NINE
Alfonso VIII, the king of Castile, stalked about the choir of the cathedral, his dark cloak trailing behind him like a shadow struggling to keep up. When Lazare had arrived with the other Cistercians, including Abbot Amairic, Alfonso had been sitting in a cedar chair that had been brought out to the main altar, but the king had not remained in his seat very long. The gathered council—the Cistercians, a pair of men representing Pedro II, the archbishop Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, a few rabbis from the Jewish community, elders and scholars from the city, and the other commanders of the force camped outside Toledo—had quietly listened to the king’s heated condemnation of the Templar action. The king paused after a few minutes of railing at the group when he realized the target of his invective was not present.
His face purpling with rage, Alfonso shouted for someone to fetch the impudent and insubordinate Templar, Helyssent de Verdelay.
As the king stormed about the cavernous space, those in attendance did their best to avoid his ire. Lazare tried to eavesdrop on the terse conversation between the archbishop and Abbot Amairic, but the pair separated themselves enough from the rest of the group that Lazare’s efforts would be readily obvious. Instead, Lazare wandered around the cathedral, feigning interest in the stained-glass panels as he listened to other conversations that were not so carefully conducted.
The Jews were conversing in Hebrew, and while he did not understand what they were saying, he had seen enough of the aftermath of the Templar attack to know what they were talking about. One synagogue had been completely destroyed by fire, and nearly a dozen surrounding homes had been lost as well. Nearly three dozen had died, and double that had sustained injuries from sword and smoke. He had heard stories that the Templars had looted as well, but the amount of goods and silver taken varied widely in the stories. Crespin and the three other Cistercians who had accompanied Amairic moved among the commanders, offering conciliatory comments and nodding a great deal in response to expressions of outrage and disbelief. The scholars kept to themselves, a clump of bearded men who muttered quietly to one another while they looked on like nervous sheep regarding a pack of circling wolves.
Lazare caught sight of Marcos, and indicated with his head that the translator should join him at a shrine to the Virgin Mary. Lazare lit a candle and placed it in the rack of melted stumps, offering a quick prayer to the Virgin to guide those who had suffered greatly the previous night. He heard Marcos step up beside him, and he waited for the translator to offer his own candle and prayer.
“He is much calmer today,” Marcos said, nodding toward the distant figure of the pacing king. “I heard he had to be restrained from donning his armor and riding out to the Templar camp.”
Lazare shivered briefly at the idea. “Was there any provocation?” he asked.
Marcos peered at him. “You were there last night,” he said. “The Templars didn’t discriminate between men and women. The Jews do not have a militia. What provocation could there have been?” His manner was terse and his words clipped, revealing his frustration at Lazare’s question.
Lazare flushed and shook his head.
“Do you know of the crusade led by Boniface of Montferrat?” Marcos asked. “They were bound for the Holy Land, and the doge of Venice offered them ships to sail across the Mediterranean. The crusaders accepted but were diverted to Constantinople. Do you know what happened next?”
“Aye,” Lazare said. “I have heard the stories. The crusaders attacked and sacked Constantinople instead.”
“Rome threatened to excommunicate the doge and Boniface, but they offered to pledge allegiance to Rome once they took the throne. Constantinople was the seat of the Eastern Church—they were still Christian, but they were not subjects of Rome. The Pope withdrew his threat of excommunication and the crusade never made it to the Holy Land. There was more than enough plunder in Constantinople to satisfy the venal desires of these knights. Nor did they care. They were far from home, fighting in the name of God. Their salvation was assured. It did not matter whom they were killing.”
“The attack last night is similar,” Lazare said, “But…”
“What? Is it less of a crime because they were Jews and not other Christians? Their god is not so different from the Christian God, not like the pagans in the north or those marauding tribes of Vikings.”
“You could argue that the Muslim God is not dissimilar to the Christian God too.”
“I have made that argument,” Marcos said. “I have translated too many of their treatises not to see that we are more similar than not. We are all descendents of Abraham.” He grabbed Lazare’s arm. “The archbishop understands. That is why he has been tolerant of the others in Toledo. That is why the king of Castile is so angry. Toledo is a center of great knowledge because we strive to live in harmony with other cultures and beliefs. We want to learn from them. And your Templars—”
“They’re not my Templars,” Lazare interrupted.
“These Frankish Templars,” Marcos corrected. “They’re like the barbarian tribes in the north. They kill indiscriminately. They only see the other and think the other must be subjugated and conquered. They think of their kings like Charlemagne—and his hero, Roland—and want to finish what their forefathers could not.”
“But Alfonso called upon Rome for aid. These crusaders want to strike against the enemies of Christendom. Is that not what your king wanted?” Lazare asked.
Marcos stared at the flickering light of the newly lit candles. “It’s Toledo,” he said, and when that didn’t seem to be enough, he clarified. “It’s complicated.”
Lazare recalled his conversation with Crespin when he had been working on the sword. “Aye,” he agreed. “But I fear the Templars—and Rome—care little for these complications. They have a more simplistic view. The victor can always lay claim to righteousness.”
“Aye,” Marcos said. “And therein lies our greatest fear. If the Moors are defeated, who among the Christian leaders will claim this victory? And what will be the cost?”
Eventually the heavy doors of the cathedral opened, and all conversation within the cathedral stopped. A single figure trotted slowly up the nave, and while it was clear almost immediately that the individual was not the Templar commander, everyone waited expectantly for the message he would deliver. As soon as the sweating man reached the choir, he dropped to his knees, and without waiting for the king to recognize him, he blurted out his news. “They’re gone.”
Alfonso, remaining implacably calm in the face of this announcement, approached the kneeling messenger and asked him to clarify. “Who are gone?”
“The Templars,” the messenger said, and the cathedral was filled with an eruption of noisy voices. Alfonso raised his hand, and the voices trailed off like lines of swallows vanishing into a darkening sky.
“All of them?” Alfonso asked.
The messenger nodded.
“They’re marching for Salvatierra,” a burly man with a long black beard said. Lazare didn’t recall his name, but he knew he was one of the field commanders who had met Miramamolin’s troops last fall when the first Moorish sorties had taken place in the plain south of Toledo.
Alfonso slapped his hand against the hilt of his sword, his rings striking the pommel with a clash of metal. “Let the messenger speak,” he thundered.
The burly man inclined his head, but the motion was perfunctory and lacking in real humility.
“Yes, yes,” the messenger stuttered, “the Templars mean to march south, along the road to Calatrava and Salvatierra.” He glanced around at the gathered assembly. “Others mean to follow him, Your Highness.”
“Master Ruy,” Alfonso said, and the burly man stepped forward. “How many knights march under the Templar banner?”
“Nearly a thousand, Your Majesty,” Ruy replied. “And ten times that number in men-at-arms.”
“And what is our latest estimate of al-Nasir’s strength?”
“More than two hundred thousand men,” Ruy Díaz said.
Al-Nasir, Lazare thought, finding it interesting that the king of Castile referred to the Almohad caliph by his Muslim name and not the Christianized version—Miramamolin.
“Such odds, even for the Templars,” Marcos whispered to him. “They would be fools to face al-Nasir directly.”
“Aye,” Lazare said. He, like everyone present, had heard stories about the Templars. Each knight was worth more than ten men on the battlefield. Only the famed Shield-Brethren had a stronger reputation for their value in battle. “They must mean to harry the Moors,” he said. “But such tactics cannot be sustained for a long period of time. The main force will surround them eventually.”
The crusaders needed to be unified in their attack against the Moors. The Templar decision to march ahead would only diminish the chances of a Christian victory against the Almohad army.
Alfonso dismissed the messenger with a wave of his hand. “How soon can your knights march, Master Ruy?” the king asked.
“Immediately, Your Majesty,” Ruy replied. Whether this was true or not, Lazare sensed it was the only response the man would have given.
“What knights does that man command?” he asked Marcos.
“Ruy?” Marcos said. “That is Ruy Díaz de Yanguas. He is the master of the Order of Calatrava. It was their citadel that fell last year—their second citadel. They lost Calatrava nearly twenty years ago. At the battle of Alarcos.”
“What of Sancho?” Alfonso was asking of the archbishop, and Lazare found his attention being drawn back to the king. “Will he join us?”
The archbishop shook his head. “I have received no word of his intentions, Your Majesty.”
“We need his forces,” Alfonso said.
Abbot Amairic leaned over and whispered something in the archbishop’s ear, and the archbishop’s eyes flicked toward Lazare. “I understand, Your Majesty,” the archbishop said smoothly. “I will endeavor to discover what is delaying the king of Navarre.”
Alfonso nodded curtly and then let his gaze rove over the remaining assembly. “Ready your troops as soon as possible. We must not let the Templars engage al-Nasir’s forces without us.”
Lazare was not surprised when Archbishop Rodrigo motioned that he should stay as the others departed from the cathedral. Making a polite excuse to Marcos, he wandered toward the altar and stood, hands behind his back, staring up at the crucifixion until the babble of voices and the sound of feet against stone faded. The cathedral doors swung shut, the echo rumbling through the empty cathedral with a sonorous thunder of finality.
The archbishop sighed noisily as he walked up beside Lazare. Clasping the heavy cross that hung on a silver chain about his neck, the archbishop gazed up at the immense portrait of the suffering Christ and offered a short prayer to God. Lazare ducked his head as the archbishop prayed, echoing the other man’s final words as the archbishop finished.
“What do you think of my city?” Archbishop Rodrigo asked after he had completed the requisite attention to God. “I understand you have met some of the local scholars.”
Lazare nodded. “I have, Your Grace. I am given to understand that Toledo is…complicated.”
The archbishop snorted. “Philosophers see everything as being overly complex. Suffused with multiple layers of meaning and inference, even.”
Lazare did not know the work—or inquiry—that the archbishop was referring to, and so he only nodded sagely as if he understood the distinction being made. As he glanced around, he noticed Abbot Amairic wandering around in the nave, strolling between the pillars in the back of the cathedral.
Archbishop Rodrigo noticed his gaze. “Ah, the abbot,” he said. “Your superior.” When Lazare did not immediately agree, the archbishop pursed his lips thoughtfully. “When we traveled through Pamplona, we were not able to reach an accord with King Sancho. Hmmm?”
Lazare nodded. “Yes, I recall that being the case. Though—”
“Yes?” the archbishop prompted. “You may speak plainly, Brother Lazare.”
“The lack of an accord may have more to do with a failure to actually meet than any other reason,” Lazare said.
“Was it necessary for me to meet with the king?”
Lazare thought back on his conversation with the kin of Navarre. “That might have depended on how you approached such a meeting,” he said.
“And if I had failed to properly measure the king’s mood?” the archbishop said.
“I suspect his response would have been unfortunate.”
“Instead of…?”
“No response at all.”
“Did I fail then?”
“You certainly didn’t succeed,” Lazare pointed out.
“That is not the same as failure,” the archbishop explained. He spread his arms to encompass the empty cathedral. “That is Toledo.”
“That sounds like philosophical wordplay,” Lazare said.
“All negotiations are,” the archbishop said. “Every agreement made between kings and caliphs, popes and princes, is a matter of inference and wordplay. Each decides how he will interpret the words of the treaty or agreement. It is not like the word of God, which is immutable. Our words are imperfect. Do you know the theories of Plato and Aristotle?”
“I do, Your Grace,” Lazare said.
Archbishop Rodrigo waved a hand at Lazare’s expression. “Don’t look so surprised. I can read Latin as well as any man in this city. I am not like that overzealous abbot of yours. I can read the commentaries written by the Moorish philosophers without screaming heresy and calling for an inquisition. I can read a treatise supposedly written by Muhammad al-Nasir that calls for the death of all Christians and the destruction of Rome and see that it is nothing more than a mere forgery. Unlike your friend over there.”
“What…what treatise?”
The archbishop regarded him shrewdly, one hand idly tapping his cross. “I have heard that King John of England has been excommunicated, that his country is under interdict. He fears a French invasion, and cut off from the rest of Christendom, he has made overtures to others who might come to his aid…in return for certain concessions. Have you heard this story?”
It was Lazare’s turn to hesitate. “It does not surprise me that King John seeks to make an alliance with one of the kings of Iberia.”
“Not one of the kings,” the archbishop corrected. “A caliph.”
Lazare stared. “That’s impossible.”
“Why? Because Muhammad al-Nasir is Muslim? It wouldn’t be the first time a Muslim and a Christian have made an agreement against a greater enemy. It happens more often than you might think in Iberia.”
“No, John would never convert to Islam. His subjects would never convert.”
“I suspect al-Nasir thought the same thing, which is why he turned the English envoys away,” the archbishop said. “It was a decided failure for King John.”
“Aye,” Lazare said, clearing his throat. “It sounds like it was.”
“You seem relieved,” the archbishop noted. “And you seem to be well-informed as to the mood of the English people. Odd for a French Cistercian, don’t you think?”
“It is,” Lazare agreed, his breath catching in his throat. His thoughts raced, wondering how he had let himself be trapped by the archbishop. Had he said too much to Marcos? Had the translator passed along the details of their conversation to the archbishop?
The archbishop, though, appeared unconcerned. “Do you think King Sancho would receive you again?” he asked.
“Excuse me?”
“If I were to order your abbot to allow you to return to Pamplona, would he let you go? As an emissary from both myself and King Alfonso. Do you think the abbot would acquiesce to my request?”
“He wouldn’t refuse,” Lazare said.
A tiny smile creased the archbishop’s lips. “But that isn’t the same as saying yes,” he noted.
Lazare nodded in agreement. “I profess I know little of Abbot Amairic’s moods,” he said.
“You credit the abbot with too much subterfuge,” Rodrigo said. “He has the ear of the Templar commander. I suspect it is his voice that Helyssent de Verdelay listens to. The abbot is much too narrow-minded in his rhetoric, and it may be the undoing of all of us.”
“Aye,” Lazare said, eyeing the distant shape of the abbot.
The archbishop nodded. “Someone must bring Sancho and his army, and someone else must temper the abbot’s words,” he said. “I cannot be in two places at the same time. Which do you think I will have more success at accomplishing?”
“Short of stripping the abbot of his office and imprisoning him, I don’t think you can stop him,” Lazare said.
“Should I have him killed?”
When Lazare said nothing, Rodrigo stroked his chin.
“That is an interesting silence you offer me, Brother Lazare.”
“Your question was one that only God can answer for you,” Lazare said.
The archbishop laughed. “Well said.” He sobered. “Where were you born, Brother Lazare?”
“Rievaulx,” Lazare sighed, deciding to tell the archbishop the truth. “Not far from Yorkshire.”
“An orphan, taken in by the local abbey?”
“Aye.”
“Were you simply brought up by the Cistercians, or did you take the vows there as well?”
“The brothers at Rievaulx took a great deal of interest in my education,” Lazare said.
The archbishop waited a few moments for Lazare to offer more and, as the cathedral fell into a solemn silence, he raised his cross to his lips.
“Very well,” the archbishop said eventually. “I will worry about Sancho and the Navarrese army. Go with the abbot. Try to minimize the impact his sermons have on the soldiers. Don Ruy is a friend. He can help you. There are too many foreign soldiers in this army. I fear that King Alfonso will not have the authority to command them should they be swayed to a different course.”
Lazare nodded, relieved and a little surprised that the archbishop was placing such trust in him. “Why?” The word slipped out.
The archbishop raised an eyebrow. “Why am I trusting you?” he asked. “Because all I want is to ensure the safety of the people of Toledo—of all of Castile—regardless of their faith or origin. You understand that, don’t you?”
“I do,” Lazare said.
“See?” the archbishop said, smiling. “It isn’t that complicated after all.”