Templar's Acre

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

Baldwin was on the wall when they arrived.

The city had been prepared by the sudden inrush of terrified farmers. There was no need to send patrols to check for the direction from which the attack would come. They had all the intelligence they needed from the refugees.

‘Here they come,’ said Edgar, standing bareheaded beside Baldwin. He said his head was too painful still to wear a helmet, but Baldwin had a suspicion that it was more his vanity that prevented him. Baldwin saw him glancing at women wherever they went. Still, whatever the reason, at least he had insisted on coming here and standing at the wall with the other men.

‘Where?’ Baldwin asked.

Edgar pointed languidly at the horizon. And suddenly Baldwin saw through the heat haze to a black line, and a thin mist of dust over it. The young man-at-arms was glad to have a friend at his side, because this was a sight like no other he had ever seen. A seething mass of men and horses and machines, all crawling along from the south like a massive black centipede, seemingly flat against the ground. Like a centipede it curved about hillocks and depressions in the ground as if seeking the best route. It was so like a vast, malevolent creature, it was hard to believe it was composed of thousands upon thousands of men.

‘So here they are,’ the man beside him murmured, and then was quiet, as though embarrassed to have broken the silence, as if his words could bring the rage of the Muslims down upon them all. No one else spoke. They watched the approach with a kind of resignation. This was the beginning of their battle. The final battle for Outremer, God’s Holy Land, the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Drums began to toll.

Over the expanse of beach and flat sands, Baldwin could hear them. And with them came the distant cacophony of cries and shouts, of rattles and squeaks, clattering pots and pans; the inevitable row of an army on the march.

There was a sudden drift of dust, and a hundred horsemen broke away, to canter towards the city.

‘Patrol of horsemen,’ Edgar said.

They rode across the ground towards the right, where the sea met the Patriarch’s Tower, and there the force stopped, eyeing the walls, trotting up and around them from a distance of five hundred yards or more, well out of bowshot.

Baldwin watched as the horsemen trotted all the way up to the westernmost tip, and then made their way back again, stopping opposite the Tower of the Legate. There, they halted to take their rest, while the rest of the men and horses continued their approach at that slow, inexorable pace. They were near enough now that their battle flags could be clearly seen. The sparkle from the steel tips of their helmets was blinding, as was the glitter and gleam of mail and brightly polished steel lance-points. Wagons lumbered along behind bullocks, and as Baldwin watched, men rode hither and thither on horses, apparently directing a wagon to this point, another to that. Clusters of wagons collected at each site.

It was a sight to drive a dagger of helpless terror into the heart of the strongest, Baldwin reckoned.

Emir al-Fida took the route allocated, riding slowly behind the Sultan’s messenger, past the wagons and men as the camp was gradually formed. All the way he kept his eyes on the walls of that infernal city.

The man stopped and indicated where they might set up the machine, and the Emir remained on his horse while the wagons were brought up to his firing-point, still staring at the walls. The men within had been busy, he saw. The walls had new hoardings that increased their height and guaranteed the protection of the men within. The outer wall, he estimated, was about thirty-three feet high, while those of the inner were some fifty. Men on the inner wall could loose arrows over the heads of those at the outer, increasing the deadly impact of their defenders’ firepower. Yet his stones would easily pass over both, hoardings and all.

His servants scurried, and by the time he had checked the position for the catapult and studied his section of the wall with care, his tent was erected. He walked to it with a feeling of grim pride. Since the riots, all he had felt was misery at the memory of his poor Usmar’s death. While trudging the weary miles to Cairo, while going with the men to Kerak, and during the journey to reach the city again, he had been filled with melancholy and despair. Now he had arrived, all he could think of was exacting revenge for his son’s murder. All those in the city would suffer for what they had done to Usmar.

‘God willing,’ he murmured to himself as he sat and his servant brought him a cooled cup of water. It was perfect, and he sipped it as he sat, watching his men pulling the constituent parts of al-Mansour from the wagons and fitting them together in the order he had prescribed.

He was torn between pride and misery.

There was little for Baldwin and his vintaine to do. There were no enemy machines or soldiers within reach, and the garrison was left to wander the taverns and alehouses, soothing their fears with strong wines. It was difficult to imagine how they could drink so much and yet not become drunk, but Baldwin saw many men consuming vast quantities and still speaking as clearly and precisely as a priest at the Mass. Not that he had seen that many entirely sober priests, as he told himself. Not here. Not recently.

The men under his command looked mostly to Hob for their instructions still. It didn’t offend Baldwin, if for no other reason than that he was younger than most of them. On this first day, the men had been told that they could remain down at their lodgings. Meanwhile Baldwin and Hob went to look at the enemy’s preparations with Ivo.

They made for the angle of the wall, from where they would be able to see the Muslims more closely.

‘What are they doing?’ Hob asked a man on the wall.

The man glanced at Hob briefly. ‘Oh, hello. Didn’t recognise you at first. You had a wash or something?’

‘Yeah. In a pig’s arse,’ Hob said conversationally. ‘So, what’re they up to?’

The man, who was another of Sir Otto de Grandison’s English warriors, Baldwin learned, was thin, with quick, alert eyes. He nodded with his chin towards the barbican.

‘That’s where Sir Otto’s most worried about. He reckons the angle of the wall makes it the most vulnerable section. If the enemy break the point there, they can enter the city without hindrance — and they know it. They’re setting up their machines to do just that. They’ll have had men watching us here for years, and merchants who’ll have given them intelligence, too. They know all our weaknesses.’

‘How are the men deployed?’ Ivo asked, looking around along the walls.

‘Far left, Lepers and Templars take the section nearest the sea; then it’s the Hospitallers. King Hugh has the Tower of the Countess de Blois, and the Tower of King Henry, up to here. After us, it’s the French, then the German Order and the Commune, with Venetians and Pisans towards the sea at the south-east.’

Baldwin nodded. The Orders all had their own towers, which they had themselves erected and maintained, and had an interest in protecting their own. The first call to arms would have each running for their own posts. And because of the number of men-at-arms under the command of Sir Otto de Grandison and Jean de Grailly, who commanded the French, it made sense for them to fill the gap here, to the right of the King’s men.

He looked over the men. The mix of colours and symbols on their tunics was warming to the eye. Over to the far west at the Tower of St Lazarus he could see the Beaucéant fluttering, the rallying point for the Templars, with the two squares: black above, white below. There was the Hospital’s flag nearer at their tower, with the white cross on the bright red background, while the Hospitallers’ black tunics stood in stark contrast to the white of the Templars beyond. It was easy to see who guarded which section.

At the middle, where the King of Jerusalem’s brother held the point, Baldwin saw the bright blue of the knights of his guard. Their golden crosses shone in the sunshine. The sight of them made Baldwin feel grimy in his filthy clothes.

He then studied the enemy, watching the catapults being constructed.

‘Are they really out of bowshot?’ he wondered to Ivo.

‘They’re careful to keep themselves safe,’ was his response. Ivo pointed to the wooden frames being nailed together. They resembled wooden shields with arrow-slits cut through. One was completed already. It had wheels, and was easily large enough to conceal four or five men. ‘When they get within range, they’ll use those mantelets. They’re shields to protect bowmen and others. When they want to get closer they will roll them forward on their wheels, while their men hide behind. When they begin to move, that’s when the catapults will be brought up, and the battle will start.’

‘Look over there,’ Baldwin said, pointing. Near the sea, opposite the Legate’s Tower, a massive pavilion of red linen was being erected. Men moved about, tightening guys and setting out carpets. ‘It’s huge.’

The tall Englishman glanced at it disinterestedly. ‘That? It’s the Dihliz, the Sultan’s tent. Too big to be anyone else’s.’

Baldwin stared. ‘The man who’s caused all this, he’s in there?’ He seemed so close, it was infuriating. If only a small party of knights could ride to him, kill him, and end this siege before it began! But they couldn’t. The distance was four or five hundred yards, and the knights would be cut down well before they could reach the tent. It was a shame. Still, he wondered if knights might be able to ride out at a different point. It was a thought.