Authors: Unknown
Guillaume and the others had driven deep into the camp, where the tents were crowded close together. But in the moon’s deceptive light, they couldn’t properly see the guy ropes. The legs of the charging horses caught in the taut hemp lines, sending beasts and knights sprawling. One horse crashed into a tent, pulling it down around it. The horse’s rider fell sideways onto a sharpened tent spike that pierced through his neck. He lay there choking and convulsing, his leg crushed by his horse, as two Syrians fell on him and hacked him and the beast to death. Another knight, thrown from his horse, was staggering back from three advancing Mamluks, his ankle sprained from the fall, when he fell over one of the guy ropes and lurched backward into a cloth screen that had been erected around a latrine. The screen collapsed under his weight, and he smashed onto the boards covering the deep ditch that was filled with ten days’ worth of excrement. The boards shattered beneath him, sending him plunging into the stinking filth. He struggled there for a moment, grasping desperately at the slimy sides of the pit, until three arrows thumped into him, one after the other, and he collapsed back into the ditch, the weight of his armor taking him under the sludge with a cry that cut off instantly.
More knights were going down, falling foul of the hidden ropes. The Syrians were massing, many having had time to put on helmets and grab shields and weapons. Guillaume, fighting his way savagely through a group of Mamluks who were threatening to surround him, roared the retreat. The Orders of St. Thomas and St. Lazarus rallying around them, the Templars, following their banner, swept out of the camp of Hamah as quickly as they had entered.
Will had turned his horse, preparing to join the retreat, when he saw another knight flung from his saddle and catapulted over the head of his horse as the beast tangled in the ropes. The helmet was dislodged from the knight’s head in the fall. It was Robert. The other Templars were racing ahead, blind to his plight. A crowd of soldiers was charging up in their wake, baying for blood, enraged by the assault, seeking retribution for dead comrades.
Will kicked his horse toward Robert, ignoring a shout from Guillaume as he passed him. “Get up!” he yelled to the knight.
“Get up!”
Robert, scrabbling for his fallen sword, raised his head at the call. Snatching a look behind him at the charging mass of soldiers, he pushed himself to his feet and, forgetting his sword, ran toward Will. Will steered the armored horse past him, straight at the Syrians, who scattered. Then he pulled the beast round in a tight arc and raced back to Robert. With a huge force of effort, the knight just managed to haul himself up behind Will. Grasping the saddle grimly with both hands and fighting for purchase, Robert lay across it, bouncing awkwardly about as Will carried them off, back to the siege lines, where the ground was littered with corpses. The Furious stood, undefeated. Without the fire to aid them and with too little time allowed, the sergeants had been able to do no more than scar its wooden sides.
The raiding party rode swiftly across the bridge and into the outer enceinte, archers on the ramparts firing down at the Syrians and Mamluks who followed them from the camp. When the last man limped in, the bridge was raised, the gates shut and barred. The wounded were helped or carried back through the Gate of St. Lazarus, where they were tended by physicians or priests. Some of the men had captured Mamluk drums and shields, which would be hung on the walls to demoralize the Muslims. But these tokens were small victories that had come at a high price. Of the 152 cavalry and foot soldiers of the Orders of St. Thomas and St. Lazarus who had entered the camp of Hamah, 27 hadn’t returned. The Templars had lost four sergeants and eighteen knights, a terrible loss.
And at dawn, when word came to the Templars’ camp that the other sorties sent out had suffered similar losses, morale sunk lower still.
46
The Docks, Acre 18 MAY A.D. 1291
Garin pushed through the crowds, ignoring the angry calls of those he forced his way past. One bulky woman with a beefy red face refused to be moved by him.
“Wait your turn,” she said, wrinkling her nose as she looked him up and down; his worn, stained clothing, his glazed eyes.
Garin leaned toward her, lip curled in a snarl. “Move, you hag.” He attempted to elbow his way past, then felt someone grab his cloak. Whipping around, he saw an old man.
“How dare you speak to my wife in this way!” exclaimed the man. “I’ve a mind to—!”
Garin punched him in the face, sending him rocking back. As the beefy-faced woman cried out and went to her husband’s aid, Garin thrust past her and on through the press of bodies that packed the dockside.
It was approaching dawn, and the inky sea beyond the western mole reflected the first pale shades of morning. The calls of sailors echoed above the fretful murmuring of the restless throng, punctuated by the whimpering of infants. Most of the people on the harbor wall were women and children. There were few adult men, and those that were present were either very old or very rich. There was a sense of agitation, barely held in check. It was apparent in the panicked eyes of Acre’s last refugees, who crammed together, jostling and shivering in the morning air, all waiting for a boat to take them to safety. The young men, soldiers and knights now joined by farmers and laborers, were behind them on the walls, still fighting for the city, but over the past month hope had dwindled.
After several more night sorties had attempted to breach the Mamluk camp, none of which had been successful, Acre’s gates had been shut for the last time. Spirits lifted briefly when the young king of Cyprus and Jerusalem, Henry II, arrived by ship with two hundred cavalry and five hundred infantry. But when his attempts to negotiate with Sultan Khalil proved fruitless and the daily attacks continued without abate, the people’s newfound optimism began to fade. Since then, two of Acre’s twelve towers—the English Tower and the Tower of the Countess of Blois—had collapsed under the continuous bombardment, along with three sections of the outer wall, by the Gates of St. Anthony and St. Nicholas, and the King’s Tower. Yesterday morning, the rulers of Acre, those who hadn’t fled to Cyprus, had met in the council chambers of the royal palace and called for the final evacuation of the women and children.
After word had gone around, Acre’s last citizens made their way down to the docks, carrying what possessions they could. Their numbers had been swelling since the previous afternoon, most of them queuing on the dockside, waiting through the night. A trickle of boats had pulled out of the harbor, crammed with people, most of whom had lost everything and had no idea what they would do for food or shelter when they reached whatever shore they were bound for. Many had lived their whole lives in Acre. Leaving husbands, fathers and sons on the walls to hold back the ravenous horde that was clawing its way, brick by brick, through the defenses, these wives, daughters and mothers climbed into the boats, some clutching babies. Looking around for friends or neighbors, seeking comfort, they found only strangers with the same dust-streaked, haunted faces as their own. Now, as the sky lightened, turning from gray-white to pale pink, shedding light over the harbor, it was painfully clear that there were simply too many people and not enough ships.
Garin, panting for breath, finally reached the harbor wall, where the first rows of women were being helped into a Venetian merchant vessel. Paying no attention to those who called to him to move back and to wait his turn, he wrestled his way to the front, knocking into a small child, who began to cry. “Hey!” he shouted to one of the crewmen. “You!”
The crewman scowled at him, reaching out to take a woman’s arm as she stepped gingerly across the planks. “What do you want?” he said gruffly, his accent heavy and coarse.
“I need to get on your boat,” Garin shouted over the child’s wails.
The crewman laughed and turned to one of his fellows. Nodding his head toward Garin, he called to his comrade in Italian. Some of the women on the harbor wall, obviously Italians themselves, glanced at Garin and smirked; one giggled.
“I say you are funny-looking woman,” the crewman repeated in scornful English for Garin’s benefit. He started whistling a tune and helped another woman across.
Garin glared at him. “I’ve got money,” he growled, reaching into the bag that was slung over his shoulder and pulling out a shabby drawstring pouch.
“Then go buy yourself some courage and get back to the walls where you belong.”
The laughter and calls of agreement from the onlookers stung Garin’s ears. Rage shuddered inside him, but he could see he was wasting his time. Shoving the pouch into his bag, he stared down the dockside to where several more boats were lined up along the wall. One, not too far away, had men on board. It was a small vessel, barely more than a pinnace, but there was still room for more. He guessed it was probably a carrier, taking its passengers out to one of the few remaining larger galleys moored in the outer harbor. Leaving the jeers behind him, Garin pushed his way toward it. There were more women here, lingering around the wall, looking hopefully at the boat, but several men were standing in front of it with swords drawn, watching the shifting crowds warily. As Garin approached, the crowd ahead of him parted and a stooped old man with white hair, dressed in a black robe, came into view. He was aided by two men clad in purple and gold silks, bishops by the look of them; they were dripping with jewels. Garin recognized the man in black as the patriarch of Jerusalem, Nicholas de Hanape. He hastened along the wall as the patriarch was assisted into the vessel. When Garin reached it, one of the guards halted him with a firm hand in the chest.
“Let me buy passage,” Garin pleaded with the guard. “They’re not letting any men on board the others. I’m wounded.” He gestured vaguely to his leg. “I cannot fight.”
“You’re not getting on board,” said the guard firmly.
“For Christ’s sake, I’m begging you!”
The guard shook his head. “There’s a Templar ship, the
Falcon
,” he pointed along the dockside to where a large galley sat in the outer harbor, just off the crumbled eastern mole, alongside several others. “The captain’s done away with his mantle and has commandeered it. He’s accepting money for passage, so I’ve heard. But you’re going to need a lot to persuade him.”
“More than five gold?”
The guard arched an eyebrow. “Much more.”
Leaving the guards to push the desperate crowds back as the half-empty pinnace, with the white-faced patriarch and bishops on board, pushed off from the wall, Garin forced his way through the crush. Heading back into the city, he jogged through the streets, his mind working furiously. A lot of the people he was passing were obviously poor folk, unable to afford passage in the earlier evacuations. It would be pointless, he knew, to rob any of them. He cursed himself savagely for leaving it so late.
He had been drinking himself into a stupor for the past few weeks in a vain attempt to block out the horrendous noise of the attack; the thuds and crashes of stones, the war drums and battle cries, the fevered prayers, clanging bells and screams. But he had dug in to wait it out, believing, as many had, that the walls would hold. Last night he had surfaced from a drunken haze in a subdued brothel in the Pisan quarter to discover that the call for a citywide evacuation had gone out. Sick to his stomach, he gathered his few belongings and, with thoughts of France, of building a new life, crowding up his mind, had made his way to the docks. It hadn’t entered his head that he might not be able to leave.
Plumes of black smoke curled into the air from fires that burned untended. In the distance, Acre’s walls were jagged and scarred. The crumbled remains of the English Tower, just a broken spur of stone, pointed like a thin finger into the dawn. Pigs and goats, masterless, crowded the alleys in frightened packs. Houses stood empty. As Garin stumbled through the streets, three carts trundled slowly by, piled high with bodies, some burned and blackened, others missing limbs. Streams of people were hastening past him in the opposite direction, all heading for the docks. One woman, her hair flying loose and disheveled around her face, shouted at two children to keep up. Both were crying.
The woman, who held a baby bundled in her arms, dashed back to them. “You have to walk faster,” she snapped.
One, a small blond boy, cried harder. “I want Papa!”
The woman looked stricken for a moment, then crouched down. “Papa will follow us soon,” she said gently. “But we’ve got to find a boat first.” She kissed them both. “Now help Mama and be good boys.”
Garin watched them head off, the two boys hurrying behind her. He thought of calling out to the woman, of telling her that it was no use; she was too late and all the boats would soon be gone. But before he could open his mouth, they disappeared in the throng. He stood there, staring after them, considering their fate. If the walls broke and the Saracens came through, the woman would most likely face rape and death. She was too old to be enslaved and wouldn’t fetch a worthwhile sum in the markets. Her baby would be killed; it would die anyway without a mother to suckle it, and the boys would be taken as slaves. It would be the fate of thousands like them. Garin found little emotion in the thought, until his mind filled with an image of Rose.
He was almost certain she was still in the city. He had seen Elwen only two days ago, in a line of women hauling buckets of water and sand to help quell the fires, which sprang up daily as the Mamluks shot flaming arrows and Greek fire over the walls. She had been flushed and looked exhausted, dark circles under her eyes, her gown stained. She hadn’t seen him, but he had watched her for a while. Will and Elwen had done everything they could to keep him out of their lives. But that hadn’t stopped him believing that he was Rose’s father, or hoping that, one day, he could prove it to her. He wasn’t sure why he had this need; perhaps it was nothing more than spite, a simple wish to see Will suffer, as he himself had suffered. But he liked to think it was because he could love a child, and be loved in return.