The Lute Player

by Norah Lofts

  But with his great axe, fearless, he

  Did cut his way to Bethany.

  Every time I hear that example of the minnesingers’ art of simplification I think: Yes, if the crusade had been just a long series of battles, small, like the one at this ambushed pass, great, like the Battle of Arsouf, Richard would have cut his way. But there were so many opponents against which even that great axe was impotent, worthless as a reed.

  Sunstroke was one: the old biblical “destruction that wasteth at noonday.” We bound our heads, Saracen-fashion, with old clouts, bits of linen, pieces ripped from our garments—even the handsome helms were so covered—but every day men would stagger out of line or drop as they marched with swollen, plum-coloured faces which all too often changed suddenly to the shrunken pallor of the dead. Often the men who walked beside the stricken ones would step out of line, too, and with the precious scanty supply of water they carried and sometimes with the incongruously pretty little fans they had picked up in Acre they would attempt to revive their comrades. As they did so, as the column passed on, two or three of the Saracens who hung on our flanks, as wolves might hang about a flock of sheep, would swoop down from the hills; arrows or the light lances which they flung with such deadly precision would whir through the air and the sound man would fall beside his friend. Few of those who stepped out of line ever joined it again and finally Richard gave stringent orders that no man must step aside to help another. It was a ruthless, logical order, not invariably obeyed, and it resulted in Escel’s demand that as the stores carried by the pack animals and the baggage wagons were lessened by consumption the transport should be used for slightly sun-struck men who had a chance of recovery. But that led to trouble, too, for it was difficult even for the physicians to decide in a moment whether a case was slight or likely to be fatal.

  We suffered, too, from myriad fevers. There was the one which attacked almost everybody soon after his arrival in the Holy Land and then recurred in a mild, nagging way at shortish intervals. Richard suffered from that himself and it was that which had sent Philip of France home. It meant that a man sat his horse or was helped along in a daze of pain and fever for a day, sweated profusely during the night and rose, weak but on the way to recovery, next morning. But there was another, more virulent kind which twice went through our ranks like fire through a dried cornfield and struck so many men into unconscious stupor or raving lunacy that movement was impossible. We all camped until it was over, the recently recovered staggering about, tending the lately stricken.

  And there was the one most horrid ailment which was with us all the time. The polite, physicianly name for it was “water in the bowels”—the ranks had many other words for it. It was painful, weakening and disgusting and in extreme cases as fatal as sunstroke or the virulent fever. It became so prevalent and so many men were pounced on by the Saracens during their necessary fallings out—and it could make twenty or thirty fallings out imperative for one man in one day—that Richard commissioned a band of horsemen to ride ten arrow lengths behind the main body in order to cover the sufferers. Our invisible attendants soon learned that it was not safe to venture forth to shoot or cast at the cursing, squatting crusaders as it had been at the sun-struck and their friendly helpers.

  There were, too, always with us the sores which made such demand upon Escel’s supply of mouldy biscuits. Either the heat or the dust seemed to prevent the natural tendency of the skin to heal; a sore would be as small as a seed of corn today, tomorrow the size of a groat and on the third day as large as the palm of one’s hand. Then the centre of it would suppurate and grow hollow, as though the sound flesh beneath were being consumed. After that, unless the blue-green biscuit worked its magic, there was small hope. Still we pressed on and though it was a sadly weakened, much-winnowed force which approached Arsouf, it was yet an impressive one. Once indeed Richard did say, ‘There was a time in Messina when I thought I had too many men. May God forgive me that thought and forget it.’

  XII

  At Arsouf, which stands guard across the road leading to Jerusalem and Jaffa, the Saracens did not wait to be attacked; a great army of them met us and simultaneously a second force bore down on our left flank and a third closed in behind. It was plain from the first that this would be a day for killing or being killed. I determined not to be sick and not to be sentimental. As it transpired, I was given no chance to test these resolutions. I am a little sorry, especially now that I come to write this history, that I saw nothing of the Battle of Arsouf. It was one, if not the greatest, of Richard’s victories and the one where he struck such terror into the Saracens that afterwards they spoke of him as Christians speak of the devil.

  For one fantastic moment I thought my experience at the past skirmish was to be repeated. Having no armour save a short, sleeveless jerkin of leather sewn over with flat metal rings which the friend of a sun-struck yeoman, having no need of it himself, had sold me for four aurei (there was a flourishing market in such things), I was not set in the front with the fully armed knights for the forward charge but put on the defensive as cover for the baggage and the sick; an honourable if not glorious task which I shared with sundry fully armoured men who had lost their horses and had not been able to replace them, a few fully armed mounted men who had been lightly wounded in the previous small battle and one or two very young knights who, for lack of experience, might have been more hindrance than help in the charge.

  If that first charge had been successful we should never, in our position, have seen action at all. But the Saracens met Richard’s onslaught with equal fury and at once they and the crusaders were mixed, infiltrating one another’s lines and fighting small singlehanded engagements all over the place. A Saracen, this time a very stout, heavy man, holding his scimitar in exactly the same fashion as the man whose hand I had sliced off, bore down on me and I tried to repeat my slicing action, sweating and wildly praying for a similar result. But he swerved, my sword whistled ineffectively through the air and before I could raise it again the scimitar struck me just where the sleeveless jerkin ended. My shirt sleeve and a great flap of flesh from the thick part of my arm fell over and hung to my elbow and the blood came pouring down to my fingertips. I felt no pain at all. I felt nothing save surprise—and, in a second, pleasure when I saw the sword of one of the young knights pass with a beautiful thrust clean through the body of the man who had struck me.

  How long I should have sat there staring I do not know but all at once the knees of my brown mare buckled and as she fell I shot forward over her head. And there I stood for a moment after I had disentangled myself and scrambled to my feet. I was angry, not because my arm had been sliced; but because my brown mare had been slain. After this, I, thought, I’ll kill and kill and kill…

  But there was no sword in my hand and when I bethought myself of my dagger and moved to draw it from my belt, there was no power in my arm. The noise of the battle seemed to recede and everything I looked at ran away from me into blackness.

  Then there was pain. Someone was slowly and deliberately slicing into my arm. I moved it and the pain struck sharper. Then I lifted my left hand to defend myself and struck my hand against something very hard and yelled out and opened my eyes.

  I was lying on my back with my head and shoulders under a baggage wagon, wedged tightly between two other wounded men, for since shade was so rare and precious every inch had been used. My arm had been tightly tied up with a strip of canvas and hurt excruciatingly and I was so thirsty that the longing to drink was an added agony. Turning my head this way and that, however, I very soon perceived that I had reason to be thankful. The man on my left had been pierced clean through the jaw by an arrow and the lower part of his face was a horrible mess of torn flesh, splintered bone and broken teeth; the one on my right had been spitted by a lance through his belly—but he was dead and his misery ended. The smell of blood, of dust and of dust soaked in blood hung on the air.

  I turned my head back so that I was looking up at
the floor of the wagon, lay still for a moment and then carefully raised my head to peer out under the wagon’s edge. My head felt enormous, the size of a barrel, with a loose mangonel stone smashing about in it; my neck felt long and over-pliable, like a piece of thread. But I looked out long enough to see that the sky was a lake of rose colour with islands floating in it, some dusky-gold, some the purple of the grape. Sunset, I thought, letting my head fall back on the blood-soaked dust. And quiet. There was no noise of battle; just the ordinary sound of the camp and the groaning of men in pain. The day was over and so was the battle.

  And oh, if someone would only bring along a drink of water, however dirty, stinking or full of little dark wriggling things. I shut my eyes and thought about water; of buckets coming up out of deep wells, spilling silver drops; of raindrops dancing into muddy puddles; of ditches brimming when the snow melted.

  Presently from a great distance I heard my name spoken. I opened my eyes and saw Escel’s face, unstable and wavering as a weed under water.

  ‘Water,’ I said.

  ‘They’re bringing it.’ He crouched down and I could see him more clearly: his face drawn with weariness and whiter than the tabs on his collar, his hands under the rolled-back sleeves as red as a butcher’s. ‘I’ll loosen your bandage,’ he said. ‘I had to tie you tightly, you were bleeding like a stuck pig. Luckily I soon reached you.’ I saw him glance across me to the man who lay on my right.

  ‘It hurts,’ I said.

  ‘I know,’ he said quite gently but in a voice that was empty of pity because pity is expendable and too many demands had been made on his that day. As he loosened the bandage I felt a slight relief, quickly forgotten in the maddening throb and tingle with which the numbed limb came to life again.

  ‘You’ll mend,’ he said. ‘It was the best kind of wound, a good clean cut. Here is the water…’

  He straightened himself and sighed like a tired horse and moved on. In his place was a water carrier with a full skin and a little cup. He began to pour and some water spilled over and I cried out. Never again, I thought, should I see a drop of water wasted without protest.

  When I had drunk I said, ‘What of the battle?’

  ‘Oh, we won. We’ve taken Arsouf.’ The water carrier moved on to my neighbour with the shattered jaw.

  ‘Water?’ he asked; and then when the man did not answer he stirred him, not roughly but callously, with his foot.

  ‘Do you want water now? It’ll be gone in a minute.’

  Did he? Behind those mangled lips and broken teeth and splintered jaw, did there rage a thirst as urgent as mine had been? Could he hear the torturing question and the threat? And have to lie there, powerless to answer, unable to drink?

  ‘Wait, wait,’ I said. ‘Couldn’t you pour a little just a drop—into where—Perhaps he might swallow a drop.’

  ‘Waste of water,’ he said quite cheerfully. ‘He’s past it!’ But it might be you in similar case tomorrow, I thought, and I suddenly remembered a conversation I had once had with Anna Apieta on the subject of pity how far is it tainted by fear for ourselves?

  Then I thought: and this is only one dreadfully wounded man whom I can see. There may be others, worse.

  I cried a little then, lying on my back so the welling tears ran down the sides of my head and into my ears. And then I was glad of the pain in my arm. I have something to bear too, I thought, and was crazily glad and relieved, leaning back on my own pain for comfort from the pain of all the others.

  Presently I was conscious of a smell of boiled mutton mingling with and then overpowering all the other smells. I opened my eyes again and saw two men, one carrying a great steaming bucket, the other a ladle and a number of bowls. ‘Who’s for mutton stew, fresh mutton stew?’ cried the man with the bucket.

  ‘Dead,’ said the one with the bowls, peering at my right-hand neighbour and moving on to peer at me. ‘The next is all right. Hi, boy, want some fresh mutton stew? Put you on your legs in no time.’

  ‘No, thank you,’ I said, and ridiculous fresh tears came into my eyes as I thought how welcome, how wonderful, fresh mutton stew would have been last night; to me with an unsickened stomach, to the man on my right who would never enjoy anything again, to the man on my left who last night had had his teeth and his lips and his tongue as God made them.

  ‘Now, now,’ said a cheerful voice away to my right and beyond the wheel of the wagon, ‘never say no. Soldier’s first rule. You should sample this stew. Fresh mutton it is, though I had doubts when I first heard them crying it. Yon Richard of England should give it out—every wounded man gets fresh mutton broth. Do more good, that would, than the four aurei he gives for bravery. What’s the use of four aurei in this Godforsaken country now he’s even forbidden the women to come along? But a basin of good mutton stew, now that is something that any man’d take a risk for.’ There were noises of the stew being enjoyed. ‘What’s more, though none of those doctors would believe it, a good mutton stew’d cure all those –ing sores!’

  I lifted my head and through the gathering twilight saw a Flemish archer propped against the rim of the wagon wheel with one bandaged leg sticking out stiffly, one arm hanging limp. Between his sound leg, which was drawn close to his body, and his stomach there rested a bowl of stew into which he was digging with his sound hand.

  Two wounds. And still cheerful, still hungry. I was filled with admiration. And since I knew that the sores worried Escel more than anything, more than the fever and the water in the bowels, which he could accept as unavoidable, I thought I would attempt to ignore my own pain—and all the others’—in the quest for information.

  ‘What makes you say that mutton stew would cure sores?’ I asked, and put my head down again.

  ‘I once saw it do it. Wait while I drink off this liquor and I’ll tell you. I was at the siege of Therpont. That’s a long time ago and forgotten now. Fifty weeks we were shut up there, well provisioned, beef in cask, salt fish, ham in plenty. We could have held out three months more if we hadn’t been relieved. But we were rotten with sores; maybe they weren’t as festering as they are in this country, but bad enough, and many tall fellows died of nothing else. Well, one day right up to the town walls there came a little goat girl with a flock of about fifteen head. Part of the old fosse was green over with grass and maybe she thought she was safe or maybe the goat strayed and she followed them. Somebody looked down and saw this young female in her red skirt and said, ‘How about a little raid?’ They made a quick sally and brought her in. With the goats. What happened to the girl I needn’t tell you. The goats went into the pot because, as you know, though goats will eat most anything in nature, they don’t take kindly to salt herring. Into the pot they went and the old duke being a just man, every man Jack got his share. And in two days the sores were healing up like clean wounds. Nobody seemed to notice except me but then I’m a noticing man; noticed you didn’t take stew, didn’t I? And when I mentioned it they laughed me to scorn and called me Goat-gut. All the same, I know what I know.’

  ‘Well, that’s very interesting,’ I said. ‘And it could be proved or disproved. Go on, tell me more things you have seen and noticed. When I’m listening to you talk my arm hurts less.’

  ‘Bless you, I could talk all through the night telling you tales you wouldn’t believe, tales that’d set your hair on end. But in half an hour from now it’ll be –ing cold. Too cold to sleep. So I’m going now. Once I am asleep I am asleep and nothing but a good kick in the arse’ll wake me, so I’m going while it’s warm enough. If you take my advice, you’ll do the same.’

  I heard him arranging himself, grunting with pain as he moved. An old campaigner, the stuff of which armies are made, brave, unself-pitying, taking the good with the bad, the rough with the smooth. And what did they get out of it? I asked myself. Every village had its old soldier, one-legged, one-armed, one-eyed, cobbling or carpentering a little, begging a little, stealing when a chance offered. And they counted themselves lucky. Thousands of o
thers were dead in their prime; brave, cheerful, unquestioning men. Was it worth it? I asked myself. Was anything—from a little disputed throne up to the Sepulchre of Christ itself—worth the toll of death and pain that was being exacted in this one place on this one night?

  And then the cold came and the pain increased. The man with the smashed jaw suddenly made a noise like a rapidly boiling pot and the smell of fresh blood tainted the air anew. And here I lie, I thought, between two dead men.

  Then the thought which had not come to me before came at last. Why do I lie here? I asked myself. I have the use of my legs. I edged myself out from under the wagon, clutched the side of it with my sound hand and pulled myself upright. The great stone inside my head smashed to and fro and made me sick and dizzy and my knees turned to melted wax. My fingers melted, too. They released their hold on the wagon side and I sank down again, close to the Flemish archer who was now sound asleep. Flat on my back again, I felt better; the thunder of my heart, the smashing loose thing in my head quietened. The moon came up, a great bronze-gold plate in a dark velvet sky. I was thirsty again. And cold, colder than I had ever been in my life. I edged myself close to the archer and lay there entertaining a thought, a crystal-clear and rock-sound thought which, in after days, I tried in vain to recapture. It was very foolish, I reflected, for men to make themselves miserable about their loving or their sinning when all that was needed for happiness was freedom from pain and a modicum of comfort. I remembered all the hours when I had lain in my bed, warm and easy, fretting myself about my love and my conscience. Now, if only the pain in my arm would ease, if I could have a drink of water, if I amid be covered warm, no thought of Berengaria, no thought of the damage my new mangonel had wrought, no thought of the men I had killed would hold me back from peace.