Chapter LIII
Soon after that the men around the machine began to disperse, for it was coming on to night and already the smoke from the cooking fires was drifting up the hill. I left and went back to the camels, hoping that I might eat with the camel men. They received me as one of themselves and I ate and prayed with them and slept peacefully.
Immediately after the morning prayer and while the sun was still beneath the horizon I slipped away outside the walls of the city and climbed up the slope towards the castle. I picked my way among the soldiers who were busy preparing their breakfast and paid no attention to a ragged bedu. Only one sentry challenged me but I told him that I needed to relieve myself and was seeking privacy. He directed me to a ruined house nearby and I thanked him and followed his instructions until I was out of his sight.
I came round a corner where a small gully ran down the slope and took advantage of its cover to climb higher, but I went carefully and as silently as possible for there were arrows sticking out of the ground here and there and I had no wish to have one sticking out of me. If there were sentries on the walls, though, they appeared to ignore me. Either they were still asleep or they saw no danger in a ragged bedu without weapons.
I breathed more easily once I was right under the walls for now no one would see me unless he leaned out over the wall or happened to glance sideways from one of the towers. As I picked my way along the slope I kept my eyes upwards, but every opening or window - apart, of course, from the arrow slits - was heavily shuttered and when I thought about it, I realised the wisdom of this. I was not the only marksman in the army of the Sultan, God preserve him, and an open window would be a tempting target for an archer with a flaming arrow.
About half-way along the wall the earth was replaced by a steep slope of stone blocks, carefuly built so that an attacker would be hard put to scramble up to the walls. If I had been wearing sandals or, God forbid, mail, on my feet, I could not have gone there, but with bare feet I could feel for the cracks between the courses of masonry and creep along with great care.
Finally, near the end of the castle, I found what I was looking for: a window that was open high up in one of the towers. I stood there for some time, gazing up at it and wondering how best to tackle such a difficult shot, for the window was directly above me.
I felt in my pouch, fumbling right down to the bottom to find one of the four unmarked balls. It was getting light and I examined the ball carefully to be sure it was one that contained a message and then put it in my sling. I took a deep breath, went three paces down the slope and started to swing. Three turns and I released the thong and watched as the ball flew up and struck the wall only a short distance above my head.
For the second ball I went another three steps down the slope and leaned back, teetering perilously on the smooth stones. This time the ball flew high into the air, missing not only the window but the tower also. It fell back to earth about five paces away from me and the mud shattered, but before I could do anything a gust of wind carried the strip of parchment away and I could only hope that anyone finding it would not know what it was.
I took the third ball out of my pouch and fitted it to my sling and then paused. Almost I prayed to Allah to guide me but then I thought that it was not fitting that I should ask Allah for help in aiding these Christians. In the end I decided that it was only right that I should ask the Prophet Isa, whom the Nasranis worshipped, to help me but then a further difficulty arose, for I did not know in what way I should pray to Him. At last I raised my left hand and made a very rough version of the Nasrani sign, first on my own breast and then over the mud ball.
Again I went three steps down the slope and swung the sling round my head. After three turns I released the thong and to my delight and relief the ball flew straight and true and disappeared in through the window.
"Allahu akhbar!" I thought to myself and wound my sling around my hand ready to try the last of the clay balls.
Suddenly a man's face appeared at the window and looked down at me with anger. He shouted something that I didn't catch, then grabbed the shutters and slammed them shut. I grinned broadly, for he was naked and unarmed and I presumed that he must have been sleeping in the tower and that my shot had awakened him, but then I thought of the archers on the walls and stuffed my sling in my girdle and set off down the slope as fast as I could crawl, but halfway down my foot slipped and I slid and rolled the rest of the way, sending a cascade of stones racing down the mountain ahead of me.
When I reached the bottom of the slope I picked myself up and looked about me. A short distance away on the other side of the ditch some of the Sultan's men were standing around a cooking fire, looking down at me in surprise. The sight reminded me that I was hungry and ready for breakfast.
"Salaam aleikum," I called to them as I climbed up the slope.
The men stared at me without returning my greeting.
"Salaam aleikum," I repeated, swinging over the edge and stopping in front of them.
"What have you been doing?" one of the men, an officer by his garments, demanded.
I grinned happily. "Waking one of those cursed Franks," I said. "His window was open and I slung a stone through it."
"By God!" the man exclaimed. "Do you not know that that tower is under the protection of the Sultan?"
"Under his protection?" I asked, astonished. "Why?"
The officer shrugged. "I don't know. Some say that there is a wedding within there and our lord gives the bride and groom peace for their pleasure. He will not be happy to learn that his orders have been broken."
"It was only one stone!" I protested.
"One stone or many, we have our orders," the man answered. "You have broken the Sultan's peace; now you must answer for it."
To my astonishment the officer signalled to his men and they seized me. Instead of offering me breakfast they bound my hands behind my back, searched through my clothing - stealing my purse while they were at it, may God curse them, and emptying the balls of mud into the ditch - and then marched me off to see some emir whose name I do not know.
He, in his turn, ordered me to be beaten and had me taken back into the town to a more important emir and he, after hearing my story and the story of my accusers, sent me to appear before the Sultan himself - by which time I was beginning to be afraid. Everyone knew how jealous the Sultan was of his word and how rigorously he kept it. Those guarding me were quite sure that he would order me to be killed for causing his promise to be broken.
As we stood in the street outside the house where the Sultan was staying I asked some of those around me whether they knew of the Emir Abdullah Amir Fiqri. One man said that he had heard of the Emir and believed that he was of the Sultan's household but before I could ask him to take a message for me my guards bade me keep silence and threatened to beat me again if I did not hold my tongue.
It was nearly midday before a fat eunuch came out and signalled that I should be taken into the house. My guards marched me in but they were dismissed from the antechamber: I was not sorry to see them go. The Sultan's own men conducted me into the room where Sultan Salah ud-din, may God give him wisdom, was sitting cross-legged on a divan.
"This is the boy," someone said.
The Sultan, a small man with a neatly trimmed beard, turned his head and looked at me. He was not smiling. I fell on the floor and prostrated myself.
"Why did you break my peace?" the Sultan demanded and his voice sounded harsh and angry.
"Pardon, ya Protector of the Poor," I wailed. "I sought to fight for you. I did not know that the tower was under your protection. Pardon."
"Excellency, let them set his head on a pole below the tower as a warning to all in future."
I couldn't see who had spoken, but I could not repress a shudder, for my neck felt suddenly cold.
"Pardon, Excellency," a voice spoke and I stiffened in surprise, for it was Babrak's voice. "Although that would warn your men, it would not show the Franks that the attack on that tower was contrary to your will."
"True," said the Sultan's voice. "Let his head be sent to the castle."
"Excellency," Babrak spoke again and at his words I felt hope rising in my heart, "Some in your army might think that an excessive punishment for so slight an offence - there is already murmuring because you have spared that tower. Why not send him alive to the castle and let them deal with him? If they kill him, the guilt is not yours; if they spare him, your magnanimity will be praised by both your army and the Franks."
"Hmmmm." There was silence for a long minute and then the Sultan gave his decision. "Let it be done."
Rough hands dragged me up from the floor and hauled me out of the room - and that was the first and only time that I saw the Sultan, may God give him peace, until I saw him in the distance on the field of Hattin.
