Passing through the Strait of Gibraltar I saw the mighty rock that had guarded the passage since time began. A few days past the rock, we sailed around the Isle of Cyprus, not stopping, for the King wished to reach Acre as soon as possible.
Three weeks to the day after leaving Dover, the ships made landfall a day’s ride to the west of Acre, at a spot where the coast leveled out to form a natural harbor. We had to swim the horses to shore, and it took two full days to move all of the cargo and supplies off the ships. My legs felt as if they were made of stone columns when I first stepped on land after nearly three weeks at sea. I wanted to kiss the ground, but merely rejoiced that it didn’t move as I walked upon it.
I wasn’t sure what I had expected of Outremer, but the land surprised me. Having heard the knights speak of the arid desert, I was surprised to find the coastal area, although rocky, to be full of green trees and shrubs. The climate was warmer than England to be sure, but in many ways it reminded me of Dover, except here the cliffs were made of rock, not chalk.
We made camp right on the sand. Within a day, the beach became a city of campaign tents, each one flying a regimento or battle flag. Large cook fires were built, and as we sat around them at night, I loved watching the embers rise high into the sky. It was as if each one carried a message to heaven. The Templars conducted mass by firelight and passed the hours in song and storytelling while we waited for orders to march.
The King’s headquarters tent was not more than a few yards away from where I slept. Now and then I would see him outside his tent, at a table holding maps and other documents. He spent hours in consultation with his military advisers. Plans were being made and battle orders drawn. Word passed through the camp that Saracens were near.
We spent the next week organizing, resting and preparing to move toward Acre. When the horses had rested and regained their land legs, the call came to move out. Quincy and I went with the other squires to retrieve our knights’ horses from where they were hobbled on the shore. Quincy seemed calm, whistling quietly to himself as we gathered up the saddles and halters.
“Aren’t you nervous?” I asked.
“What? Nervous? Why? Oh yes. This is your first time in enemy territory. You get used to it,” he said.
“Really?” I couldn’t imagine that.
“Oh sure. You’ll see. The knights are well trained. They know what they’re doing all right. It’ll be fine,” he said, smiling. But his confidence was not contagious. I still felt on edge.
I had Dauntless saddled and prepared to go when Sir Thomas found me. His chain mail had been polished to a high sheen, and there in the sun I helped dress him. When he was properly outfitted, he mounted the horse. He took the battle sword from me and buckled it securely around his waist. I handed him his iron-tipped lance, hoping he wouldn’t notice my shaking hands. He settled himself into the saddle, stood up and down in the stirrups a few times to find a comfortable spot, then sat still.
“Are you ready?” he asked me.
No! I wasn’t ready for anything other than perhaps getting on board the ship and sailing back to England.
“Yes, sire,” I said.
“Are you afraid?” he asked.
In truth I was terrified. My hands quivered as I attended to my duties, and my breath came in small gasps. It felt as if I couldn’t get enough air in my lungs. My vision began to close in. I was in no way prepared for this. Everything that had come before-the training, the practice, the days in the Commandery-was as faint as a dream. However, I could not, must not, let Sir Thomas feel that he had made a choice unworthy of him.
“A little,” I answered.
“That’s good, Tristan. If you had told me you were not afraid, I wouldn’t have believed you. The important thing is to stay alert at all times. Here in Outremer, battles tend to happen quickly and with little warning. Keep your eyes open. If a fight starts, stay focused on your duties. We’ve practiced and discussed it many times. The most common thing is that I’ll lose my lance or it will break. Stay near the quartermaster, and if you see me riding back, ride forward with a replacement. You’ll do fine. We may not even engage the enemy. Our scouts have seen Saracen patrols, but have not yet encountered a large force. We might march to Acre unopposed,” he said.
For some reason, I very much doubted that. Something told me I would see my first action very soon. Death was coming. The air had changed. We were in an alien land, marching forward as intruders, and everything felt upside down and out of place.
An order was shouted to march. The knights and men-at-arms moved out four abreast. They left the beach encampment, moving inland toward the higher ground rising east along the shore. The sergeantos and squires came behind the knights. I rode a sorrel mare and Quincy rode along beside me. A leather holster was attached to my saddle, and in it I placed an extra lance for Sir Thomas.
“Are you still nervous?” Quincy asked.
“Not at all. At St. Alban’s we had to fight off invading monasteries quite frequently. Compared with hordes of marauding Benedictines, this is nothing.”
Quincy stared at me, his brows knitted.
“It’s a joke. Knowing I may be marching toward my death tends to make me nervous,” I said.
Quincy chuckled at my discomfort. “I can tell you that most of the time nothing happens. We spend more time riding than fighting. And we don’t see much from back here.”
To calm myself, I tried passing the time by counting the size of our force. Though it was hard to get an accurate count with everyone stretched out in the column, I counted twelve Templar flags. With each regimento about seventy knights strong, plus men-at-arms, sergeantos and squires, I made our numbers to be nearly two thousand men. This of course included the non-Templar forces of the King’s Guards. If we ran into opposition, I hoped it was enough. I knew that Templars never left the field of battle unless outnumbered by more than three to one. The thought of facing a force of six thousand Saracens terrified me.
We rode along for hours, stopping now and then to rest and water the horses. In the afternoon as we crested a small ridge, the order came to halt. There was confusion at the front of the column, orders were shouted and trumpets called. In the noise and disarray I made out one word that sent my heart leaping to my throat.
Saracens!
OUTREMER, THE HOLY LAND
13
I quickly learned that war is mostly organized chaos and that as Sir Thomas said, it often happens without warning.
In the valley below us there stood a large advance force of Saracens. Seeing them for the first time did nothing to quell the fear within me. They looked formidable and ready to fight. At first glance, their lines appeared to stretch out for miles. I struggled to take it all in. They began waving their brightly colored battle flags back and forth. Unlike our traditional flags, they held banners that hung vertically from tall poles raised high by a mounted carrier. I quickly counted them and estimated their numbers were nearly equal to our own. It was as if they appeared by magic. Surely our scouts and mounted patrols must have noticed them ahead of us. But from where I rode, I got the feeling that we had stumbled across them unexpectedly.
As they spread out across the valley floor I saw a sea of turbans, mostly white, but here and there I noticed some were striped with different colors; greens and blacks.
“Why do those Saracens have striped turbans?” I asked Quincy over the gathering noise of our deployment.
“Those are their commanders. They direct the fighting and give orders to the individual squads,” he answered. Somewhere from their lines a trumpet sounded and their cavalry began moving into position.
Their horses were magnificent; tall, stately mounts that were draped from head to flanks in brightly colored blankets, some of which completely covered the horse’s head with holes cut out for the eyes. Many of the coverings were decorated with stars and other designs.
