Suddenly he could no longer see where the Egyptian vanguard began and the French rear ended. Bodies were tumbling into the river. The water was being stained red. Clouds of Saracen arrows were arching into the sky and falling on the crusaders.

Guy d’Etampes rode up. “Have we had any change in orders from the King, Monseigneur?”

“No,” said Amalric. “And we cannot afford to wait for his command. Give the order to ride past the old camp and stop again when we are on the road to Damietta.”

Without waiting for a response he wheeled his horse and headed off northward.

He had to hold back his horse almost to a walk to give his men on foot — which most of them were — a chance to keep up. In the past few weeks horses had become more valued for eating than for riding.

He glanced at the site where the crusaders had first camped on arriving before Mansura. Servants, priests, and other camp followers were swarming like ants whose hill has been kicked open, striking tents, loading bundles on their backs, and fighting over the few remaining donkeys and camels.

“Wait, Monseigneur, will you let us ride with you?” some of the rabble called.

He ignored them.

He rode past galleys tied up along the shore, eyeing them covetously. He could be in Damietta in less than two days if he could commandeer one of those. But Louis, damn him, had insisted on loading the galleys with the sick and wounded. Well, they would be lucky if they got away before the Egyptians fell upon them.

He rode on. He had left the camp a good distance behind when d’Etampes, who was bringing up the rear, trotted up.

“Monseigneur, it appears that our army has turned to stand and fight.”

Amalric’s stomach burned with anger. He had no time for d’Etampes and his stupid reports. He wanted to get himself back to Damietta and safety. That was what counted.

But now he would have to make at least a show of concern.

He looked over his shoulder and saw that some knights and archers had formed a defensive line around the galleys. Fools, he thought. The Saracens will annihilate them.

“The King commanded a retreat,” he said curtly, “and retreat we will, unless he calls me back.”

And not even then, he thought to himself. If Louis should live through this day — and I pray he will not — and he calls me to account, I shall just say I received no message.

They rode along in silence, d’Etampes on one of the few war-horses that had not been eaten, Maurice on Amalric’s other side on a gray palfrey that the wily old man had managed to find somewhere. Before them rode an equerry with the purple and gold Gobignon banner. The Gobignon contingent retreats in good order, Amalric thought with satisfaction, considering what we have been through.

By Saint Dominic, I will see Nicolette again. The thought of her made his groin ache. He had had no woman in months. The filthy, brown Egyptian women disgusted him.

Nicolette, and no more troubadour coming between us, he exulted. That is all over forever.

The shouts and clanging of fighting drifted to Amalric’s ears like a reproach. He was ill at ease with what he was doing — riding away from battle. But knightly conduct or not, what was the purpose in staying? Louis’s army was outnumbered, and the men were too weak to fight. Saint Dominic grant there are no more Saracens waiting up ahead for us.

His troops were not the only ones fleeing such unfavorable odds. Looking back, he could see small bands of men breaking away from the fighting and hurrying up this same road.

He ground his teeth as, one by one, the galleys loaded with the sick and wounded sailed by, moving swiftly downriver with the brown current. Sailing to Damietta loaded with useless ones, he told himself, while he and his men must plod along the road.

In silence he rode, his followers strung out along the riverbank behind him.

At mid-afternoon he heard himself hailed and turned to see a perspiring, terrified-looking priest on a donkey.

“If you please, Monseigneur, will you have your men clear the road? The party of His Excellency the Patriarch of Jerusalem is behind yours and must hurry on.”

Damn! Amalric thought. More lost time. But he could not deny the right-of-way to the most eminent prelate on the expedition. Grudgingly, he passed the order to d’Etampes.

Amalric recognized the Patriarch, a wizened old man wrapped in a black traveling cloak. Even though he was nearly eighty, he kept up easily with the rest of his party without assistance. Clustered about him on horses and donkeys were a flock of priests and monks, most of them, Amalric noted contemptuously, with white faces and wildly staring eyes. They know that the Saracens have especially ugly ways of killing Christian priests, he thought. Two Templars, perhaps the last of the lot that had ridden under William de Sennac, rode on the flanks of the party.

The Patriarch made the sign of the cross at Amalric and his men as he passed by them. Amalric touched forehead, breast, and shoulders in response, but shuddered as he did.

I have done everything I could to destroy this crusade, to bring about the death of the King and his brothers. I have Robert’s blood on my hands. Can a blessing do me any good, or am I damned?

But that would not bring Guido back. His heart was a ball of pain. He hugged his knees to his chest, trying to draw his body tightly together so that it would hurt less. He buried his face in his arms and sobbed bitterly, the paper with Guido’s poem on it clenched in his fist.

XXVII

The crusade was over, Amalric thought, whether Louis realized it or not. He sat on a big, brown war-horse on the riverbank opposite Mansura and watched the last remnants of the crusader army hastily retreating. They were crossing the bridge of boats built seven weeks ago while knights and Mamelukes had been battling on Fat Tuesday on the south side of the city.

Amalric glanced behind him at the remainder of his army, about two hundred knights and eight hundred men-at-arms. Half the number he had brought with him from the Gobignon domain. But the losses had been for good purpose.

He remembered the tears Louis had shed as he realized that he had to abandon the ground his brother and so many others had died for.

Here is where I want it to end, and soon, with Louis and his other two brothers dead in the mud. Dead as Robert. Dead as that bastard de Vency.

Saint Dominic, I wish I could have seen de Vency’s body. Did they burn it, I wonder, or just throw it in the Nile?

If only Louis had decided to stay and fight it out. There would have been a good chance then that he and his brothers might already have been killed. The fortified camp Louis built on the Mansura side would surely have been overrun soon.

Was it only seven weeks since that Fat Tuesday battle? It seemed more like a lifetime to Amalric. Well, he had fought, endured, and stayed alive. And there had been some pleasures, such as watching men who might have been obstacles to him fall. Raoul de Coucy. That gave Amalric a warm feeling. Enguerrand, who had managed to stay home, would now be seigneur of Coucy, and Enguerrand hated the King just as much as he did.

And William de Sennac, killed only a few days after he had survived the fighting in Mansura’s streets, and nearly all his white-cloaked Templars dead, too.

The men retreating across the bridge of boats were far from the strong, brave knights who had marched south from Damietta last autumn. It had been weeks since the galleys from Damietta had brought any fresh food. But why? No one he had spoken to knew. Only this morning Amalric had heard of a barrel of rotten salted beef being sold for eighty silver livres. Back home that would buy a first-rate destrier.

Amalric’s chest swelled as he felt the strength and health in his own body. He knew how to care for himself. Some foolish barons had shared their provisions with the less fortunate and were now as starved and sick as their poorest men-at-arms. Amalric had kept his food and money for himself and for the men he valued most, such as d’Etampes and Maurice. Thank Saint Dominic for Maurice, who could slip out of the camp now and then and come back with fresh fruit and meat.

The retreating men shuffled and stumbled over the bridge. Many of them looked too weak to swing a sword. They were riddled, Amalric knew, with fever, scurvy, and the flux, maladies that had killed more of Louis’s men than the Mamelukes had.

And what of the Mamelukes? He eyed the still unbreached walls of Mansura. Behind those walls, he knew through Maurice’s contacts with the Egyptians, ever greater numbers of Saracens were gathering, coming in from the farthest reaches of the Sultan of Cairo’s empire.

Movement under the walls of Mansura caught Amalric’s eye. He saw banners unfurl and heard the Saracen drums and war cries. Those heart-freezing yells were now as familiar to him as the sight of death.

Our damned fool engineers, they have not even started to cut the ropes that hold the bridge together, thought Amalric. It looked so inviting, lying wide open before the rapidly massing Egyptian army. Amalric could now hear fear in the shouts of the crusaders as they, too, caught sight of the Saracens pouring out of Mansura.

“Allahu akbar!” A great shout reached Amalric from the other side of the river.

What a loathsome din. Thousands of Saracens were howling, backed by hundreds of pipes, trumpets, and drums.

First to come onto the bridge were bizarre-looking men dancing and singing, in black and white robes with long beards. Some stopped every few steps and twirled on their toes so rapidly that their robes billowed out like huge white flowers. Behind them walked tambourine and flute players.

These mad priests — “dervishes” Maurice called them — often led a major Saracen attack. Amalric felt a chill on the back of his neck. Sorcerers!

Now Egyptian foot soldiers with long spears marched onto the bridge. Behind them the Mameluke cavalry came trooping, yellow and green banners waving above their spiked helmets.

Suddenly he could no longer see where the Egyptian vanguard began and the French rear ended. Bodies were tumbling into the river. The water was being stained red. Clouds of Saracen arrows were arching into the sky and falling on the crusaders.

Guy d’Etampes rode up. “Have we had any change in orders from the King, Monseigneur?”

“No,” said Amalric. “And we cannot afford to wait for his command. Give the order to ride past the old camp and stop again when we are on the road to Damietta.”

Yes, she did, Roland thought, remembering that she had said “I love you” to him that day in Paris when they parted forever.

“Then how could she refuse my love?” he asked.

“Saying no to you was the hardest thing she ever did in her life. Perhaps even harder than bearing those weeks of torture. From the time you were boy and girl together, she had never stopped loving you.”

A great joy and peace came over Roland. Then it was not wrong of me to love her. She loved me, too.

“But why did she not accept me if she wanted me that badly? Why did she have to leave me?”

Guido shook his head. “If she had taken you as a lover she would have destroyed herself. I do not accept the Cathar doctrine that there are unforgivable sins, even for those who call themselves ‘perfect.’ But I could not convince her of my view. If she had broken her vow of chastity with you she would have felt so guilty that the rest of her life would have been spent in an earthly hell. As it was, she knew that you loved her, she loved you, and yet she was true to her faith to the end. In a way, her life and death were perfect.”

Guido’s words were healing old wounds that had never been closed. Chained and imprisoned, Roland still felt a new comfort, a new calm. Guido had given him a great gift. He put his hand on Guido’s and gripped it hard.

The iron gate of the prison room crashed open, and Sahil the eunuch glided in, followed by his troop of guards. He held a scroll in his hand. He looked about the room until his hollow eyes fell upon Guido.

“That one. With the white mantle. Take him.”

Shocked, Roland levered himself to his feet, all pain forgotten. “No!”

Guido rose beside him and patted his shoulder. “Be quiet, Roland. There is nothing you can do. I told you I had a debt to pay.”

Perrin came over to them and stood at Roland’s side, holding his other arm. “May you return instantly to the Light, Master Guido,” he said with quiet reverence.

“Oh, I shall,” said Guido with a tranquil smile.

Roland looked desperately around the room.

“There are only six guards here,” he shouted to the captive knights. “There are hundreds of us. Let us stop them!”

He glared at the sad, tired faces. No one moved.

Sahil spoke swiftly to his guards. “Hold that man. If he speaks again, beat him.” Two black-skinned warriors with daggers in their belts seized Roland. On fire with rage, he tensed himself to pull his arms free and fight them.

“Master,” said Perrin gently, “there is little we can do with our ankles chained. Even if we overcame these guards, the rest of the Egyptian army would simply come and slaughter us.”

Sahil stared hard at Roland. “If the Emir Baibars had not taken an interest in you, I would send you to the headsman as well. If you attempt again to stir up your comrades, I will do it.”

The whole room seemed to Roland to grow dark. They were going to take Guido, this marvelous man, his friend, and kill him, and there was nothing he could do. He slumped in the grip of the guards, feeling hardly strong enough to hold himself up.

“Why are you taking him? Why?” he sobbed in anguish. “He is as good a knight as any in this room.”

“Roland,” said Guido, “they are killing all prisoners who cannot pay a ransom. It is against the rule of the Knights Templar for any of us to ransom ourselves. They kept me alive last night so I could treat the wounds of the knights who might be able to pay for their freedom.”

“He must die,” said Sahil, “because the Knights of the Temple have vowed their lives to making war on us.” He spoke in a tone that, in a strange way, sounded respectful. “And they are better fighters than the rest of you Christian dogs. It is a tribute to a man such as this that we make a point of killing him.”

Roland stood looking at Guido, unable to speak. Madness, madness. Why do people kill and kill, for no reason at all?

Guido turned to Sahil. “May I give my friend here a remembrance of me?” The eunuch shrugged and nodded.

Guido slipped his hand inside his torn mantle and took out a rolled-up sheet of paper. “Roland, last night I tried one more time to be a troubadour. Try to keep this about you, and if it pleases you, set it one day to music.”

“I will, Guido,” said Roland, his voice quavering as he took the paper.

“Keep what I have said locked in your heart,” said Guido, calmly drawing his tattered and stained white mantle around him. “When you go back to France a call will come. Do not mourn for me. Lend your warrior’s heart and poet’s mind to the great work Diane and I have lived for. Then we will live on in you.”

He held out his arms to Sahil’s guards and let them lead him away.

The Egyptians holding Roland let him go, and he collapsed, weeping, to the floor. Perrin sat beside him, his hand on Roland’s shoulder. The gate of the prison room clanged shut.

Watching Guido go to his death so serenely, Roland remembered the martyrs of Mont Segur and his vow to them that he would work to put an end to such murder. So far he had accomplished little. Now, perhaps, if he got out of here alive, he could link himself to Guido’s order and achieve more.

But that would not bring Guido back. His heart was a ball of pain. He hugged his knees to his chest, trying to draw his body tightly together so that it would hurt less. He buried his face in his arms and sobbed bitterly, the paper with Guido’s poem on it clenched in his fist.

Roland’s mind spun dizzily. Before his very eyes Guido had turned into a giant or a magician. I thought I knew this man, and I thought I knew the world. Now I find out both are so different I can scarcely believe it.

“We do act to defend ourselves and our friends,” said Guido, “and so may at times strike at powerful enemies. There again Amalric is partly right. Our order has watched over you from the time you were at the court of Frederic, who is also one of our initiates. That is why I took the part I did the night Perrin was attacked, and why I have aided you since then.”

“Frederic?” said Roland, surprised. “But he is not at all like you. He is so — unscrupulous.”

Guido spread his hands. “Many panes — many colors, as I told you. What we have in common is a belief that humanity can be far greater than it is and a hunger for more knowledge of the world around us.”

“I always wondered why you were so quick to befriend me and to go on such an un-monkish adventure as running down highwaymen.”

“We had long been planning to invite you to join our alliance, Roland. Not the Templars, with their vows of poverty and chastity, of course,” he added quickly, with a smile, “but a branch more suited to your temperament. Because of your friendship with King Louis, we had to be very cautious. We had to be absolutely sure of you. Now, because there is so little time, I must speak openly to you.”

The growing light and the noises outside were waking some of the men in the room. Men stumbled over the bodies of others to relieve themselves in the privy corner. They talked in dull, dispirited voices. Guido stood up and drew Roland to the side of the room where the fewest were gathered.

“My friend, there is one thing you must know. Only I, and no one else, can tell you.”

He paused and took Roland’s hand in his own strong grip, his eyes fixed on Roland’s.

“It was I who killed Diane.”

A black curtain swept over Roland’s eyes, and he tottered.

Guido took his arm to steady him.

“You? How?” Roland stammered.

Guido helped him to sit down.

“It was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life, even though it was an act of love. You do understand that, Roland, do you not? I killed her because it was the only way could help her.”

Roland felt tears burning his eyes and running down his cheeks. He stammered, “Yes — yes — I myself wanted to do it. I thought of it often after I learned that she was captured. But I had not the strength. I loved her too much. Or not enough.”

“You loved her body, and so you could not harm it. She and I knew that she was not her body. How else do you suppose she could have withstood those weeks of torture? How I longed to rescue her from that, but there was no way. I could only save her from the final agony of fire, and only with an arrow. I could not even weep for her as I killed her, for fear the tears would spoil my aim.”

“But how did you ever manage to do it — to kill her and escape?”

“I was with a delegation of Templars in Beziers. Our order has often been criticized for our lack of interest in persecuting heretics. So my brothers and I went to Beziers ostensibly to demonstrate our sympathy for the holy work of Friar Hugues. You might have seen me there, but fortunately you did not. If you had, you would have hated me, and I would not, at that time, have been able to tell you the real reason I came. Count Amalric had stationed all his men in the plaza, leaving many of the towers on the city wall unguarded. I slipped into an empty tower that overlooked the plaza. Afterward, dressed as I was in a Templar’s mantle, I simply let myself appear to be the first one of the pursuers who found the archer’s hiding place, the discoverer of the bow and arrows. I went back to my brother Templars, and half the people who saw me in the tower forgot me in their excitement. We Templars look so much alike with our beards and mantles. The idea that someone from the clerical party on the church steps might have done the killing was so farfetched it occurred to no one. Only Hugues would have had a devious enough mind to think of such a thing, and he, poor fellow, was gone.”

Roland, battered by shock after shock, could only shake his head dazedly. Here he had worried about Guido discovering Diane’s identity, and all along there had been a secret link between them.

But why did he call Hugues a “poor fellow”?

“Surely you are not sorry you killed Hugues, are you?”

The Egyptians were shouting orders at one another in the courtyard, and in the corridors of the house Roland heard the approach of jingling mail and clanking weapons. The sun was fully up now, and Baibars’s cavalry must be attacking what was left of the crusader army. Would he win the victory he expected?

“I do regret killing him,” said Guido. “It was done on an impulse of rage. I could not hold back when I saw him thrusting that torch at her face. My act caused much evil. Amalric’s reprisals killed hundreds and hurt thousands horribly. I could not surrender myself to Amalric, because that would have exposed the order and done even greater harm.”

He paused, and Roland saw tears standing in his dark eyes. His shoulders seemed bent under some great weight.

“Having injured so many innocents, I have a great debt to pay.”

Roland knew that their conversation might be interrupted at any moment. So he asked the question uppermost in his mind.

“Why did you care so much about Diane? Is it because the Cathars are part of this secret alliance you tell me of?”

“Only some Cathars are part of it. Most do not know of it, just as most Templars know nothing of it. Diane was told about it after she survived the massacre at Mont Segur. She became an unknowing link between the Cathars and the Templars. In that chain, I was her superior. I met with her secretly.”

“When you brought Perrin to our house the night he was hurt, did she know who you were?”

“She never knew that her superior and Guido Bruchesi were the same person. I always met her at night and hid my face. I came to know her, though, and love her.”

“You loved her?” Roland stared into the dark eyes.

“Yes, Roland, I loved her.” Guido squeezed Roland’s arm gently. “Pledged to chastity as I am, my love for her was a thing of the spirit. My God, she was a beautiful person! How could anyone with a heart and soul help but love her?”

“Yes — I know —” Roland stammered.

“It was I,” Guido went on, “who insisted, perhaps unwisely, that she remain at your house in Paris when she begged me to let her leave.”

At the reminder of those days in Paris Roland felt a pang of regret so sharp his tears flowed afresh.

Guido said, “She loved you desperately, Roland. She was on the point of breaking her vows and giving herself to you after Nicolette discovered her at your house.”

Yes, she did, Roland thought, remembering that she had said “I love you” to him that day in Paris when they parted forever.

“Then how could she refuse my love?” he asked.

“Saying no to you was the hardest thing she ever did in her life. Perhaps even harder than bearing those weeks of torture. From the time you were boy and girl together, she had never stopped loving you.”

“The Tartars are warriors without peer,” said Guido gloomily. “They have conquered half the world.”

“Baibars spoke of ‘the late Sultan.’”

“Then it is true that Ayub is dead. His eldest son, Turan Shah, will claim the throne.”

They spoke in low voices. The men all around were sleeping, except for one who got up, stumbled to a corner of the room, and let go a stream of piss against the wall.

“I can understand poor Robert d’Artois wanting to charge into Mansura,” Roland said. “He was a hotheaded man. But how could experienced leaders like Longsword and de Sennac let Amalric talk them into such a disaster? It was plain madness.”

Guido said, “That madness is what gives knights their power over the rest of mankind. Being willing to ride straight into the arms of death — that is what makes knights different from commoners. You have more than a touch of that madness yourself. You rode into Mansura with the rest of us.”

Roland found himself thinking of Diane. “Diane was always ready for death. Sometimes she seemed to want it. But she did not want the kind of power over others that knights have.”

“Many of us are like Diane,” said Guido.

Something in Guido’s voice sounded strange to Roland. “Many of us? How can a Catholic Knight of the Temple of Solomon be like a Cathar preacher?” Roland remembered how he had once feared that Guido would discover that Diane was a Cathar. How long ago that now seemed.

“Solomon’s temple harbors more secrets than you might guess,” said Guido. His voice was so soft that Roland had to strain to hear him. “I have permission to share some of that hidden knowledge with you. Roland, not all Knights Templar are merely what they purport to be. There exists within our order, another, secret order.”

The light filtering in through the narrow window was brighter now, and the prayer callers in the towers of Mansura’s mosques began their cries, reminding Roland that he was the prisoner of people who hated his kind, with good reason, and might at any moment decide to kill him.

Guido’s words made Roland want to draw back. He felt almost reluctant to hear more. He might, he suspected, learn things he would be better off not knowing.

“Guido, are you telling me that you are a heretic?”

In measured tones Guido said, “I am not a heretic. A heretic disagrees with the Church over this or that point of belief. I have left the Church far behind. I gave up everything when I joined the Templars — the little wealth I possessed, the love of women. I vowed to follow the orders of my superiors. I tell you in simple truth that I do not miss my past life. With my fellows, I have known, through the light imparted by my secret order, such bliss as no other Christians — except, I imagine, a few saints — have experienced on this earth.” He gripped Roland’s arm and stared into his eyes with a burning intensity. “Roland, I live in that state now, even as I talk to you.”

Roland looked deeper into his friend’s eyes and realized that what he was seeing was joy.

“You are a troubadour yourself, Guido,” Roland said. “You must know that those who practice courtly love attain the bliss you speak of. But we find it through the love of man and woman, not by giving up love.”

“Of course. But it is also possible to achieve the heights by constraining the appetite for physical love. There is one Light, but we need a window to see it, and in that window are panes of many different colors. Courtly lovers, Templars, Cathars, the masons’ guild, and many others have their representatives in our order. We have even forged secret links among Christians, Moslems, Jews, and men and women of other religions in far-off countries most people have never heard of.”

Roland was astounded. A secret organization of so many different kinds of people spread across the world, yet all sharing the same hidden knowledge of the inner light he had discovered as a troubadour — the vision made his head reel.

He said, “Nicolette once told me that de Gobignon believes there is a network of heretical plotters who are working to overthrow the kings of Christendom and the Pope and his prelates.”

Then he caught his breath. In his excitement he had forgotten himself. He had never before told Guido that he had talked privately with Nicolette. Well, what matter now? If Guido could be trusted with Diane’s secret, he could be trusted with this one as well.

Roland went on, “I thought it was a fantastic tale Amalric had invented to justify his ambition. Are you telling me now that there is such a network?”

Roland heard voices and the tramp of boots in the courtyard outside the barred window, in that terrible garden. Was there to be more killing now?

Guido glanced at the window and sighed, as if he were thinking the same thing. He leaned forward to speak in a still lower voice.

“De Gobignon is partly right, but the truth is so different from what he imagines that he might as well be entirely wrong. There is an alliance, and it is secret. It must be kept secret, for if any king or prince of the Church learned what is truly at the heart of the Poor Knights of the Temple of Solomon, we would all go to the stake. But our goal is not to overthrow those in power, as the count imagines. We seek knowledge, we protect it, and we pass it on to our friends. Instead of a web of conspirators, you might think of us as an invisible university.”

Roland’s mind spun dizzily. Before his very eyes Guido had turned into a giant or a magician. I thought I knew this man, and I thought I knew the world. Now I find out both are so different I can scarcely believe it.

“We do act to defend ourselves and our friends,” said Guido, “and so may at times strike at powerful enemies. There again Amalric is partly right. Our order has watched over you from the time you were at the court of Frederic, who is also one of our initiates. That is why I took the part I did the night Perrin was attacked, and why I have aided you since then.”