There were many small craft and rowing boats, and all were being commandeered. As Baldwin watched, he saw the Patriarch being helped down the steps to a little rowing boat. He had blood on his white coat, and looked very feeble. Seeing the people at the harbour, he burst into tears at their distress, Baldwin saw, and beckoned to those nearest. Three women and their children clambered aboard the vessel, and then another, while the men rowing expressed their anxiety. No more were permitted, but as Baldwin watched, they rowed away from the harbour and out towards the open sea past the Tower of Flies.
There was a shout from the farther side of the harbour, and over the heads of the waiting people, he saw black and white turbans begin to rush in among the crowds. ‘Sweet Jesus!’ he groaned, and drew his sword again.
Glancing back at the sea, he saw that the rowing boat had gone. The first wave had sunk her. All were lost.
* * *
Abu al-Fida hurried with his men to the harbour, while his comrades hacked their way to the Hospital and the Temple. He thought it likely he could cut off attempts by the citizens to escape. The Sultan would want as many slaves as possible, after all. He had not expected so many people, however. As he and the men pelted down the alleys and lanes into the harbour, he was confronted by a vast crowd. The only warriors he could see were already on the ships that were pulling away from the quay.
‘Take them!’ he shouted, and his men sprang forward like greyhounds after a desert hare. He was glad to see that they were capturing the women and children, and keeping them back, like sheep to be held penned. All the Christian men were ruthlessly cut down. The screams and wails of the women were hideous, but Abu al-Fida’s heart was stone. His Usmar had been as deserving of pity and sympathy, but these people had killed him. It was the fathers of these children, the husbands of these wives, who had stabbed Usmar in the streets back there in the roadway.
Yet he could not help but feel sickened. Blood sprayed as the blades hacked at men and boys and old women.
He turned and saw a small group of Franks at an alleyway — two men fighting furiously, a third with an injury, but also wielding his sword with great skill. His men had passed around them, so they were cut off from the next group: a force of knights. He could see their Commander, a bold, imposing man, who charged with his men into Abu al-Fida’s company. They were rolled back, several cut down, while the knights held a barrier, and behind them, men-at-arms and archers hurried to the ships.
The action was brief. As soon as the last warrior was on the ship, the knights turned and climbed aboard as well, and the ship was pushed off, archers sending flights of arrows at Abu al-Fida’s men to keep them back. The galley’s oars were lifted, a drum began to beat, and the ships started to make their way out of the narrow entrance to the harbour.
He turned his gaze back to the three at the alley. One was familiar. And then he remembered: a young Frank who had expressed sympathy and sorrow at the death of his son.
No matter. He was a Frank.
‘Catch them,’ Abu al-Fida said, pointing to the trio.
Baldwin saw the Emir’s pointing finger, and felt a cold certainty that this was the end of their bid for freedom.
‘Up this alley,’ he shouted, and all pelted up the hill. It was the Venetian quarter, Baldwin remembered. Buscarel glanced at him as they came to a fork, pointing to the left hand. ‘We must get to the Temple,’ he panted. ‘It’s our only hope.’
Edgar was labouring badly with the arrowhead still in his flank and back.
‘How is it?’ Baldwin asked.
‘I do not know,’ Edgar answered honestly. ‘It is sore, but so it ought to be.’
Ivo took a quick look. ‘I think it has lodged in the bone, which is good. If it were to have entered his lung, he would be dead already. But if it’s in the marrow, and poison gets in. .’
Edgar said with grim humour, ‘I don’t think you need worry about a lingering death, not when. .’ He didn’t have to finish his words. The first Muslims were closing in, and there was no time to waste.
Buscarel took the next left. A man and woman shouted down from a window, begging to go with them, but Baldwin and the others could not stop. However, the Muslims paused to kill the man, Baldwin saw when he shot a look over his shoulder. He feared that the woman would be raped, but his feelings were blunted today. Too many had already died for him to grieve over one more atrocity.
There was a very slight downhill gradient, which Baldwin found a huge relief, but he knew full well that he was running along the fourth side of a square. Unknown to him, this was the direction from which the arrow had been fired at Edgar. Still, there was no sign of Muslims yet. He hoped that they were already engaged in robbing houses. He didn’t want to think what they might be doing to the occupants.
Their luck held. In a short while, they were close to the Temple. Muslim soldiers were fighting a group of Templars to the north of the square, and while the gates were almost closed, there was daylight visible, and before it another unit of Templar sergeants, weapons at the ready.
‘Quick!’ Baldwin pushed Lucia ahead of him before taking Edgar’s hand and helping him over the last few yards. Ivo remained with him, his sword out, warily observing the alleys behind them as they went.
Arrows, more arrows, and then screams as the Muslims pelted from the alley after them. But already the squad from the gates had seen Baldwin and the others and had come out to cover their retreat.
Once inside the gate, Baldwin fell to his knees and bent his head to the ground, giving thanks to God for his unexpected survival.
CHAPTER NINETY-TWO
The aftermath, as Abu al-Fida had expected, was appalling.
His men, drunk with lust and greed, went through all the houses. The Venetians had already emptied their warehouses of all valuables, but there were still servants and children to be taken. Thousands of women and children were captured and led away to the slave pens outside the city. No men were spared: all those found were immediately put to the sword. So were the old women who would have little value as slaves. Besides, they wouldn’t survive the journey back to Cairo’s markets. It was kinder to kill them here.
Men walked the streets laden with the possessions of the people of Acre. Every house they entered was more splendid than the last, and often, when a woman was discovered there, they would make their use of her before bringing her to the pens.
It was the way of war, Abu al-Fida reflected. In this way were women subjugated. As he had this thought, a woman shrieked nearby.
The city was taken. Only the last remaining fortress had held out — that of the Templars.
Abu al-Fida thought it must soon fall.
Baldwin and Ivo saw to Edgar’s wound as best they could.
A Jewish physician who had some experience of such injuries, managed to remove the arrowhead without too much trouble, and then bathed the wound in fragrant water before binding it and advising them to change the bandage each day, if they could.
Edgar looked at it doubtfully after the man had gone. ‘You leave it as it is,’ he said. He had no trust in the man.
For three days little happened. The catapults were brought closer so that they might send their stones into the Temple, but against the massive walls they could do little in a hurry. Baldwin spent as much time as he could with Lucia, but he had to walk the walls with the Templars and all those who were old enough to bear arms. Lucia was kept safe in a chamber with all the women and children who had been rescued by the Templars.
‘How many will have gone to the Hospitallers, do you think?’ she asked Baldwin on the third morning.
He shook his head. ‘We are all there is, my love.’