of the French knights raised a cheer. “Keep vigilant,” he instructed his own knights, “for they may well hit us again if they see us letting down our guard.” Spotting a familiar face, he rode over to the Count of St Pol, who had dismounted and was examining his stallion’s foreleg.
“I feared he might be lamed,” he said as Richard drew rein, “but it seems he just took a misstep—”
“What in Christ’s Name happened here, St Pol?”
Bridling at the English king’s tone, the count straightened up. “Ask Burgundy. He has the command, not me!”
Another French lord was more forthcoming. Drogo d’Amiens overheard this testy exchange and came over to tell Richard that the Saracens had attacked once they saw the rear guard had fallen behind the rest of the army. “It looked like it would turn into an utter rout,” he said soberly. “But thank God for Guillaume des Barres, for he managed to rally his knights and they staved off disaster until your arrival, my liege. It was too close for comfort, though.”
Richard was in complete accord with that; had things gone differently, their entire rear guard could have been destroyed on the first day of the march. When he rejoined some of his friends and knights, he was still seething. “One of the Templars told me that the Saracen strategy for victory can be summed up in three words: harass, encircle, annihilate. They might want to add a fourth maxim: Fight the French. Where is Burgundy?” He began to snap out orders then, and his men hastened to obey. But André, Baldwin, and Morgan shared grins, thinking that Hugh of Burgundy’s encounter with the Saracens was going to seem downright benign after his confrontation with the English king.
GUILLAUME DES BARRES was so exhausted that it took an effort just to stay upright. He was returning from the surgeon’s tent, for toward the end of the fighting, he’d taken a blow to his forearm by a Saracen mace. It throbbed with the slightest movement, but he was greatly relieved that he’d broken no bones. Seeing that his squires were still setting up his tent, he sank down next to one of the supply wagons and braced his aching body against its wheel. He knew he should seek out the duke to learn how many casualties they’d suffered, but he could not muster up the energy to move. From time to time, other men came over and lauded him for his prowess that day. Ordinarily, such acclaim would have been very pleasing; now he was too tired to appreciate it. Despite his uncomfortable position, he was falling asleep when Mathieu de Montmorency squatted beside him.
“You’re the talk of the camp,” he exclaimed, looking at the older man with bright, admiring eyes. “Men are saying that you saved the day for us, that there’ll likely be songs written about your deeds.”
“I doubt that Richard will be writing any of them,” Guillaume said dryly, smothering a yawn. “Anyway, it was his arrival that tipped the scales in our favor.”
“Yes, but it was your action that enabled us to hold on until he got here. Mind you, he did make quite an entrance,” Mathieu said, grinning. “He struck the Saracen line like a thunderbolt! Then he . . .” He stopped then, realizing it might not be tactful to be praising the man who’d treated Guillaume so unfairly at Messina.
“I do not mind, lad,” Guillaume assured him, for Mathieu’s was an easy face to read. “He is indeed a superb fighter—as he’d be the first to tell you.”
Mathieu grinned again. “He is over in the duke’s tent now, berating Hugh for letting the rear guard lag behind like that. Hugh looked like he’d swallowed a whole lemon!”
“Good,” Guillaume muttered, for he’d warned the duke repeatedly that they were courting disaster. Mathieu was still chattering on about the battle, relating a story he’d heard about a sergeant of the Bishop of Salisbury: Supposedly, he’d had his hand cut off by a Turkish blade, but had coolly snatched up his sword in his left hand and continued fighting. Guillaume had often seen limbs severed on the battlefield, had severed a few of them himself, and he very much doubted that a man so maimed would be able to carry on with such sangfroid. He saw no reason to inject reality into Mathieu’s account, though. Looking at the teenager through drooping eyelids, he found himself thinking it was miraculous that the lad still retained so much