Jerusalem

by Cecelia Holland

  The rain stopped. They rode east, where there had been no rain. Quickly Stephen went from being too wet to being too dry; none of them had anything left to drink. When the dawn was breaking, the column halted on the slope just below the crest of a ridge, and Rannulf woke up.

  The other men were speaking in murmurs, looking around them.

  “Where are we? Where should we go now?” This barren hillside seemed like every other: sand and sand-colored rock sprinkled with tough, ugly grass. The dew on the grass caught Stephen’s eyes; his throat was dry with thirst. Rannulf lifted his reins and trotted his horse around the column to the front, and Stephen followed him.

  Richard le Mesne and the young King were waiting at the head of the column, but Rannulf only waved his hand to them, beckoned to Stephen to follow him, and rode on ahead, up to the summit of the ridge. Stephen nudged his horse into a quick lope to catch up with him.

  The dawn was brightening steadily. The clouds had drifted off into the western sky. A dent through the grass, the road cut diagonally across the steep angle of the slope. Rannulf took his horse along it at a short canter, Stephen a step behind him. At the crest of the ridge, they stopped.

  The slope behind them lay in darkness; the slope before them was washed with the dawn light, so that every stalk and every tiny stone threw a shadow. The road cut deep into the dry ground, knifing back and forth along the slope toward the sink below. There in the crease of the land a long line of thorny brush grew, noisy with chattering birds.

  Stephen’s heart jumped. Where brush grew there was water, down there, somewhere. His horse pushed its nose forward against the bridle, and gave a wicker. Water, certainly. Rannulf rode on several paces down the road, and then reined in again. Stephen went after him, stopped when he stopped, and followed when he rode on, eager, almost whining, but again Rannulf drew up after only a few strides. Stephen’s horse lunged forward, and he snatched it down hard; but he wanted to scream at Rannulf to go on, to the water, to the water.

  Shapeless in the filthy blanket, Rannulf stood in his stirrups, sniffed at the air like a wolf. Stephen’s mouth ached. Go, his mind screamed. Go! The other knight’s horse tossed its head impatiently, and tiptoed around the road, circling against the hard hand on its reins.

  The racket of the birds raged hotter as the sun rose, and the flock began to leave the trees. From the black stitchwork of the branches, they scattered into the air, and flew up, circling, spreading out over the barren hillside.

  Abruptly the whole flock wheeled around and fluttered off toward the west, and Rannulf spun his horse and galloped back up the road. Stephen gaped at him a moment, startled, and out of a gulley in the side of the hill there rushed a stream of screaming Saracens.

  Camel-kickers. The dun beasts lumbered across the slope, seeming too ungainly to move fast. On either hip they carried an archer. In the moment while he wrenched his horse around to follow Rannulf, Stephen saw the wild ripple of their robes, the bend of their arms, the flex of their bows, and then their arrows ribboned the air. His horse seemed stuck in place, its hoofs clattering frantically at the road. An arrow whispered by him. He shot forward through the grass across the summit of the ridge.

  Rannulf was waiting for him; the other Templars and the King were already rushing away across the slope, giving up the road, making for the height of the next hill. Stephen flattened down in his saddle, pushing his tired horse on. Rannulf galloped beside him. Hooting and howling, the Saracens streamed across the ridge after them.

  The slope steepened. Stephen’s horse scrabbled for footing on the loose rocky ground. Rannulf got in front of him, and swerved along the edge of a ravine that opened like a wound in the hillside, and Stephen’s horse veered after. There was no trail, and quickly no flat ground, between the hill rising sheer to the sky and the ravine plunging away into a depth still full of night shadows. Rannulf with no signal turned his horse and plowed straight down.

  Stephen’s horse balked at that, skidded back to a stop. The shrieks of the Saracens needling his ears, Stephen lifted the horse off the cliff with hands and spurs and hurtled down the bank after Rannulf. They went down in a tumble of rock and sand, the horse sitting on its tail, its forelegs out straight in front of it, and when they reached the foot the horse bounced so high Stephen nearly fell off.

  The Saracens had pulled up, on the ledge above, and were screaming insults and shooting occasional arrows after them. Stephen’s horse pushed wearily up the far slope, easier and shorter than the pitch downward, and reaching the wide meadow beyond followed Rannulf in among the other Templars.

  They were lined up along the height, facing the Saracens across the ravine; for a moment, while their horses blew, they shouted at each other and shook their fists and made faces. Rannulf pushed past the other men to Bear.

  “We’re in trouble. They’re ahead of us; they must have circled around past Lake Tiberias.”

  Stephen’s horse carried him into the center of this discussion, practically into the lap of the King. He muttered an apology, which young Baudouin ignored, all his attention fastened on the other two Templars. Bear braced his hands on the pommel of his saddle.

  “Can we get around them?”

  Rannulf scratched at his beard. “We have to find water, first of all.” He jabbed with his chin toward the east. “There’s a well, down the far side of that peak. It’s out of the way, but it’s safe.”

  The King said, “Is it on the road back to Jerusalem?”

  Bear said, without looking at him, “Unless we get some water and rest these horses Jerusalem might as well lie beyond the sea.”

  Stubbornly, the King said, “I won’t take a step in the wrong direction. I want to keep on.”

  Rannulf reached out and clapped him on the arm. “We’re doing that. Pay heed.” He jerked his head, nodding back over his shoulder at the camel archers still watching and calling insults at them across the ravine. “They’ll be looking for us now, watching the road for us. We have to do something else. Follow me.” But he did not move; he stayed with one hand on the King’s arm, staring at him. “Follow me,” he said, again.

  The King said, “Lead us.”

  “Good.” Rannulf backed his horse out of the tight press of horses and started away.

  He took them across the barren dry hill, toward the west; they fell back into the double column, with Stephen riding on Rannulf s right hand. As the day sharpened his dry throat hurt, and his belly flattened painfully against his backbone. He felt himself shriveling up like a leaf. Rannulf turned to him, after a little while, and said, “Sleep.”

  “I can’t,” Stephen said.

  The Norman laughed at him. “Sleep, Mouse,” he said, again, and said no more, but led them on down the crease between two hills. Stephen stared ahead. He knew he could not sleep, not in such danger, in such strange country.

  Then, moments later, it seemed, he was waking up again. His horse was blowing and snorting frantically, shouldering in among other horses, and he realized that they had found some water.

  He let his reins slide through his fingers. This was no well, no village; all around were small bushy trees, their branches like crooked arms, their thin dark leaves like spread fingers. Beyond rose the broken face of a cliff of sandy stone. The pool was so small he could not see it for the horses pressed in to drink from it. He could feel his mount’s belly pumping in long draughts of the water. The other men had all dismounted, except the young King, slumped wearily in his saddle, his gnawed face grey.

  Now Bear pushed through the horses; he had a leather cup in his hand. At the shoulder of the King’s horse he stopped and held out the cup, and Stephen saw it was full of murky water.

  Bear said, “Sire, the horses are drinking this pool dry. Take this, while there is still some left.”

  The other men were gathering around, collecting their reins, their eyes sharp. Many staring at the cup. Stephen’s mount lifted its head, satisfied. The young King took the water from Bear and looked from one
to the next of the other men.

  “I cannot drink when so many are thirsty.” He held the cup out to Stephen, who was closest to him.

  For a moment, craven, Stephen saw only the diseased hand offering him this water. He raised his eyes to the King’s ruined face, and saw through to the glory of the King’s soul. He remembered what German had said, and he knew himself blessed at this gesture.

  “Thank you, Sire.” He took the cup from the King’s hands.

  The water was in his hands, and his thirst was strong, but the King’s grace was stronger still. He thought, In a few hours I may be dead anyway. He said, “I will not drink before my brothers,” and offered the cup to Rannulf, standing beside him.

  The other knight gave him a strange look, and passed the cup on to the next man, and so it went, from hand to hand, none drinking, until the cup came back to the King. The leper took it again, and said, in a voice that shook, “You are the most perfect knights any king has ever had.”

  He drank; they all drank, and there was exactly one cup for each of them.

  They rode on through the hills. At day’s end they came down into a gentle valley, opening away from them into the west, so that the sun seemed to roll away along it toward the edge of the world. The road lay down the middle of it, between the tended melon fields and orchards of an oasis. In their double column the knights trotted down into a stand of palm trees, where there was a well, and some mud-walled huts.

  Stephen stiffened up, his hair prickling. There were people here, and they were sandpigs.

  They were coming forward, to watch the knights ride up, half a dozen lean brown men in dusty robes, several naked children. By the well, as the knights approached, two women rose hastily, lifted baskets onto their heads, and walked away, straight as columns under their bulky burdens. Among the slender branchless stalks of the trees Stephen saw camels grazing. His hand went to the hilt of his sword. He wondered what Rannulf thought he was doing.

  Rannulf ignored the people. He led the knights straight to the well, which stood inside a low brick wall. Putting one hand up, he brought the column to a halt. He had shucked off the filthy blanket earlier, and tied it behind his saddle; he had his sword belt looped over his shoulder. Now, half-naked, he slid down from his horse, tossed his reins and his sword to Stephen, and went to the well and began to lower the bucket into it.

  Stephen dismounted, as the other knights were doing. The local people were gathering around to peer at them, but they left a good distance between them and the Templars. There were a lot of women and children, not many men. Stephen began to feel easier. He hung Rannulf’s sword on his saddle and turned to his own horse to loosen the girths. “Who are these people?”

  “Bedouin,” Rannulf said. He brought up the dripping bucket and emptied it into the trough at the foot of the well. “They won’t make trouble, there’s too many of us. Anyway, they’re probably Christian.” The horses crowded up in a ring, greedy, and he dropped the bucket into the well again. One of the other knights stepped forward and took the pull rope from him.

  “I’ll do this, Saint.”

  Rannulf stooped over the trough, dipped up a handful of the water, and drank some of it. The horses and the other men crowded up toward the trough, the horses setting up a frantic thirsty rumble of nickers. Rannulf slid back out of the way, and turned, looking at the Bedouin.

  “Where are you going?” Stephen asked him.

  “I’m hungry,” Rannulf said. He went toward the Bedouin, his hand out, and began to jabber in Arabic.

  Stephen stood staring after him, astonished. He knew none of the words but the outstretched hand and the stoop of Rannulf s head were unmistakable: Rannulf was begging. Stephen’s pride blazed up. He tore his eyes away, ashamed. His stomach growled. He shoved his way through the crowd to the water.

  A few moments later Rannulf came back, and sat down on the wall around the well. He was chewing. Stephen tried to hold back, but his hunger drove him; he went up to the other knight, and saw he had a round of flatbread in his hand.

  Stephen said, “You beg, like a cripple or a blind man.” He sat down on the wall next to Rannulf, his gaze nailed to the bread he was too proud to ask for.

  “I’m a monk,” Rannulf said. “God feeds me. What, do you want me to take it by force of arms? “ The other men were coming up to him, and he tore bits off the bread and gave them out.

  “That would be better,” Stephen said. “At least then we would all eat.” This poor little bit of bread wasn’t nearly enough; most of them got nothing. The King gave his piece to someone else. He was hiding himself in the midst of the knights, shy of the strangers standing around them, closer now, all curious black eyes. The children crouched in the dust; the women held the corners of their shawls across their faces. Stephen’s hand went to his sword hilt again. It would be easy to take whatever they needed from these people.

  Out of this crowd came an old woman, a basket in her arms. Her face, all sags and dewlaps, was dabbled with blue marks. “Templar,” she said, in broken French. “Templar. God keep the holy knights.” She pulled the napkin off the basket, and it was full of loaves. Setting the basket down, she backed away, and offered it to them with a grand sweep of her arm.

  “You see,” Rannulf said, to Stephen. “Eat.” The knight let go of his sword hilt, amazed, and reached out and took a warm round slab of the bread.

  Chapter XII

  Rannulf’s arm hurt, a hot throbbing ache deep inside the arrow wound. He held it down in a bucket of water full of salt and hyssop while his other hand stuffed bread into his mouth. Beside him Stephen Mouse held out the cup, and Rannulf drank until it was empty, and then turned and filled it again from the trough.

  The Templars sat around the well, the King in their midst. The women had brought three baskets of bread, now mostly gone, but as Rannulf reached for the last piece, a girl came up with another full basket. The rest of the villagers milled around the well, staring and muttering. The bolder children were patting the Templars’ horses, tethered in a neat line by the well. Night was falling.

  The King said, “By now Saladin could have taken Jerusalem.”

  Rannulf shook his head. “First he will chase down all he can of our army, all broken up as it is—he won’t leave any remnant behind him. Not after Ramleh.” He was still half-naked, and the night was cold. He said, “I need a shirt.”

  He said this in Arabic, without looking at anyone; among the clustered Bedouin there was a sudden brisk turmoil.

  The King said, “But surely he will strike at Jerusalem next.”

  “We will reach Jerusalem before he does,” Rannulf said. “I promise you.”

  Bear said, “Saint, they have a church here. We could hold a service.”

  The old woman came back, who was the leader of this clan, in her arms a load of cloth; she laid this down in the dust before Rannulf. She did not draw immediately away. The bones of her face propped up the skin like a tent; blue tattoos marked her forehead and her cheeks.

  She said to him, “You are hurt. Let me see your arm.”

  He shook his head. “I am bound to God; no woman can touch me.”

  “God have mercy on you,” she said. “I have a potion that will speed the work.”

  “God’s mercy is enough,” he said. “We need your church.”

  “I will send you the priest,” she said.

  “No. No priest. And tell these other people, when we go inside, they are to stay away until we come out again.”

  She said, “It is done. Holy one, say prayers for us, who have nourished you.” She backed away, and he picked up the mass of cloth; it was a long loose robe with a hood. He put it on and sat down again among the other men.

  Bear said, “Saint, this was Mouse’s first battle. We have to make him dead.”

  Stephen’s head snapped up. “What?”

  Rannulf glanced at him, and nodded to Bear. “Yes, you’re right. Very well. What about him?” He jabbed with his chin at the King.
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  The King said, “I will hear Mass with you.”

  “This is a Templar ceremony,” Rannulf said.

  The other men murmured, and pushed closer, intent. Among them Felx van Janke said, “He’s as good as one of us.”

  “Oh, better,” Rannulf said. “But he is not a Templar.”

  The King said, loudly, “I will hear Mass. I care not who says it.”

  Stephen said, “What are you going to do to me?”

  Rannulf said to the King, “You will not betray us?”

  Baudouin blinked at him. “Betray you. How? No, I shall never betray you.”

  “Very well,” Rannulf said. “You can come into the church with us, but you must not leave before we all leave. And you must say the service with us. If you cannot, then shut your eyes, so that later you can say you saw nothing.”

  “I will,” the King said. Stephen’s eyes were wide with worry. Rannulf clapped him on the shoulder and went off to find a handful of dust and a handful of ashes.

  The night lay deep above the village, a well of clear cool darkness below the fine spray of the stars. King Baudouin followed the other men to the little church, which was just another hut, with a bigger door than the others, and a porch like a lip. Rannulf and Richard le Mesne were standing on the porch; Rannulf had his belted sword in his hand, and he stooped and leaned the scabbard against the wall beside the door. In the long burnoose he looked like a Saracen.

  The King crossed himself. “God keep us all.” He went between Rannulf and the other knight, into the little church, and the other men followed him in, and shut the door.

  The hut was so small the twelve of them filled it. There was a low stone altar, covered with a cloth, where they had already lit two small lamps. As the King went in, one of the knights was taking the Cross down from the wall.

  The King’s breath stopped. He felt Rannulf’s eyes on him. Other men’s eyes. Watching to see how he took this, if he truly were one of them. The knight at the altar, alone of them all, had brought his sword into the church, and with a thong he fixed the iron blade, point down, in the place where the Cross had hung.