The iron lance

Then, as they prepared to remove the body from the tent, Murdo said, 'One of us must stay here.'

Ronan glanced at him in surprise, and Fionn made to protest, but Emlyn said, 'I will remain behind.'

'But why?' said Fionn. 'There is no need. We are finished here and the tent can be of use to someone else. It is -'

'Murdo has his reasons,' Emlyn said firmly. 'You three go. I will wait behind.'

'Are we to know these reasons?' asked Ronan, turning to face the hesitant young man.

Murdo frowned, gazing at the body of his father in its cocoon-like shroud. 'Very well,' he answered. 'I have entrusted the secret to Emlyn already; I will tell you, too, and be done with it.'

Lifting the edge of the mat, he exposed the treasure trove to their view. The astonishment of the two clerics was no less than Emlyn's. Fionn reached in and took hold of a golden drinking bowl with rubies on the rim. 'There is a kingdom here!' he declared.

'Less a secret than an affliction,' observed Ronan tartly. Turning to Murdo he said, 'If you would take my counsel, get rid of it.'

'Get rid of it!' cried Murdo, shocked that anyone would suggest such a thing.

'Truly,' intoned Ronan solemnly, 'wealth such as this is the root of all evil.'

'Surely, brother,' objected Emlyn, 'it is the love of wealth which is the root of all evil-not the simple possession of it.'

'It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle,' Fionn reminded them, 'than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.'

'Quite so,' agreed Ronan. 'So long as you hold to these riches, your soul will be in danger of hell.'

'He is right, Murdo,' conceded Emlyn. 'The treasure will be nothing but a curse to you. Very soon it will begin to poison your life and soul. Unless you are very strong, it will kill you in the end.'

'Give it away,' Ronan urged earnestly. 'Give it as alms to the poor. Get it far away from you as quickly as possible.'

'I will not give it away,' insisted Murdo. 'I promised my father it would be used for the increase of our lands. Anyway, my brother Torf-Einar is Lord of Dyrness now, so it is his place to decide what shall be done with it.'

'Never tell him,' Ronan countered. 'Let the secret die with your father.'

'I will honour the vow I have made,' Murdo told them bluntly, 'and will hear no more about it. I have shown you the treasure, and now bind you to secrecy. If anyone learns of this, the blame will fall on your heads, and I -'

Ronan raised a hand in a conciliatory gesture. 'Peace, Murdo,' he said gently. 'No one will hear the smallest breath of a word about the treasure from our lips. Your secret will abide with us for so long as you care to keep it. We will stand by you and do whatever we can to protect you.' Turning once more to the body on the pallet, he said, 'But before we sit down together to decide what is best to do for the living, we must complete our care of the dead. Are you ready, son?'

Murdo nodded; his anger had faded as quickly as it flared. Sorrow claimed him once more.

'Then let us proceed with the burial,' Ronan said. 'Emlyn will remain behind to keep watch over the treasure until we return. Come, it is time to see our brother on his way.'

Together, the priests lifted Lord Ranulf's body and carried it from the tent to the donkey waiting outside. They slung the limp corpse over the patient beast and, leaving Emlyn to stand guard, began a small, somewhat curious procession to the burial ground. Ronan led the way, walking at the head of the donkey; Fionn came behind, bearing Murdo on his back. The priests chanted a low, mournful lament in Gaelic as they went; the plaintive sound of their voices in the bright daylight of an alien land seemed strange and unutterably sorrowful to Murdo.

They proceeded over the hill behind the hospital camp to a little valley where the bodies of dead crusaders were being buried. The whole of the valley was filled with small oblong mounds of newly-turned earth – hundreds upon hundreds of graves, each marked with a crude cross made of sunbleached stones. There were many priests and women at work, digging the shallow graves which would forever hold someone's father, husband, brother, or lord. At least, Murdo thought bitterly, my father will not lack for companions.

They came to a hole scratched in the dry, desert ground, whereupon the priests ceased their mournful song. Murdo sat on a rock and watched as they lifted his father's body from the donkey and laid it beside the grave. 'Would you speak, Murdo?' asked Ronan.

Murdo shook his head. He could think of nothing to say.

Ronan nodded to Fionn, and the two priests shifted the body into the grave. They began chanting again-a psalm in Latin this time. Fionn took up a handful of dust-dry earth and gave it to Murdo, indicating that he should toss it onto the corpse. Murdo stood, hobbled forward a few steps, knelt down and placed the first handful squarely on his father's chest.

The monks, still singing, then started dragging dirt over the body using the flat stones with which they had dug the grave. They worked from the feet of the corpse upwards, but when they reached the head, Murdo said, 'Wait.'

Reaching down, he pulled aside the burial cloth to reveal his father's face so that he could look upon him one last time. Lord Ranulf seemed to be calmly asleep. The lines of his face were smoothed now with a stillness that suggested he had come to peace at the end of his travail. Murdo looked upon the face he had known and respected and loved all his life. My lord will never see the green hills of Orkneyjar again, he thought sadly, nor delight in the face of his lady wife, his best beloved. His bones will dwell forever in a strange land, far away from the home of his fathers.

Placing the tips of his fingers to his lips, he then pressed them to Ranulf's cold forehead. 'Farewell, Father,' he whispered, his voice cracking as his throat closed over the words.

He pulled the shroud back into place and pushed the earth over his father's face with his hands. When they had mounded up the earth, they gathered stones from the ground around them and outlined a white cross over the grave. Kneeling at the head of the grave, Ronan offered up a long and thoughtful prayer for the soul of a man cut down on pilgrimage. Murdo listened, but his mind wandered as he raised his eyes from the mound before him to look out over the wide expanse of newly-made graves. There were hundreds, and these were but the few who had even reached their destination. He thought about all the rest, all the thousands upon thousands claimed by starvation and thirst, by the ferocious heat, disease, and the arrows and blades of the enemy.

Wicked the waste, his father had said, and Murdo felt the righteous fury stir in his grief-heavy heart. In that instant he vowed he would never die in a land not his own.

After the prayers, and another psalm, they helped Murdo onto the donkey, and walked slowly back to where Emlyn was waiting. The monks maintained a respectful silence until reaching the tent, whereupon Ronan spoke up. 'Much as I might wish otherwise, we dare not linger here,' he said. 'The tent is needed. It would be best if we left it quickly so as not to arouse interest in our affairs.'

'Let them have the tent,' Murdo answered. 'It is nothing to me. I will find my brothers and tell them what has happened. They will help me protect the treasure.'

'There will be time later to consider what you will do,' the priest suggested. 'First, we must think carefully how to conceal the treasure so that it can be moved.'

'We will need a wagon-a small one, at least…' he began.

Ronan pulled on his chin. 'Every wagon is needed for moving supplies and water to the camps. It will not be easy to find one, and any wagon suspected of carrying treasure will fall prey to thieves. We will have to conceal it somehow.'

The three fell silent pondering how this might be accomplished. Try as he might, Murdo could not think of any way to move the treasure from the tent without letting the whole world know he had it. Perhaps Ronan was right after all, he thought: here, he had not even taken possession of the treasure, and already the curse was beginning to bite.

'Maybe we could find a camel,' suggested Emlyn. 'The desert folk use them as beasts of burden. We could get one to carry the treasure.'

'How would that help?' wondered Murdo. It seemed to him thieves could as easily steal a camel as a wagon full of treasure, and he said so.

'Not if they thought it carried corpses!' Emlyn said. 'Many of the noble families of Jerusalem are carrying their