Lionheart A Novel - By Sharon Kay Penman Page 0,55

simply smite the waters, the way Moses parted the Red Sea?”

RICHARD REACHED the port of Marseille on the last day of July, but his fleet was not there. He would later learn the delay was due to a riotous stopover at Lisbon, where the sailors got roaring drunk, attacking Jews and Muslims and accosting women, whether they were prostitutes or respectable wives. The enraged King of Portugal ordered the city gates shut, trapping hundreds of sailors, who were then tossed into prison until they sobered up and their leaders made amends for their offenses. As a result, they were three weeks late in getting to Marseille, and by then Richard was already gone. After waiting a week, he hired two large vessels known as busses and twenty galleys, leaving word for his fleet to catch up with him in Italy.

Six days later, Richard’s ships dropped anchor at Genoa, where Philippe was lying ill. The French king requested the loan of five of Richard’s rented galleys. When Richard offered three, Philippe reacted with anger and refused any. It occurred to many of their men that this was probably not a good omen for a future harmonious partnership between the two kings.

MORGAN AP RANULF sometimes wondered if it was sinful to be enjoying a holy quest as much as he was enjoying their sojourn in Italy. He’d been nervous at first, for the Welsh were not a nation of seafarers. But the voyage had been easy on even the most delicate of stomachs so far. They cruised along the Italian coast, rarely out of sight of land, often putting ashore so the men could stretch their legs and visit local sites, for Richard shared Morgan’s interest in sightseeing.

Every day brought fresh delights for educated and inquisitive travelers. Morgan hoped he’d remember enough to regale his family once he was back in Wales—a pirate castle on the summit of Cape Circeo, the volcanic island of Ischia, the Roman baths at Baia. They tarried for ten days at Naples, so interesting did they find the sights there. Morgan accompanied Richard to visit the crypt at San Gennaro, where the four mummified sons of a legendary French hero were proudly displayed, and he then went to see Virgil’s tomb, the ruins of a pagan Greek temple, and the isle of the Sirens where Ulysses had nearly been lured to his doom.

Morgan was even more intrigued by the exotic sea life of the Mediterranean. He’d befriended a helmsman from Brittany, for Breton and Welsh were similar enough for mutual understanding, and Kavan was happy to share his knowledge, pointing out seals basking in the sun on the rocky shoreline, flying fish that arced through the air like silver arrows, the fin of a shark shadowing their fleet, and once a whale with oddly wrinkled skin that was almost as long as their galley; watching in awe, Morgan no longer doubted the scriptural story of Jonah. It was the dolphins, though, that won his heart. They would splash playfully in the wake of the galleys, and then swim boldly alongside the ships, making loud clicking sounds as if they were trying to talk to the men peering at them over the gunwales, and Morgan marveled that he was actually looking upon the legendary creatures seen by Caesar and Alexander.

He’d had only one disappointment so far. When they landed at the mouth of the Tiber River, the cardinal bishop of Ostia was waiting to invite Richard to visit His Holiness the Pope at Rome, just sixteen miles away. The king was having none of that, though, and subjected the cardinal to a caustic lecture on the sins of simony, accusing Pope Clement of extorting large sums from the English Crown in return for naming Longchamp as a papal legate and approving the consecration of the Bishop of Le Mans.

So they never got to Rome. Instead, Morgan got his first glimpse of the English king’s fabled, fiery temper. He had entered Richard’s service with some reluctance, for he’d been devoted to the king’s brother Geoffrey, and had then served his father, an anguished eyewitness to the wretched death of the old king at Chinon. But Morgan was a realist and Richard was now king, so he’d attempted to put the past behind him. He was still getting to know Richard, and he’d been unnerved by the intensity of his royal cousin’s rage at Ostia. Henry had been notorious for his own bursts of temper, said to be hot enough