A Blood Red Horse (14 page)

Acre was still held by the Saracens, but only just. Hours were spent discussing the quickest way to make it fall. Once in Christian hands it would provide a good port for reinforcements and supplies. However, careful planning was required. More than a third of the city's perimeter was water, and on a treacherous, rocky outcrop, a tower, known as the Tower of the Flies, had been built to help protect the city from attack by sea. To the landward side another tall building, nicknamed the Cursed Tower, provided cover for Saracen archers. As occasional arrows whistled through the air, despite the heat, Gavin was glad to be wearing his armor. It was commonly believed that this tower was where the silver that had been paid to
Judas Iscariot, the apostle who betrayed Jesus, was forged. Gavin could well believe it.

A river flowed into the city, but it was narrow and shallow—“Good for making glass,” as some of the siege mechanics observed, “but useless for watering two armies and a city.” The “two armies” referred to another difficulty that the arriving Christians found themselves facing. For while the Christians under King Guy of Jerusalem had begun one siege, they found themselves, in their turn, besieged by Saladin, who now had them trapped on the plain between hostile hills and a hostile city. It was a deadlock.

Gavin had not been as happy to reach Acre as everybody else. He was still unable to rid himself of nightmare visions of drowning men and horses. The shortages of food, the brown water, and the constant presence of death suited his mood, even though these conditions were killing more people than any battle. Men and horses were visibly shrinking inside their trappings. The only thing that kept the Christians going, Gavin thought to himself as he dodged another arrow, was the thought that the plight of the Saracens holed up inside Acre must be even worse than the plight of those camped outside.

He urged Montlouis into a canter. He could not find a priest, so he would find a drink instead. Putting William to the back of his mind, he looked for a friendly face. It did not take long to find one, and by the time Gavin returned to Sir Thomas, he was swaying on his feet.

Sir Thomas looked at him with both sympathy and fury.

“No priest,” slurred Gavin, and sank down. Sir Thomas said nothing. He watched as William grew steadily weaker, sweating and shivering in equal measure.

“Better to drown than burn,” the youth muttered again and again. That night Sir Thomas all but gave up hope, for
William began to rave about Hosanna and would not let up. Gavin, still stupid with drink, was slumped in the corner, his mouth half open. William suddenly fixed his eyes on him.

“Who are you? Why don't you tell me where Hosanna is?” he complained, sounding twelve years old again. His fingers never stopped pulling at his covers.

“I know Hosanna is dead,” he went on, his voice rising. “I know you have killed him.” For an hour or more William repeated himself until Gavin, pricked to madness through his stupor, leaped up.

“Hosanna is not dead,” he bellowed. “I'll go and get him so that you can see for yourself.” He lurched to his feet, disappeared into the darkness, and returned shortly after, pulling the horse under the awning. Sir Thomas tried to get up but found himself too giddy. He sat down again and held on to his chair. He felt terribly thirsty, but one look at the water made his stomach turn.

Hosanna, who, under the care of Hal, was still shining, seemed unfazed by the unusual situation, and when he had steadied himself, Sir Thomas leaned forward and put William's hands on his horse's head. “What is there to lose, what is there to gain?” he muttered, then thought,
I, too, am losing my mind.
Hosanna put his nose close to William's pillow and, when the dust of the tent tickled his nose, sneezed. A thousand little droplets flew over William's face. Sir Thomas moved slowly to wipe them off.

Gavin stared at him. “You're shaking, Father,” he said. “It's nothing,” replied Sir Thomas. “You've had too much to drink.” Then he sat down again. “Take the horse away now, Gavin,” he said. “He can do William no good here.”

Gavin took Hosanna back to Hal, then like a homeless dog, he found a blanket and fell into a heavy sleep.

Sir Thomas was wrong. Later in the night the crisis in William's fever passed. By morning the boy was sleeping easily, and the following day he propped himself up and recognized his father, sitting by his bed.

William leaned forward.

“Father?” he said, and touched Sir Thomas's hand. It was cold. William, weak and pale, went rigid with shock. While he had managed to cling on to life, Sir Thomas, overcome with weakness and fatigue, had not. He was stone dead. William sank back. When he finally managed to wake his brother, Gavin howled like a wolf.

Once William was strong enough to walk, they buried Sir Thomas's body in the tunnel dug by French sappers to undermine Acre's walls. The corpse, surrounded by what brush and timber could be gathered from the plain and surrounding hills, was set alight, and as they watched the walls sink and crumble as the fire took advantage of the sappers' work, Gavin and William felt that their father would have approved. King Richard, whose own sickness had also passed, told them how much he would miss Sir Thomas and that he would be remembered as a kind and honorable man. Sickness was cruel, but their father had done his crusading duty. William and Gavin bowed when the king had finished, but his words were small consolation.

Still far from well, William was silent in his grief. He tried to pray, but all he could hear was his father's voice, joking with Old Nurse or teasing Ellie in the great hall at Hartslove. Gavin, on the other hand, went wild. He blamed the Saracens and cursed them to hell. Night after night he paced the tent, muttering and swearing until his poison slowly seeped into his brother's soul, too. But in contrast with Gavin's quick, hot fury, William's
hatred grew inch by inch and was cold as steel. While God might give Sir Thomas due reward in heaven, here on earth the Saracens must pay. When William could once again wield a sword, he rode Hosanna around the camp, exhorting his fellow crusaders to redouble their efforts. Then he took his turn to scale the long ladders now propped up all over the city walls for the Christians to climb and punched and stabbed any of the enemy who came within his reach. His dagger bloody, he told himself he would never look on any Saracen without remembering his father's suffering and death.

The end of the siege came suddenly. The Saracens, realizing that Acre could be defended no longer, sued for terms of surrender. After much haggling, an agreement was reached involving the exchange of captives and ransom money, and the Muslim enemy slowly began to emerge from the city. Those acting as hostages were herded to one side, a huge group numbering over three thousand. William, leading Hosanna and Dargent to drink at one of the dirty channels, stared at their thin faces.
Why
, he thought to himself with surprise,
they look quite ordinary
. But he hardened his heart and soon turned his gaze elsewhere.

Richard sent for him. Along with the Duke of Burgundy, he was to go to Saladin's camp to discuss delivery of ransom money for all the captives—a responsibility earned, Richard said, as a reward for the number of Saracens the boy had killed in the siege. The two sides met in the open. William rode behind the duke and stared at Saladin, whose eyes were dark and inscrutable. The duke was loud in his demands. Saladin was courteous as he denied them. When Richard was told, he seethed with fury. Finally, he sent William to call together his senior knights.

“Friends and fellow crusaders,” he said, “we can go no further, saddled as we are with all these Saracen captives. Saladin refuses to pay the ransom. So we must now decide. Shall we wait while Saladin marshals yet more forces to defy us, or shall we cut our losses, execute the prisoners, and move on to Jerusalem?”

There was a moment's silence before Gavin stepped forward, his hand on the hilt of his sword. “Kill the captives. They are nothing but dogs,” he said loudly and clearly. “Kill them.”

There was a short pause before Adam Landless, then the Duke of Burgundy, then one influential knight after another, all stepped forward to agree. They began to shout, and William found himself joining in.

The following afternoon all was prepared. The prisoners were herded into an open space just outside the city walls. They thought they were going home. It was only when faced with a solid and silent battery of mounted Christian soldiers, lances poised and swords unsheathed, that they suddenly realized what was about to happen. Some dropped to their knees, some invoked Allah's name, while others began to talk fast and loudly, shaking their heads.

Gavin and Montlouis stood in the first line of soldiers. William, on Hosanna, was behind in the second. In the baking afternoon sun the trumpeter gave the sound, and at first slowly, then faster and faster, Richard's men, shouting the names of knights already dead, bore down on the unarmed enemy. They rode straight through them, spearing, slicing, stabbing, and slashing. Wave after wave, they charged at the prisoners until not one remained alive. By the end the horses were finding it difficult to keep their feet in the lake of blood.

But while Montlouis, urged on by Gavin, thundered toward the victims, Hosanna, for the first time in years, refused to move forward at all. It did not matter what William did. As the knights beside him galloped toward the enemy the horse remained stock-still. Hosanna seemed neither angry nor afraid, but nothing William could do would make him carry the boy into the massacre. William's sword remained unbloodied and his hands clean. Eventually, after a long struggle, William dismounted and threw Hosanna's reins to Hal in disgust. He shouted for Dargent. Hosanna, who had been such a talisman, was making a spectacle of himself. Shaking with humiliation and fury, William struck the horse with the flat of his sword. It was the first time he had ever raised his hand against him. Hosanna did not flinch, but a long wale arose on his neck and drops of blood speckled the sand as Hal silently led him away.

By the time Dargent was ready, it was all over.

Afterward, nobody spoke about either the massacre or Hosanna's behavior. The dead bodies were dumped in a pyre and burned. Sand was spread over the blood. It was as if nothing had ever happened.

But not for William. The wale on Hosanna's neck festered and wept. As William watched Hal try to clean it as best he could, the boy's conscience hurt him. What was he turning into? Sickened as much by his own behavior as he had earlier been upset by Hosanna's, William could not rest.

Everybody else was happy, rejoicing at the news that the march toward Jerusalem, the event they had all been waiting for, could now begin. Having come so far, they could not afford to be squeamish. They were to go to Jaffa first, another important port, but one which the Saracens
were already abandoning because they knew they could not defend it. The Christians could not wait to get going. Gradually, as Hosanna's wale began to heal and the army was once again on the move, William made a big effort to push his own confusions away. Like the king, he must concentrate on the task ahead. So he joined the queue for fresh supplies coming in from the coast and ate and drank his fill. He talked to Hal and discussed how best to keep the horses healthy. When he heard soldiers and grooms singing as they went about their work, he did his best to join in. He told himself that soon the horror of the massacre would, like the voyage and his illness, recede.

Before the march to Jaffa began, the king commanded a great feast to be held in Sir Thomas's memory. All the Hartslove men still surviving were present, and Gavin promised such rewards as were now his to give as their new lord. He also told Adam Landless there would be a place for him in his household. But to the new friends he had made on the journey, Gavin offered nothing. Since his father's death he could not bear the sight of them. William was relieved. Gavin needed steady companions, for his actions were growing increasingly reckless. After the feast, as the army moved away from the city there were few forage or reconnaissance parties for which he did not volunteer. Occasionally he returned with Muslim heads attached to his saddle, something that sickened William. Displaying heads, even though this was also what the king did, was, to his mind, a mark not of heroism but of barbarism. Could God possibly approve of such things? When Gavin displayed his gruesome trophies, William, although his hatred of the Saracens was as strong as ever,
avoided him. Once he asked Gavin if he would tell Ellie the sort of things crusaders did. Gavin laughed. “Women cannot understand these things,” he said.

“But they can be ashamed,” William answered.

Gavin just shrugged his shoulders. “Everybody has to get through this in their own way, little brother,” he said, and walked off.

Gavin soon wore his horses thin through overuse, but the army as a whole, as it marched south, looked in reasonably good shape. The journey was undertaken in strict formation, the spare horses and the baggage train protected by the sea on one side and the great column of knights and men-at-arms on the other.

Nevertheless, even with the king's genius for strategy, the route was hazardous. The knights were continually harassed by Saracen archers galloping toward them on their swift ponies, aiming great clouds of arrows with deadly accuracy, then galloping away. It was, William thought after a fifth day spent pulling the darts out of his thick undercoat, like being attacked by a swarm of bees. To save Dargent and Hosanna, he was riding one of his coursers and sat hunched in the saddle. Ringing in his ears was the king's order, repeated forcefully every day, that nobody was to break ranks unless the trumpet sounded a charge. For the moment the trumpet was silent.

Gavin, traveling near the rear of the column with a splitting headache, was goaded almost beyond endurance. The men in front of him looked like hedgehogs as the arrows stuck in their woolen jerkins. They had cursed these jerkins for being far too hot, but now they were certainly feeling the benefit. The horses had much less protection and began to fall by the score, not silently but with frantic neighs and terrible groans. Their bodies were left in the blazing sun for
the jackals and vultures to dispose of. There was no other option.