The devils knight, p.10
The Devil’s Knight, page 10
Again though, his lack of soldierly acumen was painfully exposed.
‘Even if we fail to take Jerusalem,’ he said, ‘we can’t give up.’
‘We can’t?’ Thurstan replied.
‘Think on it, Wildblood. Barbarossa’s death before he even got here, and Philip’s rank cowardice have gifted this whole mission to Richard the Lionheart. Look what he stands to gain if we succeed. And look how much he loses if we fail.’
‘For what it’s worth, your grace, the king never thought that retaking Jerusalem was beyond us. Just that we weren’t ready to undertake such a feat. Not yet.’
‘That’s a good thing. If we’re forced to retreat, we can try again…’
‘But since then, we’ve lost a host of additional men, supplies and horses. If we retreat now, the enemy will pursue us, forcing us to fight more and more actions. We might return to Jaffa and refit, but that will take longer now than it needed to. And then consider that Jaffa itself is indefensible. Even Ascalon remains half-built… If even that. And what of the manpower we’ve wasted?’
‘Miracles have been known, Wildblood.’
‘Then pray for one.’
* * *
Similar encounters with the enemy occurred continuously over the next few days, the bands of Ayyubid irregulars becoming ever more numerous the closer their enemy drew to Jerusalem.
Several times more, King Richard put himself in danger. Near a village called Saris, a sizeable Mamluk force galloped recklessly into the van. The king led a direct charge in response. The weather yet again, which had worsened as December dragged on, had created huge empty spaces in the column, so as before, the Lionheart found himself surrounded by fanatical opponents. Those few members of the Familia in close attendance, Thurstan and La Hors among them, fought furiously, but only after ten frantic minutes, as more and more knights from further back galloped forward, did the enemy retreat.
In the last days before Christmas, when the advance guard reported back that they’d come at last within sight of the Holy City, any joy or relief was tempered by the news that the plain in front of it was spangled with the fires of Ayyubid encampments, and that squadrons of Saracen horse were everywhere. It was almost as though the victory at Arsuf had never happened.
Richard received this information on Christmas Eve, sitting wrapped in a damp blanket to one side of a meagre campfire. His face was lean and drawn, his beard grizzled and hair hanging damp and stringy. All around him, from inside the jumble of sagging, rain-sodden tents, or beneath the bellies of wagons and carts, came coughs and wheezes, moans of pain, desperate prayers.
Bishop Hubert sat opposite, wrapped but shivering.
‘So close and yet so far,’ the prelate muttered.
‘I wonder what it looks like?’ said a filthy wretch of a monk who was nameless to the rest of them, for this was the way of it now, the lordly rubbing shoulders with the base.
‘In 1099, when the city was first captured,’ another said, ‘I heard that great numbers died assailing the ramparts. Yet those who had simply laid hands on that sacred stonework, even if they got no more than halfway up the scaling ladder, died happy… For after all that hardship, they had reached Christ’s capital.’
‘Damn fool story,’ Count Robert grunted. ‘Good job they didn’t all think that, or the escalade would have failed.’
‘My lords, my lords!’ came an urgent voice. ‘I must speak with the king!’
A newcomer arrived in the firelight, his mail gleaming, the white chevrons on his sea-blue surcoat unfeasibly clean. Thurstan recognised Henry, the Count of Champagne, a young, enthusiastic French knight, and a distant nephew of the king. Disgusted by Philip’s abandonment of his countrymen’s cause, he’d switched his allegiance to his uncle shortly after Acre.
‘Sire…’ Count Henry dropped to one knee. ‘News from Jaffa.’
‘Speak,’ the king said.
‘I’ve ridden from there on receipt of word from Ascalon,’ Count Henry said. ‘Saladin’s reinforcements are dispersed.’
‘Dispersed?’ Richard got stiffly to his feet. ‘How so?’
Count Henry rose too. Several others did also.
‘My liege, the same bad weather that assails you here has been causing chaos all down the coast. Innumerable rivers and streams have burst their banks. Flash floods have washed away bridges and whole sections of road. The Ayyubid replacement army is in disarray. Many are leaving to find safer billets for the rest of the winter.’
Richard glanced from one man to the next. ‘How much ground had they made before this catastrophe?’
‘None, sire. They hadn’t even commenced their northward march.’
‘God be praised,’ Count Robert muttered.
‘Saladin’s reinforcements won’t be coming?’ Bishop Hubert asked.
‘They’ll still come, your grace,’ Count Henry replied. ‘But not until spring at the earliest.’
The bishop’s once chubby features broke with joy. ‘Sire, this means…’
‘Silence,’ Richard said. ‘Knight-Commander, send word. The army must prepare to march.’ He turned to the others. ‘My noble lords, you’ll be pleased to hear that at first light we return to Jaffa.’
There were more than a few mutters of relief, but others looked shocked.
‘Bishop Hubert,’ Richard said, ‘you will furnish their excellencies, archbishops Ubaldo and Adelard with this intelligence. I’m sure they and their entourage are in such a state by now that they’ll have no objection.’
Bishop Hubert nodded.
‘My lords,’ the king said, ‘God has chosen to spare us. We still have an enemy in front, stronger than we expected. But no enemy behind. That means we have the whole winter to rebuild. When next we come this way, we’ll come as the disciplined force that crushed Saladin before, and one that will be ready and able to crush him again.’
When he strode to his royal tent, there was a new spring in his stride.
‘You asked for a miracle, Wildblood,’ Bishop Hubert said. ‘It seems you have one.’
CHAPTER 13
As the pilgrim army trekked back towards Jaffa, the elements continued to pummel them, the rain and sleet unyielding. A deep dejection spread among the troops, though its origins lay with the French, in particular Duke Hugh, who told all and sundry that it was Richard who’d brought them to this disaster. Nearly every man present had his heart set on recapturing the Holy City, and after all the battles they’d fought just to get here, they hadn’t even attempted it.
Bishop Hubert, meanwhile, told the king’s inner circle that it was all the work of the French. Highly likely, Philip of France was now home and positioning himself to commence raiding into English-held territories. Maybe they should have expected that hostilities would commence on the Pilgrimage too.
‘You can’t mean the French are attempting sabotage?’ Bertrand exclaimed, when Thurstan passed this information on.
‘I think it’s more a case of them winning back the Pilgrimage for France,’ Thurstan replied. ‘Or trying to.’
Bertrand pondered. ‘Surely we’ll go again? Now that we know there’s no imminent threat from the south?’
There was a desperate yearning in his voice. Like all of them, he was in a roughened, raddled state, his hair a matted mop, his beard a bush, his features ingrained with dirt. But all these things he could tolerate, and worse, if they could reach their goal: Jerusalem, where their souls would be saved.
Thurstan Wildblood could only envy him such a potent belief.
* * *
‘Lord king… I, and many others like me, feel the time has come to reassess.’
Duke Hugh spoke with confidence to the great assembly of nobles in Richard’s royal pavilion, which, on their return to Jaffa, the king had re-erected on open land south of the city.
It was April now. Richard, looking better with colour in his cheeks, his fair hair and beard trimmed, and wearing a lengthy white gown patterned with crimson lions, reclined in his seat of judgement. The rest of the nobility had also recovered somewhat. Duke Hugh himself wore a handsome blue-and-gold-striped tabard. However, they’d only been back a couple of days, and Thurstan, though also clad in his Familia Regis best so to stand guard by the king’s side, couldn’t help but reflect on the bulk of the army, gathered outside – leaning morosely on their spears, their arms and armour still filthy. Even Jaffa offered little succour, because in the king’s absence he’d ordered extensive repair-work on the city’s outer walls, much of which had required timber, and so the district’s luxurious orchards and olive groves had now been denuded of trees. Even the swaying palms adorning the shoreline had gone.
‘Pray, my lord duke,’ the king sat with fingers steepled, ‘educate us.’
‘The gist of my complaint, sire, concerns the manner in which you’ve conducted this campaign. When King Philip was forced to return home…’
‘When he fled, you mean!’ Count Robert of Dreux interjected.
Mumbles were heard. Some of them angry.
‘We in the French portion of the army,’ Duke Hugh said in a measured tone, ‘have suffered greatly since our king left us.’
‘You came here with seven thousand men in total,’ Richard replied. ‘You have four-thousand remaining. Those losses are severe, I’ll grant you, but you are no more nor less decimated than any other section of our host.’
‘Regardless, my lord… It rankles how many Frenchmen now dead or crippled made this sacrifice for no reason? We could have marched on to Jerusalem… We were almost in touching distance.’
This time there was silence. To Thurstan’s mind, most of the nobles here would normally side with Richard, if for no other reason than they respected his military expertise. But on this matter, they were torn.
‘Could we have mounted a siege?’ Richard asked the duke. ‘Were we in a fit state?’
Duke Hugh pivoted, playing to the gallery. ‘My lords, we could have built ourselves a fortified camp in the vicinity of the city. Perhaps with your mobile fortress, Mategriffon, at the heart of it, lord-king.’
‘And fed on what?’ Bishop Hubert asked from among the prelates. ‘Human waste pumped out through the sluice pipes in Jerusalem’s walls?’
‘You saw, did you not,’ Richard said, ‘the emptiness of the plains past Ramleh? Saladin scorched the land. You have only four thousand men remaining. How many would you have now if we’d done as you suggest?’
‘And we’d still be outside Jerusalem’s wall,’ Bishop Hubert added.
The duke eyed him with irritation. ‘Dress it up how you like, my lord Bishop of… Salisbury…’ He added scornful emphasis, Salisbury being a very minor diocese compared to Pisa and Ravenna, the mitred heads of which currently sat in the front row of the Church delegation. ‘But a majority of us now feel we need a change of leadership.’
Bishop Hubert got to his feet. He too had recovered much of his composure since the hard journey back. He had shaved, both his face and his tonsure, and now wore a scarlet homespun cloak over his violet Lenten robes.
‘You wish to do this now?’ he enquired. ‘When God has granted us breathing space in which to heal our hurts?’
‘It’s about restoring faith in our purpose.’ Again, Duke Hugh addressed the whole assembly. ‘It’s about remembering why we came to Outremer.’ Only a muted response greeted this. He swung on the archbishops. ‘Your excellencies? Surely you have a view? Richard the so-called Lionheart retreated from the battle that would have won us Jerusalem, and you say nothing!’
Thurstan eyed the senior churchmen. They’d both been present on the march to Jerusalem and had endured its privations for themselves. They knew that Burgundy was trying to sell them a lie. The king’s decision to retreat had purely been tactical.
‘It is our belief, my lord duke,’ Archbishop Ubaldo finally said, ‘that King Richard, with his record of success…’
‘Success?’ the duke interrupted.
‘At Arsuf he defeated an army several times larger than his own,’ Count Robert reminded him.
‘He won that day with all our help, not on his own,’ Duke Hugh argued.
‘And it is with your help, my son, that our next advance on Jerusalem will be more successful,’ Archbishop Ubaldo replied, as if the matter was settled.
Duke Hugh averted his gaze. ‘Not so, I’m afraid.’ The pavilion fell silent. ‘Forgive me, King Richard, but I can’t commit myself further to an enterprise so lacking in ambition.’ The duke remained po-faced, as if the momentous decision had saddened him.
‘So said your king,’ Count Robert replied. ‘But we haven’t noticed his absence.’
The duke eyed him darkly. ‘You will. Go with Richard Plantagenet if you like, Count Robert, throw your men away for no gain. I value mine more highly… which is why later today I’ll be taking them to a place of safety.’
‘By any chance, the court of Count Conrad of Montferrat?’ Richard asked.
There was a long, penetrating silence. It was no surprise to anyone. Even without Count Conrad’s usual machinations, his domain was the obvious refuge for those at odds with Richard. Bishop Philip of Beauvais, for one, had already departed for Tyre.
‘We men of France are leaving,’ Duke Hugh said simply. ‘The rest of you… You’ll die in this place. And it will all be the fault of Richard of England.’
* * *
‘We have ourselves quite the predicament, don’t you agree, Wildblood?’
Thurstan could hardly disagree. ‘We are down to twelve thousand men in total, sire. So… yes, without doubt.’
The king mopped his brow as they rode at the head of the column. To their right, the sea washed gently on the narrow, empty beach. Inland, it was another tale of hot, rocky scrubland.
‘Our numerical inferiority is the reason I now feel we must expedite the rebuilding of Ascalon’s walls,’ Richard said. ‘The few hundred currently working there won’t be enough.’
Thurstan couldn’t fault the logic. But even so, he wondered, was it wise to split the army again? Granted, only a thousand had been left behind in Jaffa, but it had still been an unusual decision.
‘May I speak plainly, sire?’
‘Of course.’
‘We’re building new castles at Ascalon and Jaffa. But, at some point Saladin will come against us in such numbers that…’
‘They’ll fall?’
‘They may, they may not… but none of this is taking us closer to our prize.’
Richard nodded. ‘I’ll be blunt with you, Wildblood. As things stand, we can’t win this war. We’re now a mere fraction of the force we need.’
Thurstan said nothing. Another attempt to appeal to Count Conrad ought to be more humiliation than any king could bear, let alone Richard, Since their return to Jaffa, the king had personally met with Conrad at a halfway point up the coast, but again had been rebuffed. And yet, rumours now held that he intended to hold his proposed election for the Crown of Jerusalem without Conrad’s compliance, which would reduce him even more in the eyes of his fellow noblemen. It was all the more remarkable then, that Richard himself raised the matter.
‘Do you consider it advisable that we hold this coming election?’ the king asked.
‘It’s not my place, sire…’
‘You’re a senior soldier, and therefore a tactician. Your opinion is valued.’
Thurstan hesitated. ‘I believe… it will show that you have gone as far as any man could to accommodate a useful underling, without actually bending to his will.’
‘Some might say we have already bent to his will.’
Again, Thurstan was hesitant. ‘There are longer term benefits to be gained.’
‘Such as?’
‘Conrad will win the election, sire. He’ll then be crowned King of Jerusalem and will rejoin the Pilgrimage.’
‘And what do you think about that?’
‘I think it would be for the best, as it will remove most of our problems.’
‘It’s a shame you believe that, Wildblood. Because I don’t.’ Richard’s voice hardened. ‘Count Conrad will not be content with the crown of Jerusalem. At present, that crown is meaningless anyway so long as Saladin holds the Holy City. You understand that Conrad is not just sitting, biding his time in Tyre?’
‘I’ve heard that while we were away, he made an effort to gain control of Acre.’
‘That’s correct. As his pretext, he used some trouble there, which his spies had stirred up between Genoese and Pisan sailors wintering in the city, but thankfully my castellans were able to restore order.’
‘I’ve also heard that many of those new arrivals, those companies from Europe who ship into Acre now, are being convinced by his agents to join him at Tyre.’
The king nodded. ‘Our estimate is that, for several months now, roughly half of those new pilgrims who arrive here to swell our ranks, are swelling Count Conrad’s instead.’
‘And now he has the French as well,’ Thurstan said.
‘That’s the most important thing, I fear. That fact alone persuades me we have a more dangerous enemy than Saladin. It’s heartbreaking, is it not, that with Islam massing its forces, we Christians are again at each other’s throats?’
‘Sire, if Conrad seeks to make himself leader of this Pilgrimage, an election at Ascalon will play into his hands. If the majority of your army cast lots in his favour…’
‘It will be a great vote of confidence in him, I agree. A rival leader will finally have emerged… This one also wearing a kingly crown.’
They rode in silence. There was no doubt in Thurstan’s mind that this new threat to the success of the campaign was the greatest one they faced yet.
‘One might even say,’ Richard remarked, ‘that it would be fortunate for us if something happened to Count Conrad of Montferrat. Don’t you agree?’
