He did and, for a brief time, his words intoxicated all three of them. The cold December night gave way to the searing heat of Outremer. The boys could feel the blazing white sun on their skin, see the harsh grandeur of the land under a copper sky, and they hung on Richard’s every word. “Jaffa stank like a charnel house, for towns taken by storm are shown no mercy. We’d pitched our tents outside the crumbling walls, and when Saladin learned that our army had been halted at Caesarea, he decided to strike, sure that if I was killed or captured, his war would be won. And if not for a Genoese crossbowman who’d risen early to take a piss, we’d have been caught sleeping. But he saw the sun reflecting off their shields. I had only fifty-four knights, four hundred crossbowmen, two thousand men-at-arms, and just eleven horses, whilst we later learned that Saladin’s army numbered over seven thousand. There was no time to retreat into Jaffa, and even if we had, it was too damaged to hold off an assault. So I had our men anchor their spears in the ground and kneel, with our crossbowmen standing behind them, sheltered by their shields. As soon as one arbalester shot, he’d be handed another spanned crossbow, so the firing would be continuous. I assured our men that the Saracens’ horses would not charge into a barricade of spears, and I was right. Again and again, they veered off at the last moment. We held fast for more than six hours, and when their repeated, failed charges had them bone-weary and frustrated, my knights and I charged and swept them from the field.”
“How did you think of such a tactic? That was truly inspired!”
“It was not original, Friedrich. I borrowed the tactic from the Saracens, for I’ve never been too proud to learn from an enemy.”
Leo leaned forward, resting his hands on his knees. “Tell us about the march from Acre,” he said, and Richard did. They’d moved the coffer closer to the bed as he’d talked, wanting to know if it was true men died from the scorching heat of the sun—it was—and if the Holy Land had poisonous stinging vermin called scorpions—it did—and if he’d been wounded by a crossbow bolt in the days leading up to the battle at Arsuf—he had.
They’d all lost track of time, the boys enthralled by these stories of combat with infidels on the sacred ground where the Lord Christ once walked, Richard grateful for the chance to escape the stone walls of Dürnstein, if only in his imagination. When one of the guards cleared his throat meaningfully, that broke the spell, reminding them that it was growing late. “We must go ere we are missed,” Friedrich said reluctantly. “Just one more question. We were told that at Jaffa you rode up and down alone in front of the Saracen army and not one of them dared to accept your challenge to combat. Surely that cannot be true? It would be quite mad!”
Richard grinned. “I daresay it was, Friedrich. But it seemed like a good idea at the time.”
They stared at him and then burst out laughing. Their laughter stopped abruptly, though, as if they’d realized they’d let their guard down too far, been bedazzled into forgetting that this man was the enemy. Leo jumped to his feet, glaring at Richard with sudden hostility. “I do not understand you,” he said, his voice rising. “You are a great warrior, as brave as Roland, and you were willing to die for Our Saviour. So how could you treat our father so shamefully?”
Richard blinked in surprise. “I had no quarrel with Had—” He broke off then, belatedly realizing the truth. “Are you the sons of Duke Leopold?”
Friedrich was on his feet now, saying proudly, “We have that honor. I am Friedrich von Babenberg, my lord father’s firstborn, heir to the duchies of Austria and Styria, and this is my brother, Leopold.”
Leo had assumed a defiant stance, chin jutting out, hands clenching into fists, and Richard wondered how he’d not seen the resemblance sooner, for the boy was the veritable image of Leopold in high dudgeon. “You shamed our father,” he said accusingly. “At Acre, your men tore down his banner and you let it happen!”
Richard did not want to criticize the duke to his own sons, but neither was he willing to lie to them. “They were acting on my orders. When I was told he’d hoisted his banner, I told them to take it down, and I make no apologies for it. The French king and I had agreed that each of us would have half of Acre, and by flying his banner, your father was staking a claim to the city and its spoils. He was in the wrong, not I.”
This argument carried no weight with Leo. “He fought with his men to take Acre, so why should he not have a right to share in the spoils? He was your ally and you treated him as if he were some lesser lord, of no account. But he is the Duke of Austria, and now you’ll learn to your cost just what that means!” He turned on his heel and stalked out then, slamming the heavy oaken door resoundingly behind him.
Friedrich did not follow. “I do not understand, either,” he said, but without his brother’s belligerence. “My lord father is a proud man and you shamed him needlessly. When your men snatched his banner and flung it down into a ditch, they were trampling upon his pride, his honor, Austria’s honor.”
Richard was not happy with the unexpected turn the conversation had taken, discovering that Friedrich’s reproaches were harder to deflect than Leo’s accusations. “I did not know the banner had been thrown into a ditch.”
“If you had known, would you have punished your men for it?”
Richard paused for a moment to consider. “No,” he said honestly, “most likely I would not have. As I said, they were following orders.”
“You claim my father was in the wrong for flying his banner. Even if that is so, what you did was far worse, for you forced him to leave the army and return home.”