Jerusalem

by Cecelia Holland

  He let his breath out, and folded his hands in his lap. One of his aides said, “Another such charge, and they will surrender.” The other men nodded and muttered agreement.

  “No,” Ali said. “They will never surrender.”

  The Sultan glanced at him. “You sound as if that’s something honorable in them, and not just sheer stupidity.”

  “You don’t understand them,” Ali said. “They believe God is choosing them—that the battle tries them. The harder the battle, the greater the trial, the nearer they are to God.”

  “Let it try them for wormfood,” the Sultan said, sharply. His nephew’s tone of voice irritated him.

  Ali glared at him. “You could at least give them the honor of noticing that they are valiant.”

  “I notice that they offend God. What, do you believe them, now? Are you become a Templar?”

  Ali turned white. He jerked himself forward again. The Sultan pressed his lips together, wondering what evil had infected his nephew.

  Down there on the slope, the Templars were lining up again, with the other Frankish knights on either flank. They would charge toward the Sultan again. His guts churned. He tensed himself for the next assault.

  Halfway through the day, the Templars and the lay knights mounted one more attack against the center of the Saracen line. Tripoli rode along on the left flank. But when the army charged, Tripoli veered off, and led his men in the other direction, straight at the Bedouin on the western edge of the Sultan’s army. The white-robed riders, startled, dodged out of the way, and Tripoli and his forty knights and some dozen other men galloped through the gap, and ran free across the open ground beyond. They never stopped, or even looked back, until they disappeared in the hills to the north.

  The rest of the Christians bolted toward this opening, but when they turned, the center of Saladin’s army took them in the flank. Ahead of them the hole closed. Trapped again, tired, half-dead of thirst, the Christians drew back onto the slope, where the King’s red tent still fluttered, and gathered together again.

  De Ridford galloped up to the King, shouting, “I told you he was treacherous! I told you he was treacherous!” He flung one arm out after the vanished Count of Tripoli.

  Kerak lifted his head. He was doubled up in his saddle, his breathing rough. He had lost most of his men, some dead, some just finished, quit, lying on the ground, or sitting with vacant looks in their eyes. He said, “It wasn’t Tripoli who brought us here to this. It was you, Templar.”

  De Ridford pried off his helmet; his eyes were burning with sweat, and he rubbed them on the skirt of his surcoat, which did no good. A sergeant ran up to him with a soggy cloth, which did no good either. “We’ll win this yet. The likes of this rabble shall not beat us.” He scrubbed his face; his cheeks stung.

  It was midday. The overhead sun hammered the slope. The Master had not eaten since the day before, and had drunk nothing since daybreak. His bad arm, still lashed to his side, ached from his shoulder to the tips of his fingers.

  He would not believe they were defeated. God would not give Jerusalem to the heathen; and if this army fell, Jerusalem was gone.

  The slope before him was churned to dust. A dead horse lay only a little way off. Other bodies sprawled across the broad sunbleached hillside, some dead, some wounded, some too worn down even to lift their heads. At the foot of it, the Saracens waited, their rank solid as a wall.

  The King said, quietly, “We are beaten. Jerusalem is defenseless. God have mercy on my wife and child.”

  De Ridford jerked his head around toward him, ready with some scathing words; but the effort seemed unworth the speech. He jogged his horse on past the King, where Rannulf Fitzwilliam had dismounted from his ruined horse and stood, looking away after Tripoli.

  “I told you he was treacherous,” de Ridford said, and Rannulf walked away without even a glance at him, leading his horse by the reins.

  De Ridford laid his hand on the pommel of his saddle. His chest hurt. He looked down the slope at the patient and unyielding wall of the Saracens. He thrust off the wave of fear that rushed over him. He would find a way out of this. He was Gerard de Ridford and he never failed. God would not let him fail. He turned and stared at the Saracens, looking for the thing he had missed, the weakness, the key. His gaze caught on something happening closer by.

  On the trampled slope, a little way down from him, Rannulf Fitzwilliam and Stephen de l’Aigle were piling stones into a heap on the ground. The other men were lining up together before this strange altar, and now Rannulf straightened, drew his sword, and set it point-first into the stones, like a cross.

  De Ridford lost his breath. They were going to say the Mass. He had only seen this done once; it was not something an officer involved himself in, a heresy, a crime. He turned and looked around him, wondering who else saw this. He realized that Rannulf thought they were going to die, and so didn’t care who saw them.

  His belly clenched. He went up closer to them. The Templars gathered silently in their communion. Rannulf stood before the altar, his hands raised, his head bowed to the sword, and began to say the Mass. The other men spoke the prayers with him, the Credo, the miserere. Domine, non sum dignus. De Ridford stood like a stone hearing this. The world cracked like an egg, and everything was new to him. He saw he had been wrong. He had thought too small. When he imagined he was spinning grand designs, he was turning and turning in his own little corner. Now the truth yawned in front of him like an abyss.

  They were going to lose. He was going to lose. God willed it.

  Rannulf lifted up a cup before the inverted sword. “This is my blood.” De Ridford was moving forward, up to the end of the last line, next to some young knight watching all this with his mouth open. De Ridford crossed himself. The old words, drilled into him from babyhood, came to him as if he had never known them before. He knew God was there, that God watched over this battlefield. He had brought God’s knights here to this place, to their destruction. The cup came to him, dry. With it a handful of dry grass in place of the bread. He pretended to drink from the cup, nibbled at the straw. Rannulf was coming along the line. “God gives you this.” De Ridford’s knees shook. He was as afraid as a little child. Rannulf stopped before him. “God gives you this.” He kissed de Ridford’s mouth. He struck him the blow, impersonal, as if he were any other knight. De Ridford went down to his knees, as if he were any other knight, and prayed to God to forgive him.

  Stephen pried himself up off his knees. His mail dragged him down; under it his body ached and throbbed, his skin burning, his lungs sore, his tongue dry and swollen, his belly plastered flat against his backbone. His mind wouldn’t work.

  He stood looking down at the Saracens, and tried to force himself into a hot righteous hatred, but all he felt was a numb terror. He crossed himself. He thought of Felx, and Bear. He went to his horse, standing with head drooping and eyes glazed a few yards from the altar, and mounted. The horse stiffened, and carried him on down the trampled slope to where Rannulf stood, with Eudes beside him; their horses were a little way off, their necks hanging.

  “Come on,” Stephen said. “Let’s go.”

  Rannulf looked up. “What?”

  “I came here to die for the Cross,” Stephen said. “I’m not going to wait for some damned sandpig to come up and slit my throat. Let’s go.”

  Rannulf looked at Eudes, and nodded up at Stephen. “I’m coming.” He went over to his horse. Eudes followed him. In their saddles, they went along after Stephen, on across the slope, past the dusty red flutter of the King’s tent. Of all the army now only a handful of men kept their saddles, and they moved wearily in to join the Templars, and they turned their horses’ heads toward the Saracens, and attacked.

  Stephen’s horse staggered and stumbled down the hillside. With Rannulf on his right and Eudes on his left, he plunged into the Saracens, who dodged away from them, fleeing from the swords the knights were too tired to lift. Stephen’s horse swayed, slowed, its head down to
its knees. From the mass of men before him a lance drove at him. He could not lift his shield to meet it. The lance hit him under the arm, where his mail opened, and tore in through his body and burst out the middle of his back.

  There was no pain, at first. He sagged, all his strength gone, falling, but lightly, as if he were floating. Someone caught him. He flung one arm out and hung it around Rannulf’s neck, and Rannulf heaved him up against him, holding him by the belt, and turned and scrambled back, out of the fighting.

  Stephen shut his eyes. Now his chest began to hurt.

  His mind was a fog. He knew they carried him back up on the slope and laid him down on the ground. Eudes was there. He had decided, a long time ago, that he would seduce Eudes. When this was over. This was over now. They gathered around him. Rannulf spoke to him, and the voice stirred him, not the words, only the sound of the loved voice. Then Rannulf’s cupped hand was to his mouth, and Rannulf was feeding him water.

  He groaned. The sweet cool moisture on his tongue was delicious beyond anything he had ever tasted. He lipped at Rannulf’s palm. The other knight held him up to drink, one arm around his back. Stephen licked up the last of the water and pressed his face down into Rannulf’s hand. Rannulf bent over him, his cheek against Stephen’s hair.

  “Here they come,” Eudes said.

  “Leave me,” Stephen croaked. There was blood in his mouth and he spat it out, and it kept on gushing out even when he stopped spitting. He lay down on the ground. Rannulf straightened; he heard the metallic snick of a sword being drawn. He shut his eyes, the blood running out of his mouth. Now it hurt a lot. But he wasn’t afraid anymore. He would never be afraid again. He began to say his prayers.

  Rannulf’s horse was done; it stood braced on widespread, wobbling legs, its nose to the ground, its hide rough and dry as wire. He left it where it stood, and on foot, with his sword in his hand, and Eudes beside him, he watched the Saracens rushing up the slope toward them.

  Most of the Saracens pounced on the dead and wounded men who covered the hillside. They sheered away from the two knights standing ready to fight. But then several of them gathered in a bunch, and they raised their axes and lances and ran at the two Templars.

  Side by side, the two knights beat them back again, and the Saracens drew back. Rannulf was swaying, and could not keep his balance. He said, “God wills it,” and could not hear his own voice. The boy beside him stood solid. The Saracens came on again, this time from both sides, and Rannulf stumbled forward. Struck a blow, and went to his knees, and then they were on him.

  Saladin watched his army swarm up over the slopes of Hattin; he saw the King’s red tent go down, and knew the battle was over. His throat was full of bile. Around him his aides cheered and screamed and embraced one another, but he did not rejoice. He could not be sure, not yet, of this victory. He went to his tent, and gave thanks to God, and changed his clothes. His clothes were as soaked with sweat as if he had himself fought on the field of Hattin. His hands were shaking.

  He went out, and sat before his tent, and they brought prisoners before him.

  The young King stumbled up and stood there, his face black with sunburn, his eyes brimming with resignation. He said, “God have mercy on us. Sultan, spare my men, who fought for God, not for me.”

  Saladin said, “You have lost; you have no more power in this matter.”

  Beside him, pain-wracked, crooked as an ancient, stood the Master of the Temple. Balian d’Ibelin behind him had gone down on one knee; the other Christian lords could scarcely keep their feet. The Sultan knew most of them, but he hardly recognized them now, filthy and beaten, hanging their heads like dogs.

  By the King’s other hand, at last, there was Kerak, also wounded.

  A slave had brought water, and at a nod from Saladin gave water in a cup to the young King. Guy drank, and held the cup out to Kerak. In a sharp voice, Saladin said, “I do not give that to him.”

  The Wolf lifted his head, and his lip curled. Reaching out his hand he took the water. “I take this for myself, as I ever have taken what I wanted.” His voice croaked. He drank the cup empty.

  The Sultan laid his hand on the hilt of his sword. “Yes, and because you had no more reck than that, you are an insult to the world, which I will avenge.” He drew the sword, and struck Kerak in the chest.

  The knight wobbled, but did not fall. The Sultan’s guards closed on him and slew him and dragged his body away.

  The King was saying, “Oh, my God. Oh, my God.” The Master of the Temple only stood, his gaze aimed at the ground.

  Saladin said, “Attend to them.” He went down to where Ali was waiting with his horse.

  After the battle at the Springs of Cresson he had looked among the heads of the Templars killed there and not seeing the one he sought, he had known the job was still before him. Now he went down to see the Templars taken prisoner on Hattin’s slope. His nephews rode on either side of him, Taqi ad-Din, on his right hand, Ali on his left.

  They had gathered the Christian prisoners on the slopes where they had been taken. The great useless mass of the foot soldiers covered most of the low ground; they sent up a constant wail. Off to one side were the Templar prisoners, chained together in rows. Their armor had been taken, and their hands bound behind them. Half-naked, most of them wounded, all of them slack with fatigue and thirst, they sat quietly, waiting.

  In their silence, in their waiting, he sensed the danger still in them, the unbroken will.

  Taqi ad-Din said jubilantly, “Surely we have destroyed them now. We have never taken so many of them alive before. What will we do with them?”

  The Sultan did not answer him. He rode along, sweeping his eyes up and down the rows of these men, their shorn hair, their long ragged beards. Then across the way he saw the black head he had been looking for.

  His chest swelled in an explosive triumph. Now he knew the job was done; he knew he held Jerusalem.

  Out there, in the second row, the knight turned and looked back at him. They stared at each other, unblinking, across the bodies of the prisoners, and then, with a massive indifference, the knight turned his gaze away.

  Taqi ad-Din said again, “What will you do with them? They won’t be ransomed; they would be impossible to break to slavery. We have never made prisoners of so many of them. Usually they fight to the death.”

  Saladin said, “They fought to the death here. Only it is late in coming.”

  On his left hand, Ali swung toward him, sharp-eyed. “They are helpless prisoners.”

  Taqi ad-Din said, “The Koran forbids killing prisoners, Uncle.”

  “Yet I mean to do it,” Saladin said.

  Ali’s face flared with anger. “They fought nobly, and with valor. Are you going to be less a man than they are?”

  “They are the firebrands of the Franks, and I will destroy them utterly, lest they burst alight again from the embers.” He nodded at these two younger men, who did not understand the game. “We have those Sufi from Egypt with us. Give each of them a sword and a Templar, and let them all prove their faith.”

  Ali said, “You are the barbarian, Uncle.” On his cheeks the tears glittered like diamonds. He wheeled his horse and rode away.

  Rannulf sat with his arms tied behind his back, one of a long line of Templar prisoners; Eudes was on his left, and Mouse on his right, lying on the ground in a spreading pool of blood. Rannulf lifted his head, his eyes on the blazing blue of the sky.

  His spirit was soaring. He knew he had won. He had come at last to the end of the test, and he had kept his vow. For the first time he thought God smiled on him. This is my son, who has conquered Heaven.

  “Saint,” Eudes said. “What are they going to do to us?”

  “They’re going to kill us.”

  The boy was silent for a moment. Then his voice erupted from him in a spate of outrage.

  “They can’t kill me. It’s not honorable. This is my first battle. I fought hard, and I fought well. You said so yourself. I
don’t want to die now. I shouldn’t die now, and I shouldn’t die like this, with my hands tied behind my back.”

  Rannulf said nothing. Beside him Mouse was dead already. A slave was coming along the line with a bucket of water, giving each of the knights a drink. The slave stopped before Stephen.

  “Don’t touch him,” Rannulf said, in Arabic. “He’s dead.” He looked up, and saw Ali.

  The Saracen’s face was drawn hollow like an old man’s, and streaming tears. He turned his cup over, and let the water run down over Stephen’s head. Kneeling on one knee, he laid his hand on the redheaded knight’s cheek. Then he rose, and came on to Rannulf, and dipped up the water for him, and held the cup while he drank. Rannulf said nothing to him, but drank his fill. Ali went on, and gave water to Eudes.

  The boy drank. After, he said, in a steady voice, “Saint. Shrive me.”

  “Confess, then, brother.”

  Out there in front of them all, the mullahs were killing them, one at a time. Some of the priests struck cleanly and quickly, some not; the watching Saracen armies jeered the strokes that missed, and cheered the heads that rolled. A Kurdish guard came up the line, stopped at Stephen, and saw that he was dead. Bending, he unhitched Rannulf from the chain. The water had given the knight some strength back. He got to his feet, shaking off the guard’s hand on his arm. He had to step across the headless bodies of Templars to reach the killing ground. Like an altar it was puddled with blood. Before him stood a terrified boy in a dirty white turban, holding a scimitar as if he had never touched one before. A hand on Rannulf’s shoulder pushed on him. He stiffened, and they kicked the backs of his knees until they dropped him down kneeling on the ground. The boy raised the sword.