The Book of the Lion

by Michael Cadnum

  “I know nothing of such strategy,” I said at last.

  Rannulf shook his head. “Counterfeit meekness, Edmund,” he said. “Every man with a belly can think.”

  “I hope there will be a battle soon,” I said.

  “Do you?”

  It was true enough, and I wanted to say so, but he stood tall in his stirrups, searching the ground, leaning against his hunting lance. He said, “If we found the track of a lion, and reported it, the king would be greatly pleased. It would help you win back his favor.”

  “Have I so badly lost our lord king’s favor?” I heard myself ask.

  “And counterfeit ignorance. Your prove a smooth liar, squire,” he said, with something like gentleness. “You did not join in the general slaughter.” He said this as easily as though he discussed a horse race.

  “Many fighting men did not.”

  “And many did.” To my surprise Rannulf shrugged. “Sometimes the sword will not leave the sheath.”

  “A squire lives for his master, and his master’s lord,” I responded, wondering if I should have assisted Rannulf in butchering the prisoners.

  Rannulf said, “If we found a big cat’s spoor and brought back its skin, the king would never forgive either of us.”

  Our own army trailed forever, and to the east a haze of white dust shadowed our forces. Saladin’s men were not slow to parallel our path, his terraces of tents already vanished, the beautiful yellows and blues rolled up and gone.

  “But think how every man and woman would admire us,” I said.

  The wind kicked up a flurry of empty dust. Far away, the troop of washerwomen trailed our army. I kept finding them with my eyes.

  “We crave the admiration of women,” Rannulf agreed, almost sadly. “Heaven makes them so alluring so we do not see their true nature.”

  “Is a woman’s nature very different from a man’s?”

  “As unlike a man’s as a leper is unlike Achilles. Why do you think King Richard prefers the company of young men?”

  “I am so ignorant,” I offered. So painfully unknowing, so forcibly chaste, I meant. So virginal, despite my longing.

  “You are spared sorrow,” said Rannulf. “The female soul is dwarfed and hideous, Edmund. If we could see through a woman’s beautiful form, and see her inward nature, we would cringe with disgust. Praise Heaven that you have been spared a woman’s touch.”

  Many Christian men felt as Rannulf did, but I certainly did not. I found myself with the ever-fresh memory of Elviva, her hand out to mine as I reached down to touch her in farewell.

  Outriders approached, a thudding, shuffling gallop.

  Winter Star shuddered, and I leaned forward, gripping his mane. Rannulf had trouble with his own mount.

  Winter Star kicked sideways, trying to turn back.

  “Camels,” said Rannulf.

  I had heard of the camel-leopard, a beast with spots and a huge body, who could call out with the voice of a beautiful woman. The firmament overlooked many such wonders: the griffin, half lion, half eagle, that guarded buried treasure; the harpy, half woman, half bird, who tormented travelers.

  These loping, lurching steeds frightened me, even as a nervous laugh escaped my lips. The riders beat at the sides of these swollen creatures, and each camel stretched out its neck, opened a lipless mouth and gave a terrible bleat. Much slashing was required to motivate these camels toward us, heavy, pillowy hooves flopping on the hard ground as they came on.

  Winter Star began to steady his nerve just as I was sure I had lost mine.

  “Do camels eat human flesh?” I asked, trying to sound more courageous than I felt.

  Rannulf took the question seriously, or pretended to. “I think they do not,” he said.

  “This is good news,” I responded shakily.

  Rannulf leveled his hunting lance, and nudged his mount forward a pace or two, as I followed.

  The camel-riders yanked and sawed at the long necks of their monsters. They took a position a long bowshot from us, the camels bawling in complaint.

  Squire duty required me to say, “My lord—you should take up your shield.” It was held by its trappings to the saddle.

  The outriders sang out a high, ululating cry.

  Rannulf gave a toss of his lance, like a man distracted by children: What are you waiting for?

  The camelmen showed their teeth, commenting among themselves, greatly amused. A rider with flowing sulfur-yellow sleeves pointed and his companions urged their bawling camels into new positions. The riders flicked their swords, brilliant crescents, and the leader gave a short challenge in a high, tenor voice.

  “Should we take the lives of those camel-warriors?” Rannulf was asking, lightly, in great humor. “Or spare them?”

  “My lord,” I said, keeping my voice from trembling, “as you wish.”

  chapter THIRTY-SIX

  But the camelmen did not attack. At a signal from one, they all turned, their mounts grunting. They trotted away from us, beyond a lingering veil of dust.

  When we were back at the verge of our army again, we encountered the king.

  King Richard was on horseback. His hair flowed golden around his head. His thick neck and handsome square face were sunburned. A brace of bloody coneys dangled from his saddle, and his horse was black with sweat.

  The king gestured with one of the dead rabbits, a stiff, big-eyed puppet. When one of the guards did not answer quickly enough, the king flung the bloody doll in the man’s face.

  The king’s eyes showed Rannulf a flicker of respect, but he did not glance my way. He leaned forward to wave a fly from his quarry. He watched the tiny insect circle upward.

  He snatched it, missed, and cursed. He made another grab.

  He raised his fist, squeezing it hard, radiant. The men around him smiled, and visibly relaxed.

  “Have you seen any lions on your ride into the hills?” King Richard asked Sir Rannulf.

  “None but you, my lord king,” said Rannulf.

  Perhaps we had all assumed that the train of baggage and camp followers would protect our rear. But each morning a raid cleared away another few dozen washerwomen, who fled without resistance.

  Soon we began to lose horses, too.

  Hordes of dark-skinned men attacked our rear. These fighters were darker than black wine, and they swooped down on foot, arms and ankles decorated with gold. They were joined by horsemen wearing long, flowing headgear, who cut at our rearguard with lusty if inaccurate strokes.

  The Templar knights had little trouble slicing these Bedouin attackers off their horses, but more raiders came down upon us to take the place of the slain. Soon many of our veteran divisions were repositioned in the rear to protect what was left of our provisions.

  King Richard rode up and down the length of our entire straggling line, and Wenstan sang the song of the knight before the green river, pitying the enemy on the other side.

  Each day was a flat, endless road of dust like powdered bone. My mouth filled with stone mortar. We came upon our pagan scouts, eyes and privy parts gouged, bellies swollen in the sun. The heat was heavier than ever before, horses collapsing with ribs heaving mightily, men fainting.

  One advancing Burgundian knight pitched hard from his mount, and before his squire could reach him a Bedouin on a sleek, charcoal-dark horse, came from nowhere. He rode to where the knight sprawled, and thrust a spear into his groin.

  We groaned at the sight. The Bedouin called out, throwing down his spear, making a show of spreading his arms: Come and get me.

  Our army shivered, a thrill of anger traveling the length of our long column, but Sir Guy de Renne and Sir Nigel called for us to stay as we were.

  Hubert’s eyebrows and lashes were white with dust, and he looked like an elderly uncle. “Soon,” he said in a hoarse whisper, half encouragement, half prayer.

  I nodded agreement, but I did not feel this confidence in my heart. We could plod along the coast forever, I believed. I conceived a grudging re
spect for Saladin, a commander with the sun and the hard blue sky fighting on his side.

  Our progress halted near a place Nigel said was called Arsuf.

  “The scouts have a name for every knoll,” Wenstan said.

  His manner had changed here in the Holy Land. His stammer was rare now, and his tread steady and calm. He looked years younger, too, not at all like Nigel and Rannulf, who had new, hard creases in their cheeks. I had heard him singing one of Miles’s old ballads recently, the one about the gander’s head caught in milady’s bower.

  “I have been talking to our Infidel companions,” he said. “If your horse makes water, the scouts later say, ‘Ah, you remember when your horse wet upon the Rocky Place of the Stone Ginn.’ A ginn, they tell me, is a spirit who lives inside a place.”

  A thrill swept me, that we rode through a land rich with devils. “What does ‘Arsuf’ mean, then?” I asked.

  Wenstan squinted at the land around us. “Flat place, I would guess.”

  Hubert kicked Shadow into a shuffling gallop. His red pennon fluttered all the way up the ranks, and hurried back again.

  He was too excited to answer when I asked him, but by then commands were being bawled in a dozen languages, troops forming ranks, knights gathering, assembling in a ragged line, struggling into mail skirts and helmets.

  I called for Rannulf, but in the cacophony of voices and trumpets, I heard no answer. King Richard rode ahead, along what had been the rear of our army but was now the rapidly forming front. Sir Guy de Renne called orders in the rising dust.

  At last Rannulf flung himself from his warhorse. Dust brought tears to my eyes.

  “Edmund,” he said, “dress me for battle.”

  chapter THIRTY-SEVEN

  And still the fighting did not begin.

  All morning horsemen drew our bow shots, arcing arrows that glinted in the sky. They rattled to the ground as the enemy cantered out of range. A playful, market-day quality about this made it look like sport. The camel-riders were few, and they stayed well back.

  The air was aromatic with the scent of mint, herbs trodden flat under our feet. Gradually, our bowmen began to conserve their arrows, and waterboys circulated with kidskins of water and wine. Some of the pikemen made a show of how much they could drink down without taking a breath. An emir, a pagan battle chief, paced his horse calmly, well within bow range, accompanied by his men.

  “They’re counting us,” Hubert suggested.

  “No, I don’t think so,” I said. The Saracens knew our number, I was sure, every ostler, every cook. The emir was taking his pleasure so close to danger, and letting us watch this demonstration of how brave he was.

  The bulk of Saladin’s manpower was screened by a stunted ridge of evergreens in the distance, the trees swaying and shrugging with the passage of warriors. It was hardly a surprise when King Richard had us reform, marching us ahead to take a new position. We gazed across ground unmarred by a single hoof, pebbles glinting like coins.

  The Templars, with their black-and-white shields, took the southern end of the line, nearest the sea. Frankish knights, Bretons and the men of Guienne, planted their feet beside them, blaspheming and outdoing themselves in taunts.

  In the center of the line was the king, with his English pikemen, and his Norman foot soldiers. On the extreme left was a rank of Hospitallers, many of them kneeling in prayer. The king rode up and down the front, his horse’s eyelashes heavy with dust.

  We were beautiful—I had not expected this. All along the line, interspersed with the pike-bearers, were archers. Each archer hammered a cheveux-de-frix into the ground, a picket of sharpened staves, behind which he took his position. Bowmen, I knew from my boyhood, generally spend a good deal of time fussing with their arrow feathers, rubbing beeswax on their bowstrings. These archers were no different, flexing their shoulders, sharing pinches of resin and plucking tufts of weeds from underfoot. Crossbowmen assembled with them, counting out their quarrels.

  And still-no bloodshed.

  Wearing chain mail and wool is like being a much stouter, slower moving man, each crook of the arm causing the mail to pinch, or to ripple with a subtle, metallic slither. With this addition of weight came an emotional stolidity, too, a sense of being committed to the strength of one’s horse, and the skill of the mailsmith.

  Even so, I would have paid any amount in silver to have this over and done. Rannulf wrested the helmet from his head. He ran his tongue over his scarred lips. I could see the fear in his eyes—not a fear of blood, but anxiety that nothing would happen.

  “Surely we can’t all wait forever,” I offered. The truth was that now, with battle so close, much of my old fear of fighting was continuing to stir.

  “I pray not, Edmund,” he said.

  I longed to see nightfall.

  One moment we were a force of sweating men, joking that Saladin had an army of whoremongers. We itched and sneezed with the rising dust, and adjusted each other’s belts, easing the weight of hot mail on shoulders.

  And then the day changed.

  Thousands of dark-skinned men streamed at us from the woods. These warriors wore no armor. They came fast, carrying spears and small targets. The attackers screamed with a noise so shrill that our horses stirred at the sound. I could not quite believe that this was battle at last. The dark, sweaty men seemed like celebrants of a festival.

  Our archers were quick to bend their bows, and the crossbowmen joined them, but the shower of arrows did nothing to slow the assault. The exuberance of the attack made this all seem like a frenzied May Day romp, no one likely to be hurt. The pointed staves were wrenched aside, and the bowmen forced to rush back behind the lines.

  And yet it was like a midsummer tussle among apprentices, no blood. Our foot soldiers were rocked, startled by the quickness of these dark men, and by the Bedouin runners who joined them, cutting and stabbing. Men began to fall.

  Our knights stayed on horseback, refusing to join the foot soldiers, and Hubert and I hunched forward on our mounts, too, enduring the storm, letting our pikemen counterstroke these assailants. Pikestaffs made a loud clatter, and when a footman near me was struck hard he gasped, like a wrestler whose wind has been slammed from his body.

  The pikemen retreated slowly, and there was no festive air in the way they lunged and wrestled, giving way step by step, until the line was maintained only by the hedge of horsemen, Hubert and I among them.

  Winter Star trembled under the onslaught of howling warriors. I clubbed awkwardly with my hammer, sometimes smashing a leather-and-star target with one blow, but often missing. Hubert laid about him with his sword.

  Several times Winter Star lurched and groaned, and I nearly reeled from my mount. But a war saddle is fitted with a pommel that juts up before the rider, a bright, brass knob. I put this pommel to good use, hooking it with my thigh when I felt myself about to tumble.

  I paid little attention to the blows, although they hurt, until I saw the blond shafts of spears on the ground. I realized without an instant of anxiety that I was being struck with these missiles, the points blocked by my wool tunic, with its Crusader star, my mail, and my thick wool undercoat. A spear glanced off Winter Star’s right flank, but the warhorse remained steady.

  My duty was to see that Rannulf’s lance neither fell nor shattered, to make sure he kept to his saddle. The line of armored horsemen took never so much as a step backward, holding from north to south. The knights were full helmeted, and bent forward into the hail of spears, while the squires were less well protected. A few of these youths lost their mounts, and were lost in the stew of fighting men.

  In an instant, the dark-skinned men broke, running away. But as they retreated, the pagan horsemen attacked, thundering through the fleeing footmen.

  chapter THIRTY-EIGHT

  I was wedged in by a crush of horses and knights, and could not lift my hammer. I felt panic of frustration, and warded off blows with my shield. This sick fear ripened into anger. These strangers were tr
ying to gash and lance my body.

  I wrenched my hammer free, ready to help my friend. Hubert engaged a pagan knight, a warrior with thick jowls. This Infidel wore no helmet, his face exposed. He grinned painfully under the rain of Hubert’s blows. The man parried with an ax polished to a gleam, but Hubert was intent, thrashing with his sword as slices of white appeared on the man’s head and face. The white cuts welled immediately with red, and blood traveled down his shoulder. The man’s head half parted from his body, and the warrior dropped.

  Hubert’s face was pale, his mouth set, as we turned our attention to the other riders, coming on hard. And then, at some signal only they could see, the horsemen wheeled and departed, racing away behind the chalky haze.

  The wind rippled the manes of our horses and fluttered the battle standards. Dust cleared. A horse far down the line was screaming.

  “Let us go after them!” cried Sir Nigel through the slits of his helmet. He sounded like a man yelling from inside a tub. King Richard rode hard up and down the wall of men, commanding us to stay as we were.

  The bulk of the Saracen army had not yet encountered us, a menace marching slowly in our direction. The pagan horsemen regrouped, assembled in a line-a pretty sight, with yellow armor and bright red and blue headcloths, their ranks only slightly reduced. In the near silence we could hear them as they urged their horses forward with gentle kicks, making a clicking sound with their tongues.

  This time the Christian archers sent a thick, bright shock of arrows that stunned the attackers, and when they reached us they were already unsteady. I caught a bearded man in the head with twin strokes of my hammer. He went down, hooves gouging his body.

  Again, the horsemen fell away.