Chapter 25: Riders and Roots
The morning drills had drawn a crowd. Not of nobles or soldiers, but townspeople—men in aprons, children in wool cloaks, a few women watching from beneath tightly wrapped veils. They gathered along the low stone wall outside Jerusalem's eastern field, murmuring to one another as they watched the test riders gallop in formation.
Ethan stood beneath an olive tree, his silver mask gleaming dully in the half-light. Balian d'Ibelin stood beside him, arms crossed, squinting as the fourth rider in a borrowed lamellar cuirass loosed a short, curved arrow from horseback. It struck the hanging straw man in the shoulder—not center mass, but close.
"Better than yesterday," Balian said.
"Still flinching at release," Ethan replied. "He pulls back rather than forward."
They watched in silence as the rider wheeled around in a wide arc, his horse kicking dust, then galloped again—this time drawing from a quiver strapped under his left thigh, not across the back.
"The new saddle helps," Balian noted. "Eastern style. High front and cantle. Holds the rider firmer."
Ethan nodded. "And the stirrups?"
"Lower. Wider. Easier on the knees. Less knightly, but better for long rides."
Ethan smiled behind his mask. "That's the idea."
These weren't knights. Not in the Frankish sense. The dozen men riding today wore no chainmail, no surcoats bearing lion or cross. Their armor was a patchwork—lamellar taken from captured Saracen stores, wool vests reinforced with boiled leather. Some wore shemaghs to keep the dust out. They looked like mercenaries. Nomads. Border scouts.
That was intentional.
"Give it two months," Ethan said. "Then we double their number."