Jerusalem

by Cecelia Holland

  Away from the other men, he knelt down, and crossed himself, and said his prayers. He thought of Bear, of how he had reached down and gotten hold of Bear’s arm, and surely he had been alive then, and swung him up behind him on the horse, and he had been alive then.

  Dead now.

  For the last time, he let himself think about Sibylla.

  She did not belong here; this had nothing to do with her at all. She was behind him now, maybe forever. The fire lay before him; this time, if he were pure enough, he might pass through it, and reach God.

  He went back down to his horse, and unsaddled it and rubbed it down with his blanket. The other men were making their camp around him; the ordinariness and routine of it settled him. Mouse came up to him.

  “Saint. Shrive me.”

  Rannulf went off a little way with him, and they knelt down together on the ground and confessed each other. When they were done Rannulf slung his arm around Mouse’s neck and they sat together staring down at the Saracen camp in the distance.

  Mouse said, “Are we going to get out of this?”

  “We’ve been in worse messes than this.”

  Felx came up to them, and knelt down with them, and they wound their arms over each other’s shoulders. “Ah, Jesus,” Felx said. He had been weeping. The three men made a circle, their heads down, and swayed a little. “Jesus,” Felx said, again.

  “I keep wondering when he died,” Rannulf said. “Whether I killed him, pulling him up.”

  “Poor Bear,” Mouse said.

  Felx said, “He was the bravest of us. He wasn’t afraid of anything.”

  Rannulf said, “Confused, yes. Scared, never.” He remembered Bear standing up for him at chapter meetings, Bear standing next to him in a hundred fights. Bear in Damascus, with two naked girls on his lap.

  “We couldn’t even bury him,” Felx said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Rannulf said. He crossed himself. “God’s got him now.”

  He clung to the two men, as they clung to him, rocking back and forth on the sandy ground. Felx was crying again, his head down, and under Rannulf’s arm Mouse was beginning to shake. Rannulf lifted his head, and looked down the long slope of Hattin, at the countless fires of the Saracens. Off at the edge of the slope, in the dark, he could see men moving: Balian’s men, and the main body of the Templars, trudging at last into camp. He tightened his arms around the other two men, holding fast.

  Chapter XXXII

  He woke before dawn. He had slept in his mail, his blanket under him, and his head on a stone; he stood up, first of his men to get up, and looked out through the grey fading of the night. The Saracen fires had all but gone out. There seemed to be nothing down there but heaps and tangles, like wind-drifted brush, as if he could have walked down through them to the cool clean waters of the lake.

  His throat was raw with thirst. His bad shoulder hurt. He went down to where his horse dozed, hipshot, among the other horses, and led it off to one side, and felt over it with his hands. He had liked this horse as soon as it was issued to him, and he liked it even better now; all through the hard riding it had fought on, done whatever he asked, and now it was still sound, still alert, and as he knelt down before it to run his hand down its foreleg the horse lowered its head and lipped his hair and pulled on him, like a little horse-joke. He straightened up, and patted its neck.

  “Keep with me,” he said. “The Saracens will hitch you to a cart, if they catch you.” The horse snuffled at his hand, hungry.

  Now the other men were rising. All across the slope, as the day brightened, the Franks were rolling out of their blankets. The lake was half-drowned in a floating mist; a thick haze banded the eastern horizon, so that the sun rose feebly through it, until the great light reached the top of the haze, and struck out across the world in a sudden brilliance, an instant blaze of heat.

  He went down to the packhorses; the men gathered around him, and he unlimbered the water. “Give this all to the horses. If the horses go down, we go down.” He filled each man’s helmet with water. He divided up the bread among them, and passed out the last of the corn.

  When he was done, he took the rest of the water in the skin back to where his horse waited, and let it drink all it wanted; still there was a little left, in the bottom of the skin. He rolled the skin around it and hid it under a rock.

  Now he could smell the thin harsh reek of burning grass. Looking down, he saw, all along the edge of the Saracen camp, the rising grey tendrils of smoke. The Saracens were setting fire to the hillside.

  Mouse came to him. “We want to say Mass.”

  “We can’t,” Rannulf said. “There’s no church, we’d have to do it out in the open, and they’d see us.” He nodded around, at the vast disorderly army around them.

  “For Bear,” Mouse said, stubbornly. “And these young ones, they’ve never had the Sacrament.”

  “Do you want to get us hanged?” Rannulf crossed himself. “Say your prayers.” A horn blew; they were summoning a council. He doubled up his blanket and laid it on his horse’s back, and put the saddle on.

  A sergeant came and got him; he rode down across the slope to the gathering of the nobles. The King sat on his horse in the middle of them, his face drawn. De Ridford, beside him, seemed bigger, more alive, almost eager. “We need make but one hard charge. Send my men in first, the rest of the knights behind them, and after that, the foot soldiers. The foot soldiers coming close after will keep the Saracens from turning our flank, and the knights will break the line. Saladin will flee. By mid-morning we will be to our horses’ knees in Lake Tiberias.”

  While the Master talked, Rannulf looked around him, at the Saracens below him, and at the masses of the Christian army. The foot soldiers were milling around on the lower ground, the knights scattered above them in groups. The Saracens stretched in unbroken ranks from the edge of the lake all the way back around to the west, as far as the road, and beyond. There were very many of them, maybe ten or fifteen for each of the Franks; but a lot of them were Bedouin. He turned to look up at the sheer black peaks of Hattin. There would be no escape that way. They had to go forward, through the Saracens.

  God wills it, he thought; he had his helmet on his knee, and he swiped his hand back over his hair and put the helmet on.

  Tripoli was saying, “We should arm the first ranks of the knights with lances. De Ridford is right, for once: if we hit them hard, and then push in with the foot soldiers, we can break through.”

  A few of the other lords spoke up, arguing where each group should ride, and who should go first. The King sat still as a lump in the middle of it all. De Ridford turned to Rannulf.

  “What do you think of this?”

  Rannulf said, “It’s a good idea, but we have to do it quickly. Attack that way.” He waved his hand off to the west, where the soldierly ranks of the Sultan’s army dissolved into a chaotic swarm of men and horses. “See all those white robes down there? Those are Bedouin. They’ll break first.”

  Kerak nudged his horse forward; his jaw thrust out. “The water’s that way.” He waved to the east.

  “So is the Halka,” Rannulf said. “Between those two black banners. Saladin’s personal guard.”

  Kerak sneered at him. “Is that how you got your fearsome reputation? Attacking weaklings?”

  “Whenever possible,” Rannulf said.

  Tripoli said, “Let’s get this moving.”

  Now suddenly the King lifted his head, and spoke. “Yes. I and my men and the Templars will ride in the vanguard, armed with lances. The rest follow. The foot soldiers must stay close in behind us, to keep the Saracens from cutting us off. God be with us. We will charge toward the water.” His eyes were sleek with panic, but his voice stiffened as he talked. He scrubbed his chin with his hand. “Now. Let the horns blow.”

  Rannulf rode back to where his men were waiting, already on their horses, and drawn up in a line. He put Felx on the right end, who had the best stroke, and Stephen next to him. A sergea
nt with a packhorse brought them lances, and while the men were passing the long shafts along their line he rode around them and talked to them. “You see that water down there? That’s where we’re heading. Keep going. Stay in line.” The muscles of his belly clenched. His horse was walking on tiptoes, snorting with every stride. The horns were blasting incessantly, long brazen rips of noise, and the air was wreathed with drifting smoke. He took the last lance, looped his arm around it, and swung around to take up the left end of the line.

  “God wills it,” he said, and they all answered him, together.

  “God wills it!”

  Head to head, shoulder to shoulder, they started down the hill toward the Saracens.

  He kept his horse reined tight, watching the slope ahead of him, where the army was forming. At first there was no order to it, a milling mob, but then abruptly the Templars all rode up into their lines, all moving forward, and Rannulf let his horse stretch out into a trot. His company strode out along with him; they came up into the middle of the frontmost line of de Ridford’s men, with the Master at the command end, and as they came together, all the Templars broke into a canter.

  A harsh yell went up from a thousand throats. Ahead of them lay the long brown slope, and the oceanic mass of the Saracens: beyond that, the lake. Rannulf’s hair stood on end. He heard himself bellow, and he swung his lance down level, the haft in the crook of his arm jammed against his side, and then the horns blew again and he charged. By the third stride his horse was at a dead gallop. Rannulf held the lance pinned hard against his side, the tip straight out in front of him; the line of the other lances stretched off on either side of him in a rippling wooden wave. The rumble of the horses’ hoofs was like the coming of a thunderstorm. Ahead of them between the two black banners the Saracens held fast, rank on rank of armored men, on heavy horses, in yellow turbans, standing their ground. He saw their black beards, beyond the tip of the lance, he saw their eyes rolling white, and then they were shrinking back, their hands rising, their shields up, and the lances tore into them.

  Rannulf felt the tip of his lance strike and slide and strike again, and catch this time, and tear free. His horse shied violently to the right, avoiding a body on the ground, and he forced it back into line. The charge was slowing. A black turban loomed up before him, rolling eyes, an arm with a long scimitar slashing at him, and the lance was useless now and he dropped it, and the first blow of the scimitar rang off the shield on his right. He wrenched out his sword and struck under the shield, and the wild-eyed face yawned open and disappeared.

  The horses were stopped. Wedged tight in the line he held his shield up and square so the man on his left could fight behind it, and he fought behind the shield of the man on his right. That man was dealing a steady rain of blows, beating back the Saracens in front of him. Rannulf pushed forward, taking the space they gave up, carrying the rest of the line along with him. Abruptly the man on his left went down under an attack from behind.

  Rannulf screamed; he backed his horse up a step, wrenching his shield around, and caught the edge of an axeblade aimed at his back. There were Saracen axemen behind him. He was fighting two ways at once. The line off to his left was bending back, trying to close with him, and then suddenly that line was gone, nothing remaining of it but a few rearing horses, and a surge of black robed Saracens, sweeping in on him.

  He flung his shield up to ward off a storm of blows; the Templar next to him adjusted, covering him. A horn blew. They were backing up. Three Saracens at once pressed on him and he beat them back with his sword and his shield, while the man next to him covered him, knee to knee with him. Rannulf flinched back from the assault, and the three Saracens bounded on him. Then with the man beside him he charged forward a few strides and caught the Saracens extended. He struck one on the head and one in the body, and the other whirled and fled.

  In that space, he turned, and shouted, “Run! Let’s go!” He wheeled his horse back toward the higher ground.

  The Templars in line with him streamed after him. Axemen on foot and lancers on horses blocked their way, and now they were fighting uphill. Rannulf pushed his horse sideways, closing the line; he was the right end now, and the man beside him turned up into the lee of his shield and he saw it was Eudes, the Burgundian boy, who was fighting like an archangel. They clawed their way back up the slope. Some of the Saracen axemen tried to stand their ground; they swung their long-handled blades around, to cut the legs out from under the horses, and Rannulf pulled his horse back on its hocks, waited until the moon-shaped blades went by, and rushed in, stabbing and poking with his sword, and felt bone break under the blade, and someone shrieked. An axe struck his shield and stuck and dragged him halfway out of the saddle. Beside him Eudes lashed out, and the axe broke free. They galloped out into the open, back onto the burning slopes of Hattin.

  Rannulf reined down. His breath rasped in and out of his lungs, the air gritty with smoke. Under his mail his body was streaming with sweat. The sudden quiet around him made him realize how loud the fighting had been. He swung around, looking back toward the Saracens, and saw their great army unbroken, still there between him and the lake. On the lower slopes lay dead horses and dead men.

  Rannulf’s men gathered around him. There were horns blowing above him and below him. He looked up, and on the height above him saw the Italian foot soldiers huddled, as far from the Saracens as they could get.

  “They never charged,” he said.

  “They charged,” Stephen said, beside him. “They just turned back as soon as the fighting started. Where’s Felx?”

  Rannulf lowered his eyes to the men around him, searching through them. “Felx,” he said. A cold dread clutched him. He lifted his gaze, looking wider. Filled his lungs and shouted. “Felx!”

  Beside him, Stephen sighed; he pried off his helmet, and held it on his knee, and wiped his arm over his face. His red beard was plastered to his jaw and throat. Rannulf drew back, and rode around his men, looking all around them.

  The charge had thrown the Saracens back, at first, so that if the foot soldiers had charged in behind them the Franks might have broken through. Now they were still trapped, the foot soldiers on the high ground, the knights ranged across the lower slope, in pairs, in little groups, the Templars in their orderly ranks. The horns blew and blew, and gusts of smoke drifted across the lower ground, over the litter of bodies there.

  He looked among the living men for Felx, his yellow beard, his high-shouldered sit on a horse, the angle of his head, and did not see him.

  He crossed himself. The men around him were silent, slumped in their saddles; he looked through their midst to Stephen, and saw him looking back. The brass screech of the horns raked over his nerves. They were going to charge again. He raised his hand, and his men lined up again. There were only eight of them now. He rode up to Eudes.

  “You. You’re good. You go ride the far right end. You know what we call that—the dead man’s end? Keep that in mind.”

  The Burgundian nodded; behind the nasal of his helmet his blue eyes were utterly unafraid. He rode off to the right end of the line, and Rannulf took the left end, and they went down through the drifting smoke and the dust to join the rest of the Templars.

  The Sultan had taken a position behind his lines, on a low rise where he could see well, with a racing camel close by in case of catastrophe. As usual watching the battle made him sick to his stomach. He had the Franks trapped. This time he should finish them. On the slopes of Hattin everything worked against them. The pitiless sun would make a torment of their armor; even their courage would hurt them. But he had thought before that he had them beaten, and somehow, always, they escaped.

  Their first charge had seemed unstoppable, the knights and their horses fresh, packed together in their lines with the slope of the hill behind them and the wedge of lances before, and the crowds of men on foot rushing after them. They seemed about to break through the armies of the faithful as if they were kindling wood.

&
nbsp; Then the Frankish foot soldiers quailed. The Sultan had arrayed his armies carefully, putting the best men, the heaviest armed, between the Franks and the lake, and placing squadrons of archers all along the lines. His soldiers gave way, but they fought on, and did not yield utterly, and the archers sent up volleys of arrows to shower the attacking Christians. The knights paid no heed to the arrows, but the foot soldiers shrank back. As the knights launched themselves forward, the Frankish foot soldiers turned tail and ran away, left the knights exposed, so that the Sultan’s men could swing in from either side and surround them.

  At that, Salah ad-Din shouted, and half-rose from his chair, and his son al-Afdal beside him cried out, “We have won!”

  “No,” Ali said, steadily, on the Sultan’s other hand. “Not yet.”

  Surrounded, outnumbered, yet the knights were clawing and slashing their way free, scrambling back up the slope below Hattin’s spurs. As if by some magic, on the higher ground, the black-and-white lines of the Templars reformed out of chaos. Turned their horses’ heads around, and made ready to attack again. Around them the much larger numbers of the ordinary knights seemed much less significant. The Sultan sat down again.

  Ali said, “They are coming this way. They know where you are, Uncle. You may need my sword yet.”

  The Sultan sat back, and took a cup of chilled sherbet from a slave- boy.

  “Stay where you are.” He had forbidden Ali to fight. The Sultan’s favorite brother Turanshah had recently died, and now another brother, Farrukshah, had died also, and he was taking no chances. Before him, on the yellow slope of Hattin, the knights were charging again.

  Ali was right: this time they came straight at him. Salah ad-Din sat rigid in his chair, his hands clamped to the arms, watching the wedge of mailed men cleave into the center of his army, grind inexorably toward him, while his own soldiers shrieked and wailed, fired storms of arrows, and lost ground; step by step they yielded. Slower they yielded, and finally stopped, and to his watery-legged relief they flung the Franks back again, onto the slopes of Hattin.