The Lion of Cairo (51 page)

And all around, encircling the village like a peasant army, sprawled the baggage train of the King of Jerusalem.

Assad grunted in satisfaction. Unlike Shirkuh’s Turkomans, who were born to the saddle and bred to make do with the barest necessities, Amalric’s army required the efforts of a small city to ensure its survival. Hundreds of wagons surrounded the village—ox-drawn wains that conveyed the army’s tents and pavilions, its utensils and tackle, its provender and perishables. Drovers tended to the lowing oxen while farriers and squires made ready to care for the cavalry’s weary mounts once the battle ended. Smoke curled from the temporary forges where armorers and blacksmiths plied their trade, adding to the miasma rising off the ovens and roasting pits. Assad saw gangs of villagers pressed into service hauling water and digging trenches. Their Nazarene overseers paid them little heed, though; instead, they fixed their attention to the south, where plumes of dust marked their king’s battle against the Saracen.

With predatory patience, Assad studied the enemy encampment; he noted the ebb and flow of individuals, the distribution of material. He marked the wood gatherers engaged in building bonfires against the coming night, and the draymen who shuffled the heavier wagons to the edge of camp to create makeshift ramparts. He paid special attention to the pairs of men-at-arms who stood sentinel around the perimeter. As he expected, they were not the cream of Amalric’s soldiery, but rather lightly armored irregulars or veterans too old to fight in the vanguard … hale, to be sure, but nearing the end of their usefulness. Assad stripped off his borrowed coif and tossed it aside. From what he could tell, the men who remained with the baggage train wore no mail; neither would he.

As the Assassin backed away from the bluff’s edge—routes of infiltration already taking shape in his mind—movement off to the south caught his attention. Instinctively, he dropped flat against the chalk-dry earth. Through the dust and lengthening shadows a single horseman raced up the road, Jerusalem’s colors fluttering from the tip of his lance. Horns blared from sentries at the camp’s edge; the commotion drew men from every quarter, men who shouted questions to the rider as he passed, his destination no doubt the small plaza and mosque at the center of the village. He bore news of the battle, but was the news good or ill? Denied answers, even the sentries joined the press of men streaming after the rider.

Determined to take advantage of the sudden lapse in the camp’s vigilance, Assad scuttled across the ground. He did not have time to retrace his steps, to find a simpler way down onto the plain; near at hand, a deep crevice cleft the face of the bluff. The Assassin cast a quick glance across the plain, then swung his legs over the crevice’s edge and recklessly lowered himself down, oblivious to the forty-foot drop. To a man who had survived alone in the high Afghan mountains, where the wind howled and knives of ice carved canyons through the black limestone, the fissure’s cracks and outcroppings created no more a hindrance than did a rickety ladder. In places, Assad’s mailed shoulders scraped stone; his booted feet dislodged showers of rock as he fell the last few feet to the Nile floodplain.

The Assassin rolled and came up into a crouch. Sweat burned his eyes. He breathed heavily, flexing his fingers to work the cramps from them; the muscles in his thighs and back ached. Fresh blood seeped from the lacerations he’d received at the hands of the Heretic. In the distance a ragged cheer sounded from the Nazarene camp—a sign the rider’s news must surely favor Jerusalem. Assad, though, was unmoved, undeterred.
The message is all that matters
.

Rising, he unbuckled his sheathed sword and tossed it into the crevice. Next, accompanied by muffled curses, he wriggled free of his mail hauberk. This left him clad in a jupon of faded green and gold brocade—sweat stained and spotted with rust—his trousers, and boots. Baring the edge of his
salawar,
he cut a strip of leather from the hauberk’s hem and used it to tie back his tangled black hair. Not a perfect Frank, true, but he trusted the coming night to camouflage the worst of his flaws.

Assad caught up his blade, sheathed it, and set off across the plain with the loping stride of a hunter. He kept to the swathes of waist-high sedge grass that divided the naked brown fields, vaulting narrow canals overgrown with reeds; his passage dislodged a flock of herons who took to wing amid sharp cries of indignation.

It took longer than expected, but Assad reached the edge of the Nazarene camp as the sun dipped below the far horizon. The sky above was aflame—shades of fiery red and orange and umber fading to the deep velvet of night. Stars flared to life, pinpricks of light in the evening haze. Assad bolted from a thicket of sedge and skidded to a crouch alongside one of the perimeter wagons. Panting, he listened to the chaotic sounds of Amalric’s camp.

Shouting voices and the creak of wheels marked the departure of scores of wagons, doubtless bound for the battlefield to recover the wounded and the dead. The Assassin glanced out from beneath the wagon’s bed and saw the return of smaller donkey carts that had accompanied the army. At one time they carried casks of water, sheaves of arrows, and lances; now, they were laden with groaning bodies. Torches blazed, casting murky light over the pale and hollow-eyed faces of the injured. Weary horsemen clopped alongside, barely acknowledging the throng of camp followers who barked questions and pressed clay cups of water into their hands.

Unnoticed in the confusion, Assad rolled beneath the wagon and came smoothly to his feet. He blended into the mob of camp followers, who spoke a mixture of Frankish and Arabic, until he found himself walking alongside one of the donkey carts.

A young foot soldier clung to the side of the cart, forced into a sitting position by the sprawled bodies behind him. Mail hung in tatters from his narrow shoulders; he winced at each bump and jostle, cursing in Arabic, one bloody hand clawing at the broken shaft of an arrow jutting from his side. He would have ripped it out had Assad not caught him by the arm.

“Don’t,” the Assassin murmured. “You’ll only make it worse.”

The soldier sighed and nodded.

“Tell me, brother: are we victorious?”

The soldier raised his head. A glancing blow from a mace had splintered his left cheek and brow, blinding that eye. He tilted his pale face to look at Assad; blood dribbled from the corner of his mouth. He blinked, spat. “I … I d-don’t know…”

10

The sounds of slaughter faded with the sun’s light. Cries for succor replaced the crash of steel as a temporary truce was called; Moslem and Nazarene put aside their differences and set about caring for the wounded—and tending to the dead.

Yusuf ibn Ayyub regarded the harrowed ground through eyes brimming with weariness and pain. The young Kurd’s helmet was gone, ripped from his head by an axe-wielding Nazarene. His
khalat
and mail hung in tatters. Gore clotted his arms, his hands. It stiffened his beard and gave his countenance a ghoulish cast in the guttering torchlight. Yusuf walked with the aid of a splintered spear shaft; the same lance thrust that pierced the meat of his thigh had slain the horse beneath him. His second horse had gone down with a cleft skull.

Initially, the battle unfolded as Shirkuh had predicted, but the Nazarenes proved themselves no less resourceful in a pinch. Their lines held; the men of Cairo failed to draw Amalric’s center away while a reserve of light cavalry kept Shirkuh’s own horsemen from flanking the enemy infantry. What should have been a lightning rout turned instead into a hard-fought draw.

Heaps of corpses marked the Turkoman line—bodies entangled in death, hacked mail reflecting daggers of light, beards jutting heavenward, hands clutching broken sword hilts. Spears and lances, some trailing scraps of colorful cloth, erupted like grotesque saplings from the bloody ground; a harvest of spent arrows grew from the flesh of the slain. Exhausted Turkoman soldiers saw to their injured brethren, helping stand those who could and carrying those too wounded to move. Yusuf witnessed reunions and tragedies in the eerie twilight: fathers and sons embracing; brothers kneeling around the body of their slain elder; old friends lending one another a shoulder as they wept for dead saddle mates.

“Yusuf.”

The young Kurd turned. Shirkuh stood behind him, drawn and haggard. He, too, bore the bloody stigmata of battle.

“What happened, Uncle?” Yusuf said. “Why did Amalric’s lines not break as you foretold?”

“Perhaps he and I have crossed paths once too often, and now he knows better than to underestimate me. Perhaps his skill has improved. Or, perhaps we simply did not fight with the full measure of our hearts. Only Allah knows for certain. Come, Yusuf. Let the surgeons see to that leg.”

Yusuf waved away Shirkuh’s concern. “There are others worse than I.”

“True, but let them bind it properly so you may still be of use to me. We have much yet to do. Our victory—”

“Victory, Uncle? What victory? Amalric yet lives; he yet has an army at his fingertips, and he yet bedevils Egypt. Calling
this
a victory is premature, at best. At worst, it reeks of hubris.”

“Ever my conscience, eh?” Shirkuh grinned. “Tell me, if you remember, what task did our Sultan—may Allah hold him ever in His favor—saddle us with? Was it the destruction of Amalric of Jerusalem? No, boy! Though Nur ad-Din would not look askance on a gift such as Amalric’s head, that is secondary to why we are here.”

“I remember,” Yusuf said. “We are here for Cairo.”

Shirkuh’s smile widened. “For Cairo! And therein we have our victory, for am I not a newly minted vizier of that great city? The Caliph will open his gates and welcome us back with open arms!”

Yusuf ibn Ayyub limped to his uncle’s side. “What will you do with this newfound goodwill? Will you strike…?”

“There is no need for haste in these matters,” Shirkuh said. He offered Yusuf his arm to lean upon. “No need at all. We will see first to the Nazarenes; then, we will let Cairo simmer for a few weeks while we regain our strength. Give the people a chance to become accustomed to our presence.”

“And then…?”

“There can only be one ruler in Egypt, Yusuf. Only one.” Shirkuh ibn Shahdi’s grim smile widened. “And I intend for it to be me!”

“
Inshallah,
Uncle.
Inshallah.
”

Arm in arm, the pair faded into the star-flecked night …

11

Amalric of Jerusalem returned from the battlefield in a towering rage. He did not seethe against his soldiers, who had acquitted themselves admirably; nor did he rail against his situation, which was a damn sight better than he had any right to expect. No, Amalric reserved his rage for the man who rode at his right hand.

The blond-bearded king of Jerusalem twisted in the saddle, glaring at the Master of the Temple, Arnaud de Razès, whose black surcoat was stiff with Saracen blood. “What do you mean, we should pull back to Bilbeis?”

“Bilbeis is a more defensible location,” replied Arnaud, a rawboned giant of a man whose blue eyes gleamed with murderous piety. His face was like a mask of hard leather stretched over a frame of gristle, and it bore a tracery of old scars—some wrought by steel and fire, others by the ravages of time. His graying mustache bristled. “Its walls—”

“I didn’t come to Egypt to occupy a shit hole like Bilbeis! God’s teeth, man! We have Shirkuh on the defensive and you advocate running away! Merciful Christ! What has become of the storied courage of the Templars?”

“May God forgive you your blasphemy, milord,” Arnaud said, his voice low and measured. “As for my brothers and I, we endeavor to balance courage with truth … and the truth is we no longer have the manpower to prosecute a proper siege.”

“The Devil take your ‘proper siege’! All we need is one weakened gate and the courage to take it by force. We’ve flung the dice, de Razès. Now, it’s time we seized our winnings.”

“Milord, be reasonable! We can no more—”

“Reasonable? War is no place for reasonable men!” As if to prove his point, King Amalric spurred his horse into the village square. Paved in yellow sandstone and shaded by a fringe of well-kept palms, this place was the center of life for the Saracen peasants—their mosque, appropriated by the Templars to be their barracks, opened on the square, as did the inns and caravanserais the Frankish nobles seized as part of their spoils. Now, iron cressets spilled ruddy light over what had become Jerusalem’s makeshift court. All around, exhausted and bloodied king’s men awaited his pleasure, the barons of the realm who had pledged their flesh to Amalric and their souls to God; with them were retainers and men-at-arms, common soldiers and camp followers. Cheers went up at the sight of their king.

Amalric raised his hand for silence. “Men of Jerusalem! Blessed soldiers of the Cross! Today, I saw in your hearts the spirit of our forefathers—the prowess of Duke Godfrey, the ferocity of Tancred, and the piousness of Adhemar!” The recitation of these names, heroes of the past who had spearheaded the Great Crusade, sent ripples of pride through the listeners; their cries redoubled. The King stroked his beard sagaciously and waited for their voices to subside. After a moment, he continued. “God, in His inscrutable wisdom, did grant us victory over the filthy Saracen! Shirkuh’s back is broken, his ragged host much reduced! Upon the morrow, I will march to the gates of Cairo and demand its surrender! Should they refuse, I will pull those gates down with my bare hands if need be! Will I stand alone in this?”

“No!” his men, noble and commoner alike, answered with a resounding din. “No!”

Amalric raised himself up in his stirrups. In his battle-scarred mail and blood-spattered surcoat, with his sandy hair and beard and fierce-eyed stare, he looked every inch a warrior-king of legend. He swept his notched sword from its sheath and thrust it at the star-flecked heavens. “For God and for Jerusalem!”

“For God!”
The square erupted, a thunderous roar of approbation matched only by the rattle of wood and steel. Torchlight flashed from spearheads, from shield bosses, from helmets as the soldiers mimicked their King’s gesture, stabbing their fists to the sky.
“For Jerusalem! For Amalric!”