A Blood Red Horse

by K. M. Grant

  “There will be no slaughter of these people unless they resist,” said Reginald. “We will simply secure the place, then wait for the wagons. They should not be too long behind us. Is that understood?”

  The count, William, and Gavin murmured their assent and gathered together in close formation. Gavin was now quiet. Between them and the settlement rose some small, stony hillocks on which Reginald kept a close eye. It was not until it was too late that they heard the thunder of hooves, not from in front, but from behind. Out of nowhere, or so it seemed, a small band of Saracens rushed across the plain, brandishing their weapons and shattering the peace of the morning with their cries.

  In an instant everything changed. The Christian knights, with the ease of long practice, formed a star, their horses’ tails in the center. They held their lances directly in front of them. William heard Gavin’s breathing become shallow.

  “God protect us,” Gavin muttered.

  “God protect us,” William repeated, trying to keep his voice low and steady. Underneath him Hosanna pawed the ground. “Help me, Hosanna,” the boy whispered, and the horse’s ears pricked back as if to catch the words.

  There were about fifteen Saracens, most mounted on small, agile ponies that were easy to leap on and off. At their head rode Kamil on his Arab. Compared with the Saracens’ mounts, the Great Horses of the knights looked large and cumbersome. Hosanna, so much smaller and more elegant than the others, immediately caught Kamil’s attention. Ah! That horse again. He would have that horse. Shouting instructions to his men to kill the knights but be sure to spare the red horse, Kamil waited until his soldiers had disabled the knights’ lances, then rushed in to challenge Reginald in single combat.

  Reginald could do nothing else but break the formation. He shouted for each knight to defend himself as he sent his horse forward, his sword raised. But despite his superior height and weight, he could not maneuver quickly enough to outflank his younger, slighter enemy. Kamil, using his wits as well as his weapons, presented the knight with an opening, but only if he leaned down. Then before Reginald could regain his balance, Kamil slipped round and pushed him from his horse. Another Saracen immediately moved in for the kill.

  The Count of Dreux, meanwhile, was being attacked on all sides. He killed four of Kamil’s men before going down shouting, “God and the Holy Sepulchre!” Blood poured from a hundred wounds. Gavin and William, engaged in struggles of their own, pushed Montlouis and Hosanna close together, nose to tail, so that horses and knights could protect each other.

  Kamil shouted to his men to break them apart. Then when Gavin was fully engaged on the side away from Hosanna, Kamil rode up behind William and raised his sword. Gavin sensed rather than saw what was about to happen and thrust his spurs into Montlouis’s left flank. As he had been trained to do, the horse leaped sideways, pushing Hosanna out of the way and causing Kamil’s blow to miss William’s neck and fall instead directly onto Gavin’s right arm. Gavin’s sword dropped out of his hand as Kamil, spitting with vengeance, pulled his horse round and plunged his own sword directly into Montlouis’s heart. The horse sighed, shuddered, then sank to the ground, his eyes wide. Gavin fell directly underneath him.

  William pulled Hosanna up and leaped off as best he could, cursing his unwieldy armor. Tearing off his mailed gloves, he tugged and pulled at Gavin in an effort to pull him free as Montlouis finally rolled over and was still. Gavin cried out as Montlouis’s blood flowed into the sand. But there was no time for mourning. Two Saracen men rushed at William, their swords poised.

  “Stop!” Kamil shouted before the first deathblow sliced down. “Stop! This skirmish is over. Go and see to our wounded. This Christian is mine.”

  His men obeyed, and Kamil dismounted. He walked over to catch a snorting, blowing Hosanna, grabbed the reins, and vaulted easily into the saddle. Then he rode over to William. Standing above the brothers, his sword above his head, Kamil was a terrifying sight.

  “Are you prepared for death?” he cried in Arabic.

  Neither Gavin nor William could understand him, but it was plain what he meant. Gavin, in considerable pain, gave a small groan. William, still kneeling, said nothing. He kept his eyes glued to Hosanna’s hooves.

  “If you beg for your life, I will spare you,” said Kamil, suddenly switching to the Norman French he had learned as a young boy. “I’m told Christians will always beg.”

  Addressed in his own language, William looked up slowly. “We will not beg,” he said. He wanted to touch Hosanna’s nose, now so close above him, but he could not let go of Gavin.

  Kamil glanced down, preparing to strike. But as he did so, Hosanna bent his head, covering William’s with his own. To kill William, Kamil would have to pull Hosanna away. Something—perhaps it was because the horse’s gesture seemed so like a caress—prevented Kamil from twitching the reins. Before he had really thought, he found himself lowering his sword. The Saracen soldiers looked surprised. Was their bloodthirsty master becoming soft? Kamil noticed their expressions, but instead of their faces he saw in his mind’s eye the face of the knight with the teardrop birthmark, the knight he had allowed to live, and who still haunted his dreams. Yet still, and Kamil groaned inwardly, he could not bring himself to pick up his sword. The Christian kneeling before him was hardly a knight. He was just a boy of about Kamil’s own age. Venting his frustration, Kamil kicked Hosanna hard in the ribs. The horse grunted but wheeled round obediently.

  “Let these men go,” Kamil ordered, speaking in Arabic again and glaring so hard that his own men shrank from him. “There is no need for us to shed their blood when their deaths will be worse for being slow. They will die in the desert. Come, collect up the spare horses and let’s be gone.”

  Kamil was about to ride off when he turned back.

  “This horse,” he said to William, again in French, “what is its name?”

  William stood up slowly. It was not until he was standing straight that he trusted himself to speak.

  “Who are you?” he asked. “How do you know our language?”

  Kamil looked down. “When you want to kill vermin, you learn how they behave,” he said. “Many of us speak your language.”

  “Is that how you think of us, as vermin?”

  “Yes.”

  William was silent for a moment, and then looked at Kamil again. “It is curious,” he said simply. “Because that is exactly how we think of you.”

  Kamil gave a bitter laugh.

  “Well then,” he said, “we understand each other perfectly.” Hosanna was restive, and Kamil had difficulty keeping him still. “Stand!” he ordered. Hosanna obeyed.

  William watched in agony.

  “You see,” said Kamil. “The horse also understands me perfectly. Now answer my question. I want to know if my new horse has a name.”

  “The horse—” William said slowly and in utter despair, “my horse… My horse is called Hosanna.”

  Kamil, showing not a glimmer of pity, nodded and spat into the sand. Then he folded his legs round Hosanna’s sides and galloped off. Soon he and his men were out of sight.

  William stood quite still for a few moments, then knelt down, took his brother in his arms, and began to shake uncontrollably.

  Three days later William and Gavin were picked up by another foraging party. They were almost unrecognizable. William had carried Gavin as best he could, trying to find his way back to the camp. Their tongues were black. Gavin’s wounded arm was completely useless. When William could finally speak again, he uttered only one word, “Hosanna,” and turned his face to the wall. Hal, overwhelmed with grief, could be comforted by no one, not even by Dargent, although he did his best.

  15

  Saladin’s camp, east of Jerusalem, autumn 1191

  Kamil was very pleased with his new horse. He found the chestnut stallion responsive and quick. He was also braver than Kamil’s customary Arab. On the way back to Saladin’s camp, he leaped over water-filled dykes without hesitation, and even
when a snake crossed their path, he stood still while Kamil killed it with a spear. By the time Kamil dismounted, he was sure that he had never had a horse quite like him. The only trouble was the horse’s name, which, because the word was so inextricably linked to Christian worship, Kamil refused to use. It did not matter.

  “I shall call you Red Horse,” said Kamil as he led Hosanna to his new quarters.

  Hosanna found himself in the lap of luxury. He was stationed slightly away from the other horses, shaded from the sun by a silk awning. Kamil’s previous horse was sent to the horse lines, and Hosanna had his undivided attention. Nothing was too much trouble. Kamil felt in his bones that he had stumbled onto something very valuable. He had not had the horse three days before he ordered a special bridle made of soft and supple oiled camel skin. After a cursory look at the jeweled headband Sir Thomas had given William when he was dubbed to knighthood, Kamil threw it away. Then he ordered special brushes and took care to groom Hosanna himself. He frowned when he found the remains of the wale on Hosanna’s neck and wondered how it had got there. It was the horse’s only blemish apart from a few lumps on his legs. Kamil didn’t mind. He thought the scars gave the horse character.

  Not that the horse needed any more character. Hosanna charmed his new owner with his intelligence. He did not have to be held if Kamil mounted or dismounted. But within seconds of Kamil leaping on, he could go like the wind. He bent his head willingly to Kamil’s commands, stepping neatly in any direction the boy chose. One afternoon, to much applause, Kamil taught Hosanna to rear and to do a half-turn at the canter. Saladin came to look, and was pleased to see that Kamil had found something to do other than sit and look mutinous.

  Kamil found Hosanna no pushover. The horse had lost none of his spirit, and once or twice he dumped Kamil unceremoniously in the sand. It said something for the red horse that Kamil took this in good stead. Far from punishing him, Kamil soon learned to respect as well as love him. As the days grew colder, he sometimes found Hosanna looking steadfastly into the distance, his dark eyes inscrutable. At times like this, Kamil would pet him and make much of him. But although Hosanna seemed happy enough rubbing his head against Kamil’s soothing hands, he continued to gaze at something Kamil could not see himself.

  “I think you were fond of that boy, Red Horse,” Kamil said one day as he brought Hosanna a piece of sweet bread and a thicker blanket. It was November, and the winter rains threatened. “And I think he was nice to you. But you must forget him. You are a Saracen horse now. It’s not too bad a life, don’t you agree?” And Hosanna stopped looking into the distance and blew down Kamil’s neck instead.

  The rains came. Life was no longer comfortable. Kamil had a tent constructed for Hosanna and complained to the tentmaker when it leaked. He employed a small boy to clean the wet mud and sand from Hosanna’s legs after he had been exercised and always made sure the horse’s grain ration had not been touched by rats. On days when it hailed, Kamil did not take Hosanna out. Seeing to the horse’s welfare kept him from thinking too much, and Kamil was grateful for that.

  Things were not going well for the Saracens. Saladin, like Richard, was becoming more and more troubled by the progress of the crusade. In the sultan’s estimation, despite occasional minor victories for his own men, the Christians had been too successful. If they decided to take Jerusalem, Saladin wondered if he could stop them. The emirs inside the Holy City had an unholy fear of Richard. Furthermore, the Saracen army, unused to being in the field for so long, was becoming restive. The men wanted to go home. Baha ad-Din had heard rumors relayed from the bazaar at Acre that more Christians were going to arrive, and Saladin no longer held any ports from which to launch sea attacks. Now that Richard was in the Holy Land, the Christians had become bold. Everything pointed toward making a truce. But a truce with Richard? Would this king, whom everybody now called Lionheart, be willing to make a deal with a Muslim? And indeed, could Saladin, without losing face, make a deal with a man who had ordered the merciless slaughter of over three thousand Saracen prisoners at Acre?

  At the beginning of December, the sultan called in Baha ad-Din and also sent for Kamil. The boy seemed calmer now. Maybe training that red horse had something to do with it. If there were troubled times ahead, relations between himself and his ward, strained in a way Saladin could not understand ever since the Saracens had retaken Jerusalem, must be put back on their old footing. When Kamil arrived and made his bow, Saladin took his hands.

  “Ah, Kamil, you are cold. Come, I have a fire. When I have time, I must come and take a close look at your new friend. My emirs think it is very funny that you call him Red Horse instead of using whatever name the Christians gave him,” he said. “And I hear he is smart as well as beautiful.”

  Kamil responded with a smile. “He is a good horse,” he said, and took his old place by the sultan’s side.

  Baha ad-Din was pleased. Maybe, at eighteen, Kamil was growing up. But he was soon to be disappointed. When Saladin brought up the question of a truce and outlined his reasons, Kamil’s mood blackened.

  “We cannot make peace after all they have done,” he said. “How can we make peace with people who do not think of us as human beings?”

  “What they think of us is not the point,” said Saladin drily. “I am telling you, as my most trusted friends, that we cannot beat them.”

  “If you would allow us to visit their camp at night, we could,” responded Kamil, clenching his fists. “There are other ways to beat them than open warfare.”

  “And they are the wrong ways,” replied Saladin, watching the boy closely. “We all have certain rules of combat, the Christians as well as us. They broke them by massacring our unarmed captives. We cannot descend to that level. If we break the rules of combat, anarchy takes over. We are not barbarians, for all the nonsense the Christians put about.”

  Kamil was silent as Baha ad-Din and Saladin spoke of how a truce might be achieved and what its terms might be. Then he exploded.

  “This is utter betrayal,” he said. “Truce means that the Christians keep the coast. Without the coast, how can we make Jerusalem safe? In reality truce means handing back our holy places to them eventually. It would be …” He stopped, looked furiously at Saladin, and then went on: “It would be treachery.”

  The sultan half got up and reached for his sword. For a moment Baha ad-Din thought he was going to kill Kamil. Then he sat down again.

  “Killing all the Christians is impossible, Kamil,” he said. “And anyway, it is not the way of Allah. My son, think hard. Show some foresight. Come, I depend on you. You may well be called to take over from me one day. Even a sultan cannot live forever. But I must see that you have a head as well as a heart.”

  Kamil looked stunned. “Take over from you?”

  “Yes,” said Saladin evenly. “Now. Let us pray, and when we have prayed, we will talk some more.”

  Kamil prostrated himself and prayed hard. Maybe Saladin was right, but he did not feel it in his heart. In his heart all he felt was fury at himself for his failure properly to avenge his father and a deep hatred of the Christians in his land. After prayers Kamil left the sultan, but not before Saladin had ordered him most particularly to stay close at all times. Kamil bowed. The sultan’s will was his command. Saladin smiled, but said nothing more.

  * * *

  Over the next few weeks Kamil again found himself several times in conversation with the man with the black beard, the one who had been so friendly after the Christian cavalry charge during which he had first spotted the red horse. The man had such an open, intelligent face and kind smile that Kamil was disposed to like him. He himself did not look out for the man, but more and more often they seemed to find themselves buying herbs and vegetables from the same woman at the market or taking shelter from the weather in the same cave. Once, when Kamil was returning to the camp on Hosanna, the man gave him a beautiful saddlecloth, “In praise,” so he said, “of a beautiful red horse.” Kamil began to think of him as a
friend.

  The man’s name was Abdul Raq. He spoke well of the sultan and extolled the glories of the Muslim people. But he was no sycophant, and Kamil found that he had interesting views that he liked to listen to. Little by little Kamil began to confide his own hopes. He told him about Saladin’s plans for a truce and how uncomfortable this made him feel. Raq never condemned the sultan, even sympathized and agreed with some of the things Kamil revealed that the sultan had said. But after a while he openly wondered what the sultan had in mind in the longer term.

  One day, just before the Christian New Year, the two met as Kamil stormed out, bitter and furious, from the sultan’s tent. Truce now seemed inevitable.

  “You seem upset, my friend,” said Raq. “Let’s walk a little until you cool off.”

  As they walked, Kamil grew more and more careless of his words.

  “Saladin has got it wrong,” he said at last. “Where is a true leader? Where can we find one who knows that the only way we can extol Allah is to kill all the Christians who are polluting our soil? They have land of their own where they can worship in their own way. Why do they come here? Jerusalem is not their city, even though the prophet Jesus died there. If we make a truce, we will never be rid of them.”

  Abdul Raq was silent for a moment or two.

  “There is a leader,” he said eventually, keeping his voice low and not looking at Kamil, “who would think you very wise.”

  “I wish I could meet him,” cried Kamil before he could stop himself.

  Abdul Raq turned to look at him.

  “It could be arranged,” he said quietly.

  Kamil felt he was on the brink of something momentous. He looked at Raq. How far could he really trust this man?