The Book of the Lion (22 page)

Rannulf leaned on a lance or a staff ever since Arsuf. He said that he could arrange for me to stay here and fight beside some other knight—many had lost squires in the battle. When I asked why he wanted to leave King Richard, Rannulf did not respond at once, and said at last that the king had no great need for fighting men of experience.

Hubert and I had work to do, selling Shadow and much of our fighting gear, although I would keep my hammer. The assault on Jerusalem was still several weeks away, at least. Between our army and the city walls lay Saladin's main force. I had made up my mind to do my duty to my lord, Sir Rannulf, and I carried myself proudly lest anyone believe that our departure had any shame attached to it.

I would see the green hills, and the blond-thatched roofs. I'd smell the chimney smoke on an evening, after a day of long rain. I would see my master's widow, Maud, and I would see Elviva. And test whether a returning Crusader, even one who had not set foot in Jerusalem, might have honor enough to win a father's nod.

 

Seabirds drifted high above us.

I took Shadow on a last ride into the hills, calculating as I rode how many pennies a strong, gentle horse like this would bring. It was a harsh thought, perhaps, but I wished I could exchange the life of this stalwart, placid—characterless—mount for the return of Winter Star.

I wanted to leave this place. But I also wanted to enter the gates of Jerusalem with King Richard. I had no doubt that after many more weeks and months of fighting, the king would win the Holy City.

 

I had already seen the city of Our Lord in the distance, but I did not expect it just now.

Or perhaps I had. Perhaps I had taken a path in the direction of God's city, without admitting to myself what I was doing. I crested the hill.

I blinked, and looked away. And then I turned my face toward it again—an unworthy face, with a sinner's eyes.

Walls and keeps of white, domes of gold, and spires that lifted their points toward Heaven. At this distance, it was a map-master's glory. Swallows spun and twisted. Cedars swayed in a wind that caressed the city, but did not touch me.

I turned Shadow back, toward the camp. Stay, said the song-bird in the amber brush.

I lifted my hand, and held it just so, blocking the sun. I could not make out Hubert or Rannulf in the crowd of humanity along the shore. Our ship lay closer to the sand now, attended by smaller boats.

Beyond that a Venetian war galley backed oars and slowly turned, guarding the way I would travel home.

 

 

 

 

The essential events of this novel really happened. The siege of Acre and the battle of Arsuf were real, and Richard's slaughter of the prisoners actually took place.

In entering the world of this novel I traveled to the site of Acre, where the rugged and impressive walls are still standing. I visited Crusader tombs in England, where the carved stone effigies of long-fallen knights are the best evidence of what fighting men actually wore. I walked the battlements of the island of Rodos, where one of the finest of Crusader fortresses remains largely intact. I didn't realize at the time that I was researching a book—I wanted to learn about these places, and I was very curious about who had fought in these castles and why.

I spent hours and hours in the British Museum and provincial museums throughout Europe sketching Crusader weapons in my notebook. A key moment in my understanding of the Crusades came when I first laid eyes on a fighting hammer. We usually imagine knights battling with picturesque swords or lances, but many Crusaders went into battle with a weapon like a large croquet mallet, made of iron. When I first saw such a weapon, much of the illusion of the glory and pomp of medieval battle vanished for me. These men were bludgeoning each other. The weird slowness and bloody exhaustion of such battle became clear to me as I studied the actual artifacts of their wars.

And of course I have read with relish on the subject, throughout my life, everything from Scott's Ivanhoe to Spenser's Faerie
Queene
, and I especially valued the works of historians such as John Keegan and Steven Runciman. A few of the books I read were astonishingly dull—to discover the silver thread of a medieval prayer I would have to read many pages of academic prose. But the effort was worth it when I discovered the word or phrase that awakened me to the events of so long ago.

My own family religious background has been Methodist and Quaker, and my skepticism regarding war is very deep. And yet I feel the call that war has on young people, how the need for adventure and personal meaning finds its truest expression, for some, on the battlefield. This terrible paradox—that caring, responsible individuals can engage in acts of brutality—both baffles and fascinates me. I respect the faith of these Crusaders, without loving anything that they did.

Medieval faith strikes me as strikingly unfamiliar. Few contemporary Christians see the hand of the Devil in random household mishaps, and imagine demons behind every shrub. Not to mention elves, and the so-called
longaevi,
the longlivers, wood spirits who lived for centuries. These beliefs would have been a part of everyday faith in the 1190s, not as a teaching of the Church, but as a part of an ordinary persons' view of nature and the vast, non-human world.

Ballads and stories were very important to the folk in this novel's era. They had no books, no TV, but I don't believe they lived barren lives. Just as jokes and urban legends flavor our work days, so the ballads would have provided humor and music. Some of the quoted ballads I have made up, others—particularly the religious ones—are authentic.

This novel takes place in an age before most people developed a respect for critical thinking, and before ordinary people had a tradition of self-questioning. Men and women in King Richard's time did not ask themselves what they really thought about war, or about God. They did not usually question their leaders, or the elements of faith they had been taught, as so many of our contemporaries do. If we suddenly found ourselves in the company of a group of Crusaders, we would find them very unlike the people we have known.

But at the same time I discovered how unlike my own friends the characters of this novel are, I began to see that we have not come so far from those brutal times. War still calls to us, and massacres still take place. We still hunger to reach a sacred city, either an actual, real place, or one inside ourselves.

And the journey is still hard. While Edmund is a character out of my imagination, I think of him as one of the many seekers who have traveled before me.