Ibelin recognized that was true and nodded, but he still found it hard to believe that Richard had no loyal and competent barons he could trust to keep his brother in check other than Sir William Marshal. Unlike most of his peers, Marshal had firsthand experience of fighting in the Holy Land. His experience with the weather, terrain, and above all, the tactics of the Saracens made him more valuable here, advising his king, than back in England. It was hard not to wonder if the King of England feared being overshadowed by a knight like Marshal. To his guests, however, Ibelin simply offered seats, while asking Georgios to bring wine.
The newly elected Patriarch dropped heavily onto the stool offered, and Ibelin heard the distinctive chinking sound of chain mail. He was apparently wearing a hauberk under his ecclesiastical robes—and who could blame him after seeing his colleague cloven in two at Hattin? The Angevin knight, although older, moved with the controlled strength of a man who’d worn armor all his life, yet he wore a large wooden cross around his neck, and he nodded to Father Michael as if to a brother when the latter, assisting Georgios, brought him wine.
“Before we get to the negotiations with the Saracens, there is something else you should know,” Sablé announced. “Ever since my wife died five years ago, I have longed to join the Knights Templar—but first the Old King insisted that I stay with him, and then King Richard urged me to assist him in organizing this crusade. Yesterday King Richard announced that he would allow me to join the Templars, on the condition that the Templars elected me their Grand Master.”
There had always been rumors that the Templars could be bought by men of wealth and power. Certainly Gerard de Ridefort’s election had seemed highly irregular and stank of undue Lusignan interference—but for a man to go from complete outsider to Grand Master without serving a single day as a Templar knight or officer seemed particularly egregious. Ibelin made no attempt to disguise his disgust, remarking acidly, “I believe the word for that is simony.”
“Yes,” Sablé agreed, without even wincing. “I agree with you—but to save my honor, should I anger a powerful king and deny the Knights Templar the island of Cyprus? King Richard has told the Templars that he is prepared to sell them Cyprus, with all its wealth and strategic value, in exchange for one hundred thousand bezants—and making me Grand Master.”
“Why are you telling me all this?” Ibelin answered, thinking that he would prefer not to know about corruption on this scale.
“Because regardless of what you have every right to think about me, my objective, should I become Grand Master of the Temple, is to serve the interests of Christ, not the King of England. That is why I sought out my brother in Christ, the good Patriarch here,” he smiled toward the former Bishop of Lydda, “why I have consulted with the other bishops of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and why I have come to talk to you. I was impressed, my lord, by your concern for the Christian captives—”
“Thirteen thousand women and children marched off to slavery before my very eyes because I couldn’t raise their ransoms!” Ibelin burst out, the fury and anguish in his voice taking both the Patriarch and Sablé by surprise. Ibelin drew a deep breath to calm himself, before adding more softly but no less intensely, “I saw them, my lords; I saw those women and children, their faces marked by shock and grief and terror of the future. And they saw me sitting beside the Sultan and his emirs, on a fine horse in glittering armor. If they hate and curse me to this day, I cannot blame them, but I was helpless. Absolutely helpless! The Sultan flatly refused my offer to stand as surety for their ransom. He didn’t want me—he wanted those women as rewards for his troops. Only gold would have been a substitute, and I had none.
“Your predecessor, on the other hand,” Ibelin turned on the new Patriarch, “slunk out of the Jaffa gate laden with enough gold and jewels to have bought all of them their freedom!” Ibelin paused, gratified by a gasp from the hapless new Patriarch. He softened his tone a little to note, “You were not there, my lord, I do not blame you—but where now are all those precious crosses, croziers, cups, and plates Heraclius ‘rescued’ from Jerusalem?” The new Patriarch’s eyes widened with recognition, and Ibelin continued mercilessly: “When you eat off the plates and serve communion in the chalices, remember the women and children who paid for them with their honor, their freedom, their health, and their very lives!” He spat it out so vehemently that the newly elected Patriarch visibly winced.
“Now tell me,” Ibelin turned to the future Templar Master, “What did al-Asadi Qara-Qush answer to our demand for captives?”
“He offered 250 highborn—”
Ibelin let out an expletive so crude that both his companions started, and then competed with one another to assure him that the King of England had reacted almost the same way. “It was agreed that the number of released captives would equal the number of Saracen hostages: twenty-five hundred.”
Ibelin looked from one to the other, and they waited tensely. Sablé, personally, had thought it was a good number, and the Patriarch had assured him that the news was good. Only Ibelin didn’t look like he thought so. Finally he commented, “Well, it is better than none, and better than 250. Yet it is, I estimate, less than 10 per cent of the Christians in captivity. I know for a fact that thirteen thousand Christians went into slavery at Jerusalem. At Jaffa it was between five and six thousand. We lost seventeen thousand men at Hattin; assuming no more than half of those were killed, that makes another eighty-five hundred men of fighting age. Across the Kingdom, others were taken without grand sieges or surrenders: simply overrun on the roads, seized in their scattered rural manors and homes, like Sir Bartholomew’s daughters with their entire households, or dragged from defenseless establishments like the sisters of Sacred Heart at Hebron, and, of course, driven from all the villages along the Jordan valley. I think we can safely assume another five to seven, maybe even ten, thousand Christians were taken in such places. How many does that make? Over thirty-two thousand, in any case. And now, after four years, we may see twenty-five hundred again?” He nodded grimly. “Yes, it is better than nothing, but it will not ease my nightmares—and, my lord Patriarch, it would not make it easier for me to eat upon the gold plates Heraclius took with him from Jerusalem.”
The former Bishop of Lydda swallowed and assured Ibelin, “I will melt it down and give it to the poor, my lord. I swear it.” Ibelin looked at him hard and nodded; at least for the moment, he thought, the churchman was probably utterly sincere.
Aleppo, July 1191
No one owed explanations to a slave. Beatrice was used to that. Yet the tone and urgency of the eunuch in charge of the harem, when he told her to pack her things and come with him, alarmed her nevertheless. She did not dare ask him what was going on, nor did she protest that she had next to nothing to pack. The gown and surcoat she had been wearing when she was captured had long since been turned into rags for scrubbing floors. The shoes she had worn then had been lost, along with her stockings. Her veils had been used to gag her while they raped her, and then to wipe the blood and semen from between her thighs before being discarded. All her other possessions were “gifts” from her new masters: discarded bits of clothing, used sandals, broken combs. The bundle she reported with was so pathetic that it earned a sneering look from the eunuch as he shoved her out the door into the hands of a Mamluke.
Beatrice quailed. It had been soldiers who raped her, and the sight of Saracens in armor brought back all those horrible memories. Her mouth went dry, and her knees started trembling so violently she had to steady herself against the wall. She wished she had some means of covering her face and body, but slaves did not rate hijabs, much less abayas or any other form of honorable cover.
Fortunately these horsemen were not currently in the mood for recreation, and this stinking Christian slave woman with shorn head and callused hands was hardly appealing, anyway. They could afford pretty young whores from a reputable establishment. Meanwhile, they were intent on bullying Imad ad-Din’s steward into surrendering his other far
anj slave.
“He was enslaved when Edessa fell. He’s not one of the captives from Hattin.”
“So what?” the Mamlukes retorted. “Our orders were to round up as many faranj as possible. No one said anything about them being from Hattin.”
“The man must be over seventy,” the steward muttered disapprovingly. “What good is he to you?”
“He doesn’t have to be any good to us. Just bring him!”
The fact that Imad ad-Din’s haughty steward capitulated before this arrogant soldier made Beatrice more frightened than ever, and when only a few moments later the gardener was shoved out the door, stumbling on the shallow steps, she caught his arm as much to comfort herself as to stop him from falling.
“What is happening?” he asked, baffled and no less frightened than she. “What is going on?”
“I don’t know, father,” Beatrice answered in French. Her fear was echoed as she muttered a second time, “I don’t know.”
The Mamlukes bound their hands together and tied a rope around their waists, and then led them behind their horses. They were pulled, stumbling and dazed, to a large administrative building near the center of the city, and there shoved into a vaulted chamber already crowded with other slaves.
As her eyes adjusted to the dark, Beatrice registered that everyone in this room was speaking French. The Mamluke’s words echoed in her head: they had orders to round up faranj—Franks. Although she dared not guess the purpose, Beatrice was seized with hope: maybe, just maybe, her children would also be here! Her sister certainly was, and already Constance was pushing her way through the crowd. The sisters embraced warmly, and then Beatrice introduced Constance to Father Francis. Constance kissed his hands, while Beatrice asked if she knew what was going on.
Constance shook her head. “It was all so sudden. I had no warning at all.”
“Your daughters?”
Constance shook her head again, before focusing on her sister’s companion. “Father, please hear my confession! Please! I have—”
Father Francis took Constance and gently led her toward a more secluded corner, leaving Beatrice in the center of the room searching for her sons. It was four years since she had seen them last. Would she even recognize them? Bart would be fifteen now, Amalric fourteen, and Joscelyn, her baby, would be ten! She could not imagine him as a ten-year-old. Dear God, she prayed, let them be here. Let me find them. But then she reminded herself that she did not know the purpose of this assembly. Maybe they were being collected only to be slaughtered as the Templars and Hospitallers had been— bound and helpless! She immediately amended her prayer, begging God to bring them here only if it would not lead to greater harm and suffering.
Another “batch” of captives arrived and were thrust into the chamber with curses and shouting. Some of the newcomers trampled on those in the room in their hurry to escape the blows and insults hurled after them. One youth, who stumbled and fell as he was thrust into the room, instantly curled into a ball, his hands over his head to protect it from the blows he expected. The gesture spoke volumes about what he had endured, and Beatrice felt her heart go out to him. The woman he’d tripped over tapped him on the shoulder, and although they were too far away for Beatrice to hear her words, she could read the woman’s gestures and expression: she was assuring the youth he had nothing to fear. The boy tentatively lifted his head to look at the strange woman, and Beatrice felt as if her heart had been ripped out of her breast. “Bart!” she screamed. “Bart!”
He flinched, hunched down, and looked around to see who was calling. His pose was so defensive that it made Beatrice weep. Bart had never been a timid child; the firstborn and heir, he’d tended more to arrogance and impudence. Beatrice stepped over people, pushing and shoving, utterly unconscious and indifferent to their looks of sympathy—for there was not one person in that chamber who did not sympathize. As she got closer, Bart recognized her at last, and he struggled to his feet. “Mother?” he asked in disbelief. “Mother? Is it really you? Can you have survived?”
He had hardly grown in four years. His body was skeletal and his legs were strangely misshapen: the knees turned out and the ankles bent awkwardly inwards. Although the effect was bowed legs, the deformity could hardly have come from riding, as there were no muscles on his legs at all. As Beatrice took him into her arms, she found herself screaming silently in inner rage. He was all skin and bones. He was as fragile and light as a bird. The youth who should have been the heir to a fiefdom, a knight-in-making, was nothing but a stunted boy, as bony and awkward as a street urchin. “Oh, Bart! What have they done to you? What have they done to you?” she asked, more rhetorically than literally.
“I was sold to a carpetmaker, Mother,” Bart answered soberly. “I make carpets.” As he spoke he looked down at his hands in shame. “And you, Mother? I saw—I saw—”
She put her finger to his lips and shook her head. “Don’t speak of it. We both want to forget. It’s over. Come, I’ve found your Aunt Constance and—”
“Mama! Mama!” A strong, piercing voice reached them from the doorway, where more prisoners were been herded in. Before Beatrice had time to orient herself, she was swept into an exuberant clasp by a youth so strong and tall that Beatrice was disoriented. Unlike his elder brother, Amalric was clearly in the best of health; he’d grown inches since his capture and was tanned and muscular. “Bart!” he gasped out as he saw and recognized his brother. He eased his embrace of his mother to gape in horror at his elder brother.
Bart looked down, ashamed, but his brother growled, “They’ll pay for this, Bart! They’ll pay for what they’ve done to you and Mama!”
“How can you make them pay?” Bart lashed back, his back hunched and his face sullen. “You’re a slave! You no less than me and Mother!”
“Not for long!” Amalric answered, and before his mother could warn him not to assume anything, he declared exuberantly, “Haven’t you heard? Acre has fallen to the Kings of France and England! They came with hundreds of ships and thousands of men and mighty siege engines! They took Acre, and the Sultan has agreed to free twenty-five hundred Frankish captives in exchange for the lives of the garrison! We’re on our way to freedom! And the first thing I’m going to do is take service with the King of France, and then I’m going to kill Saracens—more Saracens than anyone else on earth!” Amalric declared emphatically. The hatred in his vow made his mother shudder.
Acre, August 15, 1191
Berengaria was finding it very difficult to decide what to wear. On the one hand, this would be one of her first public appearances before the entire Christian army as Queen of England—but on the other hand it was a solemn religious event, since no relic was more sacred than the True Cross, stained with the blood of Christ. Not to mention the fact that as a young bride who had been given so little opportunity to be with her husband, she was very anxious to please him most of all. Her Spanish ladies were fretting and fluttering about, as concerned with their own appearance as hers, with the exception of Doña Esclarmonde, of course. The latter would have preferred to see her charge in a convent rather than wearing a crown, and was piously advocating a sackcloth as the only attire suitable for such an occasion.
Berengaria was relieved by the appearance of the Queen of Sicily, dressed in state robes and wearing her crown. “We must hurry, Ria,” Joanna Plantagenet urged, already familiar with her sister-in-law’s tendency to be late to everything. “Today, no matter how much he loves you, my brother cannot afford to wait for you. The Sultan has agreed to the exchange at noon, and even a moment’s delay on our part would be an excuse to say we violated the terms of the agreement.”
Berengaria hated being rushed, but she was equally conscious of the need not to displease her husband. While gesturing irritably for her ladies to bring her coronation gown, she protested to Joanna, “Salah ad-Din has postponed the date three times already! I don’t understand why my lord husband is so tolerant of his excuses!”
“Because so much is at sta
ke. It was the garrison of Acre that agreed to the terms, and the Sultan made it clear he finds them excessive and difficult to fulfill. He only grudgingly agreed to honor them out of respect for his men, who are now our hostages. Richard feels it is only fair to give him more time to meet the obligations his subordinates committed him to.”
Berengaria cast Joanna a peeved look that expressed her frustration with her sister-in-law’s impeccable logic. Sometimes Berengaria wished the woman would just be irrational and emotional, like normal women. Today, for example, she did not want to think about all the good reasons for the delays; she wanted to complain a little without complaining about her husband. Richard Plantagenet was everything a woman could dream of in a husband. He was highborn, handsome, rich beyond measure, brave, educated, witty, and courteous—and almost always busy with someone or something else. Berengaria sighed and picked up her mirror again.
Joanna at once swept over and took it from her, placing it firmly face down on her table. “You look lovely, Ria. All you need now is your veils and crown. Then we must go.”
Berengaria accepted her sister-in-law’s injunction, and snapped her fingers at her ladies for her embroidered veils. “Tell me, Joanna, what do you make of the Marquis de Montferrat’s refusal to be here today?”
“Well, the important thing is that he returned the French King’s half of the hostages—otherwise the deal could not have gone through at all.” To the scandal of all of Christendom, Philip of France had announced his intention to return to France shortly after the surrender of Acre. Everyone, including his own nobles and bishops, had been dumbfounded. He pleaded illness, said he’d fulfilled his pilgrimage vows, blathered about his infant son being vulnerable, fussed about Acre being a sufficient conquest, and generally made himself the object of contempt. Acre was an important staging ground for the reconquest of the Holy Land, but it was not and never could be the final objective of this massive military undertaking. Even the poorest and most illiterate soldier and camp follower knew that. No one believed the King of France was so stupid as to have spent the resources of his kingdom for the sake of taking a city with no direct relation to Christ at all. So speculation about why he really wanted to go home had been rampant ever since his announcement a month earlier. Some claimed he wanted to regulate the complex inheritance of the Count of Flanders, others that he intended to remarry, and still others—among them the Plantagenets—that he planned to attack the Angevin Empire while King Richard was in the Holy Land.
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