The Seal (3 page)

Two days before,
the armies of Hama and Damascus and the army of Mameluks began to fill the moat
with the bodies of dead men and horses. Drummers on camels had encouraged the
enemy on ladders over the walls and a thousand engineers protected by storms of
arrows were sent to mine the twelve towers. The Accursed tower fell first, then
the gate of St Nicholas by catapults and battering rams. The
army
of infidels began pouring into the city and were
forced back after a
long battle with the Temple and the Hospital. Torches and the last of the oil
were thrown into the moat then to burn the rotting carcasses and to make a wall
of flame that sent plumes of smoke into the parched air. The troops of the
commune of Acre dragged what had not been killed in battle to the ramparts, cut
off first the hands and then the heads and threw them into the conflagration.
It so enraged the enemy that by that night the Saracens had once again breached
the fortifications and the Franks were forced to take refuge behind the inner
wall, upon which the Templar garrison now stood perched.

At the northern
end of the battlements, where the water lapped at the seawall with tempers of
its own, the Templars heard the sound of the great kettledrum and a battery of
trumpets and cymbals, and they knew this to be the sultan’s word for the final
on-fall to begin. The Order of Hospitallers and the Teutons, the Venetians and
Pisans knew it also, and what was left of them began to make for the stairs,
leaving the troops of the commune of Acre to stand alone.

‘Shall we go?’
Etienne said.

Marcus made a
shrug. ‘Almaric’s troops are gone . . . the King’s brother will be halfway to
Cyprus by now!’

Jacques de
Molay, all frown and sharp eyes, lifted his head over the wall a little. ‘More
siege towers have arrived, tall enough to reach heaven, and a hundred columns
of a thousand men each. Sixty-six times a thousand on horses!’ He took up his
weapons.

Etienne glanced
upwards to where another wave of lit arrows curved and poised poetically before
falling with a whish over the city. There were more cries of agony from the
walls and from below and the smell of burning flesh filled Etienne’s nostrils.
‘What shall men tell of this day?’

Jacques raised a
frown-full brow. ‘They shall say the Temple deserted the people and left them
to die . . . They will say nothing of the Devilry between the Pisans and the
Genoese who took sides against one another and made pacts with the heathens,
nor of the truces that were broken. Nor shall they speak of Brother William’s
effort to make the people listen to the sultan’s conditions. They called him a
traitor! Now look at them! Forty days of this . . . and to end it all, a
massacre! They could have paid a piece of gold for every citizen. It was a
small price.’

Etienne took off
his metal cap and moved a hand to where a wound had made itself under his nose
guard. He wiped his brow. ‘You believe they shall say this?’

‘I know they
will.’ Jacques turned his old eyes on him. ‘It is the way of men to find
blame.’

‘Well then, it
would seem to me a fine thing to remain upon this wall,’ Etienne said to them.

‘What!’ Marcus
gave a snort. ‘Even the Hospitallers have deserted their own castle! See how
they run with their skirts between their precious legs? The towers are left to
fall! How may you fight, one man against the world?’

‘One man or a
thousand, is it not the same?’

‘Well, for my
part I shall not join you to die for this sorry lot, these are a conquered
people and I have heathen souls to kill!’ Crouching, he gathered his weapons to
him. But he was sent down upon his belly by the sound of thunder as balls of
fire were shot from the black oxen over the walls. They exploded in the streets
and set the world aflame.

‘Look!’ Jacques
said. ‘The marshal has signalled our retreat . . . this is not a day for
fancies. Tonight Commander Thibaud will take a galley to Sidon. He will need
good men.’

Ahead of them
the knights of the Order began to move for the stairs.

Etienne did not
immediately make to follow but stood straight instead upon the rampart with his
face to a world swallowed up into the darkness of Mahomet. Into the cold throat
of the enemy, that menace lit by a throng of torches, Satan’s body

–
that
much he was sure of – covering the plains and the
mountains of the land. He had felt this one time elsewhere, standing on the lip
of another rampart, gazing over a world in ruins. Now it was his wish to tempt
an arrow or a dagger, or to bend over the wall and allow his body to fall into
that field of battle. To die among the heathen, in that elegant moment, a
champion of Christ! Such would be a worthy end after a lifetime, it seemed to
him, of war.

He was paused
only a moment considering these whims of his will and of his heart and the
spell was broken by the call of his brothers on the stairs, and with it his
spirit was returned to him and he was prevented from making good his sinful
thoughts of disobedience. ‘My will is not my own!’ he yelled over the drums to
the vast enemy, by way of apology.

By the time he
was on the ground, ducking arrows and making his swift way through smoke and
burnt bodies, Marcus and Jacques had already drawn together with the brothers
of his Order.

At that point
there arose a despondent cry from the inhabitants and troops of the commune of
Acre that remained upon the walls. They knew that a Templar retreat served
better than a blowing of the horn or a ringing of bells. It was a silent mark
of the hopelessness of their condition.

The Templars
were not halfway down the street that ran to the quays when trumpets deafened
their ears and a voice was shouted into the night behind them: ‘
The
wall is breached! The wall is breached, God help us!’

But the
brothers, having orders to abandon the fight, walked southward, unhurried and
without a backward glance, while all around them lay remnants of a city
abandoned in haste. Only two days before there had been merchants, pilgrims,
artisans, diplomats and their families stumbling over one another with their
belongings falling from their hands. Behind them the scribes of king and regent
had dropped parchments and scrolls that now lay scattered about the streets to
be trampled upon.

Jacques stooped
to take a scorched one in his hand and looked at it squinting as he walked.
‘Look at this . . . and to think how closely they guarded their secrets! A
divided city, one side against the other, each defending only its own castles
and quarters, each side suspicious of its neighbour, could never conquer a
force such as this!’ He let the parchment fall.

Marcus’s voice
was full of sneer, his short legs marking a pace beside Jacques. ‘Days ago they
gave chase to their own shadows, that was a merriment to see! Today most are
drowned in the bay and tomorrow what is not dead will go to the markets at
Damascus. The only good thing to come of it, my brothers, shall be that in a
week a slave will fetch no more than a drachma!’

Etienne took a
glance at Marcus’s smoke-stained face. Such words were spoken for the most part
of Christians at the hands of infidels and this grew a burden upon his heart.
But a greater burden pressed upon him – the knowledge that all things
were changed, since to walk away from this battle was to admit defeat, and this
defeat, added to every other, meant that soon they must walk away from Christ’s
kingdom, as they were now doing, upon His blood-soaked soil in which lay buried
all who had struggled and died to secure it. He looked around him at the
darkened corners. These are strange thoughts for a knight of the Temple!
he
told himself and looked instead to his task of walking,
one limb after another, with his brothers beside him, mere shadows scraping iron
feet over the cobblestones.

They caught up
to the knights of the sword of St Lazarus. Those of St Thomas were not far
ahead. To their left, they were coming upon the English knights of Syria, and
the knights, sergeants, and squires of the Hospital. To their right those of
their
own Order. All of them headed for the sanctuary of the
Temple castle. Behind them morning broke
blood-red
and
angry through the smoke.

There was heard
a cry then and the world erupted in activity.

Etienne spun
around and stopped a weapon with his shield, gritting his teeth, making a push
that of itself little moved the force that seemed as big as a mountain and
twice as broad behind it. It was a Mameluk patched over one eye with his mouth
making a smile in his dark face that showed no teeth but issued from it one
great yell. Etienne veered to one side in time to avoid the lunge, but Marcus
had come upon the man’s blind side and now brought his blade down wide and low
to cut off the man’s leg. It fell to the ground with a thud and the great
infidel landed upon his own bone and skin and blood, with the life pumping out
onto the streets like a river.

A number of
knights had paused to observe this little battle. They now walked on, leaving
the three Templars.

Etienne put away
his blade, but Marcus stood holding his, looking down upon the infidel in his
misery. The man was making a strangled cry in the throat and mumbling words
Etienne did not know.

‘He wishes to
meet with Allah,’ Marcus told Etienne. ‘Who am I to prevent it?’ He made an
elegant sweep with his sword, cut off the man’s head and was covered with blood
for his trouble.

He came to
Jacques and Etienne wiping the sockets of his eyes with contentment.

Etienne looked
on this enjoyment from butchery with gravity. He scratched below the metal of
his helmet and to Marcus he said, ‘
You
are God’s
merciful angel! Much more of this and you shall make blunt your blade.’

The smile on the
other man’s face broadened. ‘God shall see to the sharpness of my blade, my
dear Etienne, since I am at His work of sending heathen souls to hell!’ He
clasped a hand over Etienne’s shoulder and made a grunt of pleasure. ‘Ahh, St
Hilary be praised! I am full of satisfaction for it!’

Near the Genoese
quarter they came upon a man outside the tailor’s shop holding an infant boy no
older than five springs with a knife to his throat. Both man and child stared
at the three Templars moving past.

Etienne for his
part made a pause, and the others walked ahead until they realised he was not
with them.

This is
something! Etienne thought, considering the moment; the steel blade on the boy’s
neck, the old man’s face.

‘Leave it,
Etienne, we are left behind,’ Marcus told him. ‘At any rate, this is a show for
our benefit.’

The tailor
mumbled and then spat, ‘Maktub! ’
at
him while his
knife dug into the boy’s neck and drew blood.

Etienne looked
behind him, Marcus was right, the air was sweet with the smell of blood and
burning hair and the world was erupting in screams and wails. Above, there were
outlines on the rooftops that came and went. This peace in which they found
themselves was a short-lived creature.

‘What does he say,
Marcus?’ Etienne asked him.

‘Destiny,’
Marcus answered. ‘Maktub, destiny, Etienne! It means they were dead the day Al
Ashraf arrived before the walls. It means this infant is already dead, it would
feign life!’

Etienne could
not deny it, he had seen so much blood: women and children slaughtered, whole
cities and fields of battle deep with bodies! There was no reason why one more
should concern him, why he should lose his breath and mislay his calmness, why
his temper should be confused over one more child. But his soul had met a
change upon that wall between Acre and Satan, and a memory long forgotten had
risen up in his mind of another child such as this that now stared hate and
fear into him.

‘Give us the
infant!’ He was annoyed now at himself and at the man for delaying him. ‘We are
to take him to the Temple, beyond the gates!’

Marcus, with an
indolent eye, translated from the Frankish language to the Arab tongue, but the
old man shook his head, in his own eyes defiance, as if to say, ‘This life, at
least, is mine to dispose of as I wish.’

Etienne gave a
sigh. He could not let it go now. Then he surprised even himself, for he made a
shout, ‘Give him to me!’ and moved, between one thought and another, upon the
old man, pushing him aside and scooping up the boy with a hand and away from
the knife.

The tailor fell
and began a dull, woeful cry into his hands. Meanwhile the boy with eyes wild
and green struggled and kicked against Etienne, biting him on the exposed part
of his wrist where his glove did not reach. Etienne set the child down and took
him by the shoulders and bent a stare of fear into those eyes, into the centre
of each iris. He let go of the child and began to walk away, nursing the bitten
hand. But he could not keep from turning around to see the child give a look to
the old man, who, between wails, said something to him in their language. The
infant hesitated and then turned away, making a run to reach him and to grasp
his mailed leg as if it were the centre of the world.

He felt this
newfound love a strange thing and had no com-pulsion to return it, so he pulled
the boy from him and told him, ‘Come!’, being all he could say.