The Last Crusader Kingdom

by Helena P. Schrader

  He stepped back out into the storm, but had not gone more than a score of paces before a figure in the black robes of a priest emerged out of the freezing rain. With relief John recognized the man coming towards him by his white beard whipping in the wind. “Father Andronikos! Thank God! My mother and father have come to see you, but we got caught in the storm. They’re in the church.”

  “Janis, wasn’t it? Lord Aimery’s squire?”

  “Yes, it’s me. I’m sorry I didn’t come back sooner, but—it’s a long story. My parents are with me now.”

  “Didn’t you say your mother was Maria Comnena?” the priest asked.

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Merciful heavens! And riding about in this weather? Hurry!” The priest stretched his stride and John had to scurry to keep up. They burst back into the church, and the priest focused quickly on the only woman among them. He strode straight to her, and bowing his head he went down on one knee. “My lady! It is an honor to welcome you to my humble church, but in this weather I fear that I must offer you the hospitality of my even more humble home. Please! Come! Come!” He was back on his feet and gesturing for them all to follow him.

  There was no resistance. Not only did the travelers welcome any place with a hearth, Father Andronikos himself exuded goodwill. Despite the circumstances, John felt that they had been right to press on with the journey.

  Father Andronikos’ house was directly beside the church and only a little better than the peasant cottages. It did, however, have a large fire already blazing around large logs. Indeed, it was warm and dry and smelled of fresh-baked bread. A middle-aged woman with an ample bosom and an even more generous lower half looked up astonished as the visitors crowded in, but taking her cue from Father Andronikos, she gestured everyone in to the fire in a motherly fashion. John, remembering the horses, told his host they had to get them to shelter.

  “My stable’s too small for six of your big horses. We’ll have to distribute them. I’ll show you!” Father Andronikos went back out into the storm with John, Amalric, and Georgios. Each youth collected two horses. They left Ibelin and his lady’s horse in Andronikos’ own small goat and donkey shed, then took the others to the animal sheds of neighbors. By the time they returned to Andronikos’ home, Maria Zoë had already been supplied with a complete change of clothes and sat by the fire in the overly abundant linen robes of her hostess, while her own gown, surcoat, and cloak were spread out on the bed in the adjacent room to dry. Ibelin and Sir Galvin, meanwhile, had stripped down to their braies and draped their hose, shirts, gambesons, and surcoats over other pieces of furniture, while their chain-mail hauberks were spread out on the flagstone apron of the hearth.

  “Better get out of your wet things,” Ibelin advised his son and squires. “I don’t want you catching a cold.”

  John was not reluctant to comply, as his clothes now clung to him like icy plaster. He found a stool near the door into the kitchen, and sat to remove his wet things one layer at a time. Just as he got down to his shirt and hauled it up over his head to stand naked from the waist up, he found himself face to face with the most beautiful female he had ever seen in his life. She was gazing at him with a tray loaded with pottery mugs and a steaming pitcher. By the smell, she was bringing hot cider to the chilled guests. As their eyes met, she blushed such a bright red that John felt instantly ashamed of his nakedness. He held his wet shirt helplessly over his naked chest, but the girl had already turned away to offer the objects on her tray to Maria Zoë. Father Andronikos smiled broadly at the sight of her and announced proudly, “Here is my daughter Eirini.”

  “Ah,” Maria Zoë smiled at the girl, “let us hope that is an omen, for we have come on a mission of peace, Father.”

  “I know, my lady,” Father Andronikos smiled back at her, his arm encircling his daughter’s slender waist as he spoke.

  Maria Zoë was duly astonished and asked, “How can you know that, Father?”

  “Would a queen ride through this weather with only two armed men to bring war? I have hoped ever since I heard you had landed on the island that you would be a peacemaker, for you have been both Greek and Frank and can see both sides.”

  Ibelin cleared his throat to indicate he wanted a translation. With a nod to his mother, John hastened over to his father’s side, went down on his haunches, and whispered a translation in a low voice. From this position his own scrawny nakedness was hidden from Andronikos’ beautiful daughter by his father’s broader figure, but he had a clear view of Eirini as she poured the cider for his mother.

  Meanwhile Father Andronikos was continuing, “Of course, I couldn’t be sure what role you would play. Some royal women are more concerned with their wealth, dignity, and pleasure than the people they rule. Such was the wife of Isaac Comnenus. But when Janis said you were in my church, then I knew you had come in peace.”

  “Point out,” Ibelin urged his son after this was translated, “that in the state we’re in, anyone who wishes us harm will have child’s play cutting us to pieces.”

  John demurred. “He knows that, Papa.”

  Meanwhile, Maria Zoë was remarking cautiously, “I am glad to do what I can, Father, but you must not think I come on my own. Lord Aimery de Lusignan bade my lord husband see what he could do.” She gestured to her husband while John translated, shifting a little more to his father’s rear to secure more cover as Eirini also looked in their direction.

  Father Andronikos nodded earnestly. “That is even better news, my lady. I welcome you both,” he continued, bowing deeply to Ibelin, and Eirini hurried to bring the tray to her father’s guest. As the elder Ibelin reached out and poured himself a portion of cider from the pitcher, the girl peered around him toward John and smiled. “You too, sir?” she asked in a whisper.

  John’s throat constricted so sharply it was impossible to get out more than a croaked “parakalo!” (Please.)

  Eirini smiled and brought the tray closer. John had no choice but to surrender some of his cover to reach out, take a mug, and help himself to the cider. He thanked Eirini as she, with another smile, continued to Georgios and Amalric.

  Father Andronikos, meanwhile, looked about, found a vacant stool, and brought it closer to the fire, so he could sit down at his visitors’ feet. “Please tell me, my lord, how you think a humble priest such as I can help.”

  When the priest’s words had been translated, Ibelin nodded to his wife and authorized her to explain rather than insisting on continuous translation. Maria Zoë started carefully, “We have reason to believe, Father, that certain members of the Greek Church on this island are hostile to Frankish rule here. Even before the Templars came, a priest tried to foment rebellion, posing as a Comnenus Emperor,” she reminded him.

  “He had no support, or very little,” Father Andronikos countered.

  “Not among the population, perhaps, but what about in the Church? Wasn’t he a priest?”

  Father Andronikos shook his head. “There was no hostility here until the Templars came. They behaved very badly.”

  “Just what did they do, Father?”

  “They imposed new taxes, and when the senior tax collectors came to them collectively—all worthy men with many years of loyal service—to explain that the new taxes violated King Richard’s promise to rule by the laws of Manuel I, the Templars had them flogged and put in the stocks as if they were criminals. Men with long beards and university degrees!”

  Maria Zoë asked John to translate this for his father, and only when he was finished and Balian nodded understanding did she urge Father Andronikos to continue. “What happened next?”

  “At first, nothing. Tax collectors are not popular, even if in this case they were representing the interests of taxpayers rather than the Crown. But soon the Templars noticed that they were getting no revenues at all—much less new ones.”

  Maria Zoë nodded and gestured for John to translate again.

  “And then?” she asked when her son finished.


  “Then the Templars sent some of their men out to key sources of revenue—to the harbor masters at Limassol and Kyrenia, to the millers and bakers in Nicosia, and to important oil and wine presses round about. Everywhere, they broke into the homes and seized all the valuables the owners had. They roughed-handled the men and their servants and mocked the women.”

  Maria Zoë nodded and paused again for translation, which John provided his father.

  “But again,” Father Andronikos continued, “these were rich men, and there were many who may have felt they got only what they deserved. At the start of Lent, however, there was an incident in which the Templars, returning late one evening, found their way blocked by crowds gathered in front of St. Michael’s. The people had come together innocently to hear Mass and had simply collected in such numbers that they overflowed into the street, blocking the road. The Templars rode into the crowd, ordering people out of the way, and lashing out at them with their sheathed swords. When a priest protested the rough treatment of peaceful Christians gathered to honor Our Lord, one of the Templars grabbed him by the beard so firmly that he pulled him clear off the ground. Several young men came to his assistance, and the Templars beat them back with so much force that one had to be admitted to hospital with a concussion, and another lost several teeth. The—”

  “Stop.” Maria Zoë held up her hand. “I need to tell this to my husband.” This time she handled the translation herself, while Father Andronikos watched the baron’s face closely. At first his face was impassive and well controlled, but at one point in the flood of French narrative, he flinched and then frowned until his wife finished speaking. She turned back to Father Andronikos and told him to continue.

  “The word of this incident spread like wildfire through the city, and people started getting agitated. After that the Templars could not ride anywhere without people shouting insults at them—from a distance. Sometimes stones or refuse were thrown as well, but always from behind or from overhead. When the Templars turned around or looked up, no one was visible anymore.”

  Maria Zoë translated this, and her husband nodded grimly. At her signal, Father Andronikos continued. “As Easter approached, the mood was getting uglier and uglier. A group of young men got very drunk one night and came out to ‘serenade’ the Templars with a silly drinking song in which they compared the Templars to—don’t ask me why!—she-goats in one stanza and accused them of sodomy in the next. Apparently they assumed there was no one among the Templars who understood Greek. Unfortunately, they were wrong. The Templars understood and were enraged. They sent their sergeants out to arrest the youths, chasing them through the streets of Nicosia until they had caught a half-dozen of them, although allegedly two escaped. The youths they captured were mishandled, and then made to stand naked in stocks in front of the commandery for two days and a night. Several of them, it turns out, were from very good families, and their parents were treated with contempt when they tried to intercede.” He stopped and nodded for Maria Zoë to translate.

  The Baron of Ibelin sat back in his chair, the warmth from the fire now sufficient to make him comfortable in his half-naked state. His expression was resigned, and he nodded now and again at his wife’s words.

  “Then on Good Friday, the devil must have possessed them. Four Templar Knights, including their commander, burst into the cathedral during Mass and, shoving the Archbishop roughly aside, started shouting at the people that they were “schismatics” and “heretics” who would soon learn to “pray properly.” It was like tossing a torch into a haystack. All at once everyone was shouting at the Templars that they were the schismatics and heretics. Then something snapped, and they fell on the Templars with the force of numbers and ripped their weapons off them before they could be used. They tore off their tunics and their armor, and—kicking and beating them—drove them out of the cathedral.”

  John hastily provided the translation this time, nodding when he had finished. Father Andronikos continued, “Humiliated, the four Templars staggered and dragged themselves back to the commandery, hounded the entire way by men still spitting and insulting them. They made it inside, but by morning the Templars found themselves completely surrounded by a mob that was larger by far than the one that had hounded them the night before. The mob started to smash windows and batter the gate with an improvised battering ram. Furthermore, they were calling for blood. The Archbishop had retired to his home, still shaken by the rough-handling he had endured during Mass the night before. Other voices of reason were intimidated by a mob that was clearly set on violence. The majority were being egged on and riled up by the more volatile elements in the population—journeymen and sailors, teamsters, even some of Isaac Comnenus’ Armenian mercenaries, the ones who had married locally and remained. They brought out their crossbows and began firing at the Templars whenever one of them showed himself.” At a signal from Maria Zoë, Father Andronikos halted so John could provide the translation. As John finished, he drank his mug empty, and Eirini hastened over to refill it with a shy smile.

  John thanked her in kind, while her father resumed his narrative. “The Templars raised a white flag and requested a safe-conduct to the coast, but there was no real leader of the mob. Besides, many of the young men suspected a trick; at least, that’s what I was later told. Maybe they were simply full of hubris and believed they could truly eliminate the Templars. There were, after all, only fourteen knights and twenty sergeants altogether, supported by fifty or sixty lay brothers.” As John translated this he watched his father’s expression carefully, and saw him nod at the numbers.

  Father Andronikos took up the narrative again. “Thinking they had nothing to lose, the Templars, I am told, confessed their sins and heard Mass. Then, at the hour of dawn on Easter Sunday, they armed themselves, mounted their war horses, and sortied out of their commandery. By then most of the crowd had dispersed and gone home to welcome the Resurrection. The sortie was actually quite unnecessary.”

  Maria Zoë nodded agreement while John translated.

  “Tragically, the Templars confused the crowds of people on their way to Easter morning Mass with the rioters of the day and night before. They rode them down with leveled lances. Enraged witnesses rallied to fight them, storming out of all the surrounding streets with whatever weapons they could grab. The Templars were better armed, however, and by now they were fighting with fury or desperation or both. In the end they all escaped, leaving behind sixty-eight dead and more than a hundred injured. Among the dead were six women and eleven children trampled by God knows whom in the confusion.” Father Andronikos ended with a deep sigh, and sat looking very sad as John provided the translation.

  “The Templars seem to attract some singularly stupid men,” Ibelin noted when John finished the translation. “In addition to Gerard de Ridefort, of justifiably infamous reputation,” Ibelin noted, “I met this Arnaud de Bouchart, the Templar commander here. Without self-reflection or self-doubt, he blamed all the trouble here on the Cypriots, calling them ‘mad dogs’ and saying they were totally ‘ungovernable.’ He predicted Guy would fail, by the way.”

  Maria Zoë translated her husband’s remarks for Father Andronikos, who nodded understanding before explaining additionally: “After this incident the population turned vehemently anti-Latin. When King Guy landed with his few men, no one was willing to see them as anything other than a continuation of Templar rule. Many believed they had only come to make way for a return of the Templars, a view reinforced by the re-establishment of a Templar presence at Gastria and in Limassol. Certainly no one was prepared to pay taxes, tolls, or customs duties to him.” He paused for the translation and then continued.

  “And what can I say? Tragically, Lusignan proved even worse than the Templars. While the Templars had broken in to men’s houses to take the monies they wanted, Lusignan sent out troops not only to collect money, but also to punish the recalcitrant. He burned down the houses of those who refused to pay taxes. When his men were ambushed by outraged inha
bitants—or more commonly, when Cypriots took out their anger on the Italian merchants—Lusignan responded by sending out more men, who took hostages or burned and slaughtered whole villages in retribution. The spiral of violence has continued ever since.” Father Andronikos shook his head in distress and sadness.

  John, however, stood up, his thighs and calves aching from squatting so long, and announced proudly, “There has been no retribution for the fire at Kolossi, and there won’t be! King Guy is dead, and Lord Aimery is different.”

  John’s father looked up at him suspiciously and asked his wife, “Is John speaking out of turn?”

  “Not really—if a little rashly,” she assured her husband with a smile. Then, turning to Father Andronikos, she noted, “We are very grateful to you for your candid explanation of what happened here. It will, I hope, help us find a solution. What my son says is right: Lord Aimery de Lusignan is a very different man from his brother.”

  “We have seen no evidence of that,” Father Andronikos answered soberly. “Has he not just ordered the arrest and incarceration of a worthy abbot and seven brothers?”

  “Actually,” Maria Zoë answered, slowly sipping her cider, “he didn’t. Certain lords who are impatient carried out the arrest without Lord Aimery’s knowledge, much less consent.”

  Father Andronikos didn’t answer, but his eyes were fixed on Maria Zoë, watching for some indication that she was dissembling.

  She continued, “And now someone has seized a Frankish lord, Humphrey de Toron, and we have received an anonymous threat to his life.”

  Father Andronikos raised his eyebrows, sat up straighter, and smiled to his daughter. “Go help your mother with the bread,” he suggested, and she scurried away, hastily loading empty mugs on her tray as she went. Andronikos said nothing even after she was gone, however, and Maria Zoë was compelled to ask, “Have you heard of this?”