The Long Sword

by Christian Cameron

  ‘Come, Percival, I know you and I know your mettle.’ King Peter waved a hand. ‘Where would you land?’

  ‘In the Porto Vecchio, where the foreign vessels wait for entry into the New Harbour,’ he said. ‘There is a fine expanse of white sand and gravel that runs right up to the walls. We can land an army there, aye, and encamp it, as well.’

  Sabraham looked at me. I bowed. ‘Your Grace, we landed on that beach. It is foul with garbage, and the old harbour is very shallow. The ships anchored there could foul the manoeuvres of the fleet. And any camp would be immediately under the walls of the city—’

  ‘Where they must be to conduct a siege,’ Sieur Percival insisted.

  ‘Where there is no water or cover of any kind,’ Sabraham said.

  ‘There is no other place,’ Sieur Percival insisted.

  I leaned forward. ‘Your Grace, there is another place, about a mile to the east along the coast, with nine good wells—’

  ‘He is lying,’ Sieur Percival said. ‘There is no other place.’

  Some men resent any disagreement. I cannot account for Sieur Percival’s instant rage, but it was remarkable, and he did himself no favours.

  ‘You are a fool,’ he said. ‘A mere boy. A veteran soldier would not make this mistake. East of the city is a wood of palms—’

  ‘Only inland,’ I said. ‘On the coast, there are farms behind the dunes, and—’

  ‘Be quiet!’ Sieur Percival shouted. ‘You know nothing.’

  De Mézzières put out a hand and physically restrained Sieur Percival. ‘My lord,’ he said gently, ‘the king has asked for this young knight’s report.’

  ‘It is worthless. This is what you sent on your reconnaissance? A Jew and a boy?’ Sieur Percival spat. He actually spat on the king’s cabin floor.

  The king lay back and fanned himself for a few breaths. He sighed heavily. ‘Very well, my lord de Coulanges. You think the town is possible?’

  Sieur Percival crossed his arms. ‘We will take it with ease,’ he said.

  The king looked at the Hospitaller admiral. ‘Fra Ferlino?’ he asked.

  ‘Tell me of the fortifications on Pharos,’ the old Italian asked.

  Sabraham ignored de Coulanges. ‘My lord, they are new, very new. There is a main castle, as tall as a mountain with heavy machines on its corner towers. It is surrounded by a new curtain wall that has eight towers, all with artillery. There is no ground from which to lay siege to it.’

  The king glanced at de Coulanges. ‘You have never mentioned this,’ he said.

  De Coulanges stamped his foot. ‘A lie! They seek to make the place sound stronger than it is. Perhaps they are in league with the infidels. Make the Jew eat a piece of pork.’

  Sabraham was growing red under his dark skin and I could see the tension in his shoulders.

  ‘The old harbour is deep enough for any ship, and we will have an easy landing there, right in the face of the enemy,’ de Coulanges insisted. ‘The state of this great castle is of no importance.’

  Fra William stroked his beard and fingered the beads at his belt. ‘May I speak, your Grace? It seems to me unlikely that this man, your chamberlain, no matter how worthy, knows more of Alexandria than these two who were there but two days ago. Sabraham, how often have you been at Alexandria?’

  ‘Not more than twenty times,’ Master Sabraham said. ‘I believe that the worthy gentleman is exaggerating the weakness of the place because he desires his revenge against it – a worthy desire, but not one to generate an accurate report.’

  De Coulanges opened his mouth to speak and de Mézzières put a hand over his mouth. ‘You have said enough,’ he snapped.

  Silence reigned.

  ‘Do you think we can take Alexandria, Master Sabraham?’ the king asked from one elbow.

  Sabraham sighed. ‘Only with the grace of God and a miracle, your Grace.’

  King Peter swung his legs to the floor. ‘They have ten thousand men and a double-walled city of forty-three towers. We have half their numbers, but by God, messieurs, we have the best knights in the world, and I say it is better to stumble in a great empris then to take some village in Asia of which no one has heard.’

  That morning, after he heard Mass aboard his flagship, the king announced to all the captains that the target of our expedition was Alexandria. He waited until we were all together, and he announced that no ship would be allowed to quit the fleet. He was open in his concern that the Genoese or the Venetians might betray the expedition.

  I saw Admiral Contarini’s face when the king made this remark.

  The king gave orders.

  We were to follow him straight south. We would rally the fleet in the Porto Vecchio, the old harbour, and when the king sounded his trumpets, we would attack.

  We crossed the sea in two days, and it would have been better if we’d taken three. By good fortune and ill, we raised the great castle of Pharos and the spire of Alexander’s tomb well before the sun had set after a perfect passage on the blue water without a sight of land and we descended on them like a bolt from the blue.

  Unfortunately, the sun would not stay in the sky for our attack. As the sun set, we were coming up into the roadstead and the king was unwilling to try the anchorage in the dark. So the Alexandrines saw us, and all chance of surprise was lost.

  At last light, King Peter summoned all the admirals to him. While they were meeting, I received word from Fra William that I was wanted on the Hospitaller galley, and the Venetians rowed me across to the turcopolier with great willingness.

  The sun was going down in the west, a great red ball, and the temperature was perfect, neither too warm nor too cold. The stars were just coming out, and the muezzein’s calls filled the air – alongside alarm bells and gongs and the cries of soldiers which carried across the water as if they were on the next ship.

  I climbed the ladder and was taken on to the command deck.

  Father Pierre stood with Fra William and Fra Peter – and Sabraham.

  I bowed, knelt, and kissed my lord’s ring. He hugged me. ‘So far away!’ he said.

  ‘We can’t all ride the same galley,’ I said.

  Fra William was leaning his great bulk against the stern rail. He pointed over the water at Pharos Castle. ‘I see Sabraham was not lying about that pile of stone,’ he said.

  Sabraham shrugged. ‘I wish I was,’ he said.

  Father Pierre looked at the great sweep of the city. Alexandria is almost flat; there are two low hills in the middle, rocks, really, and it is almost three Italian miles across – honestly, it takes your breath away, it is so huge. He was shaking his head.

  ‘Every time I look, it terrifies me,’ he said. ‘It is bigger than Rome.’

  We all looked.

  Father Pierre shook his head again. ‘We are committed to this attack. The crusaders cannot remain in the boats.’

  I bowed again. ‘My lord, it is not too late to land east of the city.’

  Fra William shook his head. ‘The problem is not laying a siege. We lack the men, the artillery and the provisions to lay a siege. Let us be frank. For six months this expedition has been patched together and patched together again, one patch on top of another until the whole is like a frayed old garment and we have never met the enemy.’

  Fra Peter smiled, but to me, in the red light, he looked old, tired, and angry. ‘It is no fault of ours. It is a miracle that we are here at all.’

  Fra Robert frowned. ‘It might be better if we were not here. There are a hundred Knights of the Order in these ships. We have not set a hundred of our brethren ashore in Outremer for twenty years, to say nothing of the soldiers and turcopoles. The cost is staggering, and it will hurt us for another twenty years.’

  Father Pierre shook his head. ‘Mes amis, let us pray,’ he said. And we knelt on the deck and prayed. When we were done,
he rose, and blessed us. ‘That is my contribution,’ he said. ‘The king is determined to land in the Old Port and attempt the gate of the old castle. His reports make it the weakest.’ He looked at us. ‘I leave it to you gentlemen to see if there is another path to victory.’

  And then he left us.

  It was, perhaps, an odd performance, but he was not a soldier; in fact, he wore no armour and he never meddled in our councils except to aid us. He was, as I have said a thousand times, an exceptional man.

  When his head vanished into the stern cabin, the turcopolier nodded to Sabraham. ‘I’m eager to hear any ideas you may have.’

  Fra Peter looked at me. ‘Or you. You have seen a great deal of war, Sir William.’

  I shook my head. ‘It’s Florence all over again, isn’t it, my lords? We have a tiny army, and even if we could defeat the enemy …’

  Fra Peter nodded. ‘Perhaps that makes you our expert, then,’ he said.

  We discussed and discarded various plans. I stopped suggesting that we make our landing up the coast where I had reconnoitred a camp. The turcopolier’s statement was too true to deny – we lacked the men to lay a proper siege. There was no point to making a camp so far from the walls that men would wear themselves out walking back and forth. Of course, in Italy, we did just that, but we rode everywhere. And our ‘sieges’ were mostly raids.

  The sun set, and the warm red light stayed only on the towers of the city and the fortress of Pharos.

  ‘They’re winding a machine on the fortress,’ Sabraham said.

  We watched them wind it. It was three-quarters of a mile way, and the last light showed it plainly.

  ‘The machines are new,’ I guessed. ‘The captain of the fortress wants to test his range.’

  While we watched, the gate of the fortress opened and a column of cavalry appeared like a black worm spitting out of the fortress mouth and it wound and uncurled along the road over the neck of land from the main walls. The men must have been on horseback for they moved fast.

  ‘He’s ready to cast,’ Sabraham said. ‘Watch for the fall of the shot.’

  It was almost dead calm. The fall of the stone from the machine vanished into the water, and we didn’t see it. Three-quarters of a mile is just too far.

  I pointed at the column of cavalry. ‘That must be a goodly portion of the Pharos garrison,’ I said.

  The turcopolier nodded. ‘You think we could take the fortress by escalade?’ he asked.

  I shrugged. ‘I’ve known it done.’

  When the admiral returned, we had the beginning of a plan. Which is to say we had an idea.

  The old Savoyard pursed his lips and stared at our model of the shore and our fortress and it’s outpost, the Casteleto on the opposite spit. He looked very serious indeed, but he kept his council and allowed us to take Brother Robert and his galliot.

  By moonlight, we were rowed across the entrance to the new harbour. We stayed well out of bowshot, but Brother Robert was willing to risk the machines in the citadel.

  ‘In the dark?’ he asked. ‘No. God is not going to let my poor ship take a stone from heathens in the dark.’

  When we reached a certain point, our rowers were ordered by whispers to cease rowing. We rocked in the very gentle swell. There was almost no wind, almost no waves, and we could hear everything.

  We listened and listened. We heard very little besides gulls and two women having an argument. Sabraham translated some of the choicer moments.

  ‘It can be done,’ I said.

  Sabraham, for once, looked unsure.

  ‘Now,’ I said.

  ‘And this is your idea,’ Nerio said.

  ‘All mine,’ I muttered.

  All of the Order’s volunteers, as well as a dozen of the English crusaders who were in the turcopolier’s galley and another dozen Gascons from the admiral’s galley were with me. To top it all, I had Chretien d’Albret and his retinue of French and Gascons and Savoyards. I should have wondered why he was following me, but at the time I was merely delighted to have some crusaders to add to my assault.

  And most of them, especially the Gascons, had done this before.

  We stripped all of the Order’s galleys of their stern ladders and the carpenters pegged them together.

  None of us wore any harness.

  Nor did we carry any weapons but our swords and daggers. I put the Emperor’s sword naked through my belt and left the scabbard for another day.

  It is difficult to prepare for a fight in full darkness. At least we didn’t have to arm, or get at our horses. We had eighty men-at-arms – a pitiful number against the city of Alexandria.

  The admiral brought us all the lanterns of the galley, and we used them to prepare, and then we swiped lamp-black off the insides and used it and the lids from the small cook pots to blacken our faces.

  ‘Go with God, messires,’ he said. ‘If you succeed, it will be a great deed.’

  ‘And you may save the crusade,’ Sir Robert Hales breathed.

  ‘The king’s attack goes in at first light,’ the admiral continued.

  The legate came on deck and blessed us. We gathered with our blackened faces and all our fears on the corsia, the gangway amidships, and Father Pierre passed along, blessing every man. Many he confessed. It took time I didn’t feel we had, and my heart was in my mouth, so much so that I couldn’t breathe, and when Father Pierre reached me, I could barely speak.

  But I knelt, confessed, and was absolved.

  ‘Deus Vult!’ the legate whispered.

  ‘Deus Vult! ’ we growled.

  We went down the stern on ropes, our ladders being already stowed in the galia grossa’s longboat. We packed eighty men into five ship’s boats and, with muffled oars, we pulled for shore.

  Ahead, a city woke. It was not yet dawn, but we could hear shouts and marching.

  In the stern of the lead boat, Sabraham turned to me. I could see nothing but his nose and his teeth. ‘They’re alert,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ I said, with far more confidence than I felt. But I had a career of taking castles by coup de main. In this, at least, I was the old hand.

  We rowed to the east, putting the spit of land on which the smaller castle stood between us and the city, and then we turned back south and west.

  ‘Lay out!’ I growled at the rowers. They were free oarsmen, and most of them had helmets and maille shirts, javelins and axes. It says something about the importance of volunteers to the Order that we were to go first, and only call for the oarsmen if we were successful.

  Now the low boats moved like dolphins across the mirror of the water, so still it reflected stars and moon. We shot into the moon shadow of the Casteleto, and then slowed. We were under the very walls of the castle. Our oars were muffled and yet we seemed to make more sound than I could bear: the drip of water, and the Gascons would whisper – oh, sweet Christ, in that hour I almost put my basilard into one bastard from Poitou just to silence him, and all my newfound strategies of calm maturity were tried. And then we could see the low pier of the Casteleto’s dock before us.

  Brother Robert brought us alongside the dock without touching.

  I leapt on to the stone pier and ran for the stairs, my shoulder blades tense for an arrow, my ears cocked for a sudden sound. Up and up … I believe there were but twenty steps to the sally port, but I thought it took me half my life … up and up, my feet pounding on the stone, the soles of my leather shoes slapping too loud, too loud …

  Dawn was close. I could smell the change in the air, and hear the birds.

  Fiore was by me, and then Nerio and Miles and Juan. Right behind them were our Greeks, Giannis and Giorgos. And then another six men with our ladder, which struck the walls of the stone stairs like the sound of a trebuchet loosing its payload, and we all flinched. And then they did it again, so loudly that the sound ech
oed off the city walls, and the men, English and Gascon, carrying the ladder, cursed in shame.

  Sometimes, the worst part of an escalade is that you cannot shout ‘Shut up!’ at your troops.

  Somewhere inside the Casteleto, a door slammed.

  ‘Now or never,’ I whispered.

  Thirty pairs of hands raised the ladder. We had one. One.

  The moment the feet of the ladder were braced, I was on my way up.

  I hate ladders. I hate heights, have no head for them, and when a sailor goes out on the yard of a ship to brail up a sail, it makes me queasy on the deck.

  But there are things you must do yourself. You cannot lead an assault from the back.

  I went up and up, and as I climbed, I was going from night into day. Our ladder was just the height of the wall – and I only knew that ten feet from the top. And as I climbed the last few feet, winded, and terrified by the creaking and cracking sounds the ladder made as my weight bore on the whole length, a sentry on the Pharos Castle across the harbour entrance saw us.

  Up until that moment – despite my terror, the burning in the back of my throat, the feeling of lassitude that threatened me from fatigue and fear, the spike of pain at the base of my guts, and the annoyance of finding that my unscabbarded sword was cutting into my hose – despite all of that, time had passed very slowly.

  After the sentry across the water sounded his gong, everything seemed to break apart like a dropped glass, and my memory of the rest is fragments.

  I got a leg over the wall and jumped. It was farther than I expected, a man’s height or more, to the catwalk and I landed hard.

  There were no enemies on the walls. Instead, a dozen men were blinking in the grey light, standing in muslin shirts and skullcaps on the pavement of the courtyard, and they saw me about the time I saw them.

  They had bows.

  I remember running down the inner face of the wall – there were steps, and by God’s mercy they ran the right way, so that I was shielded from their archery.

  One of them paused to point up where I had come. I assumed Nerio had made the wall. I was in the courtyard, among hen-houses and a pile of wood that in daylight turned out to be the castle’s palings and hoardings. I moved behind it.