Templar's Acre

CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN

Acre was sombre that morning. Despair was like a blanket, smothering hope throughout the city as Baldwin and Ivo walked to the walls. The Hospital was keen to launch another night attack. Baldwin suspected that they wanted to show their age-old rivals at the Temple how a midnight raid should be conducted. They gathered a force of some two hundred and fifty men, with fifteen knights and the rest made up of well-armed sergeants and men-at-arms, and on a moonless night, they issued from St Anthony’s Gate, formed into battle order, and set off for the towering mass of al-Mansour.

Their attempt was doomed from the first. The Muslims had learned from the abortive attack of the Templars, and before the Hospitallers had crossed half the distance, a series of fires were lighted and the army roused. For a brief space, those on the walls saw the Hospitallers’ weapons glinting in the firelight, and then they charged — a glorious, determined gallop across the plain that began as a disciplined band of warriors, but soon degenerated into a simple race for the Muslim lines, and as they went Baldwin saw the sharp gleams and flashes as bodkin arrows plummeted down.

Horses plunged headfirst into the sand as arrows struck. Baldwin saw a knight grasping at an arrow in his throat, both hands desperately scrabbling for it before he tumbled from the saddle. Men fell on all sides, and the horses were driven mad with pain. One lost direction, and rode parallel with the city walls, between defender and attacker, his rider holding on for dear life, while more and more arrows were loosed at them, until a merciful shot drove into the horse’s skull and the rider broke his neck in the fall.

The Marshal led his men on, while his companions overtook him and went on to slam individually into the line of spears set into the sands. Horses were impaled. Baldwin saw a rider, thrown by a reluctant beast, hurled onto a spear, where he wriggled, his screams carrying clearly back to the city. Two Muslims stood by him, but did nothing to stop his agony. He took a long time to die, while his companions tried to hack their way past the outer perimeter and in towards their objective.

Baldwin saw the swords rising and descending, the forward surge of the men and horses, their falling back, only to regroup and move forward again, and yet there was nothing the gallant Hospitallers could do against the numbers forming against them. As they struggled to make headway, more and more Muslims were augmenting the force opposing them, and eventually the men of the Hospital had to withdraw. The Marshal called his men back, the standard-bearer turning and taking the lead, but even now the Hospital must endure the trial of a long ride under constant assault from the archers and slingers, and even two mangonels which were brought into action. One bolt passed through two riders and then slammed into a horse, killing all three outright. And then it was over. The men reached St Anthony’s Gate, and passed inside again.

Now, staring out at the plain, all the bodies could be seen clearly in the daylight. No one moved to take them away. It was as though the Muslims were taunting the men of Acre by leaving them to rot in the sun.

‘Everyone knows,’ Edgar said. He had joined Baldwin that morning and now stood peering over the parapet with an expression of resolution on his face.

‘About the Hospitallers?’

‘No, about our chances of survival. If Temple and Hospital cannot force a way through, then we are all held here. And with a hundred or more catapults working day and night, the walls will fail.’ His tone was reflective, but matter-of-fact.

Baldwin nodded. ‘We need a miracle,’ he said.

‘Let me in,’ Buscarel said as the grille opened. A short time later, he was inside the familiar, cool entranceway to Lady Maria’s house.

‘Buscarel. I thought you were dead,’ she said coolly.

‘Your man found me.’

‘Your house. Yes. I heard it was gone,’ she said.

She snapped her fingers and her bottler appeared with a tray which held chilled wine and goblets of fine glass. He set the tray down on a table, and poured. As he did so, there was a crash from somewhere nearby, and he nearly upset the tray. Buscarel did not need to look to know his face was twitching. The fellow had enjoyed ruling over the slaves and servants in the house, but now the enemy was near, his nerves were frayed. Buscarel didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything.

‘What do you want with me?’ he demanded.

He had been camping in the main room of his ruined house when Lady Maria’s henchman had seen him and asked him to come here. Buscarel had nowhere else to go. He had salvaged a few shreds of cloth from another house up the road, and had used this to create a shelter and some shade from the sun — but apart from that, he had done nothing since discovering the house, merely spent his time squatting, watching the piles of rubble as though he half-expected to see his wife rise from them at any moment. It was futile to dig amongst the ruins; a man from further up the road had told him that his family had all been inside when the house was struck, and no one had come out alive.

Buscarel should have gone to the walls, to carry on fighting, but he couldn’t. He was still enfeebled after his fevers and instead had remained there with the shattered remnants of his life. He had lost the will to do anything.

‘I would like you to come and live here with me,’ Lady Maria said.

‘Why?’

She pulled a face. ‘I have no guards. They have been taken to the walls, and I must have someone here to protect me and my house.’

‘You think I can protect you against the Muslims? Lady, when they arrive, we’ll all die.’

‘I am not worried about them,’ she said impatiently. ‘It’s the mob that scares me.’ The bottler served the wine and walked off with his tray. ‘I know enough of the Sultan and his court to know the right men to speak with,’ she went on. ‘You can leave all that to me. All you need do is protect me and my house. Do that, and you and I will be safe.’

‘Safe?’ he laughed hoarsely. ‘No one is safe here!’

‘Will you do this? Protect me, please!’

‘Very well. I have nothing else to do,’ he said. And nothing mattered anyway. Not any more.