Rumour turned to reality in less than two weeks. Away to the south a faint dust cloud across a wide front became visible and as the hours passed it grew broader and more ominous.
The Saracens were coming.
Some in the city left. Merchants, the shiftless, the wealthy. It was an easy enough departure for the ones who could afford to as the Genoese and Venetian shippers were laying on immediate transport. For most, however, their life’s work and fortune was rooted in the city and to flee would mean its abandoning.
Jared viewed these developments with trepidation. This was not his quarrel – he was a pilgrim, not a Crusader. There was every reason to make his retreat while he could.
‘What’s to do, Perkyn?’ he asked his loyal travelling companion.
‘Master, this you must say. For both of us.’
Jared didn’t owe the Hospitallers service in the same way as a feudal lord, he was a paid servant and could quit at any time. But then again, was it right to deprive them of a valued artisan at their time of greatest need?
He’d stay. Guiltily, he knew that the decision hung more on the fact that as Hugh had said, if it got sticky they could always get away by boat.
The horde came into plain view – a confusing mass of soldiery on horseback and in columns along with hundreds of carts and followers in the rear. Sunlight glinted on weapons and armour in a stomach-tightening display – Jared’s first sight of the dread panoply of war.
As they neared, the gates of Acre were closed and barred. No one could enter or leave save by sea – a formal state of siege was now in effect.
Silent figures in their thousands watched the great army approach and divide as it lay up against the landward walls of the city.
It took shape: to the centre away on a rise was the blood-red tent of Sultan Khalil. The wings of the encirclement met the sea on each side, and beyond it making camp and preparing – out of range of archer and crossbows but in full sight – faces, movements; alien and terrifying.
‘We got a lot o’ work on,’ rumbled Kettle. ‘You all know what a siege means. First up, I’ll have a thousand crossbow bolts put by, before they start coming to us with their busted weapons. Then we’ll hear what the Grand Master wants.’
They set to and laboured into the night, spurred on by what lay outside the walls. The heads of the bolt were socketed, requiring skilled work at the mandrel, while the square-sectioned tip had to be precisely matched on its sides, or the bolt would not fly true. Jared found it was harder than it looked and his first three attempts were scornfully rejected by Kettle.
To his great satisfaction Perkyn was taught how to bring along bar iron to shape while idle youngsters were put to the bellows.
In a rest break Jared went up on to the walls to see for himself.
The siege line was established in depth, with hundreds of figures moving purposefully to and fro. A sea of tents, brazen pennants and banners everywhere and a ceaseless murmur of sound.
The battlements were manned with sentinels standing silently. He saw that the rearing outer walls were matched by an equally sized inner wall. If the enemy scaled the outer they could be assailed from the safety of the inner, a near hopeless mission for even the bravest.
He returned to work reassured.