But we got Juan through the trap door. Miles got him to me and I threw caution to the winds because the steps were cracking and jumped to the second storey floor, cradling his head. I dropped him, but we were down.
A piece of the roof fell, a corbel.
‘Down!’ I yelled. ‘All the way out of the tower!’
In fact, we might have taken our time. The roof didn’t fall in for three days. But the next rock split the tower the way an axe splits a big billet of wood.
Juan recovered his wits in the galliot. He threw up twice, drank some water, and shook himself. For as long as it took us to reach the beach, he could only speak his native Catalan. The ways of the mind are strange.
Behind us, the Admiral’s banner continued to fly from the Casteleto, and the machine on the tower of the Pharos threw great stones at it. But most of them fell short, and they loosed very slowly.
We left the oarsmen and sailors as a garrison, with Fra Ricardo as castellan. My part in that battle was done.
I landed almost dry shod, and I had had the whole run down the harbour to don my harness with Marc-Antonio working like an automaton at my side. As soon as my breast and back were closed, he went to the others. Juan armed last, when the stern of the galliot was drawn well up the beach and the horses were going over the sides on the transports.
Oh, yes. The horses.
There was my Gawain, shining in the sun of Outremer.
There seemed no hurry at all. Men came and shook my hand, and the legate embraced me and Saracens came to the walls of their town, just half a bowshot away. Guillaume Machaut says we were showered with arrows, and Nerio was hit, so I suppose that this must be true, but I have no memory of darts or arrows. I only remember the feeling of calm, of confidence, that Father Pierre inspired in that hour. He wore no harness, only a fine gold and silk stole over one of his Carmelite robes. He had no weapon in his hand, but held a simple wooden cross. The only order he gave was to demand that the Knights of the Order would maintain the sanctuary of churches in the event we broke into the city, that we kill no women or children, that we behave as soldiers of God.
And then the Knights of the Order were mounted – a hundred of them, a block of scarlet. I’m not sure when the world had seen a hundred Knights of the Order all together on their chargers – perhaps not since the fall of Acre. The sight was so noble as to steal my breath.
I got up on Gawain. Marc-Antonio got me a lance, and I began to form the donats and the volunteers. We had lost a good number of men at the Casteleto. Their ranks were filled by d’Albret and his Gascons and Savoyards, who were, strictly speaking, crusaders and not volunteers or Donats, but they were there and had their mounts. I still did not question what they were doing with us.
I had formed my volunteers in a wedge at Fra Peter’s command and D’Albret came up behind me. He pushed right in, his visor open. ‘I like this better,’ he said. ‘Ah, monsieur, now perhaps we will see some fighting.’
He was grinning ear to ear.
It was not at all like being pounded by stone balls.
Ser Nerio brought his destrier up so that his right knee tucked behind my left. Ser Fiore brought his charger to where his left knee was behind my right. In the next rank, d’Albret was pinned between Miles and Juan. And do on, until our last rank was ten wide.
Off to my right, by the water’s edge, the men-at-arms and turcopoles, the Order’s light horsemen, were arming as fast as they could. John and Marc-Antonio, having got us into our armour, were now pulling maille shirts over their own heads and trying to find their own mounts in the herd of horses now swimming or walking on to the beach. There seemed to be horses everywhere.
Miles’ uncle advanced the papal standard.