clutched her pater noster beads so tightly the string had frayed. “The ship’s master . . . he says a bad storm is nigh.”
THE SKY DARKENED long before the rain arrived. It was as if night had come, hours before its time. The crew of Richard’s galley was rushing to lower the sails, tugging on the pulleys that controlled the halyard. All the day’s light had been smothered by sinister storm clouds as black as pitch, and as Richard and his men watched in awe, lightning blazed overhead, casting an eerie green glow over their ship. The sea was tossing and bucking like an unbroken horse, and each time the galley plunged into a trough, it took an eternity until it struggled back up again. Most of Richard’s companions fled to the dubious shelter of their tent, but he had always faced his foes head-on and he remained on deck, clinging for support to the gunwale as the sailors struggled to pull in the oars.
The hours that followed were the most frightening of his life. The waves flung their ship about as if it were a child’s toy; never had he felt so helpless, so at the mercy of forces beyond his control. The helmsman remained at the tiller, jerking it with all of his strength, but it was obvious to Richard that the rudder was not responding. Rain was soon pelting down, stinging with needle-sharpness against his skin; within moments, he was utterly drenched. Water was splashing over the gunwale and the deck was awash. Each time a wave smashed into the hull, it sounded as if millstones were raining down upon them, and the wind was keening like the souls of the damned. Distant peals of thunder were much closer now, and when lightning stabbed through the clouds, he was horrified to see it strike the mast of a nearby galley, half blinding him with a searing flash of blue-white fire. Flames illuminated the doomed ship for a harrowing moment, and then it was gone, swept away into the black void of sea and sky, the drowning men’s screams muffled by the howling wind. Richard did not dare release his hold on the gunwale to make the sign of the cross; closing his eyes, he entreated the Almighty to spare his fleet and his men, offering up a despairing prayer that he not be punished for past sins ere he had the chance to redeem himself in the Holy Land.
The squall was as swift-moving as it was savage, and by evening the wind’s force began to ease and the sea gradually quieted. The sailors recovered first, for they were accustomed to gambling with Death and winning. For those experiencing their first storm at sea, it was not as easy. Richard’s men, their bodies bruised and battered, their stomachs still churning, were too shaken to sleep, and slumped, glassy-eyed and mute, on their soaked bedding, not yet believing their reprieve.
Richard could not sleep, either. He did his best to appear composed, for a battle commander must not show fear before his soldiers. But he did not think his appetite would ever come back, and he found he had no more control over his brain than he’d had over the tempest. He could not forget the faces of the men on that burning galley. Two hundred and nineteen ships. How many of them had survived the storm? How many men had he lost? What of his sister? Berenguela? Surely their buss was sturdy enough to have ridden out the gale? How could it be God’s Will that they perish at sea, alone and afraid?
ALMOST AS IF NATURE were making amends for the Good Friday storm, the winds were favorable the next morning and on the four days that followed. By Wednesday, April 17, a dawn flight of birds and seaweed in the water alerted the sailors that they were approaching land. When the ship’s master informed Richard that the island of Crete lay ahead, Richard gave the order to put ashore there.
The southwest coast of Crete was exposed to southerly winds and sudden squalls sweeping down from the mountains, so the fleet had to seek shelter on the island’s northwest coast, finally dropping anchor in the Gulf of Chandax. Richard then dispatched Guilhem de Préaux in a small galley called a “sagitta,” with orders to count their ships as they straggled in, to see if any were missing and if any were in need of storm repairs. After that, he