Jerusalem

by Cecelia Holland

  The while Rannulf was shouting at him. “You never break the line of march without my order, baby! If you ever break the line again, I’ll cut your beard off at about throat level. Now walk. All of you longspurs. In line.” Eudes on hands and knees scrambled across the dusty ground, trying to get away so he could stand, and Rannulf rode over him. The boy went down on his face in the dust. “All three of you can walk. Mouse! Get their horses.” Rannulf wheeled around and cantered back up to the front of the column, now a good distance behind the rest of the army. Stephen jogged his horse to the rear of the line, where Eudes’ mount stood snorting, its reins trailing.

  The two green men who had broken ranks with him were still in their saddles, staring round-eyed after Rannulf. Eudes, streaming dust from his hair and his clothes, tramped up toward them. He looked ready to bite through horseshoes. Stephen reached down and collected his reins, and turned to the other two knights.

  “Get off.”

  “What?” In chorus, they shrilled at him, treble as girls. “We can’t walk—we’re in full mail—we’re knights—”

  Stephen smiled at them. Up at the head of the column a yell went up. “Mouse, do you need help?”

  “No,” he shouted. He turned toward the young men, ready to throw them out of their saddles, and they saw in his face what he intended, and, grumbling, they got down quickly. Stephen gathered their horses; Felx dropped back to ride beside him, and they herded the three men on foot in front of them. Off to the north, now, they could see the Bedouin again, circling in for another harmless, irritating assault.

  After a few hours’ walk they came to a well, which was dry; the churned ground around it and the broken buckets and knotted bits of rope showed how troop after troop of the passing army had struggled to get some water out of it. Rannulf drew them up around the parched trough and dismounted. “Horses first,” he said, and unhooked two of the packed waterskins and emptied them into the trough.

  The horses drank; the knights drank; finally they let Eudes and his two friends drink. Eudes’ face was grimed with dust, and raw with sunburn; he kept his gaze pinned to the ground, looking at nobody, even when Rannulf came up next to him beside the water trough.

  Rannulf grabbed him by the beard and jerked his head around. Eudes was too tired to fight; he only set himself, and stared back at the man confronting him. Rannulf said, “Listen to me, baby. You’re stupid. You’re too stupid to think. So don’t think. Do what I tell you. Nothing else. Now get up on your horse and get in line and ride.”

  With a yank he let go of the boy’s beard. Eudes’ head flew back a little, released. He watched Rannulf walk away with a baleful glitter in his eyes but he went wordlessly to his horse and mounted.

  They were well behind the rest of the army, now, and the road climbed steadily up through broken country, doubling back along the slopes. The Bedouin wheeled like flocks of birds along their course, sometimes rushing in for a noisy feint, sometimes shooting single arrows from the very edge of their range. The road took them up through a steep pass; on the other side, they came on some Bedouin between them and the rest of the Frankish army, and this time, Rannulf charged.

  The Templars drove downhill, and the Bedouin were tired. They set up a hasty shower of arrows and tried to flee away but the Templars rolled over them like an avalanche. Stephen, at the rear of the column with the packhorses, barely got up into the rank before the fighting was over. They reached the bottom of the slope and drew rein. Behind them on the stony hillside lay a score of dead and wounded Saracens and some crippled horses. A wail went up.

  “Mercy!” Broken French. “Mercy!”

  Rannulf gave the order to re-form and the Templars made columns and rode on, leaving the Bedouin crying behind them.

  On the next slope, again, the Saracens attacked. This time in between the first wave of archers there were heavy cavalry, swathed in black robes over their breastplates, and carrying lances. Behind a wave of arrows, they charged in hard, struck a blow, and wheeled away; the Templars took the charge on their shields and struck back when the lancers turned. At the crest of the slope, where the trail was narrow, Stephen and Felx met three such charges, while the rest of the column galloped by at their backs. Under a hail of arrows the two knights broke and ran to catch up.

  Felx said, “This is slowing us down considerably. We’ll never get to Tiberias by sundown.”

  They had reached the foot of another short, steep climb, and up ahead, the army was under assault again. Stephen crossed himself.

  “Don’t think. Just obey orders.” He hitched his shield up on his arm; he had carried it now half the day, and the strap had worn a rut into his shoulder and neck. “Let’s go.”

  Late in the day they battered their way through a screen of Bedouin onto a flat dry table of a hill, and came on more fighting. A mass of Saracens, axemen and lancers and archers, had pinned some Franks down on the road ahead of them, and the main body of the Templars, moving along just ahead of Rannulf and his men, were rushing to relieve them. Rannulf ordered a charge. He worked his exhausted horse into another gallop, and with Bear on his right, and the rest of his men strung out in an uneven row beyond Bear he raced up beside the other Templars.

  For a moment they met Saracens, axemen, and lancers, whose horses staggered under the weight of the knights’ attack, and then scrambled back, while the riders traded blows. Rannulf’s shoulder hurt, and he was having trouble keeping the point of his sword up. Bear’s shield kept banging into his arm. He hacked and thrust, not seeing what he hit, and then the horse in front of him gave way and they were rushing on, unhindered. Another wave of arrows pelted them. Rannulf drew rein.

  The Saracens were flying away into the desert. Behind them on the flat hilltop a cheer went up from the twenty-odd knights and men-at- arms the Sultan’s men had been tearing to pieces. The Templars lined up along the road in their orderly columns; in front of them all, de Ridford himself sat his tall sock-footed stallion. A knight not a Templar was riding up to him, a lordling, on a splendid horse, and with a plume on his helmet. His shield made him an Ibelin. They were going to talk. Rannulf turned, and lifting his hand he drew his men quickly around them.

  “How far away are we?” Mouse came up to him.

  “Too Goddamn far.” Rannulf dismounted and went to the string of packhorses. “Come on, hurry; we’ll be marching again soon.”

  The men dismounted, and crowded around him; he unslung two more of the waterskins, and gave out corn for the horses, and bread. The boy Eudes stood before him. One of the waterskins had an arrow stuck in it; suddenly the boy reached out and pulled the arrow out of the skin.

  “No!” Several men at once grabbed him, too late; the arrow had been plugging its hole, but coming free it ripped the skin, and the water flooded away onto the ground.

  The boy stepped back, white. Two other men dropped down and tried to drink the water as it fell. “I’m sorry,” Eudes muttered. “I’m sorry.”

  Rannulf said, “I told you you were stupid.” He gave him a shove. Up there, among the ranks of the other Templars, a horn was blowing. A sergeant jogged down toward him.

  “Saint! They want you.”

  Rannulf turned to Mouse, and nodded at the packhorses. “Make sure this gets buckled up.” He walked up after the sergeant, stretching his legs, glad to be out of the saddle for a while. Ahead of him de Ridford lounged on his black horse, his hand on his hip, talking to the lay knight.

  This was Balian d’Ibelin, his plume broken, his fine fair hair black with dirt and sweat. Slumped in his saddle, he nodded to Rannulf and turned back to de Ridford, intense. “What do you mean, march on? You look over there; half the Saracens in the world are out there, ready to jump us as soon as we move.” His arm swept a flat arc toward the hills east of them.

  De Ridford grunted at him. His wounded arm was still strapped to his chest, with his shield looped over it; he had tucked the shield back, while he talked, off the point of his shoulder. He said, “We can get throug
h them.” He looked down his nose at Rannulf. “Tell him.”

  “We can get through anything,” Rannulf said. He turned to Balian. “How bad off are your men? Do you have any water?”

  “I have a lot of wounded. There’s probably a little water left. The horses are good, still, I think. We’ve been stopped here a while; they’ve rested.”

  Rannulf turned to de Ridford. “Let’s go.”

  In the Master’s matted beard his lips twitched into a smile. “You first. I want somebody to ride on ahead, catch up with the rest of the army, and make them wait for us.”

  “Wait. For Christ’s sake, they can’t stop to wait for us,” Rannulf said. “If they don’t reach the lake, we’re finished. We have to get a foothold at least on the lake.”

  Balian said, “Damn it, come on. It’s almost sundown, and my men are whipped. We can’t just keep on fighting our way down the road. They have to hold the way open for us.”

  De Ridford’s eyes gleamed, steady on Rannulf. “Get going. When you reach the King, stop and stand until I reach you.”

  “Yes, my lord.” Rannulf bit the words off, turned, and walked back to his men.

  One arm draped across his saddle, Mouse was talking to Eudes; Bear had gone to the steep edge of the hill and was making water off the cliff. Beyond the packhorses, Felx said something and several men laughed.

  Rannulf went in among them, to the packhorses, and looked over what he had left.

  “One skin of water,” Stephen said, coming up beside him. “Two baits of feed for the horses, one for us. What’s going on?”

  “We are,” Rannulf said. He swung around, looking east. Across the next ridge, in the hazy distance, a sharp steep knob of a hill stuck up into sight. “There. You see that little tip of a hill, down there, the rock spur? That’s one of the Horns of Hattin. That overlooks Lake Tiberias. We have to catch up with the head of the army, and my guess is that’s about where we’ll do it. It’s Vespers. Say your office.”

  He put the bit back into his horse’s mouth; the horse looked better, too, after the water and food and rest. The sun was deep into the western sky. He was still stinking hot under the mail coat but his face was cooling off. He crossed himself, bowed his head, and said a paternoster. “Deliver us from evil.” The night was coming and he always fought better at night. He buckled the bridle again, gathered his reins, and climbed back up into the saddle.

  Just at sunset they ran headlong into a pack of Saracens, blocking their path where the road crossed a dry wash. There were a lot of the Saracens; it was hard to tell how many, in the gathering darkness. The Templars charged them. For a moment as they tore along across the sandy flat floor of the wash, it seemed the knights would break through, but at the steep bank of the wadi, the Saracens held, and threw them back.

  Then the Saracens attacked, and they went at each other, the knights with their swords, the Saracens with their axes and lances. The thick gloom of the twilight was worse than true darkness; Rannulf could see nothing in front of him, and lunged and hacked and chopped desperately and blindly, while his horse bounded under him, fighting to run. Bear’s shield kept banging him on the arm.

  Suddenly Bear’s shield dropped away, and Bear was down. His horse was down. Rannulf bellowed, and swung around, to close the gap in the line. Two Saracens loomed up in the space where Bear’s shield had been, and an axeblade slashed at Rannulf’s eyes. The axeman’s horse lunged up beside him, crushing his leg against its flank. A lance jabbed at him. He cut awkwardly backward at the shaft and missed and hit the axeman’s horse instead. The horse reared up. Blood splattered him in the mouth. Suddenly another shield swung into place, covering him, and the axeman’s horse was falling over, its stomach slashed from girth to gelding.

  “Bear!” Rannulf twisted in his saddle, looking down where Bear had fallen. The other knight was slumped on the ground, almost under his horse’s hoofs. Rannulf bent down, stretching one arm out to him. “Charge!” he shouted, and got Bear by the wrist. He felt the other knight’s fingers close around his forearm. “Charge!” he shouted, again, and the rest of the Templars heard him this time, and charged on ahead of him, bulling through the Saracens. In the clear, safe space just behind them, he heaved Bear up behind him on the saddle and went after.

  They staggered up the wall of the wadi, scrambling and sliding in the loose sand. He could not keep Bear on the horse. On the top of the bank, Bear slipped, the horse stumbled, and they all went down in a heap in the dark. Rannulf hit on his bad shoulder and skidded. For a frantic moment he could not find his sword. The earth was shaking under him. There were horses charging at him. He stood up and tripped headlong again, over something heavy and yielding and warm. Riders swept in through the dark around him.

  “Saint! Here!”

  He staggered upright again, and Stephen galloped toward him, leading Rannulf’s horse by the reins. “Come on!”

  “Bear.” Rannulf stooped down, in the dark, and laid his hands on the body he had tripped over. As soon as he tried to lift him he knew that Bear was dead.

  “Saint, they’re coming after us. Let’s go!”

  “Te absolvo,” he whispered. He made the sign of the Cross over Bear. He straightened, and pulled himself into his saddle, and followed Mouse up the side of the wadi, after the rest of his men.

  Felx said, “Bear.”

  “He was alive when I got him up behind me,” Rannulf said, “but he was dead when we fell.” They were climbing over a stony ridge, with the moon rising in their eyes. Ahead of them King Guy’s army was spread across the barren slope of the Horns of Hattin. The Saracens had pulled back; they seldom fought after dark. He put his hand on his horse’s neck, grateful for its strength. All his strength was gone, his legs like water, his arms like lead.

  He said, “I was pretty used to Bear.”

  Felx muttered something. They were passing by groups of the Italian footsoldiers, hanging on each other, so tired they had even stopped whining. Ahead, the slope angled up and away; the moonlight shone silver on the sparse long grass. Against the sky the two rock peaks jutted up that gave the place its name. Out on this open ground, black against the moonlit grass, he could see a troop of men riding, and above them there was a long stick of a standard, hung with pennants and plumes: the True Cross.

  “Come on,” he said. “There’s the King.” He lifted his horse up into a weary lope.

  There was a well on the slopes of Hattin. When the Templars reached the King, he and Tripoli and the rest of the commanders were clustered around the stone pool, but the well was dry. At the foot of the long gradual slope ahead of them, Lake Tiberias stretched away depthless black into the distance. Between this water and the Frankish army lay the campfires of the Saracens, thousands of them, like fields of wildflowers in the dark. Rannulf drew rein, a little way from the King and his nobles. The strange beauty of it struck him, the countless leaping fires, windstirred and red-gold, against the sweep of the night.

  Then someone called to him, ahead, and leaving his men he rode up to the King, in the midst of other lords.

  The King’s page brought him a flask, which he used, and passed on to the man on his left. “What is it?”

  “The Master sent me,” Rannulf said. “He and Balian d’Ibelin have fallen behind and they want you to wait for them.”

  Among the other men Tripoli exploded in an oath. “Are you serious?” His horse pushed up between Rannulf and the King.

  “They sent me with orders to say that,” Rannulf said. “I say, keep going. We have to get to the lake. Half the army’s out of water already.”

  Kerak said, “Let’s go. The Templars can fight their way through.”

  The King said, suddenly, “We can’t fight without the Templars.” He lifted his head. His shoulders were slumped; even in the dark Rannulf saw he was exhausted. He reached out uncertainly for the flask and took another pull on it. “We have to wait,” he said. “We’ll wait here.”

  Tripoli said, “No. We’re going on
to Lake Tiberias, if it takes us all night.”

  The King held the flask out to Kerak. “I’m staying here, until the Templars come.” He waved to one of his pages. “We’ll camp here tonight.”

  Tripoli leaned out and grabbed at his arm. “You idiot. We cannot stop. If we don’t get water for our horses soon we might as well just give up, they’ll drop under us.”

  “Take your hand off me!” The King thrust Tripoli’s arm aside and rode away, across the slope. His servants bustled after him, and one by one the other lords reined around and followed.

  Kerak stayed behind, staring at Rannulf. “Are they under attack, back there?”

  “We’ve been fighting all day long,” Rannulf said. He waved his arm toward the lake. “Keep marching. You can’t stay here.”

  The Wolf crossed his forearms on the pommel of his saddle and leaned on them, the great block of his head sunk down between his shoulders. Tripoli stared at Rannulf.

  “You’ll march on?”

  Rannulf shrugged one shoulder. “I’ve got orders to wait here for de Ridford.”

  Tripoli jerked his attention to Kerak. “Well?”

  The Wolf shook his head. “Half the men will stop here with the King, no matter what we do. Do you want to break us up into even smaller pieces?

  Tripoli flung his arms up. He wheeled his horse, and galloped off, shouting, “We’re finished! We’re finished!” Kerak watched him go, and brought his gaze back to Rannulf.

  “You’re an evil messenger, monk.”

  “I think so.” Rannulf gave a shake of his head. He reined his horse around and rode away, back to his men, and led them up higher on the grassy slope.

  The ground here was hard and slippery, and strewn with chunks of black rock. The winter rains had torn deep gulleys down the hillside. On a level strip of meadow he drew rein.

  “We’re camping here,” he said, to the men around him.

  “What?” Felx lifted his head. “What are we doing that for?”

  “King’s orders,” Rannulf said. He swung down from his saddle. “Keep watch on our stores. I don’t trust any of these bastards.” He loosened the girth on his saddle and took his bridle off the horse’s head and hung it around its neck, with the reins tied up, and went off across the hillside, alone.