Though King Richard was a great warrior, and though sometimes the thought of Jerusalem made him wish nothing so much as that he might win it from the Saracens, he did not always care to be true to his vows. After this victory he made a gay court for himself at a town called Joppa. He rode out to hunt and to seek adventures. Sometimes he was nearly killed. Once he was in the midst of a band of Saracens. They were going to make him prisoner when a French knight who was with him, shouted:
‘Spare me! I am the king!’
He only said that to let the king go free. The Saracens rushed at the knight, and the king rode off safely.
Another time Richard saw the enemy come down and attack a small band of knights who had ridden out to seek food for their horses. He saw that they were in danger, and he leapt on to his horse and galloped across the plain. Those who had been with him hastened to follow him, but when they saw how many Saracens there were, they begged him to turn and leave the knights to be taken. He was full of anger and, turning to them, he said:
‘How could I ever bear the name of king again if I left my followers to die without help.’
He rushed at the foe. The knights, who had been taken by surprise, felt new courage rise when they saw the king. He and they slashed right and left with their swords, and ere long Richard led the whole party joyously back to the camp at Joppa.
While the Crusaders lived in this gay court, the Christians at Jerusalem, whom they had vowed to help, were hard at work building walls and fortresses, for Saladin wished to make Jerusalem so strong that even Richard could not take it, so he made the Christians who were in his power build the walls that were to keep their friends from helping them.
After feasting at Joppa, Richard led his army to Ascalon. He hoped to capture the town and all the great forts that had been built there, for Ascalon was one of the strongest fortresses in the land. When the army came near the town, the faces of the leaders fell, for Ascalon was only a heap of ruins. Saladin could not spare men to defend it, and instead of trying to hold it he made his men pull down stone from stone, that no one else might find safety within it. It grieved him to do this, and he said that he would rather that one of his sons had died than that the fortress should be thrown down. But he was not like Richard, who sometimes wished one thing and sometimes another. He wished only one thing, and that was that every crusading knight should either die or leave the Holy Land. So though it hurt him to destroy the strong towers and walls of Ascalon, he did it.
When Richard saw the ruins, he cast aside his armour, and set himself to heave the great stones from the heaps where they lay, and to build them again into defences. Knights and soldiers did as they saw their leader do, and soon the walls began to rise again. For a short time all went well, but then some of the nobles grew weary of such heavy work when it had none of the glamour of war to make up for the hardship. The first to throw down his building tools was Leopold, whose banner Richard had torn down at Acre. He turned away with anger, and said:
‘I am not a carpenter nor yet a mason.’