by Tom Harper
‘The count.’ Aelfric pointed, though I had seen him too. He was still mounted, riding back and forth to avoid the darts and arrows that peppered the ground around him. He waved his spear in the air and urged his men on.
‘Should we deliver Nikephoros’ message?’ said Thomas. It was easy to understand the doubt in his voice. In their hasty repairs to the castle wall, the Saracens had left a pile of rubble at its foot to form a natural ramp to the mended breach. A company of Frankish knights had climbed it, and were hacking at the crude repair with axes and mattocks. Hewn masonry and wood tumbled from the gap, building their platform still higher. The defenders had at least managed to close the gate, I saw, though there too the Franks were pressing hard.
‘There’s no gain risking our lives telling Raymond he should not have won his victory,’ I decided. At the end of the promontory, I could see the mass of Frankish knights pulling the gates open. Raymond raised his spear and began to trot forward; cheers and cries of Deus vult — God wills it — rose in anticipation. And above all the shouts and artificial clangour of battle — stone, steel, leather and iron — I heard the bleating of sheep.
The gates swung out like two arms. The horde of knights drew back to let them open, spears and swords raised. Some men actually cast aside their shields to allow themselves free hands to kill or plunder.
The bleating I had heard seemed to grow louder, the murmur now punctuated by the bark of dogs. I could see a commotion by the gate: the knights had not delivered their killing blow but were milling about in confusion, some moving forward, some back, some spinning away as if parrying unseen enemies. Cracks appeared in their line; many of them seemed to be looking down around their feet instead of at their enemies.
A knight reeled away from the back of the throng, pursued — so it seemed — by a shaggy white dog bursting out from the hole he had left. But the dog galloped straight past him, and the knight, rather than returning to the attack, began chasing after it. Nor was it a dog, I saw, as it charged panic-stricken towards us — it was a sheep.
Aelfric saw it too and laughed out loud. ‘Are these their best troops?’ he marvelled. ‘If so, we could be in Jerusalem in a fortnight.’
‘Eating mutton,’ added Thomas, a rare grin spreading over his face.
‘We’ll be sick of it by then. Look at them.’
A second animal had followed the first through the split in the Frankish army; two more came after it, widening the gap. Some of the knights ran after them, distracted on the brink of victory, but that left space for more panicked sheep to drive through the ranks. They split the Franks apart, surging through them like high water smashing through a dam. Many in the Frankish wall were carried away with them, either unable to resist the charging beasts or drawn along with them by greed. The castle was forgotten.
Raymond alone stood against the retreat, an island in the torrent of sheep and men, railing against them in impotent rage. ‘This is not a foraging expedition,’ he screamed. ‘Come back! Come back and fight!’
But madness had seized them and they did not turn. They chased after the sheep like men who had not eaten in months, and more sheep followed after them. After the sheep came the dogs, snapping at their legs, and after the dogs, like shepherds, came the Saracens.
In little more than an instant, victory turned to rout. Many of the Franks had cast aside their weapons to grab onto the sheep with both hands; some were on their knees trying to hold the animals fast or slit their throats. They died first as the Saracens overtook them, slaughtered animals and slaughtered men tumbling indiscriminately over each other. I saw several of the stragglers brought down by dogs and mauled on the ground until the Saracens ended it.
It had happened so fast that I still stood immobile, hypnotised by the savage speed of fortune’s reverse. Then an arrow clattered off a rock near by — the Saracen archers on the walls, driving on the Franks — and I saw our danger.
‘We have to go.’
‘Down the hill,’ said Aelfric. A little way down, the sea of cloud still ebbed against the slope, thick and impenetrable. ‘Into that. It’s our best chance.’
As soon as I moved, all became chaos. Fleeing knights and soldiers were spilling off the hilltop and cascading down the slope around us, tripping and stumbling in their panic. The slope would have been dizzyingly steep in daylight, but in the mist it became a vertiginous world where every direction was down. We could not stand upright for fear of falling; we turned our backs to the mist and pressed ourselves against the crumbling earth, scuttling like ants on the face of the hill. Muted echoes of ghastly sounds filled the air: all around us men were screaming, falling, dying, but we could not see them. A helmet tumbled past, clanging like a church bell as it bounced from rock to rock.
Suddenly, I came over a hummock to see a standing shadow looming in the mist, its dark arm poised to strike me. I cried out in fear but my reactions were true: my shield came up, parrying his attack, while I scythed my sword at his knees to cut his legs from under him. He did not flinch, did not even make a sound, though my blade had cut so deep I could not pull it free. Terror overwhelmed me as I found myself suddenly defenceless — I tugged on my sword but it would not come. Instead, in my clumsy desperation I lost my footing and tumbled forwards, splayed out to receive the killing blow.
Another figure appeared in the fog. It stood over me, and I heard a familiar laugh.
‘Well done, Father-in-law. You’ve killed a tree.’
His voice trembled on the brink of hysteria, but it was true what he said: the arm I had thrust aside with my shield was no more than a hanging branch, and the legs I had sliced into its trunk. White sap oozed onto the blade. I put my foot against the tree and pulled the sword free, cursing. As I tried to wipe the sticky sap on my tunic, I heard another sound in the fog near by. The shrieking, sawing braying of a horse in agony.
There was only one man I knew on that hillside on horseback. Praying Aelfric and Thomas would manage to keep close, I dashed towards the noise. It was not easy to follow — the cold screams sounded all around me, tangling with the fog and addling my senses, in my eyes and in my ears, until I could hardly tell if the fog was the sound incarnate, or the sound the howl of the fog.
Gradually, though, the noise grew louder. The closer I came the more unbearable was its anguish and the more I raced on, as if by finding the noise I might at last silence it. Damp earth and pebbles scattered under my feet; in my haste, I began to lose my footing. The only way to keep upright was to blunder on, faster and faster and ever more unbalanced, straight into the fog. A root snatched at my foot; I flung out my arms and threw myself back, but momentum carried me forward and down. I thumped into the ground with a bruising shock, slid a little way on my belly, then stopped abruptly, brought up against a warm, writhing mass blocking the path.
I screamed, thinking I must have come up against a corpse, though my screams vanished in the mad welter of sound around me. It was not a fallen soldier; it was a horse, crying out its distress like a newborn child. Sweat stained its flanks, foaming white in places, and I had no sooner raised my head than I had to duck to avoid a flailing hoof in the fog.
Somewhere in my fall I had dropped my sword, but mercifully it had slid down after me, close enough that I could see it. I crawled away from the horse and reached for the weapon, feeling a flood of relief as my hand closed around the hilt. I stood, feeling the grazes and bruises where I had fallen.
I was not alone. As the horse’s cries weakened, I heard another sound in the cloud: the sound of running feet. It might have been Thomas or Aelfric, both of whom I had lost in my descent, but it came from down the slope and I did not think they had passed me. I skirted around the dying horse and edged down the hill. I had barely moved a yard when I saw two men: one lay on the ground, hardly stirring, the other stood over him, his sword poised for the kill.
I could not see much of either man: a bulge in a helmet where a turban might have wrapped it, the curve of a sword, a half-seen
device on a discarded shield. It was a poor basis to choose who would die — but if I did not, there would be no choice to make. I stepped forward, deliberately kicking a cluster of pebbles downhill to distract my opponent, and as he half turned I lunged forward with my sword. The slope added weight to my thrust: the point of my sword struck his breast, forced its way through the scale armour, and I felt the sudden rush as the blade sank into the vital flesh beneath. I straightened, planted my foot on his chest and pulled my sword free as he sank to the ground, heeled to one side and rolled a little way down the hill.
I turned to his opponent. He lay on his back, one hand clutching his ribs and the other reaching helplessly for the shield that had fallen out of reach when the horse threw him. The single eye looked up at me from his grizzled face.
‘Count Raymond?’
His eye never blinked, staring with such intensity that I thought for a terrible moment he must be dead, and I had killed a man over a corpse.
‘My knights,’ he croaked. His voice was old and brittle. ‘Where are my knights?’
Where were his knights? How had the greatest lord in the Army of God come to lie abandoned on a hillside, facing a solitary death at the hands of a lone Saracen? It was not how men like him were supposed to die.
‘What happened?’ I asked at last.
Raymond shrugged. ‘We were retreating. One minute, all my bodyguards were beside me, the next they had vanished in the fog. I was trying to find them when my horse fell. Then a Saracen found me — and then you.’
I heard the scrape and rustle of someone crashing down the hillside above. With weary arms I snatched up Raymond’s shield and tensed myself for an attack, but it was only Aelfric, with Thomas behind him. As they descended into view, Aelfric took in the scene at a glance.
‘We have to get down from here.’
Our progress was agonisingly slow. With Thomas in the lead we edged across the hillside, flinching each time one of us rustled a clump of grass or kicked a pebble. Every few paces Thomas would pause, his young eyes and ears straining for any sign of danger. Count Raymond still lagged behind. The fall from his horse had not injured him badly, but it had left him with a limp, which seemed to grow worse as we continued. Several times I froze with terror as I heard his foot drag across a patch of loose ground; if any Saracens had been nearby they would surely have found us. The fog that had caused us so much confusion was now our salvation, a blanket hiding us from danger, and I looked at it with new eyes, praying it would not lift.
Though we could barely see it, our way led gradually down into a cleft in the hillside where a thin stream trickled between boulders. We followed it, hoping it would lead to the valley floor and the road. We had not gone far, when suddenly I heard the tumble of rocks, a cry, a splash and a resounding clang. Three of us turned in horror. A little way up the gully Count Raymond lay sprawled in the stream. He must have stepped on a loose rock and upended himself.
We froze, listening for signs we had been heard. Even Count Raymond lay still and let the stream trickle over him. For long seconds there was nothing save the babbling water and a wounded horse braying in the distance. I began to relax, glancing down the stream and wondering if it was too treacherous to attempt. And then, just as we had convinced ourselves we were safe, a spear ripped through the fog and struck the soft earth of the stream bank. It stuck there, quivering with the impact, scant inches over Count Raymond’s head.
We had not heard a sound; now, suddenly, it engulfed us, rushing down both sides of the gully as our enemies emerged from the mist. Aelfric moved fastest; he plucked the spear from the earth, reversed it, and, as the first Saracen appeared, drove it into his belly. The man’s momentum carried him on, impaling him so deep that Aelfric had to let go the spear and leap clear before his enemy barrelled into him. The man fell writhing in the stream.
‘Make a line,’ shouted Raymond. He was on his feet, his sword in his hand, his armour dripping wet. Another Saracen stumbled down the slope with a spear, too fast to control himself; Raymond parried the thrust easily, kicked the man’s feet from under him and plunged his sword into his neck. Blood bubbled into the stream.
‘Back!’ Aelfric stood shoulder to shoulder with Raymond, swinging his axe as more attackers poured in. He wielded it awkwardly, not with the usual scything cuts but with short, spasmodic darts. In our desperate defence he could not commit himself, for a single mistimed stroke would leave him mortally vulnerable. I prayed it was a lesson Thomas had learned, but I had no time to look, for I was under desperate siege myself. Two Saracens charged towards me along the stream bank; I punched one in the face with my shield and watched him skid on the slippery ground, exposing his neck to the kiss of Aelfric’s axe. His companion paused, his sword hovering between us; I pounced on his indecision, swinging out my shield to check his sword while stabbing forward with my own. But he was too fast: he twisted away from the attack, at the same time grabbing on to my shield and tugging. I lost my footing on the slimy stream bed and was hurled onto my knees. Cold water rushed into my open mouth, choking off the scream; I tried to push myself up, but the water seemed to suck me down. In a second I would be dead.
Something splashed into the stream beside me, and a salt tang tainted the fresh water. For a moment I let it fill my mouth; then, realising what it was, I gagged in horror. The convulsion jerked my head up, out of the stream, and I looked around as the bloody water cascaded off my head. Thomas was standing over me, a bloodied axe in his hands. Just upstream from me, the Saracen lay unmoving. A great gash, from his collarbone to his navel, cleaved him almost in two.
‘Come on,’ said Thomas. Blood streaked his armour and his face was wild. In that instant, I barely recognised him. Half a dozen Saracens lay dead about his feet, though he could not have killed them all. They clogged the stream and added their blood to the reservoir filling up behind them. No more came to share their fate.
‘Thank you.’ My lungs burned from the water I had swallowed, and the words came out awkwardly.
Thomas scowled. ‘You should be more careful next time.’
We clambered out of the stream and edged our way down the muddy bank. My feet were sodden and numb; I felt like some bedraggled animal as I hauled myself over rocks and around roots. The taste of blood and water fouled my mouth; I tried to spit it out but still it remained. Several times my weary legs gave way and my lumpen fingers could not seize a handhold: then I would slide or tumble a little way down the slope, smearing myself in mud, until at last a stone or hummock stopped me. Each time, getting up proved harder and harder, until at last I slithered my way into a small hollow where Aelfric and Raymond were waiting.
‘Have we escaped them?’
As if in answer, Aelfric dropped to one knee, dragging Raymond down with him, and threw his shield over them. I thought he was joking; then, as I looked up, my heart almost died. The mist was thinning, and on the ridge above I could see a line of men, a company of dark shadows looking down on us.
I pulled my shield over me like a blanket, too weary to do more. A voice rang out from above, calling a challenge in some barbarous tongue.
Aelfric laughed, put down his shield and shouted back an answer. I waited to see what would come of it.
The voice from above sounded again, this time in Greek. It was accented, but wholly familiar.
‘Let’s get out of this bastard fog.’
26
Wounded and humbled, the Provencal army drifted back to the main column. By noon the sun had burned away the ceiling of fog, so that all could see the hillside strewn with bodies, and the proud castle triumphant on its promontory. Anna and Zoe ran to greet me as we returned, while Helena embraced Thomas without thought for the blood that stained her dress.
As soon as he had removed his armour, Raymond summoned his shamefaced army. Standing on a boulder, his arms spread apart in anger, he looked like nothing so much as Christ on Golgotha.
‘I thought I had seen every piece of cowardice and treacher
y that men could devise.’ He held his voice calm, but there was a throbbing tremor in the words which threatened to shake it apart. ‘I thought there was nothing shameful on the battlefield that I had not seen. But today. .’ His shoulders slumped; his head dropped, before rising slowly to fix its hate-filled gaze on the watching army. ‘Is this how the Army of God fights? If you were not creatures of lust we would be feasting in that castle this very moment, and I would be drinking to your valour. Now, we have nothing to feast on but our wounds.’
He paused and surveyed his host, daring them to disagree. No one spoke.
‘Where are my bodyguard?’
Half a dozen men shuffled forward from the ranks. They had removed their armour and quilted jerkins, and wore only woollen tunics with crosses sewn on the sleeves.
‘Two hours ago I was lying up there with a Saracen’s sword at my throat. All alone.’ The last two words resonated deep with anger, as if he had had to wrench them from his soul. ‘If not for the grace of God, I would be one more corpse on the hillside.’ He pointed up behind him, where flocks of crows wheeled above the ridge, then looked back at the six men standing before him. ‘Where were you then?’
One of them, a stocky man with a ruddy face, looked up. ‘We lost you in the fog and could not find you.’
‘Really?’ With a coiled energy far beneath his years, Raymond leaped down from his boulder and advanced towards the man. ‘All six of you?’
Six faces stared back at him. Several flushed with something like embarrassment, but none showed shame or begged forgiveness.
‘Have you forgotten your oaths to me?’ Raymond’s voice was sharp as ice. ‘I chose every one of you, to sleep by my bed, eat at my table and fight at my side. You-’ He turned to one of them. ‘Your father served me every day of his life; he fought beside me in seventeen battles, and when the eighteenth claimed him I was beside him. And now, in my greatest danger, you leave me blundering among my enemies like a blind man.’
