00 - Templar's Acre Read Online Free PDF Page B

cloak, wearing a white linen coif. Clearing his throat impatiently, Baldwin frowned at the delay. The man turned with an
enquiring expression.
    ‘My apologies, my friend,’ he said pleasantly. ‘Was I hampering your advance?’
    Baldwin took in the red couped cross at his breast and bowed apologetically. The man had a greying beard that reached down to his chest, and that, along with the red cross, the white robes, and
the sword, marked him out as a Templar.
    ‘No, sir knight,
I
should apologise. I had no idea you were a Templar.’
    ‘Me?’ The man’s eyes crinkled with amusement. ‘No, I’m no Templar. Though I try to do my part. You are new to the city?’
    ‘I have just arrived. I am here to join with the crusade.’
    ‘Then you are doubly welcome. My name is Sir Jacques d’Ivry.’
    Baldwin introduced himself, studying the man with interest. Templars were the only Order who tended to grow beards, he knew, while also shaving their heads. It was a sign of their rejection of
secular life. This man had hair, he could see – but perhaps here in the Holy Land men would emulate priests and only shave their tonsure? Still, this knight had a gentle, kindly look in his
blue eyes, like the vicar at Exeter’s sanctuary who had blessed him and sent him on this journey.
    ‘It is an easy mistake. I am a Knight of the Order of Saint Lazarus.’
    Baldwin felt a shiver at his spine on hearing that: a Leper Knight.
    He had always borne a horror of that foul disease. It was a sign of God’s rejection, many said, and the victim must be uniquely foul to deserve such a mark.
    Sir Jacques did not notice his revulsion. ‘I joined the Order from an ambition to serve, and what better Order in which to protect the needy and defenceless? But many of my Order join us
from the Templars, which is why our symbol is so similar to theirs. When a Templar learns he has leprosy, he will come to our house, and his service continues.’
    He broke off. A man was proffering fruit from a bowl, and he took an orange with gratitude, bowing to the man and thanking him in a language strange to Baldwin’s ears.
    ‘What was that you spoke?’
    ‘Arabic, my friend,’ the knight said. He had a small eating knife in his hand and he cut the orange twice about the middle, so that the flesh came away like four petals of a flower.
He left the skin attached to the orange, and studied it with a satisfied smile, replacing his knife in a sheath hidden under his tunic. ‘So, you are new here?’
    ‘I was told to find the cathedral.’
    ‘It is up that road, then turn left and keep going. You are rather out of your way.’
    ‘I am grateful.’
    ‘It is my pleasure to be of service, my friend. I hope we shall meet again.’ He pressed the orange upon Baldwin, ignoring his protestations that he could not accept it, until Baldwin
took it with as good a grace as he could manage.
    ‘Go with God, my friend. May He guide and guard you.’ Sir Jacques looked over Baldwin at the market behind. ‘May He guard us all,’ he added quietly.

CHAPTER FIVE
    Baldwin strolled in the direction Sir Jacques had indicated, eating the orange with delight. It was a rare treat for him at home, and oranges were never this sweet and juicy.
As he walked, he wondered whether he was following the same paths his father had taken when he had come here.
    He had often heard the story from his father’s lips. Twenty years ago, he had joined the young Prince Edward and sailed here. Prince Edward had hoped to stimulate a renewed fight to win
back territories overrun by the Saracens, and could have succeeded, had he brought more men with him. But with the tiny force at his command, it was impossible.
    Since his departure, as Ivo had said, the Saracens had rolled back the Christians from their borders. The Hospitallers had been forced from their great fortresses at Marqab and Krak des
Chevaliers, and the Teutonic Knights had lost their castle at Montfort. Now the only protection