Envoy of Jerusalem

by Helena P. Schrader

  Eschiva started slightly, surprised by the Dowager Queen’s directness, but she was pleased by this mark of the older woman’s respect for her common sense. “Well, the first thing we need to do is demand more information from Salah ad-Din. After all, we don’t know for sure that Uncle Balian is dead. He might have surrendered and been taken captive, as were our husbands.” Eschiva’s husband, Aimery de Lusignan, and Isabella’s husband, Humphrey de Toron, had both been taken captive at Hattin and were being held in the citadel at Aleppo.

  Maria Zoë considered the two women before her. Both were nodding vigorously.

  She shook her head and reminded them: “You know as well as I do that the burghers of Jerusalem said they would kill their own families and then sortie out to certain death before they would surrender Jerusalem.”

  “But the Patriarch condemned that as unchristian, and Uncle Balian opposed it as fanaticism,” Isabella pointed out passionately.

  “Men are always braver before a battle than after one,” Eschiva added, with a cynicism Maria Zoë had not expected of her. “I don’t mean Uncle Balian,” Eschiva hastened to explain, mistaking Maria Zoë’s expression of surprise. “No one can doubt his courage, but the rest of the men—they were merchants, tradesmen, and clerics. Remember, too, that no one crowed louder about fighting for Christ than my brother-in-law Guy, yet he surrendered, did he not?”

  Maria Zoë only raised her eyebrows, too exhausted to give vent to her feelings about Guy de Lusignan. She reminded the younger women instead, “My lord husband broke his word to Salah ad-Din when he chose to remain in Jerusalem rather than just bring me and the children to safety. Salah ad-Din is ruthless to those he thinks have betrayed him.”

  “But the Sultan sent his own men to escort you to safety,” Eschiva pointed out.

  Maria Zoë dismissed her comment with a wave of her hand and retorted tartly, “He did that because he didn’t want to provoke my cousin in Constantinople.”

  Eschiva and Isabella exchanged a glance. They wanted to believe the Sultan would be generous; so much depended on it.

  As if sensing their distress, Maria Zoë softened her stance. “You are right to suggest appealing directly to Salah ad-Din, Eschiva. He still wants the goodwill of the Greek Emperor, and he will respond to an inquiry from me with courtesy—regardless of the news. If he has killed Lord Balian, then I can request his remains. If he holds him prisoner, I can ask what ransom he wants.” She nodded and reached for the wine.

  Isabella and Eschiva drank too as Maria Zoë sipped cautiously, evidently lost in thought as she stared at the candle. “There is one thing that puzzles me,” Maria Zoë admitted softly. Her two companions looked at her expectantly. “In all their jubilation and triumph today, the Saracens failed to brag about the slaughter that had taken place. That’s not like them, you know. They revel in telling us of their bloody deeds. It was from them that we learned of the execution of the captive Templars and Hospitallers. They were proud of hacking off the heads of bound and kneeling prisoners. And they promised to ‘wash away’ the slaughter of eighty-eight years ago in a new river of blood. Remember how our escort told us that ‘If your horses walked in blood up to their fetlocks, ours will swim in blood’?”

  Eschiva nodded and gripped her chalice, remembering how terrified she had been when one of the escort delivered this message with an expression of gleeful hatred. She had been sure it was a prelude to violence against them, and she had started praying frantically. Instead the red-headed Mamluke had been called to order by the escort commander, and they had been treated courteously thereafter. Isabella, however, jumped to her feet in agitation. “For all their silks and perfumes, they are more bloodthirsty than ravenous wolves! They are—”

  “Hush, Isabella,” her mother admonished, gesturing for her to sit down. “The point is: they did not brag about the rivers of blood and mountains of corpses they had created in Jerusalem. They did not even taunt us with the fact that my husband’s ‘faithlessness’ had been repaid. It would have been more in character if they had described in detail the way they had tortured him to death.”

  Isabella and Eschiva were staring at the Maria Zoё” in horror, seeing for the first time the nightmares she had concealed from them. This was what she had been living with since their departure from Jerusalem: the fear that the man she loved would not meet a noble death in battle, but live to be tortured and humiliated. It was a fear she had not dared breathe to anyone, because she had not wanted to add to their already considerable uncertainty and grief. She had carried it alone.

  Now she looked from her daughter to her niece and back again, and something like hope shimmered in her eyes. “I’m sure they would have gloated if they could, which means it didn’t happen. Jerusalem has fallen, but there was no slaughter in the streets, and Lord Balian was not publicly tortured and butchered. So, we must find out what did happen.”

  Conrad de Montferrat was even now, at the age of forty-two, a stunningly handsome man. His good looks, superb manners, and gift for languages had enchanted the court at Constantinople when he had accompanied his younger brother Rainer to the latter’s wedding with Emperor Manuel I’s only daughter Maria. At the time he too had been bedazzled, not by any woman but by the Queen of Cities itself. The city on the Bosporus had enchanted him with its size, grandeur, and elegance. He had been mesmerized by the depth of culture and tradition cultivated by the Eastern Empire—not to mention its wealth. Conrad had, furthermore, left behind his mousy German wife, and in addition to admiring the splendor of court ceremony, the magnificence of the architecture, and the delectability of the cuisine, he had greatly enjoyed the sexual sophistication of certain Greek wives and widows. Conrad had been quite prepared to spend the rest of his life in Constantinople—and then his brother’s new father-in-law had had the temerity to die of old age.

  The new regent, the Emperor’s second wife Maria of Antioch, had been understandably suspicious of her stepdaughter, and the atmosphere had chilled immediately. Courtiers are quick to smell which way the wind is blowing, and Conrad discovered that while no one dared scorn his brother Rainer, they had fewer scruples about closing their doors (and boudoirs) to the brother of the husband of the former Emperor’s daughter. Constantinople rapidly lost some of its charm, and Conrad had departed—in the nick of time. Within a year of his departure, his brother and sister-in-law had been murdered by the usurper Andronicus, along with Maria of Antioch. Indeed, the entire community of Latin merchants—women, children, and priests included—had been slaughtered by the population in a bloodbath.

  It was a lesson in Greek treachery that Conrad should have learned, but the memories of that golden city had been more powerful than the lessons taught by that slaughter. He had been seduced a second time. Thinking that things had changed for the better when Andronicus was torn to pieces by a raging mob and replaced by the lowly Isaac Angelus, Conrad had returned to Constantinople. The lure had been Emperor Isaac Angelus’ sister Theodora. Since Conrad’s German wife had conveniently died childless, there was no impediment to this marriage. Conrad had seized upon it gleefully, reveling even more in the title of “Caesar” that it bestowed upon him.

  But the splendor of Constantinople was largely a façade. Beneath the glittering gold of the tiles and the shimmering purple silk lurked treachery and poison. Theodora had proven haughty, avaricious, vain, and viperous. Like the Greek ladies who had welcomed and then rejected him before, she was as sexually sophisticated as a Turkish whore—and as intellectually devious as a Roman cardinal. Like the others, she could caress with one hand and poison with the other. No sooner had Conrad successfully defeated the rebellion of Alexios Branas and returned to Constantinople in triumph, than his wife and her brother turned against him. With his spectacular success—riding bareheaded into the thick of the fighting and thrusting Alexios Branas from his horse in the midst of the battle—Conrad had made himself a threat to the less martial Isaac.

  Conrad had only escaped the jealousy of his
patron and the vengeance of Branas’ supporters by fleeing aboard a Genoese galley. He had not known (or cared about) the destination of the vessel when it cast off, but on learning it, it had suited him well enough: it was bound for Acre in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. His father had held a fief in Jerusalem ever since his elder brother William had married Queen Sibylla. Conrad had blithely assumed that his father would be pleased to see him again, and likewise assumed that his undoubted talents would soon win him lands and titles, if not heiresses or dowagers.

  At Acre, however, the bells that usually announced the imminent arrival of a ship failed to ring. The captain, a wary old sea dog, opted to drop anchor offshore until the silence could be explained. Shortly afterwards a pilot boat approached to inquire their business, and the captain asked for the latest news (as any seaman long at sea would do). The news shocked them to the quick. “Allahu Akbar!” the pilot sang out. “The glorious Sultan Salah ad-Din, may God shower blessings upon him, has obliterated the polytheists, curses upon their infidel souls, and controls Acre these four days past.”

  They’d weighed anchor and run out the oars to dash up the coast for Tyre. Here, although the city was still in Frankish hands, the population was in a state of mindless panic mixed with profound demoralization. It was flooded with refugees and the walking wounded from Hattin. The lord of Tyre, the Archbishop, had already taken ship to bring word to the West of the catastrophe of Hattin and appeal for a new crusade, leaving the city leaderless. Most of the richer merchants and churchmen were busy packing up their valuables and frantically bidding up the price of passage aboard the few ships still in the harbor. The poor, meanwhile, were trying to steal what was left behind by the rich, and the fighting men were bickering about whether to continue on to Tripoli, to which the Count of Tripoli had already fled, or to try to defend Scandelion or Toron. Of the two barons remaining, Sidon was rumored to favor a surrender to Salah ad-Din, while Ibelin could think of nothing but begging the Sultan for a safe-conduct so he could rescue his wife and children from the now isolated and indefensible Jerusalem.

  Conrad had been disgusted by the lot of them and equally determined to put an end to the disintegration of the Kingdom. It was obvious to him that Christianity was about to lose its hold on the Holy Land unless someone made a stand—here in Tyre. The city of Tyre was the most defensible in the Kingdom. It had been built in biblical times on an island off the coast. Furthermore, except for the entrance to the harbor itself, the coast was littered with underwater rocks that prevented an assault by sea. Although the city was joined to the mainland by a causeway, over the centuries this narrow tongue had been made defensible by a moat and a series of three walls, each higher than the one before.

  Conrad had taken one look at the defenses and determined that Tyre was the ideal place for making a stand. It was virtually impregnable to assault and almost equally well suited to withstanding a siege, since it could be resupplied by sea unless blockaded effectively. It sat less than 90 miles from Tripoli and 260 from Antioch. Even if, God forbid, Tripoli and Antioch fell, the rich Greek island of Cyprus, just 150 miles offshore, was completely secure.

  Conrad’s own enthusiasm for the defense of Tyre had been contagious—particularly among those too poor to escape by sea. Sidon had withdrawn to his castle of Belfort inland, and Ibelin had gone off on his fool’s errand to Jerusalem, leaving Conrad to be made the ruler of Tyre by popular acclaim. No Caesar of old had ever been more tumultuously proclaimed, Conrad thought.

  He had organized the defenders into an effective garrison. For him and under his leadership, they had dug ditches beyond the outer wall to the east and built up the sea walls and harbor mole as well. A chain had been fixed across the harbor entrance. An inventory of stores, weapons, armor, and vacant houses had been made, and the treasury of the absent Archbishop had been confiscated. Conrad de Montferrat was master of Tyre, and from here he intended to recapture the entire Kingdom of Jerusalem—whether for Christ or for himself was a moot point, since he tended to see them as one and the same thing.

  The arrival of Queen Maria Zoë Comnena in early August with a bevy of women and children had surprised but not unduly unsettled Conrad. Such a highborn lady could only be met with the utmost courtesy. She was a niece of the late Greek Emperor Manuel I, after all, and so by marriage she was a kinswoman. She brought with her, furthermore, her daughter by King Amalric of Jerusalem, the Princess Isabella. Conrad was not indisposed to play the role of gallant protector to a dowager queen and a nubile princess, particularly not after their first encounter had revealed that both women were beautiful in their different ways: Queen Maria Zoë stately, elegant, and dark, Princess Isabella blooming and soft.

  He had been less pleased to discover, however, that Queen Maria Zoë had rapidly attracted a small but potent entourage of fighting men. Conrad had dismissed Ibelin as an insignificant baron only concerned about his personal affairs, and had been surprised to discover that among the knights and—more surprising—sergeants of Outremer he enjoyed a reputation for courage and leadership that was unequaled by any of his peers. Conrad had been inwardly disgruntled to discover that the arrival of Queen Maria Zoë had caused a minor sensation in the city (his city) and that hundreds of men had converged on the modest house he had assigned to the Lady of Ibelin to pay her and her (absent) husband homage.

  It was perhaps natural that her second husband’s vassals and household knights felt honor-bound to his lady, while the knights of Nablus, her own barony, were naturally still pledged to her. It was less self-evident, and so distinctly disturbing, to realize that hundreds of sergeants and archers from across the lost Kingdom likewise looked to this obscure native baron for leadership—even when he wasn’t here! The knights of the Dowager Queen and her second husband rapidly formed themselves into a close-knit and quasi-independent force who could count on the unofficial support of a wider cross-section of fighting men. They would take his orders, Conrad believed, but only as long as Queen Maria Zoë did not contradict him. At the moment, of course, there was no reason why she should, but he knew from experience how independent and self-confident Imperial Greek women were. It would be foolish, he knew, to imagine that their interests would always align perfectly.

  The news that Queen Maria Zoë was requesting an interview was, therefore, cause for consternation. “What does she want?” he asked the clerk who had brought him the news.

  “I imagine she wishes more information about what happened in Jerusalem,” the priest answered unimaginatively. Conrad had inherited the staff of the archiepiscopal palace when he took up residence in it, and the staff was all clerical. That sometimes had its advantages. Priests were on the whole better educated, more discreet, and less inclined to theft, drunkenness, or disorder than secular servants. In this case, Conrad couldn’t decide if the man was mocking him or simply stupid.

  “How in the name of our Blessed Savior should I be able to give her more information about what happened in Jerusalem?” Conrad snapped back.

  “Do you want me to send her away?” the priest asked next.

  “Don’t be ridiculous! She’s the Dowager Queen of Jerusalem! See her to the solar.”

  Almost before he had finished speaking, Conrad jumped to his feet and made his way to his chamber. He hastily changed into one of his better silk surcoats, brushed traces of dirt from his suede boots, and combed his thick dark hair and mustache before hastening back to the solar. A few paces before the door, he slowed himself to a dignified pace and entered the solar with measured and weighty steps. (He had observed court etiquette well during his sojourns in Constantinople.)

  He was startled to find two women awaiting him. The priest (he cursed him inwardly) had neglected to mention that the Dowager Queen was accompanied by her daughter, the Princess Isabella. Although he had seen Isabella before, notably on her arrival in Jerusalem, something about the way she looked today ignited his interest. She was dressed in burgundy trimmed with gold embroidery, and the insides of her wide out
er sleeves were lined with shimmering sky-blue silk that matched the veils encasing her face and throat. She was really a very beautiful young woman, Conrad concluded, as he bowed gallantly over her hand. “Madame, what a pleasant surprise.”

  Turning to her mother, he repeated his deep bow, and compensated for the breach of protocol in greeting her daughter first with a flood of welcoming words in passable Greek that stressed how honored he was to receive his “beloved” and “most esteemed” kinswoman. He ended with a declaration of shared distress over the fate of her husband.

  Maria Zoë had not missed either the fact that Conrad all but devoured Isabella with his eyes or the fact that her daughter had blushed. More than blushed, really: Isabella looked like an unfolding blossom. She commented on neither fact. “My lord, I am here to ask a favor of you,” she announced instead.

  Conrad bowed again and indicated that the Dowager Queen should take one of the large high-backed armed chairs at a table before a window that looked north along the coast. He assured her, “I would be delighted to be of service to you, Madame, provided it is within my power to do what you ask.”

  Maria Zoë settled herself in the chair, her abundant purple silk taffeta skirts spilling in gracious folds around her legs and her sleeves enveloping the arms of the chair. Hem, sleeves, waist, and neckline were all trimmed with gold needlework studded with rolled amethysts, Conrad noted. He smiled to himself because she had clearly dressed in some of her finest to see him. “Yesterday,” Maria Zoë opened, “we were informed Jerusalem had fallen to Salah ad-Din. However, there were no specifics about the fate of my husband, who commanded the defense. I wish to send a messenger to the Sultan requesting that information.”