Lionheart A Novel - By Sharon Kay Penman Page 0,263

more than a week. Just as their food was running out, the raging sea calmed enough for a few ships to land and unload provisions. The weather soon turned foul again, and when supply galleys attempted another landing, they were dashed upon the rocks, most of their crews drowning.

Richard somehow managed to keep the crusaders from utter despair, and put them to work clearing away the stones and rubble. They all shared the labor, the king, his lords, bishops, and knights joining the men-at-arms in carrying away rocks and debris and slabs of sandstone. After hiring local masons out of his own dwindling funds, Richard then sent word to Hugh of Burgundy, urging the French not to abandon the crusade. Hugh was also pressured by some of his own men, those who’d not decamped for Acre or Tyre, and reluctantly agreed to come to Ascalon, although he refused to commit his troops beyond Easter. Richard was infuriated with Hugh’s intransigence, but he took what he could get.

HENRI HAD TAKEN some of his disheartened knights to Jaffa for a few days of rest and recreation with the whores who’d relocated from Acre. While there, he visited with Joanna and Berengaria, assuring them that Richard would fetch them as soon as they’d made more progress in the rebuilding. He made it sound as if all was going well at long last, in part because he did not want them to worry and in part because he was an optimist by nature. But when he returned to Ascalon, he discovered that Richard and Hugh’s fragile détente had already ruptured. The French duke had asked Richard for another loan, and when the English king refused, Hugh had gone back to Jaffa in high dudgeon, heading along the coast road just as Henri’s galley had cruised south.

THE DAY AFTER Henri’s return to Ascalon, Richard decided to reconnoiter Dārūm, a Saracen castle twenty miles to the south; if the crusaders could control both Ascalon and Dārūm, they’d be able to clamp a stranglehold upon Salah al-Dīn’s supply lines to Egypt. Henri volunteered to come along, and seized his first opportunity to learn the gory details of Hugh and Richard’s latest quarrel.

“So . . . what happened? Say what you will of Hugh, he has brass ballocks. I can scarcely believe he dared to ask you for more money. The man has done his utmost to thwart you at every turn!”

“He claimed his men were insisting upon being paid and he did not have the money. I told him I could not afford to give him any more. He’s not repaid a denier of the five thousand silver marks I lent him at Acre, and I’m already covering three-quarters of the cost of rebuilding Ascalon. He did not want to hear that, said he was going to Acre and we could go to Hell.”

Henri said nothing and they rode in silence for a time. He did not like Richard’s uncharacteristically calm recital of yet another desertion; his uncle should be raving about Burgundy’s sheer gall, drawing upon his considerable command of invective and obscenities to curse the duke till the end of his wretched days. To Henri, Richard had always been a force of nature, immune to the fears and misgivings that preyed upon lesser men. But it seemed to him now that the English king was being worn down by the constant strife with his own allies, losing heart and hope, and that alarmed Henri exceedingly. What would befall them if Richard gave up the fight and went home as Philippe had done?

He was racking his brain for a conversational gambit that might dispel his uncle’s morose mood, and when his gaze fell upon Richard’s sleek dun stallion, he had it. “I hear you were busy adding to your legend whilst I was in Jaffa,” he said breezily. “I was in camp less than an hour ere I was told about your latest adventure. But surely the part about jumping over that boar cannot be true!”

As he’d hoped, Richard took the bait, for he was never averse to boasting about his exploits. “Well, actually it is,” he said with a smile. “I rode out with some of my knights to scout around Blanchegarde. On our way back, we encountered a very large wild boar. It stood its ground, making ready to attack. I used my lance as if it were a hunting spear and embedded it in the beast’s chest. But it broke in half and