Here the river ran wide and shallow across ledges of the sandy rock. The castle rose from an outcrop above the water, its building stone the same color as the land around it, the curtain wall climbing sheer out of the dust, the great keep standing square against the sky, and all around it in zigs and zags the lines of half-built walls.
As the Templars rode down toward this heap of stone there rose a wild buzzing, like bees swarming out of the desert. Suddenly Stephen realized that the dark mass shifting along the curtain wall was a cheering crowd, and that the buzzing came from them. He swung his gaze toward the river, and past the river, and past the castle, looking for the enemy, but there was no enemy. Only, the whole horizon had faded into a rising cloud of dust.
His heart leapt with a bounding hope. He stood in his stirrups, trying to make out the source of the dust. The army behind him let out a roar, until all over the slope behind him, men were cheering and whooping. Ahead of Stephen in the column, Hilaire twisted around in his saddle.
His face shone. “They’ve run!” He flung his arm out, pointing across the river. “The sandpigs saw us coming and they ran away!”
Stephen gave a half-dazed laugh. Down on the curtain wall of the castle, two long blue banners unfurled suddenly, and the men carrying them began to run up and down on the wall to make the silk flutter and flap. People waved their arms, jumped, and screamed, while behind Stephen, the army resounded with yells of triumph.
Stephen settled down into his saddle again. He fought off an overwhelming sense of relief. But he had never really been afraid. Hastily he recrafted his memory. He had just been eager for the fight. He was a Templar. The sandpigs had run from him, run from the very sight of him, from the whispered word of his coming. He was a Templar. High- headed, silent, fearless as any other of God’s heroes, and certainly not saddle-sore, he rode down into Chastelet.
Chapter IX
“There will be stables for four hundred horses, storerooms deep enough to keep a thousand men for a year, cisterns and wells, gardens, even its own salt mine,” German said. “I’ll walk around it with you tomorrow; you should see the whole castle.” They were coming up the ramp to the foot of the great square keep; ahead of them more knights were waiting to be let into the hall. German’s voice was rich with pride. “The King ordered her built, but Chastelet belongs to the Order. A Templar drew the plans, and Templars are raising the stones, and when it is done, Templars alone will serve in the garrison.”
Stephen said, “It’s easy to see how important it is.”
From this rise he looked out to the east, across the curtain wall, over the glittering transparent braids of the river. Beyond the overflowing Jordan lay the desert, flat and brown as a stretched hide. The roads that crossed the ford fanned out across it, paler than the untrodden sand, all rays focusing here, where this castle stood, as if God had taken a rule, and drawn arrows.
German said, “Out there, though you cannot see it, is the great highway that leads down ultimately to Mecca and to Cairo. During the time of the Muslims’ pilgrimage, folk throng along it thick as a city street sometimes.”
Stephen said, “The sandpigs go on pilgrimage? What—to devil shrines?” He laughed.
German smiled at him. “No, to Mecca.” His face smoothed out with amusement. “Such is your thought; they worship the devil?”
Stephen gave an uncertain shrug. “Whatever they worship, it’s not the one true God. What’s the difference?”
Still smiling, the Preceptor looked away, and Stephen thought he saw him give a little shake of his head. A rough heat harshened the young knight’s neck and cheeks; he felt tricked, caught in the jigs in the Rule that sometimes held and sometimes didn’t. Suddenly he wished himself away from here.
But German was turning back to him, still overstuffed with passion for this castle. “This will be first of a string of fortresses along the river, from Jacob’s Ford here down to the Sea of Salt. We’ll hold this highway in a fist of stone and iron, and dominate the whole of the Ultrajordain with a handful of men.” He nodded to Stephen. “You might serve in one of these garrisons. Become the commander here, serve nobly, and you could guarantee election as Master in Jerusalem!”
“Me,” Stephen said. “I can’t be Master.” But he was pleased at it; he wondered for the first time why he should not rise, and smiled, and German smiled back at him.
They climbed steep steps into the castle keep. All the stones were still sharp-edged and chalky, so fresh were they from the quarries; the air smelled like lime. Out a window midway up the stairs, Stephen looked out over a half-finished terrace, where in an angle of two walls several courses of stonework formed the base of a tower. More stones lay around the terrace in heaps, with hods and trays for mixing mortar, and scattered tools. Sitting on one end of the unfinished circular wall was a wine jug. The workmen had gone, off celebrating the defeat of Saladin. On German’s heels, Stephen went into the hall, to another celebration.
The air was abruptly warmer, lighter, abuzz with voices. Startled, he looked around him, past the little groups of men talking and laughing. It was as if he had walked in a single step from the harsh desert into a splendid French palace. The chamber stretched away like a church, impressively large, the stone walls faced with wood, the ceiling supported on barrel vaults. His feet sank into a luxurious softness, and he looked down, and saw Turkish carpets covering the floor. The tall iron standards that held the lamps were tipped with ferrules of silver; the lamps themselves were made of silver and gold. On one long wall, a great arras hung, showing somebody’s martyrdom, all stuck with arrows—Saint Sebastian, he remembered now. A row of silk banners hung above the hearth, festooned with golden tassels.
“There’s the King,” German said.
Stephen followed the older man down the room. The Preceptor greeted other knights, nodded, smiled, knew everybody. A tall beardless man rushed forward and seized his hand. “God’s blood, Sir German, I have never seen the like of it. Before the first ten of you had come over the hill, the Saracens were flying like chickens.”
German said, “God is good. Have you met—” He introduced Stephen, and they went through the little ritual of greetings and names and connections. German said, “Sir Stephen’s uncle is the Seneschal of France.”
“Excellent,” said the beardless man, and shook his hand again. “Excellent.” He bowed himself away, toward someone else.
“Why do you always mention that?” Stephen asked.
The older man shrugged, his face bland. “Your grandfather was a close friend of King Louis, wasn’t he?”
Stephen frowned at him. “They were friends. I remember the King being a cold bore, frankly, who went to Mass too much. Every time he came, we had to sing psalms all day.”
German’s face crinkled into ready laughter. “Good. Remember that, that’s a very good story. There, over there, that’s Humphrey de Toron; you should meet him, too, eventually. See who’s hounding the King.”
Stephen looked around. Near the end of the hall, a low dais of polished wood had been set up, and some heavy chairs set on it; in front of the chairs stood Gerard de Ridford, talking and gesturing over a smaller man, not a Templar, in a long lavish coat of purple silk.
De Ridford held Stephen’s gaze. The Marshall had a way of carrying himself that caught the eye; for a moment, in fact, he thought German meant the Marshall when he spoke of the King, as if it were a sarcastic nickname, like Saint. Then the man in the purple coat turned to face them.
“Sir German, welcome, please join us.”
Stephen jerked back. The face before him was a monster’s, swollen shapeless, the flesh thick and coarse and puckered; there was a wound below one hideous eye. Stephen gasped, shocked stupid.
The eyes blinked. “You have my leave,” the King said, and turned back to de Ridford.
Stephen went off a few feet; he knew he had just destroyed himself at this court, and he had given a terrible offense; surely he would be ordered out of the castle, maybe t
hrown out of the Order. German came up beside him.
“Well, that was something of a disaster. What’s the matter with you? You didn’t know?”
“I’m sorry,” Stephen said, in agony. “I’m sorry.”
“Well, you should be, but never mind. Come along, we’ll try it again.”
“What?” Stephen cast a glance around, toward the purple coat, before which de Ridford strutted and postured. People did not seem to be staring at him. Yet he felt the tingling pressure of a thousand watching eyes. “He’ll dismiss me.”
“No, he won’t,” German said. “He’ll forget. He has no more thought for himself than an angel. He gave you leave for your sake, not his. Are you steady, now?”
“German, I can’t. After what I just did—”
“Keep your courtesy this time,” German said, and pulled him forward.
De Ridford was leaning over the young King, his voice booming. “Sire, you should have Templars all around you, always, a wall against your enemies.”
“I’d rather not be inside walls,” the King said, mildly, and nodded to German; a little late, Stephen realized he and German were performing a rescue. “Well, Preceptor, what are you doing out here in the wastelands? I thought you never left the Temple.”
German bowed. “Sire, even the saints and virgins must one day leave Jerusalem, and I am neither of those. May I introduce—” He turned, saying Stephen’s name.
Stephen stepped forward, cold to his fingertips, with a bow that kept his gaze lowered. The King said, “Welcome to you, Sir Stephen. God bless your career in the Order.”
“Thank you, Sire.” He could not look up, he could not bear to see that horror of a face, to meet the eyes of one he had offended. De Ridford rushed back into his campaign.
“Sire, I mark that neither Tripoli nor Kerak has come to join us. I pray God will strengthen their loyalty.”
The King’s voice was mild. “Tripoli is in his wife’s castle at Tiberias, waiting to see what happens. Kerak is in the Ultrajordain, well-armed and ready, and will come if we need him.” He was moving, climbing up into the nearer of the big chairs; two pages leapt forward to put cushions by him, and to bring him a cup of wine. Stephen thought how it would be, to look so horrible that no one could endure the sight of him.
De Ridford said, “Yet with their armies we could make an attack now on Saladin that might ruin him for good and all.” He was pushing closer to the King, who turned again to German.
“Saladin probably hears much the same thing. We are marching out tomorrow to try to chase him down and when we catch him we will see what can be done. Do you play chess, Sir German?”
There was a small uncomfortable silence. Then German said, “Sire, I regret, we are forbidden to play chess.”
The King gave a short, explosive grunt of mirth. “Not with chessmen, anyway. But the colors are apt. What a grim life you lead.” His gaze rose, scanning the hall. “On the other hand, the setting is magnificent.”
German said, “There were some who thought the theme of the arras should have been Christ driving the money changers out of the Temple.”
At that, the King burst out laughing, and Stephen, looking at him, thought him not so hideous after all. German’s ease with him, in this place, impressed Stephen; he felt a sudden rush of affection toward the Preceptor, who belonged among all these great men, and who brought Stephen among them as well. Then behind them, an old man appeared, flanked by six knights, and all the Templars were dismissed.
Together, they went a few steps back up the hall. German said to de Ridford, “He is not warm to this idea of yours we should stand guard over him; leave off with it.”
De Ridford sneered at him. “You’ll tell me what to do, Preceptor!” With a swagger he went off toward the arras, where the Master Odo stood in a crowd of lesser men.
Stephen looked back at the greybeard, standing stiffly over the King, haranguing him as steadily as de Ridford had. “Who is that?”
“Humphrey de Toron,” German said. “A very great baron.” He was staring after de Ridford, his brows folded into a frown. Stephen watched the King; two young men in short jackets, long hair, and earrings sauntered down the hall toward the dais, and the King deftly exchanged Humphrey de Toron for these newcomers. The pages hurried around setting up a chessboard.
German said, “The Ibelins. The younger one is to marry the Princess Sibylla.”
“Really,” Stephen said. “Which, the one with the fine, fine backside?”
German laughed. “No, that’s Balian. The taller one is the Princess’.”
“Well, then, she can have him,” Stephen murmured. He followed German on across the room. He decided he liked this place. To command such a castle would make a man great as a king. Fondly he looked around at the oiled cedar walls and the arras; he felt almost as if they really were his.
Rannulf was glad of the silence of the march. Against the work, the constant riding, the hunger and thirst and sleeping in his hauberk on the ground, he laid the hard edge of his temper, and the one ground against the other, and he got a certain kind of peace from that.
Because de Ridford hated him, he led the first column of the vanguard, which was the most dangerous. That suited him very well. Riding at the point, he could move where he willed, go as fast as he wanted, and he drew the rest after him, first to catch Saladin’s army and then to keep pace with it.
From Jacob’s Ford the armies rode south, following the course of the river. Saladin’s force had swung off toward Damascus, and then turned back again, and for a while the Franks and the Saracens rode along nearly parallel to each other, between them the thin green ribbon of the Jordan. Then they passed by Lake Tiberias, which was the same Sea of Galilee that Jesus had walked on, and Rannulf lost contact with the Sultan’s army.
The Count of Tripoli joined them, with fifty knights and a hundred men-at-arms. He and de Ridford argued over every move, every step. The Franks swung west, and crossed the Litani River, flooded from the recent rains, where it broke from its chasm in the hills and gushed out onto the plain. The King and his nobles held up on the northern bank of the river, while the Templars picked a way over the marshy plain and rode into the steep pass leading over the hills to the east.
The rain had let up and the sky had suddenly cleared of clouds and the sunlight blasted the raw red earth of the hillside. Grit and red mud and pebbles, freshly washed down from the heights, half-buried the goat track that mounted into the pass. The air was heavy and ripe, like turned earth. There was no wind.
First of them all, Rannulf rode at a hard trot up into the saddle of the pass; the sun blazed in his eyes. From the height, he looked out over a broad valley, steaming after the rain. Sheets of standing water still lay like silver on the flat ground below, and all along the dark lowlands were Saracen horsemen by the thousand.
Rannulf set his teeth together. The rest of his column was waiting just behind him, and he sent two of them back for the officers. He shaded his eyes with his hand. The Saracens down there were moving steadily toward him, gathering on the road leading into this same pass; he wondered if they had seen him yet. With a clatter of hoofs, the Master of Jerusalem and the Marshall and the other officers swept in around him.
De Ridford cried out. “So they haven’t escaped!”
“This isn’t the whole of Saladin’s army.” The Master turned to Rannulf. “What do you make of this?”
Rannulf pointed with his chin down at the dark swarm of horsemen. “The green turbans are Turkish bowmen. Those, over there, on the big horses, those are lancers, Kurds, Saladin’s own people, they’re good fighters. You’re right, this certainly isn’t the main army. It might be a vanguard.”
Gerard de Ridford said, “Sound the attack. We have the high ground.”
Rannulf snorted at him. “There are two hundred of us. Some thousands of them.”
“We’ll smash them in a single charge. Like at Ramleh.” De Ridford’s voice rang, strident. He wheeled around and gla
red down at the Saracens and his chest heaved.
Rannulf said, “They’re much closer together and much readier than they were at Ramleh. This line will yield in the middle and come around each flank and surround us.”
De Ridford swung toward him, leading with his jutting jaw, and smiled. “What! The hero quails? There were only a few hundred men at Ramleh, too, weren’t there? Why don’t you show us how you did it there?”
Rannulf s whole body clenched, and the heat rose in his cheeks; with the Saracens there before him he wanted only to strike this other Christian knight. He crossed himself against the devil in him. “God wills it,” he said. His voice shook. He turned to the Master. “If you order the charge, lord, I will charge. But if you do it you are a damned fool.”
De Ridford swelled like a poisonous toad. The Master chuckled. “What, Rannulf—however de Ridford wants it, you want it opposite ? We’ll just give them a push, now. They’ve run from us before. They will again. We must not let them take this pass.” He lifted his arm. “Form ranks.”
Rannulf aimed his gaze down the slope toward the valley below. The host on the gleaming plain had seen them, was moving, orderly, compact, to meet them. He felt the warnings in every nerve in his body, a tingle in his skin, a pulse down his spine, something coiling in his gut. He wheeled his horse around to go back to his place in line.
“Hold,” de Ridford said, and charged up across his path. The Marshall rode a tall stallion with a great white blaze down its face, and four white socks: he always took a horse with a lot of white on it. Beyond him, on the slope leading up to the pass, the rest of the Templars were breaking out of their columns, a brief boil of activity that swiftly froze into three long ranks across the road. A horn blew. De Ridford’s face was flushed red as a grape. He had his helmet cradled in his arm. He said, “Rannulf, take the end of the front rank. The right end.”
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