Queen of Swords

by Queen of Swords (retail) (epub)

  Not a few of those would reckon Constance a great prize. She brought with her a principate, lands beleaguered by the infidel but wealthy still, wealth and rank and power in the kingdom. Her temper would not dismay them unduly. They could look to Raymond of Tripoli, and to the harem of the infidels. Or they might do as many another high lord did, take refuge in wars and in princely duties, and come home only to sire sons.

  When the time came – nor was it greatly distant – Arslan would make a noble marriage. He had decided on it even without his father’s commanding it; not that Bertrand would do such a thing. Whatever his faults, the Lord of Beausoleil would not force his son to do what he himself had never consented to.

  Which indeed was why Arslan would do it. It would be a congenial lady – he had promised himself that much. If he could like her, he would be glad. If he could love her, he would be fortunate indeed. But first and foremost, she must bring profit to his family’s fortunes.

  Nahar would say that he was a cold young thing, and applaud him for it. She was a great madam in Acre now, had left Jerusalem for the richer pickings among the pilgrims arriving and departing. He saw her sometimes, lingered for an hour or an evening, took her to bed less often than he simply sat and talked with her. It was a satisfaction that the patrons in the upper rooms would never understand.

  Nor would Princess Constance, he reflected as he sipped wine from a cup of chased silver. Queen Melisende might, if she could have lowered herself so far. She was like Lady Richildis, like his own mother if it came to that: strong-willed. Sensible.

  Except…

  He sighed faintly. There was another war, another contention in that contentious family. Baldwin was drawn taut, smiling rigidly and saying little, while his mother beside him exerted herself to be charming. She was determined to effect reconciliations all round; but she did not seem aware that she needed one in her own house. Baldwin to her was ever and unalterably a child. If he spoke, she thought nothing of lifting her voice over his. If he proposed a course of action, she ignored it. She would do as it pleased her to do, with little if any regard for the king for whom she stood regent even yet, though he was man and knight and well grown out of childhood.

  Such a beautiful family to look at, tall robust golden people; so persistently at odds with one another. Maybe they would all make peace here. Maybe the snow would turn to a fall of flowers, and the wind’s howl to an angels’ chorus.

  * * *

  The storm blew away in the night. Day dawned clear and astonishingly warm, one of the swift changes in that most changeable of countries. What snow had fallen, melted and flowed away. Flowers bloomed in sheltered gardens.

  Melisende sat in one such with her sister and her niece and their respective ladies. Richildis happened to be one of them, freed of worry for Zenobia: Arslan had her in hand, peculiar occupation for a young man of his age, but Arslan had never been one to care for such things. He was a better nurse and guardian than any of the women who should more properly have performed the office. Therefore her mother could sit in the sun with the obligatory bit of embroidery, under a rose-arbor that had been coaxed to produce a scattering of blossoms. Their scent was marvelously sweet and somewhat out of season.

  The royal ladies sat together in unfeigned amity. Whatever their quarrels with husbands or sons, they themselves never quarreled, had never been at odds that Richildis knew of. Princess Alys, to be sure, had had thoughts of dispossessing her daughter Constance, but Alys lived out her long exile in her dower lands, nor came forth for any persuasion. She had gone a little strange, Richildis had heard; would not leave her castle, nor walk under the sky lest it fall on her. She was as deeply cloistered as any nun, and as pious, too, by all accounts; though it was her sister Yveta who held the name and title of abbess.

  Those of that kin who were in the world were here, all three, sisters and sister-daughter. Constance was never as sour-faced with her aunts as she was in court; sometimes one could even see what a beauty she was when her lips were not drawn tight and her brow unmarred by a scowl. She never forgot her grievances – God forbid – but she eased a little, once almost smiled at a sally from one of the maids.

  That faint glimmer of good humor vanished soon enough. Neither of her aunts was in a mood to indulge her. “You will not marry?” Melisende demanded of her.

  “I will not marry an old man, no,” Constance said tartly, “nor an ugly one, nor one who smells of onions and bad teeth. What were you thinking of, asking the Byzantine emperor to find me a husband? Did you think that I would be as fortunate as some have been?”

  Richildis lowered her eyes to her embroidery. It was a sore grievance to the princess that she had been sent a toad instead of a beautiful prince. She would not forgive Richildis either quickly or easily for marrying both beauty and wealth, and loving the man, too.

  The queen and the countess took no notice of Richildis’ discomfiture. Hodierna said, “We take the fate that is made for us.”

  “As you have?” Constance laughed shrilly. “And why are you here, then, aunt? Have you come to proclaim the joys of wedded bliss?”

  “What is it that the infidels say?” said Hodierna, not visibly ruffled, though the blow must have stung. “For a woman there is nothing save marriage or the tomb.”

  “And when the marriage is mercifully over,” Constance said, “there is widowhood. Regency. Power. Tell me you haven’t dreamed of it. Tell me you don’t pray God to take your husband, so that you can be free.”

  “I can be free of him without the need to see him dead,” Hodierna said. “Child, whatever our troubles with the men whom God sets over us, in this country we can’t live without them. Someone has to lead the armies. Someone has to fight the infidel while we rule our domains.”

  “There are always knights willing to serve a woman of influence,” Constance said. “Why should I marry any of them? I did my duty – fourfold, no less. I had a husband of rather remarkable beauty. God, your God, took him away from me. Why should I take anything less?”

  “Because a husband is rather more useful than not,” Melisende said, “even an ugly one.”

  “Therefore,” said Constance, “you have forborne to marry again.”

  The elder ladies glanced at one another. They could hardly deny it: neither was in a position to convince a young and obstinate woman that she should remarry, when she had no desire to.

  “My ladies,” she said. “You’ve taught me well. From you, my dear Aunt Melisende, I learned that a woman can hold more than a regency; that she can rule in her own right, and keep her son tight-reined even into manhood. And in you, Aunt Hodierna, I see a woman whose husband takes excessive pleasure in keeping his wife a prisoner. You came here to be free of him. Can you honestly ask me to bind myself to a man in marriage?”

  “Not all men are as that one,” Hodierna said.

  “Indeed; some are as Bohemond, and he is dead.” Constance said it without grief after so long, but with a core of immovable resistance. “I do not wish to marry again.”

  Nothing that they said could shake her. She was determined; and a lady of that line, once she had set her mind on something, was no more to be shifted than the mount of Sinai.

  * * *

  “Muhammad could move a mountain,” Melisende said. “Moses could conquer one in God’s name. I can’t even convince a chit of a girl to take herself another husband.”

  Constance had gone away on pretext of looking after her children. The sisters remained in the pale sunlight, tarrying till they too must go in.

  “And you?” Melisende inquired after a while. “Will you be intransigent, too?”

  Hodierna looked straightly at her, direct as a royal lady could be. “The man is clean off his head with jealousy.”

  “And has he reason to be?”

  Hodierna’s gaze did not waver. “If he has, then he invited it by keeping me in a harem like a woman of the infidels.”

  Melisende sighed faintly. “You can’t even lie, can you? Ther
e’s my namesake in her nursery, as incriminating a pair of eyes as I ever saw. You could have been wiser. You could have chosen a fair-haired man.”

  “I despise a fair-haired man,” Hodierna said with sudden venom. “I wanted a dark one. Dark and sweet and wondrous gentle. My husband is not gentle. If he were a stallion, the mares would be glad of him.”

  “And couldn’t you simply close your eyes and dream of dark men? Did you have to do more than dream?”

  Hodierna shrugged a little sulkily. “I was bored. I was angry. All the doors were locked and guards outside of them, but I found one that I could open. What would you have done? Sat and endured, or opened the door and taken what God gave you?”

  “I would never have let myself be locked in at all,” Melisende said. “Nor will you again. I’ll make him swear a sacred oath. No lady of our line will be treated in such fashion.”

  “I wish you good fortune,” Hodierna said with an edge of irony.

  “You in return,” said Melisende, “will do your best to remain his wife. You can endure him, surely, if he lets you be?”

  “If he never troubles my sight at all,” Hodierna said, “I’ll be as loyal a wife as I can bear to be.”

  “How loyal is that?”

  Hodierna smiled as if she took great pleasure in the thought. “As loyal as he deserves,” she said.

  * * *

  “My lord, think,” Baldwin said with all apparent patience. “Your lady is a princess of Jerusalem, daughter of a great king, sister to a queen. Is it fitting that she be kept like a slave or like an infidel?”

  Raymond of Tripoli paced his solar like a jackal in a cage. He was not an ill man to look at, middling tall, middling fair, very deep and broad of chest and famously strong. He was restless, visibly nervous, but he did not look like the madmen Arslan had seen begging in the streets of Jerusalem or Acre. He was by all accounts neither an ill ruler nor a remarkably good one. He did well enough, people said.

  Except when it came to his wife. “She is beautiful,” he said. “Every man desires her. And she, wanton creature – she desires them all impartially. What was I to do? I had to keep her safe.”

  “Women of our line,” Baldwin said without expression, “are not fond of safety. Better for them the reckless edge and the free air. Trap one, trammel her, and you lose her.”

  Raymond ceased pacing to turn and stare at the king. Baldwin gazed back calmly. “You know,” Raymond said.

  Baldwin inclined his head.

  “Then you also know,” said Raymond with rising heat, “what a mere man must do to protect himself against them – and them against themselves. Headstrong, impetuous, high-hearted: what other women are like them? What can any man do but lock them up in strong walls and pray that they don’t escape?”

  “Yet,” said Baldwin gently, “your lady has done so. She has summoned us who are her kin, and begged us to set her free. Forgive my frankness, my lord, but I do think that you erred. What would well cow a weaker woman has merely made her the more determined to resist you.”

  Raymond shook his head. “No. No, she may be your mother’s sister, but you don’t know her. You don’t know how headstrong she is, how determined to have her way.”

  “Ah, but I do,” Baldwin said. “Believe me, my lord. I do.”

  Raymond flung up his hands in a fit of sudden temper. “What do I do, then? Cut every leash and binding and let her run wild? Sit by unresisting while she fondles squires and stableboys and peasants in the fields? Let her be the mock of the kingdom?”

  “If I know the women of my own blood,” said Baldwin, “and I think perhaps I do, then freedom will put an end to her rebellion. Only recall how pious my mother is, how their sister is a holy abbess, and even Alys the great rebel has devoted her latter years to seclusion and to good works. Seclusion that she chose, my lord, of her own will. There’s the key with them always. They and only they must choose what they will do.”

  “I can’t,” said Raymond. “I can’t take that chance.”

  “What choice do you have? My mother is her dearest sister. I’ve heard her speak of the life that you’ve forced on your lady. I know what she will do if you persist. She has no desire to see a marriage sundered, but if you refuse to see reason as she sees it, she’ll grow angry. Angry enough to take her sister’s part, no matter what that would do to the bonds of holy matrimony.”

  “And if my lady runs direct from my embrace into the arms of a Saracen slave, what will your mother do then?”

  “Your lady won’t run,” Baldwin said. “Mother will make her swear to do her duty while you do yours. One of you alone won’t be forced to give way. She’ll surrender herself to you in return for greater freedom.”

  “She won’t do that,” Raymond said, returning again to his pacing. “She’s not capable of it.”

  “Yet if she is,” Baldwin pressed him, “and will take oath on it, will you do the same?”

  “If,” said Raymond, “and only if.”

  “Then I will see it done,” Baldwin said. “I… and my lady mother.”

  Seventy-One

  Countess Hodierna reconciled herself to Count Raymond of Tripoli in the basilica of the city before the assembled priests and nobles, the King and the Queen of Jerusalem and the Princess of Antioch with her children. They swore anew the vows that they had made when first they were wedded, set hand in hand and promised each to honor the other till death should sunder them.

  Raymond spoke steadily, his eyes never leaving his lady’s face. She never looked at him, but her voice too did not waver, as she promised to be faithful to this marriage that she had yearned to escape. She had broken with her own hands the locks that had barred the door to her chambers, and stood while workmen opened walls and unbarred windows. If she had gloated as she did it, who could blame her? She had been shut within those walls for ten long years. It was a wonder that she did not order them all broken down and a new palace built amid the ruins.

  “And tomorrow,” Queen Melisende said at the feast thereafter, “we depart for Jerusalem.”

  “So soon?” Count Raymond asked as if he truly regretted it. He was expansive, joyous in his victory, his marriage confirmed, his wife sworn to him beyond a doubt.

  “So soon,” said Hodierna. “My royal sister has duties in the Holy City, and I should like to pass the end of Lent there, and hear the Easter Mass sung before the Holy Sepulcher.”

  Raymond blinked. “You are going?”

  “I am going,” Hodierna answered him.

  “You cannot.”

  She smiled with pure happiness. “But, my lord, I can. We swore oaths, remember? I, to be faithful, to preserve the marriage, to honor and respect you. You, to grant me freedom, to suffer me to live as a Christian lady and not an infidel slave.”

  “You swore also to obey me,” Raymond said, “and I forbid you to go.”

  “You are the queen’s vassal,” said Hodierna. “The queen commands me.”

  Raymond turned to Melisende. “Majesty!”

  “My lord,” Melisende said with royal composure. “I have bidden my sister attend me in my own city. It is best, I think. Even Mother Church cannot reconcile a heart nurtured too long in resentment.”

  “But,” said Raymond. “She is my—”

  “You are my vassal,” Melisende said gently, implacably, “as is she. Do you contest my authority to command either of you?”

  Raymond opened his mouth, but – wisely or cravenly – shut it before he spoke. The color that suffused his face was wrath; yet it drained away to an ashen pallor.

  No less so than Baldwin, though perhaps only Arslan saw. Arslan, nearest him, had to look past him to see what all the rest were staring at: Raymond of Tripoli defeated in his victory by the will of these royal women.

  “So much weariness,” Hodierna was saying. “So much strain. Among my own kin, in the city of my youth, I may find heart’s ease. And when I’ve found it, I’ll come back. That I promise you, my people of Tripoli.”

/>   * * *

  “Such a pretty speech,” Baldwin said bitterly. Oh, he was angry. Indeed. He kept tight rein on it till he could be alone with his mother, sought her out in her chamber long after the feast was done, when he knew that she would be lightly attended and not yet gone to sleep. Her attendance was the Lady Richildis, as Baldwin’s was Arslan: comfort enough for them, if there could be any such in this meeting.

  “Indeed,” Melisende said to Baldwin, “and if you take issue with my sister’s choice, why do you come to me? It was she who asked that I grant her this gift.”

  “And how did you persuade her to ask you?” Baldwin demanded. “Come, Mother. We’re not in court here. Tell me the truth.”

  “I have told you the truth,” Melisende said. “Truly – Hodierna wanted it.”

  “And between the two of you, you smote the count with it in front of his people. You humiliated him. There will be a price for that, Mother. A price that, no doubt, I will be the one to pay.”

  “And how is that?” asked Melisende. “Are we not king and queen together?”

  “Are we?” Baldwin rose from the chair in which he had been sitting, and advanced till he stood over her. “Are we, Mother? Did it ever occur to you that I at least should have been warned before you did this? I promised Raymond an honorable resolution. I had to sit like an idiot while you two made a mockery of him.”

  “You would never have agreed to it if we had warned you beforehand,” Melisende said. “Men are so tender of their pride; and young men worst of all. Child, have you no understanding of what our kinswoman suffered at the hands of that man?”

  “I understand that he had been led to expect certain things, and that it was I who did the leading – because I trusted you to conduct yourselves as fairly as we. There was nothing said of her leaving him once their quarrel was settled. She is leaving him, isn’t she? She doesn’t intend to come back.”