Christian Cameron - The Long Sword

The legate blessed me. ‘You sleep, my son. I will ride back to the ships.’

Sabraham shook his head. ‘I’ll take him,’ he said. To me, he said, ‘D’Herblay is out there. Waiting for us to move him.’

When you imagine yourself as a knight, what you imagine — if you are like I was as a boy — is that moment when the Knights of St John charged the infidel. A windswept beach. Three hundred brave men in brilliant scarlet and steel. That seems to you what knighthood will be.

But this, my friends, is where I think we find chivalry — when our throats are so parched we cannot swallow, when the smoke from a thousand fires cuts our lungs, when our armour seems to hurt us more than an enemy can, when our jupons are heavy with our sweat and our blood, and our hands won’t close properly on our swords. When all we want is sleep. Or death.

That is when we find what makes us knights, I think.

I looked around in the firelight at my friends. None of us had even dismounted. Sabraham had blood flowing over his cuisses — he’d taken a wound in his armpit. A real wound.

‘You stay,’ I said. I didn’t want to. I wanted to sleep. But: ‘We’ll take him to the ships.’

Miles leaned out across his horse’s neck, hands crossed in fatigue. ‘We should go out the gate and ride around,’ he said for the second time that night.

But de Midleton wouldn’t hear of it. ‘There’s Sudanese Ghulams out there, and Mamluks,’ he said. He pointed to where a dozen of the Order’s brother-sergeants were improvising a barricade. ‘I expect an attack at dawn. I’m not sending the legate out into that.’ He took me aside. ‘Let me put some food and water into him. And your poor horses, gentles. But I agree he shouldn’t stay here. If this tower falls …’

I could just about think. ‘We won’t have Coulanges,’ I said. ‘I’m worried about losing my way.’

Sabraham was being helped from his horse by a trio of serving brothers. He could scarcely stand. ‘Take George and Maurice,’ he said. ‘They know how to get around.’

He beckoned me to him. When the brothers put him down, he went all the way to the ground. And lay there.

I had to crouch by him.

‘I’ve lost a lot of blood,’ he muttered in a tiny voice. ‘Move fast. He can’t stay here. One attack — tower is lost. Get him to the ships. Please, Will!’

‘I’ll do it,’ I said. In fact, I was ready to fall asleep with my head on his chest.

One of the serving brothers pushed me aside. They were cutting Abraham’s clothes off even as he spoke. A man came up with an iron rod glowing red.

I smelled the burning flesh. For good or ill, Sabraham could offer no more advice — he was out.

I stumbled back to my horse. Poor Gawain had taken ten wounds the day before and now had been ridden all day. Oats and water kept him alive — but they didn’t make him well.

I looked over my people.

‘Friends,’ I said. ‘I need every one of you. There are men in the streets who mean to kill the legate. I have promised to get him to the ships.’

Ned Cooper turned his face to one side. ‘Kill the legate?’ he asked. ‘He’s like a fuckin’ saint, beggin’ yer pardon.’

Ewan the Scot put a finger alongside his nose. ‘I know,’ he said.

‘What do you know?’ Nerio asked.

Ewan shrugged. ‘Men come round, offering us silver for some fancy shooting.’ He laughed. ‘Guess they didn’t think you was up to it, Ned!’

‘There’s a Savoyard. D’Herblay. Anyone met him?’ I asked.

No one had. Except, of course, my friends.

We all ate. I decided, having set a few ambushes myself, that it would not hurt us to make the Hungarian wait and we all slept for an hour. We had no real way of knowing the time: no cocks crowed, there were no bells, but the Order’s men knew the hours well. Men fed and watered our horses and I had to be wakened roughly, even though I had slept in my harness.

We all had. And I ached, and so did the rest of them. But we drank hot wine with spices, which the Order’s people had going in the yard, and we chewed cloves — by Saint George, spices were all but free in Alexandria. I looked at the Emperor’s sword by firelight, and there was no dent in the blade, no kink, where the crossbow bolt had struck it. Instead, there was a scratch about as long as my little finger, as if an inexpert engraver had started to make a line. I got a stone from Davide and touched up the edge.

It was obvious to a soldier that the legate had a head wound — the kind that makes men fey and strange for days. The brothers had kept him awake, on principle, but he was having trouble speaking. I placed him with Miles. Lord Grey could not ride — a deep thrust to his right thigh.

I gathered my friends, and indeed, my whole little command. ‘Here’s my plan,’ I said. ‘I’m happy to hear it bettered. We cut across the city and go out through the same Customs Gate where we entered. It is the only way I know — and besides, we don’t know if the other gates have fallen, or are still in enemy hands.’

Maurice blew out his cheeks, but said nothing.

‘Outside the walls, we gallop. We’ll be west of the city, and I can’t see any enemy making for there in the dark, with a tide of refugees around them. We make our way past the crusader fleet and take the legate to the Order.’

Stapleton narrowed his eyes. ‘He asked to be taken to the king.’

I nodded. ‘So he did,’ I agreed. ‘Any other questions?’

Maurice frowned. ‘We will move quickly? What about prickers? Outriders?’

I shrugged. ‘I was hoping the archers would agree to lead the way.’

Ewan laughed. ‘Is there any money in this?’ he asked. ‘I see you’re all soldiers of God, an’ all. But everyone else is looting, and we’re here working an’ getting killed.’ He looked around and spat. ‘Not yet, mind. But this here’s a mad trick, ridin’ across a city gettin’ sacked.’

Ned Cooper looked at me like a shy maiden — a particularly old and ill-favoured shy maiden. ‘True knights is generous’ he said. ‘The Black Prince used to offer us a douceur when we was missin’ out on the loot.’

Miles all but spat. I’m glad he didn’t. ‘The legate is every man’s friend, and has held this expedition together,’ he insisted. ‘He trusts the English more than any!’

‘More fool he,’ Ewan said. ‘Fuckin’ English. Present company, eh, Ned?’

I glanced at Nerio. Nerio laughed. He had lines on his face like an old man, and the firelight made him look older and more dissipated than his father. But his laugh was his old laugh. You might have thought there was a wench in the offing.

He nodded. ‘Twenty ducats a man when we reach the ships,’ he said.

Ewan raised his eyebrows and frowned at the same time. ‘ Eh bien ,’ he said.

Rob Stone, hitherto silent, said, ‘Amen.’

Ewan spat on his hands. ‘Let’s ride,’ he said.

John the Turk looked at Nerio. ‘Me, too?’ he asked.

Nerio laughed. He turned to me. ‘Jesus had it all wrong, brother,’ he said. ‘He should have offered to pay men to behave well.’

Fiore laughed. ‘I could use twenty ducats, too,’ he said, which was as close to making a joke as I ever heard the Friulian come.

About ten more minutes passed while the legate was prepared. We tied him to a borrowed warhorse. I rubbed Gawain down, gave him a little water, and he seemed spirited. He was a far better horse than I had thought, back at Mestre.

It was fully three hours after vespers, the very dark of the night, when William de Midleton opened the sally port for us. ‘God speed,’ he said.

I confess I almost expected a crossbow bolt to take John the Turk, the first man out the sally port. But he slipped out of the gate, low on his horse’s neck, bow strung but in the case at his side. He rode with George and Maurice and, after a minute of rapid heartbeats, I sent the archers after them. Rob Stone winked as he kneed his rouncey through the gate.