'Murdo, I was coming to wake you,' he said, his voice shaking slightly. 'You must come quickly.'
'Why? What has happened?'
'Fionn has just come. It may be that he has found your father.' Emlyn took up his mantle, shook it out and began helping Murdo into the oversized garment. 'We must hurry.'
'Where is he?' Murdo asked, painfully drawing his arms into the sleeves. The coarse cloth was savage next to his sore skin. 'Is it far?'
'Not far. Fionn has gone in search of a donkey for you.'
'I can walk.' Murdo made to get up at once. His skin was still raw and sore from the sunburn, but it was his feet which hurt him more-cut and battered as they were, they had swollen and he could not put his weight on them. 'Agh!' he cried, sitting down quickly. 'No, it hurts too much.'
'Let me help you.' Taking the edge of his cloak, Emlyn tore strips from it and began wrapping the bands around Murdo's feet.
'Cannot my father come here?' asked Murdo. He saw from the priest's expression that he could not. 'Is he wounded then?'
'I fear he is,' Emlyn confirmed.
'How badly?'
'I cannot say.'
'How badly, Emlyn?'
'Truly, Fionn did not tell me. He said we must come quickly. Ronan is with him.'
While he was binding Murdo's feet, Fionn returned with the donkey, and hastened to help them. 'We must hurry, Master Murdo,' Fionn told him. 'Your father-if it is your father-is very ill. Are you ready? Put your arm around my neck.'
Together, the priests took him gently under the arms, lifted, and stood up. But even with his weight resting on the monks' shoulders it was still too painful. Murdo groaned and bit his lip to keep from crying out. Black spots spun before his eyes, and sweat broke out on his forehead. The monks steadied him, and then carried him the two steps to the waiting donkey and boosted him onto the animal's back.
Fionn led them higher up the hillside, passing through the hospital camp. Murdo was appalled and sickened afresh by what he saw: men were everywhere scattered on the ground, the blood of their wounds staining the earth dark beneath them. The fighting had been short, but fierce; many soldiers lost hands and arms to Seljuq blades, and others bore deep gashes and terrible slashes; most, however, had been pierced by arrows. The Turks routinely tipped their arrows with poison, so their victims lingered in agony for a goodly while before they died.
Of all the wounded Murdo saw, only a fortunate few had so much as a grass mat or cloth on which to lay, and fewer still had tents. Consequently, many tried to escape the blistering heat of the sun by making shelters out of their shields, or flinging their cloaks on low-hanging branches to create sun-breaks for themselves.
Some of the wounded men watched him with sick, pain-filled eyes as he passed, but for the most part each pilgrim was too preoccupied with his own dying to notice anyone else. No one spoke and, save for the constant murmur of moans or the occasional death rattle, the hospital camp was unnaturally quiet.
Fionn led them to a small tent near the top of the hill. At their arrival, Brother Ronan stepped from the tent, his face solemn. 'Good,' he said. 'I have told him you were coming. He is anxious to speak to you, Murdo. Are you ready?'
Murdo nodded, and the monks helped him dismount from the donkey; Emlyn took his arm and supported him as he hobbled inside. The sick-sweet stink of a festering wound permeated the close air of the tent. Murdo gagged and choked back bile as the good brothers lowered him down next to a raised pallet covered by a crudely-made matt of grass. On this bed lay a man Murdo did not know.
'We will stay near,' said Ronan as the monks left the tent. 'You have but to call out if you need us.'
Murdo made to protest that they had brought him to the wrong man, when the body next to him said, 'Is it you, Murdo?'
He looked again, and with a shock recognized in the pale, haggard face of the wretch beside him, the much- altered visage of his father. 'My lord?'
'I have been praying one of my sons would come,' Ranulf said, his voice both raw and hushed-little more than a croaking whisper. 'I did not know it would be you, Murdo. How is it you are here?'
'I have been searching for you,' Murdo told him. His eyes fell to the stump of his father's right arm. Bound in bloody rags, the arm was missing below the elbow; the stench emanating from the wound gave Murdo to know that it was rotten. Bleak despair swarmed over him and he felt a sensation like falling. 'Is it bad?'
'Bad enough…' he closed his eyes, then opened them again, suddenly agitated. 'You must hear it!' Ranulf said, rising from his pallet. He seized Murdo by the shoulder. Murdo winced from the pain to his sunburned skin. 'You must hear it, and tell others how it was. Take word back to the islands-tell them what happened.'
'I am listening,' Murdo said, trying to soothe. 'Rest now. I am here.'
He made to remove his father's hand, but Ranulf clung on, squeezing hard. 'Promise me, boy. Promise you will tell them.'
'I will tell them,' Murdo replied. He turned his head to call to the priests, but his father released him and slumped back, breathing hard, exhausted.
'Good,' he said, his breath coming in clotted gasps. 'Good.' With the tip of his finger, he indicated a waterskin on the ground beside the pallet.
Murdo took it up and gave him to suck at the opening, watching him as he drank. The face of his father was deeply lined, the eyes sunken, the flesh pale and yellow like old linen. The high, noble brow was waxy and damp, the dark eyes fevered. The once-strong jaw was grey with whiskers, and the lips were dry and cracked, the features pinched with pain.
But the lines eased as the lord drank and the pain released its grip; the fever-bright eyes dulled. Murdo guessed there was some kind of drug in the water. Turning his face from the waterskin, he regarded Murdo for a moment, and the ghost of a smile touched his mouth. Ranulf seemed to improve somewhat. 'I never thought to see you again, Murdo. But here you are.'
'Yes, lord.'
'I am glad,' he said. A spasm of pain coursed through him and he stiffened against it. After a moment the pain passed, and he said, 'Listen to me, now. You must tell them… everything.' His voice grew sharp with insistence. 'Everything-hear?'
'I am listening,' Murdo answered, swallowing the lump in his throat. 'And I will tell them, never fear.'
His father lay his head back and appeared to compose himself, marshalling his strength. Murdo waited, leaning forward to catch each word as it came to his father's lips, fearing these would be the last. After a moment, Lord Ranulf began to speak.
THIRTY-TWO
'It was bad for us at Antioch,' Ranulf said, 'but Dorylaeum was worse. By God, it was worse.'
Murdo had not heard of the place, but committed the name to memory, repeating it softly to himself. 'Dorylaeum.'
'Duke Robert's army was the last to arrive in Constantinople,' Ranulf continued, 'and the last to cross the Bosphorus. We were put aboard the ships so fast we got but a bare glance at the Golden City, and then we were on the march again.
'Nicaea was already under siege by the time we got there, and indeed, fell the next day, no thanks to us. Seeing how Amir Kerbogha was away and most of the city's defenders with him, the infidel governor surrendered without a fight. We secured the city and returned it to the emperor's rule, as we were foresworn to do, for all we were that eager to move on to Jerusalem.
'They told us we would be in Jerusalem before summer. Six weeks, they said. Blessed Jesu, it took a year!'
The outburst brought on such a fit of coughing that Murdo pleaded with his father to break off his recitation.
