Alternate Generals II

It could be a trap. Richard was ready for that. He had focused his attack on the gate, though the rams would not be needed after all; in their place he sent a company of crossbowmen. They took their positions out of ordinary bowshot, and sent a barrage of bolts into the open gate.

Nothing moved inside it. No hidden troops fell screaming from the towers. The gate was empty, open and inviting.

Richard gambled as he had with the Old Man: he ordered the first wave into the city. With a cry of trumpets and a thunder of drums, they swarmed out of the hills and fell upon Jerusalem.

Richard had intended to go in with the rearguard, but as the vanguard swarmed toward the gate, he could not bear it. He clapped spurs to his destrier's sides. He barely cared if anyone went with him; all his heart and soul were fixed on that flicker of torchlight.

He was not the first to pass beneath that echoing gate, but he was far from the last. Although he had never been in the city, he knew its ways as if he had been born to them. He had committed them to heart against just such a day, praying every night and every morning that it would come to pass.

This was David's Gate, the gate of the north and west, guarded by the Tower of David in which the kings of Jerusalem had lived and ruled and fought. The Tower seemed deserted, empty of troops and even of noncombatants. The street of David that ran inward from it, nearly straight through the middle of the city till it reached the Beautiful Gate of the Temple on the other side, was as empty as the Tower, but for crumpled shapes that proved to be bits of abandoned baggage: an empty sack, a heap of broken pots, a chest with its lid wrenched off and nothing within but a scent of sandalwood.

He was deeply, almost painfully aware of the holiness of this place, the sanctity of every stone. But in this hour he was a fighting man, and there was a fight ahead-that, he was sure of. But where? Not, he hoped, in every street and alley of this ancient and convoluted place.

The Old Man had woven this web and, Richard had no doubt, cleared this sector of the city for the invasion. Both he and Moustafa had spoken more than once of the Dome of the Rock. That was the Muslims' great holy place, the rock from which their Prophet had been taken up to heaven. Like the Holy Sepulcher for the Christians, it was the heart and soul of their faith.

It was also a great fortress and storehouse, built as a mosque and then transformed into the stronghold of the Knights Templar: the Templum Domini, the Temple of the Lord. Saladin had died under its splendid dome. It would be like the Old Man's humor to drive Saphadin's troops there and pen them like sheep for Richard to slaughter. Saphadin might even hope to withstand a siege, until hordes of reinforcements could come from his kinsmen in Damascus.

Richard gathered his vanguard and the second wave of forces behind it, ordered the lanterns lit to guide them, and led them into the city. The third rank would go in after a pause, and sweep the city behind them, taking it street by street if need be.

Beyond the gate, at last, they met opposition: a barricade across the broad street, and turbaned Saracens ma

There were two more barricades between David's Tower and the Latin Exchange, where half a dozen skeins of streets met and mingled. One barricade they broke as they had the first, but at higher cost: there were more men here, and more archers. They lost a man-at-arms there, arrow-shot in the eye. The other barricade was broken when they came to it, all its defenders dead-Assassins' work, quite likely. Past that, as they marched warily round the looming bulk of the Khan al-Sultan, they found the way clear, and only dead men to bar it. Walls on either side rose high and blank, windows shuttered, gates shut and barred.

Richard was preternaturally aware of the force he led, as if it had been a part of his own body. He felt as much as heard the troop of Germans who ventured to creep off and begin the sack before the city was won. An English voice called a halt to them, and English troops barred their way. They snarled like a pack of dogs, but they were quelled, for the moment.

Morning was coming. The sky was growing lighter. He could see the Dome of the Rock floating above the walls, seeming no part of earth at all.

No time for awe. Not yet. It was as he had expected: the Beautiful Gate was heavily ma

He had siege engines. He had the city. He could take the bait the infidels offered, and be snapped up in turn by the massed armies of Damascus.

"No," he said to no one in particular. He had been promised Jerusalem. This, to an infidel, was the heart of it.

He rolled the dice one last time. He sent for the rams-but when that messenger had gone at a gallop, he brought up the heaviest of his heavy cavalry, the German and Flemish knights on their massive chargers. The beasts were as fresh as they could be on this side of the sea, with the cool of the dawn and the slowness of their progress through the city.

Richard addressed them in a voice that was low but pitched to carry. "I've heard that a charge of armored knights could break down the walls of Babylon, and those are three lance-lengths thick. This gate's not near as thick as that. There's not much room to get going, but we'll give you all we can, and we'll cover you with crossbow fire. Just break that gate for me."

"Deus lo volt," they replied: the war cry of the Crusade. "God wills it."

The rest of the army drew back as much as it could. It must have looked like a retreat: Richard heard whooping and jeering on the wall. So much the better. The charge prepared itself behind a shield of English and Norman knights.

When it was ready, the crossbowmen in place, Richard raised his sword. As it swept down, the knights lumbered into motion. Their shield melted away, then came together behind them.

Crossbow bolts picked off the Saracen archers with neat precision. The knights beneath them were moving faster now, building speed from walk to an earth-shaking trot. Lances that had been in rest now lowered. The few arrows that fell among them did no damage, sliding off the knights' armor or the horses' caparisons, or falling harmless, to be trampled under the heavy hooves.

The Saracens above the gate were brave or desperate: they hung on, though more and more of their number fell dead or wounded. The charge struck the gate with force like a mountain falling. Lances splintered. The destriers in the lead, close pressed behind, reared and smote the gate with their hooves. The knights' maces and morningstars whirled and struck, whirled and struck.

They broke down that gate of gold and forged steel as if it had been made of straw, trampled over it and plunged through. The second, less massive but still powerful charge thundered behind them, Richard's English and his Normans chanting in unison: "Deus lo volt! Deus lo volt!"

There was a battle waiting for them in the court of the Temple; mounted and afoot, the dead Sultan's gathered forces under command of a prince in a golden helmet. That helmet had been Saladin's, and the armor had been his, too; but he had never ridden that tall bay stallion, Richard's gift to the great knight and prince of the infidels, al-Malik al-Adil, the lord Saphadin. The first light of the sun caught the peak of his helmet and crowned him with flame.

Richard's knights plunged deep into the waiting army of infidels. His lighter cavalry, his archers, his foot soldiers were close behind them. The court could not hold them all. Over half waited in reserve outside, or had gone up on the walls and dealt with the archers whom the crossbowmen had not disposed of.