“Of course she intends to return,” said Melisende. “She’s lady and countess here, and her son will stay with his father. She’ll come back for the boy at least; she’s fond of him.”
“As you are fond of me? So that she can rule his every move?” Baldwin’s mouth twisted. “Well then. I’ve had messengers of my own, and the news is bad enough. Nur al-Din has his eye on this country. Take your sister back with you to Jerusalem, where you can keep her safe. I’ll stay in Tripoli and soothe his lordship as I can, and help him to defend his domain against the infidel.”
“That is wise,” Melisende said without a tremor. “I too have had word of the Turk’s intentions; more recent perhaps than yours. He has an army in motion, and it purposes to take Tripoli.”
“So you allow me to stay, my lady regent?”
“I believe that you are well advised to remain,” she said. She yawned delicately. “Now if you please, my child; I’m no longer as young as you. I’m tired. These bones need to sleep.”
Baldwin had little choice but to bow stiffly and take his leave. He did it a little abruptly perhaps, with a shade less courtesy than might have been fitting. He did not kiss his mother on the cheek as a proper son should have done, or accept her embrace and her blessing. He simply walked away.
* * *
Raymond and Baldwin both, caught off guard by the daughters of old King Baldwin and Morphia his queen, might have found common cause; but it did not deepen their friendship. When the ladies rode out under heavy guard, Baldwin chose conspicuously to remain behind. Raymond, equally conspicuously, rode with the women. He was hoping perhaps to lure Hodierna back with him; or at least to soften her heart with his presence.
No one expected that he would succeed. Baldwin, having said a cold farewell to his mother at the gate, had gone up into the castle. A company of young knights had got up a game of dice; they called to him as he passed by, and rattled the bones alluringly. He laughed and dropped down beside them, caught the cup as it sailed past, proceeded to lose a hard-fought round.
It was astonishing, Arslan thought, how Melisende’s departure had lifted Baldwin’s spirits. He had been no less than difficult since they came to Tripoli. Now he was his best self again, the young king whom people loved.
Arslan had no objection to a lively round of dicing, but his mood at the moment was for something less convivial. His mother and Lady Richildis had gone back with the royal ladies, and Zenobia with them. It rather dismayed him to realize how much, already, he missed them. A man should be made of sterner stuff.
But then Bertrand had ridden with Count Raymond, though he too would come back. He was not delighted to see the ladies go, either. None of them was, except Baldwin.
Arslan wandered back down from the castle into the city. The crowds that had gathered to see the ladies depart had dispersed swiftly. There were only the usual presses of passersby in the markets and the broader streets, and knots of hangers-on here and there near tavern or fountain or castle gate.
Near the south gate of the city he heard the commotion that would be the count’s return: people calling, a stallion’s trumpet, a scatter of halfhearted cheers as the folk greeted their lord after his brief departure. Arslan turned his steps toward the gate through which the count and his escort would come, not thinking of anything in particular except perhaps to watch a spectacle. Lords’ ridings were always good for that, even if one were a lord oneself. And, he admitted, he wanted to see if Raymond was bearing up well, and maybe to wander back behind him, with a pause in a tavern for a cup of decent wine or middling horrible ale.
He was close enough now that the gate rose tall above him. Through it he could see the road stretching away toward Jerusalem, and the riders on it. Count Raymond was somewhat ahead, as if eager to return to his city. He was a sour-faced man but a good horseman, light and erect on the back of his tall charger. One or two of his escort rode near him, but his guards rode well behind. They were at ease. He was in his own land, returning to his own city. What could he possibly have to fear?
It happened very fast. Too fast almost to see; too fast by far to stop. Raymond rode in under the gate with his two knights close behind him, his guards still some furlongs behind. There were people in the gate, travelers, guards, perhaps a pilgrim or two. Some wore turbans, white so bright it dazzled even the shadows. Infidels, Arslan thought, or began to think, dressed all in white – strange to see such a thing in this season, and so clean, too, unmuddied, unstained.
Raymond passed them, riding at the walk. His horse’s hoofs clattered on the paving. He had let himself go a little, out of the sun and the sight of his people: sagging in the saddle, breathing slow perhaps, giving in to weariness.
The men in white were moving, pressing about him. The gate was not so narrow that a horseman could not ride freely past a handful of men on foot. But they crowded him. His horse threw up its head. A hand seized the bridle. Other hands caught at the rider. Steel flashed.
It was all done between one breath and the next. Raymond fell without a sound. The knives cut life and breath from him, slit his throat from ear to ear, stabbed him to the heart.
His two companions cried out and flung themselves from their horses, swords half drawn – too slow, too draggingly slow. They were dead before their blades were out. They had not even time to fight.
Arslan’s throat was raw. He must have been screaming. He did not remember. He was running, other people were running, the count’s guard galloping up the road to the gate. The men clad all in white – now he remembered, now he knew what those garments signified: Hashishayun, madmen of the infidels, murderers in the name of Allah, Assassins. They fell without a battle, died crying the name of their God. Arslan killed one of them, maybe. There was blood on his sword after, but no clear memory of how it had come there.
* * *
They had all gone as mad as the Assassins. When those were dead, the count’s guards and the city’s garrison went hunting. Every turbaned man, every black-veiled woman, they caught and killed. Every Muslim who dwelt in Tripoli, or who had traveled there, or who was fool enough to come in by one of the roads or from the sea, died or fled the vengeance of the Franks.
But none of it made Raymond live again. He was dead, laid in state in the castle, with his wounds washed clean and a pall laid over him. A messenger, scrambling his wits about him, had taken horse and pounded away southward to bring back the queen and the Countess Hodierna.
None of them mourned the dead with more than adequate grief. He had not been a man to inspire passion, even in those who called themselves his friends. But that a great lord of the kingdom should have been murdered in his own gate in front of his people – that, no one would forgive.
Fear walked the city. If Assassins could take down the count himself, whom could they not destroy? Lords and knights and men of property shut themselves in their houses and looked with mistrust on their servants. Strangers were locked out, and friends, and even kin. They sent their wives and children away under heavy guard, guarded themselves by night and day, lest they suffer a dagger in the heart.
* * *
“But why?”
Hodierna mourned her husband perhaps least of all. She forbore to weep for him; such a lie would demean them both. Nonetheless she was angry, and perhaps somewhat on his behalf.
“Why?” she asked again. “What had he done to draw the eye of Alamut?”
No one could answer her. Raymond had been neither saint nor great ruler, but he had had few enough dealings with the infidels, and none that anyone knew of that could have been reckoned treachery.
Melisende said as much; but before Hodierna could respond, a messenger ran in, breathing hard, with news that brought them all to their feet: “Tortosa – Nur al-Din is in Tortosa!”
Indeed. That deadliest of infidels had seen the disarray of Raymond’s death, taken note of a woman raised as regent over a son too young to rule, and done what any sensible conqueror would do: moved to conquer this county
of Tripoli.
When the messenger had gone away to rest and eat and restore his strength, and another had gone to Baldwin to call him to arms with all such force as he could muster, Melisende sighed and drained the dregs of her wine. “Perhaps that is why,” she said. “To leave us open to the attacks of the infidel.”
“Perhaps,” said Hodierna, but without great conviction.
Seventy-Two
Baldwin had done everything that duty and kingship demanded, to secure Tripoli against the maraudings of the infidel. He did it well as always, suffered his mother’s commands and the ridings of her messengers, drove back the enemy from the castle of Tortosa and set a garrison of Templars to hold it – making certain, scrupulously, to ask leave of the Countess Regent.
“And I wonder,” he said to Arslan as they rode back at last to Jerusalem, “whether she troubled to ask her son if he approved.”
“Would it matter if he didn’t?” Arslan asked. “He’s what, eleven years old? Twelve? He’s too young to argue.”
“I am ten years older than that,” said Baldwin, “and I’m still too young to dispense with a regent.”
Ah, thought Arslan. It rankled; of course it did. But never so openly as now, as they rode under the sky, with a crowd of knights and men-at-arms within earshot.
Baldwin, always so careful of his tongue, trained to it from earliest youth, seemed to have stopped caring who heard. “She’s not going to let go,” he said. “You know that. Everyone knows that. She won’t let me take what I should have taken long ago.”
“And why didn’t you?”
Baldwin laughed harshly. “You always ask the hard questions, don’t you, foster-brother? How much strength have I ever had? How many friends? How many lords of either power or influence, who could stand up in court and defy her?”
Arslan looked about. Men were listening and making no pretense of doing otherwise. He could, if he wished, reckon the count of lords and barons in this army of Jerusalem. They were a surprising number. Baldwin after all had led them to battle since he was a child. Melisende never had. A woman did not do such a thing.
Constable Manasses, who always before had ridden with the king, this time was gone. He had ridden to Jerusalem before them, as escort to the queen. No small number of the Court had gone with them. But more were here.
It was a division, Arslan realized. Not conscious, perhaps, nor calculated, yet no less real for that. The lords of the kingdom had chosen their places.
Bertrand…
Bertrand was not here. Nor was he with Melisende. He had gone ahead of her, called to Acre by some business of Helena’s, but promising to meet Arslan again at Easter Court.
And had he known what would happen here? He was Baldwin’s teacher, his arms-master, but long before he had been Baldwin’s man, he had sworn fealty to Melisende. Arslan did not know that that oath had ever been dissolved.
Bertrand could have commanded Arslan to come with him to Acre. Arslan had half expected it, been a little wounded when he said no word, simply embraced and kissed him and said, “Easter, then, in Jerusalem.”
He had known. He must have.
Baldwin was still waiting for Arslan to respond. Arslan did, slowly. “I think you know that you have friends – and many of them.”
“Enough to challenge her?”
“Count them,” Arslan said, “my lord king.”
Baldwin set his lips together. He did not answer, not then. Not till they had ridden to Jerusalem.
No man of rank could enter a city gate these days without great wariness and a strong vanguard. But Baldwin rode in as he always had, guarded but not excessively. As always, Melisende awaited him in the Tower of David, robed and crowned and surrounded by her ladies. Her crown had always been higher than his, her throne set level to be sure, yet she had insisted that her comfort demanded a deeper cushion, a taller footstool.
This day as ever, she did not rise as a lady of lesser rank before the king, but remained enthroned while he approached and bowed and kissed her proffered hand. If she saw how his eyes burned, she took no notice of it. “Well done as always, my son,” she said, “and welcome. I trust you had a pleasant journey.”
Baldwin murmured something suitably innocuous. But when she beckoned him to the throne beside her he said, “Lady, I’m weary, and I would rest. I’ll return when the tables are laid in hall.”
She frowned. But she was in a tolerant mood, or too surprised perhaps to forbid him. He had never defied her before, not in front of the assembled court. “By all means,” she managed to say, “refresh yourself. If you should be minded to attend the later audience—”
“I shall see you,” he said, “in hall. Madam.” He bowed, not particularly low, and took his leave.
* * *
Baldwin was in a fair temper. Nothing in particular had caused it. No single slight, no insult. Simply the sight of his mother on her throne in her glittering crown, ruling the kingdom as she had since his father died.
“And that is long enough,” he said after he had bathed and eaten a little and retired to his chambers. Most of his attendants had seized the opportunity to rest. Baldwin was too ferociously awake; so therefore was Arslan.
Arslan sighed and was glad at least that he could lie in comfort across the foot of Baldwin’s bed, though there was peril in that: his eyelids kept trying to fall shut. Sometimes it was a nuisance to have a soldier’s instincts, to be able to sleep wherever he fell.
Baldwin’s voice did its best to keep him awake. “I am twenty-two years old. In this kingdom a boy is a man at fifteen, a knight at one-and-twenty. And here am I, man in years, duly knighted, and still a child who cannot be trusted to rule alone.”
“You have,” said Arslan, trying not to yawn, “been remarkably patient.”
“Some would say I’ve been weak. My mother would.”
“So why, then? Have you been afraid?”
“No.” Baldwin dropped to the bed like the child he no longer was, feet tucked up, elbows on knees, chin on fists, scowling at the world. “I kept hoping she’d do it herself. The way – the way your father did.”
Arslan blinked, not entirely with sleepiness. “My father never stepped down from his barony for me. I’d fling it in his face if he tried.”
“Don’t be an idiot!” Baldwin snapped. “You know what I mean. You wanted him to acknowledge you. And he did. By himself. God knows he was late in doing it, but not as late as my mother has been. I don’t think she’s going to, brother. She has no intention of ever letting me rule.”
“Have you asked?”
“Why? So that she can laugh in my face?”
Arslan groaned and sat up. “Baldwin,” he said, “you’re as bad as I was. You won’t help yourself, and she won’t do it for you. I had to make my father promise. He did it sooner than I expected, in the end, but I asked it of him first.”
“Your father is a great deal more reasonable than my mother.”
“You think so?” Arslan let himself fall back and his eyes fall shut. “You really think so?”
“Stop giggling,” Baldwin said nastily.
“I am not,” said Arslan.
“You’re thinking of it.”
Arslan made a small derisive sound, halfway to a snore. If Baldwin responded, he never knew it. He was sound asleep.
* * *
As Arslan had more than half expected, Baldwin did not confront his mother that day, or the next day either. But on his third day in Jerusalem, in front of the court assembled for the morning audience, he rose between petitioners and said, “Your majesty, I too would ask a boon of you.”
Melisende regarded him without anxiety. It had been an easy audience, no complaints, no quarrels, nothing to ruffle her composure. She smiled, raised a brow, said, “Anything within reason, you may certainly have.”
He did not smile in return, nor soften to her lightness of manner. “Madam, I believe that it is reasonable, but you may be of another mind. Tell me, madam. How old am I?”<
br />
Her eyes narrowed slightly. Her smile faded a fraction. She knew, Arslan thought, or had begun to. “Why, you must have a score of years.”
“A score and two,” he said, “my lady.” And how ill it looked, his manner said, that his own mother could not remember how old he was.
“Ah,” she said with a wave of the hand. “The time, how it flies. So: you are two-and-twenty. You had a birthday, I recall. I gave you a new set of armor and a young destrier. Was the armor an ill fit, then? Did the horse prove less well trained than I was told?”
“They are all in good order,” Baldwin said. “Likewise the golden ring and the belt and the robe of Byzantine silk. Those gifts were welcome and well received. And yet, madam, did it never strike you that they marked the passing of a good number of years?”
She laughed with studied lightness. “Two-and-twenty is hardly old! Why, you’re a babe in arms.”
“I am not,” said Baldwin. His voice was flat. “I am young, I grant you. But I am not a child. I sprouted my beard long ago.”
“So I have been told,” said Melisende.
She was not going to aid him, but neither, it seemed, would she hinder. That alone made Arslan suspicious; and he could see how Baldwin paused as if to gather his forces. When he spoke, it was abrupt, almost harsh. “Madam, do you not think it is past time that I claimed my right as king? I am neither weak nor feebleminded, nor require the aid of a regency.”
Melisende must have been expecting this; must have prepared for it. Arslan could not believe that she had failed to anticipate the moment. And yet she said, “It can wait, surely. You’ve had a hard campaign. You’ll want to rest, recover, enjoy your leisure. I can—”
“Madam,” Baldwin said, doing a thing that he had never dared to do: interrupting the flow of her speech. “I want to be king now. I should have been king years ago.”
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