A groan escaped from a score of throats, and King Richard began cursing in a steady, vehement stream. He was cursing himself, and his voice was more anguished than angry. He couldn’t seem to tear his gaze away from the city he had rebuilt, the gateway to Jerusalem.
Aimery turned his attention to the vast Saracen camp surrounding the city. It was smaller than he had expected. The colorful tents of the emirs looked like huge, bright flowers on the parched plain, but frowning, Aimery started counting. He got to forty. That was a lot—but not as many as had been reported. Either the messenger had exaggerated for dramatic effect, or some of Salah ad-Din’s army was elsewhere.
As Aimery watched, a flutter of activity swept through the camp. Trumpets started blaring, drums pounding, pipes screaming shrilly. The reaction to these signals was anything but disciplined, however. Men seemed to be running every which way all of a sudden. Aimery suspected the Frankish fleet had not only been spotted, but recognized.
He glanced aloft where Richard’s banner, a snarling lion passant, flew out from the masthead in the stiff breeze. The lion seemed alive as the wind rippled the long silk. The Saracens knew that banner very well by now, and that meant they knew King Richard himself had returned to Jaffa.
They could also see for themselves that he had only six ships and could calculate, much as Aimery had done in reverse, the size of the Frankish force. Although they undoubtedly overestimated (they would expect fifty knights per ship instead of a total of just fifty-five), it would still be obvious to them that this force was hardly large enough to pose a serious threat to the assembled army of the Sultan. Yet there was every evidence of panic among the men on the shoreline.
“My lord King,” Aimery dared break in on the Plantagenet’s litany of self-abuse. “I make out no more than forty emirs by the tents,” Aimery announced. “I’m going to guess they’ll have at most five thousand horse and four or five times that number of infantry. More to the point,” Aimery continued, “they don’t seem in the least prepared for an assault from the sea.”
Richard had turned to look at Aimery when he first spoke up, but now he snapped his head back to gaze at the shore. He stared for several seconds, and then without further comment, ordered the signal raised for the bannerets on the other ships to join him on his flagship.
Within a half-hour the bannerets, and the captains of the Genoese and Pisan crossbowmen, had gathered in a circle around King Richard. He opened the council with the words: “Sirs, are we going to let that rabble stand in our way of relieving Jaffa? Don’t forget that we left nearly all our wounded in the city! Will one of you presume to tell me your life is worth more than that of the men so fiercely besieged?”
The speech shocked the Italians, but Richard’s knights had been expecting it. Only one of them had the courage to try to talk sense to their liege. “My lord King, there is no point in throwing yourself at that army with just fifty-five of us and a thousand Italian archers! Jaffa has already fallen, as we can see. You would achieve nothing but your death and ours.”
“We do not know that Jaffa has fallen!” King Richard countered.
“They why do the Sultan’s banners fly from the city walls?” the man answered.
“But not from the citadel!” Richard answered, and they all turned again to look toward the city. Saracen banners indeed fluttered from the city walls, but the citadel was naked of banners of either friend or foe.
With their eyes all riveted on the city, however, they noticed a man apparently in the robes of a priest waving furiously to them from the base of the wall closest to the citadel. As they watched, the priest ran to the end of one of the harbor moles, tore his robes up over his head, and flung himself naked into the sea.
Several of the men gasped in shock at such a dramatic gesture. Few of them could swim, so a man flinging himself into the turbulent waves breaking at the foot of the mole was the same as suicide in their eyes. Within a few seconds, however, the man’s head emerged above the waves, and his arms began to beat the water rhythmically.
“Make for that man!” King Richard ordered the helmsman. The sailor didn’t dream of contradicting him or awaiting his captain’s orders; he at once put the tiller over. The ship’s captain, however, conscious of how difficult it was to take a man onboard from the water, hastily ordered his crew to shorten sail and prepare to maneuver alongside the swimmer.
While most of the men kept their eyes glued to the tiny splashes in the distance that marked the swimmer’s slow progress through the waves, Aimery watched the shoreline. More and more Saracen foot soldiers were streaming toward the shore, but Richard’s words had been well chosen. They appeared little more than a disorganized rabble—albeit one beating their shields with their swords and shouting dares at King Richard to attempt a landing.
The ship’s captain stepped up beside King Richard. “My lord, let me lower a boat to rescue the swimmer while the ship withdraws to safer waters. We don’t want to get ourselves trapped in the harbor.”
That made sense, and King Richard at once nodded agreement. The captain brought his ship into the wind, lowered a longboat manned by six oarsmen, and then sailed to seaward to rejoin the rest of the little fleet. The other five ships were hovering inside the massive rock ledge on which, according to legend, the Ethiopian princess Andromeda had been tied as an offering to a sea monster. The ledge served as a breakwater, providing calmer water while yet far out of range of the enemy’s archers.
Meanwhile, the King and his knights clustered on the stern to watch the longboat draw alongside the swimmer. The sailors shipped their oars and with the hull bouncing wildly in the waves, they reached for the swimmer. The gunnel of the longboat almost submerged underwater, and the men held their breath until at last the swimmer was hauled onto the deck. Here he huddled between the oar banks while the crew swung the stern to shore and pulled for their lives. By now scores of Saracen archers were trying their luck with long shots at the boat. The arrows all fell short, but they rained down onto the water of the harbor as thick as a summer hailstorm.
One of the sailors had given the priest his shirt, so that he came aboard the King’s galley with bare feet and legs but not fully naked. He was still breathing heavily from his vigorous swimming, the excitement, or both. Since King Richard had been one of the men to offer him a hand over the gunnel into the ship, he dropped to his knees at once and started babbling in an unstoppable rush of words: “My lord King! You are not a moment too soon! They broke through the Jerusalem gate two days ago at noon and brought down ten yards of the adjacent wall. Those of us who could fled to the citadel, but we are too few. My good lord, the Bishop of Bethlehem, went to Salah ad-Din, offering him the same terms as at Jerusalem: that we would pay for our lives with ten bezants a man. Salah ad-Din agreed, but put my good lord in chains, saying he would hold him hostage until the entire garrison had surrendered. Then he sent me back to the garrison (for I had gone with Bishop Randolf) to tell them the price of their lives, and he gave us until Nones to raise our ransoms, but when some of our men took their money out to them, they beheaded them and flung their bodies at the base of the citadel gate, to show us what fate they really intend for us! I fear my dear lord the good Bishop is dead, for surely Salah ad-Din intends to kill us all—”
King Richard had heard enough. Spinning around, he shouted: “Man the oars! We’re going in! Raise the signal to beach!”
“My lord King—” One of his knights tried to stop him, but Richard just shook him off like an irritation and started untying the lacings on his chausses. Aimery hastened to do the same.
More than a hundred yards out, the first arrows started raining down on them. These were spent arrows that fell harmlessly on the decks without the force to penetrate anything. The ones hitting the sails (which there had been no time to hand, despite being under oar) clattered down on them as well, making the barrage seem thicker than it was. With each oar-stroke, however, the missiles became more lethal. Nevertheless, the Genoese crossbowme
n were lining the gunnel and returning fire with brutal efficiency. By now the enemy was densely crowded on the shore to repel the impending amphibious assault so the Genoese could hardly fire without hitting something. There was no need for careful aim, and they fired as fast as they could load. The screams of the killed and wounded Saracens mingled with their battle cries in counterpoint.
“Brace!” the captain shouted as the bows entered the breakers. Aimery dropped on one knee and clutched the side of the ship. Arrows were raining down thick and fast, with so much force that they stuck upright in the planking of the deck. With a hideous squealing crunch, the ship struck fast, flinging men forward onto their faces. Yet the ship had hardly come to a halt before King Richard grabbed the nearest crossbow off an archer, and grabbing the rail with his free hand, he swung himself over the side of the ship. He fell four feet into the frothing waves, landing groin-deep in the surging surf, and staggered forward until he found solid footing. Then he raised the crossbow to his shoulder and fired before sloshing his way up the steep incline of the beach.
No man could lag far behind such an example, and they were all over the side of the ship as fast as they could. The crossbowman from whom the King had grabbed his weapon reached him as he went to toss it aside, and rescued it from the waves so he could use it himself. Meanwhile the King had already drawn his sword, and then with his left hand he grabbed a Danish battle-ax from his belt. Methodically he hacked his way through the enemy as they collided at the water’s edge.
The Franks had two advantages. On the one hand, they’d beached their ships north of the harbor but still close under the city walls, so they were, at most, two hundred yards from the city itself. On the other, the Saracens were singularly disorganized. The men who had filled this space wore the armor of all Salah ad-Din’s various subjects: Kurds and Turks, Arabs and Nubians, hairy Mamlukes and black-skinned Berbers. They were all fighting fiercely, screaming in their different tongues and wielding whatever weapons they had, but they appeared to have no plan and no one seemed to be in command.
King Richard made straight for the city gate with the clear objective of gaining the city. Aimery was uneasy about what would happen if the gate was barred from the inside. If the enemy had done that (as they surely should have), they might find themselves fighting with their backs to the wall—or have to beat a retreat back to the ships. On the other hand, if they could get inside, they would be less vulnerable. There, even small numbers would be able to control confined spaces using walls as shields. If too hard pressed, they would be able to barricade themselves in one of the buildings, and hope the garrison holding the citadel would sally out to their rescue.
For now Aimery, like the King, was killing two-handed. He had forsaken his shield for a mace he could wield with his left hand while keeping his sword in his right. Although the King still formed the point of their living spear, the knights around him widened the wedge he was thrusting into the body of enemy troops. Behind them the archers spread out to use their weapons more effectively, taking a murderous toll.
Within minutes, Frankish knights were wading through the bodies of the dead and dying, finding it increasingly difficult to get a solid foothold. Yet unbelievably, the pace was picking up rather than slowing. Aimery risked glancing in the direction of King Richard and realized why: Saracens had started quailing and stepping back, reluctant to come within range of the King’s bloodied ax, much less try to cross swords with him. As the Saracens drew back, the King lengthened his stride until, abruptly, there was no one between him and the wall. He sprang forward, but to Aimery’s astonishment he did not make for the gate. Instead, he ran toward the base of the tower flanking it. Here he wrenched open a postern door that Aimery had not even noticed. “Holy Cross!” he thought—the King of England had the eyes of a hawk as well as the heart of a lion.
The King’s knights fought hard to likewise reach the entryway. With the King gone, the Saracens seemed to regain heart, but the Franks had a goal in sight that inspired them to greater effort. Aimery was maybe the tenth knight to gain the safety of the tower. He flung himself through the door, only to be blinded by the darkness after the glaring sunlight outside. There was neither window nor torch inside the base of the tower, nothing but a narrow spiral stairway leading upwards. Aimery joined the line of panting men climbing the stairs in the dark ahead of him. Automatically he started counting the steps.
After forty-six steps, he burst into a room opening off the tower. This was lit by arrow slits and carpeted with bodies and body parts, victims of the men who had been before him on the stairs. With a jolt, he recognized Templar banners still hanging from the rafters and registered two Templar corpses nailed to a side door by the arrows that had killed them days ago. They had entered the Templar commandery.
The English King was nowhere in sight, but the clash of weapons and curses screamed in Arabic were coming from the next chamber. Aimery followed the sound of battle, only to find it almost over. The Saracens inside the commandery had been intent on plunder and had been taken completely by surprise. They had probably not even noticed the arrival of the Frankish ships, Aimery guessed.
When the last Saracen in sight was dead, the King of England turned and shouted to the men still pouring out of the stairwell, “Raise my banner over the tower!” One of his knights immediately pushed his way against the flow, pulling a banner from inside his gambeson as he went. He regained the entry to the stairwell and disappeared inside. Minutes later Aimery heard faint shouting coming from the direction of the citadel; the survivors from the garrison had seen the banner.
Descending by a larger stairwell at the front of the complex that led into the city, King Richard led his men out into the streets, heading for the citadel. The streets were eerily deserted, but the stench was appalling. From the smashed-in doors, shattered windows, and wrecked furnishings it was obvious the city had been plundered, but except for the men they had encountered in the commandery, no one appeared to be here anymore—except the dead. There were pig carcasses all over the place, some bloated and ready to burst open, others already spilling their putrid guts and crawling with flies. Far more disturbing, however, was that the pigs were often heaped up beside the bodies of men. Evidently the Saracens had intentionally dumped the “unclean” animals on the corpses of their enemies as a means of insulting them. Everywhere the wine casks had been broken open as well. The smell of stale wine mixed with the putrefying stench of bodies was exceptionally nauseating. Aimery was no more immune than the rest, and ended up vomiting everything left in his stomach into one of the ditches. He was in good company; King Richard, too, had been briefly overwhelmed by the toxic stink.
By the time they reached the Hospital of St. John, they knew what to expect. The patients had been slaughtered on their pallets, and most lay with their throats cut in the blood-stained straw, their eyes glazed in frozen horror at what was happening to them. The brothers of the Hospital, on the other hand, were found in a heap in the courtyard, apparently tossed there by their killers. From the absurd positions in which some lay, it appeared they had been tossed down from the second story—whether alive or dead at the time was no longer consequential. Here, in addition to the dead pigs, the Saracen had taken the time to heap the contents of the latrines and stables over the corpses of their hated enemy.
The survivors, meanwhile, had sallied out of the citadel and joined forces with King Richard’s men. This increased the total number of Franks to nearly a hundred knights and about two thousand infantry. King Richard believed that was enough to take on a Saracen army estimated at twenty-five thousand. After what they’d already done this day, however, no one dreamed of questioning him. They just stormed out of the Northern Gate and started killing the already confused and disorganized Saracens.
Jaffa, August 5, 1192
They had built their camp on the same ground the Saracens had used, preferring the risks and discomforts of the open air to the horrors of Jaffa. Lacking horses, they were unable
to conduct any significant reconnaissance, so they did not know for sure how far back the Saracens had withdrawn. Was it just beyond the next hill, or back to Ramla, Lydda, or Ibelin? Champagne, however, had meanwhile arrived with the news that the bulk of Salah ad-Din’s cavalry was holding the road just south of Caesarea, and this gave them some comfort. Richard surmised out loud that the Sultan’s best emirs and troops were with that army, while the less disciplined and less reliable elements had been left to hold Jaffa after the walls were breached. This meant that in the short term, until Salah ad-Din could regroup, they probably had little to fear.
On the other hand, they had to assume that Salah ad-Din would eventually recall his cavalry and rally his infantry in order to renew his assault on Jaffa. They therefore set to work making Jaffa defensible again. The first task was to collect and bury the Christian dead with prayers and respect, albeit wearing scarves wrapped around their mouths and noses to reduce the stench. They also dug a mass grave for the Saracen dead. These they buried with the pigs and other refuse in a large pit at the start of the dunes to the south. Then they started rebuilding the walls as best they could. They had no mortar or time to mix it, but they could put the stones back on top of one another.
The work was exhausting both emotionally and physically, and since most of the wine in the city had been wantonly drained into the gutters by the alcohol-abhorring Saracens, there was little solace except sleep. Benumbed by the images of the last four days, aching from the back-breaking work, and afraid to think what would come next, Aimery stretched out naked in the tent he shared with five other knights of King Richard’s household and waited for the mosquitoes to disturb his sleep.
Instead, he fell into a slumber so deep he woke disoriented and utterly confused. He did not know where he was. He did not know the men suddenly shouting and rushing this way and that around him. He couldn’t remember the day, the month, or the year. All he knew was that men were shouting on all sides and panic had gripped the camp.
Envoy of Jerusalem Page 59