“Who goes there?” said a weak voice from the shadows to his left.
“I. Lothar.”
A Templar, dressed in a white habit boasting a large red cross emblazoned across the front, with sword strapped around his waist, stepped away from a small, windowless shack the dock master used for conducting business.
“You are up early, brother,” said Parle, a young, soft-spoken knight from a family of nobility in the north of France.
Lothar acknowledged the comment, placed hands on hips and surveyed the surroundings, looking for the telltale sign of trouble his inexperienced guard would not have noticed.
“Have you seen or heard anything out of the ordinary?”
“Maybe. About an hour ago I was over there,” Parle pointed to the end of the pier flanking the left-hand side of the harbor, “and thought I saw ships and heard voices coming from the sea.”
Lothar attributed the remark to an overanxious imagination. They were a long way from Africa and Saracen raiders. But if such raiders lurked, he doubted they would land, or could even find them in this gathering storm.
“Father Colisée and a party of our Sick and Elderly Brothers arrived late last night,” Lothar said, dismissing unwanted thoughts of danger. “They have taken quarters inside the buildings adjacent the church.”
Parle stroked the scraggily hair on his chin. “Why is that? And why does he travel with such an entourage?”
Lothar shook his head, knowing only that the man had a peculiar way of doing things. “Maybe he has come to give us new orders.”
“That would be welcomed. I am tired of this worthless island and these ignorant people. It is time we return to the Outremer and fight the heathens for the lands promised us by the Lord our God.”
The man’s enthusiasm pleased Lothar. The Order needed that kind of zeal, especially now, with their power and influence along the Mediterranean on the wane. Though Parle had yet to spill blood, or have his spilled, his enthusiasm reminded him of himself long ago.
“In time we will return, but there is more to being a Templar than fighting,” Lothar said, placing a sympathetic hand on the young knight’s shoulder. Although his words held a semblance of truth, he wished they did not. He preferred the adventure and combat of a warrior rather than the daily drudge of a domesticated monk.
A bolt of lightning and an ear-splitting clap of thunder rent the night in twain. As if on cue, the waves smashed against the seawall while the wind swept away the rubbish and everything else not secured to a solid foundation along the waterfront.
Lothar glanced to the shuttered storefronts and the lone hostel flanked on both sides by a tavern just as another streetlamp lost its flame. An eerie sensation crawled down his spine, adding to his uneasiness.
“Is there anything else?” he asked, stepping away from the salt spray tossed up by the whitecaps.
Parle followed him to the leeward side of the shack facing the town. “Yes. There was a woman with two boys walking about. German, I think. Very strange. They went along the pier and I have not seen them since.”
A German? Out here? At this time of night? Yes, that is strange. Why is she here and not with her people at their hostel along the Sitia road?
“What did she say?” Lothar asked.
Parle held up his hands in a hopeless gesture. “I do not speak her language so we did not talk. And, judging from her manner, she is not very friendly.”
“None of those people are,” Lothar mumbled, having experienced their ostensible hospitality in the past. “And Jean-Paul. Where is he?”
Parle pointed to the pier he had earlier walked, where he heard talking fish and saw apparitions. “When the woman did not return, he went looking for them. I have not seen him since.”
Lothar cursed. Jean-Paul, one of the older French knights in his troop, was a dependable, solid man of the Templar cloth. But alone, in the dark, with a strange woman who did not speak their language, he feared for their already tarnished reputation.
Ignacio could prove right. At times a man does not think with the head attached to his shoulders.
The rain started in earnest, driving in from the sea in horizontal sheets to sting exposed skin and blind opened eyes. Clouds choked off the remaining light sneaking down from the full moon, leaving the town and waterfront in near total darkness.
Lothar shivered, not caring for the night’s development -– a fierce storm threatened to batter them, one of his men went missing, and a German woman, no doubt a pilgrim, possibly huddled with him at the end of the pier.
Lothar debated his options. Despite the storm’s increasing fury, he would have to search for Jean-Paul.
Parle grabbed at his arm in protest. “You cannot go out there. It is too dark. What if you step off the pier? We would never find your body.”
Lothar brushed aside the objection. “He is one of my men, one of us, and he may be injured and in need of help.”
“And if not? What if he is back in the monastery drinking a mug of beer?”
“Then I will kick his arse to Jerusalem and back. Remain at your post until I return.”