No one paid the two knights any attention as they crossed in front of the burly crewman who manned the tiller and stood staring straight ahead towards the prow. They seated themselves near him, side by side on two large bundles of what looked like netting, and far enough removed from the helmsman that they could speak without being overheard. For a short time after that, they talked of generalities, but Henry was anxious to talk more of specifics and soon went to the heart of things.
The last thing you said to me yesterday, just before the storm broke and we had to scramble for shelter, was that the kings who will lead us to the Holy Land need to absorb some facts that will stick in their craws. I have been wondering ever since. What did you mean?
Montdidiers face grew somber. I meant exactly what I said. The army being assembled now, both in Britain and in France, is no army at all. It is a collection of fragmentssplintered factions and coterieseach of them with leaders and commanders who have agendas and ambitions of their own and an eye to their own advantage ahead of everyone elses. But all of them, kings, princes, dukes, counts, and anything else thats there, all of them need to be convinced somehow, and forced if necessary, into accepting the realities of where they will be going and what awaits them there. I have spoken with most of them and told them what I believe, what I know and have witnessed with my own eyes, but among all of them, only Richard Plantagenet deigned to heed what I said. The others had no wish to hear. They have their own beliefs, their own deluded convictions.
When the Hospitaller said no more, St. Clair prompted, And those convictions are what? I think I could guess, but tell me anyway. What do they believe?
Stupidities. Montdidier dropped his hand to his belt and drew out a dagger with a long, narrow blade. He shifted his grip from hilt to blade and began to scrape the underside of his fingernails with the point.
And? What are these stupidities?
Montdidier was glowering, but then he straightened his back abruptly, sucked in a great breath and expelled it loudly, ridding himself of his frowning anger as quickly and as easily as another man might shed a cloak. Why am I being angry at you, can you explain that to me? You are not involved in this at all Not yet, at least. But you will be, believe me. He slipped the knife back into its sheath and crossed his arms on his chest. They all believe that this new war, like all the other conflicts they have known, will be won by mounted knights.
And you would have them believe otherwise.
Of course I would, because I want them to destroy the Muslim armies and survive. They must be made to see how wrong they areto change not only their minds but their methods and their fighting tactics. If they do not, they will all die quickly and uselessly, because everything has changed now. All the so-called wars they talk about, wars won by mounted knights, have been waged here in Christendom, and they have all been piddling little affairs, petty, parochial squabbles between greedy barons and whatever enemies they chose to confront at any time.
He turned to look St. Clair directly in the eye. There has never been a war like the war going on today in Palestine, against the Muslim, against Saladin. Believe me in that, Sir Henry. That war is being fought in a different world, far from everything we know in Christendom, and the rules of warfare that we learned and know have all been changed. You have never been in Outremer, have you?
No, I have not. My duty to Duchess Eleanor kept me here at home when I might have gone, and I never had another opportunity to go, until now.
No, I have not. My duty to Duchess Eleanor kept me here at home when I might have gone, and I never had another opportunity to go, until now.
Aye, that is what I thought Well, believe me when I tell you that Outremer is completely unlike the world you know. You called it the Holy Land a while ago, but God Himself knows theres nothing holy about the place. It is a world the like of which these people who see themselves today as leaders will never understand and cannot begin to imagine. They are all too young to remember the lessons of the first and second expeditions we sent out, and too ignorant to concern themselves with the realities of the land and the climate in which they are destined to fight. Most of it is desert, as hostile and brutal as the people who live in it, and unimaginably dangerous to newcomers. It is a damnable place, filled with terrors and cataclysms, where sandstorms can spring up without warning and bury entire villagesentire armies, at timesstorms so violent that the blowing sand will strip exposed flesh from a living mans bones.
But even worse than any of those things, it is a place filled with zealotsfierce, unforgiving warriors who live and breathe the creed of their own god and his Prophet, Muhammad, and who are glad and willing to die in his service. These Muslim warriorsSaracens, Mussulmen, Arabs, Bedouin, call them what you willcan outfight our best, Henry, much as we might wish to deny it. And they are sufficient in numbers to outface a Frankish army three thousand strong, fielding ten men for every one of ours, and to destroy it, leaving but one man in every score alive.
There was a long silence as St. Clair thought about what the Hospitaller had said, and after a time, he held up one hand in supplication. I do not disbelieve you, for I have heard similar reports from others. But despite all of that, and all the logic and scrutiny brought to it, these numbers that you cite defy belief. Nineteen men killed out of every twenty? How could any army, no matter how well trained or zealous, achieve such slaughter?
Missiles. The word was so gruffly uttered that St. Clair was not sure what the other man had said.
I think I misheard you. Did you say missiles?
Montdidier looked at him again, clear eyed and cogent. Aye, thats what I said. Missiles arrows, if youre looking for precision.
Ah, arrows. Arrows shot from bows.
Montdidiers face tightened with anger. Aye, thats right. Arrowsprojectiles shot from bows. They slaughtered us with arrows. They rained arrows upon us, like hailstones, constantly and from all sides at once. And then, at night, they shot our horses, knowing an armored knight is helpless when forced to fight on foot, in sand. Arrows, Master St. Clair. They used them to demoralize us, to unnerve and frighten us and ultimately to destroy us, forcing us to make desperate moves that we would not otherwise have undertaken. And we were helpless against them.
I know, and I am not mocking you. I have heard something of this before. I was merely thinking yet again on the folly of the papal ban on bows in Christendom. It cost us dearly at Hattin. But yet surely, once an arrow has been loosed, it is lost? It cannot be used again. And yet you are describing a prodigious number of arrows. There must be some exaggeration there.
Aye, so it must seem to anyone who was not there. You are not the first to think that and question me. But I saw it with my own eyes. He rose to his feet in one fluid motion and moved to the side of the ship, where he laid both hands on the rail and stood gazing out at the water until St. Clair thought he must have said all he wished to and would say no more. The waves had continued to dwindle in size since the wind had died so that the ship was now moving far more smoothly, almost gently, and the sky overhead had become almost cloudless, the late-afternoon sun well down the slope towards the western horizon that was now clearly visible beyond Montdidier. But Montdidier turned again to face St. Clair, leaning back against the ships side, his elbows resting on the rail behind him.
Have you ever seen a camel, Sir Henry?
Henry nodded. Aye, both kindsone hump and twoand several times. There is a fellow who brings a collection of strange and wild animals to Poitiers each year, to the Midsummer festival. People come in throngs and pay well to marvel at his beasts.
So you understand that the camel is a beast of burden, very large, immensely strong and capable of carrying great weights for extended lengths of time, while an arrow is practically weightless. Even a quiver filled with arrowsa score or moreweighs next to nothing compared to a sword or an axe. So let me ask you this: how many arrows, carefully packed and bound in bundles, do you think a fully laden camel might be able to carry?
St. Clair puffed out a breath. I have no idea, but from the way you ask I can surmise that the number would probably be greater than any I might suggest.
Much greater. The sole limitation that would apply to such a load is the physical bulk of the bundles of arrows. Now imagine a number of those, all neatly tied up, with five and twenty arrows in each bundle. Each bundle would be approximately the thickness of a double fist. He illustrated what he meant by placing his clenched fists together, thumb to thumb. Now imagine crates made out of lath and wirecages, each as wide as an arrows length, and sufficiently long and deep to hold ten bundles side by side, stacked four layers deep. Each crate, a light but strong cage, would hold one thousand arrows, and it would be no great feat of engineering to bind six such crates together on each side of a camel. That represents twelve thousand arrows, carried by just one beast.
St. Clair shrugged, smiling and spreading his palms. An interesting premise, I will grant you that, he said quietly. Given, of course, that one could even find twelve thousand arrows.
Find them? Sir Henry, the army that defeated us at Hattin was made up almost entirely of bowmen mounted bowmen, on horses much smaller than ours, wiry and spare, faster and much more agile. Each bowman carried his own arrows into the campaign, three or four quivers full at least. But Saladin had already thought beyond such things and seen what he must do. Months before he assembled his army, summoning them from Egypt and from Syria, from Asia Minor and all the other fiefs that he commands, he sent out the word for arrows to be made in numbers that had never been seen before, and for all of them to be shipped to the places where the different contingents of his armies would assemble.
And he loaded them all onto a camel, is that what you were going to say?