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trudged back and forth between the tower and stable, practicing a maneuver used to dear the streets of lightly armed combatants.
    Some of the men grumbled about the training, especially the older knights and serjeants, who were annoyed at having to mount their regular patrols on mules, their horses having been relieved of all duty in order to keep them in good condition for the confrontation. In the stable yard, de Beq saw to it that the horses were carefully brought up into condition. Extra rations of grain were fed from the carefully harbored supply in the tower, and the native exercise boys were required to walk the horses for two hours before sun up, and again for two hours after sun down.
    De Beq kept careful note of the progress of all of the men and horses under his command, and at the end of the first two weeks’ training had already decided which of the one hundred and ten men would go and which would stay, when they galloped off in pursuit of Ibn—al—Hassad.
    The serving brothers would be left behind, of course, as would the chaplain and three of the knights. Fifteen serjeants and forty—two men—at—arms would also remain at the castle, along with the mules, lame horses, dogs and native servants. This would leave de Beq with forty men to lead across the desert—surely a more than adequate force to seek out and destroy the vrykolatios ... .
    * * *

    Now, standing on the outcropping of rock above the small village of Chalice Well and preparing to do just that, de Beq again surveyed his troops. The reliable and competent William of Etton was at his side, awaiting his orders. They had two dozen men—at—arms and a complement of four archers. The six serjeants were well—armed and mounted. Like the men—at—arms, they carried heavy, eight—foot—long boar spears in addition to the broadswords slung at their waists and the iron maces that hung from each pommel. Crouched apart from the serjeants and men—at—arms in the shade of their mounts were the rest of the knights that de Beq had selected to ride with him–five of them.
    The knights were the elite, of course. They were taller than the other men–the benefit of having been born into noble families, where greater abundance of food and a more balanced diet combined to give the knightly class a physical stature denied to the lesser orders.
    The physical superiority of a knight was reflected in everything he did. In a secular setting, his deference to his superiors was pragmatic; a knight held his estates only so long as he provided military service to his overlord. His concern for the well—being of the men under his command centered not on altruism but on their ability to follow his orders on the field of battle. A knight was a law unto himself, beyond the civil jurisdiction of the courts, and answerable only to his feudal lord.
    Knights professed to a religious order, like the Order of the Sword, surrendered some of that autonomy, but their noble status still set them apart from those of lesser birth. If they survived for long in the desert, they soon learned that cooperation was essential. When the invading European host had first arrived in the Holy Land, many of the knights had objected to serjeants and men—at—arms riding horses, feeling that being mounted was solely the prerogative of their class. This was especially true in the early years of the kingdom of Jerusalem, when many of the European war—horses had perished from the change in climate and diet. Knights, keen to defend their social position, had mutinied on several occasions when horses were assigned to lesser fighting men.
    Twenty—five years of desert warfare, however, had had a leveling effect on the society of warriors. Neither knights nor men could survive for long without the cooperation and assistance of the other. As a result, it no longer seemed to bother the knights to see a short Burgundian peasant armed and mounted as a serjeant or even a man—at—arms. De Beq’s