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Page 364
"No, no," Alinor laughed. "I do not mean that we should really accompany the men. However, by the sacrifice of a few garments and headdresses it can easily seem as if there are ladies in each boat."
Beorn burst out laughing, and then apologized. He was not laughing at the idea, which he thought excellent, but at the thought of certain of his men garbed as women. Most appropriate and fitting, he said, with a wry twist to his mouth.
Lookouts kept a keen watch and, when a disturbance was seen moving toward the port, the plan was put into action. It was a great success. Alinor's men came safely ashore and so bedeviled the rear of those who were attacking the escaping crusaders that they broke through, taking possession of one of the captive galleys and rowing it out beyond the ship the ladies were on. Beorn and his men returned with some bad news, however. The recaptured ship was not provisioned.
While Alinor and some of the ladies attended to the wounded, Joanna supervised the division of the remaining supplies and water. Her heart sank when she saw to what they were reduced. Later she admitted privately to Alinor and Berengaria that, if Richard did not soon come, they would either have to go ashore or set out to sea again with neither food nor water. Meanwhile they must be more than usually on guard lest Comnenus, enraged by their support of his captives, forget caution and attack them.
The wily Emperor guessed at their increasingly difficult situation, however, and he could see no reason to lose men in a desperate fight to obtain what must drop into his hand like a ripe fruit in a day or two. On the day after the escape, he sent another ambassador with sweet words and just enough fruit and meat and wine for the ladies' table. Men on short rations who watched their betters dining richly and at ease often lose heart and begin to murmur. Joanna was far too much her mother's and father's daughter to be caught in so silly

 
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