‘Out of bowshot for us.’
‘Yeah.’
Baldwin leaned forward. ‘You must be able to hit them! They’re only a few yards away!’
‘Still too far for accuracy, vintenary. We’re better off not loosing our arrows. If we wait here, we’ll soon have targets enough.’
‘What?’
The archer glanced at him with exasperation, then jerked his chin towards the men before them. ‘Look!’
Baldwin saw that the middle of the army was moving, too. They rolled forward, and as they came, the front ranks paused, and he realised that they were all archers. In the sky, their arrows rose like a cloud of filthy carrion crows, darkening the ground beneath; they hung there a moment, and then began to fly down towards the men on the walls.
‘’Ware! Arrows!’ Baldwin said entirely unnecessarily, and ducked.
There was a clattering, a rattle of arrows hitting steel or rock, and shrieks as men were hit. Baldwin looked about him in astonishment to see that he and all those nearest were uninjured, and he bellowed defiance at the enemy just as the second wave of arrows arrived. The archer to his right coughed almost apologetically, as an arrow plunged into his shoulder beside his neck. He stiffened, and tumbled from the wall.
Baldwin stared at the man’s dead body some thirty feet below. His eyes were empty, as though his soul had flown in that instant.
More arrows were falling now, and Baldwin regretted the lack of a roof over his head. It left him feeling as exposed as a tethered chicken before a fox.
There was a shout, and more men ran to the walls bearing shields to protect the archers. One of them was a youth of perhaps fourteen, Baldwin saw. He ran up, carrying a large kite-shaped shield, and as soon as he reached the top of the wall where the roof had been burst away, he was struck in the leg by an arrow and fell, screaming shrilly, on the dead archer inside. His neck was broken when he landed.
But the other men were there with their shields held aloft now, and the archers could maintain their fire from beneath that protection. Not that it was enough. There were so many Muslims that the arrows made no discernible difference.
Baldwin moved aside to leave more space to the archers, and as he did so, he saw parties of men running at the walls, protected by a wagon-frame covered with wet hides. They stopped some distance from the walls, and more men hurried up with mantelets. These were thrust forward, and soon the men behind were neatly concealed.
‘What are they doing?’ Baldwin demanded.
The older English warrior was with him again. ‘Miners,’ he said. ‘That’s a chat – a cat. They’ll drive a shaft forwards from there to tunnel under our wall and the towers. Just like yesterday, but this time, more effective. It’s how they took Krak des Chevaliers.’
‘They are experienced at sieges,’ Baldwin noted.
‘Oh, yes. You could say that.’
CHAPTER SEVENTY
On the third day, Baldwin was called away from the walls with his men.
Sir Otto de Grandison was in the Tower of St Nicholas, where the catapult worked constantly. When Baldwin and Hob reached the top of the tower, they saw a rock fall with a crunch into the middle of the shields protecting the entrance to the mine shaft, and Baldwin felt a surge of delight to see the devastation wreaked upon the miners and their bowmen. Two of the wheeled shields had been crushed entirely, and parts of them, and the men who had sheltered behind, were strewn about the sand. Not far from that lay the shards of wood from the first demolished cat. It had taken a direct hit from a lump of masonry hurled by the same catapult, and now the timbers of the walls stood up like the ribs of a massive beast.
‘A good shot! Good shot!’ Sir Otto was roaring, slamming his fist on the parapet before him. He ducked as an arrow whistled past his ear, and turned to Baldwin with a savage grin. ‘There’s a few more there who won’t see their wives again!’
‘Sir? You wanted me?’ Baldwin said.
‘You built that catapult in the Montmusart area, didn’t you?’
‘Two of them, my Lord.’
‘I need another one.’
‘Sir. You give us the wood, and we can build it.’
‘This is a special one,’ he chuckled. Pointing over the line of the walls, he said, ‘You see that catapult they have up there? The huge one?’
Baldwin peered around the machine that took up so much of the tower’s roof. Past the timbers, he could see the great bulk of the catapult in the distance, outlined against the sea. ‘Yes.’
‘I need that destroyed.’
‘I don’t think any machine we built would be able to hit it,’ Baldwin said doubtfully. ‘The largest we have is behind the Gate of Maupas, and that one falls short by some distance.’
Hob agreed. ‘We have to have them built far back enough from our walls so that our missiles clear the inner wall. The enemy can throw everything they want at us, and it doesn’t matter whether it hits the inner or outer walls, or flies over and lands inside – it’s all the same to them. It’s different for us.’
‘I can get a catapult much closer,’ Sir Otto said, ‘to half that distance – so a small catapult will do. Can you build me one?’
Baldwin looked at Hob and shrugged. ‘Give us the materials, we’ll build it,’ he said.
‘The timbers are at the harbour. There is a man down there who will take you to the shipman – he will help you. With fortune, our idea will work.
‘We need something, God knows,’ he added sombrely.
Baldwin and Hob gathered the vintaine and left the walls. In the open roadway behind the gates, they found a young boy of perhaps nine. He was short and fair, and had an eager expression on his round face. Once he might have been the son of a wealthy man, but now he was grubby and dishevelled, like all the others in the city. This lad’s hosen were torn, the fabric of his chemise frayed.
‘Follow me, sirs,’ he piped up.
‘Do I know you?’ Baldwin asked as they hurried after him.
A whistle and howl made them all duck as a rock soughed through the air overhead. It touched the roof of a house and an explosion of debris flew into the air, white like a cloud of swansdown, while the rock ploughed on into a building beyond. There was a crumpling of masonry, and a wall collapsed in an explosion of sound.
The boy stood, glancing about attentively. He reminded Baldwin of a small hunting dog, shaking itself after a brief immersion in an unexpected pool, and looking for his quarry once more.
‘I am the son of Peter of Gibelet. But he has died,’ the boy said. ‘I am called James.’
‘I am sorry your father is dead,’ Baldwin said. ‘I knew him. He was a good man.’
‘He was old,’ James said. A tear formed in his eye, but he snatched at it, ashamed to weep for his father when he should be fighting.
‘It is good to mourn.’
‘I won’t. I want to kill the men who killed him,’ James stated firmly, and carried on.
At the harbour, Baldwin stopped at the sight of the ships docking. There was a constant stream of galleys and smaller vessels, all of them bringing food and arms to the beleaguered inhabitants of the city. A few women and children were taken on board as he watched, the richer folk, or more anxious, paying for their passage to Cyprus. Many had already been taken away under the evacuation plans implemented by the Templars.
And then he saw the man waiting for them. It was Buscarel with a small party of men standing by a cog moored near the Falcon.
‘Master Baldwin,’ he said. ‘I am glad it’s you.’
‘I saw you that night – when the tavern was hit,’ Baldwin said.
‘I know,’ Buscarel said. ‘It was a hideous attack.’
‘Sir Otto de Grandison sent me. I am here to build a catapult.’
‘And I am here to give you your platform,’ Buscarel said.
Hob and Baldwin exchanged a glance. Baldwin said, ‘What do you mean, “platform”?’
‘This,’ Buscarel said, pointing at the ship, ‘is wher
e it will be positioned.’
Baldwin shared a look of bewilderment with Hob. ‘On a ship?’ he managed at last.
‘Christ’s ballocks!’ Hob muttered, staring at the cog with disbelief.
‘Aye. That way we can get close and attack the big bastard catapult they have opposite the Templars.’
Baldwin eyed him and then the ship once again. ‘Can we make it fit?’
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
The ship was fitted with a castle fore and aft, and it was on the forecastle that Baldwin was told they must erect the machine.
Buscarel busied himself with his shipmen shifting ballast into the ship while Baldwin and Hob bellowed at the men on the top. First Baldwin had thought to reject Buscarel’s suggestions out of hand, but when he considered other methods of achieving the same result, it was clear that Buscarel was better advised than he. The catapult could not be sited in the middle of the vessel, for the arm would snag on mast and rigging, and he was assured that if it were set at the back of the ship, she would not be manoeuvrable. So instead he decided to carry on as Buscarel had proposed.
By the end of that day, they had a firm platform on which to set the machine. Working through the night by the light of torches and oil lamps, they had the structure built and ready on the quayside, and by the end of the second day, the catapult was completed and in place. There was a moment of panic when rocks were brought aboard in Buscarel’s absence, and a pile was built up on the port side of the ship. She was not yet ready for them, and began to heel over dramatically, until there came a warning bellow from Roger Flor, who was standing in his own ship a short distance away, laughing at their antics, and the vintaine ran about the boat at his command, rolling the rocks from one place to another and lashing them down securely.
On the morning of the third day, the ship was ready, and Baldwin and Hob stood on the harbour-front as she was pushed from the quayside and began to make her way out to sea, towed by an enthusiastic crew on a small galley.
‘How do you think she’ll do?’ Baldwin asked.
Hob looked up at him and drew the corners of his mouth down. Nodding in the direction of al-Mansour, he grunted, ‘If they manage to lob a rock at that bugger over there, I’ll be surprised, let alone hit it. Whoever heard of a catapult on a ship?’
Baldwin nodded. They made their way back to the walls and climbed the steps again.
After their third attempt at storming the walls, the Muslims were resorting to hurling every conceivable missile they could at the walls and the towers, concentrating on the point of the wall where the barbican protruded. Many rocks were landing in the city, but Baldwin reckoned these were simple overshots. The main targets were the defences, he thought, as a cloud of flame burst from the outer wall in front of him. Black, reeking smoke roiled up from the bright yellow and orange flames, and he winced at the blast of heat as it rolled past him.
‘They must have brought every rock from here to Cairo,’ he muttered.
‘Aye, they brought enough,’ Hob agreed.
On the towers above them on either side, the smaller catapults were working hard, flinging masonry. Pieces of shattered Muslim missiles gave them plenty of ammunition, along with the rubble from damaged buildings. The thunder of collapsing buildings could be heard every hour. But now a cheer went up from the besieged. The little cog had braved the rough seas, rocking and bucking, but when the men on the walls saw her catapult send the first rock inland, they roared like spectators at a cockfight. Even from here they could see the sudden shock in the Muslim ranks. The first missile missed al-Mansour, but flew straight into the flank of the men before the machine, and rolled over and over amongst them, crushing and killing several. A second flew harmlessly beyond the army, hitting only a wagon and shivering it to splinters, but the third and sixth seemed to reach close to the machine.
In a desperate bid to remove this threat, the Muslims brought up a large mangonel and set it near the catapult, firing heavy steel bolts at the ship. The missiles missed, however, the arrows stabbing harmlessly into the sea. It was a fluke, but a sudden shot from the ship punched into the sand near the mangonel, and one arm was snapped off, rendering the machine useless. But still the great beam-arm of al-Mansour kept rising and throwing rocks at the city, and no matter what the men of Acre attempted, nothing could reach that dread device.
‘We have to get it,’ Baldwin said, resting his chin on his forearm as another rock flew past al-Mansour. He recalled his thoughts about killing the Sultan in his tent that first day. ‘We should attack it.’
Sir Otto was passing him as he spoke. ‘You aren’t the only man to have that thought,’ he said.
Baldwin nodded, turning back to the sea, and was in time to see the ship breast a wave. ‘He’s very close to shore,’ he said.
Sir Otto stopped and there was a moment’s silence as the men on the walls stared out to sea. ‘He has to be, to hurt them. He must be as close as possible. It is fortunate Buscarel is a good shipman.’
The ship returned, and as it crept in towards the harbour, Buscarel relinquished his steering oar, along with command of the ship, with relief. His armpit, where he had gripped the oar for so long that day, had been rubbed raw by the timber. Blisters had raised and burst, and now blood soaked his chemise. His eyes were salted and tired from all the spray.
‘Make her fast,’ he shouted, and the sergeant at the forecastle nodded and had two men set about the cables fore and aft, while Buscarel rubbed his eyes.
They had at least done some damage while sailing up and down the coast, but their catapult was not strong enough to reach into the main camp of the Muslims. They were forced to run up and down as near to the rocky shoreline as possible, hurling their missiles as quickly as possible.
Leaving the ship, he saw Baldwin walking down to meet him, his scruffy dog behind him. There were two men along with him, but Baldwin stopped them at the ramp to the harbour, and walked on alone.
‘Master Shipman,’ Baldwin called. ‘You did well today.’
‘Aye, well, we must all do what we may,’ Buscarel said, his eye falling to the ring on Baldwin’s finger.
Baldwin clenched his teeth and closed his fist. He stared at Buscarel challengingly.
‘No. Once I wanted that ring,’ Buscarel said, ‘but not now. I would be happy if I could only have my woman and children sent to Cyprus.’
‘Really?’ Baldwin found the assertion hard to believe.
‘I am Genoese. I wanted to fight Venice for control of the seas. When I saw a ship that was owned by Venice, it was natural that I should try to take her. If our roles had been reversed, the Venetians would have taken mine and slain me. It is only on land that Venice and Genoa live in peace.’
‘But you are here, although your countrymen have fled.’
‘I was proud to be Genoese – but now? Now, I think I am a man of Acre. I have made this city my own. I would not leave her to be invaded and destroyed. She is the city where my sons were born, and where my woman and I have our home. To flee and hide would be shameful. So, I will stay, and perhaps I will die, but I will do all I can for her while I live.’
Baldwin looked at him with surprise. ‘You would renounce your own homeland?’
‘I would give up everything to keep this city safe,’ Buscarel said. He stared at the line of buildings. There were flames lighting the skies to the north and east. ‘Look at her! Acre burns, and for what? My family is here, but what will happen to them, to us? The city must hold.’
‘If she does, you will become a valued member of the Commune,’ Baldwin said.
‘Me? I doubt it. I am not noble, and I wasn’t born here. No, they’ll express thanks for my efforts and forget me. It’s the way of things.’
Baldwin nodded. They both knew that when there was no longer a need to defend the city, the merchants and barons would take control again, and those who had risked their lives would be discarded. ‘Your fame will not fade so easily,’ Baldwin said. ‘The man who could lob his missi
les into the Muslim camp will be remembered for many years to come.’
‘Perhaps. But then someone will mention that I was a pirate, and all my efforts before that will be overrun. But no matter. I am happy with my place. So long as there is wine to drink, and my woman is safe.’
‘Aye,’ Baldwin. His face hardened. ‘Did you know what Lady Maria did to her maid?’
‘Which?’
‘Lucia. She is with me now. Lady Maria had her beaten, and then delivered her to a slave farm. I found her there and brought her back.’
‘I wish you luck. For me, all I know is I am weary to the bones. I need to rest before I set sail again.’
‘You’ll continue tomorrow?’
‘Yes. If I can provide a harrying fire against them, at least I will feel I am achieving something.’
‘Tell me – when you assaulted our ship and took my ring, what would you have done with us?’
‘Sold you as slaves. Lady Maria had contacts with dealers in Cairo, and I would have made a lot of money from you and some of the other pilgrims.’
‘What of Mainboeuf?’
‘He was her willing assistant. A wily merchant, with contacts all over. That was why Lady Maria used him, I think. She wanted to maintain good relations with the Muslims.’
‘Why?’
‘Because her lands are hard to defend. Lydda is a valuable town, and if the Muslims wanted, they could take it and all within it. Lady Maria did all she could to protect it and herself.’
‘Would she have sold Acre?’
‘No. She is a Christian.’
‘So are many who would sell their city and friends for a purse filled with gold,’ Baldwin said.
‘Here?’
‘It is rumoured that in Safed the Templars were betrayed by a single man who became Muslim,’ Baldwin said. ‘I did think that Mainboeuf could have done that. But then, why would he have been taken and thrown into gaol? It cannot have been him.’
‘Surely no one would have betrayed us?’ Buscarel said, but in his mind’s eye he saw Lady Maria’s green eyes, and he wondered.
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