The Hostility of Hanno: An Outlaw Chronicles short story Read Free

thug three yards away. Alan was entranced. He knew exactly what was happening
     – his former ward-fellow was being stalked.
Not so long ago, Alan himself had been a predator of the same ilk as the Arab boy, and he had stalked his prey in a very similar
     manner. His only dilemma was whether or not he should warn the ill-mannered brute. It was none of his business, and he was professionally interested in seeing how the Arab
     would accomplish his task, yet the Hospitaller physician had said that the man Hanno was alone in Acre, that he had no comrades,
     no friends at all; perhaps he owed it to him as a fellow Christian, as a fellow pilgrim in the struggle to recapture Jerusalem,
     to warn him.
    The Arab casually strolled to the stall selling brightly coloured scarves and positioned himself beside and a little behind
     Hanno who was by now leaning forward speaking loudly and angrily to the stall keeper, doubtless trying to make himself understood.
     As Alan watched, he saw a stealthy brown hand reach out, low down, level with Hanno’s hip, and a knife flashed in the sunlight.
    ‘Hey, Hanno! Behind you!’ shouted Alan.
    And the Bavarian moved, faster than a striking viper. He turned in a tight circle, right elbow leading, a blade already in
     his hand, his arm uncoiling – and he slammed a dagger with astounding accuracy into the throat of the Arab standing behind
     him, then ripped it sideways and free of the flesh in a shower of red droplets. The young man screamed, a horrible wet, choking
     noise, and dropped to his knees, both hands flew automatically to his half-severed neck, one dropping a short knife, the other
     a brown leather purse containing no more than a few pennies that just moments before he had freed from Hanno’s belt.
    Hanno ignored the dying man at his feet and the gush of blood over his boots; his head snapped left and right, his feet had
     assumed a fighting stance, the bloody dagger was cocked and ready in his right fist – but there were no enemies to be seen.
     Indeed, the walkway was almost deserted. Hanno looked over at Alan, and he lowered his shoulders and smiled, showing a ragged
     set of yellow-grey teeth. He lifted the gory dagger to his brow in salute; bent and retrieved his purse from the Arab’s slack
     lap, and sauntered down the promenade as carefree as a child.
    The stallholder’s face was the colour of ash; he knelt beside the stricken thief on the stone flags of the promenade flapping
     his hands in shocked panic but unable to make any noise at all. Alan realized that his own mouth was hanging wide open. He
     shut it abruptly, fumbled a coin on to the table for his food and walked jerkily away.
    ***
    The wine was sour, barely drinkable, but Alan was determined to finish this jug and another. The anger he felt in his belly
     at the ruthless, money-grubbing behaviour of his lord demanded the fruit of the grape. He drank alone, in a tavern in a strange
     quarter of Acre that he knew none of his company of green-cloaked English men-at-arms and Welsh bowmen were likely to visit.
     They always drank in one of the dives near the airy sea-palace that his lord had commandeered, so as not to have too far to
     stagger home with a bellyful. Alan was grateful to be alone – he’d dismissed his servant with an angry word and stormed into
     the night looking for wine, lots of it, nursing his anger like a baby at his breast.
    He finished his cup and refilled it. He could feel the liquor coursing through his veins and igniting a glow behind his eyes
     and he began to relax a little. He looked around the room. It was a dismal place: a low, square room with a counter at one
     end filled with bottles and casks where a dwarfish man in a greasy robe grinned and bowed at him. There were a dozen other
     drinkers huddled on benches around the edge of the room, and some at the other tables; many were clearly European but a good
     proportion were local; none, it seemed, wished to engage with any of the