The Last Crusader Kingdom

by Helena P. Schrader

  Her cries inevitably woke the children, and Burgundia would put her arms around her to calm her. Apparently she called out to Aimery in her sleep, because each time Burgundia assured her, “Papa is coming to free us. I know he is.”

  To which Eschiva could only reply that yes, she was sure, too—although her nightmares seemed to belie her faith.

  Suddenly men were bursting into the room with drawn swords—but they weren’t Aimery’s men. They wore unfamiliar armor and were speaking Greek. They seemed initially confused, until someone saw her and pointed. His commander stormed over to the bed, his sword still raised. Eschiva stared up at that blade and started to pray.

  As suddenly as he had entered, he sheathed his sword and asked in hesitant French, “Ma dame, vous êtes Madame de Lusignan?” (“Are you Madame de Lusignan?)

  “Oui, je suis,” (yes, I am) she answered him.

  The man looked immensely relieved. “I come to rescue you,” he declared in his broken French. But no sooner were the words out of his mouth than he frowned and, looking around, started giving orders angrily. Moments later the two women were brought into the chamber and roughly flung on their knees. Eschiva protested. “Monsieur, don’t punish them! They were only doing what they were told. They have taken care of us as best they could. They have been kind.”

  The commander nodded but continued to berate the women, who looked very frightened.

  Eventually, after what seemed like several hours of chaos, Eschiva found herself again on a stretcher, but this time the front was tied to one horse and the back to another, and in this improvised horse litter she began a new journey. Little Aimery was held in front of the saddle of one of the men, and her daughters were both riding pillion behind other men. Eschiva still had no idea exactly what was happening, beyond the assurance of the commander that he had come to rescue her.

  They spent one night in another farmhouse, where the inhabitants were clearly in a state of alarm over their unexpected guests, but on the following night they arrived in a small town. Here Eschiva and the children were handed over to the care of nuns, and by the next morning Eschiva found that she and her daughters were the recipients of silk underwear, silk gowns, velvet surcoats, fur-lined cloaks, dainty slippers, sheepskin boots, silk scarves, and fur-lined hoods, as well as combs, soaps, perfume, and rouge for lips and cheeks. Where this wealth had come from she did not know, but she suspected it had been arbitrarily confiscated from some innocent individuals who had the misfortune of being roughly the same size as the captives.

  Furthermore, in place of the two peasant women who had kindly tended them in the farmhouse, two hussies of dubious virtue were sent to attend them. The nuns were disapproving, but the women were assertive. They appeared determined to make Eschiva and her daughters look like they had been visiting at the court in Constantinople, rather than imprisoned in the hold of a ship and then at a peasant farmhouse.

  After these women were finished dressing up the captives in their new finery, Eschiva and her children were escorted to a real horse litter, painted brightly red and gold and hung with damask curtains. Sitting two to a seat facing each other, they set off yet again. There could be little doubt, however, that whatever their next destination was, their fortunes had taken a turn for the better.

  It was a four-day journey by horse litter from wherever they had been to Corycos. Nor would the Lusignans, who had never been there, have known where they were if their escort had not been intent on informing them.

  “Corycos?” Burgundia asked. “Where’s that, Mama? I’ve never heard of it.”

  “Cilicia,” Eschiva answered. She was not feeling well. Sitting upright all day in the horse litter left her dizzy and lightheaded to the point of nausea. She tried to swallow it down and did not want her daughters to notice. Fortunately, there was so much commotion outside the horse litter that even Burgundia did not seem aware of her mother’s state.

  “All these people,” the eleven-year-old exclaimed excitedly. “They’re cheering and waving. You don’t think it’s because of us, do you?”

  Eschiva forced herself to open her eyes and pull back the curtains to peek outside. Burgundia was right. The streets appeared to be lined with cheering crowds! Eschiva couldn’t remember anything like it since King Baldwin’s coronation—and to top it all off, trumpets were blowing.

  Eschiva again risked a look out of the curtains. The people on the side of the road were throwing their hats in the air or waving them over their heads. The little cavalcade came to a halt, and Eschiva’s view was blocked by a big chestnut horse. The horse fretted, and the rider, in splendid armor and velvet cloak, flung himself to the ground. “I think we are about to be greeted by someone important,” Eschiva told her children, pulling back into the horse litter and letting the curtains drop into place so they could prepare themselves. “Aimery! Stop picking your nose and try to look like a young nobleman! Helvis, sit up straighter!”

  From beyond the curtains a voice intoned, “Madame de Lusignan, welcome to Armenia. We assure you of the most gracious hospitality our humble land can provide until your husband arrives to escort you home.”

  Eschiva appreciated that the man had not simply flung back the curtains as he might have done: this was a civilized man.

  Taking a deep breath to collect and steady herself, she pulled back the curtains to smile out at the speaker. “Thank you, my lord, from the bottom of my heart. Thank you!” What else was she supposed to say? The world seemed to be spinning around her again. Everything was happening so fast.

  Something moved behind the splendidly dressed man in the velvet cloak, but Eschiva had to close her eyes against the dizziness. She heard Burgundia explaining apologetically in an earnest child’s voice, “Forgive her, my lord. My Mama is not well.”

  “I’m fine,” Eschiva protested weakly. “I’m just—”

  “Hush.” The voice was deep and close, and so familiar that Eschiva caught her breath in disbelief. It was a voice from her childhood, the voice of comfort in all her early nightmares. Even when the Saracens sacked Ibelin, he had ridden to the rescue. His hand was on her shoulder—dry and wiry but warm and reassuring. Eschiva’s eyes flickered open to be absolutely certain this was no hallucination. “Uncle Balian?”

  “Yes, ’chiva, I’m here. Don’t worry. You’re safe with my lord of Armenia, and now that we have seen you safely in our hands, we’ll send word to Aimery. You’re almost home.” He squeezed her shoulder, and Eschiva sank back against the seat of the horse litter with tears of relief running down her face.

  Kyrenia, March 1196

  The harbor was packed with galleys, so many that not all could come alongside and several were moored beam to beam, clogging the harbor. The quay was hardly less busy, as scores of men were preparing to go aboard the waiting ships, and the last chests laden with gifts for Leo of Armenia were being carried precariously over the gangways.

  John had been sent to stable his mother’s and his own horse at the castle, but there had been no room left. Obviously, for the Dowager Queen they would have thrown some of the other horses out, but John preferred to take the horses to a good livery stable around the corner. He knew the proprietor and grooms at this establishment and trusted them more than the overworked castle grooms in the service of Barlais. Almost as important, he knew they’d look after Barry, too. (His beloved dog had been banned from this expedition.) But the diversion cost him a half-hour, and by the time he returned to the quay, King Aimery and his immediate entourage were preparing to embark.

  John hurried around the edge of the curving harbor, dodging excited dogs, crates, and barrels of cargo awaiting ships displaced by the galleys. An attractive woman in a shawl smiled at him and he nodded to her, before he remembered where he’d seen her before: in the brothel. It was the madam who had mocked Haakon Magnussen, and John flushed to think he (a knight!) had acknowledged her in public. It was bad enough that he recognized her, but to dignify her with a greeting was terribly gauche.

&n
bsp; Still flustered by his mistake, John joined the party clustered around Lord Aimery, which included his mother. Maria Zoë was dressed for the sea voyage in practical gray-green cotton under a surcoat of forest-colored damask and a woolen cloak trimmed with beaver against the expected chill of the ocean air. The cloak appeared quite superfluous at the moment, however, as the sun was blazing down on them from a cloudless sky. Beyond the breakwater, the ocean glistened like a flat blue disk just lightly textured by a steady but moderate breeze.

  The fine warm weather also mocked the Bordelais shipmaster, who appeared to be trying to dissuade Aimery from boarding. The sight of the Frenchman commanding this impressive array of ships sent a stab through John’s heart. He still could not grasp that Magnussen was dead. In some part of his imagination, John had believed the Norseman was immortal, a man of legend more than flesh and blood, the kind of eternal hero that cannot die.

  John was certain that Magnussen would have put to sea in a raging storm—let alone on a day like this—but the Frenchman was whining, “… Something’s brewing.” He frowned at the beautiful sky. “This is very early in the season for crossing—”

  “We’re not sailing for Sicily or France, for God’s sake,” Aimery retorted irritably. “We’re only crossing from here to Corycos. That’s little more than a hundred nautical miles, I’m told.”

  “Yes, we should be able to make the crossing in a day, but I’m not so sure about the return. This sunny calm won’t last for long this time of year.”

  “Then no more dithering!” Aimery commanded. “I have sent word ahead to the good Lord of Armenia that I am coming with many notables to bring my lady and children home! I am not going to break my word—much less leave my bride and children in a stranger’s hands a day longer—most especially not for a storm that no one can even see!” He turned from the evidently insulted seaman, took Maria Zoë firmly by the elbow, and guided her across the gangplank to the deck of his flagship.

  Behind them, Dick de Camville followed quickly—but Philip, either to prove a point or in answer to a dare, tried to jump from the quay onto the railing of the ship without using the gangplank. He almost made it, started to fall backwards, and grabbed one of the lines tied up to the nearest pin rail to keep from falling. The line, however, was only loosely made fast, and Philip found himself spinning just above the level of the dock, hanging on like a terrified monkey. The incident attracted the attention of the sailors, who started hooting—while young Guy de Lusignan, who was being left behind, was laughing himself silly at his friend’s precarious position.

  “Philip!” John shouted angrily as he strode over. He grabbed hold of the line above his brother’s frantic clasp, and stopped the swing and spin of the rope. Philip let go of his hold to drop onto the quay, with a heartfelt, “Thanks, John.”

  “What the devil got into you?” John scolded. “This is no time for pranks and games!”

  Philip, who had been genuinely grateful for his brother’s intervention, now frowned and snapped, “Oh, leave me alone! I’m just getting my sea legs!”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about!” John snapped back. “Hurry! They’re preparing to cast off!”

  The brothers rushed together over the gangway, and the sailors standing by on either side hauled it in as their feet touched the deck. Forward, the lines were being cast off and the forward oars eased out to shove the bows gently away from the quay. Within a quarter-hour they had cleared the harbor and set sail, while the five remaining ships in their little flotilla straggled out of the harbor behind them.

  Lusignan and his party were traveling on a big three-masted galley, an example of the finest and most modern of ships now coming off the skids of European shipyards from Tynemouth to Florence. The great seaborne expeditions to the Holy Land financed by the Kings of England and France in the last decade had given a dramatic boost to shipbuilding across Europe. Perhaps more important, they had given young naval architects an opportunity to demonstrate the advantages of their sometimes radical designs. This ship had no less than fifty-two oar-banks, twenty-six per side, which could each be manned by two men. She also carried three lateen sails on her three masts, the aftermost of which was stepped just ahead of a wheel rather than a tiller. The latter stood in front of a two-story deckhouse that provided luxury accommodations for a limited number of passengers, and more basic accommodations for the officers. The crew, both sailors and rowers, slept forward, in a lower and less solid deckhouse on the foredeck.

  Lord Aimery had selected this ship to bring Eschiva and the children home because of the gracious accommodations, but Maria Zoë, no less than John, preferred to stay on the roof of those accommodations rather than go below. This was where the captain or his officers kept watch, as it provided a splendid overview of the entire length of the vessel, right to the low-lying bow with its long snout. The latter butted into the small waves, sending showers of spray upwards, but John found it stiff and awkward compared to the elegant, upward curving bow of the Storm Bird.

  “It’s a ram,” his mother told him, when he grumbled about how ugly it looked. “It can be used to pierce the side of an enemy vessel and sink it. It is based on the ships of the ancient Greeks. The snecka, in contrast, is essentially a Viking ship, designed to allow men to navigate up rivers and for beaching. A snecka cannot fight at sea.”

  “Magnussen could certainly fight with it!” John reacted as if his mother had insulted the dead Norseman.

  “Magnussen used his ship as a fighting platform to launch his men against other crews, but he did not fight with the ship itself,” his mother corrected.

  With a sigh, John drew aside to grieve for his lost friend by staring out at the sea Magnussen had loved. He stood sharing the dead man’s love for the endlessly shifting surface of the water, the play of light and shadow, and the unique smell of salt water on wind. Later John stood at the break of the poop to watch the helmsman for a while, wishing he could try his hand at the wheel, but he didn’t dare ask. Lord Aimery wanted the fastest possible crossing, and that meant leaving the helm to the professionals.

  They had a light midday meal below deck, and Maria Zoë remained there for the afternoon to escape the intensity of the sun. Only after they sighted land off their larboard bows late in the afternoon did she return on deck. The sun was behind them now as they steadily swept along the shore of Cilicia, the wind freshening across their larboard quarter. It was, in fact, ideal conditions for sailing and they were making at least ten knots, John estimated, trying to remember everything Magnussen had told him about judging the speed of a ship by its wake and the bubbles rushing by the side.

  On land, the bright banners streaming from the towers of irregular fortifications dipped in apparent greeting, and as they swung north into the harbor of Corycos itself, they were greeted by fanfares of trumpets from both the island castle and the shore-side towers. They handed sail to take speed off the vessel and manned the oars to ensure maximum maneuverability.

  A bright red tender flying a red banner with a lion rampant on it started toward them. A man standing braced against one of the benches signaled the Frankish galley to follow and then led them into a quay at which, with great pomp, a large number of people waited. There were priests and monks with silver incense burners, knights in gleaming armor, and ladies in bright-colored dresses. All looked very magnificent, yet there was still no mistaking Leo himself. He was dressed in jewel-studded robes, a massive sword in a jewel-encrusted scabbard at his hip.

  Maria Zoë grumbled in an aside to John that they had not been warned they would be met at the quay; she had expected to have time to change before meeting the Armenian lord. She disappeared briefly below deck to brush the snarls out of her hair, re-braid it, and change into shimmering silk veils, but none of the rest of them took the time to make any adjustments in their appearance.

  Lord Aimery was standing very tensely at the poop rail, his eyes narrowed and his jaw set as he scanned the crowds for Eschiva and his chi
ldren. “I can’t see them!” he growled in exasperation to Maria Zoë.

  “I don’t think they’re there,” she assured him, scanning the crowd herself as the galley moved closer, half the oars already shipped to reduce speed. “No. They must have remained at the palace or wherever the feast will be. There’s Balian, beside and behind the Lord of Armenia.” She pointed, adding, “He would surely be with Eschiva if she were here.”

  Aimery made a grimace that reflected just how worried he remained. Balian’s report had stressed that Eschiva had suffered no assault or abuse, but also that she was very weak and badly shaken by the experience. He had also related that the pirates had deliberately lied to her, saying Hugh had drowned, and she had grieved intensely for an infant she believed lost. She had almost not believed Balian’s assurances that Erik Andersen had managed to rescue the boy and bring him to Nicosia. Aimery, however, also knew that Balian was unlikely to have told him everything. Indeed, Eschiva herself would not have admitted all that she went through. He was tormented by his own imagination of what she must have undergone.

  John, on the other hand, was suffering from a sense of deep shame that his father and Lord Aimery and even, exceptionally, his mother looked so plain and dowdy in the presence of this Armenian lord and his nobles. They were all in silks, velvets, and gold embroidery, while the Lusignans and Ibelins were dressed in cotton and linen. In John’s eyes his father was every bit as important as the Armenian prince, but although his father stood a head taller, he managed to hang back and give the impression of being a mere servant.