Templar's Acre

CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

The noise went on all night. Baldwin lay in his bed, arms behind his head, listening to the hammering, shouting and thundering, until he felt as if his mind would explode. He could imagine hundreds in the streets would be drinking to excess, singing, dancing, fornicating — anything to eradicate that horrible row. But he could not do any of that. If he were to go drinking, it would be to raise a toast to Lucia; if singing, he would sing of her; if dancing, he would be thinking of her body near his; and the idea of sex with another woman was unappealing. If he could not have Lucia, he would remain celibate.

At last, in the middle watch of the night, he gave up. He pulled on his chemise and a leather jack, bound his sword-belt about his waist, and made his way into the night, waking Pietro so that the grumbling old man could relock the door after him. Baldwin left Uther behind. The dog would only trip men. It was too dangerous.

It was dark on the walls. Torches were lighted at the towers, but for the most part the men had no need of them. Their attention was focused on the fires outside the city. Baldwin could not count them. From shore to shore, all was a blaze of light: a dramatic sight. He leaned on the wall and stared out in despair. No city in the world could withstand an assault from so mighty an army.

‘Master Baldwin, could you not sleep?’

Baldwin found that Sir Otto de Grandison had walked up behind him. ‘You couldn’t sleep either?’

‘Not with their infernal din,’ the tall Swiss said. He was clad in a tunic and hosen, a cloak over his shoulders. ‘I think it will begin in the morning.’ He was peering over the parapets with an eye trained in gauging distance. ‘See that great device over there? That is to be brought a little closer, but I fear it is such a monster, it will never be within the range of our own catapults. A shame. A rock landing on that would give the city cause for cheer, eh?’

‘There are dozens of them,’ Baldwin commented, seeing machines at every point. ‘Where did they get them from?’

‘Those machines they call “The Black Oxen”, I am told. I think there could be eighty — perhaps more. It is those two I dislike the most. That one over there, aiming at the Templars, and this one at the point of the wall.’

Throughout the Muslim army, Baldwin could see the moving men. ‘Do none of them sleep?’

‘They will sleep in the morning, if need be. When their machines are prepared, they will leave the firing to the gynours. Until the walls are reduced, there is no point in attack.’

‘I see.’

‘You are feeling the belly wobble, eh? The heart is a little affrighted? Do not be alarmed. When you have seen as many sieges as I have, the sight of another host of men preparing to attack just stiffens the thews and sinews, gives you a sense of being alive!’ Sir Otto said with a grin.

Baldwin tried to return it, but his eyes slid back towards the lines of Muslim warriors. They looked terrifying in the flickering light of the fires, like demons preparing pits for fresh souls.

Baldwin woke shivering, wrapped in a cloak, sitting on the steps with his back to the St Nicholas Gate, under the little drawbridge that led to the door from the wall. He looked up blearily, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, gazing about him as he yawned prodigiously and stretched. He remembered sitting here sometime towards dawn, when the sight of the men in the distance had grown more familiar than terrifying. He was not sure he would be so sanguine when their missiles started flying towards him, however.

Smelling fresh bread, he saw a boy with a basket passing rations to the guards. Baldwin took a loaf when it was offered, and mounted the stairs again, pulling it apart and eating.

The lines had changed, he saw. Where before there had been a mass of moving men, now flags and pennons fluttered along the lines, with the massive frames of the trebuchets looming behind them. Wooden towers were rising, and other devices to aid the scaling of the walls. But there was a strange quiet: no shouts, no rattling of swords against shields, no drumbeats. Just that malevolent silence, with the grim lines of horses and men staring over the broad plains before the city.

Baldwin chewed his bread, looking out at the immense force. There was no sign of movement. Perhaps this was all a ruse to increase the tension of the besieged. If so, it was working. Along from him, two sentries stood sweating under their helmets; one had a nervous tic under his eye that he kept hitting with a crooked finger, as though knocking away a fly. The other did not blink. He just stood staring, as though disbelieving the proof of his own eyes.

A company of riders rode along before the lines, and Baldwin wondered who they might be. He thought, for a moment, that they were riding to the front of the lines and would soon give the call to charge, and the whole dread host would begin to move forward. In his mind’s eye he could see them, an implacable black tide that would come forward and roll over the walls, smothering everything and everyone in their path.

The riders continued at a canter to the sea at the far side, before turning round and riding back towards the middle, opposite the barbican. There, the soldiers of the Muslim horde parted to create a pathway, and the riders galloped down it, to take their station at the rear of the men.

A drum thundered. All of a sudden there was a great roar, and the entire army crouched to the ground.

‘They pray,’ the blue-eyed sentry said. ‘They think their poxy god will help them.’

The other hawked and spat. ‘They reckon He will help them if they give Him the numbers. I’ll tell you this: they’ve done well on that measure.’

‘Swyve ’em. Let ’em come here,’ the first said, patting his sword-hilt. He wore a heavy-bladed falchion in a black scabbard. ‘My blade has one edge for the one God, and I’ll see them in Hell before this city falls.’

‘You’ll get your moment of glory soon enough,’ the older man responded, but with a touch of sadness in his voice.

Baldwin watched the enemy’s religious devotions with a sense of urgency shackled in time. He wanted to go and find his men, but his legs were rooted to the spot. It was like being in a dream, in which time passed with extreme slowness.

The chanting rose and fell, and Baldwin suddenly felt his breast tingling. He bolted the last of his bread. A boy came past with a bucket of water, and Baldwin took a ladleful, drinking it quickly, then splashing a little over his face, giving it a rub, and when he looked out again, the drums were beating once more.

Then there came a single, enormous thud that Baldwin felt like a blow throughout his body. A bellowed order, and the men started to move, first over on the left, then the right, and finally the middle, a mass of men driven by hatred and fury. And a moment later, the drumming started again.

The beat seemed to echo in Baldwin’s head and chest and belly, a sullen pounding like the beat of death. And he heard another sound over the drumbeats: a squeaking and rattling, as of chains being tightened. Baldwin could see that the machines had already begun to move forward. There were the mantelets, just as he had heard, and the great catapults rolled behind them, mangonels with their lower, wide shapes squat and ugly, the tall trebuchets wobbling a little as the gynours pushed and shoved and heaved their massive equipment.

‘When will they be in range?’ Baldwin wondered aloud.

‘The archers will know,’ Hob said. He had appeared as if from nowhere, and now he stood scowling at the approaching men.

‘Will they come to the walls themselves?’ Baldwin wondered aloud.

‘Nay, Master,’ the older guard chuckled without humour. ‘They won’t want their men cut down before they’ve killed as many of us as they may. They’ll keep back as far as they can.’

Baldwin nodded, watching the advance of the machines. The sight was daunting: immense catapults and mangonels surrounded by the tiny figures of the gynours. Overnight, timbers had been hammered vertically into the ground, and now men hauled on ropes that were attached to pulleys on these piles, and the machines were pulled slowly forward, while over the cool morning air could be heard the cries urging the men on. It was like listening to shipmen as they drew up heavy canvas sails.

There was a shout, a loud double crash on a drum, and the plain fell silent.

The sudden absence of noise was like the moments sitting on a horse before a charge. The anticipation was gut-wrenching. Baldwin would remember it later as a series of memories, each distinct, but each fitting into a fast-encroaching terror.

First he was aware of the flapping and crackling of the flags all about. There was no sound from the men of the garrison, not even a rattle of mail or creak of the ropes over the catapults, and their silence was itself intimidating. Baldwin had a feeling that he was a solitary man, that he alone stood before that immense horde. It was a shocking idea.

But then he saw the enemy with a fresh acuity.

About the massive catapults, Muslim soldiers hurried. Some hauling on the ropes that would drag down the huge arms against their counterweights, while others brought the ox-carts filled with rocks specially shaped for flight.

Baldwin began to pray.