Jerusalem

by Cecelia Holland

  “Then you won’t mind leaving,” Rannulf said. His head jerked toward Stephen. “Why aren’t you bringing my horse?” Stephen went on, down the street, into the shadows, and found a horse there, tethered by the reins to a ring in the wall.

  He mounted it, and rode back to Rannulf; Ali was gone.

  Rannulf took hold of the high cantle of the saddle and vaulted up behind him.

  “What did she say to him?”

  “Nothing much.” Stephen nudged the horse with its heels and started off down the dark street. He was tired. Seeing Ali again had opened up a well of feelings. “She gave him a letter.”

  Rannulf reached around him and got hold of his hand with the reins, and turned the horse around again, going back up the street. “Why did you do this? I refused to do this for her. Why did you?”

  “I promised her once I would help her.”

  “Help her. Help de Ridford.”

  “De Ridford,” Stephen said, contemptuous. Still doubled up on the horse, they were riding back across the end of the marketplace, and the horse swung off to the right, the way they rode on patrol, past the citadel. “De Ridford won’t do anything to me.”

  The horse stopped. Rannulf said, “It isn’t you I’m worried about.” Stephen looked around, startled, because the horse had stopped of its own will, as if by habit, and looking up, he saw that from this place on the street he had a clear view past the gate of the citadel to the tower, where in the narrow third-floor window, a faint orange light shone.

  The light went out. Rannulf moved, and the horse strode out again. Stephen said, “That’s her room, isn’t it. You come here every night, and stop, and watch. How does that fit with your vow, Saint?”

  “Let’s go home,” Rannulf said. “I’m tired.”

  Tripoli stayed in the north, the heart of his power, and proclaimed himself King of Jerusalem. Most of the old families of Outremer supported him against Guy, the newcomer. Tripoli issued a decree that Sibylla and Guy were usurpers, and none should obey them. The Sultan sent an embassy to him, too, and Tripoli and the legate went before a council of nobles and reaffirmed the truce; Saladin even agreed to sell Tripoli shipments of the grain of the Hauran, to ease the famine there.

  In the south, there was no food, and people starved.

  Balian d’Ibelin, who supported Tripoli, came to Jerusalem, and talked long with Guy and Sibylla. De Ridford stood behind the throne, and whispered in the King’s ear, and made sure he yielded nothing. Balian went back to Tripoli with a message of insult and defiance. The King and Queen issued a decree outlawing Tripoli, and declaring all his rights in the Kingdom forfeit, and all his vassals released from their obligations to him.

  Tripoli sent out a call to all his knights. De Ridford promised Guy the support of the Templars, and for the first time, he suggested that they might eliminate Tripoli in some way other than war.

  He was careful, putting forth this plan, because he had to keep it from the young Queen; he knew her mind, too feminine for statecraft; she would balk at the deception necessary to lure Tripoli into the trap. Guy had no such scruples. From the first he was eager for it, this scheme that would eliminate his rival without cost or danger to himself. Of course de Ridford only told the King a part of the scheme. He left vague how he and his knights would carry out the attack on Tripoli. An attack in which Rannulf Fitzwilliam would either break his vow, or die disgraced.

  It would have worked. So sweet a plan, doing so many things so neatly, it would have worked like a Greek music box, except for Kerak, who in the late spring threw all their hopes and dreams into a tumult when he broke the truce again.

  Jolie was crying steadily, her face screwed into a red knot, her fists pumping. “She’s hot and tired,” Sibylla said. “Alysette, take her downstairs, will you? Put her in for her sleep.” The child’s ceaseless shrieks set her teeth on edge. She did not look at Guy, pacing up and down the room, up and down.

  When Alys had gone, he wheeled around, and hurled words at Sibylla. “You’ll torture even the child, for the sake of some old dusty propriety. It’s stinking hot here, and only the beginning of the summer—I want to go back to Jaffa.”

  “We can’t go back to Jaffa,” she said. Her throat was raw from shouting at him. “As long as Saladin may come, we have to stay here, at the center of everything. Why can’t you understand that?”

  He tramped back across the room again. “This place is a hut, the food is awful, the hunting is awful—”

  “There’s going to be a war, Guy! What does it matter how the hunting is?”

  “I can fight a war from Jaffa. If we have to stay here, at least let’s move over to that other palace, with the pretty rooms.”

  “La Plaisance,” she said. He could not trouble to remember the name even of a place he liked. She sat down on the stool at the foot of the bed, her hands together, trying to get through this quarreling to somewhere calm again.

  Guy said, “Well, then, let’s move over there. There’s a garden where the baby could play.”

  “We are King and Queen of Jerusalem,” she said. “We must be here, in the citadel of Jerusalem, to rule. Especially in times of peril.” In the door came a page, murmuring a name, and right on his heels the Master of the Temple appeared. Guy went forward to meet him. Sibylla watched him morosely from the stool. She did not want him here, but he walked in and out of her councils and her chambers as if he were the King. He bowed to her, to Guy, mouthed the right words, but there was no yielding to majesty in him, only the form of it.

  Guy said, “What word from Kerak?”

  Sibylla stood up, and went to stand beside him. Kerak had seized a caravan on the great highway, and thrown the people into his dungeons and the goods into his storerooms; they had sent him an order, to release everything, because this broke the truce they had with Saladin.

  The Master shrugged. His shoulders looked broad as a wooden beam beneath the sweep of his voluminous Templar cloak. “I have heard nothing yet. But the news is not good. My spies have reported me that Saladin is gathering an army in the Hauran.”

  “Where’s that?” Guy said, blankly.

  Sibylla went a step past him, her hand on his arm to keep him still. She spoke to the Master of the Temple. “From the Hauran he can attack us as easily as Kerak. What is his intent?”

  De Ridford swayed his head toward her. “We cannot say.”

  Guy said, “Kerak must return the booty. Breaking the truce, he is clearly in the wrong.” He was taking on what she had come to think of as his Kingly Way, where he strutted and tossed his head back and spoke from the depths of his chest. “We must have the truce. Until we settle with Tripoli we cannot deal with the Saracens!”

  De Ridford bowed again. “Sire, Kerak may yet bend.”

  Sibylla grunted at him. “No, he will not bend. Kerak has never turned to take a step back. We must punish him.” She faced de Ridford, her mind full of a blossoming idea. “Or we could use him. Take Saladin, him, and Tripoli, and use them all at once.”

  Guy said, “Sibylla, sit down; it’s too hot for this.” De Ridford only lifted his eyebrows at her.

  Angry, she walked away from both of them, into the center of the room, and wheeled to challenge them.

  “What, is it too bold for you? Let me say it. We can ally with Saladin against Kerak.”

  Guy let out a half-strangled yelp. De Ridford’s head rose, and his mouth fell slightly open. She smiled at them, taken so unawares, and plunged on.

  “So doing, we can eliminate Kerak, once and for all. And bypass Tripoli—as part of the agreement with Saladin, we must force him to deal with us alone, and cut Tripoli out of it. So in one stroke we make ourselves true masters of the whole of the Kingdom.”

  “You’re mad,” Guy said. De Ridford said nothing, but was watching her thoughtfully.

  She spoke to him, who seemed to be listening. “Kerak would not dare resist us both. There would be no fighting. We could just slap him down a little.”

  “H
e is a Christian knight,” Guy said roughly, and came up beside her and took hold of her wrist. “We cannot attack another Christian.”

  She twisted her arm against his grip. “We have talked of attacking Tripoli, who is a fellow Christian.”

  “In name only,” de Ridford said. “In truth he is as faithless as any Mahounder.”

  “Keep out of this, Sibylla,” Guy said. “This is men’s work.” His hand tightened painfully on her wrist.

  Between her teeth, she said, “If you think you can cow me that way, darling, you know me little. Let go of me.”

  She looked into his eyes; they stared at one another a moment, all the little blocks and levers of their life together falling into place; after a moment he let go of her arm.

  He turned his back on her. Strutted off across the room again. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I know better than you, I who have been beside the throne all my life.”

  “But I am King now!”

  “Yet you must heed counsel. We are King and Queen together.” She turned to de Ridford again, who had always supported her. “My lord, think of this, it seems to me the only way.”

  The knight spread a slow smile across his face, like a trap opening before her, and said, “You would have more chance of being heeded, my Queen, had you not already gone behind his Highness’ back to Saladin.”

  The breath ran out of her. She stared at him a moment, amazed, her mind blank, unready. Guy wheeled toward her, his face purpling.

  “What? What is this? What is he saying?” He crossed the room in two long strides and caught her by the shoulders and shook her. “What have you done?”

  She said, “Let me go!”

  De Ridford said, “Sire, she is hysterical. For her own sake, put her away in seclusion, before she harms herself and others.”

  Sibylla let out a yell of rage and shame; she wrenched one arm out of her husband’s grasp and slapped him across the face so hard her hand went numb. “Let go of me!” He staggered, and his hands opened; she backed up, away from him, free. But the two men blocked the way out. She could not escape. She faced them, the two of them, locked together in their muscular male stupidity.

  Guy’s jaw was set. “Is it true? You treated with Saladin behind my back?”

  She saw no point in confessing; she turned a harsh glare toward de Ridford. “You have betrayed me, my lord. Well is it said that treachery is nature to a Templar.”

  He still smiled, but now he showed his teeth. “Well is it said that the vices of a man are more pleasing to God than the virtues of a woman. My Queen, you have betrayed us all.”

  Guy said, “She can stay here, since she likes it so much. I’ll to the other place, across the city,” and turned and walked out of the room. De Ridford stood a moment, watching her; she turned her back on him. A moment later she heard him leave, and the key turned in the lock.

  A little later, they sent Alys to her, and Jolie, and some maids. They kept the door onto the staircase locked. With so many people in it the tower room was breathlessly hot, and the child wept and wailed, and the maids fussed. Sibylla sat by the window and stared out across the roofs of Jerusalem.

  The grass that grew every winter on the rooftops had withered down to a fringe of white straw. She remembered something from the Bible about that, the withering of hopes.

  She knew that de Ridford had been planning this, somehow, from the very first, for years, since the first time he had stood in council with the men, and when she spoke, defended her. All the while, he had meant to sell her, one day, to his own advantage.

  She had aided him. She had married Guy because he knew nothing of Outremer, because she could master him, and use him, and now Outremer had a king who knew nothing of the Kingdom, and whom any strong man could master and use.

  She remembered once thinking that he reminded her of her brother. The thought brought tears to her eyes.

  Alys murmured, “Will you have some dinner, dear?”

  “No. Go away,” she said.

  Her brother had foreseen this. She remembered some words Baudouin had spoken to her that she had taken very ill. Now her heart ached like a fresh wound; she longed for him with new hurt, as if he had died yesterday.

  She would not sit here, and give in.

  She could send to her mother. Agnes was in Nablus. She would have lots of lectures and disapproving looks but she would help her, nonetheless. Others would help her. She had her friends, everywhere, even among the Templars. She had her party, like Guy’s. Like Tripoli’s. Like Kerak’s. She saw the Kingdom broken into smaller and smaller pieces, with Saladin all around them.

  She had done this. Looking back, she saw how everything she had done had led this way. Yet she had not meant it, she had intended something quite other.

  The shell of her grand designs fell away, leaving her naked, and much smaller.

  She would not stay in Jerusalem. She would do nothing more to divide her people and endanger the Kingdom, but she would not stay here tamely waiting on her husband.

  Out beyond the gateway, in the street, she saw a brace of Templars riding by.

  Then suddenly she thought of Rannulf Fitzwilliam, and a terrible longing filled her, something she had never felt before, a hunger, heart-deep. She got up, crossed the room, and picked up her daughter and held her, needing the shock of the warm, separate life, enfolded in her life, complete. But it was not complete. She paced back to the window, the child in her arms, and stared out across the city toward the Temple Mount.

  De Ridford went down the curved stone staircase that led from the Temple pavement to the stables, in the great cavern under the corner of the wall. In the yard there he came on Rannulf Fitzwilliam and Stephen de l’Aigle, taking the saddles off their horses.

  The Master went into the shade of the cavern. “Well? What did you find out?”

  Rannulf hung his saddle on the rack; a sergeant came up to take it away and clean it. “Saladin hasn’t moved, and he won’t, for a while, anyway. He’s still gathering his army.”

  “Will he attack us, or Kerak?”

  The knight took a rag and a brush and began to rub down the horse. “He has siege engines with him. But he has tried Kerak before and not made even a chip in its walls.”

  “Well, anyway,” de Ridford said. “I have another task for you. The Queen has fled.”

  “What?” Rannulf straightened. Beyond him, Stephen appeared above the level of his horse’s back, his gaze steady on de Ridford.

  “Her husband—for her own sake—confined her, and she has run away, like the stupid slut she is. I want you to find her and bring her back here.”

  Rannulf turned his head, and looked back over his shoulder at Stephen; he faced de Ridford again. “My vow forbids me to deal with women.”

  “I don’t care about your damned vow. I’m ordering you to do this. With your informants, you can find her, and I don’t know anybody else who can.” He sneered at Rannulf. “Take a column of men with you, they’ll defend you against her.”

  “Yes, my lord,” Rannulf said.

  “We should not leave them here,” the boy said.

  His father snarled at him. “Take the money,” he said. Her skirts bunched up in one hand, Sibylla climbed out of the cart.

  Alys still sat on the sacks of grain heaped up behind the drover’s seat. Her cheeks were streaked with tears. She clutched Jolie in her arms, looking around her as if flames licked up the sides of the cart. Sibylla found her shoes, put them on, and took her purse from her belt.

  She said, “Thank you. I shall never forget your kindness.”

  The drover harumphed at her. He showed her no respect. His wide dirty palm was thrust out toward her, demanding. She had told him that she was the Queen of Jerusalem, but she saw he did not believe her.

  The boy believed her. He stood by the oxen, staring round-eyed at her. But then he had seen her as she had come to them, in her silks and satins; he had listened to her story, talked his f
ather into bringing her here, found the rude Syrian clothes she wore now.

  She paid silver into his father’s palm. “Thank you,” she said again. “You may go.”

  “I may go.” The peasant mocked her, tilting his head from side to side. “I may go.”

  She helped Alys climb out of the cart; the girl held Jolie tight, the blanket up over her face. They were at the back of the caravanserai, between the main house and the stables. The boy had run off into the house and now he came back with the innkeeper, a burly Syrian in a turban, his sleeves rolled up above his elbows.

  “What is this?” He looked sharply at Sibylla, at the drover, at the cart. He spoke to the drover. “Who are these women?”

  The drover gave a snort of laughter. “She says—”

  Sibylla said, “I’ll talk for myself.” She gave him a look that shut him up, although he glowered, and faced the innkeeper. “I wish a room, a private room, for myself and my friend. Has the caravan to Ascalon stopped here yet?”

  The innkeeper shook his head; his lips were pursed, his eyes half- closed, surveying her shrewdly. “Later today, or tomorrow.” His hand shot out. “Three michaels for the room.”

  The boy began to speak, and his father glared at him. She guessed three michaels was a lot of money for a room. Opening her purse, she took out six silver pieces and dropped them one by one into his hand.

  That did it; the innkeeper’s eyes popped, his fist closed over the money, and now he was bowing, and ushering them toward the door, babbling. “The room is very good—if it be not good enough, tell me—I have wine, and wheat bread, for your supper—grapes and honey—” Sibylla put the purse into her sleeve. As long as she had money, she was Queen. She followed the innkeeper into the big stone house, Alys and the baby beside her.

  Alys said, “Sibylla, what if they catch us?”

  Sibylla shrugged. So far everything was going well. The room was good enough, small, but clean, with a stone floor, a bed and a chest, red and black and white striped rugs of native weaving, a shawl draped over the window, a brass jug for water, a wooden stool. She had plenty of money; when the caravan arrived she would buy them a place in it. “How can they find us? We are away from Jerusalem now; no one will know where we have gone, until we reach Ascalon. These people think we are ordinary folk.”