A glimpse of my new novel

I am still trapped in Outremer, about to fight a major battle. The actual battle was over in less than two hours, but at the rate I’ve been going, mine will take two weeks….sigh. Since I haven’t been able to post much on Facebook, I thought I’d share a few paragraphs of the chapter so you can see what I’ve been up to. (I’ve also been dealing with my laptop going rogue, but that is another story.) Anyway, here is a brief glimpse of Outremer; the sultan is, of course, Saladin; Taqi al-Din is his nephew, Isa a friend, and al-Quts the Arabic name for Jerusalem.
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Taqi al-Din’s teeth gleamed whitely in the flare of torchlight. “Uncle, have you heard? The cowards are fleeing back into Asqalan, not daring to fight us!”
“Not cowards,” the sultan said mildly. “They just know how to count.”
Taqi al-Din shrugged off the correction. “But whilst they cower behind their city walls, the road to al-Quts lies open to us. God has truly blessed us, Uncle, for the infidel kingdom is ours for the taking.”
Isa did not fully trust Taqi al-Din. While he’d proved himself to be a fierce fighter, one without fear, Isa thought he was too impulsive, too emotional, and too ambitious. But the sultan loved him, almost like a brother rather than a nephew, for they were close in age, and so Isa took care to keep his misgivings to himself. “He is right, my lord,” he said, and Salah al-Din smiled.
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