Queen of Swords

by Queen of Swords (retail) (epub)

  The silence that followed on his words was profound. Not even a breath marred it.

  When Eleanor spoke, some of them started as if she had struck a blow. “Half of God’s army is gone, if this man’s tale be true. Will we, who are all that remains, grant the infidel the victory? Let us bow to the Byzantine, if he wishes it. He asks for nothing that we have now, only for what we may win – and we may choose to win nothing that Byzantium can rightfully claim.”

  That made them think, even through the shock of the word from Dorylaeum. It was too much for most, perhaps, all at once; but that too she must have calculated. She would grant them no mercy until they had chosen as she wished them to choose. Nor did she seem to care that the emperor’s messenger had heard every word of it. The emperor must know how they would resign themselves to accepting his terms. Perhaps he even knew of the German defeat. There was little that would escape the imperial eye.

  Games within games; expedience upon expedience. They won their provisions, at cost to both pride and honor. And – which could only delight the Emperor Manuel – they had no choice now but to depart from Chalcedon, to make haste for Nicaea in hopes of finding what remained of the Germans’ army.

  * * *

  “We are the poor relations of the world,” Eleanor said the day before they came to Nicaea. It was an ill day for traveling, grey and cold, with a thin rain falling. The Amazons had veiled their plumage, the knights and the men-at-arms and the hordes of hangers-on wrapped all in the same drab mantles dark with rain.

  They had made early camp, pitched tents closer together than their wont, lit such fires as they could with damp fuel. The queen’s tent was warm because of a gift from the Empress of the Romans, a brazier that glowed with blessed heat. They took turns standing close by it, all the ladies and a fair portion of the king’s suite as well, wandering in at the rumor of warmth.

  Eleanor held court amid them all. She had sent wine round, and sweets from a store that had also been the empress’ gift. She nibbled on a honeyed date, held up the remnant of it, grimaced. “Poor relations. Fed, clothed, indulged for a brief while, then sent away to trouble another of the family. What is Crusade to old Rome, that it should trouble itself unduly?”

  “Do you want Byzantium in your Crusade?” Richildis asked. “It would use you, you know, to do the fighting and dying; then march in over your bodies and claim the lands you won.”

  “It means to do exactly that,” Eleanor said, “if we let it.”

  She stretched, luxuriating like a cat. Some of the knights looked away.

  The king never even saw. He was playing chess near the brazier with one who was always at his side, tenacious as a shadow: the dour Templar knight Thierry Galeran, whose harsh face and unrelenting grimness were born perhaps of his great and too little secret shame. He was a eunuch. How he had come to that state, when and where and why, half a dozen people offered half a dozen tales, and no two of them alike. Richildis rather inclined toward that which had him enslaved in youth by Saracens and gelded to calm his ferocity; but he had only grown the fiercer for what they had done to him.

  He had no friend, no ally, no confidant but Louis. The king cherished him, kept him close. And often, as now, engaged him in a game of chess, which he was hard put not to win.

  The queen laughed as she sometimes did, as if at the mingled follies of the world. She held her cup for the servant to fill, sipped, laid it aside. The lamplight shimmered in her plaited hair.

  She was nothing at all like Melisende. They were both tall, fair, more beautiful in movement than at rest – but Melisende knew the uses of stillness. Eleanor had never troubled to learn. She was restless always, mind and body. Immobility, passivity, were as death to her. She must, as a child, have been in constant mischief.

  She was thinking of something now, something less delicious than some of her plots, with a frown that happened to aim itself at her husband. It could be accident, of course, and the angling of her seat and the light. Richildis did not think so.

  As royal marriages went, this one was not particularly amicable, but neither was there open hostility. They tolerated each other’s presence better than some, though they were not what anyone would call friends. There had been daughters, whom they had left safe in France, but no son, no heir to the throne.

  Eleanor seemed not to have Melisende’s objection to bearing children, but neither had she invited her husband to her bed of late; and he had not been seen seeking admission there. He was all caught up in the Crusade. He wore a pilgrim’s robe always, in conspicuous humility, and beneath it a hairshirt like one of the old saints. It galled him into weeping sores, yet he would not accept salve or tending. A woman would not want to be too close to him, as averse as he was to bathing, and with the wounds, it was whispered, festering with saintly vigor.

  Richildis sat next to her clean and no doubt hopelessly worldly husband, in strict propriety, not even touching him; but his presence was like a hearthfire. Now and then their glances crossed, with the flicker of a smile. To Louis they would be terrible sinners. To Eleanor…

  If she thought of them at all, which Richildis could hardly be sure of, maybe she envied them. She had allowed them a tent of their own, which tonight was pitched beside this one, with a brazier in it, too, and comfort, and solitude. But they were here because the queen had wished it, because she hated to be alone – because, perhaps, she feared the dark and the cold rain and the quiet of sleep. In sleep she could not rule the world about her. Dreams came and went as they would, dark or light without distinction. She slept in the bright light of lamps, surrounded by ladies less fortunate than Richildis, or less fond of their husbands’ presence.

  At last, and after mighty effort by Thierry Galeran, Louis’ king had conquered the chessboard. The courtiers about him applauded. “Oh, excellent!” Eleanor said sweetly. “May your victory presage a victory in our Crusade.”

  Thierry favored her with a sour glance. Some of the more pious crossed themselves in agreement. Eleanor, whose piety was negligible at best, clapped her hands and ordered wine again, though some cups were barely emptied.

  Under cover of the servants’ going round, Richildis touched Michael Bryennius’ hand and arched a brow. He nodded infinitesimally. They had stationed themselves conveniently near the tentflap, though it denied them the benefit of the brazier. Quietly they slipped out into the brief shock of rain, and thence to the warmth and light and quiet of their own tent.

  In that space they had spent much of their journey by caravan. The rugs were treasures garnered on the road, the bed a work of art, broad enough for two yet able to be folded into little more than a bundle of laths and a bit of canvas. The chests of their belongings, his armor and now hers on their stands, their weapons cleaned and laid ready at need, all were familiar, warmed by the brazier, lit by the lamp from Ch’in with its gilded dragons.

  The servants had gone to their own and separate tent, and left the warmth to itself. Richildis sank into it with a sigh.

  They moved in the familiar dance, undressing, laying their clothes away, each playing servant to the other as need demanded. Michael Bryennius helped Richildis to comb and plait her hair for the night: an act as intimate as what they did under the coverlet of woven silk and the bearskin that kept them warm in the night’s cold. She purred like a cat under his hands, aware of how he laughed at her, rich and warm.

  And yet she could say, “We should have stayed.”

  “Why? So that her majesty could count another pair of faces?”

  “Such irreverence,” Richildis said.

  “Such crashing dullness. Not even a singer tonight, and no player on harp or lute. His majesty is a monstrous poor player of chess.”

  “His majesty has no ear for music,” Richildis reminded him. “It’s mere noise to him. The queen was sparing him the necessity of listening to it.”

  “What, so that she could sing her own song of the ingratitude of kings?”

  “Mostly,” said Richildis, “s
he was quiet.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Thinking. Plotting.”

  “You thought so, too?”

  She turned to see his face. His eyes glinted, half wicked, half amused. “Why, madam, I am a Byzantine. We drink plots with our mothers’ milk.”

  “What do you think she is thinking?”

  His brows drew together. The mirth faded. “I would not be willing to wager,” he said, “but if someone whom I trusted greatly were to ask… I would wonder which of the men about her she had chosen to be her lover.”

  “I don’t think so,” Richildis said – too quickly, but she did not try to call back the words. “At least… I think she would think it. But she would never do it. That would be folly. Eleanor is a swift and reckless spirit, but a fool – no.”

  “She despises the man she’s married to,” he said. “And she is not, unlike another queen of our acquaintance, averse to the art and craft of love.”

  “Melisende is gifted with great restraint,” Richildis said rather stiffly.

  “In that,” he agreed, “she is. But Eleanor, no. Did you see how she studied to keep all the men’s eyes on her?”

  “All but her husband’s.”

  “Louis is divinely blind.”

  He finished plaiting her hair, bound it and kissed it, letting it be a path to her lips. As he reached her shoulder, she stopped him with a hand on his cheek. “Do you think she’ll foment a scandal?”

  “If she grows bored enough,” he said, “or sees the need for a diversion, yes, I think she well may. She’s tired of him. Maybe she fancied herself tired of France, and came on Crusade to give herself a change of scenery – but however the horizon may change, the foreground, with Louis in it, is always the same.”

  “I don’t believe that she’s as light a spirit as that,” said Richildis. “She plays it well, but her mind is deep. Under the cleverness is a real intelligence.”

  “Whereas under her husband’s piety is a profound lack of wit.” Michael Bryennius shook his head. “What was God thinking? To make a woman intelligent – how very wasteful.”

  Richildis struck at him in mock anger. He eluded the blow easily, laughing, darting a kiss at her palm as it flashed past.

  “I think,” he said from safely out of range, “that women let men do the fighting, and let them pretend to rule, because they themselves are too wise to indulge in either.”

  “Then the woman who wants to fight, who wants to be a king, is a fool?”

  “I didn’t say that,” said Michael Bryennius.

  “Eleanor plays at fighting,” Richildis said. “Melisende exerts herself to be a king. Odd: neither wants to be a man. Simply to have what a man has.”

  “Precisely,” said Michael Bryennius.

  “You are too clever by half,” she said. “What of me, then? Eleanor admires me enormously. I rule my own domain, I can shoot a bow. But I don’t want to be an Amazon, or to wear a king’s crown.”

  “You have no need of either,” he said. “That’s what it is, you know. Need. Fear of the dark; of oblivion. Of going to the tomb unnoticed, and being forgotten. Such people, kings or queens, no matter – they live to be noticed; to be remembered.”

  “And such people as we?”

  He folded his arms about her. “We take the light while we have it, and let the darkness come when it must.”

  She shivered. “It may be very close, you know. The whole nation of the Seljuk Turks has destroyed the Germans’ army. It well may destroy this one as well.”

  “We can pray that it does not,” he said with no fear that she could discern, “and do our best to prevent it. Besides,” he said, “they’ll be saying in Byzantium, I’m sure, that the Germans paid for their sins on the march to Dorylaeum: for their ravaging and pillaging, and their rather perfect lack of Christian moderation. The French have been more circumspect. God may decide to reward them for it; to let them come unharmed to Jerusalem.”

  “And us with them,” she said. “One can hope.”

  He drew back a little, to look into her face. “Do you want to go away? To travel apart, in a caravan maybe, or with an armed company out of Nicaea?”

  She shook her head firmly. “No. No, I do not. If I had wanted that, I would have arranged it in the City.”

  “You still could arrange it.”

  “No,” she said again. “I’m stubborn, you know that. I keep my word. And I gave it to this queen, to travel with her to Jerusalem.”

  His brows went up. “Another oath?”

  “A promise,” she said. “She wanted me so much, you see. Wanted what I am – what she fancies I am.”

  “Ah,” he said: “a soft heart after all, and a weakness for strong queens.”

  Laughter escaped her, startling her. He was so clever with words, and not usually so unaware of it. As he frowned in puzzlement, she embraced him till he grunted, and kissed him soundly. “My lord, my dear lord, it’s you she envies most, you know – or that I have you. Beauty and wit and grace enough to make a woman’s heart quiver in the turn of a hand, and all devoted to me, or enough to make no matter. And so exotic, too. Beside you, my love, her milk-and-water king grows pale to insignificance.”

  “And yet,” he said through the blush that she had contrived to win from him, “he is a king.”

  “And what is a king but a fool with the fortune to have been born in the proper bed? Better far the lover one finds in the road, whose beauty is unsullied, and his brow unmarred by the weight of a crown.”

  “Indeed,” he said, “I see now. You’ll be hunting down lovers as we travel, seeking beautiful boys in hedgerows and under farmers’ carts.”

  “Boys are dull in the extreme,” she said. “I prefer a man of years and experience, well seasoned in the battle that wages forever between man and woman, and,” she said, sweeping him over and down and onto the bed, “apt for every mischief that a clever woman can imagine. What’s a boy’s bland face to that?”

  “Why,” he said, “to most, everything.”

  “But not to me.” She rose above him, taking in the sight of him. No callow youth, no, nor old man either, but exactly between. Perfect; beautiful. Beloved.

  Poor Eleanor, she thought as she prepared to lose herself in him. Married to a fool, and a pious one at that. No wonder she was bored; no wonder she played games of war and politics – and maybe love. If there were a man to match her, then maybe she would be content.

  Or maybe not. Queens were never content; it was not in them. Not like lowly baronesses, mere ladies of the court, fine and fortunate creatures to be so blessed.

  Forty-Nine

  The Germans’ defeat was both less terrible and more absolute than the first messenger had made it. In Nicaea the French king found the German king’s envoy waiting; and that one led him in decent haste to the place where Conrad had gathered the remnants of his army. More had survived the battle than the French had expected, and in better case. But it was still, for all of that, a resounding rout. Only the indolence of the Turks, or perhaps their contempt, had preserved them. They had had no attacks in this camp, nor were the Turks abroad in the country about them. This land owed allegiance to the Emperor of the Romans, and the Turks would not enter it. There was a pact; treachery, some said in the armies, but the kings professed to be more glad than outraged.

  They would go on, they decided, along the shores of the sea: the French a day or so ahead, the Germans behind with their wounded and their battle-wearied companies. It was an easier road than the inland way, and under the protection of Byzantium. The Turks would not beset them while they traveled on it.

  But that was not entirely a blessing, either. If they dallied, if they raided for provisions, they were fallen upon by the protectors of this country, the emperor’s guardians. Nor was it a gentle rebuke; it was open attack, as if on enemies. Men died. Pilgrims who had followed the knights and soldiers of God were broken in spirit, those who were not killed; they turned back toward Constantinople, nor would they go on.
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br />   “‘We are in hell,’ he said to me,” said a knight from Soissons who had gone to the rescue of the Germans after they had pillaged lands stripped bare by the French advance. “That’s what he said, that poor fool of a pilgrim, with his staff and his bag and his sore feet and not a scratch on him. ‘This is not the road to heaven, not even through suffering. This is the devil’s own country, and those were his armies who fell on us. I’m going back where God is, though I die in the trying.’ I told him God was in Jerusalem, but he wasn’t listening to me. His mind was made up.”

  “Maybe God isn’t in Jerusalem either,” said another knight, one who had stayed with the king’s army while the levies of Soissons went to aid the Germans. “Maybe he’s all the way back in France, and we were deluded into leaving it.”

  “Do stop that!” Eleanor said sharply, calling them to heel. They came like faithful dogs, with a suitably whipped look, cast down by the force of her frown. “God tests those whom He loves most. You know that. These pilgrims from Germany – their will was weak. They let the Devil cozen them into abandoning their vows.”

  “Lady,” they said, bowing, contrite.

  She frowned a while longer, letting them suffer; then smiled like a blaze of sudden sun. “Oh, go, be comforted. God loves you, He must. Would He have kept you alive so long if he didn’t? Look at you, Thibaut, thicker with wounds than my favorite pincushion, and not a one so much as festered. There’s luck for you, and God’s goodwill, too.”

  Thibaut, the knight of Soissons, blushed like the boy he had not been for some twenty years and more. If they not been a-horseback, riding down the road by the sea, he would have been shuffling his feet. As it was, he could only express his confusion in flight: clapping spurs to his horse’s sides, bolting off in pursuit of a stray sumpter-mule, with his companion hot behind.