‘But the Hospital?’
‘It fell. There are some sergeants and knights of the Hospital who succeeded in coming here. They said that their buildings were destroyed and all inside were killed. We are all that is left of Acre.’
‘That can’t be. No, so many cannot be dead.’
There was no answer to that. Baldwin put his arms about her. He wanted her desperately, but not here. Not now.
The women were frantic. Most knew that their husbands were dead. In addition, many of their children had been taken from them or slain, and these mothers had lost their minds to their horror. They squatted and rocked, moaning or wailing. In the first two days, three of them died. One was a suicide who hanged herself, much to the concern of the Templar priest who came to take her body away, but an older priest told him that suicide while temporarily insane was not a crime.
‘God may judge her. But after all this, He will be merciful. So should we be,’ he said.
It was on the fifth day that the bombardment ended, and suddenly the Temple was a haven of peace.
Baldwin had been eating in the chamber with the women when the noise ceased, and he hastily bolted the last of his bread and ran for the stairs. It was all too reminiscent of the attacks last week, when the enemy appeared as soon as the stones stopped.
He reached the walls in time to see a white-turbanned messenger on horseback out in the space before the main gates. Sir Pierre de Sevrey stood at the gates. He was younger than the Marshal and the Grand Master had been, and his beard had little silver in it.
‘Stop there!’ he bellowed, and two archers stood with crossbows ready beside him.
‘My master, the Sultan al-Ashraf Khalil, would spare you further bloodshed. He does not wish for death, only the city. If you will surrender this fortress to him, all the inhabitants will be granted the freedom to leave. Your knights may keep their weapons. Your women and children will be honoured and may go with you.’
‘You swear this?’ Sir Pierre demanded.
‘I so swear,’ Abu al-Fida declared, his hand over his heart. ‘What is your answer?’
‘I will return shortly,’ Sir Pierre said, turning from the messenger.
Baldwin saw his gaze going from the Templars on the walls, down to the inner ward of the fortress, where more citizens of Acre stood. A woman could be heard sobbing in the clear evening air.
Sir Pierre looked like a man torn between a keen appreciation of his duty, and the desire to protect his charges: all the women and children.
Ivo sidled up to Baldwin. ‘Well, which way will he jump?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Shit! We can’t hang about like this!’ Ivo spat over the wall, and barged past Baldwin. ‘Sir Pierre?’ he said without preamble.
‘Yes?’
‘You have to trust them. It grieves me to say it, but if you don’t, the Christians here will all die. This isn’t Safed. What reason would the Sultan have for breaking his word? We aren’t numerous enough to be a threat to him.’
Sir Pierre nodded. He drew his sword and stared at the cross for a moment, and then leaned forward and gently kissed it. ‘I didn’t want it to come to this,’ he said, ‘but you are right. Our priority must be the women and children.’
He sheathed his sword.
‘We accept.’
Baldwin remained on the walls for a little longer. Ivo strode away, his face pale and downcast, and Baldwin was sure that he was thinking of his wife, slain in another city just because the men in charge wouldn’t negotiate a peace. Then, when Tripoli fell, all the people inside were slaughtered.
Not that here was much better, he told himself. Out there, beyond the main square, he could see the bodies. Those who had been found in the houses had been beheaded or had their throats cut, and been thrown into the streets. There would be food for the rats for months to come. He turned from the wall and descended the stairs, his heart heavy within him. God had allowed Muslims to take His last city, and that was incomprehensible. He sought to punish everyone, but why? This was no Sodom or Gomorrah. Or was it because the end of the world was approaching? Someone the other day had forecast famine, war and disease before the final days. Well, perhaps. Baldwin would put his faith in God and hope and pray that He had another plan for His people.
At the ward, he strode to where Lucia stayed with other women in a great dining hall. The refugees were filling all the larger chambers, while the two hundred remaining Templars tended to keep to their dorter and the chapel. They were very keen to avoid the women. It was quite touching, Baldwin thought, that even now, in the midst of the disaster that had befallen them, the Templars were determined to stick to their Rule and neither kiss nor even touch a woman. To avoid all temptation, they segregated themselves. Only men like Ivo and Baldwin who had survived the catastrophe in the secular city remained near the women.
Buscarel was in the chamber with the women as he entered, talking to Edgar. The latter’s injuries had healed remarkably well.
‘Well?’ Edgar said.
‘We surrender,’ Baldwin told them.
Already outside he could hear the gates being opened. There was a flurry of shouts, and Baldwin went to Lucia. ‘We will be allowed to leave. There are ships not far away, and we will go to them and sail away.’
‘What will happen to me?’ she asked.
‘You will come with me, of course. We will be married.’
She nodded, but she was thinking of the men outside. They were her people. She had been captured and held as a slave by these foreigners. If she went to England with Baldwin, what would become of her there? It was a strange land, so she had heard, and they worshipped the Christian god, not Allah. It was a terrifying thought, to be cut off from her own kind forever. Perhaps be forced to renounce her faith and take up a new one. That was impossible.
Ivo walked in, his face drawn and anxious.
‘You have saved us, Ivo,’ Baldwin said.
‘I hope so.’
‘Can there be any doubt?’ Edgar wanted to know.
Buscarel walked to the door and stared into the ward beyond while Ivo spoke.
‘I think I have hastened the end. There is a chance that we will be safe now.’
Baldwin laughed. ‘Come, Ivo! They said we can all go free.’
‘As they did at Safed,’ Ivo said.
As Abu al-Fida rode his horse in at the head of the men of Hama, a feeling of great success warmed his heart.
The Temple was a building he had never expected to enter. The symbol of all the arrogance and savagery of the Franks, no Muslim would be permitted to ride under these doors. There was the enormous chapel, round like all the Templars’, instead of cross-shaped like the Christians’ usual churches. He would take a look at that in a short while. First, he would discuss terms with the Marshal. His banner, he ordered to be taken to the top of the gatehouse, and soon it flew there, a proud declaration of the change of ownership of this great fortress.
A man was at his stirrup. ‘I wish to speak with your Marshal or Master,’ Abu al-Fida told him.
‘There is none. I am called Sir Pierre. I am the most senior knight here, by virtue of my period of service to the Order,’ the man said stiffly.
Abu al-Fida nodded, and dropped from his horse. ‘We must discuss how to remove you and all the people from this place.’
They walked together along the inner ward, but they had not gone far when the first screams could be heard.
Baldwin was prepared for the arrival of the Muslims, but the Muslims were not ready for the sight of the Christian women.
Later, he would swear that the invaders stopped with honest shock when they saw all the women. A number of them, perhaps twenty or five-and-twenty, simply stood in the doorway and gawped. Perhaps it was because the women here possessed few of the usual garments. More of their flesh was visible than would normally have been the case. And the Muslim men, unused to seeing more than glimpses of eyes above veils, or the hint of the line of a thigh or breast, were astounded. To them, perhaps, it was like walking into a brothel.