The Winter Mantle (58 page)

Simon stared. He was not afraid. He knew that he must be dreaming and that he could wake himself if he so chose. But he wanted to see where the dream led.

As if reading his thoughts, Waltheof smiled. 'Just one step further,' he said. 'Is that not what you have always wanted, Simon? One more step to prove that you are as able as any man with two sound legs?'

Simon looked down. 'I do have two sound legs,' he said.

'And I have a head on my shoulders.' Waltheof answered, and turning on his heel walked into the dark forest. Simon hesitated, then followed him. It was what he was meant to do, he was sure of it. Otherwise, why would Waltheof have been waiting for him?

The trees closed around them and Simon's eyes widened to full stretch, trying to pick out the path under the darkness of the branches.

'Where are we going?' he demanded.

'Patience,' his companion said. 'I have something to show you.' He took him deeper still so that light and air seemed little more than memories. The musty, overpowering smell of fungus and woodrot was all pervading. Somewhere a pack of wolves was howling and the hair prickled erect on his nape as he realised that the sound was coming closer.

Waltheof strode on grimly and Simon fixed his gaze to the flash of white that was the lining of the bearskin cloak because that was all he could see. Behind him he swore he detected the soft pad of paws on the leaf litter of the forest floor. Waltheof stopped and Simon bumped into him. He was solid and alive, not a being without substance as Simon had half expected.

The wolves were very near; the sound of their howling filled the wood, bouncing off the trees, filling his head. Rancid breath heated the back of his neck. Simon groped at his belt but he carried not so much as a knife to defend himself. He looked at Waltheof, at the huge Dane axe in his hand.

'I cannot help you,' Waltheof said. 'You chose to follow me into the unknown. Now you face it.' Before Simon's gaze, his companion's solidity melted away. Something thudded at his feet, and looking down Simon saw the gleam of a skull as it came to rest against the toe of his boot. It grinned at him full stretch, no lips to conceal the hugeness of its mockery. And beyond it he perceived other skulls gleaming, row upon row, filling a clearing in the trees.

'God help me,' he croaked through a parched throat. The wolves attacked. Their howls claimed the hollow of his own skull and although he could not see them he could feel their vicious teeth and claws ripping the life out of him.

'My lord, wake up, wake up!'

Gasping, choking Simon burst out of his nightmare into the cold, pure air of reality. The mauling of the wolves became Turstan's hands shaking him, but the howls remained. Sharp, loud, ululating.

'My lord, wake up. The Turks are upon us!'

'What?' Simon struggled off his pallet. Pain roared down his leg like a lion, and for a moment he could not move. By the flickering light of a cresset lamp set dangerously on a campstool he saw that Turstan was wearing a quilted gambeson and mail shirt.

'Quilij Arslan is here with his entire army!' The young man's voice was pitched high and almost breaking with excitement and fear. 'He's surrounded the camp!'

Simon's heart had already been pounding from the vividness of his nightmare. Now it drummed in his ears and his leg throbbed in time with each hard, swift stroke. Turning awkwardly, he reached for his own padded tunic and hauberk.

Turstan helped him with swift efficiency, his fingers nimble despite his high state of agitation.

'They have not attacked yet?' Foolish question. Once witnessed, a Turkish assault could never be forgotten. They sped in on their swift, manoeuvrable little horses, fired arrows from their short but deadly bows, and whisked out of range again, maddening as gnats, constantly biting and darting away. Their swords were curved like shallow half-moons and so sharp that they could slice off a man's wrist and he would not notice until he saw the blood and his severed flesh twitching on the ground at his feet.

'No, my lord — but it cannot be long. As soon as first light strikes the horizon…'

First light, so that the archers could see to mark their targets and the horses would not stumble on the ground. Latching his swordbelt, collecting his helm, his eyes still crusted with sleep, Simon ducked out of his tent, gazed eastwards and saw a thin oystershell rim of dawn on the horizon.

Sabina was already out of her shelter. Sleeves rolled up, she was briskly assembling costrels and pails.

'There is always need of water if there is to be a battle,' she said by way of greeting.

Simon nodded brusquely. 'See if you can find linen for bandages too - raid my coffers if you must.'

She acknowledged him with a wave of her hand, her back already turned as she headed for the spring to fill her vessels.

Simon heeled about and limped towards the tents of the Norman leaders. They needed to organise with unprecedented speed. As soon as the light hit grey, the Turks would attack.

He arrived at the muster point at the same time as Ralf de Gael and Stephen of Aumale. both of them mail-clad and looking pensive and alert. Count Bohemond of Taranto, one of the senior Norman leaders, sat on his horse before his tent, flanked on either side by Robert of Normandy and Stephen of
Blois. Bohemond was a tall, muscular warrior with brutal features and a voice that could pierce a shield wall at fifty paces, a man whom others followed confidently into battle, for, although this was a holy crusade, Bohemond of Taranto was graced with the Devil's own luck.

Now he raised that magnificent voice and bellowed their battle plan across the paling sky. 'There are too many of them to face on horseback,' he cried. 'If we ride out to meet them, they will sow our ranks with death from their bows. I have sent a messenger with all speed to Raymond of Toulouse that he may bring the rest of our army to our succour.'

'So if we do not attack, what do we do? Sit here like trussed chickens and let them take us?' demanded a vociferous knight standing next to Simon.

Bohemond looked irritated. 'We form a defensive ring until the others arrive to reinforce us,' he said. 'Let the women and the footsoldiers draw in all our tents and pitch them close by the spring. The women and those who are unable to fight will receive the wounded and supply water to the fighting men. Let the knights with the best armour dismount and form a ring of steel around the camp.'

'That is preposterous!' shouted the knight. 'I would rather die charging the enemy than play the coward.'

'No one is asking you to play the coward,' Bohemond retorted, baring his square white teeth. 'By your own words, you play the fool. If you seek to be the most courageous, then take up your shield and join the front line.'

The knight glowered, spat on the ground and shouldered his way back through the gathering.

'Those who want to die for Christ now can go with him,' Bohemond cried. 'Those of you who want to live to see Jerusalem, follow my command.'

A few knights, mostly the companions of the first one, turned and left, but most men stood their ground and remained to receive more detailed orders.

Ralf de Gael laid a slender hand on Simon's shoulder. 'I saw the way you were limping when you came to the meet,' he murmured. 'I hope that you are not going into the fight.'

Simon stiffened beneath De Gael's concerned touch. By his suggestion, the Breton lord had just made the outcome inevitable. 'I can stand,' he said coldly, 'and likely make a better task of hefting a shield than walking hither and yon bearing pails of water.'

De Gael looked wry. 'It was not my intention to hurt your pride, rather to save your body,' he said.

'My lord, the intentions you have never had have always been the ones that are most damning,' Simon snapped and, turning his back on the Breton, went to organise his troops. Although pain tore through his leg, he forced himself to stride out, full aware that De Gael was watching him.

Just before the sun broke over the horizon the Turks attacked, swooping upon the crusader camp on their light, swift horses. Even while his gut somersaulted with a rush of fear at their assault, Simon still found a space to admire their athletic, almost languid grace as they fired arrows from the backs of their galloping mounts. Some rode in closer and hurled javelins over the tops of the Norman shield wall, seeking to penetrate the closed ranks.

Men screamed and fell as they were hit; others ran into the gap to take their place. Simon's kite shield, blazoned with a simple cross of gold on a red background, protected him from chin to ankle. Even if an arrow did pierce the seasoned limewood, it still had to punch through his mail and quilted linen undertunic before it found flesh. However, there was a price to pay for being so well protected. As the sun climbed in the sky, it heated the iron rivets on hauberks until they burned to the touch, and turned burnished steel helms into cooking pots. Sweat poured out of Simon like water from a leaky bucket, and the weight of his shield grew so heavy that it was almost like bearing a full-grown man on his left arm. He gulped hot air through his mouth and gained no respite. Sweat streamed into his eyes, stinging with salt, blurring his vision until he saw everything through a veil of salty moisture he could ill afford to lose. His leg pulsed and throbbed until bearing weight upon it was agony, but bear it he did, for to have withdrawn would have endangered the defensive line.

Every hour the front ranks retired to the back of the line for a respite from the assault of arrows and javelins while the women and non-combatants came amongst them with cooling horns and ladles of water from the spring. Staggering, feeling sick and disoriented, Simon gave up his place to the knight who touched his shoulder, and went to take a brief rest.

Sabina was waiting for him, a bucket at her feet. 'You must drink slowly else you will spew it all back up,' she told him as she dipped a wooden cup and held it out brimming. His hand was shaking so badly that he could scarce unfasten his mail aventail and lift the cup to his lips. More than half of the precious liquid spilled down his chin.

'You are not well.' Her grey eyes filled with concern. 'You should not be among the fighting men.'

'Christ, not you as well,' he snarled. 'I am as fit to fight as any soldier out there. Even if my body weakens, my spirit will hold me to the task.'

'Your stubborn spirit,' she amended grimly, but did not try to dissuade him further. 'Sit,' she said, indicating a campstool. 'And do not say that you have no desire to do so. All I need do is push you and you will fall down.'

Simon tried to glare at her, but his eyes crossed. He tottered the two steps to the stool and slumped down upon it. Not just his hands were trembling, but his entire body. He handed the empty cup back to Sabina and she refilled it. But instead of giving him the cup to drink, she gently removed his helm and poured the water over his head. Simon gasped, as much with pleasure as shock. The cold deluge trickled down the back of his neck and seeped into the sweat-soaked fleece of his gambeson. Twice more she doused him before she let him drink again. Simon was so parched that he thought that however much liquid he absorbed, it would never be enough to satisfy.

Taking his helm, Sabina began binding it with torn strips of wet linen. 'To stop the heat of the sun,' she said. 'And you should wear a tunic over your mail, like some of the Byzantines do.' She handed him a length of silk cloth in which she had slit a head opening. It was a tabard, improvised from some of the cloth Simon had brought from Constantinople. He had intended it as a gift for Matilda, a dress length to make a court robe. The cut had ruined it for such use, but he did not complain. Anything that mitigated the appalling heat of the battlefield was a blessing.

'Do you want food?'

Simon shook his head as he donned the silk over his mail and tucked it down through his swordbelt. The very mention of the word made him feel violently sick.

'Will we succeed?' she asked, 'or are we going to be massacred here?' Her voice was calm and flat. She had faced death when the galley had capsized, and seen it claim her children and her husband. It had marched as her constant companion, and for the moment she was numb.

Simon shrugged. 'If the second army can reach us in time then all will be well,' he replied, 'but I do not know for how long our men can hold the ground in this heat. Still,' he added quickly, 'the Saracens do not have an infinite supply of arrows and javelins. They must run out if we can only hold them off for long enough.' With an effort he lurched to his feet and swayed. The pain in his leg was agonising. Sabina filled his carrying costrel with water and he drank another cupful before he slipped his left arm through the leather grips on his shield.

There was a yell from the Norman ranks and Simon jerked round. Beside him Sabina craned on tiptoe to see what was happening. A conroi of horsemen forty strong had broken out from the Norman lines and was charging down on a retreating cluster of Saracen archers. Bohemond, who had arrived that moment at the springs to check on the wounded and take a drink, hurled his cup to the ground.

'God's Holy Face, the fools!' he roared. 'I gave no order. Who dares defy me?' He thrust his way through the battle lines like a plough through soil. A horn sounded to call the men back, but went ignored.

The Norman horses were slower than the light desert mounts of the Turks and were unable to catch the fleeing bowmen. A fresh wave of Saracens rode out to support their comrades and intercepted the Normans with a fierce rain of arrows. The knight's charge broke up in confusion as a hail of deadly barbs hit horses and men. Scimitars flashing, the Turks took advantage and moved in for the kill.

Simon watched one man fall, an arrow in his shoulder. His foot was tangled in the stirrup leather and his panicking horse dragged him across the stony ground at a hard gallop. His screams for help pierced the sky, and then the screams stopped as a rock shattered his spine. Sabina looked away.

'God have mercy,' Simon whispered as he watched scimitars flash in the harsh white light, and men fall. A handful of knights managed to break out of the ring of death and galloped back to their own lines, their shields quilled with arrows. The wounded were brought through to the water stations by the spring, and Simon recognised the impetuous knight who had been defying Bohemond at the dawn muster. Now his teeth were bared in agony and a black-feathered Saracen shaft protruded from his collarbone, the point forced in so deeply that extracting it would likely be impossible.