Hope and the Knight of the Black Lion

by Mary C. Findley

My pretty mail and shiny helmet have rusted with the gouges of Christian swords and the blood of Christian zealots still clinging to them. My fine surcoat does not look so white and pure, nor its bloody cross so bright and red. It has rotted into brown tatters and one can barely tell what it once was. But I must write of the day we “Christians” landed. Otherwise no one will understand how it is that I wear the robes and carry the sword of the “Saracens” whom I swore to drive out of this land. They will not know why now I live under a new vow – to rout the Christians out of this land.

  We landed, I say, muddled and wobbly-legged, only barely alive, the ship having wracked in the storm that scattered the fleet and, as I heard later, drove them off course from Alexandria to Damietta. Our ship was commissioned late and it may have been that no one realized it was lost. The ship smashed off the land spit surrounding the Lake Manzala and spewed us into the sea off a desert coast. We struggled to get on land and knew only that we were far from Alexandria. None of us knew where to go. The sun broiled us and the salt dried on our skins and filled us with wretchedness. There was no fresh water in sight, no game, only a few prickly plants we had no idea contained reservoirs of nectar. There were about twenty of us in all.

  The knight who was to have commanded us lay on the beach at my feet, his head smashed in when a wave dashed him onto the rocks. We had no heart even to bury him. Then we heard voices and bleatings of sheep.

  “Look! There are Saracens!” someone shouted. I looked up and saw shepherds driving their flocks over the rocks beyond the beach. They had stopped and were looking curiously down at us.

  “Let us fight them!” cried someone else. “For Christ and Our Lady!”

  I stared at my comrades and disbelief. “These are only herdsmen,” I protested. “They are not even armed.”

  “Nay, they are the enemy,” one of my fellows insisted. “If they are not of the Church, they are against it. Kill them! Let us kill them!”

  No power, no wealth on earth was worth being a part of this mad destruction. What possible profit could there be in slaughtering helpless shepherds? “Stop!” I roared, getting between them and the rocky slope. “You shall not pass to do this thing.”

  They looked so feeble it never occurred to me that they would do otherwise than curse me and back away. Even among my own people I am a giant. My strength was something of a legend at school where there were many fights between gown and town. I raised my sword and motioned them to back away. They did not. A noise like angry bees or the low growl of a baited bear rolled out of them and they came toward me.

  “Stop!” I warned. “I do not wish to kill you.”

  “Traitor! Blasphemer! Kill him!” The growl became words and my heart sank. On they came. I glanced backward. The shepherds could not comprehend what was passing. They did not even scatter or hide. I could not back down or I would be killed with them.

  A few times in my life I have felt a power come over me that is hardly from within my own body. Some spirit takes hold of me and afterward I learn I have done some mighty feat of strength. So it was when my fellow crusaders experienced the killing hailstorm I became. My broadsword drew more Christian blood in one day than ever did the scimitar I carry now.

  If I did not kill the full score of my comrades it was not because they did not give me opportunity. Even as they cried out in fear of my wrath they seemed to believe if they did not go on fighting they would be damned. The Arab shepherds fled in panic, not knowing whether I would turn upon them. They could not know the decision I had made that moment, the change my whole heart and mind had undergone in those two or three moments when I saw what the Holy Mother Church could do to a man and made up my mind to go a different way. Of course the conviction had been growing on me throughout the journey and only came out in this resolve.

  Suddenly I found myself in the middle of a party of horsemen who were not mere shepherds. Their curved swords and spears dispatched the last of my dying comrades, and then they turned to me. If I had expected gratitude for killing my fellow Crusaders I did not find it in the faces of the Arab warriors who surrounded me. I hesitated a moment, thinking they would just kill me. I had no means of preventing it.

  Then I seized hold of the cross sewn upon the shoulder of my tunic and ripped it loose. I threw it on the ground and stamped upon it, and then I spat on it where it lay in the dust.

  The Arabs stopped their charge and milled around me, chattering in that language which seemed so foreign to me at the time, but now is easier for my tongue to speak than my own. I had no thought that they would understand my speech. I hardly knew what I would say to them if I could make them understand me. I certainly wanted to talk them out of killing me somehow.

  Though I was head and shoulders above any of them and I had certainly not neglected my battle training in the midst of my book learning I doubted I could beat the whole lot of them. I saw no other option but to somehow persuade them to let me join them. One of the riders broke away from the group and rode off. The others ringed me with spears and I had to stand motionless the better part of an hour before the one who had left returned carrying a boy in a short, rough tunic and bare feet behind him. The slim, handsome lad slid off and came warily up to me.

  “Why do you kill your own men?” he asked in perfectly good English.

  “Because they were wrong,” I answered, equally wary. “The men they wanted to attack were shepherds, not soldiers. And they had not harmed us. It was cowardly and I had to stop them.”

  “What of the Cross?” he asked, pointing to the emblem I had left lying at my feet.

  “I will wear it no more,” I said. “Let me join you, and fight these murdering cowards who have invaded your land.” I wondered afterward how that resolve had gotten into my head and out of my mouth. It was so foreign to me. I saw no hope of money or power or influence following such a decision, but never before had I been so sure of a thing. I hated this Crusade and those who had started these butchers on their way to slaughter helpless sheepherders. I meant to cut myself off utterly from it or die rather than go on being called a Christian.

  The boy was clearly astonished by my words. The others who surrounded me babbled at him, wanting to know what I had said. Some probably just wanting him to get out of the way so they could get on with skewering me. It was several minutes before he was able to form speech to answer their demands. They all seemed just as amazed as he was when he told them what I had said. The boy looked up at me after speaking with his companions for a time.

  “You are a mighty warrior,” he said. “Never have any of them seen a Christian who can fight like you. They would surely drive the others back into the sea if you fought with them. But how can they know you speak the truth? Some of these men say you lie to save your life, and you will betray them as soon as they take you where some of your own people are.”

  “I will never betray you,” I said.

  “You betrayed your own people,” the boy reminded me. I realized suddenly that he was terrified of me. He stood there, unarmed, unprotected, and he knew that if I chose to cleave his head off his shoulders his comrades could only kill me after the fact. He stood straight and spoke firmly but his eyes revealed his terror. I cast my sword down on the ground and began to strip off my tunic and armor. I kept on till I wore nothing but my braes. My armor – all my Christian trappings – lay in the dust beside my Crusader’s cross.

  “I renounced my people,” I corrected him. They were wrong – everything they believe and practice is wrong. The Christians come to take what is not even theirs. I never believed in their God. You fight to save your land and your homes and your people. That is the right cause to fight for. I will fight for you, and I will help you drive out the Christians.”

  The boy communicated this to the horsemen, apparently, and another buzz of conversation went on. They looked at me again and again, their eyes traveling up and down me. They were all so small and slender I am sure my giant frame was something they could scarcely understand.
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  “They will test you,” the boy said at last. “I am going to tie your hands – you must submit – and one of these men will lead you down to the beach.” I held out my hands without replying. A rider tossed one end of a braided leather rope to the boy and he tied it tightly around my wrists.

  He must have thought I could snap ropes like Samson but I could not have broken those bonds. The man on horseback spurred his mount and led me a merry chase down to the beach. I fell twice and they all laughed except the boy. He ran along beside me, helped me to rise when I stumbled, and kept his lips shut tight.

  On the beach the boy bound my hands behind me and my arms tight against my sides. The sun blazed on my fair English skin and the leather bit into my wrists and arms but I did not think it would do any good to say I was uncomfortable. The horsemen seemed to argue among themselves a bit, and then all fell back except five spearmen. The boy stepped away from me, but I saw what I thought might be reluctance in his eyes.

  “Do not move no matter what,” he whispered as one of the men pulled him away. “It is to see if you have enough courage. Just stand straight and still.”

  The five Arabs gave a weird, savage cry and spurred their horses. They rode in a tight ring around me and suddenly one unleashed his spear and sent it singing past my ear. I swallowed hard and stayed still. Another spear hissed by my shoulder. The shouting grew louder, the horses ran faster, and the spears flew thick.

  The boy darted in and out, pulling up the thrown spears and reaching them back up to their owners along with others thrust at him by the watchers. I found it was true that if I simply did not move there did not seem to be any real danger. The men were amazingly accurate, but the spears came so close it was hard to take it calmly. Tension made me tremble and I was afraid my legs would not keep holding me. I found I could not watch the horsemen at all. It made me dizzy and sick. Nor could I close my eyes. My body wavered if I did. I wondered how long this would go on. The sun was making me faint and my head pounded. My bare feet burned on the sand and my bonds made my arms throb.

  All at once I saw a spear coming at me and knew it was not going to miss. The spear drove right toward my right eye. I watched it come and it seemed to move so slowly. I wanted to dodge but I was so stiff I could not. Something hit me in the midsection and bore me to the ground. The spear slashed me from my mouth to my eye as I went down and blood seemed to burst out of the wound. I was blind for a moment but I knew that someone was sawing at my bonds and screaming in Arabic. It was my interpreter. The riders halted their “game” and stood sullenly while he cursed them and cut me free.

  “He meant to kill you,” the boy said over and over again to me, dabbing at my face with a wad of chamois. “It was not right.”

  “Thanks, lad,” I said hoarsely. “Did I pass the test or fail it?”

  “You passed, Christian dog,” he said. “They cannot say you have no courage. It is that son of a jackal – “ he pointed wildly at one of the riders, apparently the one who had intended to skewer me “ – who is a coward.” He rattled off something to the men who clustered around and some nodded agreement. The guilty party turned abruptly and galloped off.

  I had crawled onto the beach that morning, seasick and battered by the waves. I had killed twenty men whom I had called brothers and friends. I had broiled in the sun, lost feeling in my arms and hands and had my face split open by an Arab spear, all in the space of less than three hours. I lay flat on my back and looked up at the boy who had saved my life.

  “What is your name?” I asked.

  “Ma Sadaquahka,” he answered. It was my first lesson in Arabic. He had said, “My name is Sadaquah.” I smiled at him and fainted.

  Chapter Seven : A Father’s Teaching, A Brother’s Love, A Knight’s Resolve

  “Dost not thou fear God?

  “We receive the due reward of our deeds:

  but this man hath done nothing amiss.

  “Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.”

  “To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.”

  “Certainly this was a righteous man.”

  Luke 23

  I started up from my reading and stared around me in wild amazement. I slammed the book shut, got up, and paced restlessly around the cot. Hours had passed since I had begun reading, what with puzzling out the damaged pages and taking a stab at figuring out the foreign passages. I grabbed some cold meat and bread from what Meg had sent with me and gnawed at it. Afterward I went outside. I had the presence of mind to look carefully around, and I did not think anyone was about. At the little stream I drank and splashed water on my face. When I looked up, I almost screamed to see Sadaquah standing over me.

  “I must put a bell on you,” I said angrily. “Why did you not go and help Sir Chris? Has he gone to the castle alone?”

  “He bade me stay here,” Sadaquah said sullenly.

  “Oh, and it irks your soul that you must nurse me,” I spat. “Well, go, then. I can look after myself.”

  “Would that you could,” Sadaquah retorted. “But my brother has said I must watch over you.”

  “Well watch over me facing the other way,” I ordered. “I need to wash myself better. And stand off, if you please.” He strode off a half dozen paces and faced round the other way. I had just slipped off my surcoat when he spoke. I started but he did not turn around. “The book,” he said. “What do you make of it?”

  “Book?” I repeated. “The book I placed in your bundle,” Sadaquah said irritably. “But perhaps you cannot read?”

  “I can read English, Latin, French, Italian, German and Greek.” Well, only a very little Greek, but I did not tell him that. “I saw the book. What is it?”

  “You did not read it?”

  “What if I did? What is it? Where does it come from?”

  “Women!” Sadaquah spat. “La oreed – I do not want -- Why do I even speak to a woman? If only Allah had made them without tongues as well as without sense.”

  “Yes, I read somewhat of the book. It is an amazing story. Did you write it?”

  “Did I write it? Did I write it? Al hamdu lillah – God be thanked -- I am not forced to write in the English tongue! It is punishment to me just to speak like the groaning of a sick camel. Am I English? Here, woman, put it out of your mind. It takes up what little space there is. We will not speak of it any more.”

  He strode away. Angrily I pulled my surcoat back on and ran after him. “Sadaquah, I saw your name in the book,” I said. “So I thought perhaps you had written it. No Englishman would write such a thing.”

  “And why not?”

  “No Englishman would say he does not believe in God. He would not kill his own people. It is impossible.”

  “So it seemed to me at the time,” Sadaquah murmured. “Go and read more. I can tell you did not get far.” Indeed, I was anxious to do so. I left the Arab and ran back to the cottage. Inside I snatched up the book, lay down on the great straw mat that had once held all of Gil’s family, and began to read again. I could not find the place where I had left off in all the changes of Latin and English and Arabic. There were also all the torn out and ruined pages, but at last I came across a page that gripped my attention, though it was smeared with dark brownish stains and I could barely make it out.

  I stood at the farthest edge of the oasis while the old pilgrim preached to his flock and those of the caravan who had chosen to listen. I, of course, had chosen not to listen. I had only come to trade for supplies our band needed and then be gone back up into the mountains. I had studied Islam but found it disturbingly similar to what I had already rejected and fraught with thousands of warring sects differing from village to village.

  My first zeal had faded long ago, and I suspected it had been mostly sickness and fear of being killed that had made me want to join the band of marauders. It was still my fear, every day, but I knew that I was as wrong to slaughter Christians who only fought in ignorance and fear as the crusaders were to hypocritically slaught
er Muslims in the name of a false belief in “Christ and Our Lady.” Sometimes I tried to avoid killing because it sickened me so to go on being judge and executioner when I was the one being eaten away by guilt. One camp of Franks I had routed simply by setting their tents on fire as they slept, forcing them all to dive into the sea to escape the flames. My Arab comrades grumbled loudly but I pointed out that I had kept my vow to drive my brother knights back into the sea as they wished.

  Could all faith in God be false, though, even if these poor fools erred? I had seen and longed for the faith in some of the dying soldiers, Christian and Muslim, whom I had stood over on the battlefields. In the worship of God there was comfort, camaraderie, and love of home and country and family. In my heart there was emptiness. I had no home, no country, no God. I had dismissed all faith as false, but I suffered torments of loneliness as painful as my battle-wounds and deeper, among these who called me brother but with whom I could not even share a meal because I remained an infidel.

  The old man who preached was a Christian, and I had long ago given up on that faith. But I could not stay away, because he ministered not to a crowd of simpering pilgrims but to a flock of soul-hungry Arabs. He had been a priest at one time, no doubt, and was very learned. Yet he spoke simply, in beautiful Arabic, and his words burned into my soul. He had translated the Scriptures into Arabic and memorized them.

  He had no written words before him at all, but the very words of God flowed out of his mouth and I heard them as I had never heard them before. He spoke of Christ, of His love, His miracles, His wisdom. I felt sure the old man had been caught up to the third heaven like Saint John and seen Christ face to face; he spoke so knowingly of Him. And then he described Christ’s death on the Cross. Had I ever even read it? Nay, not with any heart or mind engaged to the task. It sprang to life in the old man’s words, and I actually fell to my knees as he cried out, “It is finished.” I could not but believe. The night air quivered with God’s presence. He was there.