Ayberk pointed to the cart with the banner. “There they take the wounded.”

In the afternoon when she came ashore she wanted to find the red cart, but Richard had taken a slice across the ribs from a lance. When she reached him, he was standing by a campfire drinking, his shirt already off, and the gash bleeding down his side. His body was more slender than Rouquin’s, his skin white.

The wound was shallow but long, and she had to sew it. She used silk thread, because he was a King. The hard part was making sure the edges matched. All the while, he stood talking to his officers, sending them here and there, never wincing at the needle. She tied off the last knot, gave him a tonic to drink, smeared yarrow on the cut, and laid a strip of linen over it; since she had seen the texture of the armor padding she had worried that the scab on a healing wound might stick to it, and the linen seemed a good remedy. The squire came with Richard’s shirt.

Then suddenly something walked over her foot, and she looked down and saw a huge black spider on her toes.

She screamed and kicked violently; the enormous black mass flew away in a wild high loop through the air. It landed on its back on the ground, many legs squirming above a hairy body the size of her hand. The men around her dodged it, laughing, and Mercadier scooped it up into a helmet.

He thrust the helmet into her face, and she recoiled, with another scream.

Now they were all laughing at her. It was a joke; they had planned it. She scowled at them, outraged, humiliated, and that made them laugh more, even Richard. She could hear the spider’s claws tapping on the sides of the helmet. She stood up straight and walked back into the tent to be alone.

On the ship she ate bread and drank sour wine. At night, when she walked into the camp, she ate what the men ate. Every few days they heard Mass, the whole army chanting at once. Holy Sepulcher, help us. One evening she reached the tent before the King was there, and a man-at-arms in a green and red striped jacket came up to her.

“Please. Lady, please. My brother. Can you help? Please help me.”

He was younger than she was, a scrawny straw-haired boy with buck teeth. His French sounded like hers. She went after him, down through the camp.

Usually all she saw of the camp was going through it on her way to Richard’s tent, when the army was just moving in. Now they were all sitting around their fires, cutting wood, bellowing and drinking, half-naked in the heat. She walked through them as fast as she could, following the yellow-headed boy.

Somebody hooted after her. Somebody else hissed. “Take care. That’s Richard’s witch.”

After that she walked easier. She thought now, also, she should have just stepped on the spider.

The bucktoothed boy took her to the cart with the banner, where the wounded were taken. There were several wounded lying on the ground around the cart, and three gowned men standing around, but the bucktoothed boy led her around behind the cart, to where another man lay on a blanket.

She could see at once that he was dying. He was pale and he breathed in little gasps, and his wide eyes were unseeing. Matter dribbled from his nose. She knelt down beside him. One of the gowned men came toward her.

“God’s greeting. I am Doctor Roger Besac—can you bleed this man?”

She started, angry. They thought she was a common bloodletter. She said, “No—he’s dying; it won’t do any good anyway. Get a priest.”

Roger Besac looked at the bucktoothed boy. “I told you,” he said, and went around the cart again.

She sat down by the dying man. “How was he hurt?” She touched his throat, to feel the pulse from his brain, and it was thin and fluttery and she knew there was no hope.

“His head,” the bucktoothed boy said. “Not even fighting. He fell asleep and fell under a wagon and it rolled over his head.”

“Ah,” she said. “Ah,” and laid her hand gently on the man’s matted, filthy hair. The wide dark eyes looked at nothing. The matter issuing from his nose smelled bad. She felt the print of the wagon wheel crossing the bone beneath her fingers.

The priest came with his oil and his mumbles, and she got up to give him room. The bucktoothed boy was sitting on the ground crying. She crouched beside him a moment, but he turned away from her and put his arms across his face.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and he shuddered away from her.

Useless, she walked up toward Richard’s tent again; her body felt like stone. She began to cry silently, tears dripping down her cheeks. She remembered the beggar saying, “Everybody loses.”

“Edythe.” Rouquin came up to her.

She gathered herself, shaken, telling herself she had seen men die before, that sometimes it was better to die. The big knight scowled at her. He had taken off his mail but still wore the jack, and he stank. “Where were you? He is looking for you.”

“Is he hurt?” she said.

“He’s fine. He’s the greatest fighter in the army. Any army. Nobody can get near enough to him to hurt him.”

She knew this to be untrue. She hoped no one could get so near to Rouquin. Talking steadied her. Drove the dark away. She had to keep herself from reaching out to him. Instead she said, “How do those wounds feel?”

“They still itch a little. It’s all right. It’s my shield arm. I just let the bastards get too close, pulling Mercadier out of there.”

She wiped her eyes. He was watching her intently, and he said, “What happened?”

She started up toward the tent again. “Somebody died. They asked me to help him, but I couldn’t.”

He walked beside her, unlacing the top of his jacket, sodden with sweat. “Damn, woman, you can’t save everybody. You’re supposed to be Richard’s doctor, not the whole world’s.”

“I can’t save anybody.” She thought, Tomorrow he could be dead. I could be dead. And never have what we both want. The whole world shrank down to this moment. She stopped and put her hand on his arm.

“Rouquin—”

He faced her with that same hard look. “What?”

She felt, suddenly, everybody watching them. She said, “Nothing.” She went on toward the King’s tent.

At the fire, a cook gave her meat and bread, and she took it into the tent to eat, where she could sit with her back to a crate. The tent door darkened a moment and Rouquin came through, a cup in his hand, and sat down beside her.

He did not speak, only put the cup between them. The jack was gone and he was wearing a dry shirt, the sleeves torn off, his arms bulky with muscle, scratched and scarred. He smelled slightly better.

She said, “It seems so hard. Fighting like this.” She took the cup and drank some of the unwatered wine; it was half-turned. With a glob of honey it would be oxymel. She ate more bread.

“It isn’t what I’m used to,” he said. “At home, it’s all ambushes and raids, home by morning. This marching, marching, the heat, the Saracens like gnats all around us, and we don’t even strike back—I don’t know how this will end. We can’t beat them; they can’t beat us.”

“Won’t it end in Jerusalem?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I just follow Richard.” His hand scrubbed through his hair. He said, quietly, “It’s different, is all. Everything here is different.”

Maybe talking eased him, as it had her. She remembered when they had sat together beside the sick King; he was that Rouquin now, not angry, nor harsh, but inward and unsure, even his voice lower. He picked up the wine and drank some and spat it out. “God, this is privy dribble.”

She laughed; he turned smiling to her. Then Richard’s voice sounded outside.

“Rouq’, come here.”

He grunted. “I knew this was going to happen.” He got up and stalked off; in the light of the doorway, she saw him pull his belt up, square his shoulders, make himself again into the outward Rouquin. She ate the rest of her dinner, hoping he would come back, but he did not.

The sun rose red as blood on his left. Richard, trailing squires, Hugh of Burgundy, and Guy de Lusignan, rode up beside Rouquin and reined his horse in. He leaned his forearm on his saddle pommel; his mail glove glinted back the first red daylight.

“You said this wood is an hour’s ride across?”

“The rear guard should clear it by midmorning. They aren’t big trees, just clumps.” Rouquin had scouted the wood the night before. Guy was looking from one to the other of them, frowning. Hugh was just staring at the trees.

“And you think Jaffa is close by.”

“The road to it is.”

“What day is it?”

“Unh—” He knew the phases of the moon better than the days of the week.

Guy said, “Sire, I believe it’s Friday.” He gave Rouquin an apologetic smile.

Richard sat up straight in the saddle and looked south. “Saladin has been moving along south of us all along. He’s south of us now. I think when we come out of this wood he will attack us. He’ll count on the trees breaking up our line of march. And he cannot let us get to Jaffa.”

Guy said, “Well, there’s not much left of Jaffa, really.”

Rouquin ignored that; on things like this Richard was usually right. “So—”

“So we form up as close as we can now, through the wood. No straggling. Nobody out of line. The Templars in the vanguard. Your men and mine here on the left, the Angevins on the right side. Guy and Hugh in the middle, and the Hospitallers in the rear guard. We’ll set a screen of foot soldiers in front. You command the vanguard, all across. Make sure they keep going. Stay tight. If we’re attacked, don’t let them charge. No matter what, until I say so.” Richard’s voice was taut. Maybe he wasn’t so sure as he seemed. “I’m depending on you.”

“I will do it.”

Richard smacked his arm, by way of parting, and turned to Guy, who was putting on a gaudy plumed helmet. “Come with me.” He galloped off, the other men clattering after him. Rouquin rode forward into the wood.

The trees were small, crooked, many of their leaves still on the branches, so as the sun rose the wood grew shady. He wove a way through, trying to get around the corner of the vanguard. As Richard had foreseen, moving through the stands of trees was breaking up the march into separate groups of riders and men-at-arms, scattered for almost a mile from the edge of the sea to the far side of the forest.

He found his own men first, where he had sent them; Mercadier raised a hand to him, and Rouquin lifted his fists over his head and banged them together and Mercadier waved. He would hold the left side of the front line, just behind the men-at-arms. Then Rouquin turned west, toward the sea, where the vanguard was already deep into the forest.

De Sablé had let his black and white knights spread out, getting through the trees; in the shadowy light, they looked like many more than they were, but they were farther apart with every step, straying out of any kind of order. Rouquin reined his horse up to four of them.

“Where is de Sablé? You’ve got to keep closer together.”

“How far is it?” The Templar he had spoken to wiped his sweating face on the skirt of his surcoat.

“Soon. Where’s—”

“What if they set the forest on fire?”

Rouquin waved one mailed hand at that, dismissing it. “Push up. Get into a rank.” He nudged his horse on, fighting a way between two stands of the trees, the branches rubbing on his knees. His horse’s hooves scuffed up the mat of dry leaves on the ground, crackled on fallen branches. A fire here would cook them like pigeons. If the army came out of the woods scattered like this, Saladin’s men could pick them off one at a time.

Through the yellow trees he saw the Templars’ black and white banner, finally, up ahead, and steered toward it. The trees kept him from going straight, and he had to struggle to catch up with the Grand Master. Before he reached de Sablé he came upon a pack of men-at-arms, with their crossbows and javelins, roaming along behind the knights singing and drinking, and yelled at them to get where they belonged. They put their flasks away and ran. De Sablé saw him finally and reined in and waited.

“Get your men closer together.” Rouquin rode up beside him.

“This wood—” The Grand Master thrust back his visor, so he could see better, and looked all around. “Will they fire the wood?”

“Ah, God—” Rouquin glared at him. “Get your men into ranks! See—” The first knights of the rest of the army were closing up behind them. Between the trees for a moment he saw Guy de Lusignan’s red plume in the middle of the pack. Richard was driving the whole army into a tight column as if they were riding down the middle of a road. De Sablé saw this and turned his horse and shouted, waving his arm. The black and white knights on their black horses began to press in toward the center, breaking through copses of trees, filling the gaps between them.

Ahead of them Rouquin could see a solid line of men-at-arms, at last all marching in front. The army as it packed together made more noise, a continual crash and thud like a gigantic beast. Through the yellow trees, beyond the men-at-arms, he could see open sky. At least there would be no fire. They were coming to the end of the wood. He went back and found his squire, on the left flank with Mercadier and his men and now Richard’s Poitevins, and got his lance.

On the hill opposite, rings of white tents crowned the height, the enemy camp.

A low roar went up from the packed army behind him as they saw this, and their pace quickened, but no one broke ranks. They followed him steadily forward into the trough of the valley, between the hilltop camp and the ruin. In the distance now he could see the pale line of a road going to the coast.

Rouquin had said that road led to Jaffa. Richard regripped the lance he held butted into his stirrup; his horse strained at the bit, tossed its head, its hoofs beating at the ground. He lifted his gaze to the Saracen camp, there. Along that hill, all around it, he could see horsemen moving, the light mares of the Saracens like dancers, the white robes rippling like wings. Then a drum began to pound.

His hair stood on end. His horse broke into a jog, its head bowed to the bit, and he held it to a man’s walking pace. He cast a quick glance back at his army, a solid pack of mailed men and horses, the rear guard still coming out of the wood. The men-at-arms were running ahead of the column, trying to keep a line. The Saracen drums beat into a frenzy, and with a shriek of horns and a thousand screeching voices a flock of archers swept over the side of the hill and hurtled down toward them.

The air darkened with a rain of arrows and he swung his shield up. Hold, he thought. He turned his horse so he could cover its forehand; he felt the thump of the arrows on his shield. Hold. The men-at-arms around the edge of the army were shooting back, and the Saracen attack broke and swerved and galloped away on either side. Richard pushed on, down the long shallow trough of the valley, toward the road in the distance.

This place interested him. He looked around again at the ruined town, the slopes on either side, and then over his shoulder at the wood behind them, where now the Hospitallers were finally coming into sight.

Their lines were ragged, and they had lost contact with the main army; their Grand Master was an idiot, and Richard had never been able to handle him. He swung his gaze forward again, toward the hill, the town. Out on the open ground to the east, where they could run forever, the Saracens were regrouping.

He turned his horse, letting the front of the army get ahead of him, watching the Hospitallers at the tail end struggle to catch up. Between him and the bulk of the knights he saw Rouquin galloping back along the army’s flank; he had his lance, but he had lost his helmet somewhere. Then the Saracens attacked again.

They were aiming, Richard saw at once, not at the main army, but at the gap between them and the Hospitallers. They would try to break the rear guard off and destroy it. Richard flung a long look at the rest of the army, marching steadily along, down into the valley toward the road. In their thin serried lines on the flank of the column, all the while marching, the men-at-arms fired their crossbows, reloaded, and fired again into the fluttering white torrent sweeping toward them.

The Saracens wheeled past the rear guard, firing a constant hail of arrows. The Crusader crossbows blasted them, and the white tide of fighters reeled back; behind them the ground was salted with dead and wounded men and screaming horses.

The Hospitallers had finally gotten clear of the wood, but they still straggled. Their front lines were still a hundred yards behind the main army, and they recoiled from the Saracen charge even as the main army turned it away. They had lost horses. Jogging closer, Richard saw men walking. He swept his gaze around again, from the hill to the ruined town, to the wood. He could see some possibility here. If he could pen the Saracens up against the hill, or the wood, or the ruin, they wouldn’t be able to get out of the way of a charge. He could bring his whole weight against them. A man on foot ran up to him, screaming.

“My lord, my lord, the lord Grand Master begs you—”

“No charge,” Richard shouted. “Keep to the march. Wait until I signal.” He turned, making sure the squire with the trumpet was next to him. Then the Saracens attacked again.

Free of the trees, the Hospitallers had bunched up, not in ranks or files but a shifting mass of horsemen and men on foot, and when the Saracens attacked they all swung to face them. The gap widened between them and the main army even as the screaming onrush of the enemy flowed in around them on either side, firing thickets of arrows. Kneeling, the men-at-arms shot back and threw their javelins, but the knights could do nothing but take blows.

Now Richard had reached the back corner of the main army; he could see most of the Saracen army, and it seemed to him many more than before. His heart jumped. He thought Saladin had committed his whole strength here. He had been right: The Sultan could not let him take Jaffa.

The main Crusader army was slowing. Everybody would be watching him. He wanted this to happen here, anyway, where there were these interesting features of the ground. The Saracens rolled back again, hooting and cavorting their horses, back to the east and safety.

Let them cavort, he thought. Let them get tired. He held up his hand, holding his own men back.

“Hold. Hold.” Among them were men on foot. The Saracens killed few men but many horses. He thought they might all be on foot before this was over. There might be no way to charge. Up the slope toward the wood, the Hospitallers were staggering along, trying to catch up with the rest of them.

Then, once more, the Saracens swept down.

“Hold!” His voice was raw. His eyes were full of grit. The storms of arrows burst over them, and he crooked his shield over his head. The Hospitallers reeled under the assault; their red surcoats disappeared in the dust and the waves of white robes. He looked at Richard, a hundred feet ahead of him up the slope, his arm still in the air; a Hospitaller sergeant had run up to him, was pleading with him, and Richard shook his head.

“Hold,” Rouquin yelled. He lifted his fist over his head. “Hold—”

He ached to fight, to give blows, not just take them. The Hospitallers were staggering, nearly surrounded by enemies; a thousand Saracen archers had taken the higher ground near the wood and were pouring arrows down into the knights’ ranks. In front of the knights the white horsemen fired their arrows and wavered back, as they usually did, to regroup and charge again.

Among the Hospitallers, a yell went up.

Rouquin shouted, hoarse. The knights were charging, against orders, hurling themselves toward the Saracen archers by the wood. And now suddenly Richard’s trumpet sounded, shriek on shriek, calling the whole army to charge.

At last, at last. Rouquin’s horse was already galloping. Beside him and behind him the whole main Crusader army was moving, charging back up the slope toward the wood. He pressed in closer to the man on his left. All around him, now, ten thousand hooves thundered. A wild exhilaration lifted him, as if he flew. Someone rode up on his right, head to head. He looked west down a rank a mile long, and as he looked, all the lances dropped level.

He faced forward, the lance hooked under his arm, and shoved his feet down and sat deep in his saddle. Between the army and the Hospitallers, a thousand white horsemen were scrambling to get out of the way. The line of the knights crashed into them and broke them down without missing stride.

Beyond the Hospitallers the Saracen archers, taken by surprise, were on foot—they had dismounted to shoot, thinking the Crusaders would never charge. The Hospitallers rode straight over the first of them. Rouquin, three strides behind them, saw three men in white running away, one looking back over his shoulder, a gaping face, and he drove the tip of his lance into the middle of that face. He felt the lance shudder, striking flesh. The body fell and was gone in the dust. His horse leaned into its gallop.

All along the slope the running white robes were going down under the driving hooves. Coming up against the wood, many of them had wheeled, were shooting arrows, trying to take cover behind trees. Horses galloped among them. Rouquin splintered his lance on a tree, threw it down, and drew his sword. Pinned against the wood, some of the Saracens wheeled to fight. He drove his horse into a lighter, smaller Turkish mare and she buckled under the weight, and he slashed at her rider, at the coils of his turban. The man collapsed away. The trees pressed closer around him. A man ran away from him between the trees, screaming, nimble on foot. Rouquin sat back, lifting his fist with the reins, and the horse skidded to a stop. The rein scraped a white lace of foam from its neck. He realized he was alone, ahead of the rest of the army, and wheeled back toward the open slope.

He wove his way back through the wood full of bodies. He came out on the slope and saw that the Crusader charge had scattered back down the slope. The ground was heaped with white robes and sprawled horses. Over toward the beach, near the ruins, a thousand Saracens were regrouping, and down in the lowland the Crusader army was gathering to attack them.

Rouquin rode back down into the sunlight. He was going to be too late to join them. A shout turned him; a Hospitaller was running toward him on foot, his sword in his hand. Rouquin veered his horse over to him. The monk-knight sheathed his sword and vaulted up behind him. Rouquin’s horse staggered a few steps under the extra weight and he looked around for another mount, but all he saw were dead and wounded. Down there he heard Richard’s trumpet sound.

The Hospitaller shouted, “They’re coming—Look—”

He twisted in the saddle. The Saracens gathered near the ruin wanted no more charges. They were bolting toward him across the top of the slope, making for the gap between Richard’s men and the wood, where only Rouquin and the Hospitaller came between them and the open land in the east. He was going to be in this after all. The Hospitaller drew his sword. Rouquin switched his sword into his left hand, so they could strike on both sides, and turned his horse to face the oncoming Saracens.

“God’s balls, run, damn it,” the Hospitaller cried in his ear.

“Wait,” Rouquin said.

The wave of Saracens was not waiting; the horsemen saw the two knights alone before them, and their high trilling war cry rose. Faintly through it he heard a trumpet sound. A wide white tide, the Saracens rolled down toward him. Their horses’ legs pumped. Their curved swords rose like scythes, all sharp edge. The Hospitaller shouted, “God and Saint John!” and Rouquin held his panting horse still, watching the Saracens rush on him. He waggled his sword over his head, daring them. An arrow skidded through the torn earth before him.

Behind him he heard a rumble, as if the whole earth shook, steadily louder.

He did not have to see it. He felt the charge coming like a cresting wave. The first Saracen was six strides away from him, and then from behind him the Crusader line reached him, lifted him, carried him along. All together, at full gallop, a thousand men across, the iron rank struck the oncoming Saracens headlong.

Rouquin’s horse smashed shoulder first into a Saracen horse. For a moment the mare held, her head across the charger’s neck. A curved blade flashed at Rouquin and he saw a wild brown face, a black beard, a turban. Dust rose in clouds around him. He struck and struck. Then the mare went down, her legs flailing, her saddle empty.

Richard lunged up beside him, the battle axe flashing in his hand. Ahead of them, the fleet Saracen mares carried their white riders out of their reach, but the wood loomed beyond, and again the trees slowed them. Some thrashed into the trees, and some turned to fight. Rouquin drove his horse headlong into and over the first and slashed on either side. He felt the blade bite but he saw nothing, only a last chestnut rump bouncing away through the wood.

Richard bellowed, and Rouquin drew rein and wheeled. The slope before them was gashed and men lay on it and screamed, and horses lay dead or thrashing. The Hospitaller spoke, and slapped Rouquin’s shoulder, and slid down off the horse and a moment later was mounting one of his own.

Rouquin let his reins go. The big roan he was riding blew a long ruffle of air through its nostrils and shook its head so its mane flopped. Around him the other knights, slumped in their saddles, moved slowly in around Richard. The Christian men-at-arms had drawn away almost into the ruin, to give the knights room to charge. The cart with Richard’s banner was among them. The last of the Saracen fighters had fallen back onto the slope below the tents of the enemy camp, only a few hundred men.

Richard said, “Does that horse have any more run in him?”

“Oh, yes,” Rouquin said, and gathered his reins. The roan’s head came up and its ears switched forward. Richard let out a roar; a trumpet blasted.

All up and down the mailed line of knights, the horses strode forward into a single rank. The slope carried them, took them to their full gallop faster, and stirrup to stirrup the whole Crusader army hurtled across the trampled low ground and into the remnant of the Saracens.

The white-gowned fighters could not stand against them. They wheeled and fled, but they were going uphill and their horses were tired and the knights rode up over their heels. Rouquin cut out at a fleeing body and missed, and then, with no one ahead of him, rode in among a stand of tents.

He sat back, panting, his mouth coated with dust, and the horse immediately stopped. Its head sank. He patted the foamy, filthy shoulder and said words for its courage; the stallion had fought as hard as he had. He could hear the other Crusaders hallooing all around him now. Richard, on a bay horse Rouquin had never seen before, rode up to him.

“You crazy fool! Where’s your helmet?”

Rouquin put a hand to his head, covered only with the mail cowl. At Richard’s grin he began to grin, too. He reached out his hand in its mail glove, and Richard clasped it.

“I’ve never fought a battle like that.”

Rouquin said, “No, that was another thing entirely.”

“We trampled them.”

“It was pretty one-sided.”

Someone yelled, nearby; they were looting the tents. Richard said, “Better stop that,” and reined around. Rouquin dismounted, to ease his horse, and went to look for something to drink.

Of course, even then they could not stop fighting. There was still Jerusalem.