The Fools’ Crusade

by Pip Vaughan-Hughes

  At first the Nile was warm as it seeped in through the rings of my boots and leggings. But as we went forward and sank, it became colder. Tredefeu was nervous, but I urged him forward and, rolling his eyes, he snorted and went in deeper. Up to the girth, up to the breastplate, up to my knees. Now Tredefeu was swimming, and I was sitting ballock-deep in tepid water. It seemed as if a mile of open water lay between us and the far bank, but in truth it was no more than half a bowshot. The Templars were a little upstream from us. And out ahead, in the middle of the stream, Count Robert’s banner waved, rising steadily above the water, and I understood that his party had reached the sandbank that the Copt had promised us.

  I must have been halfway across when I suddenly realised I was in the midst of pandemonium. Horses were braying in fear, and their riders were urging them on with shouts and curses. There was a sound like a mill wheel turning behind me, as more and more knights urged their horses into the river. And in front, Count Robert had reached the other side and was kicking his horse like a madman, forcing it to scramble up the shiny mud of the bank. His retinue was close behind him. On my right there was a crash. A horse had overbalanced on the steep bank and tumbled backwards, crushing its rider. I felt myself plunging forward as Tredefeu gained a purchase on the riverbed. Just a few yards upstream, the white surcoats of the Templars were surging ashore. I looked up, squinting into the growing light of sunrise. Against the sky, horses struggled, jerking and heaving, over the lip of the bank, the lances of their riders stabbing up into the morning sky.

  By the time we reached the shore the bank in front of us had been churned into glistening black porridge. Horse rumps were struggling up, kicking up clods. A fist-sized piece hit my helmet, knocking it askew. Then Tredefeu was digging his hooves into the greasy slope. His ears were back, his eyes rolling and white. A groan, almost human in its anguish, came from between his foam-smeared teeth. The saddle heaved and bucked beneath me and I threw myself forward onto the damp hair of his mane. ‘Go on, go on!’ I beseeched him. The lance of the man on my right swooped down and almost took off my nose. I swatted it away with my own spear. Then Tredefeu dropped his head and heaved, and we were up.

  The army was milling about, forming into loose ranks. Directly in front of us, the knights of Count Robert’s retinue were bunched around the blue, red and gold of his standard. And there were the gold lions of William Longspée. Beckoning to Warren, whose cobby mare had just heaved herself up the bank, I galloped towards them. There were Guy Curtbac, John of Motcombe and William himself. Beyond, I saw that we were in cultivated land, a flat patchwork of fields dotted everywhere by the water pumps of the Egyptians, and by groves of date palms and olives. Beyond the fields, the walls of Mansourah, a mile away, bright with waving flags and pennants. And in between, a village … no, an encampment: pointed tents, a pavilion, a sprawl of shanties. Smoke rose from cooking fires, thin grey threads that climbed, straight as plumb-lines, into the rosy sky.

  A knight in a white surcoat had galloped up to Count Robert. William Longspée noticed, looked back at his company and happened to catch my eye. He beckoned and began to trot over to the count. I followed. The Templar was the Grand Master himself, Guillaume de Sonnac, and his soaked and muddy surcoat had rendered him no less terrifying. He seemed to be arguing furiously with Count Robert, and as we drew closer I heard what they were saying.

  ‘Your orders – and my own – could hardly be clearer, sir. We must wait for your brother to make his crossing.’

  ‘With respect, Grand Master, the Turks are sitting there like hen pheasants on their chicks, and we are here, hungry foxes all. Look there, Guillaume! They are, what? Half a mile distant? Less! And they do not know we are here! We will have ’em – we must! What shall I tell my brother the king if your … your reluctance loses us this prize, eh?’

  ‘The king’s orders—’

  ‘I know the king’s orders, damn you! Are you with me or no? For by God I will have those Turks with you or without you!’

  De Sonnac scowled and stared at the count through slitted eyes. Another man would have melted like a candle in a fireplace under such a glare, but the count raised his chin and gave it back. There was silence. Tredefeu dropped his head to the ground and began to tear at a patch of sedge. All around me I could hear the sound of horses chewing, and bridles chinking, and every so often a gasp and a curse as a latecomer came up over the river bank.

  ‘So be it,’ said the Grand Master at last. His voice was steely. ‘Well, sir, if you wish to catch ’em, let us be off now.’

  ‘Good man. Can it be contrived?’ Count Robert turned in his saddle and ran his eyes over the company. We were about eight hundred knights all told: three hundred French, two hundred English and three hundred Templars, in no sort of order, everyone jostling and shuffling their horses into loose, unmannerly ranks. ‘I think it can!’ he answered himself. ‘Guillaume, I shall lead off. You will follow close behind. Agreed? Good! Then let us earn some glory while the day is still breaking!’

  Guillaume de Sonnac was plainly furious, but he had been out-glared, and now he turned and galloped back to the white ranks of his men. Count Robert turned to William.

  ‘Shall we go, Salisbury?’

  ‘We shall, my lord.’

  ‘Then in Christ’s name, follow me!’ And with that he rammed his spurs into the flanks of his horse and took off, cantering hard across a neat field of winter wheat, kicking up black dust and vivid green shoots behind him. There was a great whoop, as hundreds of throats released the fear and anger of the river crossing to the skies in one wordless battle cry. Then we were off.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Everything happened very fast. We were streaking across the patchwork of farmland, bursting through stands of reeds, smashing chicken coops and ploughing up cabbages and carrots and garlic. A donkey, tied to a water-pump, shrieked with terror as we bore down on him. Bucking, he pulled down the wooden framework and was swept up in the charge, running mad-eyed alongside an English knight, still trailing the pole he was lashed to. Chickens and pigeons were exploding into the air. Ahead, the camp had burst into life and men were running to and fro, throwing themselves onto saddleless horses. Now I could hear their panicked cries, jackdaw-like, above the rumble of our hooves. A band of mounted men had formed in front of the pavilion. They milled around each other, and then they were charging towards us. I had let Tredefeu carry me right into the front rank, and I could almost make out their faces. And they were unarmoured, clad only in robes that billowed out behind them. I swallowed, although my Adam’s apple felt like a thistlehead in my throat, and snugged my lance beneath my arm. Just then a cockerel shrieked and a man’s face appeared before me, some farmer roused from his hut, stumbling out into the dawn. Wide eyes, grey beard, mouth in a silent black O. Then he was gone, trampled beneath the feet of a hundred Christian horses.

  The Saracens were kicking their horses frenziedly, hurtling towards us as we were roaring towards them. As if in a dream they came on unnaturally fast, and then they too were gone, swallowed up in a brief welter of flailing swords. There was open ground now between us and the camp, a wide pasture of trampled brown grass. I could make out the details of the tents: the scalloped edges, the silk canopies. Steam went up as someone kicked a cauldron into a fire. ‘Deus vult! Deus vult! Montjoie et Saint Denis! Saint Edward!’ I cannot remember what I shouted, though I was shouting, everyone was shouting …

  Here are the tents. Now we are among them. A man runs towards me, bare-chested, a sword and a small round shield in his hands. Tredefeu is at full stretch. My lance catches him on the shoulder and flings him away like a rag doll. We trample a fire, and my nose fills with the stench of burned hair and wet wood, then it is gone. There are riders in front of me, Turks, no armour but wearing helmets. I get my lance up but before I can aim it Tredefeu has carried me past. All around, crusaders are weaving in and out of a maze of tents. Guy-ropes are catching in hooves and pavilions are collapsing. There are men on fo
ot everywhere, helpless, beating on armoured legs with swords until they are spitted or hacked down. I am past the tents. I see William Longspée near me. He yells Saint Edward! at me and wheels his horse. I follow him back into the camp, slower now. A Saracen on horseback appears from between two burning tents. He has a lance. Tredefeu has carried me onto it before I can rein him in. It catches my shield and shatters as the man flashes past me. I turn and thrust at him with my own lance, in time to see Longspée take off his head with a backhand stroke.

  Tents are burning all around us. Another rider bursts from the fire and charges at me, yelling, his eyes streaming. He sways his head out of the way of my lance, which grazes his ear, and draws back his long, curved sword. I duck under my shield and as he reaches me and I feel his blade chop into painted wood – barely an inch of wood between his steel and my arm – I punch him in the throat with the fist that still holds the lance. He goes backwards over the rump of his horse, and with one thrust I pin him to the earth before he can rise. I leave my lance – I cannot manoeuvre it in these tight quarters – and draw my sword, but as I force Tredefeu down one smoking avenue and up another, I realise it is over. The camp is ours.

  I found Count Robert and Grand Master Guillaume in the wide space in front of the pavilion. Both men were grinning now, and the Templar was pointing to something that one of his knights was holding up. It was a man’s head. The knight’s fingers were gripping a hank of wet black curls, and from the dead man’s beard dripped a dark brown liquid.

  ‘It is their Fakr ad-Din, the Turk commander,’ said Guy Curtbac, joining me. ‘Seems he was in his bath, having his beard dyed – good Christ, these heathens!’ He hooted with laughter. ‘Came out stark ballock naked, save for his sword, and ran smack into some Templars.’

  ‘And the rest of them? We did not kill a whole army,’ I said. Warren rode up, white-faced but unhurt. I clapped him on the back and he shook his head, silently, half smiling, dazed.

  ‘Running back to the town,’ Guy was saying. ‘We shall catch them up, don’t worry. Did you have good sport?’

  ‘Sport, Guy?’

  ‘I killed three of ’em!’

  ‘Oh. Well done.’ We were talking like two lazy fellows in a tavern, yet all around us men lay dead, naked, in pieces. And Guy had a spray of blood up his left side. Before I could ask if he was hurt, he saw Longspée walking his limping horse towards Count Robert and trotted off to boast of his deeds. But Longspée just smiled and handed up the reins to him.

  ‘Find me another mount!’ he said to whoever might be listening. Then he strode up to Count Robert and leaned against the sweating neck of his horse. I walked Tredefeu over to join them, just in time to see the Grand Master’s smile vanish.

  ‘No, my lord. I have disobeyed the king’s orders once, and by the grace of God we were given a victory. But I shall not do so again. We will wait for the king.’

  ‘Guillaume, the Turk is in the open field!’ cried the count. ‘For Christ’s sake, man, look at them!’ He pointed through the sagging, smouldering tents to where a disordered host, some mounted, some on foot, were kicking up the dust as they fled towards Mansourah. It was a good two miles to the town, and they had already gone a third of that distance.

  ‘I forbid it,’ hissed de Sonnac.

  ‘Forbid? Who are you to forbid the king’s brother? You forget yourself, Grand Master. I am going on with this attack, and I order you to follow me.’

  ‘I will not, sir! We do not have sufficient men. Our horses are tired, and …’

  ‘Aha. So it is true, then? That the Templars have become soft from living in the East? That they wish to keep the Turk strong and at the throat of the Christians so that they might reap the rewards? Or is it plain cowardice, de Sonnac?’

  The Templar’s face went wine-red and his lips were drawing back into a snarl when, in a flurry of dust, a knight galloped up. He was gasping for breath, and he was as white as a miller from dust and the ash that was raining down from the fires, but when he dragged his sleeve across his face I saw it was Foucaud du Merle. His eyes were round with excitement, and there was blood on his sword-hand. He seized the bridle of Count Robert’s horse, not noticing the argument between the two men because, of course, Foucaud was as deaf as a pillar of stone.

  ‘After them, men! After them!’ he bellowed. ‘The Saracens are fleeing, my lord! After them!’

  Someone had found a horse for William Longspée and after fiddling with the stirrups he was mounted again. He leaned in past Foucaud.

  ‘My lord, the Grand Master has fought the Turk before. He is wise to say that we should wait for your brother. The king cannot be far away. And we have killed their captain, so—’

  ‘After them, men! Let us get after them!’ boomed the hollow voice of Foucaud du Merle.

  ‘Are you a coward too, Salisbury? Are you ready to turn tail, like the English at Taillebourg? The blood of England is as thin as milk, and God knows it!’

  ‘After them! After them!’

  ‘This is too much, Artois,’ Longspée began, but before he could say anything more, Count Robert leaned forward and cuffed Foucaud du Merle on the side of his head, hard, as one might cuff a large dog. He was grinning, and du Merle’s face lit up beneath its skim of dust. The count batted du Merle’s hand off his bridle and without another word, without another glance at the Templar or Longspée, he kicked at his horse so violently that a shudder went through the beast, shaking its wet and dirty hide like a ripple of wind through grass. The beast gave an indignant, pained whinny and leaped forward, almost knocking Foucaud du Merle off his own horse.

  ‘To me, men! To me!’ he yelled, the veins standing out dark in his neck. ‘For France, in the name of God!’

  The two horses began to dance around each other, and very quickly the dance spread to the other beasts in the company, and all the knights began to jeer at the Saracens and call on God to aid them, and still the beasts danced, until with a confused surge the company flung itself towards the Saracen line. Whether it was Count Robert who gave the command, or Foucaud, or some other man, or whether it was nothing more than the mindless urge to set forth like hounds after a fox, still in a few seconds the count and his retinue were charging over the winter wheat and the cabbages towards Mansourah, yelling to Saint Denis. Every French knight within earshot took up the cry and spurred their horses after them.

  ‘He is a lunatic!’ gasped Longspée to the Grand Master. ‘We cannot—’

  ‘Brother, we must,’ said de Sonnac. ‘We cannot abandon the Count of Artois! What would you tell the king, if …’ He did not need to say more.

  ‘Shit!’ It was William Longspée. He was looking past me, back to the bank, no doubt seeing how much of the army had made it across to our side of the river. ‘God, that bloody fool! What is he doing?’ His eyes met mine for a moment, and I knew, clearly, that he wanted with all his heart to wait for more knights to join us. But already some of the English lads were tearing off after the Franks.

  ‘Damn them all,’ muttered Longspée. ‘Damn them all!’ he barked. ‘Then let us go!’

  And with another bitter oath William couched his lance and kicked steel into his horse’s flanks. With the rest of the English, I followed. In another minute, though it seemed an eternity of confusion, of exhausted horses being coaxed and coerced, we had left the Saracen camp behind and were pounding across the flat ground after the French company. I was at Longspée’s right shoulder, at the front of the pack. Beside me was John of Motcombe, holding the flag of Saint Edward, golden cross and five birds rippling against a field bluer than the burning, cloudless sky.

  Tredefeu tossed his head and lunged, jumping a weedy ditch, smashing through an old stack of bean poles. A flurry of doves, freed from a toppling cage, dashed past me, so close that I smelled the sweet-sour taint of their feathers. We were forming up as we charged, swarming into a rough and ragged line. I was a little to the right of the centre, where Count Robert’s flag streamed, and William Longspée was
just in front of me now. I dared a look over my shoulder. Behind us was a formless shoal of knights, English and Templar riding side by side. But now Guillaume de Sonnac pulled to the side, the Templar standard blindingly white above him, and slowly the white figures of the Templars began to drift towards our flank, until we were two companies, Temple and England, crashing across the farmland of Egypt. Out in front, Count Robert and Foucaud du Merle were riding like madmen, Foucaud still bellowing like a crazed bull, the French bunched up behind their leader. Surrounded as I was by a close-packed knot of Englishmen, I was being funnelled ever closer to the front of a swarm of close on five hundred knights. The point of the funnel was Robert, Count of Artois, and it was pointed straight at the gates of Mansourah.

  No one had expected to take Mansourah that day. It is a good-sized town surrounded by strong walls of apricot-coloured stone with many crenulated bastions. As I raced towards it that morning, it occurred to me that this could be any new fortress in Sicily or the Marches, some place that a strong army would expect to invest and sit in front of for months until the defenders starved or lost their nerve. And yet here we were, charging it, giving tongue as if we were romping through some nice safe deer park in the Ile de France. Date palms flashed past, an ibis burst from a ditch right under Tredefeu’s hooves. The Saracen cavalry were pounding up the road in the shadow of the walls. The first man was through the gates. Count Robert’s flag was almost level with the pennant flying from the last Saracen’s lance.

  ‘Follow! Follow!’ cried Raoul de Coucy.

  ‘After them! After them, you men!’ roared Foucaud du Merle.

  Tredefeu was galloping so fast that I could barely feel him beneath me, so smooth was his gait. And now we were on the hard-packed mud of the main roadway that led up to the gates of the town. We must rein in now, surely? I strained to see past John’s shoulder: when would Count Robert hold up his hand? But with a stab of fear I saw that he had already passed under the great stone archway, and that the hunt, the seething rabble of Christian knights, was streaming in behind him like a swarm of bees into a new skep.