The Leopard Sword by Michael Cadnum Page A

time I heard a muted sound, the noise of a mechanism being cranked by hand, slowly but with a certain urgency.
    I knew this sound well, and so did my companions. It was a crossbow being cocked.
    â€œDon’t cease talking,” murmured Sir Nigel. “Soothing speech calms horses, hounds, and nervous sentries.”
    I said that we were honored to stand before this great city, and looked forward to seeing its many holy sites. I had the impression this guard knew exactly what I was saying—perhaps all visitors before the gates delivered similar sentiments. The speech he offered in return struck me at first as little more than polite-sounding noise. As he continued, however, I recognized that the language was enough like Latin for me to glean some meaning.
    He believed us, he said, when we said that we were Crusaders. He was honored to see such noble cavalieri. “Inglese?” he inquired at last.
    â€œYes, every one of us,” I said.
    He reached down and produced the crossbow, painted blue and red along its stock, and decorated with yellow stars. A quarrel—a crossbow bolt—was ready-cocked. I had no doubt that a quarrel fired at such close range would pass right through me, and end up buried in the ground.
    Edmund stepped before me, and said, looking upward, “No quarrel has the force to go through two men.”
    â€œCorragio,” said the bowman with a laugh.
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    A carter approached the gate from the road behind us with a load of charcoal. He called up to the battlement, but the guard explained that no one could pass for the moment. The sight of a guard leveling a crossbow caused no evident concern or surprise. Several other tradesmen arrived with heavily laden cobs, stout-legged horses. We all had to wait.
    The barrier opened at last, nearly silent on its massive hinges.
    A figure before us gave a bow—a young man with a striped tunic with a gold-colored belt. Every trade had its livery: the baker his cap, the brewer his long leather apron. I took this man to be a herald. He wore a finely wrought gipser purse and a silver-chased sheathe with a well-wrought hilt, and introduced himself as Fulke Mowbray, herald to King Richard’s envoy in Rome. He gracefully motioned us inside the gate.
    â€œStay close to me,” said the herald.“The Holy City is ripe with cutthroats.”

TWENTY-FIVE
    Just inside the city walls was a great church, and a vineyard. A few rows of pear trees offered shade from the afternoon sun. I was not surprised that church clerks would want grapes for wine, or pears for perry, a pleasing drink.
    But I was surprised at the shabbiness of the city, weeds and broken stones everywhere. We marched through flocks of sheep driven by shepherds armed with short swords and cudgels. Geese flocked along the broad, paved street.
    Nevertheless, it was the grandest city I had ever seen. Father Giles had drawn sketches on my tabela, and described to me the magnificence of the Colosseum. But nothing prepared me for the sight of it, ghost-gray and gigantic. Edmund and I exchanged glances of wonderment and delight. The arches and barrel vaults that supported the great monument thrilled me. By comparison, the grandest church in Nottingham, and the richest oak-timbered hall of my father or his fellow merchants, were like the playhouses of little boys.
    Sir Nigel, too, was flushed with excitement as we passed through the vast late-afternoon shadow of this place.And yet I continued to be surprised at how worn this holy site was. Much of the marble facing of the monuments had been stripped away, leaving holes where it had been attached. Men and women in rags crouched in the entranceways and corridors, and as they caught my glance they called out in tones of no great respect.
    I was stunned further at the ruin of what I took to be the great Roman Forum, a place Father Giles had described to my family, my sister and both my parents all as rapt as I was to hear of this