incense. Joining the other men, John took his helmet from his rucksack and sat on it. The late-morning sun beat down, and he wiped sweat from his brow as he gazed at the market. Only a few feet away, two olive-skinned Saracens in white burnouses – loose-fitting cloaks with broad sleeves – were selling swords and knives. John had never seen anything like the blades, with their polished steel surfaces covered in interlacing patterns in darker grey.
‘What are they doing here?’ said one of the knights, pointing at the two Saracens. He was a loudmouth named Aalot, nicknamed One Eye. He claimed that he had lost his eye fighting the English in Normandy, but John had heard that a vengeful prostitute was to blame. ‘I thought we came to fight those sand-devils, and here they are setting up shop in a Christian city.’
‘Let it be, One Eye,’ Ernaut ordered. ‘We’re not to make any trouble.’
One Eye spread his hands in protest. ‘I’m not making trouble.’ He turned to Rabbit, the youngest of the men at only thirteen. His real name was Oudin, but the men had dubbed him Rabbit, as much for the way his nose twitched when he was nervous as for his large ears, which were completely out of proportion to his skinny, freckled face. ‘I hear the Saracens eat their captives,’ One Eye said. ‘They cut their hearts out while they’re still alive and eat them raw.’
‘That’s after they bugger them,’ another of the men added.
Rabbit’s eyes were wide. ‘Those are just stories.’
‘Don’t be so sure,’ One Eye insisted. ‘You fought in the first crusade, Tybaut. You tell him.’
Tybaut, a grey-haired bull of a man, was sharpening his sword with slow, rasping strokes of his wetting stone. He did not look up as he spoke in a low, gravelly voice. ‘You’re young enough, Rabbit, that they’d take you as a slave. Then they’d bugger you.’ The men laughed. Rabbit’s nose twitched.
‘It’s damnable hot out here,’ Ernaut grumbled, interrupting the laughter. ‘You, Saxon! Go and fetch me some water.’ He tossed John a leather waterskin.
‘Christ’s blood!’ John cursed under his breath as he rose. ‘Yes, sir,’ he added more loudly.
‘Me too, Saxon,’ said One Eye, tossing John his skin. Two-dozen more waterskins followed as the other men added theirs.
‘’Sblood!’ John cursed again. As the second youngest member of the troop and an Englishman too, he was subjected to constant ribbing and always assigned the most degrading of tasks. He began to gather up the skins. It would be all he could do to carry them back once they were filled, and that’s if he could find a well.
‘I’ll help.’ Rabbit shouldered eight of the waterskins.
‘Remember, Saxon: you’re only supposed to fill up the skins!’ One Eye made a crudely suggestive gesture with his hands, and the men laughed.
‘What’s he talking about?’ Rabbit asked.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ John told him as he began to shoulder his way through the market crowd, a mixture of fair-skinned Franks, bearded Jews, local Christians, Saracens and dark-skinned Africans, all dressed alike in turbans and loose burnouses. Veiled women passed through the crowd here and there, the men giving them wide birth. John passed a stall where a black-haired Italian was showing strips of leather to two clean-shaven Templars in the distinctive surcoats of their order: half-black, half-white and emblazoned with a red cross. Next to the stall, a monk in his black cowl was staring out to sea as he chewed some unidentifiable meat off a stick. John stopped next to him. ‘Excuse me. I’m looking for a well.’ The monk looked back uncomprehendingly, then spread his hands and said something in Greek. John moved on towards a veiled lady in a golden tunic, who was examining glass goblets at the booth of a fat, bearded Jew in a skullcap. ‘Pardon me, lady.’
She turned to look at him, wide-eyed. A second later, John was grabbed from behind and shoved roughly aside. He turned to see a tall, thickly muscled Frank in chainmail. ‘You’re not to speak to the lady,’ the Frank growled. He and the lady moved away into the crowd.
John turned to the Jewish merchant. ‘Pardon me, sir,’ he began in Frankish, but the man shook his head and replied in a language that John did not understand. ‘Do you speak English?’ John tried. Again the Jew shook his head no, then tried another language that John did not recognize, and then another. ‘Latin?’ John asked.
The Jew’s eyes lit up. ‘Of course.’
‘I’m looking for a well.’
‘There are no wells in the city.’
‘No wells?’ John asked, dumbfounded.
‘There is a fountain, that way.’ The Jew pointed down the quay to a shadowy alleyway that led deeper into the city. ‘You will find water there.’
‘Thank you. Come on,’ John told Rabbit, switching back into Frankish. The two headed down the quay towards the alleyway.
‘How did you learn all of those languages?’ Rabbit asked.
‘I was a second son. I was trained to enter the Church.’
‘Why didn’t you?’
John winced. He gestured to the red crusader’s cross sewn to his surcoat. ‘I took up the cross instead.’
‘Why?’
‘None of your business,’ John snapped, but his words were drowned out by a shouting crowd just ahead. Men were pressed four-deep around a raised platform, where a skinny young Saracen stood, naked but for a thin loincloth.
An Italian slave merchant stood beside the Saracen, loudly touting his virtues in accented Latin. ‘He is strong as an ox,’ the Italian declared, squeezing the Saracen’s stringy bicep. He slapped the boy, who did not move. ‘And docile, too.’
John turned away and headed into the shadowy alleyway that the Jew had indicated. The path twisted left and right, growing narrower and narrower. John had to step over a beggar, who sat with head bowed and hand out. A few feet further on, a scantily clad, buxom Saracen woman stepped out of a dark doorway. ‘Only ten fals,’ she said in Latin. John squeezed by her, and she turned her attention on Rabbit. ‘Ten coppers,’ she purred, pressing herself against him. John pulled Rabbit away.
They emerged from the dark passageway into a bright, three-sided plaza. In the centre, water bubbled from the mouth of an ancient stone head and filled a wide pool, where turbaned men and veiled women were busy filling red clay jars.
‘Water flowing from stone,’ Rabbit whispered. ‘How is it possible?’
John strode to the pool and bent over, scooping the cool water into his mouth. ‘I don’t know, but it tastes blessed good.’ He felt a tap on his shoulder and looked up. Rabbit was pointing to the men and women around them. They had stopped filling their jars and were staring at John with undisguised menace. One of them, a tall, olive-skinned man with a long beard and a curved dagger belted to his waist, pointed at John and shouted something in Arabic.
John spread his arms. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t understand.’ The man stepped closer and began to yell what sounded like a string of insults, repeatedly poking John in the chest. ‘I told you: I don’t understand your dirty Saracen tongue,’ John growled. ‘Now leave me be.’ He shoved the Saracen, who stumbled back several feet. The man’s hand went to his dagger hilt, and John and Rabbit both drew their swords.
‘I suggest you sheathe your weapons,’ someone behind them said in Frankish. John turned to see a young, tonsured man of slight build, wearing black priest’s robes. The priest gestured for John to look around him. At least a dozen turbaned men stood around the plaza with daggers drawn.
‘Do as he says,’ John told Rabbit.
‘Thank you,’ the priest said. ‘We want no violence here.’ He went to the angry Saracen, and the two men exchanged words in Arabic. The Saracen and priest kissed one another on each cheek, and the Saracen turned away, apparently satisfied. The priest turned back to John.
‘What did the Saracen want?’ John asked
‘Oh, he is no Saracen. These men are native Christians.’
‘Could have fooled me,’ John muttered.
‘Syrian and Armenian Christians have lived amongst the Saracens for centuries,’ the priest explained. ‘They have adopted Arab customs, but they are as Christian as you or me.’
‘Well what did he want?’
‘He said that the two of you should bathe before coming to the fountain. He fears that you will pollute the
