by H A CULLEY
‘But where are the other hostages?’ Humphrey of Toron wanted to know. ‘You are known to hold over five hundred.’
‘There are twenty more of your nobles who are being held elsewhere and who are on their way here. Many have died of their wounds, of course. There may well be many more and I am making enquiries about them,’ Saladin said vaguely.
‘What about the True Cross and the gold bezants?’ put in Hugh, Duke of Burgundy, giving Humphrey an annoyed look at his presumption in speaking first. After all, he was the leader of the delegation.
‘I have given instructions for the relic you call the True Cross to be brought here from my capital at Damascus and I am gathering the gold. I have two thousand bezants here which I will give you today as evidence of my good faith. You may take them and these two hostages with you provided you agree to release the civilian population of Acre who wish to leave within three days.’
Reluctantly the envoys agreed and Waldo and Miles travelled back to Acre on two of the packhorses that had been brought along to carry the sacks of gold. The sight that greeted them was very different to when they had last seen the city. The crusaders were busy rebuilding the walls and the Accursed Tower. They saw that the besiegers’ camp was now virtually deserted, most of the crusaders having moved into the town, even before it was rebuilt.
Three weeks later the envoys returned to Saladin’s camp, expecting to be given the rest of the money, the True Cross and the Christian hostages, or at least to make arrangements for their collection. The crusaders had kept to their side of the agreement by allowing the Moslem population to leave Acre, all except for the garrison who were kept as hostages against Saladin honouring his promises.
They were disappointed. Saladin had collected some one hundred Christian captives for release and he handed these over but there was no more money and no True Cross.
‘By God, I am running out of patience with this man,’ King Richard told the envoys on their return to Acre. He had dismantled all the siege equipment and was ready to depart to besiege Jerusalem itself. ‘He is playing with me, stringing out the negotiations in the hope of delaying my departure for Jerusalem. Well, he has picked on the wrong man. Go back to him and tell him that he has until the twenty first of August to meet all the terms of the surrender of Acre or I will execute all the hostages in my possession, one by one.’
Richard de Cuille was horrified by this ultimatum. Knowing the king as he did, he was well aware that this was no bluff.
‘My lord Saladin,’ he entreated the sultan, ‘King Richard is in deadly earnest. If you don’t produce everything we have been promised by the deadline he will execute your soldiers.’
Saladin’s only option was to play for more time. The execution of so many of his soldiers would have a detrimental effect on both his standing and the morale of his men.
‘I am nearly ready to hand over some more of the money and the True Cross is due to arrive here next month. Your king must understand that I need more time to meet all his demands.’
But there was no more time. Philip Augustus had finally departed to deal with the vexed question of Flanders, leaving Richard in sole charge of the crusader army. Philip had been furious that a number of his nobles had elected to remain under Richard’s command, rather than return with their king. He left the Duke of Burgundy in charge of the Frenchmen who had stayed and sailed away a humiliated, and therefore a dangerous, man.
On the morning of the twenty second of August the crusaders led the garrison and the leaders of Moslem Acre out in chains onto the coastal plain to a spot which was in full view of the sultan’s advance position on Tell Keisan and there, one by one, they were beheaded.
Alan FitzWalter was disgusted by this act of barbarism. He had argued long and hard for the prisoners to be sold into slavery but Richard was conscious that this would take time; time which Saladin could use to raise more men, whereas Richard could not expect reinforcement. Two days after the mass beheadings, Alan and the Scottish contingent left for home. As one of Alan’s squires, David Cuille went with them. Tristan missed his brother more than he would be prepared to admit, but consoled himself with the thought that at least David was now safe. He wondered what further dangers and privations now faced the crusader army during its march on Jerusalem.
Chapter Six – The Battle of Arsuf – 7th September 1191
Tristan soon found out. King Richard led his depleted army of twenty thousand men out of Acre and headed down the coast towards Haifa. There should have been more, but some had refused to be rooted out of the flesh spots of Acre. The coast of Outremer in late August was baking hot and humid. Tristan rode with the remainder of the squires immediately behind Richard de Cuille’s conroi in the vanguard. He rode a palfrey and led his master’s spare warhorse, a bad tempered courser, and a rouncey carrying spare lances and other weapons. Dressed in a light tunic and wearing a headscarf to protect his head from the sun, he was nevertheless uncomfortably hot. He wondered how the knights, dressed in full armour in case of attack, could bear it. The insects that buzzed around them and the large horse flies that maddened men and horses alike with their bites didn’t help.
During the first day the army only covered a few miles before they collapsed from exhaustion and camped for the night. Supplies of food and water were ferried ashore from the fleet, which had shadowed them during the march along the coast. Less welcome were the horsemen who shadowed them a couple of miles inland. Out of sight the whole of Saladin’s army of some twenty five thousand marched parallel to the crusader host, waiting for any opportunity to attack.
On the third day the enemy’s patience was rewarded. The rear guard was provided by the French under Burgundy’s command. They had allowed a gap of several hundred yards to develop between them and the main body before they were an hour into the march. The day was hotter than ever and several men collapsed with heat stroke. The gap grew even larger whilst Hugh of Burgundy made arrangements for the casualties to be conveyed down to the ships.
Suddenly Saladin launched his light cavalry into the gap been the main body and the French. The horse archers’ bows weren’t very powerful so the arrows had difficulty in penetrating the chainmail and the padded gambesons worn by the men, but many of the horses were unprotected and the Saracens concentrated in slaughtering them, leaving the knights stranded on foot wearing their heavy armour in the heat of the day.
Richard de Cuille was in the main body when he saw his king gallop past heading to the rear of the army. All the sergeants and Turcopoles – light cavalry of Greek and Christian Turkish origin – swung into line behind him and Richard heard the order for knights to arm themselves and follow on. Tristan rode forward and handed him his great helm, lance and shield and Richard rode off with the rest of his conroi.
When they reached the skirmish they found that many of the Saracen archers had dismounted to use their bows to better effect and they were now at the mercy of the mounted crusaders. A swarm of Saracen light horse were trying to effect a rescue when King Richard called for the knights to form into four ranks. As soon as this was done the king led the charge and four hundred armoured knight mounted on destriers weighing two tons each smashed into the enemy mounted on their Arabian horses which weighed less than half that. One charge was enough and the Saracens fled leaving several hundred dead and several more hundred archers marooned on foot in the middle of their foes. Richard had a few heated words with Duke Hugh then rode back up the column leaving the chastised French to finish off the archers and catch up with the main body of the army.
The constant pinprick attacks, the heat, exhaustion , the flies and other insects were all having a detrimental effect on the morale of the Army by the time they reached Haifa. After what had happened to the garrison of Acre, the population had fled and they entered the town unopposed. The Moslems might have fled but the place was infested with camel spiders and many an exhausted crusader, who collapsed and slept where he had stopped, woke to find that he had been bitten. The lucky ones just had t
o cope with the poisonous bite but in a number of cases the spider had returned to feast on the injected flesh once the numbing result of the bite had taken effect. These unlucky individuals found that part of their face or hands had been eaten away. Richard had intended to rest his army at Haifa for two days before continuing but, such was the panic caused by the spiders, the army insisted in leaving immediately.
The crusaders toiled along the old Roman road that took them around Mount Carmel towards Caesarea. Here it was even hotter than hitherto and nearly a hundred men died of sunstroke. The horses were beginning to suffer too. At Caesarea the fleet arrived with fresh supplies and reinforcements in the shape of the lightly wounded and the completely inebriated who had been left at Acre to recover when the army had marched out.
The king had wanted to stay at the town for three days to allow his exhausted army to recover but on the second day an envoy from Saladin arrived asking to start negotiations. King Richard had selected the Earl of Leicester and Humphrey of Toron, as interpreter, to accompany him and asked Richard and his conroi to escort him. Richard de Cuille had lost his destrier, which had suddenly collapsed and died under him, and so he had to resort to his courser. When the king saw that Richard was riding a courser he sent for a destrier from his own stables and presented de Cuille with it. De Cuille reflected that this was typical of the king’s character: he was generous to a fault towards those he liked and who were loyal to him but he could be mean to the point of pettiness towards those who let him down.
When they arrived at the meeting place the king found that Saladin’s brother, Safadin, was waiting for him. King Richard was immediately suspicious, suspecting that Saladin had merely suggested the meeting to delay the army’s advance.
After the opening formalities had been dispensed with Richard immediately demanded that the kingdom of Jerusalem be restored to its old boundaries, including the city itself, as his terms for peace. This left Safadin in a quandary. There was nothing to talk about as the terms were obviously unacceptable and so he was unable to spin the negotiations out as Saladin had wanted. Within half an hour King Richard and his escort were on their way back to re-join the army. They moved out at dawn the next day.
On the sixth of September the crusaders arrived at the north bank of the River Rochtaille to find that Saladin’s army was drawn up on the south bank. As they camped for the night Richard de Cuille looked across the river at the thousands of enemy campfires on the other bank and wondered if he would survive the coming battle.
~#~
Bashir al Melik sat on his horse watching the crusader camp across the river pack up and move out at dawn the next day. Saladin had moved his army out of their camp an hour before dawn to the place he had chosen for the coming battle. He could have opted to oppose the crossing of the river but at this time of year it was too shallow to present an effective obstacle.
Bashir and his Kurdish light cavalry had been given the task of shadowing Richard’s army and making pinprick attacks on them, especially the baggage train, as they moved towards Arsuf. However, this was proving difficult as the crusaders were advancing in three columns: the baggage train was nearest the coast with the knights and serjeants riding in the centre and the infantry outside them. Every time they rode towards the latter they were met by a hail of quarrels from their crossbows which killed or maimed men and horses whilst their arrows fired from horseback at the same range couldn’t penetrate the chainmail or the thick leather jupons worn by their opponents. True, some the infantrymen looked like porcupines but the arrows, if they did penetrate that far, did little more than nick their flesh.
Bashir was getting frustrated at the loss of his men for so little impact on the enemy and rode off to find Saladin. The sultan had hidden his main force of ten thousand light cavalry and the same number of infantry in the woods on the edge of the plateau above the port of Arsuf.
‘Highness, I am losing men every time we attack the Franks’ column whilst we cannot seem to penetrate their armour with our arrows.’
Saladin thought for a moment. ‘Send in your mounted spearmen then and try and delay the rear guard so they become separated from the rest. Then you can surround them and eliminate them.’
Bashir looked doubtful but, nevertheless, he acknowledged the order and rode back to his men. King Richard had placed his best men at the front and the rear: the Templars in the van and the Hospitallers at the back. The rest of the army were organised in divisions by nationality with the French just in front of the Hospitallers. As Bashir watched the columns toil past his position in the growing heat of the day he estimated that there were no more than four thousand knights and serjeants, perhaps ten to fifteen thousand infantry and a couple of thousand Turcopoles, who had been thrown out as a screen in front of the army. The Hospitallers numbered no more than a thousand infantry and four hundred knights.
This time his men thrust home the attack, despite the losses they sustained in doing so, so that the mounted archers behind them could fire in the air over the infantry at the mounted knights behind them. Their targets were not the mailed men but their horses and a number were wounded or killed, despite the thick cotton caparisons they wore covering their bodies. When Bashir gave the signal to withdraw he wept when he saw how many of his spearmen were left behind on the ground, dead and dying. In contrast the Hospitallers casualties could be numbered in the tens but at least they had lost perhaps a hundred of their valuable destriers.
What was even more remarkable was the fact that the Hospitallers had not become separated from the French division in front of them. They continued to march even as they were attacked, many walking backwards so as to face the Kurds whilst still progressing towards Arsuf. Bashir knew that, if the crusaders could maintain their discipline and stay together so that their line couldn’t be broken, Saladin would be hard pressed to defeat them using his usual mobile tactics.
Bashir was about to return to Saladin’s main army when one of his nephew’s men came galloping towards him.
‘My lord, it’s Ferhat. I have bad news, I fear.’
‘Is he wounded?’
‘No my lord, he is dead.’
Bashir sat on his horse, not believing what he had been told. The last thing his youngest brother had said to him was to make sure he brought Ferhat, his only son, back to him safe and sound.
‘Where is his body?’
The horseman led Bashir to where the Kurds were collecting the dead and wounded ready for burial. A hundred more men were hard at work digging a large pit. Bashir was about to say that he wanted his nephew buried in a separate grave when the thought occurred to him that Ferhat would probably have wanted to be buried with his men.
The Kurdish commander dismounted and went to look at Ferhat’s body. He had died like a warrior with all his wounds in the front of his body. The one that would have killed him was a savage chop to the side of his neck that had half severed his head from his body. Someone had tried to put it back in place but the head had fallen sideways again and now it lay at an angle.
At that moment a messenger from Saladin galloped up.
‘The sultan sends his salaams, my lord. He would be grateful if you could bring your men with all speed to join in the attack on the infidels above Arsuf.’
Bashir bit back a harsh retort and took a deep breath. ‘Please give the sultan my salaams and tell him that we have lost too many men already today. When we have finished burying them all and tending to the many wounded we will be returning home. Saladin will have to win his victory without us. Though, from what I have seen today, I think that might prove more difficult than he imagines.’
~#~
Sir Waldo Cuille stopped at the crest of the slight rise and studied the ground before him. He had volunteered to lead a hundred Turcopoles for reasons he only partly admitted to himself. He was dimly aware that, although they had sworn an end to the enmity between them, that was when he and Miles had been prisoners held in appalling conditions. Deep down he know that t
he antipathy installed in him as child meant that he could never entirely trust Miles and, had he remained with the English army, he might have been tempted to make sure that Miles didn’t change his mind by killing him. Serving with the Turcopoles took him away from him and, besides, it was more interesting than plodding along eating dust in the middle of the main body.
From what he had been told about his father, he probably wouldn’t have liked his son very much. The elder Waldo had qualities, like honour and a sense of fairness, which were somewhat lacking in his son. Having been brought up by a mother who had breathed her hatred of Robert of Locksley into her son on a daily basis, he had grown up with bitterness in his heart and regarded suspicion of his fellow man as completely natural.
However, he had also grown to admire the military genius of King Richard and the sombre dedication of Richard de Cuille. The guilt that the latter felt for his slaying of Jocelyn de Muschamp, however justified in the circumstances, had resulted in a fierce determination to atone for the act by serving the crusade to the best of his ability. This selflessness was in sharp contrast to the need for revenge that had driven Waldo until he had killed Robert of Locksley. Afterwards he felt nothing but emptiness. He had volunteered for the crusade to feel alive again instead of suffering a sense of purposelessness.
Now he was actually enjoying himself. As a Norman landowner he looked down on the men he led but he admired them as fighters. All of them were excellent horse archers, using composite bows purchased with King Richard’s gold that was more powerful than those used by the Saracens, and they were also adept at using the sword and shield on horseback. Richard’s gold had also purchased thick leather jerkins or shirts of chain mail and helmets so that they were better protected than many of their opponents.
The Turcopoles were organised in four battalions of five hundred with each battalion consisting of five troops of a hundred men. Waldo’s troop was riding point with the rest of his battalion spread out on either side of him. Another battalion rode behind his to offer support if needed whilst the other two provided a screen on each flank of the main body.
