The Last Crusader Kingdom

by Helena P. Schrader

  His anger spilled over into his voice as he snapped back, “Well, if ‘lucrative alternatives’ is what you’re looking for, you’ve come to the wrong place! The Greeks and Italians between them have stolen everything of value. Nobody pays me a penny in taxes, customs, or fees, and if I ride so much as five miles outside of Nicosia I have to fear for my life. Indeed, I’m hardly safe in Nicosia, either. I never know when or where an assassin might be lurking with a poisoned knife, ready to send me the same way as that bastard Conrad de Montferrat!”

  The tirade was out before Guy had a chance to consider what he was saying—but that was typical Guy, Aimery reflected. He had always been one to speak before he thought. What surprised him was rather how haggard Guy looked. Guy was very vain. He had always loved the way he looked, and consequently had given his appearance the utmost attention. He was, to be sure, still dressed like the king he no longer was, but his hair was thinning and receding from his forehead. The skin on his face was sagging noticeably, too, and his eyes were sunk in wrinkled sockets darkened by shadows. He looked considerably older than his forty-three years, older and less well (or so Aimery thought) than Aimery himself.

  “And you are doing nothing about the situation?” Aimery asked calmly, sinking down on the arm of a heavy wooden chair and swinging his free leg.

  “Of course I’m doing something about it!” Guy shouted at his brother, all his anger and fear erupting into this outburst. It was actually a relief to be able to shout at someone; Guy had been ashamed to shout like this at his servants, his soldiers, or the few men who had followed him here. Yet trying to disguise his fear had exhausted him. To his brother he explained, “I’ve sent Sirs Galganus de Cheneché and Henri de Brie to ravage all of Karpas as punishment for their effrontery! If the people refuse to pay their lawful taxes, Galganus and Henri take their valuables and burn their miserable houses so they learn a lesson. They’ve especially made an example of the monasteries. I hate the way these pompous Greek monks pretend to be poor! Ha! If the example of Karpas doesn’t work on its own, I’ll send Barlais to Kyrenia and Bethsan to Paphos next! I’m not going to tolerate people lying and cheating to me!”

  Only gradually did Guy realize that he was ranting and raving while his brother and the two squires just stared at him as if he were mad. He fell silent. “What is it?” he asked nervously, looking from his brother to his brother’s astonished squire and then over at Camville, who hastily looked down. Before anyone could answer, Guy felt the urgent need to urinate and dashed back toward the garderobe.

  Aimery looked over at John with an expression pregnant with discussion for later on. Then he glanced at his brother’s squire and asked, “What’s your name, boy?”

  “Dick, my lord, Dick de Camville, after my father—and the King.” He obviously meant the English King, since there was no King Richard in Outremer and never had been.

  Aimery nodded, then asked in a low voice with a jerk of his head in the direction of the garderobe, “Is he like this often?”

  “I-I-I don’t know what you mean, my lord. Isn’t this the way he always is?”

  Aimery drew a deep breath and rubbed his forehead in uncertainty. Then he drew himself to his feet and declared, “We’re going to take lodgings in the khan across the street. When my brother is more disposed, he can send for us.” Beckoning John, he briskly left his brother’s chamber before the latter re-emerged from the garderobe.

  As they descended the stairs to the street, he remarked in a low voice to John: “Well, at least he didn’t order us to leave the island.”

  The stone caravansary (known locally as a khan) that sat opposite the royal palace in Nicosia was one of the largest and nicest Aimery had ever seen. It had evidently been built in the reign of Isaac Comnenus to cater to clients attending the court. It had a large courtyard with a central cistern surrounded by washbasins, and two large plane trees for shade. While the rooms on the ground floor behind the arcade encircling the courtyard were small and functional storerooms, the second floor offered spacious suites with access to the interior gallery and small balconies over the street. The floors were plaster and were obviously washed regularly by the cleaning staff, so that the entire complex made a pleasantly clean impression. The stables behind were equally spacious and well kept, and John had no qualms turning their horses over to the grooms, all of whom spoke passable Latin and went by Italian names. John rapidly surmised that the proprietor was Italian, and this was soon verified.

  The man introduced himself as Carlo di Rossi of Pisa. He explained in Latin that he had settled on Cyprus after the expulsion of the Pisans from Constantinople in 1182. He had enjoyed the patronage of Isaac Comnenus’ guests, but proudly claimed to be one of the first citizens of Nicosia to do homage to Richard of England. He gave them a corner room, told them that his brother Mario ran “the best tavern on Cyprus” (just around the corner), and assured them that the Greek baths behind the khan were “first class and completely safe.”

  Although Aimery and John had stopped on the outskirts of the city to clean themselves up after their night in the rough, they welcomed both a proper bath and a good meal. After a good hour in the baths steaming out the dirt and stiffness, they changed into clean clothes, leaving their dirty things with the khan’s efficient-looking laundry mistress, and headed for the tavern, which was tucked in a side alley.

  This establishment was small and quiet, with a notably high-class clientele composed of Italian-speaking merchants, guild masters, and marine officers. The proud prices, apparently, made it unattractive to the locals or sailors, and this in turn justified a greater investment in the furnishings. There were flagstone floors, tile paneling on the walls, glazed windows facing the street, and cushions on the wooden benches. The smells coming from the kitchen were nothing less than mouthwatering.

  Mentioning Carlo’s name as instructed, they were immediately shown to a small corner table, and Mario told them to leave everything to him. A moment later a very pretty young woman in a crisply clean apron and scarves covering her hair came out to lay down trenchers and cutlery and ask their wine preference.

  Before she had finished, Mario came back to see that all was in order, and Aimery asked him to join them for some wine. “We have only just arrived and would be interested in hearing the latest news,” he explained.

  “I will join you shortly,” Mario promised and disappeared back into the kitchens.

  Their wine was brought and exceeded all expectations. John swore he hadn’t had anything so good since leaving Ibelin, and Aimery agreed that the wine matched even the best from Poitou. “I told you Cyprus is rich in resources,” Aimery insisted, feeling that so far John’s introduction to the island had been less than felicitous.

  “Yes, true,” Mario intoned, coming up behind Aimery and asking with a gesture if he could sit. Aimery welcomed him. He had his own goblet and a glass carafe of wine with him, which he set on the table but did not immediately pour or drink. “So, you are newly come from Acre?” he asked, identifying them as natives of Outremer by their dress and shaved faces.

  “Yes,” Aimery agreed. “We arrived two days ago.”

  “And what brings you here, if I may ask?”

  “I have a brother here,” Aimery replied evasively, preferring not to reveal his identity.

  “I see,” Mario answered, but he glanced at the table next to them, at which four distinguished-looking gentlemen were engaged in an animated conversation in Italian. Catching his look, one of the gentlemen immediately got to his feet and came over to bow to Aimery. “My lord Constable,” he started, shattering Aimery’s illusions of anonymity, “you may not remember me, but I am Francesco Pasquali, bailli of Pisa here on Cyprus. May I join you?”

  “I’m honored,” Aimery countered diplomatically, although inwardly annoyed at being recognized so readily and even more for being called “Constable;” it meant he would be forced to explain that he no longer held the title.

  Mario surrendered his seat to the P
isan bailli and withdrew. The bailli poured the wine left behind by Mario and raised his glass to Aimery.

  Aimery answered the gesture and they both drank without a formal toast. “My lord, let me assure you that your reputation precedes you,” the Pisan bailli opened as he set his glass down. “My brothers in Acre sent word of your courageous defense of their innocence.”

  “Thank you,” Aimery answered stiffly; he had long since regretted his actions. Had he just kept his mouth shut, maybe he would still be Constable of Jerusalem, living with his wife and children. . . .

  “My colleagues and I assure you that we have nothing to do with the attacks. They are completely unauthorized—but, I fear, a sign of the times. We live in very troubled times.” He shook his head.

  “We do have a truce,” Aimery pointed out.

  “A desert truce, my lord. The seas are still at war, and now this unnecessary violence on Cyprus.” He shook his head. “I know you are not a man of trade, but surely you understand just how devastating your brother’s policies are? Men of trade need peace and security above all else. Much as we hated the despot Isaac Comnenus, at least he maintained law and order on the island. The roads from one end of the island to the other were safe. We had no need to fear for the safety and honor of our wives and daughters when they ventured onto the streets. All that is gone!” He gestured dramatically with his hands.

  “Why?” Aimery asked, leaning back against the wall and watching the Pisan carefully.

  “Why? Because your brother’s ham-fisted attempts to assert his control have sparked widespread rebellion. Angry young men don’t ask if the people they attack are the same people who caused the problem. We’ve had four warehouses torched in the last three months! Several inland convoys have been shot at by archers hiding in the hills. Camels and horses have been killed or stolen. So far the ports are safe, but for how much longer, my lord? If things continue this way, we will have to cut our losses and relocate.”

  Aimery considered that an empty threat. Where would the Pisan mercantile community relocate to? Like the other Italian merchants, the Pisans were in the Eastern Mediterranean because of the riches that could be made trading with Constantinople, the crusader states, and Alexandria. Nevertheless, Aimery recognized that the crusader states needed the Italian merchant communities for their own economy—and for their fleets, which kept the Saracen ships bottled up in their harbors. He also recognized that trade was greatly inhibited and disrupted by unrest and violence. “And what do you expect me to do about it, good sir?”

  “Convince your brother to call off his dogs! Brie and Cheneché are worse than rabid wolves!” Aimery glanced at his squire, and John squirmed uncomfortably. The Pisan continued, ignorant of the squire’s identity and the fact that Brie was his cousin. “They have set the entire Karpas peninsula aflame, and as people flee before their mercenary soldiers, they spread fear and hatred to the rest of the island. They must be stopped!”

  “My brother claims he has not received the taxes owed him.”

  “Well, there are better ways of collecting taxes than destroying the means to pay them!” the man of commerce informed the nobleman sharply. “How are people supposed to pay taxes without income? Without mills or workshops? He’s destroying his own tax base with his scorched-earth policy!”

  The Pisan had worked himself up into a rage of righteous indignation, and one of his colleagues rose from the next table to pat him on the shoulder. “Calm yourself, Francesco. Take a sip of the wine.” Then turning to Aimery he added, “Forgive my dear friend Francesco for his little outburst, but believe me it is justified. The situation here is very dire, very dire indeed. We all hope you will be able to talk sense to your brother Lord Guy.”

  Aimery smiled cynically. He might talk “sense” to Guy until he was blue in the face, but his brother rarely listened. . . .

  Just as Aimery had anticipated, Guy was not receptive to advice—at least not from his older brother. Gathered in the council chamber on the far side of the heavy wooden door were nearly all the men who had thrown in their lot with Guy de Lusignan and come with him to Cyprus. They were only a handful of knights—no barons among them—and most had been made paupers by Saladin’s invasion of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The exceptions were the two Englishmen left on Cyprus by King Richard—Robert of Thornton and Richard of Camville—along with Reynald Barlais, a Poitevin sergeant-at-arms who had been in the service of the Lusignan family for decades. He’d come out to the Holy Land with Geoffrey, but had elected to remain on Cyprus with Guy.

  From what John could hear through the door, the Englishmen, both older men left on the island by King Richard for their administrative and financial talents rather than the strength of their arms, were the only two men in the other room backing Aimery’s calls for de-escalation and peace overtures to the rebels. Barlais—strongly backed by John’s cousin Henri de Brie, Walter de Bethsan, and Galganus de Cheneché—was furiously and loudly insisting that the rebels had to be “crushed,” “obliterated,” or “exterminated.”

  “At what cost?” Thornton asked in an exasperated tone. “You’re destroying the economic base of the entire island!”

  “Better that than let these snakes get away with biting us! If we don’t crush them now, they’ll attack us again and again!” John’s cousin Henri snarled.

  Henri de Brie was the son of Balian’s half-sister Ermengard. As a very young knight, he had taken service with Reynald de Châtillon, the Baron of Oultrejourdain. It was with was Châtillon that he had won infamy by commanding one of the galleys Reynald de Châtillon launched in the Red Sea in 1182. Châtillon’s fleet had wreaked havoc with the Muslim pilgrimages and spread panic across the Arabian Peninsula. Brie was practically the only survivor of the raids, and he’d been rewarded by Oultrejourdain with an heiress. After Oultrejourdain’s death, he’d attached himself to Guy de Lusignan.

  “These ‘snakes,’ as you call them, are Christian men and women,” Camville reminded Brie. “Men and women who for the most part assisted King Richard to capture this island in the first place!”

  “Well, Christian or not, they are defying us!” Henri de Brie replied forcefully, adding in a more conciliatory tone, “I’ve got a suggestion: Give each of us defined territory and let us deal with the situation therein as we see fit. We’ll soon see whose methods work best!” He flung out the words as a challenge.

  “You’re just angling for a barony!” Guy objected petulantly, leaving John nodding in agreement. It had always galled his cousin that despite his close ties to the Ibelin family, the Bries were rear-tenants rather than barons.

  A loud bang from the opposite side of the room made John start and turn sharply. A man had just entered the anteroom, and it had been the door banging against a chest as it was flung open that had startled John. He was even more stunned when he recognized the man standing in the doorway: it was his former brother-in-law, Isabella’s first husband, Humphrey de Toron.

  Toron drew up sharply and stared. “John?” he asked uncertainly. Humphrey hadn’t seen John d’Ibelin in nearly four years—not since the day he’d left Tyre with his then-wife Isabella to take part in the siege of Acre. Toron blamed John’s parents for the annulment of his marriage some fifteen months later, and had refused to set foot in the same city, let alone the same building, they occupied ever since. In the intervening years, however, John had grown from boy to youth. Indeed, it was more his increasing resemblance to his father than to his former boyhood self that allowed Humphrey to recognize him.

  “Yes, my lord,” John answered, feeling acutely uncomfortable.

  “What are you doing here? Your father isn’t—” Humphrey immediately looked toward the closed door, registering the raised and angry voices on the other side.

  “No, no,” John hastened to reassure him. “I’m squire to Lord Aimery, and he came to join his brother.”

  Humphrey relaxed visibly, and he glanced back at John. John had been his brother-in-law for seven years, and lackin
g brothers of his own, he’d looked on John as a younger brother. He’d enjoyed reading from the Iliad and the Odyssey to a wide-eyed John, and John had been one of the first to hear Ernoul’s songs. The thought of Ernoul wrenched at Humphrey’s heart.

  Ibelin’s squire Ernoul had been the only other living soul, besides Isabella, who admired Humphrey’s learning and gift for languages. For years Humphrey and Ernoul had exchanged manuscripts and recited poetry to one another. When the Dowager Queen and Ibelin tore Isabella away from him so they could use her as a pawn in their dynastic game to make Conrad de Montferrat king, they had taken from him not only the woman he loved, but his best friend as well. “How is Ernoul?” Humphrey heard himself asking. His own emotions—hatred and grief mixed together—made his voice sound faint and far away.

  “Ernoul’s just become a father,” John answered quickly, relieved that Humphrey had asked about his father’s squire rather than Isabella herself. He knew he would not be able to lie convincingly about how happy Isabella was with Champagne, and he knew just as certainly that that was not what Humphrey wanted to hear.

  Humphrey’s face twitched. He’d forgotten Ernoul was now wed. Humphrey had been held in Saracen captivity longer than the other Christian barons and not released until May of 1189. By the time he reached Tyre to be reunited with Isabella at last, he had been bewildered to discover that his friend Ernoul was married. Not just married, but in love with his wife as well. Although welcoming, Ernoul had been more interested in practicing his next duet with Alys than in spending time with his old friend. In retrospect, Humphrey had fled Tyre to avoid the disappointment of Ernoul’s coolness as much as to escape Ibelin’s contempt. “Send Ernoul my congratulations,” Humphrey replied stiffly. “Was it a son or a daughter?”

  “A daughter; they’ve named her Helen—for Helen of Troy,” John offered, apparently remembering those nights reading the works of Homer just as Humphrey did.

  Humphrey nodded sadly, as the door from the inner chamber opened abruptly and young Gauvain de Cheneché burst out with a frown on his face. “John! You’ve got no business jawboning with Toron! We need refreshments! Wine and water and something to eat, too! Hurry!”