Джеймс Миченер - The Source

“Do you guarantee safe-conduct for all to the city of Acre?”

“Your family and four,” the scar-headed captain repeated. “The rest sold as slaves.”

“No.”

The envoy turned abruptly and strode from the castle, making no boast about how quickly it would fall. That night the cave was set afire, and after the blaze had eaten away the supporting logs the gate towers swayed toward the Mamelukes, hesitated, than came apart and crashed grotesquely in the dust. The Crusaders retreated into the central keep while the methodical Mamelukes put their slaves to building the warm rocks into a roadway, and their engineers to the task of pushing the engines of war into position until turbaned faces could look almost into the narrow windows of the keep. The defenders had lost two cisterns and most of the animals but they still controlled the David Tunnel, and their remaining tower contained enough food to sustain them for months in case a miracle was on its way across the Mediterranean. But no ships were coming; the futile Italians had been the last gasp of the crusading effort, and they had destroyed, not helped.

So at the start of the sixth week the defenders of Ma Coeur were contracted into the final tight knot of men and women protecting themselves inside the enormous walls of the keep itself, and it could be only a matter of time until one of the great Mameluke engines was maneuvered against some door. So sure were the Muslims of victory that they no longer sent miners beneath the walls. Ma Coeur must now fall through sheer brute pressure.

It was fascinating, hideously fascinating, to watch the first wooden turtle edge forward to perform a new function. It crept ahead until the men beneath could place their hands against the keep. Rocks from above careened down the slanting walls and spurted outward, but the roof of the turtle was so constructed that the boulders skimmed across the top, killing men standing behind but not those crouching beneath. Next Greek fire was poured on the machine, but the Mamelukes had covered this turtle with the bloody hides of freshly slaughtered cattle, so the wood did not burn—and the flames were extinguished with vinegar. And when the turtle had crept into position ropes were passed back and lashed to one of the great assault towers, and by pulling from the turtle and pushing from behind the enormous engine was edged into position.

A crash. A scream. A cry of “Over here!” and Crusaders rushed to intercept the Mamelukes who had stormed their way into the keep—twenty of them, forty, dropping down from the tower.

“Protect the gate!” Volkmar shouted, and knights converged suddenly from all sides, fighting the powerful invaders hand to hand; and gaspingly the forty-three Mamelukes were slain and the keep was spared; so that again at midnight the fires of Ma Coeur could be seen at Acre, where men prayed both for the defenders and for themselves.

Before dawn the defenders beat back that first enemy tower and toppled it into the courtyard, killing many slaves, but with daylight the Mamelukes moved forward two other turtles which in turn started drawing two new towers against the keep. But when these were in position no assault was made, for the turtles crept along the wall to new positions from which they drew up three additional towers, until the keep was ringed. “They will come at us from all sides,” young Volkmar said, more with a boy’s interest in mechanical things than with fear.

The castle priest, looking at the ominous towers, knew that this day must mark the end of the siege and he summoned Count Volkmar and his family to the roof, where they looked out upon the glorious fields of the Galilee, red and gold in their spring flowers. The olive trees, in which the Mameluke had staked his innumerable tents, were silvery gray, and in the distance beyond the spires and minarets of Acre gleamed the blue Mediterranean. It was an April day, the kind that had always made the hearts of men glad in this region, and the priest told the knights and their ladies, “Beloved children of Christ, we have come to the day when we shall meet God Almighty face to face. We have fought well. We have been crusaders of the spirit, and if there are among you those who ask, ‘Why has this tragedy overtaken us?’ I cannot explain, but centuries ago that great man St. Augustine, surveying a similar period, spoke thus to all who are perplexed: ‘For the world is like an olive press, and men are constantly under pressure. If you are the dregs of the oil you are carried away through the sewer, but if you are true oil you remain in the vessel. But to be under pressure is inescapable. Observe the dregs, observe the oil, and choose, for pressure takes place through all the world: war, siege, famine, the worries of state. We all know men who grumble under these pressures and complain, but they speak as the dregs of oil which later run away to the sewer. Their color is black, for they are cowards. They lack splendor. But there is another sort of man who welcomes splendor. He is under the same pressure, but he does not complain. For it is the friction which polishes him. It is the pressure which refines and makes him noble.’”

As the priest finished these words the Mameluke general waved his ebony baton and the final pressure against Ma Coeur commenced, but with an additional terror for which the Crusaders were not prepared. The mangonels and sheitanis they knew, and when the latter began lobbing bundles of burning fagots onto the roof Count Volkmar helped his men throw down the fiery embers, but in addition to these ordinary machines the Mamelukes had brought a special weapon: a corps of drummers banging nearly a hundred drums of various sizes and constructions, all with animal skins drawn tightly across reverberating heads, and as the soldiers and the slaves began their final push against the walls these drums thundered a wild beat of encouragement and gave a sense of inevitability to the stormy scene, while from the captured basilica bells clanged furiously to mock the doomed Christians.

In the first terrifying burst of sound Count Volkmar ran back to the center of the roof, where the priest and the women waited, and throwing himself on his knees, cried, “Good Father, bless us now,” and above the throbbing of the drums the priest intoned his last benediction: “Forgiving Jesus,” his thin voice came, scarcely audible above the thunder of drum and bell, “accept our souls this day. In our castle we have been a Godly family and each man has trusted his brother. We have fought as we can, and in our last hour we find great love in the presence of each other. King Jesus, accept us as we are.”

From behind came a cry: “They are upon us!”

The fight was hideous. Each of the five towers crawled with archers who fired point-blank at the Crusaders, often from a distance of inches, while powerful Mameluke swordsmen, intoxicated by the drums, leaped like animals from the towers and swept the turrets with their scimitars. This day there were to be no prisoners, not even women to be sold as slaves, for the general had determined to wipe from the earth this annoying castle.

Count Volkmar would have preferred making his last stand on the ramparts, but the wildly charging Mamelukes forced him below, and with the increased tempo of the drums echoing in his ears he found his wife standing quietly with her son, keeping his hand in hers lest he join the battle. “Let the boy fight with me,” the count cried and he stooped to lift a sword from the hand of a dead knight, and while he was in this position three Mamelukes leaped into the room and stabbed him many times, so that he fell forward without having struck a blow. His death prevented him from seeing the Mamelukes swarm upon his wife and son, after which they sought out the inner rooms, launching a systematic slaughter of the remaining women. As this was happening the first group of drummers climbed the towers and came into the keep, where, over the dead Volkmars, they beat out their triumphant rhythms while bells clanged brazenly from all remaining steeples. Thus ended the Crusades at Ma Coeur. In blood the iron men of Germany had come and in blood they went.