Holy Warrior

by David Pilling

  Yet Edward was not bereft of allies. The military orders, Templars and Hospitallers, would throw their weight behind him. He could also hope for aid from Hugh de Lusignan, King of Cyprus, though Baibars rated the man something of a coward. If they overcame their terror of the Mamluks, some of the lesser Christian states might also offer support.

  “You didn’t come here,” said Baibars, “merely to inform me of the sack of Nazareth. It is a miserable little place, of small concern to me.”

  The woman’s eyes shone with brief amusement, and then resumed their carefully blank expression. Servants of the Qussad learned to shield their thoughts and emotions behind a steel wall.

  “Indeed, Majesty,” she answered. “I came to tell you that the English prince has sent an embassy to the il-khan. He hopes to make an ally of the Golden Horde.”

  “Very wise,” said Baibars. “Only they have the power to stand against us in open battle. It seems the Englishman has a brain and is willing to sacrifice belief for advantage. To him the Tartars are mere Saracens. Unbelievers.”

  “He hopes to convert their leaders to the faith of Christ,” said the assassin. Baibars uttered one of his rare laughs.

  “Ah, yes! The Tartar princes often make such noises. I have received letters from them before now, offering to convert to Islam in exchange for my friendship.”

  He snorted in disgust. “They would happily worship a dog if they stood to gain from it. The Franks must be reduced to a shameful condition indeed, if they put their hopes in the Golden Horde.”

  “Even so,” she said, “the il-khan is powerful. He can put ten thousand horsemen into the field in a matter of days, another fifty thousand in a month.”

  Baibars knew all too well the military strength of the Tartars. He had been at war with them for much of the past decade, as well as the Franks. If the Golden Horde was not quite the unstoppable force of old, when the Great Khan had threatened to destroy the Christian West, it was still a power to be reckoned with.

  He placed his hands together under his chin. “I see the Englishman’s strategy. If he can persuade Aqaba to attack from northern Syria, Edward will march against us from the south. The hammer and the anvil.”

  “He hasn’t got the men,” the assassin said with a hint of scorn. “The Franks of Outremer no longer have the stomach for a fight. Their merchants openly trade with ours. You have whipped all the defiance out of them, Majesty.”

  Baibars gave her a dark look. He hated flattery. “Step outside and cast your eyes at Tripoli,” he snapped. “The Franks inside the city appear to have plenty of fight left.”

  The assassin bowed her head in submission and placed both hands flat against her chest. “My humblest apologies, Majesty,” she said meekly. “I am but a pawn in your great affairs, with little understanding and less knowledge.”

  This did little to please her master. Baibars didn’t like false humility either and made a note that this girl should be watched. There was a hint of sarcasm in her tone, bordering on insolence.

  “What are your orders, Majesty?” she asked without waiting for his instruction. “The Christian embassy to the Tartars must be stopped. They left Acre under cover of darkness, but the Qussad can soon track them down.”

  This was greeted by cold silence.

  “You may return to your duties,” Baibars said eventually. The girl blinked, as if surprised, and then salaamed gracefully.

  “Majesty.”

  She turned smartly on her heel and strode out of the pavilion, lissom and cat-like on the balls of her feet. Baibars quelled a faint spark of lust as he watched her go. Stripped naked, she would be just as appetising as any of the members of his harem.

  And infinitely more deadly.

  The Qussad, male or female, were off-limits. Best not to think of them as human at all; savage hunters, sent out to destroy his enemies.

  A groan from outside reminded him of the battle for Tripoli. He went outside to stand in the shade of the silken porch and watch a stream of wounded carried past on stretchers.

  The wrecked bodies filled Baibars with sadness. And shame. He cared for his soldiers, even though he never hesitated to throw them into danger. Some of these men would survive, bound and patched up by the skill of Mamluk surgeons. The majority would die and be buried with honour.

  Baibars wasn’t used to defeat. He glared at the walls of Tripoli, bleached white in the morning sun. They threw defiance at him, the Christians on the walls, even as they threw his men down off their ladders. The ground at the foot of the wall was strewn with Mamluk dead. A few crawled back towards the ditches, their bodies full of arrows.

  The attack had failed. Baibars cursed his own arrogance. He had left his siege train behind at Damascus, thinking it not worth the effort to drag artillery all the way to Tripoli. The city would surrender, or be taken by storm.

  Now Edward had come to Acre. If not for the arrival of the English, Baibars would have sent for his siege engines and pounded Tripoli into dust. Instead he would have to deal with this new threat to the south. That meant offering a truce to Count Bohemund. His city was saved, for now.

  Arrogance and complacency, Baibars thought angrily. He despised such weakness in his enemies, and no less so in himself.

  It was tempting to lay the blame on General al-Jaliq. Baibars resisted the urge. Only a bad commander blamed his subordinates for a defeat. He should have known better than to entrust the task to a novice.

  As it turned out, al-Jaliq had already paid for his failure to carry the walls of Tripoli. He was carried past the sultan’s pavilion on a stretcher borne by two of his Mamluks. The general had the broken end of a spear lodged deep in his shoulder, between the plates of his armoured coat. His white cloak was drenched in blood, his face grey and twisted with pain.

  Al-Jaliq lifted his hand in a feeble salaam to Baibars. “Forgive me, Majesty,” he whispered. “I failed you.”

  Baibars clasped his hand for a moment, then let it drop. “My own physician will treat you,” he said. “That spear must come out quick and clean. Slave!”

  One of his slaves materialised at his elbow. Baibars barked at him to fetch the physician, then signalled at the stretcher-bearers to carry the wounded man to his pavilion.

  While al-Jaliq was carried away, murmuring thanks, the sultan looked back at Tripoli. The triumphant cheers of Christians drifted across the field, where scores of Mamluks lay broken and bleeding their lives into the dirt.

  Defeat. Baibars hated the taste of that word. He turned away and stalked back to his pavilion, his mind clouded with angry thoughts.

  3.

  “God’s death, this city stinks with corruption! A rotting dunghill, full of traitors and collaborators!”

  The Lord Edward smacked the palm of his hand on the table, knocking over an elegant silver goblet. A thin trickle of red wine poured over the darkly polished wood. Hugh’s eyes fixed on the liquid as it slowly spread and pooled over a detailed map of Outremer held flat by silver coins at each corner.

  Edward snatched up the goblet and hurled it at a servant, who ducked and fled from the chamber.

  “That’s it,” the prince roared. “Run, you cringing spy – run to your paymasters!

  The servant was an Egyptian, clad in a loose white robe. The sound of his sandals flap-flapping on the wooden floor slowly faded.

  A tense silence fell over the chamber. Edward had summoned a council here, on the upper floor of the Hospital of the Teutonic Knights, inside the Hospitaller Quarter of Acre. It was foully hot, though the chamber was large and airy and the lattice windows flung wide open. Beyond was a wooden balcony, where a man might sit and drink something cool with a splendid view of the city below. Hugh closed his eyes a moment and tried not to think of iced wine.

  The council chamber was whitewashed, almost bare of furnishing. A wooden crucifix hung from one wall and a thick Persian rug, spun in many colours, lay over the floorboards. The table was dragged close to the window so that Edward and his adviso
rs could take advantage of what little air wafted in.

  Edward knuckled his forehead and made a visible effort to calm himself. “Apologies,” he muttered at last. “It’s this cursed heat. I haven’t slept properly since we arrived. I daresay none of us have.”

  His advisors murmured their agreement. The prince had summoned a dozen men, eleven great lords and Hugh, whose role was to hover in the background and keep his mouth shut unless questioned. He was slightly intimidated by the company, all of them wealthy, powerful men in their own right. They included Othon de Grandison, a knight of Savoy and Edward’s particular favourite; William de Valence, the prince’s Lusignan kinsman, a thin, olive-skinned man of few words; Roger Clifford and Hamo Lestrange, hardened fighters from the Welsh March, now wilting in the merciless heat.

  Hugh deliberately avoided the eye of one of the lords present. This was John de Vescy, lord of Alnwick. Four years had passed since Hugh helped Edward to undermine Vescy’s rebellion in Northumberland, forcing the northerner to sue for peace. Edward had pardoned him, as he pardoned most of the baronial rebels in England, and Vescy was now one of the prince’s closest companions. The heir to the throne had a gift for inspiring loyalty, even among those who had once fought against him.

  Since completing his mission, Hugh had given the north of England a wide berth. He had made too many enemies in that part of the world and had no desire to encounter them again. Apart from Vescy, there was the mysterious assassin who tried to murder him at York. His mind often wandered back to their duel in the midnight streets of the city, swords flashing in a pool of moonlight. The assassin’s face was hidden under a cowl, though Hugh would never forget the sheer size and strength of the man.

  Does Vescy bear a grudge against me? Hugh wondered. The lord of Alnwick never seemed to notice him. Despite his rebel past, Vescy was said to be an honourable man and had earned his place among Edward’s companions.

  Perhaps he has forgotten me. Please God, let it be so.

  Hugh smiled inwardly. Once again he overrated his own importance. Among all these great men, with their lands and titles and proud lineages, he was nothing. Just another clerk among the prince’s retinue, and the owner of a highly forgettable face.

  Edward rested his knuckles on the table. “This city is full of spies,” he said. “Spies and collaborators. I spent years planning this expedition. We endured many hazards and dangers to come here, to fight for the salvation of the Holy Sepulchre.”

  His companions looked sombre. Many were still weak from seasickness, and nobody needed reminding of the perils of their long journey. Hugh shuddered when he thought of Tunis in North Africa. Edward had been persuaded by Charles, King of Anjou, to attack the Muslim emir of Tunis before sailing to the Holy Land. Men had died like flies in the foul African heat, or from the dysentery that ravaged the army. Disease was no respecter of persons. Even the King of France, Saint Louis himself, had succumbed.

  Hugh glimpsed Louis before he died. The illustrious saint-king, who had devoted his life to rescuing the Christian states of Outremer, had died amid filth and stench and squalor, gasping out prayers to the last, his body reduced to a mere husk of skin and brittle bone. Priests wept around his bed, even as a cloud of swollen flies buzzed about the royal pavilion, eager to feast on his corpse.

  Edward was working himself up into another fury. When he was in a temper his stammer grew worse. “When we r-reached Acre after so many trials, what did we find?” he shouted. “V-v-venetian merchants trading food and weapons with the Saracens - trading with the enemy! So-called Christians, bargaining with the enemies of C-Christ!”

  His companions remained silent. Hugh had become an expert at reading faces – an invaluable skill in his trade – and reckoned that about half the lords present shared Edward’s anger. The others were tired, and just wanted to find somewhere cool and shady to rest.

  The prince snapped his fingers at Othon de Grandison. “Othon,” he barked. “Remind us all of our strength.”

  The Savoyard, a short, thickset man with a face like a sheep, gave a polite duck of his head. “My pleasure, seigneur,” he replied smoothly. “Two hundred and twenty-five knights and squires, eight hundred men-at-arms and crossbowmen.”

  Just over a thousand men. All English, since the rest of the crusading host had turned for home at Tunis, shortly after the death of Saint Louis. Hugh tried not to shake his head. Such a tiny army was just a drop in the ocean compared to the might of the Saracens under their all-conquering sultan, Baibars. Everyone present knew it.

  The threat of Baibars hung like a storm cloud over Acre. Even now, his army scoured the plains beyond the city, swallowing up one Christian stronghold after another. Edward’s little army had arrived in Acre barely a week ago, but in that time reports came in daily of some fresh Saracen victory. Baibars had stormed the castes of Chastel Blank, Gibelacar and, worst of all, the great crusader fortress of Crac des Chevaliers.

  Along with his companions, Hugh had grown up on the legends of this mighty fortress and the Christian priest-warriors who guarded it, the famous Hospitallers. Now the castle was in the hands of pagan men, and Hugh would never see it.

  Unless I am captured in some skirmish and taken there as a captive.

  Hugh suppressed this terrible thought. He had spent enough time in English dungeons not to relish the thought of sampling a Saracen one. There were all kinds of stories of what the Saracens did to Christian prisoners; smoked them with foul smoke, stuffed them into chests full of sharp rocks to break their bodies, cut them apart with hot knives. Hugh, who happened to know that Christians did such things to each other as well, took the stories with a pinch of salt.

  After all, have I not overseen the torture of men? And women, for that matter…

  Edward’s harsh voice broke in on his thought. “And of our fighting men,” he demanded of Othon, “how m-many are fit to march?”

  The Savoyard spread his hands. “Perhaps half, seigneur. The voyage, as we all know, was a difficult one. Many of the common men are laid low with fever. The summer heat doesn’t help, of course. We northerners are not used to it. Nor the food. I speak for myself in this.”

  He grimaced slightly and patted his stomach. Some of his companions made sympathetic noises. Hugh had taken advice before arriving in Acre and stuck to plain food; wheaten bread and pulses. Others were not so cautious, and English nobles and soldiers alike gorged on the rich fare on offer. Peasant infantrymen, used to their native diet of hard bread and beer and not much else, now stuffed themselves with dates, fruit, spices and other exotic delicacies.

  As a result hundreds of men were now flat on their backs or else rushing back and forth to the latrine pits. Hugh was no doctor but reckoned it would be a miracle if dysentery didn’t wipe out the army before the Saracens did.

  Edward rested his knuckles on the map. He stared down at it, brows knitted together. Silence reigned in the chamber as everyone waited on his response. Not for the first time, Hugh didn’t envy his master the responsibility that weighed heavy on his shoulders.

  And with each year that passes, the burden will grow a little heavier…

  “It comes to this,” Edward said at last. His voice was calm again, patient. “We have too few men to face Baibars in the open field. At least half of the men we do have are rotten with sickness. We cannot trust the Venetians. The Cypriots will s-send no aid. Any reinforcements from England are months away. The military orders assure me of their support, at least, but their numbers are few.”

  He plucked one of the tiny lead forts off the map and held it up between finger and thumb.

  “One castle after another falls to Baibars,” he added, studying the piece through narrowed eyes. “What can we do to stop him? Nothing. Not as we are.”

  “The Tartar alliance,” said William de Valence. “It is vital we secure the il-khan’s support.”

  Edward gave a slow nod and carefully placed the fort back on the map. Barely had he done so when the sound of distant trumpets
echoed through the streets outside. Startled, every man in the chamber turned to the open window.

  The trumpets multiplied, grew louder, and were joined by church bells and the frantic beating of drums. Edward strode outside onto the balcony, followed by Othon and Valence. The rest hung back. Hugh hesitated a moment, then followed.

  He walked into a wave of sound. The streets were thronged with people, citizens and merchants and beggars mixed up with soldiery, all fighting to rush in opposite directions. Scuffles broke out here and there, blows struck, angry shouts and curses thrown about.

  The sound of drums and trumpets came from the south, beyond the inner wall that protected the Hospitaller Quarter. Acre was defended by a double wall, and from the balcony the flat plains beyond were clearly visible. On a roasting hot day this like one, under clear blue skies, a man might see for miles.

  Something twisted inside Hugh’s gut as he shaded his eyes to peer north. His stomach was still not fully recovered, but this latest discomfort had nothing to do with sea-sickness.

  The land north of Acre was full of troops: endless companies of horse and foot, their armour gleaming like a hundred thousand polished mirrors. A forest of bright banners and pennons fluttered above their crowded ranks. This vast host rumbled towards Acre under a rolling cloud of yellow dust, marching with slow, implacable purpose. The unearthly sound of their war-horns rose above all and seemed to hang in the air, drowning the clangour of church bells inside the city.

  Edward, whose face had drained of blood, made the sign of the cross over his chest. Hugh couldn’t hear him speak over the din but was a skilled lip-reader.

  “Now God and the saints preserve us,” said the prince. “Baibars has come.”