by Jack Hight
She turned to look at him, wide-eyed. A second later, John was grabbed from behind and shoved roughly aside. He turned to see a tall, thickly muscled Frank in chainmail. ‘You’re not to speak to the lady,’ the Frank growled. He and the lady moved away into the crowd.
John turned to the Jewish merchant. ‘Pardon me, sir,’ he began in Frankish, but the man shook his head and replied in a language that John did not understand. ‘Do you speak English?’ John tried. Again the Jew shook his head no, then tried another language that John did not recognize, and then another. ‘Latin?’ John asked.
The Jew’s eyes lit up. ‘Of course.’
‘I’m looking for a well.’
‘There are no wells in the city.’
‘No wells?’ John asked, dumbfounded.
‘There is a fountain, that way.’ The Jew pointed down the quay to a shadowy alleyway that led deeper into the city. ‘You will find water there.’
‘Thank you. Come on,’ John told Rabbit, switching back into Frankish. The two headed down the quay towards the alleyway.
‘How did you learn all of those languages?’ Rabbit asked.
‘I was a second son. I was trained to enter the Church.’
‘Why didn’t you?’
John winced. He gestured to the red crusader’s cross sewn to his surcoat. ‘I took up the cross instead.’
‘Why?’
‘None of your business,’ John snapped, but his words were drowned out by a shouting crowd just ahead. Men were pressed four-deep around a raised platform, where a skinny young Saracen stood, naked but for a thin loincloth.
An Italian slave merchant stood beside the Saracen, loudly touting his virtues in accented Latin. ‘He is strong as an ox,’ the Italian declared, squeezing the Saracen’s stringy bicep. He slapped the boy, who did not move. ‘And docile, too.’
John turned away and headed into the shadowy alleyway that the Jew had indicated. The path twisted left and right, growing narrower and narrower. John had to step over a beggar, who sat with head bowed and hand out. A few feet further on, a scantily clad, buxom Saracen woman stepped out of a dark doorway. ‘Only ten fals,’ she said in Latin. John squeezed by her, and she turned her attention on Rabbit. ‘Ten coppers,’ she purred, pressing herself against him. John pulled Rabbit away.
They emerged from the dark passageway into a bright, three-sided plaza. In the centre, water bubbled from the mouth of an ancient stone head and filled a wide pool, where turbaned men and veiled women were busy filling red clay jars.
‘Water flowing from stone,’ Rabbit whispered. ‘How is it possible?’
John strode to the pool and bent over, scooping the cool water into his mouth. ‘I don’t know, but it tastes blessed good.’ He felt a tap on his shoulder and looked up. Rabbit was pointing to the men and women around them. They had stopped filling their jars and were staring at John with undisguised menace. One of them, a tall, olive-skinned man with a long beard and a curved dagger belted to his waist, pointed at John and shouted something in Arabic.
John spread his arms. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t understand.’ The man stepped closer and began to yell what sounded like a string of insults, repeatedly poking John in the chest. ‘I told you: I don’t understand your dirty Saracen tongue,’ John growled. ‘Now leave me be.’ He shoved the Saracen, who stumbled back several feet. The man’s hand went to his dagger hilt, and John and Rabbit both drew their swords.
‘I suggest you sheathe your weapons,’ someone behind them said in Frankish. John turned to see a young, tonsured man of slight build, wearing black priest’s robes. The priest gestured for John to look around him. At least a dozen turbaned men stood around the plaza with daggers drawn.
‘Do as he says,’ John told Rabbit.
‘Thank you,’ the priest said. ‘We want no violence here.’ He went to the angry Saracen, and the two men exchanged words in Arabic. The Saracen and priest kissed one another on each cheek, and the Saracen turned away, apparently satisfied. The priest turned back to John.
‘What did the Saracen want?’ John asked
‘Oh, he is no Saracen. These men are native Christians.’
‘Could have fooled me,’ John muttered.
‘Syrian and Armenian Christians have lived amongst the Saracens for centuries,’ the priest explained. ‘They have adopted Arab customs, but they are as Christian as you or me.’
‘Well what did he want?’
‘He said that the two of you should bathe before coming to the fountain. He fears that you will pollute the waters.’ John looked at the men and women around him. They all had clean hands and faces, and were wearing impeccably clean white linen caftans. The priest too had neat hair and clean, trimmed nails. John looked down at his dirty surcoat, still stained with traces of vomit. Rabbit was little better, with matted hair. ‘I hope I do not offend,’ the priest continued, ‘but your odour is rather rank. The bath-house is just over there.’ He pointed to a large building just down the street.
‘A bath-house?’ Rabbit asked. ‘What kind of savage place is this?’
The priest smiled. ‘You are in a land of savages now, good sir. You shall have to learn to behave as one.’ He turned to go.
‘Thank you for your help, Father,’ John called after him. ‘Might I ask your name?’
‘William,’ the priest replied. ‘William of Tyre. I welcome you to the kingdom of Jerusalem, good knights. I hope you find all that you seek.’ And with that, the man turned and walked away.
‘What now?’ Rabbit asked.
John grimaced. ‘Now we bathe.’
John’s ears were still burning as he and Rabbit staggered down the narrow alleyway to the harbour, the heavy, bulging water-skins slung over their shoulders. The baths had been worse than he had anticipated. They had entered through the wrong door and found themselves surrounded by indignant, screeching women, who had chased them back into the street, much to the amusement of the men lounging outside in the shade. After finding the men’s entrance, they had paid one copper each to a sweaty, bug-eyed man, who told them in thickly accented Frankish to disrobe and then handed them two tiny cotton cloths to wrap around their waists. They were hustled through a small room with a single pool of cold water and on to an enormous pool whose steaming waters occupied an octagonal building with a high, domed ceiling. Windows had been cut high up on the wall, and the light streaming in illuminated men of every race, all naked but for their thin wraps. John had cleaned himself well enough and was just about to climb out when an enormous Saracen servant approached, grabbed his arm in a vice-like grip, and proceeded to scrub him fiercely all over with a long-handled brush. Rabbit was given even worse treatment by a severe old man who grabbed him by the shoulders and repeatedly dunked him under the water.
Their skin raw, John and Rabbit were ushered to the pool of cold water and shoved in. Gasping and shaking from the cold, they were finally allowed to leave. They had retreated to the changing room, where they found that their clothes had been washed in their absence. They practically ran as they left the building. John had to admit, though, that his scalp no longer itched and his hands were whiter than they had been in months. Perhaps the custom was not completely barbaric, after all.
‘’Sblood,’ John cursed as he and Rabbit emerged from the dark alleyway. The market stalls were closing up in advance of the midday heat, and the crowd had mostly gone. Beyond the stalls, the ship they had arrived on was already being loaded with new cargo: large barrels that the sailors were rolling up the gangway. Between the market and ship there was only empty ground. The men of their company were gone.
‘You, sailor!’ John shouted to one of the men loading the ship. ‘Where did our men go?’ The sailor shrugged and pointed off down the dock, away from the citadel. John scanned the harbour, but there was no sign of the men. ‘Damn!’ he cursed, dropping the waterskins.
‘We should look for them,’ Rabbit suggested.
‘Where? In there?’ John gestured to the city. ‘We have n
o idea which direction they went. We’d only get lost.’
Rabbit’s nose twitched. ‘I’m just trying to help.’
John sighed. ‘You’re right, Rabbit. Maybe the glass seller knows where they went.’ John shouldered the waterskins and headed towards the Jewish merchant, who was shutting up his stall. ‘Thank you, sir. We found the water.’ John pointed to the skins, and the Jew smiled in acknowledgement. ‘The men who were there,’ John continued, pointing to where the company had been sitting. ‘Do you know where they went?’
The Jew shrugged. ‘No, I am sorry.’ He picked up a string of glass beads and held it out to them. ‘Would you like to buy something? A present for a lady?’
‘No, thank you.’ John turned away to see a knight watching them from horseback. The man wore a black surcoat emblazoned with the distinctive white Hospitaller cross, composed of what looked like four arrowheads, all touching at the tips.
‘Looking for something?’ the knight asked.
‘We are Reynald de Chatillon’s men,’ John explained. ‘We are looking for the rest of our company.’
The Hospitaller’s eyebrows arched. ‘Reynald’s men, eh?’ He paused and then pointed along the dockside. ‘The rest of your company went that way. They are setting up camp outside the city, just past the harbour gate.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ The knight nodded and rode on.
John and Rabbit marched along the long harbour, passing tall-masted ships to their right and squat buildings on their left. By the time they finally reached Acre’s wall, John’s shoulders were burning from the leather straps of the waterskins. The end of the wall was marked by a massive, square gate-tower, which rose up from the coastline. They passed through the gate into a flat, empty space, and then through a second, outer wall. The men were setting up their tents in its shade.
‘Where have you been?’ Ernaut demanded as John and Rabbit trudged over to the camp and dropped the skins. He unstopped his skin and took a long drink, eyes narrowing as he examined John and Rabbit more closely. ‘And what happened to you? You look like two pigs scrubbed up for market.’
John could feel his face reddening. ‘Nothing. It took us a while to find water.’
‘And they made us bathe,’ Rabbit added. John winced.
Ernaut dropped his skin, and water sprayed from his nose as he burst into a fit of laughter. The men nearby also began laughing, and the others approached to find the source of the merriment.
‘They made you bathe?’ One Eye asked with a wink. ‘Tell us all about it, Rabbit. Did the Saxon here scrub you nice and good?’
‘No,’ Rabbit said. ‘There were servants for that.’ This produced another, louder fit of laughter from the men.
‘Leave him be, One Eye,’ John said. ‘Come on, Rabbit. Let’s pitch our tents.’ John stomped away, followed by the men’s mocking laughter.
‘What did I say?’ Rabbit asked.
‘Nothing. Just try to keep your mouth shut around them.’ John dropped his rucksack and began to pitch his tent on the edge of the camp. He glanced back. The men were roaring with laughter as One Eye bent over, his arse in the air and a quizzical look on his face as he shouted out, ‘Is that a bar of soap, Saxon?’ John grimaced. The sooner the fighting began the better.
John’s shovel dug into the sandy ground, and he leaned forward, scooping up a pile of dirt and flinging it out of the three-foot deep trench where he stood. He paused to push his damp, blond hair out of his face. The June sun blazed down mercilessly from a cloudless sky. When he had first arrived in Acre, two months ago, he wouldn’t have lasted an hour under that sun. Now, after weeks of hard labour, he was tanned and fit, firm muscles filling out his bony frame. He had already been working for two hours, shirtless, as he shovelled out a new latrine ditch for the ever-expanding camp. The Germans under the Holy Roman Emperor Conrad had arrived shortly after John’s company to swell the ranks of the crusaders. In the past week alone, hundreds more had flooded into the camp outside Acre: Raymond of Antioch and his nobles; King Louis of France with two hundred mounted knights; and hundreds of Templars and Hospitallers from every corner of the kingdom of Jerusalem.
‘Get back to work, bath-boy,’ One Eye shouted from where he sat on the ground beside the ditch, shaded by a sheet of white linen. John plunged the shovel back into the earth. This time, when he flung the dirt out of the ditch, it hit One Eye in the face.
‘You’ll pay for that, Saxon!’ One Eye spluttered. He brushed the dirt away and jumped to his feet, fists raised, but then froze. John turned to follow his gaze. A group of mounted knights with Reynald at their head was approaching over the barren plain, their horses’ hooves kicking up a tall plume of dust. As they rode into the outskirts of the sprawling crusader camp, men began to cheer. John squinted. He could just make out four darker men in white turbans riding in the centre of the knights. They rode stiffly, hands tied in front of them. Prisoners.
‘You stay here and dig, Saxon,’ One Eye ordered. ‘If this trench isn’t finished when I get back, then you’ll answer to Ernaut.’
‘Bastard,’ John muttered as One Eye strode away. After a while, the cheering in camp stopped, but One Eye did not return. The sun crawled across the sky, passing its zenith. John was nearly finished with the trench when he heard Rabbit calling his name.
‘John!’ Rabbit skidded to a stop at the edge of the trench. ‘Come on! Get your armour!’
John dropped his shovel. ‘My armour? Are we under attack?’
‘No, it’s not that,’ Rabbit replied, his eyes wide with excitement. ‘Lord Reynald has captured prisoners. There’s going to be a tournament!’
‘By Christ’s wounds, it’s hot,’ John muttered, wincing as his hand glanced against the skirt of his scalding-hot chainmail. He followed Rabbit to a spot in the shade of the city wall, where a ring twelve paces wide had been marked off on the dusty ground. A large hour-glass had been placed on a stool, to keep time for betting purposes. Reynald’s men stood around the ring, shifting uncomfortably in their hot armour. John and Rabbit elbowed their way to the front, directly across from Reynald and Ernaut. As word spread, other knights came — Hospitallers, Templars, Franks, and Germans — forming a dense crowd, those at the back standing on their helmets for a better view. Others gathered on top of the nearby wall to look down on the sport.
When Reynald judged that a suitable crowd was present, he stepped into the centre of the ring. ‘Today, while out hunting, my men and I came across a dozen spies from Damascus, sent here by Emir Unur to gauge the strength of our forces. Their presence in our lands is an outrage, a violation of our treaty with the emir, and they fled at the sight of us. We gave chase, and three fell to our swords. By the Grace of God we captured four more!’ The men roared their approval.
‘Now, I have heard talk amongst you of our enemy, of their bravery, their skill, their ruthlessness,’ Reynald continued. ‘I have heard men say they are monsters, savage beasts.’ He turned slowly around the circle, meeting the eyes of his men. ‘But today you will see that the Saracens are no monsters. They are men of flesh and blood. And they die like any other man!’ He turned and called out over the crowd: ‘Bring forth the prisoners!’
The crowd turned as the four prisoners approached. They had been stripped of their armour and wore only flimsy linen loincloths. They were unarmed, but Reynald was taking no chances: the prisoners were led by a man-at-arms, sword drawn, and followed by two more soldiers carrying spears. As the Saracens approached, the assembled soldiers jeered and shouted insults at them. The first prisoner was tall and lanky, with olive skin and long black hair that hung well past his shoulders. The second was shorter, spare and compact. He was older, with a greying beard and a pronounced limp, left by some old wound. The third Saracen was a huge man; a good head taller than John, with a round chest like a beer barrel, an ample belly, and upper arms as thick as John’s legs. He was bald, and his head glistened in the sun. The last man was dark-skinned and solidly built, with thickly muscled arms and a
broad chest criss-crossed with scars. Of all the prisoners, he alone walked straight-backed, his head held high.
The prisoners reached the ring, where they were lined up before Reynald. He examined the four men for a moment, then placed himself in front of the huge Saracen. The other prisoners were led off to the side, where they stood shifting their weight as they eyed the menacing crowd around them. Meanwhile, Reynald had retreated to the edge of the ring and grabbed a sword. He threw it at the feet of the giant Saracen, who picked it up cautiously, as if he feared some trick.
‘Ernaut, you hairy oaf!’ Reynald yelled. ‘This fat-arse is yours.’
Ernaut pulled on his helmet and stepped forth to face his adversary. As Ernaut drew his sword, Reynald turned the hour-glass. An excited clamour went up from the crowd as bets were laid on how long it would take Ernaut to dispatch the Saracen. A few men even took the long odds and bet on the Saracen to win. There was little chance of that. Ernaut was not quite as tall as the Saracen, but he was even broader. And whereas the Saracen had nothing but his sword to protect him, Ernaut carried a shield and wore full-length chainmail with plating on the chest.
‘Two coppers on Ernaut in under one turn!’ Rabbit shouted, waving the coins.
‘I’ll take that,’ a man behind him called.
Rabbit turned to face John. ‘Aren’t you going to bet?’ John shook his head. A fair fight was one thing, but he had little taste for this sort of blood sport. He had come to the Holy Land for redemption, not for this.