Baudouin was looking for the rest of his nobles. “What happened to Count Tripoli?”
“Gone.” Balian shook his head. “He and his men swam for it, while we were fighting up there.”
“Damn him,” somebody said, under his breath.
Baudouin looked back, toward the river; there was no sign of Tripoli on the far bank. He had not waited. He had run for cover, as soon as he was safe. The King wrestled down his temper. Yet he knew Tripoli was right; they should have crossed this river long before, and if the rest of the army had been fools he should not have to make himself as much of a fool to prove his honor. Now the river was rising, a relentless surge. Baudouin watched a crooked branch course swiftly down through the current. His body felt useless and insensible as mud. Looking down he saw the first damp curl of water lapping at his horse’s hoofs.
One of the Templars said, “We can’t stay here. The river is coming up fast, between it and the Saracens we’ll be wiped out by daybreak.”
Balian d’Ibelin said, “Go upriver, maybe we can get by that way.”
The King straightened. He had to make a decision; he had to save this army, somehow, and he had no idea what to do. He crossed himself. God would help him. In the saddle of the pass, a white blob was just breaking into sight: the brim of the rising moon. He blinked, his vision flooded. For a long time he saw only blurs and darkness.
He said, “We have to cross the river.”
“Sire,” Balian said, “we’ll all drown. My brother is right, we should go along the river, either up or down.”
The King was shivering. He lifted his reins, swinging his horse around. “Let those who will, follow you. Those who will follow me, come along.”
He did not look to see if any came; he trotted his horse back toward the river, glinting now in the moonlight, rumbling and growling as it hurtled powerfully along. When his horse’s hoofs began to splash up the water, he stopped and looked around.
Many of the men had come after him. All up and down the river, in the dark, the Frankish knights moved cautiously forward. Off to the King’s left, a man bellowed, like a warcry, and rushed at the river as if at an enemy, that he could bowl down by force. Swiftly a dozen others joined him. In the deepening gloom it was hard to see them. They splattered out through the shallows, casting up sheets of water into the moonlight. At first the river seemed meek enough, hardly above the horses’ knees, and seeing this, half the men watching shouted and plunged after the leaders. Then midway to the far edge of the water, the first of the riders slid off into the deep.
The King could see nothing of it, only hear the splashing, the terrified neighing of the horses, but the men around him shrieked, and some called out, “This way! Swim back!” and others: “Go on—keep going!” Then a wail of dismay rose from all around.
The King reached out to the man beside him and clutched his arm; it was German de Montoya. “What is it? Are they getting across?”
The Templar stared fixedly into the moonlight. His calm seemed like madness. “The river runs wild, in the middle—some of the horses are swept away. The stronger ones are swimming through it.”
“Have them hold onto one another,” the King said. “Keep them moving. Is there a better place?” His voice squeaked.
The knight shrugged. “How to find it, in the dark?” He lifted his voice. “Brothers, to me! Form a chain. Rannulf!”
“Here.”
“Can we cross here?”
“As well as anywhere,” Rannulf said. “And a lot sooner.”
The King could not at first see him; then he saw that the Norman knight had dismounted from his horse, on German’s far side, and was stripping off his surcoat. The King looked back toward the river. Most of the knights had fallen back, giving up the attempt to cross; as he watched, a horn blew. Balian’s horn, he guessed. The great mass of mounted men veered off and started at a trot up the river. The King turned back to the Templars.
German said, “Where’s your horse?”
“Done in,” Rannulf said, muffled. Now he was wrestling off his mail. The other Templars waited, silent, in a semi-circle just beyond him. There were only a few of them, a dozen at most. The King looked around them again.
Most of his army had ridden off and left him, following Balian down the river. He dragged in a deep breath and looked quickly out toward the lapping, rolling water. His spirit quailed; he thought of going after Balian.
German was snapping orders, forming the Templars into a column. He leaned over Rannulf and said, “What are you doing with your mail, you donkey? Come on, we have to move.”
Half-naked, Rannulf pulled his sword belt around him. “If I have to swim, I’m not doing it in a mail coat.”
“I’d rather drown than go without armor like a serf.” German turned to the King. “Sire, ride behind me. Keep this fool here in the lee of your horse. Saint, see that he gets to the other side.”
The King said, “Rannulf, take hold of my stirrup.”
The knight came up beside him. German de Montoya called out, and the rest of the Templars moved at a trot, splashing into the shallow water. With Rannulf at his knee the King rode along just behind German. His horse went easily through shin-deep water. The Templar column did not follow him, but rode up on his left, making a barrier between him and the thrust of the current. He could tell by the plunging sound of the hoofs that the water was getting deeper. He clutched his reins and his saddle pommel. But they were almost halfway across. In a sudden, panicky will to get this done with, he kicked his horse on toward the other side.
Somebody yelled, and the water lapped up over his horse’s shoulder, thrusting and banging at the King’s knees, and Rannulf was clinging to the horse’s mane and swimming.
The King’s fingers stiffened, losing their grip. His vision tricked him, showed him only a random swirl of water and moonlight, the furling of a horse’s mane, an arm suddenly thrust up into the air. In front of him the white oblong of German’s surcoat bobbed in the moonlight, and the King fixed his gaze on that, pushing forward ahead of him.
His horse lurched and began to swim, sinking deeper into the water. Suddenly the balance was different, unsteady, and he was too high, he was tipping sideways out of the saddle. Ahead of him, German was a white shape against the leaping silver of the river. German swayed and seemed to grow taller, and then German was gone.
The King blinked, trying to get that white shape back again. Much smaller, darker, the blob of the horse’s head knifed through the glinting water. Dizzy, the leper slid sideways out of his saddle, the reins sliding through his frozen hands.
Rannulf caught him. Wedged against the horse’s side, the King sank into the river up to his armpits, his back jammed against Rannulf’s chest, Rannulf’s arms on either side of him clinging to the saddle. Baudouin flailed uselessly with his legs. Water splashed into his mouth. He flung his right arm across his saddle and jammed his stiffened fingers under the far stirrup leather. He could see nothing, hear only the roar and gurgle of the river. The horse was swimming. Half- hanging on the saddle, he floated along between the knight and the horse.
“Help me.” A voice, gasping in his ear. Blindly he thrust out his left arm, and wrapped it tight around the knight’s shaggy head, and held on.
The river ruled them. The current hauled them along in a giddy swoop. For a moment they sailed along in the open, and then they were swept into a tangle of branches. The King pressed his face against his shoulder to protect his eyes. His left arm was kinked tight around Rannulf s neck. His knee struck ground. The horse dragged him through branches that crackled and stabbed at him. He was out of the river. He realized, a little late, that he could let go, and he let go, and dropped onto dry ground on his hands and knees.
Another body draped over his. A rough hand on his hair. “Not a bad swim, little boy.”
Baudouin lifted his head, dazed. “Where—where are the rest?” Around him was only the silver glare of the moonlight, the black shadow of the riverbank.<
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“I don’t know,” Rannulf said. “I’ll go see.” Again the harsh caress stroked his hair, and the Templar rose, and went away.
The King sank down on the sand. Another horse came stumbling and snorting up out of the river past him; he heard someone call out in a shaky voice. He ground his fists into his eyes, trying to clear his vision a little, feeling much safer with the river between him and the Saracens. Quickly he cast around him for the rest of his army.
Save for the dozen Templars now gathered on the bank just behind him, he saw no one. If any of the other Christian knights had gotten across the river alive, they had not waited for anybody else, they had run as soon as they reached dry ground. He sank down again, exhausted, and put his head down on his knees.
“German,” Stephen said. “Where’s German?”
“German is gone,” said Rannulf. Naked and drenched, he was shivering uncontrollably. “He lost his saddle, and his mail pulled him under.”
Richard le Mesne said, “God rest his soul,” and crossed himself. Just beyond him, Stephen turned his face away.
The Templars gathered on the dark bank of the river. “We need a master,” Richard Bear said. “Who has been here longest? Saint?”
“Thirteen years by Whitsun,” Rannulf said, and gave the others a moment to say something, but nobody else spoke. He said, “Very well, then. Listen. We have two orders: the one is to protect the King, and the other is to get back to Jerusalem. We’ll head due west to the high road.” He looked around the circle, from face to face. Most of them were men of the Jerusalem Temple. They all looked tired, and some were hurt. “Get your horses and gear together. Build a fire. We’ll rest up a little while and ride.”
He straightened, his back stiff and creaking. Richard le Mesne walked up to him. “What condition is your horse in?”
“I don’t have a horse,” Rannulf said. He was thinking of German, which he knew he should not; he was thinking of German in his mail coat, sliding under the water. He crossed himself.
Bear never thought about anything but the immediate. “My horse is pretty much finished. There are some stray nags down at the far end of this meadow, here; let me go catch a few.”
Rannulf nodded. “Take some help. Where’s the King?”
Bear gave a jerk of his head down the river. “Going nowhere.” He turned toward the other knights. On the blank sand above the river, near a snarl of drifted wood, the King lay curled like a puppy. Rannulf went by close enough to see that the boy was only asleep, and then circled around behind the brush, pissed, and went on a little way and knelt on the soft wet ground, close by the rushing of the river.
German, he thought. German, damn you, German, go and die on me. His hand moved up and down, back and forth. He had not thought before how much he liked German.
For a moment he felt the defeat like the iron cold of the river, dragging him down.
He said his prayers several times, asking God to tell him what he should do. No answer came to him, but he began to feel easier, and he decided he was already doing as God willed. He asked God to heal his throbbing arm. He said a Credo for German, and for the other men now rolling like boulders along the bottom of the river. He hoped that Gerard de Ridford was dead.
He shook off another wave of black hopelessness. He had to keep going: the King was in his charge, and Jerusalem lay over the mountains. The river would not hold the Saracens off for long. In the morning they would come after him. He got to his feet, going back toward the other men.
“Saint?” Richard le Mesne trudged across the sandy meadow toward him. The King was still asleep. Rannulf went to help Bear with the horses.
Chapter XI
The other men had made a fire, on the bank of the river, and over it they cooked strips of meat cut from a drowned horse. Roasting this flesh on sticks, they sat almost in the leaping flames, and nobody said anything, except Stephen.
“German, and Hilaire, and Pedro—I saw them all die. God, I can’t believe it!”
“Oh, shut up, Stephen,” someone said wearily.
“I’m not going to shut up. My friends are dead, my brothers, my—my—German is dead, and I can’t do anything, I can’t save them, I can’t avenge them; damn it, I can’t even go find their bodies and give them a decent Christian burial.”
Rannulf went away from him, out along the river bank. Through the dark, Bear led up some horses to him. He said, “You’ll want the big bay, but I want him, too. I’ll cast sticks with you for him.”
“No, take him,” Rannulf said. “The black horse there is good enough for me.”
Several of the horses had reached this bank of the river without their riders, and Bear had caught four of them. The biggest and strongest was the bay he wanted, but the black had a quick, alert way about him. He also had no saddle. Rannulf went to one of the other horses, which did have a saddle, and began to strip its harness off.
Richard said, “We can use these other horses to rig up a sling for the whelp.”
Behind them, at the fire, Stephen’s voice rose in a tired whine. “Why did God do this to us? Why did God turn his back on us, if He loves us so much?”
There was a rumble of argument, or maybe agreement. Under the saddle, Rannulf found a heavy blanket, doubled up; it was soaked through, but when he shook it out it was large enough to cover him. Gratefully he wrapped the rough wool around himself and strapped it fast with his sword belt.
By the fire, Stephen kept on. “We’re supposed to be God’s knights. Why did God destroy us, then? It’s a lie, it’s all a lie, and German is dead, and I don’t care anymore!”
Richard was bridling the bay horse. Across its poll, he stared at Rannulf. “You’re the Master, you should stop him from talking like that.”
“He’s just afraid,” Rannulf said. “Everybody’s afraid.”
The other men had been listening in silence, but now another voice picked up Stephen’s song. “There’s no sense in going back to Jerusalem. They’ll just hate us there anyway for losing.”
Somebody else said, “God has abandoned us.”
“If you want to leave, then go!”
This voice rang out so sharp and clear that Rannulf turned around to see. The young King walked out of the shadows into the flickering yellow fireglow. He still wore his fancy embroidered surcoat, filthy from the river, but no crown, no helmet, no cap, nothing masked his face, and the dance of the firelight made his broken features seem worse even than in good light. His voice crackled with life. “Go! Nobody will know, nobody will remember you, nobody will care. I am going back to Jerusalem. Those who come with me, I shall love, and God forever loves—the rest of you, go, into the dark and the wilderness, go!”
Rannulf turned back to his horse. “I don’t think he’ll need the sling.” Bear grunted, amused.
The King called out, “Sir Rannulf! When do we ride out?”
“At your order, Sire.”
“I give the order now!” The King strode toward him. “Where is my horse? “ Behind him, around the fire, the other men were getting to their feet, their eyes downcast, their shoulders slumped, but following him nonetheless.
Bear brought up the King’s horse. The other men scattered to their mounts. One last Templar remained defiantly by the fire, his feet among the glowing coals, his hands peeling off the last scraps of the roast meat from a stick and popping them into his mouth. Rannulf went over to him.
“Mouse,” he said, “get up.”
“I’m not going.” The young man’s voice had a steely whine to it. “I’m not doing this anymore.”
“Get up,” Rannulf said, “or I’ll beat the shit out of you and take you along anyway.”
The boy was still. For a moment Rannulf thought he would have to hit him; he unbuckled his belt, disencumbering himself from the blanket, and then Stephen got up and walked away toward the horses. Rannulf gave a long involuntary shudder. He was glad that Stephen hadn’t needed hitting. He wasn’t sure if he could have given much of a blow.
He stooped down for the blanket, to cover his nakedness, and his knees griped and his back twinged. He felt stupid and old, an old man wrapped in a blanket in the dark. Now it was starting to rain again. He went to his horse and mounted.
Stephen knotted his saddle girth and brought the stirrup down. Already on their horses, Rannulf and Richard le Mesne were holding a quick council with the King; Rannulf was saying, “If we follow the high road, we should reach the spring at Cresson by dawn. Save the horses.” Turning, he raised his voice in a command to the rest of them. “Couple up. Form two columns. Bear, pair with the King and lead off.” In the general stir that followed this, he reined his horse around by Stephen. “You ride with me.”
“What, you don’t trust me?” Stephen asked. He was cold; his mail was already clammy, his toes numb, his fingertips like ice. Rannulf made no answer to him, but swung around knee to knee with him, as the double column formed and rode away. Together they took up the tail of it.
Stephen hunched his shoulders, expecting a sermon, now that they were riding out, but to his amazement the older knight only folded his arms around himself, slumped down in his saddle, and went to sleep. Stephen gritted his teeth together. Indistinct in the dark, the two files of horsemen ahead of him clattered across the shoulder of the hill. The moon was ahead of them now, sliding down the far side of the sky, leading them home.
He thought of German with an ache that sometimes forced a groan out of him. He should have accepted German’s love. Gone forever now. He felt robbed of something vital, broken off at the shared boundary. He wanted to talk but beside him there was only Rannulf, bundled in the stinking blanket and sleeping like a lump; as his horse climbed up and down the uneven trail Rannulf swayed and lurched along like baggage. Stephen wondered how anybody could sleep like that on the back of a horse. How anybody could sleep like that after the day they had just done.
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