Standard of Honor

FOUR

Henry St. Clair discovered, very rapidly, just how great a sacrifice he had made for his temperamental liege, Richard Plantagenet. Within days of his encounter with Duchess Eleanor, he found himself being inundated with new responsibilities, tasks, and activities springing from his appointment as Master-at-Arms, and soon he barely had time to notice how quickly the days and weeks were passing. It all culminated a month later, when he received a summons to join Richard in England immediately, and from that moment onward, he could not call his life his own.

“How soon is immediately?” Henry had barely glanced at the writing on the scroll that he had opened mere moments earlier, but that glance had taken in the peremptory instruction.

The Hospitaller knight who had delivered the summons shrugged his wide shoulders and lowered his eyes to the scroll Henry was holding, but he said nothing and his face remained expressionless. Sir Henry looked back down at the scroll.

“I see. It’s all in here, eh? Well, you had better sit down while I read it. Have you eaten today? No, probably not …” Henry turned to where Ector stood by the door, watching and awaiting instructions. “Bring food and drink for Sir …” He turned back to the other man. “Do you have a name, Master Hospitaller, or are you merely a grim and spectral presence? Speak up, sir.”

“My name is Gautier, Sir Henry. Gautier de Montdidier.”

“Montdidier, you say? Then we should know each other.” Henry moved to sit in a chair by the fireplace, waving to the other man to sit across from him. “An ancestor of yours and one of mine were among the founding members of the Temple. Did you know that?”

“I did.”

“Then why do you wear the black mantle of the Hospital rather than the white of the Temple?”

Montdidier’s lip curled in a smile, and he dipped his head slightly to one side. “Mayhap I prefer it that way, but in truth I have followed the Rule of Blessed Benedict since I was a stripling boy. I was orphaned at birth and raised in a monastery in England, so when I came of age to be a knight—my father had been one, killed in battle before I was born—it was but natural that I should join the Knights of the Hospital.”

“Aye, I suppose it would have been … Ector, food and drink for Sir Gautier de Montdidier, and see to it that his men are fed, too. How many did you bring with you, sir, and where are they now?”

“Six men, Sir Henry, and they are all in your courtyard, awaiting word from me on where they should go next.”

“Aye, well, they may stay here for the night, but that will depend upon just how ‘immediately’ I am to leave, so permit me to read this missive of yours, and I will be able to give you a response.”

In truth, Sir Henry had been ready for weeks, having put all his arrangements in place to ensure that his estates and lands would be cared for in his absence, presided over by a man Henry had known and trusted for years, the eldest brother of his dead wife. But the instructions in Richard’s letter were succinct and to the point. Henry was required to make his way to England as soon as might be, in the company of Sir Gautier de Montdidier, there to take up his duties as Master-at-Arms to Aquitaine.

The distinction did not escape him, and it was an interesting one. There had been no mention of Aquitaine in his first meeting with Richard. The position he had been ordered to take up then had been Master-at-Arms to Richard, no more and no less. It was a small point, of no real consequence since Richard, as Duke, was Aquitaine, but Henry found its presence there in Richard’s letter amusing. He surmised that the political situation in England had changed since Richard’s return, and probably radically. But he was far from unhappy with the new development. He would feel much more comfortable as Master-at-Arms to Aquitaine, a position he had held and enjoyed for years in the service of the Duchess, than he would as Master-at-Arms to an army of Englishmen, with their guttural morass of a language.

There was no mention of André in the letter, but Henry had expected none. André had seldom been at home since first meeting the knight de Sablé, and he seemed to be enthusiastically caught up in preparations required for his upcoming admission to the ranks of the Temple Knights. Henry knew he would meet his son again in England before they set sail, and he was content with that, knowing the young man to be safe and well. He released the end of the scroll, allowing it to spring back into its cylindrical shape, then held it between the fingertips of both hands as he looked over to de Montdidier.

“Why you, Sir Gautier? Why did Richard send you to bring me to England, with but six men? Did he think me incapable of traveling alone?”

“I doubt that, Sir Henry. I believe it was the King’s wish that you and I spend some time together, so that we could converse on the journey.”

“Converse about what? I have no wish to demean or to insult you, Master Montdidier, but I doubt that you and I have anything in common. The difference in our ages alone would make sure of that.”

“Perhaps because he thinks you might learn something from what I have to say. I am newly come from Outremer and I was wounded in the debacle of Hattin. I know that the King has assigned to you the task of finding some new means of confronting and defeating Saladin’s armies. He believes I may be able to assist you with that.”

Henry looked at the Hospitaller now with far more respect. “You may indeed. And God in His Heaven knows I require all the assistance He can send me. But how came you to survive Hattin that day? I have been told that Saladin murdered every captured member of the military orders, both Templars and Hospitallers, after the fight.”

“He did. I watched them die and expected to die myself, for I was badly wounded. But I lived through the day, lying among the dead without being discovered, and I managed to crawl away into hiding after darkness fell. I had an arrow in my groin and was too badly wounded to have any hope of escaping, so I stripped off my surcoat, having no wish to be recognized as a Hospitaller, and managed to don a plain brown surcoat that I stripped from a dead man. I then surrendered myself the following morning. They took me captive, tended to my wound, treated me humanely, and eventually offered me for ransom with four other knights, none of whom were of the military orders. I was fortunate.”

The doors opened and Ector entered, followed by two servants carrying food and wine on trays. They laid the contents of their trays on one of the tables and then left without having looked at either knight. St. Clair looked at the food, and then at Montdidier.

“Well, Master Montdidier, the King was right. I do wish to speak with you, at length. You are the first person I have met who was actually there that day at Hattin.” He stood up and waved towards the table. “Eat, and when you have finished Ector will show you to a sleeping chamber, where you may rest for a few hours. I will dismiss your men to my barracks building as I leave, and I will see you later, but I have things I must do now. We will leave at dawn the day after tomorrow. In the meantime, my home is yours.” He dipped his head in a salute and went out, closing the doors behind him and leaving the Hospitaller to his food and drink. A moment later, he was back.

“How did you come here, Sir Gautier? By what route?”

The other swallowed a mouthful of food. “From the west. Landed at La Rochelle, then followed the road northeastward through Niort, to Poitiers, and then northwestwards to here.”

St. Clair nodded. “That’s the best route. Far shorter than traveling northwest to Nantes and Saint-Nazaire. How long did it take you?”

“From La Rochelle to here? Five days … today’s the sixth. We traveled twenty miles each day, sunrise to sunset.”

“Hmm. Well, we will need more time than that, returning. I’m taking four men with me, and a cart for my belongings, which means we will have to travel at the speed of the cart. We’ll be fortunate to make fifteen miles a day.”

“So, seven days.”

“Aye, but no more than that. How long, think you, will we have to wait for a ship?”

“No time at all. We already have one awaiting us— the ship that brought me over here. It will remain there in La Rochelle for fourteen more days, then sail without us if we have not yet arrived. We would be presumed dead by then.”

“I see. Then we had best make haste, and do what we can to remain alive.” St. Clair nodded, as if agreeing with his own comment, then left again.

THE WIND HAD DIED SUDDENLY about half an hour earlier, and now Henry St. Clair stood on the stern platform of the ship bearing him and his party from La Rochelle to England, leaning out over the starboard rail and peering down into the waters below. He stood with his legs spread, his knees flexing against the erratic, unpredictable movements of the ship’s deck, and his right elbow hooked around a rope that stretched up like an iron bar into the mass of rigging above his head. He was untroubled by the pitching, rolling motion of the deck beneath his feet, leaning forward in fascination, craning his neck as he watched the heaving water surging beneath him. At one moment it would seem close enough for him to reach down and touch the surface, and then within the space of a heartbeat it would swoop away and down, baring the entire side of the ship until the stern rose clear of the water. It would hang there for long moments, before the vessel tipped forward and plunged down the following slope of the wave, smashing prow first into the trough at the bottom and sending vast sheets of water sweeping backward over the deck to saturate everything before it drained away.

In the waist of the ship, he knew, the crew were working like madmen, trying to throw the trapped seawater out of the cargo hold faster than it came in, but conditions now were nowhere near as dangerous as they had been even an hour earlier. Then, with a gale howling over and around them, whipping spray and spume from the surface into an impenetrable fog, it would not have been possible for him to stand where he stood now. The waves, while still enormous, were smooth, their sides marked with patches of foam that rose and fell placidly as the swelling waters passed beneath them.

“It’s dying down. For a time back there, I thought we would be lost.”

Montdidier came to stand beside him, balanced against the motion of the ship as he stretched out one hand to grasp a taut rope. Behind him, Henry noted, visibility had improved considerably, but the low, leaden skies out there still masked the horizon, the line of sea and sky lost in dismal, hazy distance.

“Aye, it appears to be over, and it was bad while it lasted. I confess that for a while there I thought we were all going to die, too.” He looked around the deck area and smiled a tight little smile. “But I had to come up to the platform here to safeguard my stomach. The noise and the stench of vomit down below were overwhelming. Now it appears that you and I are the only two of our party who are not retching and groaning, hoping to die.” He released his hold on the rope and sat down with his back resting against the ship’s side. “Come and sit here beside me. It’s wet and unpleasant, but so is all the world at this point. Our last conversation was interrupted by the storm, and just as it was growing interesting.” Montdidier released his handhold and lowered himself carefully to sit shoulder to shoulder with St. Clair as the older man placed his hands flat on the deck and, with a deep grunt, hitched himself into a more comfortable position.

“Ahh,” he muttered, “that is … much better. These old bones of mine lack padding nowadays. The discomfort, however, is a small price to pay for being able to sit in the open air without being sick like everyone else. Are we still on course, think you? I saw no sign of land.”

“No, nor did I, so I spoke to the captain. He told me we have been blown westward, into the Atlantic, but that we will head straight north under oars, now that the wind has died, and will soon find land again. After that, we will sail northwest again until we round the cape of Brittany, and then it will be north by east until we reach Cherbourg. From there we may see the coast of England, north of us. I asked how long that would take, but all I got in response was a shrug. It depends on winds and weather, he said, so it could take anywhere from seven days to thrice that long. In the meantime, we will stop in at Brest for fresh provisions, then make our way to Cherbourg, and from there it is a single day’s sail to England.”

“In other words, we must resign ourselves to whatever happens and be patient.” St. Clair shivered, and pulled his wet cloak around him. “Well, we may be fortunate, I think, that we have so much to talk about, you and I.” Another shiver shook his frame, and suddenly he was shaking as though palsied, aware that if he did not rid himself of his soaked clothing he would run the risk of falling sick. The younger men around him might be able to make light of chilled physical hardships, but he himself was much too old to tolerate such abuse. He pulled himself to his feet with some difficulty, feeling the stiffness that was already invading his bones, and bracing himself with one hand on Montdidier’s shoulder.

“This is madness,” he said. “I have clean, dry clothing in my sleeping space below and I intend to strip off these sodden rags and dress myself in something fresh and warm. You should do the same. Here, take my hand.”

The Hospitaller took Henry’s hand and rose easily to his feet. “I agree. I feel as though I have been wet and cold all my life, even though I know it has only been since last night.” He paused. “But if you and I should come to know each other better in the time ahead, remind me regularly, if you will, that I have no desire ever to spend another night in the hold of a pitch-dark ship in the middle of a howling storm at sea. So let us go and dry ourselves as well as we may, and I will meet you here again within the half hour.”

It was closer to an hour later when St. Clair finally emerged onto the deck to find the Hospitaller waiting for him. But he was dry and warm for the first time in many hours, and the sights that greeted him made him feel better than he had in days. The heavy cloud cover had broken up while he was below and the sun was shining now through a widening gap, and he noticed that the crew had manned the oars and were making headway against the visibly smaller waves. He also noted gratefully that the deck beneath his feet was beginning to dry.

No one paid the two knights any attention as they crossed in front of the burly crewman who manned the tiller and stood staring straight ahead towards the prow. They seated themselves near him, side by side on two large bundles of what looked like netting, and far enough removed from the helmsman that they could speak without being overheard. For a short time after that, they talked of generalities, but Henry was anxious to talk more of specifics and soon went to the heart of things.

“The last thing you said to me yesterday, just before the storm broke and we had to scramble for shelter, was that the kings who will lead us to the Holy Land need to absorb some facts that will stick in their craws. I have been wondering ever since. What did you mean?”

Montdidier’s face grew somber. “I meant exactly what I said. The army being assembled now, both in Britain and in France, is no army at all. It is a collection of fragments—splintered factions and coteries—each of them with leaders and commanders who have agendas and ambitions of their own and an eye to their own advantage ahead of everyone else’s. But all of them, kings, princes, dukes, counts, and anything else that’s there, all of them need to be convinced somehow, and forced if necessary, into accepting the realities of where they will be going and what awaits them there. I have spoken with most of them and told them what I believe, what I know and have witnessed with my own eyes, but among all of them, only Richard Plantagenet deigned to heed what I said. The others had no wish to hear. They have their own beliefs, their own deluded convictions.”

When the Hospitaller said no more, St. Clair prompted, “And those convictions are … what? I think I could guess, but tell me anyway. What do they believe?”

“Stupidities.” Montdidier dropped his hand to his belt and drew out a dagger with a long, narrow blade. He shifted his grip from hilt to blade and began to scrape the underside of his fingernails with the point.

“And? What are these stupidities?”

Montdidier was glowering, but then he straightened his back abruptly, sucked in a great breath and expelled it loudly, ridding himself of his frowning anger as quickly and as easily as another man might shed a cloak. “Why am I being angry at you, can you explain that to me? You are not involved in this at all … Not yet, at least. But you will be, believe me.” He slipped the knife back into its sheath and crossed his arms on his chest. “They all believe that this new war, like all the other conflicts they have known, will be won by mounted knights.”

“And you would have them believe otherwise.”

“Of course I would, because I want them to destroy the Muslim armies and survive. They must be made to see how wrong they are—to change not only their minds but their methods and their fighting tactics. If they do not, they will all die quickly and uselessly, because everything has changed now. All the so-called wars they talk about, wars won by mounted knights, have been waged here in Christendom, and they have all been piddling little affairs, petty, parochial squabbles between greedy barons and whatever enemies they chose to confront at any time.”

He turned to look St. Clair directly in the eye. “There has never been a war like the war going on today in Palestine, against the Muslim, against Saladin. Believe me in that, Sir Henry. That war is being fought in a different world, far from everything we know in Christendom, and the rules of warfare that we learned and know have all been changed. You have never been in Outremer, have you?”

“No, I have not. My duty to Duchess Eleanor kept me here at home when I might have gone, and I never had another opportunity to go, until now.”

“Aye, that is what I thought … Well, believe me when I tell you that Outremer is completely unlike the world you know. You called it the Holy Land a while ago, but God Himself knows there’s nothing holy about the place. It is a world the like of which these people who see themselves today as leaders will never understand and cannot begin to imagine. They are all too young to remember the lessons of the first and second expeditions we sent out, and too ignorant to concern themselves with the realities of the land and the climate in which they are destined to fight. Most of it is desert, as hostile and brutal as the people who live in it, and unimaginably dangerous to newcomers. It is a damnable place, filled with terrors and cataclysms, where sandstorms can spring up without warning and bury entire villages—entire armies, at times—storms so violent that the blowing sand will strip exposed flesh from a living man’s bones.

“But even worse than any of those things, it is a place filled with zealots—fierce, unforgiving warriors who live and breathe the creed of their own god and his Prophet, Muhammad, and who are glad and willing to die in his service. These Muslim warriors—Saracens, Mussulmen, Arabs, Bedouin, call them what you will—can outfight our best, Henry, much as we might wish to deny it. And they are sufficient in numbers to outface a Frankish army three thousand strong, fielding ten men for every one of ours, and to destroy it, leaving but one man in every score alive.”

There was a long silence as St. Clair thought about what the Hospitaller had said, and after a time, he held up one hand in supplication. “I do not disbelieve you, for I have heard similar reports from others. But despite all of that, and all the logic and scrutiny brought to it, these numbers that you cite defy belief. Nineteen men killed out of every twenty? How could any army, no matter how well trained or zealous, achieve such slaughter?”

“Missiles.” The word was so gruffly uttered that St. Clair was not sure what the other man had said.

“I think I misheard you. Did you say missiles?”

Montdidier looked at him again, clear eyed and cogent. “Aye, that’s what I said. Missiles … arrows, if you’re looking for precision.”

“Ah, arrows. Arrows shot from bows.”

Montdidier’s face tightened with anger. “Aye, that’s right. Arrows—projectiles shot from bows. They slaughtered us with arrows. They rained arrows upon us, like hailstones, constantly and from all sides at once. And then, at night, they shot our horses, knowing an armored knight is helpless when forced to fight on foot, in sand. Arrows, Master St. Clair. They used them to demoralize us, to unnerve and frighten us and ultimately to destroy us, forcing us to make desperate moves that we would not otherwise have undertaken. And we were helpless against them.”

“I know, and I am not mocking you. I have heard something of this before. I was merely thinking yet again on the folly of the papal ban on bows in Christendom. It cost us dearly at Hattin. But yet … surely, once an arrow has been loosed, it is lost? It cannot be used again. And yet you are describing a prodigious number of arrows. There must be some exaggeration there.”

“Aye, so it must seem to anyone who was not there. You are not the first to think that and question me. But I saw it with my own eyes.” He rose to his feet in one fluid motion and moved to the side of the ship, where he laid both hands on the rail and stood gazing out at the water until St. Clair thought he must have said all he wished to and would say no more. The waves had continued to dwindle in size since the wind had died so that the ship was now moving far more smoothly, almost gently, and the sky overhead had become almost cloudless, the late-afternoon sun well down the slope towards the western horizon that was now clearly visible beyond Montdidier. But Montdidier turned again to face St. Clair, leaning back against the ship’s side, his elbows resting on the rail behind him.

“Have you ever seen a camel, Sir Henry?”

Henry nodded. “Aye, both kinds—one hump and two—and several times. There is a fellow who brings a collection of strange and wild animals to Poitiers each year, to the Midsummer festival. People come in throngs and pay well to marvel at his beasts.”

“So you understand that the camel is a beast of burden, very large, immensely strong and capable of carrying great weights for extended lengths of time, while an arrow is practically weightless. Even a quiver filled with arrows—a score or more—weighs next to nothing compared to a sword or an axe. So let me ask you this: how many arrows, carefully packed and bound in bundles, do you think a fully laden camel might be able to carry?”

St. Clair puffed out a breath. “I have no idea, but from the way you ask I can surmise that the number would probably be greater than any I might suggest.”

“Much greater. The sole limitation that would apply to such a load is the physical bulk of the bundles of arrows. Now imagine a number of those, all neatly tied up, with five and twenty arrows in each bundle. Each bundle would be approximately the thickness of a double fist.” He illustrated what he meant by placing his clenched fists together, thumb to thumb. “Now imagine crates made out of lath and wire—cages, each as wide as an arrow’s length, and sufficiently long and deep to hold ten bundles side by side, stacked four layers deep. Each crate, a light but strong cage, would hold one thousand arrows, and it would be no great feat of engineering to bind six such crates together on each side of a camel. That represents twelve thousand arrows, carried by just one beast.”

St. Clair shrugged, smiling and spreading his palms. “An interesting premise, I will grant you that,” he said quietly. “Given, of course, that one could even find twelve thousand arrows.”

“Find them? Sir Henry, the army that defeated us at Hattin was made up almost entirely of bowmen— mounted bowmen, on horses much smaller than ours, wiry and spare, faster and much more agile. Each bowman carried his own arrows into the campaign, three or four quivers full at least. But Saladin had already thought beyond such things and seen what he must do. Months before he assembled his army, summoning them from Egypt and from Syria, from Asia Minor and all the other fiefs that he commands, he sent out the word for arrows to be made in numbers that had never been seen before, and for all of them to be shipped to the places where the different contingents of his armies would assemble.”

“And he loaded them all onto a camel, is that what you were going to say?”

“No, Sir Henry, it is not. That would amount to only twelve thousand arrows. By the time he moved against us, coming to lay siege to Tiberias, Saladin had seventy—seventy—camels laden with extra arrows in his baggage train. I know not how many arrows they had in total, but when the slaughter at Hattin was over, the Muslims were boasting among themselves that they had transformed the infidel pigs from knights and soldiers into hedgehogs. I have never seen anything to equal the storm of arrows that were shot at us that day.”

“Seventy camel loads … How do you know that?” “I was their prisoner, and I speak their language.

I heard them talking about it afterwards, and about the difficulties they had had in collecting the spent arrows after the battle.”

St. Clair now felt distinctly ill at ease. “Wait now, because I am not sure I understand what you have said here. Are you telling me that the Christian army at Hattin was destroyed from a distance, without ever engaging the enemy? If so, it goes against everything else I have heard about the battle. What about the feats of the individual knights, and the charge of the Templars?”

“What charge?” Montdidier scoffed. “The Templars made no heroic charge at Hattin. Trying to close with the enemy was like trying to capture smoke. They outnumbered us hugely, and rode in circles around us, and every time we tried to charge them and engage them, their formations would disintegrate and scatter as we drew near. They would move away to a safe distance, permitting us to ride through and then closing in behind us, cutting us off from our own forces and exposing our flanks to their bowmen. The Temple Knights held the rearguard. They recognized what was happening, after several attempts to engage, and to their credit, they fell back to reinforce the King’s encampment on the knoll above the battle. But the King’s people had pitched their tents between the King’s main force and the Templars, so that the knights were forced to ride around and between them, being shot from behind as they jostled one another, trying to find a way through the lines of tents and the thousands of guy ropes that confounded their horses.

“No solid portion of our army even came close to a hand-to-hand encounter with the enemy that day. Some individuals did, but they were few against hordes and they were swiftly slaughtered. Our infantry, almost twelve thousand strong, were allowed to march right through the Muslim ranks. It was the same technique— they simply moved aside and let our men pass through without a fight, and then they were followed and picked off piecemeal from both sides as they made their way down towards the lake. None of them survived.

“And that, for all intents and purposes, is the story of Hattin: we sat helpless on our horses and were shot down. We were outmaneuvered, outmanned, and outplanned, and our leadership was impotent in the face of the enemy’s superior ability. It was not a glorious occasion for Christendom.” He turned his face away, then hawked and spat, disgust and outrage radiating from him almost visibly. “Leadership, I called it. Hah! May God forgive me, but I have seen more leadership among a pack of rats than I saw that day at Hattin.

Arrogance, stupidity, ignorance, and vaunting pride I saw aplenty, but leadership, ability, or inspiring behavior? God help us all next time, if we are foolish enough to go at all.”

“Are you implying that we might see the same thing happen again, next time?”

Montdidier looked at him with raised eyebrows. “Do you doubt it? What has changed, between then and now? The arrogant old warhorses like de Ridefort are gone, but we’ve replaced them with even lesser fools. I swear to you, Master St. Clair, if we ride into battle in the same fashion in this coming war, arrogant in our notions of superiority, Saladin will meet us with exactly the same tactics and achieve precisely the same effect. That is why the kings must be made to see that change is needed.”

St. Clair opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again, and the Hospital Knight waited.

“Is—?” Henry coughed to clear his throat. “There is a question I must ask, purely for my own peace of mind. Are there … Is there any possibility that the defeat at Hattin was merely an accident of war? Might it have turned out differently had the armies met in another place, on another day?”

The other’s headshake was terse and definite. “I doubt it. There might have been some minor differences in the way the fight was fought, but the outcome would have been the same. On the day after the battle, July the fifth, when the Saracen physicians were tending to my wounds, Tiberias, which had been under siege, surrendered—unsurprising, you might say, since the citizens had watched the slaughter from their walls the previous day—but five days later, on the tenth day of the month, Acre fell. And then, one after the other in rapid succession, Saladin’s army captured Nablus, Jaffa, Toron, Sidon, Beirut, and Ascalon. All heavily fortified towns. After that, apart from a few scattered castles that still held out in remote spots, only the port of Tyre and the city of Jerusalem remained in Christian hands. And then Jerusalem went down to Saladin in September. None of those events occurred by accident.”

“Aye …” St. Clair rose to his feet and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. Sir Gautier simply waited, giving him time to think, and at last St. Clair said, “I am no king. I will, however, stand in your support of your views from this time on.” He then crossed the deck to the starboard rail, where he stood with his back to Montdidier, staring quietly out at the distant horizon.

The Hospitaller hovered where he was for a moment, looking at St. Clair’s back and the set of his shoulders, then walked away.

“GOD’S WOUNDS, Henry, tell me straight! If I wanted veiled hints and mysteries I’d call in a priest. You are my Master-at-Arms, so what I require from you is straight talk, with no muttered nonsense. You’ve seen this morning how we intend to transport our army to Outremer, but to this point you have said nothing, not a single word, about how we are to conduct ourselves when we finally arrive there and confront Saladin and his Mussulmen. How are we to approach this task, to come at them anew without suffering the same fate as Guy de Lusignan and the army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem? Damnation, man, I need guidance in this, before I speak to the others. Philip of France will scream outrage if he even begins to suspect that I have not yet found an answer to that.”

Richard was right, of course. As Duke of Aquitaine, King of England, and co-leader of the new expedition to win back the Holy Land, Richard expected and needed some straightforward, unequivocal advice from his recently appointed Master-at-Arms. More accurately, he needed to know exactly what original and innovative tactics St. Clair was developing in order to offer his armies some hope of victory against Saladin’s hordes. Henry had been riding around with his Duke for three days now, waiting for an opportunity to present his findings and proposals without the threat of being interrupted. Richard was increasingly preoccupied with the preliminary logistical arrangements for the sea voyage to Outremer. The great fleet would not begin to assemble for at least another two months, but the Fleet Master, Robert de Sablé, had already been planning with his quartermasters and subordinates for months, and shipping and supplies were being assembled in more than a score of major ports. That morning, Henry and Richard had ridden together, inspecting troops and reviewing plans. The time had passed quickly, and their work had been productive, with Richard seizing the opportunity to propose several pragmatic suggestions to de Sablé regarding the allocation of space aboard ships for horses, saddlery, and weapons, including their massive siege engines, broken down to be shipped piecemeal.

“Well, sir? Have you an answer for me?”

Seeing his opportunity arise at last, St. Clair spoke up quickly. “Aye, my liege, I have an answer. But I will need at least a full hour of your time to explain my thinking in this matter, and after that you yourself will probably wish to spend a day or two examining the idea.”

They had just left the southern English coastal town of Plymouth, one of the main assembly ports for the King’s Fleet, and were riding through a spacious meadow dominated by solitary trees, mature oak, elm, and beech, with a wide and pleasant stream meandering among them. Richard looked about him and tugged at his horse’s reins, making the animal veer right, towards the point where the stream came closest to them.

“Come, then, if it is going to need a full day of thought from me, we will take the time now to sit alone over there on the bank of the stream and talk about it.” He looked over his shoulder to where his constant bodyguard and companion, the taciturn but fiercely loyal Angevin knight called Baldwin of Bethune, rode in his accustomed place, four horse lengths behind his Duke. “Baldwin, do we have food and drink?”

“Aye, lord.”

“Good, then we will stop here and eat by the stream, when you are ready.”

Richard Plantagenet ate in the same manner as he did most things—with total concentration and impatient speed. Watching the Duke consume the fowl grasped in his hand, ripping at it with eager teeth and consuming tiny bones and all, his beard and chin slick with grease, Henry wanted to warn him to slow down and take time to savor the meat, but he knew better than to say anything. A need to eat had come between Richard and what he wanted to do next—it was a nuisance that had to be attended to, and enjoyment had no part in it. When Richard finally finished, throwing the remnants of the carcass into the stream and scrubbing the grease and fat from his fingers with a handful of grass torn from the ground beside him, Henry calmly set aside his own meal, unfinished, and prepared to deal with whatever the Duke might throw at him. He did not have to wait long.

“Montdidier tells me you and he spent much time conversing, and he says you grasped the import of his views more quickly than anyone else he has met, other than myself, of course. So, what have you to tell me?”

“No more than what you will have already determined, my lord: we need to make radical changes to the way we do things on this coming campaign, and we need to begin immediately. Truth be told, we should have started months ago, when the Hospitaller first arrived and began speaking the truth about what happened at Hattin. But at that time, apparently, few among your own people or your allies believed him. I admit I found it hard myself, at first, to believe that his has been the sole voice of warning and discontent to return from Outremer.”

“Ah, but here’s the difference. Montdidier is a man of principle, unafraid to speak the truth. Doesn’t care what others think of him. That makes him rare. As for those who came back with different stories, I have no doubt at all that some of them did so to escape punishment for their own craven behavior, while others probably wished to make their deeds and their survival appear to be more heroic than they were. And the priests, of course, have their own explanations for everything. They seek to keep us all transfixed with guilt so that we will return as quickly as may be to redeem ourselves and expiate our sins. They tell us of our faults and sins, but they are priests, so they can tell us nothing of how to fight and win a war. But none of that matters, now, for we have the truth from a man we may trust.” He paused for a moment. “So, what would you have me do? What changes have you in mind for our line of battle?”

“Stability, and consolidation.” As he always did when they were alone and talking strategy, St. Clair spoke to Richard without honorifics, although he himself was unaware of doing so.

Richard blinked. “Explain that.”

“Gladly. The army destroyed at Hattin was too mobile by far, and fatally vulnerable to the tactics Saladin used against them. I have become persuaded that what discipline there was among the Franks was splintered— too many factions among the army and all of them working against one another. King Guy’s knights were jealous of the Templars, and despite their common cause, there was little love lost between the Templars and the Hospitallers. Then King Guy himself, because of his own weakness, was afraid of being browbeaten in public by de Ridefort and de Chatillon as he had been before, on several occasions. The Count of Tripoli, Raymond, along with his followers, presented the voice of reason, but they were disregarded by everyone because of Raymond’s former truce with Saladin. And everyone was reaching out for personal glory, riding in disorganized sorties to engage the enemy and playing right into the hands of Saladin, who did everything to encourage them, then avoided their charges and wiped them out from a distance. Did Montdidier tell you about the extra arrows?”

“Seventy camel loads, aye he did. I am not sure I believe that. Too much margin for exaggeration.”

St. Clair raised a hand in demurral. “Believe it, and learn from it. I have been thinking of little else since first I heard of it, and I am now convinced that the Hospitaller is right. It is an astonishing insight into an enemy we have yet to meet—a measure of how forward-thinking and original this Sultan is. He planned it months, perhaps years, in advance and had his people make those arrows a-purpose. That tells me he has great confidence in himself and in his people, and it tells me, too, that he has little regard for us, Franks of any description, as warriors. He took those steps and made those arrows purely because he saw how predictable the Franks would be when they finally came to battle, and then he used that predictability to destroy them.”

“So we must become unpredictable.”

St. Clair dipped his head to one side. “No, not unpredictable, that would be suicidal. Merely less predictable. We will have to make Saladin and his emirs—that’s what he calls his generals, I believe—we have to make them see, and believe, that we will no longer be enticed into chasing wildly after his formations. They will have to come to us this time around, and when they do they will find us ready for them.”

Richard nodded again, still speaking quietly, his tone almost musing. “That appears to make sense. But in truth, Henry, how ready can we be, against such numbers? Mind you, there will be more of us this time than Guy and his unfortunate crew were able to field at Hattin. They barely had thirty thousand, and once we meet up with Barbarossa, our combined army will number three hundred thousand. But there may also be more of the infidel ranged against us, for Saladin’s territories are vast. Only time will tell us that. But should they repeat their performance with hailstorms of arrows—and I cannot imagine why they would fail to do it—our men will have no defense against them. We will be shot down in droves.”

“Perhaps, but only if we permit the enemy to come close enough to reach us.”

Richard’s head came up and his eyes narrowed. “Very well then, tell me. How do we keep them safely at a distance?”

“By out-shooting them. Your English longbows and your Angevin arbalests. Both will easily outreach the bows used by the Saracens. Their bows are puny by comparison. We will teach them to dread our arbalests.”

“And so they should. They should dread them. But we have nowhere near enough of them—not even ordinary crossbows, let alone arbalests. And mine are the only ones in all of Christendom, so we can expect no help there from any of our allies.”

St. Clair merely nodded, unimpressed. “We need no help. I have already taken it upon myself to presuppose your agreement and to requisition new supplies from your armorers, both here and at home.”

“Have you, by God’s holy, nodding head?” Far from showing displeasure, Richard quirked an eyebrow in amusement at St. Clair’s effrontery. “When did you so, and how many did you ask for?”

“As many as can be made before we set sail. I asked for an initial five hundred, and more if time permits. And I did it a week ago, sending word home to Poitiers by a fast ship, since that is the only place the arbalest can be made today. Of course, not all of those will be the steel-bow type—I understand they are extremely difficult to make—so I have called for the next strongest kind, the heavy, layered bows of wood and horn. I also sent word to the secondary manufactory, in Tours, requesting five hundred lesser crossbows, of wood and sinew. And I required your English bowyers to increase their production, although I have since been told that they are already working at capacity.”

Richard inhaled deeply. “So be it,” he said. “You did well. Now, how do we train our men in their use before we have the weapons in our possession? That will not be simple, Henry, for none of the recruits we choose will have any familiarity with the weapons.”

“True, but you have already set my son, André, to training trainers, and we can use the men he has already trained to teach the newcomers. How many arbalesters have you under command in Aquitaine?”

“In Aquitaine? Not many. I have more in Anjou, and others in Poitou …” Richard pursed his lips, calculating. “Aquitainians, perhaps five hundred remaining, perhaps six. I brought two hundred of them here with me to England—twenty ten-man squads.

“And what of lesser weapons, other crossbows?”

“The same, I would think, if you are still speaking of Aquitaine. Perhaps a hundred or two more … say, close to a thousand. But again, I have more in Anjou and in Poitou. And before you ask, I have a thousand English longbows in my train and will add at least a thousand more before we quit England.”

Richard now settled his shoulders against the tree at his back and sat staring into the distance, reviewing the numbers he had quoted. Overall, they made up a very small percentage of the hundred-housand-strong army he was raising against Saladin with the French king and their other, lesser allies, but he realized that it was due to him alone, and he reluctantly added credit to his father, too, that they had even that many. His spies had brought word that Frederic Barbarossa, the Holy Roman Emperor, was rumored to be raising an army of two and a half hundred thousand from his German territories as his contribution to the Pope’s new war, but Richard had had his spies at work and he now thought it unlikely that the German emperor’s battalions would contain many bowmen of any kind.

Richard’s gaze focused again and he looked back at St. Clair. “Have you given any thought at all to how we should deploy these new forces you have dreamed up?”

“Aye, I have. The strategy is easily enough explained, but I have not yet worked out the precise tactical details. Now that I have your concurrence on the need to proceed, I will spend more time on that.”

“And this is what you meant by stability and consolidation?”

“Aye, it is. As I said, the small moves are still unclear—they have not yet crystallized in my mind— but I know that we must use the new weaponry in tactical blocks, mobile but capable of standing in place and repulsing an attack in strength, and we must use them in support of our chivalry.”

“And what of our infantry?”

“Again, to be used in blocks, in the manner of the ancients, where each man relied upon the support and strength of his neighbor.”

Richard nodded with slow deliberation. “The ancients … You mean the ancient Roman legions?”

“Aye, exactly. Solid, unyielding, hard hitting, selfreliant, tightly disciplined, and virtually indestructible.”

“I see. That is quite a list of attributes.”

“Aye, but it’s achievable. And necessary, if we are to go against the legions Saladin will throw at us. We can do it, but we have no time to waste.”

“What about these hailstorms of arrows?”

St. Clair shrugged. “If needs must, we will reinvent the Roman tortoise and cover our soldiers with shells of solid steel shields.”

Richard contemplated the older man for long moments, then nodded. “Very well, do it. Is there anything more in your mind?”

“Aye, there is. The Saracen captured all the Frankish fortifications and cities in Outremer, and that means we will have to take them back by siege. I had thought to inform you of the need for siege engines for that, but we discussed that this morning and it seems well in hand.”

“Aye. What we really need is training and trainers, both for infantry and bowmen. So here is what we will do. You will spend this night with me—all night, if necessary—and we will work on the principles and the logistics of these new ideas of yours until I am familiar with all that we will need. After that, I will attend to the rest of it myself and ensure that the right men are chosen and charged as a cadre to put those principles into practice. You, in the meantime, will return home as soon as may be and start training a new, greatly expanded corps of men to use these crossbow weapons—all of them. Use volunteers at first, since they are most likely to learn quickly, but raise others as you need them, from whatever source you deem suitable. I will give you carte blanche on that. I suspect that our French allies, and perhaps even several of the others, will wish to send some of their men to you for training, now that we can openly use these weapons against the Muslim. But what they should do first is send their best smiths to our armories in Anjou and Aquitaine, to learn the making of an arbalest.” He checked himself, noticing the expression on St. Clair’s face. “What is it, man?”

Sir Henry looked puzzled. “Your pardon, but do you mean me to go home before your coronation, or after it?”

“Are you mad, Henry? Before it, of course. This new need is far too important to put off for an entire month, especially over religious mummery. I want to see you gone within the week. I’ll tell you all about the coronation when next we meet, you and I. Now, let us be up and away, for we have several miles to go and I want to start work on these plans tonight.” He twisted his body to look at Baldwin of Bethune, who was sitting some distance aside from them, waiting to be summoned. “Baldwin, we are leaving now. Gather up what needs to be gathered and follow us, quickly as you can.”

As Baldwin rose smoothly to his feet, Richard did the same, then reached down his hand to Sir Henry and pulled him up. “You have done well, Henry … justified my faith in you. Don’t ever stop thinking the way you do. Now, mount up.”