The King's Witch (27 page)

His hair stood on end. His horse broke into a jog, its head bowed to the bit, and he held it to a man’s walking pace. He cast a quick glance back at his army, a solid pack of mailed men and horses, the rear guard still coming out of the wood. The men-at-arms were running ahead of the column, trying to keep a line. The Saracen drums beat into a frenzy, and with a shriek of horns and a thousand screeching voices a flock of archers swept over the side of the hill and hurtled down toward them.

The air darkened with a rain of arrows and he swung his shield up.
Hold
, he thought. He turned his horse so he could cover its forehand; he felt the thump of the arrows on his shield.
Hold.
The men-at-arms around the edge of the army were shooting back, and the Saracen attack broke and swerved and galloped away on either side. Richard pushed on, down the long shallow trough of the valley, toward the road in the distance.

This place interested him. He looked around again at the ruined town, the slopes on either side, and then over his shoulder at the wood behind them, where now the Hospitallers were finally coming into sight.

Their lines were ragged, and they had lost contact with the main army; their Grand Master was an idiot, and Richard had never been able to handle him. He swung his gaze forward again, toward the hill, the town. Out on the open ground to the east, where they could run forever, the Saracens were regrouping.

He turned his horse, letting the front of the army get ahead of him, watching the Hospitallers at the tail end struggle to catch up. Between him and the bulk of the knights he saw Rouquin galloping back along the army’s flank; he had his lance, but he had lost his helmet somewhere. Then the Saracens attacked again.

They were aiming, Richard saw at once, not at the main army, but at the gap between them and the Hospitallers. They would try to break the rear guard off and destroy it. Richard flung a long look at the rest of the army, marching steadily along, down into the valley toward the road. In their thin serried lines on the flank of the column, all the while marching, the men-at-arms fired their crossbows, reloaded, and fired again into the fluttering white torrent sweeping toward them.

The Saracens wheeled past the rear guard, firing a constant hail of arrows. The Crusader crossbows blasted them, and the white tide of fighters reeled back; behind them the ground was salted with dead and wounded men and screaming horses.

The Hospitallers had finally gotten clear of the wood, but they still straggled. Their front lines were still a hundred yards behind the main army, and they recoiled from the Saracen charge even as the main army turned it away. They had lost horses. Jogging closer, Richard saw men walking. He swept his gaze around again, from the hill to the ruined town, to the wood. He could see some possibility here. If he could pen the Saracens up against the hill, or the wood, or the ruin, they wouldn’t be able to get out of the way of a charge. He could bring his whole weight against them. A man on foot ran up to him, screaming.

“My lord, my lord, the lord Grand Master begs you—”

“No charge,” Richard shouted. “Keep to the march. Wait until I signal.” He turned, making sure the squire with the trumpet was next to him. Then the Saracens attacked again.

Free of the trees, the Hospitallers had bunched up, not in ranks or files but a shifting mass of horsemen and men on foot, and when the Saracens attacked they all swung to face them. The gap widened between them and the main army even as the screaming onrush of the enemy flowed in around them on either side, firing thickets of arrows. Kneeling, the men-at-arms shot back and threw their javelins, but the knights could do nothing but take blows.

Now Richard had reached the back corner of the main army; he could see most of the Saracen army, and it seemed to him many more than before. His heart jumped. He thought Saladin had committed his whole strength here. He had been right: The Sultan could not let him take Jaffa.

The main Crusader army was slowing. Everybody would be watching him. He wanted this to happen here, anyway, where there were these interesting features of the ground. The Saracens rolled back again, hooting and cavorting their horses, back to the east and safety.

Let them cavort
, he thought.
Let them get tired.
He held up his hand, holding his own men back.

Rouquin’s horse took an arrow through the rump, and he had to ride it awhile before he found a fresh one; when he changed mounts, he realized his helmet was gone. He vaguely remembered hooking it onto the cantle of the saddle he had just left. He rode at a quick jog along the side of the army, shouting to them.

“Hold. Hold.” Among them were men on foot. The Saracens killed few men but many horses. He thought they might all be on foot before this was over. There might be no way to charge. Up the slope toward the wood, the Hospitallers were staggering along, trying to catch up with the rest of them.

Then, once more, the Saracens swept down.

“Hold!” His voice was raw. His eyes were full of grit. The storms of arrows burst over them, and he crooked his shield over his head. The Hospitallers reeled under the assault; their red surcoats disappeared in the dust and the waves of white robes. He looked at Richard, a hundred feet ahead of him up the slope, his arm still in the air; a Hospitaller sergeant had run up to him, was pleading with him, and Richard shook his head.

“Hold,” Rouquin yelled. He lifted his fist over his head. “Hold—”

He ached to fight, to give blows, not just take them. The Hospitallers were staggering, nearly surrounded by enemies; a thousand Saracen archers had taken the higher ground near the wood and were pouring arrows down into the knights’ ranks. In front of the knights the white horsemen fired their arrows and wavered back, as they usually did, to regroup and charge again.

Among the Hospitallers, a yell went up.

Rouquin shouted, hoarse. The knights were charging, against orders, hurling themselves toward the Saracen archers by the wood. And now suddenly Richard’s trumpet sounded, shriek on shriek, calling the whole army to charge.

At last, at last. Rouquin’s horse was already galloping. Beside him and behind him the whole main Crusader army was moving, charging back up the slope toward the wood. He pressed in closer to the man on his left. All around him, now, ten thousand hooves thundered. A wild exhilaration lifted him, as if he flew. Someone rode up on his right, head to head. He looked west down a rank a mile long, and as he looked, all the lances dropped level.

He faced forward, the lance hooked under his arm, and shoved his feet down and sat deep in his saddle. Between the army and the Hospitallers, a thousand white horsemen were scrambling to get out of the way. The line of the knights crashed into them and broke them down without missing stride.

Beyond the Hospitallers the Saracen archers, taken by surprise, were on foot—they had dismounted to shoot, thinking the Crusaders would never charge. The Hospitallers rode straight over the first of them. Rouquin, three strides behind them, saw three men in white running away, one looking back over his shoulder, a gaping face, and he drove the tip of his lance into the middle of that face. He felt the lance shudder, striking flesh. The body fell and was gone in the dust. His horse leaned into its gallop.

All along the slope the running white robes were going down under the driving hooves. Coming up against the wood, many of them had wheeled, were shooting arrows, trying to take cover behind trees. Horses galloped among them. Rouquin splintered his lance on a tree, threw it down, and drew his sword. Pinned against the wood, some of the Saracens wheeled to fight. He drove his horse into a lighter, smaller Turkish mare and she buckled under the weight, and he slashed at her rider, at the coils of his turban. The man collapsed away. The trees pressed closer around him. A man ran away from him between the trees, screaming, nimble on foot. Rouquin sat back, lifting his fist with the reins, and the horse skidded to a stop. The rein scraped a white lace of foam from its neck. He realized he was alone, ahead of the rest of the army, and wheeled back toward the open slope.

He wove his way back through the wood full of bodies. He came out on the slope and saw that the Crusader charge had scattered back down the slope. The ground was heaped with white robes and sprawled horses. Over toward the beach, near the ruins, a thousand Saracens were regrouping, and down in the lowland the Crusader army was gathering to attack them.

Rouquin rode back down into the sunlight. He was going to be too late to join them. A shout turned him; a Hospitaller was running toward him on foot, his sword in his hand. Rouquin veered his horse over to him. The monk-knight sheathed his sword and vaulted up behind him. Rouquin’s horse staggered a few steps under the extra weight and he looked around for another mount, but all he saw were dead and wounded. Down there he heard Richard’s trumpet sound.

The Hospitaller shouted, “They’re coming—Look—”

He twisted in the saddle. The Saracens gathered near the ruin wanted no more charges. They were bolting toward him across the top of the slope, making for the gap between Richard’s men and the wood, where only Rouquin and the Hospitaller came between them and the open land in the east. He was going to be in this after all. The Hospitaller drew his sword. Rouquin switched his sword into his left hand, so they could strike on both sides, and turned his horse to face the oncoming Saracens.

“God’s balls, run, damn it,” the Hospitaller cried in his ear.

“Wait,” Rouquin said.

The wave of Saracens was not waiting; the horsemen saw the two knights alone before them, and their high trilling war cry rose. Faintly through it he heard a trumpet sound. A wide white tide, the Saracens rolled down toward him. Their horses’ legs pumped. Their curved swords rose like scythes, all sharp edge. The Hospitaller shouted, “God and Saint John!” and Rouquin held his panting horse still, watching the Saracens rush on him. He waggled his sword over his head, daring them. An arrow skidded through the torn earth before him.

Behind him he heard a rumble, as if the whole earth shook, steadily louder.

He did not have to see it. He felt the charge coming like a cresting wave. The first Saracen was six strides away from him, and then from behind him the Crusader line reached him, lifted him, carried him along. All together, at full gallop, a thousand men across, the iron rank struck the oncoming Saracens headlong.

Rouquin’s horse smashed shoulder first into a Saracen horse. For a moment the mare held, her head across the charger’s neck. A curved blade flashed at Rouquin and he saw a wild brown face, a black beard, a turban. Dust rose in clouds around him. He struck and struck. Then the mare went down, her legs flailing, her saddle empty.

Richard lunged up beside him, the battle axe flashing in his hand. Ahead of them, the fleet Saracen mares carried their white riders out of their reach, but the wood loomed beyond, and again the trees slowed them. Some thrashed into the trees, and some turned to fight. Rouquin drove his horse headlong into and over the first and slashed on either side. He felt the blade bite but he saw nothing, only a last chestnut rump bouncing away through the wood.

Richard bellowed, and Rouquin drew rein and wheeled. The slope before them was gashed and men lay on it and screamed, and horses lay dead or thrashing. The Hospitaller spoke, and slapped Rouquin’s shoulder, and slid down off the horse and a moment later was mounting one of his own.

Rouquin let his reins go. The big roan he was riding blew a long ruffle of air through its nostrils and shook its head so its mane flopped. Around him the other knights, slumped in their saddles, moved slowly in around Richard. The Christian men-at-arms had drawn away almost into the ruin, to give the knights room to charge. The cart with Richard’s banner was among them. The last of the Saracen fighters had fallen back onto the slope below the tents of the enemy camp, only a few hundred men.

Richard said, “Does that horse have any more run in him?”

“Oh, yes,” Rouquin said, and gathered his reins. The roan’s head came up and its ears switched forward. Richard let out a roar; a trumpet blasted.

All up and down the mailed line of knights, the horses strode forward into a single rank. The slope carried them, took them to their full gallop faster, and stirrup to stirrup the whole Crusader army hurtled across the trampled low ground and into the remnant of the Saracens.

The white-gowned fighters could not stand against them. They wheeled and fled, but they were going uphill and their horses were tired and the knights rode up over their heels. Rouquin cut out at a fleeing body and missed, and then, with no one ahead of him, rode in among a stand of tents.

He sat back, panting, his mouth coated with dust, and the horse immediately stopped. Its head sank. He patted the foamy, filthy shoulder and said words for its courage; the stallion had fought as hard as he had. He could hear the other Crusaders hallooing all around him now. Richard, on a bay horse Rouquin had never seen before, rode up to him.