Standard of Honour

Moray grinned as he untied the bindings of the water skin. “Aye, the same thought had occurred to me. Like a horse. A workhorse. See what you’ve made of me?”

“You said there are Saracens everywhere. Why is that?”

“I don’t know. They’re probably looking for fugitives like us, people who escaped from Hattin. You look better than you did earlier, thanks be to God. Here, have some of this.”

He knelt and held the water skin to Sinclair’s mouth, and when he had finished drinking, the injured man looked around at the moonlit waste surrounding them.

“You have no idea where we are?”

“South and west of Hattin and Tiberias, perhaps four leagues, or five. I must have come five miles at least, pulling you, and we walked all night last night. Do you remember that?”

Sinclair looked almost hurt. “Of course I do.” He hesitated. “But I don’t recall much else.”

“I dosed you with some medication I had in my scrip and you’ve been asleep for hours. How much pain are you in?”

Sinclair made a movement that might have been a shrug. “Some, not much. There’s pain, but it’s…distant, somehow.”

“Aye, that will be the drug. I’ll give you more of it later.”

“Be damned if you will. I need no drugs.”

Moray shrugged. “Not now, it’s plain. But later, if you start raving again, I’ll be the one to make that decision.” He peered up at the sky again, as though expecting to see clouds. “In the meantime, we have to keep moving. The moon’s high, so we’ll have light for an hour or two more, but after that, if I can’t see the ground underfoot, it might be nasty for both of us.”

“Then keep your eyes open for another place to hide during the day that’s coming. The loss of an hour or two of darkness won’t make much of a difference to our journey if we don’t know where we are or where we’re going. But what about water? Have we enough?”

Moray hefted the water bag. “We have until we reach the end of this. After that we’re in God’s hands.”

“We’re in God’s sands, Lachlan, and like to die here if He doesn’t provide for us.”

“Well, we’ll find that out tomorrow. For now, I walk and you take your ease.”

He fastened the water bag carefully in place, then strapped on the harness again and set off. They did not speak to each other after that, for they both knew how sound can travel in the desert at night and they had no wish to attract company. Moray quickly steadied himself into the plodding gait he had been using for hours, but he was aware from the outset that fatigue was rising in him. He gritted his teeth and willed himself to ignore the shooting pains in his calves and thighs, concentrating solely on the incessant rhythm of placing one foot ahead of the other.

Some time later, much later, he decided afterwards, an agonized groan from Sinclair brought him back to awareness, and he stopped short, surprised to see that the terrain around him had changed completely and that he had walked from one desert zone into another without realizing it.

“Alec? Are you awake?”

Sinclair did not answer him, and Moray stopped on the point of peeling off the harness that felt now as though it had embedded itself into his body. Instead, he straightened up, arching his back and suddenly aware of the pain and stiffness he had blanked out of his mind until then, and looked about him carefully. The moon was low in the sky, but it still threw sufficient light for him to see his surroundings clearly enough to be amazed at what lay before him. The ground beneath his feet now was hard, scoured down to bedrock by the wind, and he was standing on the edge of what he saw as an enormous tilted bowl that loomed above and ahead of him, a broad, almost circular area of flat land, more than half a mile in extent, that was littered with great boulders and surrounded on all sides, except for where he stood, by towering, featureless walls of sand. Mountainous dunes, their gigantic slopes painted silver and black by moonlight and shadows, swept up on both sides of him to shut out the horizon ahead, eclipsing the stars. As he stood there, hearing only the pounding of his own heartbeat, he became aware of the stillness of the night; nothing moved and no smallest sound disturbed the absolute calm.

“Alec, can you hear me?” There was still no response, but he spoke again, quickly, as though he had heard one. “We’re in a different kind of place here, but it looks promising, as far as finding shelter goes. There are boulders ahead, within reach, and we should be able to find a spot among them where the sun won’t roast us tomorrow. It’s late, and the moon’s almost gone, and I’m too tired to go much farther, so I’m going to take us there and find a spot to rest. And then I’m going to sleep, perhaps for the entire day tomorrow. But first I’m going to feed you some more of those drugs you don’t want. That is if I can force my feet to move again. Hold on, and I’ll try.”

He bent to the traces again and, after the first few faltering steps, found the plodding rhythm that had enabled him to keep forging ahead for hours. Within another quarter of an hour he was close enough to the largest pile of boulders to see that there was shelter aplenty among them, chinks and crevices that looked large enough to swallow both of them with ease. He lowered Sinclair’s bier to the ground and peeled himself agonizingly out of the network of straps and braces that had sunk into his tortured flesh. As he bent to check his friend’s breathing, Sinclair opened his eyes.

“Lachlan. It’s you. I was dreaming. Where are we?”

“Hazard a guess. You’re as likely to be right as I am.” Moray was massaging his right arm, moving his elbow in circles and grimacing with pain as his fingers dug into the muscles of his shoulder. “Damnation, but you make a heavy load, Sinclair. I feel as though I’ve been hauling a dead horse behind me since the day I was born.” He saw his friend’s quick frown and waved away the apology before it could be uttered. “You would do the same for me. But I’m looking forward to having you back on your feet and walking again. Then you’ll be able to pull me.” He grunted and switched his ministrations to his other shoulder. “I believe I’ve found us a place to rest out of the sun tomorrow, but I’m going to leave you here while I make sure of it. In the meantime, you should pray and give thanks to God that I was clever enough to get rid of all our armor before we set out on this little sojourn. I’ll be back.”

He returned quickly, a strange expression on his face, so that Sinclair, after hawking to clear his throat, asked, “What’s wrong? Did you not find a place?”

Moray shook his head. “Did you pray? You must have. I hoped to find a gap between the stones that would shelter us. I found a cave instead—a cave that has been very recently in use as a living place. I found a cache of bread—stale but edible—along with water, dates, dried meat and a bag of dried dung, camel and horse both, for fuel. If I had not been here in this accursed Holy Land for so long, I would think it a miracle. As it is, it’s a stroke of fortune of the kind a cynic like me can barely contemplate.”

Sinclair was frowning. “Who would live out here?”

“Some nomad. There are more than a few of them out here. And who but a nomad would think to hoard dry dung?”

“But—think you he might be still around here?”

Moray stooped and hoisted the bier by the short cross-brace at its head, throwing the mass of straps across Sinclair’s legs at the same time. “I doubt it,” he said, grunting with the effort of lifting Sinclair’s weight again. “Whoever he was, he’s probably at La Safouri now, or at Tiberias, celebrating our defeat. Since you appear to be praying effectively, pray then that I am correct. One way or the other, we will know soon. Now lie back, it’s not far.”

SINCLAIR AWOKE IN THE DAWN LIGHT, his arm on fire, the pain of it a living thing that he could feel somewhere at the back of his throat, or so it seemed to him. He knew immediately what had happened to him, and that his arm was broken, but he had no awareness at first of where he was or how he had come there. Then he heard a soft sound and turned his head to see Moray’s shape silhouetted against the morning brightness at the cave’s mouth, and everything came back to him. He tried to call Moray’s name, but on the first attempt, although his lips moved and he articulated the sounds, nothing emerged. He swallowed, trying to moisten his dry mouth, and tried again, his voice emerging as little more than a croak.

“Lachlan.”

Moray did not stir, although Sinclair knew he must have heard him, and his eyes narrowed as he took note of the tension and rigidity of the other man’s posture. Moray stood stiffly in the entranceway, one hand braced against the side of the deep cleft in the rock that was their shelter, his entire body inclined slightly forward as he peered at whatever it was in the distance that had caught his attention.

“Lachlan, what is it? What can you see?”

Moray straightened slightly, the tension fading from his stance as he did so, and spun to move purposefully back towards Sinclair. “Vultures,” he said, as though the word explained everything. “I saw them circling when I went outside to piss and I’ve been watching them ever since, until the last of them disappeared.”

Sinclair felt as though he were missing something painfully obvious. “I don’t understand. There are always vultures in the sky out here in the desert. Always one, at least…”

“Aye, until something dies, and then they gather in flocks as by magic. No one knows how they know, but they always do.”

“What are you saying?”

“There were scores of them, Alec, and now they’re all gone. They’re down and feeding, on dead men, I am sure, for only large carcasses would attract so many of them. And they’re not too far from here.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“I can see that, but consider: here we are, in dire straits. We have a small amount of food, thanks to our absent, solitary host, but we ate most of it last night. Our water supply is little better. But if there are bodies lying out there on the sand within reach of us, there might well be food and water lying by them, for the taking. I have to go and find out, and I have to go now, because I mislike the cast of the sky out there. The air is dead calm and sultry and there might be storms about. I’ll prop the end of your bier up on that low ledge, so that you’ll be above the floor and comfortable, and I’ll leave you here for the morning. I should not be gone longer than that. I gauged the distance from the size of the birds, and my guess is that I’ll be an hour, perhaps slightly more, in reaching them, and then the same in coming back, so I should return before noon.”

“What will you use to fight them off?”

Moray smiled. “What, the vultures, or the dead men? I’ll take the Mussulman’s bow with me. How is your arm?”

“It feels as though it’s afire. Hot, but little pain, unless I jar it.”

“I thought as much. I have another packet of the powder I fed you before, and you will please me by taking it without complaining. The first one worked wonders for you, so this next one should do even more, and if you improve as much between now and tonight as you did yesterday, then you’ll be able to walk on your own and I will not have to break my back again.”

He busied himself then mixing the powder with water while Sinclair watched, and when he was done, the sick man swallowed the potion down obediently, with only the wrinkling of his nose denoting any unpleasantness of thought or taste.

“I’m going out there now, and as I say, it ought not to take me long, but we are in the desert, so it makes sense to take precautions against my being delayed. I might get lost, or have an accident, or even meet some of Allah’s faithful servants. You are not strong enough to come looking for me and it would be foolish of you even to try. I’ll leave this bag of food above you, hanging from this peg provided by our thoughtful host, and with it will be this bag of water. I’ll take some food and the smaller water bag with me, since it is lighter.” He tilted his head, smiling down at Sinclair, whose eyes were now dull and unfocused beneath fluttering lashes as he fought against the powerful opiate. “Alec? Can you still hear me? Your eyes are closing. Will you remem…”

FOUR (#u183db421-6a00-549a-ad14-91c1c5436974)

Sinclair woke up to find the cave filled with whirling sand and the pandemonic screaming of a wind such as he had never heard. His mouth and nostrils were clogged, so dry that he was unable even to spit to clear them. The terror he felt at that moment was overwhelming. He tried to move, but he was hampered by his bound arm. Several times he tried to reach the water bag that Moray had hung on the peg above him, but his efforts were wasted against the howling force of the wind. There was light, too, filtering weakly through the depths of the churning dust, so there was still daylight beyond the cave, although it appeared to be more dusk than day out there. Moray had wrapped the sole remaining fragment of his torn surcoat about his shoulders. With one trembling hand Sinclair now wound it around his head, covering his face as completely as he could, worrying that he might not be able to breathe, but fearing the sandstorm more. He struggled with the burden of his tightly trussed arm until he managed to turn onto his right side, his back to the cave’s entrance and the calamitous wind that raged through it. The stupefying noise was unrelenting, but lying on his side, with his good hand cupped over the folds of cloth about his face, he found it easier to breathe. With nothing more in his power to help himself, he fell into unconsciousness again, wondering about how Moray might be faring and hoping he had been able to find some kind of shelter before the tempest struck.

Sinclair’s next conscious thought was that the silence had awakened him, for it was tomblike after the tumult of the awful dreams that lingered, shapeless yet full of noise and dread, in the deep recesses of his memory. He continued to lie there for some time, motionless, eyes closed, focusing his mind on the absolute stillness around him, and it was only when he finally attempted to open his eyes that he realized that something was seriously amiss, for although his eyelids twitched obediently, there was pressure against them, weighing on them and preventing them from opening. Panicstricken, he drew in a quick breath and tried to claw at his face with both hands, forgetting that his left arm was tightly bound. His right hand sprang up quickly enough and landed heavily against what felt like a cloth, a cloth covered with sand, enveloping his face. Still deep in the grip of panic, he clutched at the thing and tried to jerk it away from him, only to discover that it was wrapped about his head. His fingers still gripping the bindings that shrouded him, he slowly sagged back against his bracings, knowing with sudden certainty that his nightmares had been real. He had dreamed of a chaos of noise, the demented screaming of a multitude of damned souls, and seething clouds of roiling smoke that threatened to choke the life from him and hurl him into Hell. But it had been no dream.