Holy Warrior

by Angus Donald

  The Berber charge came at us obliquely, from the right, avoiding the tangle of broken men and maimed, kicking horses that strewed the ground directly in front of our lines; they came from the right, and their charge was preceded by a lethal shower of javelins, which fell like a dark killing sleet on our thin line of footmen. The yard-and-a-half-long weapons rose in an elegant arc and sank into the bodies of the archers and spearmen, dropping them in a shambles of flailing arms and spurting gore; I saw one bowman taken straight through the neck by the slim throwing spears, another man sitting on the earth looking bemused and holding tight with both hands to the javelin that grew from the centre of his blood-darkened belly. Little John was bellowing for the shield wall to close up, close up, when a second flight of javelins crashed into the shields of our men. On the back of Ghost, I raised my own shield, and tucked my left shoulder behind it.

  The throwing spears were much heavier than the few arrows that the Turkish horsemen had managed to loose at us. As they crashed into the heavy round shields, the spearmen were often sent reeling back, the line breached until the man could regain his footing and press back into his appointed slot. Stuck with a javelin, a shield became unwieldy, unbalanced, difficult to use with any skill. I saw one spearman killed instantly by a javelin to the face, and at the same time his shield-mate on the right stopped two missiles with his wooden round and, unsupported on the left, the double blow threw him off balance. He staggered back leaving a two-man hole in the shield wall - through which a brave Berber lancer immediately spurred his horse. He stabbed at an archer who scrambled away just in time, and screaming a high ululating challenge - it sounded like a child shrieking ‘la-la-la-la-la’ - to the line of our cavalry now facing him, he spurred forward.

  Sir James de Brus was the first to react; he kicked his horse and it eagerly leapt a few yards towards the Berber. Using his shield to bat aside the savage lance thrust from his opponent, Sir James deftly jabbed forward and jammed the point of his spear up under Berber knight’s chin and hard into his brain. The man fell back, pouring blood from the wide gash in his neck, and Sir James calmly pulled his bloody point free of the man’s lolling head, tipping the body from the saddle, and walked his horse forward to fill the gap in the shield wall with its bulk. Elsewhere in the line, under the deadly shower of javelins, holes had appeared but Little John seemed to be everywhere, his height and long reach allowing him to wield his great double-headed war axe with devastating efficiency against the mounted foe. He pushed and pulled spearmen back into the line, bawled at them to close up, and when a Berber threatened to breach the wall, he snapped lances with an axe blow, and cut down any horses and riders within reach like some insane forester, swinging the great weapon as if it were no heavier than a hatchet. And our archers had not been idle: they knew that their lives depended on keeping the Berbers beyond the shield wall, where the white-robed horsemen now milled about looking for a gap in the line and hurling their slim missiles with terrible accuracy. Between dodging javelins, and avoiding lance thrusts, the bowmen kept up a steady stream of arrows hissing at the enemy horsemen. Sometimes shooting at a range of as little as a dozen feet, the archers’ shafts frequently passed straight through the bodies of the Berbers, sometimes even striking men or animals on the other side. Arrows and javelins flickered through the bright air, and the horseman directly behind me suddenly gave a great cry and fell back in the saddle with a javelin in his shoulder. I turned and saw that it was Will Scarlet. His face was white, his eyes staring, blood streaming down his hauberk, and he slipped from the saddle without a word. I gritted my teeth and turned back to face the front. We had strict orders not to break rank, even to help our wounded. Another javelin whistled over my head; I snuggled deeper into the lee of the shield, hardly daring to look beyond it ...

  And suddenly it was over. The surviving Berbers rode away leaving the dead and wounded piled in a low, stinking writhing mound in front of our line. We had held on by the skin of our teeth; and Ghost and I had not moved a hoof in the whole course of that desperate fight.

  As the surviving archers drew their short swords, and ran out beyond the shield wall to cut the throats of the wounded Berbers and Turks, and loot the clothing of the dead, I looked back to where Will Scarlet had been. His place was now filled by another cavalryman and I could see behind the lines that Father Simon was tending to my red-headed friend by the mound of personal baggage. Will was not the only casualty by any means; in fact I could see scores of our men, mainly archers and spearmen, lying or sitting behind the lines, and waiting to receive the attention of Reuben, who was hobbling about from man to man, trying to save those he could. William and the other servants were scurrying about taking water to the worst hurt, and bringing bandages to Reuben. I looked away from that scene of blood and pain and glanced right at Robin. His face was devoid of expression, save for a grim tensing of the muscles around his mouth.

  I looked past my master and could see that we were not the only ones who had faced the fury of the Saracen cavalry. At least two other parts of the line were under attack by units of the Turkish horsemen. Even though we had just faced an attack such as these, and many of our friends had suffered and died in it, I still found it an impressive sight to watch. The horsemen were superb, galloping in with enormous skill, loosing their arrows in great clouds on the part of the line they were challenging, and then, right in the face of the enemy, turning their horses about with their knees and galloping away, still keeping their enemies under attack as they retreated. They were inviting our men to charge, to break their ranks, and come out into the field to be slaughtered. By and large, their casualties were very low: we had few archers in the army, the majority being with Robin, and so the only damage they suffered was from a few well-aimed crossbow bolts as they thundered into range and swiftly out of it.

  ‘They are merely probing for weakness all the way up and down the line,’ said Robin to me. I was shocked: probing? I felt we had survived a major attack. I was also slightly surprised that Robin should address me, as our relations were still frosty, but then I realised that with Sir James de Brus out of position, he was just making a remark to the next man in the line. ‘And I think they may have found a weak spot,’ Robin continued. And he pointed past me to the left where the gentle Hospitallers were once again being menaced by another horde of enemy horsemen, which was trotting purposefully towards the extreme left of our line.

  ‘Ride to the King, will you, Alan, and tell him that we in the centre are firm, but the left is about to take another battering. Ask if he has any orders for us.’

  I turned my horse around and threaded my way through the wounded to the seaward side of the army. As I came clear of our pain-racked men, I twisted my head to look north behind me and saw that Robin was right: the Hospitallers were once again being mauled by massed formations of mounted bowmen. Ignoring the deep humming of the Turkish bows and the screams of wounded knights and horses behind me, I galloped south towards the King’s division to relay Robin’s warning. It was glorious to be moving in that terrible heat, to feel the wind on my face, and smell the tang of salt in the air from the sea which was no more than a couple of hundred yards to my right. As I reached the group of knights that surrounded the King, ignoring a menacing glare from Sir Richard Malbête, I saw that a great argument was already in progress. My friend Sir Nicholas de Scras was gesturing passionately with his hands. ‘My lord,’ he said, ‘I implore you, the Hospitallers must charge - and soon. We cannot take much more of this; the Turks’ arrows have nearly wiped out our footmen, and the horses,’ he swallowed painfully, ‘the horses are being slaughtered from under us, and we do nothing. We must charge - else there will be no mounted force left to charge with.’

  ‘Tell the Grand Master that you must stand, like the rest of us; we must all endure until the time is right.’

  ‘But, Sire, men will say that we are cowards, that we fear to attack the enemy because — ’

  Richard turned on him savagely. ‘Hold y
our tongue, sir. I am in command. And we will attack on my orders. Not before. By God’s legs, be damned to your Grand Master and his talk of cowardice...’

  A household knight was plucking at King Richard’s sleeve. ‘Sire, look!’ he said pointing down the line to the far end. We all turned our heads to look.

  Nearly a mile away, a perfect line of black-clad horsemen stepped delicately out of the shambles of the shattered third division. They held their lances vertically, a pale fence of spears, sunlight winking from the points, and they walked their horses slowly forward. You could clearly see the white crosses of the Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem on the black trappers of their horses. We were all stunned into silence; I hardly dared to breathe. Then a second line of black knights emerged behind the first.

  ‘So they are going to charge anyway, without permission,’ muttered one of the King’s noble companions.

  Ahead of the Hospitallers was a large crowd of Turkish horsemen; many had dismounted to have a more stable platform from which to shoot their arrows at the foe, others were forming up for another charge at the wavering Christian lines. They seemed as surprised as we that the Hospitallers had emerged from between the wagons of baggage train that they had defended for so long. A few loosed arrows at the black ranks of horsemen, but they had no visible effect. Then the Hospitallers smoothly, silently, like some great cat, moved on to the attack. The first rank of knights, perhaps seventy men, broke into a trot, the mail-clad bodies rising and falling in the saddles in unison, then the canter. The lances came down to the horizontal position; the first line moved up to the gallop. The Turkish enemy were still hastily mounting their ponies, desperately loosing a final arrow and scrambling to get out of the way when the first black rank of knights smashed into them. Men died screaming on the Hospitallers’ long spears, the weight of the heavy horse easily punching the steel spearheads through the light armour of the Turkish cavalry, the colossal impact of the charge splintering the mass of horsemen into tiny shards of individual Saracens fleeing for their lives. Few survived, as the first line swept through them like a roaring wind, and then the second line, the Hospitaller sergeants, came boiling into the fray, swords swinging, maces crushing skulls, more than sixty angry black-clad servants of Christ taking their revenge for the humiliations they had suffered all morning from the stinging arrows of these men. Behind them came a great mass of the remaining French knights, their boldly coloured surcoats gaudy in comparison with the sombre black of the first two lines of charging men. The whole of the cavalry of the third division, all those that still had horses to sit upon, charged. Some three hundred knights, the cream of our army, galloped forward to the attack - in total disregard of King Richard’s orders. The French horsemen, screaming their war cries, piled into the great mass of enemy cavalry, slaughtering any Turks they could find with glorious abandon, blades swinging, gore splashing, their big warhorses biting and kicking out at the behest of their blood-crazed Christian masters.

  ‘Sire,’ said one of the household knights, breaking the spell of stunned silence. ‘He is moving at last, look - I believe Saladin is committing his reserves to the battle.’ And he pointed at the enemy lines, where large masses of men, some thousands, it seemed, were moving forward on the left against the Hospitaller knights - who were still engaged in a furious mêlée, hacking at the surviving Turks with their great swords, carving men and horses into red ruin.

  ‘Well, that’s it, then. Saladin has weakened his centre. We must seize the moment,’ said King Richard. He looked at me: ‘Blondel,’ he said, ‘pass the word to Locksley. He is to move up in support of the third division; pull the Hospitallers’ chestnuts out of the fire, if he can, and then attack the enemy’s right flank - that’s on our left. Is that clear? He can take James of Avesnes and the Flemings with him. We will all attack now, all along the line. That is the order. Trumpeter!’

  As I turned my horse to deliver the King’s message, my heart was beating hard with excitement. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him point directly at Sir Nicholas de Scras. ‘You, sir,’ he thundered, ‘you, sir, can tell your Grand Master that I will have words with him after this day is done, if he survives!’ And then the King turned and began to shout for his best lance and his new gauntlets.

  I raced back to Robin’s men, but I could see the news of the order to advance had outstripped me. All along the line the horsemen were moving forward. I rejoined the line of Robin’s cavalry, taking my place beside my master. ‘The orders are to support the Hospitallers, sir, and then to attack the enemy’s right wing,’ I said to Robin. ‘The Flemings are to ride with us. It is a general attack, sir, all along the line.’ And, for no reason that I can easily explain, except that I must have been infected with the King’s battle-madness, I grinned at him.

  ‘Yes, it is, Alan; yes it is. And about time, too,’ and he gave me a wide, easy smile.

  Chapter Nineteen

  We advanced in a single line, riding out beyond the tide-mark of dead men and horses in front of our position, and we angled our charge towards the north-east, where the scattered Hospitaller knights, having cut their opponents to bloody shreds, were hastily trying to reform in the face of a body of heavy Berber cavalry two hundred strong that was bearing down on them from Saladin’s right wing. As we approached at the trot, with the Flemings hard on our heels, two hundred yards ahead the Berbers launched a shower of javelins and then hurled themselves at the bunched Hospitallers in a furious rush of galloping horse, snarling white-clad warrior and lunging spear. But, tired though they were from their previous fight, the Christian knights were masters of this kind of war: they met charge with charge, and lance with lance; and the two forces, smashed into each other with a crash of splintering wood and the squeal of steel grating on steel.

  I looked over my right shoulder to the south and saw that the whole first division, King Guy de Lusignan’s knights, the Angevins, Poitevins and Richard’s knights from Aquitaine, with the Templars in their distinctive white surcoats on the furthest right flank - more than a thousand heavily armed soldiers of Christ - were charging in a great mass eastwards, along the line of the marshy river, towards the centre-left of the Saracen lines.

  I looked over my left shoulder and directly behind us were the rest of the English cavalry and the King’s grim Norman knights two hundred and fifty yards to our rear. But they had not moved from their position in the centre of our former line - and I wondered why, when the whole of the rest of our forces had charged. Had not the order been for a general attack? Richard, his golden crown flashing in the afternoon sunlight, was riding up and down in front of the English and Norman knights - some of the best and most renowned fighters in his army - and he was clearly speaking to them, though the words were lost at that distance. They were lined up in the order of the charge, but not a horse stirred in that hot blazing sunshine. Why did they not advance, why were they holding back?

  But there was no time for further speculation. Sir James de Brus shouted an order, a trumpet blew, and suddenly we were flying towards the enemy, Ghost galloping smoothly between my knees, my shield tight on my left arm, right arm holding the lance steady. The Berber cavalry were spread over a wide area, those still living exchanging cuts, scimitar against sword, with the Hospitaller and French knights, their horses whirling and stamping, men cursing and screaming in pain, as Christian and Muslim knights fought out their individual duels. Our line of horse crashed into the mêlée at the gallop, one moment we could see a vicious cavalry battle taking place before our eyes, the next we were in among them.

  In front of me, I saw a white-robed warrior slash with his scimitar at a helmet-less French knight, catching him a cruel blow across the face and flaying the skin from the Christian’s cheek with a spray of bright blood. I lined up Ghost with my knees, gripped the spear shaft more tightly between my elbow and side, dug in my heels and surged forward to plunge the point of my lance with all my might deep into the small of the man’s back. The shock of the blow
was immense, as if I’d stabbed the point at a gallop into an oak tree; the spear shaft was ripped from my hand, I felt a twinge in my broken wrist, and then I was past my enemy, and looking over my shoulder to see what damage I had caused. He was still in the saddle, and I hauled out my sword, turned Ghost, and galloped back to challenge him again. But he was clearly no longer a threat, the white robe crimson with blood from waist to knee, the long lance waggling from the centre of his back and I guessed that the point had plunged right through him and out of his belly, pinning him to the high pommel of his saddle and keeping his body upright. His eyes were wide with unimaginable pain, his open mouth working soundlessly in the agony of his death, and, purely as a mercy, I hacked into his throat with my sword as I passed him by, to send him onward more swiftly.