The Last Crusader Kingdom

by Helena P. Schrader

  Most of the time she avoided thinking about the years in slavery, but that was not the same as escaping the consequences. Slavery had changed her as profoundly as it had changed her sons. It wasn’t just a matter of learning hardship and humiliation—it had altered her entire value system. She simply did not value or covet the things she had thought were important “before.” Instead, she appreciated the “luxury” of occasional idleness, of occasional privacy, of choosing her own food, of a pair of shoes. . . .

  The experience, furthermore, set her apart from most of her peers, and it had made it impossible for her to completely reintegrate into Frankish society. That was the reason she preferred the reclusive life at Caymont over life at the court in Acre. In Caymont, Ibelin and his lady had welcomed her into their household for her father’s sake, and respected her need to bury the past. Lady Eschiva of Lusignan had followed their example. In Acre, on the other hand, Isabella’s ladies and Champagne’s knights followed her with surreptitious glances and whispering. Everyone at court knew she had been repeatedly raped by Saracen soldiers before ending as a household scullery maid.

  Cyprus, however, was proving an unsought surprise. To the Greek women she was a Frankish lady, a widow, and—more important—one who enjoyed the confidence of the Lady of Lusignan, not to mention “the Comnena.” Three years ago she had not dared dream she would ever again wear silk, be shown respect, or be obeyed by even a child.

  Nor had she dared to dream she might ever be reunited with her sons. Thus the sight of Amalric in chain mail, with a surcoat bearing the arms of Ibelin, still warmed her heart, no matter how often she saw him dressed like the squire he now was. She smiled unconsciously as he approached up the length of the long hall.

  “Mother! I’ve been looking all over for you. We just got back from St. Hilarion,” her son exclaimed even before he reached her. His blond hair was wind-blown, and she noted with motherly pride that he had some almost invisible hairs on his chin.

  “Was the castle all Lord Aimery promised it would be?” she asked, breathing in the masculine perfume of horse sweat, leather, and greased iron. These were the smells of knighthood, a status she had thought lost to her sons forever.

  “The castle? Oh, yes, it was quite amazing,” Amalric admitted, before continuing—with a teenager’s carelessness of the impact of his words—“but Joscelyn, the idiot, went and broke his ankle doing some crazy thing outside the castle walls. We had to bring him back in a litter. The castle barber said he didn’t have the skills to reattach the ligaments. All he could do was stabilize the ankle, but he said if we don’t get the ligaments fixed, he’ll be a cripple the rest of his life.”

  “Joscelyn?” Beatrice gasped. He was still her baby, although no one had ever hurt her more—not even the men who gleefully raped her and spat and kicked her when they finished. All her sons had seen it happen. It had broken Bart as much as her, and made him ashamed of them both. It had filled Amalric with rage, hatred, and a determination to avenge her. But Joscelyn had just been bewildered—until the Mamlukes convinced him his mother was “nothing but a whore” who deserved what she got. When Beatrice was reunited with Jos in Tyre, he had called her a whore to her face. Because his grandfather had taken a belt to his backside until it was too sore to sit on for a week, he’d never said the word aloud again. Yet she saw the word “whore” in his eyes every time he looked at her.

  Amalric was still speaking. “It’s what he deserves for abjuring Christ—not to mention how he treats you! But I thought—”

  “Don’t say that, Amalric. He’s still your brother, my son. Where is he?”

  “I’ll take you to him. Ibelin has sent for the apothecary who tended King Guy.”

  Joscelyn had been laid on a straw pallet on a rope bed. There was a pitcher of water on a small table beside him, and sunlight poured through the open door from the courtyard. It made his tangle of blond hair seem like spun gold. He had dropped off to sleep from the exhaustion of the painful journey, but his face was pinched with pain nevertheless, and traces of tears streaked his face. He was still dressed in the dirty clothes he’d been wearing when the accident occurred. All the barber had done was to cut away the hose around the broken ankle, then bandage and splint the injury.

  “Will you be all right for a moment, Mama?” Amalric asked, in a hurry to be gone. “I need to see to my lord’s armor.”

  “Yes, I’ll be fine,” Beatrice answered as she sank down on the floor beside the bed and hesitantly reached out a hand to stroke her son’s arm. Ever since they had been reunited, Joscelyn had angrily resisted her attempts to caress him. He said it was because he “wasn’t a baby” anymore, but Beatrice suspected the real reason was that he didn’t want to be touched by a “whore.” Now he was too tired to feel her touch at all.

  Beatrice sighed. She wanted to pray, but why should Christ help a boy who stubbornly refused to recognize Him? Every priest she had consulted agreed that Christ would forgive a seven-year-old for converting to Islam while in slavery. The problem was that he had not returned to the Church now that he was free. It was his stubborn insistence that they were all “polytheists” and that he alone had found truth through the prophet Mohammed that endangered his soul.

  She found herself pleading with Christ to inspire her son to repent, but even as she prayed she believed it was hopeless. An open heart was the prerequisite of grace, and Joscelyn didn’t have an open heart.

  She did not know how long she sat there, lost in a vicious circle of doubt and confusion, before the light streaming through the door was cut off by a figure. Recognizing the doctor, Beatrice struggled to her feet as Andreas Katzouroubis swept into the little chamber in his red robes. “So, what have we here?” he asked as he came to stand beside the bed.

  Beatrice stammered out that it was her son and that he had broken his ankle. The physician carefully drew back the blanket covering Jos’ legs and examined the bandaged foot and ankle. He dropped on his heels and professionally removed the splint. Then, taking hold of the toe, he moved the foot from side to side, eliciting a gasp from Jos as he woke up.

  “Who are you?” Jos demanded in outrage.

  “A doctor,” Katzouroubis answered simply. “How long ago did this happen?”

  “It was dusk the day before yesterday,” Jos told him.

  “I have to remove the bandages to see the swelling and bruises,” the doctor announced.

  Beatrice caught her breath, certain that this would be very painful, while Jos protested in a voice sharp with fear, “But the barber surgeon said the leg had to stay still or it would never heal! You’re trying to cripple me! You hate me because I’m Muslim!” Jos flung at the astonished doctor.

  It was his fear speaking, Beatrice realized, and she reached out to put a hand on his shoulder to reassure him. Jos shook her hand off as if it burned him, casting her a look of sheer hatred. Wounded, Beatrice drew back in helpless despair.

  Katzouroubis watched the little exchange with narrowed, intelligent eyes, and when he next spoke to his patient it was in Arabic, a tongue Beatrice had mastered during her years of slavery just as her son had. “You should be ashamed of yourself for treating your mother like that! Did not the Prophet, may Allah’s blessings be upon him always, teach us to respect our mothers?”

  Jos’ eyes widened in astonishment, while Katzouroubis continued indignantly, “And why should I want to cripple you because of your faith? I had the honor to learn my trade in Baghdad with some of the greatest physicians of the Dar al-Islam. Now, to the matter at hand: the barber surgeon did the best he could to ensure there was no more damage, but he told the Lord of Ibelin that he believes all your ligaments have snapped, and unless we can sew them back together, you will never walk again. So you have a choice: either you let me examine that foot so, if the barber surgeon was right, I can fetch a skilled surgeon to sew the ligaments back together again, or you become a cripple.”

  Jos’ face was flushed with fear of pain and confusion, but he swallowed
and nodded.

  “You want me to try to save your ankle?” Katzouroubis demanded confirmation.

  Jos nodded.

  “Then first you will apologize to your mother and beg her forgiveness.”

  “But my mother is nothing but a Frankish whore—”

  Katzouroubis slapped Jos so fast that neither Beatrice nor Jos saw it coming. Beatrice started to protest—to say that the insult was nothing new—but the doctor gestured her silent as he told Jos harshly, “You have no right to call your mother that! She is your mother. You owe her your life. Without her you would not exist. I will not help a boy who is so foolish as to insult and reject his mother—especially when she is only trying to comfort him. The Koran teaches respect for mothers above all other women! If you do not respect your mother, you have no right to expect the benevolence of Allah, because you will have broken His law. We men of medicine can do our best, but it is always the will of Allah that prevails. You believe that, don’t you?”

  Jos nodded vigorously.

  “Then you must do that which is pleasing to Him. A boy who does not respect his mother has a crippled and misshapen spirit, and it would be only justice if Allah allowed his body to reflect that inner imperfection. If you want His help, therefore, you must honor your mother by begging her forgiveness for your insults.” When Jos hesitated, he added, “Now!”

  Jos swallowed and snuck a glance at his mother.

  Beatrice held her breath in fear of Jos’ response. The boy looked back at the doctor, his expression more confused than defiant.

  “Apologize to your mother and promise you will never insult her again, or I will let you become a cripple in body to match your crippled spirit,” Katzouroubis insisted firmly.

  Jos looked at his mother again, and said in a soft and contrite Arabic, “I’m sorry, mother.”

  Beatrice wanted to fling her arms around him and shower him with kisses, but she did not trust this truce and feared an exuberant response would reawaken his resistance. Instead, she just nodded as tears started to trickle down her face.

  “Good,” Katzouroubis nodded his approval to Jos, “and now promise you will never insult her again,” he insisted.

  Jos took a deep breath, swallowed, and said in a soft voice, “I promise I will never insult you again.”

  Beatrice started sobbing, while Katzouroubis simply said “good” and got to work removing the splint and efficiently unraveling the bandages.

  Jos tensed and gritted his teeth as the first jarring pain stabbed him. Beatrice risked reaching out a hand to steady him, expecting him to shake it off, but Jos did not. With a flood of gratitude toward the doctor and God, Beatrice sat on the head of the bed and put her arms around her son. She held him against her as he gasped and stiffened in response to the increasing pain.

  By the time the doctor finished, Jos’ face was wet with tears, and he clung to his mother’s arm as if were a lifeline. As Katzouroubis moved the foot clinically by the toe from side to side and forward and back, Jos’ fingers dug deep into his mother’s arm as he writhed in pain. He was grinding his teeth together to stop any sound from coming out.

  Katzouroubis finished his examination, stood upright, and announced to Beatrice rather than Jos, “He must be operated on as soon as possible. I know a very good surgeon. I will fetch him. We’ll need to sedate your son, however. This will be very painful.”

  Beatrice nodded.

  Katzouroubis redirected his focus to Jos and said, “This is the only way we can save you from being a cripple, young man. Be thankful there is a surgeon here in Nicosia that has done this kind of operation before, and be thankful your mother is with you.”

  Jos didn’t answer—he just closed his eyes, still oozing tears, and laid his head on his mother’s breast. Beatrice didn’t dare move, although she was sitting awkwardly on one folded leg and the circulation to it was cut off. With one hand she gently stroked the tears from Jos’ face, while she gave thanks to Christ for the privilege of holding him like this. She had not held him in her arms since he had been torn from them in the slave market in Damascus. Now it was almost as if he were that little six-year-old again. Except he was so heavy. . . .

  Within the hour Katzouroubis was back, accompanied by a stocky man with a square face and stubby fingers. The surgeon spoke no French at all, and only nodded briefly to Beatrice before he rolled up his sleeves and started laying out his instruments on the little table.

  Beatrice felt Jos tense in her arms, and the terror on his face was so eloquent that she almost asked the surgeon to go away. Katzouroubis, however, came over and patted her shoulder. “It’s time for you to leave him with us, Madame,” he told her in French. “I have a very potent sedative.”

  Beatrice nodded, but countered, “I’ll stay at least until he’s asleep.”

  “Very well, but we’ll need some wine—”

  “I don’t drink wine,” Jos protested, rubbing away the tears pouring from his nose with the back of his hand.

  Katzouroubis snorted. “We’ll see about that. Bring me both water and wine, Madame.”

  Beatrice reluctantly withdrew, hobbling on the leg that had gone to sleep. A part of her was terrified that by leaving she would break the spell, and Jos would reject her again when she returned. She hurried to the kitchen and was received there by a flutter of agitation. The new kitchen staff was eager to prove they were efficient. They shooed her out with assurances that the wine and water would be brought to her shortly.

  She hurried back, relieved by their diligence, as it shortened the time she was separated from Jos. As she re-entered, the boy cast her a look of relief and almost desperate welcome. The enchantment hadn’t broken! She sat again on the head of the bed and took him back into her arms. He was trembling with fear.

  The water and wine arrived, and the doctor poured water into a pottery goblet, added a powdered mixture into the water, and brought it over to Jos. “Here.”

  Jos brought it to his lips but then he drew back, making a face and holding his breath. “That smells vile!” he told the doctor in outrage.

  “It does, doesn’t it?” Katzouroubis answered. “Now, you should know as well as I do that the Koran explicitly allows wine if it is necessary for one’s health. This is one of those times.”

  Jos took a deep breath and nodded assent. The doctor returned to the table and mixed the powder into red wine. He brought this to Jos, and the boy reluctantly but dutifully took one sip at a time until he had drained the goblet to the last dregs. By then he had already stopped trembling and his breathing was becoming deeper, his pulse slower. “Everything’s going to be fine, Jos,” Beatrice assured him, bending to kiss his forehead under the tousled hair. (How often had she longed to do that in the last seven years?)

  “Help me, Mama. Please. Help me.” The words were just a whisper, and Jos’s arms were too weak to hold her, but he had chained her to him: these were the words he had screamed in terror as the slave trader tore him out of her arms. She had tried to cling to him, but the men in the market had closed in around her, kicking her legs out from under her and then kicking her in the gut, the back, the head, and the breast until the slave trader himself called them off. When he yanked her back onto her feet, bleeding from her nose, half crippled from the pain in her ribs and her kidneys, the man who had pulled six-year-old Jos after him by ropes around the child’s wrists was nowhere to be seen. She had not seen Jos again until she arrived in Tyre after the Truce of Ramla.

  “I really don’t think you should stay, Madame,” Katzouroubis told her soberly. “This is going to be a very delicate operation, and there is going to be a lot of blood.”

  “I don’t care,” Beatrice told him softly, smiling down at the sleeping boy in her arms. “You can blindfold me if you like, but I want to stay here holding him.”

  “Hmm.” Katzouroubis took a deep breath and then nodded. “Then at least close your eyes, Madame.”

  “No, I’ll just focus on Jos,” she told him.

&nbs
p; With another sigh and a shake of his head the doctor turned his attention to supporting the surgeon, who was ready to proceed.

  The operation took a long time. The sunlight stopped flooding the little room as the sun moved westward, and the temperature grew chilly. The doctor and surgeon spoke only Greek to one another, which was just as well, since that way Beatrice could not tell exactly what they were doing. She was conscious only that the surgeon gave the orders, and that the learned doctor responded by bringing tweezers and clamps, string, or gauze as required. The physician also daubed away the blood again and again, throwing the bloody rags away to apply more until there was a heap of bloody gauze near the door. Finally he laid cobwebs into the wound, and then bandaged it up again and replaced the splints.

  “We have done the best we can,” he assured Beatrice, washing his hands clean in a bowl of water as the surgeon packed away his instruments. “Only time will tell if it was adequate.”

  “How long before he wakes?” Beatrice asked, gently extricating herself and stretching her cramped muscles.

  “I expect it will be three or four hours, maybe even six. He needs the sleep, and when he comes to he will be in acute pain. I have left two doses of painkiller on the table. Mix them with a large glass of wine and give him something light to eat. No fat, no meat or fish, just bread and something fresh: figs are very good, grapes, or plums.”

  Beatrice nodded; she thanked the physician profusely and the surgeon, too. The latter nodded matter-of-factly and seemed in a hurry to go, but Beatrice clung to Katzouroubis’ hand. “What you said to him, sir, about respecting his mother—how can I ever thank you? I mean, it wasn’t the first time it was said to him—my father and the Lord of Ibelin both punished him for insulting me—but it never had any effect before.”