“Cast him out!” De Ridford cocked up one arm, punched the air. “Cleanse the Order of him—we shall all be the better off.”
Now a whole chorus of voices rose, like hounds baying at the scent of blood. The Master looked at Rannulf, and said quietly, “Will you not defend yourself?”
“I swore an oath,” Rannulf said, “to fight only the enemies of my Lord Jesus Christ, and I shall keep to it.” He lifted his head long enough to cast a look like a burning brand at Gerard de Ridford, and then lowered his gaze again to the floor.
“Well said,” came a rough bellow from across the room. “Well said, Saint!”
“Throw him out,” someone else cried. “He’ll turn the King himself against us!”
Now suddenly German de Montoya raised his voice. “This is unso. I went in couple with Rannulf to the court—the King heaped praises on him, and called him a champion of Jesus, for the way he fought at Ramleh.”
“Ramleh,” the murmur went, from lip to lip. “Ramleh.”
Again the rough voice across the room spoke out. “Yes! Rannulf fought at Ramleh, while the rest of us were up north holding doors for people. God gave him the victory at Ramleh. God did not mind a saint.”
That brought forth a ragged yell from the massed knights, and a piercing whistle rang out, and some of the men stamped their feet. Somebody cried, “Let them fight it out!”
“Combat!” First one voice, then several took up the cry. “Combat!” Half a dozen men began to stamp their feet on the floor, and rapidly the rhythm spread, booming deafeningly loud.
Odo de Saint-Amand roared, “Quiet!” The din died away at once. In this new silence the Master turned toward Rannulf. “What goes between the two of you that runs so rough? I will not tolerate a feud in the Temple. Settle this, with swords, or with a clasp of hands, but settle it, here and now.”
The hall was hushed, not calm; all the knights stirred, eager, ready for blood. Rannulf raised his head.
“I cannot fight a man who wears the Cross.” Reluctantly he turned toward the Marshall, and held out his hand. “I will lay down my end of this, if de Ridford will lay down his.”
The Master thumped his palms together. “Yes—this is the right way of it.” Around the hall, a general sigh went up, and the men relaxed, a little disappointed there would be no fighting. De Ridford stood staring at Rannulf, and at last he took the outstretched hand.
“Excellently done,” the Master said. He went up to the knights, and laid his fingers on the knot of their handclasp. “Henceforth, be friends to one another, and face our common enemy together.” With his free arm he made the sign of the Cross over them. “Now, go, and keep your vows, for Jesus Christ’s sake.”
Rannulf drew his hand from de Ridford’s grasp and crossed himself. He went to his place in the line, and de Ridford backed off, rejoining the other officers. Odo stood watching them a moment, his head moving slowly from side to side, and then he went on with the chapter meeting.
The barracks hall where Rannulf slept was called the Crypt, because it lay against the northern wall of the building and was always cold. When he went into the hall, after Compline, every head in the crowded room swung toward him.
Some of them turned quickly away. More of them called out to him, and Richard le Mesne, across the room, lifted his fist in the air, and bellowed, “God wills it, Saint!” Rannulf went to his cot, against the wall under the window.
The room was full of men, standing by their narrow cots, getting ready for bed. Some stood pulling off their robes, and others were already lying down, and still others, stripped to their drawers, were gathered by the basin table in the corner, to wash their hands and faces. In the big stone-walled room the uproar was considerable. Rannulf sat on his cot, and began pulling his boots off.
German de Montoya came in the door. The Preceptor was well liked, even if he was an officer. As he went through the room, he spoke a few words to nearly everybody; he stopped in the middle of the room and talked to a young redheaded knight Rannulf did not know, and then the two of them came into the back of the room, toward Rannulf. They exchanged greetings, and then Rannulf said, “Thank you for speaking for me. You and Richard Bear kept them from throwing me out of the Order.”
German shook his head. “This was not so serious as that. Odo saw that justice was done. You belong here, more than de Ridford. Everybody knows it.” He gestured to the young knight standing just behind him. “I would make this man known to you—Stephen de l’Aigle is his name; he came to Jerusalem while you were in Egypt.”
Rannulf stood up. German always had his favorites. “Well met, Sir Stephen.”
The redheaded knight looked distantly at him. He had the polished look of a wellborn man. He said, “I am at your service, sir,” in a voice that said he was not.
German nodded to him. “You can go, Stephen. Thank you.”
“My lord,” said the redheaded knight, and went off again. Rannulf sat down on the cot.
“Another of your mice.”
German said, blandly, “What, you don’t like him? His uncle is the Seneschal of France, and his mother’s the sister of the Duke of Burgundy. You need some well-connected friends.”
“He doesn’t seem too friendly.”
German shrugged that off. “He’ll warm to you, once he comes to know you. As to de Ridford, keep a care for yourself. He’s a man without truth, and a mere handshake won’t bind him.” He clapped Rannulf on the shoulder. “But you have more of us on your side than you know.” He turned, and went away across the room; being an officer, he had his own quarters.
A sergeant had come in, and was trimming the lamps that hung along the walls of the room: all but one, which would burn until dawn, the Rule forbidding them to sleep in the dark. The din faded. In the cavern of the room the first low snores rose like cattle noises. Rannulf stood up, pulling off his jerkin and shirt, and wrapped himself in his blanket. Sitting down on the cot he bowed his head and pressed his palms together and tried to pray.
German was right: this thing with de Ridford was not settled, only pushed down under the surface. In the end, one of them would kill the other. Yet the Rule would not let him fight de Ridford, even to save himself.
He said his prayers, although he knew God would not help him; God gave him this test, to prove his virtue. Rannulf thought he had no virtue. He was a bad man, and sooner or later he would break, and get his hands on de Ridford’s fat neck and bash his brains out.
Yet as he said the worn old words of the prayers, an unexpected peace stole over him. If some had spoken against him in the chapter, some had spoken for him. The war was greater than any man, and would take both of them eventually, him and de Ridford, and turn them into the same dust. He lifted his gaze, looking across the room, to the cot where Mark had slept. It was empty: by custom no man would sleep there until the next battle was fought, and the next Templar died. Rannulf said another prayer, this one for Mark, or perhaps to Mark. Crossed himself and lay down, to sleep until the bell for vigils rang.
Chapter VI
One afternoon, Agnes de Courtenay held her court in the garden so that they could play with her grandson, named Baudouin, called Baudouinet to distinguish him from the King. She insisted that Sibylla come sit down with her to greet her baby son, although she had seen him only seldom since he was born, and had no interest in him.
The baby was small and pale, with hair so fine and light it seemed like nothing; all his clothes were embroidered in red and blue silk, and gold tassels adorned his little shoes. When he saw his grandmother, he crowed, and held out his arms to her, but when he saw his mother, he cried.
Embarrassed, Sibylla lowered her hands to her lap. “What a greeting is this?” The baby twisted around on Agnes’ lap, looking for his wet nurse, a Syrian woman whose equipment swelled enormous under her gown, advertising her perfect fitness for her role. “He doesn’t like me. His own mother.”
“You ran off to Kerak without him,” her mother said. “You should
take him into your apartment, let him live with you.” Agnes bent over the baby, cooing. He reached up one sticky hand for her hair. In the line of his face Sibylla was reminded of somebody else’s face. She remembered, suddenly, how she had gotten this baby, the losing battles in the dark.
“You keep him. He smells.” She sniffed at the baby. He had betrayed her, loving a fat native woman more than her who had borne him. She would have a better son. She got up, and went across the lawn toward the garden.
“You should be more of a mother to him,” Agnes said. She gave the baby to his nurse and came after her. “You should be more of a woman.” She shot a dagger of a look at her daughter.
Sibylla said, “You are enough of a woman for all of us, Mother.” She looked pointedly at the handsome young man waiting behind them on the terrace.
Her mother ignored that. “Why do you want to be a man, Sibylla? Why is being what God made you not enough for you?”
“I am what God made me, my lady. Not what paint made me.”
“Oh, ho, the child throws an insult.”
Sibylla felt herself flushing; her mother knew her entirely too well; even when she knew she was being clever her mother made her feel foolish, and childish. She looked out over the garden, which was a favorite place of hers, although now in winter it lay fallow. The roses needed to be trimmed. There were weeds sprouting in the unturned soil.
Her mother pursued her. “Why do you like Baudouin d’Ibelin so much?”
Sibylla tossed her head, having expected this, and gave her mother a cool look. “What, isn’t he young and handsome enough for you?”
“He’s an Ibelin. Are you sleeping with him?”
She had expected this, too, but still she could not meet her mother’s eyes. To deny it would be meaningless. “I need not answer that.”
“Perhaps not. But remember, if you get pregnant, all your prospects turn a little dark. And what a man likes in a lover he may abhor in a wife.”
“My lady, I mean to be more than a wife. I will be Queen of Jerusalem.”
“Yes, and a queen must be pure as Holy Mother Mary.” Agnes tapped her fingers on her knee; her nails were plated with gold sheaths. “Well, be careful. These things mean more than you think, and you can’t change them; once torn never mended, as they say. I suited your father well enough, lover and wife, when no one expected him to become King, but the crown came to him, and then suddenly I was a scandal, and had to be put aside, so he could marry some Greek.”
Sibylla said, “Father still loved you. Nothing changed.” Sibylla had loved her father more than she ever loved any of her flirts; she wanted him to be noble, and blameless. But now, looking back, she saw the thing differently, suddenly, more toward her mother’s view. “Father always said nothing had changed.”
“The King still wanted me in his bed.” Agnes’ voice was bitter as thin beer. “Especially when he found out the little Greek would only endure him, like a board with a hole in it. And he still loved you. You and Baudouin, always. But I was not good enough to be Queen.”
“With me, they have no choice,” Sibylla said. “I shall be Queen, virgin or whore.”
“Bah, you little fool, you assume too much. And you’d give it all to an Ibelin!”
Sibylla stooped and picked a bit of dead wood off a rose bush. This was part of her mother’s endless squirrel-work, chewing off a little bit of this, and piling up a little bit of that, as if by a thousand tiny doings she accomplished something great. Baudouin d’Ibelin’s brother Balian was married to Sibylla’s father’s second wife, the Greek board, Maria Comnena.
Her mother said, “What is the King telling you, when you attend his court like that? Or do you just play chess with him? Why must you always try to do what men do?”
“I listen. I did not know how much the King must do, or how hard it is.” Sinking down on her heels, she pulled up a few stalky yellow lion’s-teeth, and then stood, brushing the dirt off her fingers. She would ruin her hands at this work. “I am not trying to do what men do.” What it was she wanted, she could not explain, even to herself. “You make being a woman so small and narrow, Mother, I want more than that.”
“You are a selfish girl, Sibylla, and impious, too.”
“Oh, heigh, ho, stand up on your pulpit, Mother; you’ve got the morals for it.” She turned, looking for a page, and saw Baudouin d’Ibelin himself coming in the door.
He smiled at her, looking apologetic, since he was late; as always his looks delighted her, his smooth and even features, his wide shoulders and long legs. She thought, He is better than my mother’s man, and felt a little guilty at the comparison. With a smile she went toward him.
“Come. I need your help, my garden is a ruin.” She caught his hand and led him off to find some servants, to do the work for her.
God had betrayed Gerard de Ridford; God had given him a king’s soul, without a king’s station.
The Marshall of the Templars stood at the edge of the garden of the palace La Plaisance, where the Countess of Courtenay and her daughter held their merry, frivolous court. He watched Sibylla of Jerusalem, heiress to the crown of Godfrey de Bouillon and Baudouin le Bourg and Fulk of Anjou, and considered how he might make up for God’s mis-judgment.
The garden lay between the back of the palace and the curve of the city wall, a semicircle of pavement and grass, some beds of untilled weedy earth, a band of trees. The Countess sat in the shade at one end of the pavement, sending her hangers-on this way and that to fetch her things. A handsome young man leaned on the back of her chair and whispered in her ear, and another such loitered on the grass behind her.
De Ridford had already assessed the Countess’ appetites and decided that way was too dear a path, and too unsteady.
The Princess was another matter.
She was not so much pretty, he thought, watching her, as she was lively. She seemed always to be moving, to be doing something. Today she had brought out a little flock of servants to dig and delve in the gardens, and to gather up the branches and leaves fallen from the cherry trees that lay between the garden and the wall. She drew a few of her friends into the work too, the fat girl who was always with her, and a tall knight with fair curling hair who was following Sibylla around faithfully and doing everything she said. The Princess wore a long blue gown. Under de Ridford’s gaze she turned and waved to someone across the garden, and in the turning of her body and the raising of her hand was an unconscious grace that lifted him to a pure pleasure.
He watched her, patient, looking for his chance to reach her, to use her, this blithe and reckless girl who had what he wanted.
He had brought two sergeants with him from the Temple, to comply with the Rule; they stood idle in the corner, near the table where pages waited beside the ewers of wine, the trays of small delicacies. The Rule said also he was not to have to do with women, but he was here on the business of the Order, and these women held power; therefore, he could deal with them sinlessly. The Rule was no hindrance to him. He understood it deeply, looking past the cramped letter to the expansive purpose, he knew it better than the fools like Rannulf Fitzwilliam who clung to the vow like slaves.
The thought of Rannulf made him angry. He hated the churlish Norman knight, with a hatred that arose from a depth below words; he wanted to crack that mean piety and show it for the worthless thing it was, ashes and dust.
The nobles of Jerusalem drifted in and out of the court. Joscelin de Courtenay appeared, the Countess’ brother, head of his family, a big bluff man, dressed in Russian fur. The Princess went up to greet him, both hands out, and got a loud kiss on the mouth. The Marshall drew closer to her. The fair young man following her everywhere was an Ibelin, by his badge: not the lord, perhaps his younger brother. The Ibelins were rivals of the Courtenays and this one looked uncomfortable here, even as he hovered around the Princess like a bee in a linden tree. Then Joscelin de Courtenay was nodding to de Ridford, and the Marshall went forward into the nobles’ presence.
&nb
sp; He inclined his head to the lord of the house. Not as much as he might have, had de Courtenay led a few more knights. “My lord Count.” Joscelin still claimed the title of Edessa, his father’s fief, lost twenty years and more to the Saracens. De Ridford faced him with the confidence of a man whose power was, if not hereditary, at least real.
Joscelin said, “Well? What does the Temple think Saladin will do next?”
De Ridford lifted one shoulder; he planted his fist on his hip. “It matters not, my lord, whatever it might be, we shall more than match it.” He turned to the Countess, who was leering toothily at him from her chair. “My lady.” Now, at last, he came to the Princess; he put on a smile for her, and bowed his head.
“Princess, you are the fairest flower in this garden.”
Her eyes flashed. “It’s wintertime. There are no flowers.” He saw she had heard every compliment, every flattery, every fawning lie, at least twice.
He smiled again, liking her better. He said, “What a sensible woman you are. A gem among gems.”
The young man behind her moved forward, his eyes sharp. Establishing possession. He said, “Sib, are we done here?” De Ridford, murmuring his leave, stepped back, and the girl turned and went off with the young Ibelin, tipped her head to look up at him, and laughed. Just behind de Ridford, her mother uttered an unwomanly oath.
Joscelin was saying, “Maybe Ramleh finished him.” He was still talking about Saladin. He passed his winecup nervously from hand to hand. “You know how the Saracens are. His own people will throw him down, as soon as he shows a weakness.”
“Yes,” said Amalric de Lusignan, the Countess’ favorite, just behind her chair. “We should attack them now, take Damascus, or at least Aleppo. We have the advantage now, or so it seems. My lord Count, with a bold move we could recover Edessa.”
Joscelin’s eyes widened with alarm. His hands closed tight on the winecup. He had a horror of bold moves. “The King is hardly in a condition to lead us against Edessa.”
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