A Blood Red Horse

by K. M. Grant

  And for the most part he did. For while many of the Saracen soldiers spat and jeered at the pilgrims, they did not touch them. Nor were their threats and curses the reason why all the pilgrims felt a curious shiver as they climbed up from the valley and passed through the longed-for gates. At that moment the Christians almost forgot about the Saracens. The gates of Jerusalem! This was the city of the psalms, the golden city, the city of Solomon and the city of Christ’s Passion. In this place the meaning of Christianity had been forged.

  William was almost overcome. For Jerusalem his father had given up his life, Gavin had lost an arm, and he had nearly lost his horse. In her defense, both Christians and Saracens had suffered more than any living thing should ever be asked to suffer. William looked about him. Jerusalem was a mess. The sunbaked, grimy streets were strewn with the detritus of a million lives and deaths, both human and animal. Inside erstwhile Christian churches, the Saracens had allowed animals to wander. Courtyards were now smoking middens. Bold rats scrambled busily in and out of crumbling yellow-brick walls, squealing and fighting over stinking remains. At every street corner of this supposedly heavenly city were piled the crude instruments of death: smooth, heavy stones, jars of “Greek fire,” small mountains of crossbow bolts, and many more vile products of man’s imagination, all prepared for the Christian siege that never happened.

  But as William followed the trail of Christ’s Passion, kissed the ground of Mount Calvary, and placed a small ring made of Hosanna’s hair beside the table on which, so it was said, Christ had eaten his last supper, he was moved beyond words. At this moment of uneasy peace and in this supremely special place, everything did make sense in an odd kind of way. William felt sure that whether the crusaders were right or wrong, God looked on them with some kind of favor. “It could not all have been for nothing,” he said to himself, and could see by the reaction of his fellow pilgrims that they were all thinking the same thing. No matter what those at home would say now or in the future, the knights and soldiers in Richard the Lionheart’s army had done their best for Christ and deserved their reward.

  Some pilgrims finished their devotions quickly, then regrouped again and set off, this time for Acre, where Richard had already gone to order the fleet to prepare for departure. But William found himself dawdling. He had heard it rumored that courtesy of Saladin, the bishop might be given a private opportunity to see the True Cross. It would be the opportunity of a lifetime. He sat down on a stone and waited.

  As he watched the Christians and Muslims mixing together, their eyes suspicious, he allowed his thoughts to turn to Hartslove. Barring accidents on the journey home, it looked as though he could fulfil his promise to Ellie and ride Hosanna over the drawbridge. But then what? His brother’s injury, although well healed, meant that he was finished as a knight. Gavin might be Count of Hartslove out here, but in England he would never be regarded in the same way again. The loss of an arm was too serious a handicap for a knight to overcome. William frowned as he reflected that once this would have caused him to rejoice. Not now. How close he and Gavin had become! But even this had its difficulties, for there was Ellie’s future to consider. Would Gavin feel honor-bound to release her from their engagement? And if he did, could William, in all conscience, take advantage?

  These thoughts disturbed William so much that when he saw the bishop and about a dozen other pilgrims being chivied down a side street, he was glad to get up and follow them. The bishop was clearly going somewhere special. Maybe this was the moment William had been waiting for. The small group was being urged to walk swiftly toward a large complex of buildings. William hurried to catch up with them, and was just in time to enter a small, richly painted hall before a heavy curtain was drawn behind him. The hall was furnished with two large chairs, one much more ornately decorated than the other. The pilgrims looked about them, and the bishop motioned to them to be silent. After a few moments the sultan entered through a door at the other end. He was wearing a silk tunic embroidered with suns and stars and was surrounded by men, among whom was Kamil. He looked so regal that even the Christians bowed.

  Saladin gestured to the bishop to sit in the plainer chair and sat down himself on the more ornate throne. Iced sherbet and sweetmeats were brought. Most of the Christians shook their heads. William moved to stand behind the bishop, acknowledged Kamil with a small nod, and took what was offered.

  After the servants had left, the sultan summoned the interpreter and began. “We are enemies, your king and I,” he said. “There can never be friendship between us. But I salute his gallantry. He is a brave man. Much blood has been shed on both sides, and many bad things have been done since the Christians came to our land. But for the moment it is over.” Saladin sighed. “King Richard has sent word that he will not visit Jerusalem. I am sorry, for I would welcome him here in the true spirit of hospitality. However, I understand the pride that drives this decision. In his place I would do the same. Humility comes hard to a king—although the man you acclaim as the son of God, Jesus Christ, found no difficulty in being humble. Is that not so, bishop?”

  The bishop was uncomfortable. “Sir,” he said, “King Richard has no equal among all the knights in the world. And, if you don’t mind my saying so, if the virtues of both yourself and the king were taken together, there would be no two men on earth who could compete with you.”

  Saladin was amused. “You speak well,” he said. “I would like to give you a gift in return for your compliment. What should it be?”

  The bishop considered. “I think it would be fitting …,” he said in a hesitant manner, since he was nervous of being too presumptuous, “rather, I think it might be fitting…,” —there was a small pause as he gathered all his courage— “to have two priests say Mass at Our Lord’s tomb every day.”

  Saladin bowed. “Quite a request,” he remarked. “If I and my emirs agree, where will you find two priests who want to come and live in this city with us, whom you call dogs and barbarians?”

  The bishop frowned. “Well,” he said, “I’m sure we will …”

  William interrupted. “Sir, my Lord Bishop,” he said, quite inspired, “I know a holy man. He is a monk who is also an ordained priest. For much of his life, he has longed to come here in the service of the Lord. His name is Brother Ranulf, and his monastery is at Hartslove, where I live. He would come. I know he would, and I know he would take whatever hardship it involved and offer it up for the good of the holy places.”

  Saladin allowed William to finish before turning to Kamil. “Is this the red horse’s boy?” he asked.

  Kamil nodded.

  Saladin turned back to William. “How is the horse?”

  William turned to Kamil. “The red horse is much better,” he said. “We will take the slings the sultan so kindly sent for the voyage home, but I don’t think we will need them. He can now stand unaided, and the wound is clean and cool.”

  “I’m glad,” said Kamil. “Maybe when your Brother—what was his name? Ranulf? When your Brother Ranulf comes out here, maybe he could bring word about the red horse.” Kamil did not smile. How could he? He had thought the horse would be his forever.

  “Better than that,” said William, “why don’t you travel to England and escort Brother Ranulf back yourself?”

  A muscle in Kamil’s face twitched, and he inclined his head. “I would like that,” he said softly. “Maybe it will be possible. We have much to tell each other, I think, about the horse you call Hosanna.”

  The sultan rose. He was pleased and uncomfortable at the same time. You should not shed your enemy’s blood unnecessarily, but becoming too friendly was dangerous. This conversation between these two young men, which he could not understand and which the interpreter was ignoring, must come to an end. “We will see how these Masses you want are to be arranged,” he said shortly, addressing the bishop. “Now it is time for you to go. The relic known as the True Cross will be brought out for you to look at.”

  The bishop stood up, mutt
ering thanks. Saladin curtly acknowledged them. As Kamil passed William he hesitated, unsure, but when Saladin had left the room, he put out his hand. William grasped it. “Honor, love, God, and Hosanna.” He smiled.

  Kamil nodded. “We will meet again,” he said, and touched the hank of Hosanna’s hair now braided and hanging from his belt. He looked for a second as if he wanted to say more. But he dared not trust his voice. In the end he just turned and vanished.

  Moments later two servants carried in a large plain box, roughly the size of a tall man’s coffin, and unceremoniously dumped it on the floor. The bishop was trembling as they prized it open to display two pieces of wood, one about two yards, the other about one yard long, lying one on top of the other. The spaces in which Christ’s followers had placed jewels were empty. All the Christians in the room immediately knelt. This was the cross on which Jesus had died. To an outsider it might seem a shoddy thing. But nobody who saw it that day ever forgot it, and on their deathbeds it was on these plain pieces of wood, damaged by looters and dented by swords, that they focused their final thoughts.

  William hurried back to Jaffa, full of his experiences. He told Gavin about his conversation with Kamil. Gavin looked disbelieving. “Kamil will never come to Harts-love,” he said. “Not unless we capture him and bring him in chains.”

  “Maybe it is possible that we could be friends.”

  “No, Will,” said Gavin. “We can appreciate what he did for Hosanna without being real friends. War does strange things to us all. Things that seem possible out here are quite impossible at home. Forget it.”

  William did not mention it again. He put Kamil out of his mind and concentrated only on preparations for the journey.

  He, Gavin, and Hal traveled to Acre with Hosanna. They took a week, walking slowly with the horse and stopping every time he seemed tired. The country was pleasant and the journey uneventful. Staying near to the coast, they were lulled to sleep by the waves at night, and during the day, moving slightly inland, they found plenty of fresh water and fruit. At Acre, which William had not seen since leaving after the slaughter of the Muslim prisoners, the loading of supplies had already begun. This was an easy task. There were only tiny numbers of people and very few horses to care for. There were no siege engines or wagons to be taken apart and loaded, and the remains of the armor and equipment, rusty and almost beyond repair, made a pitifully small heap in the hold.

  There were two worries. One was Phoebus, who William thought would not manage the journey. After much heart-searching, they decided to leave him behind with the Christians garrisoning Acre.

  The other, and rather more major worry, was Richard, who had fallen ill. Hal, hopping with anxiety, could have kissed the king for declaring that his most trustworthy knights should leave him and return to England without delay. Richard declared that once recovered he would himself go straight to France and try to regain control of his territory there. Gavin and William should not, therefore, travel in his ship, but go without him. From his sickbed Richard asked them to send news of England when they arrived. Gavin felt reluctant to leave the king, but Richard, to Hal’s relief, insisted.

  “Let’s get you home,” William said to Hosanna, touching his star before leading him into the hold. Hosanna, stepping eagerly up the ramp, seemed to agree.

  From the appearance of the quayside, the enormous scale of Christian losses was only too apparent. Once back in the belly of a ship designed for twenty horses, Hosanna found himself with room to lie down or even walk about. His companions comprised Dargent and only one other horse, an Arab one knight was bringing home to breed from. Hal carefully supplemented the esparto grass with reed matting and carpets for the horses’ comfort. In between Dargent and Hosanna he also made a bed for himself.

  Gavin and William grinned at each other when they saw “Hosanna’s bedroom,” as they nicknamed it. “Fit for a king’s horse,” said William as he lay down to test for comfort. He got up and, as had become his habit, ran his hands down Hosanna’s neck. The eyes that looked into his own were luminous in the dark. In his own habitual style the horse put his velvet nose into William’s hand. As the great ramp swung shut, cutting off the warmth of the sun, William shivered and his hand automatically sought out the white star. Soon afterward, his fellow travelers and all the sailors were visiting the hold, doing exactly the same thing.

  On almost the last day of September, the sails were hoisted, the oars set, and the ships slid out of the harbor.

  “Home,” said William to Hal as they got their sealegs once again.

  “Home,” echoed Hal, “God willing.”

  The journey back was helped by a friendly wind but was just as frightening as the outward journey had been. The ship’s captain clung to the coast as much as he could, but in one huge storm, as the ships slid round the toe of Italy, eight sailors and two knights lost their lives.

  “It is inevitable,” Gavin shouted through the racket as William and Hal clung together, grappling with ropes and trying to secure the horses with slings. “But we must remain strong. At least we are being pushed homeward rather than backward.”

  After the storm the ship found itself alone on a tossing sea. Gavin was very sick, but the ship held her own against the weather and the horses survived. They stood with their noses almost in their bedding, but although the Arab occasionally groaned aloud, they all remained upright.

  Gavin suffered from acute anxiety and fearful nightmares, as well as sickness. The damp, muggy air below deck was suffocating. He woke each morning drained and sweating, the stump of his arm throbbing with pain. On nights when the sea was choppy and he was tossed about, he heard himself calling out the names of the dead: Mark, Humphrey, Adam Landless, his father, both his warhorses. William could do little to help him. Eventually he left Gavin alone and crept down to sleep alongside Hal and Hosanna.

  “We will get back to Hartslove soon,” he kept repeating in Hosanna’s ear. “I know we will get back to Hartslove soon.”

  In the second week of December, twenty of the returning crusaders, including Gavin, William, and Hal, disembarked at Marseilles. Wearing their crusading crosses on their back to show that they were returning from the Holy Land, they managed to pick up more horses and crossed France, grateful for the hospitality offered to men who had fought for Christ. The weather was dreary, and desperation to get home increased. They rode quickly, not stopping to celebrate Christmas, pushing the horses as hard as they dared. Hal had looked after Hosanna so well on the journey that the horse was almost back to his old strength, and by the middle of January they reached La Rochelle. There, they hired a vessel for the last push up the French coast and across the English Channel.

  Gavin called together the fifteen men returning to Hartslove. They were all that remained of the four hundred who had set out. “Nobody can say we have not endured martyrdom,” he told them soberly when, after an interminable week during which the wind always seemed against them, the white cliffs of England eventually came into view. As the ship sped up the east coast to a port from which the journey to Hartslove would not be so far, William was silent, gripping the rails. When, at last, the top of the abbey at Whitby was spotted by a sailor, all the men stood on deck, some in silence, some whooping with delight.

  William turned to Gavin, trying not to allow his voice to crack. “Home,” he said, “we’ve made it home. Oh thank God.”

  The weather was kind, and it was a perfect English winter’s day as men and horses clattered joyfully onto dry land. This was not the time to think of those who had perished at sea or how news of lost fathers, brothers, and sons was going to be received. The men shouted to each other as they busied themselves finding transport home. Occasionally, one or two would be found rooted to the spot, trying to take in the almost unbelievable fact that they were once more on English soil and that the whole hideous ordeal was over. Some wept openly.

  The de Granvilles needed only one wagon and a few more horses for the last leg of the journey home. Wil
liam purchased a carthorse by the quayside, and eight riding horses. They would return with eleven horses, having left with nearer eleven hundred. From other sailors they tried to get news of Richard, thinking that he might have made for England despite everything. But no one knew anything. No matter. Gavin and William pushed thoughts of Richard away—the important thing now was to get back to Hartslove.

  Just before they set off, a messenger sought them out. He had been hanging about the port for months, sent there by a monk whose name he had forgotten. He had been paid well to find a ship’s captain with whom to entrust a roll of sealed parchment addressed to Gavin de Granville in the Holy Land. The messenger had been idle. Now, it seemed, this Gavin had arrived himself. Disappointed at being deprived of his excuse to enjoy port life at somebody else’s expense, the messenger, nevertheless, found Gavin and handed over the letter. Gavin’s surprise betrayed the fact that he might be a brave crusader, but he was as illiterate as the messenger himself. The man smiled in a patronizing manner. Gavin ignored him, snatched the parchment, and sent William to find a cleric.

  “Hurry, Will,” said Gavin. “We want to leave as soon as possible.”

  William returned with a fat priest, who took the letter, slowly smoothed it out, and nearly drove the brothers mad before he ostentatiously cleared his throat.

  “Ahem. Now, here we go. Which one of you is Gavin?”

  “I am.”

  “Yes. Well then.” The priest licked his lips.

  “Oh, get on with it,” cried Gavin.

  “Of course. But it is a tricky business, this reading.”

  “It is a tricky business being a crusader.”

  The priest cleared his throat again. “Indeed. But not without rewards unavailable to a poor priest like me.”

  Gavin looked at him. “You want money?” he asked, incredulous.