Chapter Seventeen ~ In a Lover's Arms
In her famous account, The Alexiad, the Emperor's daughter, Anna Comnena, would record Saint Gilles's return to Constantinople and his reception by the Emperor, who she said held great affection for the Count of Toulouse.
As for Saint Gilles and Tzitas, they made their way to Constantinople with a few surviving knights. The Emperor received them there and after presenting generous gifts of money and allowing them to rest, he asked them where they would like to go for the future. They chose Jerusalem. He lavished more presents on them, and sent them off by sea, just as they had wanted. Saint Gilles left Constantinople also, to join his own army at Tripolis, which he was anxiously seeking to capture. (Book XI, Page 320)
In late September of 1101 what was left of the pilgrims crossed the Bosporus and limped into the city of Constantinople. The leaders found at Raymond's villa that his door was not open to them. Further, the Basileus was far too busy to grant any of them an audience.
Once within the walls of the city, Albrecht and Elisabeth split from the main body of knights and followed familiar streets to the villa of Andronikos Comnenus. They found the entire household waiting within the courtyard. When Andronikos saw Albrecht slumped in his saddle, feverish, he cried out in alarm, and directed servants to help the squire down and carry him to his own massive chambers.
Elisabeth saw none of this, for next to Andronikos stood a young woman with honey-colored eyes holding a small boy. Tacetin wriggled out of his mother's arms and pushed his way through the servants to dash to Elisabeth. "Elli!" he cried.
Elisabeth, who had quickly dismounted, knelt in the courtyard with her arms wide, folding the child in them when he threw himself against her chest. She felt moisture on the boy's dark curls and realized it came from her own tears. She took his head between her hands and kissed his face repeatedly.
"Elisabeth," a velvety voice said quietly. She looked up into Maliha's precious eyes. Stiffly she dragged herself to a standing position and reached to take her lover in her arms. Maliha leaned into her, laid her cheek on Elisabeth's shoulder, and Elisabeth held her tight, savoring the feel and scent of her. When they looked again into each other's faces, each was wet with tears. They tilted their faces to each other and their lips met and held in a long kiss.
Like any soldier who returns from the horror of war, Elisabeth had no interest in delaying time alone with her beloved. She followed Maliha to their shared chamber. She saw immediately that Maliha had been living in it. She waited as Maliha asked his nurse to take Tacetin. When they were alone, she took Maliha's face in her hands gently and asked, "He has a nurse now?"
Honey eyes sparkled into hers. "Master has been most generous. There is so much to tell. So much to ask . . . " Elisabeth's lips cut off her words, hard and hungry on hers. Maliha noticed how dry and cracked they were. She relaxed in the pilgrim knight's embrace. She felt her start to move them both to the bed. When the side of the bed hit the back of her knees, she went limp, letting Elisabeth take her weight and lower her gently onto the bed. She pulled her legs up to lie flat, and felt the delicious weight of the woman atop her.
Elisabeth groaned and got to her knees next to Maliha's form. "I have not bathed in months," she sighed, pulling her gorget off, then her mail shirt up to wriggle out of it.
Maliha shared the task by unlacing the mail britches and pushing them down. "I want you however you are, my love."
Elisabeth knelt over her, eyes again brimming with tears. "It was horrible, so horrible I want to forget it."
"Let me help you try," the dark-haired woman begged.
Elisabeth sank down on top of her, pressed her lips to her throat and lost herself in the healing warmth of making love to Maliha.
Later while servants carried in the tub and hot water, the steward came to the door and bowed. "My master asks if the ladies would be so kind as to join him for a light meal this evening in his chambers."
Maliha glanced at Elisabeth and saw the surprise in her eyes. The German woman mouthed, "Ladies?" and Maliha gave her a mischievous grin.
"Lady Elisabeth and I would very much like that," she said to the servant, who bowed and backed out of the chamber.
"Did you tell him, my sweet one?" Elisabeth asked.
Maliha helped her slip the robe off her shoulders, tut-tutted at bruises and abrasions on her arms and back, and helped her into the tub.
"Get in with me," Elisabeth asked.
Maliha stripped her own robe off and as she put one leg and then the other into the tub she said, "No, I wanted to, but I thought it best to wait to ask you what you wanted." She settled between Elisabeth's legs, her back against her breasts. Elisabeth put her arms around her and began to stroke Maliha's full breasts, now soapy and oily, and to tweak her nipples. Maliha wriggled with pleasure. She reached up to pull Elisabeth's head down for a soul-searching kiss.
"Then who told him?" Elisabeth spoke into her ear.
"There was a man who came with another party of pilgrims, oh, yes, there, that is delicious." She sighed deeply while her lover's lips and tongue explored her neck and ear. "I can't tell you about it if you keep doing that."
"Do you want me to stop?" Elisabeth said, not stopping.
"No," Maliha moaned and twisted in the tub so that she lay on her side in Elisabeth's arms. She presented her lips for more kisses. Their tongues reached into each other's mouths to play together.
After making love in the bath, they fell deeply asleep in each other's arms, while the sounds of servants quietly removing the bath and cleaning up the water that splashed everywhere did not register on them at all.
Elisabeth found two sets of clothing set out by the servants when they awoke from their contented nap. She lifted the dress and held it to Maliha. "This is yours."
Maliha shook her head. "They are both yours, my love. Andronikos is giving you the choice."
"To wear men's or women's clothes?" she asked sardonically.
"No, to choose how you, a woman, wish to dress."
Elisabeth looked at her wonderingly, smiled and chose the britches, tunic and coat. Before they went out the door, she strapped on her sword belt. She put a palm on the small of Maliha's back and led her to Andronikos's rooms.
Ushered all the way into Andronikos's private bedchamber, the two women saw that Albrecht was installed in the master's bed, a physician putting the final touches on a bandage on his leg. The aroma of salves and poultices tinged the air already redolent with the spices used in food. Albrecht smiled sheepishly from where he sat propped up on silken pillows. Andronikos sat on the bed holding the man's hand. He looked up as his guests entered. "My ladies, welcome! I thank you for agreeing to have dinner with us."
Elisabeth, with a fond glance at her squire, bowed graciously, "It is generous of you, my lord. It seems I have much to be grateful to you for." She glanced at Maliha. "You have taken good care of my family."
Maliha's face shot to hers, her lips forming a tiny O. Tears sprang to her eyes. "Oh, Elli," she sighed.
Andronikos beamed at them both. He looked over at Albrecht, whose loving face moved between him and the women.
Elisabeth took Maliha's hand. "Come meet Albrecht more formally," she invited. She led Maliha to the bed, where she sat on the edge and drew her beloved to sit on her other side. "Albrecht, my friend, this is my darling Maliha. We have a son, Tacetin."
The squire laughed. "I've met Tacetin. He came to show me his kitten."
Maliha laughed delightedly. "Papaki?"
"Yes, that means duckling, though why he named a kitten after a duck I don't know."
Andronikos sat on the other side of the bed and held Albrecht's hand, massaging its back with his thumb. "I can tell you that," he smiled. "Tacetin remembered your shield with the upside-down duck. He noticed how the kitten liked to lie on its back and play with his fingers."
"How is your wound?" Elisabeth asked after she stopped laughing.
Andronikos replied for him, "Now that
he had the loving care he needs, it will be well. I shall see to that myself." He leaned in and shared a light kiss with Albrecht.
The servants brought in low tables and placed them near the bed. "I do not want my Albertos to feel left out, so if you do not mind, we shall sup at his bedside," he explained.
Over their supper Andronikos brought Elisabeth up on what had transpired while the pilgrims were gone. "You had hardly left Nicomedia when another party of pilgrims arrived from Nevers."
"Count William?" she asked, looking up from picking a delicacy from a polished teak tray.
He nodded, "Just as we were clearing up the mess in the city from your lot." He winked at Albrecht, whom he fed from his own fingers. "When the Nivenais came in such spectacular order, the city wished they have arrived first. They did not linger, anxious to join your Stephen of Burgundy and the rest of you and set out immediately for Ancyra."
"So the news had reached you of our conquest?"
Andronikos hid a wry smile behind his hand. "Of an unguarded stronghold?"
She frowned. "There was battle. I was in it."
Maliha gave a small cry and touched her arm. She patted it and murmured reassurances.
"She got her first kill in battle then," Albrecht put in. "Gods, but it's hard to get used to saying 'she' again."
"Do not get in the habit, my friend. I shall have to go back to being Elias soon." Her face was grim.
Maliha squeezed her arm. "Why? Can you not stay here?"
"I made a pledge. For my father's and Elias's sake. To pray at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. And to free the Holy Land from the Paynim." She froze, and looked at Maliha. "I am sorry. I do not mean you."
Andronikos looked from hers to Maliha's face. "I should think you would have had enough of fighting for pilgrims like Toulouse, Blois and the others, all such true Christians."
Her brows furrowed with the pain of sudden biting memories. "I still have to go to Jerusalem. I have to learn what happened to my father. Then I have . . . nowhere to go."
Andronikos cleared his throat. "I was hoping you would stay and be the captain of my personal guard."
Elisabeth looked up sharply. "You have no guard, my lord."
"I think it is high time I got one. And it would suit my sense of the dramatic to have one with a woman as their captain. The Basileus has his Verangians. I will have my Amazon."
"Master says we will go to Jerusalem later, when all this fighting has died down. On his ship," Maliha urged hopefully.
Elisabeth looked at Andronikos, then back at Maliha. She put her arm around the woman's shoulders and squeezed. "So I could live as I am, a woman, but a knight? What about Albrecht? Will he still be my squire? Would you want to squire a woman?" She looked up at his face.
Before Albrecht could answer, Andronikos said, "Albertos need never fight or wield a sword again. He will be my beloved companion for as long as he wants to be. He may do whatever he wishes in the world. I shall see to that."
The two men locked eyes. Albrecht's were full of wonder. "You love me that much?" he said hoarsely.
Andronikos gazed back. "With all my heart and soul." They continued to gaze.
"Oh Andronikos, ich liebe dich," Albrecht breathed in German. "I did not know I could love again, but I do."
The Greek eunuch did not need a translation.
Sharing a soft kiss of their own, Elisabeth asked Maliha, "Was the man you spoke of with the Nivenais? I do not understand. How would he know I was a woman?"
"No, he came with the last party. A fellow named . . . was it Hans?"
Andronikos nodded in response to her quizzical look.
"Hans!" Elisabeth and her former squire said together.
"How did he come to be here? If it is the same man, we left him in Bavaria."
Andronikos supplied the information. "He was my guest here, as squire to one of the lords traveling with Welf. That is your king, is it not? Or Duke?"
Blood draining from her face, Elisabeth asked, "That lord was not named Reinhardt by any chance, was he?"
Andronikos shook his head. "No, it was another Conrad. But he told us about Reinhardt. And he told us . . . about you."
Maliha chuckled. "Not quite the same story you would tell us, my love."
Albrecht laughed suddenly from the bed. "No, I should not think so! He thought Elisabeth and I were lovers running off together." He looked at the eunuch. "I am so glad that I . . . well . . . we . . . " He stopped, smiled sheepishly, and went on. "I am glad you had reason to doubt that I should prefer a woman, my lord."
"But how did you know that the woman Albrecht left with was the knight he arrived with?" Elisabeth pursued.
"We kept our mouths shut and our ears open. Sooner or later he mentioned your brother, Elias, of his passing, of the missing armor."
She laughed. "He probably did not mention the missing gold."
Maliha and her master exchanged looks. "He said you promised him treasure, but when he went to get it, your Reinhardt followed him and claimed it for his own."
She shuddered. "Please do not call him 'my Reinhardt.' Well, I am sorry. If he is still in Byzantium, I will try to make it up to him."
Andronikos shook his head. "He is gone. He was with Welf, as I said, as well as a most charming man, a troubadour of some renown, Duke William of Aquitaine. What a talented lot the nobles of that land are. And a most extraordinary woman, Ida, the Dowager Margravina of Austria."
Elisabeth sat up so quickly she knocked her goblet of wine from its perch on her knee. "Ida? She was here?"
Maliha looked concerned and leaned to mop at the dark red liquid soaking into the covers of the bed. "Do you know her?"
"An extraordinarily beautiful woman." Andronikos added, "if you go in for that sort of thing." He winked at Albrecht. But as quickly he shot his attention to Elisabeth. She had stood and was stepping around the low table. "What is amiss?"
Elisabeth cried as she darted out of the chamber, "Ida. She and her party are almost certainly headed into disaster! I have to stop them!"
It felt strange riding alone along the roads to Ancyra she had traversed months ago with the entire pilgrim force. It chilled her to think that only a handful, no more than six score, of the men, women and children who had marched, laughed, argued, sung, complained, and breathed would ever see their homelands again.
At her first stop to beg water and fodder for Gauner she learned from wary villagers that not only had the Nivenais force passed through, taking what little food the natives of the region had left, but had passed through again heading back the same direction. The peasants did not know why or where they had gone. She knew she must retrace her steps and learn where they had turned off. The only thing she was confident about was that they had not returned to Constantinople or even Nicomedia. She would have intercepted them if they had.
She quizzed the peasants and the people further and learned that no second group had passed through the village. So Ida's party clearly had learned what she had not and followed the Nivenais along the same course. If she had stopped sooner for provender, she would not have wasted time in her pursuit.
Retracing her steps back through what was now well within Byzantine territory, she finally learned that the Nivenais had taken the road south to Dorylaeum. The later party had followed. Turning her own mount in the same direction, she worried that the two parties, almost six weeks separated, would make easy targets for the strengthening armies of Kilij Arslan and his now staunch ally, Malik Ghazi. She could only pray they had met somewhere along the way, at Dorylaeum or Konya, and combined forces.
She thought about what Andronikos had told her. The body of pilgrims, which included the Margravina, had arrived in Constantinople not long after the Nivenais left to overtake her own force. The last group had not hurried after them. Petty jealousies played a part in this decision as they had with Raymond, Blois, and the others. William hated Count Raymond of Toulouse, for his duchess was the daughter of Raymond's older brother and shou
ld have inherited the county. Duke Welf was a bitter rival of the Holy Roman Emperor and had no wish to ally himself with the Constable of the Emperor, Conrad. So while the Count of Nevers made haste on the journey where he hoped to combine forces with Raymond and his pilgrims, the Aquitainians and Bavarians had rested in the area across the Bosporus from Constantinople and when they left headed to Dorylaeum to make their way south to Syria and Palestine. One party, including a man named Eckhardt who was chronicling the pilgrimage, took ship directly to Palestine.
So, she realized, the Nivenais must have arrived at Ancyra, expecting to be directed to Raymond's location, but no one there knew anything about his whereabouts. Elisabeth thought it was suspicious that Count William did not even learn the direction they had taken only a few weeks before. The Nivenais must have assumed that the first group of pilgrims pursued their original course, south to Konya, so they headed in that direction as well, taking a roundabout path. She could only hope that their backtracking allowed the last group to catch up and combine forces. The last was well equipped, much better than the Nivenais, but neither group could face what Elisabeth had seen. The Seljuk Turk and Danishmend armies were greater still.
She urged Gauner on and on, but finally realized he could not keep up the pace forever. He may be a destrier, a huge stout horse, but his very size could be his downfall if ridden too hard, too fast and too long. Killing her horse would not help her desperate pursuit. She decided to pause in a small village whose church tower she had spied, to rest Gauner and herself and to get whatever tidings she could.
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