by Norah Lofts
But his fears seemed to be unfounded. And surely, if the Count had anticipated trouble here he would not have brought his son who travelled sometimes in an ornate litter, borne by four men, sometimes on a very pretty pony.
‘You may have observed,’ Lord Robert said, slipping into place beside Sir Godfrey and Sir Stephen, ‘that I am in deep disgrace. My turn to eat supper with his lordship and not invited. Should I weep? Go ashamed and unfed to my bed?’ He pulled a miserable face and then laughed. ‘Or dare I tell you the hideous crime of which I am guilty? Will you, too, avoid my company if I tell you that I struck the sacred child?’
They laughed and Sir Stephen said, ‘Long overdue.’
‘He was riding and kept stealing up behind other horses and giving sharp cuts with his whip. Imagine the confusion! Pluto and I almost fell into a ravine. So I approached the Count and complained and he said something about boyish high spirits. Not even a word of rebuke. I warned him; I said that if Don Juan struck another horse, I would strike him. He did, of course; and I gave him a cuff he will remember—I hope.’
Lord Robert did not know it but by that one simple action he had lost all chance of a title and an estate when Zagelah was subdued. The Count did not love his son, was indeed prepared, in certain circumstances, to waive his rights or even dispose of him, but at the moment he was heir apparent and to insult him was to insult his father.
The fourth day’s march brought them, several times, into situations which Sir Godfrey had visualised, places where the road, running narrowly between two heights or along a narrow shelf, was overlooked by fortresses which, except for their colour, red instead of grey, and the shape of their arrow-slits, their tops horse-shoe shaped instead of pointed, were not unlike the Peel Towers of the Scottish border. They were not derelict, like the one at the landing stage on the river, they were in good repair but they were deserted. Hassan ben Hassan was a thorough man. The contemptible little company of invaders passed into Zagelah without so much as a challenge.
The road, still avoiding steep gradients by curving, brought them down to tree level again; the beech buds were swollen but still unbroken, some of the chestnuts showed flecks of green. ‘I never knew until now what trees meant to me,’ Lord Robert said. In what Sir Godfrey would once have thought an affected manner, he flung his arms as far as they would go around a grey beech tree and said, ‘Dear tree!’
‘I like trees too,’ Sir Godfrey said. ‘In fact I built my house around one.’ That was a statement unusual enough to evoke questions but, as always, his inability to describe prevented him from giving his listeners any clear mental picture. And his own mind wandered off to Sybilla and Knight’s Acre. By now, she should have received his first letter. And his second was on its way, written by Lord Robert and carried by Sir Ralph who had promised to find a carrier for it the moment he stepped onto English soil. He had written cautiously, not to alarm her, no mention of going to war, simply that one tournament led to another and that he hoped to come home rich; that letter also, because it was not dictated to a celibate friar, was more loving.
The pity of it was that his more loving letter—almost poetical in places, for Lord Robert had a way with words—was never to be read. As Don Filipe had foreseen, and as Escalona had determined, Sir Ralph did not get far…
Their final camp was different from the others, secret, behind the last belt of trees before the cultivated land began. No lights, no fires, no pavilions except the small one which sheltered the child and his attendants, the larger one where Father Andreas had set up his altar and the great golden cross. Every man made his confession and was absolved. Many of them were reminded of the preliminaries of being knighted.
Then early to bed in a way which to most of them seemed more natural than the luxury of former camps. Not far from where they bedded, the river Loja made splashing noises as it tumbled over the last of the falls on its way to the lowlands, through the city of Zagelah and then on, past another city, Adara, and so to the sea. From their darkened camp, knights who cared to look could see faint lights in Zagelah.
They took up their positions in the grey, predawn light. Sir Godfrey and the eleven men who made up his company were concealed in an orange grove slightly to the south of the city’s great gateway with nothing but a few trees and the width of a road between them and the red and white walls. As the light brightened towards sunrise they could see that the gates were of bronze; inset was a smaller opening, wide enough to admit a cart or two riders abreast. The gateway was flanked by out-jutting towers with battlements and openings that commanded views in all directions. Filled with men prepared to shoot arrows tipped in henbane, to lob down heavy stones, pour boiling water, the place would have been as nearly untakeable as a place could be. It would have meant a siege. That Zagelah was dependent upon the surrounding countryside for food was proven by the number of laden donkeys and people carrying baskets who were beginning to line up in the road, awaiting the opening of the smaller gate. They were all preoccupied with their own affairs, getting and keeping their place in the line, prodding their donkeys, greeting acquaintances; is the sole of my shoe flapping again? Shall I get home before labour starts?
The rim of the sun appeared on the eastern horizon. From the minarets the muezzins called and all good Moslems turned towards Mecca and prostrated themselves in the first prayers of the day. Then the gate was opened and they shuffled and jostled their way in. Not one of them had looked north-westwards across the valley and seen the unusual activity going on there, in full view. Those whose function it was to keep watch on walls and towers were either members of Hassan’s party and deliberately blind or they had been dealt with, would sleep for twelve hours, perhaps never wake again. Hassan ben Hassan, like the Count of Escalona and Father Andreas, knew exactly what he wanted and held that the end justified the means.
Abdullah IV of Zagelah did not respond to the call to prayer, did not even hear it. In the heart of his rose-coloured palace—compared with which that of Escalona was a modest palace indeed—in a bed of silver and gold and pearl, pillowed and covered with silk, he lay asleep, exhausted, after a night of excess with his latest favourite, very pretty, very young and at the moment, very humble. He had actually gone to sleep on the floor at the foot of the bed, like a dog. It would not last, of course; it never did. All favourites, sooner or later, demanded favours in return, enormous gifts, remunerative posts, always given because even when the first fervour had expended itself, something remained. And Abdullah delighted in giving. In fact his last thought before he fell asleep was that he would give the boy Sheba’s ruby.
That was a drunken thought for before, during and after their parody of lovemaking, he and the boy had emptied two jugs of wine.
Nobody knew how the ruby, said to be the last present the Queen of Sheba had ever given to Solomon the Great, had come into the possession of the Kings of Zagelah. It was as big as a hen’s egg but more rounded; it was not set, simply pierced and slung on a chain of gold. It had had a curious history about which nothing was known. A child in a black felt tent in Kurdistan had cut his teeth on it; an ignorant candle-chandler in Damascus had used it as a weight on his scales. It had been bought, sold, pawned. Nobody knew that it had been a gift made in anger, not in affection or respect, and that in the giving the Queen had thought—And may you, and all who wear it, suffer ill-fortune. It had been lost sight of, regarded of no value and then suddenly, at least half-identified, in a legendary way by the same Arabic scholar who said that the oversized golden lion which now stood just inside the door of Abdullah’s treasure house was one of those which Solomon had ordered for his temple or his palace. This extremely beautiful and lifelike thing had never been displayed in Zagelah—to the orthodox Moslem, as to the orthodox Jew, representational art was forbidden. But Solomon had ignored such petty rules—and so, given time, would Abdullah. That was his last thought as he drifted into sleep; Solomon’s golden lion and its exact replica, on guard beside his throne; and Sheba’s enormous
ruby dangling from the boy’s slender neck.
On the momentous morning the boy, with the resilience of youth, woke and yawned and stretched; waited, became hungry and presently, with diffidence—masters being so unpredictable—touched Abdullah on the shoulder.
‘My lord, would you wish to wake and drink kaffe? Shall I fetch it?’
Fetch. In a week’s time, he would be saying—shall I order it?
Abdullah groaned, muttered ‘Go away,’ and then remembered that today he must entertain his second cousin, Selim, a man whom he heartily disliked but must make some show of respect to; his father’s cousin, the eldest surviving male of the family.
‘Dear child, yes. You did well to wake me.’ He knew what Selim had come about; marriage. Selim was strictly orthodox, mindful of his duty towards his kinsman; disapproving of the wine, the kaffe, fairly tolerant of the boys but urging marriage as a political necessity. ‘A boy for pleasure, if that is your fancy, but a woman for use. The meanest peasant needs a son to inherit his old donkey.’
Stretching and yawning, fighting off a heaviness in his head—the kaffe would cure that—Abdullah thought that this promised to be an interesting day. He would agree to marry whomever Selim would come to suggest; then he would tease Selim a little; tell him that he should wear the patched clothes which fanatics wore; tell him about the plan to have the two golden lions; parade the new boy with the great ruby bobbing at his navel.
The waiting seemed interminable. With so much traffic on the road it seemed safe to talk in quiet voices. Lord Robert said, ‘It is an old idea, you know. I believe it was Darius the Great who employed it against Babylon. But with a difference, of course.’ Nobody knew what he was talking about.
The Count had decided to trust half the operation to Sir Godfrey; telling him to choose his eleven.
He had a slight, nagging doubt. Father Andreas thought highly of Sir Godfrey and it was obvious that all his comrades respected him; but was there a certain, almost dangerous, simplicity, a naïvety about the man? Unquestionably brave; given an order, he would do his best to carry it out; told to hold a position, he would probably do so until he died; but had he the flexibility, the quick-mindedness, the resourcefulness to deal with an unexpected situation? Asked to choose his company, Sir Godfrey had named Sir Stephen, Sir Thomas—both men of the same stamp—and then Lord Robert, younger and livelier of mind… not that the unexpected was to be expected; everything planned and timed.
The river Loja rose in the hills, a waterfall, joined by others and swelled and tumbled down into the valley; into and through the city, entering by one great archway in the red and white wall and going out by another and so down to Andara and to the sea. How soon would somebody notice that, just at the point where it tumbled out of its rocky cradle and spread and slowed, it was being dammed? By rocks, loosened beforehand and needing no more than a push; by trusses of straw and the feather beds on which the knights had slept at their last comfortable camp, by folded tents, folded blankets, anything, everything which might for a little time halt the river’s flow.
People who lived inside the city but worked outside in the gardens and orchards began to emerge. One of them gave the alarm. A great host, he said. Fifteen fully armoured knights on their great horses, backed by an army of workmen, looked formidable from a distance.
Panic began and spread, with shouting, with horns blowing. In no time at all the palace was loud with preparation.
Abdullah’s first and main thought was, ‘No siege!’ He had never lived through one but his grandmother had survived one when she was a child and had retained the most vivid memories of its horrors. People had been reduced to eating dogs, those unclean animals, and rats. And the gasped-out words—‘They are damming the river,’ indicated a siege of the worst kind. The Loja was Zagelah’s lifeblood; men could live with little food, even no food for several days; a city without water—with the rainy season over for the winter—could hold out no more than two days.
Dissolute as he was, Abdullah did not lack courage. He would himself lead the charge. He did not even stop to think of the safety of anonymity but flung on the robes of royal reddish purple which were handiest. As he raced down the stairs and into the courtyard—a scene of orderly confusion—someone with presence of mind flung over him one of the uniform white outer garments.
He had two hundred men here, all picked and proven and although in his day there had been no real fighting, mimic warfare and constant exercise had kept them fit and ready. There were few among them who could not, with a single slash, sever a cow’s head. This was a routine practice; it was according to the Law which decreed that an animal must bleed to death; and it saved the butchers a job.
He had other forces posted at strategic places throughout his little kingdom; had he had only a day’s warning. No matter, no matter; he and his two hundred had an ally in Allah. Allah! He was aware that he had not observed the Law as laid down by the Prophet; but Allah was merciful.
He did not even notice that not all his two hundred had turned out.
The prospect of immediate physical combat did something to men—unless they were born cowards. Hearts beat harder and higher, breath quickened; nobody thought at such a moment of the wounds he might sustain, only of those he would inflict. When the great bronze gates of Zagelah creaked open, the Christian knights in ambush looked at each other and smiled, not one of them aware that his smile was wolfish—the old, age-old grimace of showing the teeth.
In one of his several preparatory talks, the Count had said, ‘Hassan considers that no more than a hundred, or a hundred and ten… Sir Godfrey, allow about forty to emerge.’
And who, at such a moment, could be bothered with counting? Four abreast at a time.
‘Ready?’ Sir Godfrey said. ‘Now.’
Many of the Moors, attacked suddenly and heavily from the side, never saw what had struck them. Some swerved to meet this other enemy and so lost the momentum upon which their form of charge depended. Within two minutes, outside the gates there was the great slaughter that the old warlock had foreseen.
Up by the river where the dam was, it was worse. A white wave of warriors still, after all these years, waging war as their desert forefathers had done, repulsed by so few—but each of that few a miniature fortress.
And Escalona had been extremely cunning. He had recruited his workmen from a class of men who in winter must fight wolves or lose their gravid ewes; men who hacked from hillsides things like millstones and grindstones and, coming back from markets where such things were saleable, must be on guard against robbers who, unwilling to work themselves, were only to ready to grab the money which long labour had earned. They were all well-chosen, stupid men, glad of an easy job with good pay and their keep. They had never bothered to ask what was the ultimate end of their activities. But when the Count of Escalona called, ‘Defend yourselves, we are attacked!’ they knew what to do. Out came the slings. Just here the now-dwindling river showed its bed, floored with water-rounded stones—and a rounded stone carried best. A chunk of rock, intended to be part of the dam, powerfully pushed, did damage to the delicate legs of horses.
The Moors could not on this morning follow their usual procedure when swoop and slash failed; the Christians’ rear was guarded by the river. They wheeled, loosed their arrows which should have been lethal and today were not. Something was wrong, terribly wrong. They turned, charged again and then, with weakening impetus, a third time. Then it was over and the Count had lost exactly four men.
The walls of Zagelah were so incredibly thick that Sir Godfrey’s company fought its main battle in a kind of tunnel between the gateway and the open space within. In such a place weight was an advantage and the sword a more effective weapon than a scimitar. Once through the runnel and into the sunshine of space beyond, they performed a manoeuvre so swift and nimble as to be unbelievable with such heavy men and heavy horses. They lined up, knee to knee, offering the same solid, fortified opposition as their friends were offerin
g by the river. There was an empty saddle but the horse who wore it knew his job and lined up with the others.
Hassan ben Hassan had reckoned shrewdly. Of the two hundred, only a hundred and ten had responded. Sir Godfrey, slightly impatient and no great counter at any time, had let thirty-two emerge before he said, ‘Now!’ Eight or nine Moors had been killed in that sudden flank attack; more in the dim tunnel; and amongst those now left to throw themselves against the Christians were many who were aware of something wrong; terribly wrong. Where were those—the rest of the two hundred, who should now be supporting them? Where were the archers who should be manning the towers?
A Moor, practising the skill he had exercised on cows, took off the head of Sir Thomas Drury’s horse in one marvellous stroke—destriers’ necks being thicker than cows’ and partially protected. The headless horse stood there, spouting blood just long enough to enable his master not to come down in the inevitable crash. Sir Thomas scrambled up into the empty saddle of Sir Alan Brokehampton’s horse.
But we cannot keep this up for ever. Rock against battering wave; battering wave against rock. Just as the next wave was about to break—had indeed gathered itself together and launched itself—somebody yelled and all the beautiful Arab horses rose on their hind legs and pivoted and galloped away to the far side of the open space out of which three streets opened.
In the dim tunnel behind them, in the open, sunny space before them there were dead men and dying men, dead and dying horses.
The Count had said, ‘At all costs keep the gates open.’ But who could close them? Wedged open as they were. By corpses.
