I have some important news about Lionheart. I wondered about that, too. Actually, I often felt haunted by that approaching deadline and I became more and more uneasy as the months slipped by.
How did I get into such a predicament? But instead he compiled more medieval frequent flyer miles than Marco Polo—France, Italy, Sicily, Crete, Rhodes, Cyprus, the Holy Land, Austria, and Germany, although in fairness to him, those last two countries were not on his original itinerary.
They often read like battlefield dispatches, offering detailed accounts of the same fight as seen by the crusaders and the Saracens.
They provided me with the names of men slain in a particular battle, with personal quotes from Richard and Saladin, and allowed me to see these two legendary historical figures through the eyes of men who actually knew them. So it has been a very enjoyable experience—tracking the Lionheart from Marseille to Messina to Famagusta to Acre—but there was always that accursed deadline looming on the horizon.
I needed a knight in shining armor to ride to my rescue, and they are in short supply in the 21 st century. Fortunately, I had something better than a knight errant, a dear friend who shares my love of history in general and the MA in particular.
