The White Cross (28 page)

The King’s slurred, Levantine mode of speech served only to accentuate his anger. ‘If that rogue, that feather-bed adventurer Conrad dares steal the Princess Isabella and get a child on her, with my dear Queen scarce cold within her tomb,’ he growled, ‘well then this Kingdom is as good as lost to de Montferrat, Your Grace. As good as lost, I say!’

The archbishop’s own loss of eyebrows in the fire at sea had suggested a level of surprise he didn’t happen to be feeling. He had been told King Richard’s vassal, Guy, was arrogant enough to think this marriage was what threatened his authority in Palestine – rather than the fact that nine-tenths of his subjects saw him as an incompetent pretender who never should have been crowned in the first place. But naturally he was too polite to say so. Baldwin won a grateful smile instead from Guy de Lusignan by simply stating that the Catholic Church could not and never would support a canonically incestuous union.

On the instructions of King Guy, a chair was set for the archbishop before his dais.

‘As I understand the case, Conrad’s brother and your own Queen, Isabella’s sister, were also married in the past,’ Baldwin continued when he’d eased his painful joints, ‘and if we credit all the rumours that are rife in Tyre, their Governor already has a wife – no please, two wives still living – which must make the union bigamous as well.’

Not that kings ever lose much sleep over such technicalities,
the old man wearily acknowledged to himself,
considering the antics of Queen Eléonore, King Henry and their kin, within the bonds of wedlock and adulterously outside them!

You will be gratified to hear that I am planning to enlist the support of Archbishop Josias, Bishop Hubert Walter and Archdeacon Ralph de Hauterive in forbidding Conrad of Tyre to embark upon this marriage to the hereditary Latin princess,
Archbishop Baldwin now dictates to Richard on the Isle of Sicily.
We cannot fault the man as a commander and governor. For as you know My Liege, he has successfully defended the Christian port of Tyre for more than three years now against the Sultan and his armies…

In view of which, the King of France’s cousin doubtless has the makings of a better ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem than the King of England or his peevish vassal, Guy de Lusignan, could ever be.
A thought that Baldwin will not share with Richard, recalling as he does the grey-haired, battle-scarred Piemontese Italian he’s met at Tyre and rather liked. King Guy described Conrad de Montferrat as a rogue, a feather-bed adventurer.

But naturally it takes a rogue and an adventurer to know another,
the archbishop cannot help but think, considering Guy’s own beginnings as a simple knight from Poitou.

He pulls at his ear lobe thoughtfully, choosing his words to resonate with Richard of all princes…

‘Whatever his achievements in the field, I judge that Conrad de Montferrat’s past history and present situation must render him unfit to wear The Holy Kingdom’s crown.’

He instructs his secretary, Anselm, to begin a new line on the scroll.

‘My Liege, there is another great affliction likely to beset the Christians of this land. They say there are some eighty thousand soldiers encamped upon the plain of Acre, with horses, beasts of burden and the folk who wait upon them. Our armies seek to starve the Turks inside the walls of Acre. But if their own supply lines fail, they too must face starvation. Neither King Guy, nor Count Henri of Toulouse who now commands the armies, believe they can rely on Marquess Conrad to send supplies from Tyre. So they commission Genoese and Pisan merchantmen to purchase victuals and fodder from the Moslem Caliph of Morocco and ports along the heathen coast of Africa…’

Anselm’s goose-feather quill scratches and squeaks its way across the parchment. Within a yellow pool of lamplight he bends to the task with total concentration, frowning slightly, tongue thrust out between his teeth, delicately angling his nib to form the letters. Each word a minor work of art.

And how could I expect him to react? Why should a scribe confuse himself with morals, when consecrated churchmen are here to do it for him,
thinks Baldwin. A missed word now, or an unsightly blot of ink. These are the things that bring scribes out in sweats. What is it to Anselm if Christians who fight Moslems to the death at Acre are happy to rely on farmers of the same impious faith to grow the food which keeps them all alive? It is for kings and bishops, not for scriveners, to say how far they will allow their own beliefs to be distorted by the demands of war.

‘Begin a new line, my son, and with a bold M for My Liege,’ he says aloud.

His secretary adjusts the lamp to throw more light, with ink-stained fingers dips his quill once more into the horn. The shadow of a bat flicks past the open tent flap, and Balwin thinks of Melusine.

He turns away to pass a dry palm over the sparse remnants of his fringe and stroke his thoughts into another channel.

‘My Liege, we trust to greet you and the royal fleet before the winter storms render the Middle Sea too hazardous for vessels with a shallow draught…’

Some time before the end of September, we heard in Toron that a large fleet of Egyptian ships had broken through the Christian cordon in the Bay of Acre to bring supplies to the beleaguered city. Two ships had foundered on the rocks. A strong wind drove a third ashore. But twelve had made it past the Tower of Flies into the Moslem port, to save the city from starvation. By that time it was near certain that the Kings of England and of France would not arrive until the spring – although three weeks later, in October, a remnant of the German force trailed in from God-knows-where; five thousand men to swell the Christian army. Or as its commander, Count Henri, was said to have complained: ‘Five thousand mouths to feed, five thousand arseholes and five thousand pricks to spread the flux and pox through all the rest.’ And then just when we least expected a relief, the orderly who wagered that we’d lost our chance of military action this side of wintertime, was proven wrong.

For two months we had been kennelled in the filthy stews of Toron. So when at Martinmas Archbishop Baldwin came in person to recruit us, we were like lyme-hounds baying for the chase.

A fragile figure leaning on his chaplain’s arm, His Grace limped out into the open area beside the Toron wells to tell us what was planned.

‘Brethren, Count Henri is to lead an expedition to the town of Caiffa by Mount Carmel, with God’s help to surprise the Sultan Saladin’s supply ships in the harbour and relieve them of the grain that we so badly need.

‘This is The Lord’s work surely,’ the old man cried, ‘and I would judge myself unworthy of my calling if I were not to ride before you in the enterprise. My friends, take courage in the knowledge that the worst God’s enemies can do to us is separate our bodies from our souls. Not even Satan can deny you your reward in heaven, where every one of you is promised an eternal life.’

A piece of memory, a picture bobbing to the surface of my mind – the same man in a different place, the old archbishop with his arms extended reflected in the River Ouse: ‘Delay no longer, arm yourselves and join us in this just and holy war!’

He bade us bring our carts and pack-mules with us to be laden with the spoils of victory, and offered safe-deposit for our valuables within King Guy’s own almonry, to free as many of us as were fit to march.

‘And I’ll see action with the arbalesters if it’s the same to you, Sir Garry,’ Bertram offered, ‘an’ leave the mules to Hideman, who’s a safe hand with any beast.’

His worst decision, looking back. The worst poor Bert had ever made.

We set out on the morrow of Saint Martins in November, surging like a river… No, much broader than a river, rolling out across the Plain of Acre as a living carpet, glittering with light reflected from our helms and spearpoints. Steam rose from us, attracting insects with its stench. Even without the kings, the Kings’ Croisade was once again a fact, a Christian horde that no one could restrain.

In place of Guy de Lusignan, perched like a spare cock on the dungheap of Toron, the army was commanded by Count Henri of Toulouse, a fresh-faced man in pristine armour who we glimpsed in the muster on the plain. Behind him in Christian fellowship, rode knights from every European race – Theobald of Blois with half the chivalry of France in train, Duke Frederick of Swabia with his remaining Germans, King Guy’s own brother, Geoffrey de Lusignan, to lead the Latin Franks – with at the rear, behind the block of mules and muleteers that included my John Hideman, the military orders of Knights Templar and Hospitaller, who were committed to God’s service, along with Danes and Friesians, Sicilians, Pisanos, Flemings, Hungarians and Lord only knows what other countrymen besides.

Alongside each cavalry division, our infantry marched ten abreast to shield us on both flanks against attack. From where I rode with Rob de Pierpoint’s horsemen, near the centre of the host, I sometimes caught a glimpse of the red scarf Jos wore beneath his kettle hat, and knew that Bertram must be close at hand amongst the marching soldiers. Ahead, the banner of the Blessed Martyr, Thomas Becket, showed where Archbishop Baldwin sat his mule in company with Bishop Walter and the old Justiciar, Ranulf de Glanville.

There were six hundred horse to our division. All less than sleek, for provender was scarce. Yet all as game as we were. Nothing I had experienced since leaving England had altered what I was or what I wanted. I needed action. So did Raoul. He knew as he sidestepped and fought the bit, we all knew it was coming! You could hear it in the soldiers’ jokes, in the strident sound of their excited laughter.

‘How do Mussulwomen like it?’ one man demanded of the host. ‘On their knees and facing Mecca!’ half the army shouted back.

The summer heat had passed. With the first rains, stiff blades of grass had pushed through the stony soil to turn the plain pale green. In the distance to the south, the jutting rampart of Mount Carmel, the place our little hill at Lewes took its name from, stood out against the blue mass of the sea.

Shoulder to shoulder we crossed the River Belus, streaming through the bottleneck of its stone bridge. We passed the road to Nazareth where Jesus Christ was born to Mary, no more than six leagues as the crow flies from where we rode. We passed the hill of al-Kharruba, where Christ’s enemy, the Sultan Saladin, crouched like a spider in the centre of his evil web. Yet everything was in our favour, so we thought. No one in their senses, least of all Count Henri, expected the Sarcens to ignore the gauntlet we’d cast in their path. But we had the numbers, the formation and the level field – and best of all, we had twelve hundred destriers shipped out from Europe in the certain knowledge that no one and nothing could withstand a charge of heavy horsemen trained and primed and armoured to the teeth.

What they had were Turcoman archers.

Screaming the hair-raising battle cry we’d heard on the shayan, the Sarcens’ light horse, the Turcomans whose very name we learned to dread, had waited only for the sun to sink behind the hills to show us how they dealt with armoured knights.

Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!
In twos and threes and scores and hundreds, they whirled in from the wadis, shadows out of blackness, to engage us in a game played by Moslem rules.

Bastards! Devils!
Dark-faced little men in plated armour topped by turbans or steel helmets, they crouched with shortened stirrups and bent knees on ponies half the weight and twice the speed of our great horses, turning in the saddle to draw their little recurved bows and loose their arrows in a stream too fast to follow. Giving tongue like staghounds. Then melting back into the shadows as quickly as they came, and never still for long enough to let us to charge.

War isn’t like a tournament, I know it now I’ve fought one. In war, men seek to kill as much as possible from a safe distance, as little as they may in close combat, hand to hand. In warfare all are governed by their orders. And ours, bawled down the line, were to defend ourselves – to shield our bodies and our mounts, maintain a close formation, and trust to our archers and our spearmen to return the Moslem fire.

Advance at a walking pace. Give arbalesters time to load.

Arrows whickered in around us in the failing light, bouncing from steel links and helms, finding marks in shields or living flesh – aimed for our horses mainly, knowing they were harder to replace than men.

Dawn found us in the same condition, dared by the Moslems to break ranks, unable to attack. We halted twice during the night to water horses, shit our shit and bolt our rations, but otherwise kept on the move. Now and again a Sarsen fell to a steel bolt or a flung javelin. But mostly they were far too swift, and it was our men and beasts who suffered, stuck like hedge-pigs full of quills.

I saw one French knight, taunted as we all were near to madness, ignore Count Henri’s orders and suddenly charge through the lines. They brought his horse down first. Then as he lay with one leg pinned beneath its body and his hauberk rucked around his waist, they shot four steel-tipped arrows in succession through his under-linen into the fork of the man’s groin – before his screams were silenced with a final shaft through the eye-socket to his brain.

The sun by then was warm enough to make a ride in battle dress uncomfortable to say the least. Running with sweat and raging with frustration, I kept on turning back to seek a glimpse of Jos between the shields he and the others held above their heads. Each time I lost sight of his scarlet scarf I feared the worst. Of Bert, or of John Hideman trudging somewhere down the column with the pack beasts, I saw no sign at all. I was consumed by anger, by concern for my three men. But not by fear, not then. Because I had the skill I needed – or maybe just the luck – to stay alive. A strong left arm’s as vital to a soldier as the other, and I caught two arrows on my buckler that second morning. A third passed through Raoul’s knotted tail to wound another horse beyond. A fourth removed the tip of his right ear to spatter me with blood each time Raoul tossed his head. But that was all we suffered.