Queen of Swords

by Queen of Swords (retail) (epub)

  Richildis tried to imagine Michael Bryennius in La Forêt. It made her head ache. “But you—” she began, though she did not know how she would end it.

  Arslan ended it for her. “I should like to see France.”

  “And the former Queen of France?”

  He flushed under the sun’s dye, but he maintained the semblance of calm that led strangers to reckon him a phlegmatic man. “It would be… interesting to see her again.”

  “Indeed,” said Richildis.

  He fixed her with a steady storm-grey stare, till she flushed herself, and knew the sting of shame. “Lady,” he said, “can you think of a better solution? I’m not needed so badly here that no one can let me go. La Forêt needs a lord. Or do you reckon me too young to hold that office?”

  “I am not Melisende,” she said in the face of his impudence, “and well you know it. But, Arslan, it’s cold there.”

  “And it’s not cold in the uplands of Syria, where I’ve ridden often enough, hunting infidels?” He shook his head. “Lady, you’re being ridiculous. Give me your blessing and promise to keep my father in hand, and I’ll go with a glad heart.”

  Richildis sat back, taking in the whole of him: face bronzed from birth by the fierce sun of Outremer; body honed in its wars, big and broad and strong; wits grown subtle in the courts of the east yet tempered with a wholly Frankish honesty, that rarest virtue of all, which men called integrity. He was beautiful and beloved, and if he shrank from this that he would do, he let none of them see it.

  He was young. But no younger than his father had been when he came to Outremer. Now the son would return to take the lordship that his father had refused. “You might have to fight for it,” she said.

  He mimed astonishment. “Fight? I? Oh, lady! And I born a noble’s son in Outremer. Shall I mince and giggle and shimmer in silks, and give the lordlings of France somewhat to laugh at?”

  “Not,” Richildis said, “with those shoulders.” She struck one of them with a fist, not lightly: in its way, it was an accolade. “You have my blessing. And my arms-master. Kutub will go with you, and such of his men as he reckons fit to brave the snows and the stares of France.”

  Ah, at last; she had taken him aback. “Kutub? But I can’t—”

  “He’ll appall everyone you meet,” she said, “but he’ll defend you to the death. He’ll give you the strength that you need to come a stranger from a far strange land, to lay claim to your father’s inheritance.”

  “I can’t take Kutub,” he said. “You need him in Mount Ghazal.”

  “Mount Ghazal will do very well by itself,” said Richildis.

  “But you? Who will ride with you to Constantinople?”

  “Your mother has lent me her own Turks,” Richildis said, “and they are delighted at the prospect.”

  “I… can imagine.” Arslan shook his head. “Lady, from all you’ve told me, we’ll gleam like peacocks in a flock of finches.”

  “So you shall,” she said. “And all the ladies will vie to be your consort.”

  He flushed at that, much darker than before, so that she laughed. That made him flush darker yet. “Oh, you are beautiful,” she said, which dissolved him utterly in confusion; and that was a feat that few could boast of.

  Seventy-Nine

  Arslan had not, as Richildis had too clearly perceived, taken any thought at all before he swore his life and honor to a land that he had never seen. He had simply said what came into his head. It had seemed perfectly sensible when he said it. Had he not been dreaming of going to France? What better cause for it than to take the lordship of his father’s own lands?

  Better yet: La Forêt was in Anjou, and the Count of Anjou was Baldwin’s own if much elder brother, son of King Fulk’s youth as Baldwin had been of his middle age, and father to that Henry who had married the Duchess Eleanor. Arslan would for duty’s sake attend his new liege lord at court; would see her again and know, God willing, that she was happy.

  In the cold light of dawn, as he woke with a heavy head from all the wine he had drunk to seal his bargain, it all seemed much less reasonable. It seemed, in fact, quite mad. He was needed here. He was Baldwin’s man. Baldwin was mounting a campaign, contemplating a new and fiercer war against the infidel. And even if Arslan were not bound to that, what of his father? What of Beausoleil? What of—

  Someone rapped on the door, startling him out of his half-dream. He sat up before he thought, head and stomach reeling, and barely reached the basin before it all burst out of him.

  He looked up from the basin into Bertrand’s conspicuously expressionless face. “Go on,” he said nastily. “Laugh. You can’t pretend you don’t want to.”

  “I can’t laugh,” Bertrand said. “My head aches too much.” He sat at the bed’s foot, carefully, as if his skull were made of glass. “That was worse wine than it seemed. Remind me not to buy its like again.”

  “I’ll send you casks of the best from La Forêt,” Arslan said.

  “So you will go,” said Bertrand.

  “Didn’t I promise Aunt Richildis I would?”

  “But do you want to?”

  Arslan searched his father’s face. It was no more open than it ever was, but years and custom had taught him to read its subtleties. Bertrand was holding himself still by effort of will, fighting trembling that Arslan could well understand. “Who else can go?” Arslan asked him. “Aunt Richildis shouldn’t; she has too much to hold her here. You won’t. I—”

  “Do you condemn me for refusing?”

  “No,” said Arslan. “You swore oaths long ago. You have to keep them.”

  “They were sworn in anger,” Bertrand said, “and held like a grudge.”

  Arslan shrugged. “Does it matter? I’m going. Yes, I want to go. I’m afraid – a little. But I do want it.”

  “Afraid?”

  “Afraid,” Arslan said. “Of a strange country. Of people who don’t know me, and will think me very odd, and hate me for it. Of leaving all that I know, and discovering too late that I should never have done it. But,” he said before his father could speak, “I will go.”

  “It should be I who goes,” Bertrand said, “after all.”

  “I think not,” Arslan said. And when his father stared at him: “Your time passed long ago. You belong in Outremer now.”

  “As the queen belongs in Nablus? Shall I be so impotent, then?”

  “Not while you’re lord of Beausoleil,” Arslan said dryly, “and sworn to the king.”

  “Yes,” Bertrand said with a touch of harshness. “There are some who call it broken faith.”

  “There are some who sail into exile in Manasses’ wake.” Arslan shivered slightly. “I’ll be following them, you know. But I’ll be going home.”

  “Home,” said Bertrand. The word seemed to stick in his throat. “When I dream of home, I dream of Beausoleil, or of Jerusalem.”

  “I don’t know what I dream of,” Arslan said. “I’ve never seen La Forêt.”

  “It’s… rather beautiful. As such places go. Green,” said Bertrand. “Wet. Rich with scents of earth and water. The sun is never so strong there, and the winter winds blow cold, and bear a burden of snow.”

  “It will be very different,” Arslan said.

  There was a silence, awkward as such silences had not been between them since Bertrand acknowledged Arslan as his heir. Bertrand remembered, perhaps, the chill of winter in La Forêt. Arslan wondered if he would loathe it after all; if he would come back with his tail between his legs, having failed at a task that any noble fool could perform: to be a lord in France.

  He broke the silence almost gently, because he could not bear it any longer. “If you command me, I will stay.”

  Bertrand shook his head. “No. No, I leave you free to choose. If you decide after all to remain here—”

  “I’ll go,” Arslan said, as much to convince himself as to withstand his father. “Do you remember how Lady Richildis used to say that she had to come here in search of yo
u – that she couldn’t not do it? I can’t not go to La Forêt.”

  Bertrand nodded slowly. “I remember. I understand. Destiny is not mocked. It’s never easily refused.”

  “I don’t want to refuse it,” Arslan said.

  “Then go,” said Bertrand. “Go and prosper. But promise me. When your heir is grown, when you can leave, you will come back. I don’t relieve you of your duties or your obligation. You are still the heir to Beausoleil.”

  “I’ll be sure,” Arslan said with a hint of a smile, “to find a lady quickly and set to work getting sons.”

  “Do that,” his father said, as if any mortal man could compel such a thing.

  Arslan was not leaving yet, perhaps not for days. When at last they did, he would indulge in formal farewell. But this morning meeting, with both of them still dazed with wine, was a truer parting. Each had made his choices. Those, Arslan believed, were well made – both of them. He reached to embrace his father. In the same moment Bertrand reached to embrace him.

  They were precisely of a size, broad alike, strong alike, holding hard enough to bruise. “I will come back,” Arslan promised. “By my life I swear it.”

  Were those tears on his father’s cheeks? They were swiftly gone, if they had ever been there at all. So too, in a moment, was Bertrand. They would meet again and often, and yet it was as if Arslan had gone away already; had taken ship and sailed to France.

  * * *

  Arslan had hoped to bear the news to Baldwin before Baldwin heard it from another. But such was never the way of courts. As he prepared to ask for audience, scrupulous now that his friend was truly king, a page brought a summons that brooked of no delay.

  As Arslan had rather expected, he was required to attend the king at once, but the king was not required to receive him. Baldwin was inspecting the stables, approving and discarding mounts for the war that he had planned. His attendance was light but determined, and might have kept Arslan away, except that Arslan was not to be deterred by a handful of guardsmen and an officious squire or two.

  Baldwin did not pause in running his hands down the legs of a destrier. “This one is shaping for trouble,” he said to the master of horse. “Look, that’s swelling in the hock. How old is he?”

  “Rising five, majesty,” said the master of horse.

  “Too young,” Baldwin said, “for such legs as these. Geld him and sell him. We’ll not trust ourselves to him in battle against Nur al-Din.”

  The master of horse bowed. Baldwin moved on to the next of the horses that had been brought out for him.

  Arslan had slipped in, relieved the groom of his charge, stood unsmiling as Baldwin regarded him in surprise that turned, please God, to laughter. “Brother!” Baldwin swept him into a breathless embrace. “Arslan, you scoundrel. You were supposed to dangle about my anterooms, waiting till I deigned to see you.”

  “Shall I go?” Arslan inquired. “Shall I do it properly?”

  “No,” Baldwin said with a touch of impatience. “Of course not. Here, look at this colt. How do you reckon he’ll do in a battle?”

  Arslan considered the young stallion standing beside him, saw evidence of youth in gangling legs and elevated rump, noted the bright eye and alert ears and slightly flaring nostrils, and said, “He’ll grow up better than he seems.”

  “But now?”

  “Now,” said Arslan, “he’s too young. Give him a year.”

  “Shall I give him to you?”

  Arslan felt his heart leap once, and then go still. “I think not,” he said, “majesty.”

  “What, is he too young to sail to France?”

  “They have horses in France,” Arslan said, very quietly.

  “But not such horses as these.” Baldwin stroked the sleek grey neck. “He’s one of the Mount Ghazal breeding, out of my Bedu mare. He’s not much to look at now, but when he’s grown he’ll be a fine horse.”

  “Very fine,” Arslan agreed. He paused. “May I take it that you’ll forgive me for doing this?”

  “No,” Baldwin said. “I won’t forgive you. Allow you – yes. If I didn’t, you’d go regardless, and let yourself be called an exile. What’s that, after all, to a man who was born a bastard?”

  Arslan sucked in his breath. Baldwin seemed calm, even amiable; he was smiling. But he was angry – oh, indeed. There was no mercy in him. “I… thank you, majesty,” Arslan said: wielding his own weak weapon, to address Baldwin as king and not as his foster-brother, his companion and his friend.

  He could not tell how deep it cut. Skin-deep at most, maybe. Hardly to the bone.

  “Don’t thank me,” Baldwin said, “till you’ve laid eyes on France. It’s a ghastly country, they tell me: wet and cold. And no one has the slightest conception of elegance. Remember what you left behind you, when you stand in the hall in your Forest Sauvage, choking on the smoke and the reek of dogs and unwashed men.”

  “There is a Roman bath,” Arslan said, “at La Forêt. And people use it.”

  “In the winter?”

  “It’s a hot spring,” Arslan said.

  Baldwin blinked. Abruptly he laughed. “So they’ll be clean. And you’ll teach them to carpet their floors and warm their walls with tapestries, and soften their wild hearts with the trappings of civilization.”

  “I hope to find them a little civilized,” Arslan said.

  “And willing to accept a stranger who brings with him a pack of Saracens?”

  “Turks,” Arslan said: remembering suddenly, keenly, how Eleanor had said something very like Baldwin’s words, and in the same tone half of honest inquiry and half of mockery.

  “Turks,” said Baldwin. “Such distinction. Will the West be capable of discerning it?”

  “It will learn,” Arslan said.

  “Or die, I’m sure.” Baldwin ran his hands down the horse’s neck, over its shoulders and flanks; lifted a hind hoof and contemplated the shoe thereon, and said still bending to his inspection, “You’ll depart for Acre tomorrow. The papal legate has offered his ship to you and your escort – even if those are infidels. He was not amused, but I persuaded him.”

  “And what will that cost me?” Arslan asked.

  “Your heart’s blood,” Baldwin replied, “and the same promise that, I’m told, you made your father. That you’ll come back.”

  “I never intended otherwise,” Arslan said.

  “Men change,” said Baldwin. “Time passes. Vows are forgotten.”

  “Not in my family,” Arslan said rather grimly.

  A burst of laughter escaped the king: not by his will surely, or he would not have looked so startled. “Brother!” he said. “Oh, brother. What will I do without you?”

  “Rule,” Arslan said. “Fight. Be king.”

  “And who will make me laugh for no reason, and call me ‘Majesty’ only when he’s annoyed with me, and stand next to me for friendship and not for what it may gain him?”

  “You might,” Arslan suggested delicately, “ask this of the Lord Humphrey.”

  “Humphrey of Toron is my dear friend and my most loyal man, and I have named him Constable of this kingdom – but he did not share a cradle with me. Damn it, Arslan,” said the King of Jerusalem. “I don’t want you to go.”

  “Are you commanding me?” Arslan asked as he had asked his father.

  As Bertrand had done, Baldwin shook his head fiercely and said, “No. No, I’m not. I may be a king, but I’m not an idiot.”

  “You were never an idiot,” Arslan said. “I’ll take the gift of the horse, because you give it. I’ll send you the first good colt that he sires. Who knows? I might even bring it myself.”

  “Don’t come back just to oblige me,” Baldwin said. “Marry someone pleasant as well as suitable. Someone like your aunt, maybe. Though not as sharp about the edges.”

  “Maybe all women in France are edged like swords,” Arslan said.

  “Then you’re well armored against them.” Baldwin straightened, resting a hand on the broad smooth r
ump. “I wish I were going with you,” he said.

  “Running away?”

  “Running away.” Baldwin sighed. “There’s no one left who will say such things to me. What will become of me? Will I turn into a haughty image of a king?”

  “Not if you say those things to yourself.”

  “While you say them to the Count of Anjou. Who will be father to the King of England.”

  “I doubt,” said Arslan, “that a stranger, even a stranger who is your brother, would be as indulgent as you have always been.”

  “Why not? Henry’s new lady was. I wager she’ll be again.”

  “Her edge,” said Arslan, “is fine steel. She’ll cut me to ribbons.”

  “Not you,” Baldwin said. “Here, take your horse. Gather your escort. Go. Before I forget to be wise, and command you to stay.”

  Arslan did not think Baldwin would do that. Baldwin, just as evidently, did. Arslan considered bowing as to a king; but that would be too much like mockery. He moved instead, found Baldwin there, arms open to embrace him. They embraced and kissed as brothers, till Baldwin thrust him away. “Don’t linger,” he said. “Nor forget me, either.”

  “I’m not likely to do that,” Arslan said. Baldwin flung the colt’s lead at him, turned his back, fixed himself conspicuously on the impatiently pawing stallion that had for the past several moments been doing its best to strike its groom with its forefoot.

  Arslan almost moved to the man’s aid; but his hands were full with the colt that was Baldwin’s gift, and he had been dismissed. He did as Baldwin bade him: the last time that he would do that, till he came back to Outremer.

  Tears were no shame to a knight of suitable nobility. But Arslan had never been one to indulge in them. He took his colt and his leave, and looked back only once. Baldwin was eye to eye with the suddenly quiet stallion, teaching the beast what men were learning swiftly, that Baldwin was his lord and king.