There was an army there, and we struck the outposts in the dark before we knew what had happened. The entire ride, we had ridden through and over refugees, and the transition from terrified refugees to surprised Mamluks was too sudden. They were well mounted and suddenly we were in a tangle and I took a hard blow to the head before I had my sword out of its scabbard.
Night is a terrible time to fight in armour. A night mêlée on horseback is one of the most desperate encounters a man can have. And in an ambush, when you are nigh dead with fatigue – that is when you have nothing but your training.
I have lightning flashes of memory. I remember a Mamluk on Fiore’s back, straddling his horse, searching his armour for a weak place with a dagger, and I got my longsword around his neck and threw him to the ground. I remember cutting over and over at one man who parried and parried until Nerio killed him with a spear, and God only knows from whence that spear came.
I remember the banner of Cyprus going down in the light of the city afire and Miles Stapleton raising it.
I remember being knee to knee with de Mézzières, fighting in opposite directions.
Someone won and someone lost, no doubt. We extricated ourselves. There were three Mamluks on the king, and Nerio and I cut them off the way you clear a swimmer of leeches and they rode away into the darkness, and so did we.
We didn’t make it to the bridge.
The king rallied us in the darkness and begged us to attack the Mamluks again.
That was when I realised that Fra Peter was not with us. I made Gawain, who was badly knocked up, trot all the way around the huddle of Latin knights, but Fra Peter was gone. We had two dozen Hospitaller knights with us; Fra Robert Hales was there. And he, too, had lost Fra Peter.
De Mézzières was begging the king to go back into the city.
I found Nerio by his crest, a spray of peacock plumes as thick as a man’s wrist, and a coronet of gold. It’s amusing: he’d been censured for it on Rhodes, and Fra Peter told him to keep it, told him we’d all be able to find him.
‘Fra Peter,’ I said, or something equally fluid.
We were only four. But we went back into the darkness and the Mamluks.
I remember once, while hunting a stag in the east, I ran headlong onto a bear. The bear was as surprised as I, and instead of exchanging blows, we each fled as fast as our panic could carry us.
I’m going to assume that this is what happened with our Mamluks. At least, when we reached the ground of the ambush, the mutual ambush, I suspect, there were horses wandering and men on the ground and the only enemies were dead or wounded.
Fra Peter was easily found. His horse was dead. He was not, and we passed some anxious minutes freeing him. The ever-practical Fiore retrieved his saddle and bridle.
We got him over a Mamluk charger that did not think much of his smell or his weight. Nerio attended him with Miles.
Fiore and I determined that we would scout ahead. We were already most of the way to the bridge, so we picked our way along the road, riding into the palms on the east side of the Cairo road. But the road remained empty, and our stealth was wasted. We rode all the way to the great stone bridge.
It was empty.
There was a great army on the other side of the bridge, but they were in motion – away. Abandoning their fires and their hasty camp, they were in full retreat.
It was a miracle, if you like. If we had had fifty more men and a wagon of flammables – or some kegs of the alchemical powder that men call ‘black’, we might have accomplished something.
If Turenne had not burned the gate …