Faithful Dead by Alys Clare Page B

Nureddin, he did not know.
    All he did know was that the enemy fought with an efficiency and a ferocity that he, a fighting man himself, could not help but admire. Professional soldiers, many used the bow – of a peculiar, curved shape – as a cavalry assault weapon, firing it from horseback with a skill born of long experience and endless training.
    The effect on the Christian army was devastating. All around him Geoffroi saw men fall, some shot with the awful, penetrating arrows that flew off those strange bows, some dragged from their horses to be cut to death by knife or sword.
    Geoffroi thought suddenly, I may be about to die.
    As he thought this, a peculiar sense of detachment came over him. I cannot avoid what lies in store for me, he reflected fatalistically. I must do my best – of all things, a picture of his family sprang to mind, making sacrifice after sacrifice in order that he should be here, fighting before Damascus – and, if my best does not result in my escape, then I shall die and, with my sins absolved, go to Paradise.
    Then he spurred his horse, screamed aloud and, with his sword held high, rode into the fray.
    An unknowable time later – it could have been one hour or several – Geoffroi found himself in a press of Frankish knights fighting their way out of what appeared to be an attempted ambush. Some enemy troops had tried to corner them but, in this instance, it was the Christians who outnumbered the Turks, or Muslims, whoever they were, and the enemy soldiers were steadily being massacred.
    Geoffroi, attracted by a sudden high-pitched wailing, spun round and saw the slight figure of a Muslim youth, quite short in stature, staggering into the path of a mounted Frankish knight who was bearing down on him.
    In a peculiar moment of stillness, the youth turned his head and his terrified eyes met Geoffroi’s. But he’s a child! Geoffroi thought, aghast. He’s nothing but a little boy! ‘Wait!’ he yelled, waving his sword towards the charging knight, ‘stay your hand!’
    The knight, who either did not hear or chose to ignore Geoffroi’s appeal, spurred his horse.
    The boy had been injured; a cut to the head was bleeding profusely, and the entire right side of his face looked as if it had been painted scarlet. In addition, he seemed to be concussed; he was running round in circles, stumbling, pushing himself upright only to fall again.
    Geoffroi could see an obvious way out for him; if he turned sharp right, he would be facing the entrance to a sort of tunnel between two rocky outcrops where, for a precious life-saving moment, he would be out of the charging knight’s reach.
    Geoffroi waved at him, kicking on his horse and galloping towards him. ‘Go in there, boy!’ he cried. ‘Quickly! Get under cover!’
    But the boy’s wide, panicking eyes looked blank; he had not understood.
    The knight was almost on him.
    Geoffroi, screaming now, yelled out, ‘NO! He’s a child; he’s no soldier! Leave him! Leave him be!’
    The knight charged on.
    Drawing in his horse’s head so sharply that the animal all but tripped, Geoffroi changed direction and flew forward on a path that would cross that of the knight. Passing in front of him so closely that he actually saw the knight’s eyes behind the slit of his visor – dark eyes, narrowed, intent – Geoffroi then wheeled again and, bending down out of the high saddle and lowering his left arm more in hope than in expectation, scooped the child up and out of the knight’s path.
    Then, before the knight could slow down and turn, Geoffroi spurred his horse and, weaving and swerving, raced from the scene.
    He was so charged up that, for a few minutes, all he could do was cling on to the child – whose terror seemed to have totally paralysed him – and urge his rapidly tiring horse onwards. So it was that, after some time, he suddenly realised that he had left the fighting behind.
    The three of them, lathered horse, panting man and catatonic boy,