Envoy of Jerusalem

by Helena P. Schrader

  That much Isabella had prepared in advance and memorized on her way here. But Henri was gazing at her with such lovely, soft eyes that she was completely flustered. Neither Humphrey nor Conrad had ever looked at her like this. Humphrey had been too much a brother, and Conrad too predatory. She fell silent in confusion.

  Henri reached out, grasped both her hands, and led them to his lips. “You have my utmost respect, Madame—respect and admiration. My grandmother always put Aquitaine first. That’s why she married Henry Plantagenet, though God knows it brought her great grief and sorrow. I would not want to be the cause of either. Truly, I would not,” he assured fervently and sincerely.

  Isabella was more flustered than ever. She had not removed her hands from his, and it felt good that way. His hands were dry but warm, firm but gentle. And then she remembered her baby and drew back with an intake of breath. “My lord . . .”

  He waited anxiously. He no longer doubted that he very much wanted to marry Isabella—even if it were a bigamous marriage and it meant he had to stay here forever.

  “My lord, have they told you—that—that I am with child?” The look in her eyes was so frightened that he wanted to pull her into his arms and comfort her.

  “Of course!” he assured her with a smile to calm her fears.

  “And you don’t mind?” she asked hopefully.

  “My uncle Richard thinks that God sent me here to unite the crusaders and lead us to victory over Salah ad-Din, while he returns to secure his heritage. My destiny, he says, is to save your kingdom now. That is more than enough for me, my lady. I do not need to found a dynasty. I am content to be Count of Champagne and your consort, Isabella, if you so wish.” He meant every word he said, and Isabella believed him.

  It was her turn to lift his hands, still clasping hers, to her lips and kiss them. “I do so wish, Henri. I want nothing more in the world than to have you as my husband and consort in the very difficult days, months, and years ahead.”

  Chapter 20

  Acre, July 29, 1192

  AFTER ALMOST FIVE YEARS CONFINED TO Tyre, coming to Acre seemed to Isabella like an adventure. For Maria Zoë it was also a relief to take up residence in the spacious, well-appointed royal palace after five years cramped in an overcrowded merchant residence. As Queen of Jerusalem, no one doubted Isabella’s right to residence in the palace, but with a fine sense of her own self-interest Isabella had sent word ahead to Queen Berengaria, assuring her and the Queen of Sicily there was no need for them to vacate their rooms or inconvenience themselves in any way; Isabella explained she hoped only that they would not object if she and her mother joined them at the royal palace in Acre. The answer had been the expected: “We’d be delighted.”

  What was far more astonishing, Maria Zoë thought, was that two ruling queens, two dowager queens, and five adult women could get along so well. Of course, it was no surprise that Eschiva and Isabella fell into each other’s arms in hardly containable joy. After that Eschiva had been the bridge between her aunt and cousin and her new friends, the English and Sicilian Queens. Berengaria took an instant liking to Isabella. After carefully and sensitively inquiring about Isabella’s feelings as both a recent widow and a young bride, she had been relieved and delighted to discover that the “bride” almost completely supplanted the “widow,” and that Isabella was not merely comfortable with her awkward situation: she embraced it. As she explained to an attentive and sympathetic Berengaria, “My marriage to Humphrey was neither valid nor consummated, and my marriage to Conrad was a political necessity, but Henri is totally different! He’s not just kind like a brother or passionate like a lover, he’s attentive, caring, respectful, and loving. I’ve never been so happy in all my life—well, not since I was seven and living in paradise with my mother and stepfather!”

  Berengaria was, furthermore, almost as excited about Isabella’s condition as Isabella herself. She bombarded her with questions, delighted by Isabella’s openness and willingness to let her feel for the child in her belly. When the baby kicked under her gentle touch, her face lit up with wonder and joy. She admitted openly that she could hardly wait to become pregnant herself—a difficult prospect with her husband almost constantly away.

  While Berengaria and Isabella talked of children and husbands, Eschiva, Joanna, and Maria Zoë found common ground in discussing recent political and military developments. King Richard had been persuaded (by whom remained mysterious, although Isabella blithely asserted it was all the work of her new husband) to remain in the Holy Land until the fall and to undertake another attempt on Jerusalem.

  While the nickname “Lionheart” suggested impetuosity, King Richard had shown he was very much his father’s son by undertaking the campaign in a methodical and highly rational manner, first securing his lines of communication and then expanding Frankish control of the coastal plain. He’d attacked and taken Darum with his own troops before Champagne could arrive with the French, but he’d graciously turned his latest conquest over to Champagne as King of Jerusalem. He next took Castle Rouge, southeast of Hebron, but it was too isolated to hold and he withdrew. However, the feint had been enough to make Salah ad-Din pull back. Soon, in response to the English King’s slow but steady advance, the Sultan was systematically giving up more and more of the coastal areas and entrenching himself in the highlands.

  Maria Zoë knew from Balian’s letters that the English King had at this juncture argued that the key to Jerusalem lay in Cairo, and had tried to persuade his fellow crusaders to turn their back on Jerusalem and strike instead down the Nile. His fleet had been given orders to prepare for the expedition. However, the French flatly refused to go, and the bulk of the other crusaders, be they Danes or Germans, Hungarians or Czechs, had voted with the French. The King of England had been forced to concede. In consequence, the army had advanced as far as Latrun, where they began to collect the materiel, siege engines, and supplies they would need for a full-scale siege.

  The Plantagenet used the time to attack the Sultan’s lines of communication and supply from Egypt. In late June, Richard’s queen and her companions learned from many admiring sources that the King had captured an enormous caravan defended by well over two thousand Saracen troops. The crusaders had seized over twenty-five hundred horses, a veritable boon to the depleted resources of the Franks, and almost five thousand camels. The latter had been loaded with not just food supplies and the instruments of war, but also treasure intended to refill Salah ad-Din’s depleted treasury. In fact, in addition to cases filled with gold and silver coins, there had been camel-loads of candlesticks and silver plate, silks, spices, beeswax, perfumes, sugar, and all the luxuries that made the Orient so decadent—or so the crusaders said.

  With an appreciation of his wife’s rigorous household accounting, Balian had provided a detailed list of his share of the spoils. These included twenty-five horses for the Ibelin stud, five camels as beasts of burden, two thousand gold bezants, five thousand pieces of silver, sixteen bolts of silk, a ton of sugar, five hundred pounds of wax, two hundred pounds of spices, and a long list of various other objects.

  Just when all appeared set for the final confrontation over Jerusalem, the queens received word that the Frankish army was again withdrawing to Ramla. Berengaria had been deeply disquieted by the news. She was convinced that something terrible had happened to Richard. “Remember the arrow he took before Arsuf?” she told her sister-in-law. “And, oh, all the other times he was nearly injured or captured or killed? I’m sure he would not have abandoned the assault on Jerusalem unless he was on his deathbed!”

  It was hard for the others to argue with Berengaria, because what she said was all too true: Richard had earned the name “lionhearted” because of his complete disregard for his personal safety. Aimery, Balian, and Henri had all attested to their respective wives on more than one occasion that Richard Plantagenet threw himself into the thick of every fight, regardless of the odds. If anyone was destined to die in battle, it was the lionhearted King
of England.

  Nevertheless, a different image nagged at Maria Zoë: her first husband had died of dysentery while campaigning against the Saracens. A glass of dirty water could kill as easily as a crossbow bolt, a lance, or a sword. Meanwhile, Joanna remembered vividly how her brother suffered from recurring debilitating fevers. What united them all was the conviction that the assault on Jerusalem would not have been abandoned unless King Richard was seriously injured or incapacitated—until he himself walked into the walled garden where they were enjoying the shade of the surrounding arcade on a hot late-July afternoon.

  Berengaria saw him first and flew across the flower beds to fling her arms around him. Richard was not alone. As Henri de Champagne emerged from behind him, Isabella followed her friend’s example, despite her protruding belly and waddling steps. More surprising was that Aimery de Lusignan and Balian d’Ibelin were also in the King’s company—until Maria Zoë realized that they had come precisely because their wives served the King’s women. Only Joanna Plantagenet was left out of the ensuing reunion.

  When the excitement had died down and it was clear that all four men were in the best of health, the inevitable question came, voiced by the only woman brave enough to put it to the English King—his sister. “But what of Jerusalem?” Joanna asked, baffled. “You were so close!”

  “Close enough to see it,” King Richard answered in a tone that was grim rather than triumphant.

  “Then what happened?” Berengaria asked, as confused as her sister-in-law. She knew her husband was vulnerable to personal injury, but she had come to see him as invincible militarily.

  “A council of twenty men voted not to carry out the assault,” Richard told the women simply, but his face was guarded and he avoided eye contact with either wife or sister.

  “But how? Why? Couldn’t you override them or convince them otherwise? I don’t understand,” Joanna voiced the thoughts of all the women.

  “I refuse to lead men to certain and unnecessary death!” Richard snarled back, and added aggressively, “And I didn’t come here to be interrogated! I thought I was coming for rest and feminine comfort!”

  Berengaria caved in at once. “Of course, beloved! Sit down! I’ll call for wine!” She sprang up and ran for the door out of the garden.

  Joanna was made of sterner stuff. “We’ll be happy to offer comfort once we know what is going on,” she told her brother. “You can’t just walk in here and expect us to understand everything!”

  “Ask Ibelin, then; he was on the council. I was not.”

  All eyes turned on Balian, and Maria Zoë didn’t like what she saw. The last five years had ravaged his face, aging him by ten, but up to now (except for that day when he first arrived at Tyre from Jerusalem) his eyes had burned with determination. Now he looked defeated. “The strategic situation has not changed since last winter,” he reminded them with a grimace. “Salah ad-Din holds Jerusalem with an army of seasoned soldiers—not women, children, and priests. And he controls the surrounding countryside, while our besieging army is sixty miles from the sea and our source of reinforcements and supplies. Even if we could capture Jerusalem, we could not hold it, unless all the men with the crusading army were prepared to stay and defend it—which they are not.” Maria Zoë thought it was diplomatic of her husband not to point his finger at the King of England as he spoke. “But that doesn’t really matter, because there is no way we could capture Jerusalem; they’ve scorched the earth for miles around, poisoned the cisterns, and filled up the wells.”

  “What? Who?” Joanna asked sharply.

  Maria Zoë understood. “Salah ad-Din,” she answered for her husband, and then she went to him to take his hand.

  Richard was suddenly speaking again, this time so angrily that Henri instinctively slipped his arm protectively around Isabella. “I warned them what would happen! I told them we had to strike at Salah ad-Din’s rear, not confront him head-on. Burgundy goaded me. Do you want to hear the latest? He’s turned his hand to writing ditties deriding me for cowardice!” the lion roared.

  “Pointless, I would think,” Joanna noted. “The one accusation that will never stick to you is cowardice. Now, a bad temper is something else again. . . .”

  To the astonishment of the others, Joanna’s quip hit Richard between the eyes. He laughed and turned on his sister with an expression of affection. “That’s just the kind of thing Mother would have said. And you’re right: I’ve no right to take out my frustration on any of you. Henri, go frighten the servants into sending us lavish amounts of chilled wine, cold chicken, and—well, a whole feast.”

  “I’ll go,” Aimery offered; “they’re more likely to be frightened of me than of our turtledove here.”

  The others laughed, more out of relief that King Richard was prepared to be genial than because of Aimery’s remark. Isabella and Henri were too happy to be together to care if the others thought them overly affectionate.

  “And where’s that squire of yours, Ibelin?” King Richard asked next. “I could use some good music to go with the wine.” After that everyone endeavored to be cheerful and distracting.

  It wasn’t until they retired to their own chamber that Maria Zoë could begin to try to understand what was going on in her husband’s head. As so often in the past, she used the bath as a means to relax him into confidences. At this time of year, when the days were oppressively hot, she ordered cool, unheated water. Once the bath was full and Balian had stripped off his clothes with the help of Georgios, she sent everyone away. Alone with her husband, she removed her veils and gowns to sit beside the bath in her sleeveless cotton shift.

  She didn’t speak as she cupped her hands and poured water gently over her husband’s head until his hair was wet. She silently massaged the back of Balian’s neck with soapy hands, then stretched her fingers upwards into his long, thick hair. It was still mostly dark, although increasingly streaked with white. She kneaded his scalp with her strong fingers, washing his hair at the same time. She could feel him start to relax, but she held her tongue except to tell him to raise his head. Then she started soaping his right arm right down to the palm and fingers.

  “At Ramla last winter,” Balian started speaking at last, “Sir Bartholomew told me there was no point in fighting anymore. He said we’d built our kingdom on sand, and that all trace of us would soon be wiped out by the desert and the dunes.” He paused as if waiting for a reaction, but Maria Zoë preferred to let him continue. “I didn’t want to believe him.” He fell silent again.

  Maria Zoë went around to the other side of the tub to wash his left arm and hand. As she worked she gently massaged the muscles of his arm, inwardly admiring the strength in them and their masculine beauty.

  Balian resumed. “When my father came to the Holy Land, it was an impoverished backwater inhabited by people beaten down and exploited by their Turkish masters. The people planted the same fields year after year, without variation, and the soil was exhausted. They still used oxen to pull their wooden plows, and there was almost no irrigation. The roads and aqueducts hadn’t been repaired since the Romans left; the harbors were silted up. We repaired and rebuilt the Roman roads, bridges, and cisterns. We applied our better farming methods and equipment, we imported draft horses, and we invested in irrigation ditches. We made the desert bloom.” He stopped speaking, as if he were seeing again the land of milk and honey in which he had grown up.

  “But today things are worse than when we first set foot on this sacred soil. The villages are abandoned, the fields fallow, the cities ruins, and the roads crumbling. The countryside around Jerusalem for twenty miles is nothing but wasteland. There’s nothing green as far as the eye can see, and the charred stumps of the olive and orange trees rear up like gnarled hands from hell. Bethlehem has been completely wrecked. The Church of the Nativity sacked.” Again he fell silent, but Maria Zoë didn’t dare move. She waited tensely for him to continue.

  At last he added in a voice that was almost inaudible, “When we passe
d through Ibelin on the way north to invest Jerusalem, we were attacked by swarms of cincenelles. Swarms of them, Zoё! They were as thick as locusts. The men who didn’t cover their faces fast enough soon looked like lepers. It was like a plague. . . . And the wine stalks had all been broken down and trampled. Not one remained. Not one. . . .”

  He leaned his head against the back of the bath, his eyes closed, and it took a moment before Maria Zoë realized that tears were trickling down his chiseled cheeks in sheer despair.

  Maria Zoë didn’t know what to do or say, so she just sat beside the tub with her fingers entwined in her husband’s until the tears stopped. Balian still didn’t move, however, and she thought maybe he had fallen asleep. When she tried to stand, however, his fingers closed around hers and he urged, “Don’t go, Zoë. Say something. Anything.”

  Maria Zoë thought for a moment and then began to relate in a soft narrative tone, “When I was selected to be King Amalric’s bride, my great-uncle sent for me. Now, I may have been ‘born to the purple,’ as they say in Constantinople, and I had lived all my life in royal palaces surrounded by luxury, but I had seen very little of the Emperor himself. The fact that this was a very important interview was, of course, impressed upon me by my mother, my sister, my tutor, my confessor, and so on. Everyone was very concerned that I was going to do something stupid and that the Emperor would change his mind and choose one of my many cousins as Amalric’s wife instead. So was I!” Maria Zoë confessed with a short laugh, which induced her husband to turn up the corners of his mouth slightly without moving his head or opening his eyes.