Humphrey nodded in sympathy. He knew how much Isabella loved her pets, and he felt sorry for her. But all he could say was, “I don’t like it here, either.”
“And now your mother says we can’t go to Ibelin for Christmas.
She says she won’t let us go, but Uncle Balian will come for us. I’m sure he will.”
“I hope so,” Humphrey murmured, stroking Isabella’s arms. With Humphrey warm, comforting, and protective beside her, Isabella’s exhaustion overwhelmed her, and she fell sound asleep in his arms.
When she woke up again they were curled up on the floor, with Humphrey still holding her. Light was seeping down the stairs and into the crypt again, and overhead the priest was reading Mass. Isabella sat up, feeling very stiff, and looked over her shoulder at Humphrey, who was still asleep. She gasped. His face was dreadfully swollen and starting to turn blue in several places—notably his lips and his left cheek and eye. “Humphrey!” she exclaimed, unable to control her distress.
He started out of his sleep and sat up sharply.
“What happened to you?” Isabella wanted to know, now that she had his attention.
He looked down, avoiding her eyes. “I fell off my horse,” he mumbled.
“I don’t believe you! A riding fall wouldn’t leave those bruises,” Isabella told him knowingly. “Oultrejourdain hit you again, didn’t he?”
Humphrey just kept his eyes down in shame and muttered, “Because I fell off my horse.”
“I hate him!” Isabella declared furiously. “I hate him!” Then she flung her arms around Humphrey, holding him to her flat chest and promising, “When Uncle Balian finds out, he’ll take us away from here. I’m sure he will!”
“Maybe you, Isabella,” Humphrey answered despondently. “But he can’t take me away from my mother and her husband. They are my legal guardians. I’ll have to stay.”
“Oh, Humphrey!” Isabella cried in distress, as she realized it would be terrible and cruel to leave him behind.
Her sympathy was too much for Humphrey. It broke his resolve more than all the taunts of the other squires. Their gibes just made him stubborn, but Isabella’s tenderness unmanned him completely, and he croaked out, “Please don’t leave me, Bella.” He fought back tears of his own as he clung to her. “You’re the only friend I have in the whole world. Please don’t leave me.”
Isabella took a deep breath, straightened her back, and consciously grew up. “You’re my husband, Humphrey—or almost. I won’t ever leave you. If Uncle Balian and my mother can’t find a way for us both to stay at Ibelin, then I’ll stay with you here—until we’re old enough to have our own household. And then,” she added defiantly, “Oultrejourdain will learn what it means to make an enemy of a princess of Jerusalem!”
Ibelin, Christmas, 1180
“It is traditional for the lords to grant reasonable requests from their tenants at Christmas,” Sir Arnulf reminded his younger son. “All you have to do is present yourself to the Baron of Ibelin, remind him that your older brother was killed on the Litani defending him and the King, and ask that he let you learn the trade of arms at his stirrup.”
Ernoul swallowed down his panic. His father owed knight’s service to the Barons of Ibelin for the small manor the family held from them, but Sir Arnulf was nearing fifty and had been relieved when his elder son, Adrian, had been knighted and had taken over his feudal duties. Unfortunately, Adrian had been killed in the battle on the Litani the previous year. This left Ernoul as Arnulf ’s heir, but until his brother’s death Ernoul had been destined for the Church. Ernoul knew precious little about the use of arms, and wasn’t even a very good horseman.
Now Ernoul stood before his parents wearing his maternal uncle’s chain-mail hauberk. His mother’s brother, who had never married, had been much taller than Ernoul was at thirteen and almost twice as broad, so the mail hung loosely on Ernoul’s frail body. The limp but heavy sleeves reached well beyond his knuckles and the hem fell below his knees. It was also in poor condition, rusty and torn in several places, but even so it was in better shape than the helmet. The helmet looked a century old and had probably been handed down to his uncle from an even older ancestor. It was conical with a gigantic nosepiece that all but blinded Ernoul. There was no shield, since the inherited shield had long since been misplaced or rotted away, and his brother’s equipment had been lost to the Saracens in the aftermath of the battle. By the time the Christians had returned to the field, they found all the bodies stripped of valuables. Sir Arnulf and his lady counted themselves lucky that their son’s body had been found and returned for burial. Thus, for a sword, Ernoul again had only his uncle’s nicked and slightly corroded weapon. Ernoul was acutely aware of what a ridiculous figure he would cut at Ibelin.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” his father insisted, frowning, annoyed by his younger son’s lack of enthusiasm and deeply depressed by the loss of his older boy, who had been so much more promising.
“No, sir,” Ernoul answered stoically. There were a thousand things to be afraid of that he could think of, but he knew better than to think about them.
“Here.” His mother stepped forward and lifted a small wooden crucifix on a chain. Ernoul dutifully bent his head and let her put the crucifix around his neck. “Remember to say prayers for your brother’s soul every night,” she urged him.
“Yes, Mama,” Ernoul promised absently.
“Now, you’d best be on your way,” his father urged. “You want to be one of the first to ask a favor, as those who come late rarely find their lord in a generous mood anymore.”
Ernoul turned and walked the length of the short, familiar hall. The entire manor was nothing more than a rectangular stone structure consisting of a kitchen and a vaulted storeroom on the ground floor, a long hall and a smaller “great chamber” on the first floor, and a second floor under the roof-beams, which was partitioned into three rooms by wooden walls.
Ernoul exited the hall onto the landing at the top of the external stairs that led down to the stableyard. At the foot of the stairs, the kitchen clerk emerged with a satchel that he handed over to Ernoul with tears in his eyes. “Just a little something to keep you from starving along the way,” he told his erstwhile pupil. In addition to being the household clerk, this cleric had taught Ernoul his letters in preparation for his service in the Church. The clerk was deeply distressed to see Ernoul wearing arms, as he thought Ernoul was much too intelligent and sensitive for life as a fighting man.
Ernoul was too numb with his own trepidation to notice the clerk’s distress. He took the offered parcel with a mumbled “thanks” as he turned to face his father’s gray-muzzled palfrey, which one of the village boys had led from the small adobe stables.
The palfrey still had straw clinging to its bushy tail and stable stains on its hocks and haunches. Ernoul knew he ought to complain and order the boy to brush the horse down, but he didn’t have the energy for a fight. Instead, he tightened the girth and tried to mount up. The aging gelding expertly backed away from the inept rider, leaving Ernoul hopping on one leg after him. The clerk came over to hold the horse still—but even so, in all his unfamiliar and heavy armor, Ernoul couldn’t manage to pull himself into the saddle until the third try, and he nearly pulled the saddle off in the process. Ernoul remembered the way his older brother Adrian could just swing up into the saddle in a single fluid motion, and he knew he was going to be the butt of ridicule in Ibelin—assuming Lord Balian took him on at all.
Once in the saddle, the clerk handed up the satchel, which Ernoul had let fall in his struggle to mount. “Thank you,” he said more distinctly and loudly this time, and their eyes met. Now Ernoul registered the older man’s sadness and it almost made him break down and cry, but he resisted the impulse and managed a wan smile instead.
“Don’t forget Brother Bernard, will you?” the clerk asked hopelessly.
“No,” Ernoul promised. “I’m going to keep a diary—if I can find something to write on—so
I don’t forget how to write.”
The clerk smiled sadly, not believing it would ever happen, and patted his leg. “Good boy.”
Ernoul turned his horse away from the stables, and it instantly balked. He had to kick it hard several times before it reluctantly decided it was less unpleasant to walk than to endure more kicking.
Outside the stableyard the road passed directly in front of the parental manor. Opposite the manor sat the flat-roofed church. Ernoul crossed himself and said a quick prayer for help, then turned his reluctant horse down the road through the village. This was made up of a dozen flat-roofed stone houses that stood along both sides of the road. Wheat and barley fields backed right up against the houses on the north side of the road, and olive orchards backed up on the houses to the south. At the far end of the village there was a common bread oven, a well, and a corral for the cattle and donkeys of the subtenants. That was all. There wasn’t even an olive mill; Sir Arnulf had to take his olive harvest to Ibelin for processing. But it was home.
Ernoul had rarely been outside this village. He’d been taken to Jerusalem once so he could pray at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the year of his first communion, and he’d been allowed to accompany his mother when she went to Jaffa to meet one of her cousins, who had come on pilgrimage two years ago. He’d been to Ibelin three or four times, too, with the olive harvest or to purchase pottery, cloth, or harness with his father. That was all.
Ernoul was heavy of heart as he rode between the houses of the village. He knew the names of each cottager, their wives and children, and even the names of most of the dogs. The villagers were, with one exception, all descendants of settlers come out from Burgundy or Lorraine to start a new life in the Holy Land roughly half a century ago. The one exception was a Syrian Christian, who had been enslaved for a number of years before he was freed by the old Baron d’Ibelin in some engagement. He had married the widow of one of the settlers and now attended the Latin church, so he was accepted. As Ernoul rode by, the women came to stand in their doorways and wave to him, their toddlers hanging on their skirts. Toward the end of town the boy who had been tending the village sheep called out to him cheerfully, as if he thought Ernoul were going on some great adventure.
It was a gray day, threatening rain, and it promised to be a cold ride. With considerable effort Ernoul managed to coax his father’s old horse into a shuffling trot, both to warm himself up and to get it over with faster. The sooner he got to Ibelin, the sooner he would know his fate.
A stiff gale-force wind off the ocean was driving rain horizontally by the time Ernoul finally reached Ibelin. The palms were swaying and waving their great feathery leaves like hysterical sailors in distress, and the pomegranate orchards seemed to roar and threaten him with their frantically waving branches. Flashes of lightning lit up the darkening horizon, and the growl of distant thunder promised worse to come. Ernoul was already soaked to the bone, and his father’s horse was dripping water from mane and tail while mud covered its ample pasterns and fetlocks.
The guard at the drawbridge gate was only willing to crack the peephole and call out: “Who goes?”
“I’m Ernoul, son of Arnulf, and I’ve come to see Lord Balian.”
Ernoul didn’t catch exactly what the man mumbled, but it didn’t sound very friendly. Still, he signaled the barbican on the far side of the moat, and by the time Ernoul had crossed the bridge, the barbican outer doors were creaking open. After he had passed through the L-shaped, vaulted entrance under the main gatehouse, a man in a conical helmet not so different from his own gestured Ernoul to one of the half-timbered buildings backed up against the inside of the wall.
This turned out to be a stable. Ernoul dismounted stiffly and led his horse inside. No sooner was he out of the rain than he stopped to gape, because he had never seen stables like this before in his life. To his left was a large room with a fireplace in it, exuding warmth. There saddles were resting on wooden arms that extended out of the wall in neat rows, three layers high. Bridles hung on hooks beside the saddles, and there were open boxes crammed with brushes, picks and combs, and even benches for the grooms to sit on while they cleaned the tack. There were also ladders at the far end of the room leading to a loft where the grooms evidently slept. To his right the horse stalls stretched in two rows, and each was big enough for the horse to turn around and lie down in. Most amazing of all, the rainwater was being funneled straight from the roof into a narrow trough that ran along the wall under the windows and ended in a deeper trough at the far end of the stables. The horses could drink the running water as it went by or, when the rain stopped, be led to the large trough.
As he stood in amazement in the entryway, a man called out to him: “Bring your horse down here!”
Ernoul dutifully tugged at the bridle and led his horse toward the voice. It was dark from the storm and the gathering dusk, and Ernoul was startled when he came face to face with a man as black as coal. Ernoul would have suspected he was a Saracen except that he wore a large, elaborate wooden cross on his chest; that reassured him somewhat.
“Miserable day to be out riding about, young man,” the groom addressed him in a soft, almost sympathetic voice.
“I’ve come to ask a boon of Lord Balian,” Ernoul admitted, too tired, cold, and wet to dissemble.
The black man nodded solemnly, but did not press him for more details. Instead he said, “I’ll see to your horse; he looks old enough to be your grandfather.”
“He’s twenty-four, I think,” Ernoul admitted.
The black man nodded and urged, “Go across to the hall and ask for Dawit.”
“Dawit?” Ernoul asked; it was a name he’d never heard before.
“Yes, that’s Lord Balian’s squire and my son. He’ll find you some dry clothes before you are presented to the baron.”
“Thank you—ah—” Ernoul suddenly realized he didn’t know how to address this man. He’d assumed he was just a servant, but if his son was squire to Lord Balian, then maybe he was someone important after all.
“My name is Mathewos,” the tall black man helped him out. “I’m marshal of Ibelin.”
That sounded important. “Thank you, sir.”
Because of the rain, more people than usual were crowded in the hall. Mostly they clustered around the fireplace that stood in the middle of the outside wall. The fireplace had a massive stone hood that sucked up the smoke, leaving the rest of the room almost smoke-free, although warm. Knights and sergeants were sitting astride benches and playing backgammon or dicing. Women were sitting side by side on benches backed up against the wall, darning and gossiping. Several young children were chasing after a dog that had something in its mouth, and they in turn were being followed by a nurse with an indulgent expression on her face. In a far corner two men appeared to practicing on a lute and a flute, with a great deal of bickering and discord.
It took a moment before anyone took any notice of Ernoul, and when they did they dismissed him as unimportant. Eventually a man sauntered over and asked him, “You looking for someone, lad?”
“Da—De—” He couldn’t remember the strange name.
“Dawit?”
“Yes!”
The man turned at the waist and shouted across the room, “Anyone seen Dawit around?”
Eventually they tracked the lord’s squire down, and Ernoul was confronted by a slender youth as black as his father and very well kitted out in low leather shoes, red woollen hose, and a woollen gown that fell to his shins and was belted at the waist. His gown had short sleeves over his long silk shirt, and very nice embroidery bands trimming both the sleeves and hem; the belt looked like it had cost at least a bezant. “You were asking for me?”
“My name is Ernoul, son of Arnulf, and I’m here to see the Baron of Ibelin, but your father, the marshal—” by this point, Ernoul couldn’t remember the strange name of the man in the stables, either—“told me to ask for you. He said something about dry clothes before being presented to my lord,
” he added hopefully.
Dawit smiled and nodded. “Come with me.”
Five minutes later, Ernoul was stripping off his wet clothes in front of a fire and Dawit was handing him dry things to wear, while Ernoul spilled out the whole story. He told about his brother being killed on the Litani, and becoming his father’s heir, which meant he also had to take over his father’s military duties, but, he told the patient Dawit, he had no training—and probably no aptitude at arms.
Dawit listened silently, only nodding now and again.
“Do you think Lord Balian will hear me out?” Ernoul asked at last, when he was fitted out in soft, warm clothes—better than any he’d ever worn before.
“Of course,” Dawit assured him. “He listens to everyone.”
“Do you think he’ll send me packing?” Ernoul asked next, not sure if this was the worst or the best possible outcome.
Dawit shook his head. “I don’t know. Now come with me to the kitchens for something warm to eat, while I go tell my lord you are here.”
“Ah.” Balian recognized Ernoul’s name at once when Dawit reported his presence and quest. He glanced at Maria Zoë. She was in her eighth month, and as a result less mobile than she usually was. “His brother was killed defending me as I tried to get the King remounted on the Litani.”
“Then we will have to find a place for him,” Maria Zoë answered without hesitation. “What about with Sir Daniel? Doesn’t he need a squire? He’s been making do with his brother for over a year now, and that’s not a good thing for either of them.”
“Yes,” Balian nodded agreement. Much as he respected his brother and stood by him in his dispute with the King, the last thing he would have wanted was to be Barry’s squire—and had he been, it would have ended in an ugly fight at some point. “Good idea. Dawit—what is it?”
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