The snow came from Mount Hermon, and the Saracens imported great quantities of it, sealed in straw; one of his raiding companies had brought in enough to keep him in sherbet for a good month. He was not at all averse to the regimen. Cold sweetened nectar of lemon or orange or citron was more than pleasant in the hills near Jerusalem in June.
He sat in the shade of a canopy, sipping his medicine and watching a knight from Burgundy and a knight from Poitou settle a dispute by combat. The Burgundian was getting the worst of it: he was not as young or by any means as thin as his adversary, and the heat, even this early in the morning, was taking its toll. Richard watched with professional interest, because the Poitevin was a jouster of some renown; but when he laid a wager, he laid it on the Burgundian. The lesser fighter had the better horse, lighter and quicker and, though it sweated copiously, less visibly wilted by the heat. The Poitevin's charger was enormous even by the standard of the great horses of Flanders, and although it lumbered and strained through the turns and charges of the joust, no sweat darkened its heavy neck.
Having handed his gold bezant to Blondel the singer, who was keeping track of the wagers, Richard let his mind wander even as his eye took in the strokes of the fight. He liked to do that: it helped him think. And there was much to think about.
He would not camp in sight of Jerusalem. If it happened he must ride where he could see it, he had a squire hold up a shield in front of his eyes. He had sworn an oath: he would not look on those walls and towers or the golden flame of the Dome of the Rock, until he had come to take it for God and the armies of Christendom. But scouts who kept the city in sight said that it had been boiling like an anthill since shortly after sunset the evening before.
None of his spies had come in with reliable news. They did know that all the Saracen raiding parties had begun to swarm back toward the city, and messengers-all of whom, damn them, had escaped pursuit-had ridden out at a flat gallop on the roads to the north and east. Rumors were flying. The Sultan Saladin was preparing a killing stroke against the Franks; Islam was under siege from some hitherto unforeseen enemy; Jerusalem had been invaded in the night by an army of jinn and spirits of the air. There was even a rumor that no one credited: Saladin himself was ill or wounded or dead.
Richard had prayed for that. He was not fool enough to expect that it was true. The Old Man of the Mountain had sent his Assassins against Conrad of Monferrat the month before last and thrown the succession of the Frankish Kingdom of Jerusalem into great disorder, but if anyone was to be thought of as the Assassins' next target, that was Richard himself. He refused to live in fear because of it; that was not his way. But he did not turn his back on the possibility, either.
The Poitevin's horse collapsed abruptly, just as the Burgundian flailed desperately at the rider's head. The heavy broadsword struck the great casque of the helm with a sound like a hammer on an anvil. The Poitevin dropped like a stone.
The horse was dead-boiled in its own skin, without the relief of sweat to cool it. The knight was alive but unconscious. The unexpected victor sat motionless on the back of his heaving and sweat-streaming destrier, until his squire came running to get him out of the stifling confinement of the helm and lead him dazedly off the field. His face in its frame of mail was a royal shade of crimson.
As men from the cooks' tents hauled the dead horse off to the stewpots, a different disturbance caught Richard's attention. "See what that is," he said at random, waving off Blondel and the winnings of his wager. Several of the knights and squires nearby sprang up to obey, but Blondel was quickest on his feet.
Richard's eyes followed him as he went. He had the grace of a gazelle.
He came back so swiftly that he seemed to fly, and with such an expression on his face that Richard rose in alarm, half-drawing his sword. "Sire," he said. "Lord king, come. Please come."
Richard only paused to order his attendants to stay where they were. They did not like the order, but they obeyed it. With Blondel for guide and escort, Richard strode swiftly toward the camp's edge.
One of his scouting parties had come in with a captive: a slender man in desert robes, with the veil drawn over his face. He seemed not to care where he was or who had caught him. He sat on the rocky ground, cross-legged in the infidel fashion; his head was bent, his shoulders bowed. He had the look of a man on the raw edge of endurance.
"He was headed here, sire," the sergeant said. "He didn't resist us at all, except to stick a knife in Bernard when he tried to pull off the face-veil."
Bernard nursed a bandaged hand, but Richard could see that he would live. Of the infidel, Richard was not so sure. He reached out; his men tensed, on the alert, but the infidel made no move to attack.
He drew the veil aside from a face he knew very well. It belonged to a man he trusted more than most Franks, a loyal and diligent servant whom he had thought safe in this very camp, serving as interpreter for the clerks and the quartermasters. Although, come to think of it, Richard had not seen him for a day or two. Days? A week? The damned fever had taken Richard out of time.
"Moustafa!" Richard said sharply.
At the sound of his name, Moustafa came a little to himself. His skin had the waxy look of a man who had lost too much blood; there was wetness on the dark robes, and the stiffness of drying blood. His eyes were blank, blind. He was not truly conscious; all that held him up was the warrior's training that let him sleep in the saddle.
Richard called for his men to fetch a litter. While they did that, he sent Blondel to fetch the physician. "Tell him to attend me in my tent. And be quiet about it."
Blondel barely remembered to bow before he turned and ran. This time Richard did not pause to watch him. The litter was taking too long. Richard lifted Moustafa in his arms, finding him no great weight: he was a slender man as so many infidels were, compact and wiry-strong, without the muscular bulk of a Frank.
Richard sought his tent quickly, almost at a run. Even so, Judah bar-Samuel the physician was waiting for him, with a bed made and a bath waiting and all made ready for the care of a wounded man. Moustafa was all but bled out; Judah scowled at the wound in his side that had bled through the rough bandages beneath his robe, and the others here and there that might have been little in themselves, but all together had weakened him severely.
Moustafa began to struggle, as if swimming up through deep water. This time when his eyes opened, they saw Richard. They saw precious little else, but they fixed on his face with feverish clarity. "Malik Ric," he said. "Lord king. The Sultan of Damascus is dead."
How peculiar, Richard thought with the cool remoteness of shock. The one rumor everyone had discounted, and it was true. "Assassins?"
Moustafa nodded.
Richard drew a breath, then let it out. He sat beside the bed, leaning toward Moustafa. The infidel groped for his hand and clutched with strength enough to bruise. With that for a lifeline, he said, "Lord king, I pray you will pardon me. I left my place. I abandoned my duty. I went spying in Jerusalem."
"So I gather," Richard said dryly. "What possessed you to do that?"
Moustafa sighed, catching his breath on an edge of pain. Judah scowled, but Richard was proof against the disapproval of physicians and nursemaids. "Lord king, it was foolish. You were sick, and I was bored. Nobody knew what was going on inside the city. I decided to see for myself."
"What did you see?"
"I visited al-Malik al-Adil-the lord Saphadin. He was glad to see me. He sends you his greetings, and says that he hopes you won't mind that he doesn't also wish you good fortune in your war against his brother."