Jack Whyte - Standard of Honor

That design was simple, and its execution brilliantly effective. Any killing of Frankish knights or other personnel during the attacks was an incidental bonus. The primary target of every raid was each unit’s stock of giant English, Flemish, and German warhorses, the massive destriers that bore the Frankish knights into battle. The Franks were outraged by the targeting of their defenseless animals, and their bishops and archbishops whipped themselves into a frenzy, brandishing bell, book, and candle as they called down death, eternal damnation, and appalling curses on the heads of the scurrilous infidels who would stoop to such deplorable depths of iniquity. But as Alec Sinclair pointed out to André the next time they were able to sit and talk, the Saracens were merely being practical, and admirable. Had he been in their place, he said, he hoped he would have been clever enough to identify the need that gave rise to their strategy and to have done the same thing. St. Clair had been hit by an arrow not half an hour earlier—it had glanced off the cuff of his mailed glove with no ill effect other than a momentary numbness in his hand—and had not expected to hear anyone on his side say anything like that, and he spoke right out.

“I know you admire our enemy, Cousin, but must you cheer for them? What, in God’s name, is admirable about killing horses by the hundreds?”

“Everything, if it suits your needs. Show me your wrist. Can you grip your sword?”

“I can grip anything I need to grip. There’s nothing wrong with my wrist, or my hand. It’s my sense of outrage that’s involved here.”

“Pah! You’re thinking about it as a horseman, André, and you have a weakness for fine horse flesh anyway. The Saracens would feel exactly the same way were we targeting their mounts. But look at it practically. The Saracens are confounded by our knights, even more today than they were four years ago at the time of Hattin, because our armor, both mail and plate, is stronger and heavier than ever before and improving all the time. Their arrows can no longer penetrate our mail most of the time—witness the strength of your own glove there—and our horses, our magnificent destriers and sumpters, make theirs look puny and ridiculous. Our individual beasts may be four and five times as large as theirs, and are themselves weapons, trained all their lives to kick out with steel-shod hooves on anything that comes close enough to kill or maim. Thus when we form ourselves in line, knee to knee, nothing can stand against us. That is the strength in us that, properly employed, they cannot defeat, or could not until now …

“But now, I fear, they have finally seen that our greatest strength is our greatest weakness. Our horses, brought all the way across the sea from home, are irreplaceable. Each one, out here, is worth ten times its weight in gold because it would take that much and more to bring a new, fresh horse this far to replace one that dies. And each one that dies leaves a knight unhorsed and unable to function properly, for no man can fight adequately afoot, dressed as a Frankish knight in plate and mail. And in truth, no man can walk as a knight, in plate and mail, in the heat of the desert sun. It is not possible. Thus the logic in what the Saracens are doing now is faultless. By killing our horses, they can defeat us in the field, rendering us powerless to fight.”

St. Clair had been sitting rigidly since Alec’s diatribe began and now he was mute, his mouth slightly agape, his haunted eyes betraying that he understood the implications of everything Sinclair had said.

“Let your face sag a little, Cousin,” Alec said. “The outlook is not as bleak as you seem to think … I left you with more than half a wineskin when I last saw you. Did you drink it all?”

André shook his head, as though awakening from a light sleep. “The wine? No, I still have it. I do not often drink alone. Would you like some?”

“Oh no, not I. I merely wondered whether you might keep it until it dried up in the desert heat … Of course I would like some. Where is it?”

“Wait.” St. Clair went into his tent and emerged moments later, carrying the wineskin, and he tossed it to Alec, who held it up and hefted it before looking back at him in disbelief.

“You didn’t drink a drop of it.”

“No, and be thankful, for if I had, we would not be able to enjoy it now.” He sat back down where he had been before and watched as Alec held the skin aloft and directed a jet of wine into his mouth without spilling a drop. “You said the outlook is not as bleak as it appears. What did you mean?”

Sinclair wiped his mouth with the back of one hand and tossed the skin back. “We know what they’re up to now. That’s what I meant. And that knowledge itself is part of our defense. So, beginning tomorrow they will find no more easy targets scattered in and around our camps. Instead, if they want to risk reaching our horses, they will have to infiltrate heavily guarded positions selected for their natural safety and difficulty of illegal access. And of those few who might get in to where the horses are on any given day or night, very few will escape alive. By the time we make camp tomorrow, everyone will know the new arrangements and adequate guard rosters will be put into effect. We have already chosen scouts who know what we need, and they will go out tomorrow morning, in teams of three and ahead of the various units, to find suitable holding stations.”

“How many horses have we lost since this campaign began?”

“That depends on who you talk to. De Troyes believes the number to be around the one thousand mark. But de Troyes always sees the bleakest outlook on any prospect. I think he exaggerates. I would guess the number to be half of that, give or take a few score.”

“Five to six hundred, then. That represents a vast herd of horses … and a vast supply of meat, considering our shortage of fresh food, although in this heat meat spoils too quickly. ”

“Oh, it’s being eaten quickly enough. Some of the knights started selling the meat, and local warfare threatened to erupt, almost overnight, but Richard issued a proclamation saying that any knight who donated his horse meat to his own men would receive a replacement, free of charge.”

“Sweet Jesu! That must have cost him prettily.”

“Aye, no doubt, but it stopped the haggling, which could have grown ugly. Anyway, providing we can keep our remaining stock alive, we have no current shortage of horse flesh.”

“Well, fodder and water are improving, I’ve noticed the land around us is changing, the vegetation growing lusher and greener.”

“Aye, and as we round the flank of Carmel and come to the Plain of Sharon it will grow ever greener, with a profusion of water. It is marshland over there, and it is alive with wildlife, game of all kinds and giant beasts of prey. There are lions there as big as horses, and leopards the size of a man. It is beautiful. I was here once before, when first I came out here, long before Hattin, when the kingdom was flourishing, and it was a paradise. That’s when I saw Arsuf.”

“And you saw lions?”

Alec heard the awe in his cousin’s voice and laughed. “Aye, I did, and one I will remember to my grave, a monstrous male, in full prime, with a huge black mane that rippled in the air as he walked. I heard him roar before I saw him, and the sound of it loosened my bowels. I’ve seen some wondrous beasts out there, beasts most men never see at all. Great birds that cannot fly but can outrun horses, and beautiful catlike creatures than can outrun those birds and are said to be the fastest animals on earth, and curious, repulsive creatures called hyenas that eat carrion and slink and shuffle in the night like skulking demons, yet have such mighty jaws that they can bite a grown man’s face and crush his skull like any egg. I guarantee you will see some of those, for they swarm everywhere, even in daylight, and as long as this war endures and spawns dead men and horses, those things will thrive and prosper.”