Short story

Lion of the Cross: Tales of A Templar Knight — a book by T.M. Carter

“Praise be to God, Wasim,” he said, “our great father, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him, has brought the sword of wrath down upon the infidel, and with it, he has cut a swath through the Frankish-held lands, a feat to rival the deeds of the great Saladin.”

I was born Wasim ibn Baibars al-Bunduqdari. Ibn means “the son of”, and Baibars, my father, was the Sultan of Egypt and ruler of all of the Mameluks. As told by Barakah, our father had been a slave—a “Mameluk”, which meant in our language “owned” –taken from his home in the far northeast and eventually sold to the then Egyptian ruler, an Ayyubid named As-Salih Ayyub, where he became the ruler’s bodyguard. With the blessings of the One God, our father’s people rose up and broke the yoke of slavery placed on them by the slothful Ayyubids, and with their freedom, they took their rightful place as rulers of Egypt and became the true champions of Islam.

We were climbing one of the great pyramids on the outskirts of the city, and I was struggling. The stones were too high for me, nearly twice my height. The soft sand beneath the leather soles of my tan, felt-covered slippers made the stones as slippery as wet marble. After several attempts, Barakah became impatient, lay flat on his stomach, and stretched out his arm to render me some much-needed assistance.

“The great Frankish King Louis 2 , may his infidel body rot and his seed be forever weak, was easily defeated by our father,” Barakah said as he grabbed my hand to assist me. Upon the stone, the scraping sound of loose sand pressed between my soles gave way to his straining voice as he wrenched me upward on to the first block. “You best keep pace with me; I want to reach the top before the muezzins call us to prayer.”

Barakah was always impetuous. Perhaps this character flaw was from his mother, but my guess would have been from our father. With Barakah constantly urging me, I hastened my efforts. My body worked in tandem with my legs and arms as I began climbing like a monkey. By pushing with my legs at the same time as I stretched out both arms to grasp the stone blocks and pull my body upward, I kept a pace to Barakah’s liking. As we ascended, the stone blocks which formed this massive wonder became smaller and allowed me to climb more rapidly.

“In the year of my birth, God, most beneficent and most compassionate, bestowed upon our great father a victory in battle the equal of which has never been seen in all of the kingdoms,” Barakah said, as he pulled me up onto another stone. “Both sides had 20, 000 men. Our army was blessed by God and led by Father, and the infidel’s wretched army was an unholy mixture of Franks and Mongolian lapdogs. Hulagu, the great Mongolian Khan, the so called King of Kings and bringer of despair, foolishly provoked our people. In the name of Islam, our father marched to Syria and took to the field of battle—deep within the Jazreel Valley at the Spring of Goliath. Our blessed father, with the ferocity of a lion and the cunning of a fox, slew the infidels and brought humility to the arrogant Mongol horde. Not soon after he was anointed as Sultan.” When Barakah finished, he was beaming; his eyes narrowed to two small slits and his wide smile exposed his protruding white teeth. To me, he looked like the small captive monkeys I had seen being sold at the market. When I would give a sweet date to one of those monkeys, it would bare its teeth at the other monkeys, keeping them at bay. As this image crossed my mind, I found myself smiling as well.

“Barakah, what does father look like?” I asked.

“He is a man like no other. He towers above all men. He has the strength of a bull—no, of ten bulls. His eyes are blue, a deep blue. Behind his eyes is a keen mind. He is the great benevolent Sultan of the world, yes, that is how I would describe my father,” he answered, with another smile.

“Are his eyes like mine?”

“Bah, no, not at all! Your eyes are common like those of a stray cat,” he said, laughing. “But when I am named an emir, I will bring you with me as my personal bodyguard.” His look was stern as he looked at me from head to toe and back again. He then grabbed both my shoulders and said, “First, I will see that you are instructed in the Al-Furūsiyya. This must be done, upon my honor as a brother and as your emir, so say I.”

“I want to be an emir too,” I said frowning.

“No, this cannot be, it will never be—you are the son of a concubine. So you see—you will be my Tabardariyya 3 ; it is a place of high honor, this I testify to God,” he said as he gave my shoulders a firm squeeze.

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About the book:

William de Scotia's gentle blood flows with the ancestry of Scottish Kings and the malevolent taint of the murderous Lion of Islam, Sultan Baibars I. Born to an innocent mother, who was stripped of her nobility and dignity, then sold into bondage by a diabolical Genoese slaver, William is the lesser son of the Mameluk Sultanate and fated to be his eldest brother's elite guard. When his barbarous father is suspiciously poisoned, his eldest brother ascends the throne and William prepares to embrace his destiny. But when one is young, the future is but a mirage in the desert-cruel and deceptive. William is forced to flee his beloved Cairo when an ambitious emir, Qalawun, and his cunning son, Khalil, overthrow his brother. With the aid of a mysterious Templar Knight, he escapes to the Christian stronghold of Acre. A fugitive orphaned by fate, William must enter life's crucible and become more than just a boy. Through the eyes of a boy, The Lion of the Cross: Tales of a Templar Knight transports you through actual events of the 13th century, an age in peril, where a delicate peace between Christians and Muslims exists and hangs on a precipice, and holy war is sermonized from minarets and pulpits.

Genres: Sci-fi, Thriller