Chapter LXXXIII
We sat our horses and watched them go, herding the footmen before them, for while we had been talking the rest of the Muslim army had surrounded and disarmed the infantry. Gone were the bags and the excited talk of plunder and loot as the men of Nazareth trudged away into captivity.
"Go," Hilmi said to me. "This must be known to es-Sid as soon as possible. I will go to Tiberias and meet Charles."
"First let us water our horses," I protested.
"By the prophet, you are right," Hilmi replied.
We rode together down the rise and soon came to the first of the dead, a big man whose naked fair skin stood out against the green of the grass. Flies swarmed around his neck, for his head had been cut off. He was the first man killed in battle that I had seen and I stared at him curiously, but as we neared the spring there were many more, all stripped of arms, armour and clothing and all beheaded. Even my horse seemed nervous, upset perhaps by the smell of blood.
We watered our horses, drank ourselves and filled our water bottles and then mounted and went our separate ways, Hilmi back in the direction we had come - for we agreed that he should take word to Nazareth that their men would not be coming home - and I across the plain towards the road to al-Quds.
There was a small wood on my right where trees grew beside the water that ran from the spring and I had only gone a short distance when I heard a disturbance in the trees ahead of me. I pulled my horse up and listened, but the noise was not repeated; instead I heard the soft but distinct sound of hooves on hard earth.
Curious, I slipped off my horse and jumped over the stream. I pushed through the trees, making as little noise as possible, and peered out into a field at the far end of which there were three Nasrani knights on horseback making their way carefully and quietly away from the battlefield. To my horror I recognised the device on the shield of one of the men - Gerard de Ridefort!
I returned to my horse and rode swiftly away, passing the knights at a great distance and leaving them well behind before turning south and heading for al-Quds. I slept that night near Sebaste and rode again early in the morning, reaching the house of Sid Guy in the late afternoon.
Trudy came running to meet me but at my earnest request she took me straight up to see her father, who was sitting in his chamber with his shoes off and a glass of wine before him.
"I bring news, ya Sid," I said after we had exchanged greetings. "There has been a great battle and the Franks have been utterly destroyed."
"How many knights of the Temple do you say there were?" es-Sid asked me when my tale was ended.
"I cannot tell exactly, Guy," I replied. "There were at least a hundred, but I think there were as many as one hundred and twenty or one hundred and thirty."
Es-Sid whistled. "That's a third of the Temple! What can that fool de Ridefort have been thinking of? Still, at least he's out of the way - and good riddance."
"Alas, Guy," I said and told how I had recognised the device on the shield of one of the three knights who had survived the battle.
"May God curse the man!" es-Sid exclaimed. "He brings disaster on the kingdom and yet he survives."
By the prophet, the tale set al-Quds in an uproar, for es-Sid took the news to the king and for once Guy listened to him. There were meetings of the council which lasted far into the night and more meetings when Charles and Hilmi arrived the next day, closely followed by messengers from Raymond.
"We saw them pass," Hilmi told me. "Raymond himself stood on the wall of the town and we beside him. We could clearly see the heads of the Templars carried on the spears of the Muslims - all those long beards blowing in the wind. Raymond was horrified and immediately sent messangers to break his agreement with the Sultan and others to come here and make his peace with Guy."
"Surely it will be war now," Babrak said. "The Sultan, may God preserve him, will not miss such an opportunity, nor will he overlook the breaking of the agreement with Raymond."
There was more bad news a few days later, for a pilgrim ship brought word that the Rumi from Byzantium had landed in Cyprus, which is a great island in the sea two days' journey from Joppa. Cyprus at that time was held by Isaac Comnenus who claimed the throne of Byzantium and had allied himself with the Franks. This fighting in the sea, though it was far off, meant that we could expect no help from that direction, either from the governor of Cyprus or from the Emperor of Byzantium.
Day by day news came of how the Sultan's forces were marching against us from every direction: the Emir Taqi ad-Din was in the north, cutting us off from the Frankish kingdoms up there, the Sultan himself was ravaging Oultre-Jordan while his men kept Reynauld bottled up in Kerak, al-Adil had arrived in Aqaba with the army of Egypt.
We squires were sent out in all directions seeking for news, but whenever I was in Jerusalem Trudy and I spent every spare minute together, discussing the situation. When es-Sid was not there we sat with our arms around each other but even when he was there, Trudy insisted on sitting close beside me and es-Sid said nothing, either good or bad to us.
"Now may God curse that fool Guy," es-Sid muttered to Trudy and me one day as we sat in his chamber. "The real danger is in Oultre-Jordan, where the Sultan himself is, but all Guy can think about is the threat to Acre and his own lands up there - yet Raymond is definite that the Muslims were doing no more than a reconaissance in force."
"But they have done a lot of damage up there before," Trudy said.
"Yes, but not now," es-Sid replied. "Not this time - yet Guy is going to send out the arriere ban and summon everyone to defend the kingdom precisely where there is no threat."
"What is this ariban?" I asked, for I had not heard the word before.
"Arriere ban," es-Sid corrected me. "It is the word we use when a lord such as the king sends out to all his tennants, summoning them to come to his aid. When the arriere ban is sent out, it takes precedence over everything else - local quarrels, local threats, everything. Even if you might lose your own possessions, you must answer the arriere ban and leave it up to your lord to recompense you for your losses."
It was indeed as es-Sid had said, for the next day King Guy proclaimed this arriere ban and messengers were sent out to every part of the kingom, summoning every men in the kingdom to gather at Acre. We stayed in al-Quds until Guy himself was ready and saw all the men of the south and of Oultre-Jordan arrive. By God! Even Reynauld himself abandoned his castles, leaving a mere handful of men to hold them, and riding with a strong body of knights and footmen through the midst of the Sultan's armies to answer the arriere ban.
Truly Jerusalem was an armed camp in those days, for even the pilgrims, men who had come with nothing more than a dagger for protection, spared to give offerings in the holy places and instead spent their money in the armourers, buying swords or spears until the shops were empty and the smiths were working from early morning until long into the night.
