Brethren: An Epic Adventure of the Knights Templar (50 page)

“Into the mountains,” replied Baybars, carrying his son into the pavilion. Since Baraka had left the harem and the clutches of his wives, he had begun to find the child an oddly pleasant distraction from the strains of leadership.

“Why?”

Baybars, ignoring the eunuchs, bodyguards and advisors in the pavilion, set his son down on a rug and picked up a silver dish of figs. “I’ll show you,” he said, crouching down and putting a fig into Baraka’s little fist. He placed three of the fruits in a triangle on the rug. “This is Antioch,” he told his son, pointing to the fig at the bottom right-hand point of the triangle. “The one above is the Syrian Gates, where Kalawun is going.” He pointed to the apex of the triangle. “Kalawun will prevent any aid coming to the Christians from the north.” He moved his finger to the fig at the bottom left. “This is the port of St. Symeon. I’ve sent a second battalion to capture it. They will prevent any reinforcements coming from the coast.”

“What will you do, father?”

Baybars smiled. Taking the fig that was Antioch, he popped it into his mouth. Baraka laughed.

“My Lord Sultan!”

Baybars rose as a Bahri warrior entered the pavilion.

The warrior bowed. “Someone is coming from the city.”

“Who?” said Baybars, glancing down at Baraka, who was squashing the remaining figs into the rug with his fist.

“A company, led by their constable. They came out of the northwest gate.”

Baybars and his advisors followed the warrior out of the pavilion. A tiny snake of torchlight was making its way down from the walls where other fires were now flickering. “Go and meet them,” said Baybars to the warrior. “Disarm them and bring them to me. I expect they think to negotiate.”

“I have come to parley!” insisted Simon Mansel as he was marched forcibly into the royal pavilion by two Mamluk warriors, his troop of guards having been rounded up, their weapons taken. “You will free me at once if you wish to hear my terms!” He repeated this last demand in broken Arabic.

“Your terms?” questioned Baybars, his deep voice causing Mansel to fall silent and look warily up at the throne. Baybars studied the corpulent constable as he was brought before the dais. The man was clad in a sumptuous silk robe and turban and was dripping with jewels. “I do not believe you are in a position to offer any.” When Mansel looked uncertainly at him, Baybars gestured to one of his staff. “Translate my words to the constable.”

The translator came forward and spoke.

“Now tell him to kneel,” added Baybars.

Mansel looked affronted by the request, but had no choice but to comply as the two Mamluk warriors holding his arms pushed him to the ground. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a small boy crouching behind a mesh screen to one side of the tent. As he turned, the boy stuck out his tongue and giggled. Ignoring the boy, Mansel looked to the translator.

“Tell your sultan that I have arranged for wagons of gold and jewels to be delivered to him if he stands down and leads his army from our walls. He has until tomorrow to accept these terms. It will be my only offer.”

Baybars’s expression didn’t change as the translator spoke. “Gold? You think to placate me with such a worthless offering?”

“Worthless?” scoffed Mansel, when the question was relayed. “I can assure you that…”

“Gold means nothing to me,” said Baybars, not waiting for the constable’s words to be translated. “There is only one thing that will turn my army aside and will secure your life and the lives of every man, woman and child in your city. Surrender. Tell your knights to open the gates of the city, the city the Franks took for themselves one hundred and seventy years ago. Tell them to lay down arms and let us in. Once we have taken the city, you will leave, all of you, and never return. Antioch is lost to you; to all Christians.”

“I will not accept those terms!” Mansel began in an outraged tone. “There are thousands within the city. Where will they go? I cannot simply ask them all to leave their homes, their livestock! What about the sick? The young and infirm? Take what I have offered and be satisfied with…”

He trailed off as Baybars rose from the throne and motioned to one of the Bahri standing by the entrance. Mansel didn’t understand what was said, but he flinched with fear as Baybars drew one of his sabers and came down the steps of the dais toward him.

“If you hurt me you will get nothing! Nothing, tell him!” he cried to the translator.
“Tell him!”

There was a noise behind him. Mansel looked around to see his guards being forced into the tent by seven Bahri warriors.

“Take my son out of here,” Baybars ordered one of his eunuchs.

Baraka cried out and kicked at the attendant as he was picked up and carried from the tent.

Mansel’s six guards looked fearful as they were lined up in front of the dais, glancing uncertainly to the constable. The Bahri forced the troop to their knees.

“What are you doing?” said Mansel to Baybars.

The blue-eyed sultan didn’t reply, but walked up to the first of the guards, a young man with wide brown eyes and a freckled face. Grabbing a fistful of the man’s hair, Baybars wrenched back his head and sliced the edge of his saber across the man’s throat. Blood spurted in a wide arc, splattering the steps of the dais.

“Dear God!” cried Mansel as the young man slumped sideways, blood pumping from his neck.

He hadn’t even had a chance to scream. The remaining guards were shouting at the sultan and at the Bahri. Two, in terror, tried to run, but they were soon pushed back into their places by the soldiers who came forward, blades drawn.

Baybars turned to Mansel, his saber streaked with blood. Some of it had sprayed onto his yellow-gold cloak, obscuring the inscriptions from the Koran. “Do you concede to my demands? Or will you let more of your men die? It is up to you. The lives of your men for your city. That is what I offer you.”

Mansel didn’t need a translator to know what was said. “You heartless bastard,” he said in a low, bitter voice.

The translator went to speak, then looked at Baybars and thought better of it.

Baybars went to another of Mansel’s guards. This one did scream as the sultan pulled back his head, exposing his throat to the blade. He struggled, trying to twist away, but two Bahri came forward to hold him still.

“Your man or your city?” demanded Baybars, looking to Mansel. “Which is more important to you? Decide!”

The translator spoke quickly.

“I will not be threatened like this!” insisted Mansel.

“Captain!”
shouted the guard.

Baybars’s eyes narrowed as the translator told him the constable’s response. His jaw tightened as he slashed the blade across the guard’s throat. This one took longer to die, writhing around on the floor beside his fallen comrade, gurgling spouts of blood and pressing his hands vainly to his cut throat.

Mansel averted his gaze.

“Finish it,” said Baybars gruffly, gesturing to the agonized guard.

One of the Bahri stepped forward and stabbed down.

“I’ll see you burn in hell for this!” said Mansel hoarsely to Baybars.

“Do you accept my terms?”

“I do not!”
roared the constable.

His response resulted in a third dead guard.

“Enough!” snapped Baybars. He strode to Mansel, his saber dripping blood.

Mansel tried to scrabble to his feet, but the Bahri were on him in seconds.
“No!”
he cried as Baybars towered over him, grabbing his hair. “My wife is a cousin of Prince Bohemond’s princess!” he shouted in Arabic. “My ransom is worth more than my death to you!”

“Only your city is worth anything to me. Surrender it now, or I will cut your head from your body and have it tossed over Antioch’s walls to show your citizens the price of refusal.” Baybars pressed the blade to the squirming, roaring man’s throat.
“Surrender!”

“I accept!”
shrieked Mansel, as the blade cut into him. A hot trickle of blood dribbled down his neck. “I accept your demands! I surrender the city!”

“Take him to the walls,” growled Baybars, stepping back from the constable and addressing the Bahri. “Have him relay this command to his garrison. Ready the men. We will go in tonight.”

With that, Simon Mansel, Constable of Antioch, was marched up to St. George’s Gate where, in a tremulous voice, he ordered the garrison of the city, and all the garrisons of the military Orders, to stand down.

A short time later, while Baybars was cleaning his hands in a basin, one of the Bahri warriors he had sent to escort Mansel entered. The bodies of the guards had been removed and the eunuchs were on their knees, cleaning blood from the dais steps.

“My Lord Sultan.”

Baybars reached for a cloth to dry his hands. “Is it done?”

“Mansel gave the order, as requested.”

“Have they opened the gates?”

“No, my lord,” replied the Bahri warrior. “The garrison of Antioch refused Mansel’s order. They will not surrender the city.”

S
imon picked up a brown, wrinkled orange from the rations that had been laid out. “How long is this going to go on for?” he said suddenly, turning to Will.

Will was surprised by the abruptness of his tone. “If Mansel manages to persuade the commanders to surrender it might be over soon.” He seated himself on a barrel. His watch had just finished and he was exhausted. Outside, dawn was breaking. A pale light was starting to fill the doorway, but the circular, windowless chamber at the base of the tower would remain gloomy for the rest of the day. “I’m not sure he will though,” he added, yawning.

Twice, Constable Mansel had been led up to the gates and twice the city’s garrison had refused his demand to surrender. Yesterday, the men on the walls had watched, warily, as the Mamluk army had started to spread out around the city, some battalions moving north toward the river, others south to the slopes of the mountain. One regiment had set up their engines facing the two towers occupied by Lambert’s company.

Simon dropped the orange onto the table. “I’m not talking about the battle,” he said roughly. “I’m talking about you and me.”

Will frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing,” muttered Simon. “Forget I said anything.”

“No,” said Will, crossing to Simon. “If you have something to say, then say it.”

Simon lowered his eyes. “Really. It’s nothing.”

“Yes, it is,” said Will harshly. “You haven’t spoken to me in days. Every time I come near you, you make some excuse to leave. You’re still blaming me, aren’t you? For us being here?”

“Don’t,” said Simon, shaking his head. “I don’t want to fight.”

“I never asked you to come, Simon.”

“No, I got posted, remember?”

“Not to Antioch, to Outremer. Back in Orléans I told you to stay if you didn’t want to come, but that I’d made up my mind.”

“To get Nicolas,” said Simon, nodding his head vigorously, “to get Everard’s book. That’s what you’d made up your mind to do. You didn’t come here to fight a war!”

“Well, I’m in one. And so are you.” Will thrust his finger toward the wall, beyond which was the Mamluk camp. “Those men killed my father. Perhaps even the one who hacked his head from his shoulders is out there.”

“You’ve been so cold,” said Simon quietly. “We don’t talk, or laugh like we used to.”

“I’m not exactly in a laughing mood.”

“You do with Robert and the others! I feel like I’m here on my own. You don’t know how frightening it is to know what’s out there and know you can’t fight it. You don’t know what it’s like to not be able to defend the people you…” Simon hung his head. “…people you care about.”

“Why avoid me if you feel so alone?”

Simon looked away, then back at him again. “I want to go back to the way things were.” He gave Will a tentative smile. “Like when you was teaching me to sword-fight in Paris.”

“I can’t go back.”

“Why?”

“Because I no longer have what I had then.”

“What you had then?” echoed Simon in a small voice.

“I had my father, or, at least, the chance of seeing him again. I had Elwen. I had no hatred inside me, either toward a man who was once my closest friend, or toward men I’ve never met. I didn’t know anything of war, or the…” Will trailed off, slumping on the barrel. “I didn’t know any of it,” he finished, looking up at Simon. “I had hope.”

“You can still have hope,” Simon insisted, going to him.

“Hope of what? I failed as a brother, as a son. I cannot go back to what I was before. There is nothing left for me there.”

“But what will you do? Stay here and fight and die?”

Will didn’t answer. Following Simon’s question was a long, wailing cry. Others joined it, swelling into a strident, relentless sound that pierced the dawn and their ears.

“What is it?” said Simon, turning pale.

“I don’t know.” Will ran for the stairs as he heard running footsteps and shouts from above. “The trumpets of the watch?”

His words were answered by a series of incoherent yells. Then something hit the walls. The whole tower shuddered with the impact and a shower of masonry came down in the street outside. Will started up the stairs.

“What do I do?” Simon shouted after him.

“Go to the horses.”

“Will!”

Will paused on the stairs and looked back. “What?”

Simon stared at him, then swallowed thickly and shook his head. “Nothing.” He stood there for a moment after Will had disappeared, until there was another violent thud against the walls and he hurried out into the street to the potter’s workshop as more dust and loose rock pattered down.

Will was racing up the stairs. “What’s happening?” he demanded of a sergeant coming down. “Are they attacking our section?”

“All sections, sir,” stammered the sergeant, hurrying past him. “They’re attacking all sections!”

Will hastened onto the battlements, where Robert, half dressed, was helping Lambert and two other knights prime the mangonel with one of the stones they had hauled up the side of the tower in slings. They were straining with the weight of it. Will ran to help, but was halted by the sight beyond the battlements. The Mamluks, who had moved into their assault positions under the cover of night, blanketed the plain and the mountain slopes in a seething mass of bright cloaks and turbans, horses, spears, ladders, rams and catapults.

As Will watched, the three mandjaniks closest to their section were fired, the beams whipping up to strike the crossbars, slinging three huge stones toward the wall between the two towers. They smashed into the stone, shaking the towers to their foundations and sending razor shards of rock flying. There was a cry from the adjacent tower and Will saw one of the knights go down, hit by this lethal debris. Garin was there, priming the espringale. Will came out of his shock and rushed to Robert and Lambert’s aid as Garin fired the engine, sending a javelin shooting into the heart of the Mamluk forces. Will didn’t wait to see if it hit anything, but grabbed one of the mangonel’s ropes and yanked the beam free.

All along the walls, with the exception of the precipitous mountain summit and the boggy borders of the Orontes where the terrain was impassable, the assault had begun. The thumps and crashes of stones were as steady and resonant as the drumbeats, echoing through the valley, one after another, like giant rolls of thunder. Pots of fiery naphtha were hurled onto the walls, setting men and siege engines alight. Other Mamluk companies catapulted flaming barrels of pitch from their engines that flew up from the ground like comets to explode on tower tops in blossoms of fire that lit up the dawn sky. Hollow arrowheads filled with naphtha and black sulfur burst into flame as they sailed through the air. Men crumpled to their knees, struck by these missiles, others fell screaming from the walls, hair and flesh burning, and, on one section, a whole company of Hospitallers were crushed by a stone.

Antioch’s forces kept up a valiant defense: cutting down the ladders the Mamluks set against the walls; firing volleys of arrows into the infantry who answered with clay bullets shot from slings; hurling boulders into the cavalry to break horses and men.

But Justinian’s walls, although Godlike in their proportions, were not enough, alone, to hold back a determined force. Over the centuries they had yielded to the Persians, the Arabs, the Byzantines, the Turks and the Franks. That they would yield again was inevitable. It was simply a question of when.

“We need some men up there!” yelled Lambert, pointing up the mountain slopes to a section half a mile or so away, which was empty of soldiers. The Mamluks were concentrating seven mandjaniks on it and already a sizable hole had appeared in the wall’s center, although too high to allow the waiting infantry through. More Mamluks, seeing the opportunity, were heading in that direction, led by a group of cavalry, wearing yellow-gold cloaks.

“Bahri!” shouted one of the older knights on the adjacent tower, pointing at the riders.

“Dear God, it’s him,” murmured Lambert, going to the parapet. His gaze was on a large man clad in gold robes and gleaming armor, riding a black charger at the head of the Royal Guard.

“Who?” panted Will, hauling another stone into the mangonel’s cavity and jumping back as two knights fired it.

“The Crossbow,” answered Lambert. “Where’s our damned troops?” he roared over the city-side of the battlements, where people were watching fearfully from the windows of their houses. Down below, he caught sight of Simon in the doorway of the potter’s workshop.

“Saddle the horses!” he shouted to the groom.

Simon disappeared at once.

Will went to the edge and watched Baybars ride up the slope toward the breach. He felt a strange thrill looking at the Mamluk sultan; he couldn’t tell whether it was fear, or anticipation. Some citizens on the ramparts that led up to the citadel had seen the danger and were jumping up and down, waving their arms and shouting down to Lambert’s company.

Lambert muttered beneath his breath.

Another hole appeared in the wall as a stone went sailing through and landed in the pasture beyond.

“What do we do?” shouted Will, ducking as a hail of arrows came whizzing over his head.

Lambert was looking around helplessly. “Shit!”

Will grabbed him by the shoulders. “Lambert! What do we do?”

“We go up there,” said a voice behind them.

Will turned to see Garin. His hair was plastered to his head with sweat and his face and mantle were filthy. His sword was in his hand.

“We get the horses,” Garin told Will and Lambert, “and we go up there and fight them back until more men get here.”

“It’s too late!” said Robert. “Look!”

The three of them turned to see the wall crumbling. There was a distant roaring sound as it fell, taking two towers with it in a soaring pall of dust and rubble.

“Mother of God,” said Lambert in a faint voice, as the Mamluks, led by Baybars Bundukdari, surged forward into the billowing clouds.

“They’re through! They’re through!” one of the knights started shouting over the battlements. A trumpet was blown from a Hospitaller company that had also seen the towers crumble. Others took up the sound and led it around the walls. The Mamluks were coming. The city had fallen.

Lambert came to his senses. “Down!” he shouted to the knights and sergeants. “To the horses!”

Leaving the engines, the company raced through the tower, pausing to grab helmets and shields from one of the chambers. They ran out into the rubble-strewn street where Simon was leading three of the horses he had managed to saddle. He was pale, but talking softly to the animals who were tossing their heads and snorting. Four of the sergeants ran into the large workshop to help saddle the others. The potter was there, his wife and three daughters huddled behind him.

“What is happening?” he demanded.

Lambert whirled on him. “Get to safety, you fool!”

“They’re coming!” warned one of the knights, pointing up the mountain.

Looking up to where the knight was pointing, the group of Templars and the potter and his family saw the Mamluk heavy cavalry fanning out across the slopes. They would hit the city from different points. In their gold, scarlet and purple cloaks they looked like streams of lava pouring from a volcano. Some carried torches and bows, but most of their long, gleaming swords were inlaid with gold and covered with Arabic inscriptions.

The potter grabbed his terrified wife and daughters and bundled them up the stairs through a trapdoor at the back of the workshop, which he slammed shut behind him. Other people, who had come out into the streets, began to run. Cries of terror rose as those clustered at the windows of houses saw the Mamluks thundering toward the city, scattering sheep and cutting down families who had been making their way up the slopes to the citadel.

Will realized that his hands were shaking. He wrapped one of them around the hilt of his falchion and the quakes ceased. “Come on!” he shouted, as much to himself as anyone else. Running to a horse, he hauled himself into the saddle. A knight passed him a shield. Garin and Lambert followed suit, as did two others, taking two more mounts from the sergeants.

“Where do we go?” shouted one knight to Lambert. “Where’s the front line?”

The young officer, white and tight-lipped, turned in his saddle. “We are the front line!” He raised his sword as the first Mamluks reached the streets ahead.
“Deus vult!”
He kicked his heels into the horse and charged forth to meet them, sword whirling.

Will heard Simon shout his name as he followed with Garin and the other two knights. He realized that he wasn’t wearing a helmet, but it was too late to do anything about that now. He raised his sword and the first light of the rising sun was caught in the blade. It was a Scottish blade, born to lochs and moors and rain, far from these dusty, sun-bleached mountains. It was a clan blade, wielded by his father and grandfather. Tears were snatched from his eyes as he urged his horse on and he found himself crying out as one of the Bahri, gold cloak flying, came rushing to meet him.
“For the Campbells! For the Campbells!”

The impact was brutal. All those practice runs on the jousting field were nothing when compared to it. A controlled blow designed to unhorse an opponent could never feel the same as one intended to kill. Thrown backward, Will would have been tossed from his saddle if his knees hadn’t gripped the horse’s flanks with all his strength. As he pulled himself upright, dazed and bruised, the Mamluk had gone, there was a splintered gash through his shield and another Bahri warrior was almost upon him. He swung his sword around, leaned forward and struck. The falchion, with its rusted crossguard and frayed wire bands, caught the Mamluk on the upper arm, between his hauberk and vambrace. The man screamed as blood spurted from the wound and, losing control of his horse, he was carried off into the current of men who were flowing around Will, Garin and the other Templars and pressing into the city.

Among them was a large man on a black charger. Will caught a flash of blue eyes and bared teeth as Baybars swept past only yards to his left, then another blade came swinging toward him. It glanced off his shield and cut into the neck of his horse. As the animal reared, an armored Mamluk horse collided with it, knocking it sideways and throwing Will from the saddle. His stirrup snagged his foot and he cried out as his horse crashed down on top of him. Somewhere above him, Lambert screamed.