The Courts of Love - Jean Plaidy [213]
I, who had been a prisoner myself, could well sympathize with her, and I listened with great tenderness to the talk of her sufferings.
“Always,” she said, “I thought of getting a message to Richard. I used to tell myself that had my father been alive he would have come to my rescue but I need not fear for I had a brother who was now King and who would do the same. It was wonderful when he arrived with his fleet. There were the English ships lying off the coast—a hundred galleys and fourteen large ships carrying arms and provisions. It was a marvelous sight. I knew my deliverance was at hand. The people rushed to the shore to greet them. The galleys rode in, all the banners and pennons floating on top of the spears. The fronts of the ships were painted with the knights’ devices.
“And there was Richard. Oh, my lady Mother, he is so magnificent. More like a god than a man. He is so much taller than the others; he stands well above them. The trumpets rang out. Do you know what the people said of him? ‘Such a one is worthy to rule an empire. He is rightly made King over people and kingdoms. He is greater even than we have heard of him.’ How different it was when the French fleet came in.” She laughed. “They had suffered storms and stress, and the French King was very ill. I believe he is losing his enthusiasm for the crusade.”
She went on to tell me what a difference Richard’s arrival had made. He had immediately demanded that Tancred free his sister, and so afraid was Tancred that he arranged for her to join her brother, and all that he had stolen from her was restored.
“I was taken to the hospital of St. John’s which Tancred had arranged should be made ready, so that I might reside there in comfort. Richard came to me there. What a wonderful reunion! And with him, my lady, was the King of France. He was most gracious and complimentary to me. People were saying that he would want to marry me, but I do not think that was so.”
She was very friendly with Berengaria. Indeed, it would have been difficult to be anything else, for the girl was so eager to please. Richard had received her with a cool courtesy which sent flickers of alarm through me.
I heard, too, what had happened to him.
When he had crossed to Calais at the beginning of the journey, he met Philip Augustus at Gu St.-Rmi. They had been together awhile, then they parted to meet again at Dreux. They were in complete amity—lovers, I presumed. However, they swore to defend each other’s kingdom as they would their own. Richard’s great desire was not only to win back Jerusalem in the name of Christendom but to make the way there safe for pilgrims.
In Gascony he was seeking Walter de Chisi who had been robbing pilgrims on their way to Compostela, and when he found him he threw him into prison and confiscated his wealth.
Richard was certainly eager to fill his treasury. He knew that crusades were often more costly than had first been realized, and he wanted to make sure that he was not impeded by lack of money. Whenever he saw a chance of adding to his resources, he took it with both hands; and when he came to Sicily and found his sister in distress, he felt that it was his duty not only to rescue her but to fill his coffers at the same time. Such a purpose was worth a little delay, a little divergence from the main project.
He knew that for years King William had been collecting money because he himself planned to go on a crusade. Where was that money? It was said that, when he knew he was dying, William had left the money to his father-in-law, Henry of England, for Henry at that time had vowed to go on a crusade. Richard now claimed the money. It had been saved for a crusade. He was the leader of this one, and the money was rightly his, as he was his father’s heir.
Finally something was settled with Tancred about the money, and Richard promised that Tancred’s daughter should