That startled them; all their voices rose at once. He drank again, the wine cushioning the jags and jolts of this work; he was tired, he felt the power running out of him like a draining wound, and yet the hardest was to come. Kerak stepped forward.
“The Crusade is a false dream, Sire. None will answer, and we will wait in vain, and do nothing in the meantime. Trust in God, and take our swords in our hands, and attack the enemy. That is the way of the true Soldier of the Cross!”
His own men called out in agreement, some clapping their hands. De Ridford was scowling, and Joscelin gave a shake of his head.
“Sire, my lord Kerak has some point. The people in the West don’t care about us anymore, except to make sermons about how we’re suffering for our sins, and deserve to lose.”
The King had come to the moment he dreaded; he felt his sister’s presence behind him, and could not put this off anymore. He said, “I mean to seek out some great prince to lead the new Crusade. And to win his support I will offer him the dearest prizes in my gift: Holy Sepulcher, the city of Jerusalem, my crown, and for his wife and queen, my sister.” Into the sudden electric silence, he went on, “The King of the Romans is unmarried. And there is the English prince, Richard Lion-heart, who is known to support the Crusade, and who is reputed to be a second Roland.”
Kerak said, “I say it is a false hope, Sire.”
Although he sat facing forward, toward the men, the King’s attention was on his sister, who stood behind him, and who neither moved nor spoke. He only nodded at Kerak. “Say what you will, my lord. I am determined to preserve this Kingdom.”
Joscelin said, “Whatever you choose to do, Sire, I shall follow. God gave this burden to you, and not to me. But now let me take leave, unless there is more you require of me.”
“Go, my lord. Thank you very much. God be with you.”
“And with your spirit,” Joscelin said, and went around the throne and spoke briefly to Sibylla, and kissed her, and went out. The King sat watching the room before him. De Ridford had beckoned for a page, and now took a cup of the wine from him. Rannulf was staring at the floor. Sibylla’s presence here confounded him, as, somehow, it did Kerak, who seemed much subdued.
“My lord Kerak,” the King said. “Now that the danger to Jerusalem is past, you too will wish to return to your own country, I am sure.”
The Lord of Kerak turned, now, standing among his men, his white-haired son beside him. “Sire, some of my men desire to use this chance to worship at the holy shrines.” The Wolf bowed his head in piety. A little late, his hand rose and made a quick crossing of his breast. His deepset eyes glittered.
“Keep the peace, my lord,” Baudouin said. “And may God speed you home again.”
“God keep you.” Kerak backed up two steps, turned, and marched out, his men close on his heels.
De Ridford said, “My lord, by your leave,” and bowed, but the King lifted his hand.
“No. Stay a moment.” He hitched himself up higher on the throne. “I heard nothing from you, my lord Marshall, in favor of the Crusade or against.”
De Ridford’s wide shoulders rose and fell, his hands on his belt. “The Temple fights the Crusade every day, Sire. Even now, men come to join us from all over Christendom, and they wait not for princes, nor do they require the earthly rewards of a crown and a beautiful queen.” He bowed elegantly to Sibylla. Turning his head slightly, he gathered Rannulf Fitzwilliam in with a glance. “My brothers and I ask only to serve. We have put ourselves in God’s hands, not those of some worldly prince.”
The King said, “Well said, my lord.” He looked past de Ridford, to Rannulf. “Saint. What think you of it?”
Rannulf said, “My lord the Marshall speaks for me.”
“Why do you think Saladin retreated?”
The knight stirred, as if the question nettled him. His eyes met Baudouin’s. “I wish I knew.”
Then Sibylla spoke, her voice clear and bitter. “Perhaps he withdrew because he wearies of the war. Perhaps he stopped fighting because he wants peace. He has asked to talk of peace, and all you offer him is unrelenting war.”
Rannulf dropped his gaze and said nothing. Beside him, de Ridford said, “My lady, this Sultan has said he would purge the Holy Land of the very air we breathe.”
“No,” Sibylla said. She moved up to stand at her brother’s right hand. Her voice was taut with reined-in anger. “I will hear it from the man my brother sends to talk peace to the Sultan. If he will talk peace at all.”
Baudouin shifted in his place; he saw her fist clench at her side, and knew where her rage sprang from. Rannulf gave her nothing, kept his head turned away from her, and his gaze lowered. De Ridford wheeled around, sharp with words. “You villain! Answer this noblewoman. I order it.”
Rannulf said, to the floor, “Yes, Princess.”
She said, “Why do you think Saladin withdrew, if not because he knows God is with us, and will keep us always, and so all he does is futile? And so he may be minded to seek a peace with us?”
“Yes, Princess.”
“That is no answer.”
“Yes, Princess.”
She struck out with her hand, swept the King’s wine cup off the table; with a clatter and a clang, it hit the floor on the far side of the room. “You will not answer me, even under orders! What perverse pride is this, parading as humility? You wrap yourself in that vow, as if you were better than the rest of us, like the Pharisee in the parable.”
“Yes, Princess.”
“Well, remember me in your prayers, holy warrior. Although as you turn humility into pride, and obedience into mockery, so you would likely turn prayers into curses.”
“Yes, Princess,” Rannulf said. “Non militia, sed malitia.”
Baudouin broke into a smile, and Sibylla gave a startled burst of laughter. The joke disarmed her; her hand opened, the long slim fingers flexing. For a moment no one spoke. Baudouin sagged down into the throne, too tired to keep upright anymore, his muscles feeble. He thought he had done what he intended, and he said, “My lords Templar, you have my leave to go.”
They went. Sibylla said, “God’s teeth, Rannulf Fitzwilliam makes me angry, he makes me want to hit him. What do you like so much in him?”
“He is honest,” the King said. “A virtue priced beyond pearls, and a lot rarer.”
“A virtue you are not applying to me. What is this of a new marriage for me?”
“The Crusade needs a great leader. The King of the Romans, or Prince Richard of England.”
“You did not speak to me of this, before.”
The King had not, because he had expected her to object; so he had proclaimed his intentions before the world, to bind her fast before she could escape. “Each of us has a duty, Bili. This is yours.”
“I am a widow. By law I can choose my own husband.”
“You would choose someone you know, which would be a calamity. And someone you could master, which would be a worse calamity.”
“My lord,” she said, “you have betrayed me. The while you have taught me to be Queen, and now you want to make me just a pawn again.”
“I am trying to give you a king to rule with you, to save Jerusalem. You will do as I command you, because you are Princess, because you are my sister.” He knew if he kept on he would break her to this, the only way to save Jerusalem.
“Am I to have no word in this at all? I will not do it, Bati.”
“Sibylla. You’re no virgin; don’t act like one. You married William merrily enough.”
“I was a little girl! All I thought of was the wedding, the clothes, the jewels, and the excitement, and how much he would love me. Nobody told me about the—you don’t know, Bati. I am not a virgin, but you are. You don’t know.”
“I know that there must come some great lord from the West, with the army only such a man can muster, or this Kingdom will fall. And the way to bring such a man here is to offer him what he cannot have in the West. And I will hear no more—”<
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“To save Jerusalem you would give it away.”
“I will hear no more!”
“What do you know of this English prince, save that he has broad rich lands of his own, and is a mighty warrior, and so will save us, surely, from the Saracens. But so doing, he will be greater than us, he will owe us nothing, and we will owe him everything.”
He said, “I will hear no more from you concerning this, my sister, save that you will submit to it.”
A little silence. She said, in a different voice, “I will not, my lord.” She gathered herself. In the back of the room her women stirred, making ready to follow her. “By your leave, Sire, I shall go.”
“Come back when you are ready to agree to it,” her brother said. She left.
In the street, de Ridford said, “That is a dangerous woman.”
Rannulf said, “All women are dangerous.”
He was staring straight ahead down the narrow street. It was the middle of the afternoon, and the word of the Sultan’s retreat had gotten all over. The people were crowding forth out of their houses into the street; the city boomed alive after the long anxious waiting behind walls. By the fountain, the old men had gotten out their chess game, and the women waited in lines with their jars and pitchers. The wineseller on the corner was in the street rolling up the shutters of his shop. There would be drunken men all over the city tonight. The pieman came by, singing of his wares in a high cracked voice.
Rannulf noticed all of this, but only with his eyes. The Princess had laid hold of his mind. He could not shake off the memory of the exchange with her, how she had challenged him; he ran the words over and over through his memory, devout as prayer.
He realized that de Ridford had spoken to him. He said, “I have my vow.” Which she had crashed through like a spiderweb.
De Ridford said, “Nonetheless, you must deal with her, as it is expedient. She is the heiress of the Kingdom. When the King dies, the crown will fall into her lap. But you, you have the address of a plowboy. I kept expecting you to pull your forelock. I’ve never seen anybody else who can be both obsequious and arrogant at the same time.”
Rannulf gave him a sideways look. He saw no reason to trade insults with de Ridford. Nothing in the Marshall’s new show of tolerance convinced him the feud between them was over. De Ridford turned toward him again.
“Yet something can be made of you, I think. You know why I have placed you in this embassy.”
“Not really, no.”
“Well, I’m sure it will eventually occur to you. I want to know everything Tripoli does in Damascus. Mark especially the Sultan’s countenance toward him.”
“This is not my line of work.”
“I have never understood quite what your line of work is, other than to bedevil me, but you will obey orders, won’t you.”
“Yes, my lord,” Rannulf said.
“And I have another order. Kerak has been treading the edge, all through this, and now that there is no more immediate danger from Saladin, he will push as far as he can. This wanting to pray at the shrines is a sham. He will try something, and when he does, I want you to make sure he never wants to see Jerusalem again. Is that in your line of work? “
“Yes, my lord.”
“Then do it,” de Ridford said
That night Rannulf dreamed of the Princess Sibylla.
He was in a dark wood, and he saw her on the path. Now she did not do battle with him, as she had in her brother’s court; she ran away from him. He chased her, and he caught her under the trees, and he dragged her down on the ground and raped her.
He never saw her face. He woke immediately. He was lying on his cot in the Crypt, in the flickering light of the lamp; all around him the other men slept in a low chorus of snores and breathings. The dream had been so real, so real.
He crossed himself. His penis was painfully hard inside his drawers. He forced his way through a paternoster, trying to wring himself limp, but it did no good. He wanted to conquer her. He remembered, in the dream, her hips shivering against him, her hair wrapped around his wrists. Impossible she did not know what he had done to her, that across the city in her silken bed she did not dream this too. Her fault. She had tempted him. Come to him in the dream and seduced him. His hand slid down to his crotch. Before he sinned any more he rolled onto his stomach and buried his head in his arms.
He could never possess her, even if somehow he were freed of the vow; she would go to some prince, a fair-haired magnificence who walked on carpets all day long and used men like Rannulf to hold his horse. Even in the dream, he had had to steal her.
Even in his dreams he did evil. And if she did not know, God certainly knew. He made himself say prayers, over and over again, until the Matins bells began to ring. Later that morning, he heard that the Princess had left Jerusalem.
Kerak’s men did not leave. In bands, they roamed Jerusalem, taking whatever they wanted from the shops and stalls, and abusing the local people. On de Ridford’s order, Rannulf got out all the knights of the Temple, armed with staves, and they fought Kerak’s men back and forth through the streets and down into the Under City.
By sundown a steady drizzle was falling. The cold and the rain defeated Kerak’s men as much as the Templars with their staves; half of them gave up, and went into the penitential cell in the Temple, and the rest fled the city.
The winter night lay heavy on Jerusalem. The rain was falling harder, freezing into streaks of sleet. With every step Rannulf’s horse skidded along the icy pavement. The city’s horde of beggars had crept into the cracks and chinks of the walls, into the gateways and alleys, and the Templars went around with their staves, and roused them, and drove them all down toward the sheep market.
There someone had piled up dung and trash and broken barrels and set a torch to it. In the driving sleet the wretched poor gathered close around the heat and the light. Their very number made a sort of shelter. A few loaves appeared, and some wine. The Templars dismounted, and went in among them, and standing shoulder to shoulder with the beggars and the drunks, they stretched out their hands to the warmth of the flames.
Chapter XVI
On the embassy to Damascus, Rannulf took Stephen de l’Aigle, Felx van Janke, and Richard le Mesne, and two sergeants to run errands. They all rode to Lake Tiberias to meet the Count of Tripoli, the King’s chief legate. The Count was married to the Lady of Tiberias, whose castle stood above the pretty waters of the lake, which was the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus had been a fisherman. The four Templars arrived at the castle in the afternoon, and were taken at once into a little hall, where the Count received them.
Raymond of Tripoli was a slight man, shorter than Rannulf by a full head, his chestnut hair balding up the front of his skull like a retreating wave. When the chamberlain said Rannulf s name, Tripoli’s head jerked, and he gave the Templar an angry glare.
“Rannulf Fitzwilliam. I know who you are; I’ve heard all about you for years, none of it good. Why the Order should send you on this embassy, I cannot know, save it be to insult me.” He walked toward Rannulf, his hands behind his back, and the words coming clipped and harsh. “I am insulted. I want to have as little to do with you as possible. We leave in the morning. You can ride rearguard. In Damascus, stay away from me, and keep your mouth shut. Do you hear me?”
“I’m listening,” Rannulf said.
The Count’s eyes widened; his lips barely moved. “Get out.”
Rannulf turned on his heel and walked out of the room; the other three men followed him. The chamberlain sent a page to take them to their quarters. Nobody said anything, until they were in a bare little back room near the stable, and the door shut.
Stephen exploded. “How dare he speak of insult! What’s the matter with you? You should have knocked him across the hall!”
“He hates the Order,” Rannulf said. The room was dank, even in midsummer, with moss growing along the foot of the wall; the only furniture was a table, two chairs, and a cot without a tick.
He said, “I’m not staying here,” and opened up the door and went out and around the corner of the wall, to the stable.
The sergeants had taken the Templars’ horses into an unused corner of the stable near the hay ricks, and set their packs and saddles against the wall. The sun was going down and the stable was already dark. Rannulf climbed up on the side of the hay rick and flopped open the wooden cover on the window, which let in a little bit of late light. Felx and Richard broke open their packs and took their rolled blankets from their saddles; Stephen prowled restlessly around, still simmering at Tripoli’s reception of them.
“I thought he just hated de Ridford.”
“Well,” Rannulf said. “He’s broad-minded.” Standing on the side of the rick, he dumped several armfuls of hay on the floor, jumped down, and kicked it into a sort of bed.
“Is he going to feed us?” Bear asked. The sergeants had brought in a pail of water, and he squatted down to wash his face.
“Probably not,” Rannulf said. “He’s tight as a nun’s butt, Tripoli.” He pointed at one of the sergeants. “Go find the cellarer and get some wine for us.”
Stephen said, “What’s between him and de Ridford?”
Rannulf sat down on his new bed and reached for his pack. “When de Ridford came to Outremer he was not a Templar. He gave his service to Tripoli, in exchange for which Tripoli promised him the first heiress in the Count’s gift. And before long there was an heiress, a de Botrun girl, but a merchant of Genoa offered Tripoli her weight in gold for her, and the Count forgot about de Ridford, and put the lady on the scales.” Out of the pack he took a loaf of bread, broke it, and passed around the pieces.
Stephen laughed. Slowly he began settling himself down, finding his saddle and his pack. “Why did he join the Temple? And why did the Temple take him?”
“His uncle was the Seneschal,” said Felx. “And Odo likes him, for some reason.”
“He kisses Odo’s boots,” Bear said, out of the gathering darkness. He was lying down, his head on his saddle, his hands folded like an effigy’s over his breast.
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