Читать книгу The Sword and the Rose - V. J. Banis - Страница 5

CHAPTER ONE

Streaming the ensign of the Christian cross

Against black pagans, Turks and Saracens....

—Richard II

“Joan, Joan! Stop that infernal humming and bring me some water.”

Lady Joan put aside her embroidery and went to fetch some water from the leather skin by the door. It was only midmorning, and already the air in the royal tent was stifling. Modesty commanded that the tent flaps be securely closed so that not even a stray desert breeze could bring relief.

She carried the water back to the chair in which Queen Berengaria sat. “I am sorry, Royal Mistress, if my humming offended you,” she said.

She herself might have taken offense at the way the young queen ordered her about as if she were a lady-in-waiting and not King Richard’s kinswoman, but Joan was of an agreeable nature. She was tall and slender; some called her willowy. Her yellow hair, her pale complexion, her soft voice and quiet manners gave the impression that she was shy and even cold-natured. But her full and sensuous mouth belied this impression, and if one looked more closely, her eyes, though pale blue, were lighted from within with a warm light that lurked there and gave evidence of a passionate nature, held in check just now but waiting to burst forth at the right moment.

Although she affected friendship with her, Berengaria did not like Lady Joan. She waved a hand impatiently and said, “Oh, never mind, I’m just a crosspatch this morning. It’s this dreadful heat. I wonder that the heathens can stand it themselves.”

“Perhaps the heathens don’t have the same feelings as Christians,” Clorise, one of the queen’s ladies, offered.

Joan smiled faintly and said, in a respectful tone, “I should think rather that all men have the same feelings.”

“Yes, don’t be a fool, Clorise,” the queen snapped. She drummed her fingers on the arms of her chair, her dark little eyes darting about the interior of the tent for some diversion. What a bore this had proven to be. They had come on this Third and, as everyone had said, most glorious of the crusades, to recapture the holy city from the infidels. Richard, only recently crowned king of England and her husband as well, had been the instigator of this journey. It had seemed such a grand idea for herself and the ladies to accompany him.

How was she to have known what an ordeal it would be? Why didn’t someone warn her? All this heat, and the beastly food, and nothing, really nothing to do.

“Can’t you think of some entertaining story to tell,” she demanded of Joan. “No brave exploits to recite?”

Joan suppressed a sigh and again put aside her embroidery. “Since the truce there has been little activity,” she said

“What about that Scottish knight you’re always watching?” Berengaria asked, her eyes sparkling maliciously.

Joan blushed and cast her eyes down. “Royal Madame, I don’t know whom you mean. I have watched all the knights in the tournaments.”

“Don’t play games with me. I mean the one they call the Falcon. I’ve seen your eyes following him around. You needn’t think I’m a fool. Oh, this dreadful heat!”

Joan was glad that the queen had abandoned that subject. She was mortified to think that her interest in the Scottish knight had been observed; she must ever remember the queen’s sharp eyes. Beset as they were now with boredom, they would be ever sharp, watching for some diversion.

With each passing day the young queen’s boredom and her impatience increased. At first, despite the inconvenience of travel there had been a great air of excitement. King Richard had invited Philip Augustus of France to join him in the holy mission, and in time these two monarchs were joined by Leopold, Archduke of Austria, and by knights of every European country. There were also the Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaller of St. John of Jerusalem, so that a vast army was formed answerable to the Council of Princes of the Holy Crusade, but in actual fact commanded by the noblest of those princes, King Richard of the Lion Heart.

For a time there had been great tales to tell of the exploits of these knights and especially of King Richard: how the Saracens at Acre, who had besieged that town for nineteen months at the cost of many thousands of lives, surrendered a few weeks after Richard’s arrival on the scene; and how, when the news came that Saladin, the Kurd sultan, had attacked Jaffa, Richard sailed at once with what troops he could muster and, arriving in the harbor, he leapt to his waist in the sea.

“Perish the hindmost,” he cried, swinging his famous Danish ax, and he led his men into the city, clearing it of Moslem soldiery almost before Saladin could learn what had occurred.

As for Saladin, most of Christendom knew of him and had an image of him as an infidel dog, a heathen whose savagery and blasphemy beggared description; but since their arrival in the Holy Land, Joan had heard and seen much of this famed ruler who ruled, it might be said, the entire East; indeed, nearly all of the world that was not yet Christian. To the displeasure of Queen Berengaria, Joan had formed the opinion that while he was surely an infidel, the sultan was a gentleman.

When Richard’s horse fell at Jaffa, Saladin himself sent the English king a charger. “It is a shame,” he said through his messenger, “that such a gallant warrior should have to fight on foot.”

The queen and her ladies had scoffed at the story when Joan had repeated it for them, but Joan was convinced of its authenticity.

Moreover, she had heard it said that this Moslem ruler was so lenient toward Christians who were his subjects that there were towns who invited his invasion to free themselves from Byzantine rulers.

Certainly nothing of the sort could be said of most of the Christian rulers Joan knew. It had often seemed to her so unjust that people of different faiths were persecuted so fiercely by the Christians. She thought of the Jews, many of whom currently followed the camp to work as tailors, carpenters, and doctors. They were restricted in the camp; laws controlled what work they could perform, where they could live, even what colors of clothing they could wear. She knew they were often the sport of rough soldiers and bullies; and yet hadn’t Christ himself pleaded mercy, kindness and charity? The sort of kindness Saladin was said to show his subjects of whatever faith?

“Indeed,” she had remarked one evening when she was with the queen, “it sometimes seems as if the Christian virtues are better exemplified in the Moorish sultan than in many a Christian king, making one wonder how so wrong a theology could produce so fine a man.”

The queen was not pleased with the remark.

But all of these exploits had happened some time ago. It was now several weeks after that battle at Jaffa, which had ended indecisively. Richard had promised that his army would march in triumph into Jerusalem, and in this he might have succeeded had it not been for the jealousies of the Christian princes engaged in the crusade with him and the offense some of them took at the haughtiness—often remarked—of the English monarch. In truth, Richard often displayed an unveiled contempt for his brother sovereigns who, while equal in rank, were still far his inferiors in courage and military abilities.

Disputes and obstacles delayed every action while the ranks of the crusaders, even to Joan’s feminine eye, were thinned daily. Saladin had learned well that his lightly armed soldiers were ill suited to close combat with the armored Europeans; but Saladin had the advantage of numbers and the speed of his horsemen in the many little skirmishes that occurred.

As the army of the crusaders dwindled in numbers, Saladin’s followers became bolder in their form of petty warfare. Clouds of light cavalry sometimes surrounded and almost besieged the Christian camp.

“They’re like swarms of wasps,” Richard complained. “Easily crushed when you can get hold of them, but their wings enable them to elude superior strength, and their stings can do great harm.”

Valuable lives were lost in the perpetual warfare as Saracens picked off Christian foragers. Communications were cut off, convoys seized; the crusaders were forced to purchase the means of sustaining life by life itself.

In the queen’s pavilion the hardship had been most felt in the deteriorating quality of their food. “We’ll soon be eating no better than the poorest peasant in England,” Berengaria complained, although she had no idea how any peasant lived.

The climate, too, was hard for men from the north, unused to the hot days and cold dews. Not even the iron constitution of Coeur de Lion could withstand the combined effects of the unwholesome climate and his ceaseless exertions, and he fell ill. Whatever victories the crusaders had enjoyed heretofore were Richard’s victories, and the effects of his illness on the crusade and on the camp in general, were great. Saladin, who had so often displayed his admiration for Richard, readily agreed with the Council of Princes to a thirty days’ truce, that Richard might recover.

When Richard’s illness took on a serious aspect, however, the general tone of activity about the camp changed. Hope of a triumphant march into Jerusalem began to fade, and with it faded the numbers of the crusaders as well. Now desertion thinned the ranks still more as entire bands, ceasing to hope for success in their venture, withdrew from it and turned homeward.

In the camp the interval of the truce was employed not as might be expected, in recruiting new warriors, reanimating their courage and preparing for a speedy advance upon the Holy City; but rather in securing the camp with trenches and fortifications, so that it looked as if when the fighting began anew they prepared to repel the attack of a powerful enemy rather than assume the proud aspect of conquerors. A cloud of gloom descended.

“Well,” Berengaria’s voice intruded upon Joan’s thoughts. “Your tongue is usually so quick, can you think of nothing to say to amuse me?”

Again Joan racked her brain for some subject of conversation that had not been already exhausted.

“This morning I heard talk of a holy man,” she said, trying to make this news sound interesting, “a fanatic who lives in the desert near Engaddi.”

“A Christian holy man?” Berengaria asked doubtfully. “Do you think the Saracens would let him live long unmolested?”

“I have heard they revere such men. They regard them as madmen and feel that a madman is possessed of special powers and special insights—even a Christian madman.”

Berengaria was thoughtful for a moment and Joan was pleased that her little piece of information had provided the queen a moment’s diversion. But she was less pleased with Berengaria’s next remarks.

“But this is it!” the queen cried, her china-doll face radiant with childish delight. “A holy man, possessed of special powers. Why, we shall make a pilgrimage to him and pray for my husband’s recovery.”

She jumped up excitedly from her chair. Joan stood too, feeling anxious over the direction matters had taken.

“Noble madam,” she said, “you cannot be serious. We are surrounded by Moslems and Engaddi, from what I can judge, is three, maybe four days’ journey from here. Think of the danger of such a journey.”

“God protects his pilgrims,” was the queen’s reply. “I’m going to ask my husband’s permission right now. Come, Clorise.”

With a frightened look, Clorise leapt up and hurried after her mistress. There was nothing Joan could do but follow in their wake. She knew the queen well enough by now to know that once she had gotten an idea in her head there was no dissuading her. The queen was little more than a child, and a badly pampered one at that. Joan’s only hope was that Richard would forbid the journey in question, but it was a slim hope. Her kinsman was weakened by illness, and even when he had been in full health he was weak before his wife’s entreaties.

“This is my fault,” Joan thought unhappily. “If she goes to Engaddi, I will be duty bound to go with her.”