Meanwhile, Sir William turned his horse around and took his lance from its sling. He couched it at the ready under his arm and turned his horse to face the streets to the south and east, listening.
Men were shouting from the citadel, but he tuned out their voices. He focused all his senses on the approach of the enemy. He had fought more than once in towns and knew that there could be no massed attack of cavalry. The streets funneled knights into parties of two and three. Furthermore, streets were never straight—they bent and curved, ended suddenly at intersections or in cul-de-sacs. The deeper an attacking army penetrated into a town, the more diffused it became. Inevitably, one or two riders got out ahead of the pack and came on alone.
Sir William’s goal was to kill one or two of these before the rest caught up with them. The thought that he was likely to be killed in exchange did not bother him; he had come here to do penance for his sins. If he died defending unarmed Christians from Saracens, God might just forgive him for the sack of Rocamadour.
At last he could hear hooves and shouting from the direction he was facing rather than from the citadel behind him. Men were calling encouragement or advice to one another in an alien tongue that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. An instant later a rider burst out from between two houses, his horse stretching out its neck as the rider held a javelin aloft.
Sir William’s heart missed a beat as he registered the turban and the tight-fitting, long-sleeved, brightly patterned tunic hiding the man’s armor. He was face to face with his first Saracen.
The man noticed Sir William only a split second later, and he at once sat back and slowed his horse in surprise. Sir William did not give him a moment to recover from that surprise. He charged.
His opponent did not stand a chance. Sir William’s horse and lance were both heavier. As the Saracen’s comrades burst out from between the houses, all they saw was a riderless horse bucking in panic and a bleeding man with a lance pinning him to the street. Sir William released the lance as he swept past the dead man and drew his sword as he turned to face the next three Saracens, but before he could engage, three knights swept past him with leveled lances and struck two of the three Saracens from their saddles.
By now shouts were going up from the enemy, and the Saracens who had started to emerge from other streets turned around, cantering back the way they’d come.
The knights of Nablus likewise turned and started back for the citadel, pulling Sir William with them in their wake. He had achieved his objective. There were no more stragglers to be seen. As he and the other knights raced across the drawbridge, the wheels began to clank on the drums as it was raised behind them. They were into the ward of the citadel, amidst a throng of terrified people who filled every nook and cranny of the little enclosure as far as the eye could see.
Smoke soiled the sky, turning the sun orange and drifting over the walls of the citadel to drop cinders and ash upon the thousands of refugees crowding the ward. The breeze also brought shouts, cries, and the raised voices of men quarreling, along with the sound of things being dragged, broken, and smashed. Many children were crying in terror, held by mothers hardly less terrified themselves, while priests chanted in a half-dozen languages, and men murmured and argued and looked anxiously to the thin walls around them.
Maria Zoë, who had been looking out of the interior window of the hall, drew back, closing the shutters. Her household knights, Sir Constantine and Sir William, were discussing urgently the best defensive strategy for the citadel, but there had not yet been an assault, and the fires suggested there would be none today. The Saracens appeared to have taken the bait of plunder over the risky business of attacking the citadel—no matter how weak it was. She had bought them time, but how much?
“Water, food, and latrines,” she said out loud, turning back to face the men in the room. “How many people are sheltering here? Do we even have a head count?” For this she looked not to her steward, who was conspicuously lurking in the shadows trying to avoid her eye, but to her confessor Father Angelus and the Abbot of St. Sebastian, an energetic and competent man.
“A head count?” Father Angelus answered with a glance toward the abbot. “No, but we estimate eleven thousand.”
“That would be the entire Christian and Jewish population of Nablus,” Maria Zoë responded dismissively.
The churchmen looked at one another and nodded. “Yes, madame. Except for the Muslims, who consciously remained outside, the entire population is here: Christians, Jews, and Samaritans.”
“We can’t possibly feed eleven thousand!” Maria Zoë protested next, after she absorbed the magnitude of her own success at getting the residents of Nablus into the citadel.
“Not for long, no,” Father Angelus admitted.
“For how long?” Maria Zoë wanted to know.
“The castle was stocked to feed fifty fighting men and twenty others for a year,” Father Angelus answered. “That means we can feed eleven thousand for . . .” he pursed his lips as he did the math in his head, “three to four days at the most—on short rations.”
“Is that long enough?”
“That depends on what has happened to the Christian army,” Sir Walter replied, coming up beside her with the other knights in his wake. “If the Saracens are here because they have already defeated the forces under King Baldwin, we cannot expect relief at all.”
Maria Zoë had been far too focused on the immediate threat to think about that.
“How do we find out what has happened to King Baldwin?” she asked, carefully avoiding the question about her husband, brother-in-law, and son-in-law.
Silence answered her question, and as she looked from man to man, they dropped their eyes. “I see,” she answered her own question. “Either someone comes to our relief—or they don’t.”
The churchmen and rabbis took over the task of organizing the refugees of their respective flocks: giving the men watch duties or having them help with chopping wood for the bakery and ovens, and mucking out the stables and the latrines. The women were likewise organized to clean the common areas and keep the children out from underfoot. For the moment everyone appeared to be cooperating with everyone else, the shock of the fires beyond the walls and the consciousness of common danger overcoming all rivalries and hostilities, even between the Jews and the Samaritans.
By early afternoon a pregnant calm had descended over the castle, and Maria Zoë made her way to the top story of the keep to check on her children. Rahel had them occupied with games and they did not seem unduly alarmed, although Helvis asked at once, “What caused the fire, Mama?”
“Men set the fire, sweetheart,” Maria Zoë answered, stroking her curly dark hair.
“It’s Saracens, isn’t it, Mama?” John asked next, his voice excited rather than frightened.
“Yes,” Maria Zoë admitted. He had been the first to see them, after all. He understood why Mathewos had brought him home, why the bells had rung all morning.
Helvis sucked in her breath. “Are we under siege?” she asked, her arms tightening around her doll in fear. “Like you were last year?”
“Yes,” Maria Zoë admitted, thinking how sad it was that a six-year-old already knew the meaning of the word “siege.”
“Is Papa coming to get us out?” John asked eagerly.
“Yes, I’m sure he is, John. So look after your sisters and keep them from becoming frightened until he gets here, will you?”
“Yes, Mama.” He held up his head and hooked his thumbs in his belt, as he had seen the sergeants of Ibelin do.
Returning to the great hall, Maria Zoë sought out Sir William, who was at one of the tables, evidently swapping war stories with Sir Walter and some of the other knights. At the sight of her approaching, the knights all got to their feet respectfully. Maria Zoë gestured for them to sit down again, but drew Sir William aside. “Sir, I have a favor to ask of you.”
He bowed. “I am at your service, madame.”
“This mornin
g, when we were trying to persuade the residents to come to the citadel, a youth helped us. The youth you took behind you on your saddle.”
“Yes—and the last thing I saw him do was pick up one of the straggler children and carry it across the drawbridge.”
“I would like to reward him—but I don’t know who or where he is. Do you think you could find him out there?” She gestured toward the ward.
“I will certainly try, madame. He seemed both resourceful and courageous, not to mention bilingual—the ideal candidate for a squire. So it would be very much in my self-interest to find him.”
Georgios sat with his back against the rough outer wall, clutching his knees in the circle of his arms. The air stank of terrified humanity crowded together, and it was impossible to move without stepping on someone. It was clear they could not survive like this very long, even though the priests were trying to get water and bread passed out to everyone as the sun sank down in the sky. The day was at its hottest now, and flies plagued the sweating people crushed together in the ward, while fires continued to burn just beyond the walls of the citadel.
Georgios supposed they would all soon be slaves, unless they decided to die instead. He had not yet decided what he would do. The thought of slavery to a Saracen master was so terrifying that Georgios’ first thought was that he’d rather die. But then, he told himself, ever since his father had died and his mother had remarried a Latin innkeeper, he was little better than a slave anyway. Things had only gotten worse when his mother also died this past spring, trying to give the fat old bastard yet another child!
Someone shook him out of his thoughts. “Georgios! Georgios! Over there! That Latin knight is asking for you!”
Georgios followed the pointing fingers of those around him and recognized the knight who had taken him on his saddle. He swallowed and pushed himself to his feet, unsure what to expect.
The knight was stepping over people, excusing himself as he inevitably trod on someone now and again. Finally he was opposite Georgios, and the youth saw his eyes widen as he registered the ugly red birthmark that disfigured almost half his face. During their frantic efforts to drive people to the citadel, the knight had not taken any time to actually look at him.
“Young man,” the knight opened in French, “the Dowager Queen asked me to find you and bring you to her.”
“Me?” Georgios answered immediately, looking around as if the knight might be speaking to someone else. “Why? I’m nobody.”
“You’re the young man who helped us this morning, aren’t you?” “Yes, sir, but . . .” He shrugged.
“She’d like to thank you,” the knight told him, his eyes far too alert and penetrating for Georgios’ comfort. Most people didn’t like looking at Georgios at all, and so they averted their eyes.
“But I’m nobody,” Georgios repeated, “and I’m filthy.” He indicated his hose, baggy and soiled at the knees, and his ragged linen tunic, stained with all sorts of undefined filth.
“The Queen is looking for the youth who helped her this morning, not a courtier,” the knight countered, adding in a tone of voice that did not brook contradiction, “Come with me.” For emphasis, the knight clasped his hand around Georgios’ upper arm and propelled him through the crowd, with everyone now staring and murmuring in wonder.
The hall was crowded with monks, priests, guild masters, and other “better” citizens and their wives and children. The Abbot of St. Sebastian was at the high table along with Sir Constantine and several other prominent citizens, including the chief rabbi and the Greek archdeacon. They all seemed to stare at Georgios as he was led through the hall, up onto the dais, and then through the door to the room beyond. Georgios was burning with shame, and the red mark on his face was aflame by the time he entered the smaller chamber and realized that the Dowager Queen was here.
Georgios’ throat was so dry it hurt to swallow, and he was sweating so badly he was conscious of his own stink while absently wiping his filthy hands on his dirty hose. “This is the young man who helped us this morning,” he heard the knight say, but he didn’t dare look at anything but his big feet. Looking down, he realized that in all the running he’d done this morning he had managed to tear the side seam of one of his low leather shoes, and his little toe was hanging out. He curled his toes in his shoe to try to hide it.
“Come closer,” the melodic voice of the Queen said in Greek. Georgios shuffled closer, keeping his face down, hoping his hair would hide the birthmark but knowing it wouldn’t.
“What is your name and station, young man?” the voice asked next.
“Georgios, my lady. My father was Antonis the soap maker, but he died when I was seven, and my mother married the innkeeper Charles Lyon.”
“Ah, yes; he owns the tavern near Sts. Peter and Paul, doesn’t he?”
“Yes, my lady.”
“You know, many, many people might not have made it to safety if you had not helped us this morning.”
Georgios shrugged and shook his head. “All I did was repeat what you said.”
“Adding a little physical persuasion as necessary!” the knight added with obvious approval, and Georgios risked looking up at him. The knight was smiling at him.
“Georgios,” the Queen was saying, “I don’t know if any of us will be free five days from now, for that is the longest time we can hold out here if we receive no relief—but I want you to know that if we have to pay a ransom for our freedom, I will personally pay yours.”
Georgios was so astonished by this offer that he forgot himself and looked up. The Queen was so close he could see the gold sheen on her veils and the pearl earrings swinging on either side of her face. She was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen, and he was so lost in wonder that he stared at her.
She smiled at him, only making matters worse, and the knight laughed because he could tell exactly how Georgios felt.
“So, Georgios, have you ever been around horses?” the knight asked.
Georgios tore his eyes away from the beautiful Queen to look at the knight. “That’s all my stepfather lets me do, sir, muck and feed and—if the customers pay extra—I groom them, too.”
“Can you ride?”
“A little,” he admitted.
“How would you feel about looking after my horses, my gear, and me—assuming I get out of here alive, that is?”
“You mean as your manservant, sir?”
Sir William shrugged and nodded. Even if the youth took on the duties of a squire, it would be wrong to call him that, since he would hardly be in training for knighthood, but a good servant was better than a bad—or nonexistent—squire.
Georgios didn’t know what to say. It seemed a far too exalted position for the likes of him. “But I’m not of Latin blood, sir,” he found himself stammering. “My stepfather is Latin—that’s how I learned French—but my parents were both Greek.”
“That makes no difference to me,” Sir William assured him. “As long as you believe in Our Lord Jesus Christ and we can understand each other.”
“Yes, sir!” Georgios assured him, smiling for the first time, as he registered that this was real: he was being hired by a Latin knight. The fact that their joint future was so uncertain at the moment didn’t for a second cross his mind—and if it had, it still would not have diminished his excitement or his surge of pride.
John couldn’t sleep. He slipped out of the bed he shared with his sisters and tiptoed past Nanny Anne, who slept snoring on a pallet at the foot of the great bed. He peeked into the cradle at his little brother Philip, who was sucking his thumb, baby that he was. At the door he reached up above his head to drag down the heavy handle. The door was so massive he had a hard time dragging it open, but he didn’t have to open it all the way, just wide enough to slip out.
Wearing nothing but his nightshirt, which came to mid-calf, he started up the stairs, which were cut into the thickness of the walls. The stones were rough and cold on his bare feet, for the sun never reached
them. He counted them in his head automatically, testing his ability to count to a high number: there were exactly eighty-eight steps from the nursery to the roof.
There was a door at the top of the stairs, but it had been left open, and John stepped out onto the roof of the keep. Around him the battlements stood out black against a pinkish-gray sky. Most of the fires had gone out sometime during the night, and the noise had died away as well. A lone sentry was stationed up here, but he was slumped in the corner, sound asleep. A part of John knew that was bad, but he was thankful for the man’s incompetence at the moment. If the man had been awake, John was certain he would have chased him away.
As it was, John was free to cross the roof, clamber up onto the step that ran around the interior, and lean out between two of the merlons to look down into the town. John gasped: the fires had blackened everything and the roofs of many houses had collapsed, so that he could look right down into the rooms with their ruined furniture. There were dead dogs and pigs in the streets, too, because the Muslims hated both animals.
John wished he had a bow. He pictured himself up here picking off one Saracen after another. Unfortunately there were no Saracens in sight, or in his imagination they would have been dead men. He wondered where all the Saracens were. Could they all be sleeping?
Two floors below, the captain of the watch was trying to keep his voice down as he argued with Rahel, insisting that he be allowed in. “I must report to my lady!”
“She’s only just fallen asleep. I will not wake her. Tell me what it is, and I’ll tell her when she wakes.”
“She would want to be woken for this news!” the sergeant insisted angrily, infuriated that a native woman was standing in his way of being the bearer of good news to the Dowager Queen.
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Rahel insisted firmly, standing her ground.
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