University of Virginia Library

II.13. CHAPTER XIII

DIGRESSION ON THE SULTAN'S BODYGUARD THE PESTILENCE IN THE CAMP THE KING RE-CROSSES THE RIVER, AND TREATS WITH THE SARACENS THE EPISODE OF THE SIX IMPIOUS KNIGHTS.

AFTER the battle, which was on the first Friday of Lent, the King summoned all his barons before him, and spoke as follows: " Great thanksgiving," said he, "do we owe Our Lord, in that He hath conferred on us two such favours in this week, that on Shrove Tuesday we drove them from these quarters where we are now lodged, and on this Friday just past, we have repelled them, we on foot and they on horseback." And many other fine words did he speak to put heart into them.

In order to pursue our story we must first digress from it a little, to explain the system and footing on which the Sultans maintained their followers. Truly the greater part of their chivalry was composed of foreigners, whom the merchants procured

in foreign lands for sale, and the Sultans bought them eagerly and at high prices. These people whom they brought into Egypt were procured in the East; for whenever one of the kings of the East had subdued another, he used to take the poor people whom he had conquered, and sell them to the merchants, and the merchants returned into Egypt to sell them. The system was as follows: the Sultan used to bring up the children in his own house, until such time as their beards began to grow. And according to their capacity, the Sultan had bows made to fit them; and as they grew stronger, they laid their bows aside in the Sultan's arsenal, and his Master of Ordnance provided them with bows as stiff as they could draw. The Sultan's arms were of gold, and these youths bore the same arms as he did, and they were called Baharis. When their beards began to grow, the Sultan knighted them, and they used to bear the Sultan's arms with some slight difference: such as crimson devices, roses, or crimson bends, or birds, or some other device according to their fancy, on arms of gold. And these men of whom I am speaking were said to be "of the Halka" [Bodyguard], for the Baharis lay in the Sultan's tents.

Whenever the Sultan was in the camp, the men of the Halka were quartered all round his lodging, and appointed to guard his person. At the door of the Sultan's lodging there was a little tent for the Sultan's door-keepers, and for his musicians, who had Arabian horns and drums and kettledrums; and they used to make such a din at daybreak and at nightfall that people near them could not hear one another speak, and that they could be heard plainly all through the camp. The musicians never dared sound their instruments in the daytime unless by the order of the Chief of the Halka. Thus it was, that whenever the Sultan had a proclamation to make he used to send for the Chief of the Halka, and give him the order; and then the Chief would cause all the Sultan's instruments to be sounded; and thereupon all the host would come to hear the Sultan's commands. The Chief of the Halka uttered them, and all the host obeyed them.

When the Sultan went to war he would make the Knights of the Halka Emirs, according to their achievements in battle, and would give them

two or three hundred knights for their company, and the better they did the more the Sultan gave them.

This price indeed they pay for their honours: that when they attain to such wealth and distinction as to be independent, and the Sultan begins to be afraid they may kill or depose him, he then has them taken and thrown into prison to die, and strips their wives of all they have. This the Sultan did to those who captured the Counts of Montfort and of Bar. Even so Bondocdar dealt with those who had overthrown the King of Armenia; for they, thinking to be well received, alighted, and went on foot to greet him where he was hunting wild beasts. But he answered them: "I give you no greeting!" because they had interrupted his chase; and he caused their heads to be struck off.

Let us now return to our subject. The Sultan who was dead had a son, twenty-five years of age, wise and quick and cunning; and the Sultan, fearing lest he should dethrone him, gave him a kingdom that he owned in the East. Now that the Sultan was dead, the Emirs sent for him; and no sooner was he come to Egypt, than he dismissed

his father's Seneschal, his Constable and his Mar shall, and deprived them of their golden rods, and gave them to those who had come with him from the East.

At this they were very indignant, as well as all the rest of his father's council, because of the slight he had put upon them. Moreover they feared, that he would deal with them as his grandfather had dealt with those who had captured the Count of Montfort and the Count of Bar; and they made interest with the men of the Halka, whose duty it was, as I told you, to guard the Sultan's person, so far as to make a bargain with them to put the Sultan to death whenever they requested.

After the two battles already narrated the army's troubles began in earnest. For, at the end of nine days, the bodies of our men whom they had slain rose to the surface of the water (they say it was because their galls had rotted) and came floating down as far as the bridge that joined the two camps, and could not get by, because the bridge was flush with the water. A great mass of them there was, so that the stream was choked with corpses from one bank to the other, and they

reached a short stone's throw up the river. The King had hired a hundred common labourers, who were busied at it for quite a week. The bodies of the Saracens, which were circumcised, they flung over to the other side of the bridge, and let them drift down the river. The Christians were laid all together in great trenches. I saw the Count of Artois' chamberlains there, and many others, seeking their friends among the dead; but I never heard of any one being recognised.

We ate no fish in the camp all Lent, save mudeels; and the eels, being greedy fish, used to feed on the dead bodies. And from this misfortune, together with the unhealthiness of the country, where there never falls a drop of rain, we were stricken with the " camp-sickness," which was such that the flesh of our limbs all shrivelled up, and the skin of our legs became all blotched with black, mouldy patches, like an old jack-boot, and proud flesh came upon the gums of those of us who had the sickness, and none escaped from this sickness save through the jaws of death. The signal was this: when the nose began to bleed, then death was at hand.

A fortnight later, the Turks, intending to starve

us out, to the great astonishment of many people, took several of their galleys that were above the camp, and had them dragged over land to the river, a good league below our camp, on the way from Damietta. And these galleys caused a famine; for none of our side dared come from Damietta to bring us provisions up stream, because of their galleys. We never got any news of these things, until one day when a little vessel belonging to the Count of Flanders, which had forced its way through them, told us about it, and that the Sultan's galleys had captured about eighty of our galleys on their way up from Damietta, and killed the men in them.

From this cause there arose such a dearth in the camp, that by the time Easter had come an ox was worth in the camp eighty pounds, a sheep thirty pounds, a pig thirty pounds, an egg twelve pence, and a hogshead of wine ten pounds.

Seeing these things, the King and the barons decided that he should remove his camp on the Cairo side across to the Duke of Burgundy's camp, which was on the river leading to Damietta. In order to withdraw his men with greater

security, the King had a barbican constructed in front of the bridge that joined the two camps, and so made, that one could enter the barbican from either side on horseback. When the barbican was ready, the King put all the camp under arms, and the Turks made a general onslaught on the King's camp. Nevertheless, neither camp nor men budged, until all the baggage had been carried over; and then the King went across and his battalion after him, and afterwards all the rest of the barons, except my Lord Walter of Châtillon, who formed the rearguard. At the entrance to the barbican, my Lord Erard of Valery rescued Lord John his brother, whom the Turks were leading away prisoner.

When all the army had crossed through, those who remained in the barbican were in an evil plight; for the barbican was not high and the Turks could see to aim at them from horseback, while the Turks on foot threw clods of earth in their faces. They were all lost men, had it not been for the Count of Anjou (afterwards King of Sicily), who went to their rescue, and brought them off safe. My Lord Geoffrey of Mussanburg

carried off the prize of that day, the prize of all those who were in the barbican.

On the eve of Shrove Tuesday I witnessed a marvel that I will relate to you. For on that same day, we laid in the earth Lord Hugh of Landricourt, who carried his banner in my company. There as he lay upon the bier in my chapel, there were six of my knights lolling upon some sacks of barley. And because they were talking noisily in my chapel and disturbing the priest, I went up to them and bade them be quiet, telling them that it was a disgraceful thing for knights and gentlemen to talk whilst mass was being sung. Thereupon they began to laugh in my face, and told me laughing, that they would have the remarrying of his wife; and I rated them and told them that such words were neither right nor seemly, and that they had quickly forgotten their comrade. And thus did God take vengeance on them: that on the morrow was the great battle of Shrove Tuesday, wherein they were either slain or wounded to death, so that their wives had to be remarried, all six of them.

Owing to the wounds that I got on Shrove

Tuesday, the camp-sickness seized me in my mouth and legs, together with a double tertian fever, and such a violent rheum in my head, that the rheum streamed out of my head through my nostrils; and by reason of these maladies, I took to my bed in mid-Lent.

Now it so chanced, that my priest was singing mass by my bedside in my pavilion, and he had the same malady that I had. And it came to pass, that in the midst of performing the Sacrament he fainted. When I saw him tottering, I leapt from my bed, with my coat on, but all barefoot, and clasped him in my arms, and bade him finish his Sacrament fairly and forthwith; telling him, I would not leave go of him until he should have completed it. He pulled himself together, and performed the Sacrament, and sang his mass all through, and never sang service again.

After these events the King's council and the Sultan's council fixed a day to make terms; and the terms of the agreement were these: that Damietta was to be restored to the Sultan, and that the Sultan was to restore to the King the kingdom of Jerusalem. Moreover, the Sultan was to take care

of all the sick that were in Damietta, and of the salted meat (since they ate no pork), and of the King's engines, until such time as the King should be able to send and fetch all these things.

They asked the King's council what surety they would give, that they should recover Damietta. The King's council offered them one of the King's brothers, to be detained until they should receive Damietta, either the Count of Anjou, or the Count of Poitiers. The Saracens refused to have anything to do with it, unless the King's own person were left in pawn; whereupon the good knight, my Lord Geoffrey of Sargines, said, that he would rather the Saracens had them all dead or prisoners, than that they should incur the reproach of having left the King in pawn.

The sickness began to increase at such a rate in the camp, and so much dead flesh came upon the gums of our people, that the barbers were obliged to remove it, to enable them to chew their food and to swallow. A most piteous thing it was to hear through the camp the screams of the people from whom they were cutting the dead flesh, for they screamed just like women labouring with child.

NOTE TO CHAPTER XIII

Jean Pierre Sarrasin, the King's Chamberlain, gives a vivid account of the sufferings in the camp. He says, that twenty or thirty men died every day of pestilence or hunger; and that throughout the camp there was not a man but was mourning for some friend, and himself in hourly expectation of death. Those that were whole went about wearing white badges to warn off the infected.

Food and fodder were alike exhausted. The horses perished with the men. The carcass of a mule or horse when it was to be got was a dainty; and soon a chance dog or cat was the occasion for a feast. The greatest men would go anywhere, uninvited, to get a meal.

The camp was full of grumbling and suspicion. Even those who kept their health were sick of the business, and put no heart into their work. It was murmured: that numbers of Christians were deserting to the Saracen camp; that the King was going bankrupt; and that the flower of the army had perished with the Count of Artois.

All the while, the Saracens never ceased harassing the unfortunate soldiers of the Cross, and they lived in terror of an assault which should carry their defences and put them all to the sword.