by Tuvia Fogel
“Well,” began Jacques, “I shan’t bore you with skirmishes and defections in May and June. Leopold of Austria sailed home, and many nobles were tempted to do the same. To make them stay, Pelagius extended the indulgences granted to those who take up the cross to cover parents, siblings, wives, and children.”
A twitch of the nose betrayed the bishop’s disapproval, but Jacques knew better than to criticize the papal legate in front of strangers. He waited as his guests gratefully drank some water and then continued, “A month ago, some Coptic monks came to the camp bearing a Saracen book of prophecies. Pelagius had it translated and announced that it prophesied Damietta’s fall to the Christians, as well as events that had already taken place, like the capture of the tower in the Nile. Since then, he has relentlessly assaulted the city, with no results and grave losses.”
It was becoming obvious that, had he been alone with Francesco, the bishop would have aired his real opinion of the legate. Francesco thought it would do him good to vent his frustration. “Don’t hold anything back, Jacques,” he said. “Mother Galatea and Master Ezekiel deserve your trust as much as I do.”
Obviously relieved, Jacques continued his tale in a different tone. “Some details convinced Pelagius the book was divinely inspired—maybe it said a Spaniard would lead Christians to victory—so he began to trust its prophecies more than the advice of the king of Jerusalem and the masters of the orders.” Here the bishop shared a wry smile. “To be blunt, I think it’s the Italians he listens to and then dresses up their advice as prophecy.”
The heat in the tent was becoming fierce. Jacques stood up to remove his mantle and then went on. “So he began his senseless attacks. First, Pisans and Venetians assailed the walls from their galleys, banners flying, trumpets blasting, and reed pipes playing. It was quite a spectacle, but the infidels rained down Greek fire on the ladders and forced them to withdraw. Also the sultan, at a signal from the garrison, moved downriver from Färiskür to harass our camp so we wouldn’t be able to assist the Italians.”
A page stepped in and announced that the bishop of Paris, Pierre de la Chapelle, was asking to see Jacques de Vitry. Galatea reflected that the stifling view of the lagoon from her little window in San Maffìo was replaced by the toing and froing of the most important men in Christendom.
“I’m busy with guests now. Ask him to come back in an hour,” said the bishop. Francesco started to object, but Jacques, knowing he would, shooed off the page before the friar could open his mouth.
“I have reasons to keep the bishop of Paris waiting, Francesco. Where was I? Oh yes, Pelagius attacked twice more in July, this time from the camp. Encouraged by intelligence of dire conditions in the city, he dragged petraries and ladders near the walls. But before dawn, while the Italian guards were sleeping, eight Saracens sortied and burned the machine nearest the wall, slaying seven of its defenders.”
Jacques sipped some water and then winced as his tale came to recent events. “Two days ago, the pompous ass ordered another attack. This time, mamluks forced our knights back and rode in among the Templar tents. Mercifully, Pedro of Montaigue, their new master, and Hermann of Salza, the master of the Teutons, are skilled leaders. They managed to regroup their troops, and in the end, despite heavy losses, the enemy was pushed out of the camp. I believe we lost between a hundred and a hundred and twenty valorous knights. An enormous price to pay for an action that brought us nothing.”
“Just who is this cardinal?” asked Yehezkel, knowing the bishop wouldn’t mind his irreverence.
Jacques sighed. “When Innocent made him bishop of Albano, he called him a ‘prudent and honorable man.’ I was told that a few years ago after Dandolo sacked the Polis, he strutted around there arrogantly, closing churches and jailing Greek monks.” The bishop looked forlorn.
After a brief silence, Galatea changed the subject. “Forgive my lowly concerns, Your Excellency, but do you know where in the camp a Cistercian abbess on a roundabout pilgrimage to Jerusalem might find a tent with other sisters?”
“You’re the one who must forgive me, Mother Galatea!” said the bishop. “I should have thought that you just stepped off a galley and have more immediate needs than hearing bitter accounts of war.”
Galatea realized she sounded frivolous and material, like all women. “Oh no, Your Excellency!” she cried. “On the contrary, the progress of the siege affects the prospects of Brother Francesco’s mission, which is the reason I came. I’d much rather be apprised of developments than rush to take some sand out of my shoes!”
Jacques gave her a “so you’re not just fetching” look and said, “Mmh . . . the prospects of Brother Francesco’s mission . . . I’m reluctant to predict what Pelagius will make of that, Mother, but it’s safe to assume he won’t allow a woman to join such an expedition.”
Galatea lowered her head in apparent resignation. Yehezkel knew better.
Jacques suddenly looked weary, older than his years. “This is a war, Mother, and there are some forty thousand men in this camp. I’m sure you’re not naive, but you must know that though there are nuns here—my page will lead you to their tent shortly—there are at least a hundred prostitutes for every nun, so you can imagine the attitude of these men, especially the . . . lower types, to any woman they come across. Bref, Mother Galatea, it would be better if you didn’t move around the camp alone.”
To be sure, armies and whores have gone together since ancient times, but for some reason this siege, perhaps because it was always clear it would be a long one, attracted more harlots than had ever been seen together in a place where the main business was killing. In the large, gray brothel tents as well as in the brocaded ones of the nobles, hundreds of women plied their trade. Shiploads of them came from the beginning of the war: smiling, elegant Latin whores from Venice and France; sensual, avid Greek whores from Cyprus and the Polis; fiery-eyed Armenian whores; veiled and bejeweled Persian whores with their own slaves.
Then there were the madwomen, visionaries at times seized by convulsions, some of them possessed to lie with any man, even if they had no money to pay. One was heard to say she’d done it with Saint George himself. Finally, there were the women from Acre and the crumbling kingdom of Jerusalem. These were widows who had lost everything and came in the hope of finding a protector among the thousands of Christians encamped in the Delta. Yet even the older, more withered ones found dozens of lovers, because nobody thinks of beauty when death is strolling around, and no one wants to wait. Even so, there weren’t enough for such an army, and they often had to appeal to the king’s guards to escape the soldiers’ thuggish ardor and grab a few hours’ rest. With time, Galatea felt pity and understanding for each and every one of them, perhaps more than Francesco could.
Of course, also common in the Christian camp was that other plague of soldiering life, which found its victims among pages and young squires, even in the tents of nobles. Aillil was unfortunate in this respect, since his blond hair and fair complexion—which still refused to darken after four months of travels—would almost daily make him the object of stupefying propositions to which he would respond with spitting and insults, not because he found them revolting, but because the idea of being taken for a girl infuriated him. But it was at Damietta that the boy, with a Venetian friend, would also lose his virginity in the tent of a Circassian whore.
On leaving the bishop’s tent, they found a small crowd gathered outside, patiently waiting for the famous miracle-working friar to emerge. Most were Italians who had heard much about Francesco in their country and were eager to hear him preach, or at least receive his blessing.
Jacques’s page was ready to escort Galatea to the tent where a dozen nuns were lodged, while Yehezkel heard of a Jewish merchant somewhere in the camp and intended to look for him, but when they saw a crowd waiting to hear Francesco, force of Cypriot habit and sheer curiosity for what he would say to the soldiers made them both linger.
“There’s no point pushing to get closer,”
Francesco’s voice rang out in the space before Jacques’s tent. “Those destined to hear my words will hear them even from the back, and those whose fate is not to be touched today won’t hear them even if they are a palm from my face.”
Since the time of his conversion, Francesco’s disposition was against war, even Saint Augustine’s “just war” and most of all, with repugnance, against “holy war.” Yet he also vowed obedience to the church, which emphatically supported holy war against the infidels. So Francesco steered clear of the subject as much as he could. In Christian lands that wasn’t difficult—and even then, Provence was an open sore—but being opposed to war while surrounded by forty thousand men incensed with hatred of all infidels was a different matter.
Even worse, Francesco knew of Jacques’s impassioned support for the struggle to regain Jerusalem, so when he saw him emerge from the tent and stand next to the abbess and the rabbi, he knew that anything said against the war would be construed as undermining troop morale and embarrass the bishop. He foresaw such a situation and resolved to avoid preaching to Christian soldiers on his way to the sultan’s camp but at the same time trusted the Holy Spirit, as he always did, to guide his tongue if he did speak to cross wearers.
“My brothers,” he began, unusually subdued, “fifteen years ago, before my conversion, I was a knight in Assisi and worshipped at the altar of chivalrous virtue, just like you. Then God spoke to me in dreams and visions, and though at first I misheard his message, in the end I understood that he wanted me to follow Christ’s instructions to his apostles.”
A naughty smile broke through Francesco’s meek demeanor. “So now I bring everyone the Good News, and if the cardinal will allow me to cross the line between the camps, I intend to bring Christ’s Truth to the sultan of the Saracens himself!”
The small crowd was struck dumb, as stupefied as everyone Francesco shared his plan with. As Jacques predicted, the only direct knowledge those soldiers had of Saracens convinced them that if the little friar entered their camp, he would either be killed or enslaved. A bemused buzz rose from the thirty or so cross wearers listening.
Francesco went on. “I’m not a priest, so I’m not allowed to comment Scripture for you, only to preach for the conversion of your hearts, and to do that to Christians ready to die for Christ would not only be superfluous, it would be offensive! So while my brothers and I are among you, we’ll engage in our fraternity’s other task, which is curing the wounded and comforting the sick.” He slipped the hood off his head. “Any one of you can of course assign to us the most menial of tasks, since we are friars minor and submitted to everyone, but I beg you not to impose military chores on us, like working on war machines and the like. And above all, I ask you to pray for us, that we may succeed in our mission to open the sultan’s eyes to Christ’s Holy Light!”
Yehezkel saw the bishop of Acre shake his head, but with a smile.
A cynical warrior, probably a mercenary, provoked Francesco loudly. “Hey, holy man! I’ll give you a golden bezant if you can tell me exactly where I can find God!”
Francesco, as usual, needed no time to think of a retort. “And I’ll give you two, if you can tell me where it would be impossible to find Him!”
The crowd laughed heartily, starting to warm to the plucky little friar and his deranged project. Yehezkel turned to Galatea to solicit her thoughts on Francesco’s noncommittal little speech, when he saw a crimson-clad figure approaching between the tents, a small retinue behind it. He knew at once it was the cardinal. He touched the bishop’s shoulder and pointed to the little procession. Jacques turned at once to welcome the most powerful man in the Christian camp, second in authority only to Honorius III.
Pelagius Galvani wore all his insignia, the edges of his crimson robe embroidered in gold. Having chosen to serve God rather than have to serve men, he was now papal legate a latere, meaning he’d literally emerged from the pope’s side, and since at the Lateran Council, four years earlier, Innocent declared that popes were no longer vicars of Peter, but of Christ himself, this entitled Pelagius to behave as if he had emerged from the flank of our Lord.
Walking stiffly next to him was a taller cleric with the typical constipated expression of “right hand of power” figures. The company would later discover he was the cardinal’s secretary, Oliver of Cologne, a German preacher whose engineering skills had been crucial in the capture of the tower in the river.
Jacques greeted Pelagius and introduced the new company, heaping praise on the Italian friars. As he told the cardinal everyone’s name, impressing Yehezkel with his memory, Pelagius turned his nose up at the friars’ mud-encrusted habits, dispensed his only welcoming smile to the Tuscan countess, and reserved his most disapproving stare for the Jew. Turning to Francesco, he said, “Yes, Brother Francesco, I heard of the Rule that Innocent granted you, and of the success your order has met with since. Well, if your famous love of poverty inspired you to come, you’ll find yourself at home here, as we’re short of everything, and you’re most welcome to share our wants. But if you came to preach love of martyrdom and fierceness in combating the infidel, then I shall authorize your sermons myself !”
Francesco lowered his head, but not his standards. “My mission is to preach the Gospel, your Eminence, not war,” he said in a small voice.
The cardinal’s lips narrowed to a line drawn by contempt itself. “And you think these cross wearers need your words to get closer to Christ?”
“No, your Eminence, but Sultan al-Kamil does. It is to him, if you will allow me to reach his camp, that I intend to preach Christ’s Gospel.”
The cardinal burst out laughing, boisterously imitated by Oliver but somewhat more hesitantly by the other attendants. The crowd, in contrast, was silent.
“NO, Brother Francesco! I will not grant you martyrdom, nor will I let such a famous friar become a joke by handing himself over to the enemies of Christ! You and your brothers can stay if you wish, but the only way you’ll meet Saracens will be if you borrow the armor of a wounded knight and join a group of warriors in our next engagement. That will convince everyone that you love Christ more than any sermon!”
Pelagius turned to the bishop of Acre, his expression making it clear that the friar was dismissed. “Jacques, I came to discuss what we learned from the spies we captured this morning. Perhaps we could go into your tent for a moment.”
“Of course, your Eminence. And by the way, don’t give Francesco’s plans too much importance. His enthusiasm is as pure as rain, and it falls where it will . . .”
By now it was early afternoon on the 2nd of August in the Nile delta, and for most Westerners the heat was hard to comprehend. As Pelagius and Oliver entered the bishop’s tent, Galatea tried to comfort Francesco, telling him he should have expected the cardinal to oppose his plan. After all, they’d heard enough about him from the bishop. “The simple fact,” she concluded, “is that all men would be tyrants if they could!”
Francesco was again tempted to look her in the eyes. His gaze rose to her neck before he stopped.
Soon they all parted ways and went to look for a tent in which to set down their things and refresh themselves, knowing it would be some time, if at all, before Francesco won his way with Pelagius.
Like many new arrivals, the young squire ignored the warnings about the sun and sweated all day, dragging crates and pitching tents. At Vespers, he leaned against a cart and asked for water. His comrade answered, “When I have a moment to spare, I’ll bring you some.” An hour later, the youngster was still sitting there and when someone took his hand, it was as cold as steel.
Evening fell with the usual, unsettling abruptness. The faint light of torches spread hesitantly through the stifling humidity in the camp, which smelled of smoke and roasting meat. Here and there in the sea of silent gray tents, a small band of knights and footmen sat around a fire in the twilight. Before them a jester juggled wooden balls or told obscene jokes amid muted, guttural laughs.
Then night fell
. From a few tents the sound of soldiers singing, vielles playing, and whores laughing could be heard, softened by the fog. Homesickness inspired the singing, and choirs of popular songs—here Flemish, there Italian—rose from the camp, at times so vibrant they caused alarm among the sentinels on the besieged city’s walls.
The newcomers noticed the smell as darkness fell. It didn’t come from the latrines, nor from the river. Heavy, sweet, sickening; it was everywhere in the camp and made some retch. Soon they understood that the breeze, which had been blowing the smell of the decaying corpses in the besieged city out to sea, dropped with the sunset, and the smell of death would be with them until dawn.
They were so exhausted they felt sure that despite the countless novelties, the famous men they had encountered and the general war fever, they would fall asleep the moment they laid their heads down. But what heat, smell, and flies couldn’t accomplish, the memory of the tortured spies did for each of them. They lay awake in the night, the clinking of cups and blaring of songs mingling with the screams of the Saracens etched in their minds.
The camp that night was immersed in a thick, humid mist. The sentinels on Damietta’s ramparts kept watch, but all they could see was a vast, whitish fogbank from which only the tips of the tallest tents poked out, their pennants sagging like so many wilted flowers.
CHAPTER 19
YOM REVI’I
The Fourth Day
OUTSIDE DAMIETTA, 10TH AUGUST 1219
The new company had been in the camp for a week. Yehezkel and Aillil slept in the Templar section and Galatea in the tent called the nunnery, while the friars, having refused the bishop’s offer of a plain, gray mendicants tent, slept in the open or where someone offered them a corner of his quarters.
The Cypriot and Frankish knights discovered how hard it is to pitch a tent in sand, got used to the stench from the latrines, and learned to save water and shelter from the sun, at all times. Like everyone else, they already hated the indifferent Egyptian sun that seemed to rise mercilessly behind the same dune each morning, bringing nothing but more deaths. Even the more sensitive souls grew used to the funerals that added new crosses to the camp cemetery every dawn. Yes, they knew that the soul of a man who took the cross was saved even if he died of the fever, but they all thought that dying while attacking the sultan’s camp would surely profit the cause of the Lord much more than dying among spittle and boils.