Book Read Free

The Lute Player

Page 29

by Norah Lofts


  We found the harbour still in Christian hands, however, when we sailed in on the evening of St. Barnabas’s day. But the danger had been real enough for every thinking man in that great company to look upon Richard’s arrival as the end of a great peril and to behave towards him as children, terrified of the dark, would behave towards a grown man who arrived bearing a torch. Indeed the welcome accorded him would have turned the head of any other man, however modest and self-effacing he might be. French, Burgundian, German, Spanish, Norwegian and Italian, they crowded about him as though they owned no other leader; the trumpets shrilled out their notes of welcome; every musical instrument in the camp gave of its best; a great avenue of torches lighted his way from the shore to the place where his tent was being reared. Richard is here! The Lionheart has arrived! All will be well! It was a crazy, intoxicating welcome.

  It evoked in Richard Plantagenet a most typical response.

  ‘This is an undisciplined mob, not an army. Suppose Saladin struck now! By God, in his place, I would.’

  The shouts, the plaudits, the trumpets, the torches meant nothing to him. They hindered rather than helped the crusade. And how far they hindered only God could say. For there were four men at least in that camp on that evening who thought themselves the Plantagenet’s equal or better. ‘The Lionheart has arrived. All will be well!’ sounded ill in the ears of Philip of France, Leopold of Austria, Conrad of Montferrat and Hugh of Burgundy. The danger inherent in that glorious, spontaneous welcome to the newcomer lay not in well-timed sudden assault from Saladin, that most generous foe, but in the slow, sour rancour, the fatal jealousy that it fostered in Richard’s own allies.

  But of that, too, much has been sung already. The tale of jealousy can be told by those who have never left their own hearthside. Let me tell of what I saw.

  I saw Acre on a brilliant sunny morning. It looked like a posy of flowers wrapped in a stiff white napkin and set down on a squashed dung heap. The town had white walls and within their circling whiteness were the roofs of the houses, the minarets of the mosques, rose-pink, lemon-green, primrose-yellow, hyacinth-blue, the bright ochre of marigolds all shining in the sun and, from a distance, beautiful.

  Between the white walls and the crusaders’ camp lay a wide, desolate belt of filth and ruin. Once there had been gardens there and vineyards and fruitful orchards but every tree had been cut down, every bush uprooted for fuel and now in all that space there was no single blade of green, no living thing save the vultures and the rake-ribbed dogs pecking and grubbing in the dust, the dung and the rubbish, the ashes, the bones, the bits of broken harness.

  This girdle of desert had been laid about Acre and steadily widened during the last two years for the siege was no new thing. An army of Germans and mercenaries, ill organised and of late virtually leaderless, for Barbarossa had died, had been camped there for two years. But the siege had never been hard pressed and until the arrival of Philip of France and his fresh army the Saracens in the town had never been completely cut off from their fellows in the hills. Philip, newly arrived, ardent, had closed the gap and Saladin had retaliated by besieging him and by making repeated attempts to take possession of the harbour and so cut off the Christian army from the sea. It was this threat which had brought Richard hot-foot from his bridal bed.

  He was now riding around the camp alone, save for me, and he had curtly forbidden me to speak until I was spoken to. He had refused all other company. ‘I think better when I am alone,’ he had said. He had come out of his tent, looked at Flavel, the yellow horse which awaited him, and asked:

  ‘Where is the grey?’ They told him and he ordered it to be brought and then bellowed for me.

  ‘Look, boy,’ he said, ‘I never rewarded you for your invention. When Escel’s model worked I knighted him but I regretted it. A knight without armour is neither flesh, fowl nor good red herring. But here’s a mount for you. Hop up and see how you like him. You can ride around with me. But don’t talk.’

  That was how I came into what proved to be a pretty brief possession of a trained battle charger.

  I was sorry that Lyard was grey. A grey horse still had a place in my dreams and in the even more horrible hours of lying awake in the night and though there was a world of difference between this gaily caparisoned entire and the gentle old monastery palfrey, there was a likeness too. However, this was no moment to think of that. I was suddenly the owner of a horse so good that when the King of England had had to choose between him and the one he rode he had been puzzled and had simply chosen Flavel because he had fought him, being worse-tempered. And I was riding round with Richard on his first inspection of the camp and that was a thing that many great and important men would have been glad to do, because first impressions are so sharp and durable and a word here, an excuse there, the apt word at the right moment can be so very effective.

  I realised within ten minutes that the only camp I had ever seen—the clean-swept, austere collection of tents at Messina—hadn’t been a camp at all. This was a camp—this disorderly jumble of tents, dung heaps, broken casks, drinking booths, quarreling idle men, heaps of rotting food, women half-naked lolling in the sun.

  Later on, when I walked through the poor quarters of Acre, Arsouf and Jaffa and saw the filth and degradation, I wondered whether there might not be such a thing as spiritual contagion. For throughout the whole campaign it seemed to me that the filthy foulness of these Eastern towns which looked so pretty from a distance and which, in closer contact, were so shocking and offensive to eye and nose and ear had spread out and affected, not by imitation or contact but by some imponderable means, the manners and morals of the crusaders.

  Even Richard never succeeded in making a good clean camp in Palestine. He tried, by precept and example and finally by savage punishments. He closed the drinking booths but they sprang up overnight and often numbered one to every six tents. He issued endless orders against women—but as soon as we had settled for a week, there they were, drabs and doxies of all kinds, the dregs of the European seaports, the survivors of rape and massacre of the Eastern towns. He organised small armies of dung carriers and refuse collectors and set the great stinking fires alight on the outskirts of every camp but still the filth mounted and still the crusaders lived in circumstances exactly comparable to those of the lowest of their enemies. Even in the consumption of that product of the poppy which we were beginning to call opium we copied the Saracens, more and more as time went on, and men suffered from wounds which would not heal, from recurrent fevers, agues, open running sores which the heat and the dust exacerbated. As soon as a camp was established, there on its outskirts were the furtive pedlars of the drug which could banish pain, cradle the spirit in soft peace, delight the mind with rare bright visions, all for the price of the hard-earned coin, the sick awakening, the tremor in the bones, the despair of the soul.

  However, this was a bright morning and all these things were still to be learned. Richard was vastly disgusted but cheerful. ‘All armies rot in disuse,’ he said. ‘When we rear our ladders against those walls there’ll be no time for drinking and whoring.’ He rode on, his intent glance marking this to be altered, this to be mended, until we came to the place where the Archbishop of Canterbury, Baldwin, had his headquarters. He and Hubert Walter, Bishop of Salisbury, had come on with a force of Londoners and men of Kent while Richard was in Messina.

  Over the buff-coloured tent the Leopards of England flew side by side with the standard of Thomas à Becket whose murder Richard’s father had ordered in a fit of passion. A man ran forward to take Flavel’s head and the yellow horse immediately reared.

  ‘Leave them. They are trained to stand,’ Richard said. And I took that as sufficient invitation to dismount and follow him into the tent. I was curious to see Baldwin—one of the few men who had gained a reputation for saintliness while pursuing a career of worldly activity.

  A narrow bed stood just within the doorway and on it, propped high with many pillows, lay an old man.
His eyes were closed and he might have been dead but for the fact that his dark, cracked lips were moving and a stream of words, uttered in a low husky voice, issued from them. A young cleric, hunched on a stool near the head of the bed, was scribbling rapidly, leaning down to catch the words which went on without any of those pauses so necessary to the scribe who takes down dictation. Standing a little apart was a short, thickset man wearing a coat of mail covered by a rough canvas jerkin. He was watching the man on the bed and listening to his words with an expression of sorrow and yet of contempt.

  On Richard’s entry this expression gave way to delight and surprise. He came forward, dropped on one knee and took Richard’s hand between his.

  ‘My liege lord, I had not hoped to see you so soon.’

  ‘I looked for you last night,’ Richard said.

  ‘And gladly would I have been there,’ the man said. ‘But’—he nodded towards the bed—‘he was violent. He wished to speak with you the moment you arrived. I had to stay and restrain him. This morning he is calmer. He is writing what he wishes you to know.’

  The husky voice murmured, ‘Evil can never be overcome by evil and do not think that drunkards, lechers and blasphemers can take the Holy City. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who shall stand in His holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully…’

  The poor scribe, having given Richard a distraught glance and a dip of the head, went on scribbling for dear life.

  ‘They told me he was sick,’ Richard said. ‘What ails him?’

  The man in the canvas coat shrugged his shoulders and his mail rattled.

  ‘Nothing they have a name for. He should never have come, the saintly, gentle old fool!’ He spoke with the anger of hurt affection. ‘What did he expect to find? A company of militant angels? My lord, soldiers guzzle wine, they steal, they swear and if on a hot day an infidel girl comes to the camp with a donkey and two panniers full of cool melons and pears, they buy her wares and then, given a chance, tumble her.’

  ‘Well, what of it?’

  ‘What of it?’ The man jerked his hand towards the bed. ‘He must stop it, that’s all. He must charge against human nature like a bull charging a wall. He broke his heart first and then his mind gave way. Weeping, fasting, praying and now raving—’

  ‘The doctors?’

  ‘What could they do? His ill lay too deep for their probing. He should never have come.’ His shoulders moved again under the rattling mail. ‘In Canterbury,’ he said, ‘he was known for a humane man of tolerant understanding. Here he became a martinet and a saint. God alone knows what I, what we have all borne in these last weeks.’

  Richard stood quite still for a moment and then took three strides towards the bed. He lifted one of the limp waxen hands which lay like the hands of a dead man outside the covers.

  ‘My lord of Canterbury,’ he said in a voice which was quiet and of surpassing sweetness, ‘I am here. Richard of England. Your Grace, I am here; you can tell me whatever it is you wish me to know. My lord, open your eyes. Give me your blessing—and your instructions.’

  The discoloured eyelids in their sunken sockets did flutter but there was no recognition in the eyes thus opened.

  ‘I am writing my last letter,’ the husky voice said, ‘pray do not disturb me.’ The eyelids closed, and the stream of words flowed on ‘… better, my lord, a thousand times better that these holy places remain defiled only by the infidel for whom Christ can plead—O Father forgive them, they know not what they do—than that they should be taken in triumph by men who, bearing the symbol of His passion on their shoulders…’

  Richard stepped back from the narrow little bed and stood silent, looking on while the husky low voice continued, denouncing, exhorting, and the clerk scribbled. I could see that he was listening attentively.

  ‘For delirium,’ he said at last, ‘it makes wonderful good sense and matches exactly some thoughts I have entertained this morning. But he—he’s finished, Walter. And the war only just started. You must take his command.’

  ‘I’ve had it for some days past,’ Walter said gruffly. Richard looked at him measuringly, approvingly; then he turned and looked at Baldwin in a way which, had Hubert of Salisbury been either more vain or more perceptive, would have galled him.

  ‘I’m very sorry about this,’ he said, turning back again. ‘He was’—he sought the just word and found it—‘ardent.’

  ‘He was an idealist. They always break first,’ Hubert Walter said with the air of one stating a plain and incontrovertible fact. In the background the voice went on and on, talking now about sincerity of motive being matched by purity of conduct. ‘The only army he could have marched in step with is that of Michael and all his angels!’ Walter said in a voice which mocked and yet betrayed an inner hurt. Then with a shrug of his broad shoulders he went on: ‘Sire, what is this I hear about a new mangonel?’

  With an air of great relief Richard said, ‘It is a fact. A new weapon to our band. A boy—he’s here somewhere, I brought him with me—Blondel, he discovered it—something so simple that it’s unbelievable nobody ever hit on it before. He’ll explain. Get yours altered, Walter, as soon as possible. I intend to strike at once. This army has sat here too long.’

  ‘It has lacked a leader; there’s nothing else wrong with it at all,’ Hubert Walter said steadily. ‘Now that you are here, my lord—’

  No doubt that was just the look which I used to turn on Brother Lawrence.

  ‘Poor Baldwin,’ Richard said.

  ‘It is a pity,’ Walter agreed gruffly. ‘And you know, sire, the men greatly reverenced him until he began—’

  ‘I know,’ Richard said hastily. They stood together for a moment in silent communion. Two strong men mourning one who, though better, was weak.

  VI

  The move against Acre was not made immediately, however, for Richard lay in his bed, smitten down by a fever which was never entirely absent from the camp and which attacked almost every newcomer. His limbs alternately shuddered with cold and burned with fever; he complained that his head was bursting and he had an unslakeable thirst. He was the worst patient in the world. Twenty times a day he would attempt to struggle out of bed and sometimes succeeded in staggering to the tent door and would stand there swaying, clutching the post or the shoulder of whoever was nearest. Then, cursing horribly, he would allow himself to be led back and covered and sometimes in as short a space as half an hour he would try again. There were times when he lay supine and other times when he would start up and send us running with messages, orders, requests for information. He took it hard that, though he sent messages inviting Philip and the other leaders to come and discuss the imminent assault with him, none came. They had—apart from their own disinclination to invite contagion—the best of excuses for their refusal. Escel forbade all visitors but Richard raved furiously about their cowardice and apathy.

  Each day I found time to scribble the latest news of his condition and send it across to the small house by the harbourside where Berengaria had her temporary lodging. I was glad that I did so and that I was in a position to know and report the truth for on the third day a rumour that he was dead spread wildly round the camp. He was certainly quiet on that day for Escel in despair had administered a strong opiate and he slept for fifteen hours.

  He was better when he woke and immediately set about the renewal of his plans. He forced Escel to admit Hubert Walter.

  ‘Tomorrow, Walter, we can at least get the storming towers into position and by the next day I shall be well enough to lead the assault.’

  ‘I doubt that,’ Walter said bluntly. ‘Your face is the colour of a dirty clout.’

  ‘You’ll see,’ Richard said. ‘I shall be out and about in the morning.’

  And in the morning, despite all protests and expostulations, he had himself carried out on a mattress, after he had proved that his legs would not support him, and throughout
that blazing day he lay in the dust and the shadeless glare giving directions and watching the luckless attempts of the men who were manoeuvring the great storming towers into position.

  A storming tower—sometimes called “a bad neighbour”—is a light but rigid wooden structure consisting of several platforms one above the other, connected by ladders. It is mounted on wheels and pushed into position against the walls of the besieged town and counteracts the advantages which the besieged derive from their permanent towers. There are three great problems in getting the “bad neighbours” into position. Relatively too high for their bare area, they tend to topple over when pushed, especially on yielding ground such as sand or mud. The men who push them are extremely vulnerable while they are pushing. There is a moment when the tower stands near the besieged walls and is not yet manned. At that moment, while men are mounting the ladders and preparing to defend their temporary tower, really determined defenders thrust out great timbers and often succeed in overturning the whole structure with consequent damage to the men under and within it.

  All these problems had to be met and overcome before the siege towers were in position by Acre walls. When three in succession had overturned, owing to the ill balance of the wheels in the sand and dust, Richard called a halt and for the rest of that day and the whole of the next gangs of men toiled at making four comparatively hard roads, one on each side of the town. There was no spare timber, nor tree within reasonable distance, but Richard gave orders that every house in the little colony by the harbour was to be demolished and the stones and beams from them used.

  ‘That,’ he said as he was carried back to his tent, ‘will take at least a week. I shall be fully restored by that time. Meantime I must think of some means of protecting the men who push.’

 

‹ Prev