* * *
Balian and Maria decided to attend Guy and Sybilla’s first Easter court, for they agreed that if Balian was to exert any influence with the new king, they must forge an amicable relationship with him. Their presence in Jerusalem also enabled them to spend time with Isabella, for Humphrey had kept his promise and brought her to the Easter court. Guy had sent an envoy to Tiberias—his chancellor, Peter de Lydda—and the Easter revelries passed without incident.
After the festivities, Balian and Maria returned to Nablus, for they’d not taken their family with them and they did not feel comfortable being apart from their offspring for too long. Helvis and Johnny were now in their ninth and eighth years and Thomasin was almost eleven, but Margaret was just five and Philip still a few weeks from his second birthday; parents in Outremer never dared forget how vulnerable younger children were to fevers, miasmas, and mystery maladies in the land of the Lord Christ’s birth. Balian had only been home a week, though, when a messenger arrived from Guy, summoning him back to Jerusalem.
* * *
“I’ve had an answer from Raymond de St. Gilles.” Guy had not yet learned the royal skill of disguising his emotions and his face already revealed that answer. “Raymond refuses to reconcile our grievances unless he is indemnified for the losses he says he incurred as regent and he demands that Beirut be returned to his control. I cannot do that!”
“No,” Balian agreed, suddenly feeling very tried, “of course you cannot.”
Guy’s first reaction to Raymond’s message was to want someone to blame. Raymond was the obvious target, yet he’d been tempted to lash out at Balian, too, since this had been his idea. But he saw now that Balian’s disappointment was as sharp as his own. His anger beginning to dissolve, he sank down in the closest chair. “So, what do we do now?”
Balian could not give in to despair. Taking some comfort from Guy’s choice of pronouns, he sought to sound confident, as if he believed he were dealing with men of good faith, not with a floundering king in danger of drowning and a count who was proving Maria right. She’d often said Raymond de St. Gilles was always going to put his own interests before those of Outremer. “It does not sound as if the Count of Tripoli fully understands that the kingdom will be united against him unless he agrees to make peace with you. If we hope to disrupt his alliance with Saladin, he must be made to see that. But there is no need to take all of the burden upon your shoulders, sire. Let your lords bear some of it.”
Guy considered this. “You mean call a High Court session?” The more he thought about that suggestion, the better he liked it. D’Ibelin was right; let the Poulains share the responsibility if it came to war. “Very well,” he said, and Balian’s relief was so great that words failed him.
* * *
Some of the members of the High Court were still in Jerusalem and others who’d already left hurried back in response to the urgent summons. Fortunately, Reynald remained at Kerak, making ready to fend off a Saracen army, for Balian was sure he’d have tried to scuttle any overture to Raymond. By now, the lords knew of Raymond’s shocking pact with the Saracens. When Guy told them of Raymond’s demand for Beirut and said he could not agree, he was relieved to see most of them nodding their heads. Since this crisis was of concern to them all, he concluded, he would hear what they thought. Sitting down, then, he prepared to do something that still did not seem very kingly to him: listening instead of commanding.
It was soon obvious that the members of the High Court did not want to commit themselves to a civil war unless there was no other option. They quickly concluded that one final effort ought to be made to bring the Count of Tripoli to his senses. And when Balian proposed they send another delegation to Tiberias, there was no disagreement. Not surprisingly, Balian was selected as one of these envoys. So was Denys. And it was decided that the Church would be represented by Joscius, the eloquent Archbishop of Tyre.
But when Guy demanded that the grand masters of the Hospitallers and Templars be included, that was not well received. While no one objected to Roger de Moulins, many of them felt that sending Gerard de Ridefort to negotiate with his mortal enemy would sabotage their mission ere it even began. Guy was insistent upon this, though, reminding them that the Templars wielded considerable power in the Holy Land and their grand master would be insulted if he were excluded. That was true enough and, since they suspected that Guy was loath to offend the fiery Templar, they reluctantly concurred. The other envoys were levelheaded, reasonable men, after all, and between them, they ought to be able to curb Gerard de Ridefort’s more reckless impulses.
CHAPTER 46
April 1187
Nablus, Outremer
It took a while to prepare for their diplomatic mission. A courier had to be sent to Tiberias to be sure Count Raymond was willing to receive them. Denys had agreed to participate, but he needed to make a quick trip to Sidon first. Since Sidon was much closer to Tiberias than to Jerusalem, it was decided that he would travel on his own to Galilee and meet the other envoys there. So, it was not until the evening of Wednesday, April 29, that Balian returned to Nablus. Maria had done her best to accommodate so many guests: the Archbishop of Tyre and several of his clerks; the grand masters of the Hospitallers and Templars, each man accompanied by ten knights of his order, plus three hundred brother serjeants. Few of the men were looking forward to the coming confrontation with Raymond, so they welcomed this overnight respite before resuming their journey on the morrow.
* * *
Balian and Maria had celebrated their brief reunion in their marriage bed, and were enjoying the erotic aftermath, sharing drowsy confidences, catching up on all that had happened during their time apart. When he shifted so they could cuddle together like spoons, she leaned back against him with a contented sigh. She was sliding into sleep when he said, “So . . . you want to tell me how Thomasin acquired that spectacularly bruised eye and swollen lip?”
Maria had hoped to avoid this conversation, wanting to spare him domestic drama until he’d dealt with Raymond. “He got into a fight with two boys from town. They claim he attacked them. They are older than Thomasin—fourteen or so—and at first, I thought their story unlikely. But they insisted that he started the trouble. As for Thomasin, he has stayed stubbornly mute.”
“I’ll talk to him in the morning ere we leave,” Balian promised. Thomasin’s behavior had changed for the worse since Baudouin’s departure for Antioch. Normally a confident, cheerful child, he’d become withdrawn, even sullen at times. Knowing why he was acting so fretful had not helped them in easing his unhappiness. The boy was obviously angry with his father, and Balian did not think it fair to scold him for that; he was still angry with his brother, too.
Brushing Maria’s hair aside, he kissed the nape of her neck, and soon after, they both slept.
* * *
Their horses were being saddled the next morning when Balian remembered his promise about Thomasin and sent Ernoul to fetch the boy. But Thomasin was nowhere to be found, and a stable groom had a troubling story to tell; he’d caught Thomasin trying to saddle Balian’s palfrey, Smoke, and the boy had run off when he’d been challenged.
Maria assured Balian that she’d keep men hunting until they found the lad, but Balian could not bring himself to ride off as long as his nephew remained missing. Explaining the situation to the other envoys, he told them he’d catch up with them, if necessary riding through the night to rejoin them at the Templar castle of Le Fève. While none of them had experience with the demands of parenthood, Joscius and Roger de Moulins were too well-mannered to question Balian’s decision. Gerard de Ridefort’s grip on courtesy was a tenuous one at best. He liked Balian no more than Balian liked him, though, so he was glad to be rid of the Poulain lord’s presence for the day. He even hoped Balian would fail to overtake them before they reached Tiberias, for he did not trust any of the Poulains to treat Raymond as severely as he deserved.
A
s soon as they departed, Balian resumed the search, this time with a posse of helpers. Fanning out, they swarmed through the palace grounds and then the town—to no avail. No one had seen Thomasin. As the hours passed, Balian’s unease mounted. There were so many ways a child could come to grief and he could not keep his imagination from dwelling upon all of them. When he finally returned to the palace hall to consider their remaining options, Johnny came over to sit beside him, wanting to help hunt for Thomasin, and Thunder, one of Balian’s favorite lymer hounds, lay down at his feet, resting his head on his master’s boot. Balian was idly stroking the dog’s floppy ears as he tried to reassure his son when an idea began to form in the back of his brain. It seemed dubious in the extreme. Yet what did he have to lose?
Whistling for Thunder, he and Johnny went abovestairs to the chamber that Thomasin shared with the other pages, where he had Johnny help him look for an item of the missing boy’s clothing. A dirty pair of braies, crumpled on the floor by his bed, was perfect for Balian’s purposes. Offering it to the dog to sniff, he said, “Find Thomasin,” and held his breath, waiting to see what the hound would do. Thunder’s sense of smell was superb and he excelled at tracking quarry on their hunts. But could he understand what was being asked of him now?
When the dog padded toward the door, they followed, trailing after him down the stairs and back into the great hall, then out into the courtyard. Balian felt hope quickening when Thunder turned in the direction of the stables, for Thomasin had been seen there by a groom; was that proof that the hound was indeed following the lad’s scent?
Thunder had picked up the pace, heading toward the far end of the stables. Halting before the ladder that led up into the hayloft, he began to bark, the deep, stentorian baying that had earned him his name. Balian gazed up into the shadowed loft, ignoring the grooms who were insisting that the loft had been searched. Reaching for the ladder rungs, he began to climb.
“Thomasin?” His words were met with silence. “Thunder says you are up here, lad. You do not want to make a liar of him, do you?” This time he heard the squeak of floorboards. Before Johnny could climb up, too, Balian sent him to tell his mother that Thomasin was found. Then he swung up into the loft and sat down, waiting for his nephew to emerge from hiding.
It took a while for Thomasin to find the courage. He was so visibly scared that Balian’s anger cooled. “How did you evade the search?” he asked, striving for a conversational tone.
Thomasin swiped at his face with the back of his hand, hoping his uncle would not notice the tear tracks. “After that groom caught me, I hid in the storage shed, waiting for another chance to saddle Smoke,” he said almost inaudibly. “But ere I could try again, you and Aunt Maria discovered I was gone. I watched as they searched the stables. When they went outside to search other places, I sneaked back into the stable and up into the loft.”
“Clever lad,” Balian said, and Thomasin gulped, knowing it was no compliment.
“I am sorry, Uncle. I did not mean to cause so much trouble.”
“We’ll get to that, Thomasin. First, you owe me an apology for trying to steal my horse.”
“I was just borrowing him. . . .” Thomasin saw that excuse was a bird with a broken wing, not going to fly. “I am sorry,” he said again. “I truly am. . . .”
“I need more than that, lad. I need to know why you got into that fight and where you thought you were going after you’d stolen Smoke.” In the silence that followed, Balian studied his nephew’s profile, his eyes lingering on that blackened eye and cut lip. “Suppose we make a bargain. You answer those questions and I will convince your aunt Maria that you ought not to be punished for this escapade of yours.”
Thomasin’s eyes widened. “Truly?” he asked, and Balian nodded. Even though it took considerable patience on his part, the story slowly emerged. “Martin and his friend . . . I do not know his name, but Martin is the mercer’s son. They were talking about my father, saying he’d abandoned us. They even dared to call him a coward!”
“I see . . . and that is when you took the two of them on.”
Thomasin nodded. “They did not know I’d overheard them, so I caught them by surprise. I punched Martin in the stomach,” he added, not without a touch of pride.
“And where were you going on Smoke, Thomasin?”
The boy ducked his head. “I was going to Antioch,” he said, “to find my father. . . .”
“Ah, lad . . .” Balian reached over and drew his nephew toward him. “Your father is the bravest man I’ve ever known. We may not understand why he felt he had to leave, but you can be sure there was nothing cowardly about it. Or dishonorable. You are entitled to be wroth with him, Thomasin. You need not feel guilty about that. I was wroth with him, too. Never doubt, though, that he was doing what he thought was right.”
“That was what I told those whoresons, that my father was no coward. . . .” Thomasin shot a quick glance toward his uncle, for “whoreson” was not a word he was supposed to know, much less use. Relieved to see Balian was prepared to overlook it, he slid closer, finding comfort in the bracing feel of the man’s arm around his shoulders. “Will Papa ever come home?”
“I do not know, lad,” Balian admitted. “Only time will tell. But your aunt and I will take you to Antioch to visit him, that I promise you.” He was glad that his nephew did not ask when that would be, for he did not want to tell the boy that war was coming, as inexorably and inevitably as the Khamsin winds that swept up from Egypt every year.
* * *
Although the moon was waning, there was still more than half of it visible to illuminate their way as Balian and his men rode out of Nablus that night and headed north into the Samarian hills. But they’d not gone far when clouds blew in from the west, smothering the moon and stars. Because rain was not common in April and because the clouds appeared without warning, the more superstitious of Balian’s companions gazed up uneasily at the suddenly overcast sky, hoping this was not an ill omen. Ernoul was one of those who felt a prickling of unease and he caught up with his lord to ask whose saint’s day it was, thinking it would not hurt to offer up a prayer; all knew some saints were not always saintly if they felt slighted or ignored.
Balian had to think about it before recalling that it was St. Donatus. He entertained his squire by relating some of the legends about the saint, who was said to have defeated a dragon. He also assured Ernoul that St. Donatus would likely forgive them for not remembering him straightaway, for even amongst saints, some were more celebrated than others.
Ernoul nodded in agreement. “Like St. Thomas of Canterbury or St. George or St. Philip or St. Margaret . . . my lord?” His voice was raised questioningly as Balian muttered something that sounded suspiciously like a curse.
“That was not meant for you, lad. I just realized I’d forgotten that tomorrow is Philip the Apostle’s saint’s day.” After a moment, Balian corrected that to “today,” for it was already past midnight. He’d always had a special fondness for this saint, and it bothered him that he’d been so absentminded. They were not far from Sebaste and he made a spur-of-the-moment decision. St. Philip had been born in Galilee, so who better to ask for aid in making Raymond see reason?
“My squire has reminded me that May first is the saint’s day of Philip the Apostle,” he told his men, “so we are going to stop and hear Mass. We’ll still be able to reach Le Fève in time.”
* * *
Less than an hour later, Balian’s men had settled down in the great hall of the bishop’s palace. Bishop Ralph had soon appeared, awakened either by the noise or a zealous servant. He was a neighbor and friend, so if he was annoyed by the disruption of his sleep, he hid it well. After Balian explained that they would like to hear Mass in the morning, he’d been ushered into the bishop’s private quarters, and Ralph subjected him to a scrutiny that seemed to see into the depths of his soul.
“Your devotion to St. Ph
ilip is praiseworthy, Balian. Yet failing to honor his holy day is surely a venial sin at most, if even that. I cannot help wondering if you’ve more on your mind.”
Balian was not surprised by the bishop’s insight; he read men as easily as he did his psalter. “I am anxious about this meeting with the Count of Tripoli. If prayers to St. Philip tilt the scales in our favor, it is worth delaying our journey for a few hours.” He thought he was done, but then he heard himself admitting that he’d been praying more than usual in the last few months, adding, almost against his will, “I am not sure if the Almighty has heard them, though.”
Ralph sat back in his chair, steepling his fingers. He regarded Balian in silence for several moments before saying, “In the past two years, you’ve had to bury two kings, then accept one few of us would have chosen. You’ve had to watch as Saladin grows more powerful by the day, as has the threat to our kingdom. And you’ve lost the two men closest to you—Archbishop William and your brother. So, it would not be surprising if you feel your faith is being tested. But is it more than that? Do you fear you are in danger of losing your faith, Balian?”
Balian’s instinctive response was to deny it. Catching himself, he gave the question the respect it deserved. “No,” he said, “not my faith. But I do fear that I am losing hope.”
Another silence fell as Bishop Ralph contemplated Balian’s response. “I think,” he said at last, “that if you’d truly lost hope, you’d not be trying so hard to stave off civil war. You’d have followed Baudouin’s example and taken your family into exile in Antioch.”
Not only did that make sense to Balian, it even gave him a bit of comfort. “If you can absolve me of my sins as easily as you vanquish my cares, Ralph, I want you as my confessor.”
The Land Beyond the Sea Page 73
