The Templar’s Bowl
by
Peter “Lou” D’Alessio
Copyright © 2011
Chapter 14: Bare Is the Back Without a Brother Behind It!
As a man suddenly cast overboard in a battle, I was swimming through a dark, cold emptiness. My arms were flailing furiously as I felt the scurrying of those chosen to have a chance of life, and through the great void my ears were filled with the screams of those chosen to die. I went from the darkness of the great emptiness to a light so blinding my eyes, still shut as tightly as I could hold them, hurt. I felt an unseen hand holding me back as I struggled to the surface. I could sense a ship going down, but where? Whose ship was it? Was it mine?... or father’s, or a Templar, or a Viking, a Saxon, an Arab’s? The world seemed to spin around in my head frantically as if it wanted to fall apart, weary of the ways of men.
And then it stopped. Stopped so suddenly it jolted my eyes open. And through the blinking of eyes adjusting to light I saw a room, emptied except for an old monk sitting on the edge of my bed holding an ugly old clay bowl. I could peer through the door and see my mother and father talking to a Doctor and a Priest.
Hamet leaned in. “The physician says you’re dead already. The Priest says you’re sitting at the right hand of God at this very moment. What do you think?” Hamet turned towards the voices outside. “Well, they’ve seen your eyes open, boy. You’re done for it now. Do you know of a way to escape?”
I could feel the ridge of the mask pressing into the bridge of my nose, but could I see over the top of it. They were turning about to charge in and pounce on me with their prayers and potions and rob me of what little human dignity I had left! The Christ was right; many are called but few are chosen... chosen to exercise any common sense or human sensitivity. Through my times, the self-righteousness of those who pray and those who dispense pills collectively lack a grasp on the reality we mere mortals must abide by. Tell the woman her son is dead, and be damned if he isn’t, God won’t mind; or let him die because you and only you can possibly be right in thought or diagnosis, that there might be more to it being beyond your scope. Only God heals bodies or souls, and those he has chosen to heal through oft times don’t realize that they have been called. Yes, I knew of an escape path. I slipped back into the waters of the void and hide beneath the boat.
As the weight of the vessel shifted, it rolled almost to scuttle. I felt a strong hand reach through the water and grab my hair as it pulled me out and back into the ship. When I was tossed onto the deck, I drew in air as if it were a new thing. Askold bent down and shouted to me as he drew me up, as if I was so much water from a well. “I had to rescue you. It would have ruined Egil’s day to see you dead from drowning after all his work!” I looked at Egil. The rudder, his shield, my shield, and his deerskin coat, right down to his mail, were covered with Muslim arrows. He was picking them out and laughing. Seeing me awake and moving, he put out an arm for me to pull myself up with. As he did he leaned in, patted my back with his other hand, and said, “Gut mawn!” Good man! Whatever had transpired, I had done well.
De Flor appeared and handed Egil and I each a horn of a very strong wine not usually allowed to the crew. And then... he yelled at us both! “You are crazy sons of a bitch! What the hell were you—both of you—thinking! You sank one outright and crippled the other two so badly, we hardly had time to plunder!”
Evidently, the Viking viewpoint was different. Egil just looked at me with an immoral grin as if to say, ‘screw him, we did fine!’ And sure enough, Askold Guthrumsson pulled out a small horde of golden bits and pieces taken from the Arab ships, the first of many we would be given over time. “ ’Ere! The crew won’t mind if you get yours first. They saw what you two maniacs did!” He said something to Egil in the Dane tongue and they both laughed. Askold looked at me again. “I just tol’ him, you two should be dead twice over! To take all three ships...” And he poured gold and silver into our open hands, as is the Norse way. Some I gave to Egil, by whose bravery and risk I was still alive. The rest, saving none for myself, I gave to the Templar cause, keeping only a small portion for the many poor and lame I encountered in my journeys. Askold broke off, shook his head and, grabbing de Flor, rose to the task of restoring injured men and a shattered ship.
Gardar Helgi had seen me go overboard and grabbed the rudder as he alerted Guthrumsson that his rudder man was now attacking the enemy without a ship under him. As the rudder had rolled free, the boat had begun to transverse its own axis and nearly toppled, but the tilting, Guthrumsson’s long arm, and Helgi’s quick actions had saved my life, which I now owed Askold and Gardar. Though they would not hold me to it, I would carry the debt for a time longer than either of them could begin to imagine. From the rudder, one helmsman to another, Helgi nodded at me and in his best Saxon said, “You did gut, boy. I can’t dink of a crew who ever be taken of three ships! To ram three and still have a boat under you, they’ll talk of you in the longhouses for many, many years, an’ maybe you become part of Guthrumsson saga!” He chuckled. “In time, you’ll be known as a Dane Viking yourself! A bastard son of Thor carried in the belly of Askold’s old grandmother, Freydis Egillsdottir, as she slew the pirates!” At the mere mention of Freydis Egillsdottir, Egil roared with laughter, knowing as it were what we must be speaking of, and the three of us fell to a mirthful cheer from our killing natures. In time, Egil and I, through a language of our own invention, would become as of one mind, knowing more of each other’s wit from a grunt, groan, or guffaw than from volumes of words spilled meaninglessly from a conniving mouth or frivolous tongue. But for now, fatigue was setting in.
I slid to a sitting position as the laughter calmed. I could see Helgi steering towards the Arab survivors who were clustering on such parts of their ships still capable of floating. But not all. Many chose to accept the peace of the void to being the slave of Christians—or worse, Vikings. So they sank beyond the reach of mankind or floated away and waited for the sharks that would be drawn by the red patches on the ocean’s skin. Only the strongest looking of those left would be plucked from the waters. They would be chained down to the deck and the processes of dehumanization to break them down into beasts of burden would begin. I had grown used to slaves and slavery. It was no different on the Muslim side of the coin. If anything had driven me to fight and win or die, it was the idea of being captured into slavery to the Arabs. Few Templars would not have made the same decision.
I had not seen my Templar mentors in the appearance of many months. I had begun a transformation from the very night I was found by them. And here, so far afield from them and a time I knew as my own, I was becoming someone and something I did not know. And the why of it all was lost to me. I was a warrior now, and a sailor—yea, a Master of ships. And as the scenario played out this day repeated over and over again, I soon realized that I was to be not a plain Master of ships, fetching cod and halibut or moving cargo from thither to yon, but a Master of vessels of war! My training as a Templar Knight, with its war ways and respect of the Divine, was merely preparation, a learning of ways and skills needed at sea. Yet the conflict brewing inside me fermented and bubbled as a witch’s brew boiling and bubbling in a cauldron. I had become fond of killing in one form or another—no doubt the results of sailing with two fearless and scandalous-and-insane-and-geniuses-of-the-Captaincy-of-men-at-sea Captains. As it was that I had learned of God through medieval ways with an intense knowledge of the rights and wrongs of the human condition, I knew that the killing of men was a wrong thing. Though I was a pledged Templar, the part of me still entrenched in a far away century knew that that included the very Muslims I was sworn to kill. Yet on this day, as I sat on a deck looking out into the sea of dead and dying men, through my weariness and hunger and thirst, I could hear the words of the Christ offering forgiveness: “Go and sin no more!” But at this time, as with other times throughout the centuries, this enlightened idea of forgiveness for sinning would have no place in the world. I could kill without emotion and pray for forgiveness later, as this was the way of this time, but not my time!
But it was by the hand of God that I had been brought to this place and time. I had been shown the highest and lowest of mankind, all the courages and cowardices, greeds and generosities, and desires and hopes of humankind. It was maddening, but as I saw in it the hand of God, I accepted it as a Templar is bound to do. My head was spinning as I tried to reconcile everything in my mind at once. Only an oddly familiar smell brought me back to the world again. It was warm and familiar and brought to me by de Flor.
“You must be hungry after all that murder.” He smiled that ‘all knowing’ smile of his. “Look! I’ve been saving this.” He ripped off a large chunk of the warm sausage bread he held in his hand and gave it to me as he sat down next to me. I held the bread to my nose and let the odor fill my senses and wash my mind clear. “Here!” From beneath his tunic he pulled a copper cup, the same cup he had given me as we had dined on the Saint Anne. “I keep forgetting to give you this. Don’t lose it! Keep this as part of your sea kit and don’t mislay it. The last owner was a good man who would have wanted you to have it. A man worth remembering.”
Askold had also joined us with bread for Egil and a joint of meat for all of us. “It’s good to be remembered. As long as men know your saga, you live on, or so we Norse believe.” The Viking suddenly looked sad to me. “Soon, mebbe even sagas won’t be remembered, and the Viking warrior will be na’more! It is good to be a Christian, but there are times, by God, I miss Odin like hell!”
De Flor rolled his eyes. “You old pirate, since when did you stop believing in Odin?”
In less than a day, one of the karves that had left us returned from out of nowhere. We loaded all the slaves and booty we had collected into it and sent it on its way. If I thought I’d seen sorrow before, I was wrong. The sadness in the faces of the slaves reflected a short life of misery and toil, followed by an infinity of darkness as their bodies desiccated in some ditch or river, far from friends, far from family, far from home. Such was war. We had pirated a small fortune for our cause, gathered a wealth of slaves, and brought glory to our own! I consoled myself by thinking of the war of my century where simple people were often killed with no purpose, caught up in the fortunes of war without even the hope of a life in chains.
As the days went by, de Flor and Guthrumsson went on a tear. In a short space of time I learned more of the Art of War then most men learn in several lifetimes. We took anything that floated at us. Arab war ships, rich Christian merchants, anything! I am certain that if our path had crossed with the Saint Anne, we’d have taken her too! And always, within a day or two, a Karve or Knarr would appear to carry away what we had harvested from the sea.
Egil and I were becoming fast friends. He was a solid fellow, as smart as he was tough. He had been with Askold longer than I had been alive—in a manner of speaking. In our pigeon-language, he told me of his many travels, and of the battles he had fought in and lived. And he taught me the Varangian way of combat. The small axe I had been given was no toy, or even a gesture of respect. It was an invention for mass killing designed by Masters of the Art... and Egil was that. In as much as I had cracked his noggin with the blunt side of the axe as opposed to splitting his skull in two with the blade, Egil had been convinced I had potential as a warrior and a Viking. He trained me even more relentlessly than my Captains. Between the three of them, I forgot how to sleep. But in the passing of days, weeks and months, the axe became as an extension of my hand, and the ship and its crew an extension of my soul.
The crew was now at my command, as the Captains began backing off their control and ceded more and more of it to me. I had stopped counting battles at sea at nine, and the men I’d murdered at... at... let that figure be for now. I had begun to believe that this was a way of life, a kind of kill-or-be-killed by God’s Grace. I moved from one conflict to another, convinced there was a purpose to all this.
We had sailed past Cyprus. At last we were heading to a port in the Holy Land. I was very different from the boy I had been at the start of my voyage. There was very little left of him, replaced by a three-headed creature—part Viking, part Saxon, and part Templar, all mixed together by stormy and rolling seas. Theo would not know me. I wondered how I would go back to the world of solid land and servitude.
We were still several days from land when the Captains called the crew together. To my amazement, de Flor appeared on deck in the black surcoat and red patee of a Templar Sergeant. The burden of control of the ship was to be placed on my shoulders. Fair or foul weather, calm sea or battle, I was now the Captain. As unheard of and dangerous as this was, the crews cheered. I, at the rudder, had made them all wealthy, and this was a sign to them that I was favored by God (or the gods, depending of what a warrior believed in his heart). I knew not what to say. Askold just nodded his approval and my man Egil was beside himself. As a Captain, my condition—and his—had been raised.
And so it was. Egil became my shield man, and from then on never left my side. Gardar Helgi also profited. He and I had talked long and often, and there was no doubt in my mind that having him at the rudder was as good as being there myself. So I made him the rudder man for any and all battles, but made it perfectly clear that this was not payment for saving my life. I wanted skill at the rudder. The crew, when hearing of this, was astonished that a man would not use this opportunity to repay such a debt, but was extremely pleased. Their lives hung on the skill of the rudder man—and I think they preferred not having debt-payback at the rudder.
Things were moving so fast I couldn’t put all the pieces together. These things I’ve said are easily spoken, but there is nothing easy about the workings of a warship such as this. And to be but one week short of a thirteenth year, it is staggering. I prayed we’d reach a port without another ship seen on the horizon. Now tell me, friend, after all you’ve heard, do you think that would really happen?
Two Muslim galleys, at sea only with the purpose of driving us down, seemed to fall from the sky right in front of us. Though the wind blew to our backs, giving us an advantage, these were not the small triangular-sailed dhows we had pirated, and they would be trouble. Muslims had been importing timber from Europeans, and these were certifiable European galleys of an Arab design! Good crew that they were, they screamed for combat even before we closed, but I put them to the oars and drove us at them as fast as we could go. There was enough space for a dragonship with oars extended to squeeze between these Arab war vessels—barely. Gardar’s head pulled back when I signaled him to push through the middle, a vulnerable place to sail into. De Flor and Guthrumsson must have thought I’d lost my mind as arrows and Greek fire fell upon us from both sides.
I knew the assumption would be that we would attack the galley on starboard, crashing into it and taking away its rudder. As the galley began to turn away from us Helgi, by my signal and after a call to raise oar, pushed the rudder as hard in as he could, as if he wanted to spin us in a full circle. My ship was twice as fast at the helm as any ship anywhere, and sturdier. As the starboard galley made way, we spun, and as we did our tail section took out most of the Muslim oars on the port side vessel, leaving them bobbing in the water. I did not expect it, but the hand of God reached out and the great dragonhead on the prow tangled the other vessel’s ruder. It rocked their boat mightily as we pulled away, but the sudden twisting of their hull and a bit of fire of our own cost them their sail. It blazed up quickly, the mast broke free of its securings, and fell to the deck, dispatching Arabs to Allah with a crash.
As we circled about, I looked for where each ship was. The burning ship was of no issue to us. We could finish them at will if needed. The other ship was a different matter. They still had mobility to some extent, and they were making a run at us. To complicate matters, we too were burning. But again, my lapstrake ship was to prove of greater value for the money paid. I would have liked to have taken her oars on her far side, but fear of losing my own sail and mast to the flames caused me to sail a more direct course. As they closed in on us, I signaled to Helgi to ram her head on. And so he did, ripping out part of her hull as we slid down her oarless side, taking on many Muslim arrows and more fire. The initial collision rocked both ships violently as men screamed and tumbled into the void.
I felt a jolt as if we had struck a rock. But something was very, very wrong. This was neither a Templar vessel, nor a Viking dragonship. It was a ship of my Father’s fleet. I had seen it, knew the crew. I heard the screams of dying men and the ship being blown asunder. I saw my father shouting orders to his crew. I could not observe the ocean clearly. Were we past our attacker? Was he in front of us?
And I woke from my death-like sleep, screaming in a language all my own, that the men of my time could not understand. After struggling with them, I fell back into God’s hand.
