Holy War

by Hight, Jack

  ‘No doubt he was occupied, my lord. Perhaps you should retire to your tent.’

  ‘No,’ Richard snapped. ‘You all peck at me as if you were hens. I will retire to my tent when I am ready.’

  John decided to take another tack. ‘Your wife will be missing you, my lord.’

  Richard and Berengaria had been married on Cyprus in the midst of Richard’s sack of the island. The king frowned at the mention of her. ‘Berengaria will be glad I am gone. I frighten her, John. On our marriage night, she would not stop crying after I took her. I had to sleep in another room.’

  ‘Nevertheless, you must do your duty by her, my lord. You must strive to produce a son.’

  ‘My duty . . .’ Richard nodded. ‘Come, then.’

  The king’s lords were waiting for him inside his tent. When Robert Blanchemains saw Richard, the steward’s eyes widened. ‘My lord, you are not well. Bring a doctor at once!’

  ‘I am well enough,’ Richard protested weakly. He sank into a folding chair.

  When the doctor arrived, he took one look at Richard and scowled. ‘Why was I not sent for sooner? He has camp fever. He must be bled to cool his blood. Lay him down.’

  Men came to carry Richard to his bed, but he waved them off. ‘I’m not an invalid,’ he growled. He pushed himself to his feet and leaned against the tent post. ‘Set my cot up there,’ he said, pointing outside the tent. ‘I wish to see the walls. I have waited months to reach Acre. I’ll not miss the siege while lying in my tent.’

  Chapter 20

  July 1191: Acre

  ‘My lady, you wished to see me?’ John asked as he stepped into Joan’s tent. The dim interior was a relief from the brutal summer day outside. The heat rose in waves from the sandy ground between the Frankish camp and the city, making the walls of Acre seem to dance.

  Joan sat between two handmaids, one of whom was reading. Joan was sharpening a knife with smooth, practised strokes. She wore a light cotton tunic, through which John could see the outline of her small breasts and flat belly. Sweat glistened on her arms and in the hollow at the base of her neck. John forced himself to look away.

  ‘Leave us,’ Joan told the handmaids. ‘Sit, father.’ John moved towards a stool in the corner. ‘No. Here.’ She pointed her dagger towards the stool beside her.

  John sat, but as far from Joan as he could. ‘What do you want of me, my lady? Do you wish to confess your sins?’

  Joan’s laugh was deep and throaty. ‘What sins could I have possibly committed? It is almost a month since we reached Acre, and I have hardly set foot outside my tent. My dear brother says he fears for my life and honour.’ Her blue eyes met John’s. ‘I want you to help me, father.’

  ‘I will help as I am able, my lady.’

  ‘I pray that is true, John. It is no secret that I wish to be free of my brother. I am just as much a prisoner here in this tent as I was in Sicily. At least Tancred was content to let me live in peace. Richard will marry me to some fat old lord in France or Spain in order to forge an alliance. He will tell me it is my duty to obey.’ She gave the dagger a last angry stroke with the whetstone and set it aside. ‘But I tell you, I am not some pretty thing to be disposed of. I am not the innocent maid that I was when my father sent me to Sicily. I have known men.’

  John took note of the plural, but said nothing.

  ‘I have been a queen,’ Joan continued. ‘I will choose my own fate. I thought that King Isaac might help me on Cyprus. When the storm struck, it was I who urged the captain to make for the island. I gave Isaac a choice. He could have disposed of Berengaria and the others and said I died with them at sea. I would have lived at his court in secret and married him once my brother returned to France. Or, I offered him money in exchange for a ship to sail on to Constantinople. The fool chose neither. He threw me in prison and sent ships to find Richard and demand a ransom. My only consolation is that Isaac paid for his idiocy.’

  ‘Does Richard know of this?’

  ‘No, and I would deny it if you told him. Besides, what would it matter if he did know? I am his sister and a lady. Richard may be a bloody-minded fool, but he is nothing if not honourable where women are concerned. High-born women, at any rate. He would never harm me. I am more useful as a bride.’

  John was frowning. ‘But even Richard could not forgive this. You asked Isaac to kill his wife.’

  ‘I was doing her a favour. Better death than a life married to my dear brother.’

  ‘I am sure Berengaria would see things differently. The girl never did you any harm.’

  Joan raised a thin eyebrow. ‘Did Saladin do Richard any harm? Men kill one another every day, fighting for gold or land or titles. Why should women do any differently?’

  Joan might be beautiful, but she was deadly as a snake. She reminded John of Agnes. ‘I will pray for you, my lady,’ he said curtly and rose. ‘But I cannot help you.’

  ‘Sit, father. I am not done with you.’ She had the same steely voice of command as her brother. John thought she would have made a formidable commander had she been born a man.

  He sat. Joan turned so she was facing him and leaned forward, allowing him to see down her tunic to the curves of her breasts. He looked away. ‘Say what you will, my lady, and be done with it.’

  ‘You served Saladin once. I hear he is an honourable man. When he took Jerusalem, he did not allow his men to rape and pillage. If I went to him and threw myself upon his mercy, what would he do?’

  ‘Surely you cannot be thinking—’

  ‘And why not? Perhaps I might marry one of Saladin’s sons. Better a Saracen husband of my choosing than to be sold by Richard.’

  ‘Saladin would treat you honourably, but to marry a Saracen, you would have to convert to their faith.’

  ‘If I must. My soul is a small price to pay for my freedom.’

  ‘You would not be free, my lady. You would be kept in a harem, secluded from all men who were not part of your husband’s family. You would not be allowed in public without a veil and guards to accompany you.’

  She laughed again. ‘You think my present life so different, John? I have not been without guards or handmaidens since I was a child.’ She placed a hand on his knee. He could feel the warmth of her touch through his leather breeches. ‘Help me. I can escape camp, but I need you to present me to Saladin, to tell him who I am.’ She ran her hand up his thigh. ‘I will reward you as I am able,’ she whispered as she lightly traced the bulge beneath his breeches.

  John caught her wrist and pulled her hand away. There was a time when he might have taken her, as he had once taken Agnes. But he would not make that mistake again. He was too old for such foolishness, old enough to be Joan’s father. ‘I am sorry, my lady. I cannot help you.’

  Joan snatched her hand away. This time her voice was cold. ‘You disappoint me, John. I had thought you a bolder man.’

  ‘I am a man of honour.’

  ‘Honour.’ She said the word with scorn. ‘You are a fool, father. Honour will not win you friends nor buy you drink or warm your bed. Take your honour and go.’

  A rumbling sound, like a distant rockslide, drowned out her last words. It was followed by shouting. Then a horn sounded. John hurried outside to find the camp in chaos. Men were rushing towards the city, and he looked that way. Philip’s diggers had finally undermined the wall. A stretch twenty yards across had collapsed. Smoke from the fires the diggers had used to burn the tunnel’s supports rose from the debris in the gap. The first Frankish soldiers were just starting to clamber up the rubble. Thousands more were rushing towards it. John saw Peter de Preaux sprint past him, and William de Roches at the head of a dozen knights. Robert Blanchemains rode past, accompanied by Andre de Chauvigny.

  God save the city’s defenders. No, not God. It would have to be him. He turned the other way and strode into camp to find Richard.

  The king was pulling on his boots as he sat on a stool outside his tent. The camp fever had taken its toll. Richard had lost weight and
there were bags under his eyes. The rest of his face was bright red, the skin peeling. Despite John’s council to the contrary, Richard had scorned any offer of shade and spent his first day in the Holy Land lying outside his tent as he watched the bombardment. He said that he had spent his life in the field and had never had any reason to fear the sun.

  ‘My armour!’ the king roared at one of his squires. ‘Bring my mail, you fool!’

  Just then, another skinny young man stumbled from the tent with Richard’s mail slung over his shoulder. Richard took the armour and pulled it over his head. The squire laced up the collar and helped him into his surcoat. The first squire had not moved.

  ‘What are you still standing there for? Fetch my shield and helm. You, bring my sword and battle-axe.’

  The king’s doctor had been standing by, wringing his hands. He now stepped forward. ‘My lord, I must council you to return to bed.’

  ‘I have had enough of lying about. I’ve not come all the way from England to miss the battle.’

  ‘But you are ill, Your Grace.’

  Richard raised a mailed first. ‘I’ll make you ill, by God.’ The doctor backed away. Richard noticed John and grinned. ‘A battle at last, father! It will do me more good than lying in bed.’

  John was not so sure. The king’s condition was much improved, but he had been desperately ill, hardly able to eat for days. The doctor no doubt had the right of it, but if John wished to curb the bloodshed that would start once the city fell, he would need Richard at his side. ‘As you say, Your Grace. We must hurry, or we will miss the fight.’

  Richard slapped him on the back. ‘I knew that the mail you wear is not just for show. Squire, bring the priest a shield, too!’ The king buckled his sword belt about his waist. The squire handed him his battle-axe, a huge double-bladed weapon which the king slung across his back. The second squire came forward with two shields and the king’s helm. Richard took the tall kite-shaped shield on his left arm and handed the other one to John. He tucked his helm under his free arm. ‘Come, John.’

  Richard set out through the camp with determined strides, but by the time he and John reached the barricade facing the city, the king was breathing heavily. King Philip stood atop the rampart under the flag of France and surrounded by his nobles. Richard stomped towards a gate in the barricade without sparing his fellow king a glance. The two had hardly spoken since Richard’s arrival at Acre.

  ‘Where are you going, Cousin?’ Philip called down from above.

  ‘I am joining the fight.’

  ‘Why in God’s name? Acre is almost ours. The last thing we need is for you to get yourself killed. You should return to your tent and rest. I have matters well in hand.’

  ‘Forgive me, Cousin, but it looks to me as if you are taking no hand at all in this battle.’ Richard pulled on his helmet and strode through the gate.

  John walked at his side. He had a better view of the action now that they were on the flat plain leading to the city. The steep pile of rubble that filled the gap rose thirty feet. The Muslim garrison had been prepared for the wall’s collapse. They had brought forward mantelets – overlapping mobile walls seven feet high and four feet across – and placed them across the gap. The hundreds of knights and men-at-arms who had scrambled up the rocky slope were keeping their distance from the mantelets, and John soon saw why. A sergeant ran forward and leapt, grabbing hold of the top of a mantelet. He had begun to pull himself up when a spear tip burst from his back. As he fell, John saw the spear pulled back through one of dozens of holes in the face of the barrier. The sergeant lay dead at its foot, joining a score of other Franks.

  Richard was puffing as he climbed up the uneven slope in his heavy mail. An arrow shot by a Saracen archer on the still standing portion of the wall hit him in the chest. John froze, but Richard only grunted and snapped the shaft off. It had not penetrated his mail. Robert Blanchemains came skidding down the slope towards them. ‘Your Grace! We did not look for you at the battle.’

  ‘Well here I am.’ Richard paused to catch his breath. ‘What progress have—?’ Another arrow hissed through the air and slammed into his shield. ‘By the devil’s hairy balls! You there!’ The king pointed to an archer who had just arced an arrow over the mantelets. ‘Quit wasting arrows and make yourself useful. Gather your fellows and keep those archers off the walls.’ Richard turned back to Blanchemains. ‘What progress have you made, Rob?’

  ‘The gap is small, Your Grace. We have many thousand men eager to fight, but cannot bring all our force to bear. We have tried to push through the mantelets, but it is no use. They spear any man who gets too close.’

  ‘So our men stand about like flies on a horse’s arse while their archers pick us off one by one. Is that the way of it, Rob?’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’

  Richard squinted against the glaring sunshine as he stared up at the wall of mantelets. ‘Fetch me twenty men with grappling hooks and rope, Rob. We’ll have that wall down soon enough.’

  Men were sent running to camp to fetch the hooks. Richard and John climbed to the front of the line, where Richard’s knights gathered around the king. When the men with the hooks arrived, Richard drew his sword and held it aloft so that the sun flashed off the blade. ‘Men, are you ready to give those bastards a taste of your steel?’ he roared. Richard turned to the men with the hooks. ‘Throw them over the wall, men, and we’ll pull it down.’

  The men stood in a line and swung their hooks in wider and wider arcs before letting fly. Many of the hooks fell short or bounced off the mantelets. Others flew too far. The Saracens on the far side of the wall grabbed the ropes and pulled them forward so they snaked over the wall. But two were thrown just right. They hooked over the top of the same mantelet, and the lines went taut as the men who had thrown them started to pull. Other men took up the ropes and added their weight.

  ‘Pull, men!’ Richard shouted. ‘Heave! Heave!’

  The mantelet tilted forward and then fell over with a crash. The men roared and rushed at the gap. The first to reach it was a French knight, his shield emblazoned with a castle. He ran straight into a flaming jar of naphtha, tossed by one of the Saracens. The jar shattered against the knight’s chest and the naphtha ignited, turning him into a human torch. He stumbled forward and was impaled on the spear of one of a dozen mamluks who had stepped forward to defend the gap.

  The charge faltered as the men edged back from the burning knight. None were eager to follow him into what looked to be sure death.

  Richard stepped forward. ‘With me, men! For Christ!’

  Before any of his lords could stop him, the king charged. John was the first to follow. As he neared the gap, he could see a jar of naphtha arcing towards the king. Richard raised his shield and the jar burst against it, coating it in flames. Richard flung the burning shield forward into the Saracens and rushed after it. He sidestepped a spear and hacked the shaft in half. His backswing nearly took the mamluk’s head clean off . Another mamluk thrust his spear at the king’s back, but John stepped forward and took it on his shield. Richard had continued forward, inside the reach of the enemy spears. A splash of naphtha clung to the crown of his helmet, burning there like a halo. He impaled a mamluk and left his sword in the man’s gut. Richard took his battle-axe from his back and lay into the enemy with huge swings. He was a head taller than the Saracens surrounding him, a giant amongst men. He fought his way forward, his axe snapping spear shafts, slicing through mail, severing limbs.

  John came close behind, protecting Richard’s flank and finishing those the king missed. He blocked a spear and smashed the attacker’s face with his mace. A sword sliced through his breeches and opened a cut on his thigh. As John fell to one knee, de Preaux stepped past and hacked down the man who had struck him. John pushed himself to his feet and was swept up in the wedge of Franks driving forward through the enemy. Richard was still at their head, a dozen paces up ahead. The king was hacking his way through the enemy ranks. Then he came face to fac
e with Al-Mashtub.

  The huge mamluk was even taller than Richard, and much thicker, with a chest as wide around as a barrel of wine and arms as thick as most men’s thighs. He held his four-foot blade with both hands. Richard swung for him with his axe, but Al-Mashtub caught the blade with his sword and kicked out, catching Richard in the gut. The king stumbled back into the men behind. The charge stalled.

  Now that the Franks were no longer driving forward, the Saracens closed from all sides. John found himself fighting for his life. He parried a sword thrust and brought his mace down on his attacker’s forearm, shattering the bone. He glanced towards Richard. The king had tossed aside his flaming helmet. He snarled as he hacked at Al-Mashtub with mighty blows. The mamluk turned them aside easily. John had seen Al-Mashtub fight dozens of times. He knew how deadly he could be. If Richard had not been ill, he would have been a match for him, but the king’s fever had weakened him. Even a glance was enough to tell John that Richard was going to die. His crusade would die with him. All John had to do was let it happen.

  A flash of pain exploded in John’s ribs as a sword slammed into him. He staggered to the side and turned to face his foe, a squat mamluk with a long black beard. The man swung again, and this time John knocked the blow aside with his mace. There was another stab of pain in his side. He must have cracked a rib. John gritted his teeth and swung backhanded, catching the bearded man in the side of the head and caving in his helmet. As the mamluk fell, John turned back towards Richard. The king was on the defensive now. He turned aside a thrust. Al-Mashtub swung his blade back, and Richard recovered just in time to block it.

  ‘Christ’s blood!’ John cursed. Richard might be a bastard, but he had sworn to serve him. He pushed through the battle towards the king. A sword flashed at him and he dropped to one knee. He slammed his mace into the attacker’s gut and the man crumpled. Richard was only a few strides away. The king was clearly labouring, his chest heaving as he struggled for breath. As he blocked another blow, his axe went spinning from his hands. Al-Mashtub hacked down at him. Richard tried to sidestep the blow, but it glanced off his shoulder, driving him to his knees.