It took the King’s sappers and siege engineers a day and a half to prepare the pitch, oil and sulphur to attack the walls of Kolossi. When they were ready, we drew up our knights and conrois of cavalry in formation, poised to charge through the breaches we were going to burn into the bailey’s walls.
The siege tactics were simple: the Lionheart ordered that the fire be directed at three points at the base of the wooden walls, where it would ignite the timbers, and at the heavy wooden gates at the end of the single bridge that gave ingress to the castle.
The summer heat of Cyprus was beginning to encroach, and the ground and everything above it was parched. Within three hours of the assault beginning, Kolossi’s walls were ablaze. We stood off, sweltering in our saddles, waiting for the signal to attack. It was fortunate that our war horses, the Norman destriers of legend, were battle-hardened by countless tournaments and military campaigns. The Lionheart’s decision to transport them by sea was an unprecedented move. Now, after weeks on the water, including several embarkations and disembarkations, these beasts, raised in cool northern climes, were about to be asked to charge through flame and smoke in the heat of a Mediterranean summer. We need not have been concerned; the horses were as keen to attack as we were. They stomped, neighed and pulled; they were like the Lionheart himself, eager to take flight and go to war.
The King scoured the flames and smoke, looking for holes in the walls that would allow us to assault the castle’s bailey. The main gates were much more substantial than the walls and withstood the flames far longer, but eventually one part of the walls, about three yards wide, was burned down to waist level.
The Lionheart looked at me.
I nodded, as confidently as I could. But I knew that, once again, the beast I had by the tail was about to drag me into another fight to the death.
Within seconds, I was next to the King as we plunged into the castle’s ditch and up the other side. With the arrows and quarrels from our archers trying to keep the defenders at bay, we jumped through the flames into a bailey which was bristling with men and weapons. The Lionheart’s horse was hit the moment we entered the open space. The defenders had created a cordon of lances, bows and swords, and we rode into a bombardment of missiles. Godric took an arrow through his arm and Rodor was hit in the thigh by a lance that glanced off his shield and embedded itself into his flesh.
I jumped from my horse and made sure Modig took care of Godric and Rodor. Leax and Penda gathered around me and we placed ourselves at the Lionheart’s shoulder as he waded into the defenders. I was anxious that we had stuck our heads into a cauldron, and I turned in the hope of finding our men flooding in behind us. To my immense relief, led by Mercadier on his huge black destrier, our conrois were flooding through the smoke and flames to support us. The King had not hesitated and, with his shield held high, was raining blows on to the wall of defenders.
But we faced troops who were determined not to yield. Four, in particular, attacked the Lionheart with venom and managed to force him backwards. For once, in hand-to-hand fighting, his safety was under real threat. ‘Varangians!’ shouted Mercadier as he ran one through with his lance. Isaac must have recruited the legendary mercenaries from Constantinople, where they had served the Byzantine Emperor for generations. Distinctive in their dark-blue capes and with their long hair and beards, these Norse and English warriors had a fearsome reputation – especially for the use of their formidable battleaxes.
In a moment of terror, I watched as King Richard had his sword knocked from his hand. One of the Varangians had got between me and the Lionheart, and I was too far away to help, as were Mercadier and my men. Fortunately, the King always carried a small pugio on his belt for emergencies like this. With lightning speed, he was able to draw it, duck under the arc of his assailant’s axe and plunge it into his belly. Mercadier had brought the Lionheart a horse, and he was able to get into the saddle and continue his onslaught.
However, I remained isolated. The two Varangians I faced were at least half a head taller than I was, and the blows from their axes hit my shield like blacksmiths’ hammers. I had no choice but to retreat under the onslaught. I looked for Penda and Leax; both were on the ground. Penda was moving, but in great distress from a wound to his shoulder that was discharging blood profusely. Leax was motionless, but with no sign of a wound. I was forced back against the walls of the bailey, which put an end to any further retreat. My prospects were not good.
The Varangian to my right launched his axe towards my helmet but, inadvertently, he gave me a chance. His blow was too close to the wall and instead of splitting my skull asunder, it cleaved deep into the timber of the wall. In the moment it took for him to pull it free, I was able to lunge under his shield and thrust my sword deep into his midriff. His eyes opened wide in horror and pain as he fell on to me, his bulk protecting me from his comrade’s blows. Then, with all the strength I could muster, I used the Varangian’s body as a battering ram to force myself away from the wall. My sudden movement unsteadied the second Norseman, who tripped over a body behind him and landed on the floor with his comrade on top of him. He was at my mercy and I despatched him before he had a chance to free himself.
By the time I found the Lionheart, the battle was all but over. Defenders were streaming out of the door at the bottom of the keep, followed by Blondel and the other prisoners. Our men were already carrying out the plundered treasure and laying it before the King’s Chancellor to be checked against his inventory.
At the end of the flow of people came Isaac, the self-styled Emperor of Cyprus. He had been stripped to his underwear and was being prodded at the end of a sword by his own guards, who had finally had enough of his cruel regime and had turned on him. The Lionheart ordered that he be put in chains. But the hapless man wailed that, as a boy, he had been held hostage in chains for several years and he thus had a hatred of iron. The King smiled benignly at him and spoke softly.
‘I’m so sorry, my Lord Emperor, I will resolve your anguish for you.’ He turned to his steward and commanded, ‘Tell the blacksmiths to make chains from the silver he stole from me.’
Godric and the men were taken to the infirmary to have their wounds treated. Their injuries were serious but none were a threat to life, nor to their future on the campaign, as long as they stayed clear of infection. Leax was the least seriously hurt; he had suffered a blow to the head from a shield, which had knocked him unconscious for a minute or two. The rest of us hoped it would also knock some sense into him.
Two days later, resplendent in his gleaming silver chains, Isaac, the ‘Emperor of Cyprus’, was put on to a ship. He was to be incarcerated on the coast of Palestine, in the forbidding Hospitaller Castle of Margat. His two daughters, Theodora and Anna, were put into the care of the Lionheart’s sister, Joan. The King also acquired Isaac’s horse, the palomino he had admired so much from a distance. It was an amazing creature, which he christened ‘Fauvel’ because of its remarkable honey colour. William Marshal thought it a cross between a pure white Arab stallion and a bay Norman mare; it was an observation that led the King to speculate, with his usual mischievous humour, about his own value at stud.
‘I wonder what would happen the other way round. I must conduct a trial when in the Holy Land to see what this fine Plantagenet stallion would produce if coupled with a sleek Arab mare!’
The Lionheart ordered that final preparations for the crossing to the Holy Land be made. Our destination was close, less than a hundred miles to our east, across waters that were usually kind to sailors. But before we left, the King had one more task to perform.
Conscious that he was about to face a redoubtable enemy and his mighty host in battle, he needed to marry Berengere before we left and, hopefully, impregnate her with his heir. Abbot Alun was summoned to prepare the nuptials. As always, he had something profound to say.
‘Sire, this is the land of Aphrodite, the Lady of Cyprus, the Greek goddess of love and of pleasure. It is also the home of Adonis, their god of desire; he is like our Wodewose, a symbol of fertility and nature. There could not be a better place to marry Berengere.’
‘Where do you get all this knowledge from, my dear Alun?’
‘I read books, my Lord; you should try it.’
‘No thank you; you do the reading, I’ll do the fighting.’
The wedding ceremony was conducted by Alun and assisted by the Orthodox clergy of the island, who came to pay homage to their fellow-Christian King. It was held just before dusk in an early Christian shrine, the Chapel of St George, in Limassol Castle on 12 May 1191. Far removed from the scale and grandeur of Westminster or Rouen, on a balmy evening in the enchanting Mediterranean, it was, nevertheless, a charming and romantic occasion. Berengere looked radiant and the Lionheart looked… well, like the Lionheart: he was every inch a king
