“But that’s not the situation we have, is it? It looks very much as if the bulk of the barons are going to opt for Isabella—”
“Isabella? I thought they wanted to crown Tripoli.”
“No, they don’t, and Tripoli’s a wily old fox. He’d rather be the power behind the throne, manipulating things, than be too exposed.
That means Isabella will owe her crown to Tripoli—and your two brothers, of course. The three of them together control four times the number of knights I do. Indeed, if Tripoli succeeds at getting the High Court to back his proposal, Isabella will owe her crown to damn near the whole High Court. With so many knights to protect him, Humphrey might even take it into his head to defy me. Not to mention that little Isabella for some reason took a dislike to my beloved wife, despite all her kindly upbringing. So why should the likes of us have any influence in Isabella’s court?”
“Your wife truly did mishandle Isabella, didn’t she?” Henri couldn’t resist gloating a little. He had long since abandoned any loyalty to Stephanie de Milly—and if by chance he remembered swearing himself to her on that distant night when he brought her word of Miles de Plancy’s murder, it was only to cringe at how wet behind the ears he’d been.
Châtillon shrugged. “The bitch had her uses, but you’re right. She screwed up royally with Isabella. But there you are. Like it or not, that’s the landscape. Isabella has no reason to love us—and Humphrey, who would normally be scared shitless of me, can now hide behind the likes of not only Tripoli, but your brothers as well. Ibelin’s his father-in-law, for God’s sake! I don’t like that setup.
“If, on the other hand,” Châtillon leaned closer and lowered his voice, “we prop up Sibylla and her puppet prince, they’re going to be very indebted to us, aren’t they?”
“Maybe,” Henri answered warily. “Royalty has a reputation for short memory.”
“True enough, but Guy’s situation isn’t going to get easier after his wife is crowned—assuming Heraclius goes through with it. She has promised to set Guy aside and remarry in order to win the support of half the bishops. Once she’s crowned, the pressure for her to fulfill her promise will only increase.”
“Which means Guy’s crown will depend on his wife’s whim—not something we have much influence over one way or another.”
“Maybe not, but Sibylla’s not at all keen to set him aside, and she’ll cling to anyone—like us—who assures her it isn’t necessary. We promise to stand by Guy long enough for people to start getting used to him, and here’s the important part: we convince him his popularity depends on pursuing an aggressive policy against the Saracens.”
“Ah.” Henri leaned back and raised his drink to his lips, his skepticism in the curl of his smile, before he hid his face behind his glass mug.
“My strategy of taking the war to them works!” Oultrejourdain insisted.
“It didn’t feel that way when I was trapped in a gully with five hundred men using me for target practice,” Henri snarled back.
“That was a tactical setback. You have to look at the larger picture. Salah ad-Din was unable to intervene in Aleppo.”
“He has it now. And Mosul.”
“All the more reason why we need to take the war to him before he brings it to us.”
Eschiva had been given the “honor,” along with Stephanie de Milly, of carrying the Queen’s train at her coronation. Everything was being done in a hurry for fear the barons meeting at Nablus might find out about the coronation, so Sibylla had no time to have a gown specially made. Instead, she was wearing the same coronation robes that her brother had worn a dozen years earlier over a white silk gown. It was oppressively hot, and the coronation robes, encrusted with jewels set in gold wiring, were immensely heavy. Eschiva could not lift the outer cloak on her own and needed Stephanie’s help.
The Lady of Oultrejourdain stank, and she had bad breath. Eschiva shrank instinctively away from her. The older woman was in a foul mood, too, snipping and snarling at anyone and everyone—including the Queen. “Don’t forget who put you where you are, Sibylla,” the Lady of Oultrejourdain lectured.
“No, I’ll never forget,” Sibylla answered, her lips clamped together in resentment. From the expression on the Lady of Oultrejourdain’s face, she didn’t believe Sibylla any more than Sibylla meant what she said.
Eschiva kept her head down and hoped to keep out of the line of fire. She wasn’t feeling well again and suspected another pregnancy. She was not keen on it; her little nursery seemed full enough already. Furthermore, while Hugh and Burgundia were both thriving, her second son, Henri, seemed to lurch from one colic to the next. He was not as big as he should have been because he couldn’t keep enough food down to grow. She would have preferred to have more time to devote to him before having another child, but how was a woman supposed to deny her husband her bed? Then again, she supposed she ought to be glad her husband still wanted to share her bed. She did not imagine Stephanie de Milly suffered from her husband’s unwanted attention! And poor Isabella still could not seem to attract the interest of Humphrey, either. . . .
“Stop daydreaming, you stupid girl, and give a hand!” Madame d’Oultrejourdain snapped, bringing Eschiva back to the present.
Sibylla was seated on a stool, waiting for her attendants to lower the gem-studded cloak over her shoulders. Eschiva took up her side of the garment, which was spread across the bed, from which they had brushed all the dust hours ago. She lifted the front and walked sideways facing Stephanie; together they brought the cloak to Sibylla and lowered it onto her shoulders.
Sibylla seemed to sink under the weight at first, and then she straightened her shoulders, lifted her head, and held out her hands, commanding: “Help me up!”
Eschiva and Stephanie dutifully each took one of her hands and helped raise her to her feet.
“A crown is quite a burden,” Stephanie reflected. “So, who have you decided to share it with—once you discard Guy?”
“Guy.”
“Yes,” Stephanie answered sharply, annoyed by Sibylla’s dullness. “After you discard Guy, who will you take to be your consort?”
“Guy,” Sibylla answered again stupidly.
“But you promised to discard him!” Stephanie insisted, irritated.
“On the condition I could choose my own second husband, just as my father chose his second wife. And I’m going to choose Guy de Lusignan!” Sibylla was so pleased with her own cleverness that she giggled and would have danced for joy—if the coronation robes hadn’t been so heavy.
Nablus, July 1186
Dawit felt he hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in three days—and all his meals were snatched standing up because the stables were overflowing with horses. They all needed to be fed, watered, exercised, and groomed, which of course the visiting squires took care of—but he had to help his father keep all these strange horses and squires from fighting with one another, hogging the troughs and grooming posts, or stealing hay and grooming tools. Everybody seemed to think that they (or their lord) were more important than everyone else, and that led to a lot of friction.
Dawit admired his father’s calm in the midst of so much chaos, and likewise his soft-spoken authority. Although some of the squires tried to talk back once or twice, Mathewos could quell them with a look—something Dawit hadn’t yet mastered. At the moment he was having trouble convincing Caesarea’s squires that there were no box stalls available, and that if they insisted on such fine accommodations for their lord’s horses they would have to seek it outside the citadel. “There’s a reasonable inn just around the corner opposite St. James,” he told the complainers, rather hoping they would take his advice. Yet even as he spoke, another party of riders clattered over the drawbridge and into the already overflowing ward.
Dawit felt like this was just too much, and was on the brink of saying so, when he recognized Sir William Marshal, Georgios, and—to his bewilderment—between them, clinging miserably to a hired mare, Beth.
Sir William had been left in Jerusalem to keep an eye on Sibylla and her party, but it was only Beth Dawit cared about. He forgot everything else that was going on and ran to her. “Beth! Beth! What are you doing here?” Dawit was beside her horse and reached up his arms to her. She looked utterly exhausted, coated in dust and damp with sweat.
“Dawit!” Beth exclaimed, and in that single word was unbounded relief. With obvious effort and discomfort, she managed to swing her right leg over the rump and slide down the side of the bony, ill-kept mare into Dawit’s arms. She turned and laid her head on his chest, oblivious to all the strangers around them, the bustle, and the impropriety of her gesture. “Dawit! We’ve galloped all the way from Jerusalem! My lady has terrible news!”
“What, then?” Dawit asked, glancing automatically up at Sir William.
He answered for Beth. “Sibylla’s had herself crowned in the Holy Sepulcher.”
“Without the sanction of the High Court?” Dawit asked, shocked.
“Exactly,” Marshal replied.
“But that’s not the worst of it!” Beth interjected, looking up at Dawit intently. “She promised to divorce Guy and choose another man, but she intends to choose Guy as her next husband as well.”
“The Templars are controlling access in and out of Jerusalem,” Marshal explained impatiently. “I had to take lodgings at St. Lazarus, outside the city, but Georgios managed to slip in and see the coronation procession. I was just preparing to bring you word when Beth found me with this second piece of intelligence, so I brought her along. We must get word to the High Court,” Marshal announced, clearly on edge. Unlike Beth, he did not see the groom Dawit as their destination.
“Must I go with you, sir?” Beth asked, clinging to Dawit. “You can tell them everything.”
Marshal bowed his head to her politely and started at once for the stairs, leaving Beth with Dawit.
As soon as Marshal and Georgios were gone, Beth turned her face up to Dawit again and admitted, “Dawit, I don’t want to go back to Jerusalem. Sibylla hates us, and now she is Queen. I’m afraid of what she will do to us—Eschiva and me.”
“You don’t have to go back. You are with me,” Dawit assured her.
Maria Zoë found Isabella waiting anxiously in the small chamber she and Humphrey shared. With so many other high-ranking guests, they had not been given the most commodious nor the most luxurious accommodations; this room served normally as quarters for some of the garrison. It had only two narrow windows—more like arrow-slits—so the circular chamber got little light or fresh air, but the burning summer sun heated it like a bake oven.
At the sight of her mother, Isabella jumped to her feet. “Are they still arguing?” she asked anxiously.
“The discussions have been quite intense at times,” Maria Zoë admitted; “not everyone is prepared to believe Beth’s account of Sibylla’s intentions. We’ve had word from three other messengers that she was crowned alone, the issue of a consort deferred to a later date. That makes some men hope Sibylla will divorce Guy after all. But the bishops argue there are no legal grounds for setting Guy aside, and Tripoli is adamant that without the approval of the High Court, Sibylla is a usurper, her coronation illegal and so invalid.” Maria Zoë paused and glanced at Isabella.
Isabella sat very straight on the edge of her traveling chest, her hands folded neatly in her lap. She was still slim, but there was no mistaking the budding of her breasts or her poise. She also held her head high on a long and slender neck. Although she was still young and fresh, she was clearly not a child anymore.
“Tripoli has suggested that you be crowned Queen in the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem—which, after all, is the place where Baldwin I was crowned. The Bishop of Bethlehem says he will perform the ceremony.”
Isabella caught her breath and sat a little taller and stiffer, but it was from excitement, not surprise. Her eyes glittered in the darkness. “And will they, mama? Will they pay homage to me as they have not done to Sibylla?”
“That is a good question.” Maria Zoë was pleased that her daughter recognized the difficulties and did not think a crowning was the same as ruling. “You can be sure that Tripoli, Ramla, and of course your stepfather, will do so. And you can be equally sure that Edessa and Jaffa will not. The question, therefore, becomes what the others will do. Bethlehem will, of course, crown Humphrey with you, so the barons will have a clear choice not only between you and Sibylla, but also between Humphrey and Guy.”
Isabella’s expression wavered slightly. She was acutely aware that many men did not think highly of her husband, but she was not prepared to admit this openly. “But there can be no comparison,” she declared defensively, and Maria Zoë sighed inwardly as Isabella warmed to her argument. “Guy is a fool and an outsider. Humphrey understands us and our situation. He’ll be much better at negotiating with Salah ad-Din.”
“Perhaps, but many barons want a man who can also defeat Salah ad-Din on a battlefield.”
“Humphrey’s not a coward!” Isabella insisted.
“No one is suggesting he is—just inexperienced in command.”
“So was Baldwin IV at Montgisard,” Isabella retorted, so readily that Maria Zoë knew Isabella had practiced this response. She smiled wearily and put her hand on Isabella’s.
“I fear you underestimate the burden of a crown,” Maria Zoë told her daughter honestly. “I certainly did before my coronation—but at least I was only a consort, and my husband was a mature and experienced man, already well established on his throne and respected by his subjects. I honestly cannot say that I envy you the burden of the Crown.” Maria Zoë paused, reflecting on that. She certainly did not long for her former existence as Amalric’s doll-consort—but to be Queen in her own right, as Isabella would be? With Balian at her side? That was a very different prospect. Together, they could do so much! Baldwin had allowed his mother and uncle to plunder the royal treasury, but if she were Queen, she would hoard those resources to use them for the defense of the realm. Balian, meanwhile, would never squander men and horses in pointless aggression, but if the enemy dared to invade, he would show Salah ad-Din the power of Christian arms! For an instant Maria Zoë allowed herself to dream, but then she called her own imagination to order. She was not being offered the Crown, and Balian was not going to be King. The best they could hope for was to be Isabella’s advisers. And the best way to do that was to advise her well now.
“Isabella, if you are to be crowned as an alternative to Sibylla, then you will not have the Kingdom at your feet; you will have to win it by proving yourself more worthy than your rival.”
“All Sibylla cares about is herself! And Guy,” Isabella retorted hotly. “She doesn’t have a brain in her head.”
“That may be,” Maria Zoë agreed with warning slowness, “but most of the men down there in the hall have no way of knowing that you are any different. To them you are nothing but a name. They will picture you like the fourteen-year-olds they know—their own daughters and younger sisters. Or they may picture you as they remember Sibylla at your age. It will be up to you to demonstrate that you are not like Sibylla, and that you aren’t a flighty or frightened little girl, either. You will have to prove to them that you have the best interests of the Kingdom at heart.”
Isabella frowned slightly and considered her mother. “How am I supposed to do that?”
“Well,” Maria Zoë began cautiously. “For a start, you will have to be very careful about how you use royal patronage and royal revenues—and, most important, you must be careful not to provoke our enemies. The truce with Baldwin V ended automatically with his death, so you will have to renegotiate with Salah ad-Din.”
The look in Isabella’s eyes was reassuringly frightened; Isabella was beginning to grasp the complexity of her future duties. “But Uncle Balian will help me treat with Salah ad-Din,” Isabella decided, after absorbing the first shock of being responsible for something so dangerous.
“If that is whom you wish
to entrust with the negotiations,” Maria Zoë agreed cautiously. “But you must be careful not to appear to favor only one man, or one family, or one faction.”
“Will I have a regent?” Isabella asked, frowning.
“No; you are mature in the eyes of the Church, and already married to a man over the age of maturity. You and Humphrey will not be placed under the guidance of a regent.”
Isabella clearly looked pleased about that. “So we will be free to appoint our own advisers and officers?” she pressed her mother.
“Yes, you will,” Maria Zoë assured her.
Isabella nodded, her lips pressed together firmly. “You’ll see, Mama. We’ll pick good men—men other men want to follow,” she added with a hint of a smile.
Maria Zoë nodded and leaned forward to kiss her on her forehead. She was remembering the night her mother came to tell her the Emperor had signed a marriage contract with King Amalric of Jerusalem and she was to be his queen. The negotiations had been going on forever, and she knew other girls in the family had been considered. She had also known that she had gradually become the “favorite,” and she had fantasized about being queen in a strange place—and about the husband she had never met. At least Isabella knew her husband, and whatever doubts Balian and other men had about him, Isabella loved and trusted him.
“I’m going to leave you now,” Maria Zoë told her daughter. “God knows how long the men may yet talk, but when Balian comes, I want to be waiting for him—and you, even more than me, need time alone with your husband. In your shoes, I would ask God’s guidance and protection in the days to come.”
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