by H A CULLEY
Just at that moment Tristan led his out his own two hundred men and the three hundred who had retreated into the citadel when the city fell. They fell on the battered rear ranks of the Saracens and induced panic amongst them. In battle panic is infectious, and before long Saladin was forced to join his men in flight. The Lionheart had defeated Saladin again, this time whilst outnumbered by four to one.
He sent his men to scour the city and they found nearly two thousand still ransacking the houses of their fellow Moslems looking for more plunder. Some groups put up a stout defence and were killed, but most were taken prisoner.
Several hundred of the crusader garrison had been captured when the city fell to Saladin and these were released, bringing Richard’s army up to well over three thousand. Alberi of Reims was also released and sent back to Acre in one of the galleys in disgrace. The same ship carried orders for reinforcements to be sent south as soon as possible. King Richard didn’t know what had happened to Count Henry’s relief column, but he feared the worst.
Richard de Cuille had accompanied the king on one of the other galleys and the king now appointed him as Governor of Jaffa pro tem with orders to repair the breaches in the walls as soon as possible. It was a formidable task and de Cuille was no builder. He therefore set off to find men in the city who were.
Work on repairing the defences had only just begun when the patrols that the king had sent out to follow the retreating Saracens came back with the news that Saladin had halted the withdrawal into the interior and was now retracing his steps back to Jaffa.
As the crusade had worn on, King Richard had placed greater and greater trust in his namesake from Northumberland and he now sent Richard out with Miles, Tristan and their squires, disguised as Bedouin tribesmen. Richard had found himself a new squire since arriving at Jaffa. Several knights had been killed during Saladin’s attack on the city whereas their squires had only been taken captive. For the first time there was a choice of squires and, being the governor of the city and a baron, Richard had picked the most experienced, a seventeen year- old from Northamptonshire called Alan.
Warin had got used to being Lord Richard’s squire as well as Sir Miles’s, so he felt that his nose had been put out of joint by the new arrival. He resented him and felt that Alan should have been allocated to Miles, leaving him as the baron’s squire. A knight and his squire often formed a close relationship and, with a lord as his sponsor when he was knighted, he would have received richer gifts and a better start in life as a knight. He was therefore having a fit of the sulks and was markedly hostile and unhelpful towards Alan. This did not bode well for a dangerous reconnaissance into enemy territory.
Alan seemed oblivious to Warin’s attitude but Simon, being more sensitive to moods, picked up on the problem right away. He debated whether to say anything to Tristan but in the end he decided not to; a decision he would bitterly regret.
Seven miles out of Jaffa they came across a large patrol of ghulams. Luckily they were behind a ridge and had time to retreat back into dead ground before they were spotted. Richard and Miles crept back up to the ridge and watched as the patrol rode past their position. Then, in the distance, they could see a dust cloud appearing that indicated the presence of a large body of horsemen. It seemed likely that the Saracens were indeed returning to attack Jaffa.
Richard and Miles returned to join the others and they all set off in a circular route back to Jaffa, avoiding the Saracen’s line of march. However, after a few miles they crested a ridge overlooking an oasis which was crowded with Saracens watering their horses. They were spotted but, seeing what looked like a Bedouin patrol, the sentries around the oasis paid them scant attention. Richard looked around him. The valley in which the oasis lay was hemmed in by mountains, so the only course of action was to wait until they moved on. They retreated behind the ridge and found a clump of trees in which to rest in the shade whilst they waited.
Warin was sent up a nearby slope to find a position from which he could see both the oasis and the approach from the north-west, the way they had come. Regrettably, although he glanced at the busy oasis from time to time, he couldn’t help but watch Alan looking after Lord Richard and their horses, feeling more and more angry and resentful. So absorbed was he with Alan that he failed to pay proper attention to his surroundings until a stone skittered past him down the hill. By then it was too late. He found himself surrounded by four ghulams who had crept up on him. One seized his arms before he could draw his dagger and another pulled off his head cloth to reveal his true nationality.
‘Ah, this one is far too pretty to be a Bedouin,’ one said in Turkish. The others laughed.
‘It seems we have caught ourselves a little spy.’ The man who had spoken jerked his head in the direction of the others in the valley. ‘We need to capture them too and take them to the Emir.’
Although Warin didn’t speak a word of Turkish, he caught the drift of what they were saying from the gestures and their preoccupation with the others in the valley. He might have been immature and petulant over Alan but Warin wasn’t a coward and he would have done anything for both Lord Richard and Sir Miles. He therefore took a deep breath ready to shout a warning. One of the ghulams realised what he was about to do and slashed his sword through his throat, but not before Warin had yelled out ‘Lord Richard beware….’ He said no more but fell down, his blood staining the dust and the rocks as he died.
His five companions jerked their heads round as his shout echoed off the rocks and saw him as he fell, surrounded by the ghulams.
‘Quick, mount up! Get out of here before we are trapped.’ Richard de Cuille swung himself up onto the back of his mare. Like the rest he was riding an Arabian horse captured at Jaffa. They had the pick of several hundred and he was confident they could outrun any pursuit. He was less confident about riding through the oasis packed with the enemy unscathed.
The temptation, not just for him but for all of them, was to try and gallop through the oasis but Richard knew that would be disastrous, so instead he tried guile. They were dressed as Bedouin and were mounted on Arabians so he checked the headlong flight of the others before they crested the ridge. They forced themselves to ride down the slope at a gentle trot as if they were coming in to join the rest. Warin’s shout had attracted some interest and many curious glances greeted them but no-one challenged them.
The difficult part would come when they reached the crowd around the pool of water in the middle of the oasis. The natural thing for them to do would be to join the queue waiting their turn to water their horses but, of course, they would be expected to greet others waiting and to exchange news and gossip. So Lord Richard led them around the crowd milling around the pool and headed out on the track leading towards Jaffa.
Initially the Turks and Kurds were slow to react; they were puzzled by the small group’s action but hadn’t yet realised who they were. A few called out to them but Richard and his party just stared straight ahead and ignored them. Then one man reached out to seize Tristan’s reins, presumably to stop him and force him to answer, just as the ghulams who had killed Warin rode into the camp yelling who they were. Tristan pulled out the Arab sword he was carrying and, before the man could react, he chopped down at his forearm, cutting through to the bone. The man collapsed in shock, letting go of the reins.
Subterfuge had got them so far but now it was time for action. Richard and Miles pulled out their swords and the three knights, riding knee to knee with the two squires tucked in tightly behind them, galloped towards where the leading echelons were resting and waiting for the rest to finish watering their mounts. Speed and surprise got them most of the way out of the enemy lines but several men had grabbed weapons and ran to block their escape. At the same time they could hear the unmistakeable sounds of riders behind them setting off in pursuit.
They managed to break though the last of the enemy without suffering any harm but then, when they were a several hundred yards clear, Miles’s horse faltered and dropp
ed to its knees as the rest raced past him. It had a spear in its side and two arrows in its hind quarters. Simon had been leading Warin’s horse and he now wheeled back with it and, despite the loss of several precious seconds, by the time that they raced after the others they were still some way ahead of the pursuit.
Like those chasing them, their horses were well rested and they maintained their lead for over two miles. But then their horses began to falter in the heat whilst fresher horses had taken over the lead behind them. The Saracens were now beginning to catch them and Richard worried that they might have strayed from the track leading towards Jaffa somewhere. He was beginning to get seriously worried when they galloped out of the foothills and onto the coastal pain. Half an hour later they were safe inside the walls of Jaffa.
When Lord Richard reported to the king and told his tale, the Lionheart invited him to join the Earl of Leicester and the other members of the war council to try and divine Saladin’s plan.
‘It seems that Saladin has rallied his men and is advancing towards Jaffa on a broad front,’ Leicester suggested.
‘He might have rallied some but they were badly shaken by our arrival and their rapid defeat.’ King Richard shook his head. ‘No, I think he has found a fresh army from somewhere. Humphrey felt that he was expecting reinforcements the last time he was in their camp for negotiations. It seems that they may well have arrived.’
‘What do you think they intend, sire?’ another man asked. ‘Are we in for a long, drawn out siege?’
‘I don’t think so. Saladin’s military reputation has been severely damaged recently. The loss of Jaffa just days after he had captured it will have hurt. He will want a swift conclusion.’
The king thought for a moment. ‘If I was in his shoes I would launch a sudden night attack. The walls haven’t been repaired yet and he is probably counting on catching us off guard.’ He smiled broadly. ‘This is what we’re going to do.’
The Saracens were fortunate in that the new moon gave them just enough light to see by but it wasn’t sufficient for sentries on the city walls to see into the shadows under the palm trees around Jaffa, where the enemy were forming up for a surprise attack. The Turkish foot soldiers moved forward towards the two breaches in the walls whilst the horse archers rode behind them ready to give covering fire against the crusaders on the walls; except that the crusaders weren’t on the walls.
As soon as it was dark Richard’s men scattered caltrops on the approaches to the breeches and now two thousand of them rushed out of those gaps in the walls. Some of the men-at-arms carried large wicker shields to protect the crossbowmen and the rest, armed with spears, fanned out protected the flanks. The archers stood behind the crossbowmen and fired at high trajectory so that a shower of arrows came down on the Saracens whilst crossbow quarrels hit them from the front.
Half the crossbows fired at a time whilst the rest were being reloaded. The incessant fire out of the shadows of the wall against the Saracens infantry, who were now in the open dimly illuminated by the weak moonlight, was more than they could stand and they turned tail and ran, back through the ranks of the cavalry behind them. Several of these tried to stop the flight by cutting down the leaders but this only panicked the rest even more.
Seeing his plan unravelling, Saladin ordered his mounted archers and spearmen forward but they ran into the caltrops, which disabled many of their horses, then hundreds of quarrels and arrows struck them. Hundreds of horses died as well as many Saracens. Most of the arrows fired by the horse archers in return hit the wicker shields and those few that did strike home were not going to affect the outcome.
Then, as the cavalry wavered, King Richard led his knights out of the main gates of Jaffa and charged into their flank. The Saracens broke and streamed away in their thousands. The next morning the crusaders counted over seven hundred men and fifteen hundred horses slain whereas they had only lost twenty eight killed and a hundred and fifty wounded. Later that morning Henry of Champagne arrived, having at last fought his way through the blocking army on the coast road, and the crusaders organised a pursuit in force just to make sure that, this time, Saladin kept on going.
Saladin had had enough. His prestige had suffered greatly and the desertions were turning into a flood. The Turks, Bedouin and Kurds were bickering amongst themselves and he knew that one more failure might well mean he could be toppled from his throne. This time both sides earnestly sought a lasting peace in the negotiations that followed.
Chapter Thirteen – The Road to Captivity – Autumn 1192
King Richard the Lionheart was seriously ill. He could scarcely lift the quill to sign his name to the three year truce that Henry of Champagne and Humphrey of Toron had negotiated with Saladin’s representatives. Henry guided his hand and the pact that brought the Third Crusade to an end was signed. By this agreement Richard handed back Darum and Ascalon to Saladin and Queen Isabella, or more accurately her husband the Count of Champagne, retained Jaffa, Acre and the other coastal cities. Furthermore, Christians were allowed to travel unmolested to Jerusalem and within Saladin’s domains generally and Saracens could freely visit the crusader areas, provided they came unarmed.
Richard de Cuille could hardly believe that it was all over. The night the treaty was signed he, Miles and Tristan got uproariously drunk, as did most of the army.
‘What do we do now?’ Miles asked Richard the next morning as he nursed a savage hangover.
‘Do? Well I suppose we make arrangements to go home but first I want to visit Jerusalem and worship at its holy places. After all it’s what we came here for.’
‘I hear that a caravan is departing for Jerusalem in a week’s time. Perhaps we should all join it?’
‘Will the king go, do you think.’
‘I think not, and for two reasons: he swore that he would not step foot inside the Holy City unless it was as its conqueror and, secondly, he is far too ill to travel anywhere. It is being played down as minor bout of sickness, but he is as weak as a babe and there are serious concerns about his recovery.’
~#~
Three weeks later Richard, Tristan and Miles returned to Acre having uncovered a mystery. This concerned Roland, the supposed nephew of the Prior of Lindisfarne – an island off the Northumberland coast. Roland was a novice monk travelling as servant to the sub-prior of Durham who had told Miles one night over a goblet of Cypriot wine that Roland was totally unsuited to the monastic life, always up to mischief and ignoring his studies. The monk confessed that he must have been mad to have brought him here as his servant. Roland’s one desire in life was to become a knight and unfortunately this pilgrimage to Jerusalem had only hardened his resolve.
‘How old is the boy?’ Miles asked idly.
The monk was taken by surprise by the question. ‘Fourteen, I believe’ he replied after a moment’s thought. ‘I have never asked him, but he must be around that age, I would think.’
‘Can he ride?’
‘Yes, and does so at every opportunity, despite my telling him that a mule will have to suffice when he becomes senior enough to ride. I fear that his uncle indulged him too much as a young boy. It caused unfortunate rumours to circulate, which is why the boy was packed off to my care at Durham a few years ago.’
After Warin’s death, Lord Richard had felt that Simon was too young and inexperienced to look after both Miles and Tristan so he had offered to share Alan with Miles. The squire was conscientious and didn’t seem to mind but Miles had felt it was inappropriate as Richard was a baron. No-one else of his rank would be prepared to share his squire with a lowly knight. Richard wasn’t like that, but Miles was still uncomfortable.
‘If the boy is that unhappy with you would you be prepared to let me have him as a squire?’
The sub-prior had said what he had to Miles whilst he was feeling relaxed with a little wine inside him, more to vent his frustrations at Roland’s shortcomings than anything else, so Miles’s offer came as a complete surprise.
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�Oh! I didn’t mean to suggest to you that I was trying to rid myself of the boy. If I gave that impression I apologise. His attitude does frustrate and annoy me at times, but I have a duty of care to the Prior of Lindisfarne and I couldn’t release him from his noviciate without the prior’s permission.’
‘I understand. It’s just that my own squire was killed recently and I find myself without one. It just seemed a neat solution to your problem and mine.’
‘Yes, but you haven’t even met the lad. He may not even be suitable.’
‘Well, that’s easily rectified. Is he here?’
The sub-prior looked around him and crooked a finger at a boy dressed in a black habit similar to the one that the monk wore but without the hood. As the lad stepped into the circle of light thrown out by the camp fire around which he and the monk sat Miles drew in his breath sharply. The boy standing in front of him looked unmistakably like a youthful version of Richard de Cuille.
Miles questioned him for a while then nodded his dismissal, sending the puzzled novice away wondering what that had all been about.
‘Tell me what you know about the boy’s history, brother. Does he look anything like his relative, the prior?’
‘No, quite the opposite, which is why most accept that he is the prior’s nephew rather than his son.’ the monk whispered in Miles’s ear. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘He is the spitting image of someone I know who lives not far from Lindisfarne. Don’t say anything to anyone whilst I try and find out more.’ The monk nodded reluctantly and Miles set off to find Richard.
