I got a leg over my wounded horse, and we were away. We rode in a long, curving path out and away from the Cairo Gate and back along the shore of the inner harbour.
I looked back in time to see the mounted Mamluks re-emerge from within the gate to charge the crowd. The roar of the rioters rose to become a scream.
The Mamluks had sabres in their fists, and they were killing every rioter they caught.
I didn’t look back again.
Like most other cities, Alexandria is surrounded by suburbs and some of these are small towns or villages of their own. We entered one, watered our horses, and purchased food; bland food, with no meat or even chicken. And we had an odd bread that seemed to be made of chickpeas that was highly spiced. There was no wine, and heavily sugared hot water with spice was the only beverage.
We had outrun the news of the riot, but John returned to me after some discussion and shook his head. ‘The man who cook the food say the Mamluk Ghulami they do bad thing every days,’ he said.
It occurred to me that under other circumstances, with some gold, I could make trouble for the Sultan here. I resolved to say as much to Sabraham.
I was also learning that I needed to learn to speak Arabic. I endangered us every moment by my failure to understand what beggars and street people and grandmothers and tea-sellers shouted at me. The combination of being mounted — and thus rich or powerful — and not understanding the language should have led to our instant unmasking, except that the city and its environs couldn’t imagine that they had a foe at all, so rich and powerful were they; and further, although I didn’t know it, many people imagined I was a Mamluk. There were ‘Franks’ among them, Italians and Gascons. Conversion to Islam was not a serious matter to men who had already turned their backs on God and his angels. Nor did the Mamluks make many demands on their soldiers as to religion: so long as a man professed Islam, all was allowed.
Be that as it may, we rode unharmed out of the riot, broke our fast under palm trees in a small taverna, and then rode along the beach east of the great city.
After all our trouble, my actual mission took less than three hours. We found the sand of the beaches firm and wide enough to form our army. John found a path that broke the line of dunes and we went inland — to find an open space of mudflats and dry gravel that was large enough to make a camp for the Hosts of the Phalanx of Archangels and all the Company of Heaven, much less our little force.
We were thorough. This was a task I knew from serving Sir John in Italy, and I knew that a good camp with secure access to the ships would make the siege possible. We found a line of wells, each with a small farm about it, and I confess to some pity for the unbelievers who were about to be driven from their farms or killed so that my crusaders could have water. But not much.
What I did not see was firewood, nor was I confident that our wells could water an army of ten thousand men and as many animals. So no firewood, and no wood to construct siege engines.
I didn’t mention any of this to John. He was on edge, but then, why should he not be? I was mostly concerned because I’d noted, as Sabraham had said, that most of the Mamluks were men like John. Kipchaks have a well-deserved reputation for honesty, but I wondered how great the temptation might be to abjure his new religion and go riding in among men of his own kind, men with obvious riches and power.
For whatever reason, he did not.
We slept under the stars. Then the stars vanished, it rained, and we were miserable, although I was pleased to see that my chosen camp shrugged off the water easily. Then the moon rose on the world and we were cold — cotton holds no heat when damp. It was a long night, and the first grey light of morning was cheering.
Meeting Sabraham at the appointed rendezvous, a wrecked ship pulled high up the beach to the west, was even more cheering.
He looked out to sea. ‘We have missed our day,’ he said. ‘The governor was away visiting Cairo with his bodyguard. Now he is back.’ He looked at me.
I pointed at John. ‘You should ask John, but I think the governor rode out again this morning.’
Sabraham turned and spoke in Turkish. They both spoke at once, then John spoke, pointed at me, and smiled.
‘The governor is marching to Mecca!’ Sabraham said. ‘Well done, Sir William.’
I laughed. ‘He might be going to the moon for all I’d know. I need to learn Arabic. I’m as helpless as a babe here.’
Sabraham asked another question in Turkish. John answered in Arabic. They both looked at me.
‘You like it here?’ Sabraham asked.
It was an odd question. I must have shown this in my face. Sabraham put a hand on my shoulder. ‘Some men can’t stand the foreign. Sights and smells they don’t know seem to anger them, or terrify them. To do this task, you must like the people with whom you mix.’
I smiled. ‘Oh, as to that,’ I said. In fact, I’d liked what I saw, except the dead beggars. You could walk London from one side to another, and you’d only see a dead man in the gutter on a bad day. That’s what alms and hospitals are for, in London. When rich men die, they endow so many beds for the poor. And the same in Venice.
‘Did you learn aught else?’ Sabraham asked.
I pointed east. ‘We can land anywhere here,’ I said, ‘Except right off the long point, which is all mud and soft sand. There’s good ground for a camp to the south and west. There’s water.’ I was tired, that’s what I remember best about that morning. ‘But no wood.’
Sabraham laughed. ‘Welcome to Egypt,’ he said. ‘There’s no wood here. Well done. You did well to avoid the riot. I was afraid you were caught in it.’
I explained how narrowly we had escaped.
Sabraham didn’t seem to be listening. When I was done, he waved at the walls of the city, a mile distant. ‘Do you think we can take it, with your friends the crusaders?’ he asked.
‘How many in the garrison?’ I asked.
He smiled. ‘Two hundred per gate. Forty-three gates. A thousand superb cavalry in reserve.’
‘Ten thousand men,’ I calculated. ‘We’re attacking a walled city with a garrison almost twice the size of our whole army.’
Sabraham smiled thinly. ‘Yes.’
Over the next hour, we built a small fire on the beach from driftwood. The wreck of the ship was stripped, and nothing was left but the heavy timbers of the bow and even they had been hacked at inexpertly. Wood was of utmost value.
When our fire had been going for a bit, a man on a donkey came to the edge of the beach and watched us.
Sabraham frowned. ‘Our horses are too good,’ he said.
John nodded.
‘I am keeping mine,’ I said.
Sabraham looked at me as if I was a fool, but John grinned. ‘Good horse,’ he said. ‘Mine, too.’
So when Theodore’s round ship came up to the beach, we wasted an hour — with Sabraham cursing us — taking the horses. John was the master at this; he swam each horse out to the ship in a few feet of water and with the help of the master and the yard, he got them over the side into the waist of the ship where he lay them down. The Turks and the Mongols move horses around all the time, even by water, and John seemed much better at it than anyone I had seen.
At any rate, despite Sabraham’s curses and Theodore’s remonstrations, we saved all four horses, and we were away in the last light, wallowing across the wind. But after an hour the wind came straight off Africa, full of dust — bad for our eyes, but very good for our speed.
I slept a long, long time, awoke and swam, and slept again. When I awoke, it was to see the whole of the crusade fleet stretched away in the dawn.
The crusader fleet lay off Crambusa, a tiny islet on the southern coast of Turkey. As soon as we hove in sight, trumpets sounded from the galia grossa that King Peter used as his flagship. Before Sabraham and I scrambled aboard, I had the pleasure of seeing the Venetian admiral wave from his command deck, and agree to take our new horses aboard at the beach. My little Arab had survived two days at sea without showing any temper, and John was smugly triumphant.