Hodder & Stoughton first paperback edition - 2025
There is always a concern for any reader (and, one assumes, any author)
that, after a strong start to a projected series, the following book will be
deemed inferior. Scott Mariani can rest assured: building on the experience
gained from his thirty Ben Hope novels, he has again delivered a first-rate
tale with zest and verisimilitude. He has thoroughly immersed himself in the
late 12th century and skilfully blends in his fictional heroes with
real historical characters. After previously being beset by tempests in the Bay
of Biscay, Berber pirates and enemies within the Christian force, Will Bowman
has finally reached the Holy Land. With his companions, the Irish Gabriel
O’Carolan and Samson ‘powerful and hulking in stature’, he knows deadly battles
awaits his fellow pilgrims and that many would not be returning to their
homeland. Both the Mussulmen of Saladin
and Mariani would ensure this.
But first the Christian fleet have to deal with a Saracen ship armed
with the fireball from hell – the Byzantine Greek fire – which destroys one
Christian galley and is on the way to destroying several more. Or rather, Will
Bowman deals with it, by swimming through a hail of arrows, to disable the
ship’s steering oar. Congratulated by King Richard, Will is not only made the
king’s man-at-arms, but given one of the monarch’s own swords. Can it get any
better? Well, yes.
Whether Mariani is describing the sea battle or the attacks and counter
attacks on Acre; the ‘teeming marketplace’ of the Christian besiegers’ camp or
a claustrophobic night raid on one of their tents by Saracen assassins; all are
spellbinding in their intensity. It is on the ramparts of Acre that Will links
up with a ‘diminutive figure…working a crossbow with greater expertise than
Will had ever seen before’. He meets the green-cloaked sharpshooter again, as
they defend the pilgrim camp from a major raid by Saladin’s forces. She is Sophia
Valena, who had set out with her father and brother from their home city of
Constantinople for Outremer. Both men were dead; she alone was left to fight
the Saracen. Unlikely? In his useful
‘Historical Note’, Mariani points out that 12th century chronicles
tell stories of women involved in the conflict, including a Christian woman
dressed in a green hooded cloak, shooting arrows from a wooden bow. Perhaps a forerunner
of Greenmantle!
Sent out with five others by King Richard to guard wagons fetching
water from the nearby river Belus, they are captured by the Emir Shïrküh Ibn al-Shawar and sentenced to
death. Will’s prowess at chess enables him to defeat the Emir, another afficionado,
who therefore honours his promise to release the six men. Further adventures
follow, including a dangerous mission into enemy-held territory, where they
meet up with one Sir Percival of Dudley, a leper knight of the Order of St
Lazarus and are forced to sojourn in the atmospheric and dilapidated fortress
of Bethgibelin.
King Richard the Lionheart is again a forceful presence, who raises the siege of Acre, defeats the Saracens at the Battle of Arsuf, and moves to Jaffa to establish his new headquarters there. Meanwhile, Will Bowman persuades Sophia to set sail for Constantinople while he returns to Jaffa. As the author remarks - whatever his destiny might have in store for him, every parting, every ending, was only the beginning of something new. To Bowman and his companions, Saracens, Moors Mussulmans, Berbers, Turks, they were all one. The scourge of the world…