‘No,’ I admitted.
He laughed.
‘And the legate?’ I asked. All my best men except Nerio were there. And the legate was not there.
George just shrugged. But he handed me a gourd canteen, and I drank my fill. John the Turk gave me garlic sausage, good Italian sausage, and I sat there, surrounded by corpses and dying men, and ate sausage and drank water for as long as it takes a priest to say a quick Mass. Fiore joined me and we all ate and drank. The Hungarian could have killed the lot of us, but we were done in like knackered horses, and we had a little hole in the smoke in which to breathe.
But soon, too soon, I could feel the press of my fear for the legate.
We rode with the hot wind of the burning of Alexandria at our heels. We missed our way twice; once where the Avenue turned south and we should have taken a cross street. The second time, we missed the Great Mosque in the smoke.
But the city on fire reflected like dull bronze from the distant pillars of Pompey. We reached the wall in a huddle of hovels. We were nearly lost, desperate – and dawn was close. I was certain by then that Nerio and Miles and the legate were dead or taken.
Every decision I had made all evening came up like bad food.
George climbed the wall, cursed for a while, and climbed down. ‘No idea,’ he said. ‘North, or south?’
I hate guessing. ‘North,’ I said. And probably something like, ‘Is that north?’
In the dark and smoke, even with the pillars, everything seemed wrong. Perhaps it was just fatigue. But I was hearing voices – Emile, Father Pierre, my sister. And the endless sound of signing, as if there was a choir in Hell.
Two miserable streets later, we crossed fresh corpses. We followed the trail of dead – there was a spearman, there and archer.
The Customs Gate rose out of the bloodshot murk. And in the relative safety of the tunnel was Nerio, his helmet off, and Miles, supporting the legate.
‘Never do that to me again,’ Nerio said. He threw his arms around me and tried to crush me – me, and Fiore too. ‘Leave me to die and ride away. It would be kinder.’ He spat, and handed me a canteen. I took a pull. It proved to be Malmsey, but it tasted like the nectar of the gods of Greece.
It also proved to be the last surprise of the night. By the time our exhausted column crossed the sand where the crusaders’ ships were beached, the sky was grey and we could see men asleep on the sand.
We didn’t stop. But neither did we gallop. We didn’t have a horse capable of the effort among us.
The Order’s admiral was awakened at once. I lay down in one of the Order’s tents and slept for perhaps ten minutes. It wasn’t much lighter when I was awakened and Fra Ferlino di Airasca ordered wine brought.
‘We know very little here,’ he said. ‘And the legate took most of the Order away into the city.’
I outlined the facts as I knew them, so tired by then that I was sick to my stomach. But two slaves brought food, fruit, and bread and cheese, and I devoured it.
The admiral said nothing while I spoke, except to curse when I said that Fra Peter Mortimer had been wounded.
‘How is the legate?’ I asked.
Fra Ferlino shrugged. ‘Well enough. Better when we can let him sleep. His eyes are better.’ Knights of the Order have a great many healing skills – the Hospital is as much part of their trade as the sword – and they tended to speak in tropes. But I knew from Fra Peter that a man with a bad blow to the head shows it in his eyes.
He looked at me. ‘Can the Cairo Gate hold? Where is the army?’