We were rowed over to the flagship in a small boat, and as we approached the stern ladder we found quite a crowd of Venetians and Genoese sailors thumping each other’s boats with bargepoles. But our Cypriote oarsmen made their way through the press and got us up the stern. The king received us, reclining in the stern cabin. He was lying on cushions like a Turk, and de Mezzieres sat to his right with two of the king’s other officers, the marshal, Lord Simon, who I had last seen at the Emperor’s banquet, and the admiral, Jean of Tyre. Cramped along the low, carpeted wall was a man I didn’t know at all, but he was introduced as Sieur Percival, a knight of Coulanges who was deeply knowledgeable about Alexandria and served the king. The Hospitaller admiral, Fra Ferlino, was crouched like a servant on a stool. He waved courteously. Wedged in by him and taking up a third of the space in the cabin was the turcopolier, Fra William de Midleton.
A servant brought me wine.
Fra William indicated Sabraham. ‘Your Grace, Master Sabraham is a volunteer with the Order, as his Sir William. Together they have visited Alexandria in secrecy.’
‘That is a fine deed of arms,’ King Peter said to me. He smiled. ‘I will not forget you, when I come into my kingdom.’
Sabraham bowed — as much as the low overhead beams and situation permitted. ‘Your Grace, we found the city well-armed, but the governor has just left for Mecca. He took many of his guard with him on his pilgrimage.’
King Peter nodded, and propped himself up on his elbow. ‘That is good news. What of the garrison?’
Sabraham let go a breath. ‘Well-armed and well provided. I visited at least twenty of the towers and found them all manned.’ He looked at me. ‘I expect that I saw enough to count ten thousand men.’
Every man in the cabin twitched. The king glanced at me.
I nodded. ‘At least, your Grace. The garrison I saw was well-armed in good harness and carried bows as good as John the Turk’s bow.’
King Peter sighed. ‘Ghulami,’ he said. ‘We have faced them before now.’
‘They’re all cowards,’ Sieur Percival said. He shrugged in contempt. ‘I was a prisoner, a slave, in Alexandria. The town wall is enormous — the circuit is almost ten miles. They cannot hold the whole length, not event with ten thousand men. And they will not stand and fight like men.’
Sabraham raised his eyebrows. ‘They don’t need to stand and fight,’ he said, ‘when they are mounted. They shoot and run, shoot and run.’
‘Like cowards!’ insisted Sieur Percival.
‘And yet they took you prisoner,’ de Mezzieres said.
Men laughed, and Sieur Percival flushed.
‘Come, Percival, I know you and I know your mettle.’ King Peter waved a hand. ‘Where would you land?’
‘In the Porto Vecchio, where the foreign vessels wait for entry into the New Harbour,’ he said. ‘There is a fine expanse of white sand and gravel that runs right up to the walls. We can land an army there, aye, and encamp it, as well.’
Sabraham looked at me. I bowed. ‘Your Grace, we landed on that beach. It is foul with garbage, and the old harbour is very shallow. The ships anchored there could foul the manoeuvres of the fleet. And any camp would be immediately under the walls of the city-’
‘Where they must be to conduct a siege,’ Sieur Percival insisted.
‘Where there is no water or cover of any kind,’ Sabraham said.
‘There is no other place,’ Sieur Percival insisted.
I leaned forward. ‘Your Grace, there is another place, about a mile to the east along the coast, with nine good wells-’
‘He is lying,’ Sieur Percival said. ‘There is no other place.’
Some men resent any disagreement. I cannot account for Sieur Percival’s instant rage, but it was remarkable, and he did himself no favours.
‘You are a fool,’ he said. ‘A mere boy. A veteran soldier would not make this mistake. East of the city is a wood of palms-’
‘Only inland,’ I said. ‘On the coast, there are farms behind the dunes, and-’
‘Be quiet!’ Sieur Percival shouted. ‘You know nothing.’
De Mezzieres put out a hand and physically restrained Sieur Percival. ‘My lord,’ he said gently, ‘the king has asked for this young knight’s report.’
‘It is worthless. This is what you sent on your reconnaissance? A Jew and a boy?’ Sieur Percival spat. He actually spat on the king’s cabin floor.
The king lay back and fanned himself for a few breaths. He sighed heavily. ‘Very well, my lord de Coulanges. You think the town is possible?’
Sieur Percival crossed his arms. ‘We will take it with ease,’ he said.
The king looked at the Hospitaller admiral. ‘Fra Ferlino?’ he asked.
‘Tell me of the fortifications on Pharos,’ the old Italian asked.
Sabraham ignored de Coulanges. ‘My lord, they are new, very new. There is a main castle, as tall as a mountain with heavy machines on its corner towers. It is surrounded by a new curtain wall that has eight towers, all with artillery. There is no ground from which to lay siege to it.’
The king glanced at de Coulanges. ‘You have never mentioned this,’ he said.
De Coulanges stamped his foot. ‘A lie! They seek to make the place sound stronger than it is. Perhaps they are in league with the infidels. Make the Jew eat a piece of pork.’
Sabraham was growing red under his dark skin and I could see the tension in his shoulders.
‘The old harbour is deep enough for any ship, and we will have an easy landing there, right in the face of the enemy,’ de Coulanges insisted. ‘The state of this great castle is of no importance.’
Fra William stroked his beard and fingered the beads at his belt. ‘May I speak, your Grace? It seems to me unlikely that this man, your chamberlain, no matter how worthy, knows more of Alexandria than these two who were there but two days ago. Sabraham, how often have you been at Alexandria?’
‘Not more than twenty times,’ Master Sabraham said. ‘I believe that the worthy gentleman is exaggerating the weakness of the place because he desires his revenge against it — a worthy desire, but not one to generate an accurate report.’
De Coulanges opened his mouth to speak and de Mezzieres put a hand over his mouth. ‘You have said enough,’ he snapped.
Silence reigned.
‘Do you think we can take Alexandria, Master Sabraham?’ the king asked from one elbow.
Sabraham sighed. ‘Only with the grace of God and a miracle, your Grace.’
King Peter swung his legs to the floor. ‘They have ten thousand men and a double-walled city of forty-three towers. We have half their numbers, but by God, messieurs, we have the best knights in the world, and I say it is better to stumble in a great empris then to take some village in Asia of which no one has heard.’
That morning, after he heard Mass aboard his flagship, the king announced to all the captains that the target of our expedition was Alexandria. He waited until we were all together, and he announced that no ship would be allowed to quit the fleet. He was open in his concern that the Genoese or the Venetians might betray the expedition.
I saw Admiral Contarini’s face when the king made this remark.
The king gave orders.
We were to follow him straight south. We would rally the fleet in the Porto Vecchio, the old harbour, and when the king sounded his trumpets, we would attack.
We crossed the sea in two days, and it would have been better if we’d taken three. By good fortune and ill, we raised the great castle of Pharos and the spire of Alexander’s tomb well before the sun had set after a perfect passage on the blue water without a sight of land and we descended on them like a bolt from the blue.