Warrior's Song (Medieval Song 1)

Jerval turned abruptly away from her, his fists clenched at his sides. “I have said everything I wished to. As I said, there is little reason for me to remain at Camberley. When you are well, I am going to the Holy Land with Edward.”

As it turned out, Jerval de Vernon didn’t go alone. He took two knights and their squires, six soldiers, three archers, and his wife.

CHAPTER 23

Tunis

Four Months Later

There was a growing swell of noise from the soldiers, and shouts suddenly rang out, not only from their ship, but from the man-of-war that sailed off their bow. Chandra strained her eyes through the haze in the distance, but it was several minutes before she could be sure she saw the sprawling mass of buildings that was the city.

Tunis! After week upon dreary week aboard their small vessel, they’d finally arrived.

Chandra felt excitement bubble up like fresh water from a spring. “Look, Jerval, at those tall towers with the oddly shaped domes. Whatever are they?”

“They are called minarets. The Moslem religious men climb to their tops to call the people to prayer. Payn told me about them.”

Their ship sailed close in to the rest of the fleet as they neared the point of land. Chandra saw one of the soldiers hurl a bag of spoiled flour overboard and shout, “Food at last!”

“You’ll kill the fish,” someone shouted back.

“I must join the men soon, Chandra. You find Joanna and stay with her.”

Ah Joanna, Sir Payn de Chaworth’s wife, had become her friend during the long voyage. Joanna, plump, dark-haired, filled with laughter, always optimistic. She nodded.

“By God,” Lambert said when they were finally in sight of the harbor, “behold all the ships. With King Louis, we will make a fearsome sight when we sail to Acre.”

Their ship eased behind a huge man-of-war, and the rowers held to a narrow channel between the French ships. Chandra could make out scores of men waving wildly toward them from the rough wooden docks. Their ship scraped an anchor line as they neared the docks, and the sailors’ fierce shouts rang out over the soldiers’ cheering.

It took several hours for their ship to take its turn at the dock. Chandra fidgeted impatiently as she waited with Joanna on the forecastle. They could see clustered buildings, low stone huts separated by narrow alleyways, rising behind the dock. From their vantage point, it seemed that all of Tunis was French soldiers, loitering about on the docks, waving and shouting toward the English ships.

“Everything looks so very strange,” Joanna de Chaworth whispered to Chandra when they finally stepped onto the rolling dock. “So very foreign.”

“Aye,” Chandra said, “it does, but that doesn’t matter. Finally, we’re here. I wondered if we would ever arrive.”

It was difficult to walk after being aboard the ship for so many long weeks. They were flanked by a dozen soldiers, Rolfe and Lambert at their head, balance difficult for all of them. After weeks at sea, the noise made her ears ring. Outside their line of soldiers, she saw a knot of Moslem men ogling them, most of them short and wiry, all with dark faces. They were dressed in baggy white trousers and loose shirts, their heads wrapped in thick white turbans. They looked insolent and angry, and Chandra felt a quiver of fear. Skinny-legged children, many of them naked, darted between their legs, yelling and pointing wildly toward her and Joanna.

“They hate us,” Joanna said. “Look, Chandra, at the women.”

Chandra looked toward a small knot of women who stood hunched like a flock of black crows in an open doorway. Unlike the men, they were covered from head to toe in black, even their faces shrouded with thin black veils.

“I feel naked compared to them,” Joanna said, touching her fingers to her face.

“I wonder why they are all covered up. Surely that black must be terribly hot.”

“My lady,” Rolfe shouted, shoving the men aside to reach her. “The king is dead!”

“Which king?”

“King Louis—he died over a month ago of the stomach flux. All these soldiers and ships belong to King Charles of Sicily.”

Poor Edward, she thought. He had dreamed of joining with the sainted Louis on the crusade. “Who is King Charles?”

“King Louis’s youngest brother. Sir Jerval has asked me to escort you to King Charles’s encampment outside the city. He said he would join you as soon as he could.”

Joanna clasped her hands over her bosom. Usually one to see the good in every situation, she closed her eyes and moaned this time. “What will happen to us now?”

Bathed and gowned, Chandra paced the narrow width of the tent, awaiting Jerval’s return. She had sent away the Moslem slave woman after her blessed bath, a gift, Rolfe told her, from the bey. She opened up the tent flap and stepped outside, hoping for a breeze from the sea, but she soon retreated within, for the sun was beating down mercilessly upon the treeless camp. As far as she could see, small, stiff-topped tents were being raised over the rocky terrain. English soldiers were still arriving, their belongings slung over their shoulders. Chandra could make out Edward’s pavilion, larger by far than the other tents, set atop a small rise. His personal guard, some dozen soldiers dressed in his blue-and-white livery, were clearing a defensive perimeter about his pavilion.