Sigurd was watching me. ‘Has Thomas sent word recently? Have you become a grandfather yet?’
I shrugged, though the question weighed keenly on me. ‘There has been nothing from Constantinople in weeks. Winter has closed the passes, and who knows what storms have wracked the coasts?’
A frown of concern was on Anna’s face. ‘The child will come any day now. I should be there.’
‘Helena will be perfectly safe.’ Though Sigurd’s voice never lacked force, this time I thought he seemed a little too insistent. ‘You will worry Demetrios needlessly if you think otherwise. Helena will have her sister present, and her aunt, and probably a legion of other women to assist the birthing.’
Anna nodded, though to my mind it was without conviction. I knew she fretted about my daughter’s child, so much so that she could not hide it from me. It did nothing to soothe the tension every man feels when faced with the mysteries of birth. Nor could I forget the sight of Maria, my late wife, lying white in a lake of her own blood as she tried to bear me a third child. She was often in my dreams now.
Anna stroked my cheek, her expression now recomposed. ‘Helena will be well protected,’ she said. ‘Thomas will see to it.’
‘If he hasn’t beheaded himself trying to wield his axe,’ said Sigurd, trying – in his own fashion – to lighten the mood.
With a glance at how low the candle had burned, Anna rose. ‘I should return to my tent. No doubt the sick and the hungry will be there before dawn, seeking succour.’
A glance passed between us: mine half pleading, hers half regret. Perhaps in a different year we would have been married by now, but I had not wanted to diminish Helena’s wedding with another ceremony so soon afterwards. Then we had left for war, where marriage seemed inappropriate, and so we lived more like brother and sister than husband and wife. Though not entirely without error.
‘I will see you tomorrow.’
The next day I went again to look for the missing Rainauld, and the following day as well, but each time there was nothing. On the third day I did discover something of him, though not from his friends. Instead, I found an Ishmaelite waiting at his tent. I saw him from some distance as I approached, and was instantly confused, for he neither skulked like a spy nor guarded himself like a merchant. He stood alone outside Drogo’s tent, his turbaned head proclaiming his faith to all yet apparently careless of his safety.
‘Demetrios Askiates?’ he asked as I drew near. It took me a moment to realise that he had spoken in Greek.
‘Who are you?’
‘I am Mushid, the swordsmith.’
‘A Turk?’
‘An Arab.’ In addition to the white turban knotted over his head, he was dressed humbly in a brown robe with a red belt. His dark-skinned face was unlined by age and framed by a beard whose hair was black as tar. It was a little longer than mine, and split in the middle where it had grown unevenly, but otherwise he might have passed for a Greek. His brown eyes were clear and round, with neither malice nor fear disfiguring them.
‘You’re brave. Not many Saracens would walk unarmed into this camp.’
He smiled, his teeth very white. ‘A swordsmith is never unarmed.’ He tapped his hip, and I heard the rap of something solid under the robe. ‘I do not provoke battle, but I defend myself if it comes.’
His voice was light, and his smile constant, yet something in his words made me wonder how much more steel was hidden under the plain cloth. ‘How did you know my name?’
‘They say you come here every day. They say you are looking for the man who killed Drogo of Melfi.’
He did not explain who ‘they’ might be, and I did not ask. There was no shortage of ‘them’ in the camp. ‘What do you know of Drogo?’
‘When he was penniless, he sold his sword to eat. Then, when his fortunes improved, he needed another blade. I made it for him. Later we became friends. He had lost a brother – and mine too died last year. When they told me he was dead, I . . .’ For the first time, he seemed to hesitate over his words. ‘I was sad.’
‘When did you see him last?’
‘A week ago. On the day he died, I think.’
‘Where? What time?’ Suddenly I was alive with hope. Bohemond had promised to ask through his army whether anyone had seen Drogo in the hours before he died, but thus far none had admitted it. Doubtless they feared blame. If this swordsmith had met him, he must have been among the last to see him living.
‘On the road, at about the ninth hour – three hours past noon. He was happy with me; his new sword had slain three Turks in the battle the previous day.’
‘Did he say where he was going? Whom he purposed to meet?’
‘He had been at the mosque, building your tower. He felt guilty that you had desecrated the dead.’ The swordsmith fixed me with an earnest stare. ‘Even in war, the dead should be honoured.’
‘He did not say where he was going?’
‘I did not ask. I thought he went back to the camp – where else?’
‘Indeed.’ I paused, feeling certain that I should put more questions to this Saracen who had fallen across my path, who might remember something significant of that afternoon. To fill the silence, I asked: ‘What do your fellow Ishmaelites think of you, that you sell the blades by which they die?’
The swordsmith shrugged. ‘What they say in their thoughts, they keep there. What they speak with their tongues is that trade affords no enemies. Many, after all, supply the food which sustains you, the horses you ride to battle. Why not your weapons?’ He laughed. ‘Besides, we are not all as one in Islam because we all wear turbans and beards.’ He jerked his head towards the triple peak of Mount Silpius, and the walls that ringed it. ‘The Turks in the city, they are
‘The Byzantines and Franks are united in Christ,’ I protested, though I knew it to be scarcely true.
Mushid frowned. ‘But you believe it is ordained to eat leavened bread, not unleavened. And that your priests should marry. And that . . .’
I held up my hand. ‘Enough. I am neither monk nor theologian. Indeed, I wonder if you know more of my religion than I do.’
‘Only two kinds of the Nazarenes pass through my country: merchants and pilgrims. I speak with both, and learn their ways.’
‘And you are of a different faith to the Turks? A different party of Ishmaelites?’ I could not quite comprehend how I had come to debate religion with a Saracen swordsmith outside Drogo’s tent, but I remembered the Emperor’s exhortation to learn their divisions.
‘Our differences would seem as obscure to you as yours do to me. Yet they can bring us to war against each other. The Fatimids of Egypt have fought the Turks for decades.’
‘And you are one of them?’
‘No. I—’
He broke off as a figure in mail came striding up between the rows of tents. With a coif about his neck and a helmet on his head, he was almost unrecognisable, but there was something familiar in the sharp, snapping movement of his limbs. Behind him, I could see the boy Simon leading a grey palfrey.
‘You,’ he barked, raising a gloved fist. The voice was Quino’s. ‘I ordered you never to come here again.’
For a moment both Mushid and I hesitated, neither sure whom he addressed. As he drew too near to ignore I said at last, ‘I was seeking Rainauld.’
‘Rainauld is gone. Do not use him as your excuse for spying. I have been out on the plain harrying. Turkish foragers; what have you done, Greek? Nothing but prying and lying, I would say.’
‘Prying where the lord Bohemond sends me.’
‘And you,’ he continued, turning to Mushid. ‘Do not come here.’ Twisting awkwardly in his armour, he pulled the helmet from his head and fixed the Arab with a look of pure venom. As he disappeared through the flaps of the tent, I heard him shouting for the boy to attend him or feel the flat of his sword.
I glanced at Mushid. His eyes registered neither anger nor fear, but only sadness. ‘Quino seems as fond of you as he is of me,’ I said.
Mushid gave a small laugh. ‘He and Drogo suffered many adventures together. I think Quino was jealous of our friendship – and I am, of course, infidel. He did not like me. I thought—’
