00 - Templar's Acre (15 page)

Two days later, more ships arrived with soldiers from Lombardy nd Tuscany, and almost immediately the riots started.

The first Baldwin knew of the trouble was the shouts. He grabbed his sword, buckling the belt as he went from the house. ‘Pietro! Keep the gate locked and barred, and
don’t let anyone in except me or Sir Jacques!’ he shouted as he went.

Hundreds of Muslims and Christians were running from the city into Montmusart, and he was shocked to see the naked terror in their eyes, but then, as he hurried into the city itself, he found
the reason for their panic.

It had been a wonderful harvest that year. There was grain aplenty in the markets, and traders had come in from farms all about to sell their wares. Muslims, Christians, Jews – all were to
be found in Acre, generally living together without dispute or trouble.

The arrival of the Lombard and Tuscan crusaders would change that forever.

Leaving their ships, full of zeal to hunt down and slay Muslims, the newcomers were appalled to find the enemy walking freely about the city. They were peasants, not politicians, and their
understanding of the situation in Acre was flimsy at best. They were disgusted to discover that Muslims were not only tolerated here, but for the most part were treated as equals. To those who had
sailed hundreds of miles to protect Acre, it was intolerable to find that the city was already overrun.

Later, Baldwin heard that a man had been set upon in the street for molesting a Christian woman. They didn’t realise he was not only Christian, but her husband. His beard confused the
crusaders, who thought all bearded men were Muslims and therefore the enemy. They saw a Muslim walking with a woman wearing a cross, and murdered him for his supposed offence.

That first death was only the spark that lighted the fire. Soon fights had broken out all over the city as Lombards and Tuscans ran through the alleys, far down through the Venetian quarter, up
through the Pisan and Genoese sectors, and back into the main city. A hothead tried to batter his way into the Temple, but was quickly disabused of his belief that he could enter – and his
unconscious body was taken away by his friends.

Many fought with resolute incomprehension. They saw strange clothes, beards and dark skin – and did not think beyond those manifestations of an alien culture. Baldwin wondered whether they
could even think. They were the poor, the uneducated, the dregs of society – and most of them were drunk. All they knew was that the Pope had sanctioned their journey here to fight Muslims.
So they did, wherever they found them.

His flank still smarting, Baldwin entered the old city. There was screaming from the area near the Hospital, and more from the market close to San Sabba, and he smelled burning. Wafts of smoke
filled the alleys as he ran.

It was as he made his way through the streets with others summoned by the shouts that he found the first bodies: a man, his face horribly disfigured by a blow, a second victim a short distance
away who had been stabbed many times. Their blood was pooled in the gutter, and Baldwin waved away flies with disgust as they tried to settle on his face. It was repellent that they would gorge
themselves on the dead and then smother his face. He hurried on, and when he came near to the Genoese quarter he suddenly found himself in the middle of mayhem.

There must have been at least two hundred peasants, ill-armed, and poorly trained. A sergeant was bawling himself hoarse ordering them to stop, but those at the front were filled with bloodlust.
There were already six bodies on the ground, three decapitated, and as Baldwin watched, three dragged a man forward, forced him to kneel, and a fourth, laughing with a lunatic joy, hefted a heavy
butcher’s cleaver, aiming at his neck.

As his weapon reared back to strike, Baldwin reached him.

Afterwards he didn’t remember a conscious decision to protect the man kneeling and weeping with incomprehension in the dirt, but the sight so enraged Baldwin that his legs carried him
across the square in an instant. He slammed into the executioner, and the man was sent sprawling, the cleaver clattering on the flagstones.

‘Release him!’ Baldwin bawled with rage, his sword already pointing dangerously at the three gripping their captive. They obeyed at once, seeing the savage anger in his face. They
let go of their victim, stepping away carefully, and Baldwin felt a momentary pleasure. He had failed to protect the merchants against Roger Flor, but he would not fail this man.

There was a scrape, and he turned to see the executioner grabbing for his cleaver. Baldwin placed his booted foot on it and held his blade to the man’s breast.

‘It’s mine!’ the man said.

‘Leave it where it is!’ Baldwin rasped.

The crowd muttered angrily, and all might have ended badly, had it not been for a party of Hospitallers who entered the square, swords at the ready, closely followed by twenty Genoese
crossbowmen. The mob-lunacy dissipated at the sight of the weapons facing them. The victim had fallen, and was retching drily on all fours in the blood of the other bodies, and Baldwin felt a pang
as he glanced at them.

‘Why have you done this?’ he demanded loudly to the people nearest. ‘Isn’t it enough that we are in danger already, without killing our friends?’

‘They aren’t our friends,’ the executioner spat. His face twitched, while a hand scrabbled at his lice-infested beard. ‘They’re Moors – our enemy! If you
don’t kill them, you are a heathen like them! Blasphemer!’

‘Really?’ Baldwin sneered. He reached down to the throat of the nearest corpse and pulled away the simple wooden cross he had seen there. ‘So now you think Muslims worship
Christ as do you or I? You’ve murdered Christians, you fool!’

He dropped the little necklace back onto the body. A Hospitaller stepped forward and grabbed hold of the executioner to lead him away.

But Baldwin had heard another scream, and he hurried to a nearby alley. As the Hospitallers led away their captive, other men of Acre appeared. There were five behind him now, and seeing that he
had their support, he called them to him, and ran into the alley.

Into the Genoese quarter.

It was after prayers, and Abu al-Fida was feeling that temporary ease which always struck him afterwards. Prayers helped him think of his lovely Aisha and his daughters more
calmly. It took away the harsh edge of sadness, and replaced it with a softer pain that was at least bearable.

‘What is that noise?’ Abu al-Fida said as they left the lane and entered a broad roadway.

Usmar’s face was white. ‘A rabble – they are beating men, Father!’

‘Come – here,’ Abu al-Fida said, thinking to evade them. He led the way back down the alley, and at the end was going to turn up the next, when they saw more men coming towards
them. This time, there were only six or seven – not enough to alarm him.

Usmar murmured, ‘Father, shouldn’t we go—’

‘Come. This is Acre, not some provincial village,’ Abu al-Fida said. He continued, and smiled politely at the men walking the other way.

One nodded, and a second grinned, but then there was a shout behind him, and Abu al-Fida turned in surprise to find that another group of men was pointing at him and calling out. As he watched,
they started to run towards him.

‘Usmar,’ he said, ‘go!’

‘I cannot leave you!’

‘You must! Run!’

Usmar set off, and perhaps it was that which made the men act as they did. Usmar was grabbed as he bolted past, and his body slammed to the ground. Then, although Abu al-Fida shouted and tried
to get to his son, he saw the flash of a blade.

Strange. Afterwards, all he could recall was that flashing blade, as it rose and fell again, until a red mistiness enveloped him.

A hideous blow caught his neck and he was thrown to the ground, his head an insupportable weight, as though made of lead, and he lay with his cheek against the gravel in the roadway, while he
heard the sound of a man choking.

Later, when the men in the white tunics arrived and drove the mob away, he realised the choking had come from his son.

But by then it was too late to help him.

Lucia had not expected the crowds. At first their appearance was not alarming, just surprising. It seemed impossible so many people could have poured into the alleys.

When the alarm was heard, Lucia was at the market with her mistress and two men. The sound was like the rushing of a torrent in full spate, and sent terror into Lucia’s heart. Lady Maria
jerked her head, and they hurried towards the house, but even as they quickened their pace, a man hurtled from an alley, a bloody knife in his hand, his eyes wild. One of Maria’s men barged
Lucia aside and cut at him. He died quickly, rolling in the dust with his hands at his throat.

Now they were running. Maria was panting, panicked, but Lucia was past worrying about her. This was awful: peasants had risen to kill the wealthy. It was a reversal of normality, as if the Day
of Judgement was come. Lucia felt as though her heart must burst with horror when she tripped over a man with an obscene slash in his belly. She fell into his entrails and screamed, trying to wipe
her hands clean on her emerald dress, but nothing would get the blood off; it was sticky, foetid, disgusting. Already the others were running ahead of her along an alley that should take them to
the house, and Lucia suddenly had a clear premonition that they would enter and bar the door whether she was with them or not. Maria would not risk her property or life to save a slave.

Lucia lurched to her feet, weeping, but even as she sped along, she realised she had not taken the right route and must retrace her steps. It was already too late – too late – and
she could not see Maria or the men, and she was all alone, and she could hear men approaching from the street where the house lay, and she couldn’t go down there.

Her heart thundering in her breast, she stopped and stared about her wildly. There was an acrid taste in her mouth, as though she was about to be sick, and her heart was racing.

And then she heard, and turned with a whimper to see Baldwin, accompanied by several men.

Baldwin saw her as the mob appeared. One held a bloody knife aloft, while in the front rank, three held skins of wine.

‘Sweet Jesus,’ one of Baldwin’s companions muttered.

The mob saw Lucia, and smiles overspread their faces. One had his hand at his cods, pulling his hosen down, when Baldwin and his men raced to them.

‘Back to your ships!’ Baldwin bellowed.

They didn’t listen. The would-be rapist spat on Baldwin’s boot, while the knife-wielder ran at him.

Baldwin stabbed the knife-man in the breast, his left hand grasping the man’s knife as he did so, then booted him from his sword; he kicked the spitter in the ballocks, and rammed his
pommel into the face of the next. The crowd was forced onwards by the crush behind them, and Baldwin and the men with him had to hack and stab and bludgeon to hold their ground. It was a tight
lane, barely wide enough for two horses abreast, and Baldwin lowered a shoulder, shoving the crowd back by using the nearest man as a shield, stabbing with the point of his sword . . . but there
was nothing he and his men could do to prevent the mob gradually advancing. They were too many, too reckless.

It was then, just as Baldwin thought they must soon be overwhelmed, that an unearthly shriek came from a nearby alley some yards behind the front of the crowd. Baldwin could see little of what
was happening, but suddenly the press was lessened. There was another high-pitched scream, and this time he realised it was a war-cry. A sword hacked at the back of the man in front of him, and
Baldwin stabbed from the front, and the man fell. Behind him stood a man in a pale tunic, with long-ish mousy-coloured hair. The man nodded at Baldwin, a lazy smile on his face, before returning to
hacking and stabbing in a wild frenzy.

The newcomer’s intervention at the flank was enough to alarm many of the mob. At last, when six men lay dying or dead, the crowd began to pull away.

Baldwin wiped an arm over his brow, staining the linen with sweat and blood, and stared, until he was convinced that the mob was returning to the harbour.

‘Are you well, maid?’ he panted to Lucia.

She looked up at him.

Her veil had been torn away during her mad rush, and to him she looked like a terrified faun. Her green eyes were still startling, all the more so because her face was flushed, and her wide gaze
was fixed upon him with so transparent a look of vulnerability that he felt he could take her up now and never let her go. He would battle the armies of Islam and Christianity alike to protect
her.

‘I thank you, Master,’ he said to the stranger. With a man like this to help him, he would conquer any army. ‘My friend, I am glad to meet you. What is your name?’

‘Edgar,’ the fellow said. He paused, and then, ‘You can call me Edgar of London.’

Lucia was in a turmoil as the men walked her up the street and away from her mistress. She submitted, because it was clear she could not go home, not yet. The mob would rape
her, maybe kill her. ‘What can I do?’

‘You must come with us,’ Baldwin said. ‘When the streets are safe, I will bring you home.’

She nodded. He inspired trust. Confident and tall, he strode ahead. He had a cut on his left arm, three of his companions were also nursing wounds, and the man calling himself Edgar of London
followed.

Bodies littered many alleys and corners. At one, a man lay sprawled with a dog lying dead on his body. She saw Baldwin stop and touch the dog’s head. She shivered at the unseeing eyes on
the dead man. It would be a long time before she could feel safe again in this city.

Unconsciously, she leaned against Baldwin. He was kind-looking for a Frank. Usually they stared at her with unbounded lust in their eyes, but this man did not. He made her feel safe. She was
attracted to him.

The other, Edgar, looked dangerous. He scared her. Certainly he was bold, and courageous, but there was something in his eyes that frightened her, a cold unfeelingness like an avenging angel
come to earth. During the battle in the street she had caught a glimpse of him, and saw only a terrible glee at killing that chilled her.