The Hostility of Hanno: An Outlaw Chronicles short story Read online

  Hanno ignored the dying man at his feet and the gush of blood over his boots; his head snapped left and right, his feet had assumed a fighting stance, the bloody dagger was cocked and ready in his right fist – but there were no enemies to be seen. Indeed, the walkway was almost deserted. Hanno looked over at Alan, and he lowered his shoulders and smiled, showing a ragged set of yellow-grey teeth. He lifted the gory dagger to his brow in salute; bent and retrieved his purse from the Arab’s slack lap, and sauntered down the promenade as carefree as a child.

  The stallholder’s face was the colour of ash; he knelt beside the stricken thief on the stone flags of the promenade flapping his hands in shocked panic but unable to make any noise at all. Alan realized that his own mouth was hanging wide open. He shut it abruptly, fumbled a coin on to the table for his food and walked jerkily away.

  ***

  The wine was sour, barely drinkable, but Alan was determined to finish this jug and another. The anger he felt in his belly at the ruthless, money-grubbing behaviour of his lord demanded the fruit of the grape. He drank alone, in a tavern in a strange quarter of Acre that he knew none of his company of green-cloaked English men-at-arms and Welsh bowmen were likely to visit. They always drank in one of the dives near the airy sea-palace that his lord had commandeered, so as not to have too far to stagger home with a bellyful. Alan was grateful to be alone – he’d dismissed his servant with an angry word and stormed into the night looking for wine, lots of it, nursing his anger like a baby at his breast.

  He finished his cup and refilled it. He could feel the liquor coursing through his veins and igniting a glow behind his eyes and he began to relax a little. He looked around the room. It was a dismal place: a low, square room with a counter at one end filled with bottles and casks where a dwarfish man in a greasy robe grinned and bowed at him. There were a dozen other drinkers huddled on benches around the edge of the room, and some at the other tables; many were clearly European but a good proportion were local; none, it seemed, wished to engage with any of the other souls there. Alan was glad of that; he was also glad of the poniard he had in a sheath at his waist, a foot-long blade of fine Spanish steel. Since it had fallen to the Christians, Acre had become a wild and dangerous place after dark, with pilgrim throats cut daily for the silver in their purses, sometimes just for their clothing or boots. Every morning at least one or two bodies were discovered slumped, stripped and blood-streaked in the winding alleyways of the old city. Certain parts of the city were declared off-limits; the Christian soldiers were warned not to drink alone, or with strangers, and always to keep a hand on their purses. Good advice – which Alan utterly ignored. He fiddled in his own purse and produced a coin. He tapped it on the table and pointed at his jug. The little proprietor nodded and bustled over to sweep the jug from the table and hurry away to refill it.

  ‘I buy this!’ said a hard voice, and Alan noticed a muscular weight beside his elbow, and the dull shine of candlelight off a heat-blistered bald head. Hanno pulled up a stool and took a seat by the Englishman. ‘I say thank you. For warning.’

  Alan nodded. ‘You have learnt some English?’ he asked.

  ‘A little. I not perfect. It too difficult …’ Hanno finished his sentence with an unintelligible stream of Bavarian that seemed to be packed with the vilest profanities. Then he sat down on Alan’s left and filled a beaker for himself from the jug. The two sat in silence for a while, sipping the execrable wine, unable or unwilling to find an area in common suitable for conversation. Finally, Alan spoke. ‘You know, Hanno, there was no need to kill that boy on the promenade,’ he said mildly. ‘He was a cut-purse: he presented no danger to you, only to your silver.’

  Hanno looked utterly perplexed. Alan tried again, speaking a little more loudly and slowly as was his habit with foreigners who did not have the wit to understand him, and miming a little on some of the longer words. ‘The boy. He was a thief; he not want harm you. Thief. Take purse. Steal. You do not need to kill him.’

  Hanno looked at Alan as if he were mad; then filled his beaker to the brim with wine. And while Alan drew breath to try once again to make his point anew, a fresh voice broke in: ‘But Hanno likes to kill, don’t you, Hanno?’ The stranger, who was standing on the far side of the table, followed this with a stream of German, which Hanno evidently understood but did not care for. He was glaring at the stranger, a man with a long face, long black hair and yellowish skin. Alan could see that the man had a fighting axe tucked discreetly into his belt at the back, the curved head just visible in the gloom.

  Without the slightest invitation, the stranger hooked out a stool with his foot and sat down. Alan was suddenly aware of two other men, big, indistinct figures who had shifted from their positions against the wall and were now paying a little too much attention to the three of them at the table. His spine itched.

  ‘You go now,’ said Hanno, pushing hard against Alan’s left arm. ‘Go away. This man is no good man. You go now.’

  ‘Yes, off you go now, sonny,’ said the stranger. ‘Old Johannes and I have some pressing business to transact.’

  Alan did not move. ‘I haven’t finished my drink,’ he said, wrapping the fingers of his left hand around the beaker. His right hand lay casually in his lap beneath the table.

  ‘You finish up your drink and run along, there’s a good lad,’ said the man.

  ‘Who are you to be giving orders?’ Alan’s mouth had tightened to a grim, determined line. He remembered his earlier anger at the barbarities of his lord, and found that he was perfectly happy to redirect his rage at this yellow-faced stranger.

  ‘I am Rudolfo Chiavari – and these are my brothers, Sergio and Roberto.’ The man jerked a chin at the two shadowy men who by now were standing behind Alan and Hanno. The young Englishman stared hard at Chiavari, trying to keep any trace of shock or fear from his face.

  ‘I see that you have heard of us – that is good. It will make things more simple. So now, finish your drink and go. There need be no trouble between us.’

  Alan did know of the Chiavari brothers, a vicious gang of five siblings and their followers, all cut-throats and thieves who served in the Italian contingent under Ubaldo Lanfranchi, the Archbishop of Pisa. They had been in the Holy Land longer than most of the other Christian forces and had built themselves a reputation for ruthless dishonesty, outrageous thievery, extortion, murder and mayhem that was a disgrace to their noble cause. For a moment, Alan considered getting meekly to his feet and leaving that tavern, which now stank of menace. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see drinkers hurriedly finishing their drinks and making for the doorway. He owed nothing to Hanno – he had already gone out of his way to be kindly to him on two occasions with scant thanks. There was no bond between them, nothing to stop him walking away. It was the right, the wise, the sensible thing to do.

  ‘What business have you with my friend Hanno here?’ asked Alan. All his senses were extended: he was listening for any sound of movement from the men behind him, while keeping his eyes fixed on the fellow sitting across the table. The bar had nearly emptied. Even the obsequious dwarfish owner had found some hole to burrow into. Alan felt the chilly fire of battle ignite in his belly. His mouth was dry, the thrill of mortal peril puckering the skin on his arms and neck.

  The dark-haired Rudolfo smiled like a satisfied wolf. ‘Since you ask, your friend killed my brother Petrus, in a common brawl, in a place like this up in Tyre, over some fat slattern who brewed ale there.’ The man looked around at the dingy surroundings. ‘Yes, he died in a place very much like this one. Petrus was a drunken sodomite, a lazy, useless, foul-mouthed slug-abed much of the time, but he was my brother, and you know how these things are. So, will you go now, and leave us to our business, sonny? Absolutely your last chance.’

  But the man was lying. With a slow, dream-like clarity, Alan could see Rudolfo already reaching for the axe behind his belt. And the dead, fear-stinking air was moving behind Alan’s back; he felt the whisper of it on his
bare neck, although he had not seen Rudolfo give the slightest signal. It was beginning.

  Alan felt a heavy hand thud on to his shoulder – and he raised his left hand and flipped the full beaker of wine up behind him into the face of the Chiavari standing at his back. A splash, a vile oath, and a clatter as the empty beaker hit the floor. Alan’s poniard was already unsheathed in his right hand and without turning he jabbed the long blade backwards blindly, under his left elbow between his arm and his ribs, and felt it sink home into the man’s groin. A squeal of rage and a wash of blood over his fist, and Alan was on his feet and turning, tugging the blade free, moving to finish the wounded man with a second plunging poniard strike to the belly.

  If Alan Dale thought that he had moved swiftly to combat the Chiavari looming behind his stool, his brisk actions were as nothing beside those of Hanno. The moment Rudolfo began to reach for the axe, the Bavarian put his right boot up on the edge of the table and shoved it hard towards the man seated opposite, skidding the heavy wood across, smashing the table’s side into his enemy’s chest and knocking him to the floor. Hanno was already twisting and rising, his dagger in his fist. He surged up at the man standing behind his chair, the blade driving up, the soft pop of a knife-filled fist meeting slack jaw flesh, and the dagger had buried itself under the chin of the Chiavari, ploughing through tongue and soft palette into his brain. The man died instantly, on his feet, and Hanno turned like a cat, leapt two-footed on to the table, and used it as springboard to dive at Rudolfo, who was only now struggling to his feet. As Alan jammed his poniard into the large belly of his already stricken, wine-soaked victim, Hanno’s sunburnt shaven head smashed into Rudolfo’s mouth, knocking him immediately back down on to the greasy rushes of the tavern floor. The two men lay prone for half an instant. Then Hanno’s body reared up above his stunned opponent. A lateral swing of Hanno’s powerful right arm and his dagger punched into Rudolfo’s temple, cracking through the thin plate of bone and deep into his skull. Hanno stirred the handle of the dagger once, extinguishing the divine spark in his enemy’s appalled eyes in three long, slow, heavy heartbeats.

  Panting, Hanno rose to his feet. He growled something in his backwoods German dialect to the very few remaining wide-eyed spectators of the fight. Alan did not understand the words, he doubted that many in that dim, blood-stinking room recognised them, but the message was crystal clear: ‘Anyone else have a problem with me?’

  Outside the tavern, battle-joy boiling in their veins, Alan and Hanno trotted away down the narrow alley. Alan looked back once but not a man had dared to follow them. They took two turnings, three, and then paused, their backs pressed flat against the cool stone wall of a palatial house. And listened. Nothing.

  Alan was grinning at his companion, his spirits soaring, his heart bounding. He tapped the other man’s broad chest with a shaking forefinger. ‘You fight well, my friend,’ he said, his blood fizzing with post-combat euphoria. Hanno nodded distractedly, still listening for sounds of pursuit. ‘And I didn’t do too badly either,’ Alan continued happily. ‘We make a damned good fighting team, you and I.’

  ‘You are lucky!’ said the Bavarian. ‘The man you fight is too stupid.’

  ‘Hmm?’ Alan was taken completely aback.

  Hanno looked at him, his face shrouded in shadow. ‘He puts hand on your shoulder. He gives warning. He is stupid.’

  ‘I finished him off pretty smartly.’

  ‘Yes, he is stupid.’

  Alan’s glorious battle-stoked happiness drained swiftly away.

  Hanno seemed to sense the change in Alan’s mood. ‘I show you,’ he said. He held up the index finger of his right hand before Alan’s face. ‘This is my knife, yes?’ By a gleam of light from a nearby half-open doorway, Alan could see that the stubby digit still had Rudolfo’s black blood on it. Hanno gripped Alan by the shoulders and turned him so that the young man’s back was towards the Bavarian fighter.

  ‘Like this,’ he said. And he laid the finger lightly on Alan’s throat, on the left side, a fraction of an instant before he put his left hand on Alan’s right shoulder, then he swiftly drew the finger across Alan’s neck as if cutting his throat, his left arm across his back and shoulder bracing Alan’s body against the sweep of the cut.

  ‘This is how you do. See? This is perfect. He is stupid. You are lucky.’

  For a terrifying moment the youngster felt as if he might burst into tears. Or lash out blindly at Hanno with his fists. But, mercifully, he managed to control himself, and with a clogged, angry voice, he said, ‘Well, you were lucky – you were lucky to have me there at all!’ And he pulled his shoulder roughly out of Hanno’s grasp and, without another word, marched down the alley, leaving the bewildered Bavarian behind him.

  September 1191, Jaffa

  Alan Dale rode slowly through the heap of dusty rubble that used to be the old town of Jaffa. It had been utterly destroyed by the retreating enemy – with almost no stone standing upon another – at Saladin’s express order after the Battle of Arsuf, two weeks previously. The battle, a bloody, day-long affair, had seen the light Saracen cavalry of the great Muslim warlord overmatched, mauled and driven from the field by the repeated charges of the heavy Christian knights, and the Englishman had played his part in that gory day most valiantly. But despite the victory, his spirits were low: he had come face to face with some of the harsher realities of the world in recent weeks, and been forced to shed more blood than ever before in his life, and his young, handsome face had been marked with its first lines of care.

  He kicked his grey horse around the charred ruins of a grand house and pointed its nose down a steeply sloping road towards the old harbour. The fishermen of Jaffa had enjoyed something of a boom with the arrival of the Christian army; if their shacks and hovels had all been destroyed, no matter, for the hungry soldiery from half a dozen European nations made up for it by buying almost anything they could catch, at almost any price they asked. Indeed, Alan had been dispatched to the harbour that morning to buy a fresh tuna, if he could get it, for his lord’s table but he had been given strict instructions to pay no more than three precious shillings – an outrageous amount already – for the noble fish. As the young man walked his horse down the rubble road towards the waterfront, he felt the weight of battle fatigue press on his shoulders. His head was bowed in imitation of his horse’s down-stretched neck and his chin almost rested on his mailed chest. He was still garbed for war, although the great battle was many days behind him, for the shattered forces of Saladin had spawned a host of bandits – runaway men who no longer saw the need for the Sultan’s discipline, and who now made their living ambushing unwary Christians – as well as the more organized groups of Muslim warriors under one petty emir or another who harassed the Christian camp for loot and glory. These groups of men lurked in groves of olive trees around the ruined town or in half-destroyed houses inside it and rode out to surprise and attack small parties of knights, engage them, kill a few and then ride for safety before help could be summoned. So, even though he had been dispatched on no more than a simple shopping errand by his master, Alan wore a good iron-link hauberk despite the September heat, and as well as his poniard, he had a long sword hanging from his waist.

  As Ghost, his faithful grey gelding, picked his way nimbly down the rubble-strewn road, Alan’s eye was plucked by a scene to his left on a small promontory above the bay, a flattish piece of land that oversaw the curve of blue sea and the dirty mass of crowded fishing boats below. A simple gibbet had been set up there some days before at Richard the Lionheart’s command, a cross bar between two upright posts, and two dark corpses were twisting in the brisk wind from the Mediterranean. Evidently another hanging was due, for a scrum of men in red surcoats was jostling around a small, squat figure, writhing hard, who was evidently very far from resigned to his fate. Alan halted his horse and looked over at the scene, some thirty yards away. He had a peculiar horror of hangings, for his father had been killed in such a manner half a dozen
or so years previously, when he was a boy, and in his heart of hearts it had always seemed a barbaric method of punishment: the slow strangling of a man as he kicked and danced out his final moments at the end of a rough rope.

  Alan was about to ride on down to the harbour when, with a sinking in his stomach, he recognized the brutal brown planes of the knuckle-shaped bald head of the man about to hang.

  Hanno.

  There was no doubt about it. For several heartbeats, Alan hesitated. He could close his eyes, ride on and he would never have to see the ugly little Bavarian again. He was not his comrade, his compatriot nor his friend; in all honesty, Hanno was an unfortunate friendless fellow, a rude and graceless killer of men – and doubtless he had murdered someone of importance and was about to pay the price. I should ride on, Alan told himself. It is not my concern, he said to his conscience. ‘A bad end is fitting for a bad man such as he,’ he mumbled under his breath. And then he sighed, turned Ghost’s head around towards the top of the slope and put his spurs into the beast’s sides.

  As Alan approached the gibbet, he could see that Hanno had finally been subdued. He was bound at the wrists and around his upper arms and was being pinned to the ladder propped against the gibbet by half a dozen men-at-arms, all in red surcoats with a silver cross on the front – the Archbishop of Pisa’s men, Alan registered dimly. One of the red-coated Italians sat a-horse, a vintenar by his look, or some other kind of petty officer. He nodded at Alan as he rode up on Ghost, and called out a greeting.