Three Chess Games for the City
Three Chess Games for the City
The King of England looked out over the hills dotted with many colored tents. Cooking fires rose up from portable tent city and curled into the sky and dissipated.
When Saladin returned, he made an apology. “I was official business, my dispatches. It takes over a week to receive one from Damascus.”
“You’re closer to home than I am,” replied Richard. “Mine take almost a month.”
“We’re fortunate compared to the soldiers writing home. But to answer your question, the banners you see are scribes. Many of my common soldiers can’t read or write. The scribes are their secretaries and post masters and write letters for them.”
“I see.”
“It’s expensive to send them, and slow. But then carrying on a war far from home is expensive too. You know that.”
“Only too well.”
“I would rather spend my dinars hiring teachers in Reed City and have an informed populace of thousands that make good decisions, rather than stock an armory with a million Damascus blades.”
“It’s true. War can be a costly endeavor.”
Saladin gazed over at the Koran left open on a folding rosewood stand. His prayer beads marked the page where he’d been reading. Nearby, frankincense and myrrh smoldered in an incense burner whose smoke spiraled like an angel to the top of the tent.
“And the cost of a life is not figured in Paradise,” he said, “It’s calculated by the number of tears shed by those left behind here on earth.”
“The worst bloodletting has yet to come.”
“You mean Jerusalem, naturally.”
“Naturally, it’s come to that. But as generals we must do what we can to keep losses down.”
“I agree, and that’s why you’re here, isn’t it? I may have found a solution. In ancient times a victory in battle was often decided by combat between two champions. The common soldiers were spared.”
“You mean the Greeks? Paris versus Menelaus?
“Exactly. Like David versus Goliath.”
“But my best knight, the Flemish baron James d’Avesness is dead.”
“So is el-Tawil, my knight with a will of fire. But I know the names of two more champions, Richard and Saladin. See the chess board in the corner? That will be the field of battle.”
The chessboard squares were rosewood and camel bone. The black chessmen were iron wood and the white were ivory. The code of chivalry would be tested, and the ability of a knight to protect the weak and oppressed, and how a general might minimize his casualties.
“One game?” said Richard, raising his eyebrows, pulling on his beard.
“On such an auspicious occasion,” smiled Saladin, with eyes like a hawk, “let it be two out of three.”
“Done.”
Two cushions were put on either side of a low table, and when the men took different sides, the battle began. Saladin was cautious in his first moves. Richard began what would seem defensively, but it was only a feint, before long he was on the offense, playing more to his true self rather than from any pre-imagined strategy. Saladin quickly realized he was at a disadvantage. Used to playing with courtiers more concerned with letting him win than providing him with a rigorous game, he found himself out of shape.
Again and again Richard’s wild tactics kept him off balance. Saladin had the impression he was engaging with Richard at full gallop, but with only one foot in the stirrup.
The two knights had been engaged all afternoon. Now it was night, and the moon only a sliver of ice against the dark heavens. The camp was silent with small fires here and there, and they were nothing but dying embers. The dark Sultan gathered his kaftan around his slight frame. Richard tugged on his red beard, never taking his eyes off the board. With three moves Saladin was in checkmate.
At Richard he smiled and nodded his head in resignation, while inside he seethed like a hungry desert lion.
“That’s one for you,” he said. “I’ll see there isn’t another.”
“Good!” Richard slapped his knee. “That’s the spirit. Have you any tea?”
“Directly,” replied Saladin and glanced at the servant, who bowed and left. He returned with tea flavored with Bergamot.
Richard and Saladin stood up. The tall one put one hand on his back and arched it. The smaller one squeezed the back of his neck with his fingers.
The second game started out much like the first. Again, Richard had Saladin on the run. But as it progressed, places took a different turn. Saladin kept extending his lines until Richard noticed the weak middle and behind that, a Bishop. He charged up the middle with his knights. But to Saladin it wasn’t merely a field of rosewood and camel bone, it was a field of sand, Hattin all over. Before Richard knew it, the captured Bishop turned into a Greek gift. His pieces were decimated in the process and crumbled like the walls of Priam’s Troy.
Saladin knocked on the board with his knuckles.
“Now that makes us even. It’s late, or I should say early, with one game left. Let’s stretch, and break our fast with something light.”
“I own that I’m famished. My energy is flagging.”
Saladin motioned to his servant. Before long a meceda was spread in the floor, and then in came the silver trays and porcelain dishes, spread in a pattern that radiated outward.
“These are scrambled eggs with fresh tomato, onions and parsley. This is warm cumin-spiced fava beans with flat bread, topped with zaatar, which is ground beef and feta cheese.”
“You certainly know how to break a fast, this is as stout as any proper English meal.”
“And that’s not the half of it. Here are vegetables, and yogurt sprinkled with diced nuts. And we have here a creamy cheese topped with apricot jam. You know, my stomach must be small. I never eat much at one time but can pick like a Javanese Finch all day long.”
“I’ve been known to carry a mutton chop around all morning. We stuff ourselves at court. You know, you’re an awfully good host.”
Saladin was pleased. Then Richard grew thoughtful and said,
“I wanted to thank you personally for the two horses; it was most chivalrous of you. But why exactly did you make me that gift?”
“Think nothing of it. Regard it as a point of honor between two knights. I found out your horse fell due to a hail of my archers’ arrows. Arrows are indiscriminate weapons, and horses have had the reins on my heart since I was a boy. No knight can do without his steed.”
Both Saladin and Richard ate and were refreshed. It was early, but not yet dawn, and time to start the last game. They sat down again and began. Having been subjected to each other’s strengths and privy to each other’s weaknesses, the game took on an intensity that was only matched by its importance.
Every strategic move by Richard was countered by Saladin. Every advance by Saladin was checked by Richard. Hours later nothing had changed. They had both met their match. When the cocks crowed just before dawn, the men sat immobile looking at the board, locked in a stalemate.
“You know, English king, this 'you against me' pattern is getting us nowhere.”
“I agree, Oh Most Magnificent Sultan, we should just talk.”
“I think so too, but my throat is parched, I’ll get ice and fruit.”
Saladin motioned to the servant and within minutes a deep silver dish was between them filled with ice and slices of pomegranate. The ice itself was rose sherbet.
“This is the same as the flavored ice you sent me when I was ill,” observed Richard.
“I ate it too, and my physicians inform me the pomegranate may have therapeutic value.”
Richard took a slice and nodded. “But you know, with me, it must be the rose flavoring. The day it arrived my stomach could hold down nothing, and I was so fevered I just ate the ice. It was the next day after I’d recovered that I ate fruit.”
Saladin smiled. “We both like the same things. And we both have many of the same profits, and the Jews too. It’s ridiculous to fight. Sometimes I swear this war isn’t so much over religion as property rights on earth, and who owns the right of way to heaven.”
“You have a point. I’ll tell you a story.
At the start of the war I needed to raise a fortune in a short time. I recalled a rich Jew named Melchiedech who lived in Nantes who loaned money at usurious rates. But he was unlikely to lend it of his free will so I plotted and schemed. While at dinner one night I told him it was common knowledge that he was well-versed in religious affairs, and asked him to tell me which of the three laws was the true law, Jewish, Moslem, or Christian.
But he was wise and too keen for me. He knew I was going to squeeze him no matter what he answered.
Instead, he related a story about a wealthy man with a fabulous ruby ring. To honor his wealth and position he bequeathed the ring to his descendants forever, but marking that whoever possessed the ring would be regarded as the true heir and head of the family. In this way it was passed down generation to generation until it came to a man with three sons, all handsome and virtuous and well-loved. All three at one time or another begged him for the ring, and he could not make up his mind. He secretly went to a jeweler and had two exact duplicates made. In secret he gave each son a ring and after he died each one claimed the inheritance and produced the ring. They were so much alike the true one could not be recognized. So they put aside the question of who had the real ring and left it undecided, and it is to this day.
We stood then, as you and I are standing now, the only two men in the room, one Christian, one Jew. You could cut the silence with a dagger.
“Let me say the same thing to you, my Lord, concerning the three Laws given to three peoples by God our Father which are the subject of the question you have just posed. Each believes itself to be the true heir, to possess the true Law, and to follow the true commandments, but whoever is right, just as in the case of the rings, is still undecided.”
He’d avoided the trap I’d set for him and I changed tack and asked him directly and made my needs known to him. In the end he gave me all the money I needed and he’s been a friend ever since.”
Saladin sat back and wiped a sliver of ice from his beard at the same time Richard put one on the tip of his tongue. Frankincense and Myrrh spiraled upward like Pegasus’s tail. Outside the tent beside stately Eucalyptus, the birds of the heavens dwell; and sing among the branches.
“You know, in your letter you mentioned the need of your soldiers to make a pilgrimage to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. I can arrange that.”
“Yes?” Richard sat upright.
“And what if you could retain all the land you possess and I retain Jerusalem and allow pilgrims of all faiths to enter and worship under my protection?”
“Yes?” he sat up even straighter.
“Your soldiers liberate the city bloodlessly.”
“Yes! And then we go home.”
“That would be the idea,” answered Saladin, with a satisfied look on this face indicating a peaceful conspiracy.
Saladin had never seen Richard’s teeth before, but there they were in a smile. He was pleased. Now Saladin took Richard’s hand.
“You have the word of Saladin,” he said, and shook it with great vigor.
When Saladin was watching Richard mount his horse and leave, he noted that The King of England and Aquitaine cut quite a dashing figure. His Saracen troopers lined the side of the path as it wandered back and forth between the apricot banners. They were cheering their enemy, the news was already out, for the canvas of the Sultan’s tent was thin and even canvas has ears.
"Look at him, Uncle, isn’t he magnificent?"
“Yes, he is without question a most honorable enemy.”
“It would seem that some men insure their position in life by cunning and valor, success in battle and hard work…”
“While others are born to wear the purple?”
“Yes.”
“But what puts more pressure on a man, to live by his wits and perform great deeds day after day, or to be expected to achieve greatness because it’s supposed to be part of his character?”
Saladin said nothing, he was unprepared.
“And these endless wars, are they in us, like wild dogs, are they part of our baser make-up? If that is true, how can they be about spiritual matters?”
“Uncle, I’m a statesman and a general, and praise be to He that is Merciful, not a philosopher.”
Though they planned to meet again after signing the treaty, it never occurred. Come August the blood still stained the sand. In September 1192 Richard set sail for home. In 1193 Saladin died of yellow fever and his relatives tore up his patch-work rug and fought for the scraps like hungry jackals.
©Steven Hunley 2013
https://youtu.be/qv6zHJgmIR8?si=YAm4492DC96gDwcO Kingdom of Heaven
