“Be ye daft? Get into a trench!”
I looked around, dazed.
A bowman was shaking his fist. “Don’t get in the line of bowshot, boy! Stay down!”
I wormed my way across a carpet of corpses to the nearest trench, then bumped down on an uneven stair of crumpled bodies. For a time I sat in my macabre hole not remembering why I was there, then pulled myself upward by a bone-shank and approached a busy bowman. I tapped his shoulder timidly.
“Do you have to piss, sir?”
He brushed my hand away and took another shot.
“Because if you do, I’d appreciate it if you’d give me your piss.”
He turned in disbelief. “What did you say?”
“I’m collecting piss, sir.”
“And I’m the King of England! Heigh, Joe, come here!”
Another varlet struggled along the trench.
“This lad here wants your piss, Joe. I told him that you piss pure honey and he wants a suck!”
A knot now grew around us.
“I need piss,” I said desperately, “to use against the Greek fire.”
“Nothin’ like it,” one nodded sagely, “and if that fails, try spit.”
And they all guffawed.
“Tell you what, we’ll form a pissing brigade. Ready now, one, two, let her go!”
He pissed on another varlet’s feet.
“That’s not funny, Bob!”
“Why, you’re an ungrateful fellow that says so, when I’ve saved your stinking feet from the fire!”
“It’s for King Richard!” I cried. “The king needs it to protect his war machines!”
There was an uneasy silence.
“He do wear the king’s colors.”
“And I have heard of pissing on hides.”
One by one they each contributed a few drops, but I saw that ’twould be weeks at this rate before the king’s huge tower was covered. I went the length of that trench with little luck, then hesitantly peered over the edge to the next. To my astonishment, I saw Enoch. I sat by a decayed chest to consider. I had about three cups of piss now, hardly enow to count, so I might as well use them to the best advantage. I waited till there was a momentary lull, then ran to Enoch.
“Git ye doon!” he cried. “Didna I tell ye to wait by our tent? Ye’ll be killt!”
He squatted beside me.
“Aye, but King Richard said … he ordered …” And without saying more, I dipped a cup of piss and poured it over the Scot’s head. He gasped, sputtered, turned red with blue veins.
“Quhat the—Damnatioun! I’m all droukit in pisswater!”
“So you won’t catch fire,” I said. “I don’t want either of us to burn!” And I poured a cup over my own head.
He tore a rag from the corpse, shook off the white worms and wiped himself vigorously. “Ye’re a woodly blastie, bairn, and I belave the battle hae tinted yer reason. Cum, I’ll take ye back to the tent.”
“No, ’tis what the king ordered, only I can’t get enough for Mategriffon so we might as well use it.” And I explained my order.
He listened dumbfounded to my words, then shook his head. “I wouldna believe it except that ye couldna wende such a thing. Stay low.”
He peered cautiously o’er the edge of the trench, then took my hand and pulled me onto the field. There he crouched between me and the fearsome wall with his shield protecting both of us as we started to run. We’d gone only a few feet when I was swept up from the rear and Enoch pushed flat to the ground.
I gazed down from King Richard’s horse.
“How dare you bring the boy here!” the king shouted and raised his sword.
Enoch struggled to his knees. “Ye sent him here, Your Highness. Aye, and on swich a woodly task!”
“Sir Gilbert!” I piped as loud as I could o’er the noise all around us. “He sent me, Your Highness!”
“What?” The horse reared and the king fought for a moment to bring him under control.
“Sir Gilbert—to collect piss for Mategriffon!” I pointed to my empty bucket where I’d dropped it.
“From soldiers?” Richard forgot Enoch in his shock. Without further talk, he spurred his horse to a leap and soon we were riding up the hill back to the city, leaving the Scot in his trench. Once we were out of bowshot, the king reined his destrier.
“Let me understand, Sir Gilbert told you to go into the field and collect piss from the fighting men? Think carefully, for I don’t want to make a mistake.”
Nor did I, for I heard the threat, but what could I say? Enoch shouldn’t be blamed. “Aye, to collect it as you would milk from a cow.” I hung my head, embarrassed.
By now a small crowd had gathered to touch the king, but Richard paid them no heed. “And said that this was my order?”
“Aye.”
I glanced up, saw the red whelks, saw death in those eyes. By then he was sufficiently calm to notice my stink, however, and hastily slipped me to the ground. “My other pages were instructed to prepare the hides, but they got their piss from horses, not men.”
Of course! Why hadn’t I thought of that? Because of Sir Gilbert, that malicious demon! King Richard was looking at me with the bemused affection I knew so well. “Alex, you’ll serve me tonight.” He flourished his sword through my miasma of flies. “Only see that you clean yourself. We need no more pests around our person.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
And he was gone.
MY HAIR WAS STILL DAMP FROM a cleansing plunge in the sea when I entered King Richard’s pavilion. A Pisano was already serving wine to the king and his guest of honor, the Count of Champagne. Quickly I picked up a tray to help.
The parley went on half the night, it seemed, and was soothly most serious to judge by the courtiers’ faces, though I followed little. I gleaned only that Henry of Champagne was nephew to both King Philip and King Richard, that King Philip had cheated the young count in some manner and that King Richard was going to restore money and favor.
“You will have four thousand pounds unencumbered,” the king said, “plus food for both men and beasts for the duration of the Crusade.”
Champagne fell to his knees.
“No, no obeisance, Henry,” our king rebuked him graciously. “You’ve earned it by your solitary siege this past year.”
Gradually the business was finished and, one by one, the great lords begged to be excused. Finally there was only Champagne and he, too, was poised to leave. The king accompanied him to the door.
“No, ’tis fitting that you tell the Pisanos of our offer,” he said. “After all, they know and trust you.”
“Henceforth you are their leader,” Champagne responded in his respectful manner, and he, too, left.
The king and I were alone. Belatedly I wondered if this would be our first assignation and my legs became weak.
“Well, Alex, you look recovered from your strange baptism,” the king drawled, his eyes sparkling. “Your nemesis, Sir Gilbert, will soon discover the terrors of the field himself. I’ve made him a common foot soldier.”
I gazed upward at his stern face, not knowing what to say. We both understood that Sir Gilbert wouldn’t survive more than a day in that gutted valley of death.
“Come, child, help me to my bed.”
His heavy hand rested on my shoulder and we walked awkwardly to his pallet covered with leopard skins. This, then, was the beginning? I couldn’t think, had no time to think. He sank onto the edge of the bed, turned me so we looked upon each other. His figure blurred in my eyes, his handsome features approached and receded as if he were under water, and I thought I would swoon.
But ’twas the king who collapsed at my feet.
WE KNEW RICHARD WOULD LIVE, DEO GRATIAS, BUT he was a very sick man. His physicians pronounced that he had leonardie as well as arnoldia, both complicated by his old ague and its concomitant high fever. Not only was he losing his hair and nails (alopecia), but his face was a mass of watery sores concentrated around and i
nside his mouth; his gums bled, were receded, and ’twas predicted that he would soon lose all his teeth.
Withal he was like a wounded beast howling with rage and ’twas not safe to come close or try to appease him. When Orlando bled him for his fever, Richard hurled the basin against his tent making a huge ugly stain, and he cried aloud, “Blast your stupid leeching! Get me out of here! I must do my Lord’s work!”
Then in the very next breath he would blaspheme his Lord: “My God, do your worst! You’ll not defeat Richard! I have a lion’s heart to defy You, a fox’s head to outwit You! And I and I alone will win Jerusalem! Let the Devil aid me if You will not!”
His priests crossed themselves quickly and Father Nicholas wanted to exorcise his demons but the king wouldn’t hear of it. Exorcise God if you would have my enemy, he cried, for He has made me a second Job!
Throughout the night I huddled in a corner of his pavilion, willing to do anything if I could reverse his symptoms. At dawn King Philip entered the tent.
He bent over the sick king and studied his face. “Well, Richard, I believe you are ill after all.”
“Your faith is touching.”
“Would you like me to send my priest?”
“It depends. I’m not ready for a final absolution, if that’s what you have in mind.”
“Calm yourself coz, I meant to exorcise whatever demons escaped your confession in Messina.”
Richard rose on one elbow. “Are you willing to hold back our attack for another day? For I assure you that this setback is temporary.”
“Well, so it may be.” King Philip turned and from where I sat I could see his mocking signal to the Duke of Burgundy. “Yet you know that such a postponement could be disastrous.” He smiled down on Richard. “I refer, of course, to Saladin. If he learns that you are ill, he will attack with all haste.”
At that moment there was a rustle outside the pavilion, an exchange of angry voices in a strange tongue, a low mediation and the flap opened to admit a Saracen carrying a large basket. Richard’s interpreter Henfrid de Torn followed.
“The Sultan Saladin sends you his deepest sympathy on your illness,” the interpreter said, “and hopes you will accept this gift to aid in your recovery.”
A cloth was drawn back and everyone gasped. Lying on a bed of crushed ice and snow was a pile of luscious fruit: melons, grapes, figs, dates and others that I’d ne’er seen before. Most remarkable was the ice, which the Saracen said had been run from the mountains to lower Richard’s fever.
“He’ll send this daily until you are well,” Henfrid informed Richard.
“So much for secrecy,” Richard said dryly, “and for enmity as well. I’m impressed by the quality of my adversary who sends me a sincere token to speed my recovery while my brother would have me expiring from my own sins.”
“Perhaps you misapply the word brother,” Philip said coldly “for I remember well that you abjured that relationship at our last meeting. Moreover, you may have more in common with Saladin than you think, for I believe he, too, is filled with sweet blandishments and perfidious acts. But now, if you’ll excuse me, I must go to the field.”
“To attack?”
“Yes.”
“Forget your bitterness for a moment, Philip, and listen to me: this is a tactical error. Obviously Saladin knows our depleted strength. He will slaughter you, or waste your best effort with minimal reply.”
“Enjoy your fruit, Richard.” The French king left.
“Curse him.” Richard lay back, exhausted from the parley.
His doctors then hastened to pack Saladin’s ice on the king’s brow against the rising heat, though Richards linen pavilion was designed to permit the breeze. I was jarred from my miserable stupor when the king mentioned my name.
“Alex, you’ll stay with me for the next two nights.”
Flattered and relieved, I agreed to serve.
“Yes, Your Highness.”
Orlando gazed askance on my frail bones. “He’s very small, My Liege, and methinks knows little of physic.”
“Who does?” was the king’s bitter reply. “At least he’ll not pray over me. At sundown, boy.”
THE NIGHT PASSED WITHOUT incident. After a good sleep on both our parts, I left the king’s tent at dawn.
It took me over an hour to get back to Enoch’s tent, for I’d finished bleeding and must construct a new prick to replace the one I’d just discarded. When I arrived, I found the Scot burning my bloody rags in the fire!
I sat hurriedly on the ground before I should fall. After a long silence, I forced myself to look in his face. He was frowning but seemed not suspicious. I couldn’t refrain from asking him, “What are you burning?”
“Someone left an old bandage in our camp.”
I made no comment.
Finally my poor rags were gone and he added wood to the flame, then heated oatcakes.
“What did you do last night?” he asked blandly.
I choked on a crumb. “Nothing. That is, I slept. The king was drugged.”
“I hope ye didna kiss him.” He turned burning eyes. “ ’Tis a good way to get the fever.”
“Why should I kiss him?” I cried, aggrieved. “He’s sick!”
He made a face, didn’t answer.
“He wants you to take me to some high place in the tent city where I can watch the field. King Philip may attack today, and the king wants Ambroise to have a report for his history. Ambroise is still becalmed in Tyre, you know.”
“I knaw.” His eyes still burned. “Ye can’t tell a catapult fram a butter churn.”
“But you can instruct me.” I smiled, forcing my dimples, and saw it was the wrong tactic.
“Dinna play henhussy wi’ me, Alex.” He rose, and it seemed to me his eyes raked my torso with unusual interest.
Benedicite. I couldn’t wait to get my new prick in place.
At the town’s center, Enoch learned that the highest point was the church belfry. After considerable meandering, we found a mean structure with a second story and climbed up an outside stair to the shaky bell tower.
“Nocht bad,” Enoch mused as he gazed out on the vista before us. “A mighty good view.”
I tried to pay heed as he described the nature of the terrain. We were looking into a round valley shaped somewhat like a Greek amphitheater with the hills of Toron on our right forming one side, the hills of the tent city another (though it sloped down to the sea), the sea itself the third, and the long high wall of Acre the fourth. Acre was a square city surrounded by a double wall, open only to its enclosed port which was like a curved hand with a tiny strait between thumb and forefinger. On each finger, however, rose a high tower, one called the Tower of Flies because of human sacrifices, and the strait was guarded by a heavy chain. Nevertheless, Christian ships dominated the sea all along the coast and no Turkish vessel could break through the blockade to bring the besieged city supplies. Christians held all the hills as well and ’twas hard to see how the Turks survived. Saracen swimmers sometimes sneaked in at night, or Saladin sent camel trains in the dark, but very few got by the Christian watchmen. ’Twas suspected, Enoch explained, that the outlying fruit orchards and pastures somehow supplied the trapped Turks.
His voice trailed off, and he fell into a trance.
“Alex,” he said hollowly. “Do ye recall our oath of brotherhood?”
“Aye, very well.”
“We’re to gi’e each other freedom in love.”
I nodded, waiting breathlessly.
“Boot …” He bit his lip and his eyes were a startling blue in the clear light. “Boot it doesna apply yif one or tother be bewitched.”
“You mean has a spell put on him by a witch?”
“Alex, doona lat anyone touch ye. Do ye hear? No one! Yif sum painted Willie tries, come right to me!”
Again I nodded.
He stared at my face, my figure, and seemed bewildered. “Ye’re … tempting.”
I cleared my throat, waved to the f
ield. “I would have thought the Christians would have won by now.”
“No,” he said with relief, “ ’twas not that simple …”
Despite numerical superiority and greater mobility, the Christians were also entrapped. They, too, depended upon the outside world for food, and the only Christian stronghold capable of supplying them was Tyre; yet last year Conrad of Montferrat had refused to send grain, with the result that over thirty thousand Crusaders had starved. That’s why Richard had taken the time to secure Cyprus, a grain-rich island close by. Furthermore the fortress of Acre was formidable. The inner city—where we could see spires and waving poplars—was not only protected by two walls, the outer one measuring fifteen feet in depth, but also by a moat which was too deep and wide to span. The Crusader assault against the wall was concentrated in the valley below us and while we could see many pockmarks where our stones had hit the outer wall, no real progress had been made in four years of trying.
Nor were the Christians the only aggressors. Far in the distance, we could see the smoke of another tent city called Tel-Ayadiyeh where Saladin had his headquarters on the road to Damascus. The Christians’ greatest dread was that he would attack their rear and push them into the sea. Our men had built a huge trench around our entire area, but it was nothing that a nimble horse couldn’t jump. And while Christians outnumbered Arabs in this small valley, Saladin could call on eight hundred thousand allies or more.
“How do you know so much?” I asked Enoch in awe.
“Waesucks, lad, ’tis fundamental to survey the country around ye. A good part of victory be in the choice of battleground.”
“Think you this was a good choice for the Crusaders?”
He didn’t answer at once. “Depends. In any case, ’twas the anely spot Saladin didna take so I reckon ’twere good. Now let’s talk of strategy.”
I gazed down on thousands of crouched figures in their trenches shooting haphazard arrows at Turks well beyond bowshot. “They look like so many dung beetles,” I said.
“Aye, yif human dead be dung. The burial squads cannot keep up with the supply, as ye can tell by yer nose.”
“Where are the knights?”
Shield of Three Lions Page 37
