Dawit looked as if he had just seen a ghost. “Hasn’t he told you, my lord?”
“Told me what?”
Dawit looked at the Dowager Queen as if for help and then back at Ibelin, licking his lips. “I—I don’t think I should be the one to say anything. If he hasn’t told you . . .”
Balian narrowed his eyes and insisted, “What is it?”
Dawit looked down at his feet and mumbled.
“What did you say?” Balian demanded more sharply. It was rare for Dawit to be disobedient.
“He’s lost the feeling in the fingertips of his left hand, my lord.”
Dead silence descended on the room, except for the sound of the rain pelting the shutters and gurgling in the drains. Finally Balian asked, “On the Litani. When he carried the King off the field. Did he help the King undress after he brought him back to the camp?”
Dawit swallowed as he looked up and met his lord’s eyes. “Yes, and he—he picked up the dirty bandages after Ibrahim had changed them. Ibrahim was angry with him when he saw what he had done, but—but it was just natural for him. He didn’t think anything about it.”
“Holy Mother of God,” Maria Zoë whispered in the background. She had come to believe the King was not contagious at all, and suddenly this. She shuddered.
“He—Daniel—I mean Sir Daniel,” Dawit stuttered, “says he wants—with your permission, of course—to join the Brothers of St. Lazarus.”
Balian shook his head in denial of the whole situation. How could he have served Baldwin for years and still be completely healthy while Daniel, who had only been in close contact with him for a few hours, was afflicted? It wasn’t fair.
“Daniel—Sir Daniel—says that a runaway baker’s apprentice was never meant to be a knight. . . .”
“Nonsense!” Balian snapped. “He may go to the Brothers of St. Lazarus if that is his wish, where he will certainly receive the best medical treatment available—but he goes a knight!”
“Yes, my lord,” Dawit answered contritely, as if he were the one who had earned this rebuke.
“And you, too, have earned your spurs,” Balian declared. “I’d planned to tell you in a more—What is it now?” he asked, exasperated, as Dawit shook his head.
“My lord, I know it is a great honor. I know! But I don’t want to be knighted.”
The thought was alien to Balian. “Your grandfather may have been an exile from your royal court for supporting the old line of kings, but he was a great nobleman, marshal to the rightful kings of Ethiopia. That qualifies you by blood alone. And you have served me well, if less spectacularly than Daniel did.”
Dawit was still shaking his head.
“What is it?” Balian demanded.
“If I am a knight, then I will have to fight, but I can’t bear it—the suffering of the horses, I mean. So many are killed or so terribly wounded that they have to be put down afterwards! The Saracens even target the horses, because knights are so well protected by their armor it is much easier to kill a horse than a knight. But they are innocent, my lord. They are only trying to please us. They trust us. And we take them to be slaughtered. I can’t bear it. Remember when you first took me for your squire? You asked my father if he would lend me to you. It is time for me to be returned to my father. He is not getting any younger, and your stables keeps growing. He needs me, and in time I would be honored to follow in my father’s footsteps as your marshal.” The words came in such a rush from the usually quiet youth that Balian suspected he had spent hours, days, even weeks—maybe ever since the Battle on the Litani—trying to justify his decision to reject the honor of knighthood should it ever be offered to him.
Balian took a deep breath. “If that is what you wish, then certainly you may take up duties under your father—but I hope you will first train a new squire or two.”
“Of course, my lord!” Dawit assured him, relieved to have this issue resolved.
“You and Daniel were a good team,” Balian reflected sadly, still unable to fully accept that Daniel had contracted leprosy.
Dawit looked down, embarrassed. Then he looked up and met Balian’s eyes. “Give Ernoul a chance, my lord, and Daniel’s younger brother Gabriel.”
“Gabriel? He’s more impudent than Daniel ever was.”
“But it would be a consolation for Master Shoreham,” Dawit argued. “He would like nothing better than for you to take Gabriel.” Balian nodded absently, remembering how proud Roger Shoreham had been when Daniel came home a knight. Roger looked as if he’d grown six inches—and his wife, it was said, bought a new gown and a new set of bed linens to celebrate. Yes, it was only fair to give his younger son the chance of knighthood, too.
Dawit was still singing the youth’s praises. “Gabriel rides well and he’s big for his age, and he’ll have the strength of his brother and father. Besides, he’s half trained already, having served his brother this past year.”
Balian was not inclined to argue, and he nodded absently. Dawit smiled. “I’ll fetch Ernoul, then.”
Rahel helped Maria Zoë undress, brushed out and braided her long hair, and then folded back the covers and helped her climb, awkwardly, into the high bed. Only after she had withdrawn did Balian leave the antechamber where Dawit and the new squire Ernoul had helped him out of his clothes and into a woollen nightshirt. A fire had been lit to warm the room before they arrived, but it was now slowly dying. Balian climbed into the far side of the bed and snuggled up beside his wife, laying a hand on her distended belly. “Is he active tonight?”
“No, he’s very still,” Maria Zoë answered, putting her own hand over her husband’s. “Balian?”
“Yes?”
“I’m worried about Isabella. I know Stephanie de Milly said it was only a small fever and nothing to worry about, but I do worry.”
Balian could understand that, but he didn’t see what they could do about it. “You can’t travel to Kerak,” he told his wife firmly. “I won’t have you risk our unborn child.”
“I didn’t intend to!” Maria Zoë snapped, resenting the fact that he seemed to think he had to tell her what was good for their child. “And before you tell me off, I know you can’t leave Ibelin in the middle of the Christmas season, either. What I was thinking,” Maria Zoë added before they quarreled, “was that now that you have a new squire, we could send Dawit with the pony we were going to give her.”
“Are you so sure the Lady of Oultrejourdain will let a groom into her daughter-in-law’s sickroom?”
“No, of course not. But he could stay until she is well enough to come down to the stables—and meanwhile, learn a great deal just from listening to the talk of the servants. Dawit’s so unassuming, people hardly notice him. He’s bound to hear a lot that was never intended for him, and he listens very well.”
Balian smiled to himself. He was frequently surprised by his wife’s deviousness. He supposed it came more naturally to women, who often could only obtain what they wanted by indirect means. Or maybe it came from growing up in a court infamous for intrigue. “Is it that you fear Isabella is sicker than Madame d’Oultrejourdain claims, or that you suspect she’s not sick at all?” Balian asked cautiously.
Maria Zoë had reacted to the news that she must send her daughter to Kerak with such intense fury that it had sparked the worst fight of their married life. She had instantly seen that the Queen Mother was behind the move and that her intentions were remorselessly evil—but once the initial shock wore off, Maria Zoë had also recognized that her husband was not powerful enough to confront the Queen Mother head on. Tripoli was their only hope, and Tripoli was too far away—if not outright indifferent to Isabella’s fate. Tripoli appeared to have completely reconciled himself to the rule of not only Baldwin, but Sibylla and Guy de Lusignan. Or maybe he was just preoccupied with trying to deal with the aftermath of the drought, a new marriage, and other personal affairs. Anyway you looked at it, Maria Zoë reckoned the Queen Mother had the upper hand.
“I think Stepha
nie de Milly is doing the Queen Mother’s bidding, and she doesn’t want Isabella to ever come visit us. At best, she wants Madame d’Oultrejourdain to turn Isabella against both of us,” Maria Zoë confided to her husband.
“And do you think she might succeed?” Balian asked, astonished. He found it hard to imagine that Isabella would ever turn on her mother.
“Children are so very vulnerable!” Maria Zoë warned him. “They are malleable and easily deceived. They can be made to hate almost anyone! And I haven’t even said what the worst is: I think the Queen Mother wants Isabella dead!”
Abruptly, Balian realized she was crying. He pulled her closer and kissed the side of her face that was wet with tears to try to calm her. He had only physical comfort to offer, because he too feared the Queen Mother wanted Isabella dead. She could not risk having any easy alternative to her own children ready at hand—not after she’d let Sibylla marry a man like Lusignan.
After a bit, Maria Zoë seemed to have cried herself into a calmer state, and Balian promised, “We’ll send Dawit now, and we’ll make a surprise visit to Kerak ourselves at the first opportunity.”
Maria Zoë hiccupped and patted his hand. “Thank you, Balian. I know I’m not the easiest wife to live with.”
“No,” he admitted, “but I would not trade you for anyone.” It was what she wanted to hear, of course, but it was also true. The longer they were married, the more Balian was coming to value his wife’s political acumen, her common sense, and her willpower. She was far more than a pretty bedmate, a source of wealth, the mother of his children, and a companion: she was his most important ally.
Chapter 5
Jaffa, May 1181
IT WAS GOOD TO BE BACK on the coast, Sister Adela thought, taking a deep breath of tangy air spiced with the scent of salt, fish, and wet sand. Beyond the crowded harbor, waves were breaking on the rock ledge where, according to legend, the Ethiopian Princess Andromeda had been chained, a sacrifice to the sea monster. The story of her rescue by the Greek hero Perseus had always been one of Adela’s favorites when she was a child growing up here in Jaffa—second only to the very similar story of St. George and the dragon.
Adela’s father held a money fief from the Count. She and her seven siblings had lived in a large three-story, but rather cramped, townhouse just behind the citadel, and they had often (or so it seemed in her memories) escaped their tutors to come down to the port to watch the coming and going of galleys, busses, and dhows. It was especially exciting at this time of year, when the first pilgrim ships from the West arrived with their cargoes of iron, copper, chain mail, horses, and best of all, bewildered Westerners.
Today, too, Adela was here to meet Westerners, but now she came in her official capacity as the Head Sister at the Hospital of St. John in Nablus. She had joined the Hospital of St. John almost twenty years ago, at the age of eighteen. As the fourth daughter of a nobleman with only modest means, there had been precious little left for a dowry, and the Hospital was one of the few orders that expected little in material wealth from its novices. That had not been the principal motivating factor for her joining the Order, however. She could have taken service with the then Countess of Jaffa instead. In fact, her father had already broached the matter with Count Amalric. Adela, however, had seen enough of his vain and proud wife, Agnes de Courtenay, and recognized that the position would bring her only misery. Not without a little arrogance (Adela admitted in retrospect), she had told her father that she would rather serve Christ than “a selfish woman.” She had taken her vows and completed her novitiate at nearby Lydda, but spent her first fifteen years of service at the large Hospitaller establishment in Ascalon.
She had been there during the siege of 1177, when the city was flooded with refugees fleeing in panic before the invading army of the Sultan of Egypt. She had witnessed the dramatic arrival of King Baldwin and his knights from Jerusalem, and watched tensely from the ramparts as they sortied out of the beleaguered city, riding out to the stunning victory at Montgisard.
It was during that siege that Sister Adela had come to the attention of her superiors for her calm and levelheadedness in the midst of a crisis. Two years later she had been entrusted with the responsibility of running the large and always busy women’s ward at the large hospital and hospice complex in Nablus. The Nablus Hospital of St. John housed nearly a thousand beds, four hundred of which were reserved for women. No less than 130 sisters worked there to provide medical care, food, and emotional support to the female patients and the many children that the patients, often widows or abandoned wives, brought with them. While the bulk of the female staff were lay sisters of native birth, mostly Maronite and Greek Christians, there were forty-two Sisters of the Hospital as well. Sister Adela had supreme authority over all these women, and, as was common in the Hospital of St. John, a voice in the Chapter alongside the male officers.
Sister Adela had been sent to Jaffa with an escort of two Hospitaller sergeants and six Turcopoles to collect six new sisters who were assigned to their house. These women had volunteered for service in the Holy Land and had been selected by their respective superiors as sufficiently devout and skilled to be suitable for such service.
Sister Adela was skeptical. Too often in the past, women sent East by superiors ignorant of the real situation were completely out of their depth once they reached Outremer. Some could not adjust to the climate, others had stomachs that rebelled against the diet, and many more simply couldn’t cope in a cosmopolitan society in which multiple languages and diverse forms of Christianity lived side by side—not to mention accept the presence of large Muslim and Jewish minorities.
“There’s the ship, madame,” one of the sergeants announced, drawing her attention to a sleek galley with a black hull and white trim. The sail, which had been hauled up but still hung loosely in the tackle, was also black with a (now largely concealed) white cross. The ship was maneuvering alongside the dock by oar. A sharp command rang out, and with noisy clunking but amazing dexterity the oars were shipped along the port side. The galley glided the last few yards to thump gently against the quay. Immediately a half-dozen men sprang ashore, with lines that they pulled tight and then deftly made secure on the bollards of the quay.
The sailors were still making up the ropes fore and aft when the gangway was run out. At once the passengers moved down from the poop toward the waist of the ship. Two knights of the Hospital were the first ashore, and with only the briefest nod in the direction of Adela, one started pushing his way through the crowds in an obvious hurry. The second, however, turned back to offer his hand to the first of the nuns timidly making their way over the gangway on unsteady legs.
Adela moved along the quay to stand opposite the gangway, but remained three yards back so she didn’t get in anyone’s way. The first nun was young, pretty, and eager. She looked about with wide, intelligent eyes and an expression of obvious delight, as if she were already enchanted by her new world. Adela liked that. If she came with an open mind, she would find it much easier to adapt. The nun behind her, however, was already more problematic. She was red-faced and waving a little fan as if she couldn’t bear the heat, when it was actually quite pleasant here on the coast with the breeze off the sea. Behind her came an ugly woman who collapsed on to her face the minute she stepped off the gangway. To Adela’s horror, she realized the nun was kissing the quay and then sitting up to offer a prayer of thanks. Apparently it had been a bad crossing.
Her sisters helped her to her feet and pulled her out of the way of the remaining two nuns, one of whom looked around with large, dazed eyes—hardly more promising than the two before, Adela thought with a sigh. But the last nun, although she moved with the awkward gait of a woman with a hip or knee injury, was helping a couple with a crippled child.
The father of the child, a tall, well-built man with the long blond hair still popular among the Norsemen, took his crippled son upon his back, while his pretty blond-haired wife nagged at him to “be careful.” As if h
e wouldn’t be on his own! Adela hated women like this, who couldn’t stop giving everyone useless advice. With approval, she saw the last nun distract the woman by offering to carry the boy’s crutch and one of the woman’s parcels. By the way this nun moved without self-pity or self-consciousness, Sister Adela decided she had probably been born with her defect. Many children born with a physical handicap were promised to the Church as children. While the Hospital did not take child oblates, a girl who had been raised in another order could transfer to the Hospital as an adult.
But that was only five. One was missing. So she waited a bit longer, watching absently as the Norseman set his son down on one of the bollards and returned aboard ship to fetch their sea trunk. Meanwhile, his wife approached Sister Adela and started asking about where she and her “poor boy” might find a safe place to sleep. “Not with heathens or other riffraff!” the woman insisted.
Sister Adela suggested a good (but expensive) inn near the Jerusalem gate, and then turned her attention back to the five nuns who had come ashore. They were busy chattering among themselves, but her low, melodic “Welcome to Outremer and the Kingdom of Jerusalem” made the newcomers spin around. They quickly recognized a woman of authority, and dutifully dipped their knees and bowed their heads. “Weren’t there supposed to be six of you?” Sister Adela asked.
Her words produced a stunned silence, until the crippled woman, up close the eldest of the lot, nodded and explained. “Sister Millicent was taken with a fever and died before we could reach port. She was buried at sea.”
“It was something in the terrible food, if you ask me,” the nun who was fanning herself announced—only to be told pointedly by the crippled nun: “No one is asking you.”
“It was terrible!” the nun who had kissed the ground seconded her rebuked companion, closing her eyes and crossing herself. “We nearly all died!”
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