The men around the table stiffened at this, and al-Afdal’s hand dropped to his hilt, his eyes fixed on his father, awaiting a command. Salah ad-Din waved him to relax. “Do not take Allah’s name in vain,” the Sultan admonished Ibelin. “Who are we to know His will?”
“I do not pretend to know His will, only His commandments: ‘Thou shalt not kill.’”
“Yet you do kill,” Salah ad-Din retorted calmly, if a little sharply. “I have seen with my own eyes how well you kill, my lord of Ibelin.” “I have killed many men in self-defense.”
“At Ibelin?” Salah ad-Din raised his eyebrows, and his voice was almost mocking. “Were those men any threat to you?”
“At Ibelin, more than anywhere—for a man has the right to renounce his own self-defense, but not the right to fail to defend those who cannot defend themselves.”
“But that is not the case of Guy de Lusignan, is it? He can defend himself. Your brother should have killed him for what he did—and your King should have had his sister stoned publicly for disgracing him and his entire family.”
Ibelin knew it was pointless to talk about affection for a sister: the Sultan would not be able to understand it. What he called “honor” meant more to him than the life, much less the happiness, of any female. He would never be able to understand that King Baldwin had genuinely cared for his sister, despite her weaknesses. So he ignored the second half of the Sultan’s suggestion and focused on the first. “What do you think my brother’s son-in-law, Guy’s brother Aimery, would have done, while my brother killed his? We are a small kingdom, your excellency, and we cannot afford to be divided among ourselves.”
“And you are united now? Behind this boy?” Salah ad-Din sounded skeptical, not to say disbelieving.
“We are, your excellency,” Ibelin told him, steadfastly and with conviction. The problem was not uniting behind Baldwin V, for even Guy could not oppose his stepson without alienating his wife, and Edessa had been bought with the post of guardian, which gave him ample opportunity to enrich himself from the royal treasury. The risk lay in what came after him—if he did not grow into a vigorous young man.
“Yet you come here begging for a truce,” Salah ad-Din pointed out, with a faint smile that might have been derogatory.
Ibelin shrugged. “Personally, I would enjoy a truce. My sons are very small. It would be good to watch them grow up. There is much I could do in Ibelin and Nablus to make them richer places. But I do not need a truce.”
“You hope that in five or six years your boy king will grow into a mighty warrior,” Salah ad-Din speculated.
“Yes, we do. Wouldn’t you, in our shoes?”
Salah ad-Din laughed at that, shortly. “Yes, but why should I give you that breathing space and risk facing a strong young king six years from now?“
“Because your soldiers are weary of war now. Because the rains have failed this year, and the prices in the markets are so high that there have been riots in many towns. Because you have not yet subdued Mosul, and it threatens your rear. And most of all, because we can still beat you on the battlefield anytime you invade—as we have always done in the past.”
“Each time, your victory is less convincing,” Salah ad-Din pointed out.
Ibelin shrugged and opened his hands. “I have more knights than ever before. The losses on the Litani have been made good. We still have untapped resources beyond the sea, and mighty kings who long to fight on our side for the greater glory of God and to defend the holy places of our faith. If you insist on war, your excellency, we will be ready for you. Me, my brother, and my fellow barons. We do not crave peace at any price, for that we could easily have.”
Salah ad-Din raised his eyebrows in question.
“With surrender and conversion.”
“Of course.” The Sultan started to dismiss this thought and then paused to ask—almost hopefully, or at least whimsically—“And that is unthinkable?”
“It is!” Ibelin looked him squarely in the eye, with not even a ghost of a reciprocal smile.
Salah ad-Din nodded. “I will think about what you have said,” he announced and rose to his feet, ending the interview.
Ibelin also stood, bowed deeply as he would have to his own king, took a step back and bowed again, and then turned and departed, with Gabriel and Mathewos in his wake.
When the Christians were safely out of hearing, al-Afdal protested hotly, “Ibn Barzan insulted you.”
“How?”
“By referring to the murder of Shawar!”
“Never be offended by reference to your deeds,” the Sultan advised his son. “To take offense is to suggest regret. I do not regret killing Shawar. He had lost his utility to us, and his murder paved the way for the reunification of Islam. Do you mean to suggest it is not a good thing that the heretical Fatimid caliphate has been destroyed?”
“Of course not!” al-Afdal protested. “But the Christian meant it as an insult.”
“That is his problem.” The Sultan dismissed the matter, adding, “I liked him.”
Farrukh-Shah protested with a look of distaste, “Ibn Barzan lacks subtlety.”
“Subtlety? Perhaps, but diplomacy does not consist of deceit, but rather in the art of finding common ground. In this case it is in both our interests to stop fighting for a bit. A truce is not a peace—and Ibn Barzan knows that as well as I do. Ibn Barzan is an honest man, and precisely because he did not try to flatter me or pretend to be my friend, I trust him.”
“You think, then, that the Christians are united behind this boy king?” al-Adil asked skeptically.
“I think they are—because he is the lowest common denominator. It would seem that none of the other barons are man enough to put the boy aside.” It was obvious to his brother, son, and nephew that Salah ad-Din was making a disparaging comparison between his own willingness to set aside Nur ad-Din’s rightful heir and the reluctance of the Christians to depose Baldwin V. “I thought at first that Ramla was such a man—that he would take revenge on Guy de Lusignan for the dishonor of stealing his bride—but you saw Ibn Barzan’s reaction. Ramla may hate Lusignan, but he does not have sufficient support among his peers to actually hold on to the throne if he were to set aside this boy and his stepfather Lusignan.”
“Who is there to oppose him?” Farrukh-Shah asked. “Tripoli and Antioch are his friends.”
“Yes,” Salah ad-Din admitted, “but Oultrejourdain is his rival. And then there are the Templars. I’ve heard they now back Guy de Lusignan. If so, that changes the balance of power in Jerusalem. Don’t forget these Christian fanatics have access to enormous resources in the West, and they can deploy as many knights as the entire Kingdom. It is significant that the Hospitaller Master was sent to make peace with us, but the Templar Master was not in the party.”
“You would have been even less willing to receive him!” Farrukh-Shah pointed out.
Salah ad-Din laughed. “Of course—and it would have given me greater pleasure to refuse him. But the fact that he was not sent says a great deal. In the past, both Masters were sent on embassies.”
“I have heard rumors that the new Grand Master hates Tripoli,” Farrukh-Shah insisted.
“Good. Then your spies tell you the same thing that my spies tell me,” Salah ad-Din told his nephew pointedly.
“So this is where the Kingdom starts to crack?” Al-Adil suggested uncertainly.
“Maybe, but Ibn Barzan is right: it has not cracked yet. Furthermore, our harvests have been poorer than theirs. We have bread riots; they do not. We have Mosul to contend with; they have only supporters in their rear. We have little to gain by attacking now, and waiting is likely to be more to our advantage than theirs.”
“So you will give them a truce?”
“I think four years should be about right.”
The others nodded in agreement. It would not be such a bad thing, after all, to have time to see to their own affairs.
Chapter 15
Acre, June 1186
/> SIBYLLA’S SOBS WERE STARTING TO GET on Guy’s nerves. She had been crying nonstop for hours, clinging to the corpse of her little boy with more apparent affection than she had ever clung to him in life. Maybe it was a guilty conscience, for she had shown the boy little love over the years. Indeed, even in the last weeks she had spent more time chiding him for “whining” than comforting him in his ailments. She hated the fact that he vomited so much of the time, and might at any time spew up whatever he’d just eaten over anyone in range.
Guy hadn’t liked being near the boy, either, but now he was dead and wouldn’t throw up over either of them ever again. So what was the point of all this hysterical weeping? They ought, instead, to be thinking about what to do next.
Lusignan glanced across the room at his wife’s uncle, the aging Count of Edessa. He was almost bald these days and decidedly overweight. He did not suffer from his great-nephew’s weak stomach, it seemed; yet for all that, he was not looking well. There were deep bags under his eyes and his hair was stringy and oily, while dandruff dusted the shoulders of his velvet gown.
Feeling Lusignan’s gaze, Edessa at once approached. “We have to do something!” he advised in an agitated voice.
“What?”
“To secure the treasury—the Crown. Tripoli is bound to try to have himself crowned.”
“We all swore to send to the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor,” Lusignan reminded his wife’s uncle.
“You can’t believe Tripoli will respect that!” Edessa responded nervously. “That could take forever. Besides, the Kings of England and France are fighting each other. They’ll never be able to agree on a candidate. We need to take control of things here before—before Tripoli makes his move, or the Saracens destroy us all.”
“There’s no need for panic,” Lusignan calmed the older man patronizingly. “The last we heard, the Turks and Kurds were fighting each other over who should succeed the dying Salah ad-Din.”
“Haven’t you heard? The Sultan recovered and is swearing his life was saved only so he could complete the task of driving us into the sea! We must get Sibylla crowned Queen in her own right.”
“Sibylla?” Guy asked incredulously. Pleasurable as he found her bed, she was the last person he would have wanted to vow fealty to.
“Only so she can crown you as her consort, of course,” Edessa explained.
“Oh!” That made sense, of course.
“We need to get to Jerusalem ahead of Tripoli and his supporters, and get Sibylla crowned and anointed before they have a chance to call the High Court together. Heraclius will anoint Sibylla. I’ve already secured his support,” Edessa promised his niece’s husband. “It’s all taken care of!” he added, when Lusignan looked nonplussed rather than grateful. He expected Lusignan’s thanks for this eventually, but at the moment he was unnerved by the latter’s apparent lethargy. “Once she’s crowned and anointed, the High Court will be confronted with a fait accompli. No matter what Tripoli and his faction wants, we’ll have an anointed Queen, and at least some of the bishops will not have the courage to oppose her.”
Guy was astonished by how well thought out this plan sounded, but he supposed Edessa had been thinking about it ever since the boy had become fatally ill. He was most concerned about his own position, of course—but that mattered little to Guy, since his plan gave Guy what he wanted, too. So he just asked, “How do we do that?”
“We mustn’t arouse suspicion,” Edessa answered, automatically lowering his voice to a conspiratorial level. The need for discretion seemed self-evident to Lusignan, but it did not answer his question, so he continued to stare at Edessa, demanding an answer.
“I think,” Edessa continued, licking his lips nervously, “I think I should ride to Beirut and tell Tripoli in person that poor little Baldwin is dead, and that his grieving mother and stepfather are escorting the corpse in slow stages to Jerusalem for a burial in the Holy Sepulcher on the anniversary of the seizure of Jerusalem, July 15. You and Sibylla, with a strong Templar escort, should do exactly that—but meanwhile, your brother should ride ahead and with the help of the Templars secure complete control of Jerusalem, while warning the Patriarch of what is expected of him.”
“Yes.” This definitely sounded like a plan to Guy.
“Before the others arrive, the Patriarch can crown Sibylla.”
“What about me?” Guy asked back.
“The Patriarch will crown you—or if he won’t, she will. She knows she can’t rule without you.”
That was true, Guy agreed. She’d said as much many times. He absently rubbed his shaved cheek as he thought through Edessa’s plan, but while he could imagine things going wrong with it, he could not come up with any alternative. It was better than just sitting around waiting for the others to take action. He certainly didn’t trust the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor to name him King! Yes, the more he thought about it, the more sense Edessa’s plan made. The Crown of Jerusalem, denied him by the pettiness of that leper boy, was within his grasp again at last.
Jerusalem, July 1186
Things hadn’t gone exactly as planned, because most of the High Court had arrived in time for the funeral—although Tripoli had stayed away, allegedly out of fear of arrest or assassination. Still, Guy remained confident of his goal. “Everyone agrees Sibylla is the heir to the throne, and I am her husband. What could be simpler than that?” Guy demanded rhetorically of his brother.
Aimery didn’t know whether he should roll his eyes or slap his stupid younger brother across his smug face. Curbing his anger, he tried to explain. “First of all, ‘everyone’ is a wild exaggeration. Three-fourths of the High Court have retired to Nablus to discuss the succession with the Regent. Just what do you think they are going to discuss?” When Guy only looked at him blankly, Aimery continued in an increasingly exasperated tone, “I’ll tell you what: whether they should fulfill the terms of their oath to Baldwin IV by sending to the West for advice on the succession—while Tripoli remains Regent, of course. Or acclaim Tripoli himself King, because he is the closest living male descendant of Baldwin II.”
“His claim is through the youngest sister and—”
“That doesn’t matter!” Aimery cut Guy off in exasperation. “The supporters you have amount to 1) Heraclius, who keeps sniffling that he promised Agnes de Courtenay he would crown her “little girl”—nothing about you, mind! 2) Edessa, who fears Tripoli will cut off his revenues if he is crowned but could be bought if Tripoli pays him enough, and 3) the Grand Master of the Templars, who simply hates Tripoli. Even the Hospitallers are against you, with Moulins refusing to surrender the keys to the coronation vestments until he has orders from the Pope!”
“And Oultrejourdain,” Guy insisted.
Aimery grimaced. “Don’t count on Oultrejourdain. He’s half inclined to muddy the waters by crowning Isabella, simply because he thinks he can control Toron easier than he can control you. His wife hates Tripoli, but if the choice is between you and her son, whom do you think she’ll choose?”
“But the bishops favor Sibylla!” Guy protested.
“Some of them do—but only on the condition that she divorce you, just as her father divorced her mother in order to secure the Crown.”
“She would never do that!” Guy retorted confidently, dismissing his brother’s objections as if they were nonsensical. Aimery wondered how any man could be so certain of his wife’s loyalty—especially with a crown at stake.
“Well, we know what side your brothers are on,” Reynald de Châtillon remarked somewhat dismissively, as he launched a pottery jug along the wooden surface of the tavern table toward his retainer, Sir Henri. Henri deftly caught the jug and helped himself to the wine inside, filling the cheap, green, glass mug provided by the inn. Châtillon had wedged himself into a corner where the benches on the wall met and had propped his feet up on the table. Henri made himself comfortable against the threadbare and dusty cushions, but kept his feet on the floor.
“Just because m
y brothers have the sense not to back Sibylla and her play-king doesn’t make the alternative more attractive.”
Châtillon threw back his bald head and laughed heartily. He then raised his mug to Henri. “Here’s to the brothers Ibelin! You’re still one of them, no matter what you protest!”
Henri was annoyed at being lumped with his elder brothers, but he knew better than to show it to Châtillon. Instead he shrugged and repeated, “Better to be caught dead in good company than bad.”
“Meaning me or Lusignan?”
“That depends on which Lusignan you mean.”
“Ah, yes; if only I could have persuaded dear little Baldwin to wed his sister to Aimery instead of Guy. Of course, he would have had to discard your little niece—what’s her name?”
“Her name’s Eschiva, and I don’t object to Aimery being my kin. Guy is another matter. The man’s insufferable.”
“He is, rather, isn’t he? But the question is, if Sibylla were to cast him off, who then would she take in his stead? Probably some other pretty sop.”
“Doesn’t Tripoli have two or three unmarried stepsons?”
Oultrejourdain burst out into another guffaw. When the laughing fit was over, he shook his head, still chuckling as he drank more of the local wine, remarking, “Henri, I’d forgotten how amusing you could be.”
Henri was not flattered, and he swallowed more wine to drown his own irritation with his lord. The bulk of the barons (and not just his brothers), along with at least half the bishops, had taken a clear stand against Guy de Lusignan by withdrawing to Nablus after the funeral. Henri did not like being on the losing side of any battle—particularly not ones at home.
Oultrejourdain, sensing his companion’s mood, dropped his feet onto the floor, leaned forward, and got serious. “Look, I seriously considered the idea of crowning little Isabella. She’s got guts and she’s got brains. I like her. As for her husband . . .” Châtillon made a deprecating gesture and noise. “Nothing there. If we had a situation where the pack was lining up behind Sibylla and we could play king-maker with Isabella and Humphrey, I’d be breaking in to the Holy Sepulcher to pour the sacred oil over her head myself. Think what wax Humphrey would be in my hands! Why, our only problem would be the stink of shit whenever I barked at him!
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