But ahead of them waited the army of Alexandria.
Perhaps if we had landed as soon as we arrived, we might have surprised them, but by the morning after our sails were sighted, every soldier that the governor’s lieutenant could spare was standing in close array on that beach.
Why didn’t they man their walls?
Perhaps it was a day in which Christian and Moslem sought to rival each the other in bravery – or in foolishness. Or perhaps the governor’s lieutenant felt, as our king did, that they could not garrison the whole of a ten mile circuit.
Perhaps they were as eager to slay us as we were to slay them.
They were too far from me to see their quality, but they filled the beach from east to west, and even as we watched, a troop of horse that glittered in the rosy light emerged from the great towered gate at the Egyptian army’s back. They looked like ants, but they sparkled with steel.
The crusader fleet was running aground more than a bowshot from the shore.
Nicolas Sabraham made it to the top of the tower, his sword red-brown and his hands sticky on the hilt. He looked out over the battle of Alexandria.
‘Oh, sweet Christ,’ he said.
A little less than a mile away, tiny figures were leaping off the king’s galley – into the sea.
Nerio emerged on to the roof of the Casteleto just as we saw the Hagarenes on the other tower begin to wind their engine.
‘Get the sailors,’ I shouted. ‘Find men who know how to make these machines shoot!’
Nerio nodded. ‘I think we have them all. The castle is ours.’
I ran across the tower to look at the city at its nearest point. The gate was shut. So there was no counter-attack coming. Nor would it be difficult to resist any attack; it could only come along a single stone road two horsemen wide.
‘They’re not loosing at us at all,’ Fiore said.
The engines on the Pharos castle had begun to hurl their rocks the other way, at the immobile crusader fleet.
Even as we watched, a Venetian cog took a direct hit. Timber flew into the air, and in a moment, the little ship sank. She went down in less water than there was to cover her hull, but her armoured men drowned in water not much over their heads.
‘Sweet Christ,’ moaned Sabraham.
Let me explain again. The harbours of Alexandria are like a gothic letter E. Two harbours, separated by the long spit with the Pharos fortification between them. That fortress could batter the crusader fleet, and looked to me to be impregnable. We’d just taken the Casteleto, at the bottom of the E, if you like, and the crusader fleet was trying to get into the old harbour, between the Pharos spit and the top of the E.
Huffing, Brother Robert and a dozen sailors came up the ladder to the top of the Casteleto’s donjon. Brother Robert had to stop at the top and breathe, despite my urgency. His face was so red I feared he would explode.
Miles stood by him. ‘Can I tell you something that will make you laugh?’ he asked.
I was watching the destruction of the crusade. ‘I doubt it,’ I said.
‘The sally port door was unlocked,’ Miles said. ‘I just pushed it open and walked in.’
I didn’t laugh, but I do now. That’s war, friends. All the terror on the ladder – and I might have tried the door!
The engines on the far tower were coming back again.
I pointed to them. ‘Brother Robert? Can you do anything?’