Silk Road by Colin Falconer Read Free Book Online

the infidel and noteach other. But as for these innocents, as you call them . . . we kill sheep and pigs without sin. To kill a Saracen is no greater stain on the soul.’
    ‘Sheep and pigs?’ Gérard shifted uneasily and gave Josseran a warning glance.
    But Josseran could not help himself. ‘Do sheep and pigs have good physic? Do sheep and pigs know astronomy and the movement of the stars? Do sheep and pigs recite poetry and have their own music and architecture? The Saracens have all these things. I may dispute with them on religion but I cannot believe them to be just sheep and pigs.’
    Astronomy and the movement of the stars? The Pope had made it a blasphemy to reach into the secrets of nature. It was clearly an unlawful invasion of the sacred womb of the Great Mother. On his last visit to Paris he had seen a family of Jews dragged from their house and beaten by a mob because they had been discovered secretly translating Arabic texts dealing with mathematics and alchemy.
    ‘The heathen believe the world is round, in defiance of the laws of God and of heaven,’ William said. ‘Do you believe this, too?’
    ‘All I know is that though they may not have faith, they are not animals.’ He looked at Gérard. ‘Tell him what happened to you.’
    ‘When I was in Tripoli, I was kicked in the leg by a horse,’ Gérard said. ‘The leg became infected and an abscess formed. A Templar surgeon was about to cut off my leg with an axe. One of my servants sent for a Mohammedan doctor. He applied a poultice to the leg, and the abscess opened and I soon became well. You understand, Mohammedan or no, it is very hard for me to hate that man.’
    ‘You have a blasphemous tongue, Templar. It was God that healed you. You should give thanks to the Lord, not the heathen.’
    ‘I am tired of talking to priests,’ Josseran said. He walked away and lay down on a blanket under the trees. Gérard followed.
    William sat alone in the guttering firelight. He prayed to God for the soul of the Templar, as was his duty, and prayed also for strength for what was to come. He prayed long into the night, long after the fire had settled to embers, for he was deathly afraid of facing this Hülegü and he did not want the others to know.

XIII

    T HEIR PROCESSION SNAKED across the hills, past villages with curious beehive-shaped mud-brick houses. Yusuf rode in front, Josseran and Gérard behind, the packhorses and carts spread along the trail behind them, Bohemond’s soldiers at the centre. William followed at the rear, head stooped, already exhausted by the journey.
    Josseran found a grim satisfaction in the priest’s suffering.
    They followed an old paved Roman road that cut through the rocky wastes, as it had since the days of the Book. Josseran was glad of Bohemond’s soldiers, for the country was perfect for ambush, and he was sure they were being watched from the hills by Bedouin bandits. Not that he supposed they looked much like a rich Christian caravan, certainly not from their dress.
    He and Gérard wore simple tunics made of
mosulin
, a fine cotton the Crusaders traded from the Turks in Mosul, and they had Mohammedan scarfs wrapped around their faces to keep the sun from burning their skin. Josseran had offered similar comforts to Brother William, who insisted instead on keeping the heavy woollen cowl he had brought with him from Rome. His face was already beet red.
    They enjoyed their suffering, his lot.
    By late afternoon, their journey had settled to drowsy fatigue; Gérard and William dozed in the saddle, lulled by the heat of the sun on their backs, the creak of the wagons and the dull clip of the horse’s hooves. The stony Syrian hills stretched away all around them.
    They smelled them before they heard them. Their ponies reacted first, twitching and stamping their hooves. Yusuf reined in his horse and twisted in the saddle.
    ‘What is wrong?’ William shouted.
    They appeared suddenly and from nowhere. Their helmetsflashed in