CHAPTER V

THE CHAPTER OF FORBIDDING:  HOW DE GURDUN LOOKED, AND KING RICHARD HID HIS FACE

Since the Soldan broke his pledges, King Richard swore that he would keep his.  So he had all the two thousand hostages killed, except the Sheik Moffadin, whom the Marquess had enlarged.  He has been blamed for this, and I (if it were my business) should blame him too.  He asked no counsel, and allowed no comment:  by this time he was absolute over the armies in Acre.  If I am to say anything upon the red business it shall be this, that he knew very well where his danger lay.  It was his friends, not his enemies, he had reason to fear; and upon these the effect of what he did was instantaneous, and perhaps well-timed.  The Count of Flanders had died of the camp-sickness; King Philip was stricken to the bones with the same crawling disease.  Nothing now could keep Philip away from France.  Acre was full of rumours, meetings of kings and princes, spies, racing messengers.  Who should stay and who go was the matter of debate.  Philip meant to go:  his friend, Prince John of England, had been writing to him.  Flanders must be occupied, and Flanders, near England, was nearer yet to Normandy.  The Marquess also meant to go—­to Sidon for Lebanon.  He had things to do up there on Richard’s and his own account, as you shall hear.  But the Archduke chose to stay in Acre—­and so on.

King Richard heard of each of these hasty discussions with a shrug, and only put his hand down when they were all concluded.  He said that unless French hostages were left in his keeping for the fulfilment of covenants, he should know what to do.

‘And what is that, King of England?’ asked Philip.

‘What becomes me,’ was the short answer, given in full hail before the magnates.  They looked at each other and askance at the sanguine-hued King, who drove them all huddling before him by mere magnanimity.  What could they do but leave hostages?  They left Burgundy, Beauvais, and Henry of Champagne—­one friend, one enemy, and one blockhead.  Now you see a reason for drawing the sword upon the wretched Turks.  If Richard had planted, they, poor devils, had to water.

So King Philip went home, and the Marquess to Sidon for Lebanon; and Richard, knowing full well that they meant him ill here and at home, turned his face towards Jerusalem.

* * * * *

When the time came for ordering the goings of his host, he grew very nervous about what he must leave behind him in Acre.  Whether he was a good man or not, a good husband, a good lover or not, he was passionately a father.  In every surge and cry of his wild heart he showed this.  The heart is a generous inn, keeps open house, grows wide to meet all corners.  The company is divers.  In King Richard’s heart sat three guests:  Christ and His lost Cross, Jehane and her lost honour, and little Fulke upon her breast.  Christ was a dumb