Sir John was a dark-haired man, quick to laugh and slow to anger. He would make a good king, Raphael surmised, if they were ever successful in their efforts in Egypt and to the north and west. “I wish to speak with your master, Calpurnius.”
“He is…” Raphael stopped and turned, glancing toward the large tent that served as the Shield-Brethren chapter house. Calpurnius should have been with the others, engaged in the exercise with the Templars, but he suddenly recalled seeing the Shield-Brethren master not long after the other members of the company had departed. He had thought nothing of it at the time. Men came and went at all hours within the camp, and the endless cycle of drilling and fighting and waiting had become tedious. “I suspect he is waiting for you,” Raphael amended.
Sir John offered him a slight smile. “I suspect he is,” he said.
“A convenient distraction offered by today’s exercise,” Raphael noted.
“Yes,” Sir John agreed. “Sometimes it helps to be the one who can arrange such things.” Looking past Raphael, he caught sight of Eptor. “Is that the boy who converses with the dead?”
“It is. His name is Eptor.”
“Are you his keeper?”
Raphael shrugged. “Sometimes he keeps me. Today, for example. I am missing an opportunity to train, yet again, with our Templar brothers. I fear I might miss some brilliant new stratagem that is being concocted on the field.”
“I suspect not,” Sir John said. “Join me, if you would. What I have to discuss with your master may benefit from your insight.”
“Mine?”
Sir John clapped Raphael on the shoulder as he started to walk toward the main tent. “Yes. You pretend to be nothing more than your brother’s keeper, but your exploits are known to me, Raphael of Acre. I hear the men call you ‘The Thresher.’”
Raphael blushed. “It is an unwarranted title, Sir John,” he said.
“All titles are unwarranted, Raphael,” Sir John said. “Whether or not we live up to them is what matters.”
Sir John gestured that Raphael should follow him. After a passing glance over at Eptor — ensuring that the simpleminded lad was well ensconced in the minute work of repairing maille — Raphael followed the King of Jerusalem into the large Shield-Brethren tent.
Calpurnius was seated behind a rough-hewn desk that had been crafted from driftwood rescued from the Nile. A large map of the Egyptian territory was laid across it. Small chips of charred wood were arranged to indicate the physical terrain, and clusters of colored beads stood in for troops. Calpurnius set aside the tome he had been studying and stood as the two men entered the tent. “Sir John,” he said, striding around the table to clasp Sir John’s outstretched arm. It was the old style of greeting, one that had its origins in ancient Greece, but was used among the Shield-Brethren as a way to indicate brotherhood. Grasping the forearm allowed one to feel the initiation scars of another.
The Shield-Brethren were quite strict in who they accepted into the order — the initiates could not have any other ties that might compromise their vows to the order — but they also took the sons of kings and lords under their tutelage. In a flash, and feeling quite foolish for not having recognized it earlier, Raphael realized Sir John had been one of those students.
“Old friend,” Sir John said. “Our diversion with your men and the Templars will afford us a welcome opportunity to talk freely. I am surrounded by sycophants of the legate’s. They cannot think for themselves, and all they do is echo back to me the ridiculous drivel spewing from Pelagius’s mouth.”
“He still insists on taking Damietta, does he?” Calpurnius asked. He glanced at Raphael briefly and seemed unconcerned about the young knight’s presence.
“Even after our disastrous attempt at the beginning of the month,” Sir John sighed.
The previous attempt to storm the city had involved a quartet of freshly arrived boats from Christendom and an audacious plan to fill in the moat along the southern wall. For a few hours, it seemed as if the Crusaders might prevail, but the Muslims had only been waiting for them to get close enough. Fire and rocks destroyed most of their ladders, and flights of arrows from the walls had done the rest. They had lost more than a hundred men.
“The legate has a new idea,” Sir John said, shaking his head. “He claims to have proof of our victory.”
“Proof? How?”
“Prophecy,” Sir John said. “I know you have tried to suppress knowledge of your man’s addled visions, but the camp knows of his…peculiarity.”
“It wasn’t me,” Raphael protested, suddenly alarmed at the reason he had been summoned to this meeting.
“I have every confidence that it wasn’t,” Sir John said gently, “but no secret is safe in an army this large and this desperate for good news.”
Calpurnius had already discerned the root of John’s concern. “Pelagius wants to create his own prophecy, doesn’t he?”
Sir John nodded. “Aye, he does. Your man Eptor has given him a dangerous idea.” He looked at Raphael. “Will you have the strength to say ‘no’ to a holy man?”
“Will I?” Raphael looked at Calpurnius for guidance.
“This is a dangerous game,” Calpurnius said to Sir John after a few moments of thought.
“It is far from a game,” Sir John replied sadly. “Pelagius seeks glory that only the sacrifice of others can grant him. He is — not unlike me — a king without a country. Or, in his case, a patriarch without a flock. If he cannot have Antioch, he will have Jerusalem and the Holy Lands, and it does not weigh on his soul in the slightest the number who must die to achieve this mad dream of his. But he knows he cannot be the recipient of a message from God. He needs an innocent to receive it.” He looked at Raphael.
“Me?” Raphael asked.
“No, the boy. Eptor. But more importantly, he needs a witness. Someone who will attest to what the boy has said; someone who will spread the word.”
“He wants me to…” Raphael struggled with the idea of what was being suggested. “But he is the voice of Rome,” Raphael said. “He speaks on behalf of the Pope. If he commands that I serve him — in any way that I am capable — and I refuse…Am I not condemning myself? And the order too, for that matter.”
Calpurnius let out a low chuckle. “This one thinks too much,” he said, jerking his thumb at Raphael. “It will always be his greatest flaw.”
“I do not,” Raphael protested.
Calpurnius made a face. “Ah, you are correct. I am exaggerating. There was that one instance where you did not think. Where you simply acted. And what a glorious moment that was.”
Raphael felt his face get hot. “Any one of us would have done the same,” he mumbled.
“Perhaps,” Calpurnius mused. “But you were the one who did.”
“It…it seemed like a good idea at the time,” Raphael offered lamely, wishing the conversation would turn away from discussion about the tower assault a year ago. He and Eptor had made it to the ramparts and, in the crush of bodies, had gotten separated from the other Shield-Brethren. The Muslims had fought ferociously, and it had been here that Eptor had received a savage blow to the head that Raphael believed to be fatal. The farmer’s son had fallen, and the press of Muslims had threatened to overwhelm Raphael. His sword had been knocked from his hand, and having fallen to his knees, he waited tensely, anticipating the sharp edge of a Muslim sword against his neck.
And then…Eptor’s body, lying nearby, and the flail, unused and forgotten.
Raphael grabs the weapon, whirling it about his head as he turns to face his enemies. He snarls at them, defiant in this final moment. The chains chime and ring about his head as he swings the flail, and he feels the metal tear at the face of the nearest man. His heart thunders in his chest, a war drum that drives him forward. The Muslims hesitate, wary of his whirling chains, and he plunges into their midst, not caring who he strikes. They are all his enemy. He is alone and in battle — where he should be — and the flail is rising and falling. A wild abandon is surging through his body…
“The legate needs you,” Sir John said quietly, starting Raphael from the horrible reverie into which he had fallen. “He wants the hero of the tower to give credence to this prophecy.”
