immediate interest in you, it aroused my suspicions.
“Interested now?” he asked, his face still only inches from mine. I said nothing.
“It took me a while, but I pieced it all together. I followed you to the stables that night intending to give you the thrashing you deserved. But that stupid monk showed up. Lucky for you. Then Sir Thomas invited you along with us and I knew there was more to you than met the eye. Sir Thomas would never take on such a doltish, incompetent squire.
“The next day I sent riders to the abbey. And I learned some interesting things,” he gloated. I remembered seeing Sir Hugh with the King’s Guards outside the Commandery gates. He had sent his men to the abbey? For what purpose?
“I learned a great many things. It’s interesting what men will tell you when their fingers are being broken. Now I know everything, and I’ll tell you everything. You just tell me where you’ve hidden the Grail. The knight you swore allegiance to has played you for a fool.”
I felt dizzy and disoriented. I couldn’t breathe. Sir Hugh had sent riders to the abbey to torture the monks and question them about me? Why? How could I possibly be that important? Now he claimed to have knowledge of the one thing I’d wished to know my entire life. Then Sir Thomas’ words came back to me and I remembered the cretin who stood in front of me. A liar, a coward and a cheat. Even if I told him what he wanted, he would kill me anyway. I would need to find my answers elsewhere. He was probably lying about everything.
“No,” I said. “I came here carrying news of Acre-”
Before I could finish, Sir Hugh bellowed in rage, grabbing my tunic in his fist and drawing his other hand back to strike me. Just then another man-at-arms burst into the room, saving me from another blow.
“Sir Hugh, Marshal Curesco has requested your presence at the King’s headquarters. We have other confirmed reports of Saracen patrols in the surrounding countryside. Battle orders are being drawn as we speak!” he said.
Sir Hugh’s face paled at the mention of the Saracen patrols, his cowardice revealing itself again.
“Don’t worry, Sir Hugh,” I said. “There is still plenty of time for you to escape before the fighting starts.”
Sir Hugh roared again, dragging me across the floor of the jail, then shoving me into the cell next to Robard. He glared at me and then straightened himself.
“Of course,” he said to the newly arrived man. He pointed at the other two guards in the room. “Two of you stay here at all times. No one is to visit either of them. No one even enters this building without my orders. Understood?”
With a backward glance at me, Sir Hugh turned. “I’ll return, squire,” he hissed. “And when I do, I think you will tell me everything I want to know.”
With that Sir Hugh and his men departed, leaving just the two guards for Robard and myself. I had no idea how to get us out of this mess.
To say Robard was in a state does not do justice to his mood. He paced back and forth in his cell like a caged beast, muttering and cursing. Finally he was quiet as he stared first at me, then at the men-at-arms sitting across the room.
“Care to explain?” he asked in a low voice.
I gave Robard a brief accounting of my history with Sir Hugh. “What I don’t understand is how he escaped from Acre. The city was surrounded and overrun. The knights were making a last stand at the Crusaders’ Palace,” I said. I told Robard nothing of what Sir Hugh had offered to tell me. No need to complicate things. Besides, I was sure he was lying anyway.
“Well, I have to tell you, I did not count on landing in a jail when I met up with you in the woods. I don’t like this. I don’t like this one bit,” he said. He was angry. I held out my hands, waving them down, nodding toward the guards, who sat on a bench against the far wall. They looked bored and disinterested, but I had no doubt they’d been instructed by Sir Hugh to listen carefully to any conversation that passed between us.
“Robard, I am sorry you are caught up in this,” I said. “I never expected to find Sir Hugh here alive. If the Templars perished defending Acre, he should be dead. Yet here he is. He must have found a way to sneak out of the city or else he took the same route I did.”
But I knew why Sir Hugh was here. He wanted the Grail, plain and simple. What I could not figure out yet was how he knew I had it. Sir Thomas said only a few of the knights in the entire Order even knew of the Grail. He was one of the few, and I could not imagine him sharing that knowledge with Sir Hugh, whom he held in such low regard. Unless Sir Hugh knew of the Grail’s existence before Sir Thomas did. Or had learned of its existence some other way and that Sir Thomas was the one who guarded it.
Something told me this was not the case. I couldn’t imagine knowledge of something so valuable and rare being entrusted to such a liar and cheat. No doubt through villainous means, Sir Hugh had followed the trail that led to me. Now more than ever, I needed to find a way to get the Grail to safety.
Robard continued pacing. I moved to the corner of my cell and sat slumped against the wall. Soon the shadows grew darker and twilight crept in. When darkness arrived, one of the men-at-arms lighted an oil lamp sitting on the table, filling the room with dim light. Robard and I were silent for a long time, thinking.
“In the streets, as we were being led here, I thought I saw Maryam watching. Perhaps she’ll…”
“Don’t even mention her name,” Robard interrupted. “She’s under no obligation to help us anymore, anyway. She’s long gone. If we’re going to get out of here, we’re going to have to do it on our own. We’ve seen the last of the Assassin.”
With impeccable timing, Maryam’s face appeared in the window of Robard’s cell and she whispered quietly, “Hello, Archer. Did you miss me?”
28
The faint glow of the oil lamp gave us just enough light to see the dim outline of Maryam’s face in the window. I was nearly speechless, and Robard stood frozen in place as if he’d seen a ghost.
“Don’t stop pacing, you idiot! Keep moving like you were before or the guards will grow suspicious,” she hissed.
Startled as he was, Robard resumed pacing back and forth, muttering under his breath. He threw a few curses and complaints at the guards for good measure.
“Tristan, I am about to create a diversion. Be ready!” she whispered.
“What? Wait…What are you going…?” But she was gone before the words were out of my mouth.
For several minutes nothing happened. Robard continued pacing, and I sat slumped in the corner as if I were about to drift off to sleep. The guards still sat on the bench across the room, talking quietly.
The entrance to the jail had no door. It had either broken off or fallen into disrepair and been removed. A few minutes after Maryam appeared in our window, we watched a smoking bundle of dried rushes come flying through the entryway, landing in the center of the room. They must have been coated in grease and dunked in water or mud, for instead of bursting into flames they merely created smoke, which began to fill the room.
The guards jumped to their feet, shouting. One ran to the center of the room, stomping at the bundle in an attempt to put out the sputtering flames. The smoke kept streaming off the rushes and he began coughing. Then two more torches flew in, landing at his feet. Smoke billowed up around him, and even in the dim light of the lamp he was almost invisible.
Both men were yelling now as the smoke thickened. It would soon reach our cell and we would not be able to breathe. The lamp on the table was suddenly extinguished, plunging the room into darkness except for a few flickering shadows cast by the flames of the torches. I heard a muttered curse, and then one of the guards let out a pained scream. I heard a sword being drawn, then the clang of steel followed by more curses and shouts.
Out of the commotion and noise, a shadowy figure appeared at my cell door, and a few seconds later it swung open. The figure moved to Robard’s cell and his door opened as well.
“Come!” Maryam shouted. “This way!”
“Wait!” I called after her. I needed to get the satchel and my swords.
The smoke was disorienting, but I had a general sense of which direction to go. I couldn’t see Maryam or
