progress against his. By the time we got to Narbonne, she had calculated that we were only a day behind him. She was right; we reached the quayside late in the afternoon and were told that an English knight had boarded a Cypriot dhow bound for Palermo that morning. We immediately commissioned a ship of our own at an exorbitant price and just caught the evening tide. We were then only twelve hours adrift.
Our vessel, a modified Norse knaar, rigged for speed — for whatever dubious cargo, we decided it was wise not to enquire — was owned by a Maltese merchant. Adela spent most of the crossing standing at its tall curved prow, peering expectantly out into the Mediterranean, hoping, at any moment, to see Sweyn’s ship.
We reached our destination only two hours after Sweyn, but by then he had disappeared into the warren of markets and narrow thoroughfares of a bustling Palermo morning. We immediately went to Count Roger’s palace to alert him. He sent out patrols on to the streets to search for Sweyn, while we went to secrete ourselves close to Suleiman’s wharf — in the hope of intercepting Sweyn before he could come to harm.
We had no intention of preventing Suleiman from meeting his fate; we just wanted to be sure that Sweyn did not throw his life away in a futile gesture.
However, we had underestimated him.
When we reached the pier where Suleiman traded, there was a major commotion. A large crowd of people had gathered, many of whom were clamouring to peer inside one of Suleiman’s many warehouses. A detachment of the Count’s guard was trying to restore order and, at my command, cleared the way for us.
What we saw was a gruesome spectacle. Sweyn had his back to us, his head bowed. He was standing with his legs apart, his sword held limply in his hand with its tip resting gently on the ground. On the floor around him were three dead men, Suleiman’s henchmen, blood seeping from several wounds to their bodies. A little further away, bound by the wrists, ankles and chest to an ornately carved chair, was the corpulent frame of Sweyn’s main prey.
Suleiman’s body sat bolt upright, but shorn of its head. His kaftan was crimson, no longer pale blue, and blood flowed copiously into the dust of the warehouse floor. The head, smeared in blood, lay in the grime some feet away, where it had rolled against a bale of silk. Sweyn would never give the details of what had transpired in that warehouse, but the fact that his victim’s turban sat neatly on a nearby sack suggested that it had been a cold and calculated execution. Whatever had taken place only moments ago, it was done very quickly and carried out without mercy. So should it have been.
Adela added the final touch. She picked up the fat Saracen’s head, carried it through a rapidly retreating crowd with its blood splattering the dockside, and threw it as far as she could into the sea.
‘Let the fish gnaw at your bones, you filthy bastard!’
She then hurried back to Sweyn, who was still standing in his mesmerized pose, and tried to pull him away. Edwin and I helped, but Sweyn was transfixed and the three of us struggled to get him to move. Eventually, he breathed more easily, let his blade fall to the floor and sank to his knees in convulsions of grief.
The Captain of Count Roger’s guard then appeared. He arrested Sweyn, placed him into our custody and required us to deliver him to the palace early the next morning.
‘As you know, I insist on justice being administered according to the law in my domain.’
Sweyn was standing before Count Roger, looking as morose as he had done the night before. He had spent the night in a foetal embrace in the arms of Adela; neither of them appeared to have had much sleep. He did not respond to Count Roger, so I tried to defend what he had done.
‘Roger, the crime committed in Aquitaine was truly bestial and there is no doubt that Suleiman ordered Mahnoor’s murder. The other men Sweyn killed were almost certainly part of the group who carried out the attack.’
‘I agree, but now we will never know.’
Adela spoke up softly.
‘My Lord, the important thing is that Suleiman is dead and that Sweyn was his executioner. That’s what the man deserved.’
‘Yes, but if we had put him on trial we could have discovered the rest of the perpetrators and perhaps found a punishment for him that would have been much more painful and long-lasting.’
Finally, Sweyn spoke.
‘Sire, I am sorry that my act of vengeance happened in your realm, but I had no choice. The others are of no consequence; Suleiman was the devil responsible for Mahnoor’s death, and I had to be the one to kill him. No other outcome would have brought this to an end. Now it is over; do with me what you must.’
Roger had given the whole ghastly affair a great deal of thought. He too was a warrior, and he had a warrior’s instincts. He stood and put his hand on Sweyn’s shoulder.
‘I think, in similar circumstances, I would feel the same way and would have acted as you did. As you say, it is now at an end. You have my deepest sympathies for your loss. I wish you God’s speed to wherever you go.’
Adela and Edwin led Sweyn away as Roger took me by the arm.
‘Strictly speaking, by the rules I insist on here, he should stand trial, so get him off the island as quickly as possible. I will make sure Suleiman’s crime is well known — not even the most fanatical anti-Christians will have any sympathy for him. Everyone knows what he was like. Travel well, Edgar, and look after your little band of brothers.’
‘Thank you. And God keep you till we meet again.’
Count Roger of Sicily was a fine and noble man. I had learned a lot from him; his wise governance treated all the people of his island as equals before the law, a law he administered with a benign firmness. As with all powerful men, it was prudent not to cross him, but for those who accepted his demands for a peaceful and flourishing realm in the interests of all, he was the ideal lord. I really hoped that we would meet him again one day.
We left Sicily with mixed feelings. It had been a privilege to serve Roger and fascinating to meet Ibn Hamed and to enjoy an insight into the world of the noble Muslim. On the other hand, Themistius’s warning about a forthcoming religious war troubled me, a feeling exacerbated by our encounter with the loathsome Suleiman and his hateful prejudices.
I knew only too well what can happen when hatred fills men’s hearts.
It had occurred to me several times during those final days in Sicily that my brothers-in-arms and I had a simple choice. A comfortable, perhaps long and peaceful life was available to us in that idyllic place. Alternatively, a more precarious, probably shorter, but potentially more rewarding future awaited us by returning to the maelstrom of politics in England and Normandy.
I knew that Sweyn and Adela would not hesitate in choosing the life of risk and reward, and that Edwin would always follow them. For me, there were still moments of doubt.
Would I be courageous enough to meet the challenges that lay ahead?
Would I be strong enough to overcome them?
Although I was not certain what the answer to those questions would be, I knew I had to find out.
PART FOUR
17. An Ignominious Death
Our journey back across the Mediterranean and through Aquitaine was a much less frenetic one than the journey that had brought us back to Sicily. Sweyn wanted to return to Mahnoor’s grave and carried some of Sicily’s rich volcanic soil to scatter on her resting place.
Although the mood at St Cirq Lapopie remained sombre, we relaxed and gave Sweyn time to come to terms with the awful tragedy that had befallen him. There was some talk of selling the estate and moving away from Aquitaine — Count Roger’s Sicily was discussed, as was a new start in England. Eventually, Ingigerd and Maria decided they were too old to start a new life elsewhere. They concluded that St Cirq Lapopie was the one constant
