Lion Heart Read online

  I have tried to dull my fears about Noor by spending long hours studying Arabic documents of the twelfth century with the help of a graduate student. I had hoped to find some correspondence or something about the art of the Latin Kingdom. But instead I found myself looking at elaborate illustrated manuscripts about siege engines and the trebuchets – the catapults that hurled enormous boulders – lovingly described and beautifully illustrated by Ali al-Tarsusi for Saladin’s better understanding. One of the manuscripts describes Greek fire, which was a naphtha mixture fired in pottery containers over the walls of the enemy castle or town. A Crusader wrote:

  In appearance the Greek Fire looked like a large tun of verjuice with a burning tail the length of a longsword. As it comes towards you it makes a thunderous noise like a dragon flying through the air.

  I wonder how he knew how a flying dragon sounded.

  In the evening Ed and I usually have a pint in a dark pub down on the canal and then we cook. Sometimes we stay to watch rugby there. Ed loves rugby. He is not the blithe boy I remember. His eyes have narrowed against failure and his hair is losing its vitality. As we are sitting down in the kitchen for Ed’s signature dish – chilli crab with linguine (the crab comes from the covered market), my phone rings.

  I hear only two words before the phone cuts out:

  ‘Richie, please . . .’

  ‘Noor, Noor, where are you?’

  I shout, hoping my urgency will somehow reach across the dead space between us. My chest contracts violently. When I try to call her back, the number is apparently unknown. I try her Jerusalem mobile, unsuccessfully. I am beginning to panic. She sounded distraught. I try to call her father in Canada, but that number too is not in service.

  ‘What’s happened, Rich?’ Ed asks. He is still eating; bits of linguine trail from his mouth as he talks. Perhaps he is trying to maintain a sense of normality.

  ‘Something terrible but I don’t know what.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I don’t know. Something bad. My girlfriend tried to call me. Her father’s number no longer exists. Her phone is dead.’

  Suddenly I remember Haneen and call her.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Oh, thank God. Haneen.’

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘It’s Richard. Richard Cathar, Haneen. Noor . . .’

  ‘Don’t call this number, whoever you are.’

  She puts down the phone.

  ‘What’s up, Rich?’

  I am stunned. Ed reaches across and briefly places his hand on my forearm.

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I have no idea. In Jerusalem I was going out with this Canadian girl, Noor, who is a journalist. I told you a bit about her. And that call was from her but it was cut off suddenly, and when I called back it was out of service. Her father’s phone number no longer exists and her aunt in Jerusalem won’t take my call.’

  Ed says I am hyperventilating. He has had a course in first aid. He puts a Tesco plastic bag over my head and holds it closed around my neck.

  ‘Breathe deeply. You are taking too much oxygen.’

  My breathing calms down and he removes the bag moments before I suffocate.

  ‘Here, have some pasta.’

  I try to eat, but I feel sick. Something terrible has happened to Noor. I explain everything to Ed.

  ‘The best thing to do would be to call the Canadian Embassy in the morning. Where was she calling from?’

  ‘When I left Jerusalem she was in Cairo. We are engaged, Ed.’

  8

  Richard Arrives

  Two years passed before Richard set out for the Holy Land. Before he left, he reneged on his commitment to Alice, daughter of the King of France, and his fellow Crusader’s sister, who he had been betrothed to for twenty years or more. As a very young girl, she had been taken to England as a sort of marriage hostage by Richard’s father, Henry II, and there were rumours that he had seduced her. Some writers believe that was a reason for Richard to ignore her for all those years, despite pointed enquiries from her father. When in 1190 Richard finally took ship for the Holy Land, he stopped off in Sicily. The Norman King of Sicily, Tancred, had been holding Richard’s widowed sister, Joan, and he had refused to hand over her dower from her late husband, William II of France. He also held some galleys and plate that should have gone to Richard’s father and which Richard now demanded.

  Tancred was small and ugly: he was described as a monkey with a crown on its head. Richard would not stand for this presumption: Joan was released and, without any help from the reluctant French, he took Tancred’s Messina ‘in less time than it would have taken for a priest to say Matins’. Enthusiastic plundering followed. Philip was angry when he saw Richard’s banners flying over Messina, because a banner above a city meant that its owner had sole rights to the plunder. Richard finally allowed his banners to be taken down, but Philip’s resentment grew stronger.

  Which in the French King did create

  Envy that time will ne’er abate

  And herewith was the warring born

  Whereby was Normandy sore torn.

  Finally Philip demanded that his sister’s honour be restored, but Richard said that his father had had a child by her, and he could never marry her. To add insult to injury, Richard’s mother arrived with Berengaria of Navarre. Eleanor, who was a great strategist, had lined her up to marry Richard to form an alliance with the kingdom of Navarre, and so to secure their southern borders. Berengaria was described, by the kinder scribes, as sensible rather than attractive. They were never to have children, and this too led to the rumour that Richard was gay. Walter of Guisborough, however, writes that, even while dying, Richard ordered women to be brought to his bed.

  In the spring Richard set sail for the Holy Land after agreeing a settlement with Tancred. He took with him enormous riches to help in financing the Crusading.

  Some of Richard’s ships were wrecked on Cyprus and their crews and some Crusaders held. Richard sailed to their rescue; after a short battle, with Richard inevitably in the lead, Isaac, the ruler of Cyprus, Isaac the Despot, was deposed and Richard installed his own Angevin officials. On the 12th of May he married Berengaria. He saw very little of Berengaria for the rest of her life. She becomes a footnote of history, in that damning phrase.

  Whether it was done by accident or design, the taking of Cyprus proved to be a very good move, because it meant that the Frankish Kingdom now had a strong base, just a day’s sailing from the coast of Lebanon. After the disaster of Hattin and the capture of Jerusalem, the Crusaders’ coastal castles were hanging on with difficulty as Saladin’s troops bombarded and besieged them. The key city of Acre had been held by Saladin’s armies for two years. In April, King Philip of France arrived with weapons of bombardment. He seems to have been rather listless. When Richard finally arrived in June, it was noted that Philip’s six galleys were as nothing compared to Richard’s twenty-five. Richard’s own galley was red, with red sails bearing a white cross. The Muslims had heard a lot about the red-haired, six-foot-five warrior, who had absolutely no scruples about killing men, women and children and they were very afraid.

  Baha al-Din ibn Shaddad wrote:

  The King of England, Malik al-Inkitar, was courageous, energetic and daring in combat. Although of a lower rank than the King of France, he was more renowned as a warrior. On his way east he had seized Cyprus, and when he appeared before Acre with his twenty-five galleys loaded with men and equipment for war, the Franks let out cries of joy and lit great fires to celebrate his arrival. As for Muslims, their hearts were filled with fear and apprehension.

  By July the Crusaders had retaken Acre. Duke Leopold of Austria, who had been on Crusade for some time, planted his banner by those of the Kings of France and England. It was torn down on Richard’s orders, and Leopold immediately left for home. It was an insult he was never to forget. By removing his standard, Richard was proclaiming that Leopold was of little importance and not entitled to his share of
the plunder. Philip sailed for home at the end of the month. He, too, had been humiliated by the dashing Richard, a soldier hardened by twenty years of campaigning and a man who loved combat. Philip had none of these attributes. Although it was agreed and sworn publicly that Philip would not attack his Angevin territories while he was on Crusade, Richard sent messengers to warn that Philip would undoubtedly try to seize the opportunity. As it turned out, the uncertainty of being on Crusade while his enemies plotted against him made it impossible for Richard to stay long enough to recapture Jerusalem. One of his enemies was his brother, Prince John Lackland.

  Some months after the capture of Acre, Richard ordered a massacre of prisoners. The agreed date by which Saladin would pay ransom for the thousands of prisoners held in Acre and Tyre was 20th of August. Richard believed that Saladin was delaying in order to hold up the Crusader advance towards Jerusalem. In the afternoon of the 20th of August Saladin’s envoys had not arrived as planned. Richard moved his army out of the city walls of Acre. Soon after, three thousand prisoners, including women and children, were led out and in sight of Saladin’s soldiers they were massacred.

  Baha al-Din ibn Shaddad describes the awful slaughter:

  On the afternoon of 27 rajab/20 August he (Richard) and all the Frankish army marched to occupy the middle of the plain. Then they brought up the Muslim prisoners whose martyrdom God had ordained, more than three thousand men in chains. They fell upon them as one man and slaughtered them in cold blood, with sword and lance. Our scouts had informed Saladin of the enemy’s manoeuvres and he sent reinforcements to the advance guard, but by then the slaughter had already occurred. As soon as the Muslims realised what had happened they attacked the enemy and battle raged, with casualties on both sides, until night fell. The next morning the Muslims wanted to see who had fallen, and found their martyred companions lying where they fell, and some they recognised.

  This massacre is high on any Muslim list of Crusader atrocities, but Richard – as Baha al-Din ibn Shaddad suggests – may have done it as revenge for the slaughter of the Templars and Hospitallers in 1187. In any case, Richard could not afford to keep and feed three thousand prisoners and at the same time move on to Jaffa, Arsuf and Jerusalem.

  After the massacre, Richard wrote to the Abbot of Clairvaux:

  The time limit expired and, as the treaty to which Saladin had agreed was entirely made void, we quite properly had the Saracens that we had in custody – about two thousand six hundred of them – put to death. A few of the more noble ones were spared, and we hope to recover the cross and certain Christian captives in exchange for them.

  Recovering the cross was very important to Richard. He instructed his armies to be ready to move out. They were reluctant to leave the comforts and fleshpots of the city they had just captured, after being camped outside the walls for two years.

  Imad-ad-Din al Isfahani, Saladin’s secretary, describes the camp followers:

  Tinted and painted, desirable and appetising, bold and ardent, with nasal voices and fleshy thighs, they offered their wares for enjoyment, bringing their silver anklets up to touch their golden earrings . . . made themselves targets for men’s lances, offered themselves to the lances’ blows, made javelins rise towards shields. They interwove leg within leg, caught lizard after lizard in their holes, guided pens to inkwells, torrents to the valley bottom. Swords to scabbards, firewood to stoves . . . and they maintained that this was an act of piety without equal, especially to those who were far from home and wives.

  9

  Mr Macdonald

  I am sitting in the library reading. I can only concentrate for a few minutes at a time before thinking of Noor. I look up across the rows of students. A girl runs her fingers through her hair in an achingly natural female gesture. I am flooded with anxiety. The uncertainty of the frightening phone call has kept me awake for two nights. What was Noor asking me to do? I am helpless. I sleep only in snatches. I look at the girl again, so young, so blithe, still combing her hair with her fingers. I have never quite known what these gestures mean. Are they unconsciously seductive, or are they secret signs known only to women? I find myself wanting to tell this girl about Noor; I want to enter fully the complicity and mystery of the female world.

  I have a text. I walk down the steps and out into the quadrangle beneath the Tower of the Five Orders. It’s very cold here. The Old Schools Quadrangle is enclosed on all sides, so that the winter sun only briefly reaches ground level. King James sits there high on the face of the tower, looking down. There is a smugness on his face, and why not? The statue was paid for by a sycophant, who understood the value of flattering the new king. Originally the figure had a double coating of gilt, an extravagance that suggests just how keen the university was to keep in with James.

  The text reads: Canadian High Commission wishes speak u soonest. Call Mr Macdonald.

  He leaves a number. I am trembling, from both the cold and the fear, so that I have difficulty punching in the right numbers. Twice I fail. King James above me appears to be watching, his latest book in hand. Vanity publishing. I am becoming flustered under his sightless gaze.

  ‘Macdonald.’

  ‘Hello, I am Richard Cathar. I left a message for you this morning, and apparently you phoned back. To my digs.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you. I have news about your fiancée, Miss Nassashibi. It’s not good, I am afraid. We think she is alive and being held in Cairo by one of the many groups that have appeared since the Arab Spring.’

  ‘Have you heard from her?’

  ‘No. But our people there are making every effort to find her and to see what can be done to secure her release. I know it is very difficult for you and the relatives, but we do have tried and tested procedures.’

  ‘Has she been harmed?’

  ‘We don’t know. To be honest the situation in Cairo at the moment is confused. We do know she never returned to her hotel after a meeting nearly three weeks ago. But trust me, we have very good people on the ground.’

  ‘Why would anyone have taken her?’

  ‘Mr Cathar, there are many possible reasons. I can’t speculate.’

  ‘Have you spoken to her aunt in Jerusalem?’

  ‘I couldn’t give you that sort of information, even if I had it. But believe me, sir, we are doing everything possible. I will keep you informed. And if you hear anything from her, by any route, please call me immediately.’

  He gives me a twenty-four-hour number to use. My hands are so cold I have difficulty entering it onto my phone.

  I feel as though I am going to suffocate. I have been foolishly paddling about in history – history which I only understand in the sense that I have charts of the time-lines and the factual details – birth, death, marriage, wars, et cetera, but I am not close to understanding the human qualities of historical figures. If I understand Richard III at all, it is through Shakespeare. As for Richard I, rex ille bellicosus, I can’t even make up my mind if he was a giant red-haired mass-murderer, anti-Semite and sado-masochist or one of the greatest and most romantic kings of all time, a brave warrior and a dab hand at the courtly songs of the langue d’oc.

  I cling to the idea that there is a truth in fiction that isn’t available to historians. But it is very hard to tell what is true and what is not in this story. The fact is I don’t have much of an idea of the here and now either; it appears to have fragmented. It was only a few weeks ago that I was lying in bed with Noor, profoundly blessed. Now I feel cursed, as though I must unknowingly have made a Faustian pact, which has come to its inevitable end. Haneen said, ‘She is a human rights activist.’ Now that seems to have sinister connotations.

  I haven’t told Mr Macdonald this. He probably knows anyway. I try to remember any scraps of conversation that might have some meaning. Mr Macdonald said, ‘She is one of ours.’ And I took this to mean a Canadian, a paid-up member of that frozen polite optimistic nation. But maybe it means more. Maybe Mr Macdonald and Haneen are in cahoots. Maybe they are trying to
raise a ransom to get her back from some cheap criminals or some out-of-work Hosni Mubarak fans. If there is a real world, I am getting a dunking in it. As I try to think clearly, what I remember most vividly is two large drops of blood orange rolling reluctantly between Noor’s breasts as we lay under the open window, stilling our beating hearts.

  Now my breathing is erratic. I feel that I might have a heart attack at any moment.

  I try to work to dull my fears. I am looking at a manuscript that describes the Battle of Arsuf, which took place soon after the retaking of Acre. But I give up and look on the internet to see just what the Canadian Security Intelligence Service can do. It is responsible for conducting operations, covert and overt, within Canada and abroad. This is reassuring. On the downside, I read that they lost some classified documents after an agent left them in his car while attending a Toronto Maple Leaf hockey game in 1999.

  Something catches my eye as I look distractedly at the manuscript: Richard the Lionheart was fifteen in 1173 when he took part in a rebellion against his own father in Normandy. By the time Richard reached the Holy Land he had been fighting non-stop for eighteen years. This man knew no other life. When his father died and he came to pay his respects to the body, blood began to trickle from the nose, which was seen as proof that Richard had killed his father. In a sense he had, because of his hostility to Henry II, encouraged by Eleanor, his mother.

  In my misery and confusion, I begin to choke. For a moment I see the young girl looking at me, concerned. I am longing to speak to her, to assure her that I am all right. I exit from the library into the suddenly fallen, iron-hard night.

  I make my way back to Ed’s house. I may be having a breakdown. Ed takes me by the arm.

  ‘Are you OK? You look shattered.’

  ‘Sorry, Ed, I had a bad moment. I’m OK now.’