“We bring King Guy of Jerusalem for a rendezvous with King Richard of England!”
“King Guy is aboard?” the man shouted back in apparent disbelief.
Aimery pointed to the banner of Jerusalem flying from the masthead, while Henri dutifully called out the answer. “Aye, aye! Can you give us news of King Richard?” Henri asked back.
Aimery saw the man in the bows of the ship lurch a little as he lost his footing on the pitching and rolling deck of the skiff, but he recovered rapidly and answered. “He’s beaten the hell out of Isaac Comnenus and accepted the homage of half the Cypriot nobility. King Guy is welcome!” Then he turned, gestured to the helmsman, and sensibly plopped himself down in the forepeak as the skiff turned to one side, lay briefly broadside to the waves with half the oars flailing in the air, and then continued swinging around to show them her stern. As the oarsmen started pulling again in unison, the man sitting in the prow, now facing aft, lifted one hand and waved cheerfully at them, indifferent to the spray falling over his red-blond hair. Aimery started.
“Do you think that’s possible?” Sir Henri asked, disbelieving. “I mean, why would King Richard attack Isaac Comnenus—and if he did, could he really defeat him so fast?” Henri was torn between amazement and skepticism as he watched the skiff set a direct course for Limassol while they continued, hard on the wind, on an oblique tack.
“I think it must be true,” Aimery admitted, a little perplexed, “because you just exchanged words with Richard Plantagenet himself.”
“What?” Henri spun about and stared at Aimery as if he were mad.
“The man in the bow. I’m almost certain it was Richard.”
“Are you daft? That man was dressed no better than any sailor. Besides, what the hell would a king be doing out in an open skiff? Christ! He could drown in an instant.”
“Richard was never one to shun risks,” Aimery pointed out.
“But—but—” Henri turned to stare after the skiff, but the people in it were now nothing but lumps of darkness against the sunlit sea. “A king . . .”
King Richard was nothing if not magnificent. His crown was heavy and jewel-encrusted. His cloak was trimmed with ermine. The snarling leopards on his surcoat were stitched in gold. His sword belt was of enameled panels, but the pommel of his great sword held a cabochon garnet. And without the slightest doubt he was, Aimery noted with amusement, the man in the boat. Indeed, the King himself acknowledged the fact with an amused smile when it was Aimery’s turn to bow to him. He remarked dryly, “We have met before, my lord, at my brother’s coronation, no?”—adding a wink.
Aimery would have liked him for that alone, but Richard’s wholehearted and uncompromising support for Guy was both heartening and heartwarming. He’d even gone so far as to pledge the Lusignans financial support, immediately turning over two thousand silver marks from his treasury, along with some of the loot he’d captured on Cyprus, which included cutlery of purest gold.
It turned out, furthermore, that they had arrived on the eve of the King of England’s marriage. While still on Sicily, the Queen Mother of England, the infamous Eleanor of Aquitaine, had brought the daughter of the King of Navarre to be her son’s consort. They had, however, arrived during Lent. So the lady, accompanied by Richard’s sister, the widow of King William of Sicily, had sailed with Richard’s fleet. Unfortunately, a terrible storm had struck the fleet shortly after departing Sicily, and it had been scattered. While King Richard had managed to round up most of the ships and reassemble the fleet at Rhodes, the Queens’ vessel and three others had been blown all the way to Cyprus. Two had wrecked, but the others, though storm-damaged, had anchored offshore.
Fortunately, the Dowager Queen of Sicily and the knights with her were familiar with Isaac Comnenus’ reputation and had resisted all invitations to come ashore—a decision reinforced by news that the survivors of the wrecked ships had been robbed and imprisoned. King Richard had arrived with the rest of the fleet just when Isaac was becoming threatening. Richard’s request for the restoration of the goods plundered from the ships had been answered insultingly, and the hotheaded Plantagenet had responded by launching an assault from small ships against the fortified shore. It should have been suicidal.
That it was not, both puzzled and fascinated Aimery. While Guy played elaborate court to the widowed Queen of Sicily (with far too obvious an eye to cementing his surprisingly easy alliance with the English King), and Geoffrey did his best to solidify support among Richard’s far more skeptical and semi-hostile barons, Aimery asked one of the less exalted knights, a Poitevin he had known slightly in the past, to show him the battlefield.
Standing on the shore and looking out at the rolling swells that broke regularly upon it, Aimery shuddered. The Cypriots had held all the cards. They had terra firma under their feet to enable steady archery, while Richard’s archers had been forced to fire from the bouncing decks of little boats bobbing in the waves. The Cypriots had also erected barricades along the beach that gave them cover, and had their horses ready to ride down anyone unlucky enough to come ashore.
The English had no horses, no cover, and no steady firing platform. The knight who excitedly related the details of the battle noted that King Richard had been the first to jump over the side of his boat and wade through the sucking surf to reach the shore. In full armor, wading up the incline of a beach with a strong undertow was dangerous even without being under enemy fire. Aimery could not imagine many men leading such an assault. Châtillon might have been capable of it, but he doubted even Montferrat could have pulled that off. Certainly not Guy . . .
Richard’s example had, of course, forced his barons, knights, and men-at-arms to follow. They had charged the Cypriots, hunkered down safely behind their barricades, and put them to flight. The self-proclaimed “Emperor” had fled on a fleet horse, as had most of his nobles, but there had been considerable slaughter among his foot soldiers. At the end of the engagement, there were scores of corpses on the beach—and not one of them belonged to a man in King Richard’s pay. No wonder he was called “the lionheart,” Aimery concluded.
Chapter 13
Acre, June 8, 1191
IBELIN JOINED THE FRANKISH ARMY BESIEGING Acre with twenty-nine knights, their squires, eighteen crossbowmen, and five hundred sergeants. He could easily have found more men had he been able to pay them, for the news that he was recruiting had produced a flood of applicants. Even after his arrival in Acre, men who had been with him at Hattin or Jerusalem sought him out, anxious to trade their current paymasters for a billet with a man they trusted. But Balian was operating on borrowed money and could not afford one man more, unless (or rather, until) casualties made way for new faces. Isabella had advanced him the money for recruiting troops from revenues Montferrat had turned over to her. Ibelin presumed that Montferrat knew what she was doing, but he preferred not to ask.
Montferrat had also raised a small army of one hundred knights and two thousand sergeants, with which he too joined the siege at Acre. Everyone expected that the arrival of the English King with his large force would ring in the decisive battle for Acre, and with it a campaign that would lead to the recovery of Jerusalem.
When word spread that the English King’s fleet had been sighted, Ibelin with his knights and men joined the rest of the army as it surged toward the shore. It was late afternoon and the sun was low on the horizon, already distended and discolored by haze. It cast a sheen of bronze on the calm surface of the Mediterranean, but the heat it emitted had only marginally diminished. Many of the crusaders were obviously suffering from that heat. They stank badly, their shirts and gambesons soaked in sweat. Ibelin was only partially sympathetic. He’d endured too many snide remarks about “effeminate local lords” who preferred silk to wool to feel sorry for fools who did not adapt to their surroundings. Admittedly, many of these men could not afford to outfit themselves in silk or even the light cotton fabrics of the region, but too many of them took perverse pride in their own int
ransigence.
At the shore, the army spread out along the edge of the sea as everyone tried to get a good view. The excitement was palpable. Trumpets sounded, pipes wailed, bells rang, and drums pounded. Although the ships were silhouetted against the sinking sun, it was not hard to tell which carried the English King. His snecka not only flew the English royal standard, it surged ahead of the other ships in a commanding fashion. As it drew near, people started shouting to one another: “There he is! There he is! Look! On the forecastle!”
Sure enough, the King of England, a golden crown fitted over his chain-mail coif, was standing at the forward rail of his snecka, waving his arm in great, slow sweeps of majestic greeting. The crowd went wild. Men cheered, clapped, or chanted “Richard! Richard!” Others hugged one another and danced little jigs.
Ibelin was not impressed. The display reminded him of Guy de Lusignan, who likewise had a fondness for dramatic gestures and royal trappings. It was important for a king to be conscious of his dignity. A degree of pomp, ceremony, and display of wealth was essential to retaining the respect of one’s subjects and one’s enemies. But this was little short of theatrics. Then again, he reminded himself, Richard of England might be showy, but he must also have some substance, or he wouldn’t have been able to seize the island of Cyprus and subdue all resistance in a mere fifteen days.
News of the English King’s complete subjugation of Cyprus had reached the siege camp at Acre almost a week earlier. French noblemen, sent to Cyprus by the King of France to urge the English King to join the siege of Acre in all haste, had returned with the amazing news that King Richard was master of the entire island. It seemed that after Isaac had reneged on a promise to join the crusade, the English King had turned on the Greek usurper, putting him to flight and taking control of the entire island with no casualties. The French returned to Acre with the news, but the English King had delayed his own departure another week in order to establish an administration that would ensure revenues and provisions from Cyprus flowed to him in support of the crusade.
A commotion to Ibelin’s right drew attention to the French King with his entourage. Philip, too, was wearing his crown, and he was well attended by the highest of the French nobles, including the Duke of Burgundy and the Count of Champagne. Sadly, the Count of Flanders had recently died of what the crusaders called “Arnoldia” or sometimes “Leonardia.” The crusaders considered the disease highly contagious, and it could certainly be lethal. Even when it didn’t kill, it caused men’s hair and fingernails to fall out, while painful mouth ulcers made it difficult to eat. The crusaders universally blamed the climate of Outremer, but Ibelin was skeptical, since no natives ever seemed to catch it—not even if they had contact with crusaders suffering from it. He personally suspected that it was more the result of crusader diet than the climate. The crusaders scorned many of the native dishes (at least initially), and Ibelin suspected that the things he had learned to eat as a small child protected him now from this illness.
As the crowd parted respectfully for King Philip, Ibelin caught a glimpse of his face. It was carefully controlled—too carefully controlled. The rumors of bad blood between the Kings of England and France seemed confirmed in that look alone.
With a great fanfare and shouts to clear the beach, the King of England’s snecka prepared to run itself aground. Those gathered on the shore could hear the drumbeat setting the pace for the oarsmen, while the oars churned the water beside the galley into white froth. Then, with a terrible, screeching crunch, the keel struck the shore. Like a snarling dragon, the high prow thrust itself half a dozen yards onto the beach before it came to rest. A loud shout of triumph went up from the crew and was answered by a cheer from the observers on the beach.
Almost at once, the King of England (who had wisely descended from the forecastle for the beaching itself), put a hand on the forward railing and flung his feet over the side of the ship, to land with a single lithe motion on the beach. It was an athletic feat that not many men could have equaled in full armor. Although Richard of England appeared to lose his footing slightly as his feet hit the small, rolled stones of the beach, he had the presence of mind to disguise it by falling on both knees and crossing himself, as if giving thanks for setting foot in the Holy Land.
The crowd went wild with approval, and a group of churchmen struck up the Te Deum. Although the latter could have been a means of expressing King Richard’s apparent gratitude for finally reaching the land of Christ’s Passion, it sounded more like praise for King Richard’s arrival—a response that seemed grossly exaggerated to Ibelin. From the grimace on King Philip’s face, furthermore, Ibelin suspected the French King shared his feelings. A king to the core, however, Philip Capet dutifully advanced to meet Richard Plantagenet with open arms. The two kings embraced, kissed each other, and then, arm in arm, turned to wave to the crowd. Around them people continued to rejoice with cheers, clapping, song, and dance. After letting this go on a bit, the kings and their entourage began pushing their way through the crowd to King Philip’s tent.
Not too surprisingly, the rejoicing in the crusader camp continued well into the night, as one after another of the English King’s galleys beached and skiffs were launched from the larger ships, each carrying various noblemen and knights. Wine flowed in the tents of the wealthy, and ale flooded the more squalid quarters of the commoners.
Ibelin was in no mood for either. “If I were Salah ad-Din or al-Asadi Qara-Qush,” he referred to the commander of the Saracen garrison in Acre, “I’d make an attack right now, before the bulk of the Plantagenet’s men have disembarked and while the rest of us are drunk on alcohol and self-delusion.”
“Maybe we should keep watch,” Sir Bartholomew suggested practically.
Ibelin glanced at the men around him. “I don’t mean to ruin your evening.”
Sir Galvin shrugged and grunted. “It would be ruined a lot more by a Saracen attack that we didn’t see coming.”
Ibelin looked to Sir Roger Shoreham, who commanded his archers and sergeants. “Sir Roger, do you think you could find a half-hundred men willing to stay sober tonight?”
“Without difficulty, my lord,” Shoreham answered. The men who signed on with Ibelin were natives to Outremer. They had lost their homes and livelihoods after Hattin. They were fighting for their families and their future. That didn’t mean they were immune to the pleasures of the flesh, but they were on the whole more sober and focused than the newcomers, for whom the crusade was mainly an adventure or a chance to prove themselves.
Ibelin nodded. “Good; then let’s go reinforce the watch along the northeast salient for a bit.” This was the sector that offered a view of both the eastern walls of Acre and the heights to the west on which Salah ad-Din’s army lay encamped.
There were no churches with bells in the siege camp at Acre, and that made it hard to measure the passing of time. Ibelin was aware only of growing weariness, and he paced to keep himself from dozing off entirely. Eventually Sir Galvin suggested he take a nap, but when he sat down with his back propped up against the wall of the palisade, sleep evaded him. His nerves were too on edge. So he returned to the wooden wall walk, pausing now and then to look out through the arrow slits.
Abruptly he started, shaken awake out of a sleep that had overcome him unawares. He looked up at the faintly graying sky, alarmed on the one hand to think he’d fallen asleep, and on the other because a nearby noise had startled him out of it. Holding his breath, his hand on his hilt, he strained to hear again what had woken him. A moment later he realized there were footfalls on the steps almost directly below him.
He spun about to face the exit from the stairwell just as a tall, broad-shouldered man emerged from it. The newcomer was hooded and alone, which made Ibelin uncertain at first, but when he strode over to the railing and looked out toward the enemy, just four feet from where Ibelin was standing, Balian was no longer in doubt. Even without his crown, Richard Plantagenet, sometimes called “Lionheart” by his admi
rers, was an imposing figure. He was as tall as Ibelin, but considerably more muscular. He wore a thick but close-cropped beard. His face was square and divided vertically by a strong, straight nose. His forehead was both broad and high, accented by his straight eyebrows. His mouth was a firm, straight line over his solid but not projecting chin. Altogether it was a harmonious face, and far more than handsome. The Lusignans were blessed with fine good looks, but unlike them, this face was strong. At the moment it was dominated by eyes that drew together as they searched the distance. Ibelin noted with approval that the English King was obviously still sober and still alert at this hour of the night—and that he was here alone to assess the enemy. Those facts spoke well for him.
“Welcome to the Holy Land, my lord King,” Ibelin drew attention to himself.
Richard turned sharply to look at the man who had spoken, apparently surprised to be addressed so directly and familiarly by a man he had taken for a mere sentry. “Have we met?” he asked pointedly.
“No, I’ve been keeping watch all night.”
“Who are you?”
“Ibelin.”
The English King started in recognition and burst out indignantly, “The man who contrived the scandalous sham separation of my cousin Isabella of Jerusalem from her lawfully wedded husband!”
Ibelin frowned. He did not like—or think he deserved—to be reduced to an intriguer. Furthermore, he did not view Isabella’s separation from Toron as a “sham.” In dismay he asked back pointedly, “Who have you been talking to, my lord? Humphrey de Toron?”
“Among others, yes. Do you mean to deny it, my lord?” the King retorted, thrusting out his chin belligerently.
“Deny that I helped end Isabella’s shameful relationship with Toron? Why should I? Isabella was eleven years old when she wed Humphrey, and he knows it as well as I do. Did you ask him whether he was willing to fight for his bride?” Ibelin paused only barely long enough to give the English King a chance to answer before continuing. “He was given the chance to prove she was his wife in judicial combat, but he quailed before such a prospect. He did not even take up the gage. That should tell you something about both the justice of his cause and the man himself.”
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