‘With a woman, were you?’ Nur ad-Din suggested. Yusuf nodded. ‘ Ah ha! So you are human after all. I am glad to hear it. Your Faridah is beautiful, but one woman is not enough for a young man. You should enjoy yourself, just so long as you don’t create any mischief. Stick to whores and virgins.’
‘Yes, malik.’
‘Now, I was asking you about Baalbek. Gumushtagin tells me they have sent seven thousand dinars in payment. He says they could send more.’
Next to Yusuf, Khaldun, who was Emir of Baalbek, spoke up. ‘That is all we have, my lord. I told Gumushtagin-’
Nur ad-Din raised his hand to stop him. He looked to Yusuf. ‘You were raised in Baalbek, Yusuf. Can they pay more?’
Yusuf glanced at Khaldun, then nodded. ‘Ten thousand.’
‘Good,’ Nur ad-Din said. ‘I need every fal I can find to put our army in the field.’ He paused and looked around the room at his emirs. ‘War is coming. King Baldwin is dead.’ There was a murmur of excitement. ‘We will gather our men and watch the new king, Amalric. When he makes a mistake, we shall strike!’ The men pounded the floor to show their approval. ‘Now go,’ Nur ad-Din told them, ‘and bring me more men.’
Yusuf began to leave, but Nur ad-Din called for him to remain. ‘I have a special task for you, Yusuf. It concerns our Frankish prisoner, Reynald.’
‘He is still here?’
‘His subjects do not seem eager to pay his ransom, and I begin to see why. I have had disturbing reports of his behaviour. It is said that he beats his servants, has raped one of them even. You speak Frankish. I want you to speak with him.’
‘And what shall I tell him, my lord?’
‘Tell him that I have treated him as a guest, but if he continues to spit upon my hospitality, then I will be happy to treat him as a prisoner.’ Yusuf nodded. ‘And Yusuf, take this opportunity to observe Reynald. He may be a savage, but he is a powerful man amongst the Franks. Find out what drives him, how he thinks. I wish to know as much about my enemy as possible.’
Yusuf reined to a halt outside the gate of a nondescript house, one of over a dozen sandwiched together on this narrow street not far from the citadel. A gap-toothed, blind beggar sat next to the gate, singing softly to himself. Yusuf looked to John.
‘This is it,’ John said as he slid from the saddle.
Yusuf dismounted and pounded on the gate. ‘Open up!’ he shouted. He knocked again, then stepped back to wait.
The blind man had stopped singing. He looked towards Yusuf with white, milky eyes. ‘That is an evil place,’ he lisped. ‘I hear things at night, horrible things.’
The gate creaked open, and Yusuf turned away from the old man. A mamluk guard stood in the gateway, blocking the entrance to the home’s courtyard. Yusuf nodded in greeting. ‘We are here to see Reynald.’
The guard’s nose wrinkled in disgust. ‘He is in there.’ He jerked his head towards the door on the far side of the courtyard.
‘What is he doing?’
‘Only the devil knows. We don’t set foot in the house. It is an unclean place.’
Yusuf glanced at John, who shrugged. Yusuf turned back to the guard and handed him his reins. ‘Look after our horses.’ He strode towards the house, with John following. Yusuf reached the door and pushed it open. They stepped into a rectangular reception room, bare but for a large rush mat in the centre of the wooden floor. The house was silent. No one came to greet them.
‘Is anyone here?’ John called. ‘Reynald?’
They heard the slap of sandals approaching, and a moment later a slave girl entered from a door to the right. She was a young Frankish woman, blonde and pale with a purplish bruise on her left cheek. She bowed when she saw them, then straightened and without speaking pointed down the hallway she had just come from.
As soon as Yusuf entered the hallway he heard something – a muffled whimpering. He turned to John, who raised an eyebrow. The noise grew louder as they continued on, the slave girl trailing them. Yusuf stopped at an open doorway at the end of the hall and saw the source of the muffled cries. A naked slave girl with a gag in her mouth was standing facing away from them, her hands against the far wall of the room. Reynald was behind her, grunting and panting, his breeches around his ankles and his hands on her hips.
‘Excuse me, my lord,’ John called out.
‘I said I did not wish to be disturbed!’ Reynald roared without turning around.
‘Lord Reynald,’ Yusuf called more loudly. ‘I wish to speak with you.’
Reynald glanced behind him, and his face went red. He shoved the girl aside and pulled up his breeches. ‘Mary!’ he shouted at the girl behind Yusuf. ‘Take them to the front and make them comfortable.’ He turned to Yusuf. ‘I will be with you in a moment.’
Yusuf followed Mary back to the reception hall, where she provided them with silk cushions and urged them to sit. She left and returned a few minutes later with tea. Shortly thereafter, Reynald entered, now dressed in a loose-fitting cotton tunic. He sat across from them. ‘To what do I owe this honour?’ he asked.
‘Nur ad-Din has asked me to speak with you,’ Yusuf said. ‘The slaves who serve you are his property. They are not for you to use as you please.’
‘What is the worry?’ Reynald leered. ‘They are spoiled now, anyway. Nur ad-Din can add them to the price of my ransom.’
Yusuf frowned. ‘You have been our prisoner for nearly five years. Your countrymen do not seem eager to pay for your return.’
‘The bastards! Patriarch Aimery has turned them against me.’
‘Be that as it may, it does not appear that you will be leaving any time soon. Nur ad-Din wishes you to know that he will treat you as a guest so long as you behave as a guest should. If you continue to abuse his hospitality, then he will have you thrown in the dungeon.’
‘I see,’ Reynald grunted. ‘So I cannot touch the girls?’ Yusuf shook his head. Reynald glared at him. ‘I cannot leave this place, and I cannot please myself. I might as well be in the dungeon. What am I supposed to do here?’
‘I will bring you books, if you desire.’
‘Books?’ Reynald snorted. ‘Books are for priests. I have no use for them.’
Yusuf’s eyes widened. ‘You cannot read?’
‘I have spent my life in combat, not wasting daylight on books.’ Reynald pointed a thick finger at Yusuf. ‘That is why one Frankish knight is worth ten of you Saracens. You are too cultivated, too learned by half. You are practically women, with your silk robes, perfumes and bath-houses. No wonder you have to hide your women away in harems: so real men will not take them.’
Yusuf wanted to reach out and slap this uncouth barbarian, but he restrained himself. He took a long sip of tea, then set the small cup aside. ‘Learning and cultivation do not make one weak. Throughout history, the civilized man has repeatedly triumphed over the savage: Alexander over the Persians; the Romans over the Gauls; the Prophet over his enemies.’
‘Rome fell.’
‘Only when it became corrupt,’ John interjected.
‘Perhaps that is why God has sent us,’ Reynald said. ‘He has called on a stronger race to wipe you corrupt heathens from this earth.’
‘A stronger race?’ Yusuf smiled in the face of the insult. ‘Yet you are our prisoner.’
Reynald’s cheek twitched. ‘You defeated us through trickery at Jacob’s Ford.’
‘Strategy, not trickery,’ John said. ‘Perhaps if you had read more books, then you would know the difference.’
Reynald turned towards John. ‘So you take his side against me? Do not forget that you were once my man, John, bound to me by oath. But you Saxons are all alike – faithless dogs. King William was right to crush your people.’
‘At least my people have honour.’
