A Blood Red Horse (23 page)

“Have you noticed?” Kamil was suddenly rather shy. “Have you noticed how the color of blood clashes with the red horse's coat?”

Saladin considered. “I had not noticed,” he answered. “But what you say is true. Blood and that horse do not go together.”

Kamil tried to be flippant. “For that reason, I am always careful now whom I kill,” he said, and to hide his confusion, he busied himself pushing the grass that Hosanna had scattered into a neat pile. He still could not tell the sultan about the night he had killed the Christian boy, but his soul felt calmer and his temper less quick. On the nights he slept alongside the red horse, he slept well, the horse's presence keeping his nightmares away. Inspired
by their interest in his horse, he had begun to teach some of the sons of the emirs how to train their own horses and surprised himself by finding he enjoyed it. The little boys worshipped Hosanna, and the horse patiently allowed them to fuss over him. Kamil had quite a following.

Saladin looked at the boy with love in his eyes. “Yes,” he said. “I notice that you are now more careful about many things.” The young man blushed and was grateful to find an excuse to lean forward and remove a stray stalk from Hosanna's mane.

But the red horse was restless, and eventually Kamil got up. As he rose, he caught sight of the bedraggled remains of the vanquished caravan limping past the sentries posted at the entrance to the Saracen camp.

“Allah help us!” he exclaimed. “What on earth has happened?” He quickly put out his hand and helped the sultan to his feet. From all over the camp, people were shouting and rushing forward with water.

As Saladin approached, the distraught and thirsty men began noisily to disclaim any responsibility for losing the valuable cargo with which they had been entrusted. They told how the knights had barked like dogs, how the camels had gone mad and scattered the mules and horses. “Then the horses came back,” said one soldier, still gulping water. “They were all following a knight who appeared from nowhere. So they were gathered up, too, and taken back to the Christian camp. We were lucky to escape with our lives.”

Saladin was furious. “Are you part of the great caravan from Egypt?” he asked. “I particularly sent word to the emirs not to send such huge quantities of livestock and goods all at once. The Christians may be vile and uncouth, but they are brave. With that prize in front of them, they
will have been completely fearless. Have we lost everything?”

The men nodded, trembling with fear. “We are all that is left.”

Saladin said nothing more, but bidding Kamil go round and gather his Councillors together, he went to his tent.

The leading emirs and the sultan talked for a week, trying to decide whether to take on Richard's army face-to-face and recapture some of the lost booty or to allow the Christians to proceed to Jerusalem and lay siege to it. They knew that the Christians were camped twelve miles west of the Holy City and that if they began to move forward, the Saracens could not stop them. Nevertheless, once the Christians were outside the city walls and busy constructing their siege engines, then the Saracens could besiege them in their turn, as had happened the year before at Acre. The Christians would be stuck.

However, the emirs knew this strategy carried its own dangers. They could not rely on the fortitude of their fellow Muslims in Jerusalem, who, by all accounts, were in favor of giving in to the Christians. The reputation of Richard the Lionheart went in front of him. If the Muslims in Jerusalem offered him the keys of the city, with the coastal towns already in Christian hands and plentiful supplies to keep their army fed, who knew how long Richard could hold out? Then a miracle occurred.

A mounted spy galloped into Saladin's camp. “They're leaving,” he shouted. “They're leaving.” Saladin was disbelieving. The spy insisted.

“I have seen the so-called great Christian army,” he said. “Before they began to pursue the caravan from Egypt, they seemed to be having some kind of meeting. They did not look happy. It seems that the great Richard is not so great
after all. Just when they seemed on course for Jerusalem, they are moving away, moving away, I tell you, taking all that booty with them.”

Saladin called for his horse, and at the head of one hundred cavalry, he rode out. Kamil leaped onto Hosanna and was at Saladin's side. Their horses were fit, and after just over an hour's riding, they could see a huge dust storm on the horizon. The Christian army was, indeed, rolling away.

Saladin turned to Kamil. “Allah is merciful,” he said. “Should we suspect a trap?”

Kamil considered. “The Christians must have seen that we have poisoned the wells and lost all hope,” he said. “I suspect they are headed back for the port of Acre to regroup. They will be anxious not to lose all the booty they have just captured. Maybe, once at Acre, they will decide to go home. But I don't believe they will want to go without even setting foot in Jerusalem. Perhaps now is the right time for us to march to the port of Jaffa and organize an assault to take it back into Muslim hands. It is the least well defended, and it would cut the territory they control in two. If we can take Jaffa, the Christians would no longer hold the whole coast. Also, if they change their minds and head back to Jerusalem, the loss of Jaffa would be a great inconvenience.”

“My son, you are beginning to think like a general,” said Saladin. “Go and give the orders. Unless the Christians do something unexpected, we will make for Jaffa. Send spies to follow King Richard's army. Let us be circumspect and ready for anything.”

As soon as they returned to the Saracen camp, Kamil gave the orders and the army prepared to move. Spies flew back and forth, and the Saracen army waited to see if the decision to head for Jaffa remained the best one.

* * *

Three days later a small detachment set out on a swift, forced march for the coast. Kamil rode Hosanna at the head of it. It was his job to reconnoiter the route and to watch out for ambushes. This was a job he loved. Hosanna felt like a tightly strung bow beneath him, and the soldiers who were following soon got used to the sight of their leader on his fiery horse, always slightly too far ahead for safety, performing what looked to them like a dance. Sometimes they muttered to each other about horses and circuses, but on the whole they enjoyed the spectacle.

Kamil was in his element. Urging the soldiers on and talking strategy with his fellow emirs, he felt a new sense of purpose, one that did not depend on slaughter, but on tactics. The men, even the older ones, trusted him. He could see it. They accepted his instructions without question. Under his command they arrived safely outside Jaffa within four days, for the going was good even for the pack animals, and they were unchallenged. Indeed, the Christians inside the city were taken completely by surprise at the sight of the Saracen soldiers and only just managed to shut the gates in time. For five days they held out, fighting like demons, before Kamil's men pushed their way through the gates and were in among them, swords and maces swinging with deadly accuracy. Kamil fought up at the front, Hosanna responsive to his every movement, shouting, cajoling, and exhorting his men to greater and greater efforts. He seemed to be everywhere at once, regardless of danger. In the brief breaks he took to catch his breath, his own soldiers would come and touch the horse's star, as if the aura that seemed to keep him safe might pass on to them. Kamil did not stop them.

When the city eventually fell, Kamil found himself riding Hosanna inside Jaffa's walls, flushing the enemy out from side alleys and behind garden walls. The noise and stench of death was all around him, but he did not flinch. Directing his men to perform a citywide sweep to locate pockets of resistance, he also ordered the preparation of enclosures into which the many captives could be herded.

In one corner of the city, a group of particularly miserable captives were huddled. They were all knights, and Kamil rode over to see that they were put with the rest. The Christian king would pay handsomely for their release, and they could be transported to Acre and go home with the other crusaders. As he rode up, he could see one of the knights arguing with his Saracen captor. The knight seemed to be begging.

“Ah, Kamil ad-Din,” the emir said as Kamil approached. “I can't understand the language, but I think he wants his weapons back,” and he laughed.

Kamil looked at the knight. “Yes?” he said in Norman French. It was not until the knight turned to look at him that with a cold shock, Kamil caught sight of the teardrop birthmark, which could still keep him awake at night. Hosanna halted.

“I don't want my weapons,” said the knight. “Just that little dagger.” He was trying to keep his dignity, but there was pleading as well as bitterness in his voice. “It was my boy's,” he said. “He was murdered as we left Jerusalem. His mother has died of fever. It is the only thing I have left that was his.”

Kamil's face registered nothing, but inside, his heart was burning. His eyes misted over. In a moment Saladin's teaching, the Koran, everything Kamil had learned was consumed by flames in his head. He dismounted.
Here was his chance. He could kill this man now and properly avenge his father. It would not be necessary to explain to the emir. Many things were done in war. Few were questioned.

As he let go of Hosanna's rein to reach for his sword, his hand briefly touched the ridge caused by William's blow to the horse at Acre a year before. Almost of its own accord, Kamil's hand stopped there. He did not know the cause of the scar, but he found himself smoothing over it again and again. Hosanna shifted slightly and turned his head to rub it on Kamil's shoulder.

The knight was looking curiously at Kamil. He dropped to his knees.

“I beg you,” he said, “kill me now. I have nothing left. I have not led a good life. Now it is time to end it. My wife and my son have gone before me. I long to see them again, and I hope, as a crusader, I will be forgiven my sins and go straight to heaven. But please, when I am buried, bury my son's dagger by my side.”

Kamil stopped smoothing Hosanna's scar. He looked down.

“Get up,” he said softly. “Get up. You and your kind have caused untold suffering in this land. Take your son's dagger, and keep it by you always. Let it be the knife in your heart. Let it, every day, remind you of what you have lost, and if it ever takes life again, may God never forgive you. Now go home and never come back.”

Kamil took the dagger from the emir, silencing his protests with his hand. “I know what I am doing,” he said in Arabic. The emir shrugged.

“Here,” said Kamil, and he gave the dagger to the knight.

The knight took it and slid it under his armor so that it
rested next to his skin. “Thank you,” he said with tears in his eyes. “Thank you.”

Kamil did not acknowledge his thanks. He nodded to the emir, who, looking at Kamil as if he were mad, chivied his prisoners out of their corner and pushed them toward a bigger group headed for the pen near the city gates. Kamil did not look after them. He mounted Hosanna and, pushing his thoughts down for scrutiny at a more appropriate time, carried on with the job in hand.

Only the capture of the citadel, the great tower at the heart of the city, remained to be accomplished before he would be able to report to the sultan that if the Christians were counting on Jaffa to help with their assault on Jerusalem, they could count on it no longer. Kamil dodged stray arrows and told his men that if they fought hard, this victory at Jaffa might go down in the books of history as the beginning of the end of this Christian crusade. They cheered at the thought. Then Kamil sent for some superior marksmen.

“Concentrate now on the citadel,” he told them. “It should only take a day, at the outside, to secure it. If you can, get the Christians out dead or alive without setting fire to it. We don't want to spend weeks building it up again, and we will need it for our own defense.” The marksmen nodded and left him.

Later, when darkness fell and the fighting was all but over for the day, Kamil rode out of the city and down to the shore. He was dog-tired. He dismounted, took off his helmet, and looked out to sea.

Hosanna stood with his head over Kamil's shoulder. The young man leaned back. The memories of the day were very sharp, and Kamil now allowed them to flood over
him. He could see every detail of the Christian knight's face and recall every word of their conversation. He relived it again and again. Eventually the tears came, and Kamil let them fall. The horse stood, patient as a rock. After the storm had passed, Kamil wiped his face on Hosanna's mane. For the first time since he was nine years old, he found that he could think of his father's killer without hatred and even think of his father without his heart contracting in pain. He murmured to Hosanna as an unexpected thought struck him. How could he be sorry that Richard had brought his army over? He did not need reminding that if the king had remained at home, he would never have met this red horse, from whom, Kamil felt certain, his new peace of mind flowed. He touched Hosanna's white star. “What we did today, you and I,” he said, “has made me my father's true son. And now that the Christians are leaving, Red Horse, you will surely be mine forever.”

It was a good thought, and as Kamil led Hosanna to the horse lines, despite his weariness, he had a spring in his step.

Thousands of miles away, Ellie had not had a good thought since de Scabious had tried to blackmail her into marriage the previous November. As the winter had turned into spring and the spring into summer and still no news came from the de Granvilles, her only thoughts were of escape, if only she had somewhere to go. Since her supposed “poor behavior” with Brother Ranulf, life had been horrible. After her disgrace some of the servants were sympathetic, but the garrison knights treated her with increasing disrespect, except when Constable de Scabious was around. Now he felt he had the abbot's support, he was in no hurry to cement their union, since by spreading news of his own magnanimous offer to marry Ellie, predatory barons were no longer interested in carrying her off. He could relax and wait for the girl to come round, which she surely would. Marrying him must be better than becoming a nun. And that really was Ellie's only other option, for while Ellie had heard nothing, de Scabious did have news from the Holy Land, and it was to his advantage. Back in April, while on a trip to the coast to negotiate the purchase of some rich, imported cloth suitable for his wedding day, a man returned from Acre on the spring tides told him on
good authority that Sir Thomas had died and that Gavin had suffered what everybody took to be a mortal wound. William, so the man said, had lost his horse and was shattered. In effect, the constable thought as he rode back to Hartslove, the de Granvilles were finished.