The Crusade (The Bloody Hand Saga Book 8) by David Pilling

Author:David Pilling [Pilling, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-07-05T00:00:00+00:00

“Elene,” I murmured, suddenly overcome with a terrible weariness. It pressed down on me like a crushing invisible weight. I was light-headed, and swayed alarmingly in the saddle. The world started to rotate on its axis. How interesting. Slowly, at first, then with alarming speed. Everything melded into a blur. The plain, the distant mountains, Elene's face, pale with concern. She was riding towards me at the gallop, one hand outstretched to steady me.

Too late. I gently tipped sideways, giggling at some obscure joke, and plunged into darkness.

18.

I woke to find myself staring at a domed white ceiling. I was lying on a hard surface, covered up to my neck in something warm and soft. If this was Heaven, I thought, it looked cursed dull. Not uncomfortable, though.

Bony fingers suddenly grabbed my chin. A soundless scream rose in my throat. An unfamiliar face was staring down at me. It resembled a wrinkled brown apple, with a scrubby grey beard, hook nose and piercing dark eyes. The thin fingers held me in an iron grip.

After a minute or so of this silent scrutiny, he gave a satisfied little nod, mumbled something I couldn't understand, and creaked to his feet. His lithe figure was clad in a loose blue tunic, flowing to his ankles, adorned with an intricate swirling pattern that hurt my eyes to look upon. Otherwise he wore a felt cap, loose breeches, and a pair of sandals.

The old man left, vanishing through a slit. I was lying in a tent of white felt, such as the Turks use. The soft material was a sheepskin blanket. As the fog lifted from my brain, Elene's words came back to me.

“Never fear, Kilij Arslan will feed us soon...”

Was she in league with the Sultan? The mere thought was like being sluiced with cold water. I sat bolt upright, gasping at the flash of pain in my shoulder. I looked down, to see the wound on my upper arm had been carefully bandaged. When I tried to flex the limb, it was stiff, and hurt like the devil, but not useless.

I put a hand to my cheek. It was greasy. The same careful hands had applied some foul-smelling ointment to the graze. The pain had gone, thankfully.

I took stock. Elene had saved me from an assassination attempt at Antioch, in the very heart of the Frankish camp. One of my would-be killers was Basil, the treacherous Roman officer who had once betrayed me to the Turks. When we fled, a band of Turcopoles gave chase and tried to kill us. Then I had fainted clean away, and woken up inside a Turkish tent, with some old greybeard looking over me. My physician, perhaps.

What did it all mean? God knew. At least the Turks had patched me up. This could only mean I was still useful, for the moment. Come, Thorkell, I told myself. You've been in tighter spots than this. Get up, loosen your muscles, think.

I was still stretching when Elene swept into the tent.

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