Oultrejourdain burst out laughing and leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest in bemusement. The fact that a chit of a girl, barely eleven years old, was willing to stand up to him like this amused him. Of course, he could have brushed her aside with a single backhanded flick of his wrist. He could have picked her up with one hand, dumped her in the deepest and vilest of his dungeons, and left her there without food or water until she begged his forgiveness, or he could have simply hit her until she was broken and streaming with tears. But what was the point of demonstrating his power over someone so weak? He used his strength to keep strong men from challenging him and to make weak men stronger, but he saw no point in employing brute force against a girl who would never be strong and never be a threat to him—at least not physically.
“So, Madame de Jerusalem,” Oultrejourdain asked with an amused smirk, “just what is so important that we have to discuss it now?”
“My husband—my future husband—turned fifteen last month,” Isabella told him, starting to feel afraid now that she was face to face with Oultrejourdain and he was staring at her so intently. His eyes seemed to communicate a mixture of malice and amusement.
“Did he?” Oultrejourdain asked back, feigning surprise. Then he turned on Humphrey and asked as if he could not believe it, “Is that true, boy? Did you turn fifteen?” Before Humphrey could answer, Oultrejourdain continued in a tone of utter contempt, “I never would have guessed. You act more like five than fifteen!”
“But it’s true!” Isabella insisted. “He’s fifteen, and so he is an adult! He is now Lord of Toron.”
“A lord who needs an eleven-year-old girl to speak for him!” Oultrejourdain countered sharply, shaking his head in a mixture of disbelief and scorn. “When he’s man enough to argue his own case, Isabella, I’ll hear him out. For now, go back to your nursery and take the little boy with you!”
That night when Oultrejourdain prepared for bed, he pointed out to his wife, “The problem is, she’s right. Humphrey’s technically of age, and we have no legal grounds for keeping him here.”
“When did the law ever interest you?” Stephanie snapped back.
“The law always interests me, woman. It’s important to know exactly what the law says, so one can decide when to use it to one’s advantage and when it is more sensible to break it. What do we gain by keeping Humphrey here? It’s not as if he’s adding greatly to the strength of my garrison!” Oultrejourdain scoffed.
“We keep Humphrey here to keep control of Isabella—and so thwart Tripoli.”
“Tripoli. Of course. I’d forgotten about Tripoli.” Oultrejourdain was rather bored by his wife’s obsession for revenge against Tripoli. He’d agreed to kill the man because she wouldn’t have married him otherwise, but he’d been her husband for eight years now and she could hardly dismiss him. His control of Oultrejourdain was absolute.
“He killed your predecessor!” Stephanie de Milly reminded him shrilly, all too conscious of his waning enthusiasm for the task she had set him.
“For which I ought to be indebted to him,” Oultrejourdain replied flippantly.
Stephanie reared up furiously, her eyes wide with outrage. “If you think you can go back on your promise to me—”
Oultrejourdain backhanded her easily, drawing blood from her nose, and when she shrieked and lunged at him, trying to dig her fingernails into his face, he grabbed hold of her wrists and forced her back onto the bed, pinning her down with a knee to her belly and holding her wrists on either side of her head. She continued to struggle, spitting at him and shouting insults that would have made a whore blush, but Oultrejourdain was quite used to that. They’d had more than one of these marital spats over the years.
“Hysterical woman!” Oultrejourdain sneered, silencing her instantly. She hated being called hysterical.
Although she had gone completely still, her eyes glinted with hatred, and Oultrejourdain knew better than to release her. Instead he increased the pressure on her belly and her arms. He could tell he was hurting her, although she was too proud to beg him to stop. “I am Oultrejourdain now. Don’t forget that. I am Oultrejourdain. If you want me to do your bidding, then think about finding ways to make me want to.”
Stephanie de Milly’s breathing was shortening as his knee dug deeper and deeper into her belly. She fought against admitting the pain she was in, but she gasped once. “Get off me!”
“Maybe. Will you be an obedient wife if I do?”
“Get off!”
“You can do better than that.”
“Off!”
“No.” He increased the pressure.
“Stop it!”
“Will you be a good wife from now on?”
“Yes! Yes!” she gasped and then started sobbing as he removed his knee, released her wrists, and stood up staring down at her. She whimpered miserably, as much from the defeat as the pain.
Châtillon felt no pity for her. She was an ugly bitch, and she used other people for her own purposes. He’d used her to get a barony, and when he’d married her after fifteen years in a Saracen prison, he’d even found a certain pleasure in her bed. But that was long ago. Now he took his pleasure elsewhere, and he doubted she much cared.
“I’m fed up with having Humphrey around, and tired of having responsibility for Isabella. Let him go to Toron and take her with him,” Oultrejourdain declared.
“If you let her go, Tripoli might try to make her Queen!” Stephanie shouted at him, infuriated by his betrayal.
“What’s so bad about that? If I have to bend my knee and swear fealty to a woman, then I prefer Isabella, who’s guided by what’s between her ears, over Sibylla, who’s guided by what’s between her legs. Besides, if Isabella’s Queen, then your son, you stupid bitch, would be her king and consort.”
That stunned his wife for a moment. Stephanie de Milly hadn’t really considered the fact that her son might one day become King. She had wanted control of Isabella to prevent Tripoli having control of her. She knew that her scheme to take Isabella away from her mother had resonated with the Queen Mother, who hated her rival Queen Maria Zoë, and it was good to be on the good side of a woman like Agnes de Courtenay. The latter had even suggested, obliquely of course, that it would be so easy to put something in Isabella’s food that led to a “tragic stomach ailment.”
Oultrejourdain had sharply resisted the suggestion. “She’s too valuable to kill,” he’d told his wife bluntly, and the subject had been dropped—even if Stephanie had often wished she could kill the little bitch, and once or twice considered just pushing her down a flight of stairs.
She had been so focused on preventing Isabella from becoming Tripoli’s puppet queen that she hadn’t given a thought to the advantages of Isabella being crowned. She found herself frowning in perplexity at her own stupidity. How could she have been so dense? She didn’t have any more respect for Humphrey than Châtillon did, but he was her son. And if he became King, then she would be in Agnes de Courtenay’s position. That was not a bad position to be in. As Queen Mother, it would be easy for her to take revenge on Tripoli. As Queen Mother, she wouldn’t even need Châtillon anymore. Then she remembered something. “They aren’t legally married.”
“Then let’s put on a wedding! Let’s wine and dine all the nobility of Outremer right here and have them witness Humphrey taking her to wife!”
She smiled to herself, rubbing the bruises on her belly, before announcing in what sounded like a sullen voice, “Well, if that’s what you want, then let’s do it. Just give me a couple of months to stock what we need for a proper feast and to ensure as many people come as possible.”
“Good,” Châtillon agreed without even looking over his shoulder. Neither of them was the least concerned that the bride would still be only eleven years old.
Barony of Ibelin, mid-September 1183
It was Ramadan. When two Muslim boys driving their goats home at the end of the day spotted an old man lying at the side of the road, the
y assumed he had simply collapsed from lack of food and drink, because it was obvious from his beard and clothes that he was Muslim. Hassam bent over the old man and shook his shoulder. “Hey, Uncle!” he spoke to him respectfully in Arabic. “Come and join us for the Iftar!”
The old man reared up, startled, and looked around in bewilderment. He seemed not to know where he was. But the boys coaxed him to come with them, Hassam picking up his pathetic bundle of belongings and slinging it easily over his shoulder. To share the evening meal with beggars and travelers during Ramadan was an important act of charity, and the boys knew their father would be pleased with them.
“It’s not far,” Hassam assured the bewildered stranger. “Just over that hill, and our mother is a good cook!”
The old man nodded and thanked the boys many times, but he seemed so unsteady on his feet that Omar offered his arm while Hassam took care of the goats.
When they reached the boy’s adobe house with its flat roof and the rough animal pens around it, the sun was very low over the horizon, a bright orange ball sinking into the haze over the sea twelve miles further west. The boys’ mother, wearing a black abaya but no face veil, stood in the door of the house as they came into the yard. At the sight of the stranger, she turned and called to her sister-in-law to fetch a hand bowl. The pregnant girl scooped water from the trough so the old man could wash the dust of the road from his face and hands.
While the stranger washed, the boys shooed the goats into the pen, closing the swing gate with a loop of twine, then they washed their hands and faces in the trough. Their father and uncle could be seen striding in from the cabbage fields, mud on their bare feet and the edges of their rolled-up, baggy trousers. They owed service to Ibelin, but they also had a small plot of land for themselves and made money selling goat’s cheese, cabbage, carrots, and onions in the local markets.
The men and boys sat down cross-legged in front of the house, under a crude roof made of woven rushes and held up by raw poles, while the boys’ mother, aunt, and sister served them water laced with mint leaves, still-warm flatbread, and then cucumbers in yogurt sauce, little meatballs, and crushed chickpeas in olive oil. They were ravenous after the long day and ate in a hurry at first, but after their initial thirst and hunger were stilled, their tongues were loosened, and the boys excitedly told how they had found their visitor on the side of the road.
The old man nodded and thanked his hosts profusely for their hospitality, bowing his head over his folded hands many times.
“You are not from these parts,” the boy’s father and head of the household observed cautiously.
“No, I was born in Aleppo,” the old man admitted, clearly feeling better after partaking of the good food.
“Aleppo?” the boys and men exclaimed together, while the women risked little glances at the stranger from the door of the house, all equally amazed by this news.
“I was taken captive when still a youth—hardly older than Hassam here,” the old man narrated, with a smile to the elder boy.
“You are a slave?” Hassam asked, wide-eyed. As the son of a native peasant in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, his contact with slaves had been very limited.
The old man sighed deeply as he nodded. “Most of my life I was a slave. Now, when I am a free man, I wish I were a slave again.”
“How can you want that?” Omar asked, earning a frown and gestures to be still from his elders.
But the old man did not seem offended. “Well you might ask,” he said to the boy sadly, “and for a young man, slavery is terrible. But an old slave cannot be sent away when he can no longer work. A slave must be cared for and fed even in his old age.”
“You have been turned out?” the boys’ uncle asked, frowning.
“Yes. I have been turned out.” Tears were shining in the old man’s eyes, and the wrinkles of his face seemed deeper than ever.
“Have you no family?” the boys’ father asked.
The old man shrugged. “Who knows what is left of my family now? I have not seen and heard from them since the day of my capture half a century ago. You see, I came from a house like this,” he indicated the simple adobe dwelling, “and none could pay a ransom for me.”
The boys’ father and uncle exchanged an alarmed look. They were poor men, and while they welcomed a traveler for a shared meal during Ramadan, they did not relish a permanent guest. Their income was limited, and now the younger brother’s wife was pregnant; they would soon have yet another mouth to feed.
“I never married, of course, and I gave all my love to my master.” The stranger’s tears shone now on his leathery skin as they slipped down his face. The brothers exchanged an even more alarmed look, but this time the old man intercepted it and told them: “You need not worry. I seek charity of a man who loved and served my master almost as well as I did, although he too was sent away thanklessly by those who poison my master’s ears. But once, long ago, he promised to care for me if my master died before me, and I hope he will care for me even if my master is still alive.” The tears had turned into a veritable flood that dripped off the man’s wrinkled chin, and the little family gazed at him, gripped with pity.
After the old man’s tears had ebbed, the head of the household asked gently, “Who is the man you seek?”
“Sir Balian, the Lord of Ibelin.”
“The Lord of Ibelin?” the men gasped. “Himself?”
“I knew Sir Balian when he was still a landless knight, a servant to the King.”
“You have served the King?”
“I have served him almost since the day he was born, but most closely since he became stricken with leprosy and the other servants were afraid to serve him.”
“Are the rumors true that he has fallen ill again?” they asked.
The old man nodded sadly. “So ill he has taken what the Christians call the ‘Last Rites,’ and the Patriarch of Jerusalem hardly leaves his side. His mother and sister are with him constantly, too—and the Count of Jaffa.” He fell silent, staring into space.
“Hassam!” the boy’s father called sharply. “Finish up, then run to Ibelin and tell the Baron that—” He stopped and addressed the old man. “Who should we say begs the Baron’s charity?”
“Ibrahim. Just Ibrahim. He will know who I am.”
Ibrahim was so overwhelmed by the arrival of the baron himself at the little peasant house that he fell on his knees and kissed Balian’s feet—to the intense embarrassment of the latter. When Balian lifted him up, he burst into tears, overwhelmed by a confusion of emotions. Except to say he’d been “thrown out,” he could not answer any of Balian’s questions coherently.
“Is the King dead?” Balian asked him repeatedly, but Ibrahim shook his head, only to burst into tears again. Finally Balian tipped his tenants for their kindness, coaxed Ibrahim onto the old gelding he’d brought, and led him back to Ibelin.
It was the middle of the night and at Ibelin almost everyone was abed, but Mathewos helped Ibrahim wash his feet and Ernoul found him a clean kaftan before escorting him to the solar, where Maria Zoë and Balian waited for him alone. Gabriel had laid a fire and brought food, wine, and water, but he was dismissed as soon as Ibrahim entered.
Balian indicated a chair by the fire, but Ibrahim first insisted on going down on his knees and bowing his head on the floor to Maria Zoë. “My lady, thank you for taking in an old and worthless man.”
“Ibrahim.” Maria Zoë cast Balian an alarmed look. “A man’s worth is not measured by the strength of his body, but by the quality of his soul. Come, sit and tell us what has happened.” She helped Ibrahim to his feet and guided him to the chair Balian had prepared for him between their own.
Ibrahim lowered himself slowly into the chair and dropped his face into his hands. Maria Zoë and Balian again exchanged a look. But then Ibrahim lifted his head and spoke clearly. “The King is dying, Sir Balian. He has taken the Last Rites, and the Patriarch hardly leaves his side. Perhaps, even as we speak, he is already dead.”
Balian and Maria Zoë looked at one another.
“I—I always thought I would be with him when he died. . . .” The tears started down Ibrahim’s face again. “Do not be angry with me, my lord. But I—I beg Allah to forgive him for being a Christian. I always thought . . .”
Maria Zoë and Balian waited for him to collect himself.
After a moment he continued. “I always include him in my prayers, of course, but I thought to be there at the end. . . . But she threw me out.”
“Who?” Maria Zoë asked, so sharply that she raised her husband’s eyebrows.
“The Countess of Jaffa. She barred me from his chamber. She told me I was no longer needed. She said my ‘stink’ was unwelcome, and that Sir Daniel could look after the King without my help.” Ibrahim’s pain was sharp enough to give his words strength.
“Surely she just wanted you to get some rest,” Balian suggested cautiously.
“No! She told me to leave the palace, my lord. She told me to go away and never come back! She said she never wanted to set eyes on my ‘ugly face’ again.”
“The little bitch!” Maria Zoë declared, incensed. “She’s hated Ibrahim from the day he witnessed her inexcusable behavior before our wedding!”
Balian frowned—not because he did not share his wife’s opinion, but because he feared Maria Zoë’s too-public expression of her opinions had already been damaging to both of them. He asked, “Who else was with the King?”
“His mother, of course, the Patriarch, and the Count of Jaffa.”
“The Count of Jaffa?” Balian asked in alarm.
“Yes, the Countess brought him with her.”
“Did she bring her son?”
“No, the risk of infection was too high.”
“Was the Constable there?”
“He, the Grand Masters of the Templars and Hospitallers, and the Bishop of Bethlehem were in the hall, but they were not given access to the King.”
“And Salah ad-Din, smelling weakness, is raising another army. . . .” Balian whispered to the room.
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