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  ‘I go to win my father and mother their place in heaven.’

  ‘And you, Achim?’

  The ten year-old was concentrating on the sound-path of a bee. He paused. ‘God intends to grant to me my sight.’

  They trekked on, buoyed by companionship and shared adventure. Kurt grinned at Lisa as she clung tight to the broad shoulders of her bearer. She reciprocated, her head lolling to the rhythmic tread. To the left, skylarks were rising, their song bubbling high; to the right, the Rhine flowed wide and steady. The children had never travelled so far. Kurt chewed on a sorrel leaf, let its sharpness ease the swelling hunger in his belly. There were too many to feed, too little provision for forty thousand swarming locusts. He sent another prayer heavenward. It was best not to ponder too hard or to dwell in the gloom, prudent not to glance back at the sullen and trailing presence of Gunther. He had not forgotten the threat.

  Lisa piped up. ‘How do you think Jerusalem will seem, Kurt?’

  ‘A city of high walls and gleaming white towers.’ He was focused on issues closer to his stomach.

  Isolda caressed the youngster’s head. ‘It will shine brighter than the morning sun, Lisa. The people will run to greet us, will honour us as saviours, will bathe in the radiance of our truth.’

  ‘If they do not?’ A frown had creased the seraphic features of the seven-year-old girl. ‘If they should send an army against us? If they deny the Word of God? If they should fight?’

  Egon cocked his head. ‘The son of the blacksmith here will protect you.’

  ‘We all shall, Lisa.’ Kurt jabbed at an imagined foe. ‘No harm can befall you.’

  ‘But they say that the infidels are more vicious than dragons, that they sup on the hearts of children.’

  ‘Ignore these things. The Saracen has not the strength to challenge us.’

  Isolda nodded. ‘As Nikolas preached, we will carry all before us, shall bring every heathen from the path of wickedness.’

  ‘I hope it is so.’ Lisa still looked doubtful.

  ‘Once the seas part and we walk for the Holy Land, there is no stopping us.’

  Albert pulled an agonized face. ‘I would rather the Lord gave us a boat.’

  There were hoots of good-natured derision, the ribaldry of children attempting to shed their misgivings and overlook their discomforts. They were heading for rebirth, a better life. That was what mattered. But only a fraction of their journey was done and already the canvas and leather of their shoes were shredded. God would provide, they told themselves. God knew everything.

  Lisa was asking more questions: on wolves and bears, on whether there would be mushrooms where they headed. It helped pass time. Cattle lowed, a further spur to discussion and onward report to Achim.

  ‘Talk will save none of you . . .’

  Ignored, Gunther had closed the distance, his words hissing close in their ears. He was unused to being disregarded, enraged at losing influence and the opportunity to coerce. Intimidation was difficult on the road. Yet he was not ready to quit, would continue to probe, to demoralize the weak and destabilize the strong. One needed sport.

  ‘You consider yourselves prepared? You think you will survive the wild beasts, the brigands, the mountain passes, the heavy swell of the seas?’ Lisa started to cry. ‘Stay your tears for what will come. I doubt any of you shall reach the Holy Land.’

  Kurt spun to face him. ‘I doubt you shall reach another step without receiving a second blooding.’

  His adversary hopped back, his smirk certain, his eyes aggressive and bright. The expression changed. Kurt did not waver. He expected a trick, anticipated a forward lunge as soon as he turned his head. But the shout of alarm from Zepp, the fixed stare of Gunther, compelled him to look aside.

  Isolda held his arm, was pointing to the meadows. ‘Who are they, Kurt? What are they?’ She was scared.

  Bowed on all fours, cropping at grass with open mouths, scores of men and women grazed as oxen on the wild pasture. Dumbfounded, the children stood rigid and still. Occasionally, one of the strange and naked forms would bellow, would move slowly to browse on fresher ground. As zealots, they were performing their duty, an act of faith and penance. Man was unworthy to walk upright; man was a sinner, undeserving so much as to live and feed like cattle. Ultimate humility was the real path to godliness.

  Troubled, in silence, the children renewed their journey.

  Chapter 2

  They had seen him, communicated his approach with the mirror-flash of polished silver that rippled along the canyons and sparked from the tops of steep cliffs. The Lord of Arsur stared ahead. At the best of times, the Nosari mountains of Syria, crucible of hostility, nexus of the conflict between Islam and Christendom, were a dangerous place to be. These were not the best of times. He sensed the tension in his officers riding alongside, could smell their sweat. They had grounds for concern. Their hosts could kill for any reason or for none, for perceived slight or supposed lapse, for business or pleasure, for the gifts of gold and treasure carried in the packs of this small convoy. Murder was their way, and jewelled offerings and previous agreement provided no guarantee. The Lord of Arsur noted the buzzard floating high on a thermal and scanning below for carrion. He wondered if such birds had the power of premonition.

  The horses forded the stream, splashing their way on to a track that entered another valley bounded by vertiginous walls of rock. More glints of light flickered news of their presence. The Lord of Arsur appreciated the effort. He relied on the abilities of these people, their lethal expertise, to carry forward his agenda, to play a part in conspiracy that would alter for ever the course of mankind. It was twenty-five years, almost to the day, since the bloody occurrence on the Horns of Hattin. Long enough. A fragile peace existed; Saphadin al-Adil, brother of the great Saladin, held tenuous sway in Damascus; John of Brienne governed as regent for the baby Queen Yolanda in Outremer. Few wanted war, none had the power to launch full military campaign. Except him. He had once told Saladin in a perfumed tent that he sought only to scavenge on the scraps of chaos. But contentment could pall, ambition grow. He had been waiting and planning for a lifetime. Saphadin and his Moslem cohorts, John of Brienne and the infant queen, the barons of Outremer, the Arab governors and emirs: all would succumb, would be consumed in the gathering darkness. Preparations were advanced, had brought him here to the land of the hashshashin, the hashish-eaters. The Assassins.

  Al-Kahf was a structure that would not be ignored or forgotten. Jutting prominent on its sheer mountain crag, the fort was a man-made stalagmite, a soaring edifice constructed to impress, guaranteed to awe. Those who approached did so by invitation and temporary truce. The Old Man of the Mountains and his followers could be capricious. A delicate mission. The Lord of Arsur guided his mount on, led his troop in single file on to the winding uphill track. At any turn could be an ambush, behind every boulder and overhang killers might lurk. They would wipe a blade across his neck before he realized he was dead. But the only sounds were the plodding tread of hooves, the jangle of harness, the breathing of his men. The hashish-eaters had allowed them to live this far.

  Ascent was achieved. It had taken an hour, a tortuous perambulation through blind gulleys and labyrinthine detours that brought them eventually on to a narrow ridge before the walls. There were no welcoming trumpets, no tell-tale whirr of a rampart catapult releasing its load. Not a sign of occupation existed. For a while, the Lord of Arsur sat in his saddle and viewed the prospect, taking in the unmanned castellations, the open gates. It would be foolish to interpret it as anything other than illusion.

  He spoke calmly to his men. ‘We advance two abreast. Unless attacked, you shall neither react to provocation nor reach for your swords. Be reserved; conduct yourselves with dignified purpose.’ Responding to the press of his heels, his horse moved forward.

  Revelation was dramatic. It came with smoke and flame, with a cacophony of cymbals and roll of drums. As the visitors attempted to steady their shying horses, ropes l
ooped from the high windows of the keep to the courtyard below and figures in black swarmed down. Others jumped and tumbled into view, knives drawn and wielded in mock battle and choreographed display. Wood targets were held aloft and quickly pierced by flying blades. Silk screens were opened out and carved to ribbons in an instant. It was theatre and threat combined. The Assassins were the most skilled practitioners of their art. They were Nazari Ismailis, the malahida, Shi’a religious deviants bound by faith, blood and history to avenge themselves on the Sunni, to bring chaos and terror to the unrighteous, to martyr themselves for the cause of past injustice and future divine fulfilment. Death was a religious obligation, and they had grown rich and powerful on it. They were the perfect allies.

  A circle was mapped on the ground with gypsum paste and, as the guests watched, two half-naked combatants entered the ring. There was no ceremony or emotion here. The rivals eyed each other, their bodies flexing, their daggers drawn and tracing air. Slowly, they orbited the circumference, feet shifting and finding balance, stares never wavering. They knew what was at stake. One dodged in and pulled back, the other lunging hard. Again the first man tried, feinting fast, switching hands, jabbing with his knife. His opponent leaped lightly back and accelerated to a different bearing. He slipped, rolled, and recovered. His challenger followed. Back and forth they went, trading moves, exchanging strikes, anxious to achieve a kill, determined to escape injury. There had to be conclusion. With three minutes gone, it arrived in a welter of glinting steel and flailing limbs. The men stepped apart. Blood could be seen, the smallest of scratches scored on a forearm. Without a word, the victim held it up for examination, his eyes widening as his hand clenched involuntarily, his teeth baring in a rictus grin of agony. He was dead shortly after hitting the ground, his face blackened and bloated almost beyond recognition, his body stilling after a few lacklustre flips. The bout had ended.

  ‘Poison serves to sharpen the response.’

  Unsmiling, his thin face dominated by agate-dark eyes and a grey-streaked and unkempt beard, the sheikh looked down from his balcony vantage. His followers were already dragging away the corpse.

  The Lord of Arsur replied in Arabic, gestured to the deceased. ‘I observe it well.’

  ‘Remember it also.’ Niceties were over. ‘You bring tribute?’

  ‘Sufficient reward to seal our understanding, enough gold to demonstrate the depth of my intent.’ He raised his hand and the covers of the saddlebags were thrown aside to reveal the glittering contents within.

  They seemed to find approval. ‘Join me.’

  Dismounting, the Lord of Arsur made his way to a stone staircase and climbed the worn steps to its summit. He emerged on to the roof of the keep, a panorama of hills, valleys and plains lying below him. It would provide any sect with a sense of impregnability. Attended by fifteen followers, the sheikh was standing to receive him.

  ‘Here we are closer to God, and from here we may sortie to corrupt and destroy our enemies.’

  ‘I depend on it.’

  ‘As we in turn are glad of your trade.’

  ‘A state of shared and happy convenience.’ They walked a distance from the rest. ‘I must thank you for assigning four of your hashshashin to my task in the Rhineland.’

  ‘You pay well.’

  ‘And it is merely the beginning. Soon we shall set tribe against tribe, faith against faith, the barons of Outremer against the rulers of the Moslem realm.’

  ‘It will be pleasure to see them burn.’

  ‘I have no doubt. You will be a spark to inflame the conflagration.’

  The pair acknowledged common cause with a tepid exchange of looks. Instability was coming, followed close by war, and the Lord of Arsur would be beneficiary of both. He could depend on the sheikh to stay silent. It was the old code of taqiyya, secrecy, the Assassins’ way to wreak havoc on all stability and orthodoxy. None would appreciate the scale of the project; no one would witness it unfold. That was its flawlessness.

  He gazed across the mountain range towards the ochre dust of the flatlands. ‘You have heard that John of Brienne, regent leader of the Latins, reaches fresh peace accord with Saphadin?’

  ‘Peace is of benefit to neither of us.’

  ‘Let us ensure it is temporary. One death will beget two, two will engender four, four will encourage mass reprisal. So it goes. Until there is clamour for parley, a meeting at time and place of our choosing and preparation. We must nurture every step, support every act.’

  ‘You may rely on us.’

  ‘I await to count the result.’

  In reply, the sheikh turned and nodded once to his entourage. A man stepped forward and, without pause or question, launched himself from the parapet. Again the sheikh dipped his head. Soundlessly, a second Assassin dropped into vertical descent. People died strangely in the Holy Land, the Lord of Arsur mused. Henry of Champagne had fallen from a window with his pet dwarf beside him; King Amalric of Jerusalem had expired from a surfeit of fish. Now these dedicated and glassy-eyed killers slew themselves as circus routine. Small wonder Saladin himself had feared them, had slept in a portable wooden tower to evade their homicidal clutches. Saphadin, his brother and successor, would not be as fortunate.

  A seventh individual had plummeted to personal oblivion before the sheikh brought a close to his demonstration. He remained impassive.

  ‘Death holds no fright for us. We embrace it, seek it out, yearn for paradise in which milk and honey flow, where virgin maidens walk among golden pavilions and laden trees of fruit. It is our destiny and desire, our strength, the very reason why men tremble at our name.’

  ‘They shall quake the more when I am done.’

  Out of anarchy and confusion would come new order, his order. When I am done. He was letting loose forces that would sunder accord and sow disaster, that would purify with violence. Each element would play its part, each stage would be mapped, each grouping would eventually be neutralized. He could not possibly allow the Assassins to outlive their usefulness. Such was the work of a master strategist. As of this moment, from a high fortress on a mountain crest, his object was to create hell on earth.

  Children populated the fruit trees like feeding insects, revelling in the abundance, shaking free the cherries and plums to waiting hands below. It was a day of rest and forage, of rejoicing in sudden bounty. Feet could be bound or cooled in streams, limbs stretched beneath laden bowers, ravenous hunger sated for a while. They had changed much in the three hundred miles since Cologne. Weakness had gripped every step; hollow-eyed gauntness had set in. Yet they endured. Mannheim and Karlsruhe, Strasbourg and Freiburg, waypoints of pilgrimage, a shuffling trek bordered by the swollen waters of the Rhine and the brooding denseness of the Black Forest. They had reached the hills and meadows of the Basle Land. And so they clustered, pinch-faced and grateful to God, and devoured the produce of the orchards.

  ‘Catch . . .’

  Kurt captured the black plum thrown him by Zepp. The ten-year-old sat astride a branch, harvesting with the speed and fury of a born scavenger, Achim waiting beneath in blind faith and with an open pack. It was manna from heaven, the children said. Kurt was more concerned with eating. He bit into the fleshy ripeness, let the juice run on his chin, the sensation of food linger in his mouth and throat. What a moment, the briefest of respites. Around him, his companions gorged and lazed. Little Lisa played with a wood doll fashioned for her by Hans. Egon and Albert sat hunched over a game of five-knuckles, tossing a pebble and sweeping up a clutch of sheep vertebrae to the random applause of their audience. Occasionally, Isolda and Roswitha observed them from their forlorn assignment of patching clothes with bone needle and twine. Kurt smiled at his sister. Behind them he could see the sly and skulking form of Gunther. Even when relaxing, the son of the woodsman radiated malice. While others starved, Gunther would find himself provisions. Where others shared, he would hoard and boast of his fare. When others grubbed for roots and worms, he would return with full belly and knowing
sneer. Kurt contrived to ignore him. The residue of the fruit tasted sour.

  ‘Do not let him upset you, Kurt.’

  He shrugged as Hans appeared at his side. ‘I am more vexed by lack of food. Cherries are no answer to our appetites.’

  ‘There is still the hare I trapped yesterday.’

  ‘And the crow that Albert took with slingshot the day before. But we are growing weak.’

  ‘Weak? I am becoming crazed.’ The goatherd produced a lopsided grin on his roughly hewn face. ‘Look at them. Innocents in the Garden of Eden, feeding on fruit that will cause the downfall of their stomachs.’

  ‘I have already seen the serpent.’

  ‘Gunther will keep. Avoid him as we do, and do not tread on his tail. Our little band will encounter greater terrors than he.’

  Kurt glanced sideways. ‘Do you ever doubt, Hans?’

  ‘Always, at every step and for every minute. It is how the Lord tests us, how we test ourselves.’

  ‘What if we should fail?’

  ‘We should be cast into outer darkness or the fiery pit, shall for ever be damned. Isolda and Roswitha, Zepp and Achim, Egon and Albert: all will die. Yet I am sure the preacher Nikolas will remain comfortable and remote on his travelling cart.’

  They shared the joke, their mood lightening with the sunshine and the merriment among the trees. Zepp had swung down to join his twin in bundling up their crop, Albert had won the game of knuckles, and Isolda was completing repairs to another set of threadbare garments.

  ‘Your fingers bleed raw, Isolda.’

  ‘They may hold a needle, do what is demanded of them.’ She bit through a thread and laid the tunic aside before standing to join her brother and the goatherd. ‘That should see us clothed for a few miles more. I am glad to have practised on Kurt these years past.’

  ‘While I am glad to have a sister who cares for us so. It deserves reward of a banquet.’