As if that first arrow had been the start of a thundershower, a few more arrows pattered down, and then abruptly a storm of arrows rained on them. Ibelin felt one lodge itself in the armor on his left shoulder, while Centurion snorted and bucked in irritation as one pricked his left haunch before falling to the ground.
Some of the men, exhausted already, had been slow to respond, and his troop suffered a half-dozen casualties all at once. Worse: a look at the sky warned that more volleys had been launched.
“Close up!” Ibelin roared at his men, lifting his own shield this time. No less than three arrows thudded into the heavy wooden surface and two bounced off the leather of Centurion’s trapper, while Sir Galvin was now wearing an arrow in his helmet like a jaunty feather. Ibelin swung Centurion around to ride back down the length of his battalion, shouting at the men to close up and raise their shields.
“We can’t win a battle this way!” Sir Galvin snarled at his side, and Ibelin tended to agree. He would have liked to find out what King Richard was doing and thinking, but the vanguard was far too far away.
The Hospitaller Master, meanwhile, had returned to his battalion looking furious. Certainly the signal was not given to charge, and the pressure on the Hospitallers was, if anything, worse than before. A glance back at the Hospitallers suggested that more knights and Turcopoles were walking than riding. They were leaving a trail of equine corpses behind them, while the Saracens, receiving less and less answering fire, were pressing in closer and closer. For a second time, Garnier de Nablus galloped past on their right.
For a moment, Ibelin had a horrible sense of déjà vu. A voice of panic whispered: It’s Hattin all over again! His reason answered sharply: Nonsense! The infantry is unbroken, and the man in command is not a fool! Although he’d only known him three months, Ibelin could not imagine Richard Plantagenet sitting slack-jawed on his stallion and watching with dazed eyes while his army disintegrated around him. There had to be some plan behind all this, he told himself, but he couldn’t help wondering if King Richard fully appreciated what was happening here at the rear.
In fact, although it was hard to see through the clouds of dust, Ibelin had the impression that Salah ad-Din’s cavalry was dismounting and firing across the backs of their horses. This increased the force and impact of the arrows, effectively overcoming the advantage of armor, but it also made them more vulnerable. If ever there was a time to charge, this was it.
No sooner had the thought formed than a shout of “St. George!” erupted from his left. He turned toward the cry and saw the Hospitaller marshal, a sage and seasoned veteran of many battles, break out of the Hospitaller formation at full gallop with his lance lowered. Almost at once the cry was answered from the right, as a knight broke out from the battalion of Flemings beyond Champagne. Meanwhile, the remaining mounted Hospitallers followed their marshal, lances lowered and a scream of “St. George!” in their throats. Picking up the call a split second later, the Count of Champagne broke through his infantry at full gallop, his horse stretching out its neck, and the banner of Champagne glittering as it fluttered on an upraised lance beside the Count’s lowered one. His knights, some of the best equipped and proudest in the army, were so close behind him that the earth trembled.
“Did we miss the signal?” Ibelin asked.
“Does it matter?” Sir Galvin answered rhetorically, closing his grasp on his ax.
“Open the ranks!” Ibelin shouted to his infantry as he fastened his aventail, then dropped his visor and grabbed the lance offered by Georgios. As soon as the path was open, he pointed Centurion at it, leaned forward, and shouted, “St. George!”
Behind him his knights repeated the improvised battle cry, but Ibelin could no longer hear. Centurion was plunging furiously after the knights of Champagne, his ears flat back and his strides so strong he was streaking across the desert. All along the line of march, bannerets with their knights were breaking out of the infantry and streaming after the leaders. The effect was a rolling echelon of compact bodies of knights, each of whom chose a target in the mass of Saracens flanking them. The Franks smashed into the enemy forces not simultaneously, but in a series of mailed punches.
The Hospitallers, of course, struck into the enemy line first, knocking their opponents to the ground and piercing deeper into the Saracen ranks. They rode right over the Saracens who had dismounted to improve their archery. Heads were literally flying through the air as they used their swords like scythes. Riderless horses scattered in panic, adding to the confusion among the enemy.
The knights of Champagne hit the enemy next, and then Ibelin and his knights crashed into the Saracen line. Although this initial impact was dramatic and satisfying, Ibelin was acutely conscious of how rapidly the effect of a charge could dissipate if it lacked sufficient momentum, depth, or energy. The Constable’s charge at Hattin had started well, only to get bogged down in the sheer numbers of enemy that closed around the Frankish horsemen. That charge had ground to a halt short of a breakthrough, and they’d lost scores of knights before they could extricate themselves, achieving nothing. Furthermore, at Hattin a breakout toward Lake Tiberius offered the prospect of water, rest, and the promise of survival, whereas now, the depth of the Saracen lines was greater and there was no place to escape to. The territory beyond the Saracen army was hostile.
Movement to Ibelin’s right caught his eye. He risked looking over his right shoulder. Like a hawk out of hell, the English King was cutting across the dusty plain at a pace so fast it was more like flying low than riding. King Richard had captured Isaac Comnenus’ stallion, reputed to be amazingly fast, but Ibelin still found it hard to believe any horse could carry a fully armored man as fast as this—or that any rider would take the risks the King of England was taking by riding at that speed across a plain broken by gullies and scrub brush.
King Richard did not slow his pace even as he sliced into the battle. He skewered two successive men with his lance, tossed it aside, and started hacking his way through the Saracen army with apparent ease. He was not alone. His Angevin, Gascon, and Poitevin knights were in his wake, although the English and Normans remained by the standard. The hole the King punched in the enemy was only the tip of the spear; his knights pried open the entire Saracen host.
Ibelin found himself fighting with the rest in what had become a massive melee. The forward thrust of the charge had gradually diminished until there was nothing but a field full of men and horses wheeling and lunging, leaping, staggering, and falling as they fought in a cloud of dust that thickened with each footfall. Ibelin’s lance was long since shattered. The bronze inscription on the blade of his sword, “Defender of Jerusalem,” was lost under a coat of blood to the hilt. Blood had splattered over his forearms and left stains upon Centurion’s trapper as more than one opponent had fallen headless against his shoulders. Under Centurion’s hooves, bones snapped and organs ruptured. There was no mercy on that field.
Gradually and intangibly, Ibelin felt the enemy start to give way. The change was not clear-cut. Some men continued fighting, unaware that their colleagues were already in flight. Some misjudged the moment to break off. Others were so lost in blood lust that they could not stop killing until they were alone and overwhelmed. Certainly no trumpets sounded the retreat. The Saracens, or their morale, were simply slowly crushed by the fury of the Frankish assault.
When there was no Saracen left alive within range, Ibelin rested his sword across his pommel and lowered his shield to take stock of the situation. In the distance all movement was away from the battlefield, as Saracens fled on horse and foot like a herd of sheep suddenly startled by a loud noise. More surprising, when Ibelin looked behind him, he realized that the Frankish infantry had followed the knights onto the field and were systematically cutting the throats of the Saracen wounded and trying to capture the riderless Saracen horses in order to replace their own losses.
Sir Galvin trotted over to Ibelin, his right arm hanging casually at his side, his battle-a
x dripping blood. “Now that should have given them a wee something to think about,” he remarked smugly.
“Any casualties?” Ibelin asked, opening his visor and trying to find and count his own knights. Although they were somewhat scattered, they were gradually rallying around his standard. He was so used to counting to twenty-nine that for an instant he thought he’d lost someone—before he remembered Sir Bartholomew was still in Acre. It seemed unfair that he was not here to enjoy this moment of revenge.
The trumpets were sounding “regroup,” so with a nod, Ibelin gestured for his knights to return to the baggage train, which was still lumbering along the coastal road. As they trotted over the field littered with enemy dead, Centurion had to sidestep more than once, startled several times when a body that appeared dead suddenly moved. Meanwhile some of the infantry was starting to plunder the enemy corpses, and Ibelin had to order them back into formation. Although they had clearly given the Saracens a bloody nose, they needed to reach water before making camp for the night, and there were several hours of daylight left. More ominous, as at Le Forbelet, Salah ad-Din still had thousands of troops at his disposal, and these were rallying a couple of miles away in a long, dark smudge.
A shout from the north alerted Ibelin that a new threat had developed, and abruptly men were shouting and screaming in confusion as a Turkish charge struck the rear guard, seemingly out of nowhere. It smashed into the still decimated Hospitaller ranks, causing men to break and run as at no time previously in the march.
Sidon was suddenly beside Ibelin. He shouted as he rode past with his knights, “Taqi al-Din! He’s brought up the Sultan’s Mamlukes!”
Taqi al-Din was one of Salah ad-Din’s nephews, and without doubt one of his best commanders. Ibelin had encountered him more than once before. He looked around, found Shoreham, and ordered him to take the infantry back to the baggage train, then with his knights chased after Sidon to engage Taqi al-Din. Some of the Hospitallers were still fighting, but with so few horses left they were severely disadvantaged. Furthermore, the troops under Taqi al-Din were the elite Mamlukes of the Sultan’s own bodyguard. These men had seen the slaughter the Franks had just inflicted upon their fellows, and they were after blood.
Although the knights of Outremer, Champagne, and Flanders reinforced the Hospitallers, within a short space of time the Franks were embroiled in a desperate fight with roughly equal numbers on both sides. The Franks, however, were disadvantaged because they had no momentum, being on the defensive. Furthermore, they were tired from the day-long march and the battle they had just won against the main Saracen force. Last but not least, the dust and thirst had become almost crippling. Ibelin was conscious that many knights, particularly those from France and Flanders who were least used to the heat, were clinging to their cantles or crouching under their shields without actually fighting. They were trying to withstand the blows of their enemies by the strength of their armor alone. It was a tactic that could work for a few minutes, but not very long.
Then for the second time in the afternoon, a thunderbolt struck from the right. There were no trumpets and no shouting, just an abrupt jarring of the entire picture. Horses staggered, men fell, limbs flew through the air. Ibelin was close enough to see with astonishment the path King Richard hewed through the enemy.
The Mamlukes, however, rapidly recognized who they were fighting, and they turned on him with grim determination. Ibelin supposed they were determined to kill the man who had ordered the massacre at Acre. From their yellow turbans and insignia it was clear these were Egyptian Mamlukes, just as the garrison at Acre had been, and they wanted revenge. At the sight of King Richard, men broke off other fights to converge on the English King, vying for the honor of crossing swords with him. At least two emirs ordered their men out of the way so they could be the ones to engage. There was hatred in the air, Ibelin felt, that had been absent even at Hattin and the siege of Jerusalem.
Despite his prodigious skill at arms, King Richard was so surrounded that he looked hard pressed, and Ibelin was not alone in trying to fight his way to assist him. Henri de Champagne was fighting with more desperation than strength, and the Earl of Leicester and Aimery de Lusignan were pressing forward doggedly. But their aid was quite unnecessary. King Richard killed with his backward strokes as well as his forward ones, and literally struck sparks with the fury of his blows on iron. Nothing hostile was able to get within a seriously threatening range, and after he had dispatched both emirs who had vied for the trophy of the King of England’s head, the other Mamlukes became noticeably more cautious.
With that, the momentum of the Mamluke attack was broken, and the Franks could start to push them back. In another half-hour it was over. The Mamlukes had disappeared behind the clouds of settling dust, the western sky was orange, and the Frankish army was again trudging along the coastal road to the designated campground on the irrigated plain outside of Arsur.
Like the other coastal cities that had fallen to Salah ad-Din in 1187 but had been left ungarrisoned, Arsur was an uninhabitable ghost town. The army was ordered to strike camp on the periphery, with the sea protecting the west flank and the city itself the southern. This was an area that had once been both orchard and kitchen garden for the city, and although the Saracens had hacked down the trees four years ago, they had not uprooted them. Most had sprouted new branches and despite the visible scars of their trauma, they were alive, green, and bearing fruit again. This was because whether by design or neglect, the cisterns and irrigation ditches had not been systematically destroyed. They were in poor repair and partially silted up, but they were still functional. The surviving horses of the Frankish host sank their noses down in the cisterns and guzzled greedily.
Leaving Georgios to erect his tent, Ibelin led both his destriers to one of the cisterns. Ernoul told the story that on the eve of Hattin, when the army camped at the springs of Sephorie, Centurion had drunk deeply but Thor, the younger of his two stallions then, had inexplicably refused. Thor had died under him from heat stroke in the midst of the Battle of Hattin, while Centurion had lived to bring him to safety. Patting his shoulder as he plunged his head down and sucked up water in large gulps, Ibelin noticed a bad gash in Centurion’s knee. He bent to take a closer look and was startled by the sound of someone shouting, “God and the Holy Sepulcher help us!”
Ibelin looked around, trying to see what was happening. The men around him were already pointing. “King Richard! King Richard!”
Sure enough, the English King was again galloping to the north, and this time he had only a handful of men with him. Ibelin dropped Centurion’s reins and grabbed up Ras Dawit’s instead, thrusting his foot into the near stirrup at the same time. The young horse, who had done nothing but walk and trot all day, readily answered his heels. As soon as they were clear of the crowds of men around the cisterns, Ras Dawit picked up a gallop and they flew after the King of England and his men, making up ground because Ras was fresh and King Richard’s Cypriot stallion was now nearing the end of his strength.
Ahead of them, several hundred Mamlukes, commanded by the now familiar red-bearded Khalid al-Hamar, were causing havoc among the exhausted Hospitallers as the latter tried to set up camp. The mere sight of heavy cavalry rushing to the rescue was enough to scatter them, however. Mounted on fresh native horses, their withdrawal was swift, and King Richard recognized that his own tired stallion had no chance of catching them. He sat back and let his horse fall into a trot and then a walk on a long rein, snorting and dragging his head to express that he’d had enough for one day.
Ibelin and the others likewise slowed to a walk, and Ibelin found himself surrounded by the few knights who had sprinted after their King. “Have you ever see anything like the King’s courage?” a Gascon knight proudly asked the despised “poulain.”
Ibelin flipped open his visor so that the man could see his face clearly. “Richard Plantagenet is undoubtedly a brave man, but tell me this: would your King have the courage to ride into battle i
f he could not couch a lance? If he could not use sword or shield? If, indeed, if he could not even hold the reins of his horse?”
“Huh?” The Gascon looked at Ibelin as if he were mad. “What are you talking about? Of course not! That’s—”
“That’s what my King did. Without the use of arms or hands, he led a force of just five hundred knights and five thousand foot against a Saracen army led by Salah ad-Din that was four times as strong—and put it to flight. That, sir, took a measure of courage far greater than what your King—for all his prowess—displayed today.”
The Gascon started to protest, but a voice cut him off. “Well said, my lord of Ibelin,” Richard Plantagenet declared. “But tell me this: Who would you rather have fighting beside you?”
Balian had no choice but to concede the point. He bowed from the waist to King Richard.
Chapter 16
Tyre, October 1191
ALYS HAD MOVED UP TO THE position of personal servant to the Dowager Queen of Jerusalem when Rahel had departed with Eschiva. Grateful and used to hard work, she was diligent and eager, always looking for ways to make herself indispensable. The fact that she was good with a needle and understood the care of cloth and leather had proven invaluable, and she had taken the lead in producing the badges for Lord Balian’s men. But she was not yet comfortable with protocol. The arrival of the ruling Queen of Jerusalem intimidated and flustered her.
“Madame! Madame!” she cried, running up the stairs from the courtyard. “The Queen has come! The Queen has come!”
Maria Zoë was going through the accounts with Father Angelus when Alys burst in on her, and she gestured for Alys to calm down. Then, turning to the clerk, she asked him to finish for her and verify that what they had locked in the treasury matched the written accounts. “And if John, Balduin, and Philip aren’t back by Vespers, you must send Stephan after them, but they are to get no supper except bread and water. They need to learn punctuality.” Finally, turning back to Alys, she told her, “There’s nothing to get so excited about, Alys. I’m delighted my daughter has come for a visit.”
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