Jerusalem

by Cecelia Holland

  “Are you contrite?”

  He mumbled the formula.

  Mark said, “Te absolvo.”

  Now Rannulf faced him, and Mark reached out and embraced him, and kissed his cheek. Side by side they rode down toward the little Crusader army, where Odo was ordering the other Templars.

  These knights were not of the Jerusalem chapter. Three days before, as Saladin’s army marched past Gaza, the eighteen knights of the garrison of the tower there slipped by along the coast and met the King’s little army at Ascalon. They were Templars, which was what mattered. With Rannulf and Mark, they made up the whole of Odo’s command. The Master walked his horse along their rank, looking them over, and as Rannulf and Mark rode in, he gave his orders in a clear voice.

  “We don’t have a standard, so you have to watch me. Keep moving. The trick here is not to let them lay their weight on us. Never let them outflank us. That means hold the line.” He turned to Rannulf, who was putting on his helmet. “Rannulf Fitzwilliam will ride on the far right end. If I fall, he is Master.”

  Rannulf went along to the end of the rank; Mark pulled in on his left. “You got us into this,” he said. He unhooked the shield hanging on his saddle and pulled the strap up over his head, the long kite-shaped wooden target braced on his left arm.

  Rannulf slid into his shield. His back and neck were tingling, as always before he fought. The strap of the shield pressed against the familiar sore place on his shoulder. “God help us all.” He laid his hand on the hilt of his sword. On his left Mark rode up even with him, the other knights beyond him in a solid wall, all the way to the Master.

  Odo raised his arm, and the whole Templar rank rode forward, their horses head to head.

  “Hold.” Rannulf reined in. The young King was galloping up across his path.

  On the slope before him, the Bishop of Saint-George had stopped his donkey, blocking the way of the little Christian army. Above his head he held high the standard of the Kingdom, a long pole wound with ribbons of gold, which bore on the top a reliquary with a piece of the True Cross. Gold and jewels covered this box, and the gold ribbons glistened in the sun, so that the Christians could see it from far off, and take heart. Now as the Franks began to move forward the King galloped up and leapt from his horse, and in front of everybody he flung himself down on the dusty ground where the shadow of the standard fell. He stretched his arms out and lay on the ground, making a cross of himself.

  A gasp went up from all the men watching, and they pushed closer. Even Rannulf and the other Templars started forward. The King’s voice rang out.

  “Sweet Jesus, Son of God, I won’t see them pass. Let me lay down my life here, to defend Jerusalem. In Thy Name, for Thy Glory—I beg you. If Saladin must pass, let me die standing in his way.” He stood up again out of the dust. In the wreckage of his face his eyes glistened, bright and clear, streaming tears. “Thy Will be done!”

  Then from all the tight-packed men who watched there went up a raw yell. “God wills it! Deus le vult!”

  That cry raised the hackles at the nape of Rannulf’s neck; he felt a sudden surge of power in his arms and shoulders, and his hand itched for his sword. His horse bounded under him. At the far end of the rank of knights, Odo raised his arm, and they all moved forward at a quick trot. The young King was galloping up over the hill, the Bishop on his heels. Behind them, the clamorous swarm of the other Christian men let out a roar.

  “God wills it!”

  Two strides behind the King, the Templars in their unbroken rank crossed over the brow of the hill and spurred into a gallop. Now the land sloped down, and they could see all the way to their enemies, the sprawling coils of the Saracen host, indistinct in their own dust, spread across the plain below. Rannulf pulled out his sword, the leather hilt filling his hand; with the familiar weight in his hand he wanted suddenly to strike, to give blows, and to kill. Mark surged up so close Rannulf’s leg banged into the shoulder of his horse.

  “Deus le vult!”

  The shout rang out, high-pitched, and a hundred others joined it.

  “Deus le vult!” Thin, it seemed, and faint in the dust-laden air. But they heard it, up ahead.

  All along the bank of the wadi, there rose a wail of warning. At the sight of the Christians swooping in on them, the Saracens first in their path tried to scramble back out of the way, and the young King charged straight into their midst, the True Cross half a stride behind him, now, and just behind that, the massed weight of the Templars like a moving wall.

  The Saracens gave way. Before the young King drove into their midst many were already turning to run. The braver ones stood and tried to fight, and the mailed knights on their massive horses smashed into them and rode straight over them. Above the crunch and jar rose the first piercing shrieks of the dying. Rannulf’s body blazed; he lashed out with his sword, feeling himself alive all the way out to its tip.

  In front of him, on the crumbling lip of the ravine, a hundred fluttering white robes tottered, staggering back into the faces of those still trying to climb up from below. Rannulf plunged into their midst, beating at whatever was closest to him. Mark galloped hard by his right side, the other Templars thundering along beyond. For a moment the sheer mass of the enemy slowed them, a tangle of horses and camels and men all struggling for foothold on the wadi’s bank. A camel like a tower swung around to meet Rannulf, a warrior slung on either side; the man on the right cocked back a long-handled axe to strike, and the man on the left hefted his lance. Rannulf drove his horse straight into the camel. His shield rang under the blow of the axe. The lance came at him, and he shunted it off with his sword and in the same move struck, and the lancer toppled backwards out of his basket. The camel shrilled in terror. On its far side the Saracen axeman was clutching for the rein, his eyes popping in his dark face, his mouth agape.

  Then suddenly man and camel both pitched away, falling through the ground, and under Rannulf’s horse the ravine wall collapsed. Rannulf shoved his feet into his stirrups, and sat back hard, and his horse slid on its haunches down the bank of the wadi, sending up fountains of sand and dust.

  The other Templars came down with him, holding their rank. Through the dust-laden air he saw Odo’s arm lift, at the far end of the line, signaling another charge before they even reached the bottom of the slide. With a lurch Rannulf’s horse got its hoofs on solid ground, and at a dead gallop he hurtled blindly forward through the boiling dust.

  For a moment Rannulf saw nothing; then abruptly the dust cleared, and ahead of him stretched the flat sandy bed of the wadi. Hundreds of the Saracens were streaming away along it in a disorderly flight, most on foot. Rannulf leaned forward over his horse’s shoulder and slashed at a body in a striped gown that ran away from him, two strides, screaming, and then vanished under the churning hoofs. A herd of loose horses stampeded ahead of him, casting up more dust. He could see nothing; he steered close to Mark, on his right, and when Mark swerved away, Rannulf spurred hard to keep up, to hold his end of the rank. They burst out of the cloud of dust into clear air again. Ahead of them, some of the Saracens were turning, were trying to stand together against the charging knights. They looked like Bedouin, they wore no armor, they carried only sticks and spears. From the Templar line a jubilant roar rose, raw-throated. Rannulf reined in his horse a little, shortening its stride; the rank surged up beside him, sweeping in on the waiting pack of the Saracens, and at the last moment he gave his horse its head and it shot forward, crashing into the huddled men before him. The Bedouin wheeled to flee, too late, and the Templars rode over their backs. For the first few strides Rannulf could not even use his sword. Then, ahead, through a curtain of drifting dust, he saw more of the Saracens standing fast.

  Mark yelled. Rannulf heard his voice even through the din, and pressed closer to him. He could just make out the other Templars in their rank beyond him. He could not see what Odo was signaling. Before him a band of mounted archers packed the flat ground of the wadi, their horses dancing. In the
glittering dusty air he saw the curved limbs of their bows. He crouched down in his saddle, covering up behind his shield. An arrow ticked off his helmet. Then suddenly more arrows rained down all around him.

  The Templars did not break stride. In their mail, behind their shields, they rode invulnerable through the cascading arrows, and at a full gallop they hit the lighter Saracen horsemen and threw them backward almost to the bank of the wadi. A scimitar sliced at Rannulf’s face, and he struck backhanded under it and felt flesh and bone give under his blade. His horse stumbled and caught itself. He breathed in a lungful of dust. Then abruptly they were breaking into the open again.

  Far away down there, Odo’s arm went up. Rannulf sat back in his saddle, bringing the horse down to a walk, and the reeling line of the Templars straggled to a stop with him and hastily pushed back into a tight rank. Beside him, Mark was gasping audibly for breath. Most of the other men looked whole and hale. Rannulf twisted in his saddle, looking around him.

  The whole southern bank of the wadi seethed with Saracens scrambling up the side of the ravine. Bodies strewed the flat low ground, dead men, dead horses and camels. Rannulf saw no sign of the King or the True Cross. The other Christians he saw were chasing up and down the wadi, harrying anyone who would run.

  A blow struck his arm, and he jumped halfway out of his saddle. Mark was staring at him. “Odo wants you,” he said, and gestured.

  Rannulf galloped down the line to where the Master waited, hunch- shouldered in his saddle, staring across the wadi. As Rannulf slid his horse to a stop, Odo pointed. “What’s there?”

  Down the wadi a little, the Saracens had kept some order; the top of the bank swarmed with bowmen, defending the sheer bank so that the men in the ravine below them could make their way up safely.

  “That must be somebody important,” Rannulf said. Among the bowmen there was a sudden flash of yellow. The Sultan’s color. “Look. Mamelukes—see their helmets?” He pointed toward the distant glint of polished steel. “That’s the Halka. The Sultan’s guard.”

  Odo hissed between his teeth. “Let’s take him!”

  Rannulf grabbed his arm, holding him. “Not from below—get up on top of the bank, hit him from the side.”

  “Lead off,” Odo said. Standing in his stirrups, he wheeled his arm. “Double column. Double column.”

  Rannulf swung back to his place in the line and at a short gallop headed down the wadi toward a place where they could scale the bank without opposition. His horse’s neck bent double to the bit; with every stride it snorted. The other men followed him in pairs. Mark stayed even with him, all the while, still breathing hard; his helmet hid most of his face, but he rode stiff on one side. At the foot of the steep soft embankment Rannulf reached out and gripped his shoulder.

  “Are you all right?”

  The young knight’s head jerked. “God’s will be done,” he said, his voice rasping.

  Rannulf held onto him a moment longer. Mark seemed steady enough, and he was keeping in line, but he held his sword across his saddlebows and Rannulf had never seen him raise it. Before them stood the sloping bank of the wadi, riven and torn from the goings up and down, and they scrambled to the top.

  Two hundred yards away the Saracen bowmen had seen them coming. They swung around, and the first dark bolts of their arrows slithered into the air, falling harmlessly short. Past the skittery archers, Rannulf saw more yellow robes, and the shining breastplates and pointed helmets of Mameluke officers. His heart leapt. Waiting for the order, he shortened rein, his battle-mad horse bounding like a deer and fighting for its head, while Odo wheeled the double column of the Templars into a single rank again.

  Rannulf’s gaze sharpened. The yellow robes were clustered together on the bank like a row of marigolds. Behind them, men on foot were hauling something ungainly up out of the wadi. A litter. Ribbons fluttered from its canopy, Rannulf let out a roar.

  “Odo! That’s the Sultan!”

  At the far end of the line the Master shouted, “Take him!”

  The Templars charged. The Sultan’s yellow-robed guards faced them, their backs to the wadi, and to their own terrified men struggling up from below. The massed bowmen fired such a swarm of arrows that they threw a shadow over the sun. The Templars in their mail coats rode scatheless through the darts, and seeing them come relentlessly on the Saracens shrieked and flung their bows aside and ran away.

  The armored Mamelukes did not run. Swords drawn, they crowded together between the oncoming Templars and the litter, and their high ululating warcries quavered out defiantly. Rannulf’s reins, slippery with sweat, slid loose through his fingers; his horse bolted, carrying him a stride ahead of the other Templars, straight into the enemy. For an instant as the two armies clashed together, they stood each other straight up; the clash of their impact rang in Rannulf’s ears like anvil music. Then his horse bounded forward, beating through the smaller Saracen mares, and Rannulf hacked down with his sword. With sweeping blows he cleaved through the yellow swarm toward the litter. A blow rang off his shield and he swung his left arm out, striking with the shield itself. Something crunched under the edge. Mark loomed up on his right, pushing forward; Rannulf could not see that he used his sword, but he was forcing his way on nonetheless, keeping the line, his shield up. Then directly in front of Rannulf was the litter, only a few yards on.

  The bearers had thrown it down, and torn the silken curtains back. Frantically they were getting its passenger out and onto a white camel, rangy as a spider. Rannulf was half a stride ahead of the rest of the Templars, and two of the yellow-robed guards lunged forward to fend him off. His horse reared.

  Surrounded by guards and servants, the man climbing out of the litter turned an instant; through the filthy air, the dust and the screams, he looked straight at Rannulf—a slight man, with an elegant black beard, piercing eyes. His turban fell off. He was bald as an onion. Rannulf shrieked. He drove his spurs into his horse, fighting to reach that smooth skull, to break it under his blade. The slight man hauled himself up the side of the white camel and fled away into a cloud of men.

  Furious at this escape, Rannulf laid around him with his sword, bashing at the wall of men and horses between him and the smooth skull he wanted to crush. They yielded, but not fast enough; his horse reared again, and the bald man was getting away. And now Odo was calling him back.

  He yelled. Everything in him wanted to go on, to chase down that sleek skull, but the line was turning, and he turned with it. Odo led them out onto the open plain and stopped and wheeled around, ready for another charge.

  When Rannulf reined in, Mark was still next to him, but as soon as the horses stopped, the young knight slid out of his saddle and hit the ground like a sack of stones. Rannulf glanced over his shoulder. The Saracens were spreading off across the plain, racing wildly away in a dozen directions, yellow robes and all. Lifting one arm to Odo, he swung out of his saddle and went down on one knee next to Mark.

  On the trampled powdery ground Mark was clenched up in a hard knot of pain, his arms and legs drawn to his body, and his breath bubbling through his teeth.

  Odo rode up. “That was the Sultan, and we missed him.”

  “You pulled me off.” Rannulf laid his hand against Mark’s throat, above the collar of his hauberk, and felt the life knocking there, fast and light.

  Odo said, “Stay with him. I’m going to find the King.” At once he was riding off, the others following. There were five fewer than when they had started, but they had left dead Saracens all over the plain: a good exchange. Rannulf wished he had caught that smooth domed skull under the edge of his sword.

  He stood up. Slipped the shield off his arm and hung it on his saddle, took the bit out of the horse’s mouth, and untied the black-and-white blanket from behind the cantle. The battle had moved on. From the south the wind brought the cries and the clash of weapons, the pounding of hoofs, and screaming. He gave a quick keen look around for looters and knelt down by Mark.

  “C
an you get up?”

  Mark muttered something too soft to hear. Rannulf knew how it was with him by the wet sound of his breathing, but he had relaxed a little, and Rannulf could straighten his legs out and wrap the blanket around him. He put his hands on the younger man’s helmet and drew it off, and with a sigh Mark laid down his head on the ground.

  His face was green-white. His right arm was broken—had been broken, Rannulf knew, since the first charge. He had taken another obvious wound, too, deep in the thigh, but what was killing him was something else, something crushed in his chest, which Rannulf could not see.

  “Don’t leave me alone,” Mark said. “Please don’t leave me alone.”

  “I won’t,” Rannulf said. He folded up the corner of the blanket for Mark to rest his head on.

  “We won,” Mark said.

  “So far.” Rannulf gave another look around him. He had fought in other battles that had seemed won, until suddenly they reversed into a disaster. All up and down this side of the wadi he could see nothing moving, except a few stray horses trotting nervously along in the distance. He heard no more sounds of fighting. A few yards away, his exhausted horse stood nose to tail with Mark’s. There was blood all over its shoulder and one leg was gashed open so that the white muscle sheath showed.

  “I’m dying,” Mark whispered.

  Rannulf’s head bobbed. He sat down cross-legged next to him. “God have mercy on us,” he said, and took Mark’s hand and held it. With the fighting gone by, his soul shrank; he felt small and frail, there beside the dying man. He was cold. The day was going down over the horizon, the sky still filthy with blown dust, and now the breeze picked up, coming in sweet off the sea, blowing away the stale dirty air. A shadow like a curved blade swept across the plain and over him, and he lifted his eyes; across the unfathomable sky a vulture cut a smooth arc on its motionless wings. Another swept in behind the first, and another. He tightened his fingers around Mark’s hand, and for a moment there was nothing. Then the faint pressure of an answer. Mark was still alive. Rannulf settled down to wait with him.