by Mark Butler
Béziers is a city on the southern coast of France, roughly 6 miles from the Mediterranean Sea. In 1209, Béziers was a stronghold for Catharism, and it was the first town to be attacked in France’s intra-country crusade, the Albigensian Crusade. Untold thousands of Cathars were massacred by the royal troops, including women and children. Throughout the cold, violent annals of medieval warfare, there are few stories as sad as the massacre at Béziers.
Christof's home in the swamps of southern France would look as I described it. The Camargue Lagoon is in that region south of Toulouse, a fact I wasn't aware of until I researched it. I thought southern France was all shiny beaches and light woodlands, but it's just not true.
"Red sky at night, sailors delight. Red sky in morning, sailors take warning." This is a mantra that seafaring men have repeated for hundreds of years, for good reason. Predicting the weather has always been a dubious science, but at some point sailors realized a reddish glow in the morning sky would indicate storms nearby. Conversely, a reddish glow or haze in the evening was expected and hoped for, indicating a sunset unobstructed by storm clouds.
Tapeworms are vicious little buggers. They are parasites that can be ingested, and the ones that come from undercooked or raw fish are known as Diphyllobothrium. They can live in a human's gut for years before the victim reveals any symptoms. Abdominal pain, weight loss, and fatigue are among the most common symptoms. Though still prevalent in developing countries, tapeworms are fairly rare in the first world. In modern times, you can be cured from a tapeworm completely by antibiotics, but in the 13th century, death was all but certain.
Arabian mythology is fascinating. Before becoming a global, monotheistic religion, Islamic beliefs varied widely depending on geography. The same is still true today, though to a lesser extent. In 13th-century Egypt, there was a large variety of demons and demigods the people could choose to sacrifice to or revere. Ghouls were known as shape-shifting demons that often assumed the guise of an animal, and I tried to replicate that in the mini-adventure that the Coquets took. Whether you are in France, Egypt, or anywhere else, people have a way of turning their nightmares into stories of reality.
Camels have been consumed in the Middle East for thousands of years, up to and including today. It is uncommon, given their value as beasts of labor that require little maintenance, but tough times produce strange appetites.
There is no combination of potions that could boil a cauldron hot enough to perform an arterial cauterization. That bit was completely fictitious, but I felt it made a strong visual that I couldn't ignore.
King Louis was quite the character. Born in 1214, Louis' grandfather died when he was nine years old, and his father died when he was twelve. Louis' mother ruled as regent of France because he was so young, and she made sure Louis received proper "monarch training." He learned government administration, military tactics, writing, Latin, and public speaking as a young child. Dozens of books have been written on the life and times of King Louis IX, and I urge the reader to read those books and make their own conclusions about his character. I added the infidelity and selfishness into his character to illustrate that, despite his elevated status, he was just a man. When King Louis met the girl named Maria, before he was captured by Turanshah, she joked about being named "Queen Mary," the first Queen of England almost 200 years later. In truth, Louis was captured in a small village close to Fariskur, where his men were slaughtered and the crusade ended. He was a captive of the Ayyubids for two months, and the ransom that France raised to free him was an absurd amount of money—800,000 bezants. Each bezant was roughly an ounce of gold, equivalent to $1,300 today. That would make Louis' ransom more than $100,000,000 in today's money.
Louis was released after the ransom was paid. He continued to campaign against the Ayyubids for four years, but in a purely political sense, urging Jerusalem and Syria to resist the spread of Islam throughout the world. He returned to France afterward and died at the age of 56 in 1270. He was (and is) the only king of France to ever be canonized and numerous places all over the world have been named after him, including St. Louis, Missouri.
The Seventh Crusade was ultimately doomed by several factors: King Louis' inexperience, the engineers failing to destroy their pontoon bridge, and the crusaders having difficulty adapting to the desert climate. A rampant problem was dysentery, a type of gastroenteritis where one loses body fluids through diarrhea and vomit. Louis had dysentery when he was captured, though reports claim he was healed by an Arabic physician. Regardless, dysentery could be fatal in those times, and King John and King Henry of England both lost their lives to that amoebic parasite. Curable in modern times, dysentery still plagues foreigners who travel to the desert and drink the water.
As for the Coquets, returning to France could prove to be disastrous. The civil reaction to a failed crusade could be many things, but praise and adulation for the participant soldiers surely wouldn’t be one of them. When the men of a nation disappear for months or years, and return with nothing but broken spirits and poverty, they can ruin the economy. Thus, the Coquets may need to go on adventuring across the wild landscape of medieval Europe, until they meet their ultimate destinies.
Finally, if you enjoyed this novel, please leave a review on Amazon.com. Your critique and feedback will always be respected and considered by the author.
Acknowledgments
THIS BOOK could not have been written without the amazing support and encouragement of many people. First and foremost, I thank my parents for permitting their blonde-haired, blue-eyed young son to sit alone in his room for hours, reading by the lamplight. I want to thank my wonderful wife, Maria, for her patience and gentle touch while her husband huffed and puffed in front of the keyboard. I also want to thank my sister, Elizabeth, for her promotional savvy and inexhaustible enthusiasm. A great debt is also owed to my fine editor, Joni Wilson, whose sharp eyes and literary experience took this novel beyond its author's skill. A final thank-you is owed to the reader, who is my boss, friend, and reason for my life's work. Thank you.
About the Author
MARK BUTLER is an author from Arlington, Texas. His family history stretches back to Italy and England, and medieval literature has been a lifelong passion of his. Mark served in the U.S. Navy as a combat corpsman, and he deployed to Iraq with the 3rd Amphibious Assault Battalion. Many of those days were spent hunkered down in a burned-out Iraqi village, reading one of the many novels that his family sent every month. After his time at war, Mark returned to the United States and married his girlfriend and fellow corpsman, Maria. A beautiful boy and girl blessed Mark and Maria’s lives shortly thereafter, and they are Mark’s greatest blessing and motivation. If you’d like to follow Mark on Twitter, his handle is @MarkBWrites. Mark is also on Facebook and Kindle Boards.
Other Novels
MARK BUTLER has written several novels, spanning many different genres. His primary work has been in historical fiction, but Mark has also dabbled in horror, romance, and drama.
Here is a listing of his works:
The Fourth Crusade
The Fifth Crusade
The Sixth Crusade
Her Lovely Colors (romance)
Teaching Bobby & Catching Bobby (two-part thriller/drama series)
Dark Friends (horror)
There is also a web address on Mark’s Amazon Author Page to sign up for his new release emails. Because this is something the author only uses to announce brand new novel releases, a maximum of 3-4 emails can be expected per year. This is the web address: http://eepurl.com/BvF3n
Table of Contents
Part 1 The Road to War
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chap
ter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Part 2 The Seventh Crusade
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Historical Note
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Other Novels
Part 1 The Road to War
