The battlements were quiet, too quiet for Conrad's comfort. His knights were sparse and disconnected. The shadows loomed farther than they usually did.
Anger flared within Conrad's chest like a small fire. "This is my city," he growled. Why was he afraid of the shadows cast by his own battlements? He would not be intimidated by idealistic madmen or an assassin.
"Guards!" he shouted. He kept shouting until they showed themselves, slowly slinking from the towers, the board rooms, the hidden patrol routes, until every last one of them surrounded him in an unorganized circle. "With the death of the Grand Master, the assassin is still loose in the streets of Acre," he said. His men shifted uneasily. "Double the patrols, around the clock, and no one walks alone."
A murmur of agreement passed through his men, so Conrad nodded and turned to leave, his men parting to let him through the throng.
As he made his way to his quarters, a familiar face, flushed with exhaustion, rushed to meet him. "Conra- Er, Siege Lord, I heard you shouting and-"
"Come with me, Garrick, and make haste." Conrad spoke without stopping, but Garrick had no trouble keeping up with him, despite his nervous eye-rubbing. And hidden behind Conrad's portrayal of authority and fast pace, he was shaking uncontrollably.
Behind a locked door, Conrad de Montferrat and his attendant, Garrick, spoke in hushed tones about the conspiracy Conrad had been accepted into and that, despite the Siege Lord's loyalty to the Knights Templar, as much as the Knights Teutonic and Hospitalier, his doubts were creeping in.
Conrad revealed to his attendant the conversation he had that night, omitting of course where the conversation had taken place and with whom. Interestingly, Garrick seemed less surprised than Conrad had expected.
"If I were to denounce the Templar Order, I may as well run myself through with my own sword." Conrad lied on his bed, his feet and calves hanging over the edge, staring at the ceiling. In this respect, he felt more like a budding teenager with a romantic dilemma than the Lord of Acre in the midst of a plot he wanted no part of.
Garrick sat against the wall adjacent to the open window, his eyes scanning the darkness. He looked at Conrad aghast. "Impossible. The Knights Templar and King Richard are closely allied."
Recalling his earlier conversation with the hooded Templar, Conrad scoffed.
"You cannot denounce them and remain Siege Lord, or alive. You must escape the holy land and evade the knights of the Templars and the King, or ally yourself with the enemy."
Conrad bolted upright. "The assassin," he whispered sharply. He turned to Garrick. "If I were to get a chance to speak to the assassin, perhaps he would spare me and allow me asylum in his own Order."
"Are you mad?" Garrick's eyes were drawn in with concern. "He will hunt you down as well, for being William's son, for having any connections to the Knights Templar. How will you stop him?"
"By sending him a message..." The Siege Lord pressed a fist against his lips, thinking. With a groan, Garrick stood and leaned out the window, sweeping his eyes over the battlements, now buzzing with armored guards.
A yawn came from the bed. Garrick turned to see the Siege Lord stretch and fall back against the padding of his mattress. "I have not slept in too long," he mumbled. "If I'm to speak to the assassin of the holy lands, I should be well-rested. Stand guard, Garrick, and alert me when morning has come."
"Yes, my liege."
Conrad's dreams were plagued by symbols, hooded figures, the faces of men without eyes and mouths twisted in grotesque expressions. He must have been tossing in his sleep, murmuring in discomfort, but he was shaken awake not because of his nightly habits.
"Conrad, Conrad!" Garrick's voice broke through the eerie haze of his nightmare-haunted sleep. "Wake up, please!"
"Garrick," his voice, like grinding stones, snapped at the hands shaking him furiously. "What is it? What are you-"
The shaking ceased, and Garrick was at the window. "The battlements have been breached. All the guards lay dead in the courtyard."
Conrad grew warm, an instinctual fear settling in his body. "The assassin has come for me."
Garrick shook his head quickly. "Not he, but others of the same flock. Look," he pointed. The Siege Lord jumped from his bed and moved to the window. "Two of them are among the dead below, and our assassin hunts alone."
The early morning sunlight, just breaking dawn, lightly illuminated the pale, waxing bodies of the dead. The white robes were stained red, as were his mens' armor. Conrad's knuckles whitened as he clutched the window's border, uncertain how to act. "And he would not change his tactics for my sake, but... Why?"
"No," Garrick interrupted, leaning farther out the window and seeing something down below with interest, "Look, Liege-" in the tense situation, Garrick had reverted back to his subservient attitude,"-one remains. As do several of the knights."
A harsh knock at the door startled them both, and they gave each other a look before straightening up. Conrad was usually awake earlier than sunrise, an indication of organization and discipline. Today he would show no different, despite his heart that beat like a hammer in his chest.
A guard rushed in, haggard and slightly bloodied. "My Lord, a situation that requires your immediate attention on the grounds," he gasped.
Conrad, in a fit of mock authority and nervous impatience, shoved the guard away with an open palm. "Enough," he snapped, and walked along, Garrick in tow.
In the courtyard, they were met with an unnerving sight.
Held tight by his elbows, the assassin hung limp until his knees nearly touched the ground, his covered head held low, blood slowly dripping from his chin. The sound of Conrad approaching caught his attention, and he lifted his head slowly, glaring daggers through his remaining eye.
The Siege Lord stalked past his fallen knights, stepping over the bodies of his men until he stopped in front of the broken killer. "Assassin..." He drew out the word as though he greeted a social nemesis. Sparing a moment's glance, it chagrined him deeply to see the knight that stood paces away, sporting the Templar's red cross on his silver armor.
The assassin stared for a moment longer, then turned his head and spat blood. Conrad tilted his head. It was odd that the assassin did not aim for his feet.
"Dog," the assassin replied in like, with the same drawn-out curt tone, which earned him a rough shake from his holder. He recovered with a grunt and shook back the hood of his robes, revealing a shaved head and an alarmingly stoic dark face. His right eye had suffered the ragged drag of a blade and bled profusely, but still he stared. Conrad was almost impressed.
Conrad took a few steps back, until he reached the corpse of another assassin, and noticed the stoic face of the captured man tense furiously, because with the toe of his boot, Conrad prodded the body. "Why have you come to my home at such an unreasonable hour, hm?"
"The best time to catch you unaware," the assassin growled.
"Is that it, then?" Conrad shrugged indifferently and knelt down. He reached out and tore the robes apart from the body of the assassin, checking in the creases and exposing his face, then went through the bags he wore at the waist. Finally, he pulled out a folded parchment. "And this? Is this meant for me?"
The assassin cursed under his breath and looked away. With a smile, Conrad began to unfold the note, when he noticed the assassin watching him nervously.
"Wait," the assassin snapped, his face a humbling combination of panic and anger. Conrad handed the note to Garrick and moved back towards the prisoner. "Wait... Our master... Had a message for you, most venerable Siege Lord. When your men attacked us, poor messengers, simply."
Conrad smirked curiously.
"The message... In that letter... Is of Robert de Sable's death. And you..." He trailed off and looked to the ground for a long moment, swallowing hard, and then looked back up, his confidence reconfirmed. "You are next, Templar dog."
"How dare you-" A knight moved in from the side, his short sword drawn and brought back to swing, aimed at the assassin's neck. The assassin flinched, but never met his end. Conrad parried the attack forcefully with his own weapon, drawn out at the last second, and pushing the knight back a few steps. "My Lord! He said-"
"I have ears," Conrad said, "I heard what he said." He pointed the blade at the assassin's neck, pricking it ever so slightly. Then, once a fine line of blood had begun to stain the front of the assassin's robe, Conrad sheathed his blade and knelt down to the man's eye level. He lowered his voice, so that hopefully only he and the killer would hear his words. "Go back to your home in the mountains. Tell your master I await his arrival, and he should look towards the cathedral when the sun sets. Tell him of my mercy towards you and of my free will. Perhaps," Conrad stood and surveyed his men; by the vacant looks of them, they had not heard a word, "Your master will understand."
The assassin narrowed his eyes in suspicion, and then, slowly, revelation. Before he had a chance to discover too much, Conrad balled his gauntlet into a fist and took a swing at the assassin, striking him just above the jaw. His head snapped to the side, hung for a moment, and then he fell in a heap, his arms released from the grip of the guards, crumpling to the ground.
In hindsight, Conrad hoped the blow to the head would not affect the assassin's memory.
To his men, he said: "Cover him and take him to the outskirts, let him wake up and return to his fortress on his own. We will send a message to their master."
One knight picked up the assassin, swinging him over his shoulder like a sack of flour, and five more surrounded him, moving in to escort. "Do not harm him on the way," Conrad added, his voice lowered threateningly.
Garrick had moved to his side, the note clutched in both his hands. The Templar knight that had, moments ago, stood only paces away, had altogether disappeared from sight. Conrad shuddered, and Garrick pressed the note into his hand. "My Liege, what did you tell him?"
Immediately deciding to let his friend remain further ignorant, Conrad chose to stay silent as he unfolded the note. In it, the information relayed was just as the assassin had said. "Robert de Sable is dead."
"Just what the assassin told you."
"But when did it happen? Sibrand's demise was only-" he closed his eyes, the lack of sleep finally affecting his concentration, "-a few nights ago?" He placed his fingers over his temple. "This assassin works quickly. Perhaps I should have asked the survivor."
"No harm done, my Liege. Perhaps you should rest, you have not gotten much since returning from the cathedral last night." He slapped a hand over his own mouth.
The Siege Lord gazed sternly at his attendant, a mixture of irritation and amusement pulling his lips up into a smirk. "Did you follow me?"
Slowly stripping his hand away, Garrick rolled his eyes pensively. "Only until I knew where you were headed, and then I waited and followed you back to the battlements, slipping into the shadows in time to hear you screaming like a madman for the guards."
Conrad gave a thoughtful tsk and slipped the note into his pocket. He was usually so very cautious, and even more so after he left the cathedral. How Garrick could have followed him to and from over such a space in the dead of night was surprising, but there was no other way the attendant could have guessed where he was.
"The nights in Acre are dangerous. You shouldn't wander alone." Garrick added after the silence, hoping to amend the situation.
"Garrick."
His voice was sharp, halting. Garrick feared he had behaved in an irreparable way, though he hardly feared punishment; it was the loss of trust in his charge, his friend, that he truly feared. He said nothing as he waited for Conrad to speak again.
That fear the Siege Lord felt the moment he left the cathedral seized him again as a memory. He recalled how difficult it was to move afterward, to move alone through the streets, his developing paranoia gripping him like a vice. Though he would not admit it outright, discovering that the eyes he felt on him last night were the eyes of a guardian relieved him in an indescribable way.
So, simply, "Thank you," said the Siege Lord.