Crusade Read online

  The cool winds of autumn, blowing in off the sea, brought violent storms of rain, which drenched the Saracen and Crusader armies alike.

  ‘What’s the Sultan waiting for?’ Salim heard one of the patients mutter outside the doctor’s tent, holding his shield above his head against the rain. ‘Why doesn’t he attack and sweep the infidels into the sea? There are more arriving every day.’

  ‘Short memory you’ve got,’ another retorted. ‘He tried, remember? Months ago. A farce it was too. Satan himself must fight for the barbarians. How else could they have beaten us back? They fought like demons, curses on them.’

  ‘He’s settling in for the winter,’ someone else chipped in. ‘We’ll be here for months. Starving them out, that’s what he’s trying to do.’

  The first man spat.

  ‘It won’t work. Look at all their ships coming in to supply them. And while we’re trying to starve them, they’re starving Acre. I wouldn’t be in the city now, not for the hope of Paradise.’

  Salim shivered, looked up and caught the eye of the doctor who was pounding dried seeds in a mortar with pungent cloves of garlic. He put his pestle down, stuck his head out of the tent and waved a dismissive hand at the soldiers.

  ‘Idle gossip!’ he fumed. ‘I won’t stand for it! At my very door! Keep your ignorant thoughts to yourselves. Next patient!’

  Salim had explored every inch of hillside by now, both behind and in front of Saladin’s camp. The doctor’s chest was well stocked with the commoner herbs, but the rarer remedies were still missing, and he had to go foraging further and further afield.

  One cool December morning he was crouching down behind a large boulder, trying to decide if the dried seed heads scattered on the ground were useful or not, when he was suddenly seized from behind by a pair of powerful hands and wrenched round to face two scowling men. His heart leaped with terror.

  Franks! he thought. They’ve caught me! I’m dead!

  But an instant later he saw the Arabic inscription chased into the metal rim of one of the men’s helmets, and gasped with relief.

  ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Let me go. I’m the doctor’s boy. I’m—’

  ‘Shut it,’ one of the men growled, cuffing him painfully over the head. ‘We’ve been watching you. A spy, that’s what you are. Caught red-handed checking the lie of the land.’

  ‘What are you talking about? I’m one of you! I’m not a Frank! Look at me!’ Salim cried indignantly.

  ‘You’re a Christian,’ the other man said, as he tied Salim’s hands efficiently behind his back with a leather thong. ‘Spies, all you dirty Christians. Selling our secrets to the Franks, may Allah destroy them. Execution’s too good for the likes of you.’

  Salim stared at him in disbelief.

  ‘What do you mean? Are you crazy? I’m Muslim. Same as you are. I told you, I’m Dr Musa’s assistant. He’s the physician of the Sultan himself!’

  The men looked at each other for a moment, then simultaneously shook their heads.

  ‘Tell that to the birds, you little sneak,’ the older one said. ‘You’re not getting away with clever talk like that.’

  He brought the flat of his sword across Salim’s shoulders in a blow so hard it nearly felled him.

  By the time Salim had been prodded and kicked back to the camp he was a mass of bruises and his legs were badly grazed from the many times he’d fallen. He was not afraid, but furiously angry. Every now and then he’d been unable to hold back and had burst out in protest, only to receive another violent blow.

  ‘Fools! Idiots!’ he kept muttering under his breath. ‘Wait till the doctor hears about this!’

  As he was pushed and kicked through the camp, everyone turned and stared.

  ‘He’s a spy,’ one of his captors said proudly. ‘Caught him, didn’t we, out on the hillside. Dirty little Christian. Paid a fortune by the Franks to tell them all our secrets.’

  Salim, not daring to speak, flushed with helpless rage as curses were spat at him and he ducked to avoid swinging punches from the crowd.

  He was wondering if this nightmare would ever end when a familiar voice rang out above the angry buzz around him.

  ‘Salim! Is that you, Salim? Hey, little brother, what have you been up to? Why have they tied you up like that?’

  ‘Ismail!’ he yelled. ‘Ismail! Please!’

  A blow in the stomach winded him and he doubled over, gasping for breath. As if from far away he heard voices rage above him.

  ‘He’s not a spy, you damn fools. He’s the doctor’s boy!’

  ‘Nah – he fooled you too. We saw him. He—’

  ‘He belongs to the Sultan’s own doctor! Are you crazy? He lives in a big tent in Saladin’s own enclosure! The doctor healed me of my lance wound. With an olive!’

  Jeers broke out. Salim, recovering his breath, looked up to see Ismail, pale yet determined, facing the hostile crowd.

  ‘A lance wound healed with an olive? You believe that, you’ll believe anything!’ someone shouted. ‘Grab him. He’s a spy too!’

  ‘Me? What did you call me?’ roared Ismail, beginning to draw the sword from his scabbard. ‘I am a Mamluk! Come and get me then, if you dare!’

  Salim hardly saw what happened next. There was a sudden bustle and scramble around him. Someone was slashing through the strap binding his wrists, and now he was surrounded by his old friends from the Mamluk troop, while beyond them the crowd seemed to have melted away.

  ‘What happened? Who were they? Who did this to you?’ the Mamluks were asking.

  Breathlessly, Salim tried to explain, but his head was aching furiously and speech wouldn’t come.

  ‘Look at him! He’s gone the colour of cold soup. Catch him!’ he heard Ismail cry out, and then he fainted clean away.

  When he came to, he was lying on his own mat in the doctor’s tent, and Dr Musa was sponging his face with vinegar.

  ‘Ustadh,’ Salim tried to say, struggling to sit up, ‘I . . .’

  The doctor’s hand pressed him gently back down again. Salim, looking up, saw with amazement that the doctor’s eyes were wet.

  ‘I’m to blame!’ he said, striking his chest. ‘Sending you out, a defenceless child! If the Lord had taken you from me . . .’ He turned away, and Salim heard the sound of liquid being poured out. A moment later the doctor was holding a beaker to his lips. His hand was trembling.

  ‘A sip at a time. No more! You want to choke? Slowly, that’s it. Good. This will help the headache.’

  Salim smiled up at him weakly.

  ‘How did you know I’ve got a headache?’

  ‘Two bumps the size of ducks’ eggs on your skull and you don’t have a headache? The Lord’s to be praised that there’s no fracture. I felt carefully while you were unconscious. Quiet now. Rest. Sleep. You’ll be completely better four days from now. Completely, do you hear? I will accept nothing else.’

  It was in fact only three days later when Salim received a summons that astonished him.

  ‘The Sultan wants to see me? Me, sidi Musa?’ he said, staring up at the doctor. ‘I didn’t do anything wrong. You told him, didn’t you? I’m not a spy. He knows that, doesn’t he?’

  ‘He knows! Of course he knows,’ the doctor said testily, but Salim saw with alarm that he was anxiously chewing his lower lip. ‘There’s nothing to worry about. Nothing! Now put this on.’

  ‘A new tunic! Is it really for me?’ Salim touched the green linen gingerly.

  ‘Who do you think it’s for? Suweida? If I must have an assistant, at least he should do me credit.’ He lifted the fresh green cloth over Salim’s head. ‘Now the belt. A little better than the old one, eh? No, not your old sandals! You want the Sultan, peace be upon him, to think I employ a ragamuffin?’

  Delighted, Salim tied on his new sandals and wrapped round him the warm cloak that Dr Musa was now holding out.

  ‘You’ve grown,’ the doctor said, looking him up and down. ‘In wisdom as well as stature, let it be fondly hoped.�
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  In spite of his new clothes, Salim’s heart knocked inside his chest as he entered Saladin’s great marquee. He had been inside it many times before, but never before had he been the focus of attention. Now he was pushed forwards until he was standing in front of the bank of cushions on which Saladin sat cross-legged. The Sultan’s dark, deep-set eyes were closely watching him.

  ‘You are the doctor’s boy? Your name is Salim? You have been roaming about the hillsides, collecting herbs, I believe.’

  ‘Yes, sire.’ Salim’s voice was barely audible. He cleared his throat and tried again. ‘Yes, sire.’

  ‘You have ventured to both sides of our position, so I’m told. Towards the Crusader camp as well as away from it?’

  ‘Yes. The plants are not all . . . Some grow better on the Frankish side, sire.’

  Saladin was fingering his silky black beard.

  ‘You have observed the infidels? You have watched them?’

  Salim shuffled uneasily, not knowing what answer would be best.

  ‘Sometimes.’ A wave of Saladin’s hand forced him on. ‘There is a place,’ he said unwillingly, ‘a sort of rocky bit, with bushes growing on it. I can hide there. I can see a lot from there.’

  ‘You haven’t been noticed? The Franks have never seen you?’

  ‘A boy, sire, wandering about on the hillside,’ one of the men standing by a nearby tent pole put in. ‘Who would suspect him of anything? A cripple too. They’d think he was a shepherd boy looking for his sheep.’

  ‘What did you see?’

  Saladin’s eyes had never left Salim’s face.

  Salim tried furiously to think.

  ‘Nothing much, sire,’ he began. ‘It’s just a camp.’

  ‘Give me a picture of it,’ Saladin encouraged him. ‘Tell me every detail.’

  Salim swallowed, and began hesitantly to describe the Crusader camp. Seeing the interest in the Sultan’s eye, he told him of the wagons, the shape of the fortifications behind the gates, the men with barrows pitchforking the hay.

  ‘But last time I looked the hay had all gone,’ he said, ‘and there are more tents crowded in on top of each other, every time I look. And a – a very bad smell, sire. They foul the place everywhere.’

  ‘Good. Very good.’ Saladin waved a hand. ‘I’ve had dozens of men reporting on the camp but none has given me so much detail. It takes the eyes of a boy. Information, intelligence, that’s what’s required. The smallest details are of importance. If the Franks are running out of fodder for their horses, I need to know. If their filth is piling up to cause disease, I want to hear about it. You are to resume your watching, Salim. Put aside these new clothes. Dress like a simple boy again. Spy for me. Get as close to the infidel army as you can without being caught.’

  ‘Oh yes, sire!’ Salim was on fire with enthusiasm.

  ‘Better! Even better! Do your best, Salim. This is jihad, you understand, Salim? We’re fighting to cleanse our land of the foul invaders, who wish to take from us the holy city of Jerusalem, the very place to which the Prophet himself, peace be upon him, came on his great night journey.’

  ‘Yes, oh yes, I understand!’ Salim, who was half mesmerized by the Sultan’s steady gaze and his rich compelling voice, would at that moment have been content to be run through by a Crusader’s lance if Saladin had required it.

  A groan made him turn his head. Dr Musa was wringing his hands in distress.

  ‘The danger, my lord, think of the danger to the boy! He’s a child, and lame! How can he run if he’s pursued? And if he’s caught . . .’

  ‘For the greater good, doctor, we must all make sacrifices,’ Saladin answered calmly. ‘The boy is sent by Allah to be our eyes and ears. You have your commission, Salim. Go out and fulfil it.’

  A week had passed since the Fortis contingent had arrived in the camp outside the walls of Marseilles, and it had been a worrying time for Adam. He knew that Jennet would be safe most of the time with Lord Guy’s people, who still felt awed by her link with Lord Robert, although when the men-at-arms started drinking the mood could turn ugly. It was the mass of strangers all around that concerned him most. He didn’t dare speak to her, afraid that she would laugh at him and call him a kid again, but he stayed near her as much as he could, alert to danger, setting Faithful to guard her whenever he had to be away.

  The worst thing, though, was a mysterious sickness that was affecting all the dogs. It had started with one of the lymers, who had gone off his feed and kept scratching at a sore eye. His nose was dry and hot to the touch, and Adam could tell that he had a fever. Two of the other lymers showed the same symptoms the next day, and by the end of the week all Lord Guy’s dogs, except for Ostine, seemed ill. Faithful, who had been most of the time with Jennet, seemed unaffected.

  Adam nursed the dogs as best he could, cleaning out their running eyes, coaxing them to eat and drink and stroking their flanks when they twitched in uncontrollable convulsions.

  Since they’d arrived at Marseilles, Lord Guy had been too busy waiting around the royal pavilion in the hopes of catching the eye of the King to take much notice of his own people, but the thing Adam dreaded happened at last. Returning from a dinner with an earl from Suffolk, Lord Guy almost stumbled over Mirre, who was lying at Adam’s feet turning her head away from the titbit he was holding beneath her nose.

  ‘Mirre,’ Lord Guy said, clicking his fingers, expecting the dog to jump up and greet him as she usually did. Mirre flapped her tail once wearily against the ground, but didn’t lift her head.

  ‘Sick? Is she sick?’

  Lord Guy’s eyes were glazed with too much wine, but focused them angrily on Adam.

  ‘Yes, my lord.’ Adam’s heart was thumping. ‘I’ve been trying to feed them and give them water, but—’

  ‘Them? What is this? The others are sick too?’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’ Adam’s voice was so low he was almost whispering. He made himself speak louder. ‘The lymers are bad, but not Ostine. And – and the mastiff puppy is well.’

  Lord Guy bent down and lifted Mirre’s head with a hand that was surprisingly gentle.

  ‘I know this sickness,’ he said, straightening up unsteadily. ‘It kills them. All my dogs! Only Ostine left!’

  Adam waited, trembling, for a blow to fell him. When it didn’t come he dared to look up. Lord Guy was running a bleary eye over the other dogs, who, limp and miserable, were lying panting in the shade of a wagon.

  ‘It’s a curse,’ Lord Guy said at last, as if to himself. ‘It’s that low-born son of scribbler, William Scriveson! Keeps me away from the King, and now the scoundrel’s cursed my dogs!’ He lifted his head. ‘Robert! Where’s my idiot son gone now? Robert! My sword! Bring me my sword!’

  He stumbled off in the direction of the King’s pavilion.

  Adam, watching him go, let out a sigh of relief. Jennet appeared at his elbow, a pile of freshly washed linen hanging over her arm.

  ‘What happened, Adam? What did he say?’

  ‘He says the dogs are cursed. That’s why they’re sick.’

  She took a step backwards, her eyes widening fearfully as she looked down at Mirre’s heaving, sweating flanks.

  ‘Witchcraft! Why? Who?’

  ‘The King’s marshal,’ Adam shrugged. ‘Lord Guy hates him. But I don’t believe it. They started going sick before we got here. They caught the infection from some village dogs a couple of weeks ago. Mirre looks just like the dog lying by that crossroads at the top of the hill. You remember that place. It was where we passed the bodies hanging up on the gallows.’

  Jennet shuddered.

  ‘I do remember. I wish I could forget. Did you tell Lord Guy?’

  ‘Of course not. If he thinks they’re cursed he won’t blame me.’ He flexed his shoulders as if a weight had rolled off them. ‘It’s a relief and all. I thought I’d be whipped, or worse.’

  ‘They won’t die, will they, poor things?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘I�
�ll do my best. None have died yet. Who knows what’ll happen tomorrow?’

  ‘I do. I’ve just heard. The ships are ready. We’re out of here in the morning. Sailing first thing. And you know what? Even if the dogs don’t die I reckon I will. It makes me heave just to think about the sea. The first little wave and I’ll be wishing I was never born.’

  ‘The ships are ready?’ he said, looking disbelievingly at the vast numbers of men and horses that surrounded them. ‘For everyone?’

  ‘No, only a few. Us Fortis people, and one or two other English groups.’ She grinned. ‘Joan heard Hugo de Pomfret talking about it when she was carrying him his clean linen. The King wants to get the most quarrelsome barons out of the way because they’re causing too much trouble.’

  Adam, thinking of Lord Guy staggering off to fight dry old Master William Scriveson, began to laugh, and once he’d started he couldn’t stop. Jennet stared at him.

  ‘What’s got into you? I haven’t heard you laugh for months.’

  He wiped a sleeve across his streaming eyes.

  ‘I don’t know. It’s just the thought of Lord Guy, I suppose, getting into fights with everyone.’

  But he knew it was more than that. With the news that they were leaving, he’d felt an uprush of joy and confidence. The dogs might be ailing, and he was worried about Jennet, but the thought that they were at last to set off on the final leg of their journey had warmed him with the same glorious certainty he’d known on the night when he’d taken the cross. The great city of Jerusalem, salvation for himself and his mother, the beginning of a new and marvellous life, floated in a golden cloud in front of him. He had only to step forwards and it would engulf him. He knew that from now on, whatever happened when the Crusade was over, nothing would ever be the same again. Even if he had to spend the rest of his life bonded in serfdom to the lords of Fortis, subject forever to their whims, inside he would be free.