Michael Jecks: Templar's Acre

29 May 1291

The creaking of the ship was familiar.

As he began to come to, the sound brought back memories of his first voyage, and for one glorious moment he dreamed he was on his way there again — en route to Acre — a year ago, before the catastrophe.

Still only semi-conscious, he listened with half an ear to the thunderous crash of waves against the hull, the wind singing in the sheets, the flapping of flags, the moaning of the timbers. And then he heard the whimpers and weeping all around him, one man sobbing uncontrollably, and he remembered where he was, and his eyes snapped open at the terrible memories that flooded back. He would never sleep again in case he dreamed of them.

The broken bone in his leg hurt like hell. Each movement of the ship made it shift, and he felt the jagged edges grating. The scar at his cheek pulled, and the burns on his limbs shrieked for butter or grease, but Baldwin paid them no heed.

In his mind’s eye he saw it all again: the flames, the shattering of buildings and bodies, the dread assaults, the devastation. He saw the corpses lining the roads, he saw his little dog, Uther, and he saw the men of whom he had grown so fond: Ivo and old Pietro, Jacques, brave Guillaume, Geoffrey of the sad eyes. All those who had endured the last hellish weeks with him — and then died. And he sobbed unaffectedly as he recalled the disaster that had overwhelmed them all. No tears would come, but he felt the grief must throttle him.

Then he saw her again: Lucia, his love; his mistress, with her black hair and olive skin; her calm, trusting eyes. .

And his heart could no longer contain his desolation.

It was his first experience of battle, and for Baldwin de Furnshill it was made all the more hideous by his sea-sickness.

The screamed alarm came while he was asleep, dozing in the sunshine with the other pilgrims on the deck, and from that first wakening, he had stood gripping the shrouds against the rolling and plunging of the ship as the two enemy vessels came on relentlessly towards them. It was like watching the hounds chasing a deer, seeing these two closing up ever nearer. As the seas rose before them, and the pilgrim ship hurtled down one wave’s flank, only to bob up once more, he saw that their pursuers were now only a stone’s throw away.

A whistling thrum — and he flinched. A quarrel flew past, missing his face by mere inches, only to thud into the mast. He turned and stared at it. The vicious barbs had sunk so deep, they were almost hidden in the wood. He imagined it would have passed clean through his skull, had it flown true. The thought made the hot bile rise to sear his throat, and he crouched, anxious that another might hit him.

He was not yet seventeen years old; if those galleys caught his ship, he was sure to die before his birthday. Sixteen was too young to die, he thought wildly. He didn’t want to die like a coward, but he had never fought in a battle, and he stared about him in a panic, thinking there was no escape from a ship. Then another quarrel hissed past — a second narrow escape.

‘Get down, you lurdan!’ a man rasped behind him, and suddenly he was flat on the deck. ‘Want to get yourself killed?’

Wiping at his eyes as they filled, Baldwin shook his head speechlessly. What was he doing here, in the middle of the sea, with pilgrims and crusaders? He must have been a fool to put himself in this position. But he had to pay for his crime. He prayed that God would pardon him for the murder after his pilgrimage.

If He let Baldwin live.

He shivered uncontrollably as he waited, lying under the protection of the wale.

There must have been three hundred men on board — Christians all, of course, many of them crusaders who had taken up the cross from Antwerp, from Paris or Hainault, a few like himself from England, some mere pilgrims — but they all waited with the same dread, listening to the whack of slingshots and arrows plunging into the wood. Occasionally there was a soggy sound as a missile hit a man, followed by a groan, shriek or curse. The Venetian shipmaster shouted commands as he tried to evade their pursuers, and hoarse bellows from the ships overhauling them were audible over the whine of the wind in the sheets.

All the young man knew was a paralysing terror: not of death or dying, but of failure. His failure.

He shouldn’t be here, curled up like a child on this wildly rocking ship. He was the son of a knight, not some low-born bastard-whelp from the coast. His place was on a horse, winning renown and glory at the point of his lance. He ought to be riding behind his knight, a squire or sergeant, bringing a horse to aid his lord, fighting with the other men-at-arms. Instead, look at him! There was no honour in dying here. He had sworn his oath to help defend the Holy Land in hope of his own salvation, and he hadn’t even reached the coast yet. These pirates were attacking while they were still on their way.

The reflection was enough to make him grab for the sheer and pull himself upright. A hand reached to drag him back down, but he shrugged it away. It was old Isaac, the pilgrim who had shared his meals from the day they first took ship. Well, Isaac could crawl and hide, but Baldwin would prefer a quick death from an arrow than a coward’s end.

The other ships were close now. Even as he rose, he saw a grapnel fly through the air, and threw himself to the side to avoid its hideous barbs. It caught at the ship’s wale, and he saw the sailor who had thrown it pulling hard, two of his companions grabbing the rope and helping draw the ships together. The first saw Baldwin, and he smiled — a fierce curl of his lips that sent ice into Baldwin’s spine.

He tugged at the metal hooks to release the grapnel and throw it into the sea, but the weight of the men hauling at the rope meant he could make no impression on it. He stared at it, despair flooding him. And then he cursed. He wouldn’t submit without a fight! Drawing his sword, he hacked at the rope. One, two, then a third blow — and there was a crack like snapping timber, and the rope parted, the loosed end lashing back. Baldwin saw it whip at the pirate’s arm, and lay the man’s flesh open to the bone. He screamed and fell, and Baldwin felt a savage joy. He bared his teeth and waved his sword over his head, taunting them, until a pair of arrows passed close by.

But now the pilgrims and crusaders were with him, and they were loosing their own arrows even as the two ships came closer, and Baldwin roared defiance as he saw a sailor topple, struck by a lucky shot. It was only then, as he stared at the sailors on board that ship, that he realised that they did not look like the Muslims he had expected.

These pirates weren’t their enemy. With a sickening lurch, he realised that they were fellow Christians.

The flag of Genoa flew at their masts.

The man beside Baldwin fired a crossbow, swore to see it miss his target, and bent to span it again. He shoved his foot into the stirrup, catching the string on his belt’s hooks, and straightened his legs until the bowstring was held on the nut. He hastily dropped a quarrel into the groove, aimed, and fired, muttering to himself as he missed again, and lowered it once more to go through the reloading sequence.

The pirates were very close to the larboard side of their ship, and he could see their grim faces: dark, bristle-bearded, savage men, with blades glittering in their fists. The men on his ship began to yell insults, screaming their contempt for the sea-raiders. Baldwin joined in, bellowing abuse with words he barely understood.