Alternate Generals II

Devil's Bargain Judith Tarr

Richard Coeur de Lion, King of the English, Duke of Normandy, Count of Anjou, and numerous other titles that his clerks exercised themselves to remember, was enjoying a great rarity in this country: a day without one of his endless fevers. His new physician was taking the credit, but he rather thought that the thing had simply run its course. This man, however, was remarkable in prescribing, not noxious potions, but cups of sherbet cooled with snow.

The snow came from Mount Hermon, and the Saracens imported great quantities of it, sealed in straw; one of his raiding companies had brought in enough to keep him in sherbet for a good month. He was not at all averse to the regimen. Cold sweetened nectar of lemon or orange or citron was more than pleasant in the hills near Jerusalem in June.

He sat in the shade of a canopy, sipping his medicine and watching a knight from Burgundy and a knight from Poitou settle a dispute by combat. The Burgundian was getting the worst of it: he was not as young or by any means as thin as his adversary, and the heat, even this early in the morning, was taking its toll. Richard watched with professional interest, because the Poitevin was a jouster of some renown; but when he laid a wager, he laid it on the Burgundian. The lesser fighter had the better horse, lighter and quicker and, though it sweated copiously, less visibly wilted by the heat. The Poitevin's charger was enormous even by the standard of the great horses of Flanders, and although it lumbered and strained through the turns and charges of the joust, no sweat darkened its heavy neck.

Having handed his gold bezant to Blondel the singer, who was keeping track of the wagers, Richard let his mind wander even as his eye took in the strokes of the fight. He liked to do that: it helped him think. And there was much to think about.

He would not camp in sight of Jerusalem. If it happened he must ride where he could see it, he had a squire hold up a shield in front of his eyes. He had sworn an oath: he would not look on those walls and towers or the golden flame of the Dome of the Rock, until he had come to take it for God and the armies of Christendom. But scouts who kept the city in sight said that it had been boiling like an anthill since shortly after sunset the evening before.

None of his spies had come in with reliable news. They did know that all the Saracen raiding parties had begun to swarm back toward the city, and messengers-all of whom, damn them, had escaped pursuit-had ridden out at a flat gallop on the roads to the north and east. Rumors were flying. The Sultan Saladin was preparing a killing stroke against the Franks; Islam was under siege from some hitherto unforeseen enemy; Jerusalem had been invaded in the night by an army of jinn and spirits of the air. There was even a rumor that no one credited: Saladin himself was ill or wounded or dead.

Richard had prayed for that. He was not fool enough to expect that it was true. The Old Man of the Mountain had sent his Assassins against Conrad of Monferrat the month before last and thrown the succession of the Frankish Kingdom of Jerusalem into great disorder, but if anyone was to be thought of as the Assassins' next target, that was Richard himself. He refused to live in fear because of it; that was not his way. But he did not turn his back on the possibility, either.

The Poitevin's horse collapsed abruptly, just as the Burgundian flailed desperately at the rider's head. The heavy broadsword struck the great casque of the helm with a sound like a hammer on an anvil. The Poitevin dropped like a stone.

The horse was dead-boiled in its own skin, without the relief of sweat to cool it. The knight was alive but unconscious. The unexpected victor sat motionless on the back of his heaving and sweat-streaming destrier, until his squire came running to get him out of the stifling confinement of the helm and lead him dazedly off the field. His face in its frame of mail was a royal shade of crimson.

As men from the cooks' tents hauled the dead horse off to the stewpots, a different disturbance caught Richard's attention. "See what that is," he said at random, waving off Blondel and the winnings of his wager. Several of the knights and squires nearby sprang up to obey, but Blondel was quickest on his feet.

Richard's eyes followed him as he went. He had the grace of a gazelle.

He came back so swiftly that he seemed to fly, and with such an expression on his face that Richard rose in alarm, half-drawing his sword. "Sire," he said. "Lord king, come. Please come."

Richard only paused to order his attendants to stay where they were. They did not like the order, but they obeyed it. With Blondel for guide and escort, Richard strode swiftly toward the camp's edge.

One of his scouting parties had come in with a captive: a slender man in desert robes, with the veil drawn over his face. He seemed not to care where he was or who had caught him. He sat on the rocky ground, cross-legged in the infidel fashion; his head was bent, his shoulders bowed. He had the look of a man on the raw edge of endurance.

"He was headed here, sire," the sergeant said. "He didn't resist us at all, except to stick a knife in Bernard when he tried to pull off the face-veil."

Bernard nursed a bandaged hand, but Richard could see that he would live. Of the infidel, Richard was not so sure. He reached out; his men tensed, on the alert, but the infidel made no move to attack.

He drew the veil aside from a face he knew very well. It belonged to a man he trusted more than most Franks, a loyal and diligent servant whom he had thought safe in this very camp, serving as interpreter for the clerks and the quartermasters. Although, come to think of it, Richard had not seen him for a day or two. Days? A week? The damned fever had taken Richard out of time.

"Moustafa!" Richard said sharply.

At the sound of his name, Moustafa came a little to himself. His skin had the waxy look of a man who had lost too much blood; there was wetness on the dark robes, and the stiffness of drying blood. His eyes were blank, blind. He was not truly conscious; all that held him up was the warrior's training that let him sleep in the saddle.

Richard called for his men to fetch a litter. While they did that, he sent Blondel to fetch the physician. "Tell him to attend me in my tent. And be quiet about it."

Blondel barely remembered to bow before he turned and ran. This time Richard did not pause to watch him. The litter was taking too long. Richard lifted Moustafa in his arms, finding him no great weight: he was a slender man as so many infidels were, compact and wiry-strong, without the muscular bulk of a Frank.

Richard sought his tent quickly, almost at a run. Even so, Judah bar-Samuel the physician was waiting for him, with a bed made and a bath waiting and all made ready for the care of a wounded man. Moustafa was all but bled out; Judah scowled at the wound in his side that had bled through the rough bandages beneath his robe, and the others here and there that might have been little in themselves, but all together had weakened him severely.

Moustafa began to struggle, as if swimming up through deep water. This time when his eyes opened, they saw Richard. They saw precious little else, but they fixed on his face with feverish clarity. "Malik Ric," he said. "Lord king. The Sultan of Damascus is dead."

How peculiar, Richard thought with the cool remoteness of shock. The one rumor everyone had discounted, and it was true. "Assassins?"

Moustafa nodded.

Richard drew a breath, then let it out. He sat beside the bed, leaning toward Moustafa. The infidel groped for his hand and clutched with strength enough to bruise. With that for a lifeline, he said, "Lord king, I pray you will pardon me. I left my place. I abandoned my duty. I went spying in Jerusalem."

"So I gather," Richard said dryly. "What possessed you to do that?"

Moustafa sighed, catching his breath on an edge of pain. Judah scowled, but Richard was proof against the disapproval of physicians and nursemaids. "Lord king, it was foolish. You were sick, and I was bored. Nobody knew what was going on inside the city. I decided to see for myself."

"What did you see?"

"I visited al-Malik al-Adil-the lord Saphadin. He was glad to see me. He sends you his greetings, and says that he hopes you won't mind that he doesn't also wish you good fortune in your war against his brother."

Richard's lips twitched in spite of themselves. "You know," he said, "that I should have you executed as a deserter and a spy."

Moustafa did not even blink. "You probably should, my lord," he said. "I stayed with the lord Saphadin, and I watched Saladin's caravans fill the city. It's provisioned for a great siege. Yesterday-yesterday I stood with the Sultan while the last of the supply-trains came in, and afterwards I followed him as he went with his brother to pray in the Dome of the Rock. And in the hour of the evening prayer, while we all performed the prostrations toward Mecca, two of the Sultan's mamluks, the most trusted of his servants, whom he had loved like sons, rose up and killed him.

"I was there beside him, my lord. I killed one of the Assassins. The other almost killed me, but the lord Saphadin cut him down."

"You weren't paid well for the service, from the look of you," Richard observed.

Moustafa shook his head, perhaps more to clear it than to shake off the chill of Richard's words. "I didn't give anyone time to be grateful. I left as soon as I could. The city was in terrible disorder. The lord Saphadin was doing what he could, but it was like a madness. People were running wild, shrieking and striking at one another-crying out that every man was an Assassin. They set fire to a street of houses near the Wailing Wall, and tried to loot the storehouses, but the garrisons were able to stop that. I escaped when the messengers went out to summon the Sultan's emirs and his son and the rest of his brothers from Damascus. I came to you as fast as I could. I would have been faster, but my horse was shot from under me, and it took a while to steal another."

Moustafa fell silent. He had run out of strength; he was unconscious again-and none too soon, said Judah's glare. Richard rubbed an old scar that ran along his jaw under his beard, letting that narrow dark face fill his vision while the tale filled his mind.

Blondel was still there, crouched in a corner, watching and listening. The round blue eyes were narrowed a little, the full mouth tight, but then they always were when he saw Richard with Moustafa. It was a pity, Richard thought, that two of the people he trusted most in the world were so intractably jealous of one another.

"Blondel," Richard said in a tone that he knew would catch and hold the singer's attention. "Go to Hubert Walter. Tell him what you heard here. Have him call the war-council, and quickly. There's no time to waste."

For an instant he thought Blondel would refuse to move, but the boy was a good enough soldier, for a lute-player. He nodded, bowed just a little too low, and ran.

Richard set guards over the wounded man, sturdy English yeomen whom he trusted implicitly. Then he went to order the attack on Jerusalem. He was too old a soldier to skip like a child, but his heart was as light as air.

They would move toward evening and march by night, taking advantage of the cooler air and the cover of darkness. In the meantime the watchers in the hills reported that the city's gates were shut, but there were ample signs of disarray: sentries missing from their usual walk on the walls, sounds of fighting, and smoke and flames from more than the single fire that Moustafa had spoken of.

Richard found that encouraging, but he was not about to rely on it. Saphadin was a wise and canny man. Whoever, whatever had roused and sustained the uproar in the city, he would devote his every resource to restoring order. Jerusalem was too vital, too sacred, and much too well prepared for a siege. No general worth the name would let it go.

Time was short and Richard's resources thin, but if he moved quickly enough, he would win a city filled to the brim with provisions. It was a gamble, but one well worth taking.

It did not take overly long to inform the war-council of his plan, and give them their orders. Not all or even most of them were overly eager for a fight, but Richard had not asked them for their opinions in the matter. Judging from the alacrity with which the army itself moved into position, the troops were of Richard's mind: now or never. Strike fast or give up the war.

Richard took an hour in the worst heat of the day to rest: soldier's wisdom, and he had seen a good number of his men taking the same opportunity. Judah was still occupied with Moustafa, but the canopied porch in front of Richard's tent was both cooler and airier. Blondel, apparently recovered from his fit of the sulks, had lowered the veils of gauze that kept out the flies and some of the heat, and brought in a fan and a fan-bearer to cool Richard while he dozed.

Richard slept for a while with his head in Blondel's lap. He did not know exactly what woke him: whether it was the sound of a footstep or Blondel's sudden, perfect and rigid stillness.

He took stock before he opened his eyes. One person-no, two, but the second was of no account. Under cover of his body, he let his hand slip toward the dagger at his belt. His fingers closed round its hilt as he opened his eyes.

There were two strangers sitting under his canopy, as calm as if they had every right to be there, and never a sign that his guards or sentries had marked their coming. They were both dressed all in white. One was very young and surprisingly fair-skinned, almost as fair as Blondel, with grey eyes full of dreams. The other was white-bearded and old, and might have seemed frail, except that he was sitting here in the heart of Richard's camp, watching Richard with a dark and steady stare. His lips smiled, but his eyes had the cold glitter of a snake's.

By that Richard knew him. Richard judged it wise not to move, but to remain where he was, hand on the dagger's hilt, ready to attack or to defend if the moment presented itself.

The Old Man of the Mountain spoke, and his companion rendered the words into fluent French. The young Assassin's accent, Richard noticed, had a strong flavor of Provence. "A good day to you, king of the Franks," he said.

"I am the king of the English," Richard said.

"You are all Franks," the Old Man said mildly. He seemed a harmless creature, no more strength in him than a bundle of sticks. And yet, like a spider crouched in the center of its web, he kept watch over all the strands of power in this part of the world.

He did not frighten Richard. If death had been on the Old Man's mind, he would have sent a party of his Faithful, armed with daggers. He had come himself-which was half a gesture of contempt for the strength and vigilance of Richard's army, and half a signal honor. For the Old Man to leave his mountain was a rare and significant thing.

Richard settled more comfortably, yawned and stretched and said, "I see you're keeping me in reserve."

"That is a way of putting it," the Old Man said dryly. "I see you're taking advantage of the opening I gave you."

"Did you expect that I wouldn't?"

"Franks are sometimes hard to predict," the Old Man said. "I've come to offer you a bargain."

Richard raised a brow. "Oh, have you? And what would that be? Pack up and go away and you won't kill me?"

"If I had wanted that, I would have left the Sultan alive."

Richard sat up. He was not a master of nuance-that was his mother's gift-but this was obvious enough. "You think he would have defeated me."

"I know he would have kept Jerusalem. And you would have left with your Crusade unfinished."

Richard felt the swift rush of heat, the temper that, if he let it, could rip this monstrous old man apart. But he was not ready to do that, not yet. "So now he's gone-and I'm going to mourn him. He was my enemy and it serves me well that he's dead, but he was a worthy adversary."

"Surely," the Old Man said. "Here is your bargain. I can give you Jerusalem: weaken its commanders, lure off its troops, and open its gates at your coming. As an earnest of my good faith, I've already begun to act on my promise. The riots are my doing, and the disturbances that refuse to be quieted for anything the emirs and the princes can do. In return, I ask a simple favor."

"Is any favor simple?" Richard demanded.

"They're all simple: I profit you, you profit me. I give you the city you prayed to win. You give me a simple thing: freedom. Take all of this country that pleases you, except those territories and castles that are mine. Leave me free to do my duty to Allah and my Faith."

"And if that duty is to destroy everything I build?"

The Old Man shrugged, a fluid roll of the shoulders. For an instant Richard saw not a feeble old man but a veteran warrior, all cunning and whipcord strength. "I can give you what you want most. Whether I later take it away… that is in the hands of God, and your own conduct toward me and mine. It's a gamble. But what in this life is not?"

"You bargain like the Devil," Richard said, but he laughed. "And this is a devil's bargain-but I'll take it. For Jerusalem I'll take it."

"So be it," said the Old Man of the Mountain. "Wait as you planned, march as you planned. When you come to the city, dispose your troops as you intended, but wait for a signal."

"And what will that signal be?" asked Richard.

"It will be unmistakable," the Old Man said. "Go with God, king of Franks. And may God give you all you pray for."

Richard could swear that he only blinked; that no one moved. But one moment the Old Man and his interpreter were there, and the next they had vanished into the heatstruck air.

Richard's army came to Jerusalem by starlight. They had met only one troop of defenders on the way, a party of Turkish archers who must have been late in receiving word of the sultan's death. Richard loosed the Templars on them; the warrior monks cut them apart with holy glee.

He had told no one of the bargain he had made. That there was treachery in the city, yes; but not whose doing it was. None of them would understand. None of them was a king.

Philip of France, that supple snake-he would have understood. But he had called this Crusade a fool's errand and taken himself back to France. Barbarossa of the Germans was dead. There was no clearly acknowledged King of Jerusalem, now that the Assassins had taken Conrad. There was only Richard here, on this march, disposing his troops along the barren hills and through valleys so holy that they could barely support the weight of living green.

He rode last, leading the rearguard, as if to thrust himself to the front would turn all this to mist and dream: he would wake and find himself prostrate with another fever, and Saladin still alive, and no honest hope of winning the prize he had dreamed of for so long. But even as slowly as he rode, in the end he topped the stony summit of the hill and looked on the Holy City.

It was a darkness on darkness, shot with streaks of fire. When he looked down, he found his army more by feel than sight. There was no moon; the stars were hazed with dust and heat. His skin prickled with it under the weight of padding and mail.

His horse snorted softly, pawing with impatience. Its steel-shod hoof sent up a shower of sparks.

In almost the same moment, a comet of fire arched up over Jerusalem. Then at last he saw the outline of walls and towers, and the golden flame of the Dome. And more to the point, he saw David's Gate open below the loom of the tower. There were no lights visible in the tower, no sign of guards on the wall or in the gate. Torchlight gleamed within, casting a golden glow across the meeting of roads that led up to the gate.

It could be a trap. Richard was ready for that. He had focused his attack on the gate, though the rams would not be needed after all; in their place he sent a company of crossbowmen. They took their positions out of ordinary bowshot, and sent a barrage of bolts into the open gate.

Nothing moved inside it. No hidden troops fell screaming from the towers. The gate was empty, open and inviting.

Richard gambled as he had with the Old Man: he ordered the first wave into the city. With a cry of trumpets and a thunder of drums, they swarmed out of the hills and fell upon Jerusalem.

Richard had intended to go in with the rearguard, but as the vanguard swarmed toward the gate, he could not bear it. He clapped spurs to his destrier's sides. He barely cared if anyone went with him; all his heart and soul were fixed on that flicker of torchlight.

He was not the first to pass beneath that echoing gate, but he was far from the last. Although he had never been in the city, he knew its ways as if he had been born to them. He had committed them to heart against just such a day, praying every night and every morning that it would come to pass.

This was David's Gate, the gate of the north and west, guarded by the Tower of David in which the kings of Jerusalem had lived and ruled and fought. The Tower seemed deserted, empty of troops and even of noncombatants. The street of David that ran inward from it, nearly straight through the middle of the city till it reached the Beautiful Gate of the Temple on the other side, was as empty as the Tower, but for crumpled shapes that proved to be bits of abandoned baggage: an empty sack, a heap of broken pots, a chest with its lid wrenched off and nothing within but a scent of sandalwood.

He was deeply, almost painfully aware of the holiness of this place, the sanctity of every stone. But in this hour he was a fighting man, and there was a fight ahead-that, he was sure of. But where? Not, he hoped, in every street and alley of this ancient and convoluted place.

The Old Man had woven this web and, Richard had no doubt, cleared this sector of the city for the invasion. Both he and Moustafa had spoken more than once of the Dome of the Rock. That was the Muslims' great holy place, the rock from which their Prophet had been taken up to heaven. Like the Holy Sepulcher for the Christians, it was the heart and soul of their faith.

It was also a great fortress and storehouse, built as a mosque and then transformed into the stronghold of the Knights Templar: the Templum Domini, the Temple of the Lord. Saladin had died under its splendid dome. It would be like the Old Man's humor to drive Saphadin's troops there and pen them like sheep for Richard to slaughter. Saphadin might even hope to withstand a siege, until hordes of reinforcements could come from his kinsmen in Damascus.

Richard gathered his vanguard and the second wave of forces behind it, ordered the lanterns lit to guide them, and led them into the city. The third rank would go in after a pause, and sweep the city behind them, taking it street by street if need be.

Beyond the gate, at last, they met opposition: a barricade across the broad street, and turbaned Saracens manning it. The Norman destriers ran right over them. It cost a horse, gut-slit by an infidel who died under the hooves of the beast he slew, but none of Richard's men fell, even when the archers began to shoot from the rooftops. They were ready for that: shields up, interlocked as they pressed forward.

There were two more barricades between David's Tower and the Latin Exchange, where half a dozen skeins of streets met and mingled. One barricade they broke as they had the first, but at higher cost: there were more men here, and more archers. They lost a man-at-arms there, arrow-shot in the eye. The other barricade was broken when they came to it, all its defenders dead-Assassins' work, quite likely. Past that, as they marched warily round the looming bulk of the Khan al-Sultan, they found the way clear, and only dead men to bar it. Walls on either side rose high and blank, windows shuttered, gates shut and barred.

Richard was preternaturally aware of the force he led, as if it had been a part of his own body. He felt as much as heard the troop of Germans who ventured to creep off and begin the sack before the city was won. An English voice called a halt to them, and English troops barred their way. They snarled like a pack of dogs, but they were quelled, for the moment.

Morning was coming. The sky was growing lighter. He could see the Dome of the Rock floating above the walls, seeming no part of earth at all.

No time for awe. Not yet. It was as he had expected: the Beautiful Gate was heavily manned. There were turbaned helmets all along the wall, archers with bows bent and aimed downward at Richard's army.

He had siege engines. He had the city. He could take the bait the infidels offered, and be snapped up in turn by the massed armies of Damascus.

"No," he said to no one in particular. He had been promised Jerusalem. This, to an infidel, was the heart of it.

He rolled the dice one last time. He sent for the rams-but when that messenger had gone at a gallop, he brought up the heaviest of his heavy cavalry, the German and Flemish knights on their massive chargers. The beasts were as fresh as they could be on this side of the sea, with the cool of the dawn and the slowness of their progress through the city.

Richard addressed them in a voice that was low but pitched to carry. "I've heard that a charge of armored knights could break down the walls of Babylon, and those are three lance-lengths thick. This gate's not near as thick as that. There's not much room to get going, but we'll give you all we can, and we'll cover you with crossbow fire. Just break that gate for me."

"Deus lo volt," they replied: the war cry of the Crusade. "God wills it."

The rest of the army drew back as much as it could. It must have looked like a retreat: Richard heard whooping and jeering on the wall. So much the better. The charge prepared itself behind a shield of English and Norman knights.

When it was ready, the crossbowmen in place, Richard raised his sword. As it swept down, the knights lumbered into motion. Their shield melted away, then came together behind them.

Crossbow bolts picked off the Saracen archers with neat precision. The knights beneath them were moving faster now, building speed from walk to an earth-shaking trot. Lances that had been in rest now lowered. The few arrows that fell among them did no damage, sliding off the knights' armor or the horses' caparisons, or falling harmless, to be trampled under the heavy hooves.

The Saracens above the gate were brave or desperate: they hung on, though more and more of their number fell dead or wounded. The charge struck the gate with force like a mountain falling. Lances splintered. The destriers in the lead, close pressed behind, reared and smote the gate with their hooves. The knights' maces and morningstars whirled and struck, whirled and struck.

They broke down that gate of gold and forged steel as if it had been made of straw, trampled over it and plunged through. The second, less massive but still powerful charge thundered behind them, Richard's English and his Normans chanting in unison: "Deus lo volt! Deus lo volt!"

There was a battle waiting for them in the court of the Temple; mounted and afoot, the dead Sultan's gathered forces under command of a prince in a golden helmet. That helmet had been Saladin's, and the armor had been his, too; but he had never ridden that tall bay stallion, Richard's gift to the great knight and prince of the infidels, al-Malik al-Adil, the lord Saphadin. The first light of the sun caught the peak of his helmet and crowned him with flame.

Richard's knights plunged deep into the waiting army of infidels. His lighter cavalry, his archers, his foot soldiers were close behind them. The court could not hold them all. Over half waited in reserve outside, or had gone up on the walls and dealt with the archers whom the crossbowmen had not disposed of.

It was a hot fight. The enemy had been herded and trapped here, but they had not been robbed of either their courage or their fighting skill. They contested every inch of that ancient paving, right up to the gate of the golden mosque.

Richard faced Saphadin there, the Saracen prince with his back to the barred door, and Richard too on foot, man to man and sword to sword. Richard was taller, broader, stronger; his reach was longer, his sword heavier. But Saphadin was quicker, and he had far more to lose. He drove Richard back with a flashing attack. He was smiling, a soft, almost drowsy smile, deep with contentment.

It was the smile of a man who had decided to die, and had chosen the manner of his death. He was wearing himself into swift exhaustion. It was a grand and foolish gesture, showing off all his swordsmanship; he would know, none better, that Richard would simply wait him out.

Richard waited, keeping sword and shield raised to defend against the whirling steel. He was aware, while he waited, of the battle raging around him. His men were gaining the upper hand, but they were paying for it. There were too many of them in too small a space, and their heavier horses, their heavier armor and weapons, were beginning to tell on them as the sun climbed the sky.

It had to end quickly. Richard did two things almost at once: he firmed his grip on his sword as Saphadin's swirl of steel began to flag, found the opening he had been waiting for, and clipped the Saracen prince neatly above the ear; then, not even waiting for the man to fall, he spun and bellowed, "Now!"

They had all been playing the waiting game. Now they struck in earnest, as his reserves charged in through the Beautiful Gate, swarming over the enemy, surrounding him and bringing him down.

By noon it was done. The Temple of the Lord was taken. The defenders paid the price that the knights of the Kingdom of Jerusalem had paid at the slaughter of Hattin, where the kingdom fell and the Crusade was born: the high ones died or were held for ransom; the ordinary troops were chained and led away to be sold into slavery.

Saphadin was alive; Judah the physician had taken him in hand. Richard did not intend to let him go, not while he had value as a hostage. For the moment he was safe, and heavily guarded; Richard did not fear for the prince's safety among his own men, but the Old Man of the Mountain was another matter.

When Richard was certain that his army was under control, the packs of looters caught and hanged where they stood, and the cleansing of the city and particularly the Temple well begun, he went at last to the place he had dreamed of. He entered the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, that he had won back for Christendom, and laid his sword on the tomb in which the Lord Christ had risen from the dead.

It was near dark when he emerged. A flock of people waited for him, but he only took notice of the squire who knew where he could find a bath, dinner, and a bed for an hour or two before he went back to securing the city.

Those were in the Tower of David, in what might have been the king's lodgings: rooms both wide and airy for a castle, fastidiously clean, and about them still a hint of eastern perfumes. Richard cared only that the basin for the bath was full and the water hot, and dinner was waiting, and the bed was ready, clean and fresh with herbs.

The bath was bliss on his aching bones, his bruises and the few small wounds. The servants were deft and quiet; one of them was adept at soothing away aches and the raw strain of exhaustion. He sighed and closed his eyes.

"So, king of Franks," said a soft voice in his ear, speaking Latin with an eastern accent, "are you satisfied with your bargain?"

Richard was abruptly and completely awake. He kept his eyes shut, his body slack. He was completely vulnerable here, naked in the bronze basin, and no weapon in the room, not even a knife for cutting meat.

The Old Man of the Mountain went on bathing him with a servant's skill. He shuddered in his skin, but he would never, for his life's sake, let this man see him flinch. "Did I not do well? Have you complaints of the gift I gave you?"

"I have no complaints," Richard said, deep and slow, as if half in a dream. So, he thought: the Old Man had never needed an interpreter at all. It was all part of the game he played, deceit upon delusion upon deception.

"Now you will do your part," the Old Man said.

"Yes," said Richard; a long sigh.

"Truly," said the Old Man. Richard felt a cold soft kiss at his throat, and the faintest, barely perceptible sting of the dagger's edge. "Remember. I can follow you wherever you go, find you wherever you hide. Keep your bargain, and your life is sacred to me. Break it, and you die."

"I understand," Richard said. He gathered himself inside, still in the dark of closed eyes, vividly aware of the steel pressed to his throat.

In the instant that it yielded, he struck: up, round, in a whirl of water. The dagger flew wide. The Old Man fell headlong into the basin. He was fully as strong as Richard had expected, but Richard was stronger. Barely; he was near to drowning himself when the thrashing slowed and mercifully stopped. He held the old monster underwater for a long while, not trusting even the letting go of the bowels that was a clear, and redolent, mark of death.

When his hands began to shake with weariness and the water began to grow chill, he let go, and called his guards and squires. They stumbled at the door: the servants' bodies were there, one stabbed to the heart, one strangled. "Bury them with honor," Richard said, "but hang this carrion from the wall."

They did his bidding, nor did he care what they thought, or what they said once they were out of his presence. Let them think what they pleased, as long as they rid him of the Old Man's body.

The Old Man's presence lingered long after his earthly remains were taken away, the basin emptied and scoured, and the room blessed by the nearest convenient prelate, who happened to be the Patriarch of Jerusalem. When all that was done, at last Richard could lie in the bed that had been prepared for him. Guards stood at the four corners of it; Moustafa, recovered, armed to the teeth, and grimly determined, lay across the foot.

Richard had not tried to dissuade them. It soothed their guilt, and let them feel that they were doing their duty after he had done it for them. He let sleep take him, even knowing who stood on the other side of it.

The Old Man of the Mountain was sitting as Richard had first seen him, under a screened canopy. In dream or in death he spoke all the tongues of living men; Richard heard him in good Norman French, with a fine grasp of ironic nuance. He sounded, in fact, a great deal like Richard's mother. "So, king of Franks. What of our bargain?"

"I kept to the letter of it," Richard said. "You asked me to set you free. I did exactly that."

The Old Man's mouth twisted. "And you said that I bargained like the Devil."

"So you did," said Richard, "and I bargained like a good Christian. We Franks are simple men. We do as we say we will do."

"Except when it suits you to do the opposite."

Richard shrugged. "The Devil is the Father of Lies," he said. "You didn't honestly think I'd let you run wild in this kingdom, did you? You gave me Jerusalem, and for that you have my perpetual gratitude. In return I gave you what all your Faithful yearn for: a swift death, and a speedy ascent into Paradise."

"Malik Ric," said the Old Man, shaking his head. "O king of Christian devils. Savor your victory; it's well earned. But watch your back. I may be dead, but my Faithful survive-and there is the whole of Islam waiting to descend upon you. Did you hope to see your England again before this year is out?"

"I will see it when God wishes me to see it," Richard said calmly. "It's a good war, old man, and a grand victory. I'll remember you in my prayers."

The Old Man's brow arched. "You'd pray for me?"

"I'd pray for the Devil himself if he'd given me Jerusalem," Richard said.

The Old Man's smile held for a moment the hint of a fang; and the foot beneath the white robe, for a moment, had the shape of a cloven hoof. But he was, after all, only a dream. Richard was waking already, roused by the sound of bells in the tower of Holy Sepulcher, and clear voices greeting the dawn. For the first time since Jerusalem fell to Saladin, Christians chanted the Psalms in the holy places, and in place of the muezzin's cry, Richard heard the morning hymn in the sonorous cadences of Rome.

He rose only to kneel, and crossed himself and began to pray. He thanked his God for this gift of Jerusalem, for this splendor of victory. And he prayed for the soul of Sinan ibn Salman, lord of Assassins, Old Man of the Mountain, who had given him his heart's desire. "For even the Devil may do good," he said to the numinous Presence in his heart, "and even the Devil's familiar may serve Your will."

He drew a deep breath, drinking in this air that was most holy in the world, and let it out again in a long and blessed sigh. "God wills it," he said.

Editorial Note: George Patton was dyslexic, and did not learn to read until he was twelve. His bad spelling was notorious, and is preserved in this chronicle.

George Patton Slept Here