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.
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 Mézzières 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.