Mamluk

by J. K. Swift

  Foulques forced his eyes open, one at a time, afraid of what he would find. The amount of blood on his tunic shocked him, until he remembered very little of it was his own. He began flexing the muscles of his legs and worked his way up until he finished with his fingertips. He identified no breaks, but plenty of bruising. He took a deep breath, which elicited some pain on the left side of his ribcage, but he was fairly certain none of his ribs were even cracked.

  He looked around him. Not fifty feet away was the door to Kas the Jew’s bakery. And it was at eye level.

  How was that possible?

  He heard the baker’s voice again, and this time, it was accompanied by a tugging at his elbow. Then Marshal Clermont’s voice cut through the fog of his mind and the noise and confusion surrounding him.

  “Thank the Saints! Foulques, can you hear me? Is he hurt?”

  “I do not think so. His helmet took the brunt of it. Look at it. I had a hard time removing it because of the dents,” Kas said.

  Roderic and Jimmy the Neckless were with the marshal and they helped Foulques to his feet.

  “How do you feel?” Roderic asked.

  “Nothing a week in a bath house will not remedy,” Foulques heard himself say. “What happened? How did I get here, on the street?”

  Jimmy pivoted Foulques around by his shoulders. “Look,” the big sergeant said.

  Foulques squinted his eyes to protect them from the dust in the air. On his right was the Accursed Tower. To its left was a hundred foot section of rubble that had once been the wall attached to the Accursed Tower. The tower, itself, seemed to have developed a slight lean to one side.

  “They undermined the wall,” the marshal said. “Under our very feet. Come. We must hurry. They will be through the rubble in minutes. We must hold them at the breach.”

  Foulques shook his head to clear it. Quarried rocks worn smooth by centuries of foot traffic were scattered haphazardly on the street around them. Rougher rocks of all sizes stretched toward the wall in a hill of debris that rose no higher than ten or twelve feet. Somehow, Foulques had ridden the collapsing wall to where he now stood. His armor had protected him to some degree, but truly, his survival had the hand of God in it.

  “I need a sword,” Foulques said.

  “Come. You can pick one up along the way. There will be no shortage of weapons where we go.”

  They ran to the lowest part of the debris field. Foulques could hear the Mamluks on the other side, shouting and removing rocks one by one. The marshal had been right. Swords were everywhere. Foulques retrieved one from the ground. Nearby, buried up to his waist in rock, was a dead Schwyzer. His head and face were too disfigured to identify, but Foulques knew he was one of the Schwyzer youths because his brown tunic did not yet have the cross of Saint John on it. The monks of the Order sewed crosses on the Schwyzer tunics and robes when they had spare time. It was not seen as a priority. Had eight years not been enough time?

  As they waited for the Mamluks to clear a path into the city, rock by rock, Foulques knelt over the dead youth and prayed for his soul. He removed his glove and brushed the youth’s eyelids closed at the same moment the first Mamluk stepped through a gap in the debris.

  He was the first Mamluk to set foot inside the city, and the first to die on the streets of Acre. As the breaches opened up in the remains of the wall, it became a frantic search and destroy scenario. The defenders would plug one gap and a few feet away another would open up. A brave Mamluk warrior would run through, hacking at Hospitallers left and right, trying to penetrate further into the city so the men behind him had some space to fill. But all the remaining Hospitallers had come down off the wall itself, and with their numbers concentrated at the fallen section, they managed to hold their own when it came to pushing back the Mamluks as they tried to establish a footing within the city.

  Foulques stood between Jimmy the Mouth and Roderic, fighting to keep the enemy from passing through a space wide enough for one man. They took turns standing in the opening. Foulques picked up a shield and he tapped Jimmy on the shoulder with it to signal it was time for him to take a rest. He retreated and Foulques pushed into the space, leading with his shield.

  Two Mamluks stabbed at him with their scimitars, but Foulques’s shield protected him. There was only room for him to thrust in the narrow opening, so that is what Foulques did. Again, and again. The Mamluks were being pushed from the back by members of their own army. The constant jostling from behind caused one of the men to be closer to Foulques than he should have been. Foulques caught him with a thrust in the groin, up under the plates of his lamellar armor. The second man fell forward against Foulques’s shield, and pressed as he was so tightly against the Hospitaller, Foulques had no recourse but to drop his sword and draw his rondel dagger. The Mamluk was even more helpless, for both his arms were wedged against the shield. He looked on helplessly as Foulques pierced the white of one of his eyes with the dagger, killing him instantly.

  The dead man could not fall to the ground because of the press of bodies behind him, and Foulques, though he continued to lean forward with all his strength, felt himself losing ground. Jimmy and Roderic both put their hands on Foulques’s shield and the combatants struggled back and forth like that for several minutes. Finally, exhausted, their boots slipping on cobbles slick with blood, the three men were pushed clear of the breach. Mamluks began to emerge through the opening one by one.

  Similar things were happening all along the remnants of the wall.

  “Hospitallers! To me! To me!” The grand master called from somewhere behind Foulques. Out of the corner of his eye he saw his brethren begin to break off their entanglements and run toward the grand master. The marshal was already beside Grand Master Villiers, organizing the men into a box formation. Mamluks were everywhere now, so Foulques, Jimmy, and Roderic kept their backs toward one another and fought their way slowly toward the grand master’s unit. It would have been an impossible task, but the Mamluks emerging from the wall were more intent on pressing further into the city than they were on engaging three grim-faced Hospitallers. So the most frequent attacks they had to deal with were mad slashes from Mamluks as they rushed past. Eventually, though, it became clear that they were not going to make it to the grand master. There were simply too many Mamluks around them and too many of the enemy’s commanders were now on site. Discipline began to take hold, and the three Hospitallers found themselves surrounded by Mamluks intent on taking their lives.

  Seeing the reality of the situation, Foulques directed his trio up against the wall of a building and prepared to make a stand. He fought with dagger and shield, Jimmy had his hammer, and Roderic, only a sword.

  The Mamluks came at them the way trained soldiers should: in groups of as many men as space would permit. Their purpose was to rid the battlefield of an obstacle, and the best way to do that was to use their advantage of numbers. This was no honorable contest of arms. It was war.

  In some ways, fighting with only a dagger in these circumstances, simplified Foulques’s life. With his options limited, both in offense and defense, he found it easier to concentrate on the weapons and men within his immediate vicinity. Those even a stride away were no longer a part of his world. Using shield and dagger, he turned blades and maces aside that entered his realm as best he could. He focused on protecting his vitals and put his trust in his mail for the rest. When a face or a wrist came within his reach, his dagger would snake out and take it, but defense always took precedence.

  Foulques used his shield to cover himself and Jimmy’s flank as best he could. But Jimmy the Neckless made for a big target, and he was tiring. He no longer had the strength to use his hammer effectively as a weapon, so he had resorted to employing it like a shield to entangle and thwart enemy blades. It was not working well, but Roderic had stepped in with thrusts from his sword to save him several times. Roderic’s mail hung open on his chest and right side, where it had taken heavy cuts, and without doubt, saved his life. But it was now
on the verge of being useless.

  Foulques did not see the blow that killed Roderic, but he felt it. When one is fighting so close to his brethren, often touching him occasionally to maintain an awareness of where he is, it is almost as though they meld into a single being. So when Roderic’s right side was opened by a Mamluk blade, both Foulques and Jimmy cried out as though they, themselves, were the ones who had been cut.

  Roderic, for his part, did not make a sound. He stood for a moment longer, half swung his sword one last time, and then he slumped against the wall of the building they were cornered against.

  Foulques turned in time to see him hit the ground. Jimmy had dropped his hammer and had his thick fingers around the Mamluk whose sword still dripped red with Roderic’s blood. Jimmy screamed and squeezed the Mamluk’s neck. It cracked like a sack filled with fine glass. His face still flushed, he pulled the dead man in front of him to shield himself from the other attackers. Foulques stepped in front of Jimmy and drove at his attackers with his own shield to give the big man some room. It was not much space, but it was enough for Jimmy to push the dead man against the nearest Mamluks, causing them to step back. As soon as he could, Jimmy drew his own dagger.

  They stood shoulder to shoulder now, with their backs against the wall. Each armed with daggers and one shield between them. Jimmy was panting like a rabid dog and his thrusts were wild, fueled by rage. His brown tunic had been reduced to rags, his mail little better, with great patches of his once white padded gambeson showing through, now stained red with the Englishman’s own blood.

  Foulques was better off, due mostly to the shield he still carried. But bearing it for so long had taken its toll. His shield arm had gone numb a long time ago. He was not even sure if he still clutched the strap or if it only hung there by the tether on his forearm. He tried as best he could to keep the shield centered between the two of them, but his shoulder muscles began to give out and the shield kept dropping.

  So focused was he on trying to keep the shield up high enough to afford them some protection, that Foulques did not realize the number of Mamluks in front of them had begun to decrease. The sounds of battle had been loud before, but now they were deafening. At first Foulques thought the entire Saracen army had broken through, but suddenly, the Mamluk in front of him had no head. Another one to his right lost his arm at the shoulder and fell screaming to the ground to reveal a knight with a cross on his chest. But it was not the white cross of the Hospitallers, it was the red one of a Templar Knight. The knight wore a white tunic covered in blood, but not his own judging from the way he swung his sword about. He wore a helmet with a full face shield so Foulques could not tell who it was. Before he could breathe a word, the Templar was off again, chasing down and skewering a Mamluk through the back. More white tunics of the Templars appeared and battle waged all around Foulques and Jimmy for a minute or more. And then, like a great storm had touched down around them and then moved on, Foulques and Jimmy were left with no one in front of them.

  They fell back against the wall. Jimmy hunched over, put his hands on his knees, and breathed. Foulques’s shield arm gave out and he let it drag him down to one knee. The shield hit the ground, still strapped to his arm. Neither man said a word until Jimmy turned and tried to pick up Roderic’s body.

  Foulques pushed himself to his feet. “Jimmy. Leave him. We have to make it back to the grand master while we still can.”

  Jimmy gave Foulques a dark look, but then his eyes cleared. He nodded and eased Roderic back to the ground, with his back propped up against the wall like he was waiting for something.

  Foulques cleared the emotion from his throat, and then said, “The angels will be along shortly, Brother Roderic. Then you will know true peace.” He made the sign of the cross over his fallen friend.

  Foulques and Jimmy re-armed themselves. Jimmy retrieved his hammer and Foulques selected a fine scimitar from the many lying nearby. Everywhere Foulques looked, Mamluks fled from the wrath of the Templars, whose white tunics and red crosses were all around them. Some of the enemy escaped further into the city, but most retreated back through the breaches in the wall.

  They made their way as quickly as they could to where Foulques had last seen the grand master and Marshal Clermont. There he found less than fifty Hospitallers Knights still standing. Perhaps another hundred sergeants. There was no sign of the grand master, but Foulques arrived just in time to see Marshal Clermont and Grand Master Beaujeu of the Templars stride toward one another and clasp arms. It was a touching sight, one he thought he would never live to see. They exchanged a few words, seemed to agree on something, and then they began to shout orders to their respective men.

  As Foulques and Jimmy got nearer, Foulques realized why he had not seen Grand Master Villiers. He was lying on the ground at the marshal’s feet. Brother Reynald, a skilled surgeon, knelt over him.

  When Marshal Clermont saw Foulques and Jimmy approaching, he closed his eyes and muttered something to himself. Then he called out.

  “Foulques. Quickly!”

  “How bad is he?” Foulques asked as they approached.

  Brother Reynald shook his head. “Not good. I must operate as soon as I can if he is to stand a chance.”

  The grand master’s face was ashen. His mail and gambeson had been removed. Foulques could see the broken off shaft of an arrow protruding from the right side of his chest and a bandage wrapped his middle. The thick cotton grew redder by the second.

  Marshal Clermont looked at Foulques. “The Mamluks are gathering right now for another assault on the breach. The Templars took them by surprise, but that is done. Once they have their formations, they will be coming.”

  “Where do you want me?” Foulques asked.

  In three strides of his long legs the marshal was directly in front of Foulques. He leaned in, locked eyes with the younger Hospitaller, and said, “Get the grand master to the docks. Do whatever it takes to get him out of Acre. Do not fight me on this, Foulques, for if you both die here today, the Order is finished.” He stepped back and announced in a loud, clear voice. “Admiral Villaret, I charge you with getting the grand master of the Order of Saint John to safety.”

  Horns sounded on the other side of the breach. Templars and Hospitallers charged to reinforce the men already there. Marshal Clermont looked once over his shoulder and nodded to himself.

  “Brother Gissler. Lay down your shield. Brother Pirmin, help put the grand master on the shield, then you and Gissler will help Brother Reynald and Brother Goodyear bear him wherever Admiral Foulques commands. Is that clear?”

  The young men stowed their weapons and did as the marshal commanded. Brother Jimmy hung his hammer over one shoulder and bent down to grab one corner of the shield. When all four men had a hold of the grand master’s makeshift stretcher they lifted him up.

  Foulques looked at the marshal, who bent to the ground and picked up a flanged mace. It was one of Saracen design. It was then that Foulques noticed the marshal’s scabbard was empty. He too had lost his sword in the earlier conflict. He pointed the mace at Foulques and shouted over the rising crescendo of voices. “Go with God, Foulques. And by all that is holy, cut your hair!” He turned and as agile as his namesake the mongoose, ran straight up a nearby mound of rocks to survey the battle.

  Foulques pointed down the street toward the docks.

  “Go!”

  The shield bearers hurried off. Foulques had difficulty getting his feet to begin moving. He turned one last time to look at his brethren fighting for control of the rubble that had once been a wall. The battle had already become intense. It seemed a ridiculous endeavor, and in that moment he caught a glimpse of the madness of the world.

  He saw the marshal standing on his mountain, daring any to try and take it from him. His feet were at the same level as the heads of the men around him. He hefted his Saracen mace high into the air and shouted something, urging his men on to glory. Foulques stared for a moment longer, before he turned and fled after hi
s shield bearers, wondering how it was that he could not bring himself to look away from a man he had spent a third of his life detesting. But he knew why, and the lump swelling in his throat confirmed it.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Foulques led the way at a fast walk while Pirmin, Gissler, Reynald, and Jimmy each held one corner of the rectangular shield supporting the unconscious form of Grand Master Villiers. The shield was large enough to support his head and neck at one end, but his legs dangled off the other at the crooks of his knees. They proceeded down the main road for a few minutes, until Foulques saw the first Saracen raiding party. A group of Saracen mercenaries kicked in the doors of a glass blower’s shop and proceeded to scour the building for valuables. Foulques turned down a side street before the Saracens emerged back out of the shop.

  The looting had begun. He was afraid of this. Scores of Saracens had penetrated the breach earlier and gotten past the Hospitaller line. Who knew how many had made it over the wall in other locations. Now they were doing what they had been waiting forty-three days for. They had gotten inside the city and now everything and everyone they wanted was theirs for the taking. But there was an urgency to their actions, for they knew soon the entire Mamluk army would be inside the walls as well.

  Because of this, Foulques decided it was going to be nothing but smaller side streets all the way to the harbor. He had been born in Acre, and knew the city as well as anyone. The men followed him without question as they weaved up and down side streets and alleys. Even so, the further into the city they traveled, the more roving gangs they came across. Apparently, everyone was headed to the docks.

  They entered the Venetian Quarter and narrowly missed being spotted by a half dozen Saracens bashing at the door of a well-to-do family Foulques knew. He could hear frantic shouts coming from inside. He gritted his teeth and pressed on.