Time seemed to slow as he fought on. Men came at him again and again, and Arnau constantly recited the mantra that filled his heart, the words of Balthesar, as they had moved to the charge.
Must not forget our goal.
All through the struggle he forged on, feeling occasional glancing blows against his mail and many strikes pounding off his shield, and yet he fought only those in his way, fought not to win, but to press forward. As he broke the sword arm of an Occitan sergeant and sent him wheeling away shrieking into the mass and din, he found suddenly that Tristán was beside him once more. Of Ramon and Balthesar he could see no sign, and prayed that the two were still alive and fighting their way forward.
The minutes seemed to turn into hours as he fought on, ever forwards. Occasionally he spotted the standards of the King of Aragon ahead, and always he pushed that way, and as time rolled on amid the carnage of the battlefield, those banners came gradually closer and were visible more and more often.
He could feel the change in the air now, as he turned and parried another blow and pressed his way on. They were approaching a tipping point in the balance of the battle. Despite the enemy’s vast numbers, they had been hit hard by surprise, and had been unprepared. Their defence was poor, and their morale had been low even as they first fell in to face the charging cavalry of the Frankish force. Now, as they fought these vicious horsemen and found themselves being forced back and back, even that fragmented morale was diminishing. Their will to fight was cracking, crumbling, failing, though the fight had only just begun. All it would take was something unexpected or sudden to break them. The fighting had been going on for only moments, but already the battle was changing. It could be over within the hour.
All it would take was one little thing…
The sound, like demons rattling chains and howling in their underworld, came from their left, and Arnau grinned as he realised what it was. De Montfort had suddenly charged into the fray from the west with his third line, hitting the enemy unexpectedly in their flank. They were now being pressed from two sides by these mad and dangerous riders, and despite the fact that the Occitan army still numbered enough warriors to break the Franks like an egg, it was the crusaders who were bellowing sounds of victory, while the enemy were the ones shouting in dismay. Panic and terror began to thread through the Occitan voices in the midst of battle. They were breaking.
Arnau’s smile slid from his face.
‘No!’
The enemy army was breaking up, parts of it already on the run, fleeing the field, but while that might be good for the crusaders, presaging victory, it boded less well for the four men of Rourell. If the enemy routed completely, those men would get away. Arnau would not be able to reach the king’s standard in time to catch them.
He felt a moment of hopelessness then, though it was swept aside in a heartbeat.
‘Onward,’ bellowed a voice at his shoulder, and he turned to see Balthesar, blood-spattered and wounded, face contorted with a furious determination. Ramon was there then, too, and Tristán, and the four were pushing forward together. Arnau felt his heart pump with pride to be fighting alongside these men, and he pressed on with fresh hope. The Aragonese command was moving now, breaking away, and yet the four of them were almost through the press, almost there.
With a swing of his sword that sent a man to the grave screaming and bloodied, and a barge with his shield that knocked another into the path of Tristán, who dispatched him with ease, they were past the broken Occitan lines and in among the Aragonese.
Arnau felt a brief moment of sadness as he ploughed into the disorganised and panicked ranks of his countrymen. Many of the knights’ colours and the flags he barged out of the way or smashed aside or hacked to death were familiar to him. Men who would have fought alongside him only a year ago at Las Navas, allies for God on a great crusade. And yet now they were the enemy, fighting for an excommunicated and heretical king, while Arnau fought with the Franks, many of whom he may have faced a decade ago in that horrifying siege at Constantinople.
As he pressed on and spotted the banner of de Comminges wavering close to the royal standards, Arnau heard a voice lifted in song behind him. He did not need to turn, for he knew the voice. He had heard Balthesar’s tones raised in sacred melodies in the chapel of Rourell so often, and now the old knight sang songs of the Lord that were also songs of battle as he rode into the ranks of the enemies of the Church. Arnau found himself suddenly transported back over all the years to another battlefield, in dusty parched lands near the River Ebro: a force of Moorish raiders they had trapped. Arnau had been fighting alongside his lord, Santa Coloma, father of the lady Titborga. A voice raised in song had drawn his attention, and he had seen that wondrous Templar who had become almost godlike in his glory. It was that man as much as their desperate cause that had driven him to take his vows with the Order.
So much had changed, and yet in so many ways, so much had not.
Lifting his own voice in harmony Arnau pushed on, cleaving a path through the enemy towards those banners. The Aragonese force was routing now. The fight was becoming an easy thing, for the enemy were now only fighting back because they had to, to save their lives. All will to win had left them, and many were already running.
Arnau saw the king then, beneath his banner. He had foresworn his royal armour for a plain knight’s equipment, perhaps hoping to avoid being targeted by the enemy, and yet it was so clearly King Pedro, for he stood by his banners, sword aloft, demanding that his men stand and hold, almost apoplectic in rage as his army broke and fled, while the men of his guard clustered around him.
Even as, with a roar, the four men of Rourell charged for those standards, Arnau could see others closing in, coming to the king’s aid. With a surge of hope, he recognised the banners of both La Selva and de Comminges moving to block their way. All the rotten eggs in one basket.
The three villains had plenty of men with them, but then there was still a sizeable force with the four men, and Arnau could hear from a few of the voices sweeping along with them in the tide of steel, that the unit of German knights they had collected the previous day were pressing on around them, as well as a few of the Franks. The four of them were not alone in this fight, but those three villains would be theirs.
Arnau realised that he was not going to reach the king, for de Comminges and four of his sergeants had managed to get in the way, and for just a moment, the master of Barbera paused in the fray, lifting his visor and peering at the men bearing down on him. A look of confusion gave way to one of suspicion, and finally recognition. With a grimace of fury and determination, de Comminges slammed down his visor once more and hefted his sword, making for them.
The four men pressed on, the Germans joining them now, killing with the unrestrained joy of battle. Arnau found men he was sure were fellow Templars in plain colours blocking his way, and he swallowed down the bitterness of being forced to attack them, for they were on the side of the Devil this day. A knight snarling curses and invoking God’s strength in a Catalan accent clashed with him, the two men’s shields clattering. As Arnau pulled back his sword to swing, the man swept a mace down on him.
A whirl of images and emotions filled him then. The mace had ever been his weapon of choice, even when Lütolf had tried to train him out of the thing. It had been when Sebastian had died gruesomely in Constantinople, crushed by such a weapon by mere evil chance that he had turned away from it, never wishing to wield such a thing again. Snarling, his sword came up in time to batter the mace away and while the knight brought it back to strike again, Arnau lifted his shield and smashed it into the man’s open-face helmet. The rim of the shield smashed bones and ruined the man’s vision, and as he staggered, trying to recover his senses, Arnau swung once, breaking the arm holding the mace, twice, smashing the shield aside, thrice, into the unprotected thigh just below the hem of the chain shirt. The man was done and fell away, screaming, as Arnau stepped forth, wading through the tide of steel and flesh, seek
ing de Comminges and the king.
As he fought furiously, taking knocks and delivering them, he caught sight of another clash going on just ahead and to his right. Tristán was now locked in battle with de Comminges himself. Arnau’s gaze snapped this way and that for a split second as he fought. De Comminges had been his target, but he could still see the royal banner of Aragon ahead. The king would have to be his target now.
The pressure eased a little as a German knight was suddenly at his side, swinging a sword and bellowing in his own incomprehensible tongue. A knight swung a blade at Arnau, and even as he smashed it aside with his shield, he spotted a cross engraved at the top of the blade, near the hilt. Almost certainly a Templar, he realised, confirming his longstanding suspicions. He swung his own sword, which the Templar smashed away with his shield, and lunged once more. Again and again the two men swung at one another, too evenly matched for any easy advantage.
He found himself thinking, then, of that day in the dust outside Rourell when he had cheated in a practice bout with Lütolf. The German knight had been furious with him for such low tricks as throwing sand in his opponent’s face. This was beneath a brother of the Temple, apparently. Well now, it seemed, even heresy was not beneath a Templar, however, Arnau was not one of them any more, and nothing stood in the way of a dirty trick or two.
As the man pulled his sword back, shield out ready to take Arnau’s next blow, instead the ex-Templar fell forward in the saddle, his sword swinging out low. The unexpected cut struck home, and Arnau’s blade smashed into the man’s ankle, breaking it and doing the same to several of the horse’s ribs, severing his stirrup strap in the process. The man screamed, and disappeared from view, tipped from the saddle and off his horse to the far side, where he would die under the many hooves.
Arnau had only a moment to take stock before he was attacked once more, and in that brief moment, he saw the king. Pedro the Second, laughably called the ‘Catholic’, crowned by the very same Pope who had now excommunicated him; he was almost alone, his knights busy fighting off the Germans who were pressing them.
With a snarl of fury, Arnau charged for him. In that moment the enormity of what he was doing was utterly lost on him. This man was a king, appointed by God, and Arnau had sworn allegiance to him on more than one occasion. He had fought for the man at Las Navas, and had believed him to be the very paragon of Aragonese knighthood. To kill a king was no small thing even for the great. And yet, in this place, it was nothing to him, for Pedro the Catholic had sunk lower than any king since Saul had turned his back upon God. For this king was a heretic, a butcher, a thief. This king had waved a hand and all that Arnau had thought good in his life had been laid bare. For this king was in some ways worse than all the other conspirators. Rocaberti had been driven by greed, and the Devil had undone him through his sins. La Selva sought power in this world, imperilling his time in the next. De Comminges had done dreadful things, but in his heart, the man had believed it was for the greater good in some way. Only Pedro the king had turned the world to ash on a whim, without even knowing the names of those he was destroying.
In that moment, the figure of the king was a fallen idol, embodying everything Arnau detested, and he roared with righteous anger as he pushed his horse forward. The king turned then, his face visible, for his helmet was an open one, and Pedro of Aragon stared in horror and disbelief. Arnau realised, as he closed on his monarch, that he was wearing his livery and that almost certainly the king would recognise it as that of Catalan nobility. Indeed, as he bore down on Pedro, the man still had not raised his sword. He sat motionless on his mount, staring at Arnau with a face draining of colour.
‘I am the king,’ Pedro shouted at him in defiance and disbelief, yet tinged with panic.
‘Not my king,’ Arnau snarled back at him, ‘for my King is in Heaven.’
Now, realising too late the very real peril he was in and likely assuming until this moment that he would be sought as a valuable prisoner, the king began to raise his sword. He was not fast enough. Arnau hit him from the side, barging him with his shield. The king’s horse danced a few steps away with the pressure, and its rider lolled in the seat. Shouts of alarm were going up now from other Aragonese nobles in the field. The danger the king was in was clear to all.
The King of Aragon, still shocked, barking out demands that Arnau stand off, righted himself as best he could and brought around his own blade, a fine piece with a gilt handle displaying the arms of the crown. As he swung his sword at Arnau, the young ex-Templar realised with a start that the man was an amateur at best. He had positioned himself with the knights in the press of men not because he could claim to be one of them in any way, but because he had been so assured of victory and the safety of the numbers in his force; he had never expected to need his blade. The swing the king levelled at him was poor and went astray, and His Majesty lurched in the saddle, almost unhorsed as he over-extended the blow.
Arnau’s shield was out, and his sword raised. For a moment he stared. The king was all but prone, presenting the easiest of targets. A single blow could end it. Could he do that? Could he really kill a king? But as that terrified face came up, anticipating the end, once again, Arnau could see nothing but a cruel and callous man who had ruined lives in the most appalling offhand manner. An enemy not only of his, but of all men, and of God himself, now. He looked at that royal blade flailing around uselessly, all rich ornament and gripped by a man who had ruined Arnau’s world for a few coins. Then he looked up at the great, powerful battle sword he held, whose owner had been taken away from the world now, kept in a cell for the rest of her days. His lip wrinkled in hate.
Arnau struck. The sword of the preceptrix Ermengarda d’Oluja came down in a massive overhand blow, striking the king where neck and shoulder meet. The slash was so hard that the sword smashed through the bones, splintering even the shoulder blade as it drove the protective mail through the flesh and into the meat and offal beneath.
Pedro the heretic lolled back in his saddle again, sword and shield both falling, eyes rolling in shock and horror at the fatal wound dealt to him by a countryman. With a gurgling noise, pupils rolling up into his head, the king slid from his horse.
Shock and elation flooded Arnau together. He had done what few would dare, to kill a king, yet the man at the very heart of their troubles had paid the ultimate price at last; now the web of villains he had created with his greed, who had worked to destroy a pious woman and to ruin a house of God, would fall too, no longer enjoying the protection of their royal master.
He turned, and almost died right there.
He managed to get his sword in the way of de Comminges’s blow, but only just. The Templar master was snarling oaths now, swinging his sword with expert precision and a power that belied his years. Still shocked from the suddenness of it, Arnau had no time to counter and instead reeled, lurching backwards in the saddle, just managing to get his blade in the way of the next two blows.
Lord, but de Comminges was good. The man sidestepped his horse, closing on Arnau, and finally, in that brief moment of respite, the younger man managed to get in his own swing. It was good, and though the Templar lord managed to duck most of the blow, Arnau’s blade dinged from the man’s nose-guard and cut a neat line across the cheek below the eye. It had been a good blow, and a lucky one, born of a moment of opportunity, but it was little more than cosmetic damage and did nothing to slow de Comminges’s onslaught.
The Templar was on him again, then, sword slamming against his shield again and again, each time sending waves of shock and pain all the way up his arm and into his shoulder. On another day, Arnau knew that they would be more or less evenly matched, that he could certainly hold his own against the Templar lord. But this was not another day, and while Arnau had ridden hard, forged through marsh and a river, charged into battle and cut and torn his way through seemingly endless ranks of men to reach this point, de Comminges was relatively rested, and had done little but fight back as they pushed
through. The man was currently stronger than Arnau, and having caught the younger man by surprise, he had taken an initiative which Arnau had yet to recover. That might change right now, though, Arnau realised as he saw de Comminges suddenly shift position and pause, an opening that could be exploited.
Grasping the possibility, Arnau lunged again and by chance caught his enemy’s shield with the cross guard of his sword, tearing it back and almost breaking the arm even as he swung the blade round for a follow-up. De Comminges bellowed in pain, but his teeth were bared and anger was still filling him. The man’s sword was back for a moment and, unable to block Arnau’s coming blow, de Comminges rose in the saddle, right leg free of his stirrup, and threw himself at Arnau.
The younger man had not been expecting such a response, and as the immense weight of the big, heavily armoured man smashed into him, he felt himself thrown back. He felt his ankle crack as his foot was torn from the stirrup, and the two men fell to the ground.
The Last Crusade Page 29