“You’ll find most of Haakon’s crew are running away from something,” the youth flung at John with a smile, and then a wary glance toward his captain. “I’m Christian Arendsen, by the way,” he announced, holding out his hand. “Come. I’ll show you the ropes.” John followed eagerly.
By dusk John was utterly exhausted, and they hadn’t once had to man the oars. With the sunset, however, the wind died down, and they found themselves becalmed in the middle of nowhere. Aimery, Eschiva, and Anne came back on deck. Here they shared a meal of fresh-caught fish over an open grill in the fresh, cool air under the stars.
“It’s like being in the desert,” Eschiva remarked, looking around uneasily at the emptiness. “Not another living soul, no landmarks, nothing.” She wasn’t comfortable entrusting her life to the fragile structure that they called a ship, and she felt very lost and far from everything she knew. The magnitude of the risks they were taking crowded in on her.
“But there are fish to feed us,” Magnussen remarked, gesturing to the remnants of the grilled fish they had just finished off, “unlike in the desert. And we don’t have to drag ourselves through the heat, but can let the Storm Bird carry us forward even in our sleep.”
Eventually they settled themselves on some sheepskins with light cotton coverings. Aimery and John were soon asleep and snoring softly, but Eschiva lay awake in Aimery’s arms, reminding herself that she had asked for this and trying to ignore Anne’s sniffling.
Anne was Constance d’Auber’s daughter, the girl who had returned traumatized from Saracen captivity. Everyone had assumed that being home with family would enable her to bury the past, but she seemed unable to fully adjust. Queen Isabella, served by so many high-born ladies, had lost patience with her. Anne was so timid that she never looked anyone in the eye, mumbled when she spoke, frequently dropped things, and ran away from every responsibility. Her mother, sensing that Anne had become a liability, had asked Eschiva to take the girl with her as her handmaiden. Since Eschiva had no one else, she had readily agreed. Only now, listening to her sobs, did Eschiva realize no one had even thought to ask Anne if she wanted to come. Her tears gave a depressing answer. They also added to Eschiva’s guilt at leaving her children behind without a goodbye.
Of course, the children would be fine at Caymont. It was the nearest thing they had ever had to a real home. Even before Hattin, the Constable’s quarters in the Tower of David had been cramped. They’d been ejected from them by the Saracens only to go to the even more crowded accommodations in besieged Tyre. That had always been “temporary,” just a place to stay until the Franks recaptured the Kingdom. After the Truce of Ramla they’d rented the little house in Acre, another residence with little space, and again they’d been expelled. Caymont was the first manor house her children had ever lived in, Eschiva reflected, and they all loved it there.
In the dark and silence of a ship at sea, however, Eschiva asked herself what would happen if things went wrong. What if the Frankish lords on Cyprus refused to support Aimery? What if they insisted on supporting Geoffrey? How would Aimery react? What if he blamed Uncle Balian for sending him to face such a humiliation—and by association blamed her? Surely he wouldn’t, but . . . Her thoughts kept going in circles, until the wind came up again and the gentle hiss of the waves along the hull lulled her into a deep sleep.
They made landfall at Famagusta—but Aimery, remembering his reception there the previous year, insisted on sailing back to Gastria, where the Templars retained an austere castle. Although the distance from Gastria to Nicosia was greater, Aimery was acutely aware that the roads on Cyprus were not safe. He and John had relied on being fast and armed, but with Eschiva in his party he could not travel fast, and he wanted a stronger escort than he and John could offer.
John’s friend from the crew grumbled about the decision. When John questioned why, he laughed and answered, “No taverns or wenches in Gastria. A bunch of stone-cold sober monks!” John felt a little foolish for not being interested in “wenches,” while what he remembered of the taverns of Famagusta had not whetted his appetite for more.
Aimery was relieved to find that the Templar commander of Gastria was away. He was not at all sure the Templars would throw in their lot with him in his bid to become Lord of Cyprus. Everything would depend on the new Master of the Temple, Gilbert Erail. Aimery knew too little about the man to venture a guess at how he would react to rivalry between the Lusignan brothers.
With the commander away, however, a sergeant was in charge at Gastria. This semi-illiterate local man didn’t dream of challenging the former Constable of Jerusalem (or was it the brother of the late King Guy?). He at once agreed to provide an escort of eight sergeants, as well as a horse litter for Eschiva and Anne. So they took leave of Haakon Magnussen and his crew—who, after taking on water, put out to sea again.
After only one night in the austere guest quarters at Gastria (with the men strictly separated from the women), the little party set out. While Anne sat motionless with her shoulders hunched up and her head down, Eschiva kept the curtains pulled back to see as much of her new home as possible. The land here was flat and treeless, cultivated by peasants dressed in unbleached homespun kaftans and wearing head coverings of the same material. They were for the most part hoeing the fields of evidently rich but sun-baked earth, hacking at the caked soil in preparation for fall planting. There was no evidence of oxen or plow horses, just humans doing this back-breaking labor in the oppressive heat. Occasionally light breezes swept dust into tiny cyclones that shattered the shimmering heat, only to dissipate again in the already hazy air. The peasants spared the travelers only scant and wary glances.
The road itself was comparatively empty, although they passed several shepherds with sheep, goats, or a mixture of both moving their small flocks along the side of the road. More often they encountered women driving little donkeys laden with amphorae to and from the wells. The women were barefoot and kept their skirts hitched into their belts to avoid the dust, thereby exposing their ankles. They kept their heads covered by large white shawls wrapped around their shoulders, despite the heat. They kept their eyes down and averted for the most part, only rarely risking a glance at the strange women. At first Eschiva smiled and waved, but she was met with such consistent blank or hostile stares that she soon gave up.
The bank of purple mountains that had blocked the horizon to the northwest gradually came closer. The mountain range was dramatic. It had tall, sharp peaks and was clothed in dense forests—something Eschiva had never seen before. The range ended dramatically in precipitous cliffs down to the fertile plain on which they were traveling. Aimery pointed out some white rocks and claimed there was a castle there. Eschiva could not make out what he was talking about. The top of the hill was sharp and ragged, not flattened to support a castle, and there were no rings of masonry anywhere.
“We’ll spend the night there,” Aimery assured her. “It’s where your cousin Henri has his base of operations.”
“He built a castle already?” Eschiva asked, astonished.
“Good heavens, no! It was built by the Greeks. Allegedly by the Dowager Queen’s ancestor, Emperor Alexis I—or, shall we say, at his behest by the governor at the time.”
Eschiva leaned out of the litter to try to see the castle again, but she could not for the life of her find it. All she could see were vertical limestone bluffs interrupted by crevices in which pines grew. She said nothing, however, for fear of Aimery’s scorn. He would doubtless be disgusted that she couldn’t see something as substantial as a castle.
In the afternoon they started to wind their way up the face of the mountain range, and soon the horses were toiling hard on the incline. Eschiva felt vaguely guilty, conscious that without her in a litter, her husband would have made much better time. He might even have been in Nicosia by now, she supposed. It was also decidedly uncomfortable in a horse litter on a steep hill. Had she not been so heavily pregnant, she would have preferred to walk. As it was
, she and Anne sat facing backward so that they did not have to lean forward the whole time.
As the sun slid down the sky, Aimery sent one of the Templars ahead to Kantara to warn Henri de Brie that they were on their way. This proved a wise precaution, as the forest was getting denser and they were having increasing difficulty finding their way on narrow trails that sometimes twisted back on themselves or just petered out.
Suddenly a half-dozen knights burst out of the forest to their right and surrounded them. After a moment of alarm, Eschiva was relieved to see her cousin Henri at the head of the party. He greeted Aimery curtly, and then rode straight over to the litter and bent down from his horse. “Dearest cousin! This is no place for a lady! Much less a pregnant one,” he told her bluntly. “I’ve ordered the most habitable tower made ready for you, but in this thing”—he looked contemptuously at the litter—“you’re at least an hour away from Kantara. Do you have anything warm with you? When the sun goes down, it gets chilly up here.”
“Yes, I have a shawl, thank you, Henri. I do so appreciate your hospitality, cousin.”
She had succeeded in making him feel rude, and he caught his breath, paused, and looked at her again. Their eyes met. Eschiva was reminded of all the horror stories that had circulated about him. He had taken part in Reynald de Châtillon’s Red Sea Raids, plundering, burning, slaughtering, and whoring all the way to Aden and back. Rumors had circulated that he’d kept a half-dozen women as his sex slaves and had tortured prisoners to make them reveal their treasure to him. But Uncle Balian told her not to believe everything she heard. . . .
“We’ll talk in Kantara,” he answered, sat up straighter, and started giving orders.
They were being led by men carrying torches by the time they finally made it to the outer works of the castle, which abruptly reared up out of nowhere. These consisted of two very tall towers of white limestone blocks flanking a narrow wall, rather than a perimeter wall as at every other castle Eschiva had ever seen. The castle itself loomed above them atop a slope so steep she had to tip her head all the way back to see the walls. She might not have seen them at all if men with torches had not been moving back and forth along them in apparent agitation.
Aimery came to help her out of the litter and announce that she would have to walk the rest of the way. The stables were here and the path was too steep for horses. Eschiva said nothing, only helped Anne, who was now trembling from fear or cold or both, out of the litter. She put an arm around the girl’s shoulders to comfort her, and to give herself something to lean on. Then Aimery seemed to remember himself. He came back, took her arm, and started leading her up the narrow path that zigzagged up the face of the mountain. Anne was left to trail behind them like a lost puppy.
Eschiva didn’t understand a great deal about military architecture, but even she felt as if she were trapped in a killing field. Behind them was the barbican, and on both flanks there were towers, even more massive than those of the barbican. These protruded forward from the cliff ahead of them on bedrock ledges. Straight ahead, but a good hundred feet higher than where they dismounted, was a tall, crenelated wall. In short, from all sides the dark, windowless walls loomed up, crowding in on her. If those walls had been manned by hostile men, they could have been slaughtered from four directions. Any unfriendly force trying to storm the arched gate into the still-invisible castle would be subjected to murderous fire—all the while struggling up a steep and uneven slope.
The surprise beyond the gate was almost as great. There was no castle inside the wall: just buildings scattered among the rugged outcroppings of limestone and the pine trees. The wall itself, however, was four yards deep, with batteries of vaulted chambers honeycombing the backside and spilling light into the interior space, which was far too rugged and overgrown to be called a courtyard.
“This is a military camp, my lady,” one of her cousin’s knights remarked, seeing her expression, “not a residence.”
“We’re on our way to Nicosia,” Aimery answered for her. “We only ask your lord’s hospitality for the night.”
“And you have received it,” Henri answered, looming up behind them. “Come.”
He led them along a rough stone path that wound its way through the scrub brush. By the way it caught at Eschiva’s skirts, tearing them when she tried to free them, she realized they were thorns. A singularly inhospitable garden, she thought.
At last they reached a rectangular tower topped with crenelation. Entering through the arched door, they found themselves in a spacious chamber paved with mosaics under a soaring cross-vaulted ceiling. The tower was actually divided into two rooms, both with fireplaces, although a small and smoking fire had been lit in only one. An interior stone stairway led up to the floor above. By the light of the struggling fire and the torches held by their escort, Eschiva could make out sparse, crude furnishings that appeared to have been taken from peasant huts. Yet in addition to the mosaic flooring, she could faintly see the hint of wall murals. Once upon a time, she surmised, this had been an elegant and magnificently appointed chamber fit for the chatelaine of the castle—or at least the Emperor of the Eastern Empire’s deputy on the island.
“This is a command center, Eschiva,” her cousin intoned, echoing his knight’s comment, “not a lady’s chamber. There’s a bed on the floor above that we’ll make up for you and Aimery. John and your woman can bed down here. I’ll also have some lamps, a meal, and a chamber pot brought for you, so you don’t have to use the garrison latrines.”
“Thank you, Henri, I appreciate that. I hope you will join us for the meal?”
“I can’t wait to hear what you are doing here in your condition,” Henri answered, and then with a brief bow withdrew.
There was an awkward silence in the tower chamber as the footsteps, voices, and torchlight from Sir Henri and his men retreated. Then Aimery started to defend himself: “I warned you! I told you—”
“Aimery,” Eschiva interrupted him. “I don’t mind. But I would like that chamber pot, and I expect poor Anne needs one, too. I would also like to sit down.” She looked around at the three-legged wooden stools, and chose a chest with a broken foot instead. She eased herself carefully onto its slightly sloping top, a hand on her belly.
“Are you all right?” Aimery asked in alarm, his anger already dissipated by her calm.
“Yes, Aimery, I’m just tired.”
“I’ll go see about the chamber pots and some lamps,” John volunteered, uneasy about the situation and not sure if Eschiva was really as calm as she appeared. Although he’d been to Kantara before, it was only tonight, with a lady present, that he registered just how Spartan the accommodations were. He was sure Aimery had promised her the palace at Nicosia, not this barren fortress, when he’d induced her to return to Cyprus with him.
John first made his way to the latrines and then worked his way back through the dark to the large tower beside the main gate, which his cousin and his knights occupied. Here the sergeant cook loaded him down with a chamber pot, a pair of crude pottery oil lamps, a loaf of unleavened bread along with a bread knife, and a crock full of lard.
Returning to the tower, John found Anne crouching beside the fire holding her shoulders, while Aimery and Eschiva spoke in low tones in the dark of the adjoining room. “Dinner!” he announced as cheerfully as he could, hoping to dispel any lingering tension.
Aimery and Eschiva at once broke off their conversation and returned to the lighted room. John set the bread and lard on the chest, handed the chamber pot to Eschiva, and went over to the fire to light the wicks of the lamps. Anne at once drew back into the shadows as if afraid of him. John tossed her a reassuring smile, but she only looked down, ashamed to meet his eyes. John felt sorry for her, but there was no time to try to win her over.
With a loud knock, his cousin Henri was back. He’d removed his helmet and was carrying a pottery pitcher in both hands. He clunked these down on the chest beside the bread, declaring, “Well water, and local wine. Oh
, we need some goblets, spoons, and bowls. Stew’s on its way.” He was gone again, but returned shortly with the missing items. He then looked around the room critically and decided they needed a chair or two.
Two men-at-arms manhandled two chairs into the chamber a few moments later, and a third brought a deep cauldron filled with a surprisingly savory-smelling stew. “Local hare,” Henri announced as he personally scraped the bottom with the ladle and emptied a large portion into a bowl, which he handed to Eschiva. There were carrots and leeks as well, all flavored with rosemary, bay leaf, and black pepper. John dutifully served Eschiva and Aimery wine and bread as they sat before the fire, and even took a bowl over to Anne before he sat on the chest and shoveled the stew down between bites of bread. He was absolutely famished.
Not until the leftovers had been carted away by John and Henri’s own squire and a second pitcher of wine brought did Henri sit down on one of the stools facing his guests and open the conversation that had been hanging over them all. “So what is this all about, Aimery?” Henri asked bluntly. “First you just disappear, leaving the rest of us to bury your brother, and now you’re back with a pregnant wife?”
“Did you bury Guy?” Aimery deflected the question. “I thought he asked to be buried in Acre.”
“He did. Which would have entailed embalming his corpse and then, of course, petitioning the Archbishop of Acre for permission to bury him in Holy Cross Cathedral. We opted to bury him in the Templar church at Limassol instead.”
Aimery nodded. That was good news. If they were willing to ignore Guy’s last wishes in something as personal as his place of burial, they were likely to ignore his choice of successor as well.
The Last Crusader Kingdom Page 18
