Seeking Jerusalem

by H A CULLEY

  ‘My lord, what would you say if I told you that you have found your double in this very camp, except that he is some thirty years younger.’

  ‘What foolishness is this, Miles? What do you mean a double?’

  ‘This boy looks exactly like you must have done thirty years ago.’

  ‘Are you certain? Perhaps it is just a coincidence? If he is, what, fourteen?’ Miles nodded. ‘Then he would have been conceived around when - 1177? Three years after Alnwick.’

  Richard went silent and his face paled. He sat down heavily on the ground with his head in his hands.

  ‘That was three years after I slew Jocelyn and my wife left me, blaming me for her brother’s death. Yes, I did seek physical comfort with a girl around then and hated myself for it afterwards.’ He sat there feeling black depression swamping him again when he thought back over the events of that period of his life. Eventually he looked up at Miles again, tears streaming down his face unnoticed.

  ‘What do you know of this boy?’ he asked, taking control of himself with an effort.

  ‘Not much. He was brought up at Lindisfarne, supposedly as the prior’s nephew, then sent to Durham as a novice a few years ago because the prior was indulging him. At least that is the story the sub-prior of Durham told me.’

  ‘What nonsense! That might be the story told to Durham to explain the boy’s existence but the present prior was only an ordinary monk in 1177 and I can’t see him being allowed to keep an infant, can you? No, someone has kept the existence of this boy a secret until such time as they can use it to their advantage.’

  ‘You think he may be your illegitimate son then?’

  ‘I think it is a possibility, nothing more.’ Richard got to his feet. ‘I need to banish the ghosts of the past and think about this; but first take me to where I can observe this boy for myself.’

  However, when Miles and Richard arrived back at the campfire where the monk was seated, talking to several other monks, he denied ever having spoken to Miles, or having a servant who came from Lindisfarne.

  ~#~

  The visit to Jerusalem went off without incident and a week later Richard and his party joined a returning caravan. One evening Miles spotted the mysterious novice again. He was scouring cooking utensils using sand with a group of other young monks before rinsing them in a trough of water. Roland was the last to finish and, as soon as the others had left, Miles strolled over and spoke to him.

  ‘Hallo, remember me?’

  ‘I have to go,’ the boy muttered and got to his feet.

  Miles put a hand on his arm. ‘What are you afraid of? I’m not going to harm you; quite the opposite. I gather you want to become a soldier, perhaps even a knight?’

  The novice nodded dumbly and gave Miles a quick glance that conveyed uncertainty.

  ‘I would like you to become my squire.’ Miles wasn’t positive that he did but it certainly got the lad’s attention. His face lit up.

  ‘Do you mean it?’

  Miles indicated a patch of shade under a date palm. ‘Let’s sit down for a moment.’

  They leaned back against the trunk, sitting side by side and, with a certain degree of prompting from Miles, Roland told his story – or what little he knew of it.

  ‘I’m told my mother died giving birth to me. No-one knew who my father was, or if they did, they didn’t tell me. My mother’s sister, who was married to a butcher in Wooler, brought me up until I was seven. Then the butcher died and my aunt followed him to the grave six months later. The butcher’s brother was the precentor at the priory on Lindisfarne at the time and he arranged for me to become a novice there. By this time I was eight, I think. I was the youngest and was bullied by the older novices. I hated it. In any case, I had always wanted to become a soldier and dreamed of becoming a knight, like the ones I saw at the castle in Wooler. The last thing I wanted to do was become a monk.’

  Roland sat and stared morosely at his feet for a moment. ‘Anyway, it was fine when my uncle was the precentor; he even let one of the lay brothers teach me to ride. However, when he became the prior four years ago I think he was embarrassed by me, and especially by my lack of dedication to the life, so he sent me to Durham in the hope that they might beat some humility and obedience into me. That’s about it really.’

  ‘And so you have no idea who your father might be?’

  ‘No, none.’ Then understanding dawned on Roland. ‘But you do, don’t you?’

  ‘No. That is, I’m far from certain, but there is someone I would like you to meet.’

  Ten minutes later Roland found himself in the presence of Tristan and Lord Richard. Tristan studied the boy. Miles was right; he bore an uncanny resemblance to his uncle. He glanced at Richard, who was staring hard at the boy. Then he wondered whether, if Roland was indeed Richard’s son, this would affect his position as his uncle’s heir. He quickly dismissed the thought as unworthy; after all, even if the boy was Richard’s son, he was illegitimate.

  Richard asked Roland a few questions about his mother, but as soon as the boy mentioned her name and the fact that her sister was married to a butcher, the Baron of the Cheviot nodded and tears welled in his eyes.

  ‘Yes, he whispered, your mother must have been the girl in Wooler who I sought consolation with after my wife deserted me. I was told she had died in childbirth but I thought that the baby had died with her.’

  He reached out and grasped Roland’s shoulders. ‘I acknowledge you as my son, Roland, and as soon as I return to England I shall visit the prior on Lindisfarne, claim you as such and get a charter drawn up giving you the manor of Akeld. My nephew, and your cousin, Tristan is my heir but you shall have a proper inheritance.’

  ‘My lord,’ Roland stuttered, stunned by what he had been told. ‘I don’t know what to say. I never dreamed that my father might be a baron; some poor knight perhaps, but not you, not in my wildest imaginings.’ The boy looked at the ground for a moment and when he raised his eyes again tears were streaming down his face.

  ‘Richard, can I suggest that I take the boy as my squire for now.’ Miles spoke mainly because he was embarrassed by the sentiment of the moment; but he hadn’t forgotten the reason for his original interest in the boy.

  ‘Capital idea.’ Richard sniffed to hide his emotion; then paused, puzzled. ‘But why do you think the sub-prior of Durham hid the boy away?’

  Miles shrugged. ‘I don’t know but I will certainly try to find out.’

  Roland spoke hesitantly, still somewhat overwhelmed by the change in his fortunes. ‘I think I know, my lord. He is a mean spirited man who is forever punishing me for my supposed faults. I suspect he just couldn’t bear the thought that I might escape from him and get what I wanted after all; and it will leave him without a servant. That will truly frighten him as he is lazy and all too conscious of his position; not at all the humble monk he pretends to be.’ He smiled. ‘If I just disappear he will be frantic. Perhaps you might leave things like that?’

  Richard and the others laughed. ‘You have a subtle mind, Roland. Very well, it will be as you suggest. And you had better start to call me ‘father’ rather than my lord.’

  ‘Very well, my lord.’

  ~#~

  Now that the truce was signed the crusader army broke up. Richard was still too weak to travel but he sent Berengaria and Joan home with the English crusaders and the Earl of Leicester was dispatched to Normandy, both to put a stop to Prince John’s intrigues with Philip Augustus and to take back that part of Normandy which John had already surrendered to the French king.

  Some of the landless knights and the men-at-arms stayed to take service with Henry of Champagne and garrison the coastal towns that King Richard had captured. A few more joined King Guy in Cyprus. The Duke of Burgundy and the French couldn’t wait to take ship back to France. Soon the only group that remained was the king and his household,

  Richard de Cuille was ready to take ship with Miles, Tristan, their squires and the remainder of the men he had
brought with him on crusade from Northumberland when a messenger arrived asking him to wait on the king.

  He found him sitting in a chair on a balcony overlooking the bustling harbour. ‘Sire, I am pleased to see you are up and about at long last.’

  ‘Thank you, de Cuille, I am still as weak as a babe though. I fear that I will be last to leave this benighted country, but I didn’t send for you to discuss my health. I am grateful to you for your notable service to me throughout the crusade and I wanted to present this to you as a token of my gratitude.’

  He beckoned his squire forward and the youth handed the baron a sword in a leather scabbard decorated in gold wire. The sword itself had a Damascene blade made of the finest steel and the hilt was bound in leather and more thick gold wire with a magnificent ruby set into the pommel.

  ‘This was a gift to me from Saladin himself to mark our treaty. No, don’t say anything. You deserve much more and I will see that you get it when we return to England. I also have a gift for Sir Tristan.’ The squire handed Richard a long dagger with a hilt made from ivory. ‘I am told that the hilt is made from the tusk of a wondrous beast called an elephant. Saladin told me that it came all the way from a country to the south of Egypt.’

  ‘Sire, I can’t thank you enough. These are wonderful gifts for just doing our duty.’

  ‘I’m afraid you don’t get off that lightly.’ The king was obviously in some discomfort but he waved his fussing squire away. ‘I want you and Sir Tristan to join me and my companions for our journey home. With so many enemies in our way, I’m not quite sure how we shall manage it, but I am sure that God will show us the way.’

  ‘We would be honoured to, sire. Thank you.’

  ~#~

  Miles and Roland, who now called himself Roland FitzRichard, left Acre on the 28th September with the rest of the contingent from Northumberland but the king wasn’t well enough to leave until nearly a month later. By now it was getting very near the end of the normal sailing season in the Mediterranean and King Richard’s small fleet were hit by a succession of gales three days after they left Acre. When the king landed on Corfu on the 11th November the large buss he was travelling on was alone. Some of the others had sunk but most were scattered and the men they carried returned safely to England and Normandy in due course.

  As soon as he landed King Richard heard the dire news that his enemies, Philip Augustus of France and Henry IV, the Holy Roman Emperor, had formed an alliance against him. Together their lands formed a formidable barrier between Richard and his own kingdom.

  ‘How many are left in our party, Robert?’ the weary and seasick king asked his admiral, Robert de Turnham.

  ‘There are twenty nobles and knights, sire, plus your chaplain and twenty five squires and servants. Unfortunately the buss in which we travelled here needs urgent repairs and so we are going to have to hire fresh ships to travel onwards.’

  ‘Travel onwards,’ muttered the king, ‘but where to? What options do we have Walter?’ This last query was addressed to William de l’Etang, one of the king’s barons from Poitou.

  ‘Well, sire, landing on the French coast is obviously out of the question.’

  ‘Yes’ Richard laughed ‘ there is nothing Philip Augustus would like better than to imprison me so he could divide my realm between himself and my miserable brother, John.’

  ‘Quite. We could travel through Italy to Rome but the Montferrats, who control Piedmont in Northern Italy, hold you responsible for the death of their marquis, Conrad, and have vowed to kill you. Beyond Italy to the East is the Holy Roman Empire, whose ruler, Henry Hohenstaufen, you defied by supporting Tancred as King of Sicily against his own claim and, worse, part of it is Austrian territory and Duke Leopold would love to get his hands on you after you insulted him at Acre.’

  ‘God’s love, William, you paint a dismal picture. Is there no-one who is friendly?’

  ‘Well Navarre is, of course, as Queen Berengaria’s brother rules there, but to get there we would have to cross the whole of the Mediterranean and, apart from winter storms, there is the risk of falling into the hands of the Barbary pirates who operate between Sicily and the Iberian coast.

  The king shook his head. ‘I’d rather be captured by Philip Augustus than by those heathen devils.’

  William nodded. ‘In any case, Raymond of Toulouse has invaded part of your duchy of Aquitaine and entered into an alliance with Aragon and Catalonia, so reaching Navarre is going to be a problem. So perhaps we should head up the coast to Croatia and then travel overland through Hungary, Bohemia and Saxony to Hamburg or Bremen where we can take ship for England? It is a long way round but the rulers of those countries are known to be friendly to you or are related to you.’

  The king agreed. ‘Robert, will you see to hiring fresh ships in the morning?’

  Richard de Cuille coughed politely.

  ‘You have something you wish to add, Richard?’

  ‘These are wild lands you propose to travel through, my liege, although their rulers are friendly, not all their vassals are, especially those related to the emperor and Leopold of Austria, and there are many bandits and outlaws to contend with.’

  ‘Yes, yes I know all that. What are you driving at?’

  ‘You are a rich prize, sire, it would be better to travel incognito.’

  ‘Ah, I see. Thank you, Richard. It’s a good point. What do you suggest?’

  ‘That we disguise ourselves as a party of ordinary pilgrims returning home, or else perhaps as Templar knights.’

  ‘Yes, I like it. I think that the returning pilgrim ploy would attract less attention.’

  Two days later the king and his entourage left Corfu on two galleys. Richard and Tristan were on the king’s galley with William, Robert, several knights, the chaplain Anselm and their squires and servants. In all there were twenty two with a similar number on the second galley. They had already adopted their disguise as humble pilgrims though King Richard’s idea of humble was somewhat different to that of most people. His black robes were made of the finest wool and the rings on his fingers made him stand out. His only concession to being a pilgrim was the shell he wore on his black felt hat. When William and the others remonstrated he told them that he was a rich merchant and told them to call him Hugo.

  As they sailed up the Adriatic in mid-November a storm hit them. It came out of nowhere. The wind had been freshening all day and the sea started to build until the galleys were slowly climbing up one side of a wave before surfing down the other side, whilst the wind howled through the rigging. The sails had been taken in but, even under bare poles, the two ships raced along. With the spume in the air, the stinging rain in the face of the lookouts and the dark clouds above, the two galleys soon lost sight of one another. However, the captain of the king’s galley was far too busy trying to keep the nose of his galley pointing in the direction of the wind to ensure it didn’t broach and capsize to worry about anything else.

  Everyone tied themselves to the masts, or anything else secure they could find, to stop themselves being swept overboard by the huge amounts of water that cascaded down on the galley. Nevertheless two knights, a servant and a squire were lost overboard. If the daytime was dark and gloomy the night was worse. The storm reached its peak and then it faded away as quickly as it had arrived, leaving behind huge oily seas and exhausted men fervently praising God for their survival.

  The next morning the captain surveyed the damage. The galley had lost part of the mast and many of its oars, though it did carry replacements in the bilges. Some of the galley slaves, chained to their benches, had drowned or had broken limbs. There was no sign of the other galley, even from the crests of the forty foot swell.

  ‘We cannot raise the sail on the stump of the mast which is left and I can man less than half of the oars. The hull has sprung a leak in several places and we are taking on water faster than we can pump it overboard. We shall have to head due east to find land as quickly as possible if we are not to sink out he
re.’

  ‘Where are we; do we know where we will strike land?’ the king, disguised as Hugo the pilgrim, asked.

  ‘I can’t be certain but I suspect that we are north of the Croatian coast, possibly we are now somewhere near Gorz.’

  This was bad news for the Lionheart. The Graf of Gorz was not only a loyal vassal of the emperor but he was also the nephew of the assassinated Conrad of Montferrat. The galley made it to a beach in a desolate area full of reed beds. They had sold their horses in Corfu so now their priority was to buy some more and to find somewhere to obtain provisions for the journey.

  After half a day of wading through marshland they eventually reached an area of woodland. A few miles further on they came across a village surrounded by pasture where sheep and cattle grazed. There were even a few sorry looking horses. At first the villagers had run away from the unshaven and filthy creatures who had emerged from the woods. Even when they were offered a few copper pennies to buy their trust the crusaders couldn’t understand them. Then Simon de Chalons said something to them and two or three of the villagers replied excitedly. He waved his hands and told them to speak slowly. Eventually he turned to the king.

  ‘A few of them speak a strange dialect of German, sire. Enough for me to understand them if they speak slowly at any rate.’

  ‘How is it that you speak German, Simon?’ King Richard knew the squire’s name and that he served Tristan Cuille from their time on board, but he knew nothing else about the boy.

  ‘My mother is from Saxony, sire, and I was brought up speaking German as well as French and Latin. I have now learned some English as well,’ Simon boasted.

  ‘Call me Hugo’ the king snapped, not wanting to hear the squire’s life history. ‘Ask them if we can purchase horses and some provisions.’

  The next day, now with both bodies and clothes washed in the nearby river, they left a much richer village behind and headed towards Gorizia. Only the king, William and Richard de Cuille were mounted; the villagers wouldn’t sell more than three of their meagre stock of horses and the crusaders had to pay an exorbitant price for those.