Sardinia. Benedict even granted privileges to those who took part in the campaign and granted it a "vermilion banner". One fourteenth-century source records that a papal legate was sent to preach it as a crusade, but this is probably anachronistic. Thietmar, a much closer source, describes the attack on Luni by the "enemies of Christ" and how Benedict responded by calling "all leaders (rectores) and protectors (defensores) of the Church" to kill them and chase them away: Travelling by ship, the Saracens came to Lombardy and seized the city of Luna whose bishop was barely able to escape. Then, without opposition and in complete security, they occupied the whole region and abused the occupants' womenfolk. When news of these events reached Pope Benedict, he summoned all the rectors and defenders of holy mother church, and both asked and commanded them to join him in an attack on these presumptuous enemies of Christ. With God's help, they could annihilate them. Furthermore, he secretly sent a powerful fleet to eliminate any possibility that the enemy might retreat. When informed of these developments, the Saracen king was initially disdainful, but then, with a few members of his entourage, chose to escape the approaching danger on a ship. Yet his forces rallied and, attacking first, quickly put the approaching enemy to flight. Sad to say, the slaughter continued for three days and nights. At last, placated by the groans of the pious, God relented. . . Thietmar goes on to say that Mujāhid sent a sack of chestnuts to the pope to illustrate the number of Muslim soldiers he would unleash on Christendom. Benedict sent back a sack of millet representing the number of Christian soldiers that would meet them. The entire story has been called into question, but that the papacy took a direct interest in Mujāhid's attacks on Christians lands cannot be doubted. Thietmar says that the pope sent a fleet, but this probably only means that he encouraged the maritime republics to send fleets on behalf of all Christendom and not that the Christian fleet comprised "for the most part hired mercenaries", as was once suggested. The combined forces of Pisa and Genoa, arriving in May, vastly outnumbered those of Mujāhid. The emir's troops were already restless because of a lack of sufficient booty, and so he tried to flee. His fleet was badly battered by a storm as it passed