shine.
Fifteen minutes later, the young man found himself secreted in a caravan that meandered its way away from the Castle of York, the place where he had spent his whole life. Jessop had believed his time on this earth over when his mother had been murdered, but it seemed that was no longer the case. For good or evil, his life was just beginning.
****
Jessop gratefully accepted the bowl of oats proffered to him. He fell on it with indecent haste, but soon a meaty hand grasped his elbow. Jessop snatched his own arm back, and glared at the monk, but the man stared at him kindly enough.
“Go… slowly,” the man said, then as if to reinforce the point, he rubbed his ample belly in a circular motion.
Jessop agreed warily. Later that day, as his own belly distended, and cramps racked him, he finally understood what the monk had meant.
The young man’s eyes scanned the trees as they moved towards the forest. Even the small amount of food he had managed to eat, returned some semblance of strength to his limbs. He briefly toyed with the idea of escaping into the darkness of the forest, but soon discarded the idea. The monk did not seem to pose any immediate threat, and his time in the castle of his birth was done. He would need time to recover, and when he had healed some, Jessop was confident he could escape when he chose.
Besides, curiosity had gotten the better of him. He wondered what the hell was going on. Once free of the glare of the castle, he gingerly joined the monk at the front of the wagon. The man didn’t seem overly perturbed by his presence.
“Who are you?” he finally asked the monk. The man smiled at him cheerily enough. He had a pock marked red nose, and burst blood vessels ran along his cheeks like crimson rivers. Born in an Inn, he knew the symptoms well.
“No speak… wait for Rolf.”
The caravan moved on at a steady pace, deeper and deeper into the cover of the forest. Jessop began to think on his position. Whether he liked it or not, he was now a fugitive. He didn’t understand the politics of Britain, nor did he know how long the reach of the Sheriff of York was. The specter of a death sentence hung over him, and he knew the threat was real enough. That had been the last lesson of his friend Alfred.
He did know war with the French was coming. To the north, past the Pict Wall, the Scots had quieted down, but Englishmen were not welcome there. No, he would have to seek escape to the continent. Seek a new life for himself. Jessop shivered a little, he may be young, but he was no fool.
The caravan halted suddenly, and Jessop looked up sharply. A lone horseman blocked their path. The monk roared something out in that strange language of his, and the rider raised his hand in greeting. Jessop finally relaxed, it was the man Rolf, who had saved him from the dungeon. Within moments, the forest came alive. Several men stepped from the undergrowth.
Jessop had reached an outlaws camp. A formidable figure stepped from the cover of shadows, and with a hint of theatricality, whipped his cowl back. The boy’s breath caught in his throat. It felt like he was staring into a window of his future.
The man, who stared at him, finally spoke. His voice was a low drawl. “Jessop. I am your mother’s brother. I am your Uncle. Follow me.”
Jessop didn’t know what to say. He stared at the man like he was a dullard. The monk used his meaty arm to bump him from his shock-induced stupor. Jessop eased himself from the confines of the cart, and followed the man into a large tent, cleverly disguised under a patch of trees.
His uncle stripped off his leather armor, and Jessop silently watched the man clean off the dirt and sweat from himself. He was pockmarked in scars. When he stretched, muscles moved under his skin like snakes.
“My name is Raymond. I heard what happened to your mother when I was visiting York.”
“You saved me?”
“I had business with the Archbishop. You’re escape was part of an agreement we made.”
“You are a soldier?” asked Jessop, more confused than ever. “You work for the Church?”
“In a way,” the man said brusquely. “The question is what are you?”
“I don’t understand…”
“Are you like your mother?”
The question stung the young man. “She was a whore, you can say it. I’m not ashamed.”
“Perhaps if she taught you some of your heritage, you would be,” his uncle said sternly. In an eerie mirror of his nephew, he paused, letting his voice grow softer. “It matters not to me, I just wish to know of you.”
“I am not. I am…” Jessop had to stop. He had no idea what he actually was.
The soldier seemed a little uncomfortable. “You will have to come with us. We have no kin in this part of the world, you and I.”
“Leave?” asked Jessop. “What of the man who killed my mother?”
His uncle reared up at mention of the incident. “De Lacy. Was he one of your mothers patrons?”
“I never saw him before.”
“You were lucky you wounded him boy. He would have cut you in two.”
“I wished him dead.”
The older man seemed to ponder this. His cold eyes sought out Jessop’s. “We have history, he and I. I have marked his card nephew. That is all you need care of. For now, he is in Normandy making war with the King, and we must leave. The Brother says you did not understand him speak. Have you no languages?”
The young man shook his head. “I speak a little Latin, but the monk spoke like a Scot, not like I’ve heard before.”
This seemed to surprise his uncle. “Can you read?”
Jessop nodded, and his uncle studied him frankly. “The monk is a Munster man, and he spoke Gaelic to you. We speak Latin when we are together. The men are from all over the world. Rolf is a Yorkshire man like you, but we have men from Spain, Italia, Toulouse, Germania… well, you see why language is important. And you’ve come upon us at a bad time boy. You’ll have to pay your way among us. I like it less than you, but there it is.”
“What do you do?” asked Jessop.
His uncle smiled meanly. “We do work than honest men won’t.”
It seemed no other response was going to be forthcoming. The two of them stared at each other, until Raymond finally dismissed him. “There is a stream not far from here, seek it out. Truly Jessop, you smell of the sewer.”
Chapter Two
HISPANIA
Six months in the troop hardened the young man. He became wiry and toughened, and slowly as the time passed, Jessop became, if not trusted by the men, at least accepted. He made himself useful, if only as a go for.
The group consisted of five men and his uncle. He trusted Rolf, the man who had saved him from the dungeon. The monk was Brother Brendan, an Irish cleric forced into exile. It was some convoluted religious matter that Jessop couldn’t follow. It seemed the man belonged to some outlawed order of monks, straight from the pages of history. Religion confused the boy, and his eyes always glazed over when the monk tried to explain the deeper theological reasoning for his life as a crook. What Jessop did know since childhood, was to always to befriend the cook, and the man was a wizard.
Tuck, the Frenchman, was a career criminal, nor did he make any attempt to hide the fact. Jessop disliked him greatly, though he was careful to hide the fact from the man. Jessop had a tough upbringing, but instinct told him the Frenchman had claim on hardship. Tuck constantly complained, and his eyes were sly as a fox.
There was a big German called Sven, who swore, laughed a lot, and drank overmuch. He lugged around a large axe. Jessop doubted the weapon could prove a realistic fighting weapon, but perhaps it didn’t truly matter. Sven could crush a man’s head with those biceps alone. The monk was his favored drinking partner, and when not in some inn or alehouse, they made their own fun in the various campsites around the continent. They were an odd couple, all the same.
The last was a quiet southerner, who barely spoke to him. His name was Decalus, and Jessop marked him straight away. Whatever talents the others may have had, he was the bladesman. No one needed to tell him that.
There was another one, a whippet thin man with a mane of white hair. He came and went like a breeze, so Jessop didn’t count him amongst their company.
Rolf had not lied when he intuited that were not honest men. They had been forced to avoid the war in Normandy, and head to the south. As they approached the Pyrenees, the Arab Decalus became notable by his absence. They were a strange troop as they lolled casually across the continent. There seemed no purpose to their journey. They would as often turn north as south. Much time was spent in inns and whorehouses. If they got wind of military men, the group moved on. Jessop saw so many different faces and towns, that his mind began to boggle. His Latin improved to the point he began to learn the continental languages by proxy. For all that, he was little more than the camp boy, the go-for.
Jessop became more aware of his comrades intentions as the time passed, and he realized they were searching for something. Or someone. As high summer approached, Decalus the Arab still did not return. When they went south over the mountains, and deep into the land of the Moors, Jessop began to understand why.
****
Jessop had expected the group to leave England soon after he had escaped his imprisonment, but they dawdled for a time. Rolf finally furnished him with the reason. England was at war in Normandy, and leaving through Bristol wasn’t as straightforward as it usually was. The crown had an eye for spies, especially foreigners. It seemed men in their business did not travel in open view. Jessop began to wonder exactly what type of mercenary his uncle was. It began to uncomfortably remind him of thievery.
In the end they headed north, and into the land of the Scots. Memories of war between Scotland and England were still open wounds in a northerner’s eye. Robert the Bruce and William Wallace, the Braveheart, were still fresh memories in his Yorkshire mind.
Any thoughts the boy had of marauding savages were soon dispelled. The border lands they traveled through was as civilized as any English land, anglicized by treaties between Scottish and English lords, though the boy did notice that most Lords lived behind the same high walls as the English nobility did. At least he finally got to see the great wall built by the Romans, a thousand years past. In its day Hadrian’s Wall had marked the end of the civilized world.
On the eve of their voyage to the continent they stayed in an Inn, much like the ones from home.
The group had broken up into two’s and threes. They would only convene again, once safely aboard their ship bound for the mainland. When Rolf spoke the king’s tongue, Jessop felt the eyes of the Inn upon them. The older man didn’t seem overly perturbed by the attention.
“Why do they stare so? I thought the wars were over?”
“We are foreigners in their land,” said Rolf. “The Scots were allies to the French. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, so to speak.”
Jessop shook his head to show he didn’t understand.
“The King of England fights in Normandy with twenty thousand men, but while his eyes are on France, he must stay wary of the Scots to the north. The French have been arming them for years. He cannot afford a war on two fronts. It is a problem for us for we must travel through the war zone.”
“Where are we going?” asked Jessop, a little nervously.
“I don’t know,” admitted Rolf.
“Is that usual?”
The soldier shook his head. “The Captain will tell us on the other side.”
“I cannot imagine.”
“Then don’t boy. I don’t know his plans for you, but you are his kin. You must listen and learn quickly, for we do not play the games of children.”
“I can look after myself,” said Jessop sullenly. Rolf showed at least enough generosity to not state the obvious.
****
As the days had molded into weeks and months, it seemed he was left to Rolfs care, which he didn’t mind overly. The man had an air of sarcasm, but Jessop found despite his reservations he liked the older man. At least Rolf answered any questions he asked. The fact he was a man of York, meant Jessop felt an affinity to him, especially in the company of so many foreigners.
There was no doubt he was a fighting man. Jessop thought that Rolf tried to give the air of a dandy, a nobleman fallen on hard times. He suspected it an act. Time spent in the man’s company revealed that although he spoke several languages, he could neither read nor write.
The caravan had moved out of the camp at dawn and began winding its way towards the south. Jessop felt a chill breeze in his face, and he wrapped his deerskin blanket around his shoulders. How it could be so hot during the days, yet almost freezing at night was beyond him.
All of these men were easy in each others company, and Jessop opined they had been together a long time. One thing nagged at him, much about his uncle as anything else. That summer morning as they traveled the road towards the Pyrenees, he gave voice to it.
“Are there no women or children among you?” he asked Rolf as they rode ahead of the troupe. Jessop knew that sounded stupid, but he found he had awkwardness to his personality. He didn’t feel comfortable asking what he wanted straight out.
The soldier cocked his eyebrow. “Planning on spreading your wild oats?” he said, before laughing to himself.
“No,” said Jessop, a little defensively.
“Good,” chuckled Rolf. “Our last go-for died of pox. Nasty business that was.”
“Huh?”
The mercenary laughed heartily at that, even reaching across to punch his shoulder. “I don’t have a woman, but some of the men have families. It’s dangerous work we do, and though we are good at it, it is best not to plan too far ahead, if you know my meaning.”
“I suppose,” said Jessop. Still he skirted around the question he wanted answered. “My Uncle seems… tense. Is he always of that manner?”
Rolf stared at him for a time, and Jessop wondered if he’d reply. He hoped he would. He wanted something, anything, to take his mind off the pain in his legs, from trying to ride this infernal horse. These days his thighs had a numbness that he could no longer hide. Some of the men catcalled him out of mischievousness, but he sensed no malice towards him. In a few short months, he had become the go-for, the go-to, the just go do what he was told.
“What has your Uncle told you of us?”
“Nothing,” admitted Jessop. Raymond barely spoke to him, and then only to ask of his well being in an abstract, and uncaring, way.
“We… retrieve things, and get paid in gold. We tend to meet our sponsors at night, and no one asks any questions. But you know, like flies are drawn to shit, trouble is drawn to gold.”
“You make enemies,” offered Jessop.
“Not your common sort of enemy either,” said Rolf suddenly sitting up in his saddle.
“The kind that gets you hung,” said Jessop, unaware of how hollow his voice sounded. Memories of the dungeon had not left him, nor did he ever really expect them too.
“Pah, our kind of trouble gets you burned as a Heretic.”
****
Jessop had never felt anything like the heat in the land of the Moors. The lack of moisture in the air seemed to rob him of his energy. He had learned enough to keep his fair skin concealed in the blistering sun. Freckles had begun to dot his forearms and face, and he was good naturedly mocked by the others. So attuned was he to northern chills, he was surprised to find he actually enjoyed the heat. His mood was rarely bad despite the long journeys spent on horseback.
Before he had left, the Arab Decalus had begun to show him the basics of swordplay, and he wore a long dagger on his belt now. Its size suited his relative shortness. With the Arab missing in action, Rolf had continued his training and proved surprisingly adept. He may have lacked Decalus' subtlety with a blade, but the man was no slouch.
Many of the men they encountered were similar to Decalus, with skinned tanned by the sun, but the man they dined with was the first African Jessop had met.
The power of the Moor was fading in this part of Europe, and to Jessop’s surprise they had to travel to the deep south to reach their goal. Just north of Granada, they had been intercepted by a group of twenty horsemen. Jessop had tried to hide the wonder from his eyes, at these men dressed head to toe in flowing robes. They looked fearsome, but his uncle had not been fazed. Christians were not safe in this part of Hispania, but those fighters marked Raymond and his troupe immediately. Jessop couldn’t be sure, but he suspected his uncle was a shadow in the grander scale of things.
Back home there had a baker who had made the finest white bread in all of Yorkshire. Bishops and nobles alike sent their servants to his furnaces, and his reputation had been unrivalled. As Jessop had grown more aware of the world, he had begun to realize the man was a fence and a fixer. The finest bakery in Yorkshire was a front for something less sumptuous. When the head of a local guild had crossed the baker, the local well had been poisoned with the decaying body of the man. Afterwards the price of grain had returned to market rates, the guildsman was never seen again and several people died of dysentery in the southern quarter.
Everyone needed fixer- peasants, nobles, kings and priests. That’s what his uncle did. And Al Kazem Jamir was his Moorish mirror.
****
Kazem entertained them jovially, and it was clear he and Jessop’s uncle knew each other well enough. The man dressed all in black, and his demeanor told the boy that he was of some nobility amongst his people. He had seen enough men of a certain gait and carrying to recognize it well enough.
They were fed in a large tent, though no alcohol was served to the men. A strange fruity smoke began to fill the camp where the men mingled with their contemporaries, and Jessop began to feel a little lightheaded. Though they were on the plains, it seemed this Kazem seemed comfortable enough in his surroundings to post few enough guards.
“You know who I want,” laughed Kazem.
Raymond laughed too, but Jessop sensed it was forced. The power of the Moors may be waning, but this land was still under their control. Should this man wish it, all of them would be lying in shallow graves before dawn broke. All of us, bar one, Jessop mentally amended.
“He is not among us my friend.”
“Ah he rides with you still Raymond, all of Christendom knows it.”
His uncle seemed doubly discomforted.
“It matters not,” said Kazem smoothly. “I have no quarrel with you.”
The Moor turned to face him, and looked at Jessop keenly. The boy realized the man was not black after all, more brown skinned.
“This is your son?”
“My nephew,” said Raymond. “His mother fell into disrepute.”
Jessop was a little shocked at how casually his mother was dismissed, but was careful not to show it.
“What happened?”
“She crossed the path of a cur called De Lacy,” piped in Jessop. It was a recurring theme whenever the man was mentioned, rare though it was. His uncle and the others may have thought time a healer, but he held his vengeance close to his breast.
“I’ve heard the name. A kings man.”
Raymond seemed to find that amusing. “Oh come Kazem. You know exactly who he is. Besides, I doubt there is a minor noble in Europe you do not have at least passing knowledge of.”
“Then we will speak no more of it Raymond.”
Jessop noticed how the mans eyes glistened, as if he were a mine of information that he could never tap. Jessop held the Moor’s gaze, and they marked each other silently.
The man finally gave an innocent smile. Raymond stretched across the hookah, so that his face was mere inches from Kazem.
“I’m looking for a man,” said Raymond.
“That is why your carriage is full of coin?”
Jessops eyes widened, but Kazem smiled widely. “The carriage is lower than it should be. A man should notice these things.”
“It is yours friend.”
“I would take it anyway.”
“Not from me, Kazem,”
“Times grow hard brother.”
Raymond said nothing, and allowed the Moor to think.
“It seems strange Raymond, that you would carry so much bounty, when you will paid in trinkets for whatever they have you do next.”
“It matters not, the coin is yours.”
“Where it comes from bothers me, Raymond. As it should you.”
“Times are hard for you friend, but they are desperate for me.”
Kazem seemed to consider this. “Whom do you seek out?”
“I don’t know,” said Raymond, before holding up his hand. “There is said to be a discovery, somewhere in the East. A relic that shakes all Christendom.”
Kazem sucked deeply on the hookah, blowing smoke from his nostrils like a dragon. He smiled widely. “Such a thing would indeed be a prize.”
Raymond opened his hands in supplication.
“I’ve always liked you Infidel. You know the meaning of respect, and your actions at San Sebastian won you much standing. So I say this as such. Do not walk this road Christian.”
“My feet are already upon it.”
“A shame,” said Kazem dropping his friendly tone. “I enjoyed your flow of gold.”
“That river will not stop flowing,” said Raymond, but even Jessop could tell how unconvincing he sounded.
“There is talk of a sect arisen in the East,” said the Moor. “A Death Cult of some type. In a settlement called Vrhbosna.”
“I have never heard of such a place.”
“Nor should you. It is a piss hole surrounded by savages. But it could be reached by boat in less than a week.”
“Less said boat runs close to Rome,” said Raymond.
“I will gain you voyage. As one final gift to you Brother.”
Raymond became a little less emotionless after that comment, the gesture seeming to catch him off guard a tad.
Kareem stood and stretched. He beckoned Jessop over to stand by his side. The young man glanced at his uncle, who too seemed a little surprised by this action, but he deftly nodded his head.
The man was tall; at least six foot and he dwarfed the young Yorkshire man. Kazem brushed back the canopy of the tent, so they could glance down over the Mediterranean. “We controlled all this land once, but soon we will be gone from here. Now the people rut with loose women and pretty young boys, smoke their hashish and drink their wine. All the time the Pope in Rome pushes us back into the sea.”
Kazem turned to Jessop suddenly. “Do you understand the magic boy?”
Jessop shook his head.
“He commands not one soldier.”
Raymond threw back his head and guffawed at that, but Jessop was confused. How could one man defeat an empire?
Jessop found the man's eyes upon him. “Perhaps some day you might seek me out young man. Remember though, to bring a carriage of your own.”
“I had not remembered you being so morose Kazem,” said Raymond “you make us sound like the relics. Tell me of this settlement.”
“We have known of it in the Moslem world for at least a year. The Turks have shunned it since they found the place. There is a Citadel built there, but the ground has turned sour. The animals born there are abominations, Allah knows what of the people. Soulless, broken... some evil is reborn there. Turn your face from this task brother. You have a family.”
Jessop eyes widened at that, but his uncle did not glance in his direction.
“It is my path to freedom.”
“Or damnation,” said Kazem softly. “Let them play their games Raymond. You are a foot soldier, this is not your way.”
“Words well heard friend.”
The Moor stared at his uncle, but even Jessop could tell he saw the fallacy. The boy wondered what his uncle had gotten himself involved in. They sat for a while watching flames of the fire, and smoking the hookah pipe. Jessop's eyes were drawn to the stars.
“If you do this, move swiftly Raymond. There is talk of ill tiding on the trading trails. A bad wind blows along the Silk Road. A storm is coming, best you have your business completed before it comes.”
“I thought you beyond such superstition.”
Kazem shook his head. It seemed to Jessop that the man was genuinely saddened by Raymond’s attitude. Jessop made a mental note to ask Rolf or the brother about the Moor.
“That is why they always use you Raymond, your church. You believe none of it, the little relics you steal. But when they are finished with you, you will go the way of all the others before you. Not one of them sits in front of his hearth, grandchildren at heel.”
“Pah,” said Raymond suddenly. “I will remind you of this conversation when we sit in your palace, smoking hashish, and talking of battles long since passed.”
A chill passed through Jessop as he saw his uncle anew. The moor saw him seeing it. Both got a glimpse of what had brought the talented Raymond to this place. He was a fantasist, and once seen, it could not be forgotten.
One last time Jessop saw the Moor staring directly at him. The young man’s eyes widened as he realized Kazem had maneuvered the entire conversation to this moment.
****
The night before they had left Britain and sailed for the continent, he and Rolf had shared a room at the Scottish alehouse.
Jessop found himself sleeping on the floor, curled up in front of a generous fireplace. The only sound in the night was Rolf’s snoring and his occasional bellowing farts. Though the Inn felt familiar, he was still miles from home, here in the land of the Scots. In the morning they would sail for France, but tonight he would sleep with his dagger at his breast.
As the night had passed, Jessop had found that Rolf was a bad drunk. He was not mean, but the man had lost a fistful of gold at a game of bones. The Scotsmen he had played had drunk as much as he, but their eyes had not watered and the slyness never left them. Jessop knew the tricksters well. It seemed the world was not as alien as he had thought after all.
Jessop stared at the ceiling, and thought of what the soldier had said to him as the night had passed. After his gold was gone, Rolf had seated himself by the fire and grown maudlin. He had spoke in a monotone of his childhood. Most of what he said contradicted something said not five minutes before, but for most part Jessop was happy to let him ramble.
Instead Jessop stared into the flames. After Rolf’s silences began to grow, Jessop finally ventured what was on his mind. “My mother never spoke of him,” he said softly.
The soldier shrugged.
“Raymond, I mean,” offered Jessop.
The soldier smiled meanly. “I know who you meant boy.”
“We are definitely blood. He is like a mirror to me. You don’t think…”
“Here’s what I think,” Rolf said. “You must learn to guard your tongue my young friend. No need to state what is in front of your face. He saved your life, and now he owns it.”
Suddenly Rolf had reached over and gripped his shoulder in a vice. “This is your chance boy,” he said. “There is the door. Walk through it, and never look back.”
“What?” asked Jessop, completely flummoxed.
The feral look flashed past, and Rolf was once more his serene, calm self. “Never mind boy,” he said softly, but his eyes looked anything but calm. In them, Jessop saw a look akin to pity.
Chapter 3 will be uploaded on Friday 28th
Buy The Great Fall or Crusaders- 99c on Amazon
