CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Richard had intended to go in with the rear guard, but as the vanguard surged toward the gate, he could not bear to hang back so long. He clapped spurs to Fauvel’s sides. It hardly mattered if anyone went with him; his eyes and soul were fixed on the flicker of torchlight within the open gate.

He was neither the first to pass beneath that echoing gate, nor by far the last. Although he had never been in the city, he had committed its ways to heart against just such a day, praying every night and every morning that it would come to pass.

This was David’s Gate, the gate of the north and west, guarded by the Tower of David in which the kings of Jerusalem had lived and ruled and fought. The Tower seemed deserted, empty of troops and even of noncombatants. The Street of David that ran inward from it, nearly straight through the middle of the city until it reached the Beautiful Gate of the Temple on the other side, was as empty as the Tower, but for crumpled shapes that proved to be bits of abandoned baggage: an empty sack, a heap of broken pots, a chest with its lid wrenched off and nothing within but a scent of sandalwood.

Richard was deeply, almost painfully aware of the holiness of this place, the sanctity of every stone. The thing he wore about his neck, which he tried not to think of too often, had grown inexplicably heavy, as if its worn and friable stone had transmuted into the cold heaviness of lead.

He shook off the creeping distraction—it was not quite ghastly enough to be horror—and focused on the city about him. He was neither priest nor magician but a fighting man, and there was a fight ahead—that, he was sure of. But where? Not, he hoped, in every street and alley of this ancient and convoluted place.

There were signs of struggle along the street as he advanced, remnants of rioting, but as yet no bodies. He ordered his men to be on guard against ambush, sending a troop of them up to the roofs and walls and dispersing another through the alleys that converged on this broader thoroughfare. He had begun to suspect where the infidels had gone.

The Dome of the Rock was a great holy place of Islam. It stood where the Temple of Solomon had once stood, and protected the stone from which the Prophet Muhammad had been lifted up to heaven. It was not the heart and soul of their faith—that was in Mecca—but it, and the city in which it stood, were most holy and most revered in their religion.

It was also a great fortress and storehouse, built as a mosque and then transformed into the stronghold of the Knights Templar: the Templum Domini, the Temple of the Lord. Saladin had died within the confines of its wall. It could withstand a lengthy siege, even if the rest of Jerusalem fell—and then, surely, the defenders would look for hordes of reinforcements from the sultan’s kin in Damascus and in Egypt.

It had to fall quickly. Richard could not afford a siege.

He sent his vanguard ahead, with the second wave behind it, his own men from his own domains. The third rank, Henry’s troops and the knights of Outremer, would go in after a pause and sweep the city behind the rest, taking it street by street if need be.

They all had their orders, their plan of battle. It was in their hands now, and in God’s.

 

A quarter of the way between David’s Tower and the Temple, at last they met opposition: a barricade across the broad street and turbaned Saracens manning it. The Norman destriers ran over them. It cost a horse, gut-slit by an infidel who died under the battering hooves of the beast he slew, but none of Richard’s men fell, even when archers began to shoot from the rooftops. They were ready for that: shields up, interlocked as they pressed forward. Somewhat belatedly, the archers began to drop: the men Richard had sent to the roofs had finally come this far.

There were two more barricades between David’s Tower and the Latin Exchange, where half a dozen skeins of streets met and mingled. One barricade they broke as they had the first, but at higher cost: there were more men here, and more archers. They lost a man-at-arms there, arrow-shot in the eye.

The third barricade was broken when they came to it, all of its defenders dead. Either there was dissension within the late sultan’s army, or the citizenry had made their choice as to whom they wished to lead them. Past the fallen barrier, as they marched warily around the looming bulk of the Khan al-Sultan, they found the way clear, with only dead men to bar it. Walls on either side rose high and blank, windows shuttered, gates locked and bolted.

Richard was preternaturally aware of the force he led, as if it had been a part of his own body. He felt as much as heard the troop of Germans who ventured to creep off and begin the sack before the city was won. An English voice called a halt to them, and English troops barred their way. They snarled like a pack of dogs, but they were quelled, for the moment.

Morning was coming. The sky was growing lighter. He could see the Dome of the Rock floating above the walls and roofs of the city, seeming no part of earth at all.

No time for awe. Not yet. The Beautiful Gate was heavily manned. There were turbaned helmets all along the wall, archers with bows bent and aimed downward at Richard’s army.

He rolled the dice one last time. He sent for the rams, but while his messenger sped off toward the rear, he brought up the heaviest of his heavy cavalry, the German and Flemish knights on their massive chargers. The beasts were as fresh as they could be on this side of the sea, with the cool of the dawn and the cautious slowness of their progress through the city.

Richard addressed them in a voice that was low but pitched to carry. “I’ve heard that a charge of armored knights could break down the walls of Babylon, and those are three lance-lengths thick. This gate’s not near as thick as that. There’s not much room to get going, but we’ll give you all we can, and cover you with crossbow fire. Just break that gate for me.”

They eyed that great slab of wood and iron, sheathed in gold. Some smiled; some even laughed. Some simply and eloquently donned their great helms and couched their lances.

The rest of the army drew back as much as it could. It must have looked like a retreat: Richard heard whooping and jeering on the wall. The charge prepared itself behind a shield of English and Norman knights.

When it was ready, the crossbowmen in place, Richard raised his sword. As it swept down, the knights lumbered into motion. Their shield of knights melted away, then came together behind them.

Crossbow bolts picked off the Saracen archers with neat precision. The knights were moving faster now, building speed from walk to an earth-shaking trot. Lances that had been in rest now lowered. The few arrows that fell among them did no damage, sliding off the knights’ armor or the horses’ caparisons, to be trampled under the heavy hooves.

The Saracens above the gate hung on, though more and more of their number fell dead or wounded. The charge struck the gate with force like a mountain falling. Lances splintered. The destriers in the lead, close pressed behind, reared and smote the gate with their hooves. The knights’ maces and morningstars whirled and struck, whirled and struck.

They broke down that gate of gold and iron as if it had been made of willow withies, trampled over it and plunged through. The second, less massive but still powerful charge thundered behind them, Richard’s English and his Normans chanting in unison: “Deus lo volt! Deus lo volt!”

A battle waited for them in the court of the Temple, mounted and afoot: the dead sultan’s gathered forces under the command of a prince in a golden helmet. That helmet had been Saladin’s, and the armor had been his, too; but he had never ridden that tall bay stallion, Richard’s gift to the great knight and prince of the infidels, the lord Saphadin. The first light of the sun caught the peak of his helmet and crowned him with flame.

Richard’s knights plunged deep into the waiting army of infidels. His lighter cavalry, his archers, and his foot soldiers were close behind them. The court could not hold them all. Over half waited in reserve outside, or had gone up on the walls to deal with the archers whom the crossbowmen had not disposed of.

It was a hot fight. The enemy had been herded and trapped here, but they had not been robbed of either their courage or their fighting skill. They contested every inch of that ancient paving, right up to the gate of the golden mosque.

Richard faced Saphadin there. The prince had lost his horse some while since. He set his back to the barred door; Richard left Fauvel behind to face him on foot, man to man and sword to sword.

In the months that they had known one another, this was the first time they had met face to face in battle. Richard was taller, broader, stronger; his reach was longer, his sword heavier. But Saphadin was quicker, and he had more to lose. He drove Richard back with a flashing attack. He was smiling, a soft, almost drowsy smile, deep with contentment.

It was the smile of a man who had decided to die, and had chosen the manner of his death. He was wearing himself into swift exhaustion. It was a grand and foolish gesture, showing off all his swordsmanship; he would know, none better, that Richard could simply wait him out.

Richard waited, keeping sword and shield raised to defend against the whirling steel. He was aware while he waited of the battle raging around him. His men were gaining the upper hand, but they were paying for it. There were too many of them in too small a space, and their heavier horses, their weightier armor and weapons, were beginning to tell on them as the sun climbed the sky.

It had to end quickly. Richard did two things almost at once: he firmed his grip on his sword as Saphadin’s swirl of steel began to flag, found the opening he had been waiting for, and clipped the prince neatly above the ear; then, not even waiting for the man to fall, he spun and bellowed, “Now!”

Richard’s forces had been waiting for that word. Well before the echoes of it had died away, they struck. His archers and crossbowmen had won the wall, and began a withering rain of fire. In the same moment, his reserves charged in through the Beautiful Gate, swarming over the enemy, surrounding them and bringing them down.