‘He’s gone, Adela. He took an arrow through the back of the neck.’
She sank her head into Hereward’s broad back and closed her eyes in a grimace — not for her pain, but for Edwin. She must have been in great agony; the arrow had gone through the fleshy part of her buttock and impaled itself in the saddle of Hereward’s mount, pinning her to the leather in the process.
Every lurch of the horse’s gait must have sent a jolt of torture through her entire body.
The journey back to the Crusader column seemed interminable. Adela was losing a lot of blood, but we thought it better to keep moving; attempting to move her and extract the arrow without the help of the physicians would almost certainly have made her injury worse.
When we finally reached the column, joyous celebrations had already begun to greet the arrival of the Turkish provisions. We were hailed as heroes, as if we had returned with the keys to the gates of Jerusalem. Suddenly the English contingent, previously only an insignificant appendage to the great Norman-Frankish-Germanic host, had saved the day, even for their Norman masters.
Robert’s physicians were summoned to help Adela, but in her forthright way she made it clear what she wanted done.
‘Please lift me and the saddle off the horse as one and put me on a saddle stand. I would also like a shirt to cover me, please.’
She was placed on a tack stand, as requested, and one of the English knights gave her a shirt.
‘It’s a bit big.’
She tried to raise a smile, but she looked very pale and her voice started to quiver.
‘Let us help you.’
‘Thank you, Edgar, but there is only one way to do this.’
She and the saddle were soaked in blood, the colour matching Hereward’s cloak, which she now threw off, nonchalantly exposing herself, then put on the shirt. She asked Hereward to help her: ‘Would you break off the arrow?’
Hereward’s large hands made it look puny, and he snapped it with ease. It had entered Adela’s buttock, making a deep wound, but only appeared to be pinning soft tissue.
‘Edgar, would you now help Hereward lower me down. I need the saddle to be raised off the ground so that I can use my legs to lever myself off this cursed thing.’
She seemed very weak by now, and I was not certain her plan would work.
‘Are you sure? If the barb is still in your flesh, it may not be as easy as all that.’
‘Don’t fuss; I think the arrowhead is in the saddle. Besides, I can’t think of another way to do this — other than letting an army of physicians loose on me with my arse in the air and a saddle sticking out of it.’
Hereward nodded and so did the physicians; she was right, as usual. A pile of saddle blankets was used as a support about a foot off the ground and we carefully lowered Hereward’s saddle and Adela on to it. She then put her heels underneath herself in a squatting position and took a deep breath.
‘Gentlemen, I may curse a little in a moment!’
She placed one hand on the saddle’s pommel and the other on its cantle and gave a mighty heave, as if giving birth. She did not curse, but did let forth a deep, guttural rumble, which turned from a growl of agony to a cry of relief as she freed herself.
Blood started to flow more copiously, and she fell into Hereward’s arms. She was very pale and her voice thin.
‘Now it’s time for the physicians to stitch me. Would you and Edgar hold me? I need a piece of leather to bite on.’
The physicians moved towards her. Although barely conscious, she did issue one final command.
‘Only one of them — the old one. I don’t want some young tup thinking about what else he might stick in me as he brandishes his cordwainer’s needle.’
Just as she had in Sicily, Adela bore the pain stoically. The arrow’s entry and exit holes, each the size of an English shilling, were about two inches apart.
She would not be going anywhere near a saddle for some time.
The Latin Princes, relieved that the decline of their army — almost to the point of oblivion — had been averted, convened their Council of War. The discussion was brief and the conclusion unanimous: the army would avoid terrain like the inhospitable ground we had just crossed and instead turn north-east at Heraclea to find more fertile land. It would take us on a long, meandering detour via Caesarea, Coxon and Marash, costing us many weeks, but would ensure that many more of us were likely to reach our destination.
Three days later, with the army rested, fed and watered and provisioned sufficiently for some time, we moved off. Adela, now feted as a heroine rather than shunned as an oddity, rode in a cart like a queen of Egypt, with people coming up to her to thank her and give her presents.
There had been no sign of Sweyn and Estrith, and we began to fear that they had not made a safe escape after all, or had been cornered subsequently. Hereward went out several times to try to track them, but found nothing.
