Arnau began to turn his own mount, and as he did so, his attention was caught by a call.
‘Vallbona!’
He turned with a frown. The call had come from the Franks. Of more than a hundred that had taken the field there were only a dozen or so left. He could see no sign of the baron, but d’Orbessan was trapped among the enemy with just two other horseman and a few infantry and was waving at Arnau.
‘We need help, Vallbona!’
And they did. Arnau ground his teeth. Without support, the Franks would be overwhelmed in moments, but every second counted now. If the king of Castile fled, the whole army would collapse and the day would be lost. Arnau’s gaze snapped back and forth between the beleaguered Franks and the small group of Templars gathering behind him. With regret, even though he hated the man, he turned his back on d’Orbessan and rode for the small gathering.
Feeling guilt gnawing at him, he joined the white-clad men of the Order. The master, who seemed to be one of the most senior remaining Templars on the field, was splitting the group. ‘You ride for the Aragonese crown and warn them that Alphonso is falling back.’ He turned to another group. ‘You ride for the Navarrese king and warn him. The rest of us,’ his finger indicated a group that included Arnau and Balthesar, ‘will ride for His Majesty Alphonso and try to hold him and persuade him to remain.’
Balthesar coughed and gestured to Arnau. ‘Juan, this brother needs to ride to Sancho.’
The master frowned, but there was no time for explanations. He simply nodded. The Templars split into the three groups and began to trot and then canter, racing across the lines of panicked, beleaguered men, heading for the three crowns that supposedly directed this catastrophe. Balthesar waved him a farewell as Arnau joined the third group and then rode for the right flank, taking just a moment to scan the hell of battle in search of Tristán. The young squire was nowhere to be seen, but behind him as he rode away Arnau could hear his name being called distantly and desperately, and the guilt crashed against him in waves, again and again. Even loathing d’Orbessan, it was a terrible thing to have left him to die. But with luck what they were about to do would halt the failure of the day, and could change the entire course of the battle, and if that happened then he would consider the choice he’d made to be the correct one.
The right flank was holding, largely because Sancho of Navarre had committed everything he had. The infantry were maintaining a solid front, holding the line with the centre, supported by the horse, who periodically drove into the enemy, pushing them back and giving the footmen a chance to regroup and rotate their lines, and the city militias were formed on the very periphery. Sancho had kept only a small force of knights in reserve, heavy cavalry ready to do whatever was needed, the best the king had to offer.
Sancho himself was sitting tall in the saddle amid a small knot of high nobles, with his knights clustered around him, ready to move on the king’s command. The group of eight Templars, led by a preceptor Arnau had not met before, rode for the king, and Navarrese soldiers stepped politely out of the way as they closed on the small royal party and reined in.
Arnau frowned. Something was happening here. Even as the Templars slowed, the knights of Sancho’s reserve were forming up, and the king himself was in frantic conversation with one of his nobles, both men pointing up the hill.
‘Your Majesty,’ the preceptor said as they halted a respectful distance from the king, but Sancho of Navarre was paying him no attention. ‘Majesty?’ the Templar tried again, a little louder, waving at the king.
Sancho finally realised they were there and turned with a frown. ‘Yes?’
‘Majesty, the king of Castile is preparing to leave the field. He must be persuaded to stay.’
The Navarrese monarch threw a dismissive hand out towards the centre of the battle. ‘Alphonso can wait.’
‘Majesty?’
The king suddenly seemed to see Arnau for the first time, and his eyebrow rose as a smile bloomed on his chiselled face. ‘See how the Lord sends me signs,’ he announced. ‘Our cross-bearing shepherd returns just as providence makes his advice viable.’
Arnau stared at the king. ‘Your Majesty?’
Sancho shot out a finger. ‘Look yonder, good Brother.’
The Templar, along with his companions, turned to look up the hill. The battle looked to be lost even from here. He couldn’t see anything that stood out.
‘Sire?’
‘Brother shepherd, see how like Moses and the sea, God has swept aside the Almohad menace. We have a clear path to the caliph himself.’
Arnau frowned. He could see it… sort of. The Almohad infantry of the centre had swarmed around the last few Franks to the exclusion of all else, attempting to wipe them from the field. The enemy’s light cavalry had been drawn to the extreme right by the Navarrese foot, and a small gap had opened up between the enemy facing the forces of Navarre and the central mass. It was narrow, and could close at any moment, even if a small force was making its way through there at the time. It was a horrible gamble.
But it was a chance.
Atop the hill, the caliph’s pavilion remained sparsely manned, and the entire force of the Almohad army was now engaged, having descended from the heights. Only the caliph’s bodyguards would remain up there. And if the caliph could be killed, then the entire enemy force would collapse.
It was terribly dangerous and would also be very tight on time. The army of crusaders could collapse and rout at any moment, even if Alphonso of Castile could be persuaded to stay and commit his horse.
But it was still a chance.
‘Trust to God and your sword,’ the powerful Navarrese king shouted, drawing his own blade and jabbing it towards the pavilion at the hilltop. ‘And damn the eyes of anyone who gets in our way.’
And with that, the king of Navarre pricked spurs into his horse’s side and raced for the caliph himself.
* * *
Deep in the press of battle, Brother Martin Calderon was suffering his own crisis. Alongside the Templars and the knights of Santiago, the Order of Calatrava had formed a solid line at the centre of the field, behind the first ranks of light infantry. It had begun with good order and Calderon had been initially hopeful. Then the impetuous Lopez de Haro had taken it upon himself to drive an assault with his light spearmen, the centre of the Christian lines had collapsed under pressure, and everything had turned upon them.
In the second line, Núñez de Lara had been forced to push his own heavier infantry forwards to hold against an increasingly numerous and confident enemy. Since then it had all been a matter of being pushed back and trying to hold as long as possible in the hope that something would change, perhaps that the king of Castile would commit his knights from the rear.
The men of Núñez de Lara could not stand for long against the Almohad regulars, though, and it had not been long before the fighting had reached the three military orders and the Frankish knights. When they had first formed for battle, Calderon had been surprised to be placed in the heart of it all, close to the grand master and the most senior and important brothers. He had put it down to the fact that all his compatriots from Salvatierra had later been transferred to other houses and were now positioned with their own masters, while he currently belonged to no house. Moreover, while he knew his own strengths and mind, he was uncomfortably aware of rumours circulating that he was dangerous, a born killer, but a man who’d been too close to the Almohad flame and might burn up at any moment and become a liability.
He’d not cared. God had brought him to this place. God had led him by a tortuous route in order to help the army of Christendom fall upon the Moorish army unexpectedly. Everything he did was part of the Lord’s plan. But then the world had begun to slide away from beneath them. With every step of ground they were forced to cede to the Almohads, he was finding his conviction further shaken. Why would the Gracious Lord do all of this only to have them lose to the caliph?
And then he was suddenly in the thick of it
. His sword lanced out, hacked, chopped, swiped, biting into flesh and slamming against mail with whatever attack he could manage in the space afforded him. He felt his horse attempt to buck at some minor injury, but there simply was not room, and after a few moments’ struggle with the reins, he managed to calm the beast, helping it overcome the panic at the narrow red line on its shoulder.
The next blow it took he could do nothing about. His horse cried out and crumpled beneath him, slumping down on its side, neck mangled beyond belief, belly cut open and entrails sliding free. Calderon narrowly escaped the collapsing horse, staggering free and blocking an attack from a snarling Almohad soldier. Indeed, all along the line the brothers’ horses were being felled by vicious infantry, their preferred tactics of a concerted charge impossible in this nightmare. The knights of Calatrava fought like lions, still holding back an impossible tide.
Where was God now? At a time like this, when he needed the strength and guidance of the Lord of Hosts, that glorious divine melody in his head would have been a balm, yet there was nothing. Had the Lord abandoned him? Abandoned them all?
No. This could not happen. He had not been through all of this just to watch everything destroyed around him. Swinging his sword, he felled another howling Almohad. It seemed that the rest of the Order had come to the conclusion that something had to be done. The grand master was pushing forwards, trying to break the line of the Almohads. Muttering the Psalms even as he stabbed and hacked, Calderon pushed his way towards them.
The fighting became impossibly hard now, the press of men only alleviated when Christian or Moor screamed, fountaining blood, and disappeared beneath the stamping, bracing feet of both friend and foe. There was no space for care or subtlety or tactics. This was butchery, pure and simple.
It was luck alone, or perhaps it was the will of God after all, that he happened to be looking off to his left just as the Almohads made a sudden push, surging forwards, and suddenly Brother Gómez de Acevedo was engulfed by bellowing Moors, in his hands the staff bearing the ensign of the Order. Calderon watched with horror as the bannerman was run through with a spear, then hacked repeatedly by Moorish swords. Then the banner of Calatrava was gone, torn from his hands and held aloft triumphantly by a victorious, whooping Almohad, cries of dismay rising from the men of the Order like a dirge across the battlefield.
Calderon was suddenly pushing his way forwards into the enemy, not even bothering to swing his sword. There was not enough room anyway, but something had seized him, and he couldn’t have stopped had he wished it. His eyes were on the banner now and neither spear nor shield, nor the Devil himself, would stand in his way. As he heaved his way forwards as though wading through shoulder-deep water, he could feel blows landing here and there, but nothing that penetrated his chain shirt, nothing that would stop him.
The Moor gripping the standard of Calatrava was too busy cheering and displaying his prize to those behind him to realise the danger. There was insufficient space for Calderon to swing a blade here, and he had lost his shield somewhere in the press, but his left hand reached out and tugged the shoulder of the enemy. The Moor turned with a start, and his face collapsed in an implosion of bone, cartilage and blood as Calderon’s mailed fist smashed into it.
As the ruined man gurgled a scream through what was left of his mouth, Calderon ripped the staff from his hands, once more lifting the Calatrava banner high. He tried not to step on the body of Gómez de Acevedo, but it was impossible to tell what one was treading in now. He felt a small thrill of victory at the banner’s recovery, and suddenly the men of his order were beside him once more, holding the line, fighting to prevent disaster.
‘Singularly impressive, Brother,’ grinned a fellow knight as he fell in beside Calderon, hewing at the enemy. This, Calderon decided, was what mattered: brothers in Christ fighting to support one another against a foe that could not be allowed to remain.
His gaze, drawn by some unexplained imperative, rose above the heads of those in front. The whole Almohad army was committed now, moving down the slope. The crest was empty bar the caliph’s compound.
Then he saw what was happening and a flower of hope bloomed in his heart.
‘Hallelujah.’
17. The King and the Caliph
16 July 1212, Las Navas de Tolosa
Arnau glanced across at the preceptor leading their small unit. The man seemed to be shaken by the suddenness of this activity. He had been ordered to inform the king of Navarre of the danger of Castile fleeing the field and had expected to deliver his tidings and then either return to the Order in the fray, or perhaps accompany King Sancho to the Castilian crown to negotiate the ongoing command. He had not expected to find the Navarrese king preparing to launch a whole new attack of his own.
Around the small group of Templars, the knights of Navarre surged forwards at their king’s command. The preceptor, frowning with concern, looked back and forth between the flags of the three Orders struggling at the army’s centre, the swiftly departing force of the king of Navarre, and the distant banners of the Castilian crown at the rear centre of the field. Arnau’s gaze followed the same route and he could see the master’s dilemma.
The orders were in trouble, along with the Castilian foot and Biscayan troops at the centre. They were continuing to inch back under the immense pressure of the Almohad force and needed every man they had. A small encouraging sign was visible at the centre, at least, where the flag of King Alphonso had stopped falling back and had begun instead to move forwards. Castile was committing to the fight, the reserve heavy horse surging forwards to support the beleaguered front and middle ranks. Given the committing of the reserves, perhaps the Order could do without these few knights for now, though he tried not to picture those Franks who had called desperately for his help and were still there in the thick of it.
Arnau looked back across the right flank. Up the slope, the Navarrese front lines were continuing their cunning tactic, pulling the enemy cavalry off to the edge while the main infantry force concentrated on wiping out the Franks and pressing upon the Templars there. The gap was still there and now the king’s horsemen were racing for it.
He turned to the preceptor. Every pair of Templar eyes in their small force was looking to their master expectantly.
‘Brother?’ he urged.
The preceptor glanced from man to man. Nine soldiers of the Temple. Seven full brothers and two sergeants, all armed and armoured ready for the fray, all almost vibrating with anticipation. He nodded. ‘With the king, Brothers.’ His face tilted up to Heaven. ‘O Lord, protect these men. Be thou their constant companion and their strength and fortitude in battle, be their refuge in every adversity. Guide them, O Lord, that they may return home in safety.’
With that his gaze returned to the field of battle and he turned his steed, flicked the reins and dug his spurs in, his horse leaping forwards into a canter. Arnau and the other Templars followed suit, racing to catch up with brave King Sancho and his men.
As they charged towards that narrow gap in the enemy lines, he could see the Franks still fighting hard, but already Castilian horsemen had reached them and were relieving them. He couldn’t tell whether either d’Orbessan or the baron continued to fight, but a small knot of colourful knights remained on the edge of the Templar contingent, and at least they now stood a chance.
Still, Arnau could hardly afford to pay too much attention to their plight. He had his own perils to attend to. His initial fear that they had lost too much time and would not catch up with the Navarrese knights proved to be unfounded, for, as they neared the contested front lines, the knights were forced to pull close together into a knot to make their way through, and their momentum naturally slowed.
In no time at all, Arnau’s heartbeat matching the thunder of his steed’s hooves, the small knot of Templars caught up with the trailing knights of Navarre. Arnau felt his nerves twang as they approached, his teeth clenching. The gap between the enemy’s lines was closing. Someone among
the Almohad cavalry had apparently noticed the flaw in their current deployment, and the horsemen were doing their best to close the gap while maintaining their fight with the Navarrese infantry. They were struggling, attempting to secure two objectives at once, but they were succeeding, slowly.
Worse still, with the arrival of the Castilian horse into the centre of the field, the Almohads facing them had given up their attempt to wipe out the Franks and Templars in a furious all-out assault and had reformed into a more solid protective line, pressing forwards carefully once more, and becoming aware of the gap that had formed.
Arnau could see the figure of King Sancho out ahead. The Navarrese monarch and a handful of his knights had managed to make their way through the closing gap without difficulty and were racing for the caliph’s pavilion atop the hill, recklessly few in number, not waiting for the rest of his men to form. The others were even now forcing their way through the gap and hurrying to catch up. But the two enemy forces were pressing in now from both sides, and the riders pushing through were struggling more and more, the ones on the left and right of the small column being slowed as they had to fight their way through.
‘The centre,’ the preceptor called, thrusting his sword out and gesturing to the column of knights ahead. Arnau peered into the press and realised what the man meant. The Navarrese force was like a river flowing between Moorish banks, the centre of the stream flowing free and fast while at the edges the water caught up on the swords and spears of the banks.
The nine Templars dropped into double file, with the preceptor at the head, and raced for the closing gap. Passing the front lines of the Christian force, they hurtled into what remained of the passage, a corridor only four horses wide, as the men of Navarre fought to push their way through. In a matter of moments they were in among the press and the struggle, and squeezing through, desperately making for the hill behind the enemy lines in an attempt to catch up with the king.
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