Keeper of the Grail (12 page)

I stared after the man I’d just tussled with, but he ignored me as he went to the stall where his horse was quartered and began adjusting the saddle.

Gaston stood before me, a dour-looking fellow, but he matched the description Sir Thomas had given me.

“Sir Thomas asked me to give this to you,” I said, handing him the letter. “It is for the Master of the Order. Can you see it safely to London?”

“Of course. I know Sir Thomas well. After I ride with the King to Tyre, I’ll be posted back to England. I’ll make sure the letter reaches the Master,” Gaston replied.

I thought it best to get away from the King as soon as possible so I quickly left the palace grounds. I walked across the city square, climbing up on the parapets over the main gate. A few moments later the King and his guards departed the city to the east. I watched as the Lionheart rode out surrounded by his men, back astride his pure white warhorse. I kept my eyes on them until they disappeared from sight on the eastern horizon.

My duty done, I left the parapet intending to return to the Knights’ Hall, where I still had unfinished work. As I made my way through the busy streets, I could suddenly hear them far off in the distance. The sound of Saracen trumpets.

The Saladin was coming.

15

T
he Saladin returned to Acre with a vengeance. The trumpets first sounded that morning, and his forces had encircled the city by nightfall. Atop the walls we watched his army deploy in wave after wave. I couldn’t even begin to count the number of battle flags and had no idea how many men he had brought to bear on Acre, but it easily numbered in the thousands.

When we had taken Acre, the port had been reopened and supply ships from Cyprus and other points east had arrived almost daily. We had been able to build up all the stores and had dug numerous new wells. Now we were garrisoned in a fortress city, well supplied with food and water, but I felt a mild sense of panic as I watched the Saracens surround us. How would we defeat such a large force, cooped up as we were with no room to maneuver or counterattack?

Sir Thomas pointed to a large tent that was pitched on a rise to the east several hundred yards away, out of range of our ballistae and siege engines.

“That is the Saladin’s command tent. He’ll be directing the siege himself,” Sir Thomas said. I kept watch on the tent whenever there was a spare moment but could not tell if one of the tiny figures I saw moving about was the Saladin.

“Sire, surrounded like this, locked in, what will we do?” I asked, unable to keep the nervousness and fear from creeping into my voice.

“We fight. We never stop fighting, Tristan. Rest easy, lad. We’re well dug in here. Acre will not be an easy plum for the Saladin to pick,” Sir Thomas said.

“Yes, sire,” I said. Sir Thomas smiled and left the parapet, no doubt needing to confer with the other knights to begin planning the defense of the city. I continued watching as the forces below us filed forward, pitching their campaign tents and beginning their preparations for battle. Though I desperately wanted to believe Sir Thomas, I found it hard to share his confidence.

The first attack did not come until three days later. The Saladin began with a flurry of flaming arrows shot over the city walls in an attempt to set fire to the buildings inside. Because most of the structures were made of stone, this had little effect. A few wagons hit by stray arrows caught fire, but there was minimal damage. We returned fire with our own siege engines, hurling boulders and pots of flaming pitch at their lines. A few tents caught fire, but I don’t believe any Saracens were seriously injured.

For the next two weeks, it became a game of feint, thrust and retreat between our fighters inside the city and the Saracens outside the walls. They probed and prodded our defenses, searching for a weakness. I was grateful Sir Thomas had been so diligent in preparing the city for the Saladin’s return. He tried to keep things normal, insisting that we squires continue our training with the sword and making sure that we kept all the knights’ equipment in fighting shape.

Some knights thought that perhaps the Saladin intended to try to starve us out. That he was content to wait until our garrison had run out of supplies. But other knights disagreed, believing that the Saladin was waiting for even more reinforcements to arrive. Then he would throw his men against the walls until we were overwhelmed by the sheer weight of numbers. Though we were hard to get at inside the city, the Saladin’s army was now more than three times the size of the fighting force inside Acre.

As the days passed, Sir Thomas never let up in his furious level of activity. He walked among the battlements atop the wall, encouraging the men who stood guard. From immediately after morning mass to well after evening prayers Sir Thomas could be found inspecting the parapets or drilling the archers and men-at-arms. He never stopped moving, thinking or planning.

Sir Hugh, on the other hand, was hardly seen at all once the Saladin had arrived. After days of waiting for something significant to happen, Quincy and I stood one morning atop the eastern wall of the city watching the activity of the forces on the plains below, discussing where Sir Hugh might have disappeared to.

“He’s slithered away like the worm he is,” Quincy said. And he suddenly dropped to the ground, flopping about.

“Sir Hugh is the regimental worm!” he said, laughing. “He’s found himself a pile of dung to dig through and…”

I began to laugh as well, but was startled by a hand upon my shoulder and turned to see Sir Thomas standing behind me. Quincy heard my gasp and jumped to his feet, embarrassed to be caught fooling around. He nervously brushed the dust from his tunic.

“Quincy, are you ill?” he asked.

“No, sire, I feel fine,” Quincy replied.

“Hmm. With your flopping around like that, I thought perhaps you might have caught some sort of fever,” he said.

Quincy looked stricken, unable to tell from Sir Thomas’ expression whether or not he was in serious trouble.

I tried to save him.

“Um. Sire. Well. Quincy was explaining to me, uh…about a new method of sword fighting…,” I stammered.

Sir Thomas raised an eyebrow. “Sword fighting? Really? A new technique that requires one to rest on one’s back, squirming in the dirt?”

“Yes, sire, yes, you see, we saw one of the King’s Guards demonstrating it a few weeks ago. Apparently it originated in Spain. If you stumble or fall during battle, you’re still able to defend yourself from the ground. And Quincy was demonstrating…”

Sir Thomas interrupted me. “Yes, well, I admire your initiative in studying a new
technique,
” he said. “However, I think there is perhaps more important work to be done. If you have no duties to attend to, I can perhaps ask the Master Sergeanto to…”

“No need, sire,” I interrupted. “We were just preparing to leave for the stable to tend the horses. And after that I’ll be polishing your chain mail, sire, polishing it to a high sheen. Yes, sire. We wouldn’t want the ocean air to cause rust.”

“Very well…”

Before Sir Thomas could finish, a shout went up from the Saladin’s lines. It was after their morning prayers, and from down below we began to hear chants of “Allah Akhbar.” Sir Thomas stepped quickly to the edge of the parapet, his eyes sweeping the field.

“Tristan, step quickly to the Knights’ Hall and bring my sword and mail. Quincy, find Sir Basil and have him alert the other knights. Hurry!”

“Sir Thomas, what is happening?” I asked.

“They are preparing to attack, Tristan. Any moment now. Be quick and fetch my equipment. Now go!”

As Quincy and I rushed down the steps, I could hear Sir Thomas shouting commands and instructions to the men-at-arms and sounding the call to arms. The urgency in Sir Thomas’ voice told me that this was something different, unlike the attacks we’d faced so far. My stomach lurched, and I was reminded of how I’d felt riding into that first battle so many weeks ago. I began to feel light-headed as I ran, and it became difficult to raise and lower my feet, as if the ground had turned to mud. I tried to push the nervousness down and focus on my duties, but images of the carnage in the valley flashed through my mind, and I felt myself growing afraid. I tried to pray but found myself unable to.

In a few moments what had been a relatively quiet morning inside the city became a whirlwind of activity. Quincy left me on the run to locate Sir Basil as I raced through the streets to the Knights’ Hall, where I retrieved Sir Thomas’ gear.

I retraced my steps and found Sir Thomas on the parapet shouting out orders. Peering over at the Saladin’s army I saw a flurry of activity out on the plains. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion, and for a moment I felt that I was outside my body looking down on the city and the field below as the warriors on each side scurried about in their chaotic dance. A shout in the distance brought me back into focus, and I watched a series of large scaling ladders being moved from the rear toward the Saracens’ front lines.

Sir Thomas took the chain mail and sword from me as the parapet around us became crowded with men and equipment, and before long, the cries of the army below and those of our own forces had created a fearsome din. With a mighty shout, the Saladin’s lines surged forward, the Saracens charging across the ground. At the same time, their archers released a fusillade of thousands of arrows high into the sky, aiming to drop them on top of us. Forcing us to take cover would also let their troops advance unhindered to the base of our walls.

I dropped to my knees, huddling close to the parapet, trying to make myself as small as possible. The arrows whizzed through the air, one striking the ground not three feet from me. I tried hard to ignore the screams and cries as some found their targets.

An order was given to return fire, and from all around, our archers stood and fired at the surge of men rushing toward us from below. I looked up to see another raft of arrows coming at us from the Saladin’s rear guard. It became impossible to keep an eye on everything. Down below, the Saracens had nearly reached the base of the wall, although our archers were making them pay with every step they took.

Arrows fell out of the sky, landing all around, and I saw one of the men-at-arms struck down right in front of me. I still had my short sword strapped to my belt, but with shaking hands I grasped the pike, the long iron spear he’d dropped when hit by the arrow. I held it firmly, testing its weight, when I saw the tops of several scaling ladders clear the parapets and realized that the Saracens had arrived.

Sir Thomas stood atop one of the battlements shouting, “Forward! To the ladders!” Our men surged forth, pushing the ladders backward with their pikes, swords and bare hands. A few Saracens had nearly reached the top, and their screams added to the racket as they fell backward into the swirling mass of their comrades below.

I found an open spot along the parapet. The top of an enemy ladder appeared in front of me and I pushed at it with the pike, trying to topple it backward. But I couldn’t manage, and to my shock I saw a Saracen appear. I stood frozen in place as he climbed over the ladder, his face sweating with the effort. Coming to my senses, I grasped the pike in both hands, backed up a few steps and charged at him, shouting, “Beauseant!” at the top of my lungs.

He easily parried my thrust with his scimitar, and I nearly lost my grip on the spear. I jabbed at him again, and he pushed the pike aside again, this time stepping sideways and pulling it from my hands. He came rushing at me, and I fumbled at the short sword at my belt, certain that I was about to die.

With a loud scream he raised the sword above his head with both hands, when a look of shock appeared on his face and he crumpled to the ground. There behind him stood Quincy, holding a pike of his own that he had used to dispatch the Saracen. Quincy stared at me a moment, then nodded and ran along the parapet, finding another spot to defend.

It was this man about to kill me who brought me to my senses. It became clear in that moment that even though I was scared beyond reason, I could not let the fear overtake me or I would surely die.

More ladders came at the walls, and those we pushed back were righted and climbed again. For more than an hour that morning, the Saracens tried vainly to breach the walls. Finally, when the Saladin saw he could not get enough men through without taking heavy casualties, the attack ended. We hurried about, tending to our injured and repairing and replacing weapons, for we knew the Saladin would keep coming, never stopping until he found a way to regain the city.

So the siege began. For days, then weeks, we sat inside our fortress, and I was reminded of a turtle huddled inside its shell. They would poke and prod at us and we would snap back, driving them off after a furious battle. Then days would go by with no activity at all. The attacks seemed to happen most often in the morning, after the Saracens had prayed themselves into a fighting frenzy, and then the arrows flew and the siege engines fired and on they came. Yet try as they might, they could not break us.

Weeks became months, with no break in this pattern. One morning, a second large force of Saracens joined the Saladin’s army, another five thousand men by Sir Basil’s count. So many tents dotted the plains below us that it was nearly impossible to see a bare spot of ground. When this new group arrived, the enemy lines were strangely silent, and about the only time there appeared to be any activity at all was during their daily prayers.

Each day the tension grew. The anticipation kept us all on edge and gnawed at the men inside the walls. Arguments became more frequent, fights broke out, and I heard the mumbles and whispers of men who felt cornered. They often talked of sneaking away before being caught or killed. Such thoughts never entered my mind, for despite the tension, I’d come to believe that somehow we would prevail. Sir Thomas reminded everyone that the Saladin could not sustain this siege forever, not with the Lionheart to the east, by now threatening Jerusalem. We spent hours discussing strategy, and debating whether the King would send aid or push on toward the interior. Some believed the King would return at any moment, but one night, after mass, I overhead Sir Thomas tell Sir Basil that no aid was likely to come. The Lionheart would gladly sacrifice Acre if he could fulfill his dream of returning the Holy City to Christian control.