Lionheart A Novel

Chapter 26

SEPTEMBER 1191

Camp on River Rochetaille





Richard strode to the center of his tent, where his battle commanders had assembled: the Grand Masters and marshals of the Templars and Hospitallers, the de Lusignans and those poulain lords who’d not defected to Conrad, his cousins Henri and André, the Préaux brothers, who’d been entrusted with the royal standard, and barons and bishops of England, Normandy, Anjou, Brittany, Flanders, and France. He imagined Saladin and his brother were having a war council this night, too.

“We’ll be setting out at dawn,” he said, wasting no time upon preliminaries. “It is six miles to Arsuf and we ought to reach it by midday. From Arsuf, it will be just eleven miles or so to Jaffa, so this may well be Saladin’s last chance to force a battle. If our roles were reversed, this is where I’d choose to fight—the lay of the land favors an attacking army. There are cliffs between the road and the sea which will keep us from hugging the coast, so there is a danger of being outflanked. And there is a broad plain running parallel to the road and forest, an ideal open space for Saracen horsemen. So we can expect a hellish day on the morrow and courage alone will not get us through safely to Arsuf. Our only chance will be to maintain a tight formation and to keep moving, no matter the provocation.”

Richard paused then, but no one spoke. “This will be the order of march. Our army will be organized into twelve squadrons and divided into five battalions. The Templars will have the vanguard. The second battalion will consist of Bretons and Angevins. King Guy and his brothers will lead my Poitevins. The Normans and English will guard the cart with my standard, followed by the French. The Hospitallers will command the rear guard.”

He paused again. “The Count of Champagne will guard our left flank.” This was a great responsibility for one who’d only recently turned twenty-five, and Henri flushed with pleasure, taking it for the honor it was. Richard’s gaze shifted from Henri to the others, to the young Earl of Leicester, his nephew Jaufre, the Fleming Jacques d’Avesnes, and his new ally, Guillaume des Barres, men he liked or respected. His eyes flicked then to those he loathed or mistrusted—the Duke of Burgundy, the Bishop of Beauvais and his brother, the Count of Dreux. A pity they had not skulked back to Paris with Philippe. Given a choice, he’d rather have fought beside al-’Ᾱdil than Beauvais or Robert de Dreux. “You will, of course, lead your own squadrons of knights,” he said, “riding with the center and the rear guard. The Duke of Burgundy and I will each take a squadron and ride up and down the line, as I’ve been doing in past days.”

Some of the men began to murmur among themselves once Richard was done. But they fell silent when Jacques d’Avesnes got to his feet, for he’d been at the siege since its start and was that rarity in this maelstrom of fierce national rivalries, a man universally respected and liked by his fellow crusaders. “You say we must ‘keep moving, no matter the provocation.’ But what if their attacks become too much to bear?”

“I am placing six trumpeters in the vanguard, the center, and the rear guard. If they sound, that will be the signal to charge. But no knight or lord is to do so until I give that signal. The decision will be mine and mine alone.”

That answer satisfied Jacques and most of the men. It grated on the nerves of some of the French lords, though, that they should have to take orders from an English king, particularly this one. The Bishop of Beauvais did not even bother to mask his resentment. “Naturally the decision will be yours,” he said sarcastically. “If you had your way, all decisions throughout Christendom would be yours. And it will indeed be a ‘hellish day.’ But our suffering will be much worse if we march on like sheep to the slaughter. Why not hit back? If Saladin wants a battle, why not give him one?”

Richard stared at Beauvais in disgusted disbelief. “Because our scouts and spies say we’re outnumbered by nigh on two to one. We may be God’s army, but we are also Outremer’s only army, and another Hattīn would doom the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Are those enough reasons for you?”

Henri glanced from his uncle to the bishop, half expecting to see the air itself begin to smolder, so searing was the hatred that flared between the two men. Before Beauvais could retort, Henri said quickly, “They are enough reasons for me. But I see no harm in discussing this further if the bishop feels the need.” The look he got from Richard would have prickled the hairs on the backs of most men’s necks. He ignored it and forged ahead with a quizzical smile. “I was always taught that a battle should be the last resort—unless we had numerical superiority and could choose the site ourselves. Am I wrong?” Sounding as if he were genuinely seeking enlightenment, Henri looked about at the other men crowded into the tent.

As Henri had expected, none of them were willing to embrace the bishop’s rash insistence upon combat. Some were shaking their heads; a few seemed vexed that they were wasting time discussing one of the basic tenets of warfare—that pitched battles were too great a risk under most circumstances. Not even Robert de Dreux offered support, and finding himself abandoned by his brother, too, Beauvais lapsed into a sullen silence. Nor was his temper improved when Jacques sought to disperse any lingering tension with a joke. “Well, I’m for fighting on the morrow. After all, we have a two-to-one advantage.... Ah, wait, that is Saladin!”

Once the other men had departed and Richard was left alone with his nephew and a handful of friends, he confessed, “For a moment or two, Henri, I was intending to disown you.”

Henri grinned. “I could feel your fiery gaze burning into my back, Uncle, but I thought it would be better if I were the one to expose the good bishop for the malcontent we know him to be. If you and Beauvais had gotten into a serious altercation, the other French lords might have felt honor bound to support him. None of them were likely to agree that we ought to seek out a battle on the morrow, though. They know better than that.”

“So does that hellspawn,” Richard said bitterly. “Our bishop is no battle virgin. No virgin at all, I’d wager,” he added, unable to resist a swipe at Beauvais’s priestly vows. “The man may be a misbegotten, cankerous viper, but he’s spilled his share of blood. So he knows we’d be fools to fight unless forced to it. Nothing matters more to him, though, than making life as difficult for me as he can. And in that, he does not lack for allies—all of them French.”

“I am French!” Henri protested, with such mock outrage that the other men laughed and even Richard couldn’t help smiling.

“You show so much common sense that we tend to forget your unfortunate origins, Henri. And not all of your countrymen are malicious malcontents. My niece’s husband Jaufre is a man of honor.” Richard hesitated almost imperceptibly before admitting, “And I never thought to hear myself saying it, but so is Guillaume des Barres.”

Richard lay wakeful that night, for he knew how much he was asking of his men. Knights were trained to strike back when hit; to do otherwise was to court shame and dishonor. But a mounted charge was a double-edged sword. If launched at the right time, it guaranteed victory. If it was made too soon, they’d be vulnerable to a Saracen counterattack and the victory would be Saladin’s. Propping himself up on his elbow, he listened to the comforting nocturnal chant of their priests, invoking the aid of the Holy Sepulchre. Earlier, he’d heard the muezzins summoning Saladin’s soldiers to evening prayer, so close were the two army camps. Reminding himself that they were in God’s Hands, he finally slept.



THEY MOVED OUT at dawn, but it was already uncomfortably warm for men weighed down by armor, helmets, and padded gambesons. The sky was a pallid blue, as if faded by the sun, and the air was very still. Men tasting the salt of sweat on their lips were soon wishing for a breeze, even a hot one. They drank from wineskins hooked onto their belts, made rude jests as empty of humor as the sky was of clouds, and their breakfast biscuits lay in their bellies like lead, for off to their left, they could see the vast Saracen army arrayed along the plain overlooking the road.

Salah al-Dīn sent his skirmishers in first—the hit-and-run tactics that the crusaders found so frustrating. They kept marching, though, and the sultan committed more of his troops to the attack. The air was soon thick with the dust kicked up by the agile Saracen horses and the sky seemed to be raining Saracen arrows, for their skilled bowmen employed a tactic called “shower shooting.” Most of the arrows were deflected by shields or snagged in the links of mail hauberks. But their stallions had no such protection and before long, they began to die.

Still the Franks continued on, transferring their wounded to the baggage carts, marching so closely that men rubbed shoulders and knights rode stirrup to stirrup, only their crossbowmen’s lethal fire keeping them from being overrun. But the Saracen attacks grew bolder and more urgent, striking hardest at the beleaguered rear guard.



BY NINE O’CLOCK, Richard’s vanguard was approaching the orchards on the outskirts of Arsuf. They were so close, he thought, so damnably close! But he was no longer sure they would make it, for the Saracen onslaught was relentless now, fueled by desperation. They’d made several attempts to outflank the rear guard, and only the marshy ground between the road and the sea cliffs kept the Hospitallers from being assaulted on three sides. Garnier de Nablus had sent one of his knights to Richard, warning him that they were taking too much punishment. Richard refused to permit them to launch a charge, telling them they must endure it. As the man took that unwelcome message back to the Grand Master, André maneuvered his stallion alongside Fauvel. “Can we reach Arsuf?”

Because André was closer to him than any of his brothers had ever been, Richard gave him an unsparingly honest answer. “In truth, I do not know.”

Survivors of the Arsuf march would long remember the heat, the dust, the fear. But above all, they would remember the noise. The Saracen drums kept up an ominous, throbbing beat, and the emirs had in their ranks men whose only duties were to raise a fearsome din with trumpets, clarions, flutes, and cymbals. Assailed by the incessant blaring of horns, the banging of tambours, the screaming of the stallions, and the battle cries of the archers and Salah al-Dīn’s elite Mamluks, many of the crusaders found the deafening clamor to be almost as demoralizing as the storm of arrows, crossbow bolts, and javelins. Yet they marched on, clinging to their faith that God and the English king would get them to safety at Arsuf.

Richard had returned to the cart that held his standard, for he’d shattered his lance on a Saracen shield. Waiting for his squire to fetch another one, he found his gaze drawn to the great dragon above his head, said to be the banner of the legendary Arthur. It had been hanging limply from its mast, but as he watched, it caught a vagrant breeze and unfurled in a swirl of red and gold. Taking that as a good omen, he reached for the new lance. It was then that he saw the rider galloping toward him. He recognized the arms on the shield, a silver cross on a black background, and assumed the Grand Master of the Hospitallers was sending him another messenger. But as the man reined in beside him, he was surprised to see a familiar face half shadowed by the wide nasal bar. Garnier de Nablus had come in person to plead his case.

“My lord king, hear me. We’re losing so many horses that half my knights will soon be on foot. It has gotten so bad that the crossbowmen have to march backward to protect themselves. We cannot hold on much longer.”

“You must.”

“My knights are distraught, saying they’ll bring eternal dishonor upon themselves if they do not fight back!”

“Tell them I understand. But they must be patient. It is not yet time.”

The Grand Master seemed about to argue further. Instead, he agreed tersely and turned his mount. Richard watched him ride off, his expression so grim that André and Baldwin nudged their horses closer. “Will you order a charge, then?”

“I must, André. But not until all of Saladin’s army is engaged against us. We have to be sure that they’ll bear the full brunt of our charge. If not . . .” Richard didn’t bother to finish the sentence, for there was no need. They all knew what would happen to them if their charge failed to sweep the Saracens from the field. They’d be cut off, surrounded, and overwhelmed by sheer numbers.



HENRI WAS PROUD of the fortitude shown by the infantry under his command. They had performed heroically for hours, the crossbowmen doing their best to keep their Saracen foes at a distance, the spearmen defending them while they reloaded their weapons. He and his knights rode between the men-at-arms and the baggage wagons, occasionally making brief forays to chase the enemy away when they got too close. Henri wasn’t sure if he ought to admire the valor of infidels, but he did, nonetheless. They may be risking their lives and souls for a false god, yet they did so with courage and conviction. Would that offer any consolation—knowing that he’d die at the hands of brave men? This was such an incongruous thought that he laughed softly, earning himself a sharp glance from Jaufre.

“If you can find any humor in our plight, Henri, tell me—please.”

“A private jest, a very perverse one, too. Jaufre, do you think—Jesu!”

Jaufre swung around in the saddle at Henri’s exclamation, and his jaw dropped at the sight meeting his eyes. Two knights had leveled their lances and were spurring their stallions toward the Saracens, screaming a defiant battle cry, “Saint George, aid us!” As Henri and Jaufre watched, the Hospitallers wheeled their mounts and followed, nearly trampling their own infantrymen, who had to scramble to get out of the way. The French knights saw the Hospitallers go on the attack and after some confusion, they also joined in.

Henri turned toward Jaufre, his shock evident. “Did you hear the trumpets?” Jaufre shook his head, equally shocked. But Henri was already yelling and their men-at-arms hastily scattered, opening gaps in their ranks for the knights as they, too, charged the Saracens.



RICHARD AND HIS MESNIE had just driven off an attack by Salah al-Dīn’s Bedouins when they were alerted by the clouds of dust and screaming. Richard gasped, quick to comprehend what was happening, and shouted for the trumpets to sound. As the knights of the center and vanguard responded to the signal and charged, he raced for the rear guard, his knights spurring their stallions in a vain attempt to keep up with Fauvel.

The sudden charge by the Hospitallers had caught the Saracens by surprise and they took heavy casualties, particularly since some of their bowmen had dismounted to take better aim. By the time Richard got there, Salah al-Dīn’s right wing was either dead or in flight. He at once sought to halt the pursuit into the woods, for the Saracens excelled at ambush tactics; he himself had almost fallen into such a trap barely a fortnight ago. It was not easy to rein in soldiers still half drunk on that most potent of brews—an uneasy blend of rage, fear, and excitement—but he managed it, mainly by sheer force of will. The field was strewn with weapons and the bodies of men and horses, but he knew it was not over yet.

Recognizing the rider on a blood-splattered roan stallion, Richard called out and then waited for Henri to reach him. “Who led the charge?”

“Two knights broke ranks, shouting for St George, and then the rest followed after them. I assumed I’d not heard the trumpets midst all the noise, think the others did, too. You did not order the attack, Uncle?”

“I was waiting till Saladin had thrown his reserves into the battle. But when the charge began, of course I committed the rest of our army.” Even as he spoke to Henri, Richard’s eyes were sweeping the battlefield. “Do you hear that?” When the younger man looked puzzled, Richard pointed behind him, toward the Forest of Arsuf. “The drums. Saladin’s drums are still beating. He is trying to rally his men.”

“Sire!” Garnier de Nablus drew rein beside them. “Thank the Lord Christ that you changed your mind—” The Grand Master stopped, for he was adept at reading other men’s faces; his office required political as well as military skills. “You did not order the attack? But one of the men was William Borrel, our marshal! He would never have done that on his own, for discipline is one of the cornerstones of our order. He must have thought he heard the trumpets.”

Richard did not dispute that, for he thought it was possible. But when Garnier continued to defend his marshal, declaring that it did not matter if the charge had been premature since they’d had the victory, Richard felt a flicker of weary anger. “No,” he said, “it did matter. Had we waited as I wanted, we could have won our own Ḥaṭṭīn. Instead we had half a victory, for much of Saladin’s army is still intact.”

The Grand Master was quite willing to settle for half a victory after all they’d endured that morning. He thought it prudent to keep that to himself, however, and was glad when Henri tactfully interceded at that point, gesturing off to the south where their cart with Richard’s dragon was coming into view. The standard-bearers had obeyed orders not to join in the battle, for Richard had wanted to hold his Normans in reserve. They’d followed slowly so they could serve as a rallying point; as long as the king’s banner flew, his men would keep fighting. Some of the wounded now headed toward it and other knights began to withdraw from the field and rode in that direction, too.

But Salah al-Dīn had accomplished a miracle of sorts. His army was in a rout, his right wing almost destroyed and his left wing broken. As they fled into the forest, though, they encountered their sultan and his brother. Bahā’ al-Dīn, who fought that day, would later write, “All those who saw that the sultan’s squadron was still at its post, and who heard the drum beating, were ashamed to go on, and, dreading the consequences if they continued their flight, they came up and joined that body of troops.” When they saw the crusaders appearing to retreat toward the king’s standard, they seized their chance and surged from the woods, led by al-’Ᾱdil.

The knights who’d been savoring their victory suddenly found themselves embroiled in savage combat. Henri struck down a Turk with long, black braids, but then took a numbing blow on his leg from a man wielding a mace. They were in too close quarters for his lance to be of any use, so he swung his stallion away to give himself time to draw his sword. There was so much dust that it was not easy to tell friend from foe. A horse reared up ahead, screaming as an arrow pierced his throat, and Henri’s destrier almost fell when the other animal went down, swerving away in the nick of time. He turned back to help the unhorsed knight, but he was too late; the man had been crushed when his mount fell on him. From the corner of his eye, Henri could see their dragon banner was still aloft, being desperately defended by the Norman standard-bearers. He could not find the king, though. When he finally did locate Richard, he was appalled to see his uncle utterly encircled by Saracens in what looked like a sea of saffron, for he knew those were the colors of Saladin’s elite guard. But even as he spurred his horse toward them, he saw Richard break free, decapitating a burly Mamluk and then maiming another one half blinded by the spray of blood.

“Fall back!” Richard’s voice was hoarse from shouting, but urgency gave it enough resonance to be heard above the din of battle. “Fall back! To me!”

The men within hearing distance obeyed, fighting their way toward the standard’s cart. By now their infantry had reached the cart, too, and as the knights gathered around Richard, the crossbowmen unleashed a devastating fire to keep the Saracens at bay. Richard had broken his lance, but a soldier found one on the field and offered it to him, grinning when Richard tapped him on the shoulder with it as if dubbing a knight. By now the knights had lined up, lances leveled or swords drawn. Off to his left, Richard saw a group of French knights had taken shelter behind their men-at-arms and were also assembling for a countercharge, led by Guillaume des Barres. The battle was still continuing, for not all of the crusaders had been able to join in the retreat. Bodies lay crumpled as far as the eye could see, the dead and the wounded of both sides, and the Saracen drums continued to pound, summoning the sultan’s fugitive troops back into the fray. Richard glanced from side to side, making sure that they were ready, and then couched his lance.

“Now!” As their infantry sprang aside with practiced coordination, Richard cried, “Holy Sepulchre, aid us!” and they charged. The Saracens unable to get out of the way were slain when the knights slammed into their ranks, for an armed knight on a galloping destrier had such momentum that a lance could run a man through like a pig on a spit, piercing armor, flesh, and bone with lethal ease. Overwhelmed by this iron onslaught, Salah al-Dīn’s soldiers fled back toward the safety of the forest, with the crusaders in close pursuit. Richard halted the chase before they could advance too far into the woods, for a Saracen army was never more dangerous than in retreat.

Leading his men back onto the bloodied battlefield, he gave orders to collect their wounded—the dead would have to wait. Once he was satisfied that his soldiers were on the alert for another Saracen attack, he rode toward the squadron of French knights who’d fought under Guillaume des Barres, and these two former enemies shared a moment that mattered more than grudges or grievances or royal rivalries, for there was a brotherhood of the battlefield that men like Richard and Guillaume honored above all else.



THE BATTERED CRUSADER ARMY resumed its march toward Arsuf. But as they approached the camp already set up by their vanguard, there was another attack upon their rear. Richard, with just fifteen of his own knights, led a third charge that drove them back toward a ridge of hills, and the battle of Arsuf was finally over.



ARSUF WAS SITUATED on a steep sandstone ridge overlooking the sea, but the abandoned town was in ruins, razed by the Saracens, and the crusaders had to camp in the surrounding orchards. They were exhausted but triumphant, all the more thankful when they discovered that their casualties had been only one-tenth that of the Saracen losses. There were many wounded, though, and the surgeons’ tents were soon crowded. Before darkness fell, men began to slip away to exercise a soldier’s prerogative—plundering the dead.

Richard was in some discomfort, for his exertions on the battlefield had done his wound no good. He still insisted upon making the rounds of the camp himself, confirming that sentinels were on the alert, checking upon the injured, and offering praise to his soldiers, knowing they valued that almost as much as the booty they’d collected from their slain foes. The camp was abuzz with the exploits of Guillaume des Barres, Richard himself, and the young Earl of Leicester, who’d led a charge that had cut off some of Salah al-Dīn’s right wing.

“Is it true that Saracens were leaping off the cliffs into the sea to escape Leicester’s knights?” the Grand Master of the Templars asked Richard. “I have to admit that I’d not expected Leicester to show such prowess on the field, for he is on the puny side, after all.”

Richard shrugged. “Sometimes a man’s heart is big enough to overcome his body’s shortcomings,” he said, thinking of another undersized warrior, Tancred of Sicily. “I’ve been told that Saladin is only of middling height and slight build, and for certes, he has never lacked for courage.” He stopped to banter for a moment with several Angevin crossbowmen and then rejoined Robert de Sablé. “What Saladin did today was remarkable. Once an army breaks and runs, it is well nigh impossible to halt the rout, much less rally them to fight again, and yet he managed it.”

The Templar was more interested in discussing the Hospitaller breach of discipline. “Will you punish their marshal for charging on his own?”

Richard found the sharp rivalry between the Templars and the Hospitallers to be yet one more needless complication in his quest to retake Jerusalem. “I talked to William Borrel and the other knight, Baldwin de Carew. They both swear they thought they’d heard the trumpets.” Robert de Sablé looked skeptical of that. Richard was skeptical, too, but since there was no way to prove they lied, he had to give them the benefit of the doubt. Despite his frustration that the charge had been launched too soon, he couldn’t help admiring their mad courage in making such an assault—two knights against the might of Saladin’s army.

He saw his nephew approaching with Guy and Joffroi de Lusignan and he moved to meet them, wanting publicly to commend them for fighting so bravely that day. But then he saw their faces. Henri and Guy looked distraught and even the phlegmatic Joffroi appeared troubled.

“Uncle!” Henri was so close now that Richard could see he was fighting back tears. “Jacques d’Avesnes is missing. No one has seen him since the battle.”



THE MAN ON THE BLANKETS was young, blessed with a handsome face and robust body. But he was dying, for his injuries were beyond the healing skills of the Hospitallers’ surgeons. Two kings were keeping watch at his deathbed, and so many barons and bishops that there was barely room for them all in the tent, for he’d been recognized as one of Jacques d’Avesnes’s household knights, and they hoped that he’d be able to tell them what had befallen his lord.

As they waited, they spoke quietly among themselves. The soldiers who’d gone back to the battlefield in search of booty had reported that they’d encountered some of Saladin’s men, come to collect their wounded. Both sides had ignored one another, by common consent, and there’d been no more blood spilled. They’d reported, too, that at least thirty-two emirs had been slain and there were more than seven hundred Saracen bodies. But they’d found no survivors, and Jacques d’Avesnes’s fate remained a mystery—unless this mortally wounded Flemish youth could speak in the little time left to him.

Richard and Guy had been summoned when the knight had shown signs of regaining consciousness, and as they watched the shallow rise and fall of his chest, Guy confided how much he owed to Jacques, who’d arrived at Acre soon after the start of the siege. “Not only did he bring desperately needed men and supplies, he did much to raise our spirits. He never doubted that we would prevail and his faith was contagious.”

“Do you know if Jacques has a son?” Richard asked, gazing down at the Fleming and finding himself overwhelmed with sadness, even though he knew that a man who died fighting for God would have all his sins remitted as a martyr to the True Faith.

“Yes, four sons,” Guy said, “and four daughters, too. He often joked about the difficulty of finding husbands for them—” He stopped abruptly and Richard saw why; the young knight’s lashes were fluttering again.

Supported by one of the surgeons, he managed to swallow some wine. His eyes were dulled with pain, but he was lucid, and he wanted to bear witness. He was too weak to summon up his French, gasping in his native Flemish as Baldwin de Bethune leaned over to translate those labored, whispered words.

“He says it happened when the Saracens made that second attack. They were cut off and surrounded. They still hoped to break free, but then his lord’s stallion stumbled and threw him. He says Lord Jacques fought with great courage, even though he knew he was doomed. His knights were struck down as they sought to reach him. . . .”

Jacques’s friends and fellow crusaders had known the news would be bad and thought they were braced for it. They were discovering now that they were not, and there were tears, a few muffled sobs, and the anguished cursing of men struggling to accept God’s Will. The Bishop of Salisbury was about to offer the comfort of prayer when Baldwin leaned over the dying man again. Straightening up, he raised a hand for quiet.

“There is more. He says a lord was nearby, a man Jacques knew well. When he was unhorsed, he cried out to his friend for aid. Instead this man rode away with his own knights, leaving them to be slain by the infidel Turks.”

This was a serious accusation, and there was an immediate outcry, demands to know the name of the craven cur who’d abandoned another Christian lord to save his own skin. “He says . . .” Baldwin paused, his eyes searching the tent until he found the one he sought, standing in the rear. “He says it was the Count of Dreux who refused to help his lord.”

Robert of Dreux’s face flooded with color. “That . . . that is not true! He lies!” His gaze shifted frantically from one man to another, seeking allies, seeking champions. He found none. They all were regarding him with shock and disgust, even Hugh of Burgundy and his own brother, Beauvais. No one spoke as he continued to protest his innocence, swearing that this Flemish whoreson was lying. Seeing their disbelief, he switched tactics, insisting that the man was out of his wits with fever and pain. But their continued, stony silence told him that his frenzied denials were a waste of breath. They believed this dying knight, and they would not forgive such a blatant breach of the code by which they lived. His honor would be tattered and tarnished until the day he drew his last breath.



AT DAWN, the Templars and Hospitallers went out and conducted a thorough search of the battlefield, at last finding the bodies of Jacques d’Avesnes and three of his kinsmen, who’d died with him. His mutilated corpse was washed and prayed over and then buried with great honor in the Minster of Our Holy Lady in Arsuf. Their army remained in camp on that Sunday, which was one of the most sacred holy days in the Christian calendar, the Feast of the Blessed Lady Mary, Mother of God. It was also Richard’s thirty-fourth birthday.



FROM THE HISTORY of Bahā’al-Dīn. “God alone knows the depth of grief which filled the sultan’s heart after this battle; our men were all wounded, some in their bodies, some in their spirits.”



THE CRUSADERS broke camp on Monday, and though they were harried again by Salah al-Dīn’s men, Richard kept them in formation and they marched on. The following day they at last reached Jaffa, almost three weeks after leaving Acre.