Christian Cameron - The Long Sword

De Midleton had taken command of the gate. He was rallying all the Order’s men. We found Fra Peter, whose breathing was very difficult, a place to lie full length and we put him there as gently as we could manage. Miles and I were just looking at his wound when John the Turk appeared at the door — we were in one of the gate house towers, and it smelled like a charnel house. The smoke caught at our dry throats and made our stomachs burn, too — you know that feeling? When it feels like the smoke is in your gut?

‘Syr Midleton asks you!’ he shouted. But he had water — blessedly fresh water.

We drank before we ran back into the yard. Sabraham’s squire was speaking urgently to de Midleton, who turned as soon as he heard our sabatons on the cobbles.

‘It’s the legate,’ he said. ‘I can’t spare a man. Will you go?’

Marc-Antonio was still back at the ships. Or dead. Alessandro was with Nerio, and Juan’s squire, Ferdinando, was with his master’s corpse.

On the other hand, I could lay hands on three veteran archers, and John the Turk.

‘I’ll go,’ I said. We had the Cairo Gate’s stables by us and in less time than it takes a man to get armed, we had beautiful local horses for all the archers, and we were mounted in the yard. Ned Cooper and his mates had all strung their bows, and John had a panoply of looted Mamluk equipment.

We followed George.

We had heard fighting in the quarter behind the gate, and the cry of the Order; on horses, with George guiding us, we were there as quickly as we’d got mounted. I was amazed that we reached the place at all — I was so tired that when my horse stopped, I almost fell asleep inside my helmet and I was sure I couldn’t have lifted my sword.

We found a church, a Coptic church, a small, round church, unmistakably Christian. It was packed full. And on the steps outside stood the legate and Lord Grey and Sabraham and the two Greek knights, Giannis and Giorgos.

At the bottom of the broad steps stood twenty ‘crusaders’. They were English and Breton, Gascon and French. Or they might have been.

Two of the routiers were dead.

Even as we rode up by a street, another rout of brigands appeared out the alleys.

‘Burn it! Burn it!’ shouted the crusaders. ‘Death to the infidels!’

I saw d’Herblay and the Hungarian almost immediately. They were together, near the back of the crowd, and thus invisible to Sabraham, but the Hungarian’s long hair and the ribbon of pearls that confined it gave me my clues. And I knew d’Herblay. I would have known him anywhere, I think. And he was so arrogant he was wearing his surcoat.

But Fortuna was against me, and no sooner had my fatigue-addled head slowly produced their identities than d’Herblay turned, as if warned by Satan. He elbowed the Hungarian and the man looked back at me. He had a steel crossbow in his hand, the weapon the Italians call a Balestrino.

Three horse-lengths beyond the Hungarian, backlit by the lamps burning inside the church, the legate stood unarmed and unarmoured on the steps, with a wooden cross in his hand. He was shouting that these were Christians. In fact, I could see Moors and Moslems and Jews and Christians all huddled together on the portico, and more in the church behind.

‘Kill them all!’ roared the routiers. They pulled a man past the knights on the steps and butchered him, laughing.

Leering crusaders killed a teenage girl.

All this in two beats of my tired heart. The Hungarian raised his crossbow one-handed, but my horse was moving and he whirled — and shot.

Fortuna is a fickle mistress at the best of times. I was leaning forward on Gawain’s neck, my longsword reaching for the Hungarian’s neck, when he shot. His bolt struck the blade of my sword — and glanced away.

He parried my blow, which I confess was greatly weakened by the bolt, with the steel of his crossbow, and rolled off to my right, away from my horse.

The legate, either unaware that I was at hand, or believing that we were more routiers, suddenly plunged into the crowd. Giorgos endeavoured to cover him with his sword but the legate strode down into the mercenaries.

One of the bastards struck him with his spear haft — and he went down.

That was it for Sabraham, and for Fiore, and for Lord Grey. The men on the steps began to use force and Fiore led our party right into the backs of the routiers, the so-called crusaders.

They drove them from the square. I would not have imagined that I had more to give, that I could raise my sword. But I wanted d’Herblay.

I lost him. I was exhausted, and thirsty, and I can make other excuses, but I lost him as smoke swept over the little square in front of the church. Fighting caused men with torches to drop them, and Fiore was like an angel of the Lord, glowing in the flames. He tried to cut his way to the legate’s side.

Of course, we were killing crusaders, to save infidels and heretics.

I suppose we saved a hundred Greeks, and a handful of Jews and Moors. Many of them spat at me.

I wanted d’Herblay, but in that dark and smoky place, with the inferno all around us as Alexandria burned, what I got was Father Pierre. I can’t say I cut my way to him. I can’t even claim that I bravely decided to save my commander instead of getting my own revenge on the man who nearly broke my body.

I stumbled over him. All I can claim is that, God having given me this sign, I didn’t step over Father Pierre and try to shed d’Herblay’s blood. Instead, I looked down. But I knew — it’s hard to say why, with the smoke, the visor of my dented helmet, my fatigue — but I knew I had him. There was a flurry of violence — a man with a spear, and all I did was beat it away.

And then I sheathed my sword, raised Father Pierre in my arms and carried him into the church. He was crying.

I had seldom seen him cry. He had taken a bad blow, and his scalp was torn. But his face held more than suffering — I had never seen him without hope. His small face always beamed with something from inside, some special benison he brought to the world. But, that night in hell, it was gone.

He knelt before the altar and spread his arms and fell face forward, saying, ‘Forgive them Father, they know not what they do.’

Perhaps. But I had been one of them, and I knew exactly what they were doing.

They were raping, looting, and killing. They were very good at these things.

And d’Herblay and the Hungarian and his men were out there in the darkness, still probably looking to kill the legate, even though it was now too late. The crusade was victorious. We’d taken the greatest city in the world.

The man lying full length before a ruined altar would be Pope.

If I could get him home alive.

Such is the life of arms. Or rather, such is one path on the life of arms.

We got the legate back to the Cairo Gate on a horse. The church to which the legate had gone to save its congregation was only six turnings from the gate, and yet those six streets seemed full of menace. And getting there seemed to take half the night.

I reported to Sabraham. He was wounded, and he shook his head. ‘I wish you’d got him,’ he said. He was watching the rooftops. ‘I want the legate out of here.’

As it proved, the legate wanted to be quit of the city, too. He was slow to recover, but when his eyes were open, he demanded — begged — to be taken to the king. He had decided that he could convince the king to stop the ‘crusaders’ from raping the city.

Our men had a small fire in the courtyard, and torches. Tired men were at least taking the corpses out of the towers, and a dozen captured slaves were washing the blood off the tower steps.

‘I thought that I was done,’ I said, a little bitterly.