The hunting-party cantered out through the broad city gates on a clear morning. Silver trumpets sounded their salute as the prince, al-Fuazzem, bowed to left and to right from his high-pommelled saddle, his young face set in the formal smile which he had seen his father adopt on important public occasions.
Half a pace behind, to his right, rode Abu Nazir, now dressed in helmet and light chain mail, over which he wore a sky-blue mantle of silk; to his left rode Geoffrey de Beauregard, who had spent the best part of an hour that morning, polishing his spiked helmet, and who now tried to look as regal and as arrogant as the prince and Abu Nazir combined. Immediately behind them rode a falconer, bearing two velvet-hooded tiercels on a bar supported by a leather thong about his neck so as to leave his hands free to hold the reins.
Alys and Brother Gerard rode in the rear, and a strange contrast they now made. The priest’s tonsure no longer existed and his black hair grew out, as stubbly as a gorse-bush, from his head, uncombed and unoiled. His robe, which had long since faded to a dirty grey colour, flapped in tatters about his brown legs as he rode. He looked more like a sturdy beggar, or a common soldier, than a man of God.
But Alys looked more like a princess than anything else. Her thick golden hair had been plaited and coiled within a thin circlet of gold; beneath a short jacket of cloth of gold, she wore a tunic of blue samite, embroidered with silver thread at the hem and glistening with a myriad sequins. Red leather buskins, of best Moorish work, reached to her knees. Her silver spurs had rowels inlaid with many-coloured enamels. On her arms she wore torques of dark gold, turned and twisted in the old Celtic manner, and on her finger a broad ring of gold inlaid with ivory. Only the leather strap about her throat betrayed the fact that she was a slave, and not a free woman of the noblest family.
Before they had set out, Abu Nazir had ridden up to her and whispered, ‘Al-Kamil, who admires you as though you were his own daughter, gives you permission to take off your slave’s collar when you ride with the prince in public.’
Alys had looked back at him and said, ‘And must I put on my collar again, like a dog, when I return to the Palace?’
Abu Nazir had stared away, across the courtyard. ‘I am afraid so,’ he had answered. ‘That is the custom.’
‘Then I would rather keep it on, Abu Nazir,’ the girl had said. ‘I am no lover of games of make-believe. If I am a slave, what matter who knows it?’
But Geoffrey had no scruples about slipping off his collar, for he was proud in a different way from his sister.
And so the party cantered away from the city, and out into the freshly growing countryside. Before mid-morning they had set the tiercels at six brace of pigeons, which the falconer now carried, slung in a net at his pony’s side. With each kill, the little prince had bobbed up and down in the saddle, clapping his bejewelled hands. But Brother Gerard had looked away, his eyes focused on the far distance, in disapproval.
At midday the party halted, in the shade of a grove of trees, to eat and drink. The little prince would have eaten nothing but figs and dates, crystallised in sugar, but Abu Nazir insisted that he should add good wheaten bread and goat’s milk cheese to his diet. They all drank sherbet, and a concoction of citrus fruits, flavoured with cinnamon. Geoffrey, who had been brought up to drink mead, or red wine, or rough Norman cider, like all other boys of his class, at first scorned these Saracen beverages. But now, after six months at the court of al-Kamil, he accepted them gladly.
As they sat in the shade of the cedar grove, Abu Nazir said gravely to Brother Gerard, ‘Yours is not the only tragedy, priest. We have heard that the children of half Germany, led by a crazy lad, Nicholas, also attempted what they called a Crusade late last year. Many of them perished on the mountains, many of them died of hunger by the roadside, before your Pope commanded the rest to return to their homes. No doubt our slave markets will once more profit by this wave of madness, which seems to sweep the Christian world from time to time.’
Brother Gerard bit his lower lip, restraining the reply which he had been about to make. Then at last he said, ‘No doubt such rogues as Hugh and William of Marseilles will share the profit with your own slave-traders.’
Abu Nazir smiled bitterly. ‘No doubt,’ he said, ‘for there are rogues in every country. But I can tell you this, Hugh and William will never profit by their roguery again. They swing from the highest gibbet in Marseilles for their kidnapping tricks.’
The priest said, ‘God be praised that they got their deserts. Yet that will not help the thousands of innocents who waste away as slaves or lie drowned at the bottom of the sea!’
‘Those who have come into Egypt, under al-Kamil, have been well-treated,’ answered Abu Nazir. ‘They number about seven hundred. That is a small enough number, I am aware; yet it is something to be thankful for.’
Alys burst out, ‘But how many of that seven hundred will ever see their homes and families again?’
Abu Nazir answered tenderly, ‘Very few indeed, I would imagine, lady. Who would pay the amount of money needed to set them free? Not the Kings of your fine crusading kingdoms; not the Pope, who needs all the wealth he can gather, to pay for yet another hopeless expedition; and not the parents of these poor innocents, as you call them, priest, for they have no money at all, and, if they had, do not know where their children are, whether they are alive or dead.’
Suddenly the little prince clapped his hands, demanding silence.
‘I think you are all fools!’ he cried. ‘All except my friend, Geoffrey de Beauregard! Come, friend Geoffrey, let us ride away and leave these gossiping old women to their tales of sadness!’
As the two boys swung into the saddle, Abu Nazir called after them, ‘Go on, then! We will give you a good start—and still catch you before you reach the red rock shaped like a Frankish helmet!’
Laughing, the two boys spurred away, their hair flying in the wind. Abu Nazir slowly mounted his fast horse and called on Alys and Brother Gerard to join him in the chase.
Geoffrey revelled now in the speed of his white stallion. Little al-Fuazzem shouted with glee. The stony ground and sparse green vegetation seemed to flash beneath them. The dust rose in spurts from their horses’ hooves, to be caught in the wind and flung backwards into the faces of their shouting pursuers.
‘Ride faster! Ride faster, you boys!’ yelled Alys, forgetting to act the great lady all of a sudden. ‘We shall catch you!’
‘Faster! Faster!’ called Brother Gerard, his black mop of hair more tousled than ever.
‘Hurry! Hurry! We are on your tail!’ shouted Abu Nazir, feeling the thrill of the charge once more, after so many years.
The two boys kicked their heels into their horses’ flanks. Geoffrey rose in the stirrups and, glancing back, called, ‘Haro! Haro! Haro! Who catches me may take my head!’
It was an old Norman saying he had used many times when he was racing the other lads, back at Beauregard. Some said that it went back to the old savage days, when the Northmen rode across France, pillaging. At that moment, Geoffrey didn’t care where the saying had come from; he was far too excited to think of things like that!
Even the little prince was shouting, ‘Haro! Haro! Haro!’ in imitation of his older companion, when the party suddenly plunged into a shallow defile. Loose stones shot from beneath the horses’ hooves, as they slithered downwards.
Geoffrey heard high cries of alarm from behind him, but did not know what they signified, until it was too late. From the bottom of the little valley, a dozen men rushed up to meet them. Men with yellow hair and red hair, wearing rusting mail and tattered surcoats. Even as he pulled frantically at the reins, trying to halt his helpless horse, Geoffrey saw that each man wore a faded cross, that had once been red, painted upon his tabard.
‘Fly for your lives!’ yelled Abu Nazir. ‘These are Franks!’
Alys saw their fierce faces, the blood-stained bandages about their foreheads or legs, their cold grey eyes, and she was suddenly afraid; afraid, though they were men of her own religion; perhaps men of her own country.
Then the nightmare began to take its ghastly shape. A burly ruffian with a great red beard clutched at the little prince’s bridle. Al-Fuazzem gave a wild cry and slashed down at the man’s head. He uttered a shriek and toppled to the ground, to roll on down the slope.
Abu Nazir was beside the prince now, shouting ‘Make your way up the slope, Great One. I will hold them back!’
But even as he spoke, a bow-string twanged, and the old Saracen warrior half rose in his stirrups, then gave a groan and toppled to the ground as heavily as a sack of sand.
Geoffrey heard himself yell out, ‘Death to the Infidel!’ Then his own sword was out and he was cutting this way and that, swinging his white stallion round and round, trying to defend his sister and the prince at the same time. Four crusaders clustered about him, trying to drag him from the horse. Geoffrey felt the butt of a javelin strike him violently in the side. He bent round and hit out at his assailant and heard the man groan.
Then Alys was beside him, holding a sword. Geoffrey saw that it was al-Fuazzem’s weapon.
‘Where is the prince?’ he gasped.
‘He has escaped!’ said the girl hoarsely. ‘He flung me his sword as he went!’
Then she too began to strike out beside her brother, and with each blow her enemies drew back.
Suddenly the bow-string twanged again, with a noise like the notes of some harp of fury. Geoffrey’s white stallion snorted and pawed the air in agony. As the mortally stricken creature whirled about, it brought the girl’s pony down at the same time. As Geoffrey rolled clear of the flailing hooves, he saw his sister fall clear of her mount and lie still.
Then Brother Gerard was standing over her, his long sleeve rolled back, the prince’s bright blade whirling in his hand, his usually mild eyes aflame with anger.
The priest was still fighting, defending the prostrate girl, when a huge man wearing a bandage over his right eyes, leaned over Geoffrey and struck him on the temples with the flat of his broad sword.
The boy gave a despairing groan and the darkness closed in upon his mind!