Holy War (38 page)

‘Allah is my shield, John. Prophecies do not frighten me.’

‘Perhaps not, but Richard should.’

Yusuf sat back and stroked his beard. He could tell that John was in earnest, and it troubled him. Until now, he had hoped this most recent flood of crusaders would be content with Acre. Even if Yusuf lost the city, and all the gold and weapons it contained, he would retake it once the Franks returned overseas. But if what John said were true, then the Franks would not return to their homes, not until they had taken everything that Yusuf had sacrificed so much to gain.

‘Let us speak of Acre,’ he said. ‘I will offer Richard the town and everything in it if he spares the defenders.’

‘He will not accept. He will have Acre anyway, and he knows it.’

‘And if I offer the True Cross?’

John shook his head. ‘Richard may lack cunning, but the French king Philip does not. He is negotiating directly with Al-Mashtub and Qaraqush in Acre. He believes they are more desperate than you, and so will grant better terms.’

And he is no doubt right.
‘Acre is not yet in Frankish hands. You will lose many more lives to take it. And even if it does fall, my army is still here. If your kings will not make a reasonable peace, then we shall have war.’

‘That is precisely what Richard wants,’ John said grimly.

‘If war is all Richard wants, then why did you come here, John?’

‘To warn you, and to ask you something. They say you threw the bodies of the dead in the river to poison the waters.’

‘I did.’

John grimaced. ‘There is no honour in that.’

‘Such things do not please me, John, but dead is dead. An arrow to the gut or a sword to the throat kills as surely as the flux. What does it matter?’

‘It mattered to you once. It should still.’

Yusuf sighed. John had only voiced his own doubts. He had missed him. No one else would speak the truth to him. ‘Perhaps you are right, friend.’

‘Am I still your friend, Yusuf?’

‘I hope so.’

‘Then heed my warning. The garrison will surrender soon, perhaps as early as tomorrow. Do not think to save Acre. It is lost. Now, you must do all you can to save your kingdom.’

‘I see.’ Yusuf rose, and John did likewise. ‘Thank you for coming, John.’

John nodded. ‘Allah yasalmak, Yusuf.’

When he had gone, Yusuf stood alone for a moment, considering what John had told him. Then he raised his voice. ‘Saqr!’

The head of his guard stepped into the tent. ‘Yes, Malik?’

‘Have the emirs come to my tent. We attack tonight.’

Sunrise found Yusuf standing atop the Muslim ramparts. As the sun crested the horizon at his back, his shadow stretched out towards Acre, running down the side of the rampart and on to the ground between the lines. It stretched over the body of a dead mamluk, the feathered shaft of an arrow protruding from his eye. It ran over a severed arm; over another dead man, lying face down on ground muddied by his blood. The shadow stopped short of the real carnage. Bodies were piled up against the Frankish palisade. There were more than six hundred dead, and all for nothing.

Yusuf had sent his men against the Frankish line again and again. He had held no one back. Twice, his men had made it past the palisade. The first time, they had scaled the wall with ladders and gained a foothold. Over a hundred mamluks had got behind the Frankish lines. But Richard had rallied the enemy. When the mamluks tried to open one of the gates in the barricade, they were surrounded and slaughtered.

The second time, Yusuf’s men had managed to set fire to a portion of the Frankish palisade. A stretch ten men wide had burned. It was still smoking now. That was where the fighting had been at its fiercest. Yusuf’s men had charged the gap more than a dozen times. Each time, Richard had thrown them back. Dozens of corpses lay all around.

Aah-hoo
! A horn sounded in Acre, and Yusuf looked to the walls. He saw his eagle standard hauled down and Frankish flags begin to go up. He recognized Philip’s flag – rows of golden fleur de lys on a field of blue. And there were the three gold lions passant on a field of red – the flag of Richard. Yusuf had come to hate that flag.

There were shouts of alarm amongst Yusuf’s men on the barricade. They rushed to take up their spears and string their bows. A gate in the Frankish barricade was swinging open. Two men walked out. The taller one limped heavily and was leaning on the shorter man. The gate closed behind them, and they set out towards the Muslim lines. Yusuf squinted. He knew those men.

‘Qaraqush! Al-Mashtub!’ He strode down the face of the rampart to meet them. The two emirs looked grim. Al-Mashtub’s jaw was clenched in pain, and he winced with each step. Qaraqush was a shadow of his former self, his flesh hanging in loose folds from his face. Yusuf embraced him and then Al-Mashtub. ‘Thank Allah you have lived.’

‘I wish I had not.’ Qaraqush’s voice was hollow.

Yusuf squeezed his shoulder. ‘You did all you could.’

The grizzled old emir shook his head. ‘I failed my men. I left them.’

‘Their King Philip made us go,’ Al-Mashtub explained. ‘We agreed to terms with him this morning. He feared you would not believe the terms of the surrender unless they were de
livered by men you trust.’

‘What are these terms?’

Qaraqush grimaced. ‘The Franks are holding all three thousand men of the garrison for ransom. You are to pay two hundred thousand dinars. You must also release five hundred common Frankish prisoners and one hundred nobles to be named. And you must turn over their True Cross. You have two months to deliver all this, or the men of the garrison will be sold into slavery.’ He hung his head. ‘Forgive me, Malik.’

‘You did what you had to do, Qaraqush. Better that than sacrifice the lives of your men. I would have done the same.’ Though that did not make it any easier to stomach. He was already short of coin to pay his men. Where would he find another two hundred thousand dinars?

‘Come,’ he told them. ‘You look like you need a good meal, Qaraqush. And you shall have a doctor see to your leg, Al-Mashtub.’ He led them up the rampart, where mamluks took the two emirs and carried them into camp. Yusuf stayed to watch the Franks enter the city. A new flag had appeared above one of the towers on the wall. It was a field of red bisected by a thick white horizontal stripe. It had hardly been unfurled when it was pulled down again. Richard’s standard took its place. He wondered why.

‘Brother!’ It was Selim, approaching along the barricade. ‘A dark day.’

Yusuf nodded.

‘Some of your emirs have asked leave to depart. They say they have been too long gone from their lands.’

It was starting already. His men had followed him without question so long as he led them to victory after victory. Now that he had been defeated, they were scattering like birds fleeing before a sandstorm. ‘Tell them they may go when the first rains fall, not before.’

‘I will tell them, Brother . . . But some have already left.’

Yusuf’s hands clenched at his side as sudden blinding anger swept through him. How dare they? How dare they leave now, when he needed them most? He took a deep breath, and when he spoke, his voice was even. ‘Tell them that the next emir to leave without my permission will forfeit all his lands. And tell them that this battle is far from over. It has only begun. Richard did not come for Acre. He came to retake the Holy Land. He came for Jerusalem. I mean to stop him.’

C
hapter 21

August 1191: Acre

John heard shouting as he approached the council chamber in the palace at Acre. ‘It must be Jaffa!’ It was hard to tell who was speaking through the thick wood of the door. ‘It is the most direct route to Jerusalem!’

A quieter voice replied, ‘You will never take Jerusalem without food and water. We must head east. The lands are rich in the valley of Jezreel.’

‘If you wish to conquer villages and fields, then go. I have come for Jerusalem!’

‘Have you not heard a word I said? If you march south, you will never take the Holy City!’

The guard outside the chamber nodded to John. ‘They are in fine form today, father,’ he said as he opened the door.

John stepped into a tense silence. The lords standing around the council table turned from glaring at one another to stare at him. To his right were the grim-faced native lords: Reginald, Balian and Garnier of Nablus, the new Grand Master of the Hospitallers. Nablus was a tall, powerful man with thick black hair and bushy eyebrows that formed a single bar over his green eyes. Conrad stood at his side. Guy stood across the table from Conrad. This was no surprise; the two had been at one another’s throats over who was the rightful king of Jerusalem. Guy gave John a sour look. Hugh of Burgundy – a man with a great belly and bulging eyes – stood with Guy. He had taken charge of the remaining French knights following Philip’s departure, and Guy had been cultivating his support. Richard’s men – Robert Blanchemains, Bishop Walter, de Chauvigny, his cousin Henry of Champagne and de Ferriers – lined the table between the two factions. De Ferriers scowled. He was the one who had called for John’s head back in London.

Richard stood on the far side of the table. He swatted at one of the flies buzzing about his head. The king’s face had gone from bad to worse; the sunburnt skin was now peeling and blistered. Juice from the aloe plant provided relief, but it also attracted flies. When he spoke, there was an irritated edge to his voice. ‘Where have you been, priest?’

John went to stand with Reginald and Balian. ‘At the gates, Your Grace, meeting with Saladin’s emissaries. They have delivered one hundred thousand dinars.’

Guy’s eyes widened at mention of the sum. ‘His coin is most welcome. My men have not been paid in years.’

‘The money is not yours to dispose of,’ Bishop Walter countered. ‘It belongs to the King.’

‘I am king. I began this siege and—’

‘And Richard finished what you could not,’ Walter concluded.

Guy was red-faced. He opened his mouth, but Richard spoke first. ‘One hundred thousand dinars. That is only half the sum agreed upon.’

‘It will take time to raise the full amount, my lord,’ John replied. ‘Saladin still has three weeks before the rest is due.’

Blanchemains shook his head. ‘Three more weeks here will be the death of us. We are short of food. Most of the coin Saladin sent us will only go back to him to purchase grain.’ A week ago, Saladin had opened the market in his camp to the Franks. He was as desperate for gold to pay the ransom as they were for food. ‘God help us if the Saracens close their markets to us.’

De Ferriers rubbed the stubble on his hollow cheeks. ‘The food we have would go further without three thousand extra mouths to feed. If we executed the Saracen prisoners—’

‘We gave our word those prisoners would be spared,’ Balian said coldly. ‘I do not know your customs in France, sir, but here in the Kingdom, that means something.’

‘I am a man of my word, Lord Balian,’ de Ferriers replied, his voice rising. ‘I swore to deliver Jerusalem, and I will kill as many infidels as needs be to do so.’

‘Then you lack brains as well as honour,’ Reginald replied in his gravelly voice. ‘Slaughter those prisoners and you turn them into martyrs. If you wish for fewer mouths to feed, then I say we start with yours.’

De Ferriers looked to Richard. ‘You hear, Your Grace? This brute dares threaten me. I would not be surprised if he were responsible for my murdered men.’

De Ferriers was not the only one at the table to have lost men. The lords of France, England and the Kingdom were constantly at one another’s throats, and the quarrels were taken up by their men. Drunken brawls were common, and each morning men were found dead in the streets of Acre.

‘I am no murderer in the night,’ Reginald growled. ‘I too have lost men.’

Guy pointed across the table. ‘Conrad is to blame. Last night, I lost a dozen men to his troops.’

‘Your men struck first,’ Conrad said evenly, ‘yet I lost only five men-at-arms. I cannot be blamed if my soldiers bested yours.’

‘Your men lay in wait for mine. You speak nothing but lies, usurper!’

‘I am the rightful king of Jerusalem. My wife Isabella is queen. None can dispute her claim.’

Hugh of Burgundy sniggered. ‘How many wives do you have, sir? I hear Isabella is your second. Or is she your third?’

‘I’ll have your tongue for that!’

‘You can try. I—’

He stopped short as Conrad came around the table and rushed him. Hugh got off a punch, but Conrad knocked it aside with his left arm before delivering a straight right to the Frenchman’s jaw. Hugh went reeling back into Henry of Champagne. Blanchemains and Bishop Walter grabbed Conrad to hold him back. Reginald shoved Walter away from Conrad, and the bishop turned and swung. John was ready and caught his arm. Then Guy slammed into John from the side, sending him sprawling on the floor.

‘Enough!’ Richard slammed his fist against the table. ‘Out! All of you!’

The men exchanged angry glances as they trooped out. John rose to follow.

‘You stay, John.’ Richard poured himself a cup of wine and drained it while the last men filed out. ‘A bunch of prattling fools,’ he muttered. ‘But Blanchemains has the right of it. We cannot stay here. I have already lost the Germans and the bulk of the French. Three more weeks and I will have no army.’