by Tom Harper
‘I almost broke my toe,’ complained an aggrieved voice.
‘I’ll break your leprous arm if you’re not more careful,’ retorted the first man. Belatedly, I realised that I knew his voice – it was Saewulf’s. I found him standing at the foot of the tower, while eight Frankish men-at-arms laboured to lift a massive slab of wood.
‘What are you doing?’ I whispered. ‘Did this come off the tower? Have the Fatimids struck it with their stonethrowers?’
‘Not yet.’ Saewulf turned away to hiss instructions to another team of men, who seemed to be manhandling one of the wattle screens down from the summit of the tower.
‘What then? Are you dismantling it? Have we abandoned the siege?’ Every possibility was dreadful, but that was too much to contemplate.
Saewulf grinned, his teeth white in the darkness. ‘I will tear it down, and rebuild it in three days. That’s what Christ said. But this shouldn’t take more than a night. We’re taking it apart and rebuilding it over there.’ He pointed to the east.
I gaped. ‘In one night?’
‘That’s what we built it for.’ Even as he spoke, another piece of siding slid down from the tower, like a snake shedding its skin.
‘Is Count Raymond doing the same?’
Saewulf shook his head. ‘The stubborn bastard built his tower where there was nowhere else to go. Now he’ll just have to push it up exactly where the Fatimids expect.’ He slapped the side of his tower affectionately, like the rump of a horse. ‘And so will we, if we don’t hurry. Take that, and follow where the others lead you.’
It was an exhausting, eerie night. Hour after hour, we trudged back and forth over the ridge above Jerusalem, ferrying the dismembered machine to its new site. We were forbidden from carrying lights lest we betray our secret, while a choir of priests kept up a chorus of hymns and anthems to mask the clatter of our work from the watchers on the walls.
The night seemed unending – as if day had been abolished, and all nights ran together unbroken. I prayed for it to end, and then prayed for it to last as I watched the achingly slow progress of the tower’s reassembly. My hands grew chafed and numb from manhandling the pieces of the siege tower, my legs were weary and my head ached from lack of sleep. But just as Saewulf’s carpenters were hammering the last few trenails into the uppermost storey of the tower, and the wheelwrights oiling its axles, a bloody smear of red trickled over the Mount of Olives in the east. I thought of Arnulf ’s prophecy, and wondered if this would be the last of all days – and even if it was not, whether I would see another.
Dawn brought fresh urgency to the world. Birdsong was drowned out by the blast of horns and trumpets as the Franks summoned their armies to battle. They assembled on the spur that dropped towards the city, their banners limp above them in the still morning. On the high walls in front of them the sentries from the Fatimid garrison looked out in disbelief. To them it must have appeared as though the land itself had shifted in the night, a mountain erupted and a forest of spears grown in the arid soil.
Once all the army had assembled, the princes rode out. Godfrey came last of all, riding the white horse I had seen in the paddock. He had braided its mane with silver ribbons so that it shone in the morning like dew. Just in front of him, on foot, Arnulf carried a golden cross with fragments of the True Cross embedded in it. I wondered if relics could hold memories, and if so if those few splinters of wood felt the stir of being so close to the place where they had lifted a man to his willing death, a thousand and more years ago.
The princes reined in, turned to face the army and dismounted. There would be no place for horses in the coming battle. Grooms led the animals away, while Godfrey and Arnulf walked towards the hulking tower. Its back was open and undefended, so we could see them slowly climbing the ladders inside all the way to the roof of the machine, as high as the towers that guarded Jerusalem behind them. There Godfrey turned around to face the watching army.
A murmur of awe shivered through the crowd. At that height he was high enough to catch the first rays of the sun coming over the Mount of Olives, and in its pure light he dazzled like a god. His fair hair glowed like a nimbus of pale gold; he wore a white tabard sparkling with five golden crosses for the five wounds of Christ, and a white cloak hung from his shoulders. Even the mail hauberk beneath seemed to have been brushed with silver, and polished so bright it shone white in the dawn. He gazed out on the army and lifted his arms wide. The gold cross gleamed above him like a sign from heaven.
He drew a breath, as if to make a speech, but there were only two words he needed to say that morning and he shouted them with all his voice: two words that had propelled the army all the way to the gates of Jerusalem. Deus vult. The army cheered. They hammered their sword pommels against their shields; they stamped their feet and the butts of their spears on the ground until the dust rose in clouds to their waists. Most of all, they shouted. They roared out the cry until it filled the valleys like the ocean, rolling from the Mount of Olives across Mount Moriah and Mount Zion all the way to the western ridge. They roared until the earth trembled with their noise, until it seemed they might shake down Jerusalem into dust.
Three boulders rose into the air and hurtled towards the walls, flung by the mangonels we had brought up in the night. They struck home against the ramparts, and the rhythmic chant of Deus vult swelled into a chaotic roar of triumph. And so the battle for Jerusalem began.
As Godfrey clambered down from the roof of the wooden tower, Arnulf removed the golden cross from its staff and fastened it to an iron spike that protruded from the top of the tower. It gleamed like a crown. Perhaps it seemed right to him that men would die under fragments of the same wood that had crucified Christ, but I did not think that the man who died on that cross had intended it to be stained with blood again. All around me, men were running about to prepare the assault, while the bombardment from the mangonels flew overhead. I had just started moving towards the tower when I heard a voice calling my name. I turned, to see a Frankish knight looking at me commandingly. His name was Grimbauld, one of Godfrey’s lieutenants. He had lost the lower part of his left arm in the battle for Antioch, but had adapted the slings on his shield so that he could bind it on to what remained. Too unbalanced to wield a sword with skill, he now carried a club-headed mace in its stead.
‘You!’ he barked. ‘Get to the ram.’
I stared at him, my eyes dry and hollow. ‘Duke Godfrey told me my place was on the tower.’
‘I tells you where you go, and that’s where I tell you.’ He took a half-step forward, and one glance into his bullbrown eyes convinced me he would not hesitate to wield his mace on me if I defied him. Cursing my bargain with Godfrey, I led Sigurd and the others towards the ram.
It was a squat, brute thing, built low like an animal crouched to pounce. Because they could not find a tree big enough for their purpose, they had taken three trunks and bound them together into a giant arm, then capped its fist with iron. They had mounted this horrendous weight on a ten-wheeled carriage whose axles were themselves almost as thick as tree-trunks. Wicker canopies covered it from above, protruding like wings, while wooden stakes bristled from its side like arms for men to push it. Ropes had been fastened to it as well, so that the whole machine took on the appeareance of a monstrous beetle, or a scorpion caught in a snare. They called it Apollyon, the angel of hell whose name is Destruction. Now, men flocked to it, lining its sides and taking up the ropes like draught animals. Sigurd and I were lucky: we found spaces by the side of the beast, pushing on its staves rather than hauling on the ropes. That put us under the canopy, which shielded us from the sun and would presently shield us from hotter things, though it also meant we were blind to everything except the stooped backs of the men in front of us. Glancing around, I saw Thomas and Aelfric two rows behind us. I could still hear the crack of the mangonels, the rush as the stones flew overhead and the thud as they collided unseen with the walls. Mercifully, I did not hear any response: as yet, the Fatim
ids did not seem to have managed to bring their own battery to bear on our new, unexpected position.
Grimbauld lifted his mace. The men on the ropes pulled them taut, while those on the wooden bars tensed their arms against them. Now I could not look at anything except the rough wood beneath my fingers, and the ground below. If I lost my footing here I would be trampled by the men behind me in an instant – or, worse, ground under the wheels.
I did not see Grimbauld’s mace drop, but I heard the command that accompanied it.
‘Begin.’
With a groan that seemed torn from the wood itself, we heaved on the ram. It rocked forward an inch, and for a moment the sum strength of three hundred men held it there. Then it rolled back. A dispirited moan shuddered through us. My arms, already sore from the night’s labours, burned anew.
From the corner of my eye I saw Grimbauld walking back. He disappeared from my sight, but he must have taken up a position at the rear of the machine for a moment later I heard the cry of ‘Ready’, and then the beat as he rapped his mace on the end of the tree-trunks. We hauled again. The ram edged forward, tottering, but fear of failing must have given us new strength, for this time it rolled forward. An inch, no more, before it shuddered to a standstill.
‘I’d like to find whoever made these wheels and tie him to the rim,’ muttered Sigurd grimly.
I had neither breath nor time to answer. The mace struck its beat again, and again we pushed forward with all our strength.
It was not how I had hoped it would be – a headlong charge, a terrifying scramble up the walls, and then victory. It was not even the dense, desperate mêlée of hand-to-hand combat I had feared – not yet, at least. Instead, the battle for Jerusalem was nothing more than drudgery. For what seemed like hours we heaved, hauled and cursed the machine forward, inch by terrible inch. Some men fainted with exhaustion and had to be dragged away, but I stayed in my place, refusing to let go. I was tiring badly, but if ever I failed to move forward with the others I immediately felt the harsh touch of the bar behind striking me across my shoulders. The wheels barely seemed to move – as often as not, we had to drag the ram forward rather than roll it, leaving two great welts in the earth where we had passed. When I looked back, it was pitiful to see what little distance we had come.
Meanwhile, the sparks of battle began to take hold and burst into flame around us. Alone among the Franks, Tancred’s company had kept their horses: they rode in a loose screen on either side of us, shielding us from any counter-attack and peppering the ramparts with arrows. They had to be nimble, for although the Fatimids still did not seem to have brought up their heavy siege weapons, they had by now managed to deploy smaller slings and rock-throwers, which lashed us with well-aimed stones. To all that I had already lost or diminished on that pilgrimage – my family, my strength, my faith – I now added my humanity. I saw the men on the ropes dying, their faces smashed in or their necks broken, and all I felt was relief. When rocks hit the wattle roof above me and bounced away, I did not just feel gratitude for my protection, but jealous pleasure that I had what others did not. And when I saw the arrows begin to fall around me, cutting men down, I was glad, for it meant we must at last be nearing the walls.
The end, when it came, was sudden. We were stooped like slaves, pressing our bleeding hands against the staves to drive the beast forward, except that this time the ram did not stop when we did. It rolled on. Those who held on to the handles were dragged forward, while those who had let go found themselves knocked down by the men behind. Standing at the end of the bar, and far enough forward, I just had time to see what was happening. I jumped clear, pulling Sigurd after me as we stumbled into the fevered mass of men around us.
The Franks had chosen the line of their attack well. The ground here sloped quite steeply to the outer walls: as soon as the ram crossed the rim its head went down, and the full power of its dead weight was unleashed. The men who had given every ounce of their strength to move it that far suddenly found themselves left behind or – unable to move themselves fast enough – trapped beneath it.
It struck home with a thunderclap, shattering the wall like glass and blasting it into a thousand fragments. Through the dust cloud that engulfed it, I saw the ram lumbering on. With a second crash, deeper and more profound than the first, it slammed against the inner wall. Deep cracks exploded through the stone, but it did not break. Only then did the ram come to rest.
The break in the battle lasted a heartbeat longer, while bricks and dust slowly settled. Then, in an instant, the fighting erupted again, fiercer than ever, and this time I had no roof to shield me. Through the choked air I saw Grimbauld standing defiant, his shield held over his head and his mace pointing towards the walls. ‘Forward!’
‘Forward!’ Another voice echoed it in my ear. Sigurd. He ran forward and I followed, craning around to see if Thomas was with us. In the dust, we must have been all but invisible to the defenders on the walls, but they poured their missiles down on us like rain. Several fell near me; one arrow planted itself right between my feet, but I ran on. The ruins of the wall loomed before me. I slid to a halt behind it and huddled close so that the missiles could not strike. Sigurd was with me; a second later, Thomas dived into the shelter as well. A scratch on his face was bleeding, but otherwise he seemed unharmed. Nearby, I heard Grimbauld still bellowing us to advance.
‘We won’t get through that gap,’ said Sigurd. He pointed to our left. A little way along the wall, I could make out the rear end of the ram protruding through the hole it had smashed. The inner and outer ramparts were so close here, and the ram so long, that it could not pass all the way through but plugged the very opening it had made.
Grimbauld had seen it too. ‘Back to the ram! Bend yourselves onto those ropes and pull, curse you.’
It seemed almost impossible that anyone could have survived in that storm of arrows, but men came running through the fog and tried to pick up the traces that lay splayed out behind the ram. The dust was settling, but the air was not growing any clearer. If anything, it seemed thicker. And from somewhere beyond the wall, I smelled burning.
‘The ram,’ shouted a voice. ‘The ram is on fire.’
Holding up my arm as a makeshift shield – better to take an arrow in the hand than in the face – I risked a glance over my barricade. With the ram stuck beneath the walls, the Fatimids could drop burning straw and oil on it at will. Flames already licked up from the wattle roof, and a column of black smoke poured into the sky, though it would take an age for the great trees beneath to burn.
‘Get it out of there!’ Ten teams of oxen could hardly have hauled the ram up that slope, yet men still tried, running in to harness themselves to the beast Apollyon. If more did not die, it was only because the smoke from the fire blinded those who had set it. But the ram would be ashes before we dragged it free. Instead of trying to move it, men now clambered around it into the narrow space between the walls. There they tried to smother the fire with dust and earth – but the ground was stony, and there was little they could use. Beside me, Thomas made to follow them, and I had to grab the collar of his hauberk to haul him back.
‘No.’ With the roar of battle in my ears, I put my face an inch from his merely to be understood. ‘Think of Helena and Everard. You will not help them by dying now.’
He shrugged off my hand, but did not go further.
Now a new and terrible thing happened: women began to appear in the battle. They staggered out of the smoke, bent double under the weight of the burdens they carried – vessels of water to quench the burning ram. The sight of the water made my parched throat ache for a sip, even a single drop, but there was none for me. Each vessel was solemnly handed forward to the men at the front, then poured on the tongues of flame that licked the ram. Each time the water touched the fire it vapourised in an instant, hissing up in terrible gouts of steam. It was torment to witness.
At length, a knight came running back to Grimbauld, crouched near us in the lee of t
he wall, and shouted that the fire had been put out. All around, the bodies of women – girls, some of them – lay strewn with the men, promiscuous in death.
Grimbauld glanced over his shoulder. ‘Go back to Count Godfrey,’ he told the knight. ‘Tell him to bring up the siege tower. We’ll never get close without men on the tower to cover us.’
The knight saluted and ran off, weaving his way through the maze of corpses at his feet. After what seemed an age – though on a battlefield, time stretches as long as a man’s life – I saw him return. Instead of a sword he carried two shields; he scuttled forward like a crab, creating an impenetrable wall against the arrows that swarmed about him. He crawled down the embankment to where Grimbauld waited and raised the two shields as a roof over them.
‘Duke Godfrey says he cannot bring up the tower while the ram is blocking the breach,’ he stammered. ‘He orders you to drag it back – or, if that is impossible, to burn it out of there.’
Grimbauld stared at him with wild eyes. ‘Burn it out?’
The knight nodded glumly. Even as he did so, another column appeared at the top of the slope and began shuffling towards us. These men carried bales of hay and armfuls of firewood, piled so high they almost bent double with the weight. At the sight of them, a trumpet whooped from the walls, and a fresh burst of arrows showered down on them. Many fell clutching their burdens like children, but some managed to reach the ram and stack their kindling around it. When there was enough, Grimbauld lobbed a burning brand onto the makeshift pyre. Flames swept up around the great tree-trunks at the heart of the ram, and we cheered it, even as we stood on the corpses of those who had given their lives to prevent such a thing.
Cheers turned to disbelief as a torrent of water gushed from the sky, drowning out the fire in an instant. Gleeful shouts of triumph erupted from the wall; I looked up, and saw the Fatimids hauling back a great cauldron they had poured out. Some of them waved; I even saw one jump into an embrasure, pull up his tunic and – to the cheers of his companions – send a contemptuous stream of piss spattering down on the ram. An outraged volley of arrows pricked him back, but was immediately answered in kind as the Fatimids unleashed a new onslaught on the despairing Franks.