“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!”
“Holy Cross!”
“St. George!”
They fell out of the tent in a pack, Ibelin leading only because he was more panicked than the rest. The day his brother Hugh died in a riding accident flashed through his head. But the King …
By the time they reached the horse lines, the King’s big white stallion had been caught and was surrounded by dozens of agitated men. Other knights and barons, including Balian’s brother of Ramla and his knights, were converging on the horse lines. Ibelin recognized Bishop of Bethlehem and the lords of Caymont and Jubail, neither of whom were particularly young.
“Dawit! Saddle up Centurion!” Ibelin ordered, and Dawit darted away to prepare his lord’s destrier, while Ibelin’s knights scattered to find their own grooms and horses.
Daniel, however, had already tacked up the destrier while Dawit sought out their lord, so he was brought before the others returned. Ibelin, in no mood to wait for the others, swung himself up into the saddle. As he took up the reins, Daniel grabbed his leg. “My lord! You can’t go unarmored!”
Balian hesitated. Something had caused Lightning to bolt, and he had smears of blood on his shoulder and haunch. The fact that none of the King’s household had returned with the terrified horse suggested there had been an ambush or engagement that had pinned them down.
The decision about arming was taken from him by shouts upriver, followed by a surge of men in the same direction. Ibelin shook free of Daniel and cantered through the crowd to the cause of the commotion. Staggering toward them were five men, carrying a cloak between them in which something lay. Balian recognized one of them men as Sir Tancred, who usually rode as the King’s “shield” on his left. Even as he watched, they set their burden down on the matted grass. It was the King.
Balian crossed himself and jumped down to kneel beside the lifeless figure. The King was in full armor under a white-and-gold surcoat with the arms of Jerusalem. His knights had removed the helmet with the gold crown upon the steel brow. The King’s face was bloodless, his eyes closed. Balian unlaced the aventail over his neck and chin and slipped his hand inside as the men around him held their breaths. Balian felt the tremor of a pulse, and he breathed out. “He’s alive,” he announced to the audience crowding around. Then he looked up at the men who had carried the King back to camp. “What happened?”
“We were ambushed by Saracens—”
“Salah ad-Din’s nephew—”
“Farrukh-Shah—”
“—took us by surprise—”
“They outnumbered us five to one—”
“Who had time to count?”
“The King’s horse bolted!”
“He reared up, spun about, and bolted so fast, no one could stop him.”
“The Saracens tried to cut him off, and the Constable rushed forward, killing several of them—”
“He decapitated one man, and the head bounced off the shoulder of the King’s horse—which made him swerve and run faster still.”
“None of us could catch him—”
“Besides, the Saracens were blocking the way.”
“We had to fight our way out.”
“By the time we’d—”
The sound of horses and riders, approaching at a fast pace, interrupted them. Everyone looked north and saw the approaching horde of riders. The banners of Oultrejourdain and Sidon fluttered in the breeze on upright lances, but in the center two riders were trying to carry a man between them. He was apparently unconscious and drenched in blood.
“It’s the Constable!” someone gasped, and the crowd rushed toward the returning riders.
Balian left them to it, his concern still focused on the King. “Did you see him fall?” he asked Sir Tancred, who had also stayed behind. Balian was visualizing King Baldwin’s plight: unable to use either hand, he had no means of reining his stallion in. Nor could he grasp the mane or the pommel to hold on. He could only cling to the stallion with his legs—effectively urging the horse to go faster. As long as the horse went straight, he would have been able to keep his balance, but any sudden spring to the left or right would have flung him from his precarious perch.
“No. We found him lying unconscious on the side of the road.”
“He was already unconscious when you found him?”
“Yes.”
There was no way of knowing how seriously injured he was until they got him to his tent and the surgeon examined him, Balian concluded, and looked around for the best means to get him there. Although his own knights crowded in offering help, a Hospitaller knight was shoving his way forward with six of his brothers and a stretcher. They efficiently lifted the King onto the stretcher and carried him away, trailed by the Bishop of Bethlehem.
Ibelin did not try to follow. He could not help Baldwin now. Instead he turned to the other commotion, but here too the Hospitallers had taken charge, and the Constable was being carried up to a large infirmary marked with the white crosses on black of the Hospital. He was trailed by a dozen wounded knights who could still walk, at least with assistance. There was nothing more Ibelin could do for him, either, he decided. So he remounted and rode slowly back to the horse lines.
“My lord? The King requests your attendance.” The messenger was one of the royal body squires, and he spoke softly and respectfully. It was the middle of the night, and at least some of the other men in the tent were sleeping, their soft snores and deep breathing filling the chilly air.
Ibelin reached down and shook Daniel awake. The youth groggily helped him dress, then lay down and went right back to sleep.
As he followed the King’s squire, Ibelin asked, “Is it true his grace has had no serious injuries?”
“That is correct, my lord. He was miraculously unharmed—not a single broken bone or even a concussion.” The youth sounded awestruck in the darkness. Balian suspected that Baldwin had already lost consciousness by the time he was finally thrown and so had landed completely limp—the best way to avoid injury, as he had learned long ago on the tiltyard.
They reached the King’s tent, and the sentries bowed their heads to the Baron of Ibelin and opened the flap. The interior of the tent was luxuriously furnished with dyed straw mats in bright patterns, cushions on the chairs and chests, and billowing striped silk hangings that cut off the view to the King’s bed. A lamp behind the silks made them luminescent, and Balian could see shadows moving around the bed.
“It’s me, your grace, Balian d’Ibelin,” he announced as the squire dissolved in the darkness. “You sent for me?”
“Balian! Come in!”
Balian pushed the silk hangings aside and approached the King’s camp bed. The King was propped up against the pillows, wearing only a nightshirt and a cap over his head, tied under the chin. His arms were freshly bandaged, and on the far side of the bed Ibrahim was stuffing the used bandages into a cotton sack that, Balian knew, would be burned.
“The Constable is dead,” the King announced in a voice heavy with sorrow. “His wounds might not have killed a younger man, but his aging heart could not bear them. It gave out just before Matins. The good Bishop of Bethlehem was with him.”
“I am sorry, your grace,” Ibelin answered sincerely. He had not known Humphrey de Toron well. The Constable had belonged to the generation of Baldwin III and Amalric, and he had fought beside Balian’s father in Egypt. Nevertheless, he had been on the High Court of Jerusalem for over forty years and Constable of the Kingdom for more than ten. He had been well educated, courageous, and a voice of reason, respected by all his peers. The Kingdom would miss him, Balian thought.
“He gave his life for me, Balian,” the King continued in a voice strained by the intensity of his emotions. “If he had not come between me and the Saracens, they would surely have taken me captive.”
“Then he gave his life for Jerusalem, your grace, for we cannot afford to have our King fall into the hands of our enemies,” Ibelin corrected him, adding firmly: “You should not take
such risks, your grace. Cattle raiding is for bachelor knights, squires, and men-at-arms, not kings.”
“We can’t just let them graze their herds in our territory, either!” Baldwin countered. “The drought is terrible, and many of our own cattle will starve if they do not find enough fodder. We can’t afford to share our grass with the cattle of our foe. My mistake was putting too much trust in Lightning. Misty” he referred to the gelding Balian had selected for him and on which he had learned to ride, “would never have run away with me like that.”
Ibelin agreed, but he knew that the aging gelding was no longer a suitable mount for a king, either—and it was not easy to find and train a horse to the leper’s needs.
The King continued, “Oultrejourdain is right, Balian. The Saracens will wear us down and slowly overwhelm us if we just sit here. They have lost their fear of us. We must reawaken it—make them respect us again.”
“You won’t do that by chasing cattle,” Ibelin countered in admonishment.
“If I had been a healthy man, there would have been no particular risk,” Baldwin replied stubbornly.
“Salah ad-Din is healthy,” Ibelin countered, “but we nearly captured him at Montgisard.” Baldwin liked being reminded of that, Balian knew. When he had Baldwin’s attention, however, he added, “But at Montgisard, Salah ad-Din was leading an army of invasion. Had he been killed or captured at Montgisard, it would have been for reasons of state. Risking death or capture for a cattle raid is not kingly.”
Baldwin IV frowned in irritation, but then sighed deeply and considered Balian thoughtfully for another moment before finally conceding. “You are right to rebuke me, Balian. But don’t you see? Jerusalem needs a king who can defend her—not keep to his bed all the time.”
“You are the King God gave us, your grace,” Ibelin retorted.
“But what if I am not strong enough to bear the cross of Jerusalem, Balian? What if I can’t?” The King paused to let this sink in, adding softly, “You saw me when I was laid low by fever last summer. I was so close to death I could smell the incense of my own funeral in the curtains of my bed. And now—now a good man has died because I was too weak to play the role God gave me. Humphrey de Toron was a good man.”
“I know. May God have mercy on his soul.” Ibelin crossed himself.
“His son died half a dozen years ago,” the King continued. “His heir is his grandson—a boy no more than twelve or thirteen.”
Ibelin nodded absently; he was tired and sleepy.
“I have been thinking,” the King announced in a soft voice. “I have been thinking that the best way I can thank the Constable for his decades of service and for his final sacrifice would be to elevate his heir to a position of greater prominence.” The idea he was about to broach with Ibelin had been planted months ago by his mother, but at the time Baldwin had not been particularly focused on rewarding Toron.
“If he’s still a youth, do you know that he is worthy, your grace?” Ibelin asked. He could not imagine why they had to discuss this in the middle of the night.
“Who can judge the mettle of a youth?” the King answered. “I do not think my father would have expected me to fight—and win—at Montgisard.”
“No, your grace,” Ibelin conceded with a rueful smile.
“And I would not appoint him to a high office he is not able to fill, but I thought I could include him in my family.” Before Ibelin could work out for himself how that could happen, the King declared, “I think he would be a suitable husband for my sister Isabella; don’t you?”
Ibelin was blindsided. Isabella was Maria Zoë’s only child from her marriage to King Amalric of Jerusalem—and she doted on her.
“She’s four or five years younger than young Toron,” the King continued, oblivious to Balian’s shock, “and if they are introduced to each other early, they might become fond of one another.” That was what his mother had told him when she proposed the scheme a few months back.
But Balian was thinking of his brother Barry’s marriage to poor Richildis. They too had been married as children, but that had not stopped his brother from setting Richildis aside when he wanted to marry someone else. Balian’s instincts told him this proposal had nothing to do with a happy marriage for Isabella, and everything to do with the fact that Isabella, as the daughter of a Byzantine princess, was seen by many in the Kingdom as a more legitimate heir to the throne of Jerusalem than Baldwin himself. Someone, Balian sensed, was trying to take control of Isabella away from Maria Zoë to ensure that they could use her for their own purposes. But who? It could hardly be the boy Humphrey.
Humphrey’s mother, however, was Stephanie de Milly, Balian remembered, and she was now married to Reynald de Châtillon; a more ambitious man had never walked God’s earth. Balian protested with the first argument that came to mind. “She has not yet reached the age of consent.”
“There’s no need to rush the marriage,” the King answered reasonably. “Next year or the year after will be soon enough. Now that his grandfather is dead, young Humphrey will join his mother’s household in Kerak and learn knighthood from the Lord of Oultrejourdain.”
“Oultrejourdain doesn’t know what chivalry is!” Balian countered sharply, his suspicion apparently confirmed that the notoriously brutal and immoral Reynald de Châtillon was behind this suggestion. Oultrejourdain, to the surprise of many, had been a bastion of Baldwin’s throne, throwing the full weight of his barony behind the King and demonstrating more respect for the young King than many another. But he remained fundamentally a brigand with a barony, and Balian did not trust him. He did not know why he wanted control of Isabella, but he was sure it was not for her good.
Meanwhile Baldwin answered Balian’s objection by pointing out rather proudly, “But he knows how to defend my Kingdom.”
“That’s not the same thing as being a good stepfather to a child!” Balian countered, more hotly than was polite to a king.
“This isn’t about being a good stepfather,” the King answered coldly; “it’s about the marriage of my sister—and heir. I did not call you here to ask your advice, my lord; I merely wanted to show you the courtesy of telling you in person what I am planning.”
The rebuke sat, and Balian had no choice but to bow and remark, “Thank you, your grace.” He was acutely conscious of his helplessness; the King was Isabella’s guardian, and, as such, he could dispose of her in marriage as he pleased.
“You must understand, Balian,” the young King pleaded with his mentor, distressed by the resentment Balian was exuding. “I am terrified of what will happen to the Kingdom if I do not live long enough for the Duke of Burgundy to take up my cross. Or what if something prevents the Duke of Burgundy from arriving at all? We need to be sure that Isabella, at least, is married to a local baron, a man who understands our needs and our limitations.” That was how his mother had put it to him. “Would you rather I married Isabella to a grown man? A man old enough to be her father or grandfather?”
“Of course not,” Balian admitted, thinking of his bright-eyed, impish stepdaughter. He always imagined that his wife had been like Isabella — before she was sent to a strange land to bed a King three times her age.
“I am trying to do what is best for everyone, Balian. At least give me credit for that,” Baldwin pleaded.
Balian was not immune to the King’s plea, but he could not shake off his instinctive sense of alarm. Defensively he pointed out, “You would have no need to marry off a child if you had given Sibylla to my brother instead of promising her to Burgundy.”
Raising the issue of his brother’s suit for Sibylla instantly backfired. Baldwin retorted irritably, “We’ve been through all this before! Salah ad-Din gets stronger year for year with new conquests. We need fresh blood! We need crusaders! If Sibylla marries your brother, we are not one knight stronger, but if she marries Burgundy, he will bring hundreds of knights with him!”
“But you want Isabella married to a local baron. Why not make it the other
way around? Marry Sibylla to my brother and promise Isabella to Burgundy?”
“Burgundy will not come out here for a woman who is not certain to be Queen! You know that!” Baldwin retorted, his anger stoked by Balian’s stubbornness. His mother had warned him the Ibelins were ambitious. He hadn’t wanted to believe her, but the more Balian argued, the more he wondered if his mother might be right about them after all. She’d been married to one, after all. “Nor will Burgundy come out here to marry a child! We need Burgundy sooner rather than later.” Baldwin’s fears were mingling with his irritation. “Balian, don’t you understand? I’m failing!”
There was so much anguish and reproach in Baldwin’s voice that Balian was temporarily silenced. Then he thought of his wife and how she would react to the news, and he made one last appeal, hoping to exploit the King’s affection for his stepmother. “Your grace, it will break Maria Zoë’s heart if you take Isabella away from her—no matter where you send her.”
Baldwin stiffened, holding his breath. For a short moment Balian thought he had won, but then the King slowly let out his breath and noted, “I was torn from my mother’s arms when I was barely two years old—to make way for Maria Zoë.”
Christ on the Cross! Balian thought, understanding at last: this is Agnes’ revenge.
“That is the fate of royalty,” the King continued: “to serve the higher interests of the Kingdom, no matter how much it hurts. I’m sure no one will understand that better than Queen Maria Comnena. Besides, who said anything about taking Isabella away? I only said I would betroth her to young Toron. She may, for now, remain with her mother.”
Balian recognized that he was trapped. He had no arguments left, and he could sense the King’s budding resentment. If he were to retain the King’s goodwill and affection, he had to back down now. He bent his head in submission. “Yes, your grace.”
“Then you will make this sacrifice for Jerusalem?” Baldwin pressed him.
“I will make any sacrifice for Jerusalem, your grace,” Balian countered.
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