Templar's Acre

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Abu al-Fida was not alone as he entered the great court. He was only one of a long line of men and women who wailed and prostrated themselves. Each crossed the patterned tiles to the space before the Sultan and laid down the bloodstained clothing of murdered relatives. Here a shirt, there a tunic, a robe, a turban — all with their unique blackened patterns of death and horror. In his mind’s eye, he saw the smiling face of his son. White teeth gleaming, eyes flashing, so like his mother. Looking about this hall, with Mameluk guards standing silent, the sun making their mail and helmets sparkle, he felt as though Usmar was here with him, giving him support.

It was Abu al-Fida’s turn. He walked with slow dignity and stood before the Sultan. Silently, he shook out his son’s chemise and robes. The rents in the fabric told their story. He need say nothing. Bending, he set the clothing on the floor. The robes, then the chemise with the terrible cuts and slashes in the fabric, the foul brown stains.

Sultan Qalawun stared down at the clothing arrayed on the tiles, and studied each from his chair, taking them in, one by one.

Abu al-Fida watched him closely. He appeared shocked. Over seventy-five years old, the Sultan was experienced in death, but this scene of wailing parents and siblings had moved him.

‘What was the reason for this massacre?’ the Sultan demanded in a hushed voice.

‘Some said a Muslim had raped a Christian woman, some that there was a fight after drinking in a tavern,’ Abu al-Fida said. ‘My son was not in a tavern, and he never raped a woman. He and these others were not criminals. They were not guilty, my lord. These deaths were caused by the bloodlust of the Franks. The rioters killed any man with a beard. They even killed their own: there were Christian merchants slain, just as there were Muslims.’

Qalawun stood and spoke in a voice hushed with emotion. ‘I have agreed peace with these people, assuming them to be rational. I offered them terms by which they and we could live side-by-side without war, because I am a man of peace. But these Franks have by this despicable act demonstrated their bad faith. I will not tolerate these murderers to continue to live on our sacred land.’

He stared at the mourning people.

‘Your dead will be avenged. All of them. I swear this on the holy Koran.’

Afterwards, as the petitioners bowed low, thanking the Sultan, the women still sobbing as they moved to collect the pathetic scaps of cloth, Abu al-Fida alone stood and made no move. Even as the others filed from the court, he remained.

There was a Mameluk behind him. ‘You must go.’

‘Yes,’ Abu al-Fida said. He nodded, and turned to leave, but the Mameluk called him back.

‘Your clothes,’ he said, pointing.

‘They were my son’s. I leave them as reminder of why we must punish the people of Acre, for their violence towards the people of Islam.’

The Sultan called to the Mameluk, ‘Let him come to me.’

Abu al-Fida made his way to the Sultan’s throne, standing with his head downcast.

‘Do not be fearful in my presence,’ the Sultan said. ‘I am Qalawun, friend to all Muslims. I am here now to listen to your petition, not to punish. Tell me, these clothes were those of your son?’

‘Yes, Sultan, my son Usmar.’

‘Have you lived long in Acre?’

‘For five years.’

‘You know the city well?’

Abu al-Fida nodded.

‘Can you sit with my people and draw with them a map of the city? I need to know the walls, where the strong points are, and the weak, where they keep their stores of food and weapons. Everything you can tell me. Can you do this?’

‘Yes. I was once the servant of Baibars and served in his army at Antioch. I understand what is needed.’

‘Ah! That was a great battle,’ Qalawun said, ‘and the Christians still have not returned there.’

‘We destroyed them all,’ Abu al-Fida said. ‘I was with the party at the middle who stormed the walls.’

‘It was a brave battle. You were fortunate to be with the first of the men there.’

‘Yes, lord.’

In his mind’s eye, Abu al-Fida saw that battle again and it almost turned his stomach. His bloody sword hacking at infidels, blood spattering his arms, breast, face; blood in his mouth. At first, he recalled a blood-madness, when all he could see was the sunburned crusaders, eyes flashing with hatred beneath their helmets. A lunatic scramble up rubble and bodies, slipping on a man’s arm cut from a body, almost soiling himself as an arrow flew straight at him, and he ducked and it rattled against his helmet, and then he and his friends were on the wall, and dealing death.

It was a truth that hand-to-hand fighting was deadly, but this could not describe the slaughter that began when the Christians fled from the holy rage of the besiegers. It was a massacre such as he had never before seen. Abu al-Fida recalled with shame how he and his comrades screeched their war-cries as they rushed down the inner ramparts and into the fleeing enemies.

And afterwards there were the searches of the houses. In one, he found three children — and when he tried to save them for slavery, other men slew them all. Grandmothers were found in a house, and they too had their lives taken. The city was a stinking charnelhouse. Bodies lay everywhere.

It was that which deterred him from war.

When you have once had a man on his knees before you begging for his life, a woman — perhaps a sister, perhaps a wife — wailing and pulling at her hair with horror and despair as you thrust the sword in, hoping to kill quickly but failing, and witnessed the man scream with the pain, writhing, and not dying — and then seen your companions rape the woman before killing her. . how could any man of honour who loved beauty and God want to destroy men and women in this manner?

But according to Qalawun, he was ‘fortunate’ to have been there.

‘We shall avenge your son, Abu al-Fida. We will wash the streets with infidel blood.’

Abu al-Fida nodded. He thought again of that man, curling into a ball on the ground before him. At least he had tried to kill quickly and kindly. He had not wished to make the Christian suffer. Others were not so scrupulous.

He had no scruples about Christians dying now. Not even the women and children. . If it removed the infidels forever from these lands, it was worth it. No man should ever suffer the death of his son, like Abu al-Fida had.

Qalawun called a servant and muttered in his ear. Then he said, ‘Abu al-Fida, go with this man and help my secretaries draw up plans of the city. In return, is there anything you would like?’

Abu al-Fida fell to his knees and would have prostrated himself, but the Sultan called on him to stop.

‘No, my friend, I would not have you worship me. I am only a man.’

‘Then permit me this one thing, my Lord. When you march on Acre, let me join you, and let me once more use my sword in the destruction of our enemies.’

‘I can make use of any number of men. I would be glad of your sword.’

Abu al-Fida hesitated. Then, ‘I am not only a soldier, Sultan. When Baibars took me to Antioch, it was not for my sword, but for my skill with artillery. I built him catapults.’

‘You can build them still?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then build me a monster, Abu al-Fida. Build me the biggest catapult in the world. We shall call it al-Mansour — Victorious — and with it you shall destroy the city that killed your son.’