University of Virginia Library

II.5. CHAPTER V

HOW THEY SAILED TO CYPRUS; OF THE MESSAGE FROM THE KING OF THE TARTARS; HOW THE SULTAN OF IIOMS POISONED THE SULTAN OF EGYPT.

IN the month of August, we entered into our ship at the Rock of Marseilles. On the same day that we went aboard, they opened the door of the ship, and all the horses that we were to take over seas with us were put inside, and they closed the door up again, and caulked it up well, just as in sinking a barrel, because when the ship is at sea the whole of the door is under water.

When the horses were inside, our master mariner shouted to his sailors who were in the prow of the ship; "Is all ready? then, Sir, let the clergy and the priests come forwards! " and when they were all assembled, " Strike up a chant, in God's name!" cried he. And they all sang aloud in unison: Veni Creator Spiritus.. And he shouted to his sailors: "Spread sail, in God's name! " and they

did so. And in a little while, the wind had caught the sail, and carried us beyond sight of land, and we saw nothing but water and sky; and every day, the wind carried us further away from the land where we were born. And hereby I would show you how foolhardy is he who adventures himself in such peril, if he be in debt to any man, or in deadly sin; for one goes to sleep at night never knowing whether one will awake at the bottom of the sea.

There befell us at sea a most wondrous thing. We sighted a mountain, perfectly round, which lies off Barbary. It was about the hour of Vespers when we sighted it; and we sailed all night, and thought to have made more than fifty leagues, but the next day we found ourselves off the very same mountain; and the same thing befell us twice or thrice. When the sailors saw this, they were all dismayed, and told us: that our ships were in great danger, for that we were off the territory belonging to the Saracens of Barbary.

Then a worthy priest, called the Dean of Malrut, told us: that they were never afflicted in his parish, either with want of water or with too much rain,

or any other affliction, but that, so soon as he had made three processions, three Saturdays running, God and His Mother delivered them from it.

This was a Saturday, and we made the first procession round the two masts of the ship. I myself was carried round by the arms, being grievous sick.

Thereafter we saw the mountain no more, and came to Cyprus on the third Saturday.

When we reached Cyprus, the King was already there; and we found a great plenty of the King's stores: to wit, store of wine and money and grain. The wine was stored in this manner: The King's people had heaped, right in the open by the sea shore, great mounds of wine-casks, that they had bought two years before the King's arrival; these were piled one on top of the other, so that, seen from the front, they looked just like barns. The wheat and barley they had stacked in heaps in the open fields, and to look at, they seemed to be hills; for the rain beating on the corn for a long time, had caused it to sprout, so that only the green blades were visible. And so it was, that when they wanted to remove it to Egypt, they pulled down the crust

of green corn on the top, and found the wheat and barley grain underneath as fresh as though it were newly threshed.

The King would gladly have pressed on into Egypt without stopping, so I heard him say, if it had not been for his barons, who urged him to stay and wait for the rest of his followers who had not yet all arrived.

Whilst the King was tarrying in Cyprus, the great King of the Tartars sent messengers to him, greeting him courteously, and bearing word, amongst other things, that he was ready to help him conquer the Holy Land and deliver Jerusalem out of the hand of the Saracens. The King received them most graciously, and sent in reply messengers of his own, who remained away two years, before they returned to him. Moreover the King sent to the King of the Tartars by the messengers a tent made in the style of a chapel, which cost a great deal, for it was made wholly of good fine scarlet cloth. And to entice them if possible into our faith, the King caused pictures to be inlaid in the said chapel, pourtraying the annunciation of Our Lady, and all the other points of the Creed. These things

he sent them by two Preaching Friars, who knew Arabic, in order to show and teach them what they ought to believe. The two friars got back to the King just when the King's brothers returned to France, and found the King at the time when he had left Acre (where his brothers parted from him,) and was at Cesarea, fortifying it, there being no peace nor truce with the Saracens.

How the King of France's messengers were received, I shall tell you, just as they told it them-selves to the King; and in their story you will hear many strange things, which I will not relate now, for it would break too much into the subject in hand, which is as follows:

I, who had not a thousand pounds' worth of rents, burdened myself, when I went over seas with nine other knights, of whom two were bannerets. And it so befell me, that when I landed at Cyprus, after paying for my ship, I had only twelve score pounds tournois left; whereupon, some of my knights sent me word, that, if I could not procure money, they should leave me. And God, who never failed me, supplied me in this way, that the King, who was at Nicosia, sent for me and retained me, and put

eight hundred pounds into my coffers; and then I had more money than I needed.

Whilst we were tarrying at Cyprus, the Empress of Constantinople sent me word that she had landed at Paphos, a city of Cyprus, and that I was to come and fetch her with Lord Erard of Brienne.

When we got there, we found, that a gale had snapped the ropes of her ship's anchors, and carried the ship to Acre; and she had nothing left of all her baggage, but the cloak that she was wearing and a pinafore. We brought her home, where the King and Queen and all the barons received her with great honours. On the morrow, I sent her some cloth and taffety to trim her dress. My Lord Philip of Nanteuil, that good knight, who was of the King's household, met my squire on his way to the Empress. When the gallant man saw what he was carrying, he went to the King, and told him: That I had put him and the other barons to shame with the dresses that I had sent her, for not having thought of it themselves before.

The Empress came to seek the King's help for her lord, who had stayed behind in Constantinople, and so far succeeded as to carry away with her

a couple of hundred letters or more, some from me, and some from her other friends there; in which letters we bound ourselves by oath, that, if the King or Legate would send three hundred knights to Constantinople, after the King should have left the Holy Land, we swore to go with them. And I, to acquit me of my oath, desired of the King, when we came away, in the presence of the Count (of Eu), whose testimony I have in writing, that if he was minded to send three hundred knights, that I might go, as I was sworn. The King answered: that he had not the means to do it; for that he must have touched the bottom of his wealth, however great it was.

After we had landed in Egypt, the Empress went on to France, taking with her my Lord John of Acre, her brother, whom she married to the Countess of Montfort.

At the time when we came to Cyprus, the Sultan of Iconium was the richest king in all pagandom. He had made a marvel; for he had caused a great part of his gold to be melted in earthenware jars, and then had the jars broken; and the shapes of solid gold stood exposed to full view in one of his

castles, so that everyone who came in could see and touch them. There must have been about six or seven of them. His great wealth might be seen by a pavilion that the King of Armenia sent to the King of France, which was worth full five hundred pounds; and the King of Armenia gave him to know, that it was a present from one of the ferashes of the Sultan of Iconium. A ferash is one who looks after the Sultan's pavilions, and cleans his houses.

The King of Armenia, hoping to shake off the yoke of the Sultan of Iconium, betook him to the King of the Tartars, and made himself their vassal, in order to have their assistance; and he brought away such a vast number of warriors that he was strong enough to give battle to the Sultan of Iconium. The battle lasted a great while, and the Tartars slew so many of the Sultan's men, that nothing more was heard of him.

There was great talk in Cyprus of the approaching battle; and at the rumour of it, many of our serjeants crossed over into Armenia, for the sake of the fighting and the booty —but none of them ever came back again.

The Sultan of Grand Cairo, who was expecting the King to come into Egypt with the beginning of spring, bethought him that he would go and confound the Sultan of Homs, who was his enemy, and he went and sat down before the city of Homs to besiege him. The Sultan of Homs was at his wits' end to rid himself of the Sultan of Grand Cairo, for he saw plainly that he would be his ruin, if he lived long enough. And he began to treat with the Sultan of Cairo's ferashes, and bargained with them to poison him. And this was the way he was poisoned:

The ferash noticed, that the Sultan, every day, on rising from table, used to go and play chess on the mats at the foot of his bed; and the mat on which he knew the Sultan always sat, that one he took and poisoned. So it chanced, that the Sultan, whose legs were bare, rubbed on a sore place that was on his leg, and forthwith the poison pierced him to the quick, and took from him all power of motion in that side of the body nearest the heart. He was full two days, and neither drank, nor ate, nor spoke. So they left the Sultan of Homs in peace, and his followers brought him back to Egypt.

NOTE TO CHAPTER V

According to Guillaume de Nangis, the Tartar messengers purported to bring a message from Iltchiktai, the great Khan's lieutenant in Asia Minor, in which he proposed that King Louis should land in Egypt, whilst he attacked Bagdad, so as to prevent the Saracens of Egypt and those of Syria from joining forces. King Louis, later on, much repented the distinction with which he had treated these emissaries; but at the time, they were made much of as interesting neophytes. On Christmas Day they went to Mass with the King, and afterwards dined at his table, where they showed that they knew how to "behave like Christians."

When they went away, the King gave them, besides the tent-chapel, a bit of the wood of the true Cross, and the Legate gave them a letter, receiving the Tartar nation into the family of the Church.