Chapter VIII.
King Richard at Messina.
1190
The triumphal entry into Messina.
The jealousy of the Sicilians and the envy of the French.
Although Richard came down to the Italian shore, opposite to Messina, almost unattended and alone, and under circumstances so ignoble—fugitive as he was from a party of peasants whom he had incensed by an act of petty robbery—he yet made his entry at last into the town itself with a great display of pomp and parade. He remained on the Italian side of the strait, after he arrived on the shore, until he had sent over to Messina, and informed the officers of his fleet, which, by the way, had already arrived there, that he had come. The whole fleet immediately got ready, and came over to the Italian side to take Richard on board and escort him over. Richard entered the harbor with his fleet as if he were a conqueror returning home. The ships and galleys were all fully manned and gayly decorated, and Richard arranged such a number of musicians on the decks of them to blow trumpets and horns as the fleet sailed along the shores and entered the harbor that the air was filled with the echoes of them, and the whole country was called out by the sound. The Sicilians were quite alarmed to see so formidable a host of foreign soldiers coming among them; and even their allies, the French, were not pleased. Philip began to be jealous of Richard's superior power, and to be alarmed at his assuming and arrogant demeanor. Philip had arrived in Messina some time before this, but his fleet, which was originally an inferior one, having consisted of such vessels only as he could hire at Genoa, had been greatly injured by storms during the passage, so that he had reached Messina in a very crippled condition. And now to see Richard coming in apparently so much his superior, and with so evident a disposition to make a parade of his superiority, made him anxious and uneasy.
The same feeling manifested itself, too, among his troops, and this to such a degree as to threaten to break out into open quarrels between the soldiers of the two armies.
"It will never answer," thought Philip, "for us both to remain long at Messina; so I will set out again myself as soon as I possibly can."
The winter sets in upon Richard and Philip in Sicily.