Devil's Bargain

by Judith Tarr

  He was silent.

  “I think you would learn to love her,” she said, “and certainly to respect her. She’ll be a strong queen to your strong king.”

  “If we have a kingdom to rule.”

  “You can bring the Crusade together, you and Richard. Enlist the French again, gather them all, raise the army and take Jerusalem.”

  He lifted his head. “If Richard delivers as rousing a speech as that, I’ll be taking the cross of Crusade all over again.”

  “You should all take the cross again,” she said, “before you fritter away the rest of this Crusade.”

  “God’s feet,” he said, but mildly. “You have a hard heart.”

  “I’m old Henry’s daughter. I come by it honestly.”

  A bark of laughter escaped him. “I came here for comfort and you gave me a call to arms. Is this how you heal the sick?”

  “I give them the medicine they need,” she said. She finished grinding her powders and poured them into the pot, stirring carefully so as not to spill a drop. The pungency rose to an eyewatering stench, then with startling suddenness, transmuted to a clear green fragrance, like new grass with a hint of wood violets.

  “Magic,” he said. He caught her hand quickly and kissed it, and left her to her various enchantments.

  They came in the morning, the king and the queen together. They well knew the uses of royal pomp; because they came to a place of mourning, they muted the brightness of their banners and hung their shields and lances and the caparisons of the horses with black. Yet they were still splendid in the bright sun of spring, crowned with gold, Richard on his golden charger and his mother on a snow-white mare.

  Eleanor chose that day to put aside all pretense of weakness and ride as she had ridden fifty years ago, when she was young and sworn to another Crusade. For once she even outshone her son. There was no other queen in her train, not this time. She had left her daughter and her daughter-in-law behind.

  She swept into the hall with the rest of her train borne headlong in her wake. So swiftly had she come, and with so little pause for ceremony, that Isabella—never the most punctual of women—was just coming down from her solar, intending to meet the royal guests at the gate.

  She stopped short on the stair. Eleanor stood at the foot, haughtily erect, in deep blue to Isabella’s stark white. “Madam,” said the Queen of the English, “you would be late for the Last Trump.”

  Isabella bridled, but she was far too well-bred to reply in kind. She said with tight-drawn civility, “Majesties. Be welcome to my city.”

  “Yours indeed,” said Eleanor, “and you’ve done well with it, under the circumstances. Now, if you please, call your council. We have matters to settle that will not wait.”

  Isabella had no power to stand against that force of nature which was Eleanor. She did as she was bidden, as did everyone when it was Eleanor doing the bidding.

  The council met as swiftly as it could. One man was still in riding clothes, another properly dressed but with his hair and beard in disarray. Yet once they had gathered, they had to wait upon the queen’s pleasure. Richard came in soon enough, in hearty good humor and prepared to entertain all of them with tales of the new campaigns: Saracen raiders caught and killed, caravans captured and their riches taken into his treasury. But he did not begin the council.

  Eleanor was not taking her ease. As soon as she had reached the suite of rooms that was judged fit for a lady of her rank, she sent one of the servants to fetch Henry. He was on his way to the hall; he allowed himself to be diverted, half in curiosity and half in fear. A summons from Eleanor was never to be taken lightly.

  She had put off her traveling clothes and was being dressed for the council. Henry had been her page in his day; he fell all too easily into the role again, holding the mirror that traveled with her wherever she went, that was of pure polished silver. Her reflection in it had gained beauty in the dozen years since he last performed the service. “Freedom suits you,” he said.

  She smiled. He had forgotten how bright that smile could be; she was such a terrible force in the world, but when she was young, said those who could remember, she had been the most vivacious of women. “Freedom delights me,” she said. “There’s not a man alive now who can lock me away.”

  “None would dare,” Henry said.

  “Indeed,” said Eleanor. “Now, sir. I’ve been fetched here by a most interesting message, delivered by a rather interesting messenger. I gather the council of Tyre has been kingmaking while the marquis is barely cold in his tomb?”

  “They say,” said Henry, “that time is of the essence; that the infidel will move soon, and there must be a strong Crusade to stand against him. No one is suggesting seriously that Guy be brought back from Cyprus. This kingdom needs another king.”

  “They say rightly,” she said, “and they say that you have been offered both the crown and the hand of the lady who bears it.”

  “So I have,” he said. “It’s a tempting offer.”

  “Of course it is,” said Eleanor. “Why haven’t you accepted it?”

  He fought a powerful urge to fidget like the child he no longer was. “I . . . reckoned that you would want a say in it.”

  “You reckoned rightly,” she said, “but that would not have stopped you if your heart had been in it. Did you hope I would forbid it?”

  “Would you, majesty?”

  “If I did—would you turn against me?”

  “No,” he said. “No, lady. It’s no small thing to be offered a crown, but I think I’m man enough to live without one.”

  “There is a way,” she said, “to escape the difficulty. If the crown goes to another by right of war rather than marriage—if it goes to the great general, to the conqueror of Jerusalem—then his beloved nephew, the young and valiant knight, well might find himself next in succession.”

  Henry widened his eyes. He was not about to pretend that he did not understand her. “How will you—he—do that? Won’t the fact that he already has a queen be an impediment?”

  “Not if it’s done as I foresee: by acclamation, by the will of the whole Crusade. Then Isabella will be bypassed altogether.”

  “But if there’s no blood-right—”

  “He is the liege lord of the last king,” Eleanor said, “which gives him a certain right to claim whatever belongs to his vassal. And he has another, stronger right: the right of conquest. If he takes Jerusalem, what man will dare contest his taking of the title?”

  “Does he want it?”

  Eleanor smiled slowly. “He will.”

  “But, Grandmother,” said Henry, knowing full well that he could be going too far, “does he even want to stay once he’s won the city? Won’t he go back home to Anjou and then to England? What if—”

  “He will stay,” said Eleanor, “if he must. If the price of victory is that he take the title and the duties that accompany it for a certain span, greater or lesser—he will do it. Then when the span is over and he sails home, some worthy successor will take the crown and the throne. That successor could be you.”

  “Would the successor be required to take the bride who bears the blood-right?”

  “It would be politic,” she said, “and practical as well. Her dowry is rich. But if that revolts you, there are convents in plenty that would be glad to count a queen among their number—and all the property that she can bring as her dower to God.”

  “That would be a waste,” he mused not entirely reluctantly, “of lands and riches. Of beauty and wit, and I think a little wisdom.”

  “She’s wise enough,” Eleanor said with a wave of dismissal. “Do you want her, then? Would you be willing to take her on condition that you leave the crown to Richard for as long as he stays in this country?”

  “That could rouse dissension,” Henry said, “and rally people to what they fancy is my cause.”

  “So it could,” said Eleanor. “She’s best disposed of, then, in a suitably cloistered order, until the time is ri
pe to bring her out and attach her blood-right to your claim.”

  “She won’t consent,” Henry said. “I believe she has no calling to religion.”

  “Consent can be won,” Eleanor said with dangerous gentleness. “A vocation can be found even in the most barren heart. If later it proves that both consent and calling were false, why then, what gratitude might she offer the knight who rides to her rescue?”

  “You do think of everything, lady,” Henry said.

  “Of course I do,” said Eleanor. “I’ve learned the hard way to leave nothing to chance—and if I must gamble, I always leave an escape. I’ve served my last day in prison, in this life or any other.”

  Yet you would imprison her, Henry thought, but he did not dare to say it.

  It was well he held his tongue. Eleanor said, “We have a bargain, then. Richard takes Jerusalem and gains the crown by acclamation. You stand heir to him until he goes back into the west. Then the kingdom is yours.”

  “And in the meantime?”

  “In the meantime,” said Eleanor, “the lady of Jerusalem will retire to a convent to repent her sins and to mourn the untimely death of her husband, in which her sin of sloth played a part. The kingdom will be held in the hands of its High Court, such of it as is still left, with the aid and assistance of the lords of the Crusade. Of course the King of the English will speak strongly there, and his words will be heard, and better yet, heeded. There will be no question, once Jerusalem is taken, as to who is best fit to bear the crown and the title.”

  Henry bowed to her will. “Go,” she said. “Shine in council. The king should be seen, and the king’s heir. I’ll come when the two of you have charmed them sufficiently.”

  He left her sitting still while her maid settled her wimple and veil at the perfect angle. She was the living image of a queen. The Crusade would bow before her as Henry had. How could it not? Where Eleanor was, no lesser will could prevail.

  PART THREE

  JERUSALEM

  June–July 1192

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  The army of the Franks spread over the stony hills beyond Beit Nuba, a day’s march from Jerusalem. Heat shimmered over them, even so close to sunrise; a pall of dust sat above them, buzzing with flies.

  And yet they were in high good humor; they laughed and sang in the shade of their tents, sharing out a ration of wine that the king had ordered for them. Their numbers were about to double, rumor had it: the young lord Henry was coming from Tyre by way of Acre, with all of the French forces and a company of knights newly come from England and Normandy—fresh strength, fresh steel, fresh horses to strengthen the Crusade.

  That was Eleanor’s doing. Duke Hugh, it was said, had contemplated seizing Tyre and holding it against Richard, but in Eleanor’s presence he had never gone beyond the thought. He had taken the cross anew at the feast of the Ascension, side by side with Henry of Champagne.

  “Ah, Mother,” said Richard when he heard. “What would I have done without you?”

  He was in even greater good humor than his men. He still would not look on Jerusalem—but he would see it soon. Today he was to receive a familiar guest: the lord Saphadin had come one last time from the sultan with offers of settlement and peace.

  Sioned had been up a little earlier than usual; she who was never ill had been drastically indisposed, although it passed within an hour of waking. She found herself ravenous then, and went looking for whatever the cooks might have saved for her.

  She knew that Ahmad was coming to the camp today. She had not seen him in the flesh since she went to Tyre, though she had seen him often in dreams. They were on opposite sides of the war again. She found it did not grieve her as much as it would have once. She feared for his life each time he rode on a raid, but she would have done that if he had been a Christian knight. The love between them was unshakable. One day, if they both lived, they would be together. That day would be soon, the gods willing.

  There was a peculiar pleasure in being more or less anonymous in trousers and headdress, watching him ride in as she had the first time, the greater part of a year before. She loved the way he sat on a horse, the way he carried his head high in its turbaned helmet, the way he acknowledged greetings with a princely bow and now and then a swift smile. They loved him here, enemy though he was; he was a man after their own heart, a knight and a warrior, a worthy friend and adversary to the Lionheart.

  He had come with a handful of his sons, young men all stamped with the familiar lines of his face. She had not seen so many of them together before. Had he brought them for her benefit? They were a fine pride of young lions, clear-eyed and light on their feet, with a watchful look as befit soldiers on guard about their lord, but no shrinking of fear.

  Richard plucked the father from the midst of them and pulled him into an exuberant embrace. “Saphadin! My good friend! It’s splendid to see you again.”

  Ahmad returned the embrace with somewhat less exuberance but no less cordiality. “Malik Ric. You look well.” He said it in Norman French, and fluently enough, too, which made Richard roar with delight.

  “You’ve been studying! We’ll make a Frank of you yet.”

  “Not in this lifetime,” said Ahmad, but with a smile.

  Richard carried him off to the council. Sioned meant to be there, but she lingered for a little while to take the measure of his sons. Most of them were mortal, but two—the oldest and the youngest—shimmered with magic. She thought she saw in them a memory of Safiyah as well as of their father.

  The thought made her smile. Her morning’s indisposition was gone, but there was an odd warmth in her belly. Her hand came to rest over it.

  She started. It could not be. She could not—

  And why not? She knew how children were made. She had done a great deal of it in that place out of time. It would have been more astonishing if nothing had come of it, than that something evidently had.

  She had been taking pleasure in seeing him without his knowing it, but she had had every intention of stealing a moment to speak with him when he was done with Richard. Now she wondered if she should approach him at all. They shared the secret of their time together, a secret she had told to no one but Henry. To everyone else she had said only that she was safe in the care of a friend. Most, Richard among them, had concluded that Henry had made some arrangement to spirit her out of Tyre; it was then supposed that she had been kept in a house of religion until Conrad was safely dead.

  It was certainly a more credible story than the truth. Henry, bless him, had seen the sense in keeping silence. That silence now was habit, a habit she had been inclined to break, at least in Ahmad’s presence. But this new secret changed things.

  She wanted it to herself for a while. Not too long—even the voluminous garments she could hide in would not conceal it forever—but long enough to understand what she felt. Whether it was joy or apprehension; delight or dread; or a mingling of all of them.

  She had meant to slip into the council under the canopy by Richard’s tent. Instead she went back to the surgeons’ tents, where there was occupation enough, preparing medicines and bandages for the battle that was coming.

  It was harder than she had expected. To know that he was in the camp and to turn willfully away from him was a wrenching in her middle. But that same middle had roiled with morning sickness a bare hour before, and the memory bolstered her determination to be alone. He should know; he deserved to know. But not for a while.

  The lord Saphadin had been studying the langue d’oc, but he was not yet sure enough of his knowledge to trust himself in negotiations. He trusted Mustafa for that, as Richard did, in an easy colloquy that rambled all around the doings of every common acquaintance, the weather, the hunting, the state of the roads, until it came at long last to the point.

  “I’ve had enough of dallying about,” Richard said. “It’s time to do what I came for. I’m taking the Holy Sepulcher.”

  “It is time,” Saphadin agreed, “though maybe
we can settle it even now without bloodshed.”

  “That would be a pleasant outcome,” Richard said. “What is your brother offering?”

  “That you come in peace,” Saphadin said, “and take charge of the Holy Sepulcher. We keep the Dome of the Rock and the east of Jerusalem. From here to the sea, you keep, and from Tyre to Jaffa. We keep Ascalon and all lands north of Tyre and west of Jerusalem. Pilgrims have free passage through all the lands, and caravans pass unmolested.”

  “Tempting,” said Richard, actually managing to sound as if he meant it. “Fair, in its way. How would we seal it? Meet in the Holy City and pray at one another’s shrines?”

  “That would do,” said Saphadin. “We might also, in time, consider such an alliance as you proposed before. The Queen of Sicily objected too strongly to an infidel marriage, but perhaps another lady of your people would be amenable to a match.”

  “That’s always a possibility,” Richard said. “Do you have any particular lady in mind?”

  Saphadin lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “I might. When all else is settled, we’ll speak of it. Yes?”

  “Yes,” said Richard without evident suspicion. Mustafa had not realized he was holding his breath until he suddenly remembered to breathe.

  That was all, in the end, that they had come to say. They took their time in parting, letting their conversation wind down as leisurely as it had arrived at its purpose. Maybe they were a little reluctant to part. The next time they met would be across a battlefield.

  They both knew that. Saphadin declared that he would bring Richard’s agreement to his brother, but Richard would not keep the peace for much longer than it took Saphadin to reach Jerusalem. As soon as Henry arrived with his reinforcements, the attack would begin.

  At length Saphadin drained his cup of sherbet, rose, and took his graceful leave. His escort was waiting. He did not dally—not precisely—but he took his time, carefully not looking about for someone whom he had been expecting. That person did not appear. Mustafa could not tell if he was disappointed. Certainly he was in no haste to ride away; when he did, he did it slowly, as if he had all the time in the world.