She stopped; she stood, frozen, not breathing, while they crashed by on either side; a horse brushed against her and she staggered, but they were away and she went only to one knee. They hurtled on past the tents and on to the fighting down the slope. An arrow slapped into the farthest tent, and then another, but stuck halfway through, only making the cloth shake. She fled across to the narrow opening into the church tent.
Much bigger than Johanna’s, this tent was deep and dark, except for a space near the back where a lamp glowed. That was the altar. Around it the young Queen and her maids were huddled, praying. As Edythe came in, Berengaria’s thin white face tipped up toward her.
“What is? What does?”
“We’re being attacked,” Edythe said. “Queen Johanna says we should all be together. She wants you to come there.”
Berengaria licked her lips; she cast a look at the two Navarrese women and then faced Edythe again. “No. We stay. God help us. No other.”
Edythe said, “No, please, you must—”
“I stay.” Berengaria bent over her hands again, praying. Edythe gave up and went back to the tent’s front opening.
Outside, in the dark, the crash and uproar of the battle sounded as if it were rolling toward them up the slope. The wide open space before her was trampled but empty. There were no sentries before the church, and the men who were supposed to guard Johanna’s tent were gone, too, the torch dead on the ground. That meant Johanna was alone. She started forward, but before she had taken a step, three men dashed up from the rear of the camp into the open.
They whirled for an instant to look back, their faces hagridden, and then raced away. After them, between the tents, half a dozen others struggled toward her, marching backward, spread out in a line, still trying to defend themselves. On foot, they lashed out with swords and daggers and even a broken lance. They could not hold back the enemy; a shrieking wave of horsemen in fluttering white robes hounded them up the slope, and one by one the men on foot were going down.
Edythe could not move. These oncoming horsemen were Saracens, killing her people, and they would be on her in a moment. She felt nailed to the ground, struggling even to breathe. Johanna, she thought. Johanna. Then two black horses hurtled in between this tent and the next. Their riders’ white surcoats shone like sails in the dark. They swung their lances down and charged straight past the retreating Christians into the Saracens.
Edythe yelled, breathless. Before the two black knights the white-robed Saracens looked suddenly small and frail, and the knights plowed into them like a row of dolls and rolled them back all down onto the slope, past the tents. In a moment the space between the tents was clear, except for two bodies lying twisted in the open. Edythe darted swiftly to the nearer, to see if she could help him, but she knew at a glance he was dead. The other was dead, too. She straightened. Around her was quiet and nothing moved, but in the distance rose a thousand-throated screech. Drums thundered. Johanna. She glanced quickly over her shoulder toward the Queen’s tent, saw nothing, and turned back toward the battle.
The sun had not risen but the air was brightening. On her left, past the King of France’s tent, she could see all along the snaking line of the ridge toward the sea. The fighting raged along it, in the murk of dawn one great mass of tangled thrashing shadows; she saw an arm rise, and a horse rear up, and sometimes a helmet, but everything else was a single broad seething struggle, as if it all dissolved into that black rift. Steadily more knights galloped up through the camp behind her and disappeared into the fighting. A riderless horse plunged along the ridge a few strides, reins flying, and on its own turned and charged into the battle.
Then Berengaria was coming toward her, the two Navarrese women stumbling and lamenting after her. The Queen’s face was white. She held her skirts up in both hands and picked her way across the ground, going wide around the two tangled bodies. Edythe straightened, her hands out, and from between the tents Johanna hurried across the open ground toward them.
They all came together at once. Johanna’s face shone; she cried out, “What’s going on? Where have you been?” She flung her arms around them. “They’ve abandoned us—the guards have disappeared.”
“Hurry,” Edythe said. Berengaria had her tight by the hand, and she curled her free arm through Johanna’s and drew them all toward the nearest shelter, the side wall of the French King’s tent where it came down so close to King Guy’s. From this space all they could see was stained canvas and a slice of the sky turning pale above them. Nearby a man screamed, and a horn began to bray, over and over.
Berengaria crossed herself. Johanna pushed on toward the far gap between the tents, and Edythe followed her. From the opening they could see down the long slope. Off to the east a thin line of red showed between the night and the day. The sun’s new light spilled over the edge of the world, casting enormous shadows over the trampled ground. Still in darkness, the fighting boiled through the ravine at the far foot of the slope.
Johanna whispered, “Armageddon.” She reached back and clutched Edythe’s hand. Berengaria had come up behind them, close, her shawl around her.
But it was over now. The battle was over, just men running now, in the distance. Edythe had seen the end of the world, the black rift opening, but now it had closed, and the world was still here. The women stood, looking toward the distant fighting. Johanna said, “God be thanked, they’re giving up.”
“Go back,” Berengaria said. “Come. Inside.”
Johanna rushed after her back through the gap between the tents. Edythe followed. Her hands were shaking and she felt a sudden need to cry. Berengaria, she saw, was not going back to the church tent, but following Johanna. Even she needed company.
A great shout went up from down the slope, a roar of triumph, that echoed a long moment off the ridge. It seemed not to have come from the throats of mere men, but from one great beast. The Crusade. Not the way to peace but an endless war. She went quickly after the other women, feeling cold.
When they went in the door of Johanna’s tent, Johanna stumbled; Berengaria recoiled away, her hands rising; and coming after them, Edythe saw the body lying on the threshold there and gasped.
“It’s Lilia,” Johanna said.
“Oh, my God.” Edythe dropped on her knees beside the girl and laid her hands on her body. Lilia was stiff as wood. She had been dead for hours. Berengaria turned away and made for the prie-dieu. Johanna hovered over Edythe and the dead maid.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know.” Edythe could find no wound, and a wound anyway would make no sense; she must have been dead long before the fighting started.
Johanna said, “Damn them. Damn the Saracens, my poor Lilia. Almost now I want the Crusade.”
Edythe said nothing. She pulled back Lilia’s hair and the neck of her gown; under the maid’s chin her throat was all bruised. In the purplish mottling there were long marks, like the imprint of fingers. Her belly tightened. Poor Lilia, she thought. The lover was not so sweet after all. Her eyes burned. Poor Lilia.
The tramp of feet wheeled her around. Rouquin came in the tent door and walked past her to Johanna’s side. His hair stood on end; he wore no mail, only his swordbelt over his shirt.
“We drove them clear back over the plain. This was their last chance; we’ve beaten them now. Tomorrow maybe we’ll take Acre.” His head turned; he looked down at the dead woman almost at his feet. “What the hell? How did this happen?” He sank down on his heels and put his hand on Lilia.
“We went out,” Johanna said, “and when we came back, she was here. We had no guards. If we had all been here, they would have murdered us too.”
Rouquin straightened up again, staring at her. “What do you mean, you went out? You left the tent? What is wrong with you women?” His voice rose, whining. “Stay where we can take care of you.”
“Oh, you took such care of us,” Johanna said. “Not a guard the whole time.”
“We won,” Rouquin said, hard.
“If you’d stay put, at least we’d know where you are.” He looked down again. “I’m sorry about this. I’ll take care of it.” He yelled for men to carry off the body.
Edythe got to her feet. She needed to be by herself, and she went to the side of the tent, where the pallets were, and got busy shaking out the rumpled linen. Johanna sank down in a chair and wept. Berengaria prayed. Edythe’s hands were trembling, and for a moment she could not get the sheet to lie flat on the Queen’s pallet.
A few minutes later she went outside to find a page to bring them food, and Rouquin came up beside her.
“Wait,” he said, with his usual grace.
She stopped and faced him. “My lord.”
He said, “You asked me a question once; now I have one for you. What’s going on here?”
She looked up at him, startled. As if anybody really knew what was going on. “What do you mean?”
“That girl wasn’t killed in the fighting. What happened to her?”
“She had a lover,” Edythe said. “She was seeing someone—someone high, or so she thought, but I don’t know who.”
“She wasn’t killed there. She was dumped there. That’s like a warning. Or a notice. Something.”
Edythe felt a little quiver of alarm down her back. She lowered her eyes. She tried to remember everything Lilia had told her; she thought of the young man brushing against the maid in the marketplace, delivering a summons. “I don’t know,” she said.
He said, “Keep watch. If you find anything out, send for me.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Be careful,” he said, and went off. She stood a moment, struggling to make one piece of all of this, and gave up and went to find the page and their breakfast.
Johanna went to Mass, and said prayers for Lilia; when she was coming away, the Templar Grand Master came by her, as if by accident. For a moment he walked step by step with her, his eyes straight ahead, as if he did not see her.
He said, “I shall have speech with you, my lady. Wait for my call.”
“What—”
But he was moving away, his back to her. He had commanded her, as if he had some power over her. She tried to understand this in any way other than that he knew she had gone behind Richard’s back to Philip Augustus. And she thought of Lilia, and her whole body went cold.
In the morning the white flag flew again at the gate of Acre. Edythe went out with the other women to watch as Richard and the other high lords of the Crusade met the leaders of the garrison. With their underlings all around, the Crusaders made a great pack, waiting at the top of the road. The rest of the army, scattered over the slope around them, was slowly moving closer.
Edythe went in among these people, going toward the Kings. The crowd was drawing steadily together, surrounding the road where the Crusader lords stood, and the weary men from Acre dragged their truce flag up toward them. Against her will she looked for the French King and saw him, wrapped in a fancy gown, a white scarf around his head.
Now she could hear Richard talking.
“They know my terms. Nothing has changed. They are the same as the last time.”
She began to pay attention to this; Humphrey de Toron was there, and translated what Richard had said to the man standing under the white flag.
This was the commander of the defense at Acre. He was in rags. The bones of his shoulders showed even through his shirt, and he was bracing himself against the flagpole. His lips were crusty with sores. He spoke, and Humphrey turned to Richard and said, “He agrees. They surrender.”
She gasped. Her spirits, which had been so downcast, flew up like a swallow. Around her a roar rose among the Crusaders close enough to hear, and then it swelled and spread, rippling out across the whole camp.
“God wills it—God wills it!”
The ragged man slumped against the flagpole. Richard turned to the other lords.
“My lords? Do you agree?” His voice was bland, although he had to shout to be heard over the din.
Guy and Conrad were bowing and nodding already in a happy babble. The French King faced Richard like a dog in a fight. The cloth on his head had slipped back, showing his bare bony scalp. His lips writhed above the stumps of his yellowed teeth. Edythe, a few feet away, heard nothing, could only see that he spoke, because of the thunderous cheering and whooping erupting from the camp. All across the slope the Crusaders were moving, were plunging toward Acre in an unruly tide.
Her elation faded. She lowered her eyes, and doubt filled her. She wondered what all this meant; was it over? Then she saw someone else riding into the camp, another white flag, but this one from the east. These were Saracens again, the envoy from the Sultan Saladin. Their real enemy. She had been right: Nothing was over.
She stopped. Humphrey stood with his hands folded over his belt. Richard stared unblinking at the French King until Philip Augustus at last lowered his eyes. Richard turned to Humphrey, and Edythe saw his lips move but she could not hear him. Then the newcomers rode up and someone gave a yell and the wall of retainers parted to let them through. The crowd had flooded downhill so far they were no hindrance between the oncoming Saracens and the Kings.
Three of the Saracens dismounted from their horses and strode forward. Brusquely, with no greeting to the Kings and lords around him, the leader went up to the ragged man leaning on the staff and spoke to him in their own tongue, a long question. The ragged man said only one syllable, and the Saracen flung his hands up and looked up at the sky and said something very plainly not a humble prayer of thanks.
Richard said, “Well, hail, my lord Safadin, welcome to Acre.”
The Saracen stood still a moment. He was tall, not young, dressed in plain white robes; he was, Edythe thought, the most handsome man she had ever seen, making even the elegant Conrad seem coarse as clay. The Saracen’s carved dark features were bold and strong above the pointed black beard, his thick brows bent into a frown over his large dark eyes. He wore a magnificent embroidered robe, a sash of cloth of gold, a turban intricately braided.
He said, suddenly, in clear French, “What are the terms?”
“The terms are the same as I spoke them before. I will give over the remains of this garrison for two hundred thousand dinars, all your French prisoners to go free, and the return of the True Cross.”
The Saracen, Safadin, threw his hands up. “The Sultan will not agree to this.” He wheeled toward the man under the flag and said another splatter of their own tongue and turned back to Richard. “We cannot agree. You cannot accept this surrender.”
“My lord,” Richard said, and flung his hand out to the city. “None of us has any choice.”
Safadin wheeled toward where he pointed, and all the other heads turned in unison toward the city. A cry of dismay rose from all the Saracens, but the Crusaders yelled, triumphant.
Edythe followed their gaze. Down there the surge of the Crusaders toward Acre had taken them across the beaten ground and in over the broken wall. They were flooding into the city, and now, suddenly, above the remnant of the Tower by the gate, a banner flapped and caught the wind.
The King of France crowed; it was his green pennant. But then beside it Richard’s great blue flag unfurled flat, and higher.
The roar that went up from the Crusaders made Edythe’s ears ring. Safadin threw his great-turbaned head back, turned on his heel, and stalked to his horse. In a moment he and his escort were galloping off across the almost-deserted Crusader camp. Edythe had her hands over her ears; she lowered them, looking down toward Acre, wondering if now they would go in there and actually live in a house. Beside the banners of the two Kings a third flag appeared, black, with some yellow emblem.
She sighed. She turned toward the camp again, where she could see Johanna now, come out of her tent, watching what was going on. The pack of the Crusader lords was breaking up. The French King hobbled away, a page coming after with his stool, and the two Kings of Jerusalem glared at each other for a while until they allowed their unde
rlings to talk them apart. Richard stood there with Rouquin. He glanced at the city, his face shining, his eyes brighter than the sky.
“We did it,” the King said. “And the moon not even full yet.” His eyes narrowed, vexed. “Get that Austrian’s banner down off the tower.” He walked off, shouting for his horse. Rouquin went down toward Acre; after a few steps he was running. Edythe walked on up through the trash and char and dust of the camp toward Johanna.
Eight
ACRE
Johanna stood in the middle of the tent and directed the packing. After the battle, Berengaria had not left them; nor had she said much. She had changed, somehow, a quizzical look on her face, a kind of deference, although not to any of them. She sat by herself most of the time, her forehead creased. Now she perched on a stool beside Johanna while her women and her pages packed her goods.
Edythe had been folding bedding and shaking out gowns and shifts; she bent and pulled out one of the chests from beneath the pallet to store them in. Behind the chest, she saw another little box, hidden away there. Lilia had slept in this bed; it was surely hers.
“What shall I do with Lilia’s things?”
Johanna glanced over. “What things?”
“Her clothes.” Edythe laid the dead girl’s second gown on the pallet, remembering Lilia wearing it, how she had loved the fine silky cloth. Johanna came up beside her. At once she saw the little box.
“What’s that?”
Edythe busied herself with stowing the bedding in the chest, putting Lilia’s gown on top. The Queen stooped for the little box. She called over the pages to break up the pallet and take it away, turned slightly into the light, and tipped back the lid.
The box was two hands long and one wide, and not deep. Johanna picked with her finger at the few baubles and ribbons and combs. “Not much. Poor girl. What’s this?” She took out a little bundle wrapped in silk.
Invited, Edythe went over and looked. “What are they?”
Johanna had peeled back the silk. She twitched, and her voice went thin. “Just some reeds. There are a lot of them.” She thrust the bundle back into the box and dropped it all into the brazier. “I told her not to be so free with men.” She walked off, brisk, her back stiff.
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