Hunter of Sherwood: The Red Hand Read online

  As they walked, Galfrid’s gaze came to rest on the long, narrow wooden box slung across his master’s back. He chuckled again, and shook his head. It was perhaps just long enough and wide enough to contain two dozen arrows, but he knew it contained nothing of the kind. From one end protruded a curved handle delicately wrought in iron, and along its body was an even row of wooden keys that rattled when the box was bumped. Galfrid reflected on his master’s dogged insistence on bringing it down here, and wondered if he was the first man ever to have introduced a hurdy gurdy into a public sewer.

  “It’s just...” continued Galfrid wistfully, as if his master had deigned to respond, “I thought we might have a chance to actually enjoy some of those things. You know, see the sights. The Holy Sepulchre, maybe...” He’d tried to sound casual with his example, even though it was perhaps the fifth time he’d mentioned it. Galfrid didn’t know why he was bothering – his sad obsession with churches and cathedrals was well known to his master. He looked down again, and immediately recoiled. A dead rat had bobbed to the surface. He felt it bump against his leg and continue on its way. He was coping with the smell – just – but somehow the sight of that was threatening to shatter his resolve.

  Galfrid belched, and felt a sudden, urgent need to put thoughts of good food and wine out of his mind. “Is this what they call ‘going through the motions’?” he said.

  GUY OF GISBURNE had grown so used to the complaints of his grizzled squire that now the comments barely registered. But he also had other, more immediate things on his mind. One wrong turn in these tunnels, and they may never find their way out. Even supposing they kept track of their progress; if they ventured too far to make the return before their torches died... Well, that would be a fresh kind of Hell. And then there was their adversary. He was down here, somewhere. Amongst the rats and the stinking waste. Gisburne was sure of it. But to what purpose?

  He heard Galfrid huff again and decided he would benefit from some attention.

  “Relax,” he said, cheerfully. “Try to enjoy yourself. You’ve already got further than the Lionheart did.”

  “Had King Richard succeeded in taking Jerusalem,” said Galfrid, no longer bothering to disguise the disgust in his voice, “I somehow doubt that a visit to the sewers would have been his first priority.”

  “Unless he read that bit of the scriptures you missed,” said Gisburne. It showed, at the very least, that he had been listening.

  Galfrid gave a snort and muttered under his breath. “At least Christ could’ve walked on it rather than in it.”

  There was one key reason put forward to explain why the Lionheart’s conquest of Jerusalem had failed. It was said he had been troubled by reports of growing chaos in his kingdom – of open rebellion by his envious brother John, who wished to take the crown from him. And so, just days from capturing the Holy City – his one avowed object on this crusade – he had turned back towards England. It was an attractive story – and one Gisburne knew, with every fibre of his being, to be false. He knew it because Richard cared nothing for England, and never had. He cared only for battle, for conquest, and for the prizes that came with them. If he could defeat Salah al-Din and return Jerusalem to Christian hands, he would be acknowledged as the greatest warrior in the world – and if he could make himself king of that holy realm, well, all the better. Richard had no interest in sitting on a throne, but every interest in winning it.

  Gisburne felt he knew the real reason the Lionheart had turned from Jerusalem: he was afraid he would fail. In Salah al-Din, he had at last encountered a general who was his equal. For the first time in his life, he had been forced to contemplate the possibility of defeat, and all that this entailed. No stronghold had ever been able to withstand his assault. He had cracked every city, every castle that stood against him. But if he were finally to be broken upon Jerusalem’s walls, at the hour of Christendom’s greatest need, and with the eyes of the world upon him, well... Where would his reputation be then?

  So he had not even tried. Somehow, in doing so, he had also made retreat look like concern for his own beloved kingdom. If anyone had a charmed life – an inexhaustible well of good luck – it was surely Richard. At least, so Gisburne had thought until three days ago. Then, from one of the contacts he still had in the city, he learned that Salah al-Din – also doubting his abilities against a formidable opponent – had been one day away from abandoning the city to the surrounding Christian forces. Had Richard only known to wait for one more sunrise, Jerusalem would have been his.

  “So,” said Galfrid, “how long do you propose we wade about in this garden of earthly delights?” Down here, it became hard to judge the passage of time. The moments seemed painfully long, and they had now been pacing these tunnels for at least an hour – picking their way slowly, carefully. In all that time they had found nothing of note beyond a few ancient bones – both human and animal – some broken barrels, a large quantity of rats – which, happily, dwindled in number as they proceeded – and, most bizarrely, a six-foot brass trumpet with a leather slipper stuffed in the end.

  “We go where the trail leads,” said Gisburne, without looking back. “Until we find what we’re looking for.”

  Gisburne was well aware that this was primarily his mission and not that of their master, Prince John. John had indulged him, nonetheless. In the months leading up to Christmas, there had been another, far more pressing problem, closer to home – a problem that had occupied Gisburne’s thoughts utterly. But always, at the back of his mind, he had this other, more personal duty waiting its turn. It was a duty not to a prince, but to a humble squire. To a friend. To Galfrid.

  Then, on Christmas Eve, the great problem had been swept aside with startling finality. It had not been without cost. But it had at least left Gisburne free to pursue other aims – even with a void to fill – and he had turned back to this piece of unfinished business with renewed vigour. John, exhilarated by their recent victory, gave his full blessing to the enterprise, and put all available resources at Gisburne’s disposal.

  It had taken them eight months of dogged investigation to get to this point. Eight months of false leads, blind alleys and disappeared informants. Their adversary was subtle, and at the start, their own methods had been crude. Time and again, as they drew close, their prey would go to ground – vanishing without trace, like a phantom. There were those who believed he was literally that – that he had perished that time in Boulogne, over a year before, and that what now walked the earth was some kind of vengeful spirit. Gisburne had never paid heed to ghost stories. In his experience, the dead stayed dead. But this one was fiendishly clever. And so they had learned, and adapted. With a restraint that had tested their resolve to the limit, they had finally succeeded in keeping themselves invisible to their adversary, resisting opportunities to strike where victory could not be assured, waiting instead for him to reveal his grand plan.

  Such restraint did not come easily. Gisburne was a man more used to the battlefield than the chessboard – to attacking hard, or bypassing the fight altogether, when it was to no purpose. During these days, as so often, Gisburne had held fast to the words of his old mentor, Gilbert de Gaillon: “The object of a hunt is simple. Not to attack the beast, but to kill it. You must therefore ask yourself, will attacking now achieve this end – or push it further from your grasp?”

  Now, they were tantalisingly close. To what, neither yet knew for sure, but both sensed that the day of discovery – a day they had worked towards with steady determination – was finally upon them. And both were now certain, beyond any doubt, that the one they sought was here, at the heart of this labyrinth. To finally ensnare him – to have him removed forever from the earth... Well, Gisburne knew that, for all his griping and complaining, Galfrid would walk slowly over hot coals in Hell rather than pass up that opportunity.

  Gisburne paused and looked about him. “This tunnel joins a larger one up ahead. If I have it right, the Via Dolorosa is now somewhere above us.” He tu
rned to Galfrid. “So, in a way, you are walking in the footsteps of Christ. Just... a couple of dozen yards lower.”

  Galfrid gave a grunt of irritation and passed a hand across the stubble on his head. He had thought, before they ventured down here, that it would at least be cool in the tunnels. In fact, it was sweltering. His head throbbed, the stench seeming to lap against it on every side.

  Gisburne moved off again – then stopped so suddenly that Galfrid went into the back of him. Just ahead, projecting a few inches above the surface of the effluent at a point in the tunnel wall where, it appeared, another tunnel entrance had been blocked up, was a rough, horizontal slab of stone. On the slab was the body of a man.

  His throat was cut, the wide gash in the parted, grey flesh grinning open like a lipless mouth. But while the flesh about his neck remained otherwise intact, his face, left arm and left leg had been eaten to the bone. Whatever rats remained hereabouts had evidently made use of him. A sweet, sickly odour rose from what was left.

  “Who is he?” said Galfrid in a whisper. “And what in God’s name brought him down here?”

  “It was more likely in Allah’s name,” said Gisburne. He crouched over the grim corpse. Fine scale armour glinted upon his torso. From his belt hung an empty sword scabbard and a sheathed knife, both with fittings of gold. “Arab. Well dressed. Well armoured. One of Saladin’s. The elite. Whatever it was brought him down here, it certainly wasn’t need.” He had occasionally heard of beggars and lepers taking refuge with the dead in catacombs, but this man was clearly neither.

  “The body hasn’t been plundered,” observed Galfrid. “Not by humans, at least.”

  Gisburne glanced again at the exposed skull and suppressed a shudder. “So, whoever killed him...”

  “...was not a thief. And also not in need.”

  Gisburne stood. “I suspect his reasons for being down here may be the same as ours. And that he found what – or who – he was looking for. To his cost.”

  “Poor bastard,” said Galfrid.

  Gisburne stared off into the gloom ahead. For a moment, he thought he could detect a faint glow at the edge of his vision – but the effect disappeared as his eyes tried to focus on it.

  “The body is only a few days old,” he said. “It means we’re close.”

  They followed the flow towards the intersection with the wider tunnel – and within minutes Gisburne understood that his fleeting impression had been correct. Ahead, framed by the distant tunnel’s mouth, was the flickering orange light of another flame. It was stationary. As they neared, he could see the pool of light that spread about it, within which was a large, uneven dark shape. Objects of some kind, stacked in a pile. But there was no movement of any kind. No sign of life.

  Gisburne drew his sword, and quickened his pace.

  They stopped at the edge of the larger tunnel, its ceiling arcing above them, and stared across at the dark, shadowy heap.

  “Barrels,” said Gisburne.

  “Barrels,” repeated Galfrid with a nod. “And there was me thinking it was going to be about the trumpet. So, are we too early, or too late?”

  The torch upon the opposite wall had been burning no longer than their own. Someone had been here, and could not be far. But which way? Gisburne turned his own torch first to the right, then to the left. “This flows south-east, ultimately to the Kidron Valley. The tunnel we have just travelled comes from the Christian quarter. Across there are tributaries from the Muslim sectors, with the Jewish area up that way.”

  “Christian, Muslim, heathen or Jew,” said Galfrid, his nose wrinkling, “shit still smells like shit.”

  “Except...” said Gisburne, a frown creasing his brow. “When it doesn’t.” He sniffed the air. “Do you smell that?”

  “Are you joking?” said Galfrid. But beneath the dank, hot reek of stale urine and fermenting excrement, another, sharper smell was rising. Something half familiar.

  Galfrid sniffed tentatively. “Vinegar?” he said. At Gisburne’s suggestion they had doused their skin with the stuff before coming down here. By this method, Gisburne’s old comrade Will Pickle had fended off dysentery throughout William the Good’s entire battle campaign against the Byzantines, earning his nickname in the process. He had been convinced its strong, clean smell kept disease-laden odours at bay. Gisburne could think of no better occasion to put that to the test.

  He stepped out into the tunnel and stopped, flame held at arm’s length, his narrowed eyes scanning the uneven stonework of the clammy ceiling, then every crack and fissure in the crumbling walls. Nothing. Tentatively, he lowered his torch towards the black surface of the lapping effluvium.

  Upon it, he now saw, was a curious, iridescent sheen.

  Galfrid frowned and stooped to examine the fluid, moving his own flame closer as he did so. Gisburne grabbed the torch. “I suggest we keep our torches above waist height,” he said. “Petroleum. Everywhere about us. If that should ignite...”

  Galfrid stared, wide-eyed. “...we’ll be roasted alive.” He raised his torch slowly above his head.

  “No rats,” said Gisburne in sudden realisation. “That’s why there are no rats. But where’s it coming from? And why is it here?”

  “The barrels?”

  Gisburne turned his torch flame upon them. A few had been unstoppered or broken open, but they appeared mostly intact. “There must be more,” he said. “Many more. It’s covering the whole surface.” He looked away to their right, into the deep dark of the arched stone passage. “And it’s flowing from... that direction.”

  He started off into the gloom, but no sooner had they passed the heap of barrels than Gisburne felt Galfrid grip his arm. He turned and immediately saw what had caught the squire’s attention. By the left wall, almost obscured by shadow in the cleft between the barrel heap and the stonework and partially submerged, was another body. This time it was clearly fresh, and no Arab.

  Gisburne waded over towards it, and was just crouching over the dead man when he became aware of a movement in the deep shadows barely a yard from him. Too late.

  The man was on him in an instant. In desperation, Gisburne brought his weapon up. He was aware of a flash of steel – the glint of scale armour, golden in the torchlight. The other’s dark face loomed as the attacker swung his sword high – and stopped dead.

  For a moment, both stood, transfixed. “Gisburne?” The voice was deep, seeming to echo the length of the tunnel.

  Gisburne stared, eyes widening. “Asif?”

  Asif – almost a head taller than Gisburne, who was tall himself – threw his big arms around his friend and clapped him on the back heartily, his deep laugh reverberating through Gisburne’s chest. Gisburne, stunned, fought to maintain his grip on his torch.

  “You two know each other?” said Galfrid, incredulous. He looked around, as if reminding himself of their circumstances. “Well what are the odds? Just when I thought the day couldn’t get any stranger...”

  Asif released Gisburne from his grip and stood back, his hands still on his friend’s shoulders.

  Gisburne allowed himself a laugh, though the blood was still pumping hard in his veins. “Asif helped keep the peace when I was here... What? Five years ago?”

  “Six!” laughed Asif.

  “He was also a fabulous archer and a terrible backgammon player. Taught me everything I know.”

  Asif sighed. “That was before Hattin. Before the crusade.”

  “Before everything,” added Gisburne.

  “Time flies when you’re having fun,” said Asif. And another big laugh welled up in him.

  “Looks like you’re still in much the same game,” said Gisburne. “But in the pay of the Sultan himself, this time, unless I’m mistaken.”

  Asif cocked his head. “I couldn’t possibly say.” He looked Gisburne up and down, a bemused frown pressing deep creases into his brow. “But what of you? Are you some kind of... musician now?”

  If pressed, Gisburne could play two tunes on the hurdy gu
rdy – one of them badly. “I couldn’t possibly say,” he said with a smile.

  Asif held his gaze in silence for a moment, then smiled. “Well, I think we understand each other.”

  Galfrid cleared his throat, pointedly.

  “Oh – this is Galfrid,” said Gisburne.

  “Sir Galfrid,” said Asif, with a bow of his head.

  “My squire,” added Gisburne.

  “But you may call me Sir Galfrid if you wish,” said Galfrid with a broad grin. “It has a certain ring to it.”

  Gisburne turned and nodded towards the body of the dead knight. “Your work?”

  Asif looked irritated. “I meant only to stun him. To find out from him what all this is about. But these Europeans from their wet countries – they die too easily.” He seemed to remember who he was talking to. “No offence.”

  “None taken,” said Gisburne. He crouched over the body and began to pull back the surcoat, mail and gambeson to reveal part of the man’s neck and shoulder. There, over his collar bone, was a tattoo of a skull.

  “The Knights of the Apocalypse,” said Galfrid, his voice a flat monotone. “We were right...”

  This was the final confirmation – the culmination of their months of toil. It would end tonight, here, within this grim labyrinth.

  “I have never heard of this order,” said Asif.

  “They are a recent phenomenon,” said Gisburne. “Their ethos insane, their leader a madman. Up above they went dressed as simple pilgrims. Down here, we see them for what they really are – crusaders. Though even that term dignifies their aims. Since King Richard and Saladin reached an accord, there has been peace. But the actions of these men could spark another war – a war that neither side wants.”

  “Is this what they seek?” asked Asif. “An end to the truce?”

  “An end to everything,” said Gisburne. “And they must be stopped. At any cost.”

  “Then we have the same goal,” said Asif. “But what are those actions?” He looked at the barrel heap. “What is it they are doing down here? It makes no sense.”