then overrun the harbour and the cargo. We would save none of it — we would barely have time to save ourselves.
And then something extraordinary happened: a new madness, which made everything else seem almost rational. A cluster of sailors on Saewulf’s deck let go the ropes they held. The square sail they had bound tumbled loose from the yard and was immediately hauled taut. With the onshore breeze almost straight ahead, the effect was dramatic: the ship shuddered to a halt; then, pushed by an invisible hand, began to drift backwards.
Next to me, Sigurd turned away in disgust. ‘Coward,’ he hissed.
Whether a desperate tactic or a sudden loss of nerve, Saewulf’s trick would not save him. The Egyptian ship was too close, the carved lion’s outstretched arms almost ready to maul the retreating wolf. One more heave on their oars would surely bring the two together.
The lion-headed prow passed between the two ruined watchtowers. Saewulf had placed archers in the ruins: they loosed a few arrows, but they were mere pinpricks, fleas against the lion’s side. They would not stop the ship. It ploughed forward, its bow wave intersecting the line of surf across the harbour mouth. The line, I realised, where the water rippled over the submerged hawser that lay there.
The Egyptian ship blundered head first into the snare Saewulf had prepared. The hawser caught in the elbow where the copper ram joined the prow: the ship shook and cracked. Caught off balance and unable to move forward, its momentum instead carried it along the length of the rope, spinning it around. The mouth of the harbour was not wide: before the crew could react, the sliding bow had careered into the end of the pier. Splinters exploded as the bow shattered; the copper ram must have snapped off, or else been driven back into its own ship. With a great tearing of canvas and cordage, the mast broke free of its holding, tottered for a moment like a drunkard, then crashed to the deck. I saw several of the crew crushed beneath it, or floundering in the tangle of rigging it had brought down.
This was what Saewulf had planned, and he was ready for it. Without need for a signal, his men rushed along the docks to the points nearest the stricken ship. The archers in the watch towers — suddenly far more numerous — rose up and began a new, furious assault. This time they had dipped their arrows in burning pitch, bringing a squall of fire rushing down on the stricken ship. The water around it blistered and spat as wayward arrows dropped wide of the mark, but many more struck home. With her loose sail sprawled across the deck where the mast had fallen, it was a matter of moments before she caught light, and her battered crew had neither time nor discipline to quench the flames. Some flung themselves in the water, where Saewulf’s waiting crew speared them like fish; others tried to scramble onto the pier where the ship had run aground, but men were waiting for them there with axes. None escaped.
A column of black smoke rose into the air as fire took hold of the ship, and the water around it began to boil. Beside me, watching up on the hillside by the fallen gate, I heard Sigurd sigh. He had once told me that, in the legends of his people, the bodies of fallen heroes and kings had been sent to their pagan afterlife in burning ships. I wondered if the sight now stirred some deep ancestral memory in him.
But it was too soon to celebrate a victory. Flames and smoke streamed from the dying ship’s hull, her crew were all slaughtered or burned, but still — against all reason — she did not give up. Incredibly, she seemed to be moving again. At first I could not see how; then I realised that the fire at her bow must also have burned through the hawser that held her. Freed of that restraint, she was drifting ever closer into the harbour. A few of the English sailors on the pier thrust out their spears in a vain attempt to catch her, but if they touched her at all they only succeeded in prodding her further away.
Whatever his cunning, this was not something Saewulf had expected. His ship sat in the water barely a boat length away, beam on, and his men had deserted their oars to take up their spears and bows. The wind that pressed the ship towards them also blew its smoke into their faces; by the time they realised the fire was moving towards them, it was too late.
The triumphant cheers that had sounded around the harbour fell silent. I saw Saewulf and his crew stare in confusion at the looming fireship for a moment, then turn and run for the side. The two boats came together, wrapped in smoke; I heard the hollow knock of two hulls embracing, and saw the shower of sparks erupt where they had struck. Flames licked up through the smoke, hungry for the fresh tinder of Saewulf’s ship. The last thing I saw was the green banner at the masthead, billowing out in the hot wind that gusted from the fire below. Tongues of flame reached up to tear it down, shrivelling it black.
‘We won’t escape that easily.’ Sigurd pointed to the harbour mouth. Another Fatimid ship was already nosing through the entrance, no longer barred by the hawser. Another followed close behind it. From the watchtowers and wharves, Saewulf’s men tried desperately to stop them with stones and arrows, but the Fatimid ships rowed stubbornly on. Some of their oarsmen fell, but most did not, while from the wooden turrets amidships their archers were able to direct their fire down onto the men on the docks.
Sigurd threw aside the sack he had been carrying and picked up his axe from where it leaned against the remains of the gatehouse. ‘We’d better get down there.’
It was not a moment too soon. In the few minutes it took us to get down the hill to the harbour, the battle had changed again. Saewulf’s ship had burned almost to the water, but its smoke still clung to the air. Another one of the Fatimid ships had caught fire too, adding to the fog, but that was no victory for it had already managed to dock; its men had spilled out and were fighting their way forward. The English sailors tried to beat them back, but they were heavily outnumbered.
We ran along the dock, making short, darting runs and then ducking behind the crates and sacks that still littered the ground. In places, the stones were slick with blood; in others, pools of oil burned where the naphtha canisters had exploded. I saw Thomas hike up his tunic to try to piss the fire out and dragged him back behind the barrels.
‘That’s sea-fire,’ I warned him, shouting to make myself heard over the roar of battle. ‘Water makes it burn more. You need vinegar’ Sword drawn, I swung out from behind the sheltering barrels and charged forward again. Sigurd was on my left, the harbour’s edge to my right. Glancing down, I saw splintered wood and bodies floating in the water — some were splashing for the harbour stairs, but most lay still. I wondered what had happened to Saewulf — had he escaped his burning ship? I had no time to think about it. An arrow hissed past my head, and I slithered to the ground behind a pile of stones. But my run had taken me too far forward, to the blind chaos where the armies contended. Even as I rolled over on my side, a curved blade swung out of the smoke before me, striking sparks on the quay-stones. I leaped to my feet, staggering back to avoid the swinging cut that followed. I had no shield; all I could do was parry the blow with my own sword and feel the shudder as the heavy blade took the impact. Then it was forward into the smoke, hewing and slicing. At least I did not have to worry about arrows, for we were too close to our enemies for the Fatimid archers to risk shooting into the fray. Everything was confusion: there were too many obstacles scattered across the dock for either side to form a line, and so we battled in our ones and twos between the naphtha pools, shattered crates and corpses. More by necessity than any plan, we found ourselves fighting in pairs, shoulder to shoulder, one man acting as the other’s shield. I fought with Sigurd. At first we tried to shout instructions to each other, or warnings, but the sounds of the battle — the burning ships, the spitting oil, the warcries of both armies and the clash of arms — engulfed us. All we could do was keep our eyes open against the stinging smoke and trust each other.
Perhaps we should have been grateful to the smoke: at least it served to hide our meagre numbers from the Egyptians. Even so, there was little disguising it. Soon our enemies were coming at us from the sides rather than the front; sometimes a few of Saewulf’s men pushed forward to help, but they could not hold their ground. Our only advantage was that with the wall on one side and the water on the other, the dock was narrow enough that even our small force was enough to keep the Egyptians from tearing through us. But still we were ground remorselessly back.
Walking backwards, I did not see the tall pile of sacks until I almost stepped into it. I twisted around to get past it, trying to keep my gaze ahead; unfortunately, Sigurd went the other way and in an instant, we were separated. I looked frantically about to find him again, but at that moment a new wave of Fatimid soldiers charged out from the smoke. Howling like a ghost, one of them lunged his sword at me. I parried it and stepped back, but as I did so I tripped on an iron ring set in the quay. With my hand already numb from the ringing clash of our blades, I let go my sword completely as I lost my balance and sprawled backwards. I rolled over and sprang to my feet as the Fatimid advanced towards me. I could not see the sword, but a broken barrel lay on the ground nearby, its staves spread open like the petals of a flower. A few of them had fallen into a pool of naphtha and started to burn; unthinking, I picked one up and thrust it in my enemy’s face. His eyes widened in horror as his thick beard caught
