eyebrows.
‘Quite.’ She knew exactly which recent and very well-known event he referred to. ‘So why have so many people travelled all the way from Outremer to England this time?’
‘Let’s see. The Knights Hospitaller — two of them, originally three; the two Saracen warriors; and an unnamed, unknown group that comprised originally at least three men, one of whom is the dead Turk. Oh, and the runaway monk and his prisoner.’ Josse counted on his fingers. ‘Nine men. Something very important or very valuable — maybe both — must have been involved,’ he added slowly. ‘Thibault implied that the Saracens tried to cheat the Hospitallers by attempting to get away with both the prisoner and whatever they were offering in exchange for him. Gervase suggested that the Hospitallers might have done the same. I do feel,’ he went on before she could comment, ‘that if he is right, then it only goes to support what you just said: whatever was at stake, it was important enough that even the noble and honourable Knights Hospitaller were prepared to abandon their principles and risk their hard-won reputation for honesty and fair play.’
‘What could the fat man have bartered for his young brother?’ she mused. ‘We have asked ourselves before, but we are no nearer to an answer.’
‘And why was the younger man so very valuable to his brother?’ Josse said. ‘My lady, did you mark Akhbir’s reaction when the name of Fadil was mentioned?’
‘I did,’ she replied. ‘I thought he seemed amused. He found it funny that we should believe it was Fadil whom he and Kathnir were hunting.’
‘Why would that be funny?’ Josse wondered. ‘Because it was so unlikely Fadil would be here in England?’
‘Perhaps because he could not take Fadil seriously.’ The flash of intuition seemed to come out of nowhere. ‘He knows Fadil and he doesn’t think much of him; he cannot imagine that Fadil could possibly have evaded him and Kathnir for so long and over so many hundreds of miles.’
‘If he does not think much of this Fadil, then he would be either amused or insulted by the suggestion that he’d been such an efficient and elusive quarry,’ Josse agreed. He was regarding her with admiration in his brown eyes. ‘A good suggestion, my lady.’
She barely heard him. ‘Josse, supposing it’s Fadil himself? Akhbir just said that Kathnir’s orders were to find his master’s precious treasure and return it. Supposing it was not an object that he was speaking of but a person?’
‘Fadil is the fat man’s brother. But if he does not have sons of his own, then his younger brother might be his heir and thus important to him.’
‘Precious,’ she repeated. ‘Would a man refer to his heir as being precious to him? It sounds more like a term one would use for someone one loved very, very deeply and — oh!’ She realized what she had just said.
So, evidently, did Josse. ‘It would explain a lot,’ he said quietly. ‘Love makes men blind; it makes them lose all reason and all sense of proportion. If the fat man was driven by love and desire, not only would he be prepared to pay the highest price to redeem Fadil from the Hospitallers; he would also take whatever measures necessary to find him when he escaped and bring him back. Even to the extent of sending two Saracen warriors who would not hesitate to kill.’
‘Yet they attacked and killed the Turk and they would not have killed Fadil,’ she pointed out. ‘Their objective was to take him back unharmed to their master.’
‘Aye, but they knew the Turk wasn’t Fadil,’ Josse replied. Then: ‘Fadil must be the other Saracen; it’s just as we surmised. He must be the man known to me as John Damianos.’
‘Why did Kathnir torture the Turk?’ She could hardly bear to think about it. ‘What did he think the poor man knew?’
‘The whereabouts of Fadil?’ Josse suggested. ‘Or, if Fadil and the treasure are not one and the same, perhaps Kathnir believed the Turk knew the location of both.’
‘I think,’ she said slowly, ‘that the missing Hospitaller — the runaway English monk — is looking after both prisoner and treasure, just as he has been doing for more than two years ever since that night in the desert. Don’t you?’ She stared at Josse expectantly.
After a moment he sighed heavily and said, ‘Aye. I do. We’ve got to find him, my lady; as Gervase said, we have to succeed where Kathnir and Akhbir failed.’
‘Can we do it?’ she whispered.
He shrugged. ‘We can try.’
Eleven
W hen Josse finally got to his bed he was exhausted and fell asleep quickly. But some time later he was awakened; his soldier’s reactions warned him there had been a sound that did not belong among the safe night noises. He lay on his back with his eyes open, staring out into the darkness of the low room. The door and the two small windows were closed, the fold of leather in place keeping out the moonlight and the starlight. The fire in the hearth had burned down to glowing embers.
He listened.
Then he heard it.
From the far corner where they had put Akhbir came the sound of softly muttered but urgent words; it seemed that Akhbir was pleading with his God.
Barely pausing to think about it, Josse was out of his bedroll and padding across the cold, hard floor. Akhbir sounded as if he was in despair. He was all alone in a foreign land, the man who had been his senior and his companion had just died, he still had a mission to fulfil and he probably had no idea how to go about it. All of which was good enough reason for despair.
But desperate men tend to talk, Josse reasoned. Especially in the dark hours before dawn when courage and optimism are at their lowest ebb and when so many of the dying slip away to death. He knelt down beside Akhbir, who lay curled up with his face to the wall, and put a hand on the man’s shoulder. Akhbir jumped in alarm, twisting round to look up into Josse’s face.
‘Do not be afraid; I wish to help you.’ Josse pitched his voice low. Akhbir had been put in this far corner well away from the sleeping lay brethren, but Josse was aware that one or more of the brothers would wake if he spoke aloud. Even worse, one of the two guards that Gervase had sent up from Tonbridge might hear.
‘You cannot help,’ Akhbir hissed back.
Josse considered how to proceed. It depended on Akhbir’s mood; there was so much that he needed to know, but Akhbir would only be likely to talk if he truly believed there was no hope for him.
‘You will not be ill-treated when they take you down to the prison cell,’ he began, choosing his words carefully. ‘You will be put on trial for murder but the sheriff may speak for you if he believes that it was Kathnir and not you who killed the Turk.’
‘What happen to me if not?’
‘If they think you were equally guilty? You’ll hang.’
A sob escaped Akhbir. ‘I want to go home,’ he whispered mournfully.
Home. I wonder, Josse thought.
‘Would you be able to find your way back to Outremer?’
‘Yes.’ There was no doubt in Akhbir’s voice.
‘But what of your mission? What of the treasure your master sent you to recover?’
Akhbir said something in his own tongue; it sounded faintly disparaging. Then: ‘I not know about treasure. Kathnir know; Kathnir not tell secret to me.’ Then, in case Josse was still in any doubt: ‘Kathnir my master. I serve him all my life but he dead now.’
Josse saw tears in his dark eyes, welling up and catching the dim light from the hearth.
‘Perhaps you truly do not know what the treasure is,’ Josse said softly. ‘But there are many things, Akhbir, that you do know; things that I should be very grateful to be told.’
The dark eyes slid to Josse’s. There was a calculating expression in them. ‘Very grateful?’
‘Very grateful indeed,’ Josse said. Firmly putting from his mind what Gervase was going to say, he took a
