The Crescent and the Cross Page 19

  This time, they skirted the town by some distance, cutting east of it for two miles before turning north along the edge of the wide valley. Even from a distance, the military activity in the town was impossible to miss. Along the edge of the hills they moved, then, finally towards the pass.

  Their pace began to slow once more. This valley had seemed to be thicker with enemy units and patrols than anywhere they had been since Cordoba. Arnau felt the hair rise on the back of his neck at the sight of such mobilisation and knew without doubt that something was amiss. The pass must be well and truly sealed now. It had already been solidly manned and fortified when they were heading south but that was now more than two weeks ago – two weeks during which a continual flow of manpower had been surging north-east.

  With an ever-increasing sense of danger, Arnau and his companions pressed on north, keeping away from even minor farm tracks now, travelling through olive groves and past copses and areas of scrubland. That night they had camped on a low hill overlooking a village where the gleams of campfires betrayed the presence of yet more Almohad soldiers. As darkness descended, the three men had peered north along the valley. The pass had still been out of sight beyond rolling hills, but the sky in that direction glowed gold like a well-lit city. If those were the defenders of the pass, then they must now number in the thousands. Arnau had felt his nerves twanging ever more as he slipped into an uncomfortable and unhappy sleep, filled with troubling dreams.

  They had moved before dawn the next morning, making sure to stay ahead of those units gathered around the village below. Rounding the hillside, they began to ride as fast as they dared, and managed to eat up a few miles with blessed speed. At midday, they’d rounded another spur of land jutting out from the valley’s eastern slopes, and Arnau’s world came crashing down at the sight of what lay ahead.

  All three men had reined in, silent, eyes wide.

  The army of Al-Andalus had moved into the pass in a vast swarm. The glow they had seen in the sky the night before had not been from any garrison in the narrow defiles of the Sierra, but from the myriad campfires of the caliph’s forces. Today, under a clear blue noon sky, swathes of men in many colours of uniform, cavalry, desert nomads levied in Africa, white-clad infantry, artillery and so much more, filled the vista, concentrated on a low rise in the valley’s eastern side.

  ‘How many do you think?’ the squire murmured.

  ‘Too many,’ Arnau answered, his voice little more than a whisper.

  ‘Twenty thousand or more, I would say,’ Calderon added.

  ‘That’s more than the kings of the north will have,’ Tristán said.

  ‘With the military orders and the Franks, they might manage to match that,’ Arnau countered, though he didn’t want to think on how many other factors would influence any battle to come. How the Moors were protected by the pass, had the stronger position, were rested while the crusaders would have to march to meet them, and that with every day that passed, the Almohad army would grow, more units coming to bolster it, while the Christians would lose men as they advanced. It was not a hopeful situation.

  ‘The only hope is that the kings change the path of their advance,’ Arnau said. ‘Long before they meet this host of heathens, they need to cut west, heading for Sevilla and the heart of the enemy caliphate. If they can sack Sevilla while the Almohad army lurks here, unknowing, then things can change. If not…’

  ‘Quite,’ Tristán confirmed.

  ‘In the meantime, how do we get past them?’ Arnau muttered. ‘We need to intercept the army of Christendom as it marches south, before they become embroiled at the pass. If we catch them early enough, we can warn them and their campaign can be diverted west against a better target.’

  Calderon scratched his neck. ‘There is no other route for many days back the way we have come. There is another pass to the east, but it will take days to reach it yet.’

  Arnau shook his head. ‘Yusuf told us of it when we came south. It would cost us an extra week. Meanwhile the army of Christendom will most certainly be on the move by now. They may even have fought battles and sieges already. They could be anywhere. We need to reach them before they fall foul of this hidden army. We have to get through now, or we’ll be too late.’

  ‘We need to use the cow head path,’ Tristán said.

  ‘Yes, but even getting to it will be dangerous. We have to cross the valley past the enemy and disappear into the hills. And time is now of the essence. I don’t think we can wait for nightfall.’

  Calderon straightened. ‘For why though I shall go in the valley of the shadow of death, I shall not dread evils, for Thou art with me. Thy rod and Thy staff; those have comforted me.’

  ‘Quite,’ Arnau murmured, running through the rest of the twenty-third Psalm in his head. ‘It must still be done, and perhaps it can be done. After all, the Lord is my shepherd, and nothing shall fail to me.’

  ‘Shepherds?’ the squire said. ‘Better than soldiers, but still… even in native gear and without most of our pack, we’re going to draw attention. With horses and bags, we can’t pass for shepherds, and without armour and weapons we can’t pass for soldiers.’

  Arnau nodded. ‘It’s true.’ He drew himself up, rolled his shoulders and took a deep breath. ‘We can’t be soldiers, but like our dear Lord, we can become shepherds easily enough. We need to leave everything but the bare essentials and set the horses free. Find a long stick to lean on like a local farmer and get yourself dusty. We’re going to become invisible peasants.’

  ‘I shall have to leave the sword,’ Calderon said.

  ‘Yes. We have two daggers we can hide beneath our clothes, but we cannot take a sword. Too obvious.’

  ‘You said time was of the essence. We’ll move slowly without horses.’

  ‘Across the mountains it’ll make no difference,’ Arnau replied. ‘We wouldn’t be riding anyway. In fact, we might move easier if we’re not trying to lead horses. We lost one to injury on our journey south in these very peaks.’

  With quiet and unhappy agreement, the three men left the horses to graze, found sticks upon which to lean, gathered together all the kit they could not keep on their belt or hide under their clothes, and left it in a small hollow behind a tree. Ten minutes later, looking one another up and down, they were ready. To Arnau’s mind they were at least certainly poor-looking.

  ‘I wish we had a flock,’ Tristán grumbled. ‘Then we’d be less noticeable.’

  ‘There are half a dozen sheep on the slope below us,’ Arnau pointed. ‘Do you think we can drive them on with us? I’ve never herded sheep before in my life, but I’ve seen it done. How hard can it be?’

  ‘I’ve seen it done with a dog,’ Tristán said uncertainly. ‘Not by three clueless knights with sticks.’

  Arnau flashed him a smile that held a challenge, and the squire rolled his eyes. The three men descended from the hilltop, the tension about them tightening once more as they came into view of that massive host that occupied a rise to one side of the valley. Arnau watched the enemy carefully as they passed. They had to get word to the crusaders. If the army of Christ decided they could fight their way through the pass, they would lose many souls, and would then emerge on this side of it only to find the enemy, well-rested, well-prepared and in greater numbers. It would be a massacre.

  Reaching the lower slopes, they moved towards the sheep who were wandering aimlessly, eating what few tufts of scrubby grass they could find. It struck Arnau that he’d never seen this done without a dog either, and he wondered whether the sheep would be as responsive to the three northerners. As they approached, they spread out, Calderon taking the centre with Arnau on the left flank and Tristán on the right. Arnau prayed that the squire wouldn’t forget himself and shout something in Aragonese as they closed in. The sheep stayed motionless at their approach, and Arnau was starting to think that shepherds were clearly overpaid for such a simple job, when the tiny flock suddenly scattered, spooked.

  Arnau cursed under
his breath and, wondering what Moorish shepherds said to sheep, snarled ‘yalla imshi,’ and raced after the animal that was trying to flee to the left, catching up with it only by running breathlessly and guiding it back to the right with a panicked clout of his stick. As he drove that animal back to the others, he was relieved to see that Calderon had managed to keep them moving forwards and Tristán had brought in two from the far side, though his puffing and panting and wild eyes suggested he had had similar adventures. Arnau’s eyes rose above them and his heart lurched to see a white-cloaked Almohad footman leaning on a spear on a rise nearby, watching them. The Templar panicked and tried not to look too foreign, but was relieved when he realised that the warrior’s shoulders were shaking with laughter as the man watched this farce at work.

  Once they had managed to gather all six sheep into a flock and had them moving at a reasonable pace, the warrior became bored with the entertainment and turned, wandering off out of sight. Arnau felt his pulse and breathing become slower and more regular again as they moved away from their audience. He desperately wanted to exclaim how damn close that had been, but dared not speak now, even in Arabic. Slowly and carefully, trying to move with the casual misery of the peasant farmer, they drove the six sheep across the flat valley, occasionally under the uninterested eye of a lone scout or a small patrol of men. Arnau winced when Tristán bellowed ‘imshi’ at one of the sheep in the most appallingly Aragonese accent, but fortunately no one seemed to be around at that moment to observe them, and the Almohad camp was now out of earshot.

  As they approached the road that led up the valley to the pass, a small knot of horsemen in shushing mail and jingling reins approached, and with some difficulty the trio managed to stop the sheep short of the road, where the men kept their faces down respectfully and waited for the warriors to pass by. The cavalry barely registered the existence of the three peasants, and rode on to join their masters in the great camp, and Arnau heaved a sigh of relief as he and his companions struggled to get their small flock moving once more. Safely across the road and out of the path of any other approaching unit, they hurried the sheep through the scrubby grass and finally, some half hour after they had abandoned the horses, they passed out of sight of the immense enemy gathering, behind a low spur and into a valley that looked faintly familiar.

  They continued to move carefully for some time, deeper into the side valley and away from danger with every step. As the sun began its descent for the afternoon, they paused at last. A small ancient sheepfold stood to one side of this narrow vale, constructed of odd stones and with parts already tumbling down. An old stone hut was missing much of its roof and a door, but still the three of them herded the half-dozen sheep into the stone pen and propped the ruined gate in place. The three men heaved in a breath.

  ‘Do we leave them here?’ Tristán asked quietly.

  ‘They will only slow us in the hills,’ Arnau nodded, ‘and once we’re up there we should be free of danger from the enemy, so we won’t need them.’

  Calderon drummed his fingers on the stone wall. ‘You are sure of this path through the hills?’

  Arnau nodded again. ‘It’s more than one path. It is a network of routes across the sierra created by the local shepherds. And I think this is the very valley we came down from.’

  ‘Be sure,’ Tristán said.

  ‘Once we reach the valley head, there should be a dry seasonal stream with a boulder of a curious shape. I remember passing it on the way and thinking of it as an arrow, pointing our way. Not far from it is the first of the markers. If that stream is there, we’re on the right…’

  He stopped dead, finger going to his lips. The other two frowned, but also fell silent, just in time to hear the movement of horses and voices in Arabic. Arnau turned, falling silent and trying to listen carefully. He thought he could hear only two voices, but three sets of hooves. Either two men with a spare animal, then, or three riders, but only two speaking. He held up three fingers and then pointed in the direction of the noises. The other two nodded their understanding.

  The voices were definitely getting closer, and as they became clearer, Arnau concentrated, translating them in his head. It came as no surprise that the two men were discussing having heard something. That they were not screaming death threats was hopeful, but the chances of the three of them talking their way out of this was small, Arnau suspected. Gesturing to the other two he tried to use hand signals to suggest they leave the talking to him, but be ready to act.

  In addition to his long stick, Tristán ripped the misericorde from his waist, and Arnau pointed and shook his head. The squire hid the dagger once more, but kept it in hand, somewhere beneath his robes. Arnau followed suit, his left hand closing on the hilt of the dagger beneath his robe. Calderon’s grip on his stick shifted subtly, too, ready to turn it from support to weapon.

  Arnau leaned casually on the stone wall, trying to look somehow like a tired peasant shepherd. The other two closed together, where Calderon started telling an anecdote in Arabic in low tones to the squire, who nodded and smiled as though he understood a word of it.

  The three horsemen appeared mere moments later, walking their mounts slowly, side by side. They were scouts, Arnau decided immediately, for there were no helmets, chain shirts or the like in place. Their skin tone was darker than the average Moor, and they were weathered-looking men, probably drafted from some tribe out on the fringes of the African deserts. They wore white cotton, as well as turbans that came down to form a veil over the lower face, and all three carried long, narrow spears, with swords belted at their sides.

  ‘This valley has been cleared,’ one of them snapped in Arabic with a strange accent that was thick enough to cut with a knife. ‘You are not supposed to be here.’

  Arnau spread his hands apologetically. ‘We lost a few sheep when we were moved out. We came back to collect them. A sheep is worth much money, master. Please, we want no trouble.’

  The whites of his eyes in the dark face narrowed, and one of the others said, ‘I heard a cursed infidel tongue,’ as he eyed them all suspiciously.

  ‘Not here, master,’ Arnau said meekly.

  ‘You,’ the suspicious one said, thrusting his spear towards Tristán, ‘show your face.’

  Arnau knew immediately that their subterfuge had failed. The moment the squire dropped the veil to show his paler Navarrese skin, they would be done for. He turned to Tristán and said in Arabic, ‘Show him, Yusuf.’ Tristán, of course, had no idea what he was saying, his face turning to Arnau in confusion. But Arnau had not said it for the squire’s benefit. His words had focused the attention of all three men on Tristán, and while the three riders waited impatiently for the squire to comply, Arnau very subtly stepped closer to the nearest rider. Two steps. Three steps. His hand closed on the hilt of the blade under his robe. His glance flicked over and he realised that Calderon too was moving while all three riders’ attention was focused on Tristán.

  He waited until the very last moment, when the horseman suddenly realised Arnau was next to him and looked down in shock. Then he struck. The rider was out of reach for any subtle cutting of throats or suchlike, high on his horse, but Arnau knew all the weak spots. His misericorde dagger was needle thin and edgeless, designed for punching into a man, and, ripped clear suddenly of Arnau’s dusty clothes, he slammed it into the thigh of the rider, as close to the inside of the leg as he could manage. He knew it would not tear a wound easily, but he also anticipated the man’s reaction, and put all his strength and effort into holding onto the hilt.

  The rider screamed as the blade thrust deep into muscle, somewhere close to the artery than ran down the inside of the thigh. Arnau had not been able to pinpoint his blow, with the man’s thighs up against the horse’s flanks, but just as he’d hoped, the man then doomed himself. In panic at the blade jammed in his thigh, the man reared his horse into the air. Arnau struggled to maintain his grip on the blade still lodged in the thigh, and as the two separated, the dagger ripped
through muscle and flesh and, most importantly, artery. The massive sudden spray of blood from the huge tear soaked the horse’s side and Arnau together and the man screamed again, remaining danger forgotten in his panic and pain, spear falling from his hand.

  The man bolted, howling, racing away from them and clutching his leg.

  Arnau turned, blood-spray all across his chest, arm and face. Calderon had smashed the third rider’s spear aside with his stick and had thrown himself at the man, was now pulling him bodily from the saddle as the two men cursed one another and spat bile.

  The middle rider, the one who had challenged Tristán, was shocked. His gaze switched this way and that, uncertain of who to deal with first. His hesitation was his undoing. The squire ran at him, and the man turned to defend himself, but that put his back to Arnau. The Templar stooped, spitting blood that was not his own, and swept up the fallen spear. As the rider rose in his saddle, shouting his war cry and preparing to impale Tristán, Arnau drove the point of the spear into the man’s back, just off centre, close to the spine. It punched into the man and stopped, wedged inside. Gripping the shaft and grunting as the man screamed, he pushed hard again, heaving twice, three times, until the point burst from the man’s chest and the shaft ran through easily.

  The man jerked and gurgled, his own spear falling away. The squire glared at Arnau. ‘I could have taken him.’

  ‘This is not a competition,’ Arnau replied archly, then glanced over at the remaining struggle, as his latest victim toppled from the horse, the spear shaft that transfixed him snapping as it hit the ground. Calderon had managed to get the third rider down to the dust and somehow disarm him. As the Moor struggled, crying out, Calderon began to strike him with the stick. Once again, just as Arnau had seen in the stable at Cordoba, the knight seemed to suddenly be taken by the overwhelming need to extract in blood and pain every ounce of revenge for what had been done to him.

  The Moor stopped screaming after around twenty blows, not because he was dead, but because his face and throat had gone, turned into some indistinguishable mush. Arnau turned away, sickened, and left the man to it.