Candle in the Attic Window(64)
We must, perforce, because the Saracens had ruled the town since the dread day of Hattin a century before, travel in secret and in disguise. Ere I reached Jericho, I felt as a lamb being led to the slaughter, a man sent from dungeon to execution, a chess piece about to be sacrificed in my conflicting masters’ game.
Jericho was a beautiful town from the outside, though fallen in decline since crusader times. Watching it from a nearby hill, I could easily imagine how years had piled up dust and sand, fallen towers, natural growth, death, and more years, burying city after city until the mosques and churches were built.
To the Saracens, I spoke the peaceful words of snake and Templar, as taught to me by the Order, and was accepted within the rebuilt walls of Jericho as a Jewish pilgrim.
For three days, I fasted alone in a cell, following my instructions while the detachment sent with me waited in a secret camp beyond the city.
On the fourth day, I ate. As expected by de Beaujeu, I discovered the city’s inhabitants in a nervous uproar regarding reports of bandits in the hills outside of the city. All attention turned outward, and mistrust of pilgrim visitors sought out those foreigners like myself inside Jericho’s mighty walls.
Did a loud noise really topple this city once upon a time? I do not doubt it. But now I suspect with terrible seriousness that after the feet of Israel tramped and tramped and tramped around the city ... I wonder if something beneath their feet awoke. Something mighty and far more evil than anything recorded with clarity in the Bible. I wonder about the noise.
The Jewish house, wherein I had been preparing myself, was overrun with Saracens. The Jews who had, unknowingly, taken me in, were dragged into the street, questioned, tortured, and slaughtered. I would have been one of them.
But one who propelled me forth, while I was yet in my weakened condition after three days away from food as the Grand Master commanded, threw me into a wall at the side of the house, cursing me with a guttural tongue that makes the husky German barbarians sound like fine singers.
I attempted to speak the words of peace between Muslim and Jew, but I was hit in the face, silenced, thrown deeper into alleyways, laughed upon by the crowd who could not follow.
Then I saw the steel raised above my foe’s head. And I praised Mother Mary and all the saints, so grateful that my time had come to join them as a member of the Church Invisible. Yet, a part of me also recalled the mission I had received from the Bishop of Rome himself, and I leapt into action.
Before I could tear out the throat of my enemy, I heard him say the secret words of peace and treaty between Sultanate and Templar, followed quickly by words describing the need for illusion: “It is the only way to let you live! Do what I say, or you will be killed as a spy!”
I was a spy. A spy for the Pope. A spy for the Order. A spy sent from Heaven to live among men.
I told him none of this. He feigned domination over me, casting me into another alleyway and then through a door, which he quickly shut and barred once the game was over. “I will check the front,” he told the darkness, and left me.
Then I smelled a woman. “Jacque de Ronnay? We meet again.”
I bowed without understanding. “Lady de Siverey? You are trapped in the city of Jericho on this terrible day?”
She laughed at me. “I am trapped nowhere. Dress in these.”
My eyes grew accustomed to the darkness as I pulled myself into the clothing of an Arab soldier. I did not have my sword with me, but the hilt of a desert weapon felt equally good in my hands. I could see de Siverey, her eyes alone peeking through exotic clothing appreciated most by sheiks and those who believe it sinful to see any part of a woman but the eyes. She smelled of rose oil, more powerful than a garden itself in all its splendour at springtime. And how powerful were those eyes! They bewitched me. I had no idea what a Frankish woman was doing in this city. Perhaps she had been captured by bandits.
She spoke as one with authority. “We must go now, while the distraction is at its height. You will walk ahead of me, my escort, yet I will whisper to you the way. Do not look upon me when we are in the street. Are you ready?”
“Will they not recognize the face of a Frank?”
She laughed again. In my heart, I knew then how men could become drunken on the sweet music pouring from a woman’s throat. “You think too highly of Franks. No, they will be too busy to notice your heritage at all.”
We left forthwith.
Not knowing beforehand where I would go, and not allowed to remove the map from its hiding place, I walked blindly through the city, sinking lower and lower along streets and staircases and alleyways as she whispered behind me.
We came to a sunken building. Inside, we passed though three more doors, the buildings interlocked, and each stepping lower until no window light was able to warm a room with the sun. Then we followed a staircase down and met a man, to whom de Siverey spoke passwords that I could not have repeated if I tried. From this place, we delved into another, and another, following a ladder into a room no longer lit with lamps.
“Carry this,” she said, handing me a Jewish lantern, and all I could think of was sin and fright. Her voice and this close intimacy with her – foreign and forbidden to all monks and priests – made me want to run away from this darkness and intrigue, to flee with her and love her forever. Instead, I watched her as she took the lead. I watched her as we scurried like rats through narrow passages. I watched her until, at last, I realized my mortal wretchedness and infantile anxiety and weakness of flesh were vanquishing my spirit when I would demand it otherwise.