“Then you approve of the arrest?” Champagne broke in on his thoughts.
“Of course not,” Ibelin answered firmly, turning his attention back to Champagne. “Everything you said pertained to Guy de Lusignan; the man you arrested was Aimery de Lusignan. He is also the Constable of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.”
“Blood is thicker than water, Ibelin. You know that. I cannot trust the brother of a man who is set upon my destruction!” Champagne balled his fist as he spoke, adding passionately, “You saw how Burgundy constantly undermined the authority of my uncle King Richard. I don’t want to have to deal with the same situation—where the man who ought to be my deputy is actively working against me, trying to destroy me and humiliate me at every turn!”
Ibelin nodded, thankful for Champagne’s candidness. He was beginning to comprehend, and said out loud in a reasonable tone, “I can understand that, my lord. May I sit?”
“Oh, I’m sorry!” Champagne was instantly contrite, ashamed of his bad manners. He gestured for Ibelin to take a seat at the table while sending a page to fetch water, wine, and nuts.
Once Ibelin had taken a place at the table, he looked again at the other men gathered around it. The Archbishop of Nazareth looked wary, the Chamberlain confused, the Viscount and Seneschal worried. Ibelin’s eyes circled back to settle on Champagne. “My lord, I doubt any of us here would suggest that you be forced to depend upon a man you do not feel you can trust.” This statement elicited vigorous nods from the Chamberlain, but the Chancellor still looked wary and the other two men puzzled. “However,” Ibelin continued, “regardless of your personal trust—or lack thereof—in Aimery de Lusignan, he remains the Constable of the Kingdom. I would therefore like to know by what authority he was arrested.” As he spoke, Ibelin looked directly at the most experienced jurist in the room. By the way Gibelet sucked in his breath, he was sure he’d hit a nerve.
“I arrested him on my own authority as King, of course,” Champagne answered innocently and confidently.
Ibelin met his eyes and took his time answering, but when he did it was to declare bluntly: “You did not have that right.”
“What do you mean?” Champagne bristled. “I may not have been anointed King, but—”
“This has nothing to do with being anointed. Even if you were, you would not have the right to arrest any member of the High Court on your own authority. Only the High Court can order the arrest of any member, and I know the High Court did no such thing, because I was not summoned.”
The Viscount was nodding vigorously. “My lord of Ibelin is correct, my lord,” Gibelet hastened to say. “I tried—”
“A King has executive authority! I can order the arrest of any of my subjects!” Champagne countered hotly.
“Not in Jerusalem,” Ibelin answered without raising his voice. “Since the Kingdom was established under Baldwin I, the Kings of Jerusalem rule only with the consent of the High Court, and no member of the High Court can be arrested, sentenced, or deprived of his rights without a judgment of their peers.”
Champagne looked to the Archbishop of Nazareth, frowning. “Is that true?”
Nazareth did not look pleased, but he admitted in a clipped voice, “It is.”
“What that means,” Ibelin continued, “is that if you doubt the Constable’s loyalty to the Crown, then you must accuse him of treason before the High Court and let it—the High Court—rule on his guilt or innocence. The Constable has the right to defend himself before, and be judged by, his peers in the High Court.”
Champagne looked again to the Archbishop, who shrugged and declared, “Ibelin is correct.”
The Viscount jumped in more vigorously to explain. “All justice in the realm is based on judgment by one’s peers, my lord. That’s why we allow Syrian courts and even Muslim courts to operate, and why the Italian communes have their own courts, and why we have separate courts for commercial and maritime disputes.”
Champagne felt slightly dizzy confronted by so many curious customs. They all seemed alien to him, yet he was supposed to enforce them. He wanted to rebel, to say ‘No, I am the King,’ but he knew he could not. He was the interloper, the newcomer, tolerated more than loved. Worse, he owed his position in large part to his close ties to King Richard of England, but the mighty Lionheart had been treacherously seized by the duplicitous Duke of Austria on his way home from the Holy Land and was being held in a German jail, charged with a list of bogus “crimes.” The news of this outrageous affront against a crusader and a fellow king had only arrived this past week with the first ships from the West. Henri was still reeling from it, and it made him less confident than he might otherwise have been. Last but not least, Henri was acutely aware that he owed both his wife and his crown to the man sitting opposite him: it had been Ibelin who had put his name forward as a suitable husband for the abruptly widowed Isabella. He’d been totally unprepared for the suggestion when it was first mooted and had halfway hoped his uncle King Richard would reject the proposal. When he hadn’t, Henri had felt trapped—until Isabella had come to him.
Henri had been in love with Isabella since the first time he saw her during the siege of Acre, and when she stood before him as a widow eighteen months later, he’d been hopelessly enchanted. He wanted Isabella far more than he wanted the crown of Jerusalem! But one did not come without the other. And now he was in this absurd situation of being King but not being allowed to act like one!
“What do you expect me to do?” he demanded of Ibelin hotly. “Release a man who is plotting against me and let him continue to undermine my reign and to impoverish my subjects?”
“No—since we do not know Aimery de Lusignan is plotting against you. But, yes, I am asking you to release a man you suspect of treason long enough for the High Court to be summoned and for you to put your case against him before it.”
“He might flee the country in the meantime!” Champagne protested.
“Then you will be rid of him, and he will be a threat to you no longer.”
“Are you saying the King of Jerusalem does not have the right to punish a man who has committed treason?”
“Not at all. A man found guilty of treason by the High Court will be condemned and sentenced. If found guilty, the Constable will be deprived of his office, and banished from the Kingdom.”
“If he is found guilty by the High Court?”
“Exactly, by his peers—or, should he so choose, in trial by combat.”
Champagne looked again to the Archbishop of Nazareth as if hoping for a different answer, but the prelate, looking sour, admitted, “Ibelin is right, my lord. The Constable can only be condemned and sentenced by the High Court.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that when I ordered his arrest?” Champagne countered, feeling trapped.
“We tried,” the Viscount spoke up; “you were not in the mood to listen.”
Champagne glanced at the Seneschal and Chamberlain, but they were young men like himself and while loyal, they were in no position to oppose the three older men. Champagne threw up his hands. “Then I’ll summon the High Court!” he decided.
“Before you do,” Ibelin warned, “you would be wise to consider the fact that the Constable has many friends in the High Court. He has fought for the Kingdom four times as long as you have, my lord. Taking this allegation of treason before the High Court could divide the lords of the Kingdom. Are you sure you want to do that?”
“No!” Champagne lost his temper. “No, I don’t want to do that, but I will not tolerate a traitor at the heart of government, either! The Constable is a senior official of the realm! He commands the army in the absence of the King. I cannot—will not—allow the brother of my worst enemy to hold that position a day longer than necessary!”
“He’s right about that,” Ralph of Tiberius spoke up for the first time, rushing his words slightly from nervousness. He was intimidated by Ibelin, who had confronted his stepfather the Count of Tripoli over his separate peace with Saladin, led the succe
ssful charge at Hattin, conducted an amazing defense of Jerusalem, and negotiated the Peace of Ramla. It took all his courage to speak up against him. “No one should be Constable who might have split loyalties. I mean, it’s not a matter of whether we can prove Lord Aimery has committed treason. It is, as my lord of Champagne said at the start, a matter of trust.”
Ibelin considered the young seneschal with sympathy and nodded. Then he turned back to Champagne. “If I could speak with the Constable and convince him to resign his office, would you let him go free?”
“Why should he resign? It is his only source of income, and his brother undoubtedly wants him in it so he can aid and abet him in his efforts to usurp my throne.”
Ibelin waited until Champagne was finished and then repeated his question. “If he agrees to resign, will you let him go free?”
Champagne looked to the others for support, but they were all nodding. The Archbishop of Nazareth remarked sharply, “Ibelin is right. The Constable has more than one friend on the High Court. It will not be easy to get the Court to condemn him, no matter what evidence you bring. It would not be wise to risk your—” he cut himself off to seek the right word and finally settled upon “—credibility with the Court so early in your reign. It would be better to avoid a confrontation with your vassals. If my lord of Ibelin can convince the Constable to resign, it would be the best thing for the Kingdom—and for you.”
Champagne’s lips were clamped together, his cheeks flushed, but he had his emotions under firm control. He turned back to his wife’s stepfather and nodded. “All right, my lord. See if you can talk reason to him, but make sure he knows I will summon the High Court if he doesn’t go voluntarily. I will not have a man I cannot trust as Constable of the Kingdom.”
Ibelin nodded and got to his feet. “Thank you, my lord. You will not regret this decision.”
Aimery had seen worse dungeons. The first time he was taken captive by the Saracens he had been nothing but a young landless knight. The Saracens had rapidly assessed his ability to raise a ransom as marginal, and had tossed him into the pit with the other men just barely above the threshold for sale into immediate slavery. He was told he’d be given one year to raise his ransom, and was pointedly reminded that his father had died in Saracen captivity.
That pit had been windowless, foul, and overcrowded. They had shared it with rats, fleas, and lice. Food and water had been lowered to them once a day, and they had sometimes fought over it.
The second time he had been held in Saracen captivity, he had been placed in the large, cavernous cellars of the fortress at Aleppo with a dozen other lords captured at Hattin. Although this dungeon was equally windowless, the roominess had reduced the stench of the place, and the company of his fellow barons had been a comfort. Still, the knowledge that the Kingdom had been overrun and uncertainty about the future had gnawed at his sanity. It was the hope of returning to Eschiva and his children that had helped keep him sane.
But both times in the past he had been a prisoner of war, a man with some value in terms of ransom, and in no way guilty of any crime. This time he was accused of treason, and if the dungeon was not as filthy or fetid as the first dungeon, it was more ominous nevertheless. The chamber was windowless, no more than ten feet in diameter, and furnished with a straw pallet, a bucket as a privy, and chains. That he had not actually been put into the chains was a relief, yet their very presence was a reminder of what might yet come.
It did not help that he was utterly alone. There was no one to offer him comfort, much less hear his confession. As the time stretched out before him, unmeasured by the chiming of the hours or the waxing and waning of daylight, he started to imagine that he might never again see the light of day or hear the sound of a human voice. It had happened before. Men were simply locked away and left to starve to death. Or fed only enough food to keep them lingering for years, as their hair and nails grew and their strength, sight, and soul drained away.
Aimery knew himself well enough to know that he would lose his soul to bitterness without the aid of a priest. It had been a source of great comfort to have the Bishop of Lydda with them in the dungeon at Aleppo. Denied the means to read Mass, the churchman had nevertheless regularly heard their confessions and provided spiritual advice and comfort.
Nor did it help to picture the fate of a traitor’s wife and children. No one would hurt them outright, of course, but Eschiva might well be pressured into a new marriage. With four young children, she could not afford the luxury of retiring to a convent. She would have to remarry in order to provide for them, but the children would bear the stigma of “traitor’s spawn.” The thought made Aimery cringe. Guy was just going on eleven, bright and fun-loving. He’d been a page to King Richard and loved being at the center of things. To find himself the unloved stepson of Eschiva’s new husband would shatter him.
And all because of his brother Guy! Aimery had come to hate his brother—for losing the Battle of Hattin, for starting the siege of Acre, for bringing his wife and daughters to that siege where they had soon died, and most of all for—undeserving as he was—being given Cyprus by the King of England.
Aimery’s love of Cyprus had started in 1191, when he’d gone to the island with his brothers Guy and Geoffrey. King Richard had been in the midst of conquering the island from the Greek tyrant Isaac Comnenus, after the latter had threatened his wife and bride and broken his word. The Lusignan brothers had been desperate for the King of England’s support, because the King of France had declared his support for Conrad de Montferrat’s claim to the throne of Jerusalem. As the liege lord of their eldest brother Hugh, the Lusignans believed Richard Plantagenet owed them his support. They could not understand why he was “tarrying.”
Of course he wasn’t. Richard had simply recognized that Cyprus was vital to the security of the Holy Land, because Cyprus sat astride the sea routes of the Eastern Mediterranean. As long as it was controlled by Franks, it could prevent Saracen fleets from attacking the remaining Christian ports of Tripoli and Tyre. Strategically, it was also an ideal staging ground for launching new attacks on the Saracens, including a campaign against Cairo as a means of forcing the surrender of Jerusalem. Richard the Lionheart had taken control of Cyprus in just one month. He’d chased away the Greek usurper, had taken oaths of fealty from the local nobles, and then had sold the island to the Templars, thinking they would ensure the island remained a bulwark against the Saracens. Richard of England had never seen in Cyprus what Aimery had seen: an island of almost idyllic beauty from its snow-capped mountains to its palm-lined shores, a source of security not in the strategic sense, but economically and emotionally.
After fighting almost two decades in Outremer, Aimery was ready to “settle down.” He wanted land he could call his own, land he could cultivate, land he could bequeath. He wanted to sink down roots and leave a legacy. He wanted to plant olive orchards that would still be here at the next millennium. He wanted to build a house for his growing family that would shelter his descendants for generations. It didn’t seem such an ambitious dream to him, but it was elusive. Or rather, unrealistic. With the Kingdom of Jerusalem reduced to a quarter of what it had once been, there simply wasn’t enough land to go around. Great lords like Tiberius had nothing, let alone men like himself, who had never had claim to a barony.
Cyprus, however, was fertile and sparsely populated. It offered him opportunity—if only it weren’t ruled by the brother he had come to hate. And worst of all, Guy didn’t even want it. He still coveted the crown he’d lost: Jerusalem. It was madness.
Now this. He was imprisoned for allegedly supporting the brother he detested in his brother’s stupid quest for Jerusalem, which he opposed! Guy knew better than to ask Aimery for anything—much less support for his moribund claim to Jerusalem. Guy would make the best witness for the defense, but no one was likely to let Guy testify—even if there was a trial. It would be so much easier to just let him rot here . . .
And then the key turned in the
lock and Aimery sprang to his feet. He was a bundle of nerves, and he found himself facing the door, every muscle so taut he was almost trembling with anticipation. Had they come to slit his throat or simply bring him a meal?
The door was massive, braced, and studded with iron. It swung open only slowly and with a creak. The man who entered had to duck under the door frame, but even before he straightened to his full height, Aimery recognized him and cried out in relief. “Balian!”
“John brought us word immediately,” Balian answered, pulling a loaf of bread and a jug of wine out from under his cloak. “I brought these along as well, in case you needed something fortifying.”
“Is the news that bad?” Aimery asked at once, tensing again.
“Not at all. I just finished giving Henri de Champagne a lesson in the laws of the land, pointing out that he had no right to arrest you. I have received his assurance—in the presence of the chancellor, chamberlain, seneschal, and viscount of Acre—that he will release you, on one condition.”
“What condition?” Aimery asked, wary at once.
The Last Crusader Kingdom Page 5
