For Rachel and Andrew
Contents
THE MAIN CHARACTERS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
EPILOGUE
Acknowledgements
The Fastest Boy in the World
People of the Holy Land
Salim Ibn Adil, a boy
Adil, his father
Khadijah, his mother
Ali, his sixteen-year-old brother
Zahra, his three-year-old sister
Musa ben Aaron, a doctor from Jerusalem
Leah, his wife
Solomon, a pharmacist
Ismail, a young Mamluk soldier
Arslan Ibn Mehmet, captain of the Mamluk troop
People of Fortis, a castle in England
Adam, son of Gervase, a boy
Tom Bate, his neighbour
Jennet, Tom’s seventeen-year-old daughter
Tibby, Jennet’s daughter
Lord Guy de Martel, baron of Fortis
Lord Robert, his son
Father Jerome, his chaplain
Master Tappe, kennel master of Fortis
Jacques (pronounced ‘Jakes’), a pedlar
Sir Ivo de Chastelfort, a knight of Fortis
Roger Stepesoft
Men-at-arms
Treuelove Malter
Joan, a washerwoman
The Animals
Powerful and Faithful, mastiffs
Grimbald and Vigor, warhorses
Kestan, a Mamluk cavalry horse
Suweida, a mule
The Rulers
Sultan Saladin
King Richard of England
A thousand years ago, a storm swept through Europe. Preachers travelled through every land, stirring the people up to leave their farms, cottages and castles and embark on a great crusade to Palestine. They wanted to capture the city of Jerusalem, Christianity’s most holy site.
The people who lived in Palestine were mostly Muslim, but there were smaller groups of Jews and Eastern Christians too. They had all lived peacefully alongside each other for centuries, and Jerusalem was a holy city to all of them.
The first Crusaders thought that Muslims and Jews were evil, and deserved to be killed. The people of Palestine feared the Crusaders, because they were so violent, but despised them too for their barbaric, primitive ways. They called all Europeans ‘Franks’.
At first the Crusaders were victorious and captured Jerusalem, killing every Muslim and Jew that fell into their hands. They set up a Christian kingdom and ruled for a hundred years. But then a great Muslim prince, the Sultan Saladin, came to power. He drove the Crusaders out of Jerusalem, and took back most of the cities on the coast as well, including the city of Acre.
When this news reached Europe, the call to recapture Jerusalem rang out again in every town and village, and people began once more to flock to the banners of Crusade . . .
It was a blistering August day and there was hardly a breath of wind coming in off the dazzling Mediterranean sea, whose waters lapped lazily against the white stone walls of the city of Acre. Several ships were tied up at the quayside, but there were only a few people outside in the hot sun. A couple of men, their bare backs slicked with sweat, were unloading a cargo of wheat on to the baking stones of the quay, and two young boys were diving in and out of the water, shaking the silvery drops off their hair as they came up laughing.
In the great customs house behind the harbour, Salim sat on a bulging bale of cotton, moodily swinging his one good leg. It had been a bad day so far. Adil, his father, had sworn at him twice, once for slipping away from his station at the accounting desk, and once for spilling his pot of ink on the corner of a new bolt of green brocade, which Adil had been counting on selling for a good price. There’d be a beating for that this evening, Salim knew.
The huge square courtyard of the customs house was surrounded on all four sides by two tiers of arched arcades, behind which were the merchants’ lock-up stores. There were piles of merchandise everywhere: bundles of silks from Damascus and muslins from Mosul, sacks of wheat from Egypt and incense from Yemen, dried limes from Basra, spices from India, nuts from Aleppo and jars of oil and honey and olives from just about everywhere. Usually, the courtyard was alive with turbaned merchants haggling over prices, camels and donkeys being unloaded, and sailors staggering in through the gate that led directly out to the harbour quays, bowed under heavy loads.
Today, however, everything was quiet. A couple of mules nodded sleepily in the shade of a wall. A few men stood about in the arcades, talking quietly, keeping out of the broiling sun.
Salim kicked at the bale again. He hated it when things were so quiet. For one thing, it was boring. For another, it put his father into a thunderous mood. Adil, unlike everyone else, was wide awake. He was still sitting cross-legged in front of his storeroom, clicking the beads of his abacus back and forth while the worry lines deepened on his forehead.
‘Even in the bad old days,’ he’d been grumbling all morning, ‘when the Franks ruled Acre, and we had to put up with their filth – pigs running everywhere – the stink of wine – the way they never washed – business was never as slow as this.’
The other merchants were used to his complaints. They’d nodded politely, but without much sympathy. Most of them had been trading in Acre only for the past two years, since Saladin had captured the city from the Franks. Adil was one of the few Saracen merchants who had lived in Acre before that time. It had been hard, they knew, living as a Muslim under Crusader rule, and Adil had certainly had much to bear. But in Frankish times the city had been one vast marketplace, with caravans of laden camels pouring through its gates from the far corners of the Muslim east, and ships full of merchandise scudding into the harbour from the fabled cities of Venice and Genoa and every part of the Christian west beyond. The city might have been the dirtiest place on the entire Mediterranean coast, and Adil might have had to put up with endless humiliations at the hands of the European overlords, but everyone knew that trade in those days had offered wonderful possibilities for enrichment. In spite of his constant air of anxiety, Adil had done well for himself.
Salim jumped off his bale and limped out through the sea gate to the harbour. Just outside the customs house, against the wall, were stone benches, covered in rugs. A few officials usually sat here, their ebony inkwells at their sides, writing in huge ledgers lists of the tax due on unloaded goods. No one was here today, not even Salim’s older brother Ali, who was usually hanging about with the other merchants’ sons by the harbour when there was nothing else to do.
I can slip off home if Ali’s not around to stop me, Salim told himself. I’ll tell Mama I’ve got a headache.
With luck, his mother would plead for him and stop him from getting a beating. She’d get Selma, the servant girl, to give him honey cakes, and let him go up on to the roof where he could have a quiet game of knucklebones without his little sister, Zahra, interfering.
Shouts from inside the customs house made him hobble back into the courtyard. A caravan of camels was swaying in through the northern landward gate, their drivers, covered with dust and limp with heat, yelling impatiently at them.
The customs house sprang to life at once. Merchants hurried forwards from their shady storerooms. Slaves were kicked awake, and clerks appeared as if from nowhere
, ready to get to work.
The camels, groaning like weary old men, sank down to their knees. Usually, the unloading began at once, but today everyone was clustering round the camel drivers, who were waving their arms and talking excitedly.
They’ll be in a stupid fuss over something boring, like the prices in Damascus, Salim told himself.
This was his chance. In the commotion, his father and Ali would never notice that he’d gone. He sidled round to the far arcade and slipped out through the gate, then set off, walking as quickly as his short left leg would let him.
The way home led through the covered silk bazaar. The light was dim here, though sunbeams fell at intervals through the round holes pierced in the bazaar’s high stone-vaulted roof. Salim was so used to the bazaar that he usually barely noticed the small booths on each side, piled with brightly coloured silks and velvets, or the mass of people, speaking a dozen different languages, who crowded round them. But today things were different. Half the booths were already closed, and the owners of the others were quickly fetching down their displays of cloth and putting up heavy wooden shutters, ready to lock up. The few people hurrying down the narrow walkway between the booths had faces set with purpose.
What’s happening? thought Salim.
He turned a corner out of the half-empty covered bazaar into a narrow open street that was packed with people, camels, horses and mules. A man with a handcart piled with household goods was trying to thrust a path for himself through it.
‘Let me through, in the name of Allah!’ he was shouting, fear in his voice.
Salim shuddered.
The plague! Perhaps it’s the plague!
When the plague came, it could strike people at any time, killing them after a few hours of terrible agony. The last outbreak had been in Frankish times. The sickness had sent terror through the city, and hundreds of people had died. He put his hands up over his mouth and nose, afraid of breathing in infection, and hurried on.
There was a mosque on the next corner. It had been a church in Frankish times, but the crosses had been taken down and the pictures of the Prophet Jesus and his saints had been removed. Sacred inscriptions from the Holy Koran now covered the walls instead. Salim hesitated as he passed its open door. His mother was always urging him to pray. Perhaps he should. Perhaps if he did, the plague would pass him by.
The mosque seemed to be unusually full. There was a high pile of slippers by the door, and he could hear the voice of a preacher raised inside.
The doorkeeper appeared, a bunch of heavy keys jangling from the loose belt that gathered in his gown.
‘What do you want?’ He raised his chin aggressively when he saw Salim hesitating by the door.
‘To pray, ya-sheikh. The plague’s coming, isn’t it?’ The old man stared at him.
‘The plague? Who told you that?’
‘No one, but the bazaar’s closing early, and I thought—’
‘You thought!’ The doorkeeper laughed scornfully. ‘Where have you been all afternoon? Haven’t you heard? A Frankish army’s on its way here. They’ll attack tonight or tomorrow. You’d better get on home.’
Salim’s heart gave a violent thud and he felt the blood drain from his face. The Franks fought like devils, with wild courage and blind fanaticism, not caring if they died in battle, as long as their side won. And when they’d conquered a city, they’d kill and destroy without mercy, looting everything. The Frankish forces had been cooped up in the northern city of Tyre since Saladin’s armies had swept through Palestine. No one had expected them to break out again.
The doorkeeper’s eyes had softened at the look on Salim’s face.
‘It’s all right, lad. This city’s as strong as a fortress. And our lord Saladin will come rushing to help us, with all his knights. You’ll see. The Franks are nothing compared to him.’ He stopped and nodded piously. ‘The forces of Islam will not be overcome by the infidel, may Allah curse them.’
Salim frowned.
‘You needn’t think I’m afraid,’ he said stiffly. ‘Not of a bunch of Franks, nor of anyone.’
‘Are you coming in here to pray, or not?’ The man said, unimpressed.
Salim felt obliged to go inside. He kicked off his shoes before entering the small washroom, in what had once been the church’s side chapel, to perform his ritual wash. From here, he could hear the preacher’s loud, clear voice. He dried himself hurriedly and went to sit at the back of the congregation.
‘Muslims of Acre!’ the preacher was calling out. ‘Will you forget your sacred duty? Will you flee like rats from the path of the infidel? How can you bear to see this sweet city once more overrun by the wickedness of the barbarians? Why do these foreigners come here, to a land that isn’t theirs, wave after wave of them, slaughtering us like beasts? I’ll tell you. They hate the truth and justice of Islam! They want to insult the Holy Koran and take back the sacred city of Jerusalem in order to defile it! They come to set their crosses up on our mosques, to take our women, and force our children into slavery!’
Salim shivered, in spite of the heat, and plucked at the belt of his tunic.
‘Believe me, brothers,’ the preacher went on, ‘to fight the Franks is not only to defend ourselves, our cities, homes and families. It is a holy act. It is jihad! And who will take up the challenge? The warrior of Islam. Who is this warrior? What is he like? The jihad warrior must be like a lion in courage and a leopard in pride, a bear in strength . . .’ His resonant voice was making the hair rise on the nape of Salim’s neck, and his fists tightened as he listened. ‘He must be a wild boar in attack, and a wolf in the speed of his escape!’
If Salim had been afraid before, he felt the courage of a lion now. He was listening open-mouthed, seeing himself dressed in gleaming new chainmail, a sword in his hand, astride a noble war horse, charging down upon an infidel knight, running him through with his lance, while his father and Ali watched in amazement, cheering him on . . .
The preacher dropped his voice to a lower, thrilling tone.
‘All this, my brothers, the jihad warrior must be, but do not forget, never forget, that the greater struggle, the true jihad, is against your own lower self, your baser nature, your cowardice and selfishness. Purify yourselves! Make ready for the trial ahead! Stay in the city, pray for victory and fight! Only then will Allah reward you and save you and your families from perdition.’
The word ‘families’ jerked Salim back to reality. What was happening in the city outside? What if his father and Ali had already run home and were packing up to leave? What if they’d fled Acre by now and had left him behind?
He shot up and pushed his way to the door. It took him a moment to find his scuffed shoes in the heap outside, but once they were on his feet he was off, moving as fast as he could, working his way through the tortuous maze of alleys to the scarred wooden door set into a high stone wall that led into the small courtyard of his home.
‘Mama!’ he was calling out before the door had banged shut behind him. ‘Baba! Are you there?’
Khadijah, his mother, came unhurriedly out of an inner room, wiping her hands on a cloth, her round face as untroubled as usual. Little Zahra toddled out behind her, lifting her arms to be picked up.
‘Is that you, habibi? Why are you home so early? Where’s your father?’
‘Haven’t you heard?’ He couldn’t believe how calm she was. ‘A Frankish army’s coming! The bazaar’s closed up and everyone’s running away!’
She gasped and swept Zahra up in her arms, staring at Salim over the little girl’s head.
‘It’s one of your stories, Salim.’
‘No!’ He was offended. ‘It’s true! I went to the mosque on the way home. The preacher was calling for jihad. He says nobody ought to leave. We’ve all got to stay in Acre and fight the Franks.’
‘Ya-haram! Where’s your father? Why did he send you home? Does he want me to start packing?’
He put his head affectingly on one side.
‘He di
dn’t send me home, Mama. I’ve had a headache all day. I came home on my own.’
She was too shocked by his news to show her usual sympathy.
‘I can’t see to you now. Go on up to the roof. It’s cooler there. And all this happening on the very day that dratted Selma goes sick!’
She hurried into the back room of the house where the chests of clothes were kept, and he heard her opening and shutting them, while Zahra began to cry. He went across to the water jars which stood out of the sun under an awning and took a long drink. Then he scrambled up the steep stairs to the flat rooftop where a vine trained over wooden struts made a pleasant shade. There was a good view from here across the huddled, cramped streets of Acre. He screwed up his eyes, looking out for anything unusual and listening for shouts or the clash of arms, but a moment later he heard the street door open and turned to look down into the courtyard. His father had come home.
Salim was about to duck out of sight, when he saw that a stranger had followed his father into the courtyard. Surprised, he stayed a moment too long, and his father looked up and saw him.
‘Salim! What are you doing up there? Come down here at once,’ he called out.
Nervously, Salim stumbled on the steep stone steps and nearly fell. To his relief, his father was no longer looking at him, but was ushering the stranger hospitably into the long, barrel-vaulted room that ran down one side of the courtyard. He would take him, Salim knew, to the dais at one end, where rugs and comfortable cushions were set out.
‘Tell your mother we have company,’ Adil said over his shoulder. ‘Bring mint tea.’
Salim hurried to the storeroom. Khadijah was on her knees in front of a chest, pulling out clothes and piling them on the floor.
‘Baba’s home,’ Salim said. ‘He’s got a guest. He wants mint tea.’
She turned an astonished face towards him.
‘Tea? When the Franks are coming any minute to murder us?’
He shrugged.
‘He doesn’t seem worried, Mama.’
She sat back on her heels, frowning at him.
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