‘They’re going to free them! Malek Richard’s a man of honour after all.’
Salim turned. Ismail had come up behind him. Salim felt so happy he wanted to grasp Ismail’s arm and pump it up and down, but he managed to restrain himself.
‘See those pikes they’re carrying?’ Ismail was saying, pleased to show off his professional knowledge, as he screwed up his eyes to focus into the distance. ‘Very good weapons they are. In battle, I’d rather meet a sword than a pike any day . . .’
His voice petered out as his mouth dropped open in incredulous horror. Cold terror was turning Salim’s heart over in his chest.
‘No!’ Salim said. ‘It can’t be! Ismail, it can’t be! They’re killing them! They’re killing the prisoners! And their children! They’re killing the children too!’
Ismail had already turned and was running back towards the camp.
‘It’s a massacre!’ he was yelling. ‘The prisoners are being murdered!’
Shouts of anger and dismay rang out along the long line of the Saracen army. Drums pounded out a call to arms. Orders were shouted and horses saddled. Salim balled his fists in desperate hope as he watched the Saracen troops stream down the hill to launch a frantic attack on the Crusader outposts.
‘Allah go with you!’ he shouted at the top of his voice. ‘Hurry! Hurry!’
But it was no good. The Saracens were as always beaten back by the sheer numbers of the enemy.
Helplessly, Salim watched as, in full view of the Saracen camp, the brave defenders of Acre were slaughtered one by one.
‘Ali!’ he was screaming in his head. ‘Ali!’
He sank to his knees, unable to look away from the terrible sight of swords and pikes flashing down on the helpless prisoners, or to block his ears against their distant screams.
That evening, as the sun went down, the rage and hatred boiling in Salim’s heart almost suffocated him. Even though the Sultan’s forces had been beaten back, he wanted to mount a one-man assault, grab a handful of weapons, mount Kestan and ride as close to the nearest Franks as he could get.
I’d just hurl everything at them, he told himself, and kill as many as I could, and I wouldn’t care when they killed me for it.
He couldn’t bear to look at his mother. She was sitting outside her tent, rocking backwards and forwards and keening like an animal.
Soldiers and messengers were running into and out of Saladin’s great pavilion, which was buzzing like a hornet’s nest.
‘What’s going on? What’s going to happen now?’ people shouted at them.
‘We’re fetching the Frankish prisoners,’ one called back. ‘The Sultan wants to see them. He’ll have them executed tonight.’
Salim remembered the four Frankish knights kneeling in front of the Sultan. There were many others like them in the camp now. He was filled with loathing for them.
‘I hope they all die slowly,’ he said through clenched teeth.
Dr Musa, grinding seeds nearby, raised his eyebrows.
‘And what, may I ask, would that achieve?’
‘It’d show them! It’d teach them!’ Salim answered savagely.
Dr Musa sighed wearily.
‘An eye for an eye,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘A tooth for a tooth. It’s the Law of Moses, and yet . . . The Sultan, peace be upon him, is a greater man than their Malek Richard, because he has shown much greater chivalry and mercy. It would be a sad day if he became vengeful now.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Your brother – I’m sorry. He was a fine young man. You and he were very close to each other, I’m sure.’
Honesty made Salim shake his head.
‘No, we weren’t. We never stopped fighting. But he was Ali. He was my brother.’
Without waiting for permission, he ran out of the tent and stumbled away. He found himself near the horses. He went over to Kestan, put his head against the horse’s sweet-smelling chestnut neck and let his tears fall.
Some time later, a hand was roughly shaking his shoulder.
‘Salim!’ Ismail was saying. ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Haven’t you heard the news? What are you doing here?’
‘Leave me alone,’ Salim muttered thickly.
But Ismail was dragging at his arm.
‘Listen, Salim! Al hamdi l’illah! Your brother’s come! God be thanked, he’s alive!’
Salim’s head jerked up.
‘Ali? Alive? What do you mean?’
‘Come and see.’
Salim, his head spinning, covered the ground back to his parents’ tent as fast as his leg would let him. His heart was beating wildly.
It’s not true. It can’t be! Ismail’s made a stupid mistake, he kept telling himself.
It was only when he came through the last of the forest of tents and saw the familiar figure of Ali sitting cross-legged between his parents, heard his husky voice and saw the tears of joy on his father’s cheeks that he understood.
‘Ali!’ he shouted, plunging forwards. ‘Ali, you’re alive!’
Ali turned, and Salim stopped when he saw how grey Ali’s face was, and how his whole body was trembling.
‘They let me go! Only me. Everyone else – all of them! – are dead. Butchered! I ought to be there with them. We were comrades. We fought together. I ought to have died with them.’
Khadijah was patting his knee, on and on.
‘Ought to have died?’ she said, her face alive with happiness. ‘What is this – ought to have died? Allah has spared your life! Be grateful!’
Ali sprang up.
‘You don’t understand, Mama. You’ll never understand.’
‘I don’t understand either,’ Salim said, bewildered. ‘Why did they let you go?’
Ali pulled a worn parchment from his belt and waved it in Salim’s face.
‘Don’t you recognize this? The safe conduct you wheedled out of those – those sons of hell? It was you who got me out of there. And it’s thanks to you that I’ll be ashamed for the rest of my life.’
Salim stepped back. This was Ali all right. Unfair, unreasonable and angry. He could feel the old familiar outrage and helplessness surge up inside him as hostility crackled between them. Years ago, when they’d been younger, he’d have cried, and gone to complain to Mama. Now, he stared back at Ali and said nothing.
Ali shook his head and dashed his sleeve across his eyes.
‘I didn’t mean it. I’m grateful, really I am. At least, I will be. But not yet. What they did today . . . Their faces – those Franks, their savage triumph! I can’t bear to think of it now, of what a coward I was. I should have stood and died with the others, but I pulled out that – that thing, and showed it to one of the soldiers. He just laughed and threw it back at me, then he lifted his axe and swung it back. I could see he was about to cut me down. I shut my eyes and prayed. But then a knight on a horse called out something in Frankish, and the soldier put his axe down and showed him the paper. He was angry, I could tell! He’d been dying to kill me! And the knight made him cut off the ropes round my hands and gave me a shove in the back to make me run away. So that’s what I did. I just ran away.’
‘What good would it have done if you’d stayed and got yourself killed?’ Salim said, more angry than sympathetic. ‘How do you think I’ve been feeling all this time, not able to fight at all, just watching while everyone else makes heroes of themselves?’
‘You!’ Ali sounded amazed. ‘You saved Mama and Baba and Zahra! You’re the biggest hero of them all! How you ever managed it I can’t imagine. When I saw you that day, walking up to the gates of Acre, on your own, as bold as a lion, I couldn’t believe it. And afterwards, knowing they were safe and being fed, it was the only thing that kept me going.’
Salim said nothing. There was no point in going on explaining to Ali how he felt. He’d never understand.
‘The whole world knows how brave the garrison was. Everyone was amazed that so few of you kept that huge army out for so long,’ he said at last.
‘Wha
t do they know?’ Ali said sourly. ‘Everyone’s dead who could tell what it was like.’
‘Except you. That’s your job. You’ve got to tell them,’ Salim said triumphantly.
‘It’s the will of Allah, my boy,’ Adil butted in piously. ‘You have been saved. It’s not for you to question it, but to be grateful.’
‘But our home’s gone, Baba,’ Ali said, shaking his head. ‘Acre’s gone. We tried so hard to save it. We failed.’
‘Oh, there’s no call for regrets!’ Adil astonished the brothers by sounding almost carefree. ‘Your mother’s hatched a completely new idea. We’re to go to Damascus. You and I, Ali, will set up in partnership with your uncle Hamid. There’s nothing to keep us here now.’
‘What about Salim? Isn’t he coming too?’
‘I’m staying with the doctor, if he’ll have me,’ said Salim. ‘I’m going to be a good doctor too, the best in Palestine, in fact.’
‘The best?’ roared Dr Musa, his eyebrows twitching comically. ‘Better than me? We’ll see about that, young man. Anyway, how do you know that I’ll keep you on, you impudent young lazybones?’
Salim’s jaw dropped open in dismay.
‘Oh, sidi Musa, you wouldn’t – oh, please . . .’
‘That’s better,’ the doctor said, exchanging pleased nods with Adil. ‘A little humility at last. Well, well, I was going to let you go, but I might change my mind and keep you, if you make a good job of the medicine chest. After we’ve celebrated with a feast in honour of your brother, of course.’
The Fortis men were not among the soldiers selected by King Richard to carry out the slaughter of the Saracen prisoners. For that grim task he had chosen soldiers closer to him, whose loyalty he could trust, but nobody in Acre had been unaware of the terrible deeds taking place just outside the city walls.
Adam couldn’t bear it. When he’d heard what was happening he put his hands over his ears to blot out the screams of the victims and ran out on to the harbour quayside, through the empty customs house, hoping that the vast stone bulk of the city between him and the killing field would block out the ghastly sound.
He found Sir Ivo already there. The knight was pacing up and down along the quay, a look of great distress on his face.
‘To kill defenceless prisoners! And even their wives and children!’ he exclaimed. ‘It’s against all the rules of chivalry!’
‘We’ve got to do something! Perhaps there’s still time to save some of them,’ burst out Adam. ‘Can’t we ask someone – one of the princes – someone near the King – to plead with him to stop it?’
Sir Ivo didn’t seem to hear him.
‘The honour of our whole Crusade brought down. This is a sin, a grievous sin. After this, Our Lady will desert us. We can’t ever hope to take Jerusalem now.’
He sank down on a wooden block near the edge of the harbour wall and put his head in his hands.
‘Sir Ivo! There might still be time! To save even one of them!’
The knight groaned.
‘It’s too late. The King must have decided on this last night. He won’t turn back from it now.’
Not even the mass of the stone city was enough to quite muffle the sounds of the slaughter. Long minutes passed. At last, Adam could hear no more screams, only the shouts and jeers of the triumphant killers.
‘Murderers!’ he whispered. ‘Wicked murderers!’
He felt sick with shame and guilt. He wanted to rip off his surcoat and tear to pieces the crosses it bore on the front and back.
Forgive us, Blessed Mary, he prayed. I wasn’t a part of this. I wouldn’t ever have wanted this.
His feet dragged as he walked slowly back through the customs house and into the city.
‘Master Adam! I’ve been looking for you everywhere!’ Joan was running towards him, her hair flying out from under her coif. ‘Is she with you? Tibby, have you seen her?’
He stared at her.
‘Tibby? Have you lost her?’
Joan was holding the front of her skirt, wringing it between her hands as if it was wet.
‘Disappeared! Gone, two hours ago! One minute she was there, good as can be, playing with that pedlar man, then I looks round and she’s gone!’
‘The pedlar? You mean Jacques?’ Adam felt his stomach turn over. ‘Did you see him after she’d gone?’
She thought for a moment.
‘No. No, I didn’t. You think he took her? But why would he? What would a man like him want with a babby?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know!’
Adam put up a hand to his aching head and tried to think.
‘If it’s Jacques took her, maybe he’ll just bring her back,’ Joan said doubtfully.
Adam remembered the two men Jacques had been talking to. And what was it he’d said about Tibby? Other opportunities. That was it. What had he meant?
Dr John, he thought. He knows what goes on here. I’ve got to find him!
He ran off towards the infirmary.
‘Where are you going?’ Joan called after him. ‘Here, don’t just run off! What are you going to do?’
Dr John was washing his hands in a bowl of water, scrubbing at them with savage vigour. There were tears in his eyes when he turned to look at Adam.
‘Our men enjoyed it!’ he said with loathing. ‘Did you hear them shout? The lust of killing defenceless people. I’ll never get over it!’
‘Please, Dr John,’ Adam broke in. ‘You’ve got to help me. The little girl I told you about, Tibby, she’s disappeared. I think the pedlar’s taken her.’
Dr John shook his head.
‘That ragged fellow? Nasty piece of work. I’m very sorry to hear it, Adam.’
‘But why? What would he want with a baby? She can only just walk.’
‘Pretty little thing, isn’t she? Blue eyes? Blonde hair? I fear she’ll be on her way to a slave market by now. In Jerusalem most probably.’
‘A slave market?’
Adam gaped at him, appalled.
The doctor patted his arm kindly.
‘On second thoughts it’s not likely. Even if the pedlar was wicked enough to steal the child and sell her, he’s a stranger in this country. It’s not likely he’d know any traders to sell her to.’
‘Oh, he does!’ Adam said bitterly. ‘I’ve seen him talking with two Turks. You’re right, Dr John. Sold her, that’s what he’s done! I’m sure of it. He doesn’t care about anything except money. I’ve got to go after them and get her back.’
‘Adam, don’t be foolish!’ Dr John looked alarmed. ‘You can’t go running about the countryside on your own. There are Saracen troops everywhere. And after this massacre their anger will be uncontrollable. You’d be picked up at once. You don’t even speak a word of Arabic. You’d end up on the point of a sword, or spend the rest of your life chained to an oar of a galley ship.’
‘I don’t care,’ Adam said stubbornly. ‘I’ve got to get her back.’
Salim was taken by surprise the next morning. The doctor, who had gone early to the great pavilion to pay his daily visit to Saladin, came hurrying back with a smile wrinkling the corners of his eyes.
‘Be quick, boy! Quick! Pack everything up, everything, do you hear? We’re leaving at once! Now!’
‘Leaving? Where are we going?’ Salim asked, startled.
‘To Jerusalem! This instant! The Sultan – may his head be crowned with blessings! – has heard an old man’s pleas at last. Ah, Leah, my dear wife! One more arduous journey, then home!’
‘We’re leaving the army?’ Salim asked stupidly, shocked at the thought of saying goodbye to the camp, and the Mamluks, and Ismail, and all the people he’d lived with for the past two years.
‘Yes, yes! Where are your ears?’ the doctor said impatiently. ‘In any case, the army’s deserting us. Malek Richard will leave Acre any day now and march on Jerusalem. The Sultan will keep pace with him and attack whenever he can. Not a tent pole will be left standing here a week from now! We’ll move fa
st, ahead of the army. We’ll be in Jerusalem before their wagons have gone ten miles.’
‘How far is Jerusalem?’ Salim asked, trying not to sound anxious. He had only a hazy idea of the distances in his native land, never having been more than a few miles away from Acre all his life, and he was afraid that his bad leg would seize up if he had to walk too far.
Dr Musa had read his thoughts.
‘Horses,’ he said, the corners of his mouth turned down with distaste. ‘The Sultan, in his mercy, is giving me two. Quiet creatures, I’m assured, but all four-legged beasts of burden are instruments of evil, including my wicked Suweida, and no one will ever persuade me otherwise. And a groom. We’re to have a groom. A strong fellow, to be our bodyguard, as much as anything else. Now why are you standing there, Salim? Pack everything! Then say goodbye to your parents. We must be off in an hour, before it’s too hot to move, or Saladin suffers another attack of stomach ache and changes his mind.’
The Saracen camp was already in a ferment of activity. Tents were being struck all the way along the hillside. The ground where they had stood was covered in a strange, mosaic pattern. Round patches showed where they had been, while between them was the beaten bare earth of trodden-down paths. It would need only the rains of autumn and a fresh sprouting of green to mask the site of the camp, and soon only the piles of broken pottery, worn, discarded shoes and heaps of mutton bones would show where the vast army had lived for so long.
Salim, daring to disobey the doctor, slipped away and hurried as fast as he could to where the Mamluks were rolling up their tents and packing their saddlebags.
‘Ismail!’ he called out. ‘Are you there?’
Ismail emerged from the cooking tent, a bunch of grapes in his hand.
‘Hey, Salim! Want to see my new helmet? I’ve just bought it off Mahmud. My old one’s so dented it’s—’
‘No, Ismail, listen! I’ve come to say goodbye. I’ve only got a minute. We’re leaving today. Now. Me and the doctor.’
Ismail nodded without surprise.
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