The shouting that had drawn Balian outside, however, was coming from the other direction, the Street of the Furriers. Balian leaned over the railing to try to get a better view and saw mounted Templars pushing their way through the crowd, the Beauséant flapping from an upraised lance.
“That’s how they make enemies,” Barry remarked as he came up beside his brother.
Balian agreed with a silent nod, and together they watched as the Templars all but trampled the foot-folk under the hooves of their destriers. They were riding four abreast, which was as much as the street would allow, and it was a very long column. It was odd for them to be in this part of the city, since their headquarters stood to east and south of the Ibelin palace, on the site of the Temple of Solomon. As they came nearer, however, Balian recognized that the lead rider was wearing the insignia of the Grand Master. “Ah, that’s what this is about,” he surmised. “The new Grand Master has just arrived in Jerusalem, and he’s anxious to visit the Mount of Olives on Ash Wednesday for the first time in his life.”
“Have the Templars chosen a new Master already?” Barry asked, astonished. “St. Amand only died two months ago.”
“Didn’t you hear? No, I suppose your jailers would have no reason to tell you. When St. Amand refused to be ransomed, he also sent word to the Marshal that he was ‘dead’ and ordered the election of a new Grand Master. They held a Grand Chapter last fall and elected Arnold de Toroga, formerly Master of the Temple in Spain.” As he spoke, Balian tried to get a better look at the man who would now wield huge power and influence in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Toroga was white-haired and his long white beard hung to the middle of his chest. His face was long, thin, and deeply lined. An old man, an administrator more than a fighter, Balian surmised, unsure how he felt about this.
Barry leaned his elbows on the railing and watched the Templars ride past. “Is it true we lost the castle at Jacob’s Ford, after all the trouble we went to build it last winter?”
Balian nodded grimly without looking at his brother. “We lost it.”
“How?”
Balian took a deep breath. “The King called for the army to muster at Tiberias, but many knights were slow to react. The spring harvest had been terrible because of the drought, and the autumn harvest promised to be even worse. Men were more worried about how to feed their families than about defending a new castle. The Templars were at Jacob’s Ford, men told themselves. The Templars had eighty knights and two hundred fifty sergeants at Jacob’s Ford. Why did the whole army have to muster again?” Balian could hear the words in Maria Zoë’s voice in his ear.
“When we did muster, the King fell suddenly ill. Another fever. Again, it looked as if he were going to die. His mother and Princess Sibylla made a mad night ride from Jerusalem with the True Cross to be at his bedside. By the time he recovered, it was too late. Salah ad-Din had mined under the walls of the castle, and—on the second attempt—brought down a huge section of the masonry. The Templar commander flung himself into the flames when he realized the situation was hopeless.” Balian crossed himself and muttered, “May God have mercy on his soul.”
“And the rest were also slaughtered, no doubt,” his brother added grimly, crossing himself as well.
Balian nodded. “They slaughtered most of the garrison on the spot, being Templars, but even the lay workmen—the masons, carpenters, cooks, and smiths—were massacred. Not immediately, I admit, but while being marched back to Damascus to the slave market. I don’t know why exactly—just religious fervor on the part of the common soldiers, it seems.”
“They have that,” Barry confirmed, tight-lipped, his eyes turned inward to his memories. After a moment he added, “When you hear them chanting their slogans of hatred, calling for death to all Christians, for the ‘cleansing’ of a land that was never holy to them until we took it from them, you realize that there is no reasoning with them. They are determined to exterminate us.”
Balian studied his brother, and a chill went down his spine. He tried to chase his fears back into his subconscious. “Over the last century, they have spent far more time fighting each other than us.”
“Yes. So long as Egypt was Shiite, they were divided. Even now, the rulers in Aleppo and Mosul view Salah ad-Din as a usurper, while the Nubians hate him for the slaughter of the Caliph’s guard, and the Egyptians only support him as long as he brings them loot. He can never quite be sure there won’t be a revolt somewhere. But that’s exactly why he’s let the genie ‘jihad’ out of the bottle. He clothes himself in piety to disguise his earthly ambitions, to justify his conquest of Muslim territory—and to unite his diverse subjects in a common cause against a common enemy.
“Make no mistake,” Barry continued, turning to look his brother squarely in the face, “Salah ad-Din is an intelligent man. Very welleducated and somewhat scholarly. Surprisingly short and no longer young,” Barry couldn’t resist adding, “but he is first and foremost a ruthless ruler determined to establish his own dynasty in the largest possible territory. And he wants the Kingdom of Jerusalem not for any religious reason—for what the hell is Jerusalem to them? The venue of a dream!” he scoffed. “No, he wants Jerusalem because he wants the ports we control. He has no iron, you know. He has to import iron for all his weapons and armor from the East or the Greeks.”
“Or capture them from us,” Balian noted with a snort, adding, “They say he took a thousand suits of mail at Jacob’s Ford. What on earth were the Templars doing with a thousand suits of mail in an unfinished castle?” He asked the question rhetorically directed toward the column of Templars still blocking the street below.
Looking down, however, Balian caught sight of a party of riders waiting in the Street of Spain for the Templars to turn up Jehoshaphat Street. Balian recognized his niece and her husband and nudged Barry. “There’s Eschiva and Lusignan now.”
Barry followed Balian’s finger and his face broke into a wide smile. “She’s all grown up! What a proper young lady!”
Eschiva did look grown up in her white silk wimple under an embroidered, crown-like hat, and she sat the bay mare Lusignan had given her very well. She also looked quite small and fragile to Balian, flanked as she was by two armored men on tall horses. The men were talking to each other over her head, and for a moment it looked as if they were ignoring her. Then the stranger bent and addressed her directly, making her draw back as if in shock, while her husband laughed. At last the Templars had passed and Eschiva’s party advanced to dismount in front of the Ibelin palace, while Balian and Barry returned inside.
“I’ll go surprise her,” Barry announced, and moved out onto the gallery while Balian and Maria Zoë hung back.
The guests mounted the stairs from the courtyard, and then with a startled “Papa!” Eschiva ran to her father’s arms.
He lifted her off the floor and spun her around. “My little bird! You’re all grown up! Was I really away so long?”
Balian and Maria Zoë exchanged a look. He hadn’t been away so long; he had simply taken no time for his daughter even when he was in the country. Barry set his daughter down and turned to face his son-in-law. “Lusignan, I understand you helped raise part of my ransom. I am grateful.”
“For my wife’s sake,” Aimery answered coldly, making it very clear he still begrudged Barry his efforts to disinherit Eschiva, even if she chose to ignore the slights to herself and her mother. “I don’t believe you’ve met my younger brother Guy,” he continued, indicating the knight beside him.
“No,” Barry conceded with a stiff nod in the direction of the younger man. Aimery de Lusignan was Constable of Jerusalem and so could not be slighted, but his younger brother was of no consequence.
Maria Zoë, however, as hostess, gestured for the newcomers to come into the hall, promising refreshments. At the sound of her voice Guy de Lusignan turned in her direction, and Balian saw his eyes widen. A moment later he was bowing over Maria Zoë’s hand with an elegance that made Barry look like a callow youth. “Madame
de Ramla, I presume—”
“No,” three male voices corrected him at the same time.
“Ibelin,” Maria Zoë introduced herself with a regal smile, removing her hand from his slowly, but pointedly nevertheless. She knew exactly how to put distance between herself and others, Balian noted—with approval.
“Dowager Queen of Jerusalem,” the Constable hammered the point home, taking his younger brother by his upper arm and steering him firmly past Maria Zoë into the room beyond.
Maria Zoë raised an eyebrow at Balian, but then turned to go and tell the staff they were ready for refreshments, while Barry, his arm still around Eschiva, followed the Lusignan brothers into the solar.
“So when did you arrive, sir?” Balian asked the younger Lusignan as he joined the others.
“Today,” Guy admitted cheerfully. “I landed at Jaffa five days ago, but it took me a couple of days to find suitable horses.”
“You didn’t bring your own?” Balian asked, surprised. The Holy Land was always short of horses, and most knights brought their own if they wanted to be sure of having a powerful mount.
“Oh, horse transports need to be booked so far in advance—particularly at this time of year. I was lucky to get a cabin at all. In fact, I would have had to come steerage like the poor, if some old merchant hadn’t developed the runs at the right moment.”
“Were you in such a great hurry?” Barry asked. “It makes it sound like you were running away from something.”
The elder Lusignan snorted. “Guy is always running away from something—usually his own bad judgment,” Aimery quipped, adding, “Guy has managed to be on the losing side of every squabble between the King of England and his sons, between the Plantagenet princes, and between Plantagenet and Capet—not because he’s been loyal to anyone in particular, but rather because he has a knack for changing masters just before they go down in humiliating defeat. No,” Aimery insisted, “Guy is not the most successful member of the Lusignan family—but having made himself persona non grata in France, Normandy, Brittany, England, and Aquitaine, he has come to make the Holy Land unsafe as well.”
“We don’t need any help with that,” Balian remarked dryly. “Salah ad-Din has made it unsafe enough as it is.”
“I daresay my brother is exaggerating,” Guy countered. “I’ve actually done quite well on the tourney circuit,” the younger man bragged.
Barry and Balian just stared at him.
“They don’t have tournaments here,” his brother enlightened him.
Guy gaped at him, shocked.
“No need,” Balian explained. “We spend too much of our time fighting in earnest to need to play at it.”
“So,” Aimery changed the subject by turning pointedly to Barry and asking, “Where and how do you plan to raise the remaining hundred thousand bezants?”
Barry thought it wise not to mention his hopes of getting a handsome sum from Sibylla, and instead bowed toward Maria Zoë and answered, “My beloved sister-in-law has been kind enough to plead my case with the Greek Emperor. He has agreed to see me and hear me out, so I will leave for Constantinople almost at once.” Just as soon as I’ve seen Sibylla, he added mentally. “I’ll make first for Tripoli to thank Raymond for releasing Farrukh-Shah for my sake and forfeiting a sizeable ransom himself. Then I’ll continue on to Antioch and, after paying my respects to Prince Bohemond and Maria Zoë’s sister Theodora,” he nodded again to Maria Zoë, “I’ll take ship from there. I hope to be back by Easter.
“Now a question for you, Aimery.” Barry turned the tables on his son-in-law, “Since you are Constable and so the man responsible for organizing the defense of the Kingdom of Jerusalem: just how much longer can you leave the fate of the Kingdom in the hands of a leper?”
“What sort of question is that?” Aimery shot back, shocked, while Balian spluttered in equal amazement, “Barry! Baldwin IV is our anointed King.”
“That he may be, and I’ve sworn homage to him no less than the rest of you, but he’s no longer capable of leading the army. You know that better than I do. He’s worse than an infant or a woman!” Balian winced at the analogy, but it wasn’t inherently wrong. Barry was only saying out loud what many men thought in silence. “If we had a child or a girl on the throne, you would lead the army in their name, Lusignan. But by insisting on coming on campaign despite his handicap, Baldwin undermines your authority, prevents you from doing your job, and gets in everyone’s way, endangering us all. Twice now, his inability to stay on his horse has cost us a battle that would otherwise have been won.”
“Hardly,” Balian felt compelled to defend Baldwin. “It was the Templars’ rashness in attacking Salah ad-Din’s larger forces on their own rather than falling back and fighting with the King and the rest of us that cost us the victory on the Litani.” He could have added that if Barry had not crossed the Litani, he too could have rallied around the King and broken the Saracen charge, but he didn’t want to get into a fight about that, certainly not in front of his niece and the Lusignans.
“I’ll give you that, Balian. The Templars made a bad decision and it cost them dearly, but the fact remains that twice in a row—three times, if you count the loss of the castle at Jacob’s Ford—the King’s health has cost us victory. How much longer can we afford to lose battles and castles because of the King’s health? When will he see reason?”
“What do you mean by reason? Baldwin has long since agreed to abdicate to his sister’s husband, as soon as she marries a man of proven military ability,” Balian pointed out. “It’s not his fault that the Duke of Burgundy reneged on his promise!”
The news that the Duke of Burgundy would not be coming out to marry Princess Sibylla and assume the role of heir apparent of Jerusalem had arrived with the first pilgrim ships of the season, proving Maria Zoë’s instincts correct. The King of France had had a paralyzing stroke and his fourteen-year-old son was fighting down a rebellion—not to mention facing the perpetual threat from the Plantagenet. Under these circumstances, the Duke of Burgundy felt he could not leave France, and sent his regrets to his future brother-in-law and bride.
“The Duke of Burgundy is the third Western prince who has promised to take up the defense of the Holy Land—only to change his mind. We cannot look there for help any longer,” Aimery declared. “We must find a husband for Sibylla among the experienced men already in the Kingdom.”
Balian glanced toward his brother, and Barry grinned. This was the opportunity he had been waiting for: what had before been little more than dallying with a princess was about to become serious politics and an open bid for the throne.
“The Baron of Ramla is a comely man,” Stephanie de Milly probed cautiously, as Princess Sibylla paused by a stall selling carpets in the market.
Stephanie was the Lady of Oultrejourdain in her own right. She had inherited the border barony from her father and had bestowed it on three husbands in succession. Her first husband, the hapless son of the former Constable Humphrey de Toron, had died young in an accident, leaving her with an infant named for his father who was rapidly taken away from her by her father-in-law. Her second husband, Miles de Plancy, had been a man after her own heart, fierce and ambitious. When he had been assassinated in the streets of Jerusalem, she had vowed revenge on the man she suspected (but no one else credited) with the murder—the Count of Tripoli. To that end she had taken her third husband, the infamous adventurer Reynald de Châtillon. The latter had seduced his way into the Crown of Antioch, but had lost it again when his wife died and his stepson came of age—while he was rotting in a Saracen prison. Reynald and Stephanie shared a passion for power, a contempt for weakness, and utter disregard for law and religion.
Madame d’Oultrejourdain was taller than most men, heavy-boned, and well-padded with muscle and fat. She disdained “female vanities” and dressed in practical linen dresses of solid colors, although she no longer wore only black. She used neither makeup nor perfume and tended to smell rather bad most of the time.
She was an unusual companion for the vain Sibylla, but Sibylla had been bored, and Stephanie had been the only other woman willing to come shopping with her.
The traders in the covered market were all natives and spoke Arabic, Armenian, or Greek. Despite the crowds and the cacophony of voices haggling, quarreling, and gossiping around them, they had more privacy here than in the royal palace—and Stephanie had been asked by her husband to find out if it was true Sibylla planned to marry the Baron of Ramla now that the Duke of Burgundy had jilted her unseen. In the short space of time before Ramla departed for Constantinople, he had made no secret of his suit for Sibylla. He had brought her a beautiful ring from Damascus and had showered attention on her, hardly leaving her side by day—or night.
“What did you say?” Sibylla asked, without taking her eyes off the rich carpet as she absently traced its intricate patterns with one of her fingers. The shopkeeper extolled the quality of his wares in a constant flood of Arabic spiced with French words.
“I said, the Baron of Ramla is a comely man.”
Sibylla nodded curtly and admitted, “He is”—but with less enthusiasm than Stephanie would have expected. “I’m not just interested in a pretty face,” Sibylla added, turning away from the carpet to look accusingly at the Lady of Oultrejourdain. “Why does everyone think the only thing I care about is the way a man looks?” It was a rhetorical question, and the Lady of Oultrejourdain wisely ignored it. “I like Barry because he’s more than a pretty face,” Sibylla insisted. “It was he, you know, not my brother, who actually won the battle of Montgisard.” As she spoke she moved further along the narrow alley, which was shielded from the sun by a vaulted brick roof. “My brother was in the rear, surrounded by his knights; it was Barry that led the charge.”
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