He had to hope that Bertrand would choose to be Baldwin’s man and not Melisende’s, for this night at least.
When Arslan said it, he said it baldly, without preliminary. “I have a message for you from the king. He asks you to attend him tomorrow at prime in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.”
Bertrand was still for so long that Arslan wondered if he had heard. He might be asleep open-eyed, or reflecting on things far away.
Then he said, “He’s doing it, then.”
Arslan did not try to pretend that he misunderstood. “Will you tell his mother?”
“Should I?”
Arslan did not answer.
Bertrand closed his eyes. After what seemed a long while he said, “I suppose it was the only way.”
“None of us could think of any other,” Arslan said.
Bertrand nodded. “She’s not going to be happy.”
“Her happiness matters little in the face of law and custom.”
“Indeed,” said Bertrand. “And are you prepared if there are consequences?”
“What consequences can there be?”
“War,” Bertrand said.
Arslan nodded once, tightly. “We are prepared,” he said.
“Good,” said Bertrand.
“And will you come?”
“To the war?”
Arslan’s teeth clicked together. Bertrand was not laughing. Nor for that matter was Arslan. “To the coronation,” he said.
“I don’t know,” said Bertrand.
“He wants you there.”
“His mother would be less than pleased.”
Arslan nodded.
“So,” said Bertrand. “He’s asking me to choose.”
Arslan was silent. Bertrand did not seem angry, but he had always been able to preserve a calm face even when he was outraged. Arslan had undertaken to perfect the art himself. It was useful in contending with kings and councils.
Baldwin would pay, Arslan thought, for this that he had forced on them both. Arslan only hoped that the payment would not be made in blood.
“Go,” said Bertrand.
Arslan blinked. “Father?”
“Go,” Bertrand said again. “Leave me here.”
Arslan hesitated.
“I won’t go running to the queen,” Bertrand said with a hint of irritation. “What I will do… I need to think. Will you let me do it?”
Arslan bowed. He had to trust, as Baldwin had, that at the least, Bertrand would not turn against him. It shamed him, how hard that was. Yet he did it. There was little else, after all, that he could do.
Seventy-Four
As Arslan passed through the gate of the Tower of David, deep in thought and barely noticing where he was, a shadow waylaid him in the paler shadow of the gate. His hand dropped to the hilt of his dagger; he regretted briefly that he had not worn his sword.
The shadow spoke in a voice but lately broken. “Arslan?”
He eased all at once, so swiftly that his knees buckled.
Prince Amaury regarded him in some anxiety. He stiffened his knees, steadied his breath. The king’s brother looked as if he bore news that Arslan would be horrified to hear.
“What is it?” Arslan demanded of him. “Is the king—”
“Baldwin is still at dinner,” Amaury said. “I was waiting for you.”
It was hardly wise to strike a prince, but Arslan was well minded to knock him silly. “And why,” he asked with gritted teeth, “would you be doing that?”
Amaury glanced at the guards who stood stone-faced on either side. “Come,” he said.
Arslan nearly refused, but Amaury’s expression gave him pause. If it was not Baldwin, then perhaps—
* * *
“It’s not Mother, either,” Amaury said when they had paused in the court by the stables. No one was there; the grooms were all at meat or abroad. The horses were quiet, absorbed in their fodder. Someone had lit lamps in the stable, though it was still light without.
Amaury perched on a stool of ancient vintage. It groaned but held. The rump of a destrier loomed behind him. “Now,” he said. “Tell me true. Baldwin’s going to get himself crowned in the morning, isn’t he?”
Arslan forbore to be shocked. “You’ve been listening at doors,” he said.
“Yes,” Amaury said without shame, or anger either. “He thought I’d go running to Mother. Didn’t he?”
Arslan could hardly deny it.
“He should know me better than that,” Amaury said. “Or does he ever notice? Does he think I’m still seven years old and hounding him wherever he goes?”
Arslan considered him: fourteen years old, or was it fifteen? And certainly not hounding his brother. The queen had chosen her Constable to raise her younger son; Bertrand was occupied with his own late-acknowledged heir, and of all the men she would wisely choose, Manasses would have been the best of them. The Constable had kept his charge close, raised him well by all accounts, but given him little to do with his brother the king.
Amaury, it was clear, had lost none of the dogged persistence that had kept him so often and so long in Baldwin’s shadow. “You don’t have to say anything,” he said. “Just listen. I’m not angry. I understand why he would think I’m not to be trusted. But… I’m strangling, too. I want to be free of her.”
“And what,” asked Arslan, “has she done to you? You’re the second son. There’s no regency for you. You’re as free as anyone can be.”
“May I not be free to throw in my lot with my brother?”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because,” Amaury said calmly, “she might win now, but unless she poisons him or finds a way to get him killed in battle, he’ll outlive her. He’ll be king in time, whether she wills it or no. And I’ll be at his right hand. I think I want to be his Constable, when I’m old enough to do it and not be laughed at.”
Even when he was small, Amaury had always had that cold edge, that hint of calculation in everything he did. He lacked the warmth that brimmed over in his brother. Men did not love him, though they might admire his intelligence.
This could be a dangerous creature, Arslan thought. He was not frightened or even greatly troubled. Perhaps he should have been; but he had exhausted his store of anxiety in confronting his father. “So you want to throw in your lot with your brother,” he said. “What do you think your mother and your guardian will say to that?”
“I am fifteen years old,” Amaury said. “By law I am a man, though my lady mother may contest it. I can choose where I will go. I can swear fealty to a liege lord. I do want to do that – and I want that liege to be my brother.”
“Will you swear to that?” Arslan asked.
“By my brother’s life,” said Amaury.
“I’ll hold you to it.”
Amaury inclined his head, unruffled. “I knew you would. I trust you to keep me honest, messire, and to make sure that I am honorable.”
“You can’t do that for yourself?”
“I can,” Amaury said, “but Baldwin may not believe it. If I have you to speak for me, he’ll trust me.”
“Maybe not,” said Arslan.
“You don’t know your own power,” said Amaury. “If you say a thing is so, everyone believes it. No one doubts you. You have a gift, you know, whatever you choose to call it.”
“Honor,” Arslan said. “Honesty. But—”
“No buts,” Amaury said. “I’ll see him crowned, and I’ll keep silent till it’s done. Then I’ll swear myself to him. Will you tell him that?”
“Would you rather surprise him?”
Amaury paused as if he had not thought of that. Yet surely he had. “No,” he said. “No, let him be prepared. It will matter to the people that his brother shares his rebellion.”
Indeed it would. For both sons of Melisende to defy her so signally was no small thing. No easy one either, though Arslan had no doubt of what he was doing. A regent should know when to lay down her regency. If she would not do
it herself, then her son and his allies would do it for her.
* * *
Bertrand sat alone until Helena and Richildis and Michael Bryennius came back from putting Zenobia to bed. Even after they had settled about him, he had no ally in the world. “Where is Arslan?” Richildis asked in all innocence.
“He went back to his duties,” Bertrand said, which was true enough.
“Without bidding us goodnight?” Richildis clicked her tongue, but betrayed no suspicion. “Why, for shame. I’ll take him to task for it, next time we invite him for dinner.”
The others smiled; their conversation wound away where Bertrand had no mind to follow.
Soon enough they had tired of wine and chatter. Richildis went off to bed with her Byzantine. Helena lingered while the servants cleared the remains of the wine. She seldom waited so, or was so silent.
When the table was cleared, wine and servants gone, and only themselves in the lamplight, she said, “Tell me.”
Bertrand had every intention of refusing. But he had never been able to resist those eyes with their dark calm stare and their conviction that he would answer. He yielded to it almost with relief. “Baldwin will have himself crowned in the morning,” he said.
“Without his mother?”
Bertrand nodded.
Helena was not surprised. “She invited it, rather. Didn’t she? Demanding that she be crowned next to him, if he took power to himself – proving thereby that she rules and will rule as queen regnant, and not merely as regent.”
“Do you blame her for it?”
“No,” said Helena. “And you?”
“I… don’t know.” Bertrand shifted, suddenly uncomfortable. “Baldwin asked me to attend him.”
“He trusts you greatly, then,” Helena said.
“He’s a fool,” said Bertrand harshly. “He demands that I choose, as if such choices were in any way simple.”
“And are they not? Can you avoid them at all?”
“I would hope that I can,” he said. He rubbed his face, tired beyond bearing, too tired to rest. “I could do that, you know. Retreat to Beausoleil. Refuse to take sides.”
“You could,” she said. “It wouldn’t be like you, but you could.”
“What am I to do?” he cried. “How can I choose? She was my lady from the day I came to this kingdom, when she was but a willful child and I no older than Arslan is now. And he has been my dear lord since he was born, my pupil from his youth, my king and my friend. They never loved each other beyond the bare necessity, but we who love them both – we suffer for their contention.”
“Perhaps retreat is best, then,” she said, “lest you tear your heart apart.”
“And how can I do that, either? I was never a coward even when I ran from my father. I’ve never shrunk from a battle. I’ve always known where I stand, and for whom.”
“In this,” said Helena, “all ways are ill. Unless you prevent it. If you fetch Richildis, if the two of you go together to the queen—”
“No!” Bertrand recoiled from the violence of his own objection. With an effort he softened his voice. “No. I promised to keep silent.”
“Then perhaps,” said Helena, “you’ve made your choice.”
Bertrand opened his mouth to deny her, but no words came. He had not chosen Baldwin. But in omitting to speak before the deed was done, he committed a sort of treason.
He had made hard choices before: leaving La Forêt, coming to Outremer, choosing not to go back when his sister came to fetch him; first refusing and then acknowledging his son. But those had been easy beside this.
The promise he had made – yes, he could keep that, and would, whatever it cost him. But if he must then choose between the king and the queen, he did not know which would break first, his heart or his faith.
“He asked me to see him crowned,” Bertrand said. “But – I can’t.”
Helena took his hand and held it to her lips, then laid it over her heart. She did not speak. Like her son, she knew well the uses of silence.
“I can’t turn against the queen,” he said. “Not in secret, by sleights and trickery. If I’m to declare for Baldwin, I’ll do it in the light of day, where she can see me and know what I’ve done.”
That was cowardice of a sort, but Helena said nothing of it. She only said, “So you keep your faith with both: Baldwin by keeping silent, Melisende by standing apart while he compels the Patriarch to crown him.”
“I’ll get no thanks for either,” Bertrand said. He paused. “Do you despise me?”
She shook her head. “I’m only half a Frank, my love. We of the east know what it is to stand aside while the world goes mad.”
“And who is mad?” he asked. “The son, for wanting what should be his? Or the mother, for wanting what she has had since she was young?”
“Both and neither,” Helena answered, calm as always. “We can pray that she accepts the world’s way, and accepts what her son has done.”
“We can pray,” Bertrand said. But he knew as well as she: Melisende would give up nothing save under strong compulsion. Baldwin could not muster that, Bertrand did not think.
Not yet.
* * *
They gathered in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the grey hours of the morning, two days after Easter: Baldwin the king and his company of loyal knights. Bertrand was not among them. Arslan had not honestly expected him to be. Baldwin had asked too much of a man who loved him, but who had loved his mother first.
The throngs of pilgrims had gone away. There was no one in the church so early, only the acolytes preparing for mass in the chapels, and a worshipper or two near the Sepulcher, looking as if they had slept there.
The pomp and splendor of the coronation had been taken down and put away. There were only the furnishings of a day like any other, fine altar-cloths and banks of candles brightening the gloom. The Patriarch seemed to have descended from another and higher place, one far more royal in its dignity. His vestments shimmered as only silk will do, gold for the season, embroidered with silver and scarlet.
Baldwin had reckoned it too dangerous to slip out of the Tower of David in coronation robes, but Arslan had contrived to bring what he could. The king stood up in decent fashion, draped in a robe of the imperial purple, and over it a mantle of cloth of gold. Baldwin reckoned it a gaudy show, but he looked well in it. He stood straight, betraying no impatience as the Patriarch meandered his way through the forms of the mass. Only when it was strictly proper would he beckon the acolyte who held the silken cushion on which reposed the crown.
Fulcher of Angoulême, Patriarch of Jerusalem, was not a happy man. He was one of Melisende’s favorites, chosen and approved by her. It had taken all of Baldwin’s strength of will and arms and his own company of knights to persuade his eminence to leave his morning devotions and proceed to the church, there to crown Baldwin king. If Melisende should burst in now with her allies at her back and command him to halt, he would do it without a moment’s hesitation.
Humphrey of Toron, who had been Baldwin’s friend since the king’s youth, moved in close to the Patriarch and folded his arms. He was not a tall man nor on most occasions an imposing one, but he had the gift of commanding men. Fulcher blanched slightly and speeded his pace a fraction.
However reluctant Fulcher might be, word followed inexorably upon word, until he had climbed the steps of the mass to the rite of coronation. Baldwin knelt in front of him. He glowered at the head bent so properly and so humbly, and glared at the crown on its cushion. Arslan, catching Humphrey’s eye, advanced a step closer himself. He had the height that Humphrey lacked, the power to loom in silence, to threaten without uttering a word.
Between them they suborned the Patriarch. He took the crown in hands that barely trembled, lifted it high under the dome of the basilica, and lowered it onto the head that waited so patiently to receive it.
As it touched Baldwin’s brow, he let go a long, and long-held, breath. All the rest was only words. Here
was the truth: the weight of the crown and the right that it conveyed; the kingship that he had waited so long to take.
Arslan wondered if he felt different. He looked much as always. A little taller, perhaps; a little straighter. He wore kingship well, as he should who had been born to it. It was his proper garment. It fit him.
Seventy-Five
Melisende had not been pleased to learn of her son’s illness, but she had never suspected that it might have been part of a plot to defy her. When necessity forced him to put off the coronation, she suffered it. What else could she do?
She was just coming from morning mass in her chapel when the messenger arrived: a page, breathless with exertion, gasping out the words: “Majesty! The king’s been crowned before the Holy Sepulcher.”
Melisende stopped as if struck. “The king has what?”
“Been crowned,” the child repeated, too young or too short of breath for circumspection. “He took his knights and broke into the Patriarch’s palace and made the Patriarch come out and—”
“He had himself crowned by force?”
Melisende’s voice was quiet, her face calm. One who did not know her might think her unperturbed. The page seemed to take comfort from her manner: he mastered his breathing and spoke more calmly, though still with headlong speed – that seemed to be native to him. “Majesty,” he said, “the Patriarch couldn’t argue with a dozen strong knights, even if they were unarmed in the holy place.”
“No,” said Melisende. “He could hardly do that.”
She dismissed him with the courtesy she always showed servants and children. Already as he departed, her own messengers were running out to learn what was to be learned: who had abetted Baldwin in his defiance, and what they thought to do now. No guards had closed off her chambers, nor had any armed force appeared to confine her. Baldwin, it seemed, expected her to accept what he had done, to bow her head and fold her hands and retreat into proper womanly submission.
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