The Seal Read Free Page A

him. ‘It is the way of men to find
blame.’
    ‘Well then, it
would seem to me a fine thing to remain upon this wall,’ Etienne said to them.
    ‘What!’ Marcus
gave a snort. ‘Even the Hospitallers have deserted their own castle! See how
they run with their skirts between their precious legs? The towers are left to
fall! How may you fight, one man against the world?’
    ‘One man or a
thousand, is it not the same?’
    ‘Well, for my
part I shall not join you to die for this sorry lot, these are a conquered
people and I have heathen souls to kill!’ Crouching, he gathered his weapons to
him. But he was sent down upon his belly by the sound of thunder as balls of
fire were shot from the black oxen over the walls. They exploded in the streets
and set the world aflame.
    ‘Look!’ Jacques
said. ‘The marshal has signalled our retreat . . . this is not a day for
fancies. Tonight Commander Thibaud will take a galley to Sidon. He will need
good men.’
    Ahead of them
the knights of the Order began to move for the stairs.
    Etienne did not
immediately make to follow but stood straight instead upon the rampart with his
face to a world swallowed up into the darkness of Mahomet. Into the cold throat
of the enemy, that menace lit by a throng of torches, Satan’s body
    – that much he was sure of – covering the plains and the
mountains of the land. He had felt this one time elsewhere, standing on the lip
of another rampart, gazing over a world in ruins. Now it was his wish to tempt
an arrow or a dagger, or to bend over the wall and allow his body to fall into
that field of battle. To die among the heathen, in that elegant moment, a
champion of Christ! Such would be a worthy end after a lifetime, it seemed to
him, of war.
    He was paused
only a moment considering these whims of his will and of his heart and the
spell was broken by the call of his brothers on the stairs, and with it his
spirit was returned to him and he was prevented from making good his sinful
thoughts of disobedience. ‘My will is not my own!’ he yelled over the drums to
the vast enemy, by way of apology.
    By the time he
was on the ground, ducking arrows and making his swift way through smoke and
burnt bodies, Marcus and Jacques had already drawn together with the brothers
of his Order.
    At that point
there arose a despondent cry from the inhabitants and troops of the commune of
Acre that remained upon the walls. They knew that a Templar retreat served
better than a blowing of the horn or a ringing of bells. It was a silent mark
of the hopelessness of their condition.
    The Templars
were not halfway down the street that ran to the quays when trumpets deafened
their ears and a voice was shouted into the night behind them: ‘ The wall is breached! The wall is breached, God help us!’
    But the
brothers, having orders to abandon the fight, walked southward, unhurried and
without a backward glance, while all around them lay remnants of a city
abandoned in haste. Only two days before there had been merchants, pilgrims,
artisans, diplomats and their families stumbling over one another with their
belongings falling from their hands. Behind them the scribes of king and regent
had dropped parchments and scrolls that now lay scattered about the streets to
be trampled upon.
    Jacques stooped
to take a scorched one in his hand and looked at it squinting as he walked.
‘Look at this . . . and to think how closely they guarded their secrets! A
divided city, one side against the other, each defending only its own castles
and quarters, each side suspicious of its neighbour, could never conquer a
force such as this!’ He let the parchment fall.
    Marcus’s voice
was full of sneer, his short legs marking a pace beside Jacques. ‘Days ago they
gave chase to their own shadows, that was a merriment to see! Today most are
drowned in the bay and tomorrow what is not dead will go to the markets at
Damascus. The only good thing to come of it, my brothers, shall be that in a
week