Meanwhile the Queen of England’s lady had returned, leading a little girl by the hand. She looked no more than nine or ten, and while she appeared to trust the lady with her, she also looked generally frightened and unhappy. Rahel at once stepped forward and spoke to her in Greek, producing wide-eyed wonder followed by such a flood of words that all the women around them laughed.
Rahel could only nod, saying again and again, “ne, ne” in reassurance to the girl until the latter paused for breath and Rahel explained, “Mesdames, Sophia wants me to thank you for your many kindnesses, and she begs you not to be angry, but she says she wants to go home to Cyprus, and would you please tell her what has happened to her father, and—well—she has lots of other questions, too.” Rahel concluded.
“Poor thing! I’m sure she has!” Queen Berengaria agreed. “But first,” she turned to Eschiva, only to stop in embarrassment. “Forgive me, I didn’t catch your name.”
“Eschiva, my lady.”
“Wonderful. Eschiva, we are truly delighted to have you join us. Now, what do you think, Joanna? Where shall we put them?”
The Queen of Sicily took over. “Let’s have—was it Rachel?” she interrupted herself to ask.
“Rahel,” Eschiva corrected.
“Let’s have Rahel move in with Sophia, and Nina can join me, while Eschiva takes her cabin. Nina, will you show them where to put their things, help them settle in, and then bring them to join us for dinner?”
The ship’s captain had fixed a heavy canvas over the entire sterncastle that kept it in shadow all through the day. Only in the early morning and late afternoon did the sun’s rays slant in under the canvas onto the spacious raised deck. The combination of shade and breezes from all directions made this a very pleasant space. It was also comfortably furnished with tables, chairs, and chests.
When Eschiva joined the other ladies of the household, she found that water for washing her hands waited on a sideboard and that the table itself was set with Egyptian pottery. The buff terracotta, with green patterns painted under a transparent glaze, was very popular throughout Outremer because it was cheap and could easily be replaced. Eschiva found it made her feel more at ease than if the two queens had been using expensive silver plate. The meal itself consisted of local flatbread and grilled fish garnished with herbs, onions, and lemon juice.
Eschiva was offered a seat directly beside the Queen of Sicily and opposite the Queen of England. It was the latter who, after insisting she have some of the wine and help herself to the food, asked her with apparently sincere interest to “tell us all about yourself!”
Eschiva was not used to being the center of attention, much less having the undivided attention of two queens. At first she didn’t know what to say, and stammered about being “no one special” and having “nothing much to tell.”
“Well, have you children?” Queen Berengaria countered eagerly.
“Four,” Eschiva declared proudly. “Hugh is almost nine, and I brought him with me to serve your lord husband as a page.”
“Ah! I will look for him—if ever I am allowed off this ship!” Berengaria sent her sister-in-law a reproachful look.
Eschiva deftly returned the conversation to safer territory. “Burgundia is seven, Helvis is five, and the baby, Aimery, named for his father, is two.”
“You are very lucky!” Berengaria assured her. “I hope—may the Holy Mother hear my prayers and have mercy on me—to have a nursery overflowing with a baby every year!”
Eschiva sensed, however, that this topic was not so safe after all, since the Queen of Sicily’s only child had died very young. She looked rather sad as her sister-in-law of just one month declared her grand plans for a full nursery. Eschiva changed the subject again. “But I had no brothers, as you both have. I would have loved to have brothers!”
“Ah, but then you would not have been an heiress,” the Plantagenet pointed out immediately.
Eschiva shrugged. “I don’t think being an heiress is such a fine thing. It isn’t as if my father ever treated me as such. On the contrary, he wanted a son so desperately that he set aside my mother to marry again.” Eschiva immediately had the sympathy of her audience. It was something all high-born women feared: the consequences of the failure to produce a male heir. “And then, when my baby half-brother died, he nearly killed himself from grief.”
“Who is your father?” Queen Berengaria asked gently.
“My father is dead,” Eschiva answered; the bitterness that he had died without ever coming back to see her made her voice unconsciously harsh. “He was Barisan d’Ibelin, Baron of Ramla and Mirabel, but he renounced both—” She cut herself off in horror as she realized she’d been about to admit how much her father hated her brother-in-law, the very man who was now courting the widowed Queen Joanna.
Fortunately, her audience was distracted by his name. “Ibelin? Isn’t that the man who tore poor Queen Isabella from her husband’s bed?” Queen Berengaria exclaimed in shock, while Queen Joanna asked indignantly: “Ibelin? You can’t mean the man who treacherously set up Conrad de Montferrat as a rival to King Guy?”
Eschiva looked from one woman to the other. They were obviously outraged by Isabella’s marriage to Montferrat, so when she shook her head and explained, “No, that was my Uncle Balian, ” both queens looked distinctly relieved.
Queen Berengaria exclaimed immediately, “I knew you couldn’t be closely related to such a monster!”
Eschiva could have left it at that, passively distancing herself from her uncle to avoid unnecessary association with a man the queens evidently despised without meeting. But it irritated Eschiva that Guy, in his egotistical pursuit of a crown (and a new queen), had felt he had the right to disparage a better man. Even Aimery admitted privately that Uncle Balian was more intelligent and more courageous than his brother. “My ladies,” Eschiva broke into their side conversation about how despicable Ibelin was. “I was told I had been sent here, among other things, to explain a little more about Outremer.”
“Indeed!” they agreed in unison, looking at her expectantly.
“Well, one thing you need to understand is that my uncle, Balian d’Ibelin, is a highly respected man, and because he is so highly respected, he is also very influential.”
“But how can a man—” Berengaria started indigantly, but Joanna silenced her emotional outburst with a gesture. Then, settling her pale but intelligent eyes on Eschiva, she urged, “Go on. Tell us more.”
“Uncle Balian was one of the few Frankish lords who did not allow himself to be captured at Hattin. He fought his way off the battlefield, and in so doing he punched a hole in the encircling Saracen army that enabled almost two hundred Frankish knights and three thousand Christian foot soldiers to escape. Ask any man from Outremer whom they trust more, Ibelin or Lusignan, and you will hear only one answer: Ibelin.”
Berengaria caught her breath on the brink of protest—but the Plantagenet frowned, her eyes still fixed on Eschiva, and forestalled her with a “Go on. What more can you tell us?”
“Uncle Balian led those three thousand fighting men to the most defensible city in the Kingdom, and it was as much because of them as the fortuitous arrival of my lord of Montferrat that the city was able to hold out against Salah ad-Din. For what would Montferrat have done without men to man the walls?”
“Indeed,” Joanna Plantagenet agreed dryly.
“But while Uncle Balian and his knights and men were safe behind the walls of Tyre, his wife, his four young children, his stepdaughter Isabella, and I were all trapped in Jerusalem.” Eschiva paused. “I do not think that you can imagine what it was like in Jerusalem.”
Berengaria crossed herself and muttered something in her own tongue. Then, switching to French, she declared, “With God’s grace, I hope that I will see the Holy City with my own eyes.”
“I wish that for you with all my heart,” Eschiva assured her sincerely and earnestly, because for Berengaria to tread the streets of Jerusalem it would first
have to be reclaimed for Christ by the forces now gathered on the shore. “But that is not what I meant,” Eschiva continued. “I meant that I’m not sure you know what it was like here in the Kingdom of Jerusalem after Hattin. You see, with the army destroyed, the Saracens swept across the entire Kingdom, pillaging and burning—and killing, raping, and enslaving any Christians that fell into their hands. Because King Guy had called up all able-bodied men for his army—the army he led to destruction on the Horns of Hattin—all the towns and castles were denuded of their garrisons.”
Eschiva realized how much bitterness was in her words only after they were out of her mouth. But she could not regret what she had said, regardless of how much it was in her self-interest for Queen Joanna to marry Guy. Instead, she continued her narrative. “One after another, the cities fell: Ascalon, Jaffa, Acre, Caesarea, Sidon, Beirut. As the Sultan’s army swept along the coast, people fled their homes, taking whatever they could carry, to seek shelter in Jerusalem. Normally there were about twenty thousand inhabitants in Jerusalem. During the pilgrim season, there were sometimes twice that many people there. But after Hattin, more than forty thousand refugees found their way to Jerusalem. Most of those refugees were women, children, and churchmen. There were fifty women and children for every man in Jerusalem, Mesdames. And most of those men were little more than boys, grandfathers, or men in holy orders. We collected there, Mesdames—but what chance did we have against the victorious armies of the Sultan Salah ad-Din?”
The two queens were staring at her, transfixed by her story. They had heard Jerusalem had fallen. They had heard the Saracens were trampling disrespectfully upon the sites of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. They had felt grief and outrage and determination to reclaim the lost city. But they had never before given a thought to the human drama, to the fate of women like themselves.
Berengaria’s nerves broke first. “What happened?” she asked urgently.
“Uncle Balian came.”
“With his three thousand men?” Joanna asked.
“No. Alone. Well, with one squire.”
Berengaria and Joanna looked at one another, uncomprehending. “What do you mean? How could one man make any difference? And why didn’t he take his troops to relieve Jerusalem?” Joanna asked critically.
“Three thousand against sixty thousand, Madame? And leave Tyre, the only port still in Christian hands, undefended? Without Tyre, how could the kingdoms of the West have helped us? The Sultan had defeated an army of twelve hundred knights and twenty-five thousand men at Hattin; do you think three thousand might have crossed a hundred miles without being forced to battle? And if confronted, do you think they could have avoided being crushed?”
Berengaria was convinced and nodded, but Joanna raised her eyebrows and noted, “My father was known for moving at lightning speed through enemy territory. It can be done. And to save Jerusalem, it should have been done.”
“If it would have saved Jerusalem, Madame,” Eschiva answered steadily, “you are right. But they could not have saved Jerusalem.” Reading Joanna’s arched brows correctly, she hastened to add, “I do not claim to understand military matters, Madame, but I was there. With sixty thousand residents crammed into the city, Salah ad-Din didn’t have to fight at all. All he had to do was surround the city and wait for us to die—of poor hygiene, illness, hunger, and thirst. With three thousand more mouths to feed, the water and supplies would have run out sooner and disease spread faster.”
“But my brother told me it was defended—and it fell in just a matter of days, although it took months to take it during the First Crusade,” Joanna pointed out disdainfully.
“In 1099, the civilians had been expelled and it was manned by elite Egyptian troops, while the forces of Christ were too decimated by their long pilgrimage to even surround the city. Four years ago, the Sultan’s army was so numerous it surrounded the city like a sea, and the defenders consisted of just eighty new-made knights, churchmen, tradesmen—and women. That the city fell in days is no wonder; that it fought at all, that it inflicted so many casualties that the Sultan grew cautious, and that despite that fierce defiance, the bulk of the citizens were allowed to go free in the end—that was the miracle.”
Berengaria crossed herself, but Joanna wanted to know, “And how was that possible?”
“Because of Uncle Balian. As I was telling you, he came with one squire and a safe-conduct from the Sultan to remove his family.” For the first time, Eschiva sensed that she’d impressed the Plantagenet. Joanna knew her father would not have sought a favor from the King of France for her mother’s sake. Nor would William have done it for her. “However, the Patriarch and the burghers were determined not to surrender Jerusalem. They preferred a martyr’s death, and they had told the Sultan so. In turn, he had vowed to take the city by storm and put all to the sword, or carry them away as slaves. Now, these same men who had defied the Sultan begged my uncle to remain and take command of that futile last defense.”
Berengaria grasped her rosary, identifying with this decision to die for one’s faith, but Joanna was impatient. “But that didn’t happen. There was a surrender,” she protested indigantly. “Tell us what happened. You said you were there.”
“Well, not during the actual siege and surrender,” Eschiva conceded a little sheepishly.
“How did you get out?” Berengaria asked, amazed.
“The Sultan sent some of his own men to escort Uncle Balian’s family out of Jerusalem before he laid siege to it, and—”
“What?” the two queens exclaimed in unison. Joanna elaborated with the question, “Why would the Sultan do such a thing?”
“Oh, Salah ad-Din is very savvy. He’d just made a treaty with the Greek Emperor, and he thought it would be awkward to have one of the Emperor’s kinswomen trapped in a city he intended to take by storm. He didn’t want Queen Sibylla there, either. He wanted a free hand to deliver a bloody lesson to anyone who defied him. He didn’t want the embarrassment of his troops defiling queens or former queens.”
“I see about Sibylla, but what did that have to do with your uncle?”
“Uncle Balian is married to the Dowager Queen of Jerusalem, the Greek princess Maria Comnena.”
“Oh!” Joanna Plantagenet was startled by this news; Berengaria was just confused. The latter asked, “But hadn’t your uncle just broken his word to him? Surely the Sultan wanted to punish him more than anyone!”
“Not really. The Sultan understood that Uncle Balian had no choice. He really did have no choice. Tante Marie summarized it simply: What sort of man, she asked, would walk away from sixty thousand helpless refugees begging for help?” Eschiva paused. “Well, my uncle was not the sort of man to do that. He stayed and organized a defense—with women and priests—that was so effective that the Sultan had to abandon his assaults after five days, call in sappers, and undermine the walls. It was only after the walls came down that my uncle surrendered. You think he should have sought martyrdom?” Eschiva asked Joanna provocatively. “Well, the men would all have been martyrs, and the women would all have become harem slaves. Even now, more than twenty thousand Christian women live as the slaves of Muslim men because they fell into the hands of the Saracens.”
Berengaria gasped and covered her mouth in horror, while Joanna’s lips tightened.
“Not just lowborn women suffered that fate,” Eschiva continued. “The Sultan might have spared queens, but the daughters of one of my uncle’s knights were taken from their estates near Ibelin and have never been heard from since. When Jaffa fell, all the Italian burghers’ wives were divided up among the conquerors. The Convent of the Sacred Heart at Hebron fell completely into Saracen hands, and all the nuns are now the sexual toys of their Muslim owners.” Berengaria was clutching her rosary beads in distress, and Joanna looked grim.
“One day perhaps you will meet Sister Adela,” Eschiva continued. “She was the head sister at the Hospital in Jerusalem during the siege. She now runs an orphanage in Tyre. Sh
e told me that her greatest fear throughout the siege was that the men would get their martyr’s crown—while she and the sisters of the Hospital would spend the rest of their lives in a Turkish brothel.”
“Holy Mother of God! Our good Lord would not let that happen!” Berengaria protested.
Eschiva looked sharply at Berengaria and told her bluntly, “He let it happen to the sisters of the Sacred Heart at Hebron. That it did not happen in Jerusalem is due entirely to the negotiating skills of my Uncle Balian. For the sake of the women and children, he sacrificed his martyr’s crown and found a means to extricate as many people as possible.”
“I daresay he was thinking of his own skin, too,” Joanna noted cynically.
“No, my lady,” Eschiva corrected the Queen of Sicily almost sharply, “for he offered up his skin for the sake of those who could not pay a ransom!”
Joanna caught her breath at that. Neither her fathers nor brothers, much less her late husband would have done that—risked their own freedom for the poor.
“How did he escape?” Berengaria wanted to know.
“The Sultan knew his troops were restless from being denied plunder, and the fifteen thousand Christian women and children too poor to pay a ransom were his means of paying them off. He did not want my uncle, nor any ransom he might have been able to raise in a year or two of begging. He wanted those female bodies for his troops.”
“All right,” Joanna conceded, “you have made a case that your uncle is a military leader, an adroit negotiator, and a man of exceptional charity. I take your point that his actions have won him respect and influence among his countrymen. Yet you also admit that he broke his word to the Sultan, and he has also broken his oath of fealty to King Guy. Finally, he has callously, not to say brutally, forced Queen Isabella into a bigamous relationship with a man who cannot legally be her husband. Whatever his other virtues, I’d still say those are the actions of a treacherous and unscrupulous man.”
Envoy of Jerusalem Page 38
