finished with the hooves, he used the cloth to wipe the dirt from the horse’s face and ears. Then he took up the brush and began to scrape the dirt from the horse’s coat. He was nearly done when he heard a voice from the next stall.
‘What do you say, Nathir? Do you think he’d notice if we took a few dinars for ourselves?’ one of the mamluks said.
‘The chest is locked, Jareh.’
‘I could pick it. My father was a locksmith. He showed me how.’
‘It’s not worth it. Yusuf will have you’re hands if he catches you.’
‘Then we won’t let him catch us, will we?’
John stopped brushing. In the silence, he could just hear the sound of metal scraping on metal. He tossed the brush aside and walked over to stand in the entrance of the next stall. Jareh was on his knees, his back to John as he probed at the lock with his dagger and a needle. Nathir stood over him, watching. He looked up, and his face paled. He tapped Jareh’s shoulder.
‘What?’ Jareh asked. Nathir pointed, and the other mamluk looked over his shoulder. He sat on the chest and met John’s eyes. ‘What do you want, ifranji?’ John returned the man’s stare, but said nothing. ‘Yusuf’s watchdog,’ Jareh grumbled.
‘Careful, Brother,’ John told him.
‘I am not your brother, ifranji,’ the mamluk spat. He tapped the blade of his dagger against his open palm. ‘If you speak of this to Yusuf, you are a dead man.’
John shrugged. ‘I only wished to warn you: Yusuf knows the precise number of coins in the chest. If even one goes missing, he will know.’
‘I told you!’ Nathir slapped the back of Jareh’s head, then looked to John. ‘Shukran.’
John nodded and walked out into the courtyard, which was all dark shadows now that the sun had set. Yusuf was still at his prayers, and the sounds of revelry from the tavern had grown louder. Looking through one of the tavern windows, John saw a mamluk grab a buxom young woman – a prostitute, no doubt – and pull her on to his lap. He kissed the girl, and John turned away, battling bittersweet memories of his last night with Zimat. He went to a small door that he guessed led to the sleeping hall. But when he pushed it open, he found himself in a small candlelit chapel, a wooden cross hanging from the far wall. Two benches sat before an altar, and on one of them was seated a priest in brown robes. The priest turned, and John saw that he was very old, the skin of his face mottled and wrinkled. His eyes were covered with a milky film, and he looked towards John without seeing him.
‘Greetings, Son,’ the priest said in Latin.
‘Hello, Father.’ John closed the door and crossed the room to sit beside the old man, who stared ahead, saying nothing. ‘What are you doing here?’ John asked.
The priest smiled, revealing a mouth in which only a few teeth had survived. ‘This is my church.’
John feared the old man might be crazy. ‘But these are Muslim lands.’
‘Yes, but they were not always so. I came here more than fifty years ago, with the first King Baldwin. We conquered these lands and made a new kingdom for God. I have been here ever since. When the Saracens retook these lands, I stayed. I was old and blind; too much trouble for my fellow Christians to bother taking with them, and not worth the effort for the Saracens to kill.’
‘The Saracens treat you well, then?’
‘They let me be. There are native Christians and Franks who pass through with the caravans. Just yesterday, two-score Franks stopped at the inn. I prayed with them, offered them confession and absolution. Do you wish me to pray with you?’ The priest held out a wooden cup. A few copper coins rattled in the bottom. John added another. ‘Bless you, Son. Do you wish to confess your sins?’
John shook his head. ‘It has been a long time, Father.’
‘It is never too late to find forgiveness.’ The priest placed a hand on John’s back. ‘Tell me.’
John lowered his head and looked at his hands. For a moment, it seemed as if he could still see them covered with blood. ‘I do not wish to be forgiven for what I have done.’
‘And why is that?’
‘I killed my brother.’
‘Why?’
John’s jaw clenched as long-buried memories came to the surface. ‘He sold my father to the Normans. They strung him up as a traitor. I watched him die…’ John felt tears in his eyes and wiped them away.
‘It was vengeance, then.’
‘Yes. But it was not justice.’
The priest nodded. ‘I understand. I too killed someone I loved.’ John looked up, surprised. The priest smiled. ‘I was not always the old man you see now. Once I was young, with a beautiful wife.’ He sighed. ‘I found her in bed with my closest friend. I killed them both, with these hands.’ He held up his hands, gnarled and wrinkled. ‘I stabbed them to death, and then I ran away. I entered the priesthood and ended up here.’ The priest turned his blind eyes upon John. ‘I hated myself. I wanted to die. But hating myself did not bring them back. And it will not help you, either. God does not want our hate, but our love. It took me a long time to learn that. Too long.’
The priest fell silent, and they sat side by side while the candles on the altar burned down. Finally, John knelt before the altar and bowed his head. He prayed silently, then rose and added a silver coin to the old priest’s cup.
‘Thank you, Father.’
‘I will pray for you,’ the old man replied. He held out his hand towards John and made the sign of the cross. ‘Go with God, my son.’
The sun had not yet risen when Yusuf and the others rode away from the funduq, quickly leaving it out of sight in the pre-dawn gloom. The innkeeper had warned them that bandits had struck several caravans nearby, and Yusuf had decided to leave early, skipping prayers in the hope of slipping past unseen in the darkness. No one spoke, and the only sound was the faint clip-clop of their horses’ hooves over the dusty ground. Yusuf kept his hand on his sword and scanned the dimly visible terrain around them for signs of danger.
The darkness gave way to soft, morning light as the sun rose dull red before them, revealing a barren landscape, unmarked by a single tree or boulder. Low, rolling hills rose up ahead, and the dusty track they followed headed straight for them. Yusuf spurred his horse forward next to their Bedouin guide. ‘If there are bandits about, those hills would be the perfect place for them to set an ambush,’ he said. ‘Is there another way?’
Sa’ud shook his head. ‘The hills stretch for miles in either direction. Going around will cost us at least a day. Better to push straight through.’
Yusuf nodded. ‘Very well. But we will ride fast and avoid the hilltops so as not to be seen.’ He raised his voice. ‘Have your weapons ready, men.’ Yusuf took his short, curved bow from where it was tucked into the saddle behind him and strung it as he rode. He then slung it over his shoulder, along with his quiver. The other men did the same.
Sa’ud spurred his horse to a canter. Yusuf kept pace, John beside him and the other men bringing up the rear. The track they were following snaked into the hills, and the sound of their horses’ hooves echoed loudly off the steep slopes on either side. Yusuf scanned the hilltops as they rode, expecting at any moment to see a bandit staring back at him, but there was nothing. He breathed a sigh of relief as they rode free of the hills and into a broad valley, which sloped downwards to a sparkling river. More hills rose on the far side of the water.
Ahead, Sa’ud kept up the pace, but then reined to a stop as he reached the edge of the wide, shallow river. His horse immediately plunged its nose into the stream and began to drink. ‘We should pause to water the horses,’ he suggested. ‘There will be no more water until we reach Tell Bashir.’
John rode up beside Yusuf and leaned close. ‘I don’t like this. We are too exposed here. We should move on.’
Yusuf scanned the hilltops on either side of the river and saw nothing. Beneath him, his horse was wet with sweat and breathing heavily after the long canter. ‘Our horses will not last much longer without water,’ he said. ‘And I’d rather face bandits than walk through the desert to Tell Bashir.’ He raised his voice. ‘We will let the horses drink, but be ready to ride, men.’ Yusuf dismounted and led his horse to the edge of the river, where he stood holding the reins while it drank thirstily. He unstopped his waterskin and also drank, keeping his eyes fixed on the
