The Last Emir Read online

  And it was that very independence, where the tolerant culture of the taifa remained, that made the island the perfect target for Balthesar. There were still Christians and Jews on Mayūrqa who were treated as citizens, albeit second-class ones, and not forced into slavery and drudgery like those under Almohad rule.

  ‘How much money do we have?’

  The old knight gave him a long-suffering look. ‘Are you determined to talk about unimportant irrelevancies all morning?’

  Arnau huffed and leaned on the rail once more, arms folded in the drab, itchy clothes, eyes locked on their destination. The island of Manûrqa was becoming much more visible now, coming ever closer. Arnau could not see a port, just a series of jutting headlands, the more prominent crowned with small fortifications.

  Tolerant taifa culture or not, though, the sight of those walls brought home to Arnau the extreme danger inherent in what they were doing. The Emir of Mayūrqa might be the last of the great independent Moorish lords, but they both needed to remember that this was still a Moorish land, run by sons of Allah and filled with his swords. This place carried inherent dangers for any Christian, let alone members of the Temple in disguise. He could quite imagine those fortifications bristling with angry Moors, each with no love of the order, watching incoming ships for intruders.

  He tried to swallow his nerves as they closed on the coast. Finally, as the sail thumped and filled afresh and the vessel began to turn, he realised that two of those headlands flanked a wide inlet and it was for that they were making. His nerves rose as they surged forward and swept between those green promontories and into the sheltered waters beyond. They began to pass Moorish vessels with white lateen sails, and with each one Arnau felt his anxiety rise a notch.

  ‘This is a fool’s errand,’ he said again. He was sure it was for the first time today, at least.

  ‘Faith, Arnau. Have faith. And button those lips.’

  Arnau fell silent and watched as the green slopes of Manûrqa slid past on either side, their destination now finally in view. The town of Mahón lay inland, in the shelter of that inlet on the southern shore. It was a warren of white walls and red tile, a thriving port playing host to numerous vessels, all native.

  The ship’s captain, well practised at this run, veered towards the port without losing speed and only began to slow as he lined up with a free jetty, shouting commands at the crew, who worked hurriedly in response. The Marguerite lost momentum swiftly and finally drifted towards the wooden jetty at an easy pace.

  Arnau’s eyes danced this way and that, taking it all in with a mix of heady excitement and dreadful nervousness. He noted the town itself behind the port, its alleys and streets narrow and winding, perfect shadowy places for a rabid local to plant a knife in a wandering Christian without attracting unwanted attention. He noted the huge number of Moorish sailors on the ships to either side, all watching the approaching cog with wary interest. He noted the array of armoured figures and the snapping and fluttering flags around the port.

  He needed to urinate suddenly. Quite urgently.

  He turned, opening his mouth to speak despite having been warned repeatedly not to, but it was Balthesar who spoke first.

  ‘God’s bones,’ he spat. ‘Shit.’

  Arnau frowned. ‘What?’ he whispered. Whatever it was, it had surprised the old knight enough that he had openly spoken Spanish, albeit in a quiet hiss.

  ‘The flags.’

  Arnau turned his furrowed brow to the pennants fluttering in soldiers’ hands across the port. He could see a variety of banners bearing several designs, none of which were particularly familiar to him, though in fairness most Moorish flags looked quite similar to him. He turned his bafflement on Balthesar, who pointed. ‘Flags of Manûrqa and Mayūrqa, flags of the Ghaniyid dynasty, to which the current emir belongs. But do you not recognise those?’

  Arnau’s eyes followed the older knight’s extended digit. A group of shining, armoured soldiers with brightly coloured clothes stood clustered too far away and hidden by dockside activity to make out much detail. Their banners were all variants of one design: a red background with a black-and-white-checked motif at the centre. It did look very familiar. His eyes widened as memories of a fight by the Ebro flashed through his mind

  ‘Almohads.’

  ‘Quite,’ Balthesar said. ‘It would appear that we are not the only visitors to Mahón. The Almohad caliphate has no authority within this taifa, and they are far from allies. Their presence here is worrying. We must be subtle and circumspect and on no account should you utter another word until we are alone and safely away from that lot.’

  Arnau made to reply but stopped at a warning look from his companion. The ship chose that moment to bump against the jetty, and the young sergeant lurched back for a moment, his hands slipping from the rail. He recovered his balance poorly and realised that the mostly Christian crew of the ship were smirking at him. Resisting the urge to show them a very un-Christian gesture, he rejoined Balthesar and waited as the sailors ran out lines and secured the ship. Moments later the boarding ramp was brought out and slid across to the damp boards of the jetty.

  Balthesar let go of the rail and turned, gathering up his large canvas bag and slinging it onto his back, Arnau following suit with his own pack, and the two of them made for the ramp. The old man turned as they reached the top of the plank and essayed a short bow to the captain, who stood at the wheel, watching his crew at work.

  ‘Šukran gazīlan,’ he said with a flourish, then switched to Aragonese Spanish with a thick Moorish accent. ‘My thanks for your excellent seamanship. May God keep you safe and fill your sail.’

  Playing his best mute idiot role, Arnau simply gave a vacant smile and bowed his head as he followed the old knight. Balthesar thumped down the ramp and onto the jetty and paused there, adjusting his gait and finding his land legs once more. Arnau followed him onto the slick boards and immediately slipped on the wet timber, pirouetting a little and staggering to avoid ending up flat on his backside.

  Crewmen of the two nearest ships, both Moorish and Christian, all roared with laughter.

  Trying not to blush, Arnau followed Balthesar, who was giving him a flat, unforgiving look, up the jetty and onto the dockside. It was clear that if they wished to move directly into the town, the two men would have to pass close by the groups of soldiers. Behind the dockside was a thriving and busy market, beyond which lay the winding streets up into town, for which Balthesar was clearly making.

  As they closed on those groups of armoured figures who stood between the port and the market, Arnau scrutinised them carefully from beneath lowered brows. Several groups of men were wearing green uniforms covered with mail shirts, displaying the various banners of Mayūrqa. The one group of men beneath the Almohad banner, perhaps a score strong, were an entirely different breed. Their clothing was austere black and white, their heads covered with intricate helmets, their faces hidden behind veils of chain. Their leader was the one spot of colour in the group, wearing a red and gold gandura with a white burnous atop it, his head covered with a red turban, his face open, beard trimmed to a severe point. Somehow his ostentatious apparel made him look all the more worrying amid the drab soldiers.

  It took Arnau moments to realise, as his eyes played subtly across them and the other groups, that there was a distinct tension in the air here, which had nothing to do with him or Balthesar. The Almohad soldiers and their master regarded their surroundings with a cold disdain, while the Mayūrqan warriors watched the visitors suspiciously, never letting their gaze wander.

  Clearly, while there was no sign of the local guards moving to eject the caliphate’s men, they were here under sufferance and were entirely unwelcome. What fresh trouble had the two Templars stepped into here?

  Balthesar moved directly between the nearest two groups, keeping his eyes forward, locked on the marketplace, appearing, to all intent and purpose, to be focused on the stalls to the exclusion of all else. Arnau hurried along behind
him, face lowered, eyes alert. They passed three stalls and veered off to the left a little. The young sergeant felt a lurch in his stomach as he looked up briefly and spotted three more of the black-and-white-garbed Almohad soldiers moving down through the marketplace, back towards their group. They would pass Arnau and Balthesar in moments.

  He almost walked into the older knight as Balthesar stopped suddenly at a stall and bent over it, peering at a selection of blades laid out on a grey cloth. Assuming the brother was avoiding contact with the three warriors, Arnau followed suit once more, turning and looking at the weapons. They were modestly decorated, weapons designed for war rather than court, though Balthesar was paying close attention to one in particular. A straight blade with a gentle taper, its hilt of iron but decorated with silvered flakes and bound in red leather, it was the best on offer. The old knight looked at Arnau for a moment, frowned, then turned back to the table and struck up a conversation in Arabic with the owner.

  Arnau, unable to follow any of it, threw a sly glance at the three Almohads as they passed. They each carried a spear, wore a similar sword, and two of them also bore simple crossbows of a very lightweight design. As if Arnau wasn’t already heartily sick of crossbows…

  He became aware for a moment that he was being gestured at, and realised that Balthesar and the stall owner were talking about him. From the tone of their voices and the looks in their eyes, he suspected that Balthesar had just said something along the lines of ‘If I take this one, which one will you give me for the idiot?’

  He tried not to look angry, indeed put on his best ‘vacant idiot’ look, as Balthesar concluded his deal and opened a purse, forking out a worrying share of their meagre funds. A moment later the older man passed him a sword that was far from excellent, but would at least not fall apart when swung. Balthesar himself took the best one and belted it atop his burnous. Suddenly, the simple addition of a blade transformed Balthesar from serf to warrior. It was a subtle change, but a complete one. Arnau did the same. He’d wondered about the wisdom of leaving their own weapons at Rourell, but Balthesar had been adamant that finding a ship willing to bring them here would be considerably easier if they were simple folk and not warriors. At least now they were armed, which was a comfort, with the rabid forces of the Almohad caliphate unexpectedly present.

  For a moment, Arnau wondered what Balthesar was up to, for the older knight turned back down the slope a little, almost heading towards the gathering of severe-looking soldiers, but then the man stopped at another stall and began to look at further miscellaneous wares. Perhaps he bought into the notion that to appear least suspicious they should not be seen to be keeping away from the men. If so, then Arnau considered it an idiotic idea, for even the Mayūrqan soldiers were keeping their distance. He saw Balthesar look up from beneath a lowered face twice, and saw something in his eyes that clarified matters. The older knight was getting a closer look at the Almohads for some reason, and his expression suddenly became very hard and stony. Whatever he’d seen he didn’t like.

  A moment later they were moving again through the crowded market, making up the slope towards those narrow alleys that seemed in Arnau’s mind to have gone from dangerous maws that harboured assassins to places of sanctuary and safety.

  He hadn’t realised until someone shouted how their very posture had changed. As if strapping on the sword had brought out the soldier in him, Balthesar’s gait had altered. He was now striding with knightly purpose, Arnau unwittingly doing the same. They were no longer invisible serfs.

  ‘Qātil wariʻa!’ came the call a second time, and this time Arnau realised it was aimed at them, or more specifically at Balthesar. He frowned, looking around for the source of the voice. An old man not far ahead was pointing frantically in their direction and bellowing the phrase.

  ‘Qātil wariʻa!’

  Balthesar suddenly ducked right between two stalls, shaking his head at the old man and holding up his hands in the universal gesture that says ‘You have the wrong man.’ Clearly he didn’t, of course, judging by the urgency now gripping Balthesar as he weaved between stalls, eyes flicking over to the shouting man and back, worriedly, at the Almohads.

  They rounded another corner and found their way blocked by a poor stall owner who had suffered some kind of avalanche of large baskets, which seemed to fill the passages in every direction. Arnau knew that something was dreadfully wrong, and the idea that it might be important for him to continue playing the mute idiot seemed suddenly ridiculous.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

  ‘Back that way,’ Balthesar snapped in Aragonese but still with a thick Arab accent, pointing to a crowded alley between stalls that was at least blessedly free of waist-high baskets. As they turned and became further ensnared in the crowd, Arnau’s eyes flitted between those same targets as his companion’s.

  The man who was still shouting ‘Qātil wariʻa!’ was on his knees, arms held up. Was that a sign of respect? Veneration? It looked like it, though Arnau knew little of Moorish custom. Whatever the case, while the man was still identifying them loudly, he did not seem likely to load a crossbow and loose it at them. Consequently, Arnau wrote the man off as comparatively unimportant right now, and concentrated instead on the Almohad soldiers. The entire group was now looking their way, and the leader in his colourful garb was pointing at them. He did not look to be offering respect and veneration. In fact, his face had gone a rather funny colour. If Arnau had had to put a name to the man’s expression, it would probably be ‘murderous rage’. What in heaven’s name had they got themselves into?

  Worryingly that refrain, Qātil wariʻa, seemed to have spread, and now a number of voices here and there were calling it. Not a chant taken up by a vast sector of the crowd – perhaps three or four voices – but the effect was still nerve-shredding.

  ‘Move,’ Balthesar hissed, and pushed Arnau into the crowd, himself elbowing and barging his way through. Arnau risked a glance back once more. The Almohad soldiers were beginning to move towards the market. It seemed very likely that the whole of Mahón was about to explode into riotous, violent activity. His gaze slid this way and that. The Mayūrqan soldiers were moving and shouting too, though their sudden activity seemed to be in response to the Almohads, for they were hurrying towards them. It looked distinctly possible that there was about to be a scuffle between the two armed groups and, while that might not be a good thing, Arnau wouldn’t have been unhappy to see it right then.

  A moment later they burst from the crowded area into a clear part of the market at the upper edge, close to one of the shaded alleyways. For a moment they were invisible to both groups of soldiers, but then the crowds shifted again slightly, and Arnau could see what was happening. The Almohad lord had reined in his men, who were once more standing in a group, hands on sword hilts, while the local Mayūrqan soldiers bristled and eyed them warily. One of the island’s officers was shouting angrily at the visitors, but the Almohad lord was paying him no attention. That man’s sharp gaze was on the top of the market, on the two nondescript travellers who had emerged there. Even at this distance, Arnau swore he could feel the heat of the man’s hatred emanating from his gaze.

  He almost slipped again as a hand grabbed his drab, voluminous tunic and pulled him into the shadows of the alley. They ran.

  Three streets up and two across, finally Balthesar came to a halt, leaning against the wall, and Arnau, tired and feeling every breath like a fiery pain through his chest, dropped his hands to his knees, bent over and spat out drool until the need to vomit abated. He looked up with profound respect at Balthesar. Not more than seven or eight months ago the man had looked doomed to end his life as a knight, his arm broken, his leg so badly torn with a sword gash that it wouldn’t hold his weight. Yet here the old man was, an autumn, a winter and a spring later, and he could comfortably wield a sword and manage to sprint up a hill with more vigour even than Arnau.

  ‘It truly does appear that we are unable to move in this world w
ithout drawing the worst kind of attention, you and I,’ sighed the old knight, fingers stroking the hilt of the sword belted at his side as if for reassurance. His Arabic accent had temporarily disappeared, but the street was empty and shaded, and they were about as alone as a man could be in this city.

  ‘What was all that about? Did the Almohads know you? Who was the man on his knees, and why was he on his knees? What in the name of the Holy Mother of God is a Qātil wariʻa?’

  Balthesar shook his head. ‘All matters for another time. Now we must keep moving.’

  ‘But where? And what is Qātil wariʻa, since it seems we are it?’

  ‘Qātil wariʻa means “pious killer” and it’s a name long dead that should have stayed buried. And now Abu Rāshid Abd al-Azīz ibn al-Ḥasan, the Lion of Alarcos, has seen us and heard the name. We are now mice in his hawk gaze. Arnau, the past harbours a legion of ghosts. Let us flee this place before we fall prey to them.’

  ‘Where do we go?’ Arnau breathed.

  ‘To the Xeuta.’

  ‘The where?’

  ‘It’s not a place, it’s a people. The Xeuta are all that remains of the ancient colony of Jews that were in this place under the Romans. The last people to see the remains of Saint Stephen, the First Martyr.’

  ‘Oh, well that clears up everything,’ grunted Arnau, and turned to hurry off up the hill once more in the wake of the grey-bearded Brother Balthesar.