Holy War

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 face 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.

The pain in John’s leg and side vanished and the sounds of battle faded until all he could hear was the blood pounding in his ears. He sprinted forward. A mamluk appeared before him, and John deflected the man’s blade and then slammed his shoulder into him, knocking the man aside. Al-Mashtub was raising his sword to finish Richard. John stumbled and lunged forward swinging. He caught Al-Mashtub in the side of the knee. The huge mamluk crumpled, screaming in pain.

Richard had grabbed his axe and pushed himself to his feet. He looked about at the Saracens swarming from all sides. ‘There are too many! We must fall back.’ He raised his voice. ‘All together, men! Fall back! Fall back!’

John and Richard fought side by side as they retreated towards the gap. They were the last of the Christians through. As they emerged on the other side, men surrounded them. They were shouting, their voices so loud that it took John a moment to understand them. ‘Lionheart!’ they screamed. ‘Lionheart! Lionheart!’

Richard swayed and leaned against John to keep from falling. John noticed that the mail at the king’s shoulder was rent and bloody, but the king was grinning despite his injuries. ‘Sieges sap men’s courage, John. These men need only shed a little blood to become brave again.’ Richard pushed away from him and started down the slope unaided. Men lined the path back to the camp. ‘Lionheart!’ they cheered. ‘Lionheart!’ As they passed through the gate in the rampart, John looked up and found Philip. The French king stood with his arms crossed, scowling as he looked down upon Richard.

Yusuf stood atop the tower and chewed on a piece of flatbread. It was all he could stomach. His gut had been troubling him ever since the breach was opened in the wall. That had been a week ago. He looked to Acre. The night after the breach was made, the garrison had built a wooden wall atop the rubble, behind the line of mantelets. The Franks had burned that wall the next day. The garrison built a new one, and that, too, had been burned. Another wall now protected the gap, but it would not last long. Even now, Franks bearing torches were launching another attack.

Yusuf knew the garrison could not hold out for much longer. They were losing hundreds of men each day. Yusuf had kept up a steady attack on the Frankish lines to draw some troops away from the battle, but yesterday he had pulled back his men and sent a messenger to the Franks, offering to start negotiations for the surrender of the city. If he could not save Acre, he at least wanted to see that its garrison was spared. His messenger had been sent back with no answer.

The Franks were hurling their torches at the base of the wall. The defenders were prepared. Some met the Franks with arrows while others poured buckets of water to extinguish the flames. A jar of naphtha flew from behind the wall and shattered amongst the Franks, covering half a dozen men with clinging flames. The rest scattered. Acre would hold a little longer.

Movement along the Frankish line caught Yusuf’s eye, and he turned his gaze in that direction. A gate opened in the barricade, and two men rode forth under a white flag of truce. Yusuf could not see their faces from this distance, but they were clearly not Philip and Richard. He scowled. He turned to the messengers who waited at the rear of the tower. ‘Go to my brother. Tell him the Frankish negotiators are coming, and he is to treat with them.’

Yusuf already had a tent prepared for the negotiations. The men at the line had been instructed to lead the Franks there. Yusuf would not go. He had asked to speak king to king, and he would not lower himself by meeting with their representatives. He left the tower and returned to his tent to await Selim’s report. His stomach was twisting with nervous tension. He tried to read the Hamasah to settle his nerves. He had not finished the first poem when Saqr stepped into the tent.

‘Your brother has sent one of the Franks to you, Malik.’

Yusuf’s brow creased. ‘I instructed him to treat with them.’

‘He thought you would want to meet this one in person. It is John.’

Yusuf thought John had returned to England. Had he come with Richard? Or had he been in the enemy camp all along? He set the book aside. ‘Show him in.’

It had been four years since Yusuf had last seen him, but John seemed to have aged more than that. His hair was more silver than blond now, and the lines on his face had deepened. He still stood straight-backed, though, and walked with a firm step.

‘Ahlan wa-Sahlan,’ Yusuf greeted him.

John gave a small bow. ‘As-salaamu ‘alaykum. Thank you for seeing me.’

Yusuf gestured for him to sit. ‘I had thought you in England.’

‘I was.’ John sat across from Yusuf. He smiled ruefully. ‘I spent so many years dreaming of home. But when I finally reached Tatewic, I realized my home is here. I joined Richard’s crusade so I could return.’

‘And now you fight by his side.’

‘God help me, but I do.’

‘What sort of man is he?’

‘He is a bastard. He can be cruel and impulsive, headstrong and hot-tempered. And he is worse when he drinks.’ John met Yusuf’s eyes. ‘But I have never seen a braver warrior, nor a better leader of men. Not even you, Yusuf.’

‘Can he be reasoned with?’

‘You cannot buy him off, if that is what you mean. Richard has set his sights on Jerusalem. He has vowed not to stop until he has taken it.’

‘I will stop him.’

‘Do not be so sure. I would not lie to you, Yusuf. Richard is unlike anyone you have faced. There was a prophet on Sicily who predicted Richard would not lose a battle in the Holy Land. I thought those were just words, but after seeing Richard at Messina, then on Cyprus, and now here at Acre. . I believe him.’

‘Allah is my shield, John. Prophecies do not frighten me.’

‘Perhaps not, but Richard should.’

Yusuf sat back and stroked his beard. He could tell that John was in earnest, and it troubled him. Until now, he had hoped this most recent flood of crusaders would be content with Acre. Even if Yusuf lost the city, and all the gold and weapons it contained, he would retake it once the Franks returned overseas. But if what John said were true, then the Franks would not return to their homes, not until they had taken everything that Yusuf had sacrificed so much to gain.

‘Let us speak of Acre,’ he said. ‘I will offer Richard the town and everything in it if he spares the defenders.’

‘He will not accept. He will have Acre anyway, and he knows it.’

‘And if I offer the True Cross?’

John shook his head. ‘Richard may lack cunning, but the French king Philip does not. He is negotiating directly with Al-Mashtub and Qaraqush in Acre. He believes they are more desperate than you, and so will grant better terms.’

And he is no doubt right. ‘Acre is not yet in Frankish hands. You will lose many more lives to take it. And even if it does fall, my army is still here. If your kings will not make a reasonable peace, then we shall have war.’

‘That is precisely what Richard wants,’ John said grimly.

‘If war is all Richard wants, then why did you come here, John?’

‘To warn you, and to ask you something. They say you threw the bodies of the dead in the river to poison the waters.’

‘I did.’

John grimaced. ‘There is no honour in that.’

‘Such things do not please me, John, but dead is dead. An arrow to the gut or a sword to the throat kills as surely as the flux. What does it matter?’

‘It mattered to you once. It should still.’

Yusuf sighed. John had only voiced his own doubts. He had missed him. No one else would speak the truth to him. ‘Perhaps you are right, friend.’

‘Am I still your friend, Yusuf?’

‘I hope so.’

‘Then heed my warning. The garrison will surrender soon, perhaps as early as tomorrow. Do not think to save Acre. It is lost. Now, you must do all you can to save your kingdom.’

‘I see.’ Yusuf rose, and John did likewise. ‘Thank you for coming, John.’

John nodded. ‘Allah yasalmak, Yusuf.’

When he had gone, Yusuf stood alone for a moment, considering what John had told him. Then he raised his voice. ‘Saqr!’

The head of his guard stepped into the tent. ‘Yes, Malik?’

‘Have the emirs come to my tent. We attack tonight.’

Sunrise found Yusuf standing atop the Muslim ramparts. As the sun crested the horizon at his back, his shadow stretched out towards Acre, running down the side of the rampart and on to the ground between the lines. It stretched over the body of a dead mamluk, the feathered shaft of an arrow protruding from his eye. It ran over a severed arm; over another dead man, lying face down on ground muddied by his blood. The shadow stopped short of the real carnage. Bodies were piled up against the Frankish palisade. There were more than six hundred dead, and all for nothing.

Yusuf had sent his men against the Frankish line again and again. He had held no one back. Twice, his men had made it past the palisade. The first time, they had scaled the wall with ladders and gained a foothold. Over a hundred mamluks had got behind the Frankish lines. But Richard had rallied the enemy. When the mamluks tried to open one of the gates in the barricade, they were surrounded and slaughtered.

The second time, Yusuf’s men had managed to set fire to a portion of the Frankish palisade. A stretch ten men wide had burned. It was still smoking now. That was where the fighting had been at its fiercest. Yusuf’s men had charged the gap more than a dozen times. Each time, Richard had thrown them back. Dozens of corpses lay all around.

Aah-hoo! A horn sounded in Acre, and Yusuf looked to the walls. He saw his eagle standard hauled down and Frankish flags begin to go up. He recognized Philip’s flag — rows of golden fleur de lys on a field of blue. And there were the three gold lions passant on a field of red — the flag of Richard. Yusuf had come to hate that flag.

There were shouts of alarm amongst Yusuf’s men on the barricade. They rushed to take up their spears and string their bows. A gate in the Frankish barricade was swinging open. Two men walked out. The taller one limped heavily and was leaning on the shorter man. The gate closed behind them, and they set out towards the Muslim lines. Yusuf squinted. He knew those men.

‘Qaraqush! Al-Mashtub!’ He strode down the face of the rampart to meet them. The two emirs looked grim. Al-Mashtub’s jaw was clenched in pain, and he winced with each step. Qaraqush was a shadow of his former self, his flesh hanging in loose folds from his face. Yusuf embraced him and then Al-Mashtub. ‘Thank Allah you have lived.’

‘I wish I had not.’ Qaraqush’s voice was hollow.

Yusuf squeezed his shoulder. ‘You did all you could.’

The grizzled old emir shook his head. ‘I failed my men. I left them.’

‘Their King Philip made us go,’ Al-Mashtub explained. ‘We agreed to terms with him this morning. He feared you would not believe the terms of the surrender unless they were delivered by men you trust.’

‘What are these terms?’

Qaraqush grimaced. ‘The Franks are holding all three thousand men of the garrison for ransom. You are to pay two hundred thousand dinars. You must also release five hundred common Frankish prisoners and one hundred nobles to be named. And you must turn over their True Cross. You have two months to deliver all this, or the men of the garrison will be sold into slavery.’ He hung his head. ‘Forgive me, Malik.’

‘You did what you had to do, Qaraqush. Better that than sacrifice the lives of your men. I would have done the same.’ Though that did not make it any easier to stomach. He was already short of coin to pay his men. Where would he find another two hundred thousand dinars?

‘Come,’ he told them. ‘You look like you need a good meal, Qaraqush. And you shall have a doctor see to your leg, Al-Mashtub.’ He led them up the rampart, where mamluks took the two emirs and carried them into camp. Yusuf stayed to watch the Franks enter the city. A new flag had appeared above one of the towers on the wall. It was a field of red bisected by a thick white horizontal stripe. It had hardly been unfurled when it was pulled down again. Richard’s standard took its place. He wondered why.

‘Brother!’ It was Selim, approaching along the barricade. ‘A dark day.’

Yusuf nodded.

‘Some of your emirs have asked leave to depart. They say they have been too long gone from their lands.’

It was starting already. His men had followed him without question so long as he led them to victory after victory. Now that he had been defeated, they were scattering like birds fleeing before a sandstorm. ‘Tell them they may go when the first rains fall, not before.’

‘I will tell them, Brother. . But some have already left.’

Yusuf’s hands clenched at his side as sudden blinding anger swept through him. How dare they? How dare they leave now, when he needed them most? He took a deep breath, and when he spoke, his voice was even. ‘Tell them that the next emir to leave without my permission will forfeit all his lands. And tell them that this battle is far from over. It has only begun. Richard did not come for Acre. He came to retake the Holy Land. He came for Jerusalem. I mean to stop him.’