XXX

 

 

Hattin, The Holy Land – 4 July, 1187

 

GUY OF GISBURNE stared out across the shimmering, heaving plain and knew all was lost.

Exhausted from lack of sleep and water, his soul crushed by the lifeless desolation of that rocky slope, he blinked against the ocean of heat and dust generated by the seething multitude of Saracen soldiers surrounding the doomed Christian army.

With a sick and aching heart, hands shaking, he hauled off his helm and flung it down into the grit. Saracen arrows still whistled and hissed above and about them. But he no longer cared. His brain felt cooked, the helm’s metal as hot as a baker’s oven. He would have at least some relief before he died.

But there was no relief. Blinking hard, he staggered and stumbled against the big man to his right, steadying himself with a handful of the oblivious soldier’s sweat-reeking tunic. The big man turned his bearded face – a face shrouded with the curious calm of defeat – hooked his hand under Gisburne’s arm, and hauled him up.

Gisburne looked, but said nothing. Thanks were superfluous. Absurd. The bearded man knew it. He gripped his spear and turned back to the horde, as if only waiting for them to make their final charge, and finish him.

Gisburne screwed up his bleary, bone-dry eyes in an attempt to clear his vision. They burned as if rubbed with hot sand. Not even tears were left now. His head swam. Somewhere overhead, he had the strange impression of a great, swirling cloud of black birds – but could no longer tell whether this was delirium, his failing sight, or some worse, dark thing.

Meanwhile, from the boiling, tempestuous sea of blurred approximation stretching away before him, unexpected, hallucinatory details leapt and flashed out with horrible, piercing clarity: iron-tipped lances glinting like stars; streaming yellow banners and standards red as anemones; feathered bows blue as birds; crescent swords and Yemeni blades polished white as streams of water; an ocean of hauberks glittering in the sun like the carapaces of a million gilded beetles. And all about, drums beat, weapons clashed, chargers whinnied, voices screamed and cursed, trumpets blasted out their taunting, triumphant calls – a demonic chorus of sounds so great, so incessant and so endlessly multiplied that all merged into one terrible, throbbing tumult, creating in his feverish mind the weird impression that this teeming army were somehow a single gargantuan beast – great Leviathan, whose vast engulfing shadow had come to stamp out the dwindling band of Christian knights.

Immediately about him jostled a dispirited, disordered rabble of infantry, lips swollen and cracked from thirst, their supplies of arrows and crossbow bolts almost exhausted, their fellows fallen at their feet. Among them were unhorsed knights, their mounts abandoned in prickly, arrow-stuck heaps, and here and there dusty, riderless horses bucking and snorting wildly in panic, foam flying from their mouths. All clung to this bare, sun-baked pinnacle of grey rock like ants to a mound, scurrying uselessly in the cold shadow of the great wave that was about to claim them.

He, too, wished only for it to be over now. But their enemy was denying them even that. The Frankish army had been twenty thousand strong at the onset of battle. How many remained alive, huddled here on this high ground, Gisburne could not guess – it seemed to him he had already seen ten times that number broken against this lifeless rock. And yet, when a gap had opened between the two armies as the Christians withdrew up the hill, the Saracens had not pressed home their advantage. In that gap, now, defiant Saracen cavalrymen wove incessantly to and fro, swinging their blades with wild-eyed fervour, and now and then, crouching low, small boys darted out across the disordered field, collecting arrows to bring back to their masters. Gisburne understood their restraint. The crusader army was in a state of collapse from thirst – cut off, now, from every source of refreshment – and he knew that Salah al-Din would have camels bringing his men a constant supply of clear, fresh water from nearby Lake Tiberias. They had no need for haste. They had only to wait.

The momentary ebb of the tide had revealed the full horror of the battle. Beyond their ragged line – and some way within it – the dry, ash-grey earth was littered with the hacked limbs and torsos of the fallen. They were scattered in pieces, lacerated, disjointed and dismembered, cast naked on the field of battle – tunics torn off, bodies cut in half, ribs smashed, stomachs disembowelled, throats split, spines broken, heads cracked open, eyes gouged out, teeth knocked in, hair coloured with blood. Gisburne had seen rivers of blood running between the rocks. They were soon sucked up by the thirsty desert, leaving its dust stained red.

This place upon which they had been forced to make their final doomed stand was called The Horns of Hattin. Already there were those calling it The Horns of Satan, and wondering of what great sin they must be guilty to have deserved such a fate. Death, when it came, would be a relief.

If there was indeed a Hell, Gisburne could not imagine it was worse than this.

They should have stayed at Saffuriya. There had been good water there. The wells at Turan – the supply upon which they had depended, once committed to this folly – had been inadequate for so large a force of men. Others along the route had been poisoned or filled in. And so Salah al-Din’s plan had been slowly revealed.

Control the battlefield. That was what Gilbert de Gaillon used to say. He would sometimes give the example of a wild boar. You could not guess what was in its head. You could not tell it where to go. But you could close one escape route and leave another open. This, Salah al-Din had done. Gisburne was vividly reminded not of a boar hunt, but of the chasing down of deer – of powerless animals herded into a killing zone. It was not battle they had marched to, but slaughter. Worse, by the time they were committed, they’d realised they were marching into a trap. But then, there was no going back. The means of retreat was closed off. They could only move forward, deeper into the jaws of the beast, knowing that this was exactly what Salah al-Din wanted.

Gisburne had no doubt that it would make for a tragic but stirring tale some day. Whether any would remain alive to report what actually happened was another matter. It had begun with the attack on the town of Tiberias by Salah al-Din’s forces. The great army of King Guy of Jerusalem, mustered by royal decree, was then at Saffuriya, two days’ march away across a waterless desert.

 

 

KING GUY WAS by nature a cautious man – not one to hurl his men into danger, nor to ignore other possibilities than conflict. The King had not always proven popular, but Gisburne admired these qualities in his namesake. He had also learned from Osric – one of the squires who had attended upon their masters during the councils of leaders at Saffuriya – that Raymond, Count of Tripoli, had argued vociferously for staying put. Salah al-Din clearly wanted to draw them out by attacking the town of Tiberias. And what their enemy wanted was what their enemy must be strenuously denied. Raymond said this, knowing that his own wife, Eschiva, was in Tiberias.

There were those who read Raymond’s circumspection as weakness – even cowardice – but Gisburne knew it was simply a different kind of courage. A better kind. It was easy to win respect as a warrior, to impress the impressionable by roaring into battle. Richard the Lionhearted had proved himself an expert in that – but in truth one did not even require competence for it, merely a bit of luck. It was far harder to do so as a statesman or peacemaker, no matter how skilled one was. And there was clear strategic wisdom in Raymond’s words, which King Guy – more subtle than most of his contemporaries – had understood. This, despite his past history with Raymond, for when Guy – then Guy de Lusignan – had been installed as King of Jerusalem by his supporters, it had been the Regent, Raymond, Count of Tripoli, whom he had ousted.

That last night at Saffuriya, Gisburne had slept soundly, believing, from what Osric had told him, that wisdom would prevail.

But, come the next morning, everything had changed. For reasons that Gisburne did not know or understand – which, perhaps, would now never be understood – King Guy had listened to the hotheads; to Templar Grand Master Gérard de Ridefort, to Reynald de Châtillon. Gisburne shuddered at the thought of Reynald – at the memories he evoked. They had advocated a rapid dash across the desert to relieve Tiberias. It could be done in a day, they said. He later heard that a key lever in de Ridefort’s argument had been the money that King Henry of England had given for the campaign – money that had, in fact, bought Gisburne’s services, among others. The Templar’s implication had been that if they did nothing, this money – already spent – would be wasted, thus causing mortal offence to the English King. Whether this had been the deciding factor, Gisburne did not know, but it was a sly argument. In truth, had Henry himself been here, he would have seen far greater risk of waste in committing his army to a forced march across a dry, unprovisioned wasteland to a battleground of his enemies’ choosing. Henry would have stayed at the sweet, fresh wells of Saffuriya, and forced Salah al-Din to come to him.

But the hotheads had prevailed.

They had done exactly what their enemy wished of them. In doing so, they had also allowed their enemy to deny them what they most wanted: water.

They did not reach Tiberias in a day. The march had become a descent into an abyss. All that day, as the lack of water had begun to bite, Salah al-Din’s cavalry harassed them until nightfall. At night, thirsty and demoralised, camped on a plain amongst stunted trees, they had lain awake listening to the drums and distant jeers of their enemy. When they set off again next morning, hoping to reach the wells at Hattin, Salah al-Din had lit brushwood fires along the route of their march, blowing choking smoke into the crusaders’ faces. Saracen warriors – so close they could see their expressions – taunted the thirsty Christian soldiers by pouring water onto the dry ground about them. The Christian army carried before it the Holy Cross as divine protection – the very cross upon which Christ himself died. But Gisburne would have traded it on the spot for a fresh well, or another thousand knights. Several nobles and serjeants deserted to Salah al-Din; the news spread as rapidly as the brushfires, plunging the whole army into yet deeper despondency.

And that was the moment Salah al-Din had chosen to attack. Cavalry clashed. Blood and arrows flew. Decimated, the Christian forces had retreated to the high ground of the Horns. And now here they stood, in this lull, contemplating their inevitable fate.

So deep was Gisburne’s despair now that it gripped him like a sickness.

 

 

MOMENTS BEFORE, ONE of their number – a yeoman who, two days prior, Gisburne had heard conjuring loving, longing images of the lush, green pastures of his farm in Kent – had suddenly and completely lost his wits, scooping up handfuls of the ash-grey dust and grit and shovelling them into his mouth until he gagged and retched, only to repeat the process, laughing and moaning like an idiot. For a moment, those around could only stand and stare, their resolve utterly drained – until a doughty, toothless old soldier called Bowyer stepped forward, and, with no more emotion than one would spare for an ox, raised his mace and felled the man with a blow across the temple. The yeoman twitched in the dust. Bowyer stove in his skull with a second blow, straightened then turned back again to contemplate his own doom. Gisburne was sickened – but also relieved. He wasn’t sure, in that moment, whether to detest Bowyer for the act, or detest himself for lacking the resolve to do the same.

None spoke. The big man next to him – Gisburne thought his name was John – let his head droop, and a long, shaky breath escaped him. It almost sounded like a death rattle.

Tongues were parched, brains exhausted almost beyond the capacity for thought, but this, Gisburne knew, was not the reason for their silence now. He had seen men find inner reserves in worse states. He had seen soldiers shout and sing and laugh in defiance when they were so badly beaten and wounded it seemed impossible that they were alive.

This was different. It was the silence of defeat.

He yearned for some familiar sound then – any sound – was almost ready to batter his fellows into some response. When people roared and shouted in battle, even if it was to mask their terror, you at least knew they had some spirit left. But when that silence fell… That’s when you knew you had lost. Gisburne had seen it before. The colour draining from faces, the resolve falling from limbs. It was as if their lives were already leaving them – as if they had come to some realisation that their end was upon them, and that no matter what they did, they would never witness another new day – never kiss another woman, never eat another meal, never see another place beyond the wretched field of corpses. Such men were finished before the fatal arrow or sword point struck, already picturing themselves food for the birds that circled patiently above their heads. Spirits flown, their very ghosts crushed. Red stains in the dust. “Battles are first fought in the mind,” Gilbert used to say.

In this chaos, from the left of him, came an impossible, utterly incongruous sound.

Laughter.

It was not, as one might have expected, the laughter of madness, or cynicism, or irony. It was a rich, full-throated, belly laugh – something as alien to this place as the cool sound of trickling water. A laugh Gisburne had heard a thousand times – perhaps tens of thousands of times. It had been a constant presence at his side for over a year now, from Sicily to Thessalonika and on into the Holy Land. On innumerable occasions in the past, that laughter had lifted Gisburne’s spirits when things seemed lost. Now, it chilled him to the bone.

Gisburne turned and stared dumbly at the familiar face next to him, its white teeth flashing in the sun.

Robert of Locksley laughed at everything. At danger, at pain, in the face of his own death. No, that was not quite true. He did not believe in the possibility of his own death. He seemed somehow charmed – capable of shrugging off the most extreme hardship. Even here, where the summer sun hammered down upon them and men felt their tongues splitting from lack of water, Locksley could be heard to comment on how the climate was good for his bowstring, giving his arrows extra range and power. It should have been infuriating, yet time and again, Gisburne had seen it lift men from the depths of their own despair.

“Well, what a merry ballad this will make,” Locksley said. And he laughed some more. “I’ve a mind to make a better ending of it.”

The big bearded man – the one called John – looked at Locksley with an expression of wonder, as people so often did. It was the very same expression Gisburne had once worn himself.

“Do you really think we can?” said John.

“Well, I certainly don’t intend to die here. Do you?”

John received this as if it were a revelation – an entirely new possibility that had not crossed his mind. “No.” he said. “No, I don’t.” And something real seemed to change in him. In spite of himself, Gisburne marvelled at it.

This was Locksley’s great skill – apart from his genius with a bow, of course. As a bowman, he was formidable. The truce Gisburne had struck with him in recent weeks – a truce struck mostly with himself, and of which, in truth, Locksley was barely even aware – had been a wise move. Pragmatic. Only a fool would refuse to make the most of so keen a weapon. But that didn’t mean Gisburne had to like it.

“Boy!” called Locksley. “I need arrows.” But the boy, as if deaf, remained motionless, cowering behind the rock which he somehow imagined would afford some protection, his thin arms clutched about his knees, his face expressionless and empty.

Locksley sighed – the kind of sigh ordinary men gave when they found a fly in their drink.

“One more shot, then I am spent – for now,” said Locksley, for once a note of frustration in his voice. Gisburne noted the phrase “for now”. Locksley could not – would not – conceive of a future that did not include him. He was utterly irrepressible. “Well, no one can say I’m not spoiled for targets.” He placed the arrow upon his Welsh longbow – as long as him – his still-keen eyes scanning the field. “Who shall we send this message to, Master John?” And he laughed once again. It was a laugh of unrestrained delight. Of unlimited possibilities.

At its sound – entirely unbidden, entirely unexpected – Gisburne felt a surge of raw emotion. Of hope. Of defiance. He thought to resist it, knowing the nature of its source. But today he did not care, any more than a drowning man gave a damn about who built the raft. Locksley had reminded him he was alive. That there were still things to do, that he mattered. He did not care if it was misguided or a delusion – did not care that he knew it to be both these things – he just knew he needed it. And he saw the effect it had on those around him – how they were emboldened by it, returned to life. He knew why Locksley inspired men as he did; but for a moment, he felt all the love and admiration for this man that had once also inspired him.

He was not dead. Not yet.

He blinked hard again, his eyes clearing. They alighted on something in the tumult, as if drawn to it. All at once, fully formed, an insane idea entered his head – a notion so audacious, so stupendous, he felt his scalp bristle and a thrill rise up in him. He felt himself about to laugh. With his left hand he grasped the arrow that Locksley was preparing to draw, and – eyes wide – pointed a shaky finger out across the heaving ocean of men. Locksley flashed him a look of almost homicidal annoyance – no one, no one, interfered with his draw... But then, following Gisburne’s fevered gaze, he broke into a broad, white-toothed smile.

Off to the left of them – in the southwest, where the two armies were closest – a tent emerged from the boiling mass of the Saracen army, its long yellow banners whipping and flapping in the wind. Below, framed within it, but clearly visible even to Gisburne’s bleary eyes, was a tall, distinct, figure. It was clad in a russet kazaghand – an armoured jerkin – picked out with gold. From the jerkin rose a silvery mail coif, which surrounded the bearded, hawk-like face, its eyes intense with concentration. Above that – making the tall figure taller still – sat a conical yellow cap from which was draped, almost to the length of a cloak, a shawl of pure, nearly blinding white.

Salah al-Din.

“D’you think you could hit that?” Gisburne’s mind reeled so violently at the possibility that he physically staggered, suddenly seeming to see the whole battle – the entire war, the future of every man here – turning upon this one moment.

It was an insane suggestion. The target was at the very limit of even the Welsh longbow’s range. No bowman alive could hope to hit anything so distant with any accuracy. But that was the kind of challenge Locksley lived for.

He grinned wide at the suggestion. “I can,” he said. He braced his left foot upon a rock, squinted at the figure framed in the yellow tent, and sniffed at the air, as if measuring the breeze. Then, with the leader of the Muslim world in his sights, he lowered his arms and upper body, and began to draw the creaking bowstring.