Yet, I was unwounded.
I moved one step at a time.
A man screamed — and his scream was answered by a feral chorus from behind me, too far away to be part of this small thread in the tapestry of violence.
I made it to the foot of one of the minarets. I knew the stonework in a glance, and there was a ruddy glow from inside that lit the smoke.
There was a man. He came at me, or merely crossed my path, and my spear went into his throat with the unerring accuracy born of practice.
I have no idea who he was, or whether he was part of the ambush. But he was armed and had mail on. I dropped him off my spear point.
Another step and the feeling in front of my face was replaced with a comparative cool. I essayed a breath, and then put my back to the low wall and heaved. I had inhaled too much smoke.
Another scream. And a shout. And coughing. All this so close that I whirled, head up, fatigue forgotten-
Three spear-lengths away, a man broke cover from a decorative shrub on the grounds of a tall facade to the west. He took two steps, grunted, and fell. In the smoke-shot dark, I had no idea why he fell, but he wore armour.
I alternated curses and prayers.
But the man who broke cover was not one of mine, and the mere fact of his being in cover said he was one of the ambushers. He thrashed to death like a crushed bug, his armour reflecting the inferno around him.
I ran towards him. Or rather, I stumbled. I tripped at least once, went down in an armoured sprawl, rose and plunged on, across another belt of smoke and heat. I couldn’t see the ground, which was broken and full of stones. Someone’s decorative border. I hurt my hands.
The man who had broken cover was a routier in a stained surcoat and looted harness, and he had a Mamluk arrow through his throat. His surcoat was blue and white.
I made it to the relative cover of the tall facade — marble in front and brick behind. By then, my head was running very fast. I had to hope it was one of John’s arrows. If there were Mamluks loose in the city, the crusade was doomed and so were we. Although there was irony in that.
But odd as it sounds, the dead man with a Mamluk arrow told me what was going on. John and Maurice and George were behind the ambush, wreaking havoc. Otherwise, I’d have been dead in the road, and Gawain would have been filled full of arrows. If they had broken the eastern hinge of the ambush, then I was now moving with them, or behind them.
I offer you my thoughts, because fighting at night in a burning city carpeted in dead men is more difficult than it sounds.
I moved across the tall building’s facade. It was not afire, nor was the next building to the west, which had rose bushes in a hedge around its entrance.
I guessed that the rose hedge was the basis of our ambushers’ position.
And God performed a miracle for us. Fiore stumbled out of the darkness to my right. Never were the Order’s surcoats more valuable.
‘Close your visor,’ he said. There’s friendship for you.
‘Hedge,’ I said.
He nodded. I slammed my visor down, and we went at the hedge.
It may seem impossible to you that our adversaries didn’t see us coming, but they did not. Nor do most men know that, in a full harness, a man is immune to thorns.
I knew, and so did Fiore.
We burst through the rose hedge like the vengeance of the angels. There were three or four of the Hungarian’s men there, and the man himself. I had him immediately. He was in maille, with a black brigandine over it and I saw his face when he turned. I was just pulling my spear out of the crossbowman I’d encountered first.
I thought he’d run. Instead, he stepped back and drew.
To my right, Fiore was fighting three men, one of whom had on a great deal of armour. Another brigand slammed out of the dark and thrust at me with a spear. I slammed the spear clear of me and struck a clumsy blow, made worse by my butt-spike catching in the roses..
The Hungarian struck at me. His edge caught the rim of one of my gauntlets. His timing was perfect but his point control a little awry in the dark.
As a result, the spearman and I went close, and the Hungarian danced away.
In that beat of my heart, I knew he was a good swordsman, and that he was going to kill me. But I had my point under my other adversary’s right arm. I released my top hand — my left — punched him in the head with my mailed fist, reached past his shoulder and caught the point of my spear as his head snapped back, which changed everything. I threw him. In fact, I ripped him off his feet and tossed him at the Hungarian. He went down hard and the Hungarian went down with him.
Fiore put his pommel into one man and pivoted on his hips, parrying his second opponent as if he’d practiced fighting three men all his life. Having made his cover, he brought his sword back up; not a very strong blow, but he made his second opponent stumble even while the first collapsed.
All that while I caught one breath.
I put a steel-footed kick into the downed spearmen and the Hungarian regained his feet while I pulled out my spear point in to finish my foe.
That’s what you do when you are outnumbered. Make sure the men who are down stay down.
The Hungarian had a steel cap on over his maille hood and there was enough light, reflecting off smoke, making everything a ruddy haze except our blades that flickered like red-hot iron, that I could see his face clearly, his high cheekbones, his heavy, long moustaches, and his smile.
‘Ah, Sir William,’ he said.
He cut at me. He made three simple blows — mandritto, reverso, mandritto, just as Fiore drilled us, and I covered all three. I had my spear point low, the butt high in my right hand — one of Fiore’s guards. In this guard, and with my good steel arms, I could ward myself all night, as long as I had the strength to keep the spear steady. With my advantage in distance, the Hungarian was limited to fast attacks and withdrawals.
I thrust low, at his hands.
He leaped back and I stumbled after him — armour is heavy, and I had forgotten the spearman on the ground.
The Hungarian thrust with one hand: I made my cover high and late, and his point slapped my visor.
Dead, except for my armour.
I cut; a simple, heavy fendente with the spearhead to buy time. He was faster than anyone I had ever faced — faster than Fiore, faster than Nerio. As fast as the Bohemian I had fought in Krakow.
But my simple fendente slammed into his outstretched sword even as he was withdrawing it, and knocked it well to the side. I passed forward, and so I was in a good low guard when he hurled his sword like a thunderbolt. Against an unarmoured man, in the darkness, it might have proved decisive, but I slapped it aside with my spear and cut at him.
I was standing at the top of a low wall, and he’d leapt to the bottom.
In the red darkness, I could see him crouch. I was wary; I saw the corpse and then the crossbow.
I ducked back. Behind me, Fiore was down to just two. I turned and stabbed one of Fiore’s opponent’s in the neck. My spear didn’t penetrate his aventail, but I assume I broke his neck.
I turned back to the wall, but the Hungarian was gone.
Fiore and I were still panting like horses after a race when John the Turk rode up outside the rose garden and called out.
He had Ned Cooper and Gawain. He also had a dark bay — someone else’s horse adrift in Hades.
We collected George and Maurice at the back of the tall building that was now shooting flames fifty feet into the air. They were stripping dead men of their purses like the professionals I’d taken them for and I was impressed that Maurice tossed a purse to John.
George nodded to me. ‘Get the Hungarian?’ he asked.
‘No,’ I admitted.
He laughed.
‘And the legate?’ I asked. All my best men except Nerio were there. And the legate was not there.