The Courts of Love: The Story of Eleanor of Aquitaine (58 page)

“Is it possible to be both?”

“We will prove it to be.”

He held a stone object in his hand. The King was helpless before his enemy but he had no fear. It might have been an assassin’s dagger which was held over him, but, helpless as he was, Richard believed that this man had come in friendship.

When the stone was laid on Richard’s brow, he was aware of a coolness sweeping over him. He felt a little better.

“You need chicken and fruit. You do not have them in your camp. They shall be sent to you.”

“This is beyond belief.”

“There is much that is beyond belief.”

“But why         .         .         .         why?”

“You are a great warrior.”

“Better for your cause that I should die here miserably like this.”

“No. You may die in battle. So may I. That is what is intended for us. I want to face you out there. It is decreed that we shall be enemies. We might have been friends         .         .         .         and for this night we are. You serve your God and I serve mine. Perhaps it was your God who sent me here tonight and my God who bade me come.”

He laid a cool hand on Richard’s brow.

“You speak strange words,” said Richard, “but I feel the fever going out of me.”

“So should it be.”

“You are a brave man to come through our camp.”

“Allah protected me.”

“I shall add my protection to his. You shall not be harmed when you go back. Shall we meet again?”

“It is in the hands of Allah and perhaps your God. And now I shall go. I believe you will find the fever is past.”

Richard called his guard and told him that the messenger was to be escorted from the camp, and if any harm came to him, whoever caused it would be answerable to him.

All were surprised when that very night Richard slept peacefully, and next morning the fever was gone.

He might have thought he had had a dream, but gifts began to arrive that day. There were grapes, dates and young chickens with the compliments of the Sultan Saleh-ed-Din.

When I heard that story, I was amazed. It seemed to me so strange. I could have believed that Richard had suffered a hallucination. But then Saladin was an unusual man, as Richard was. There was some bond between them. Richard had always been an admirer of his own sex. Perhaps there was some invisible rapport between such men. They were two of the great heroes of the day. One worshipped Allah, the other the Christian God. Perhaps the two were not so very far apart. If that were so, why this war? Why could we not sit down and come to terms about the differences? If the Saracens owned Jerusalem, why should not the Christians be able to visit the shrines in peace? And if the Christians owned it, why should they shut it to the Saracens?

However, that almost mythical meeting between the two leaders made me ponder. I must confess I doubted its authenticity, but the fact remained that from that time Richard began to recover.

Anselm’s story continued. The King of France also became ill. He had been less affected than Richard but made far more of his illness. In Anselm’s view he was getting very tired of the campaign. It was always thus with the crusades. People set out with such fervor, dreaming of the glorious deeds they would perform and the recognition they would get in Heaven; but when the reality was thrust upon them, it must occur to them that there were easier ways of earning eternal salvation.

As soon as Richard was well, the storming of Acre began; there were great losses on both sides; but the town, in due course, surrendered and Saladin was in retreat.

I wondered what his thoughts were at that time, and if he regretted saving Richard’s life, as he appeared to have done. It was inexplicable. It was obvious that Richard was the leading spirit in the battle, and victory would not have been certain without him.

There was still the battle for Jerusalem to be fought.

An unpleasant incident occurred. When he was inspecting the walls of the city, Richard noticed the flag of Austria flying there. He demanded that the Duke of Austria be brought to him and before his eyes tore down the flag and ground his heel on it. The Duke of Austria was naturally furious at the insult, but Richard said: “We come as Christians; we are one army; we cannot have every leader who has brought a handful of men claiming victory for his country.”

The Duke of Austria went away muttering that he would remember the insult. Richard had made a bitter enemy.

It was Philip Augustus who claimed his attention. The French King had been very ill and wanted to go home. He came to Richard and told him that he was worried about his country. A king could not remain away for so long and expect all to be well. That was true enough. I wished Richard had felt the same. Philip Augustus was longing for home. He hated being in this inhospitable land. The flies pestered him; the mosquitoes were dangerous; many had suffered from them; then there were the accursed tarantulas. Philip Augustus said that if they remained here one of them would die, and he did not intend it to be himself. He went on to say that he loved his country and his duty lay there. He was beginning to see that the task they had taken on was hopeless.

“Hopeless!” cried Richard. “When we have just taken Acre!”

“These Mohammedans are great fighters,” argued Philip Augustus. “Sometimes I think they are invincible.”

“We have a cause,” Richard reminded him.

“Have they not? Their Allah seems often to work better for them than God does for us.”

“That could be called blasphemy.”

“Then blasphemy is truth. I believe this man, Saladin, is a very wise one.”

“I would agree with that.”

“He is a noble enemy.”

“But the Saracens are in possession of Jerusalem. If you go now, you will break your oath.”

Philip Augustus called attention to the weight he had lost, to his thinning hair and his broken nails. “All this I have suffered. It is God’s way of telling me to go home.”

“I have been in a worse state than you have.”

“You have
always
suffered from the ague.”

“Philip Augustus, tell me, have you made up your mind to go home?”

“I will leave you some of my knights to command when I go.”

“I thought you were my friend who would want to be with me.”

“I would be no good to you dead. And what of this Saladin? Why did he send food to you when you were ill?”

“I do not know,” said Richard.

Philip Augustus looked at him suspiciously. “They say he is a very noble-looking creature.” Richard was silent.

“And you met him?” asked Philip Augustus.

Richard told him of his experience.

“He came to your tent by night         .         .         .         uninvited?” said Philip Augustus suspiciously.

And after that there was a great coolness between them. Richard said that he could see that Philip Augustus was going to break his oath.

The French King said that his country was more important to him than anything else. “To stay would be to condemn myself to death. I will leave you to make friends with our enemy. What of Tancred? You became friendly with him too.”

“You have a jealous nature.”

Their friendship was considerably strained when they parted.

It became clear that Richard missed the French King. He tried to console himself with music and became greatly pleased by a young boy named Blondel de Nesle who was an excellent musician; he and Richard composed songs which they sang in harmony.

While Richard was repairing the walls of Acre, Saladin attempted to bring about a truce and sent his brother Malek Adel to Richard’s camp to discuss terms. It was while he was there that Malek Adel had seen Joanna and been so impressed by her charms that he wanted to marry her. That Richard should find such a suggestion feasible told me a good deal about his respect for the Saracens. Joanna, naturally, had been indignant and the project came to nothing. There was no truce, and the battle for Jerusalem persisted.

There was a great deal of trouble among the crusaders. I suppose that was inevitable when there were so many nations involved, each trying to claim credit for his own country’s achievements. Richard, as leader, managed to engender a certain amount of enmity and venom, and the task of delivering Jerusalem—daunting as it would have been without any of these disturbances—became almost impossible.

Meanwhile Richard was receiving urgent messages from me which must have given him anxiety. He had to fortify the towns he captured and garrison them to make them safe for pilgrims. It was a great task he had undertaken, and plagued as he was by bouts of recurring fever, life was not easy.

He was depressed. He was discovering more and more how formidable were his foes; and in Saladin they had a leader equal to himself. Moreover, the climate could be more easily borne by the Saracens. It was another enemy. The heat brought the perpetual flies, the poisonous insects, and with the passing of the summer came the torrential rains and the mud.

However, Richard continued to conquer towns and make them safe for pilgrims; and all the time he was plagued by my entreaties to return home.

I, who understood him so well, suffered with him. I could picture his frustration. He had thought to capture Jerusalem long before this, but Saladin was there, with a skill and valor which matched Richard’s own.

There came a time when Richard intercepted a caravan full of food and ammunition on its way to Saladin’s camp. That was a great achievement and must have cost the Saracens much anguish. Soon after this a great battle took place at Hebron Hills. The crusaders won the day and captured five thousand camels and mules laden with gold and silver as well as provisions.

After winning such prizes it seemed that the way was open to Jerusalem, and Richard believed he was on the point of taking the city and bringing the crusade to a glorious end. But Saladin was too clever to allow this happy conclusion to come about. He spread rumors throughout the Christian camp that, fearing their advance, he had poisoned all the drinking wells outside the Holy City.

It turned out to be not so, but Richard could not ignore such a rumor. He returned to Jaffa and by doing so lost his great chance.

Such are the fortunes of war. A successful general must win at the crucial moment, and Saladin’s rumor of poisoned wells had cost Richard Jerusalem.

Richard knew there would be no easy victory. Saladin had had time to fortify the town, and the bad news from home, Richard knew, meant that if he did not return he was in danger of losing his kingdom.

There was nothing to be done but make a truce with Saladin. It was a heartbreaking finale to what was to have been a great enterprise. The peace terms were just. Richard had made it possible for pilgrims to visit Jerusalem. He himself did not visit the Holy City. He could not bear to. He cried out in his anguish: “Sweet Lord, I entreat You, do not suffer me to see the Holy City since I am unable to deliver it from the hands of Thine enemies.”

Poor Richard! He must have felt defeated and for such a man defeat was the worst thing that could happen. He had to admit that, after all the lives that had been lost, all the gold with which his people had supplied him, he had failed.

He was going back to his country with his mission unfulfilled.

Joanna and Berengaria went off before he did. Berengaria was often in my thoughts, and I wondered what she thought of her husband’s aloofness. As far as I could gather, they had rarely been together. What hope was there of an heir? Very little, I feared.

Richard eventually sailed away. Anselm said he leaned over the rail watching until the land had disappeared and murmured: “Oh Holy Land, I commend thee to God. May He of His mercy grant me such space of life that I may one day bring thee aid. And it is my hope and determination, by God’s will, to return.”

In due course Joanna and Berengaria arrived in Rome. As for Richard, he sailed off         .         .         .         into mystery.

Richard may have failed in his mission, but his fame was known throughout the world. Everywhere people talked and sang of Richard the Lionheart. He was reckoned the greatest soldier of his age, although he had been unable to conquer another who was said to be as great as himself, Saleh-ed-Din, known throughout the Christian world as Saladin.

Anselm, who had sailed with him, had been able to tell me much up to this point.

In glowing terms he told me of the encounter with pirate ships and how Richard’s courage impressed the pirates who allowed him to board their ships. Richard had decided to go home overland; he knew that he had many enemies and wished to travel incognito. He therefore sent his ships back to England while he, in the garb of a merchant, proposed to make his way across Europe. The pirates agreed, for a sum of money, to take him where he wanted to go.

Richard left Anselm on the ship, and that was the last the priest had seen of him.

I was desperately anxious. Where was he? How much better it would have been if he had stayed with the ships. How could he have thought he would be safer traveling overland dressed up as a merchant! Richard was the sort of man who could never be anything but a king and whatever garb he was in would not disguise that.

I was glad to have heard Anselm’s story but frustrated that it stopped short of the vital part.

And so we waited, but news of Richard did not come.

I could not believe he was dead. I wondered how long it would be before John claimed the throne. If Richard’s absence continued, the way would be clear for him. And what of Arthur? His mother, Constance, was ambitious for him. Would he attempt to claim the throne? And what would the choice of the people be? Arthur, the young foreigner of whom they knew little, or John of whom they knew too much?

And so I waited, fearful of the future.

Then one day there was news. I had very good people working for me in those Courts where I thought there might be information useful to me—and none was more important than France. Philip Augustus’s love for Richard had now turned to hate, so I could expect treachery from that quarter, and I respected Philip Augustus as one of the wiliest kings in Europe. How different from his father! And for that reason I greatly feared him.