This was madness. But even if any of us had lost our nerve, we were trapped. The Templars were hurtling up behind us, and ‘Deus vult! ’ was a thunder that drowned out even the tumult of hooves. They were forcing the French and English into the gateway. I looked about wildly but there was no time. If I wheeled Tredefeu, we would tangle with the fellows next to us and go down. And if we made it through the crush, we were already at the moat.
There was a blink of shadow and I had passed through into Mansourah. I do not remember the gateway, or perhaps the memory was shocked out of me, for as soon as I was within the city my senses were attacked on all sides. Where we had been galloping across a wide, flat plain, suddenly we were hurtling down a long street, not very wide, overhung with buildings. The feeling of speed intensified – in these narrow confines it felt as if Tredefeu was carrying me along at the speed of a shooting star. I could not see up ahead, but from all sides came screeching and yelling, men’s voices and women’s as well, and the air was thick with the smells of a town on a hot day: cooking, smoke, rubbish, piss, shit. An arrow flashed right in front of me, angling down, disappearing under the horse next to me. I looked up and glimpsed open windows, rooftops lined with man-shaped shadows blurred against the sunlight. There was a loud bang and a flash. Tredefeu lurched to one side, just in time, for there in the middle of the street was a cart, with white-clad men trying to push it across our path. It was too high to jump, and there were four hundred howling men behind me. And then a long shadow rose up on the left, a side street. I hauled Tredefeu’s head round and dived into the narrow patch of shade.
Chapter Sixteen
I was enveloped in a deep silence that became the rushing of my blood pounding through the maze of my skull, and into that loud silence came little tips and taps, like hail falling on a slate roof. Something was hurting my throat. And then all the sound came back. I was yelling, and arrows were angling down all around me, bouncing off walls and flagstones and thwacking into wood. I was hurtling down a narrow alley. Somehow I had become separated from the main force, though I could not remember how … And then I could: a cart in the wide street had split us like a river divides around a rocky island, and being on the left, I had almost been crushed against the walls of a grand house, only to find the alley opening up before me. There were two or three Franks ahead of me, the iron shoes on their mounts’ hooves sparking against the stones of the street. A crate of oranges went flying, the bright orbs of fruit lifting for a moment through the slanting rain of arrows, then I was past them. One of the knights tumbled backwards off his horse, eyes wide and teeth bared as he went under me and Tredefeu lunged to avoid him.
There was no one on the street. Closed doors and shuttered windows were flying past, but things were falling from above. I glanced up, and there, against the vivid blue of the sky, were faces looking down at me. Men, women, young faces, old ones, all twisting, animated, mouths open as they yelled or panted, and down from this narrow strip of blue dropped bricks, clay jars, logs. A big round thing hurtled towards me and before I could twist away it struck me on the shoulder. There was a spray of bright red and as my mind told me a boulder had taken off my arm I tasted sweetness on my lips – watermelon. I began to laugh crazily as more fruit exploded around me. And then a huge melon struck the helmet of the last Frank, who had ridden quite far ahead of me, and he toppled sideways and landed with a crash on the flagstones. His shield arm came up and waved feebly. I cursed: now I’d have to stop and put him behind me on Tredefeu, and what fucking idiot would get himself knocked off his horse by fruit? But as I galloped up, a door opened in the wall next to where he lay and a woman ran out. She was dressed in the shapeless black robes of the fellahin, and something flashed in her hand. She bent over the stunned knight and as I charged up, began to hack at him. Her arm rose and fell and the man writhed for a moment and then lay still. As I came up the woman stood and I saw her face: it was pale, with great black-lined eyes. The meat cleaver in her hand was almost black with blood as she shook it at me, screaming. My lance was in my hand, but as, thoughtlessly, I shifted my grip and brought it to the left side of Tredefeu’s neck, I caught what she was saying. It was a word that sailors and exiles use often, and I knew it in many tongues: home. Home, screamed that woman in the language of the Saracens, screamed it again and again at the white-skinned infidel who was about to kill her. And I raised the tip of my lance so that it passed harmlessly above her head and galloped past as she howled at my back.
I glanced over my shoulder, expecting to find more Franks behind me, but with a lurch I found I was alone. And the alley was filling up with people. They were pouring out of their houses, clutching weapons, and now arrows were beginning to whine past me horizontally. They were glancing off my back, bruising, stinging my flesh beneath the mail coat and leather hauberk. There was a blow on my helmet, forcing it down over my eyes, and I pushed it back into place, finding melon juice and blood on my hand. A brick struck Tredefeu on the neck and opened a tear in his sweaty hide, bloodless for a moment and then filling richly.
My decision to spare the fellahin woman, though it passed through my head in a flash, had somehow cleared my senses, and suddenly I was aware of chaos behind me. I turned and saw, rushing towards me like beer up the neck of a flagon, a knot of Frankish knights, forced together by the narrow walls, riding shoulder to shoulder and crashing through the tables and barrels and jars that stood outside each door. At the front I saw a shield I recognised, an English crest – and next to it the face of Longspée, daubed with white dust and scored with sweat. With a shout I reined in, wincing as an arrow hissed past my nose, and shook my lance in the air. Longspée saw me and gave an answering yell. Tredefeu was dancing as if the paving stones beneath him were the coals of hell, but in only a few of my heartbeats – and my heart was beating as fast as a sparrow’s – the knights were almost upon me, and Tredefeu lunged forward, just a tail’s flick ahead of the pack.
‘The dirty pigs blocked the street!’ shouted Longspée. Somehow he had forced his mount up next to mine.
‘Yes!’ I answered, turning towards him. There was an arrow sticking out of his shoulder, but the head was through, and the shaft was barely held by the ball of muscle at the top of his arm.
‘It’s nothing,’ he shouted in answer to my silent question. ‘But it’s a bloody mess we’re in, Petrus!’
‘Where are the others?’ I knew all the English knights at least by sight, and I saw hardly any of them in the press that heaved and blundered through the bloody gut of the alley.
‘Some in front – I got this, and slowed up for a moment …’ He jerked his head towards his wounded shoulder. ‘Then there was a bloody cart in my way. Don’t know who this lot are. Templars all got through, I think.’
We were screaming at each other, spittle flying, just to make ourselves heard above the terrible drumming of hooves in that narrow space, the skirling of horses and of men. For we were being slaughtered here. Already the press of knights was thinner, and the faces that still remained, white-eyed, blood splashed, were hollow with pain and fear. Arrows were falling like midsummer rain. With a horrible start I saw that one man was on fire, and that flaming brands, tumbling alongside roof tiles, bricks, fruit, eggs, cooking pots, were being hurled down upon us from the narrow strip of blue sky above us. Our voices, English, French, were filling this deep ditch with a confused, terrified roar. And then it stopped. We had come to a place where a larger street cut across the alley, forming a sort of square. Back in Venice there would have been a well in the middle of it, but here there was a small domed structure of whitewashed stucco, the tomb of a local saint. Banners of green cloth hung about it, and dying flowers lay against its dusty, tiled portico.
The tomb was blocking our way, and our horses, better trained than their riders, had already made up their minds to go right or left around the obstacle. Tredefeu’s head was going to the right, and I was looking past the curved wall of the little building when an arrow struck my helmet
hard, right between my eyes. It did not hurt but the tenk of metal upon metal set my ears ringing. As I blinked, I saw the archer, crouched behind the tomb, setting another arrow to his string. Beyond, the street continued, wider now, and there were trees in the distance …
‘Trees, William! It must be the river!’ I glanced across at Longspée. He was abreast of me, and his knees were almost touching mine as his horse slowed, turning his foam-splashed face to the left of the tomb. But the earl was leaning forward in his saddle, jerking as if an unseen hand were striking him between the shoulder blades, and from beneath the rim of his helmet jutted an arrow.
‘Oh, Christ …’ I managed to grab the reins from his hand and pulled both our horses up, almost sending us all crashing into the side of the tomb. Knights were flying past us on both sides. There was a sharp twang, sharp enough to cut through the din of hooves, and I remembered the archer. He was right in front of me, but – I have never been able to understand why – he had turned and was shooting into the stream of Franks rushing past him. With his short, curved bow he could have put an arrow right through my chain mail at such close quarters, put an arrow right through my body, or through Tredefeu’s skull. Perhaps he was dazzled by the bounty of helpless targets that fate had sent him that day. I could see the sweat beading on his eyebrows. Then I put my lance through his neck.
‘To me! To me!’ I shrieked at the knights, almost all past us now. ‘To Salisbury!’ I was off Tredefeu, and William was tumbling down on top of me. I went down with him, and scrambling onto all fours, shook off my shield and hauled my friend into the doorway of the tomb. He was kicking, and there was a cracked, wet hiss rising from his throat. I held him down with a knee on his chest and bent over him, pushing off his helmet. There was blood, thick and black and welling, but it was as I feared. The arrow had lodged in his right eye. Hoping … hoping what? I caught hold of the shaft lightly, but it was stuck fast. Not just in the socket, then, but through to the brain.
‘William!’ I said. ‘William! Can you hear me?’ His head began to jerk from side to side, his chain-mail hood scraping the floor and sending cold echoes through the small curved space. The saint’s grave was just behind us, a sober rectangle of stone draped in a threadbare green shroud embroidered with silver script. ‘I’ll get you to the river,’ I told him. His hand flew up and cuffed my cheek, then fell back, fingers grabbing blindly. They tangled in the shroud and jerked it loose in a cloud of dust. There was some other sound coming from his mouth and I leaned closer. He had managed to find a word, somewhere in his ruined brain, and with it the strength to send it off into the darkness.
I think it was ‘Mother’. But perhaps it was ‘Ida’. Then he died.
I left him there, clutching the shroud of a Mussulman holy man, tomb dust already settling on his face, his feet in the Egyptian sun. How long had it taken Longspée to die? Two minutes? No more … but out here there was a small mound of dead men and two horses, writhing on their backs in slick puddles of blood. Jesus … But no, there was Tredefeu, eyes rolling wildly but still upright, waiting for me despite the hail of missiles. There was the archer I had killed, my lance in his ribcage. The last knights were clattering out of the square. I had time to pull my lance from the dead archer and jump onto Tredefeu, desperately working my arm through the straps of my shield. Behind us, out of the alley, a crowd of townsfolk was beginning to surge. Tredefeu needed no urging: as soon as my arse was in the saddle he took off after the Franks.
We charged up the wider street towards the palm trees. The arrows were even here, and crossbow bolts were slamming into the walls and the roadway. Men were tumbling from their horses, and horses were dropping and somersaulting, sending their riders flying. There was blood everywhere: on the walls, on the cobbles, the salt stink of it heavy in the air. Tredefeu jumped and jumped again over writhing men and beasts. And then the street came to an end and we emerged into a blindingly white square, white from the sun hammering from marble pavers and limed walls. There were palm trees spreading ferny shade, and beyond them, not the Nile, but a grand building topped with delicate crenulations. From between them, arrows began to hiss down. Almost at once Tredefeu was struck, the shaft appearing next to my left knee. I pulled it out as the horse plunged and shrieked. As I did so three more arrows ticked into my shield. This was not a place to stay. Behind, the alleyway was choked with enraged townsfolk. To my left, other alleyways, narrower than the one I had just ridden down. I swung Tredefeu through a storm of arrows, and there, opening between a palm tree and a fountain that looked as if it had been carved from a sugar loaf, a much wider street. There were many figures running to and fro across it and clouds of dust or smoke were thickening, but the way was not blocked. With a shout I spurred Tredefeu, who laid back his ears and bared his teeth, and lunged into an uneven canter. A Saracen on horseback, a fine-looking man in rich armour with great sprays of feathers in his silk-wrapped helmet, saw me coming and turned away from the confusion and dust. He was carrying a lance and a buckler and with a high-pitched shout he couched his lance and charged me. Although missiles were flying all around us the square was empty and, not for the first time that day, I had the feeling I was in a dream, that as I couched my own lance and hauled Tredefeu’s head round I was at some imaginary tilting practice inside my own head. Tredefeu reared and threw himself forward, and my ballocks met the pommel. I roared in pain and crouched down over the horse’s neck, and perhaps that saved me, for the Saracen’s lance glanced off the top of my helmet and he careered past, his knee scraping mine. I pulled Tredefeu up and turned him. The Saracen knight was coming towards me again, but behind him, out of the narrow alley from which I had just escaped, people were streaming, some of them pausing to launch arrows at me, others whirling slingshots. His lance quivering, the Saracen was bounding across the flagstones. Cursing, I threw my own lance away and drew my sword, spurring Tredefeu as I did so. I was just in time to knock the tip of his lance aside with my shield, and swinging my sword I cut through the wooden shaft and let Tredefeu’s speed carry the backhand stroke into the man. The sword met his silver shield with a dull clash but there was the weight of a horse and a man behind it and the Saracen went backwards over his cantle like a straw jousting target and landed heavily amongst the spent arrows. A stone from a slingshot hit the nosepiece of my helmet and another lodged in an eyeslit, jarring my head backwards. I thumbed out the stone and left the square as fast as Tredefeu could carry me.
But at once I found myself in the middle of a confused fight. Some French knights, still mounted, were hacking with their swords at a thick crowd of townsmen who were lunging at them with spears and hay forks. They saw me and gave a shout, and I swear they were smiling. I charged towards them, but even as I closed the distance, the townsmen made a rush and dragged the knights from their horses. There were other cries in French and English coming from nearby. A knot of Englishmen, all of them on foot, had their backs to the wall of a house and were trading blows with a much larger body of Saracen soldiers, while bricks and pots and firewood rained down on their heads from the upper windows. A heavy chair came crashing down, knocking three lads to the ground, and the Saracens rushed in. Tredefeu was still cantering, wild-eyed, looking for a way through, and suddenly we were surrounded by white robes: the Templars! I thought with a sort of mad elation. There was a great thud: a huge beam of wood, such as might serve as the roof-beam of a house, had landed just in front of us, sending up a cloud of dust. Then another, landing upright and teetering for a long moment before slamming down, then more and more, until it seemed as if a forest were planting itself around us. Out of the dust that was now as thick as smoke a face emerged: William de Sonnac, the Grand Master, half his face a mask of blood, a broken, pulpy ball hanging from an empty eye socket.
‘They are blocking all the streets!’ he bellowed. Another Templar appeared at his side.
‘You must leave, Grand Master!’ he said. ‘You!’ I understood he was talking to me. ‘Find some knights and take the
Grand Master to safety! There is fighting by the south gate and it is still open – go!’
Two English knights rode up, dusty white and streaked with sweat, their wispy, never-shaven beards plastered to their chins. I didn’t recognise them, but they knew me. They were terrified, but the rage of battle had painted the familiar, rictus smile on both faces.
‘Sir Petrus, thank Christ we’ve found you,’ croaked one.
‘It is—’ began the other. But whatever it was I never discovered, for an arrow, shot almost straight down from above, struck him in the neck so that the feathers quivered next to his ear, the head buried deep in his chest. Blood poured out of his mouth and he fell forward onto his horse’s neck.
‘Oh, Edgar, dear God …’ moaned the other boy. ‘Sir – the Earl of Salisbury, sir?’
‘He’s dead, too,’ I snapped, and seeing the boy’s face go slack, I found myself thinking, Well, what the fuck did you expect?
There was a swirling of the dust cloud as a tightly bunched group of knights dashed past, and for a moment the street was revealed. Where – a minute ago, no more – there had been open roadway, now lay a barricade of beams and everywhere the sprawled shapes of dead knights. I was at the centre of a tight knot of Franks, ringed by men on foot protecting the legs of the horses with their shields. Saracen fighters and armed townsmen were rushing in to hack at the shields and to try and shoot arrows at point-blank range, then darting back into the confusion. Men were going down all around us, arrows bristling from them. To my amazement I found my own shield was thick with arrows. Another three stuck out of Tredefeu’s caparison at his shoulders and two at his rump. As I watched, again with that feeling that I was in a vaguely uncomfortable dream, a spear point, tangled with blood-drenched hair, slid across the underside of my shield. Reflexively I clamped down with my shield arm, trapping the shaft of the spear. A tall Saracen in robes of very dark blue embroidered with silver had fought his way through the shield wall. I saw nothing of his face save the blackness of his beard and the whites of his eyes, but the dream was gone and the din of battle swamped me again. My sword was already falling, and the edge caught the Saracen above the right ear, the heavy iron shearing through the man’s thin helmet as if it were parchment and taking off his jaw, beard and all. As he fell, another man took his place, but he was set upon by the knights on foot and disappeared beneath a welter of blows.
The Fools’ Crusade Page 21