Roselynde (56 page)

One of the peace plans Richard had evolved rested upon Joanna's
marriage to Saladin's brother. Aside from the religious problem, which the Pope
could presumably provide for by a dispensation, that would mean sharing her
husband with as many as three other wives and any number of concubines and
being isolated forever in what amounted to an all-female prison. Although
Joanna looked like her mother, she proved she was her father's daughter. The
fine Angevin rage into which she flew could not have been bettered by King
Henry himself. Richard knew when he had met his match. He began to talk of his
niece, Alinor of Brittany, as the bride, but Joanna's continued resentment was
no inducement to a sunny temper, either.

The beginning of the new year was no improvement on the ending of
the old. Richard organized the army to march on Jerusalem but, having seen the
terrain and fortifications of the city, and having listened to the arguments of
the Templars and Hospitalers, the King realized that an attempt to take
Jerusalem could only fail, destroy his army, and thus destroy any hope of good
peace terms with Saladin. His rational refusal to attack very nearly destroyed
the army anyway. The French, feeling betrayed, left Richard's command and
placed themselves under the rule of Conrad of Montferrat.

Richard moved the remainder of his army to the city of

Ascalon, which Saladin had pulled down into rubble. Encampment
among the shattered bones of the buildings and employment as haulers and
builders was not likely to raise the morale, even though Richard set to and
worked at the meanest tasks himself hauling stones and carrying equipment right
along with the men. Simon understood the King's purpose but he did not
appreciate it; he, too, hauled stones and carried equipment. While thus
employed Richard had come to another distasteful conclusion. It would be
necessary to abandon Guy de Lusignan's cause. With the support of the French as
well as the Latin princes, Conrad would have to be acknowledged as King of
Jerusalem.

It was a somewhat less painful decision than it might have been
because Richard was able to offer Guy the island of Cyprus. The Templars who
had had it in charge found its rebellious population more trouble than they
were worth. Guy, however understood the way the minds of the Cypriots worked
and was, moreover, delighted at the idea of years of sporadic fighting to come.
The resolution pleased everyone— well, not everyone. Only a few days after the
agreement had been reached, Conrad was assassinated.

No matter how often or how vehemently Richard swore he had no part
in it, he could not pretend to be overwhelmed by grief. Conrad's wife—the true
heiress to Jerusalem's throne— was willing to take Richard's nephew Henry of
Champagne as her next husband. The Latin princes also favored Henry. With a
sigh of relief, Richard agreed that Henry should marry the widow and rule the
Holy Land.

The miserable winter wore away. The spring brought better weather
but no better news. In April the Prior of Hereford Abbey arrived with letters
from William Longchamp and rumors about the doings of Philip in France. Simon
listened with an unmoved countenance, while Richard raged at the ousting of his
chosen Chancellor by his treacherous brother and the rebellious nobles of
England. What the King said about Philip, who was at once wooing John and
preparing to attack Normandy, made Simon blink with admiration. He was fast
coming to believe that Richard had a better fund of invective than old King
Henry. However, as soon as Simon was dismissed he wrote urgently to Alinor.
When anyone should return to England from Acre, he told her, she was to send
letters to her vassals strictly enjoining them to continue in their path of
neutrality. They were not to allow themselves to be seduced by John's growing
power to join him.

"The King is greatly enraged by the black picture Longchamp
paints of the situation," Simon continued. "I offered no palliating
speeches less because it would have drawn his wrath upon me and because he
would not have listened than for what might be called selfish reasons. If he
thinks all goes awry at home, he may be the less eager to remain here. And, the
truth is, according to my mind, that he is needed more there than here."

Alinor could not have been in more perfect agreement. If the
previous spring in Limassol she had agreed she longed for home more to soothe
Simon than from any real desire, that was no longer true. She was sorry for
Berengaria, yet out of patience with her. She and Joanna, who had recovered her
temper and her sense of humor, had tried to explain to Berengaria how best to
win her husband's friendship if his love was beyond her. First Joanna, then
Alinor, then Joanna again had pointed out that, when Richard depended upon her
for an emotional outlet, and appreciative audience, and all the other comforts
a wife could provide, love might return on the heels of companionship.

It was useless. Alinor's descriptions of the expedients she used
to shock or cajole Simon out of bad temper or sadness, which set Joanna into
fits of laughter, merely repelled Berengaria. A gentleman, Berengaria cried,
should only show his lady a smiling face, whatever the constraints upon him.
Joanna replied tartly that men were human, not patterns of perfection like
Yvain or Lancelot. Whoever heard of a hero in a romance having a bellyache, a
toothache, or a passel of fleas under his armor? But they could do nothing. In
the insulated life Berengaria had lived in her father's Court, she had had no
experience with men with bellyaches and bad teeth. And if they had flea bites,
they waited until they were out of her presence before they scratched. She had
not even any experience with spirits exacerbated by political problems; those
were thrashed out among more practical minds.

Far worse than the effect of her lachrymose and despairing
mistress was the return of Alinor's old enemy, ennui. There was nothing to do.
The marvels of architecture, the wonders of luxury that appeared in the shops
of Acre, were too familiar already to wake much interest. The household ran
with oiled precision. Alinor was so bored she thought she would die of it. And,
nearly a full year after the battle of Arsuf, after innumerable raids and
patrols, after twice saving Richard's life, Simon seemed no nearer to winning
the King's approval of his marriage. Alinor remembered Simon's warning to her
about the idea of marriage being used as a carrot hanging on a stick is used to
entice an ass forward. She raged in private, but there was no use in protesting
to Simon. He would say that he did no more than his duty. If the King chose to
reward him, that would show the King's goodness; the duty must be done in any
case.

To Alinor, Richard's behavior smacked more and more of the carrot
when she read Simon's description of the taking of Darum. The letter held no
note of jubilation at victory. Richard had refused to accept the surrender of
the defenders. As an object lesson, he had destroyed their last stronghold and
had those remaining alive thrown from the walls or butchered in other ways.

"After the battle," Simon wrote, "seeing that this
had appeared to me strange and unlike his usual kindness to a defeated but
brave enemy, he explained his purpose and said, smiling, that I should not
think he had forgotten what prize of war I desired. I tried, in respect to his
wish to soothe me, to appear more cheerful, but I am sick at heart, Alinor,
sick at heart, and my dear physician is not near to cure me this time."

The next letter Alinor received was much more cheerful. Richard's
tactics, Simon reported, though distasteful to him, were most effective. They
had not found it necessary to assault the Castle of Figs, another strong point.
Upon hearing Richard was on his way, the Moslem garrison had abandoned it and
fled. Still better, Archdeacon John of Alencon had brought letters from Queen
Alinor and messages by mouth. The Queen feared that Lord John had made an
agreement with Philip of France to deprive Richard of the throne of England.
The King, after much searching of his spirit had said he would attempt to take
Jerusalem but, whatever befell, he would return home after Easter 1193.

Once more the army marched toward the Holy City. On the way two
caravans that provided much needed supplies and much desired loot were
captured. This had greatly lifted the men's spirits, but the King grew sadder
and sadder.

"He is wise enough," Simon wrote, "to see that even
if we take the city, it cannot be held. Where are the thousands of men to garrison
it to be found? How can supplies be brought through a land teeming with hostile
people?"

The great soldier won over the religious fanatic. Richard turned
his back upon a dream of many years, upon his greatest dream of glory. Ignoring
the scurrilous songs the French contingents produced about his personal
perversions, except to compose even funnier and more obscene ones about their
cowardice and stupidity, the King began to negotiate in earnest with Saladin.
Agreement was easily reached about the more northern cities. These would remain
unmolested in Christian hands. Darum and Ascalon, however, endangered Saladin's
route to Egypt and he insisted they should be abandoned and demolished.

Richard promptly evacuated and destroyed Darum, perhaps it had
ugly memories for him, but he wished to keep Ascalon. He returned to Acre to
consult with Henry of Champagne and the other Latin princes in comfort.
Unfortunately, this provided neither relief nor pleasure for Simon and Alinor.
Richard and his wife had one private meeting from which Berengaria emerged so
hysterical that Joanna and Alinor could not leave her. She would not tell them
what had been said, for which Alinor at least was profoundly grateful, merely
cried that she would never again speak to her husband or even look upon him.

Before it was necessary to test that resolution, Richard was gone.
Saladin, resolved to bring pressure on the King to abandon Ascalon, was
attacking Jaffa and attacking it with his whole army in a desperate attempt to
conquer and destroy it before Richard could bring reinforcements. Knowing that
the city would fall before he could mobilize and move the entire army, Richard
chose eighty knights and four hundred archers and footmen and embarked by sea.
He arrived just in time to prevent the surrender of the citadel, and so
powerful was the magic of his name that the starving, weary garrison at once
flew to arms again. During their renewed defense, Richard and his men were able
to beach their boats and bring their horses through the water to the city
without loss.

Soaking wet, with the armor galling his body, Simon was sick with
rage and despair. He had thought the peace terms were all but final, and here
they were beginning all over again. Too many enemies. Too many. Too much. A
sword slipped behind his shield and pricked his ribs through the mail, but the
light weapon was not strong enough and the steel mesh held. Simon turned and
swung. The bearded head, its neck unprotected by armor, flew off like a ball,
hit the ground, and bounced. The trunk, still upright, gushed a fountain of red
that rose a good foot into the air before the body started to topple sideways
as the horse bolted. Simon began to laugh.

"This is my peace—ball games and fountains," he gasped
as he swung again.

That blow was not clean. He did not take the head quite off. It
hung to the side giving an insane, inquiring look to the wide, dead eyes as the
man fell. Simon roared with laughter and aimed for another head. Madly, he felt
annoyed with Richard who was cleaving bodies either downward or across. It
seemed unfair to Simon as if the King were making an easier point. A body is so
large, he thought, misjudging the distance of an opponent so that his sword
sheared away chin and jaw instead of severing the neck, that the King can
hardly miss.

Soon the laughter stopped. Simon had no breath to spare. There
were 480 of them against the whole Moslem army. Fortunately numbers counted for
little in the crooked streets of Jaffa. In their surprise Saladin's men had
made the same mistake as Comnenus's. By sundown, Saladin realized he could not
rally his men and ordered retreat. His order was somewhat behind the situation;
he could not stop his fleeing army until they were five miles from the Frankish
demon.

That was the result of shock, however, not cowardice. When they
had gathered their wits, Saladin's officers burned to avenge the shame. A
conference was held. There was no other way, they decided, but to capture the
King himself. On the night of August 4, a huge raiding party, seven divisions
of a thousand men each, crept toward the camp Richard had established outside
the walls of Jaffa. Their single purpose was Richard's tent.

Simon had slept very ill since the battle. He dreamed constantly,
vividly, and in color. In one dream, he and Alinor had walked lovingly
entwined, in the courtyard garden of the palace, and Alinor had innocently
inquired of him why all the fountains were red. Through other dreams rolled
bearded heads; he and Alinor were playing at catch and kickball with one when
it suddenly began to laugh and cried out, "Ware! Arms!" Sweating and
shuddering, Simon started awake, and into the reality the cry came again.

"My lord," Simon gasped, but Richard was already sitting
up and reaching for his armor.

A minute to pull on their hauberks, to seat their helms on unlaced
hoods, grab up swords and shields, and they were out. The squires startled
awake by Richard's shouts ran to wake the knights and captains closest. Ten
knights, half armed, ill horsed on whatever animals they could seize, rode down
toward the seashore to take the first shock while the captains roused the men.
It was their faith in the King, Simon thought, that brought them, most unarmed,
some without even breeches on, to form the shield wall. One footman to hold the
shield, another footman to wind the archer's discharged crossbow while the
archer aimed and loosed the wound one.