Standard of Honor (78 page)

Panting, almost sobbing, St. Clair lay still, gazing upward and unable to move for a moment. Around him, he could hear the cacophony of battle, the moans and grunts, curses and harrowing screams that always accompanied the clash of weapons and other sounds of strife, but for the time being he lay alone, catching his breath and wondering if he would be able to move when the time came for him to make the attempt. He tensed, raised his head slightly and looked around, unable to see
anything at all on his right side because of the bulk of the dead horse, but then he grunted and half rolled, struggling first to a sitting position and thence to his feet, where he stood swaying slightly, flexing his fingers on the hilt of his sword. A spiked Saracen mace lay on the ground by his feet, and he stooped and picked it up in his left hand, holding it loosely and hefting it until he had the feel of it, lithe and springy yet pleasingly heavy in the wickedly spiked head. He sensed movement to his right and swung to see two of Allah's bearded Faithful come leaping towards him, dodging around obstacles as they raced to reach him, each trying to outdo the other. The sight filled him, surprisingly, with elation, and he drew a deep breath and felt himself grinning as he prepared to meet them.

The man on his right won the race, gripping his scimitar with both hands over his head and screaming Allah's name in exultation as he brought his blade down on the infidel's head, but André caught the blade on the upraised edge of his own, then clubbed him into oblivion with the mace in his left hand, before turning back and dropping to one knee to allow the second man to run directly against his extended sword and impale himself. As he felt the fellow's weight come to bear against his point, he thrust himself upright again and leaned into the blow, twisting his blade fiercely and then jerking it back and free before the man's flesh could close around it and imprison the steel.

He heard trumpets at his back and a rising thunder of hooves as more reinforcements arrived, shouting the
names of Richard and Saint George, and suddenly the Saracens were in full flight, back across the makeshift bridge that had come close to breaching the Frankish lines. He looked back to the body of his warhorse, then ran as quickly as he could to snatch the arbalest and a quiver of bolts from the saddle horn where they had hung, but the crossbow had fallen beneath the animal and he could not budge it at all. By the time he straightened up again and headed towards the Trench, the fighting was all over. The last of the Saracens had retreated beyond the range of even the strongest arbalests, and someone at the front of the Hospitaller formation had already set the bridge ablaze with a bottle of Greek fire. Watching the roiling, viscous smoke and flames billowing from the Trench, St. Clair suddenly felt unutterably weary; the fear and exhilaration of battle were gone and in the aftermath, totally drained of energy and tension, he could happily have sunk down then and there to rest on the sand.

Instead, he set out to find his new secondin-command, whoever that might be now that his First Sergeant was dead. He found the man easily, the one nicknamed
Le Sanglier
, the Wild Boar, by his mates and who would have been naturally first in line for promotion in any case, and André set him to making a formal tally of the squadron's strength. That was when he discovered they had sustained eight fatalities, fully twenty percent of their complement, and ten injuries and wounds, one of which was serious enough to threaten to raise their losses to nine dead.

He accepted the tally without comment, then went, grim faced, to select a new mount from among the five that had survived the loss of their riders. He hauled himself into the saddle, surprised to discover that he had a deep ache in his right side, and that he could see dark columns of smoke staining the sky far to the south of Acre, seemingly beyond the sea. He instructed the Boar to have the others assemble and be prepared to set out on the patrol to which they had been assigned that day, then swung his horse around and cantered rearward, to where a small group of English knights sat staring southward at the smoke on the horizon.

“What's burning?” he asked as he rode up.

One of the knights nodded brusquely, recognizing him, and André remembered meeting him, too, in Richard's tent. “It would appear to be Haifa.” The Englishman sounded completely uninterested, and shrugged. “Can't think of anything else it might be. It's on the far side of the bay, and there's nothing else between us and it, unless Saladin is burning his entire fleet at sea.”

“Have we attacked Haifa?”

“God's entrails, no, certainly not. We have enough to deal with here, trying to topple Acre.”

“Then who would burn Haifa? It could only be Saladin, but why would he destroy a town he holds secure?”

The English knight made a moue and shrugged disdainfully. “Who can say what goes on in the mind of a man like that? Perhaps he wants to keep it safe from
us. Burning it down would certainly have that effect, would it not?”

St. Clair sat for a moment, absorbing that. “I think you are probably right, Deniston. Acre must be closer to collapse than we thought. Saladin must think we intend to move against Haifa the moment Acre falls. It is so close and it's a port, with deep water and safe anchorages, unfouled by wrecks. That means he must
know
Acre is going to collapse very soon—today, perhaps, or tomorrow.”

“Oh, come now. How could he know that? We have the place sealed up tighter than a Cistercian nunnery. Nothing gets in, nothing gets out, including information … most particularly information. That's what a siege is all about.”

St. Clair grinned. “Tell me, Lord Deniston, do you swim?”

“Swim? You mean in water?”

“Aye, like a fish. The Arabs do. There are swimmers coming out of and going into Acre every night that God sends. Believe me.”

“Believe yourself,” the English knight growled huffily, glancing at his companions to be sure they were witnessing his handling of this French idiot. “Never heard such nonsense. Swimming in and out, indeed. Hah!”

St. Clair could hardly admit that he had been assured that was so by a Shi'ite Assassin, so he merely shrugged, keeping his smile in place, and added, “Flying, too, in and out.”

“Flying?
Flying
?” Again the appeal to his witnesses. “The fellow's mad.”

“Not people, Deniston, birds. Pigeons. They send pigeons back and forth, bearing messages. Devout Muslim pigeons, I'm assured, who fly directly from mosque to mosque, minaret to minaret.” He raised a warning finger. “Keep it in mind, and beware. Farewell.” He turned and spurred away before any of the English knights could think of anything to say.

He made his way directly to where the remnants of his squadron sat waiting for him.

The Boar saluted him as he drew close. “All present, sir. Twenty-two sergeants fit for duty. Ten more in the care of the Hospitallers, one of them like to die, three to be kept in care, six more expected to return to duty within the day, after treatment.”

André nodded in acknowledgment, his thoughts teeming. Reduced to barely half strength, his squadron was not, strictly speaking, capable of carrying out its patrol assignation for that day, for the rules were very clear concerning strength and numbers. All mounted expeditions must be in sufficient strength to discourage random attacks. A forty-man squadron was a deterrent to such attacks; a twenty-man force was not.

“We will return to quarters, Sergeant, and regroup. We are hard hit and too few in number now to ride out as we are without endangering our mounts. I'm sure you know by now that they are more valuable than we are. Every horse we lose damages our chances of victory. See to it, if you will, and send the squadron standard-bearer
to accompany me. I will report to the field commandery and request replacements for the men we lost today. I shall need a list of the names of the dead, too, but not immediately, unless you have them ready. Do you?”

“In my head, sir, but not yet written down.”

“Aye, well, be sure I receive a copy of the list when it is done … before you go off duty for the day.” The Boar saluted, and André turned away, pointing his horse in the direction of the distant field commandery.

There was great noise and activity around the enormous Templars' tent that housed the field commandery, with knights, not all of them Templars, scurrying in all directions. St. Clair knew that the scuffle that had engaged his own men, expensive and fiercely fought as it had been, had nonetheless been a minor squabble, incapable of generating this much activity. Whatever the cause, he was forced to wait in a line before he could talk to the senior Temple officer on duty. The man, a Poitevin called Angouleme, listened to his report and his request for more men, then wrote something down before looking up at André.

“Sufficient unto the day, Holy Scripture says. It sounds as though you and the Hospitallers performed well. It cost you dearly, but I have already heard that your people took down five for every one you lost. Nevertheless, half your force lost in one action is enough to justify a rest on a day such as this. Philip's own fortunes are proving little better than yours this day. Go you and order your men to stand down for the time being, but keep them close, against a sudden need.

In the meantime, I'll send another squadron to make your patrol.”

André saluted and turned to go, but then hesitated and turned back. “Pardon me, but did you say King Philip is in action as we speak?”

“Aye, against the Accursed Tower again. The engineers reported that it's fully undermined and should collapse at any moment, and so he mounted another assault to keep the enemy occupied. But he's taking heavy losses, I'm told. Next man, step forward.”

St. Clair left the tent and found his standard-bearer waiting for him, and he sent the fellow back to their lines to tell the Boar to stand the men down for the remainder of the day. That done, he rode out seeking a vantage point where he could watch the French assault against the Accursed Tower, only to find that the action had already been disengaged, even though—or perhaps because—a large section of the tower's wall, some thirty feet wide, had collapsed into piles of rubble that were swarming with frantic defenders, looking for all the world, from where St. Clair sat watching, like a colony of ants whose nest had been severely damaged. He watched Philip returning to his pavilion, his progress visible even from more than a mile away, thanks to the prominence of his personal standard, with the royal lilies of France so unmistakably displayed.

Slightly disappointed to have missed the action, André sat high on his horse and let his gaze roam over the prospect in front of him until it came to rest on the pavilion of Richard of England, with its own unmistakable
royal coat of arms. Richard was reportedly still sick, suffering from angry boils, falling hair, loose teeth, and rotting gums, yet supposedly deeply engaged, too, in the attempt to hammer out the terms of surrender for the garrison of Acre. André sniffed at that thought. The camp was awash with rumors and counter-rumors, but the most prominent among them was concerned with Richard and his attitude towards this surrender. Word had it that he was being adamant in refusing to discuss terms with the Saracens, merely laying down the law instead and demanding unconditional surrender, with the immediate return of all Frankish prisoners and the return of every possession, including not only the True Cross but all the towns and fortresses that had been seized from Christendom after Hattin.

If that were true—and knowing Richard, André was quite prepared to believe that it could be—then it was folly of the most extreme kind, since it left Saladin no room for retaining either status or dignity. Simply by acceding to such extreme demands, the Sultan would commit suicide, politically, religiously, and socially, and even St. Clair, newcomer though he was, could see the stupidity of asking him to do so. A man like Saladin would sooner die than live in dishonor such as Richard was thrusting upon him. He would never accept Richard's conditions.

Even as he thought that, André St. Clair knew he was exactly correct, and that Richard Plantagenet knew exactly what he was about in this matter. Richard was the Warrior King, the Shining Light of Christendom;
he was the Lionhearted Monarch, England's Paladin and the Soldier of Salvation to Rome's Church; he would never settle for a mealy-mouthed, negotiated peace. Richard's personality demanded nothing less than total victory. He had bankrupted his new kingdom to pay for this war, and he intended to capture every shred of glory that might be available for the taking … and there would be little glory in accepting the chastened capitulation of a cowed infidel. Therefore the King was doing everything within his power to push the Sultan into committing all his strength to total war—a war Richard was convinced he could not lose.

So much, then, for honor and for Richard's commitment to his charges, André thought bitterly, certain now that his analysis was accurate. Beside the flaring light of the King's need for personal glory and acclaim, the rights, lives, and expectations of all his countrymen and subjects were expendable, and he had the power, on all sides, to do whatever he needed to do to achieve his ends. He would defy Saladin to the death of the last man on either side.

Another movement caught his eye, too far away to identify, but bright and unusual, a flash of feminine yellow against the high walls of the royal pavilion. Berengaria? Or might it be Joanna? He thought of both of them, seeing their eyes regarding him steadily in return, and he smiled to himself, albeit nervously, wondering what they had thought of his sudden and unexplained disappearance from Limassol.

Strange, he thought now, and not for the first time, that he had not heard a single word from anyone in Richard's camp since that day onward. He had spoken to de Sablé, it was true, but only very briefly and of general things. De Sablé was far too preoccupied with his many duties to have time for idle chatter over whether or not his friend the King had been displeased with one of his lesser minions. It was true, too, that he himself had made no attempt to contact his liege lord since the King's arrival in Outremer. Some might call that dereliction, but a small voice in the back of André's mind whispered quietly and mutinously to him of loyalty and responsibilities. Sir Henry St. Clair had given up everything to come out of his honorable retirement and place himself anew at the service of his King in a strange land, struggling to learn new tasks and skills at an age when most of his contemporaries had already died of old age, and there was something lodged deep within André that insisted, with an unrelenting pressure, that the responsibility lay with Richard to acknowledge the loyal old man's death to his son in person. Until that happened—and the truth surprised him because he had not articulated the thought before that moment—André knew he would make no effort to approach the King. As for the two women, wife and sister, he grimaced ruefully, half grin, half groan, thinking himself well out of that situation, despite another small voice that muttered mournfully in regretful undertones at the back of his awareness.