Fostus stated, ‘He’ll be on the field in a week or two.’
Conversation flagged and they continued in silence on their one hundred and twenty mile journey from the black rock shore of the Sea of Galilee to the two thousand foot heights of the capital.
* * *
The King’s patrols warned him of the approach of Regent Raymond. With rare good sense Guy summoned his brother Constable Amalric, Joscelin of Courtenay, one representative of the Temple and one of the Hospital, and told them to ride with him and greet their contrite Regent.
‘You won’t wait for him in the palace?’ Amalric queried. ‘You should make him come to you.’
‘No. This is a gesture we can afford. Balian was right. We need Raymond, now as never before.’
Astride a magnificently caparisoned horse, he led them out of the city and along the road toward the Ramallah fork.
The two groups met a mile south of the fork. Guy nodded at Raymond and Balian and Archbishop Josias, and was about to dismount when Amalric hissed, ‘Not yet! Let the Regent show willing.’
‘Oh, your pride will bring us down,’ Guy grumbled. ‘Does it matter who puts their foot on the ground first?’ Nevertheless, he stayed in the saddle until Raymond had climbed from his horse.
‘Now,’ Guy said, ‘is that sufficient for us, brother?’
‘It’s done better this way – King.’
Raymond came forward alone. When he was a dozen feet away Seneschal Joscelin challenged him.
‘Do you come here in peace, Regent?’
Raymond opened his hands. He was face to face with the man who had promised him the throne, then tricked him as though he were a child begging sugar stalks. He despised Joscelin more than he despised himself and he made no attempt to hide his feelings.
‘That’s a foolish question, Seneschal. I would not have come this far to cause trouble at court. There are enough of you here for that.’
‘Still swollen with self-esteem, eh, Tripoli?’
‘No, Joscelin. Still Regent of the Kingdom.’
‘Oh, come,’ Guy appealed. ‘I wish I’d left you all in Jerusalem. Raymond, tell me, will you make submission to me? If only for the sake of my prideful companions.’
‘I will,’ Raymond nodded, ‘but not for their sake. I’ll do it for the Kingdom, naught else.’ With that he lowered himself to his knees in the dusty road.
Guy dismounted and hurried to him. ‘No, no, this won’t do. On your feet, I pray you. Here, embrace me. That’s it, that’s better.’ Turning to make sure that Joscelin and Amalric could hear him, he said, ‘You’ve made your peace with me, Lord Regent. Now I’ll make mine with you. With regard to my coronation, it was ill-conceived and I am sorry for it. The Moslem world still look on you as the true Christian leader, as do the weight of our own people. However, what’s done is done.’
Amalric glared at him, while Joscelin glanced at the Hospitaller and the Templar to see how they were taking it. The Templar seemed confused. The Hospitaller was too busy slapping flies from his face to listen.
Guy leaned down and brushed the dust from Raymond’s clothes. Then he said, ‘Be with me. I need good advice,’ and walked back to his horse. The two groups mixed and returned in some kind of unity to Jerusalem.
* * *
Reynald of Chatillon’s caravan raid had affixed the seal to the Moslem Jihad. The massacre at Nazareth had done as much for Christendom. It was time to face the enemy in strength and to hear which cry came louder, ‘Allah Akbar! La ilaha il’ Allah!’ or ‘Christus vincit! Christus regnat! Deus vult!’
Humphrey of Toron prepared to leave for war.
He spent the last evening at the castle alone with Isabella. They ate early, and then, while Constable Pola checked the final condition of men and materials, they retired to their bedchamber. For a while they sat like shy, would-be lovers, warming their hands at a small fire that burned in a hollow in the outer wall. Then Isabella moved away and brought wine and two of her best glasses, a gift from her mother Maria Comnena.
She passed a full glass to Humphrey and he looked up, startled, showing the fear in his eyes.
‘What? Oh, I’m sorry, my love. My thoughts were miles away.’
She sipped her wine and said, ‘I wrote about you again yesterday.’
‘Mmm? In your diary?’
‘Yes.’ She smiled over the rim of the glass. ‘In the code you unravelled so quickly.’
‘I hope you found something good to say.’
Oh, I did, love. Oh, yes, I have always found good to say about you.’
He started to speak, but drank his wine instead, then flicked drops of wine into the fire to hear them hiss. The drops became Moslem horsemen and he found that by dipping four fingers into the glass he could annihilate an entire spray of Saracens…
He stopped playing and murmured, ‘Isabella, we are on the threshold of a decisive battle, I believe. We cannot lose, for we are stronger, if not in numbers then in the power of our knights, better equipped and desperate to preserve our lands. But in any battle there will be casualties—’
‘Not you.’
‘I pray not, though if God choose to take me—’
‘Ah, dear husband, don’t torture yourself. I may be the youngest chatelaine in the Kingdom, but I know where my duties lie. This must be said, so let me say it. If you die, or are captured in the coming fight, I will continue to govern Toron as I have seen you govern it. And as for the ransom, I’ll raise that in a week.’
‘There’ll be no ransom if I’m dead. You will then have to find a man.’
‘In time, yes. But whoever he is, he’ll never replace you. Not in my heart, nor my mind, nor in my bed.’
‘That would be unfair.’
‘No, no, for I would not let him compare with you. He would be – a different man, that’s all.’ She laughed gently. ‘I hope you would approve of him, though you would probably think I had chosen badly.’
Humphrey said, ‘Your uncle, Baldwin of Ramleh, he’d do.’
‘Hmm, that type of man, perhaps, but not Lord Baldwin. He’s too tempestuous. And he drinks to excess.’
His fears diminished, Humphrey raised his glass. ‘To your next husband, then,’ he grinned, ‘though I trust we won’t need him for many years.’
‘We won’t,’ she said, adding, ‘nor do we need him tonight.’
They let the fire burn on and undressed by its light. They lay quiet in the wide bed, allowing their thoughts to probe the future, then return to the warmth of the soft-lit bedchamber. They moved together and gave love unhurriedly, the twenty-year-old master of Toron and his fourteen-year-old princess. They lay quiet again and Isabella slept in his arms. Later, he slid from the bed, dressed and spent the dawn hours in prayer in the private chapel. While he prayed he laid one hand flat on the silver brooch she had magicked for him.
In the morning he led his Constable, knights and foot soldiers away from the castle, then south-west across the Aamel Mountains toward Acre. He left Isabella eighteen men with which to defend Toron.
* * *
With the death in the valley near Nazareth of both Grand Master Roger of Les Moulins and the Commander of Knights, Sir Conrad, the Order of the Hospital elected a new leader. This was a husky, dedicated Hospitaller named Ermengard de Daps. Ermengard was in many ways akin to Roger, so the election did nothing to dampen the rivalry between the Hospital and the Temple. Throughout the month of June, the black-and-white knights emptied their castles, among them those of Markab, Chateau Rouge, Bethsour, Beth Gibelin, Recordane Mills and L’Assebebe, and made their way to Acre.
* * *
Reynald of Chatillon prepared to leave for war.
He celebrated his departure by releasing several merchants taken prisoner during his attack on the caravan the previous winter. At first he had insisted that they obtain their freedom by paying an exorbitant ransom. But since the massacre of the Crusaders at Nazareth he had decided not to wait for the merchants’ families to raise and s
end the money. Instead, he released the men – minus their hands.
It was his way of showing Sultan Saladin that he welcomed the approaching conflict and wished to be regarded – as he had always claimed – as the enemy of enemies.
With her own money Stephanie of Milly bought him a present of forty European mercenaries, each fully outfitted and armed and all bearing shields inscribed with the words of his seal – rainaldus PRINCEPS ANTIOCHENUS – SANCTUS PETRUS SANCTUS PAULUS. These men, together with all but forty of the garrison, allowed him to leave Kerak with more than sixty knights, some twenty-five of whom were from the neighbouring fortress of Shaubak, and close on three hundred foot soldiers. He left as Stephanie wanted him to leave, unashamed of the past and confident of the future. He told her he would send word to her from Saladin’s palace in Damascus, for that was surely where the battle would end.
* * *
The Grand Master of the Temple and architect of the defeat at Nazareth recovered from his wounds and set about recruiting his own contingent. More than one quarter of the Templar knights – and these the elite – had been lost in the massacre, so that most of the money King Henry II of England had sent in lieu of his presence in the Holy Land was appropriated to pay for more mercenaries. A number of likely looking soldiers were given the buffet of knighthood, and the ranks were further swelled by the exodus of Templars from Jericho, Maldouin, Chateau Pelerin, Le Chastellet and Safed.
Gerard of Ridefort was regarded as a hero by the members of his Order – who but a Templar would have dared attack seven thousand Mamlukes? – and their adulation helped convince him that he had acted with courage and honour. They missed their friends and the chivalric Marshal, Jakelin de Mailly, though their deaths injected the remaining knights with fresh determination. They would meet these Mamlukes again, but this time the massacre would go in favour of the Temple.
* * *
Joscelin of Courtenay prepared to leave for war.
His sister kept him from his bed until the early hours, repeating advice she had offered on a hundred past occasions.
‘Watch the Regent, brother. I am not persuaded that he has finished with Saladin. The treaty can be remade, and, if it is, if all our Christian leaders are caught in the same trap, then you can be sure that sweet Raymond will emerge unscathed. For all we know, the Sultan has given orders for his long-nosed ally to be left alone. So study what he says and agree to nothing until you are certain that he will not derive some special benefit from it. Do you see where I lead?’
‘Now as ever. But you need not reiterate what we all know so well. He will be watched, and you will be informed of the progress of things.’
She treated him to a thin smile, then quickly stole it back. Joscelin was like a dancing bear, and it was fun to poke him with verbal sticks. ‘I know I will. I have enough of my own representatives in the army. They will furnish the news for me, and it will be the unpainted truth.’
It was Joscelin’s turn to show a brief, wintry smile. Thinking of her bony body and insatiable appetites he said, ‘I am sure you have your informants, from men-at-arms to leaders of the realm. In fact, we may come to rely on you for a report on our progress.’
‘Why not?’ she asked. ‘You always have, and you always will. Now go to bed and dream of how you will save the Kingdom.’
She watched him make his way to his room at the rear of the house. Then she crossed to a small, badly hung door and opened it without knocking. Light from the main room fell across the face and chest of a young, well-muscled manservant. Agnes hissed, ‘Are you awake, Cobert?’
The man groaned and muttered, ‘Half awake, half asleep.’
‘Well, rouse the dormant half. I have some loose coins spilled on the floor upstairs. They’ll belong to whoever collects them.’ She gazed at the flat nipples and the curled hairs on his chest, then left the door open and went up to her own chambers.
* * *
The self-exiled nobles of Antioch were slow to respond to Guy’s plea for men. They held fire until both Balian of Ibelin and Raymond of Tripoli had appealed to them to lay aside their personal feelings toward the Poitevin and to come to the defence of the Kingdom. Reluctantly, they agreed to re-enter the land they had forsworn, but only until the Moslem force had been eliminated. Bohemond of Antioch had no quarrel with Saladin, so would not come in person. However, he sent his son, together with a strong force led by Balian’s brother, Baldwin of Ramleh. This contingent left the principality during the middle days of June.
* * *
Guy of Lusignan prepared to leave for war.
His people would have been greatly disturbed could they have seen their king during the final days at Jerusalem. He had lost his appetite, yet suffered bouts of vomiting, hollow retching that skinned his throat and turned his voice to an arid whisper. All the while, Queen Sibylla hung round his neck, imploring him to stay in bed and delegate the leadership.
‘Let the Regent take them on! He was once so greedy for the crown, why don’t you let him have his way? Oh, Guy, you are marked out there. The Saracens will ride directly against you. It’s you they’ll kill!’
‘Please,’ he gasped, ‘desist! This talk won’t stiffen my resolve.’
‘I don’t want you stiffened, for the stiffness of courage precedes the stiffness of death. Look, you cannot even trust your own nobles. There’s Raymond, Balian, now his brother Baldwin again. They would all like to run a knife into you. How will you be safe?’
Guy remembered the time when the Leper King’s pallet had been ringed by armed men, ostensibly to protect him from assassins, more sensibly to hold back his unfaithful friends. Now, according to Sibylla, it was his turn.
She prattled on, unaware that the whine in her voice had increased in pitch. He sat on a bench normally used by the court secretary, set midway between the west wall of the throne room and the throne itself. Sibylla had followed him this far from their private quarters and now moved back and forth in front of the bench.
He knew his wife loved him, but, as he listened, he realized that there was more to her entreaties than a woman’s concern for her man. There was self-pity, mingled with the insecurity that stalks in the shadow of the vain. Now that she was queen, with her own throne in her Chamber of Audience, she did not want to be widowed, then married off to some strong interloper, then reduced to being his lady and nothing more. To be queen alongside Guy was one thing, but suppose her next husband was a real man? No, it was Guy’s bounden duty as she saw it to avoid danger and minimize risk. He could wear the trappings of Commander-in-Chief of the Christian army, but he had no right to fight.
‘Enemies on every side,’ she continued. ‘And we need employ no deceit. You are ill. You may take to your bed with a clear conscience—’
‘Stop!’ he rasped. ‘This once, listen to me and say nothing. I am not ill. I vomit and hiss and move like a ghost because I am near panic.’
‘No, you’re not.’
‘Yes, woman, yes! I am! I am terrified. I can’t describe to you how I feel, even the words are in hiding. I am a coward, and my fear makes me sick. I recognize my weakness, but that makes me vomit the more. So don’t try putting me to bed. I will lead the army. I must, for what else is there?’
‘You’re delirious, husband’
‘And you are spoiled. You are, in all, a vain, shallow-brained child, selfish and weakening. Damn your coloured hair, I need to be put on a horse, not under your covers. I’m an uncertain man, I grant you that, but by God I am yet a man! Now go back to your chambers. You’ve sapped enough of my blood.’
‘You don’t know what you say,’ she told him. ‘Ill as you are, something must be done—’
‘Get out!’
‘Husband?’
‘Out! Stay away from me. You’re killing me quicker than a Saracen arrow. Please, just leave me alone. Just leave me alone.’
Sibylla guessed that he was more ill than he knew, because he had never spoken to her in such a way before.
*
* *
The malaise was not contained within the walls of the Royal Palace. Patriarch Heraclius was also unwell, and had already taken to his bed. His own physicians were in some doubt as to the exact nature of his disease, but those Crusaders who had visited him and asked him to carry the True Cross into battle settled for an immediate and unanimous diagnosis. Heraclius was a coward, from cap to boot. There was nothing wrong with him that Pashia de Riveri and the comforts of Jerusalem could not cure.
So the True Cross was placed in the hands of Bishop Rufin of Acre and Bishop Bernard of Lydda, while Heraclius raised a limp hand from his mattress and blessed the enterprise.
* * *
Balian of Ibelin prepared to leave for war.
He had managed to spend three nights with Maria at Nablus, but now his contingent was ready in the fields, waiting for him to lead them north to Acre. Maria walked with him to the barbican gate.
On the way she said, ‘I put forward no complaint, Balian, but twenty-three men is pitifully few with which to hold your castle. Could you not leave Constable Fostus with me?’
‘I would leave you another fifty men, if it were possible. Though even then I could not include Fostus. Half the army at Acre will have heard of him, and his presence there will be of immeasurable benefit to us. With Roger of Les Moulins gone, and Jakelin of Mailly and my old friend Sir Conrad, the Christian heroes have been sadly depleted. Would it comfort you if I were to send back another ten from the field?’
‘It would, of course.’
‘I’ll do it in a moment. Do you understand why we must have Fostus with us?’
The Knights of Dark Renown Page 26
