A Blood Red Horse

by K. M. Grant

  Saladin called for his horse, and at the head of one hundred cavalry, he rode out. Kamil leaped onto Hosanna and was at Saladin’s side. Their horses were fit, and after just over an hour’s riding, they could see a huge dust storm on the horizon. The Christian army was, indeed, rolling away.

  Saladin turned to Kamil. “Allah is merciful,” he said. “Should we suspect a trap?”

  Kamil considered. “The Christians must have seen that we have poisoned the wells and lost all hope,” he said. “I suspect they are headed back for the port of Acre to regroup. They will be anxious not to lose all the booty they have just captured. Maybe, once at Acre, they will decide to go home. But I don’t believe they will want to go without even setting foot in Jerusalem. Perhaps now is the right time for us to march to the port of Jaffa and organize an assault to take it back into Muslim hands. It is the least well defended, and it would cut the territory they control in two. If we can take Jaffa, the Christians would no longer hold the whole coast. Also, if they change their minds and head back to Jerusalem, the loss of Jaffa would be a great inconvenience.”

  “My son, you are beginning to think like a general,” said Saladin. “Go and give the orders. Unless the Christians do something unexpected, we will make for Jaffa. Send spies to follow King Richard’s army. Let us be circumspect and ready for anything.”

  As soon as they returned to the Saracen camp, Kamil gave the orders and the army prepared to move. Spies flew back and forth, and the Saracen army waited to see if the decision to head for Jaffa remained the best one.

  * * *

  Three days later a small detachment set out on a swift, forced march for the coast. Kamil rode Hosanna at the head of it. It was his job to reconnoiter the route and to watch out for ambushes. This was a job he loved. Hosanna felt like a tightly strung bow beneath him, and the soldiers who were following soon got used to the sight of their leader on his fiery horse, always slightly too far ahead for safety, performing what looked to them like a dance. Sometimes they muttered to each other about horses and circuses, but on the whole they enjoyed the spectacle.

  Kamil was in his element. Urging the soldiers on and talking strategy with his fellow emirs, he felt a new sense of purpose, one that did not depend on slaughter, but on tactics. The men, even the older ones, trusted him. He could see it. They accepted his instructions without question. Under his command they arrived safely outside Jaffa within four days, for the going was good even for the pack animals, and they were unchallenged. Indeed, the Christians inside the city were taken completely by surprise at the sight of the Saracen soldiers and only just managed to shut the gates in time. For five days they held out, fighting like demons, before Kamil’s men pushed their way through the gates and were in among them, swords and maces swinging with deadly accuracy. Kamil fought up at the front, Hosanna responsive to his every movement, shouting, cajoling, and exhorting his men to greater and greater efforts. He seemed to be everywhere at once, regardless of danger. In the brief breaks he took to catch his breath, his own soldiers would come and touch the horse’s star, as if the aura that seemed to keep him safe might pass on to them. Kamil did not stop them.

  When the city eventually fell, Kamil found himself riding Hosanna inside Jaffa’s walls, flushing the enemy out from side alleys and behind garden walls. The noise and stench of death was all around him, but he did not flinch. Directing his men to perform a citywide sweep to locate pockets of resistance, he also ordered the preparation of enclosures into which the many captives could be herded.

  In one corner of the city, a group of particularly miserable captives were huddled. They were all knights, and Kamil rode over to see that they were put with the rest. The Christian king would pay handsomely for their release, and they could be transported to Acre and go home with the other crusaders. As he rode up, he could see one of the knights arguing with his Saracen captor. The knight seemed to be begging.

  “Ah, Kamil ad-Din,” the emir said as Kamil approached. “I can’t understand the language, but I think he wants his weapons back,” and he laughed.

  Kamil looked at the knight. “Yes?” he said in Norman French. It was not until the knight turned to look at him that with a cold shock, Kamil caught sight of the teardrop birthmark, which could still keep him awake at night. Hosanna halted.

  “I don’t want my weapons,” said the knight. “Just that little dagger.” He was trying to keep his dignity, but there was pleading as well as bitterness in his voice. “It was my boy’s,” he said. “He was murdered as we left Jerusalem. His mother has died of fever. It is the only thing I have left that was his.”

  Kamil’s face registered nothing, but inside, his heart was burning. His eyes misted over. In a moment Saladin’s teaching, the Koran, everything Kamil had learned was consumed by flames in his head. He dismounted. Here was his chance. He could kill this man now and properly avenge his father. It would not be necessary to explain to the emir. Many things were done in war. Few were questioned.

  As he let go of Hosanna’s rein to reach for his sword, his hand briefly touched the ridge caused by William’s blow to the horse at Acre a year before. Almost of its own accord, Kamil’s hand stopped there. He did not know the cause of the scar, but he found himself smoothing over it again and again. Hosanna shifted slightly and turned his head to rub it on Kamil’s shoulder.

  The knight was looking curiously at Kamil. He dropped to his knees.

  “I beg you,” he said, “kill me now. I have nothing left. I have not led a good life. Now it is time to end it. My wife and my son have gone before me. I long to see them again, and I hope, as a crusader, I will be forgiven my sins and go straight to heaven. But please, when I am buried, bury my son’s dagger by my side.”

  Kamil stopped smoothing Hosanna’s scar. He looked down.

  “Get up,” he said softly. “Get up. You and your kind have caused untold suffering in this land. Take your son’s dagger, and keep it by you always. Let it be the knife in your heart. Let it, every day, remind you of what you have lost, and if it ever takes life again, may God never forgive you. Now go home and never come back.”

  Kamil took the dagger from the emir, silencing his protests with his hand. “I know what I am doing,” he said in Arabic. The emir shrugged.

  “Here,” said Kamil, and he gave the dagger to the knight.

  The knight took it and slid it under his armor so that it rested next to his skin. “Thank you,” he said with tears in his eyes. “Thank you.”

  Kamil did not acknowledge his thanks. He nodded to the emir, who, looking at Kamil as if he were mad, chivied his prisoners out of their corner and pushed them toward a bigger group headed for the pen near the city gates. Kamil did not look after them. He mounted Hosanna and, pushing his thoughts down for scrutiny at a more appropriate time, carried on with the job in hand.

  Only the capture of the citadel, the great tower at the heart of the city, remained to be accomplished before he would be able to report to the sultan that if the Christians were counting on Jaffa to help with their assault on Jerusalem, they could count on it no longer. Kamil dodged stray arrows and told his men that if they fought hard, this victory at Jaffa might go down in the books of history as the beginning of the end of this Christian crusade. They cheered at the thought. Then Kamil sent for some superior marksmen.

  “Concentrate now on the citadel,” he told them. “It should only take a day, at the outside, to secure it. If you can, get the Christians out dead or alive without setting fire to it. We don’t want to spend weeks building it up again, and we will need it for our own defense.” The marksmen nodded and left him.

  Later, when darkness fell and the fighting was all but over for the day, Kamil rode out of the city and down to the shore. He was dog-tired. He dismounted, took off his helmet, and looked out to sea.

  Hosanna stood with his head over Kamil’s shoulder. The young man leaned back. The memories of the day were very sharp, and Kamil now allowed them to flood over him. He could see eve
ry detail of the Christian knight’s face and recall every word of their conversation. He relived it again and again. Eventually the tears came, and Kamil let them fall. The horse stood, patient as a rock. After the storm had passed, Kamil wiped his face on Hosanna’s mane. For the first time since he was nine years old, he found that he could think of his father’s killer without hatred and even think of his father without his heart contracting in pain. He murmured to Hosanna as an unexpected thought struck him. How could he be sorry that Richard had brought his army over? He did not need reminding that if the king had remained at home, he would never have met this red horse, from whom, Kamil felt certain, his new peace of mind flowed. He touched Hosanna’s white star. “What we did today, you and I,” he said, “has made me my father’s true son. And now that the Christians are leaving, Red Horse, you will surely be mine forever.”

  It was a good thought, and as Kamil led Hosanna to the horse lines, despite his weariness, he had a spring in his step.

  19

  Hartslove, 1192

  Thousands of miles away, Ellie had not had a good thought since de Scabious had tried to blackmail her into marriage the previous November. As the winter had turned into spring and the spring into summer and still no news came from the de Granvilles, her only thoughts were of escape, if only she had somewhere to go. Since her supposed “poor behavior” with Brother Ranulf, life had been horrible. After her disgrace some of the servants were sympathetic, but the garrison knights treated her with increasing disrespect, except when Constable de Scabious was around. Now he felt he had the abbot’s support, he was in no hurry to cement their union, since by spreading news of his own magnanimous offer to marry Ellie, predatory barons were no longer interested in carrying her off. He could relax and wait for the girl to come round, which she surely would. Marrying him must be better than becoming a nun. And that really was Ellie’s only other option, for while Ellie had heard nothing, de Scabious did have news from the Holy Land, and it was to his advantage. Back in April, while on a trip to the coast to negotiate the purchase of some rich, imported cloth suitable for his wedding day, a man returned from Acre on the spring tides told him on good authority that Sir Thomas had died and that Gavin had suffered what everybody took to be a mortal wound. William, so the man said, had lost his horse and was shattered. In effect, the constable thought as he rode back to Hartslove, the de Granvilles were finished.

  He passed on this news only to his most intimate circle of fellow malcontents. Before announcing it to the world, he needed to gather round himself a larger group of loyal knights and to oversee the placing of his own men in both the northern castles and the castles that dominated Ellie’s dowry lands. He also needed to gain control over the de Granville stud. If the de Granvilles were generally known to be finished, landless knights would gang together to fight over their lands, safe in the knowledge that unlike his father, King Richard had no real interest in England except as a bank and that it was safe to embark on a free-for-all. The constable needed to be careful.

  By the summer he felt he was almost there, for he found he had a talent for attracting disgruntled men-at-arms. His major irritation was Margery, who kept winking at him and who he often found behind him when he thought he was alone. For a large woman she managed to be remarkably silent and invisible. Once, when he turned after talking to one of his most trusted lieutenants, he bumped right into her. He wondered how much she had heard, then dismissed her as too stupid to understand what was going on. Women like Margery only had one thing on their mind, and it was not castles.

  Ellie could have no complaint about the constable’s behavior. Apart from his oiliness, which made her feel faintly sick, he did not try to thrust himself upon her or keep her locked up. He was much too clever for that.

  He needed to appear the height of courtesy and reasonableness. She did, however, find herself openly followed whenever she went out on Sacramenta.

  After the hay harvest she rode up to the abbey, but Brother Andrew shook his head sadly from inside the gatehouse and would not let her in. Of Brother Ranulf there was no sign. As she turned away, however, two monks came out to speak to the soldiers. The soldiers looked round at Ellie, who had reached the edge of the trees, then back at the monks. They looked doubtful. Then one shrugged, and they dismounted. Ellie was puzzled. Nevertheless, taking advantage of their temporary distraction, she wandered into the wood. She was just gathering herself together, wondering how best to take advantage of her solitude, when she heard a noise.

  “Psssst!”

  She looked around her.

  “Pssst!”

  There it was again. She remained perfectly still, keeping her eyes skinned. In a moment or two, from behind a tree emerged fat Brother Andrew. He was sweating, even though the day was overcast.

  “Miss Eleanor,” he said, putting his fingers to his lips. “Just bring Sacramenta here. I daren’t come out into the open.”

  The mare walked obediently over, and delving into his voluminous pocket, Brother Andrew brought out some sweet bread for her. She took it delicately from his hand and chewed thoughtfully before pushing her nose in his pocket for more. Brother Andrew laughed.

  “She is very like Hosanna,” he said. “Or should it be the other way round?” He stopped when he saw that his remark caused a look of pain to cross Ellie’s already careworn face.

  “Oh, Miss Eleanor,” he said. “I have stolen a minute or two, by getting those soldiers to wait while I have sent one of the lay monks to fetch some hides to be carried back to the castle. I told them to take their time. There now. Have you had bad news?”

  “We have had no news, Brother Andrew,” said Ellie, trying to smile. “And that is supposed to be good news. But we just don’t know anything about Sir Thomas and the others. And meanwhile, I could hardly be in a worse situation.”

  Slowly she told her story and relayed to the monk the content of the meeting with the abbot and Constable de Scabious. Brother Andrew, who already knew the story, as did most of the county, allowed her to finish it before he said anything.

  “If only you had come to me for your lessons,” he could not resist chiding, putting up his hand to pat Ellie’s knee, then thinking the better of it and putting it down again. “Maybe things would have been different.”

  “I wanted to surprise you,” said Ellie dully. “And anyway, you would never have got permission from the abbot, would you?”

  Brother Andrew could not deny this. He found some more delicacies for Sacramenta to eat.

  “What shall I do, Brother Andrew? You do believe that Brother Ranulf and I did nothing wrong, don’t you?” Ellie asked.

  “That depends on your definition of wrong,” said Brother Andrew as primly as a fat monk could. “Brother Ranulf should have known better. But I do believe that you, Miss Eleanor, are as chaste as the day you were born.” He twinkled up at her. “Now, don’t look so downcast. Have faith. If the worst comes to the worst, de Scabious may turn out not to be such a bad husband.”

  Ellie opened her mouth to protest, but before she could begin, Brother Andrew put his head on one side and looked very serious.

  “Miss Eleanor,” he said as Sacramenta, finding no more tidbits, chewed his sleeve, “I know that is very hard for you to believe, and I shall pray that the worst does not happen. But the crosses that many people have to bear in these troubled times are very great. If you must marry de Scabious, you will have to bear it with fortitude. You have no option. A well-bred, unmarried girl like you cannot run about the country like a milkmaid. God has ordered society in a certain way, and you must maintain your place. If people like you start forgetting your station, why, where on earth will we all be?”

  “So I must do nothing?” Ellie whispered.

  “You must do nothing. But,” said Brother Andrew cheerfully, “de Scabious is an unhealthy looking specimen. I don’t think it will be long before you are a widow, and then, Miss Eleanor, the world is yours. Look at your namesake, our Queen Eleanor. Since King H
enry died, she has done just whatsoever she fancies.”

  From behind her Ellie could hear the soldiers shouting thanks at the monks. In a moment they would be in the wood.

  “I suppose so,” was all she had time to say before Brother Andrew, extricating his sleeve from Sacramenta’s mouth with difficulty, put his finger to his lips once again and bobbed out of sight.

  Ellie returned to Hartslove feeling a little better. At least she had a friend at the abbey. When she told Old Nurse what Brother Andrew had said, Old Nurse sniffed, but then gathered Ellie into her arms and hugged her.

  Shortly after this, de Scabious took to presenting Ellie with small gifts—a jar of spices or a semiprecious stone. Mindful of Brother Andrew’s words, the girl did not throw them into the fire as was her inclination. She simply left them on the table in the great hall. She dared not openly antagonize de Scabious, for fear of what he might do. Old Nurse could not protect her if the constable decided to force his way into her rooms, and then she would really be finished. One day she saw Margery slip two of the jewels into her pocket. Ellie said nothing. If de Scabious thought that Ellie had picked them up, it would do no harm.

  The only time she raised her voice was at the dinner to celebrate the grain harvest. De Scabious walked straight in and sat in Sir Thomas’s chair.

  “That is not your place,” Ellie said coldly.

  The constable got up, nodded in her direction, and moved over. Ellie was shaking. In addition to getting her as a wife, she wondered how long it would be before the knights lost all sense that the castle was de Granville property and took to thinking of de Scabious as their overlord. Certainly, he was playing the part. There were more knights here than was strictly necessary, and some she did not know. The constable seemed to be preparing for something. It did not take long before Ellie found out what it was.