by H A CULLEY
‘Yes, I am sending you as military tutor to my nephew, Prince Arthur of Brittany. He is now five and it’s time his education started. However, if anything happens to my beloved brother, Richard, then you are to kill Arthur. Richard must be out of his mind to have named a small fatherless child as his heir and I don’t want any problems with my succession to the throne.’
Waldo’s mind was in a spin. Arthur was the posthumous son of John’s elder brother, Geoffrey, who had been killed at a tournament in Paris six years previously.
Suddenly the other man sitting at the table got up and came round behind the bewildered Waldo and pinioned his good arm behind his back. John pulled out his dagger and came round to press the point against Waldo’s throat.
‘Should you betray me, or even think of disobeying me, there is nowhere you can hide where I won’t find you and put an end to your miserable life. I’m sure you understand me, Eh?’
‘Yes, my lord. Absolutely.’ Waldo was terrified by the venom in the prince’s eyes and in his voice.
‘Right, off you go then. See my chamberlain on the way out. He will give you the letter of appointment to Prince Arthur.’
Waldo paused whilst he recovered from his fright, then said somewhat diffidently ‘I will need money for my passage and expenses, my lord.’
‘Don’t try my patience, Cuille. I know you have money. I’ve given you your life, that’s all you’ll get from me until after the deed is done; then we’ll see.’
Chapter Ten – A Difference of Opinion – Spring 1192
Waldo wasn’t the only one fretting about an assassination. Ever since Humphrey of Toron had paid over the deposit for the assassination of Conrad of Montferrat, he had been expecting to hear about the marquis’s death. When it didn’t happen immediately Humphrey was in two minds: whilst he was impatient for revenge on the man who had stolen his wife, he was also relieved that he wouldn’t have to find the second instalment of six hundred marks, which he didn’t have.
But for now he had to concentrate on other things. King Richard had returned to Acre to counter the Duke of Burgundy’s efforts to wrest the city from his control and hand it over to Conrad of Montferrat, and also to round up those who had deserted his army in order to return to the fleshpots. In his absence he had tasked Humphrey with ambushing a caravan which was said to be making its way from Jerusalem to Egypt with over a thousand Christian prisoners.
‘There are two possible routes,’ Humphrey briefed his commanders, including Richard de Cuille, who now led a bataille consisting of two hundred knights and serjeants organised into eight conrois, one of which was led by Miles. ‘One is the route taken by Our Lord after his birth when Joseph and Mary fled with him into Egypt: that is from Bethlehem to Hebron and thence to Gaza and along the coast. The other is the more difficult route via Bethar and Jarmuth to Gaza. Both routes converge east of Eglon so that’s where I plan to ambush the caravan.’
He paused and looked at Richard and the two other commanders he was taking with him on the raid: Geoffrey of Karak leading a hundred and fifty Templars and Arnaud le Reynard with a hundred Hospitallers. All three batailles were divided almost equally between knights and serjeants with half of the latter being mounted crossbowmen. With squires and a detachment of Turcopoles, the force would be seven hundred strong whereas Humphrey’s intelligence led him to believe that the caravan was only guarded by some three hundred Saracens. However, the crusaders would be penetrating well into territory controlled by the enemy and Humphrey was by nature a cautious man.
To Richard’s disappointment, the Templars were send out as the vanguard with the Hospitallers bringing up the rear. He was left to travel as the main body guarding the packhorses led by his squires that contained their supplies. The weather in late February was beginning to warm up with the promise of an early spring, but it wasn’t yet hot enough to make travelling wearing armour unbearably uncomfortable.
Richard threw out scouts on both flanks to give warning of any Saracen patrols and resigned himself to eating the Templars’ dust as they made their way into the mountains, avoiding the town of Beit Dagon. They reached Zorah in the valley of Elah as dusk was approaching on the second day and Richard, Humphrey and Geoffrey of Kerak examined the village from a distance as the sun touched the tops of the hills to the west of the valley. There didn’t appear to be any soldiers stationed in the village, just villagers returning to their homes at the end of the working day.
‘Is there any way around the village?’ Humphrey wanted to know.
Geoffrey shook his head. ‘There are goat trails up into the hills but they are too narrow for a force of this size to use, my lord.’
Humphrey sighed. Unlike some, he regretted the spilling of civilian blood, especially that of women and children, but he couldn’t allow news of their presence this far inside Saladin’s territory to leak out. At that moment Arnaud rode up to join them. Humphrey nodded a greeting then, with a heavy heart, gave his orders.
The village of Zorah consisted of twenty huts made of palm fronds fastened to a wooden frame, a construction method called barusti, and few more substantial buildings constructed of bricks made from dried mud and camel dung. One of these was a small mosque and the others presumably belonged to the wealthier villagers. A falaj bought water down from somewhere in the hills and irrigation channels spread out from this to water the groves of olives and figs. These were surrounded by barusti fences, but there was room between these enclosures and the foothills for the Templars to pick their way to either side of the village and take up a position so as to cut off any escape to the south. Richard’s crossbowmen followed them to form lines to the east and west whilst the Hospitallers sealed off the road to the north.
Most of the villagers were inside their huts as the horsemen appeared out of the gathering gloom and, by the time they had realised what was happening, they were surrounded. Richard gave the order and his men rode forward with flaming torches to fire the barusti huts and then the slaughter started. Richard and Miles refused to take part in the killing but most of their men were willing enough and rode down those who ran out of their burning homes. Richard turned his face away, sickened, as women, young girls and even boys were caught by his men and raped before being killed. Miles was leaned over in the saddle and was violently sick before turning his horse to ride away from the scene of desecration, heading back to where the squires were setting up camp for the night.
Richard continued to watch grim faced when suddenly two men rushed out of one of the mud-brick houses and attacked him. One wielded and old sword and the other a spear. Richard was hard pressed to fend them off, parrying a sword thrust at his horse whilst deflecting the spear with his shield. The man with the sword then cut at Richard’s body but had to come close in to do so which gave the mounted knight a chance to kick him away with his mail clad foot. As the man sprawled in the dust Richard caught another thrust with the spear of his shield then he saw a third man taking aim at him with a hunting bow. He managed to put his shield in front of him as the arrow sped towards him and it hit the wood with a loud thunk.
The swordsman had regained his feet and then the spearman did what a more experienced fighter would have done straight away and thrust the point deep into the belly of Richard’s destrier. The fatally wounded horse reared up in its agony, its thrashing hooves striking the swordsman and smashing both his skull and his chest. Richard was catapulted over the back of his dying horse and hit the ground on his back and lay there winded. The spearman had let go of his spear but now drew a knife from his belt and headed for the prone Richard. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the bowman also pull out a knife and head for him.
Richard cursed his men, who were too busy raping, killing and searching for what few treasures the villagers had to notice the peril that their commander was in. His shield was still strapped to his arm and, although he had lost his grip on his sword, it was tied to his wrist by a thong. The trouble was that he was too winded to get hold of it. As the f
irst man leapt at him he raised his shield and punched him in the face with it, breaking his nose and a few teeth. The man fell beside Richard screaming and clutching his ruined face.
Before Richard could get up he became aware of the third assailant standing over him, knife in hand, illuminated by the flickering fires. Then, almost surreally, he saw a sword glint in the firelight and the man’s head seemed to leap in the air and bounced away into the darkness as the headless body crumpled to the ground.
A second later and Miles had leant down and thrust his sword into the throat of the man with the broken face.
‘I thought you had left the village in disgust,’ Richard grunted in relief as he got to his feet, ‘but I’m glad you changed your mind. Thank you, Miles. I owe you my life.’
‘Nonsense. I’m sure you would have beaten those rascals without my help.’ Miles was embarrassed by Richard’s gratitude. ‘I shouldn’t have left you in the first place. As soon as I approached the tents being erected by the squires I realised how feeble, even cowardly, I would look in their eyes so I came back.’
‘I’m bloody glad you did.’ He grasped the younger man to his chest and gave him a brief embrace. ‘By God I need a drink.’
The next morning the column resumed its march south leaving behind the smoking ruins of Zorah and the dead for the buzzards to feed on; all except for two serjeants who had been killed by three brothers bent on revenge as the two men raped their mother and sister. The serjeants had been buried where they had died with Geoffrey of Karnak of the Templars officiating in his capacity as a monk as well as a knight.
The same despondency that Richard had felt for years after he had killed Jocelyn returned with a vengeance. Tristan was immediately conscious of the change in his master. He had watched the slaughter of the villagers in the flickering light from the fires and heard their screams but, unlike Humphrey, Richard and Miles, he accepted it as part of war. He wasn’t a particularly hard-hearted boy, but he relished being part of the great crusade and the enemy were the enemy as far as he was concerned; the more that died the better. Therefore he didn’t have a great deal of sympathy with Richard’s black mood.
‘You’ll get yourself killed if you don’t snap out of it, uncle,’ he told Richard with some asperity. ‘Then where would that leave me, a masterless squire of sixteen, thousands of miles from home?’
Richard was surprised that Tristan had spoken to him in such a manner. He was normally differential and always called him ‘my lord’ and never referred to their close relationship. The fact that he had ventured to do so now indicated how concerned he was about him.
‘You’re quite right, my boy. But never speak to me in such a manner again if you want to remain my squire.’ After that Richard did his best to erase the massacre at Zorah from his mind. In this he was only partially successful, but the events of the next few days helped to push it to the further recesses of his consciousness.
Humphrey and Miles soon got over the incident; Humphrey because he was ambitious and determined to make a success of this expedition, and Miles because he was a decade younger than Richard and didn’t tend to dwell on the past.
Two days later they reached the ruins of the ancient Philistine city of Gath with its small castle of Blanche Garde, built by the French during the First Crusade. Now it was occupied by fifty Saracens and, as it was an obvious stopping place for the caravan, Humphrey’s plan was to capture the castle and man it with his Turcopoles.
Blanche Guard was a simple structure of four stone walls fifteen foot high with a square tower at each corner with a single gate in the middle of the south facing wall. Inside the bailey there was a timber keep and several buildings such as stables and a barracks block build of barusti, like the hovels at Zorah. The castle was built on top of the original tell, or mound, which was essentially a small plateau with white cliffs on two sides. The tell stood three hundred feet high with commanding views over the surrounding countryside, so a surprise attack would only be possible at night.
Humphrey’s strategy was simple. He planned to send in the Turcopoles at dusk pretending to be Saracens and then, whilst they fought to gain possession of the gate, the remainder of the force would gallop to their assistance. This time the Hospitallers would be in the van and Richard’s men would remain in reserve.
It worked without a hitch. The twenty Turcopoles quickly disposed of the eight men on watch, mainly by arrow fire from horseback, and then bottled up the rest of the garrison until the Hospitallers arrived and set fire to the barracks, forcing the Saracens to come out and surrender. Ten died and forty two were captured for no casualties at all on the crusader side.
Humphrey set up camp in a side valley two miles from Blanche Garde, where they would be hidden from the approaching caravan. The Turcopoles would signal him from the castle once the Saracens were in sight by flashing a metal shaving mirror so it caught the rays of the sun.
It was late on the following afternoon when Tristan came running down from the top of a nearby hill to say that the sentries had seen the signal. Immediately the squires rushed to armour the knights and the serjeants helped each other into their chainmail vests or studded leather jerkins before donning their helmets. Within a quarter of an hour the crusaders were ready to ride. Humphrey, Richard and the other two commanders rode forward and hid in a small clump of trees, from where they could see the approach to the ruins of Gath.
The caravan stretched for nearly a mile. In addition to the Christian prisoners, who were chained together round the neck, there were two hundred camels, some carrying supplies, but most were laden with goods that were being transported along the Silk Road for sale in Egypt. The Silk Road was an ancient trading route connecting China with the Mediterranean that had been set up over a thousand years before, so the merchandise in this caravan was therefore likely to be very valuable. The reports Humphrey had received from King Richard’s spies had mentioned three hundred guards but Humphrey counted more than five hundred. Half of these were the regular caravan guards but the rest were ghulams. These were exceptional horsemen who had originated as slave soldiers or boys bought as young children to be trained as warriors. They were more heavily armoured than the majority of Saladin’s horsemen and could fight as horse archers or armoured cavalry. Unlike most Saracen cavalry, they were much more of a match for the armoured knight. It was rumoured that they never married but took lovers from amongst themselves. This was said to make them almost invincible as they were willing to die for each other.
The ghulams were divided into five sections: the vanguard, two flank guards, the rear guard and a section strung out riding along the column of chained prisoners. Humphrey feared that their orders might be to slaughter the captives if the caravan was attacked. Originally he had intended to launch the attack as soon as the leaders rode up to the castle, but he now decided on a more stealthy strategy.
Tristan, as the most resourceful of the squires, was sent off at a run using the dead ground between the side valley and the castle to apprise the commander of the Turcopoles of the change in plan. Meanwhile the rest dismounted and waited. As Humphrey had expected, five richly attired horsemen and the commander of the guards rode up to the castle whilst the rest started to set up camp around the various wells amidst the ruins. The castle gates swung open in welcome and then closed again behind the six riders. Humphrey grunted in satisfaction, knowing that the Turcopoles would have secured them for ransom.
The crusaders returned to their campsite but slept in their armour. An hour before dawn they were up and ready to leave again. As was their practice, the ghulams had camped on their own round one of the wells and it was here that Humphrey concentrated his attack. He sent Richard and Geoffrey of Karak to sweep down on the camp when the enemy started to stir just as dawn broke. Meanwhile the Hospitallers attacked the main camp.
The ghulams had been taken unawares and were outnumbered but they put up a strong fight nevertheless. The crusaders attacked with the rising sun at their backs so th
e ghulam archers were unable to see them until it was too late. Richard speared one man with his lance just as he was about to mount his horse; throwing the lance away he drew his mace and chopped down on the helmet of a ghulam just as he was about to loose an arrow at another knight. Then he was beset by several ghulams on foot armed with spears. He took one point on his shield and batted another spear away with his mace. He was riding his courser, having lost his destrier at Zorah, but it was not trained to fight like a destrier. Nevertheless he sawed back on the reins and the horse reared smashing its iron shod front hooves down onto the helmet of another ghulam. Suddenly Miles was at his side and together they beat off the remaining ghulams.
A few had managed to reach their horses and they now fired arrow after arrow at the milling knights and serjeants as they fought those still on foot. Gathering half a dozen knights to him Richard and Miles led a charge against the mounted ghulams and cut several down before they were through them. They turned and charged back again. The knight riding knee to knee beside Richard suddenly toppled backwards with an arrow in his eye then the knights were amongst the mounted ghulams again. Within five minutes they had killed or wounded the last of them. Richard reined in his courser and looked back at the ghulam camp.
None of the ghulams left were mounted. They had retreated to a tight circle bristling with spears from where they were firing their bows at the crusaders. Humphrey pulled his men back out of arrow range and sent the serjeants with crossbows forward on foot. The horseman’s bow was quite powerful, being of composite construction, but it was short and didn’t have the range of the crossbows. The slow steady fire of the latter gradually reduced the numbers of ghulams but they refused to surrender. Finally Humphrey sent in the mounted knights to finish the last few off.
The Hospitallers had been outnumbered by over two to one by the caravan guards, but their opposition was very different to the doughty ghulams. They were more used to fighting off poorly equipped bandits and panicked when charged by the knights and serjeants. After a few had been killed the rest broke and either made for the safety of the hills or the apparent security of the castle. About a hundred of the latter were struck by a hail of quarrels and arrows fired by the Turcopoles and the crossbowmen that Humphrey had stationed in there with them. By the time that the guards had run back again out of range, half their number were down.
