They needed no further encouragement, pulled a coffer closer to the bed and perched on it, putting Richard in mind of birds about to take flight. Setting the lute aside, he said, “What do you want to talk about?”
“About the war in the Holy Land,” Leo said promptly, and his brother nodded in agreement. “We would hear about Jaffa and the march to Acre. We’ve heard stories from soldiers coming home, but we know soldiers like to boast, to make small skirmishes sound like great battles, so we were not sure how much to believe.”
“How do you know I’ll not boast, too?”
Friedrich seemed perplexed by the question, but Leo flashed an impudent smile. “Men already call you Lionheart,” he said, “so why would you need to boast?”
Richard was amused by the lad’s cockiness. “What would you hear first?”
“About Jaffa,” they said in unison and listened raptly as he told them. After concluding that Jerusalem could not be taken, their army had withdrawn to Acre. He’d been planning an assault upon Beirut, the only port still in Saladin’s hands, when word had reached them of a Saracen surprise attack upon Jaffa. The French had refused to help, even though there were wounded French soldiers recuperating at Jaffa, so Richard sent his nephew, Henri of Champagne, south with their army whilst he sailed down the coast. But they’d been becalmed and could not reach Jaffa for three days. They’d anchored their galleys offshore, waiting for dawn to see if the town and castle still held out. And as the dark retreated, they saw the saffron banners of Saladin streaming in the wind.
That had been one of the worst moments of Richard’s life. Losing himself in the retelling, he could feel again his anguished rage. Jaffa held over four thousand men, women, and children, who were now dead or doomed for the slave markets in Damascus, all because the wind had dropped, keeping him from getting there in time. He’d lingered offshore, listening to the taunts of the jubilant Saracen soldiers, sick at heart. But then a priest had jumped from the castle wall and swum out to his galley.
“The castle had not yet fallen,” he told the boys, “so we still had a chance.” When his red galley, the Sea-Cleaver, headed for the beach, the Saracens watched in astonishment, unable to believe their greatly outnumbered foes would dare to land. Richard had been the first one ashore, a sword in one hand, his crossbow in the other, his knights loyally splashing after him even though they all expected to die there in the shallows. “But our crossbowmen cleared the beach, and I knew a back way into the town. There we finally encountered serious resistance and there was fierce fighting in the streets—until the castle garrison raced out to join us. Caught between my men and the garrison, the Saracens either died or surrendered.”
The expression on their faces was a familiar one. He’d often seen youngsters look like that, enthralled and eager to experience the glory and gore of battle, although they thought more of the former than the latter. “So you do not think I am boasting,” he said with a hinted smile, “I must tell you that Saladin had lost control of his men, that many of them were more interested in looting than fighting, which is why we were able to prevail despite being so outnumbered. Soldiers expect to gain booty in war, whether they be Muslim or Christian, and Saladin’s men had grown war-weary after years of conflict.” But they were not interested in the unromantic realities of war, only the bloody splendor of it, and they urged him now to tell them of the second battle of Jaffa four days later.