University of Virginia Library

II.12. CHAPTER XII

THE SARACENS ATTACK THE CAMP THE PRIEST'S FEAT OF ARMS THE FIGHTING AT THE BARRIERS.

LET US now proceed with our tale. At nightfall we returned, the King and we, from the perilous battle above narrated, and lodged in the place whence we had driven our enemies. My people, who had remained behind in the camp we had quitted, brought me a tent that the Templars had given me, and pitched it for me in front of the engines that we had won from the Saracens; and the King had serjeants appointed to guard the engines.

I lay down in my bed, where I had great need to rest on account of the wounds I had gotten during the day, but chance served me otherwise; for, before it was quite light, the cry arose in our camp: " To arms! to arms! " I roused my chamberlain, who was sleeping at my feet, and bade him go and

see what was the matter. He-came back to me in great alarm, and said to me: " Up, Sir! Up! for here are the Saracens, come on foot and horseback, and they have routed the King's serjeants that were guarding the engines, and have driven them in among our lines." I got up, and slipped a tunic over my shoulders, and clapped an iron cap on my head, and cried to our serjeants: " By Saint Nicholas! they shall not stay here!"

My knights joined me, all wounded as they were; and we drove the Saracen serjeants out from among the engines, and back onto a large squadron of mounted Turks, who were close to the engines we had captured. I sent to the King asking for help, for neither I nor my knights were able to put on hauberks, because of the wounds we had received; and the King sent us my Lord Walter of Châtillon, who placed himself in front, between us and the Turks.

When the Lord of Châtillon had repulsed the Saracen foot-serjeants, they fell back on a large squadron of Turks on horseback who were drawn up in front of our camp, to prevent us surprising the Saracen camp, which lay behind them.

Out of this company of mounted Turks, eight of their captains had alighted, all remarkably well armed, and had made a barricade of hewn stones, so that our cross-bowmen might not wound them; and these eight Saracens kept shooting flights of arrows into our camp, and wounded several of our men and horses. I and my knights laid our heads together, and agreed, that when night came, we would carry away the stones with which they were barricaded. A priest of mine, whose name was Lord John of Voyssey, had made up his own mind and was less patient. He set off from the camp all by himself in the direction of the Saracens, clad in his tunic, with his iron cap on his head, and his spear trailing under his arm, point downwards, so that the Saracens might not catch sight of it. When he got close to the Saracens, who, seeing him all alone, never troubled their heads about him, he caught his spear up under his arm, and charged on them. Not one of the eight made any attempt at defence, but they all turned and fled. When those on horseback saw their leaders running away, they spurred out to their rescue; whilst on our side about fifty

serjeants sprang out. The horsemen came spurring on and durst not engage with our footmen, but swerved aside. When they had repeated this two or three times, one of our serjeants took his spear by the middle, and hurled it at one of the mounted Turks, and let him have it between the ribs. After this, the Turks durst not stir again, and our serjeants carried away the stones. From that time forth, my priest was a noted man throughout the army, and they used to point him out one to another, and say, "there goes my Lord of Joinville's priest, who routed the eight Saracens."

These things took place on the first day of Lent. On that same day, a valiant Saracen whom the enemy had made captain instead of Scecedin the son of Seic, whom they had lost in the battle of Shrove Tuesday, took the coat belonging to the Count of Artois, who had died in that battle, and showed it to all the host of the Saracens, and told them: It was the King's coat-of-arms and that he was dead. " And this I show you " said he, " because a body without a head is in no wise to be feared, neither a people without a King. Therefor, if so please you, we will attack them on Friday; and you

should agree to this methinks, since we cannot fail to capture them all, now that they have lost their leader." And they all agreed that they would come and attack us on Friday.

The King's spies that were in the Saracen camp, brought tidings of this to the King; and thereupon the King commanded all the leaders of battalions to have their followers under arms by midnight and draw off from the tents to the barriers, which were made with long palings to prevent the Saracens from breaking into the camp, and were fixed in the ground in such a manner that a man on foot could pass between them. And it was done as the King commanded.

At sunrise, this Saracen whom they had made their leader, brought up without delay four thousand mounted Turks, and spread them out all round, with our camp and himself in the centre, from the river which comes from Grand Cairo, to the stream which flowed from our camp to a town called Risil. [Raxi?] When this was done, they further led up such a vast number of Saracens on foot as to make a second ring of them all round our camp, as had been done with the horsemen. Behind these two lines of battle

that I am telling you about, they drew up all the forces of the Sultan of Cairo, as a reserve, if it should be needed.

When this was done, the captain rode out on a pony to survey the disposition of our camp, and according as he saw that our divisions were more massed in one part than in another, he went back, and fetched up more men to strengthen the ranks opposed to ours.

Next, he sent the Bedouins, about three thousand of them, across the two rivers, thinking that the King would send some of his men to the Duke to reinforce him against the Bedouins, and so weaken his own camp. It took him till noon to make all his dispositions, and then he bade sound his drums, which they call " nacara," and they fell upon us, horse and foot. First of all I will tell you about the King of Sicily, for he came first on the side towards Grand Cairo. They moved against him just as one opens in chess, for they attacked him first with their footmen, the footmen pelting him with Greek fire. And both horse and foot pressed him so hard that they routed the King of Sicily, who was on foot among his

knights. Someone came to the King and told him of the evil plight his brother was in, and thereupon he spurred in among his brother's ranks, sword in hand, and pushed his way so far in among the Turks that their Greek fire set light to his horse's crupper. And by this sally the King saved the King of Sicily and his men, and they drove the Turks out of their camp.

Next to the King of Sicily's battalion came the battalion of the Oversea Barons, led by Sir Guy of Ibelin and Sir Baldwin his brother. Next to theirs came the battalion of my Lord Walter of Châtillon, full of champion knights and good fighters. These two battalions defended themselves so fiercely that the Turks were never able to break through them nor drive them back.

Next to my Lord Walter of Châtillon's battalion came Brother William of Sonnac, Master of the Temple, with the handful of brethren who were left him from the Tuesday's battle. He had fortified aposition hard by the engines which we had taken from the Saracens. The Saracens in attacking them threw Greek fire into the barricade which they had erected, and it caught easily, for the Templars had

built great planks of pitch pine into it; and know, that the Turks did not even wait for the fire to have burnt out, but charged at the Templars through the flames. In this fight, Brother William lost one of his eyes; the other he had lost on Shrove Tuesday; and he died of it, did that lord, God rest his soul! And know, that there was a patch of ground behind the Templars, the size of a day's work, so covered with the darts that the Saracens had thrown, that the soil could not be seen for the density of them.

Next to the Templars, came the battalion of Lord Guy Malvoisin, which battalion the Turks were never able to overcome. However, they succeeded by chance in covering Lord Guy with Greek fire, which his followers had great difficulty in putting out.

From Lord Guy Malvoisin's division, the barrier turned in a good stone's throw towards the river, and thence it bent straight again along Count William's camp, and ran down to the river on the side towards the sea. Close to the river, on the up-stream side from Lord Guy Malvoisin, was our detachment; and because they had Count William of Flanders' division facing them, they did not dare

approach us; wherein God showed us great kindness, for neither I nor my knights had hauberks nor shields, being all wounded from the battle of Shrove Tuesday.

The Count of Flanders they attacked savagely and vigorously with horse and foot. Seeing which, I ordered our cross-bowmen to shoot at those on horseback. When the horsemen saw that they were being wounded from our quarter, they fled, those of them that were mounted; and thereupon the Count's men left their camp, and scrambled over the barrier, and charged the Saracen footmen, and routed them. Many of them were slain and many had their bucklers taken. In this affair, Walter of the Horgne acquitted himself manfully; he it was who was standard-bearer to the Lord of Apremont.

Next to the Count of Flanders' battalion, came that of the Count of Poitiers, the King's brother; which battalion was on foot; only the Count himself being mounted. This detachment, the Turks utterly routed, and were leading the Count away prisoner; but when the butchers and the other camp followers, and the pedlar women got wind of it, they raised the hue and cry through the camp,

and, by God's aid, rescued the Count, and drove the Turks out of his camp.

Next to the Count of Poitier's detachment, came that of Lord Jocerand of Brançon, who had accompanied the Count into Egypt and was one of the best knights in the army. He had so arrayed his men that all his knights were on foot. He himself was on horseback with his son Lord Henry and the son of my Lord Jocerand of Nantum, and these he kept mounted because they were children. Several times the Turks got the best of his men, but every time that he saw them worsted, he galloped down on the Turks and took them in the rear, so that time after time the Turks left his followers to attack himself. Still, it would have availed them nothing, and they would all have been slain on the spot by the Turks, had it not been for my Lord Henry of Coonne, who was in the Duke of Burgundy's camp a wise knight, gallant and full of forethought. Every time that he saw the Turks about to attack my Lord of Brançon, he made the King's cross-bowmen shoot at the Turks from across the river. Nevertheless the Lord of Brançon escaped from that day's mishaps with the loss of

twelve knights out of the twenty that formed his company, not counting the other men-at-arms, and he himself was so roughly handled that he never after stood upon his feet, and died of that wound in the service of God.

I will tell you about the Lord of Brançon. He had been, when he died, in thirty-six battles and hand-to-hand fights in which he had carried off the prize of arms. I saw him once in an expedition of the Count of Châlons, whose cousin he was. He came to me and my brother, it was a Good Friday, and said to us: " Nephews, come and help me, you and your men; for the Germans are destroying the abbey." We went with him, and charged them with drawn swords, and with great difficulty and a violent scuffle we drove them out of the abbey. This done, the gallant gentleman knelt down before the altar, and cried aloud to Our Lord, "Lord, I beseech Thee, have pity on me, and take from these wars between Christians, wherein I have lived so long; and vouchsafe me to die in Thy service, and so win Thy kingdom of Heaven!"

These things I have recorded, because I believe that God granted his request, as you have seen.