Free The Seal by Adriana Koulias Page B

heavy, out of breath. His body, caught between youth and old
age, clung to muscles and sinews strapped over worn-down bones. He got his
breath back and looked beside him to Jourdain. The young captain was flushed
and full of life. He had all his life ahead of him, such as it might be, and
Etienne felt pity for the boy, seeing himself in that face. Twenty years of
this would wear out his soul and his body would follow, so that he too would
some day come to feel sadness when gazing into a youthful face. All that would
come to him if he did not die before.
    Etienne gave a
look to the Normans who were lying upon the earth with their swords beneath
them, the Catalan who lay on his back relaxed, holding his axe as if it were a
fine, light thing. Then he looked back at Iterius who stood behind them,
trembling. His ignoble countenance was staring upwards to the cloud-free sky in
a caricature, or so it looked to Etienne, of prayer.
    A sound took
away Etienne’s attention and he returned his gaze to the church, whereupon he
saw a man dressed not in coif and mail but in ordinary dress come out of the
ruin. The man looked around, arching his back , and
took to the bushes nearby. He then proceeded to pull down his breeches in order
to attend to the ministry of his intestinal needs.
    Etienne thought
this a fine piece of luck and made a signal for the Normans to move with
stealth behind the body of the church. Gideon took it upon himself to come upon
the man by surprise and after that Aubert found a position on one side of the
church door while the Catalan moved to the other. Etienne then signalled
Jourdain, who understood his intentions and went to fetch the horses.
    When he returned
and Etienne saw that Gideon had bested the man at his bodily toils and was now
preventing him from shouting out with one hand while holding a long-bladed
knife to his throat, he made a sign at the Egyptian, trying to catch his eye,
and had to resort to throwing a stone at him. Iterius convulsed and trembled
further and nodded. Etienne motioned for him to mount a horse but Iterius threw
his superior a look of misery. The seneschal’s silent regard, however, caused
him to take himself over his horse in an unsteady fashion so that he almost
fell. Etienne and Jourdain mounted and followed behind, putting spurs to the
horses and pointing them upwards over the lip of land dotted with loose rocks
in a thunder of hoofs and a clatter that made a tempest of noise. This clamour
and stirring of dust in the bright, indolent heat verged on the sound of a
cavalcade and, being mixed up now with the wails of terror and pain emitted by
the captured man, being poked by Gideon with his long-bladed knife, it flushed
out three men one after the other, two with swords and one carrying a Turkish
mace.
    ‘What?’ cried
one man and Etienne saw only his eyes move from surprise to horror and become
fixed as his head came under Delgado’s blade. The head fell to the ground with
a thud and rolled forward, and the body, still moving, stumbled over it,
collapsed and was still.
    Aubert for his
part took a jump onto the shoulder of the man carrying the mace. His short
knife he stuck through one eye and there followed a discharge of blood from the
face, accompanied by a throw of convulsions and screaming that would have sent
the Norman flying off the man’s back except that his boot became entangled in
the mace’s leather thong and he was drawn under as his victim’s body fell over
him.
    Into this melee
of tangled bodies and horses came a third man headed for Etienne. Etienne
raised his sword and leant low over the neck of his horse. He took a sweep with
his broadsword and felt it make a deep cut; the man spun around but did not
drop his weapon, instead he gathered to him his wits and with a holler set his
sights on the flank of Etienne’s horse. Jourdain saw it and made for the man,
driving his broadsword into his back, but not before a blade was driven into
the animal. It gave a long