The Crusader

by Michael Eisner

  Any magnanimity Enrique displayed toward Padre Dioniso was absent that dawn before the battle. “Kill the French bastard,” Enrique repeated, as he unsheathed his sword with one hand and twirled Esmeralda’s leather pendant in the other. He seemed determined to perform the deed himself if Galindo’s resolve faltered.

  Chance saved the Frenchman’s life. Uncle Ramón and his two lieutenants, Bernard and Roberto, arrived before Galindo or Enrique could draw blood. Our leader had been at a strategy meeting of the various commanders.

  “Taut nerves after a difficult journey make for short tempers,” Ramón said, as he rode upon his company. “This man is not your enemy. Save your blade for the infidels.”

  Galindo and Enrique did not move.

  “Do you mean to practice on our hosts then?” Ramón said, laughing. “Very well. Galindo, hold him down so Enrique can cut his throat. Why stop there, though? Let’s kill all the servants.”

  Galindo and Enrique peered uncertainly at Ramón, then at their prisoner, then back at Ramón. Finally, Galindo stepped off the Frenchman, who scurried away. Enrique returned his sword to its scabbard. We resumed our preparations, glancing occasionally at Galindo and Enrique with a vague mixture of disquiet and respect.

  “Ramón, what reward,” Pancho Jerez asked, “to the knight who kills the greatest number of infidels?”

  Pancho was a fine warrior—a skilled swordsman, highly effective with a joust. But his opinion of himself greatly exceeded even his able talents. He tried to get the other knights to call him El Cid. He offered me a belt of fine leather if I would refer to him by this nickname and persuade Andrés to do the same. We ended up calling him El Cidiota, the Idiot.

  “Just fight, Pancho,” Ramón said. “Leave the counting of the dead to the Lord.”

  We pulled our white tunics over our chain mail. I grasped tightly the cloth that I had received from Isabel in the garden of the Correa estate. Then I placed it under my chain mail against my chest.

  When we were armored, Ramón marched the company toward our Hospitaller brethren. Baron Bernières rode amongst them—a handsome man, tall in the saddle, with fine sandy hair that extended to his shoulders, and a light brown beard, closely trimmed. He spent considerable time each morning grooming himself. At the refectory in Acre, he came to each meal as if he were dining with the King, his robes pressed, his brown hair glistening with oil. I heard some of his knights refer to their master in whispering tones as “the immaculate one.” It was a moniker infused with an irony unflattering for the commander of several hundred knights, particularly one who had only recently arrived in the Levant and had yet to prove himself on the battlefield. His chief credential derived from his family name. The Baron was the brother of François Bernières, the Archbishop of Paris. Even the morning of the assault, I remember seeing the Baron seated just outside his tent, trimming his eyebrows, as his squire held up a looking glass.

  For sure, the Baron was no warrior—even I, never having fought a battle, could see that. He was too pretty. But, as Uncle Ramón stated, the Baron’s great virtue lay in the fact that while he might not have been called to the sword, he surrounded himself with men that were, including our Grand Master, Uncle Ramón.

  At the behest of Baron Bernières, the Calatrava composed a separate contingent within his Hospitaller regiment. A scout from the camp of Don Fernando had informed the Baron and Ramón that his troops were set to begin their assault on the opposite side.

  The Calatrava stood behind the catapults with the Hospitaller knights, sharpening our swords, making final adjustments to our armor. Facing the castle, the siege engine stood next to the armies, observing our preparations, waiting for its occupants.

  The catapults—twelve of them—had been pulled under cover of darkness to within striking distance of the castle walls. Carts full of stones lay astride the machines. Forty soldiers and engineers, led by a captain, operated each contraption. Like the rapt maiden audience to a jousting contest, we watched the Hospitaller crews prepare the machines and load them. I had never seen such advanced instruments—catapults constructed by the finest engineers in Acre. A long, sanded beam balanced on a metal axle. The longer end of the beam was tied down, impatient, ready to spring forward, its leather pouch holding a great stone. On the other end, several ropes hung loosely, to be yanked down in unison to propel the missile. Carved and stained into each beam was the name each crew had given to their machine—the Minister, the Lion, Paris, the Apostle.

  The firing began as the sun’s glare became visible in the metal helmets worn by the Hospitaller knights. We could hear the rocks whining through the air almost disappearing into the clouds, only to descend and crash into the castle—an awful, terrifying thunder. The Saracens on the walls responded with a salvo of arrows that fell well short of our position.

  The bombardment by catapult was unrelenting. The whistle of the missiles as they descended toward the castle was disconcerting even to the Christian knights huddled in the opposite direction of the trajectory. The impact shook the foundations of the fortress’ walls and the earth beneath us. I looked to my right at Andrés. He was staring solemnly at the awesome display.

  “Holy Mother of God,” he said, under his breath.

  The Saracen archers, out of range of their targets, disappeared from the towers. It seemed impossible, but the walls remained standing. Smashed, riven, cracked, but the walls remained. That is, until an unexpected development led Baron Bernières to change our battle plans.

  Without warning, a sizable breach appeared in the outer wall. I suppose we should have suspected a ruse, given the nature of the opening—the two sides almost parallel, as if a knife had cut a swath out of the wall. Perhaps sensing the potential for a rout, the Baron ordered one of his deputies to charge the castle with a company of knights. On horseback, the Hospitallers—around eighty men—approached the gap cautiously but unmolested. Ramón sensed something amiss. He was standing just in front of me.

  “Baron,” Ramón said, “the gap—it’s too clean. I fear an ambush. Call your men back. We should abide by the original plan. The siege engine will bring us right to the castle walls.”

  The Baron smiled good-naturedly at Ramón, but with a hint of condescension.

  “I never thought,” the Baron said, “to see the Grand Master of Calatrava lose his nerve in the pitch of battle.”

  From our position, we could see through the breach. The Hospitaller knights rode into the gap. After a brief interval, we could hear exultant cries from the Hospitallers within the castle, their warhorses stamping triumphantly in the deserted courtyard. “Glory be to God,” came the shouts from inside the castle, which were echoed by their brothers outside. It was as if our foes had vanished into the mist.

  Jubilant, the Baron looked to Uncle Ramón at his side.

  “Perhaps, my friend,” the Baron said, “the infidels realized the futility of resisting such an overwhelming force.” He patted Uncle Ramón on the back.

  When the gate slid across the opening—wrought iron, perhaps twenty feet high—there was a moment of harrowing confusion and disbelief amongst the knights trapped inside the castle. The Saracen soldiers reappeared on the walls. Instead of facing us, they were looking toward their captives in the castle’s interior.

  The shouts of victory from the Hospitallers did not end immediately. Many of the knights did not seem to comprehend the significance of the changed circumstances. The warhorses were the first to realize the danger of the situation. They began to buck and neigh furiously. The Saracens seemed to savor the excruciating, palpable sense of uncertainty. For several minutes, they made no move against their guests, who would soon recognize the strategic blunder they had made. The Saracens had disassembled the wall themselves, seducing the Hospitaller knights and their commander with the prospect of an easy victory.

  I glanced at Ramón. His eyes were closed, but in his sullened grimace, I saw the fate that awaited our brethren. The knights with whom we had shared quarters and fo
od for almost four months—eighty of them—they were dead men, lured into the castle only to end their lives as target practice for the expert Saracen marksmen who manned the walls with their crossbows.

  The sound of the slaughter commenced with the swoosh of infidel arrows, piercing armor. One of the trapped knights charged the gate and swung his sword at the iron bars—a ferocious but hopeless gesture, the clang echoing through the valley. The knight’s horse was felled underneath him, and he struggled to his feet. I could see his hands gripping the bars. He was shot from behind. He slumped forward, his arms through the holes of the gate so that his lifeless body was still standing, suspended.

  We watched, helpless, afraid to look each other in the eye, as if it were somehow our responsibility, or there were something we could do to stop the massacre. What could we do?

  Uncle Ramón urged the foot soldiers operating the catapults to resume firing. He shook several of the captains violently, but they just stood there, paralyzed, straining to hear the affliction of their comrades—the frantic cries for help, screams of pain, the moans of the dying. And then all that was left was a perfidious silence.

  Baron Bernières looked as if he had traveled through the nether regions of hell and beheld his own self. Ramón tried to capture the attention of the Baron and focus him on the battle before us.

  “Baron, you are our commander,” Ramón said. “We await your orders.”

  But the Baron stared silently ahead, beyond Ramón, a vacant smile on his face.

  “Baron,” Ramón persisted, shouting in his face, “I recommend that we employ the siege tower.” Ramón repeated himself, until the Baron finally nodded as if to be rid of a nuisance.

  Before Ramón could dispatch Roberto to relay his orders, one of Don Fernando’s scouts stumbled into our circle. His eyes wild with the grim reflection of combat, he approached the Baron and Ramón, escorted by one of the Hospitaller knights. He reported that Don Fernando’s first battering ram had been set ablaze by burning oil dropped from the castle’s ramparts.

  “The second ram is in place, though,” the scout stated. “Don Fernando is confident that he can protect its advance with his archers.”

  The scout waited for a reply, but the Baron stared fearfully at him as if he were the ghost of one of his men come back to haunt him. It was a disagreeable, awkward moment, the brave scout baffled by his reception. When it was apparent the Baron would not respond, Ramón spoke.

  “Tell Don Fernando,” Ramón said, “our lives depend on his success. Give the scout water, Roberto. Send him back to Don Fernando with news of the temporary setback we have suffered here.”

  After the scout’s departure, Baron Bernières staggered forward. Uncle Ramón caught him before he fell in the dust and sat him down amidst his Hospitaller entourage.

  “My lord,” Ramón said, “with your permission, I will assume command of the force until your recovery.” The Baron did not reply. The Hospitaller knights that surrounded them, including the Baron’s deputies, deferred to Ramón’s judgment, looking down in embarrassment for the behavior of their commander.

  Ramón instructed Colonel Pierre Delacorte, the Baron’s first deputy, to prepare the Hospitaller crews to wheel the siege tower into battle. Ramón then directed the Hospitaller foot soldiers to carry the clay pots of Greek fire to the front line of catapults.

  Greek fire was invented in Byzantium some six hundred years ago. Our Greek brothers closely guarded the secret of its composition, until the Muslims stole it or stumbled upon it in the last century. It is made of sulfur, saltpeter, and oil, and mixed in clay pots. In Calatrava, Uncle Ramón had told us of its destructive powers. Ramón had been made to endure the fire-and-brimstone barrage of that substance during the Saracens’ unsuccessful siege of Margat. At that time, Ramón was a knight in the Order defending the castle against an army from Egypt. The siege lasted half the year, the starving knights reduced to eating their mounts, and then the dead amongst them. According to Ramón, one of the order’s priests issued an extraordinary dispensation allowing the consumption of the dead in order to save the living. The priest himself refused to partake of Christian flesh and died a few days later, his body and blood victim to his own edict.

  Before advancing on Margat, the Saracens bombarded the castle by catapult—with Greek fire that exploded on impact with a cloud of fire and smoke. Several of Ramón’s comrades died in the flames; others suffocated from the smoke. The defenders were on the verge of surrender. The Saracens had wheeled their siege engine a few steps from one of the castle towers. Their soldiers were beginning to scale ladders leaning against the castle walls. As Ramón was mumbling a final prayer, the Saracen engine imploded. Ladders fell, the climbing infidel soldiers hurled to the ground.

  The Christian sappers had dug a mineshaft under the castle walls. When the siege engine reached the shaft, it broke through the earth. With the onset of the summer heat, the campaign season ending, the Saracen commanders decided to withdraw. The siege was lifted, and Margat remained in Christian control. Of the original one hundred seventy-five knights who guarded the castle, twenty-one remained alive, including Uncle Ramón.

  I do not know why Baron Bernières had neglected to use Greek fire in the initial salvo. He had been anxious to breach the fortification before Don Fernando’s men, and he probably believed that the stone missiles would speed penetration of the castle walls.

  Uncle Ramón said that we would return to the original battle plan. The Hospitaller crews operating the catapults would continue to launch stones in an attempt to breach the western wall, but would set aside an interval of time to load clay pots of Greek fire. This interval would precede and provide cover for an assault of the siege engine against one of the castle towers. Ramón said that the Greek fire would create enough turmoil within the castle to divert the attention of the Saracens from our attack.

  Once the Greek fire was carried up to the front line of catapults and launched toward the castle, the tenor of the battle changed dramatically. Sailing over the castle walls, the Greek fire exploded, sending smoke billowing up from the interior. Small fires broke out along various sections of the castle’s walls where wood had been used in the construction. The noise and commotion within the castle raised the morale of our soldiers, breaking the stupor into which many had sunk after the slaughter of our brethren.

  The siege engine was wheeled almost to within range of the Saracen archers when Uncle Ramón gave orders that the Calatrava were to ascend to the top floor of the tower. We would be the first to hit the ramparts. The Hospitaller knights were to occupy the lower floors, acting as reinforcements. Before entering the siege engine with his men, Uncle Ramón ceded operational control of the battlefield to Colonel Delacorte, the Baron’s first deputy.

  “Colonel,” Ramón said, “I order you to remain alive in order to oversee the battle.”

  “Ramón,” Colonel Delacorte stated, “my survival, as yours, is in the hands of Jesus Christ. I hope that He looks with favor on both of us today.”

  We followed Ramón into the siege engine, single-file, then climbed the rope ladder that connected each level. It was a difficult ascent because of the extra weight in armor and weaponry each of us carried—some sixty pounds. The darkness deepened as we ascended, moving farther away from the entrance, the only source of light in the tower. The skin on our palms rubbed off on the coarse twine. I could feel warm drops of blood on the rope. Upon reaching the top level, Ramón took hold of my arm and guided me to the left front corner of the engine. I stood there, sightless, clenching fast my sword and shield.

  It seemed an interminable period before the other knights filled the lower levels of the tower. We could hear the scrape of their boots on the wooden floor. Ramón spoke over the rumble.

  “Once inside the castle, men,” he said, “you will be offered all manner of Muslim cuisine. Be chivalrous, and eat what they serve you. We would not want to offend our hosts by declining their most precious delicacies.”

&n
bsp; Amongst our company, there was a restive laugh, a long, unnatural sigh, a release of hidden fears. Most of us would probably not survive the assault. When the gangplank was lowered, the Knights of Calatrava would be the first Christian soldiers to set foot inside the castle. Our casualties would be very high—they always were for the first line of attackers—usually fifty percent, sometimes one hundred.

  “I have received intelligence,” Ramón said, “from our spy concerning the secret existence of a harem in the castle. He says it contains the most beautiful women in Arabia. Perhaps I could seek a special indulgence from the Bishop of Acre to allow the victorious knights an opportunity to enjoy the local fruits. They say he is a very understanding man who has a taste for that sort of thing. Or maybe I should seek the kindly intervention of the Pope. What say you, Francisco?

  The laughter was harder, drawn out, more inclusive—even the devout forgetting themselves and joining Ramón’s congregation.

  “I would say,” I responded, “thank you, Uncle Ramón. If I live, I will pay a visit to this harem. If I live.”