The squire peered earnestly through the mist surrounding the foothills of the Alpujarras. He was not a day older than 14, and it was the first time he had delivered a military message. His breathing was shallow.
His message was for a general named Sir Deguera - a man he had never met. The squire was used to delivering messages, but they had always been in times of relative peace. Usually they were a summons to one of his master’s mistresses. He was unsure of what was written in the message he now carried, save that it was a call to arms of some sort. He stared off to where the Almanzora winded East. Inside a deep, sloping alcove hidden in the side of a mountain, he had been waiting for Deguera all morning.
Now fog rolled in to the alcove, and the squire began to imagine things hidden in it. He pulled the tiny pewter cross hanging from his neck inside the linen collar of his shirt. To appear outwardly Christian could be fatal if Moors happened upon him. He had always been told this was how life was in Southern Castile outside the estates of noblemen- your religion determined whose side you were on. He didn’t want to appear to be on either at the moment.
Then there was the low rumble of horses, followed by the distant tinkling of metal, and the squire felt his muscles tense. There were many of them, and they were growing louder. It was far too large to simply be Deguera’s escort. The mist obscured the source of the thunderous galloping until it seemed the sound was on top of him, reverberating off the steep faces behind him. A man cried something in a language he didn’t understand, and the gallop became muffled and slow. The squire’s thoughts deteriorated with irrationality. ‘God help me. It’s the Moors out on raid. I’ve nowhere to hide.’ A wall of cavalry materialized into sight, carrying round steel shields with a green crescent moon painted upon each. Toward the center of the formation was a man in chainmail who looked exactly as Deguera had been described to the squire – stout, with a full beard jutting from his pointed steel helm. The man raised his hand, and the wall ceased its advance. In the silence that followed, the squire cast nervous glances up and down the wall. The man at the head rose his visor and spoke irritably. “Are you a messenger?”
The squire’s words stumbled out but were coherent. “Yes, I have a message for Sir Deguera, from Sir Ortega.” He felt sick to his stomach. His answer might be a possible reason to be trampled, or shot through by an arrow.
The man then said, “I am Sir Deguera. Where is Sir Ortega?” The squire produced a piece of folded parchment sealed by Ortega’s crest in red wax. He knelt in the now confirmed presence of a hidalgo – a knight of royal blood – and held the message aloft. Deguera squinted at one of the knights to his left, and spoke something in Moorish. The knight dismounted, and walked to the where the squire knelt. He gently retrieved the message from the squire’s open palms, and returned to Deguera, handing him the parchment. The general flicked the red wax aside, and scanned what was written carefully. “You see, I expected Sir Ortega and his troops to meet us here today. That is why I may seem confused,” Deguera said. He was now staring directly at the squire, who remained quiet and still. “Tell him we will still assist in the liberation of Lucena, and that we agree to meet him at his…” He squinted at the message again. “…Alternative vantage point, three days from now.”
The squire replied “Yes Sir,” and the wall of cavalry parted to make way for his exit from the surrounded alcove. Lightheaded with relief, he passed through their ranks to the outside hills, and started back to where his master waited.
Bone-dry plains rushed out before the squire as fast as he ran. He didn’t use the roads - they were the mudéjars’ now. Only the fields, tall and unkempt since the siege of Lucena had begun, granted safe passage. He was tired, but spurred on by the grey stone of Ortega’s fort, which had now crested into blue on the horizon.
The fort belonged to the Infante, as did the castle-town of Lucena where he was besieged some thirty miles away. Ortega and his company had been holed up in the fort for a month. The revolt and subsequent siege had been underway for four. The Ortegas were noble subjects of the Infante, and Alfonso the X before him. Ortega’s company was late to aid their King because the Infante’s first call to arms had been silenced by its messenger’s capture and probable death.
The revolt itself had begun for obvious reasons that even the Infante, an inept and ignorant 14-year-old boy, knew to be true. The Infante’s father, Alfonso X, had succumbed to his long-battled illness only five days before the revolt began. He was a Christian King who had bled his vastly Muslim subjects with taxes of both gold and grain to a point that suggested greed more than stewardship. Under Alfonso X’s rule, the Muslim peasants called mudéjars had sweated in fields by day, and gone hungry at night. They surely expected no better from his 14-year-old son, and had seized on the awkward transition of rule as a chance to revolt.
*
One year prior, in the center of Lucena’s shabby market square, a town crier shouted routinely, first in Spanish, and then once more in Arabic: “By decree of his Majesty, citizens will surrender four-fifths of their monthly profits to his tax-collectors. Your taxes keep your kingdom strong, and to deny it that strength is a crime in the eyes of God, King, and Country.”
Simultaneously on Lucena’s outskirts, a soldier held the length of his sword to a mudéjar’s neck. Another soldier ransacked the peasant’s misshapen stone house. The second soldier emerged with an earthenware pot in hand, and emptied it on the street. A small pile of grain sifted out, followed by the jingle and clang of six crude coins. He then turned to the arrested mudéjar, pot still in hand. He approached the peasant until he stood face to face with him, and shouted mockingly. “Nothing, you said? What is this?”
The mudéjar blinked away flecks of the soldier’s saliva, and returned the soldier’s contemptuous sneer with a lost gaze of hatred. Sweat dripped off his eyebrow. He replied quietly. “Those are my family’s. Not your infidel King's.” The first soldier pressed the extended sword to the peasant’s throat, and swiped across sharply. His body slumped to the street, and his family’s earthenware pot fell from the soldier’s grasp, shattering dully.
*
The squire was spotted by the fort’s lone lookout well before he reached its iron portcullis, which slowly rose to give way. He hastened his step, sprinting into the fort’s dusty courtyard to show he had been timely in his arrival. In the center of the courtyard, under an open white tent, the lanky Ortega sat on a wooden stool with his head hung pensively. Shirtless, he wore leather greaves and boots over his linen trousers. In one hand lazily hung a yew crossbow, and in the other an apple mauled to the core, which he chewed rhythmically.
Ortega was a Castilian nobleman who had reached knighthood two weeks before the revolt began. The squire feared his beatings, but did not respect him. He turned squarely and glared at the approaching squire.
The squire knelt just outside the shade cast by the tent, and spoke between bursts of inhaling. “My lord. Sir Deguera is still with us in the battle for Lucena, and has agreed to your strategy. He said he will meet us at the agreed vantage point in three days.” A confident smirk draw across Ortega’s face. His leather greaves squeaked as he slouched back onto the stool and crossed his legs. He swallowed apple pulp and slung the core to the dirt. He said, “Then he’s thought better of his original tactic. We’ll move to the Southeastern hills at sunset.”
*
A weakened, orange half-sun sunk low to the horizon. The boulder-studded hills of Southern Castile were mute except for the far-flung screech of a Golden Eagle. The thunderous thud of hooves shook the silence first, and was soon joined by the clinking of steel.
Now fully decked in leather and chainmail armor atop a black-sheened Arabian horse, Ortega led a precession of a hundred caballeros villanos – mercenary knights of common birth - and an additional three hundred peones. The villanos, decked in leather armor with kidney-shaped shields at their sides, rode on horseback steadily in two lines behind Ortega. The tips of their spears, pointing towards the sky, shone in quivering unison in the fading light. They were there on the promise of wealth and status for liberating the Infante.
The peones shuffled silently at the rear of the march, wearing simple round helmets that did not cover their faces, and simple linen clothing. Some carried swords only long enough not to be considered knives, while others carried quivers and bows they barely knew how to use. They were serfs, there because the land they lived upon and farmed belonged to Ortega. He was their real leader; more tangible than a King they never saw or knew. On a less familiar level, they shared the same fear and disrespect that the squire felt for Ortega.
The squire stood between the two columns of passing soldiers, his master’s round shield slung across his back. He energetically handed out heavy, full drinking skins as every twenty men passed, listening to the soldiers’ conversations all the while. Eventually, one conversation would fade from earshot, but was replaced by another or several at once. Presently, one villano muttered to another. “This mission would have been suicide without Deguera and his Lune Knights.”
“If it’s even true that they're with us. I wouldn’t put it past a snake like Ortega to lie to us so we’d follow him. Anything for his chance for glory…”
“He doesn’t even know how to column properly. Look how far ahead he is.” A tired group of peones then came into hearing. “Lune Knights? Are they crazed?” one said.
“They are in battle, from what I heard - their arrows are poisoned, so even a graze can kill.”
“Heavens. Are they truly Moors?”
“Yes, but they’ve always fought for Castile. They’re the ones that sacked Córdoba.” Another peone muttered and traced a cross in the air over his chest.
Ortega lulled atop his thoroughbred some twenty feet ahead of the rest of the march. He meant to show his men that he was eager for the fight, and therefore not afraid. His combat training was extensive, but he’d never drawn blood or lost any himself. He relished the novelty of knighthood more for the contrast it brought between himself and other noblemen. He half-wished his father hadn’t been too old to fight, so he would be home to enjoy the feasts of the harvest season instead of on the warpath with flea-ridden serfs and mercenaries who questioned his every step. But he’d heard many stories at those same banquets growing up, tales of bravery and conquest among knights – even villanos without proper birthright. He was anxious for the glory he envisioned this rebellion’s end bringing him. He knew his peers had secretly whispered among themselves that he was a knight in title only. They thought he was going to get himself killed. He wondered how stupid they felt for it now that Sir Deguera, the Royal General, had agreed to his strategy. And why wouldn’t he have agreed to such a brilliant strategy? Ortega was now sure it was flawless. Hypnotized by the rhythmic trod of his black horse, he saw the coming battle unfold in its entirety.
They would meet as he had proposed in the Southeastern hills overlooking the Almanzora River Valley that the castle-town lay in. From there, Deguera’s Lune Knights would move within arrow-range to true South, and let loose their rain of scorpion-poisoned barbs. Then the 1,200-odd mudéjars left would know the Lune Knights were upon them. A sluice of discord would open wide, fear flooding through their ranks faster than any weapon could travel. The mudéjars leveling the walls’ foundation for siege weapons to advance would drop their rusted spades into the yellow dirt. Others would abandon rolling their crude siege towers, dashing in the only other direction the winding river afforded – the Northeastern hills of the valley.
That is where Ortega and his company would be positioned, just over the crest. As the band of mudéjar survivors approached the hilltops, he and his cavalry would sweep up and over. Ortega could see their eyes wide with disbelief, their backwards glances to the wall of deadly Lune Knights, then to the river below. Some would stand to fight feebly, voices cracking like adolescents as they shouted their Islamic pleas. Some would run for the river to be picked off midstream by the expert marksmanship of Deguera’s archers. Still others would attempt to scatter and escape the triangle of hopeless options closing in. Most would soon lay dead.
“My lord, would you like some water?” the squire blurted out, now walking briskly by his master’s side, holding up the last leather drinking skin. Ortega irritably swatted it away, his moment of mental victory interrupted.
The squire hung his head to appear dejected. “Forgive me, my lord.” He continued his walk attentively in silence for several minutes before finding the gumption to speak his mind. “My lord, who is Deguera? Why do we need his help?”
Ortega was surprised at this. “What makes you think it is your place to know such things?”
“So that I may better understand my lord’s tactics, and become a knight such as him someday, my lord.” After several years of servitude, the squire knew his way around Ortega’s ego.
Ortega looked back to the horizon. “Well firstly, we do not need Deguera’s help. He will simply expedite the impending liberation. He’s the King’s tactician, and a highly skilled general, no doubt, but what I seek from him is his knowledge of Lucena’s surrounding terrain. He conquered these lands for Alfonso X, after all.”
The squire was quick to respond. “I see my lord. But how is it that he came to escape Lucena and so come to our aid?” Ortega silently recoiled at this question, because he had never thought of it. This deeply annoyed him. Laden with sarcasm, Oretga shot back. “You didn’t think to ask him yourself, whelp?” The squire hung his head, and fell back in line behind his master.
The march went on over rolling hills for another hour, until they reached an outcrop of white boulders that looked out to a descending valley. The torchlight of Lucena lay dim at the bottom of the great half-bowl of grass and rock. It was surrounded on all sides by the still dimmer specks of its attackers’ torches, save to the west where the snaking black of the Almanzora River was glinting in the moonlight. On the Southeastern rim of the river valley, Ortega ordered his men to make camp for the night.
*
Weak blue light of the coming day revealed the triangular camp of canvas tents, spaced evenly in diagonal rows. The squire was the first to wake, shooting up from his flattened pit of tall grass to gaze in the direction of the distant rumble of cavalry. A string of several hundred orange torches fast approached along the lip of the valley, illuminating their mounted carriers. At two hundred yards out, the squire noticed the white-steel shields they held, each adorned with a green splotch. At a hundred yards, each green splotch focused into a crescent moon. “Sir Ortega!” the squire cried before turning to the first row of tents behind him. Several villanos and more peones had awoken, emerging with the half-sealed eyes of a poor night’s sleep. Ortega emerged from the vestibule of his larger tent to the page’s left, holding his yew crossbow at the ready. He gawked at the approaching torches as though they proved that he was not a noble, but a bastard commoner.
Fifty yards from the camp, the Lune Knights changed formation from a perpendicular column to parallel rows, facing the triangle of tents out of which weary, unarmored men were still crawling. A cry in Arabic came from the midst of the torch-wielding knights. Sir Deguera emerged from the line atop an auburn Andalucian horse. At his gesture, the tremor of hooves vanished. The Lune Knights halted in an even line, creating a wall of torchlight thirty feet in front of the camp.
Somehow, the squire felt queasier now than the first time he’d seen the Lune Knights advance from the mist in the same formation. He glanced to his left to see Ortega rub his eyes and shout uneasily. “Greetings, Sir Deguera. You’re early.... This is good. We may still catch the enemy in repose, if we get positioned immediately.” Deguera ignored him, immediately shouting another command in Moorish tongue. The cavalry galloped lazily left and right, slowly encircling the camp. The squire’s vision began to narrow in focus; small sounds grew stark against silence. Peones spoke to one another softly like lost children at an orphanage’s doorstep. Villanos shouted purposefully at their comrades to wake up. Ortega shrieked. “Deguera! We’re here to stop the revolt!!”
Deguera shouted calmly in Castilian before lowering his visor. “You are deceived, Sir Ortega. I incited the revolt, and I’m here to ensure that it prevails.” Now completely surrounding the camp in a thirty-foot radius, the Lune Knights deftly hurled their torches before drawing bow and arrow. The cascade of flame against dim blue air was the sight that greeted some soldiers only just exiting their tents. Many more were still clumsily armoring themselves inside when the tumbling comets lit their canvas roofs. Some of the fire purposefully smacked into stockpiles of spears that had been arranged outside the tents. The Lune Knights were already leveling their bows, aligned particularly with the few men who were armed. Their barbed arrowheads, smeared in Androctonus scorpion-venom, had roughly sixty feet to fly at the most before hitting their targets. Their sharp hiss and soft thud came in rhythmic volleys separated by about three seconds each.
Ortega lay prone behind his fallen horse for cover, its beautiful black coat now a pincushion of arrows. He looked up at his soldiers, who were pathetically collapsing with each deadly wave. From this awkward view, he saw one villano jump up with javelin in hand, and hurl it in a swift arc towards the perimeter of assailants. The targeted Lune Knight reflexively drew up his white shield at an obtuse angle, soundly deflecting the blow. This drew the attention of about five archers, Ortega guessed, by the number of arrows that immediately pierced him in rapid succession.
Ortega became warped by sheer frustration. His previous visions of regaling halls with tales of his glory were gone; replaced by visions of death – not his own, which was imminent, but the death of the one responsible for it. His grip tightened on his crossbow feverishly. Wriggling to try and spot Deguera from cover, he saw isolated movement from the corner of his sight. He cocked his head to see his squire, slowly crawling away into darkness by forging a tunnel through the tall grass.
Reason twisted in the doomed nobleman’s frantic brain. ‘Him,’ Ortega thought. ‘His treacherous message is what led us here. That little bastard must have known.’ Resting the crossbow on the hind haunch of his dead horse, Ortega took aim at his apprentice. He drew a steel bolt from his quiver, and slowly began to turn the cranequin lever. Once fully wound, it let out its usual, solid clack.
This sound drew the attention of one Lune Knight, who in turn saw the top of Ortega’s prone silhouette framed against the burning camp. Without hesitation, the Lune Knight drew an arrow from his own quiver, and raised his bow high. The arrow shot upwards against the morning sky, and descended in a steep, graceful arc. At its landing, the arrow met and melded with the prone silhouette, which began to jerk violently and scream in agony.
The squire froze. Dry autumn grass scraped at his face and neck. Dust filled his nostrils. He had leapt into the field when the fighting had begun, and had started crawling in the opposite direction of the flight of arrows overhead. Among the many cries in Castilian he heard wrenching through the new morning, one had just spoken to him: ‘Your master is dead.’ He blinked away salty tears that were pouring to his mouth, and kept pulling his body forward, inches at a time.
Then the thudding hooves of an advancing horse shook the soil. He went still again, and pressed his face to the dirt. He felt he would leap to his feet and sprint past the approaching sound. Then he thought of running headlong into the approaching knight, or being pinned to the ground by an arrow. He fought every instinct to control his shuddering sobs, to silence the cry for help welling in his throat. The horse moved closer. He thought back to the day he had met Deguera, when the thunderous stampede of cavalry seemed almost on top of him in the fog. Now, the simple sound of one horse slowly advancing was many times more horrifying. Then he heard stirrups clink, and the horse bolted to a deafening gallop, in front, almost over him but for a foot or so to the left, and on behind him.
The screams had sunk to whimpers and gurgles. He heard the Lune Knights dismounting, then the stabbing of flesh as they executed the dying. Almost all of them let out a pitiful cry upon their expedited end. The squire ran out of tears in the third hour of morning light, his grief replaced doubly by exhaustion. The last thing he heard before falling asleep was calmly spoken Arabic, and the snorting of horses.
*
The squire awoke around three in the afternoon, when fat raindrops hit his forehead. There was a roll of thunder, and he remembered his whereabouts. Slowly rising from the grass, he looked back to the razed campsite. Years later, the image of the ten-foot heap of blood-soaked peasants and knights against the darkening clouds would fade from his nightmares. The slack expression on Ortega’s decapitated head upon a stave at the top of the pile would never leave him completely though.