The Saracen Read online

  CASCA

  THE SARACEN

  This is a book of fiction. All the names, characters and events portrayed in this book are

  Fictional and any resemblance to real people and incidents are purely coincidental.

  CASCA: THE SARACEN

  Published by arrangement with Eastaboga Entertainment, Inc.

  Printing History

  2019

  Americana Books

  A Division of Lonewolf Group Inc.

  Copyright 2019 Eastaboga Entertainment, Inc.

  Cover Design by John Thompson

  All Rights Reserved

  Including the rights to reproduce this book or portions thereof

  In any form or format without permission.

  For information contact

  Americana Books

  P.O. Box 210314

  Nashville TN 37221

  ISBN 978-1513653013

  Printed in the United States of America

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  This novel was originally written by me before my first published Casca novel way back in 2005, but it was not released at that time and has been on the back burner until now, fourteen years later. I’ve always wanted to have it published as it is both the sequel to Casca 19: The Samurai, and the prequel to Casca 22: The Mongol, so it neatly connects those two stories in this series to make a continuous phase in Casca’s life story.

  You can buy all of my Casca novels on the official website www.casca.net

  I also write three other series of books, a high fantasy series ‘Kastania’, another fantasy series ‘Dark Blade’ and a fictional rock band biopic called ‘Siren’. Details of all these books can be found on my author website www.tonyrobertsauthor.com

  I live in Bristol, with my partner Jane and a fluffy cat called Cassia.

  PROLOGUE

  Somewhere in the Sea of Cin, April 1185

  The waves towered like mountains, threatening to engulf the lone man hanging onto the shattered mast in the midst of the wide, empty sea. Casca Rufio Longinus clung to the wood and rope, soaked and exhausted. His hair was plastered flat against his head and the salt of the ocean stung his eyes, swelling them into puffy redness. The rain hardly made a difference; such was the ferocity of the wind that drove the spray horizontally into his face.

  Casca was alone with no immediate prospect of rescue, and he knew it. He’d been cast into the waters in the aftermath of the great battle on the shores of Japan by the ambitious and scheming Minamoto Clan, even though he’d fought for their army as it finally shattered their rivals, the Taira. Casca knew he’d fouled up when he’d tried to rescue the puppet emperor from the Korean assassins; not realizing at the time the Minamoto had paid them to drown the boy emperor.

  So now he had to die, as ordained by the victors. Only he couldn’t die. He was Casca Rufio Longinus, one-time soldier of Rome, executioner of the condemned Jew Jesus. He gagged against the heaving of his stomach as the sea water he’d swallowed tried to eject itself. His mind fixed itself on clinging to the ropes wrapped round the mast. No, he couldn’t die, thanks to the Curse put on him that fateful day by Jesus, but he could drown and fall to the bottom of the sea, and he’d remain there until some fate would cast him ashore once more some time in the future. He had no wish for that, so he fought to stay on the mast until the storm blew itself out. Staying with it would improve the possibility of getting rescued once the sea calmed down.

  He was here thanks to his friend, Jinto Muramasa. Jinto had seen Casca was marked for death and pleaded for a different fate, one everyone else was sure would mean death. But Jinto, cunning little devil he was, knew of Casca’s condition, and knew putting him to sea would not only save Casca from beheading, but take him away from a land he was no longer welcome in. Jinto was a master swordsman and sword maker. Casca had watched as Jinto had swept through Japan like a one-man typhoon, slaughtering all who opposed him. He’d felt by comparison like a spare part, a bit player in Jinto’s journey. He’d been a clumsy, blundering companion. He’d not learned much during his year or so there. He wasn’t sad to see the back of Japan.

  But now what? He’d been washed up on Japan’s shore thanks to one storm, and here he was being pulled this way and that by yet another, somewhere in between China and Japan. One day, he knew, he’d be cast ashore like flotsam, ready to resume his unnatural life of immortality, and only the gods of fate would decide where. Unless of course, a vessel of some sort chanced upon him and pulled him out of the water. He hoped to hell that would be his fate, otherwise who knows how long he’d be pushed and pulled by the currents of the oceans?

  So he gripped the ropes around the mast tighter and wrapped his legs round the shattered wood and shut his stinging eyes, and prayed for rescue.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Cochin, India’s Malabar Coast, Spring 1186

  Casca thanked the gods for his safe arrival on dry land. He struck out into the teeming city of Cochin. It was the largest port on the Malabar Coast of India and smelt like it – dung, spices, rope, rotten fish, perfumes, funeral pyres, sweat. Brushing off the street traders with their carpets and brassware, the whores and the whining beggars, Casca steered his huge frame through the narrow streets. A herd of sacred cows blocked his way. The skinny boy who was leading them had lost control, but no one did anything about it. Casca turned into the dark opening of a tavern – let the Hindus sort that one out.

  As he stood in the doorway, his eyes adjusting to the gloomy interior after the harsh glare of the tropical sun outside, he thought back on how he had come to be here. The long trip on the dilapidated vessel had given him grave concerns as to its ability to defy age and the waves and stay afloat, yet it had done so. He really hadn’t cause to bitch about it however, as the kindly skipper had pulled him from the waters somewhere in the Sea of Cin off Quinsay Lingan, one of the Sung ports. Casca hadn’t known about it at the time but his unique condition meant that he soon revived, much to the surprise of the crew who thought him dead.

  Indeed, Casca should have been dead many times over, but such a luxury was denied him and had been so for eleven centuries now. Ever since he’d plunged his spear into the side of the crucified Jew, Yeshua, he’d been cursed to walk the face of the earth until the Second Coming. Whenever that will be, he thought sourly.

  To tell the truth, he was getting sick of explaining to people that he was a fast healer or lucky, or he had been merely unconscious and so on. Eyes said things that mouths dare not say, so he had to keep on moving to avoid uncomfortable situations, and of course to keep away from those bastards of the Brotherhood of the Lamb who would be keen to hear of a scarred man who lived when he ought to have died.

  Casca was a thickset man, a shade under six feet in height, and immensely strong. His grey-blue eyes scanned the clientele who inhabited the tavern. They were the normal flotsam of life that always seemed to end up in places like this. Thieves, killers, drunks, rough and toughs, and even a few who didn’t fit into any of those categories. It was these whom he sought, for he needed to catch up on the gossip after being so long in the east. Ever since he’d left Jerusalem in the aftermath of the Crusade nearly a century ago he’d drifted east, eventually serving in Chin and then enjoying a brief adventure in Japan with Jinto Muramasa.

  So much for the past, now what’s going on in the present?

  He made his way over to the bar owner and managed to exchange his poor dagger for a drink and a meal, and sat down to eat. Being a Hindu place meant that meat was banned so he had to make do with a thick lentil soup spiced heartily with cumin and coriander. No matter, once he was away from India he’d find something with a face and consume it.

  Sitting in the corner of the room he had a good view of the place and soon decided a couple of Arabs seated n
earby would be his best bet, both for gossip and as a means of getting to the west.

  He caught the eye of one and nodded a friendly greeting which the Arab returned solemnly, and soon Casca joined them and asked if they were headed west soon.

  “Yes, O muscled one,” the older of the two replied, his thin beard hiding some of the pock-marked skin of his face. He had crooked teeth and large gaps stood in between them. “I am the captain of the Aydhab, a fine vessel, carrying spices to the lands of Salah ed-Din, mighty King of the Faithful in the fight against the infidels.”

  “Who?” Casca frowned. This was a new name.

  The two Arabs looked at each other in surprise, then again at Casca. “You have not heard of Salah ed-Din?”

  Casca shook his head. “I’ve been away in the east these last few years.”

  “Why, my travelling friend, Salah ed-Din rules Egypt and Damascus as well as much of the land around it.”

  Casca pursed his lips. This was a sizeable area but what had happened to the Crusaders? He was soon brought up to date. The Crusaders had indeed held onto Jerusalem and the land along the coast of the Levant that included Gaza in the south all the way up to Alexandretta in the north. Inland it ran to the Dead Sea and around it, but to the north of that the Jordan River formed the boundary and further north again the River Orontes did the same. All around that land, called Outremer by the Crusaders, the new Muslim warlord Salah ed-Din had his lands and threatened to invade at any time. The two Arabs were of the opinion it was time to teach the arrogant Franks a lesson for daring to take the lands of Allah from the believers and raise their crosses in place of the crescent.

  The Crusaders had lost Edessa some years back and were on the defensive, but still had some formidable armies and castles which kept the forces of Islam at bay. Casca thought about the possibility of traveling there and seeing for himself what had happened in the years since the taking of Jerusalem. Casca always took a keen interest in the Holy City, as it was where Jesus had cursed him to immortality, and it was likely if and when Jesus returned it would be to Jerusalem.

  He spoke with the Arabs further and found they needed a strong deck hand, and although not a man of the sea he’d done enough time to know the ropes, so to speak. He persuaded them to give him passage in return for signing on as a crewman for the one-way journey to the port of Ayla on the Red Sea, the closest port to Jerusalem this side of the Mediterranean Sea. It was spring and he knew it would be a bitch once he got there, having crossed that part of the world before, but he had to find out what was going on for himself. It was certain conflict would occur and so people like him would be needed, so now all he had to do was decide for himself what side to choose. He’d no money and the best way he found to earn it was to hire out his sword. It was what he was, a warrior.

  He had last fought for the Crusaders way back nearly a century ago but he had been sickened by the brutality and stupidity of the Christian knights, and of their wholesale slaughter of the people in Jerusalem once the city had fallen. That one act more than any other had turned his stomach and he’d walked out on them all. He’d been doubly disappointed at that time; the Crusade had given him real hope that Jesus’ return was imminent, but it had turned out just to be yet another religious bloodbath.

  But what now? What side would he pick, if he picked one at all? The Cross or Crescent? He didn’t give a damn about God, Allah or any of their religions. He’d met both Jesus and Mohammed and had his own ideas about both that would get him in deep trouble if he spoke them aloud, and besides he didn’t care about religious doctrine. One had cursed him to immortality, the other had enrolled him into his fledgling army and then died before he’d seen the army he’d built fully test itself.

  No, to him it was a matter of conscience. Whatever side he thought was deserving of victory through honor and decency he’d pick. And if both were as bad as the other, then both could go to hell and be damned.

  This gave him cause to think in surprise; long ago he’d not cared a fig about the morality of picking sides. Was this Jesus’ influence rubbing off on him? Or was it that he’d seen and endured so much that he was thinking more carefully now about what was involved? Was it as Shiu Lao Tze once said to him long ago, that although his body would not change, perhaps his mind would? He had no idea what had made him change his attitude so. Another puzzle. Ah shit, too much thinking gets my ass in a sling.

  As he stepped aboard the gently swaying Arab trader, using the sun-baked splintered plank of wood from the jetty, he had the feeling in his guts he’d get involved some way or other, and once more he’d be returning to Jerusalem, the city where he’d ended the mortal phase of his life and begun that of an immortal. It was an unsettling thought.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The sun hammered down on the parched land and Casca swore as he surveyed the barren scenery to the north of the port. Jagged lines of mountains and hills ran left to right across the horizon, devoid of vegetation, and the ground before that was flat and baked to sterile lifelessness.

  Damn all deserts. He hated them.

  Mostly he hated them because that bastard Imam had banished him centuries back into the Sahara and he’d laid beneath a dune for fifty years or so before he’d been uncovered and come back to life. This desert, part of the Sinai, was no better. He would have to make his way across it to the lands of the Crusaders, and then get around the Dead Sea and from there to Jerusalem.

  The only way he would be able to do that was to tag along with a trade or pilgrim caravan, and they mostly went during the winter season, quite sensibly. Not now in the middle of summer when the heat was enough to drive a camel mad, let alone a human being. There again if a human went out in summer through the Sinai he was mad already.

  Whatever; he’d need a camel or a horse, and plenty of water, and that required money and he had a fat nothing. All he had owned was in Japan and all he had now was a poor set of clothes and a wooden staff. Hell, not even a poor quality sword! Kicking a stone in disgust at the situation he found himself in he turned his back on the desert and returned to the port and gazed out across the shimmering waters of the Gulf of Ayla, a finger of water that joined the Red Sea a short distance away.

  A few sleepy individuals were finishing their work and departing for shade, leaving the ship he’d come on alone and gently swaying on the swell, the crew sleeping or resting out of the sun.

  Sensible lot, Casca thought. He wiped his brow and looked around, breathing deeply. He must find somewhere to rest and then earn some money. But where to look? The best place probably, he mused, would be the local traders, both as an immediate method of employment and as a means to get a beast to cross the desert and get to Outremer, as the Crusader territories were called.

  He trudged along the dusty road running from the docks into town, and gazed at the mud brick buildings that lined it. A few larger ones spoke of trading premises or warehouses, and one of them had a few people discussing something at the entrance. Casca grunted and stepped over to join them.

  There were three men, two of whom seemed to be doing much of the talking. One, a tall, hook-nosed Arab with trimmed beard and a swarthy face underneath a white turban, glanced at Casca as he approached, then looked back at the man he was arguing with, a barrel-bellied unshaven man of uncertain parentage, double chins and a greasy, messy burnoose that barely hid his paunch.

  The third man was a young, tidy and slightly built man with a clean-shaven face and a mop of thick curly black hair. He was holding the rope reins of a camel that chewed idly on some greenery that it had spotted growing out of a crack in the ground. The camel looked as bored as the man holding its reins.

  “You haven’t even inspected the beast,” the tall man said as Casca came up, “so how can you comment on its condition?”

  The fat man looked cautiously at Casca, then dismissed him from his mind as being irrelevant to the argument. “It was in excellent health when I sold it to you yesterday, Ben Asid,” the fat merchant replied, foldi
ng his hands across his immense girth.

  “That is not true, Walid,” Ben Asid growled, “it is lame and we inspected the leg concerned and found an abscess. One indeed that has been there for some time. You sold me an unfit beast. Now take it back and give me my money.”

  Casca looked at the camel and then the young man holding its reins and caught his eye. The young man grinned and shrugged, his unspoken message that he was not to join in was clear to Casca.

  “You bought it as seen,” Walid insisted, “and therefore any defects should have been pointed out at the time.”

  “You said it was in excellent health, you thief!” Ben Asid was getting as hot as the day.

  “Thief!” Walid’s mouth went down and he waved at a Shadow behind him inside the warehouse. A huge man emerged and glowered at the world as if it was to blame for his face, which Casca reasoned, was not the most handsome he’d seen. Comparing him to the animal, he judged the camel beat him narrowly. He hadn’t been hit by the ugly stick, he’d been violently assaulted.

  But what he lacked in good looks he made up for in sheer muscle and he stepped up threateningly to Ben Asid. “My master does not like to be called a thief.” His voice came from his oversize feet, growling like a camel’s stomach.

  Ben Asid stepped back involuntarily; it would have taken a brave or foolish man indeed to stand his ground. “I wish for my money returned, that is all!” the man insisted, his heart pounding.

  Walid shook his head. “Take your camel and son, and yourself out of my sight before I set my servant upon you, Ben Asid. If you do not then I shall not be responsible for your injuries.”

  Casca decided enough was enough. “Or injuries to your dog, Walid?”

  Walid’s eyes bulged and he switched his look to the newcomer. “Do not get involved, effendi! This is a business deal between this man and myself.”