Finally, then, nothing mattered save physical well-being. Could that be true?
The moon changed from bronze-gold to silver. Here and there amongst the wounded a man stirred and moaned—suffering pain and thirst and cold, like me. But on the whole the night was quiet.
When I saw at some distance two tall figures moving, stooping, peering and moving on again I hoped that they were water carriers but they progressed too swiftly. Just before they reached the wagon near which I lay they parted; one came on, became recognisable. Raife of Clermont, with a bloodied clout of white linen covering his ear and one side of his head.
He stooped and peered, recognised me and said, ‘Ah,’ straightened himself and called softly, ‘Here, sire.’
‘You’re hurt too,’ I mumbled.
‘Nicked on the ear. What happened to you?’
‘My arm—’
‘Arm,’ he repeated, and though he had no time to say more the single word asked why, then, had I not walked on my sound legs and saved him the trouble of searching for me? But by that time the King, moving swiftly now, had come round the wagon and was bending over me.
‘We’ve been looking for you. Are you sorely hurt?’
‘Only my arm,’ I said, suddenly and unaccountably ashamed. ‘But I couldn’t walk; I did try. I fell down—’ Through my chattering teeth my voice came peevish, childish, complaining.
He bent lower and put his arms about me.
‘You’ll be all right now,’ he said soothingly. ‘Put your sound arm round my neck.’
He straightened up, lifting me as easily as though I were a child. A voice from under the wagon said, ‘I want some water,’
‘Raife, go rouse those idle louts; I’ve said a thousand times they were to go round every hour after a battle. I’ll have them flogged in the morning… Blondel, you’re as cold as a corpse; I can feel the chill of you through my jerkin.’
‘They’re all just as cold,’ I said, speaking grudgingly because I had been sought for, found and was being carried to shelter.
‘They shall be comforted,’ he said. ‘We took Arsouf and the town is full of blankets. I’ll get you settled and then—’
XIII
We lay at Arsouf for some time while the wounded mended or died and the dead were buried. Day after day the committal words were spoken and the bugles sounded, ‘Dowse lights and all to bed,’ over men for whom sun and candle would never shine again.
Richard, whom victory had made magnanimous, had wanted the Saracen dead buried with ceremony. But Hubert Walter had said:
‘Then, sire, you must find someone else to speak the words. How can I or my like commend to the keeping of God the Father of Christ those who spit on Holy Cross and reverence the camel driver?’
‘They fought so resolutely,’ Richard said with regret. But he deferred to Walter and contented himself with orders that the Saracen dead should be carried to an appointed place and little flags of truce erected so that those who wished might come and take the bodies for burial. Yet the garrison at Acre had fought resolutely and they had been slaughtered like sheep and left to the vultures. It was, like so many things about Richard Plantagenet, incomprehensible.
From Arsouf to Jaffa and from Jaffa to Ascalon I footed it like many others whose mounts had been killed. The Saracens attacked the horses from deliberate policy, knowing that they could not be replaced in that unfriendly country, and it was now a common thing to see knights bribing the wagon drivers to carry their armour for them while they, dressed in their soft leather under-jerkins, trudged along near at hand, ready at a second’s notice to be harnessed into their mail. Or one would see yeomen or arbalesters marching along, taking turns at carrying some pieces of armour in return for a small coin or a small luxury. Fortunately the weather had changed with the coming of autumn and there were cool days when walking was pleasant; men were no longer stricken down by the sun and there were fewer cases of the virulent fever, though the sufferers from the one known as “hot-and-cold” or “double devil” still had their recurrent “bad days.”
My arm healed badly—as did so many wounds that there was some justification for the vulgar belief that many Saracen weapons were dipped in poison. To the tips of my fingers my arm swelled and stiffened and, fearing that I might lose the use of it altogether, I spent every spare moment I could in practising writing and later, when the right hand could just hold the lute, playing with my left hand. At first the process was so slow and clumsy, the results so disastrous, that I often despaired; then one day skill seemed to come suddenly. I was until lately completely ambidextrous which to a penman is a great blessing, for when one hand tires the quill can be moved to the other and the work can go on without respite.
On account of my wound I took no part in the Battle of Jaffa. I did see it and I did see the happening which, though—or perhaps because—it has been remembered in the minstrels’ tales, is doubted, called fantastic or legendary by sober men.
Richard, on the day before this battle, had had one of his “bad days” and had been able to eat nothing and had been tremulous as a poplar leaf when they harnessed him. But he fought like a fiend all day, dashing about the field, always with an eye to the spot where the fight was hottest, always with an eye to the most formidable opponent. In one encounter he was struck heavily on the helm and reeled in his saddle, recovered and dealt a blow that felled the Saracen and, turning Flavel’s head, rode straight at another—an emir by his dress—who was bearing down on him. A Christian knight who had seen Richard take that mighty blow and reel called as he passed, ‘How fare you, my lord?’
‘I’m hungry,’ Richard said, and charged on.
The emir, with superb horsemanship, swerved and circled—all Saracens, unless they chose to ride straight at their object, could be as elusive as wasps—and called out in Latin; understandable but of a kind which would have brought Father Simplon’s rod into action:
‘Hungry, great lord? Draw off, then, and eat.’
Richard, suspecting—as he explained later—an infidel trick, yelled back:
‘Eat? When the battle is joined?’
The emir, still circling like a wasp, shouted:
‘Battle is better with full belly.’
‘Draw off first, then,’ retorted Richard. And the emir, never ceasing to circle but now controlling his horse by his knees, raised his right arm high above his head while with his left hand he took a little silver whistle from his girdle and blew a long shrill blast. Immediately every Saracen turned his horse and galloped away to a little eminence which edged the field and there sat on their alert, quivering, rapidly breathing steeds while the Christian knights, puzzled by the manoeuvre, looked stupid for a moment and then turned to Richard for guidance.
‘We’re going to eat,’ Richard bellowed. ‘And I have nothing.’
That was where William the Fowler gained his place in song and story. Opening his wallet, he ran forward and presented his King with something which he had doubtless been preserving against the day when he should need it. Like my Suffolk archer’s piece of ham, it was a highly individual comestible, a round dark object wrapped in bladder.
‘A real black pudding, my lord King.’
(I took pains later to investigate this matter. William the Fowler hailed from Bakewell, from that part of England which still, in secret, held apart and called itself Northumbria after the ancient kingdom of that name. And there they make “black puddings” of congealed pig’s blood and meal enclosed in a bladder for better keeping. ‘I’d carried that one for eighteen months,’ he said when I asked him about it, ‘and if anybody’d told me I’d give it to any but a Bakewell man I’d have struck him down. But the best man deserves the best, see?’)
Richard looked at that black pudding and set his teeth into it. The Saracen emir looked at it, too, and as though it had waked his own appetite, he wheeled round and rode back to his own company. After a little time another Saracen, of lesser rank, rode out and offered to Richard of England a plat
ter of dried figs, sweet dates and little cakes with a flagon of the curious effervescent drink, sherbet, which the strict followers of Allah and Mahomet use in place of the wine which is forbidden them.
‘Tell your man with the whistle to signal when he is ready,’ Richard said. ‘And take him this with my good greetings’ He sliced off a piece of the black pudding.
I didn’t know—nobody near at hand except William the Fowler knew at that moment that the black pudding was made of pigs’ blood and probably he did not know that to the Saracens pigs were beasts of the utmost uncleanliness. So I doubt whether anyone but I—and I only afterwards in retrospect—enjoyed the sight of a Saracen emir eating a black pudding and pretending to like it.
The emir rode forward presently and asked, ‘Belly full?’
‘Belly full, thank you, and hungry now for battle,’ Richard replied.
The emir, without moving from Richard, blew another blast on his whistle and the Saracens charged down the little slope each taking, so far as was possible to judge, the station where he had been before. And the battle went on. The emir who had sent the figs and the dates and in return had eaten the black pudding succeeded, before the day was over, in slashing Flavel’s neck so that he died and Richard joined the great company of the dismounted.
That is a true story. Many men sing of it, few believe it. But I saw it happen. They say that the Saracen emir was Saladin himself. I have no proof of that. Just as Christians look out for and think they see Satan everywhere, as the Saracens tell tales of Richard’s queer appearances and disappearances, so the crusaders were always seeing Saladin in the old water carrier, the dirty drug pedlar, the one lonely horseman scouting against the sky line.
I have no proof. But I did see Richard sit out between the Christian and Saracen lines, eating a black pudding given him by a Northumbrian and fruit and cakes contributed by the Saracens. I can only tell what I saw.
XIV
Much against Richard’s will we moved from Jaffa, not direct to Jerusalem but by a detour through Ascalon.
The whole story of the crusade is the story of the relationship between Richard and his allies and much is made of the quarrels and jealousies between them. It is only just, therefore, to recount that in this instance he endeavoured to please them. He wanted only to move forward to Jerusalem and after the Battle of Jaffa he was ready to do so. They wanted to take Ascalon and fortify it so that it might stand guardian on their southern flank. I was so often in his tent, practising my left-handed writing; I was so often called to take down note of this or that, that I should be as well informed as any save the participants of the argument, but I must confess that the motive of Leopold of Austria, Hugh of Burgundy, the Grand Masters of the Templars and the Hospitallers eludes me, unless it can be taken for what it seems—an attempt to delay the taking of Jerusalem. Why Ascalon must be taken and fortified—and not Gaza—I never could see and neither could Richard. But they urged it and they were four to one and he gave in. (Conrad of Montferrat had been obliged to go back to Tyre after the Battle of Arsouf. Civil—or should one say internecine?—strife had broken out in that city and since it, with Acre, formed the crusaders link with the West, trouble there could not be ignored. I was present when Richard took leave of him and there was no hint of any ill feeling on either side; and I must admit that often during the later discussions and arguments I, at least, wished that the marquis had been with us. His smooth voice, his good spirits, his cheerful carelessness would have eased many encounters. But he had gone and, as Richard admitted, the rest were four against one.)
So we moved on to Ascalon. The Saracens had abandoned the town just before our arrival but they had destroyed it. The humble clay houses had been left entire but the walls and the towers had been reduced to heaps of rubble. Not a grain of corn, not a mat or a blanket which might have been useful to us was left in the whole town and no living creature moved in it. Men who had been looking forward to loot and rape fell into a mood of disgusted disappointment; and it would have been easy enough for Richard to say, Here is the town which you said threatened our southern flank!
But he said nothing. He set to work to make Ascalon what his allies desired it to be, a strong Christian fortress. We camped amidst the ruins and every day small mounted forces of known good fighters set out on raids into the surrounding countryside, charged to bring in horses, donkeys, grain, dried fruit, anything which would be of use; and the rest of the army, even the bladesmiths, blacksmiths, cooks, and storekeepers, were set to work rebuilding the walls, much shortened, and four towers.
Richard, whose nature and talents inclined him to join the raiding parties, every day saw them off and turned back to labour with pick and shovel. Many knights and nobles followed his example, turning the labour into a joke, laughingly comparing the blisters on their hands, the stiffness of their muscles.
‘I reckoned myself a strong man,’ said the old Count of Algenais, ‘but now I know that every grovelling peasant on my demesne is my master.’
But the armed man’s prejudice against menial labour was not to be overcome in a day and, though Richard’s digging and delving inspired those who liked and trusted or even unwillingly admired him, it evoked in others distaste and scorn. The Austrian knights particularly held themselves aloof and sometimes made jeering remarks as they passed. Finally Richard issued an order that every able-bodied man should take turns at the labour. That brought several waverers to stone-laying but the Austrians said, ‘We follow the archduke on the field and off it.’
We could well do without the unwilling Austrian labour but their attitude affected others. Why should any French or Burgundian knight soil his hands building a fortress which would defend the frivolous Austrians as well as the industrious Franks? And the question, once asked, spread in all directions. Why should archers lay down their bows, engineers abandon their arbalests and mangonels if certain knights retained the privileges of their caste?
One evening Richard came in, dirty, sweat-soaked, and exhausted.
‘If Leopold would come down only for an hour, if he would lay a single stone, his men would follow and this ridiculous situation would mend. Hugh of Burgundy called off all his men today and it was as much as I could do to hold my own to work! True, the Austrians will always ride on the raids but the others would like to take their turn at that. And why not?’
He washed his hands and sluiced his face.
‘Blondel, have I a clean shirt? I’m going to make a formal call on Austria. By God’s eyes, I’ll even take him a present. Where is that scimitar I had from the emir who fed me at Jaffa?’
It was the only concrete evidence of his many triumphs in battle, that weapon with the long curved blade so tempered that it would cut through a floating feather. The blade was of finest Damascus steel and the hilt of pale Kubistan gold, curiously and beautifully wrought. Its beauty was wasted on Richard but he cherished it for the sake of the way in which he had won it. After he had eaten in the middle of the Battle of Jaffa he had joined battle with the emir again and they had fought for an hour—wasp and bull.
By the end of that time they had both tried every feint and trick of skill they knew and it was plain that only sheer exhaustion or some chance bit of luck, good or bad, would give either the victory. Richard with his heavy armour and strong right arm and swift eye could always divert the blows of that flashing scimitar; the emir, light and mobile, could never be smashed or run through. The action was as pretty as fighting can ever be—none the less so because both were in deadly earnest; and men on both sides who felt momentarily safe enough to do so watched it as though it were taking place in a tourney. At the end of the hour the emir, wheeling away for the last time, shouted in his faulty Latin, ‘We waste blows which, dealt elsewhere, might decide the day. And your horse is wounded. We will meet again.’
That was Richard’s first intimation that Flavel’s failing paces had been due to anything more than weariness. He dismounted, clumsy in his armour, to investigate the dama
ge, and the emir rode off, twirling his scimitar which suddenly left his hand, shot in a flashing arc through the air and landed almost at Richard’s feet. Accident? Gesture? No one could say.
Richard had cherished that scimitar, practised with it indefatigably, shrewdly assessed its qualities and faults as a fighting weapon.
But he took it out now, breathed on the curved blade, polished it on his sleeve and went off to present it to Leopold of Austria.
He was gone only a short time and he came back with a look on his face which I had never seen there before and never saw again. He was ghastly pale and his prominent blue eyes were large and bright with the threat of tears.
Raife of Clermont was in the tent and so was Hubert Walter who had come in and elected to await his lord’s return. Richard walked in, sat down on the end of his bed and put his face in his hands.
‘I hit him,’ he said. ‘Well may you gape! I have struck the Archduke of Austria as though he were a villein!’
Hubert Walter’s broad red face lost a little of its colour and in the hush that followed Richard’s announcement Raife of Clermont’s harsh intake of breath was audible. But neither spoke immediately. I saw Walter hesitate, reflect and realise that no expression of dismay would be either serviceable or welcome. He said at last, with a kind of ponderous lightness:
‘Only one buffet, sire? Surely he deserved more!’
Without lifting his head Richard said, ‘He leaves tomorrow. And his men with him.’
Hubert Walter sat down a little abruptly on a stool, planted his knees wide and laid his work-blistered hands squarely upon them.
‘My lord,’ he said in a voice that was at once incredulous and reasonable, as though it were Richard himself who planned some unfeasible action, ‘do you mean to say that now, with Jerusalem within striking distance, in our very grip, you might almost say, he goes home because of one blow struck in anger?’