The army assembled the next day on the plain outside Acre where, two days before, Malbete and his men had taken so many innocent lives. Great barrels of sand had been brought up from the sea shore and spread over the worst of the blood, but the stink of slaughter hung in the air like a curse.
Earlier that morning, I had been pleased to run into Ambroise, my tubby trouvere friend, as I was hauling my gear to the stables. After an exchange of pleasantries, I asked him what had driven King Richard to make that awful decision to kill all the Saracen prisoners; I was still shocked by my sovereign’s actions, and I admit my faith in him as the noblest Christian knight of all had been shaken.
‘It wasn’t a pretty affair, I know,’ said Ambroise, ‘but it was necessary. Quite apart from revenge for all the Christian blood spilled by these people during the siege, all those crossbow bolts fired from the walls into our camp, what was Richard supposed to do with them?’
‘He could have waited until the ransom was paid,’ I said, ‘and then released them. Saladin has the reputation of a gentleman, a man of his word; he would surely have paid up given enough time. Wouldn’t he?’
‘Oh, Alan, you are naive sometimes. Yes, they say Saladin is a gentlemen, but he is also a soldier, a great general. While Richard held those captives, our King could not move from Acre. And Saladin knew that, which is why he delayed the payment for as long as he could. Richard was, in effect, pinned down here by the prisoners. He could not afford to let them go; they would merely swell the enemy ranks; he couldn’t take them with him on the road south to Jerusalem — think of the men required to guard nearly three thousand people on a long dusty march, and feeding and watering them would be an expensive problem, too. No, he couldn’t let them go, and he couldn’t take them with him. He waited for Saladin to redeem them, but when it became clear that the Saracen lord would not pay up — or part with the piece of True Cross — Richard had no choice but to do what he did.’
I shook my head. I was sure that there must have been another way.
‘There is one more point to make in this bloody affair,’ said Ambroise, ‘no less important. We have captured Acre, but that isn’t the last fortress we have to take on the road to the Holy City, not by a long chalk: there’s Caesarea, Jaffa, Ascalon… and many more before we take Jerusalem. And all those cities are watching very closely how Richard behaves here at Acre. And what have they learnt? That Richard follows the rules of warfare: he will accept surrenders, and spare the inhabitants of cities, as long as the bargain made for their surrender is kept. But he will have no qualms about slaughtering anyone who stands in his way or who breaks a bargain with him. Those cities have seen what Richard will do, if necessary, and I’ll wager his actions here at Acre will make the taking of them a whole lot easier.’
I shuddered slightly, as if a goose had stepped on my grave. King Richard’s attitude seemed to me to be uncannily similar to Robin’s ruthless approach to life and death.
Later that morning, mustered with Robin’s cavalry and awaiting orders, I looked down at the brownish, clotted sand as it crunched under my boots, and wondered if all that blood really would make the battles for other cities easier for our men. It seemed unlikely to me: surely if I were defending a city and I knew I was likely to be executed by Richard if I surrendered, I would fight all the harder to defend my walls. But what did I know?
The King had ordered the army into three great divisions, each roughly containing five or six thousand men, for the march south. In the lead division were the King’s chosen men, among them Sir Richard Malbete, the knights Templar and Hospitaller, along with the Bretons, the men of Anjou and the Poitevins; in the second division were the English and Norman contingents, who guarded King Richard’s personal Dragon Banner, and the Flemings under James of Avesnes; and in the third division came the French and Italians, led by Hugh, Duke of Burgundy, the most senior French noble in the Holy Land. We were to hug the coast, with our fleet shadowing us on the march, the great ships which would haul the heavy equipment and supply us with provisions along the way. Thus, with our right flank guarded by the fleet, we only needed to worry about the left.
Before we set off, Robin called all his lieutenants and captains together to give us our orders. ‘We are heading for Jaffa, which is eighty miles from here and the closest port to Jerusalem,’ said Robin when his senior men were gathered around him in a loose circle. ‘It will not be an easy march. We must take Jaffa if we wish to take Jerusalem, and Saladin, of course, aims to stop us.’ He looked around the circle to make sure everyone was paying attention.
‘Our position is to the rear of the central division; cavalry will form up in the centre with a screen of infantry, bowmen and spearmen, on the left and right of the horsemen. We stay together, we all march together, I can’t emphasise that enough. Any stragglers are likely to be cut up by Saladin’s cavalry. So, if you want to live, don’t get left behind, is that clear? The infantry’s job is to protect the cavalry. At some point during this march we will face Saladin’s main army and in order to beat him we must keep our heavy cavalry intact. So I say again: the bowmen and the spearmen are to act as a screen against their light cavalry, and their job is to protect our heavy cavalry at all costs. Sir James de Brus has more experience of our enemy, so I think it would be helpful to hear his views. Sir James…’
The Scotsman scowled and cleared his throat. ‘According to the few reports we have, Saladin fields some twenty to thirty thousand men, mostly light cavalry, but he also has two thousand fine Nubian swordsmen from Egypt, and a few thousand superior Berber cavalry — lancers, for the most part. In numbers alone, his force over-matches ours but his main arm, the Turkish light cavalry, is weaker, man to man, than our own horsemen. They are fast, much faster than our destriers, but only lightly armoured, and they use a short bow that can be shot from the back of a horse; secondary weapons are the curved sword or scimitar, the light lance and the mace. One on one, our knights will always beat their horsemen, but that’s not how they fight. They don’t stand and slug it out against single enemies.’
Someone muttered: ‘Cowardly scoundrels,’ and Sir James stopped and glowered round the circle of hard men. ‘These men are no cowards,’ he said. ‘Their tactic,’ and he gave special weight to the word, ‘is to ride in close to the enemy, loose their arrows, kill as many as they can, and ride away again before they can be challenged. That way their enemy gets hurt but they don’t. It is not cowardice, just good, plain common sense. But they have another tactic too, when facing Christian knights, which is to harass the enemy with their arrows, and try to provoke a charge. When our knights attack, the Turks disperse in all directions, and the heavy charge suddenly finds itself with no target. It’s like a big man trying to punch a swarm of wasps. Our knights become separated from each other, the force of the charge has been dissipated and the individual knights, scattered all over the field, can then be surrounded and slain by a dozen lighter, faster cavalrymen.’
Robin took over the briefing once again: ‘So we do not charge them. Our cavalry does not charge until we can be sure of landing a heavy blow on their main force and smashing it. And when they attack us, the infantry must soak up the punishment. The archers, of course, will take our revenge at a distance; but the spearmen must stand firm and take what they have to give us.’ Here Robin gave a wintry smile. ‘It is not all bad news for the footmen,’ he went on, ‘they will be divided into two companies, each taking a turn to defend the cavalry for one day on the left flank, the flank nearest the enemy; on the second day they will march between the cavalry and the sea, on the right, and enjoy a delightful stroll with hardly any danger at all. Anyone lucky enough to be wounded gets to ride in one of our nice comfortable ships.’ The men laughed, more as a release of tension than because the jest was a particularly good one.
‘Is everybody clear?’ said Robin. ‘If so…’
‘What if we are directly attacked? Surely we can charge then,’ asked a dim-witted cavalry veteran named Mick.
Robin sighed: ‘They will feint at you often, but your job as a horseman is simply to march, march, march southward to Jaffa; try to understand this, Mick. The enemy wants you to charge him because he is faster than you and so you cannot catch him, and it will break up our formations. Once our cohesion is broken, and the men are scattered, the enemy has us at his mercy. So what will we do, Mick?’
‘Ah, oh, I suppose we should march, march, march all the way to Jaffa,’ said Mick, slightly embarrassed. There was more laughter, in which I was glad to see Mick joined.
‘Good man,’ said Robin.
It was truly a wondrous sight: like a gigantic glittering snake, nearly a mile long, the Christian army set out from Acre, pennants flying, clarions crying, the hot sun reflecting shards of light from thousands of mail coats, shields, buckles and spear points. We left behind a strong garrison; most of the young women we had
