“There were witnesses that said he had called for me to step down,” Baldwin countered, feeling cornered.
“You were lied to, your grace,” Balian answered steadily, meeting his eye. “It’s true my brother suggested that you should not lead your armies in person any longer, but he never suggested that you abdicate!”
Baldwin considered this answer carefully. It was possible that his mother had exaggerated Ramla’s words—but just as possible that, as she had said, Balian had no idea about his brother’s true intentions. He took refuge in his second excuse, the one he used to convince himself he had been in the right in the whole unsavory affair. “Your brother is still married to Richildis in the eyes of many. If challenged, your brother’s marriage to Sibylla might have been ruled bigamous. I could not risk that—”
“In the name of the Almighty, your grace, you were the one who gave my brother permission to set Richildis aside,” Balian reminded him.
“Yes, but I was young and inexperienced, and I did it for you. I wanted you to get Ibelin. I thought the only way to persuade Ramla to part with a third of his inheritance was to offer him the chance to marry another heiress—including my sister. I see now that I was wrong to do what I did,” Baldwin told Balian bluntly, physically distancing himself from his former mentor by taking a step back into Ibrahim’s arms. Having decided that his mother was right and Balian wrong, he declared, “There is something else we must discuss.”
Balian waited tensely. So far this encounter had not gone well. If the Virgin had facilitated it, somehow he had failed to exploit the opportunity. Too late, Balian registered that it had been a mistake for him to withdraw from Jerusalem. At the time it had been a relief to get away from the gloating of Agnes de Courtenay, but in retrospect it was clear that by withdrawing from court, he had handed the King’s mother and uncle more opportunity to poison the King’s mind.
Baldwin was speaking. “I think it’s time my sister Isabella joined her future husband—”
“Toron’s with his mother at Kerak!” Balian protested, with a sense that he was sliding rapidly down an abyss to utter destruction.
“I know,” Baldwin answered stubbornly, “but he’s to be her husband, and it’s better for young people to get to know one another when they are still children.” Baldwin’s mother had convinced him that if only Sibylla had been married as a child, she would not have become infatuated with Guy de Lusignan. Baldwin was certain (and his uncle of Edessa whispered in his ears) that Sibylla had been led astray by Guy de Lusignan only because she was of an age to be susceptible to sexual attraction. He did not want Isabella to fall into the same trap. He wanted her securely and safely married to a man of his own choosing before she was old enough to know carnal desire.
But Balian recognized Agnes de Courtenay’s hatred of the Ibelins—and of his wife—behind the King’s plans. The Queen Mother was taking revenge for being set aside by Amalric when he took the crown, for being forced to return to a man she did not love, and for being replaced by Maria Zoë. But the King appeared to have fallen completely under this mother’s spell, making it pointless for Balian to expose the Queen Mother’s motives.
Instead Balian argued, “You cannot seriously intend to turn a tender princess over to the keeping of a notorious brute like Reynald de Châtillon!”
“You’re being unreasonable, Ibelin. Châtillon may have his unsavory side, but I have never heard it said he is anything but extraordinarily courteous to ladies. After all, he won both the Princess of Antioch and the Lady of Oultrejourdain by his charms. There is absolutely no reason to suspect he would be anything less than exemplary in his treatment of my sister.”
“Isabella is only eight years old! She’s a child,” Balian reminded the King.
“I know how old my own sister is, Ibelin,” Baldwin answered coldly. He was determined to go through with this, and Balian’s resistance was only convincing him his mother had been right to warn him about the Ibelins. She had warned him Balian and Maria Zoë would try to retain control of Isabella—because, his mother said, they wanted to have a puppet they could raise up in his and Sibylla’s place.
Baldwin was as blind to his mother’s motives as Balian thought he was, but he now realized that by letting Sibylla marry the younger Lusignan and alienating Ramla, Tripoli, and Antioch, he had undercut his own legitimacy. He saw that those who did not want to see Guy de Lusignan crowned King would likely argue that both he and Sibylla were illegitimate. Sibylla’s marriage to the upstart Guy had abruptly turned Isabella into a threat to his own throne. He could not risk having her in hostile hands. Not that Balian himself was hostile, of course, but Balian had just made it abundantly clear that he sided with his brother in the dispute over Sibylla’s marriage. And Ramla and Tripoli were far too friendly, while Antioch’s wife was Maria Zoë’s sister and so Isabella’s maternal aunt. A dangerous clique, his uncle of Edessa warned him.
Balian made one last desperate appeal to Baldwin’s affection for his stepmother. “Your grace! Maria Zoë dotes on Isabella! She could not bear to be separated from her.”
Baldwin was not prepared to be moved. He resented the way his mother and sister had maneuvered him into sanctioning Sibylla’s marriage, but what was done was done. Now he was determined to prevent something like that from happening again. He was determined to ensure Isabella married the man of his choosing—and was firmly controlled by a man utterly opposed to Tripoli. In answer to Balian’s protest he replied coldly, “I’m astonished to hear that, my lord. After all, she has two children by you already, and a third on the way.”
The King’s tone and the use of “my lord” should have warned Balian not to continue the argument, but Balian was desperate. “Isabella is her firstborn,” he tried to explain. “Maria Zoë has said more than once that she does not want to see Isabella married as young as she was—”
“The decision is not hers to make,” the King reminded his vassal. “Isabella is my sister and my ward. I will decide when she marries.” His tone brooked no further argument.
But Balian knew that on this point he, too, could not bend. “Think hard, your grace, before you take Isabella away from her mother,” he warned. “The bonds between mother and child and between husband and wife are made by God, not man!”
Baldwin felt the blood flushing his face, turning his un-sickened skin a vibrant shade of cooked-crab red, while the damaged skin remained uncolored and so highlighted. He had always defended Balian to his mother—always insisted that Balian would never be disloyal—but here he was all but declaring outright that he would withdraw his loyalty just because they were taking Isabella away from him. His mother had been right all along. The Ibelins planned to use Isabella against him. They were plotting with Tripoli and Antioch against him! Baldwin wanted to fling this accusation at his former-friend, but shouting erupted from the chamber beside them, distracting the King’s attention.
It was Guy de Lusignan, and he shouted hotly. “No! You forget who I am! I’m not your little brother! I’m Count of Jaffa and heir to the Kingdom of Jerusalem! If you don’t show me the respect I’m owed, you won’t be Constable another day!”
Aimery de Lusignan shot back at his brother, “I’m appointed by the King—not the likes of you!”
“The King?” Guy sneered. “He’s a walking corpse! Have you seen his face lately?”
Balian saw the King stiffen and then stagger a little, as if he’d been physically struck, but Balian made no move to support him. Guy was his choice for brother-in-law when he could have had Barry! It was time Baldwin learned that the loyalty of even the truest vassal had limits. Taking an eight-year-old child away from her mother and sending her to live with a notorious brute was going much too far. “You’ve made your bed, your grace,” Balian murmured in a low growl. “See how you like the company you’ve chosen to share it with.”
Ibrahim cast Balian a shocked, then a pleading look, but Balian’s face was harsh with bitterness.
Baldwin averted his
own face from his former friend, the pain of this break much greater than he wanted to admit. He clung to his mother’s words about Ibelin ambition and treachery, telling to himself that Balian had just revealed his true nature. The old slave propelled him past the room where the Lusignans were squabbling and on into the great hall.
Kerak Castle, November 1180
“I’m going to tell Uncle Balian what you did!” Isabella screamed, red-faced and streaming tears. “I’m going to tell Uncle Balian what you did, and he’ll make you pay! He’ll make you sorry! He’ll make you—”
Stephanie de Milly had had enough of Isabella’s temper tantrums; she slapped her across the face, then took her by the shoulders and shook her until she fell silent. “Call your Uncle Balian!” she sneered as soon as she had the child’s attention. “Call just as loud as you can! I don’t care if you scream for him from the ramparts. He can’t hear you and he can’t help you!”
Isabella was shocked enough to calm down, and she stared at the Lady of Oultrejourdain with hate-filled eyes. “I’ll tell him when I go home for Christmas,” she declared determinedly.
“What makes you think you’re going ‘home’—if that’s what you call Ibelin—for Christmas?”
“My mother promised me!” Isabella retorted indignantly. “She said Humphrey and I could come for Christmas and stay until my baby sister or brother is born.”
“That was very foolish of your mother,” the Lady of Outrejourdain sneered ominously. “She shouldn’t make promises she can’t keep.”
“Why can’t she keep it?” Isabella wanted to know.
“Because, you stupid little brat, your mother doesn’t control you. I do.” Stephanie de Milly could not keep the smile off her face as she said this. Revenge had been a long time coming, and it was not yet complete, but having deprived Tripoli of control of Princess Isabella (for the Ibelins were Tripoli’s creatures) was clearly a significant victory on the way to humiliating him. To Isabella, however, she replied smugly, “You can’t go anywhere I don’t let you go, and you will go wherever I send you—which at the moment is to the crypt.”
“No!” Isabella screamed, this time in terror rather than outrage.
“Yes!” Madame d’Oultrejourdain insisted, grabbing Isabella by the wrist.
Isabella resisted with all her eight-year-old strength, digging in her heels and leaning back with the weight of her whole body. She had been forced once before to spend the night in the crypt below the chapel, and she was convinced it was haunted. She was terrified of the crypt of this castle, which perched on a mountaintop above a desert and was so much harsher, more brooding, and more ominous than Ibelin in its blooming orchards.
Stephanie de Milly was at the end of her patience. She had put the bug in the Queen Mother’s ear about the need to “rescue” Isabella from the influence of Maria Comnena and the Ibelins. She had harped on the fact that Ramla would surely seek revenge for being thwarted in his ambitions to become King via Sibylla and might try to raise up Isabella in place of Agnes’ children. The only way to prevent that, she had argued to wide-open ears, was to get physical control of Isabella and ensure she had no further contact with her mother or stepfather. The plan to bring her to Kerak had seemed so simple, as it was an impregnable fortress far from Ibelin and even farther from Nablus.
But Stephanie had not reckoned with Isabella herself. The girl was a spoiled brat: willful, stubborn, and disobedient. It was obvious to her that Queen Maria and Balian d’Ibelin were totally incompetent guardians—probably because they paid no attention to Isabella at all and let her lord it over servants afraid of saying no to a princess. Stephanie saw it as her duty to teach her future daughter-in-law manners, discipline, and respect for her elders.
With a single whopping smack to Isabella’s backside, she broke the little girl’s stance. She grabbed her second wrist as Isabella tried to claw her with her free hand, and with both the child’s wrists in her large hands, she wrenched them behind Isabella’s back. Even though the eight-year-old writhed and struggled, Stephanie could now push her toward the stairway.
Isabella realized she was too weak to resist the massive Madame d’Oultrejourdain, so she went completely limp and dropped to the floor.
“Oh, don’t think that’s going to stop me,” Stephanie sneered, as she proceeded to drag Isabella by her arms out the door and down the steps.
Now Isabella was screaming with pain as her bony hips hit the stone steps one at a time. “Stop! Stop!” she screamed.
The sound of footsteps rushing upward made Stephanie pause, but not let go of Isabella. A young knight careened around the corner, clearly responding to the screams of the young girl. When he nearly collided with the chatelaine, his eyes widened, first in surprise and then horror at the scene before him.
“Don’t just stand there, Sir Henri!” Stephanie snapped. “Help me! The little princess has been a terrible girl, and she is going to the crypt to beg forgiveness on her knees. Since she refuses to walk, I have no choice but to drag her, but you’re strong enough to carry her. Pick her up!” Stephanie ordered, standing back against the curved stone wall of the spiral stairs.
Isabella was too bruised and terrified to resist. Besides, Sir Henri was Uncle Balian’s brother and had never done anything to hurt her. He picked her up easily and followed Madame d’Oultrejourdain without further ado. Isabella put her arms around his neck and buried her face in his broad, warm chest. She kept her eyes closed, only peeking now and again to check on their progress. When they reached the vaulted passageway leading to the chapel, however, Isabella started to squirm. “I don’t want to go to the crypt,” she whispered. Then as the chapel drew nearer, she raised her voice and asked, “Why can’t I pray in the chapel?”
“Because the rest of the household will gather in the chapel for Vespers, and the priests will read the Mass at Nocturnes, but you aren’t to see or speak to anyone until I decide,” Madame d’Oultrejourdain answered pointedly.
Isabella looked up hopefully at Henri d’Ibelin, but he kept his face neutral, proceeding into the chapel and then down the stairs beside the high altar into the crypt below.
“Set her down!” Madame d’Oultrejourdain ordered, and Sir Henri bent and lowered the arm under Isabella’s knees, so that her feet touched the floor even as she continued to cling to his neck.
“Don’t leave me here!” she whispered desperately into his cheek.
“Don’t let the little bitch seduce you, Sir Henri! She pretends to be a sweet little girl to you and even to my husband, but inside she has a dark, vain soul. If she were my flesh and blood and not a princess, I would have her flogged, not simply make her spend a night in prayer.”
Henri extricated himself from Isabella’s arms and backed away from her to follow Madame d’Oultrejourdain up the stairs, but just as he turned to go up the stairs, he looked back at the crestfallen child—and winked at her.
It gave her a moment of hope, but then she heard the key turning in the door to the crypt and realized she was indeed locked inside with the dead. She hugged herself and began moaning in a low whine of misery and protest that she knew no one could hear or heed. “Please, Mother Mary! Help me! Protect me!” she begged as she looked wide-eyed at the catacombs around her. There was no light down here except what seeped under the doorway and down the stairs from the chapel above. The catacombs seemed to stretch eternally into the darkness. While the most recent tombs were of stone with proper effigies on top, there were older tombs that were just vaults carved out of bedrock on which the dead had been laid out. Isabella was convinced these were the bodies of outlaws or Muslims or other people who hadn’t received a “proper” Christian burial. Their souls, therefore, were still at large.
Isabella was sure the ghosts were going to come and get her, and she had no place to hide. All she could do was curl up at the base of the altar and keep praying. That was what Madame d’Oultrejourdain meant when she said Isabella would pray all night.
The hours crept by.
Whenever Isabella started to nod off to sleep, one of the ghosts would breathe on her or make a sound, and she was startled back into consciousness. She had some short relief when the chapel overhead filled for Vespers and she could faintly hear the Mass being read. The ghosts, she told herself, wouldn’t dare come out during Mass.
But after that the silence was all the more ominous, smothering her with fear, now made more painful by her increasing thirst and hunger. Feeling sorry for herself, Isabella finally cried herself to sleep, only to be torn from oblivion by the sound of footsteps. She sat bolt upright and froze in terror. The footsteps were very soft, but they were more distinct and solid than any of the earlier noises. And they were coming toward her.
Isabella was so terrified that she could not even scream. She felt liquid between her legs as she urinated in fright. A shadow separated itself from the stairwell and stopped. “Bella?” a soft voice called.
“Humphrey?” Isabella asked back, hardly daring to believe it might be her husband-to-be.
“Yes. Where are you? I can’t see anything in the dark.”
“Here!” Isabella scrambled to her feet and ran to her betrothed, flinging herself at him. His warm, soft arms closed around her back and he laid his cheek on the top of her head. “Sir Henri told me you were here,” he explained. “He said my mother ordered you locked in here for the night, and—and I thought you might like company.”
“Oh, Humphrey!” Isabella looked up at him, her eyes huge. “Would you do that for me? Will you stay with me?”
“Of course, Bella. That’s why I’m here. I’m sorry I couldn’t bring you anything to eat, but . . .”
“I don’t care,” Isabella assured him. “I can go without dinner, but there are ghosts down here. I’m sure of it.”
Humphrey squeezed her in a gesture of reassurance, and they walked together back to the altar and sank down to sit at the base side by side, Humphrey still enclosing Isabella in his arm. She snuggled up against his chest. “I had a terrible fight with your mother,” Isabella confessed to Humphrey. “She’s banished Gluttony to the kitchens. First my dog and now my cat.”
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