But if she must, she would, and she sat down beside him. “Richard, I truly am sorry. Are you that wroth with me?”
“No,” he said at last. “You are your mother’s daughter, after all.”
Relieved to catch a glimmer of a smile, she smiled, too. “I am willing to grovel a bit if that will amuse you,” she offered, and leaned over to kiss him on the cheek. She drew back at once, her eyes wide. “Richard, you are burning up!” Ignoring his attempt to pull away, she put her hand upon his forehead; his skin was hot and dry and she was close enough now to see that his eyes had a glazed sheen. “How long have you been ailing? Are you thirsty? Able to eat?”
“I’ve had no appetite for a few days,” he admitted, “and I’ve not been sleeping well. But it is only a fever, Joanna. Men get them all the time.”
She was already on her feet, though. He grabbed for her ankle, missed, and scowled. “I do not need to see a doctor!”
“Yes,” she said, “you do!” Pulling the tent flap back, she spoke to someone beyond his range of vision, summoning his chief physician, Master Ralph Besace. He slumped against the cushions in frustration, knowing what he now faced: being poked and prodded and bled and hovered over by his doctors, his wife, his sister, and his friends, all of whom would be underfoot day and night, making bloody nuisances of themselves and flinching if he so much as sneezed.
“Damnation, woman—” He cut himself off, though, when she turned back and he saw the fear on her face. “You need not fret so,” he said, more gently. “God did not lead me to Acre only to die of a fever.”
She quickly agreed, saying that he was surely right, that such fevers were common. But this is Outremer, Outremer where fevers are often mortal, where men die with terrifying ease, even kings.
CHAPTER 21
JUNE 1191
Siege of Acre
The French king was sheltering from the sun under a cercleia, a framework used to protect crossbowmen as they shot at the men up on the walls. Until his arrival at Acre, Philippe had never used a crossbow, for it was not a weapon of the highborn. Much to his surprise, he’d discovered that was not the case in Outremer, and since it could be mastered fairly easily, he’d let himself be tutored by Jacques d’Avesnes, a Flemish lord who’d won considerable renown during the siege. When a Saracen leaned over the battlements to shout taunts, Philippe and Guillaume des Barres both raised their crossbows and fired. The man disappeared from view and Guillaume deferred to his king with a smile, saying, “Your hit, sire.”
“For all we know, he merely ducked,” Philippe pointed out with a rare flash of humor. He’d been in good spirits since learning that Richard was bedridden with a fever, and that morning the other burr under his saddle had been removed when Conrad had returned to Tyre in high dudgeon after a heated confrontation with Guy de Lusignan’s brother Joffroi. Glancing toward Mathieu de Montmorency, he said generously, “You get the next shot, Mathieu.”
Jacques had begun teaching the youth and he nodded encouragingly as Mathieu nervously fiddled with the weapon, using a hinged lever to pull the hemp string back to the latch and, once it was cocked, aligning the bolt. But when he pulled the trigger, his aim was off and the bolt soared up harmlessly into the sky. The Duke of Burgundy and the Count of Dreux laughed at the crestfallen boy, joking that the Saracens were their enemy, not any passing birds. Mathieu cheered up, though, when Jacques patted him on the back, saying that he just needed a bit more practice.
Philippe had not noticed this byplay, for he was frowning at the sight of the approaching Count of St Pol. He had no reason to mistrust the man himself, but the count’s marital ties were suddenly suspect, for his wife was the sister of Baudouin of Hainaut. Philippe spent more time worrying about Baudouin these days than he did Saladin, for if Baudouin staked a claim to Artois whilst he was trapped here in Outremer, it would be very difficult to make good his own claim upon his return.
The Count of St Pol was accompanied by Philippe’s marshal, Aubrey Clement, and Leopold von Babenberg, the Duke of Austria. There was little space in the cercleia, but Leopold still acknowledged the French king with