Jerusalem

by Cecelia Holland

  “I’ll kill him,” Kerak said, mechanically.

  “First kill the boy King. Rannulf is responsible for him. You will make him look the useless serf he is.”

  “That would profit Tripoli.”

  “Exactly. It will seem to profit Tripoli, and so Tripoli will be blamed.” De Ridford liked this scheme, which had so many positive effects. “No one will object when we place the Princess on the throne. Perhaps we can find Rannulf guilty of helping to murder the King.”

  He had gone too far. Kerak shifted in his place, scowling at him. “God’s eyes, you are full of knots as a net. Go. My son is dead. I can think of nothing other now; go.”

  De Ridford left. Guy de Lusignan had come back into the hall, alone, and the Marshall of the Templars went to pile up a little more spiritual coin with him.

  A few days later, the council done at Montgisor, he returned to Jerusalem. Before he had passed through David’s Gate he had heard from the guards that Rannulf was back at the citadel. He decided to keep close, and let the other knight come to him with his threats and charges.

  Rannulf did not come. After a few days, de Ridford began to worry a little, and he went on a pretext to the citadel, to come face-to-face with him, and force the issue.

  But Baudouinet was sick, and no one was admitted into his presence, and his guards were shut up with him. The door to the hall stood closed, and the chamberlain let no one past the first landing of the stairway; on the steps, in the courtyard, a steadily growing crowd of people waited to see the King.

  The Grand Chapter to elect the new Master was to be held in Jerusalem on Epiphany. De Ridford foresaw trouble; he had to know what Rannulf intended to do, before the chapter meeting. The Marshall had already counted all the votes. Agnes had given him money to buy those amenable to such persuasions. Others he had plied with whatever means seemed efficacious. He knew he would win on the first counting, if all went well.

  Somehow Rannulf would overturn it. The fear grew in him like a fever. He went to Gilbert, and nagged the Seneschal into summoning Rannulf to a hearing before the two officers.

  He had an excellent pretext. He said, “He murdered Guile of Kerak, a crime for which he must be punished.”

  Gilbert sent some sergeants across the city to the citadel, with the summons. He said, “What I’ve heard is that Guile went at him, with a lot of help, and Saint still got him.”

  “Don’t call him that,” de Ridford said. Gilbert smiled at him, his crippled hand stroking his beard. De Ridford went on, “Kerak has sworn vengeance. The whole Order will suffer if we are not seen to do justice.”

  A few moments later the sergeants came back without Rannulf. “He is on duty, he says, and will come when he can.”

  “On duty!” De Ridford wheeled around. “His duty is to the Order!” Now he was sure Rannulf plotted against him, and he shouted at Gilbert, “Drag him here by force! He has defied us, refused a command.”

  Gilbert said, “He says he will come when he can, my lord Marshall. Control yourself.” And he was so obviously pleased with de Ridford’s discomfiture that the Marshall stilled himself at once, and made no more issue of it.

  The winter rains began. Christmas passed, and the officers of the other chapters came to the Temple, and the Grand Chapter met.

  At first de Ridford thought, with relief, that Rannulf was ignoring this summons too. But when the refectory was full of the officers, the great shadowy space loud with the bustle of their talk and the stamping of their feet, like a stableful of horses, he saw the black-haired Norman standing at the left side of the front row, by himself.

  De Ridford stared at him a moment, daring him to look back, but Rannulf only stared down at the floor.

  They called the chapter meeting into being, said the prayers, and announced the election. Right away it was clear that only two men had any real support—de Ridford and Gilbert Erail. Through all the talk Rannulf stood with his eyes lowered, his hands folded on the hilt of his sword, saying nothing.

  They called for the vote, and voted by rank, the greatest officers first. Man by man, de Ridford heard his name proclaimed, and knew himself becoming Master of the Temple. Although he had schemed for years for this, and done everything he could to guarantee it, yet as it became true he grew light-headed with surprise and pleasure, as if this had come on him all unlooked for.

  Then it was Rannulf’s turn, and he lifted his head, and now he did look at de Ridford, and his face was black with malice.

  He said, “Obviously you are going to win this, de Ridford. But I will vote for Gilbert Erail, not because I like him much, nor because he is the best choice—he isn’t—I am. But the choice is between him and you, and I would vote for a cur dog over you, de Ridford.”

  He lowered his eyes again, and said nothing more. De Ridford went hot as a furnace. He felt them all watching him; he felt as if he had been scourged in front of them. He could not strike back. To make a battle of this now would risk too much. He had to keep still and let the final few votes be called, and so in the moment of his triumph he was humiliated.

  The chapter meeting ended, and the men filed out. By calculation De Ridford reached the doorway just as Rannulf did.

  “I’ll see you pay for that,” he said.

  Rannulf only laughed at him, and went out across the porch of the refectory. Stephen de l’Aigle was there waiting for him, with their horses. De Ridford stood watching them, his mouth dry. Rannulf’s confidence frightened him. There had to be something in this he didn’t know. He dared not move against Rannulf until he knew exactly what was going on. The two knights rode away across the pavement, down toward the gate to the city. De Ridford reminded himself he was their Master, he was Master of the Temple, the greatest army in the world; he bowed to no man save the Pope himself. Yet his knees shook. The next day he rode down to Nablus, where Joscelin de Courtenay held his court, and had the King’s guardian transfer Baudouinet and his knights out of Jerusalem, to Acre in the north, for reasons of the boy’s health.

  Chapter XXVII

  Agnes said, “Very nicely done, all of it. Your father would have been proud of you.” Shading her eyes with her hand, she looked up at the front of the chapel, which stood among the dark cypresses of the Mount of Olives. “The statues are particularly fine.”

  “I remember coming here as a child,” Sibylla said. “When only the walls were standing. I was afraid Baby Jesus would be rained on.” At her elbow, Alys laughed.

  Made of rosy stone in the new French style, the chapel seemed larger than it was. Her father had begun it, and her brother brought it along; now Sibylla was finishing it, taking a deep satisfaction from the task. This, she thought, was the real work of kings.

  The porch of the chapel was set inside pointed arches; above them was a row of niches in the stone. In each of these niches an image would stand. The first was already in place, a sword-bearing archangel with a devil glowering at his feet. From the arch of his wings to the tip of his sword, the angel made a flawless curve of power, while the devil was squashed down like a toad, his face contorted, and his tongue sticking out.

  Her mother said, “This is very handsome.”

  “The angel reminds me of de Ridford,” Sibylla said.

  Her mother laughed. “Oh, yes, and he would love to know it.”

  Sibylla thought, But the devil reminds me of Rannulf.

  She lowered her eyes. Along the porch of the chapel, in a constant cloud of white dust, the workmen were raising a scaffolding, to lift the next statue to its niche. This one a pilgrim, praying, his head bent over his hands.

  Behind her, a shriek went up. “Mama!”

  She turned, gladdened; across the courtyard, cluttered with stone and piles of wood, her daughter toddled toward her. “Mama, see?”

  Jolie’s hair was a glinting tangle. Her face glowed through a mask of dirt. Her hands were full of pretty little stones; Sibylla bent over them, admiring each one. Lifting her head, she looked down across the courtyard and saw
Guy walking toward her. He smiled; his face was the child’s face, only older. She waved to him, and stood, lifting Jolie up into her arms.

  “Gamma,” Jolie said, and offered the sticky handfuls of rocks to her grandmother.

  Agnes said, “You know they have shunted poor Baudouinet away to Acre.”

  Guy came up to them, his head raised, his gaze sweeping the chapel. “Not bad,” he said. “The statues are very nice.” He was being polite; such things did not interest him. He turned at once, and looked away, back toward Jerusalem, on its hill opposite. She had promised to go hunting with him, in the morning, to make up for spending today doing this.

  Agnes said, “As I said, Baudouinet is off in Acre, and I am going there, to see him. I thought perhaps you would want to come.”

  “I,” Sibylla said, startled.

  Guy’s head swiveled toward them. “Acre. Doesn’t Tripoli control Acre? She can’t go there.”

  Agnes said, “The King is sick. Perhaps very sick.”

  Sibylla turned, and summoned Alys with a look, and gave Jolie away to her. Guy said, “Well, she can’t go to Acre. I won’t allow it.” His voice as he said this dropped into his chest.

  Sibylla glanced at her mother; their gazes met, and across this bridge ran an instant’s unspoken message. She said, “We should be going back, shouldn’t we?”

  Agnes smiled at her. “Yes, I suppose we should.”

  In Acre the King lived in the palace called Beauregard, at the north end of the city. Agnes went there with the Count of Tripoli, who was visiting the city, and a physician she knew, a Jew, far-famed, who was called Philip of Acre.

  The palace was shut up tight, as if for a war; at every gate and door someone stopped them. Finally they came into the garden, at the back of the palace. Here another guard held them up, this one a Templar, tall, with a copper-colored beard, who would not let them pass, but sent word of their coming on down into the garden.

  Her grandson came quickly, his face bright. “Grandmother!” He came up beside the redheaded knight, and took his hand. “Grandmother, this is my friend Mouse. He’s a Knight Templar, he is very valiant and wonderful.”

  Agnes lifted her eyes to the knight. “Well met, Sir Mouse. That’s quite a commendation.”

  The knight smiled at her. His eyes were blue; he carried himself with an arresting grace. He said, “Thank you, my lady. The King is pleased to glorify me.” The King in fact hung on his hand, pulling on him, which the knight patiently endured.

  Another Templar had followed the King up out of the garden, and the little boy glanced back at him.

  “This is Saint. He is the chief of my bodyguard.”

  This knight had no such elegance of manner as the first. He stared at the ground, and mumbled something to Agnes. Tripoli pushed forward into the front of the conversation, talking to this Templar.

  “I sent for you, a month ago, to present yourself to me. You never did.”

  The black knight said, “My orders are to defend the King. I said I would come when I could.” He sounded irritated. His hair and beard were sooty black, and his clothes looked as if he slept in them. Agnes saw her grandson liked this one much less than the other; the child turned shy, when the black knight spoke, and kept close by red Mouse.

  Tripoli said, “Then I will tell you now, Rannulf, while I am in Acre, I am Master of the city. Make no trouble for me.”

  The knight lifted his head slightly. His eyes were stony. “I have had three warnings from various places that someone means to kill the King. One was about Kerak. Two were about you.”

  Tripoli stiffened. “I assure you, I am not—”

  “Considering that this is a little boy, I think it foul even for a damned Saracen, but for another Christian—”

  “I am not plotting the King’s life!”

  “Good,” the knight said. “Then there will be no problem.”

  “Are you done, now?” Agnes said. She turned to the other man she had brought with them, who had been standing silently all the while. “This is Philip of Acre, who is a physician. I have brought him here to view my grandson. If you will allow it.”

  The black knight ignored her. He went back to staring at the ground. The red knight said, “Yes, certainly. Here, little boy, let this hakim look you over.”

  The child had listened with a grave face to the talk of his proposed murder, but now he went forward bravely, with his big friend beside him. They took his coat and shirt off, and the physician studied him, smelled his breath, looked at the tips of his fingers, and laid one ear against his back, listening. After a moment he straightened, and with a gentle word sent the child away down the garden. The red knight followed him.

  Agnes said, “What ails him, Philip?”

  The physician watched the child go. The Jew was slight, dressed in a gown discreetly embroidered around the hem and the cuffs of the sleeves; he wore a cap like a silk tonsure. He turned to the black knight, and said, “How does he eat?”

  The knight lifted his head. “We taste of all his food before he eats it. We handle everything he touches. Is he being poisoned?” He gave a sharp glance at Tripoli.

  The physician smiled. “You are a Norman, aren’t you. I’ve noticed men of your race have a predilection to the suspicion of poisoning. No, he isn’t being poisoned. I believe my Christian colleagues in Salerno would say that he has too much of a cold humor. He’s small and frail. His chest is full of cracklings and whistlings, the circles of his nails are blue, his color is bad.” He turned to Agnes, and gave a little shake of his head. Not in his words, but in this gesture she knew her grandson’s death decreed.

  Her heart clenched. Her eyes sought after the child, sitting on the grass at the far side of the garden. Heavily, she said, “He’s always been sickly. I thought he might grow better.” She crossed herself.

  The Templar was staring at the physician. He said, now, “You are Philip ben Ezra? I understand there is a physician by that name at the court in Damascus.”

  “My cousin,” said Philip of Acre.

  Tripoli had been watching the little boy, his face intent as a vulture’s; now he swung around toward the black knight. “What interest is that of yours?”

  “I’m interested in anybody connected with Damascus,” the Templar said. “I have heard that Saladin is also sick.”

  Philip backed away, leaving the knight and Tripoli to stand face-to- face. The Count said stiffly, “Your duty, as you said, is to protect the King. Stay out of policy.”

  The knight said, “If he is sick, we should attack him. The Temple is at full strength again, it’s November, the truce is over, and it’s time to fight. The Sultan has a lot of problems. Now he’s on his back. One little push might finish him.”

  Tripoli grunted at him. “He wants to extend the truce, which I am minded to do.”

  “Truces favor them, not us.”

  “I see no virtue in overthrowing Saladin; it would just cause chaos.”

  “Yes, he has a lot of sons and nephews. They might fight over the succession for years, which would be to our advantage.”

  “And whoever finally came to power might be much worse than Saladin, who is at least a reasonable and honorable man.” Under pressure of argument Tripoli’s voice sharpened to a sarcastic whine. “And what you obviously do not know, mewed up as you are in this little corner of the Kingdom, and narrow-minded anyway by virtue of your calling, is that the famine is everywhere. The price of corn even here in Acre is going up daily, and in the south there is no corn at all. We can’t fight without food.”

  The knight said, “Attacking Saladin we could seize the Hauran, with its fields and orchards. We could hold all that territory at least through the harvest and feed the whole Kingdom on it.”

  “You have the mentality of a bandit. Which was probably your profession before you took up cutting throats for Christ.”

  “No, before I took vows I cut throats for noblemen like you, who are too water-hearted to do it for themselves.”
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  Agnes laughed. She said, “While you two are having at this, I think I shall desport myself with my grandson. Sir Templar, I have your permission?”

  The knight stared down at the ground. He spoke to Tripoli, rather than directly to Agnes. “Tell her she may go down there. Ask her to send me Mouse.”

  Tripoli said, with a sneer, “Your own connection to Damascus.”

  “Yes,” the knight said, “but his is through the back door.”

  Agnes was going off down the garden; she saw, puzzled, how Tripoli recoiled with distaste at that last remark. Tripoli and the black knight argued a while longer, and the Count left. Agnes spent the rest of the afternoon with her grandson, Templars hovering over her all the while.

  When she saw Tripoli again, the following day, at his own palace, she said, “I wonder at you, my lord, letting that surly black-haired brute talk at you that way.”

  The Templar interested her. Under his icy skin he gave off a steady blast of heat. She was tempted to liberate him from his vow of chastity, but his discipline was formidable; she suspected he would refuse her. She consigned him to the luxury of her imagination.

  “He’s a swine,” Tripoli said. “They are unfit companions for a young and tender prince.”

  Agnes said, “My grandson is dying, I doubt they can corrupt him overmuch. And they will protect him, you can see that. I pity the poor assassin who wanders into that den.”

  A servant brought her a cup of spiced wine. The rain was hammering in off the sea, and even in this hall, where a fire blazed on the hearth, Agnes could not warm herself. Her fingerbones ached.

  Tripoli said, “All Templars are criminals. That one deserves a quick hanging.”

  “The two of you were quite amusing. He seems very well informed. What did you mean, he has his own connections in Damascus?”

  “That other knight. The redheaded one. One of the Sultan’s many nephews is his lover.”