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  She was big and slow, round as her name suggested rather than fast and sleek, and she projected an incongruously sad, despondent demeanour in the bright sunshine of the Holy Land. Like a large plain girl at a jolly country wedding who cannot find a young man to dance with her. She was dirty too. Her sides were streaked with filth where her sailors had carelessly relieved themselves, year after year, into the big ocean. The paintwork on her two square fighting castles, one each at bow and stern, had once been glorious gold and imposing black but was now a faded yellow-orange and a sludgy brown. All her visible ironwork – cleats, bolts, chains, nails – was rusty.

  In short, she looked neglected – mainly because she had been.

  “Yet he swears in the Name of Allah that all her timbers are sound?” said Robin to Aziz, who passed on his enquiry to a skinny, elderly Arab man, who was acting for the ship’s owner. This owner was rich a Jaffa merchant who, for a variety of good reasons, had not wanted to be seen to trade directly with the infidels of the Great Pilgrimage – the Christian knights who had arrived in the Holy Land in their thousands over the past year and who, under the command of lion-hearted King Richard of England, had trounced the great Muslim warlord Saladin at the bloody Battle of Arsuf only a few weeks before. I listened to Aziz’s question and its answer, having picked up a decent knowledge of the language from an Arab girl whom I’d loved and very painfully lost – a skill that neither Aziz nor the seller’s agent knew I possessed. Robin glanced at me, and I gave him the merest suggestion of a confirmatory nod, which meant: “He is speaking the truth”.

  Robin did not entirely trust Aziz – he was not an original member of our company but a local seafaring man with wide connections whom Robin had had several murky dealings with in the past. There were ugly rumours about his true allegiances and I’d been brought to this meeting at the harbour to use my language skills to make a discreet test of the captain’s good faith

  “He swears they are all sound,” said Aziz. “I’ve looked below decks myself – there is some rot and a little sea-worm damage but I believe the ship will carry us to Messina and then on to Marseilles. However, I consider his price too high. I shall offer him only half the sum he has demanded . . .”

  I left Robin and Aziz to their haggling with the Arab, listening with only half an ear, and wandered away along the jetty towards the Tarrada to get a better look at her. She was about two hundred feet in length, the size of a moderate hall in England, and it seemed to me that she was too small, old and tired, to carry a hundred Welsh and English men-at-arms and archers and all their gear, as well as a handful of our women folk, three children, twelve horses, a few goats and pigs, a cock and five chickens all the way across the Mediterranean. Then there was the dry stores too, sacks of flour, salted meat and pickled vegetables in barrels, fodder for the horses, water, ale and pipes of wine, and all of Robin’s possessions too . . .

  On top of that there would be Aziz’s crew of sailors – how many would they be? A dozen? A score? That would make a total of a hundred and forty souls, more or less. I could not imagine that great mass of living, sweating human flesh fitting into the space enclosed by this little round ship – enough people to make a village, indeed more than the number of folk who lived in my own manor of Westbury, just outside the town of Nottingham, in England, which had been given to me by my lord for loyal service to him. All these travellers, human and animal, would be crammed on this leaky casket for several weeks, the time it would take us to travel from the Holy Land to Marseilles, in the distant County of Provence. And if there was a storm . . .

  This was another point of great concern for me – one that I had raised several times with Robin. The sailing season in the eastern Mediterranean ran from early March to the end of September. But we were already in the first week of October. For centuries, the local peoples had recognised that it was unwise to entrust your life to the treacherous waves during this stormy period of the year. Yet that was exactly what my lord intended to do.

  Robin had dismissed my concerns. “I know you hate sea travel, Alan, but there is a risk to everything we do in this life. We might both catch an ague right here in Jaffa and die of it tomorrow . . .”

  “I do know a certain amount about risking my life, lord,” I said, through clenched teeth. I had fought for Robin many times, and by his side too, and I did not like the implication I was merely terrified of putting to sea.

  “Look, Alan,” he said, “we need to go home. The men are exhausted; some are wounded. I have completed the task I set myself in this land – and Richard has asked me personally to hurry back to England and act as his eyes and ears in the matter of his treacherous brother Prince John. You know what he is like. The King has requested that I do this. And a royal request is, in fact, an order. Do you want me to ignore the King’s wishes? And look at the sky, Alan – look! We’ll be fine, we’ll be absolutely fine, I promise you!”

  The sky was an irreproachable blue. The glorious sun blazed down upon us. And while Robin had not mentioned it, I knew that he himself was very tired and had also been wounded in the thigh at Arsuf. I gave up trying to persuade him. For I also knew that if we did not leave now, we would not be able to sail before spring. He was right, I told myself; I’m behaving like a silly old woman who is frightened of the sea.

  I slept badly on the hard sand in that damp, chilly cave on the south coast of Crete. At some point in the night I sensed that the storm had increased in its power and malignancy, the noise of the wind was louder and higher in pitch, the crashing of the waves on the rocks below a constant music, and it occurred to me that I should rise and see that all was well with Ghost, who was tied up with the other horses in the wood below the caves. But I was thoroughly worn out by the voyage and the rigours of the storm and for once I indulged my natural laziness, rolled over and sank back into a deep sleep.

  In the morning – the quiet, bright morning – I stumbled to my feet and joined a handful of men at the mouth of the cave looking out at a perfectly beautiful sunny day. The sand had dried to a pale yellowish-brown, the sky and sea, a pure and innocent azure. There was no sign at all of the Tarrada.

  On the strand below us, I could see Aziz, standing alone, forlornly at the edge of the water, waves lapping his boots, as he looked out at the empty bay. There were a few pieces of torn wood floating on the dark blue rippled water – but nothing more. All that had remained of the round ship was gone.

  Chapter Two

  The dazzling Cretan knight on the fine white horse was accompanied by six men-at-arms on foot. The small procession of warriors came plodding up the rough cart track that ran alongside the storm-swollen river between the two spurs of mountain towards our beach. On the northern side of the river was the dense wood of twisted Cretan pines and thick brushwood undergrowth, that side quite impenetrable to man or horse, unless a squad of axe men were prepared to cut a virgin path through the thick vegetation. Between the river and the sheer cliffs of the southern mountainside there was a space no more than fifty yards wide that allowed for a passage, and the marching men, led by the shining mounted knight, came straight down this avenue towards us.

  Since the morning when we had lost the round ship, two blazingly hot summer-like days, we’d built a chest-high barricade of brushwood cut from the pine forest, more of a big fence really, and set it across the track between the river and the southern cliffs. That was the extent of our defences.

  I was standing guard at the rough gate in the brushwood that served as the entrance to our camp, with two spear-carrying English men-at-arms in sea-swollen leather cuirasses and three of our Sherwood archers – who had only a handful of shafts between them in their arrow bags. The disappearance of the Tarrada in the storm had meant we were left with little food or drink, few serviceable weapons and armour – a shortage of arrows, being the most urgent problem, since more than half of our men were archers. Robin had ordered me to make a collection of all our serviceable arrows, and share them out equally; then he put us all on half-rations.

  In contrast, the approaching Cretan knight and his men were beautifully equipped. The mounted man was clad in a shining coat of tiny steel plates, each plate shield-shaped, thumb-nail sized and sewn on to a leather garment that fell almost to his ankles. The effect was to make him look as if he was covered in glittering scales, like a fish. His right hand held a long lance with a large shining leaf-shaped blade; a long, jewel-hilted sword hung from his belt, and a mace, a great spiked iron club, hung from his ornate saddlebow. He had a shield shaped like a huge teardrop and painted a brilliant white, with a golden device that resembled a bull. His horse, a mighty charger, was draped in a pure white trapper, and the bull device was echoed on its chest and flanks. In the bright Cretan light, he dazzled us like a second sun and his men were only slightly less splendid – each soldier in iron mail coat and white surcoat with the bull-device on his chest and shield, and equipped with an ash-shaft spear, a round shield, a dagger and long, straight arming sword.

  I hungered for those fine arms – a part of me wished to take them forcibly from the Cretans. For, despite their glittering splendour, I did not feel that the approaching strangers posed much of a threat to us: I believed myself the match in battle of any knight, no matter how dazzlingly clad. And my archers – even with only a handful of arrows – could take out at least four of the men-at-arms before they got within fifty yards, if I gave the order. Moreover, there were more than a hundred good Locksley fighting men within earshot and, poorly armed or not, I was confident we could dispatch this small band of intruders in the time it takes to scoff down a mutton pie.

  I was fortunate, in that I had a good iron mail coat, just a little rust-stained from the sea air, and a well-worn old arming sword buckled around my hips – pure luck, really. I had been wearing both items when the storm had struck the Tarrada, having just completed a vigorous combat-training session with Hanno, who was also similarly accoutred. It had been our daily habit on the long, dull voyage from the Holy Land to practice our swordplay on the forecastle for an hour or two in the afternoons. I also had a back-up weapon stuck in my left boot, a long, thin dagger known as a misericorde, from the Latin for “act of mercy” because it was used to give a quick death to mortally wounded knights. Hanno had been giving me lessons in how to best use that murderous tool too: how to end a man silently from behind, exactly where to strike to disable him at a blow and leave him at my mercy. I’d thought I was a competent warrior. Hanno regularly showed me how much I still had to learn.

  The Cretan knight stopped his horse at the barrier, a dozen yards from me, and holding up his hand, he halted the six accompanying footmen too.

  He said something in a loud voice: a proclamation of some kind, of which I did not understand a word, though I recognised the language as Greek – the language spoken by some of the inhabitants on Sicily we had encountered on the outward journey to the Holy Land. We had called them Griffons and held them in contempt for their greed and cowardliness. I was prepared to feel the same way about this shining horseman. Then he repeated his message in excellent French: “Who are you, stranger, who presumes to enter my lord’s land uninvited with men garbed for war? Name yourselves!”

  I straightened my spine, looked directly into the slit in his helmet visor and said: “I am Alan Dale, of Westbury in the county of Nottinghamshire, liegeman of the Earl of Locksley. My lord serves King Richard of England.”

  “You are truly servants of the King of England?” The knight had a note of incredulity in his voice, perhaps even respect – but what was even more surprising was that he spoke in English. “The noble Lionheart who made the long pilgrimage all the way from his northern realm to save the Holy Land?”

  I wished then I wasn’t wearing a dirty, salt-stained tunic under my rusty mail; that I’d bothered to comb my cropped blond hair before going on duty.

  I said: “We are holy pilgrims and protected by order of Pope Celestine in Rome. All who call themselves true Christians are bound to aid us, if they can, and to respect our right of passage if they cannot. We were thrown upon this desolate shore, unwillingly, not two days hence. Our ship was caught in the recent terrible storm and has sunk. We have lost most of our goods and possessions. Who are you to question us, knight – and whom do you serve?”

  “We are indeed true Christians – yet we do not recognise the authority of your Latin Church. We honour, instead, the high and holy Patriarch of Constantinople and all his bishops. Nevertheless, in the Name of Christ, I swear that you will not be harmed or molested while you abide lawfully in our land. I am Kavallarious Nikos Phokas and I am here to invite your captains to come to the House of the Archon, half a day’s ride from here. You are summoned to the presence the ruler of this province, Lord Phokas.”

  I knew, of course, that the island of Crete was part of the sprawling Greek empire ruled from Constantinople – the great ancient city on the Bosphorus known since antiquity as Byzantium. But I was unsure of exactly how things stood between these so-called Orthodox Christians and our own true Christian forces of the Great Pilgrimage. In May, King Richard had captured Cyprus, which under a rebel scion of the Imperial noble family had declared itself free of the Byzantine Empire but, instead of returning the island to the rule of Constantinople, after capturing it Richard had sold it to the Knights of the Order of the Temple so that they might use it as a base for future operations in the Holy Land. And the Byzantine lords had sent no battalions of troops to assist us in the fight against the Muslim chief Saladin, who was our common enemy. This seemed to indicate ambivalence, at least, if not hostility, to our holy cause. Yet this dazzling, English-speaking knight, this Kavallarious, as he called himself, seemed perfectly civil, even friendly.

  I bade him wait outside the brushwood barrier, watched closely by my archers and men-at-arms, and went to consult with Robin.

  “We’d better do as he asks,” my lord said. “This is their land, after all, and we could not resist them if they came at us with their full strength. We need help, Alan. Perhaps this great Lord Phokas can provide us with a ship.”

  So, less than an hour later, Robin and myself, suitably armed and dressed for travel, with half a dozen men-at-arms, came out to join the waiting Kavallarios and his men. We left Little John in charge of our beach encampment – which the Cretan knight told me was known as Matala by the locals – and formed up beside the strangers, holding ourselves as proudly as we could in our bedraggled state. To be honest, it felt good to be on Ghost’s back once again – and the grey gelding seemed fully recovered from his watery ordeal and stormy night in the wood.

  The sun was high as we rode off along the dusty track between the arms of the mountains, leaving the beach and our friends behind us as we climbed steadily, heading generally north-east, I reckoned by the passage of the sun. It was a hot day, hot as an English summer, but a cool breeze off the mountains made the air comfortable and the journey rather pleasant.

  I had no sense of danger from our Cretan escort who trudged along ahead of us in their brilliant white surcoats. Robin was walking his mount beside our six men-at-arms at the rear of the column, discussing something with Gareth, one of the senior members of our company. All was peaceful.

  The landscape we rode through was of golden-brown slopes, some covered with scorched strands of long yellowish grasses but there were also plenty of gnarled, tough-looking silvery-green olive trees dotted here and there to give shade, as well as more of the twisted local Cretan pines. The loud, steady buzz of insects that filled the air was strangely soothing. I scanned the ridges and skylines of the little round-topped hills we passed, purely out of habit, looking for danger of any kind, but I could feel my senses being caressed and lulled by the warm sunshine and, in truth, I saw nothing on that two-hour ride more threatening than a few capering goats.

  “You have not seen this island before?” asked the Kavallarious, who had manoeuvred his horse to walk it next to mine. His English was excellent with only the very slightest Greek accent. I saw that he had removed his pointed helmet in the heat and slung it from his pommel by the leather strap. He was a handsome young man, perhaps sixteen or seventeen years of age, with a long thin straight nose and curly jet back hair, now glistening with oil or sweat. I was bareheaded myself, but with a steel helm and mail coif in my twin saddlebags, which were slung over Ghost’s haunches.

  “I’ve seen Crete before but only from the deck of a ship,” I said. “We made a rendezvous on the north coast off Chandax during the voyage to the Holy Land. But we stayed only one night before continuing our journey.”

  He nodded. “It is a very beautiful island,” he said. “But quite often overlooked – travellers such as yourself often pass us by without remaining very long. They see Crete as a . . . a backwater, is that the correct word?”

  He sounded rather wistful, even a little ashamed of his homeland.

  “How is it that you speak such good English?” I said. It was a question I had been longing to ask.

  “I had excellent tutors,” he said. Then stopped.

  “But why English?” I persisted. “What need of it is there in Crete?”

  “I learnt French, too, and a little German. But I wished to speak all the different tongues of the fighting men of the Great Pilgrimage so that I . . . well . . . I wished to join the holy cause, to fight at the side of the knights of Christendom; to recapture the city of Jerusalem for the sake of Our Saviour.”

  “Why did you not do so?” I said. “I’m sure King Richard and his nobles could have found a use for another brave knight such as you.”

  He smiled at me shyly. “You are kind, sir,” he said. “I wished to join the pilgrimage but my father forbade me. He said I was too young. It was too dangerous . . . So I stayed in my schoolroom studying obscure languages, and mathematics, and rhetoric. While other, better men battled the heathen.”