The Seal by Adriana Koulias Page A

turned
to a whisper that came between pants from the darkness.
    ‘It is I . . .
Jourdain.’ A shadow moved towards them.
    When it neared,
what was visible of the young captain was his blond hair, lit up strangely in
the meagre moonlight.
    ‘The horses are
hid?’ Etienne asked him.
    Jourdain got his
breath back. ‘Behind that hill, there is a small deserted house, not far . . .’
He seemed to be smiling, since his voice had a note of lightness about it.
‘This is all a guarded business, then.’
    ‘Did you see
anyone?’ Marcus pressed.
    ‘No.’
    ‘Well then,’
Etienne said, ‘we shall sit and wait for the galley.’
    The night
sounded with insects and Etienne felt a restlessness for Marcus to be off so that he could think upon the happenings of these last
hours. He took up a handful of the coarse sand and let it fall between his
fingers.
    ‘Where does the
galley go then?’ Jourdain asked.
    ‘To Portugal,’
Marcus told him.
    ‘That is a small
thing. What shall be found on the way there, that is what troubles me.’
    ‘Perhaps it
shall find calm weather on the deep, respite from winds in trouble, rest and
sleep,’ Jourdain put in.
    ‘Shall I turn to
stone with numbness?’ Etienne told him. ‘You sound like the troubadours of my
country, Jourdain!’
    ‘I have heard
tell that all men from your land of the south are poets,’ he said. ‘Do you not
remember one song?’
    Etienne gave a
half-smile to the darkness. This being out of doors and in the open air with
brothers and a deed to perform gave his soul a semblance of youth, and he
deigned to tell one. ‘Behold, the pleasant and longed for spring, brings back
joyfulness, violet flowers fill the meadows, the sun brightens everything,
sadness is now at an end – déjà les chagrins se dissipent!’
    ‘Well . . .’
Andrew slapped a knee. ‘That is a fine one!’
    Etienne now
regretted it. ‘It is only a memory.’ Then because he wanted to move on from
such foolishness he said, ‘The wind picks up, if they do not hurry our
deception will be discovered.’
    ‘Roger de Flor
captains that vessel.’ Andrew had forgotten his merriment and became
melancholy. ‘The deserter took the Falcon to the sea at Acre after he made his
fortune from the old and weak, and never returned . . . full of fleeing
merchants and weighed down with the town’s gold!’
    Marcus grunted
in return. ‘I found out his history – in the east he worked for Frederick
of Sicily and then for Andronicus using mercenaries and Catalans to keep out
Turks. He was made Admiral of Romania – they tried to assassinate him for
his cruelty.’
    Etienne rubbed
his hands of sand. It seemed always to fall on him to ease Marcus’s spirit.
‘Here in Cyprus the Temple is thought cruel, and in the Holy Land also . . . It
is the way of people that they despise those who are their saviours and soon
forget the cruelty of the oppressors from whom they were freed – those
men who raped their women and cut off the noses of their priests. At any rate,
Roger de Flor saved your life at Acre, and he saves the Order now.’
    Marcus shifted,
kicking at the sand. ‘Saving my life is no more than any brother would have
done, saving the Order is no more than any man paid well might do. At any rate
it leaves a bad taste in the mouth.’
    ‘Well,’ Andrew
remarked, ‘much more of this and we shall not know brother from foe.’
    ‘Roger de Flor,’
Marcus corrected him, ‘is not a brother since he has forsaken our Lord’s
Sepulchre. That is not likely to meet easy punishment, not here and not in
heaven!’
    ‘We have all
forsaken it,’ Etienne reminded him.
    ‘It was not my
choice, it was not your choice, Etienne!’
    ‘Perhaps it is
our task to lose the Holy Land and to regain it again,’ Jourdain put in. ‘Since
Aristotle tells that courage is born of pain.’
    Andrew sniggered
at the boy. ‘What oddities are visiting us this night! Poems and songs and
philosophies! How long do you think you’ll