by Peter Kerr
‘Her parents’ farm was deserted when we got there,’ Pedrito said flatly. ‘Completely abandoned.’
The king looked a tad abashed. ‘A pity, but our lads have to do what they have to do when they overrun those Moorish –’
Pedrito interrupted him. ‘There was no sign of that, senyor. Maybe her parents had fled to the mountains. Who knows?’ He raised his shoulders dejectedly. ‘Who knows whether they’re alive or dead?’
The king stroked his beard. ‘Sí, sí, the collateral effects of war, eh? Always very regrettable when the innocent have to suffer, but a burden that the commander of an army on a holy mission must be prepared to shoulder all the same.’
Pedrito hoped that the king wasn’t being quite so indifferent as this last assertion had made him sound. King Jaume was wont to claim that he wasn’t a heartless man, and he had indeed proved that to be so – in certain ways. Yet there was another, more callous side to his nature which allowed him to condone or even partake in acts of extreme brutality without, apparently, a second thought. It was all part and parcel, Pedrito suspected, of the ambiguous and essentially self-seeking characteristics inherent in someone who aspired to be El Conquisador, The Conqueror, and as such, one of the greatest Spanish warriors ever. In any event, Pedrito took this to be the cause of what may well have been an unintentionally dispassionate statement about the inevitability and acceptability of the ‘collateral effects of war’. And even if he hadn’t acknowledged it as such, there was nothing he could have said in retaliation without putting the king’s qualities of tolerance sorely to the test.
Instead, Pedrito safeguarded his neck by ignoring the remark and telling the king how he had ultimately had no choice but to leave Saleema in the care of old neighbours of his down near the port of Andratx, where he hoped to return once the war was finally at an end.
But it seemed that the king’s thoughts had now drifted off elsewhere – to the city walls, perhaps, and how they would finally be penetrated, and to what death-dealing triumphs and fabulous prizes might await within.
‘Quite so, Little Pedro,’ he mumbled while staring absently at the ground. ‘To lose one mother is surely bad enough, but to lose two…’ Then, with a sudden return to present practicalities, he raised his head and declared, ‘However, you must be hungry and exhausted after your travels, so I suggest you ask one of the cooks to prepare you something to eat, then get your head down and grab some sleep.’ He gave Pedrito an encouraging pat on the shoulder before turning to go back inside his tent. ‘Tomorrow is another day, amic. Sí, and you can wager your mother’s life that it will be a busy one!’
*
During the days following Christmas, the construction of assault towers was completed and the mighty, wheeled contraptions made ready for drawing up against the city walls. At the same time, scaling ladders were laid out in no-man’s-land opposite the appropriate points of attack, while finishing touches were put to the protective ‘roof’ of a gigantic battering ram on wheels that would be employed to finally smash down the Bab-al-kofol gate, which the Spaniards had already renamed the Porta de Santa Margarita.
The king’s contention that keeping busy was the best way to ward off the agonies of bereavement was applied to Pedrito again now, although he had to admit that he was being worked no harder than any other man, be he humble foot soldier or exalted knight. A relentless, round-the-clock pounding of the city was now being maintained, so a steady supply of rocks had to be ferried in from the surrounding countryside to feed the voracious appetite of the mangonel and trebuchet war engines. Additionally, essential components brought from the mainland for use in the assembly of the various items of assault apparatus had to be hauled up from transports docked at Porto Pi. It was to those two mind-numbingly repetitious tasks that Pedrito and his trusty old hack Tranquilla had been assigned. But it could have been worse, for at the same time gangs of men had been given the unenviable job of making final reinforcements to the timber and earth bridge which had been so intrepidly built over the dry moat, their constant exposure to enemy arrows and missiles covered valiantly, though never one hundred per cent effectively, by archers crouched behind portable wooden mantelets. Even more exposed to danger than the bridge builders were the men sent in to level the moat by using rubble that had fallen in where sections of wall had succumbed to the Christians’ bombardment and undermining. These men were working at the base of what was left of the ramparts at this, the focal point of the confrontation, and were therefore easy targets for whatever was hurled down at them, whether solid or liquid, blunt or sharp, hot, cold or on fire. The mortality rate was horrific, as were the injuries of those who survived. Yet the fever of the fight that spreads like a plague through attacking forces at such times kept the impetus going day after brutal day.
While all this frantic activity was happening in an around the camp, patrols continued to scour the hinterland for pockets of Moorish resistance. It was on his return from one of these expeditions that its leader brought news of rumours spreading through the countryside that thousands of the routed Moorish soldiers who had taken refuge in the mountains were planning to regroup and force their way into the city to help its beleaguered defenders. This, in turn, compelled the king to deploy extra troops to augment those already blockading the capital’s seven other gates. It was already known that there was sufficient food within the city to allow its inhabitants, including the miltary, to survive for many more months, so it was essential to do whatever was required to avoid the possibility of the siege dragging on until the Christians did eventually become victims of their own war of attrition.
If there had been doubt in anyone’s mind that the final offensive had to take place on the last day of the year as planned, this latest turn of events would have dispelled it. It was now December 30th, so the pressure to get everyone and everything in place for the next day’s big push was more intense than ever. But patience was also an essential ingredient of these final preparations, and the king’s was about to be severely tested.
As on previous occasions when he’d felt in need of some diverting conversion to ease his apprehensions, King Jaume had summoned Pedrito to his tent shortly after nightfall. But before the king had taken his first customary sip of wine, a servant announced the presence of a knight from the Count of Empúries’ train called Lop Xemeniç de Luziá, who sought an audience on a matter of great urgency. On being given the king’s permission, the young knight entered the tent looking more like a mud-covered labourer than a well-turned-out man-at-arms. Excitedly, he revealed that he had just come from the mines, from which two of his squires had been so bold as to tunnel up inside the city walls.
‘They report that there are many dead in the streets, my lord, and there are no guards on watch above the gate.’ Lop Xemeniç could hardly contain himself. ‘I implore you to order the camp to arms immediately, Majestat, for it’s my opinion that the city’s as good as taken. Honestly, there’s no-one to defend it. Also, they haven’t even started to repair the breach in the wall our artillery made today, and I’m certain a thousand or more of our men could enter before a single Saracen knows what’s going on!’
Pedrito fully expected the king to sieze upon this as good enough reason to revert to his old impetuous ways. After all, wasn’t this precisely the type of God-given opportunity he’d been awaiting for fully three months? But King Jaume was about to show that, as evidenced by other recent actions, he was not only three months older, but three months wiser now as well.
He flashed the young knight a superior smile. ‘Patience is a quality you would do well to cultivate, my friend. Impetuosity, you see, is the trip-rope of the naïve, patience the ladder to success of the mature.’
Pedrito smothered a chuckle with a cough, while the king proceeded to berate the cresfallen Lop Xemeniç about the folly of attacking a town at night, particularly a dark one such as this. The actions of men were unpredictable enough during the turmoil that prevails at the start of any attempt on a city, he str
essed – even in daylight. But to attempt such a feat at night, when no man could even distinguish between friend and foe, would be to invite chaos and undignified defeat. He then gave the young fellow one of his incongruously owlish looks and stated, ‘For, if our men enter the town tonight and are driven out, we shall never be able to take it again. Mark my words.’
Lop Xemeniç said that he would, then left the royal tent, suitably enlightened, though patently disappointed.
King Jaume followed his departure with eyes that were now shining more with a glow of determination than glinting with flickers of apprehension. He laid his cup down on the table, its contents still unsipped. ‘Well, Little Pedro,’ he yawned, ‘I suggest you go to your tent and get some sleep. Tomorrow is another day. Sí, and you can wager your mother’s…’ He pulled himself up, cleared his throat and continued, ‘That is, you can rest assured it will be a busy one!’
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, 31st DECEMBER, 1229…
An altar had been raised, where, before daybreak, the Christian troops heard mass and took the Sacrament from the Bishop of Barcelona, before exiting the camp and assembling in no-man’s-land opposite the battered walls flanking the Bab-al-kofol gate. The sheer magnitude of this formation of fighting men made an impressive sight, with thousand upon thousand of foot soldiers ranged in front of rank after rank of cavalry. As had happened in advance of earlier battles, everything was enveloped in an eerie hush, broken only by the occasional snorts and whinnies of reined-in horses, either impatient for what they sensed lay ahead, or fearful of it.
With a rosy ribbon of light spreading along the eastern horizon, a gentle breeze drifted inland from the sea, dispelling the mists that had been lying like a gossamer shroud over this scene of impending death and destruction. Pennants and banners fluttered silently on lance heads above the horsemen, while the drawn swords of the infantry caught early shafts of sunshine and scattered them through the vast gathering like flickering stars.
It reminded Pedrito of a similar effect created by the sun glinting on the Moorish army’s shields across the Bay of Sa Palomera when he was with the king on the islet of Es Pantaleu at the very start of this campaign. But the atmosphere had been so very different then. The beauty of the island had yet to be sullied by the violence brought to its shores aboard the ships of the great Christian armada, and birdsong still heralded the dawn.
It was through the unnatural quiet accompanying this morning’s first light that King Jaume, fully clad for battle in winged helmet, coat of mail and mantle of red and gold, rode majestically from the camp and positioned himself in front of his mighty army.
‘Ho, my men!’ he shouted, standing high in his stirrups, as was his style on such occasions. ‘Now is the day, the hour, the moment you have fought so valiantly to gain, and for which so many of our brave brothers have given their lives!’ Echoing the Bishop of Barcelona’s earlier sermon at the altar, he stressed what the conquest of the island would mean to Christianity, before reminding the men that they, like him, had sworn to God that suffering a mortal wound would be their only reason for giving up the fight. He quickly added that they should have no fear, however, of dying in the face of Christ, then repeated his promise of the fabulous spoils that would be shared among all those who survived the day victorious.
It was a stirring oration, delivered in a manner of which even the fire-breathing Friar Miguel Fabra would have approved. At its climax, King Jaume drew his sword, pointed it across no-man’s-land and yelled, ‘So come, lads! Attack in the name of our Saviour, Jesus Christ, and enter the city which the Lord has already deemed to be ours!’
But no-one moved.
King Jaume raised his eyes to heaven. ‘Holy Mary!’ he bellowed. ‘We have come here to serve Thee and Thy Son to the greater glory of Thy name. I beg Thee, therefore, to intercede with Thy Son that He may relieve me of this affront, and that He may fill my whole army with courage!’
Then, his eyes burning into those of his troops who dared look at him, he shouted, ‘Up, my men! In the name of God, why do you hold back?’
No-one moved, so he repeated the appeal, though still to no avail. On the third attempt, he addressed the nobles directly. ‘Well, gentlemen,’ he roared, pointing again to the city walls, ‘are you afraid of these cattle? If not, for Christ’s sake have your men attack!’
After several tense moments of silence, during which it seemed as if the long months of struggle might be about to end in ignominious failure, first one noble barked an order to his troops, then another and another, until, albeit hesitantly, the whole army began to move forward.
Pedrito had been observing this drama from the sidelines, and he was relieved to see that, despite the king’s inclination to lead his forces into the assault, En Nunyo Sans and two other barons succeeded in restraining him and accompanying him to an elevated point midway towards the city, where he could best offer the troops the visual and audible stimulus of his presence. Pedrito joined him there – a discreet distance behind, as ever, but still in a position to have a good enough view of the developing action.
Suddenly, someone in the midst of the faltering mass called out, ‘St Mary! St Mary!’, and as the cry spread through the ranks, the pace of the advance increased accordingly. The foremost infantrymen reached the city walls running, spurred on by the chanting troops behind them. Although several in the vanguard were taken out by crossbowmen positioned on the crumbling battlements, they in turn fell victim to the arrows of Christian archers pressing forward in front of the cavalry.
Fully five hundred foot soldiers had penetrated the breach in the wall before it had been cleared sufficiently for any horsemen to enter, and the resistance they met was fierce. The Moorish king himself was seen to be commanding his forces, mounted, as before, on his distinctive white stallion, his cries of ‘Rodo! Rodo! Stand firm! Stand firm!’ ringing out over the clamour of the developing battle.
A solid formation of scimitar-brandishing Moorish foot soldiers with bucklers on their forearms met the first of their opposite numbers head on, and would surely have driven them back had a group of Christian cavalrymen not charged into the fray. But they themselves were stopped in their tracks by a line of lance-wielding Moors emerging through the forward ranks of their comrades.
The surge of men and horses trying to make their way in through the breach was now checked by the impasse ahead of them, with the result that those actually engaging the enemy were so restricted for space that they could hardly put a hand out for fear of it being hacked off by one of their own. Chaos reigned.
Cries of, ‘Help us, Saint Mary, mother of our Lord!’ were heard coming from the midst of the leading mounted knights.
‘Vergonya, cavallers! – Shame on you!’ King Jaume yelled at them from his vantage point, his face contorted by the sheer frustration of not being in the thick of it himself.
En Nunyo Sans and his two companions had to physically restrain the impassioned young monarch from spurring his horse on, while desperately urging him to bide his time until the gate to the city had been smashed open. His troops, they counselled, would benefit more from his personal support at that decisive stage of the attack.
‘What’s more,’ said En Nunyo, ‘as you’ve been reminded before, Majestat, the success of this campaign depends largely on you staying alive, so your rushing headlong into that melee would be to risk everything – again!’
Duly admonished, though evidently not placated, King Jaume immediately turned his attention to goading on those men struggling to heave the cumbersome battering ram across the rough terrain of no-man’s-land, his attitude clearly being that, if he was obliged to hang back until the gate was demolished, then the sooner the deed was done the better.
He twisted round in his saddle and shouted to Pedrito, ‘Take that backup charger of mine you’re riding and help tow the ram into position on the bridge over the moat yonder!’ Noticing Pedrito’s look of surprise, he added, ‘I know, I know, it may be beneath his dignity to be used as a wo
rk horse, but this is war, and we must all pull our weight – in his case, literally. Now, get a move on! We haven’t a moment to waste!’
And so Pedrito found himself involved once more with a lumbering house on wheels similar to the ‘she cats’ he had helped build to protect the Count of Empúries’ miners, except that the ‘kittens’ inside this one would be using their muscle power to force a way through the city’s defences instead of burrowing under them.
While this was going on, scaling ladders and mobile assault towers were being set against the walls. Those soldiers clambering up the ladders were wide open to being assailed by all sorts of projectiles and lethal liquids aimed at them from above. And even if they survived such ‘sophisticated’ countermeasures, there was still the ever-present danger of their ladders simply being tipped backwards by those manning the ramparts. Meanwhile, the Christian assault troops fortunate enough to be climbing inside the towers were at least afforded the protection of timber-clad walls, and therefore had a reasonable chance of reaching their goal unscathed. Nevertheless, when the draw bridge at the top of their shelter was lowered onto the battlements, they also found themselves exposed to whatever the waiting enemy could hurl at them.
The hush that had blanketed the scene before the start of the offensive had now been replaced by the roaring of soldiers engaged in hand-to-hand combat, by the clanging of sword against sword, by the screams of the wounded and the screeching of terrified horses. And yet more infantry and cavalry continued to crowd through the breach in the wall.
Outside, a desperately impatient King Jaume had taken personal command of the demolition of the Bab-al-kofol gate. His ears closed now to the cautionary entreaties of En Nunyo Sans, he sat atop his horse bellowing at the men engaged in driving the great battering ram forward. Pedrito likened his rhythmic barking of ‘On! On! On!’ to the drum beats he and his fellow oarsmen had been forced to keep time to while powering that damned pirate galley through the seas.
