The Jester Read online

  “I don’t see any Christians chained to the walls.” Robert squinted into the sun, sounding almost disappointed.

  “If it’s martyrs you’re looking for,” I promised grimly, “don’t worry, you’ll have your pick.”

  One by one, we continued along the ridge and down the narrow trail. There was a feeling that the worst was over. That whatever God had in store for us, surely the coming battles could test us no more than what we had already faced. The talk, again, was of treasure and glory.

  [44] Stumbling on a ledge, I noticed a glimmer coming from under a rock. I bent down to pick up the shiny object and could not believe it.

  It was a scabbard, for some kind of dagger. Very old, I was sure. It looked like bronze, with some inlaid writing that I could not understand.

  “What is it?” Robert asked.

  “I don’t know.” I wished Nico were here. I knew he would be able to interpret it. “Maybe the language of the Jews… God, it looks old.”

  “Hugh’s rich,” Robert shouted. “My friend is rich! Rich, I say!”

  “Quiet,” a soldier hushed him. “If one of our illustrious leaders hears you, you won’t have your treasure for long.”

  I placed the scabbard in my pouch, which was starting to fill up. I felt like a man who had just claimed the richest dowry. I couldn’t wait to show it to Sophie! Back home, a prize like this could buy us food for a winter.

  I couldn’t believe my good luck.

  “Up here, the relics fall out of trees,” Mouse grumbled from behind, “if there were any fucking trees.”

  The trail we walked was flat and manageable. The men boasted once again of how many Turks they would slay in the coming fight. After my discovery, thoughts of treasure and spoils seemed alive and real. Maybe I would be rich.

  Suddenly, up ahead, the column came to a halt. Then-eerie silence.

  As far as the eye could see, the trail ahead was lined with large white rocks, spaced at intervals equal to a man’s arm span. Each rock was painted with a bright red cross.

  “The bastards are welcoming us,” someone said. Mocking us was more like it. The rows of red crosses sent a shiver right through me.

  Robert ran ahead to hurl one of the rocks toward the walls, [45] but as he got close, the boy stopped in his tracks. Other soldiers who had reached the rocks crossed themselves.

  They were not rocks at all-but skulls.

  Thousands of them.

  Chapter 14

  THERE WERE FOOLS among us who believed that Antioch would fall in a day. On that first morning we lined up, many thousand strong. A sea of white tunics and red crosses.

  Heaven’s army, if I truly believed.

  We focused on the eastern wall, a buttress of gray rock thirty feet tall, spilling over with defenders in white robes and bright blue turbans at every post. And higher up, the towers, hundreds of them, were each manned with archers, their long, curved bows glinting in the morning sun.

  My heart pounded under my tunic. At any moment, I knew, I would have to charge, but my legs seemed rooted to the ground. I muttered Sophie’s name as if in prayer.

  Young Robert, looking fit, was next to me in line. “Are you ready, Hugh?” he asked with an eager smile.

  “When we charge, stay by me,” I instructed him. I was twice the boy’s size. For whatever the reason, I had sworn in my heart to protect him.

  “Don’t worry, God will watch over me.” Robert seemed assured. “And you too, Hugh, even if you try and deny it.”

  A trumpet sounded the call to arms. Raymond and Bohemond, in full armor, galloped down the line on their crested mounts. “Be brave, soldiers. Do your duty,” they urged. “Fight with honor. God will be at your side.”

  [47] Then all at once a chilling roar rose up from behind the city walls. The Turks, taunting and mocking us. I fixed on a face above the main gate. Then the trumpet sounded again. We were at a run.

  I know not exactly what went through my mind as, in formation, we advanced toward the massive walls. I made one last prayer to Sophie. And to God, for Robert’s sake, to watch over us.

  But I know I ran, swept up in the tide of the charge. From behind, I heard the whoosh from a wave of arrows shooting across the sky, but they fell against the massive walls like harmless sticks, clattering to the ground.

  A hundred yards … A volley of arrows shot back from the towers in return. I held my shield as they ripped into us, thudding and clanging into shields and armor all around. Men fell, clutching at their heads and throats. Blood spurted from their faces, and gruesome gasps escaped from their wretched mouths. The rest of us surged ahead, Robert still at my side. In front of us, I saw the first ram approach the main gate. Our division captain ordered us to follow. From above, heavy rocks and fiery arrows rained down on us. Men screamed and toppled over, either pierced or rolling on the ground trying to smother the flames on their bodies.

  The first ram pounded into the heavy gate, a solid wooden barrier the height of three men. It bounced off with the effect of a pebble tossed against a wall. The team reversed and rammed again. Foot soldiers were hurling their lances up at the defenders, but they fell halfway up the walls and in return brought volleys of spears and Greek fire, molten pitch. Men writhed on the ground, kicking and screaming, their white tunics ablaze. Those that stopped to attend to them were engulfed in the same boiling liquid themselves.

  It was a slaughter. Men who had traveled so far, endured so much-God’s call resounding in their hearts-were cut down like grain in a field. I saw poor Mouse, an arrow piercing [48] his throat so completely his hands gripped it on both sides, drop to his knees. Others fell over him. I felt sure I would soon die too. One of the ram carriers went down. Robert took his place. Soon they were battering again at the gate, but without result.

  Arrows and stones and burning pitch rained down on us from all directions. It was only luck to avoid death at any point. I scanned the walls, searching for archers or pitch, and to my horror spotted two large Turks preparing to tip a vat of bubbling tar upon those manning the ram. As they readied, I bolted into Robert, knocking him off his post and flush against the wall just as a sulfurous black wave engulfed his ram-mates. They all shrieked, buckling to their knees, tearing at their sizzling faces and eyes, an odious smell coming from their flesh.

  I pressed Robert up against the wall, for a moment out of harm’s way. All around us, our ranks were being shredded. Soldiers fell to their knees and moaned. Battering rams were tossed aside and abandoned.

  Suddenly the assault turned into a rout. Men, hearing the alarm, turned and fled from the walls. Arrows and spears followed them, dropping them as they ran.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” I said to Robert.

  I dragged him from the wall and we ran with all our might. I prayed as I ran that my back would not be ripped apart by a Saracen arrow.

  As we fled, the mighty fortress gate opened, and from within, horsemen appeared, dozens of turbaned riders flashing long, curved swords. They swept toward us like hunters chasing a hare, yelping mad cries that I recognized as “Allahu Akbar.” God is great.

  In spite of our being totally outnumbered, there was no option but to stand and fight. I drew my sword, resolved that any breath might be my last, and hacked away at the first wave of horsemen.

  [49] A dark-skinned Saracen whirred by, and the head of a man next to me shot off like a kicked ball. Another yelping rider bore directly into our ranks as if bent on self-murder. We pounced on him and hacked him bloody. One by one, the small group of men Robert and I had attached ourselves to began to thin. Begging to God, they were split open by the Turks as they swooped by.

  I grabbed Robert by the tunic and dragged him farther away. In the open, I saw a horseman hurtling directly toward us at full speed. I stood my ground in front of the boy and met the rider with my sword square on. If this was it, then let it be. Our weapons came together in a mighty clang, the impact shaking my entire body. I looked down, expecting to see my legs separat
ed from my torso, but, thank God, I was whole. Behind me, the Saracen rider had fallen off, horse and rider surrounded by a cloud of dust. I leaped on him before he had a chance to recover, plunging my sword into his neck and watching a flow of blood rush out of the warrior’s mouth.

  Before this day I had never taken a life, but now I hacked and slashed at anything that moved as if I had been bred solely for it.

  Every instant, more horsemen stormed out from the gates. They swept down on our fleeing troops and hacked them where they stood. Blood and gore soaked the ground everywhere. A wave of our own cavalry went out to meet them, only to be overcome by the sheer numbers they faced. It seemed as if our whole army was being slaughtered.

  I pushed Robert through the smoke and dust in the direction of our ranks. We were now out of arrow-shot. Men were still moaning and dying on the field, Turks hacking at them. It was impossible to tell a red cross from a pool of blood.

  For the first time, I noticed that my own tunic and arms were smeared with blood, whose I did not know. And my legs stung from the spray of molten pitch. Though I had seen many [50] men fall, in a way I was proud. I had fought bravely. And Robert too. And I had protected him, as was my vow. Though I wanted to weep for my fallen friends, Mouse among them, I fell to the ground happy just to be alive.

  “I was right, Hugh.” Robert turned to me, grinning. “God did protect us after all.”

  Then he lowered his head and puked his guts out on the field.

  Chapter 15

  IT HAPPENED JUST THAT WAY nearly every day.

  Assault upon assault.

  Death after meaningless death.

  The siege took months. For a while, it seemed as if our glorious Crusade would end in Antioch, not Jerusalem.

  Our catapults flung giant missiles of fiery rock, yet they barely dented the massive walls. Wave after wave of frontal attacks only increased the death toll.

  Finally, we constructed enormous siege engines, as tall as the highest towers. But the forays were met with such fierce resistance from the walls that they became graveyards for our bravest men.

  The longer Antioch survived, the lower our spirits fell. Food was down to nothing. All the cattle and oxen had been butchered; even the dogs had been eaten. Water was as scarce as wine.

  All the time, rumors reached us of Christians inside the city being tortured and raped. And holy relics desecrated.

  Every couple of days, a Moslem warrior would hurl some urn down from the towers and it would shatter on the ground, spilling blood. “That is the blood of your useless Savior,” he would taunt. “See how it saves you now.” Or, lighting a cloth [52] afire and tossing it to the earth, “This is the shroud of the whore who gave him life.”

  At intervals, Turk warriors made forays outside the city walls. They charged our ranks as if on a holy mission, yelping and hacking at those who met them, only to be surrounded and chopped to bits. They were unafraid, even heroic. It made us realize even more that they would not easily give in.

  Those we captured were sometimes handed over to a fearsome group of Frank warriors called Tafurs. Barefoot, covered in filth and sores, the Tafurs were distinguished by the ragged sackcloth they wore as uniforms and by the ferocious savagery with which they fought. Everyone was afraid of them. Even us.

  In battle, these Tafurs fought like possessed devils, wielding leaded clubs and axes, gnashing their teeth as if they wanted to devour the enemy alive. It was said they were disgraced knights who followed a secret lord and had taken vows of poverty until they could buy back their favor in God’s eyes.

  Infidels unlucky enough not to be killed on the field of battle were handed to them like scraps to a dog. I watched with disgust as these swine would disembowel a Moslem warrior in front of his own eyes, stuffing his entrails into his mouth as he died. This happened, and much worse, so help me.

  These Tafurs reported to no lord among us, and to most of us, it seemed, no god either. They were marked by a cross burned into their necks, which attested not so much to their religious fervor as to their urge to inflict pain.

  The longer the horrible siege went on, the farther away I felt from anything I knew. It was now eighteen months I’d been gone. I dreamed about Sophie every night, and often during the day: that last image of her, watching me go off, her brave smile as I hopped down the road.

  Would she even know me now, bearded, thin as a pole, and blackened with grime and enemy blood? Would she still laugh at my jokes and tease me for my innocence after what I had [53] seen and known? If I brought her a sunflower, would she kiss my bright red hair now that it was filled with gore and lice?

  My queen … How far away she seemed right now.

  “A maiden met a wandering man,” I sang in the quietest voice before I slept each night, “in the light of the moon’s pure cheer.”

  Chapter 16

  THE WORD SPREAD like fire from battalion to battalion. “Get ready… Full battle gear. We’re going in, tonight!”

  “Tonight, another charge?” Weary and frightened soldiers around me moaned in disbelief. “Do they think we can see at night what we cannot even shoot during the day?”

  “No, this time it’s different,” the captain promised. “Tonight you’ll go to sleep fucking the emir’s wife!”

  The camp sprang alive. There was a traitor inside Antioch. He would give up the city. Antioch would finally fall. Not from its walls crumbling but from treachery and greed.

  “Is it true?” Robert asked, hastily putting on his boots. “Do we finally get to pay them back?”

  “Sharpen that knife,” I told the eager lad.

  Raymond ordered the army to break camp, giving the appearance that we were headed for a raid elsewhere. We pulled back two miles, as far as the river Orontes. Then we held until close to dawn. The signal was spread. Everyone be ready…

  Under the shield of darkness, we quietly crept back within sight of the city walls. A sliver of orange light was just breaking over the hills to the east. My blood was surging. Today, Antioch would fall. Then it was on to Jerusalem. Freedom.

  As we waited for the word, I put my hand on Robert’s shoulder. “Nerves?”

  [55] The boy shook his head. “I fear not.”

  “You may have started the day still a boy, but by its end you’ll be a man,” I told him.

  He grinned sheepishly.

  “I guess we’ll both be men.” I winked.

  Then a torch waved over the north tower. That was it! Our men were inside. “Let’s go!” the nobles shouted. “Attack!”

  Our army charged, Frank, Norman, Tafur, side by side, with one purpose, one mind. “Show them whose God is One,” the leaders cried.

  Our battalions headed toward the north tower, where ladders were hoisted against the walls and wave after wave of men climbed over. The sound of shouts and vicious fighting erupted from inside. Then, all at once, the big gate opened. Right in front of our eyes. But instead of attacking Moslem horsemen streaking out, our own conquering army spilled in.

  We made our way helter-skelter through the city. Buildings were torched. Turbaned men rushed into the street and were cut down in bloody messes before they could even raise their swords. Cries of “Death to the pagans” and “Dei leveult,” God wills it, echoed everywhere.

  I ran in the pack, with no great malice toward the enemy but ready to fight whoever confronted me. I saw one defender cut in half by a mighty ax blow. Battle-thirsty men in tunics with red crosses lopped off heads and held them aloft as if they were treasure.

  In front of us a young woman ran out of a burning house, screaming. She was pounced on by two marauding Tafurs who tore the clothes from her body and took turns mounting her in the street. When they were done, they ripped a bronze bracelet from her wrist and bludgeoned her lifeless.

  I stared in horror at her bloody shape. In her clutched fist, I saw a cross. Good Lord, she was Christian.

  A moment later, from the same building, a fiery-eyed Turk, maybe her husband, charged at m
e with a scream. I stood [56] paralyzed. An image of my own death rose in my mind. All I could think to utter was, “It was not me…”

  But just as the man’s spear was inches from my throat, his rush was intercepted by Robert, thrusting his knife into the Turk’s chest. The man staggered, his eyes horrifically wide. Then he toppled onto his wife, dead.

  I blinked in amazement. I turned to Robert with a sigh of relief.

  “See, it’s not just God who watches over you.” He winked. “It’s me.”

  He had just uttered these words when another turbaned warrior charged toward him, brandishing a long blade.

  The boy’s back was turned, and I saw I could not get there in time. He was tugging on his knife, but it remained stuck in the dead Turk’s chest. His face was still lit with that innocent grin.

  “Robert!” I screamed. “Robert!”

  Chapter 17

  THE ATTACKER HURTLED into Robert and swung his sword with both hands. I had only an instant to intervene. I tried to pivot around Robert, but I was blocked by the Turk. All I could do was scream, “No …!”

  The sword caught Robert just below the throat. I heard the sound of bones cracking, and his shoulder fell away from his body as the massive blade lodged deep in his chest, seeming to split him in two.

  At first I stared in horror. It was as if the boy had seen that he was powerless to stop his own death and, instead of turning to face his attacker, had turned toward me. I will carry his expression with me for the rest of my life.

  Then, gaining hold, I lunged, piercing the Turk with my sword. I ran him through again as he fell. When he was on the ground, I continued to hack at him, as if my ferocity could bring back my friend.

  Then I knelt beside Robert. His body was asunder, but his face was still as boyish and smooth as when he had first joined our ranks, his goose comically trailing behind. I fought back tears. He was just a boy. … All around me, madness boiled out of control. Red-crossed soldiers stormed through the streets, running from house to house, looting, burning. Children Wailed for their mothers before being hurled into raging flames [58] like kindling. Tafurs, mad with greed, slaughtered Christian and infidel alike, stuffing anything of value into their filthy robes.