Then he turned to repeat what he’d told the man before. ‘Your place is at the end of the column, de Garin. If you’re of any value at all to us, it’s there.’
His command was met by another sarcastic salute, another jerk at the reins, another barging retreat to the rear of the line.
Dear God, Baynard thought, is it any wonder we’re hemmed to the coast?
* * *
Four days south-east from the camp, and now deep among the hills of Moslem-held Galilee, the Crusaders reached an intersection of narrow, rain-channelled gullies.
The Maronite guide asked Baynard to hold the riders in check. ‘With your permission, my lord—’
‘Do as you wish,’ Falkan told him. ‘My trust in you is complete.’ Then he raised a hand in the drizzle, dropped it to grasp the pommel of his sword and waited for Zengi to scout the gullies and return to direct them; south now; or onward, south-east.
* * *
An hour with the rain splashing from their helmets, and Zengi was back to tell them, ‘There’s an outpost to the south. If we continue south-east we can work our way behind them.’
‘Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you, you dirty little traitor!’
Shocked by this unexpected outburst, Baynard turned to see Gaumar de Garin once again at his shoulder.
‘Follow you there,’ the knight sneered at Zengi, ‘and we’ll all be killed! What do you think; we’re as gullible as Falkan? Fool him if you wish, but don’t try fooling the rest of us, you flea-riddled bastard!’ His warning issued, he goaded his horse close to the Maronite, then struck out with vindictive intent, ripping the convert’s face with the welded links of his iron glove.
Baynard reached to stop him, but in vain.
Then stared in horror as the unarmed Arab rocked in his saddle, forced himself erect and blinked through tears of pain at the so-called Christians.
In the moments that followed, Falkan would respect the bearded Maronite for his dignity, the guide ignoring the blood that spilled from his nose and mouth, staining his beard with spurts and trickles of crimson.
‘I am not,’ the man said, ‘a traitor. I would not – nor ever have – misled you. But beyond – beyond all that – you tell me I am dirty? You tell me I am riddled with fleas? You tell me I am a bastard!’ He whirled his mount, driving it in a circle to set a certain distance between them. Wiped the blood from his face. Spat on the ground. Jabbed a finger in their direction. Then raised his voice to a manic, infuriated shrill.
‘You believe yourselves of Christ? Yet think to strike your friends? Then I tell you this – the religion to which I’ve been drawn is no match for the one I was weak enough to deny.’
Dragging again at his horse, the appalled and injured Maronite let them see he’d abandoned all faith in the Christian teaching, his hand raised in a gesture of obscenity for the allies-turned-enemies, these mad and mismanaged disciples of the West.
* * *
Gaumar de Garin offered nothing by way of apology – though what use if he fell to his knees, with the treacherous Maronite turned against the Cross? So it suited him to shrug at Zengi’s departure, insisting they were well rid of him.
‘What we should do,’ he told Falkan, ‘is follow the gully to the south. Ignore the one that flea-riddled—’
‘Don’t say that again!’ Baynard raged. ‘You have destroyed this patrol as it is! All the way out here into the hills, and you choose today to strip us of our guide! You are a self-obsessed creature, de Garin; an evident danger to our troop. So don’t ever again voice your opinions; neither of the Maronite, nor of my men!’ Then he sucked in his breath and snarled at Gaumar, telling the man to show him he was all the things he’d claimed. ‘Out here in the East before any of us, isn’t that what you said? Then let’s see you put your experience into practice, and lead us back home before—’
‘Lead you home? But I thought we were—’
‘Searching for Saladin? Yes, my stupid de Garin, so we were. But with the Maronite – with Zengi to guide us. Had we kept him as a friend we might have reached our goal. But the hunt is now over. Thanks to you he has lost all faith in our Cause. Been hurt and humiliated. Called a bastard and a traitor. All of it guaranteed to send him spurring to the nearest enemy encampment. We are no longer the hunters, my quick-fisted confrère, but the prey. They’ll be on us within hours, so I look to you to fulfil your boast, and show this patrol how well you know the country.’
Gaumar de Garin attempted to hold Baynard’s gaze, failed to do so and turned away to mutter. ‘Well, listen… With all this rain… The night closing in… I couldn’t be sure… How could anyone… You can hardly expect me…’
And Baynard Falkan nodded in weary comprehension, tipping water from the nasal bar of his helmet.
They were lost among the thousand humps of Galilee; each treeless ridge the same as the last, the same as the next. The intruders were now stranded in a maze of valleys, this one like that one, all of them washed to a height and width and size by the rains and winds that had gusted across the Holy Land since long before the founding of her faiths…
Chapter Twenty Nine
They spent the night huddled in a series of sandstone caves in the region of Shefar’am. The rain ceased, the sky pricked with stars. Falkan prohibited all fires, the Crusaders reduced to chewing strips of salted meat and lumps of black, husky bread.
Much as Tremellion had expected, Gaumar de Garin kept his distance, devoid of all initiative. Checking the position of the lookouts, Baynard passed close to Gaumar’s cave, the men staring at each other before de Garin looked away. As well you might, Baynard thought, since you’ve proved yourself the effective traitor in our midst.
Fatigued beyond measure, Falkan nevertheless forced himself to stay awake throughout the night. Nodding with the accumulated weariness of months, he started as wild dogs howled in the distance, or as rocks shifted from the edges of the gully. Five – six – he could no longer remember how many times he’d heaved himself to his feet, brushed at the cloying sand that floored his shelter, then tramped the sides of the wadi, to make sure the lookouts were alert.
He wondered how best to make his report to the marshal, Jobert de Blanchefort… Wondered if those in Heaven could see in the dark, Sir Geoffrey watching this sad and stranded patrol…
A poor kind of vengeance for Enrique de Vaca… What’s this then, Halcón? Never once saw the enemy, and can’t find your own way home? You should have stayed in the camp, amigo mio, securing the pegs and brushing out the fleas.
Hunched on the ground, though not daring to stretch out for fear of falling asleep, the young knight turned his hollowed face to the sky. And made his wordless apologies to those who now lived in the Kingdom curtained by stars…
* * *
Clouds again in the morning. No stirring of wind, but a heavy, leaden overcast, the colours of the land turned to charcoal.
Groans and curses from the knights as they straightened up, past wounds aching, the damp of the caves in their bones. Their expressions spelled murder as Falkan told them they were once again to manage without fires. ‘Light up in Acre, my lords, when we’re back there. Better yet, put the city itself to the torch. We could all do with a warming.’
He allowed them a while to get ready, in the meantime gauging their position by the reluctant glow of the sun. Then he saddled his horse, mounted with a grunt at the effort, and led the patrol around the edge of the wadi to the west.
* * *
By midday an eerie stillness had blanketed the land. A line of copper extended above the horizon, though the dome of the sky pressed down on them, the air of the hinterland as humid as a washerwoman’s shed.
Baynard waved Gaumar de Garin alongside. Both men were tired, ill at ease, unwilling to ride together. But it mattered to Falkan to ask the man – ‘All this time out here ahead of us; so what would you now advise?’
‘This was never my part of the country,’ de Garin dismissed. ‘I garrisoned a castle to the no
rth.’
‘Yet thought to question Zengi?’
‘Thought to challenge a traitor, that’s what I—’
‘Sweet Jesus!’ Falkan rapped. ‘I treasure your presence as I’d hug a desert spider! Get back to the end of the line, de Garin. I’d rather entrust ourselves to a blind and legless mute—’
But by then the bulky Crusader had wheeled away, once more jolting the formation of the troop.
* * *
Another hour and a half, maybe two, and Baynard brought the riders to a halt. Ahead of them lay a transverse ridge, the treeless hump barring their progress to the coast.
But it wasn’t the formation of the hill that had stopped him. More the sound of – well, something, the chink and clatter of something he couldn’t yet see.
He summoned a knight named Gerard Passerel, to ride with him, ordered the rest to stay quiet, then dismounted and led his horse to the base of the ridge.
Falkan and Passerel tethered their mounts, tipped water on to a sponge and pressed it to the muzzles of their horses. The animals sucked and snorted, lubricated their tongues and stood quiet, aware they’d not been forgotten.
Then the dull-eyed Crusaders crawled up the eastern ascent of the slope.
* * *
Reacting as most men will in the face of the unexpected, Baynard Falkan sought the simplest words he knew. ‘Oh, Christ – Oh, Jesus – Have we run against all this?’
Beside him Passerel mouthed, ‘Where in hell do they come from? So numerous? So complete?’
Ducking below the skyline, the commander and his ally turned to share the horror of what they’d seen. A triple column of horsemen. No less than a hundred riders. A brilliance of lightweight armour; of spear-tips, of arrow-heads; of decorated shields and high, conical helmets; a jaunty and arrogant force patrolling its garden.
Stay low, and the Saracens would pass.
Keep quiet and there’d yet be the chance to reach the coast and re-enter the camp.
So long as none of the Crusaders—
* * *
But sound travels below the overcast of clouds. Ricochets in the air. Skims the hills. Swoops along the gullies.
And reaches the ears of such as the impatient Gaumar de Garin.
Slithering down the ridge, Falkan and Passerel were trying to find their feet when de Garin yelled.
‘It’s the enemy! I hear them! The devils of Islam, I hear them! It’s our chance! It’s our chance! In the name of God, we’ll ride the bastards down!’
The well-intentioned Passerel waved in frantic silence to halt the charge. But the knights had been inflamed by de Garin’s roar. Believing this the final moment in which to smite the enemy, they were jabbing the flanks of their weary horses, skin torn by the points of their spurs.
An instant later and Baynard was stamping for balance, flagging at the riders, yet knowing it was now too late. Gaumar had heard the enemy, as they themselves must have heard his insensate yell.
‘Stand aside, Falkan! I say to you, stand aside!’
Then the vicious sweep of a long, double-edged sword, the outer blade slicing downward at Baynard’s thigh. The power of the blow, helped by the weight of the downswing, tore into the links of Baynard’s hauberk, driving the split and misshapen rings into the wound.
The young Tremellion could feel metal gouge at bone.
As for Gerard Passerel, he was slammed on the helmet by the spikes of a three-foot mace wielded by an unseen hand, the two knights flopping to the ground as the Crusaders spurred at the ridge.
* * *
With a howl of anticipated triumph, Gaumar de Garin led the riders to the spine of the hill, crossed it – and realised the truth.
Unable to turn aside, the horses floundering down the slope, the fourteen horrified Christians being jerked and jounced to a meeting with a hundred well-armed Saracens. And all of it beneath Allah’s leaden gaze.
* * *
Stunned by the blow of the mace, Passerel lay senseless. Away to his right, beyond the churned up passage of the horses, Baynard Falkan writhed in agony, the embedded links drowned in the blood that welled from his bone-deep wound. Every twitch of movement dragged at the hauberk, skin and muscle hooked by the broken rings. Inarticulate sounds echoed in his throat, his eyes blinded by pain. His vision distorted, he reached for the hem of the hauberk… Clutched at it with his mittened hand… Prayed to God he could somehow quell his scream, then tore the metal tunic from the bloody depths of the cut.
In the event God was merciful, allowing the knight greater torment than his system could withstand. Even as the scream rose it was turned to a long, shuddering sigh, the young Tremellion robbed, like Passerel, of his senses.
* * *
The first to lose consciousness, Passerel was also the first to recover. Gaping about him, he saw the two horses tethered near the foot of the slope. Elements of memory returned. He scrambled to his feet, immediately succumbed to a wave of dizziness and went sprawling toward the wadi.
Moments passed, his head at last clearing, though his face a piteous mask of mud and sweat. Those two mounts… Mine and…
Wiping the dirt from his eyes, he peered across the steep, churned track, frowning with exaggerated concentration at the prostrate body of – mine and – Lord Jesus, yes, Commander Falkan!
Tenacious in his efforts, the young knight crawled to rejoin Tremellion, his face blanching beneath its mask as he saw the darkness of blood, the paleness of flesh and bone.
Flies were already exploring the deep, sweet wound.
Reaching beneath his own link-mail tunic, Gerard Passerel tugged at his linen shift, frantically ripping the garment from his body. It was clumsily done, his hands quivering and uncertain, but he managed to press fragments of cloth against the wound, then bind the wadding tight around Baynard’s thigh.
He hoped no one would know his motives for saving Lord Falkan were mixed; in part because he respected the man, but also because he feared they were now alone.
No sounds at all from beyond the ridge…
Suppose it was true – the two of them alone – and Falkan allowed to die. Who then would help guide Passerel to Acre? So, please God, let the man live; so we both might live.
He felt Baynard stir, saw his eyes flicker open, flinched at the spasm of pain that seared his face.
‘They have left us, my lord, all of them ridden ahead. I don’t know how long – I was felled by the blow of a—’
‘Help me stand. We must see for ourselves what’s – Aah, but that hurts!’ Afflicted by his own waves of nausea, he fought them down before trying again, an arm extended to the terrified Passerel. ‘We’ll do it as best we can, my friend. Hopping like sandfleas, or crawling like beetles. But this time you must get us to the ridge. And let us both hope to God the valley lies deserted.’
It was true that the Saracens had gone. And the Frankish destriers. And the shields and helmets, swords and skirted armour.
But the fourteen Christian knights were still there, dead and stripped naked, crucified to the ground with arrows through their palms.
Gerard Passerel began to weep. ‘I knew some of those men… They were friends of mine… And the youngster… The one de Garin kept taunting… We came out together from Marseilles…’
‘We have both lost friends,’ Baynard murmured. ‘Though less to the credit of the enemy, it seems, than our own strange insanity.’ They made no attempt to bury the dead. It was as much as they could do to reclaim their mounts, Falkan all but yelling with pain as he was helped into the saddle, the two young knights then wending their way through Saladin’s poisoned garden.
* * *
They would never know if it was any more than chance that brought them home. The hand of God, perhaps. Or the mercy of Allah.
They twice thought themselves sighted by Moslem scouts, the second time more likely than the first. Faint from loss of blood, Baynard told his companion to spur ahead. ‘Follow the line we’re taking. A few hours more and you’ll be safe
at the coast. You must risk it all, my friend, on this last run to the sea.’
But Gerard Passerel said no. He’d prefer to stay with Tremellion. And, once again, he hoped no one would know his motives for staying were mixed. In part to see things out with the man he respected, but no less because he would rather be with Falkan, than utterly alone.
His father had once locked the infant Gerard in a cupboard, leaving the child to hammer and scream for a night and most of a day.
From that moment on he’d decided to die in company, and not ever run for his life, if the fleeing meant being alone.
* * *
Spared by whichever god it might have been, the survivors of the patrol found their way to the King of Jerusalem’s panic-stricken camp.
Learning that Tremellion had returned, Guthric and Quillon completed their tasks, then hurried to welcome him home. Both the constable and safeguard had clever phrases in mind, though they bit them back when they saw that Falkan was within easy reach of dying. Thin before, he now seemed bloodless and wizened, the skin of his face fallen in on its bones. Another few days and the cut in his thigh would fester – after which there was nothing anyone could do.
Leaving Quillon to stay with their master, Guthric scoured the camp to locate the exhausted Passerel. Then he took the young knight with him to the hornets’ nest that was now the king’s pavilion, barging aside the officials who tried to stop him, and growling insistence that Jobert de Blanchefort grant the callers a moment of his time.
Preoccupied with the desperate attack on Acre, the Marshal of the Kingdom was nevertheless appalled by what Passerel told him.
The Edge of the Blade Page 27