Arn’s arrow struck the foe at the base of his throat, flinging him back and down to the ground with gouts of blood spurting from his mouth. From the twitching of his body in the dust they surmised that he must have died even before he hit the ground. His horse continued without a rider straight in through the open city gate and vanished down the main street toward the fortress.
“He was the one I meant,” said Arn in a low voice to Armand, as if he felt more sorrow than triumph at having killed an enemy. “It was written that he was the one who would die, and that he would be the only one today.”
“I don’t understand, lord,” said Armand. “You told me that I should always ask when I don’t understand, and this is one of those times.”
“Yes, it’s right for you to ask,” said Arn, leaning his bow against the stone wall. “You have to ask about anything unfamiliar so that you can learn. It’s really much better than pretending you know more than you do just because your pride forbids you from showing your ignorance. You will soon be a brother, and a brother always receives an answer from another brother, always. So this is how it is. Those young emirs know very well who I am, and that I’m a fairly good shot with a bow. So one who rides against Al Ghouti is courageous, and one who survives it has been spared by God because of his courage. Yes, that is how they think. It is most courageous to ride the third time; that’s when it is decided, according to their belief. Now no one will ride a fourth time, since it’s not possible to ride any closer than the first three. Anyone who does so will only die for the sake of a game. Courage, and everything that both unbelievers and believers imagine about courage, is harder to comprehend than honor. Indecision is the same as cowardice, many believe. And look how indecisive they are out there now! They wanted to taunt us, and now they’re the ones who have put themselves in a most difficult position.”
“What will they do now that their comrade is dead; how will they be able to avenge him?” asked Armand.
“If they’re smart they won’t do anything. If they’re cowardly and choose to take cover by attacking in a group all at once to bring back his body for a proper burial, then we’ll kill almost all of them when our crossbowmen step forward. Order the archers to make ready!”
Armand obeyed at once, and all the sergeants who sat concealed behind the wall with their crossbows now cocked their weapons and prepared to pop up over the breastwork at the next command and send a deadly rain of bolts down on the group of cavalry if they attacked.
But the young riders seemed too indecisive to go on the attack, or perhaps they sensed that it was a trap. As the walls of Gaza looked from their vantage point, with a sparse defense of Turkish archers, it might look suspiciously simple and innocuous—just like a trap.
When the group no longer seemed eager to attack, Arn ordered the captured Mameluke horse brought out. Then he walked down the stone steps, took the horse by its reins, and led it out through the city gate. He did not stop until he reached the man he had killed. The Mamelukes sat silently watching him, tense and ready to attack, just as Armand up on the city wall was tense and ready to order forward all the crossbowmen if the cavalry decided to attack.
Arn hoisted the body of his dead foe over the saddle and tied him on carefully with the stirrup straps around one arm and one leg so that he wouldn’t slip off. Then he turned the horse toward the now utterly silent group of opponents and gave the steed a quick rap on the haunches so that it set off at a trot. Arn turned on his heel and walked slowly back to the city gate, without looking back.
Nobody attacked him and nobody shot at him.
He seemed quite pleased and in a good mood when he reached Armand up on the breastwork. His weapons master had now returned from down in the fortress; he shook Arn’s hand heartily and embraced him.
The Mamelukes had taken charge of their dead comrade and were now riding slowly away to bury him as their customs prescribed. Arn and the weapons master watched the departure of the gloomy company with pleased expressions on their faces.
But Armand felt like a goose; he didn’t understand what his lord had done, nor did he understand the satisfaction of the two high brothers over what he regarded as a gesture of foolish bravery. It seemed to him an irresponsible way for Arn to risk his life, especially since he was responsible for all their lives.
“Forgive me, master, but I have another question,” Armand finally said after long hesitation.
“Yes?” said Arn cheerfully. “Is there something in my behavior that you don’t understand?”
“Yes, master.”
“You think that I risked my life in a foolish way?”
“It might appear so, my lord.”
“But I did not. If they had come riding toward me to get within range, most of them would have died before they managed to nock their arrows, for they would have ridden straight into the range of the crossbows. I’m wearing a double coat of mail on my back, so their arrows would have stuck in the felt layer but not penetrated, and I would have walked through our gate looking like a hedgehog. That would have been the best turn of events, of course. But we had to be content with second best.”
“I’m still not sure I understand all this,” Armand appealed to him, while the two knight-brothers gave him a paternal smile.
“Our enemies this time are the Mamelukes,” explained the weapons master. “You, who will soon be a brother among us, Armand, must learn to know them especially well, both their strength and their weakness. Their strength is their riding skill and bravery, and their weakness is in their mind. They believe in spirits and the wandering of the soul from one body to the next and even to stones in the desert; they believe that a man’s courage is his true soul, and many other things. They believe that he who displays the most courage will be the one who is victorious in war.”
“I see,” said Armand, abashed. But they could see that he was still brooding.
“For them the number three is sacred in war,” Arn went on to explain. “In a way that makes sense: it’s the third blow in a swordfight that is the most dangerous. But now their third rider has died. Now the enemy they call Al Ghouti showed greater courage than they did, so I will win the war and not Saladin, and that rumor will spread throughout their encampment tonight.”
“But what if they had come riding toward you when you were standing out there, master?”
“Then most of them would have been killed. And the few who escaped would have seen that I was struck time after time without dying, so they would have spread the legend of my invulnerability tonight. I’m not sure which would have been better. But now it’s time for Saladin’s next move, which we will witness before nightfall.”
Arn, who no longer thought there was any danger of an enemy attack, sent off more than half the defenders from up on the walls to rest and eat. He himself went back through the streets of Gaza and into the fortress to sing vespers and pray with the knights before it was time for the evening meal. Then half of the force would rest while the other half remained on guard. Gaza’s gates still stood provocatively open, but there was no indication that Saladin was preparing to storm them.
Instead, in the late evening the enemy came forward with engineers and laborers and carts loaded with wheels, rough beams, and rope. They began to assemble their catapults that would soon begin launching huge blocks of stone at Gaza’s walls.
Arn stood pondering the scene from up on the breastwork; he had come as soon as he got word of the siege machines. It looked as though things were calm over in the enemy’s camp, where thousands of fires burned around the tents and the men were obviously eating and drinking. It looked as though Saladin had left his precious siege machines and engineers with much too small a guard, almost no cavalry and only about a hundred infantry.