Roselynde (53 page)

For two days varying excuses were offered to explain Richard's
seclusion. He had suffered a brief attack of fever during the Cyprus campaign,
but that had burned itself out very quickly and at first it was hoped that this
would be the same. If so, it was best for the morale of the camp that Richard's
illness be kept a secret. On the third day, however, the King's skin began to
crack and patches of his hair came loose. The physicians shook their heads.
There would be no quick recovery from this disorder. The King had been attacked
by "arnaldia."

Simon looked at them. "In here you must say what is true. If
that is His Grace's illness, we must know so that we may better be able to help
him. But, for the camp at large, you must say he is ill of a mild quartan
fever, which he has long endured. If the word "arnaldia" is spread
abroad, the camp will be poorer by some physicians. I will find you and cut out
your tongues, and then I will use your guts, while yet you are alive, to string
my men's bows."

Word was sent to the ladies that the pressure of his labors had brought
a slight fever on the King. For fear he would bring the contagion among them,
he would dine in his own tent for a few days. For the same reason, on no
account must his wife or his sister think of visiting or nursing him. Although
she asked anxious questions, Berengaria did not protest against this order. It
was Joanna who bade the messenger wait outside for a few moments.

"My love," she said to Berengaria, "I think you
should go no matter what Richard says. It is all very well to play at being
worshiped from afar, but Richard should know his goddess can descend to earth
at need and wipe his sweat from him and hold his head when he vomits."

Berengaria's delicate color faded. "No, oh no. I will never
disobey him, and—and I think he does not wish me to see him other than
perfect."

"But you are his wife!" Joanna exclaimed. "How can
you see him as perfect? You share his bed. Does he not snore? Alinor, am I not
right? If your knight lay ill, would you not go to him no matter what foolish
messages he sent? Men take such crotchets, but a woman must have more
sense."

Alinor was totally at a loss. In any normal situation, Joanna
would have been absolutely right. Simon would almost certainly have sent the
same message and would have been furiously angry when Alinor disobeyed him.
Nonetheless, he would have been glad of her care, Alinor was not sure Richard
would feel the same, but, worse than that, she was sure Berengaria would not
feel the same toward Richard once she wiped his sweat and held him while he
vomited. She was afraid Berengaria's adoration was already somewhat tarnished
by Richard's most modest carnal demands. More still, if the King's fever rose
high and he babbled, as one did in a fever, might he not babble what would be a
disaster for Berengaria to know?

"Alinor!" Joanna said sharply.

"I do not know," Alinor brought out reluctantly. "I
would go to my knight. I know that he does not care if I see him disordered.
But perhaps Lady Berengaria knows King Richard better than you or I. Perhaps it
is true that he cannot bear that she should see him weak and helpless."

"Yes, yes. I am sure that is true," Berengaria agreed.

Joanna said nothing more just then, but she stared fixedly at
Alinor in a way that boded no good before she sent word to dismiss the messenger
and turned to comfort Berengaria, who was crying. Further comfort was provided
by the suggestion that they should pray for Richard's health. After Berengaria
had prayed her fill and was settled with a book of tales of miraculous cures,
however, Joanna drew Alinor aside.

"I thought you loved the Queen and wished her well."

"I do," Alinor asserted with tears in her eyes. "I
do."

"Then how could you offer such advice. How could you fail to
support me? They must come to know each other. When a man screams and weeps and
strikes out in pain is a good time for a wife to show her mettle."

"Yes," Alinor agreed, perfectly willing to expose part
of her reasons, "if the wife has previously seen her husband as a man and
not as an image in a book that never feels pain nor admits it if he does."

"She must be cured of that," Joanna snapped.

"I am afraid it will cure her love also. Besides, I am sore
afraid she would not show herself to advantage before the King. The wife must
be able to be firm against the whims and wails of a sick man, and the man must
be able to remember that succoring of his weakness with gratitude instead of
shame."

Joanna looked thoughtful but then shook her head. "Richard is
not vain in that way. He would not hate her for serving him and comforting him."

"But could she?" Alinor asked pointedly. "Can she
outface the King? I sorrow for it, but I will speak what I believe to be true.
She is not wise with regard to His Grace. You saw when he came to her on the
ship that day. He
wished
to be angry with her. He needed to be angry
with someone, someone safe, but she did not see that."

"Perhaps she is only one of those who cannot endure
harshness," Joanna began, but she saw the fallacy in that before Alinor
replied. "No, I tried to make him angry with me, and she oversoothed him
so that he needs must swallow his bile instead of spitting it out." Then
the dark eyes narrowed. "But that is naught to do with this. It needs no
understanding to wash a man and feed him."

"It needs a strong stomach and a firm spirit to make a man do
what is good for him when he does not wish to do it."

"There would be no need for that. There are others to force
Richard to drink a bitter draught or take a purge if needful— your Simon for
one. You have some reason for fearing Berengaria's attendance upon Richard.
What is it?"

Backed against the wall, Alinor tried another tack, just skirting
the truth. "Men in fever babble. Berengaria dreams too much. She might be
hurt by what you or I would know was nothing."

"Nonsense. She is not such a fool as to care if Richard
mounted a few whores, and he has never had a lady mistress. He is well known
for the purity of his behavior with his vassals' wives and daughters. What
could he babble that could—"

The suddenness with which Joanna stopped speaking showed that the
rumors of Richard's strange appetites had even reached Sicily. Joanna had put
such ugly hints down to hatred and envy, but added together with Richard's
behavior toward his wife—not a moon married and, what? Five times in her bed?
It was not as if he had a woman he loved elsewhere. It was not as if he had
been forced to take a woman he found repellent. Joanna did not feel any
particular revulsion. The Greek population of the island her husband ruled was
too prone to that particular vice to make it very shocking to her. Even William
had occasionally supped from that cup. Joanna was only considering the
political implications; the rest of Europe was not nearly as tolerant as
Sicily.

"Is it true?" Joanna asked.

Alinor was in no doubt as to what Joanna meant, but she was no
fool. "That men babble of strange, often unreal things in a fever is
certainly true."

"You learned this from Sir Simon?"

Alinor's face froze and her eyes looked out of it as coldly and
unmeaningfully as speckled marbles. "I learned it when I nursed my wounded
vassals and my maids, too, when they were stricken with a putrid fever. In
private Sir Simon has said to me three things about the King: that he is a
perfect soldier, except a slight foolhardiness as to his own safety; that he
does never forget an injury done to him by way of deceit; and that he is
devoted heart and soul to this Crusade."

Joanna made a gesture of impatience. "I mean you no harm, nor
Sir Simon either, who has been a good friend and devoted servant to my brother."

"The Queen, your mother, once said to me that giving a secret
to Sir Simon was like throwing a gold coin into a deep well. There might be
ways of finding the coin, but not without destroying the entire well, and even
then it would be most doubtful."

"She could have said the same of you."

"I hope so," Alinor said steadily.

Again Joanna made an impatient gesture, but this time it signed
the end of her attempt to get information. If Simon had spoken to Alinor,
nothing would make her admit it. If he had not, what could Alinor know for
certain? In any case, her brother's taste in bed companions was irrelevant as
long as he was discreet. Since he had been careful enough not to bring
thundering denunciations on his head in the past, doubtless he would continue
to be careful. The problem, as Alinor had seen but not said, was not Richard
but Berengaria. She did dream too much. It was plain Berengaria did not even
want to believe Richard could be ill, like any other man. What would she do if
her dream of the perfect knight was shattered in this peculiarly unnatural way?
Joanna was fond of Berengaria, but she was fonder of her brother and her
interest was bound up with him. She shrugged.

"I think you may be right. Perhaps it is as well that they
remain 'lovers.' I will not press her again to seek his company."

For the next two weeks, unless she went to nurse Richard, that was
out of the question. A few days after the King had taken to his bed, it was
known that Philip of France was ill with arnaldia and, whatever the physicians
said, Richard's condition could no longer be kept a secret. Rumors of his death
swept through the camp bringing hysterical questions from Berengaria. Simon
himself came to assure her that, far from being dead, Richard was driving his
attendants to distraction by demanding to be carried out to watch the progress
of his siege engines.

"No, no, do not let him," Berengaria cried.

Simon opened his mouth, closed it again, and then smiled rather
stiffly. "I will tell him you forbid it, madam."

"I? Forbid my lord?"

"Yes, yes," Simon encouraged. "For his health's
sake a wife may forbid a husband. And you will see. He will obey you."

Whether it was obedience to Berengaria or simple weakness, Richard
did keep his bed for a few days longer. After that he was neither to hold nor
to bind. Although too weak to ride, he had himself carried to the walls of Acre
every day. There he directed the operations of the siege engines and inspected
the wreckage they were making of the walls with a critical eye. By the end of
June, Philip was recovered, having had a lighter attack of the disease, and was
urging an assault. Richard said the time was not ripe. Philip riposted that he
refused because he would not be able to lead the attack. It was said lightly,
as if in praise of Richard's courage, but an ugly truth underlay the remark.

On July 2, the assault was launched without Richard or his troops.
It failed. Another attempt the next day was also beaten back. Then Philip
received a delegation from the city offering surrender if the residents and
garrison were permitted to evacuate with their arms and possessions. Even if
they could agree on nothing else, Richard and Philip were at one in their
immediate refusal. Meanwhile Richard was so far recovered that, although he
still could not walk or ride much, he personally shot a Saracen who had
vaingloriously donned the armor of the Marshal of France, who had been killed
in the second assault.

Another offer to surrender the city if only the inhabitants were
allowed to leave unharmed was refused. The walls were now rubble, the great
towers fallen. It was plain that the Christians waited only for the full
strength of their leader to be restored before they fell like wolves upon their
now-helpless prey. The garrison of Acre sent despairing messages to Saladin
and, at last, he agreed to their surrender. The terms improved again. They
would yield up the relics of the True Cross and two hundred Christian prisoners
if they were allowed to leave in peace taking with them only the clothes they wore.

"Do you think," Richard responded, "that my power
is so small that I cannot take by force what you now offer as a favor?"

He looked a little odd, for his skin was the bright pink of
new-healed flesh where it had peeled away during the disease, and his hair was
not more than a baby-fluff or red-gold fuzz as it grew back in. Nonetheless,
the light of health was in his eyes and evidence of his returning strength in
each gesture. A day or two longer, the emissaries knew, or perhaps a week, and
the English King would make good his threat. Once more the terms were improved;
2,500 Christian prisoners in addition to the relics of the Cross and 200,000
dinars.

Even then Richard might have refused, but he had news that Saladin
was laying waste to the whole countryside and had torn down the city of Haifa.
Since his supplies were coming from Cyprus, Richard cared little for the
ravaging of the land. The destruction of the cities was another matter. They
would be necessary to hold as strong points after Saladin had been defeated.
With the provision that the leading citizens and the officers of the garrison
plus their wives and families should be held hostage for Saladin's fulfillment
of the terms of the compact, Richard agreed.

On July 12,1191, the city of Acre slipped back into Christian
hands. After the tumult and fever of the years of fighting, the quiet
evacuation was almost an anticlimax. Its great advantage was that the houses
and palaces, except those hard by the walls, were intact and fully furnished.
Richard promptly moved himself and his ladies into the Royal Palace while
Philip settled into the former residence of the Knights Templars, which was no
less grand.