smile. ‘Now come, friends. You will be guests at the Caliph’s table. Let us celebrate the alliance between our two great kingdoms.’
Chapter 3
APRIL 1164: JERUSALEM
J ohn sat with his eyes closed, submerged to his chin in the steaming waters of the bath house. A low murmur of voices surrounded him, echoing off the domed ceiling. Most spoke in French, but John also heard German, Provençal, Latin and Catalan. He ignored the sound and let his mind drift. This was his morning ritual, before he went to the church to learn to chant and lead Mass from the prayer book, and then to the palace to work for William or tutor prince Baldwin. It was a time when he could be at peace and forget that he was a man without a country, as cut off from his childhood home of England as he was from his friends in Aleppo. He belonged nowhere, and perhaps that is why he felt at home in Jerusalem. It was a city of immigrants – pilgrims from Europe and native Christians from all over Syria. A city where it was easy to leave one’s past behind and fashion a new life.
John rose from the warm waters and headed for the next room, where he was scrubbed down by an attendant before being doused in cold water. He slipped into his caftan in the changing room and stepped out of the bath house into the paved courtyard of the Hospitaller complex. All around him rose tall buildings – churches, hospitals built to house sick pilgrims and barracks for the knights who served the order. The air, which would be as hot as a furnace by midday, was comfortably warm. John glanced at the sun, whose deep red rim was just rising above the tall buildings that lined the eastern side of the courtyard. There was time for a short walk and a little breakfast.
His nose wrinkled as he walked out of the complex and into a dusty street. Across the way stood the pool of the patriarch, which took up most of a city block. In the winter it was full, but now it was mostly stinking mud and refuse. In the centre of the muck, a pool of water glittered under the morning sun. A system of buckets and pulleys had been built to draw the water up to a raised channel, which crossed the street to provide water for the bath house. A beggar slept against the wall in the tiny patch of shelter underneath the channel. He stirred at the sound of John’s footsteps.
‘Money for a poor pilgrim far from home,’ he begged in a high, plaintive whine. He had a bulbous, red nose and sunken cheeks covered with white stubble. ‘Money to return to my wife and children. They need me.’
It was a story John had heard again and again from beggars all over the city. Sometimes it was even true. Plenty of men exhausted their funds during the long pilgrimage to Jerusalem and were unable to return. Plenty more had no wish to go back. Some were running away from a crime or an unwanted family. Others preferred the easy customs of the East. And others still fell in love with drink, gambling, women, or all three. From the look of him, John guessed that any money this old man got would go to drink. He tossed him a copper anyway.
He walked south and turned left on to David Street. It angled steeply uphill, and John mounted a series of steps as he passed the shops built into the southern wall of the Hospitaller complex. ‘Sacred oil, my good sir?’ one of the merchants called to John in French, mistaking him for a pilgrim. He held out a lead flask decorated with images of the saints on one side, and the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem on the other. ‘It will bring you luck. No? A reliquary pendant, perhaps? It contains a splinter of the true cross! Or perhaps a pilgrim’s badge to commemorate your visit to the Holy City?’ John kept walking, and the merchant turned his attention to another passer-by.
Past the shops, John reached the square where David Street intersected with Zion Street and paused. To his left, moneychangers sat before their scales, framed by imposing armed men. A few pilgrims were changing their
Chapter 3
APRIL 1164: JERUSALEM
J ohn sat with his eyes closed, submerged to his chin in the steaming waters of the bath house. A low murmur of voices surrounded him, echoing off the domed ceiling. Most spoke in French, but John also heard German, Provençal, Latin and Catalan. He ignored the sound and let his mind drift. This was his morning ritual, before he went to the church to learn to chant and lead Mass from the prayer book, and then to the palace to work for William or tutor prince Baldwin. It was a time when he could be at peace and forget that he was a man without a country, as cut off from his childhood home of England as he was from his friends in Aleppo. He belonged nowhere, and perhaps that is why he felt at home in Jerusalem. It was a city of immigrants – pilgrims from Europe and native Christians from all over Syria. A city where it was easy to leave one’s past behind and fashion a new life.
John rose from the warm waters and headed for the next room, where he was scrubbed down by an attendant before being doused in cold water. He slipped into his caftan in the changing room and stepped out of the bath house into the paved courtyard of the Hospitaller complex. All around him rose tall buildings – churches, hospitals built to house sick pilgrims and barracks for the knights who served the order. The air, which would be as hot as a furnace by midday, was comfortably warm. John glanced at the sun, whose deep red rim was just rising above the tall buildings that lined the eastern side of the courtyard. There was time for a short walk and a little breakfast.
His nose wrinkled as he walked out of the complex and into a dusty street. Across the way stood the pool of the patriarch, which took up most of a city block. In the winter it was full, but now it was mostly stinking mud and refuse. In the centre of the muck, a pool of water glittered under the morning sun. A system of buckets and pulleys had been built to draw the water up to a raised channel, which crossed the street to provide water for the bath house. A beggar slept against the wall in the tiny patch of shelter underneath the channel. He stirred at the sound of John’s footsteps.
‘Money for a poor pilgrim far from home,’ he begged in a high, plaintive whine. He had a bulbous, red nose and sunken cheeks covered with white stubble. ‘Money to return to my wife and children. They need me.’
It was a story John had heard again and again from beggars all over the city. Sometimes it was even true. Plenty of men exhausted their funds during the long pilgrimage to Jerusalem and were unable to return. Plenty more had no wish to go back. Some were running away from a crime or an unwanted family. Others preferred the easy customs of the East. And others still fell in love with drink, gambling, women, or all three. From the look of him, John guessed that any money this old man got would go to drink. He tossed him a copper anyway.
He walked south and turned left on to David Street. It angled steeply uphill, and John mounted a series of steps as he passed the shops built into the southern wall of the Hospitaller complex. ‘Sacred oil, my good sir?’ one of the merchants called to John in French, mistaking him for a pilgrim. He held out a lead flask decorated with images of the saints on one side, and the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem on the other. ‘It will bring you luck. No? A reliquary pendant, perhaps? It contains a splinter of the true cross! Or perhaps a pilgrim’s badge to commemorate your visit to the Holy City?’ John kept walking, and the merchant turned his attention to another passer-by.
Past the shops, John reached the square where David Street intersected with Zion Street and paused. To his left, moneychangers sat before their scales, framed by imposing armed men. A few pilgrims were changing their
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