Knights of the Blood (6 page)

But then the moment was past. Justice having been done, and having been
seen
to be done, the men immediately withdrew from the desecrated chapel to see to their dead and wounded and set about the more pleasant business of looting what valuables they could from the village. De Beq remained for a little while, staring in numbed reflection at Hassad’s body, then set himself the grisly penance of removing the priest’s remains from the altar. He could not budge the spikes pinning the old man’s hands and feet, so he had to force the limbs free, wincing as he tore the lacerated flesh even further–not that the priest could feel it.

When he was done, he closed the staring eyes and folded the pierced hands on the flayed breast, intending to take the body elsewhere; but on reflection he realized that the altar could never be exorcised of the sacrilege that had been committed upon it. Better to cleanse the whole place by fire.

Before leaving to give the order, he picked up the cup from which they had all drunk, turning it reverently in his trembling hands, wondering whether what they had done had only compounded the sacrilege begun by Hassad; wondering whether God would punish them for trying to cancel blood with blood. He wiped the cup as clean as he could with a piece torn from one of his slain men’s mantles, then tucked it into the front of his surcoat and went outside, transferring it to his saddlebag as soon as someone brought his horse up.

DE BEQ FELT
less uneasy when he had gotten outside. There he heard the toll in lives that the day’s work had cost them–a worry he knew how to deal with. Three of his serjeants, five of his men—at—arms, and an archer were dead, another man—at—arms would be dead before nightfall, and fully a dozen of various ranks bore wounds that would be long in healing, though Gaspar, the serjeant—hospitaler, thought that they could ride.

And ride they must, to get away from this godforsaken place. After ordering one of the serjeants to have the fit ones fall in by the well and start refilling their water—skins for the long journey home, de Beq looked around for William of Etton. William was over by the rather sparse pile of loot that had been accumulating over the last hour, rummaging through it with Armand du Gaz who, as one of the few knights who could both read and write, was trying to inventory the meager haul.

“Brass cups. Nothing but brass cups. By the Blessed Virgin, none of these are fit for drinking wine. They make anything taste foul.” As he tossed a cup on the pile, Armand gave him a withering look.

“William,
mon cher ami,
if you don’t quit tossing ‘brass cups’ on the wrong pile, I may have to break your skull.”

With a shrug of apology, William put the cup back on the right pile and crouched down next to Armand, as the Frenchman dipped his Persian pen into an ink horn and made another notation on a piece of papyrus.

“Armand, why do you always make a list of the pillage?”

The French knight finished, what he was writing, then handed the papyrus to William with an eyebrow raised in droll patience.

“Just give it to Henri,” he said, stashing his pen in its wooden case, and closing the ink horn. “Without this list, it is just possible that some of the plunder might not make it back to the castle.”

Before William could protest the suggestion that a member of their order might be less than honest, a horn sounded by the well where de Beq was now waiting, and both knights moved off to obey its summons, leaving the plundered treasure in the dust.

Drawn up in front of their leader, the crusaders stood around in more or less even ranks waiting for final orders. Several had been set to drawing water from the well, where an impromptu bucket brigade filled the water—skins that others brought. All of the knights were present, two of the serjeants, the three remaining archers, and sixteen of the men—at—arms, most of them nursing some kind of wound. Gaspar, the serjeant—hospitaler, was crouched in the shade of one of the buildings fronting the square, where two of the men—at—arms were cradling a third in their arms. The man’s moans carried weakly to where de Beq stood, and de Beq glanced only briefly at the inventory William handed to him, before beckoning to Hano von Linka, whose wounds were slight.

“Take the men you need to bring our dead into the chapel, Hano. I want all the Turks out. Pile the rest of the bodies all in one building and then set fire to it.” The knight nodded and started to leave, but de Beq raised a hand to stay him.

“One last thing. Bury the priest under the altar of his shrine. When that’s done, then burn the entire village. “

“The chapel, too?” Hano asked.

“Especially the chapel. The presence of our dead will re—hallow what has been defiled.”

As the men dispersed to their duties, some of them starting to pack up the booty, de Beq turned and walked over to the shade where the dying man lay. The man was an Italian named Fortunato–a good fighter, but not a lucky one today. The dark eyes mirrored agony and delirium, its source a gaping abdominal wound, which his twitching hands could only partially cover. The serjeant Gaspar looked up as de Beq approached, as did the two men trying to comfort their comrade—in—arms.

“How long?” de Beq asked.

Gaspar shook his head, lips pressed together grimly. “It could be hours, Sire.”

“We can’t wait. You know that,” de Beq said. At the serjeant’s silent nod, de Beq drew his sword and, grasping it under the quillons, knelt down beside the dying man, presenting the crosshilt before the man’s pain—glazed eyes.

“You have fought the good fight, Brother Fortunato,” de Beq murmured, slipping his free hand underneath the man’s head so he could lift him up to touch the cross. “If you can hear me, kiss the cross, in token that you go into God’s great Heaven as his soldier, faithful even unto death.”

The man stirred a little in de Beq’s arm, and de Beq pressed the cross—hilt of the sword to the trembling lips, at the same time glancing at the two men—at—arms and nodding. The usual method for administering the
coup de grace
was by severing the great veins and arteries in the neck, but all of them had seen too much of
that
form of death in the days and weeks just past; so his comrades drew their daggers across the veins in his wrists instead. It was slower, but the dying man slipped into death with a gentleness denied all the others who had died today at Chalice Well.

De Beq held his sword to the silent lips long after he knew the man was gone, head bowed in wordless prayer, finally sealing the departed soul’s passage with the words that had taken them into battle.

“Not to us, Lord, not unto us, but unto Thee be the glory.”

As the others whispered “Amen” and crossed themselves, de Beq stood and slipped his sword back in its sheath, not watching as the men picked up the body and carried it into the chapel with the rest of the Order’s dead.

Smoke was already spiraling up from the first of the fires as de Beq mounted up and led the crippled remnants of his command out of the ruins of Chalice Well. Half an hour later, the spirals had become a black, greasy pall hanging over the oasis, as von Linka and the six men charged with the task of burning the village set spurs to their mounts at last and galloped off to catch up with the rest of the Order of the Sword.

A fever seemed to accompany the crusaders as they covered the long, simmering miles back to their castle of Noire Garde, and not only among the wounded. Men became drowsy, literally falling asleep in the saddle and sometimes tumbling to the ground as they rode along. Appetites waned, though their thirst remained undiminished and even increased, and was little eased by the tepid water they carried.

De Beq told himself that it was the water itself, brackish and rancid from the goatskins that were the only means of carrying the water they needed to sustain horses and men for the long ride home; but he could not remember a thirst like this before. His head throbbed, too, behind his eyes, and his joints seemed stiff. He said nothing to his men, but this mission seemed to have taken more than the usual toll on them as well–except for the wounded, who felt the heat and fatigue no less than anyone else, but whose injuries seemed not give them as much distress as de Beq would have expected.

They reached Noire Garde on the fourth day of march, exhausted, thirsty, and with a gnawing hunger in their bellies. De Beq had a serjeant sound a horn as he and his men approached the castle, and from inside the massive gates were unbarred and swung open. The cobbled courtyard rang under the hooves of the horses, many of which had pulled up lame on the hard march back and had to be led. Grooms came out of the stable block to take charge of the horses as those still mounted swung down, and two serjeants emerged from the donjon to begin gathering up the armor and weapons the men—at—arms discarded, noting which swords needed sharpening, what armor needed mending. The archers, always a little apart from the knights and men—at—arms, moved off to their quarters with their own priorities, where bows must be wrapped in damp rags to safeguard them from the desert heat and arrows carefully stored in special boxes in the armory.

Gradually, the men staggered off in the direction of the lavatorium, with its well, there to strip off gambesons and undergarments and wash the desert grime and the killing from their weary bodies before donning the long white robes and mantles that were their habit within the castle. With red—rimmed eyes and ashen faces, the men gathered briefly in the chapel to offer numb thanksgiving for their safe return, before staggering upstairs to the great hall, where serving brothers of the Order waited to begin bringing in the evening meal.

The arrival home had not much relieved Henri de Beq. Like his men, de Beq was suffering from the same strange fever and growing lethargy that had followed them from Chalice Well. His headache had not diminished, and every joint and muscle in his body seemed to ache. He had eaten but little during the four—day march, despite a driving, gnawing hunger, and although he knew that a meal soon would be set in the hall for him and his men, the thought of that meal filled him with revulsion. Nor had the fresh, clean water of the castle well really slaked his thirst, though it had helped a little.

Wearily climbing the turnpike stair that led up from the courtyard, de Beq paused to look into the tiny intramural chamber that was his sleeping placethe rest of the men slept in large dormitory rooms above the great hall and stable, according to their rank–checking to see that a serjeant had brought up his saddlebags from the yard below. Then he continued up another straight flight of stairs in the thickness of the wall and entered the great hall.

Of the six knights he had taken with him to Chalice Well, all had returned. He wished he could say the same of his serjeants and men—at—arms. William of Etton, looking near death, was already sitting next to de Beq’s place at the refectory table drawn up in front of the large fireplace that was set into one wall along the side of the hall. In front of him was a silver goblet filled with heavy Lebanese wine and a wooden plate with a fresh loaf of bread. Armand du Gaz and the injured Myles Brabazon had claimed a bench along the opposite side, where Brabazon could prop up his wounded leg, both of them staring numbly at the hall’s whitewashed walls. Two of the three remaining knights from the venture, Hano von Linka and François Mansard, were helping a limping Etienne Lefroi to a seat.

The three knights he had left behind were huddled at one end of the serjeants’ table, quietly conversing with the serjeants who had come back. De Beq supposed that they were pumping the men for information about what had happened at Chalice Well, which was certainly inevitable. Lower down the hall, the men—at—arms who had gone and who had stayed were mixed indiscriminately, though those newly returned would be too weary to give their curious comrades many details.

The men all rose as de Beq entered the hall, but he waved them back to their seats with a weary gesture. As was his privilege, he sat down at the head of the long, carved table in a cross—braced chair with a tooled leather seat and back. His goblet was already filled, and he picked it up and tried to drink, but the mere effort of lifting the cup to his lips seemed to require more strength than he could muster. Exhausted, he set the goblet down, splashing some of the wine on the table. Lethargy crashed over him like a wave and for a moment he thought he was going to faint. The other knights at table seemed in no better shape.

Several serving brothers entered the hall carrying platters of freshly cooked meat, setting them on the table in front of the knights and then retiring to the far end of the room where they could keep an eye on the meat and wine, ready to bring more if needed. The chaplain said the blessing, and all were free to eat.

Absently, de Beq tore a piece of bread from the loaf in front of him and sopped it in the juice swilling around the meat on one of the platters. He had no appetite for it, but he knew he had to eat something. With some effort, he managed to bring the soggy crust to his lips and push it into his mouth. A wave of something near to nausea flashed through his body as he tasted it, but despite his queasiness, he swallowed.

Within seconds, his hunger turned to a craving–a craving for more of the juice from the just—cooked meat. Tossing aside the chunk of poorly cooked pork, de Beq picked up the platter and brought it to his lips, tipping it up to drink as much of the bloody juice as he could.

He staggered off to his bed then, and slept the sleep of the dead for the better part of two days, until William of Etton roused him with the news that Acre had fallen–Acre, the capital of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

While de Beq dressed to come down and receive the messenger who had brought the news, William filled him in on what was known thus far. It had taken the Chevalier Humphrey d’Urbot six days to reach de Beq’s garrison by camel, pressing the beast hard and traveling mostly by night to avoid any Saracen patrols that might be searching for refugees. On the fifteenth of May, 1291, as de Beq and his men had been celebrating their defeat of Ibn—al—Hassad, the Mamaluk army under Sultan al—Ashraf had breached Acre’s walls. Within hours, news of the disaster reached the city of Tyre, directly north of Acre on the Mediterranean coast, causing widespread panic among the populace. The next day, Tyre was abandoned to the Moslems without a fight, its Frankish population scattering in all directions.

“The king, along with most of his nobles, has fallen back to Cyprus,” d’Urbot reported to de Beq in the castle’s chapter room, as his council of knights also listened. “Our master, the Prince of Galilee, is determined that the castle of Noire Garde should not be allowed to fall into the hands of the Saracens. To prevent this, he commands you to slight the castle and then accompany me to Armenia, where we will join with the King of Armenia in raising an army to retake Jerusalem.”