Raymond gave her a swift bow, a fixed and empty smile, and turned back to the King. “Sire, there is the issue still of that thirty thousand dinars.”
Baudouin had owed this money to Raymond for a long while and had no intention of repaying it. In the crowd pushing and shoving around in front of his chair, all striving to be noticed, he saw the perfect antidote to the Count of Tripoli.
“My lord Marshall,” he said, and smiled, and nodded. “Come forward, and let me congratulate you on your elevation.”
The new Marshall of the Jerusalem Temple swooped forward into the King’s presence like someone seizing territory. He was the opposite of Raymond of Tripoli, fleshy and strongly made, with a magnificent proud carriage. The severe robes of his Order made him look very fine: the great black cloak, the white robe with its Cross of red showed off his wide shoulders and heavy chest.
“Sire,” he said. “I quake at the honor of conversing with the victor of Ramleh.”
“Yes,” Raymond said, pushing forward, his eyes sharp. “A great battle won without Templars.”
“Oh,” the King said mildly, “there were a few.”
The Marshall glared full into Raymond’s face, his sandy beard bristling; he wore his hair very long and sleek, for a man whose Rule required a close trim. He said, “Perhaps if you’d been there, we would have had no victory at all, my lord Count, but another of your customary disappointments.”
Tripoli bridled up at this remark, and his face tightened over the bones, his jaw jutting. Baudouin sat back, letting them squabble. Locked in their beloved feud, they paid no attention to him. He felt himself running out of vigor, dying in pieces.
Then, down at the door, the crowd began to buzz and laugh and bow and call out greetings, and he knew that Sibylla had come in.
He raised his head, his heart suddenly eager. He had not seen her in almost a year. All across the room, he picked her at once out of the crowd. So, unsick, he might have looked: lively, slender, light in step, with heavy fair hair, and a face bright with laughter, beautiful by nature.
“She has to cover her head,” his mother said. “She’s a widow, not a maiden, what is she thinking of?” Indeed his sister wore her hair loose around her shoulders, bound in a token ribbon. She never heeded rules. She came toward the crowd, calling and waving to her friends. Bau- douin had not seen her since her son was born. She had put off her widow’s weeds at her churching, as if with the baby she was delivered also of her marriage vows, and then she had flown off to the sweet and violent court of her cousin, Stephanie of Kerak, who had been twice a widow, and knew how to defeat the attendant glooms.
Straight across the room, head high and eyes direct, she walked toward the young King, with her favorite companion, another cousin, Alys of Beersheba, and her page trailing after her, not keeping pace. Tripoli stepped back; the Marshall moved aside.
Baudouin remembered, abruptly, that she had not seen him in some time. He braced himself. She walked up toward him, and when she saw his face clearly she stopped, her eyes wide with shock.
“Bati, God’s breath, you look awful.”
Ready as he was, he flinched anyway. His mother gasped: “Oh, no, no, no!” and the men nearby muttered protests. Baudouin made himself smile.
“Bili, you’re the same. You never change.” He reached one gloved hand toward her. Maliciously: “Come, sweet Sister, give me a kiss.”
“No,” she said. She stepped back, putting her hands behind her back, like a child. “Never. Does it hurt? I’m terribly sorry. I pray for you every day, Bati, sometimes twice.”
Behind her, the Lady Alys said, “Sire, you are always in our thoughts.” Alys was wide and well-padded, and wore her gowns too small, so that she bulged, overstuffed. She bobbed down and up in a courtesy to him. “God save you, Sire.”
“Thank you, Lady Alys.”
His sister stepped up beside their mother’s chair; the two women leaned together, pressing cheek to cheek in false kisses. In unison they trilled a “Hmmmm!” of insincere delight. Sibylla straightened, looked coolly past the King.
“My lord Cousin Tripoli.”
“God bless you, Princess,” said the Count of Tripoli.
“Bili,” said the King, “let me present to you the new Marshall of the Temple of Jerusalem, Gerard de Ridford.”
To his surprise, that caught his sister’s interest. She turned her back on her mother, her wide blue eyes sweeping toward the black-and- white knight on Baudouin’s left. “My lord Marshall.”
Gerard de Ridford inclined his head. He had an easy way with women, having been a monk for only a short time, and for his own purposes, not God’s. With a smile, he said, “I live to serve the Princess of Jerusalem.”
Sibylla held out her hand to be kissed. “God’s grace, sir, I am pleased to see not all the men of your Order are churls.”
Baudouin blinked. He had played chess with her since the nursery, and he recognized one of her baited openings. The Marshall walked innocently in where she wanted him.
“Churls, my lady.” He bowed over her ringed fingers with the practiced dip of a courtier, his pursed lips passing a few inches above her knuckles. “Pray God we do not have such a reputation universally.”
“A month ago, before my brother’s great victory at Ramleh, I met a Templar on the road, who was very rude to me.”
The Marshall stood back. The red Cross blazed on the white breast of his robe, his smile blazed on his face. “But name him, lady! I shall see him properly chastised.”
“Yes. Well, I’m not sure of his name. The man with him called him Saint, which I thought distinctly peculiar.”
At that name the Marshall gave a sudden start. “Rannulf Fitzwilliam,” he said, and his lips twisted; he turned away, his hand rising to his face.
Baudouin said, “Oh, really.” He eyed his sister. “How was he rude to you, Bili ?”
“He accosted us on the road, and took some horses.” She shrugged. “I did not grudge him any of it, since he was a Templar, but gave freely, and yet he was mannerless about it.”
Alys said, “He showed no respect for any of us, Sire, and for our station.”
The Marshall, de Ridford, swung back toward the throne again, and made a deep bow to Sibylla. His voice rang hard with purpose. “Princess, I know the man; you called him a churl, and rightly. He is unfit even to kneel at your feet, and I shall rebuke him most severely for daring to approach you.”
“Rebuke him. I like that. I shall witness it—command him here, now. I shall hear your rebuke, and his apology.”
De Ridford propped his fist on his hip. “In the Temple, lady, as you probably know, we keep all such things privy to ourselves.”
“Really,” she said. She took a step backward, her skirt caught in her hand—Baudouin saw she wore blue silk slippers—and looked the knight over, leisurely, calculating. “But I want him brought here. Is he then really called Saint? That must be a joke; you’ll make me privy to that, too. What did you say his name was?”
Their mother crowed. “Sir Marshall, you’d best yield now. She will have what she wants.”
“His name is Rannulf Fitzwilliam,” Baudouin said to his sister. “He served excellently well—before the battle and during it, and after, he was rude to me also, as it happens.”
“Then bring him here,” the Princess said, “and he can be doubly rebuked.” She said that word with relish, rolling it in her mouth like a piece of apple.
De Ridford performed another bow; he was yielding to her at once. “Whatever the Princess commands of me, I shall do.” He beckoned to a Templar sergeant waiting by the wall.
While this was going on, Sibylla’s page brought a stool, and she sat down at her brother’s feet, her hands clasped on her knee. Her hair hung in sleek curls over her shoulders. She frowned up at Baudouin. “Why did you call me up here out of Kerak? I was enjoying myself there. Now I’m planted down, day after day, with all these Frenchborn French who think they’re better than we are.”
“Well, they’re all going home again,” the King said, “and you’ll be free of them. But not of me. You are my heir, Bili. I almost died, in the month before Ramleh. I caught a trembling fever, and I felt the hand of God on me. In any case, as you say, the other thing is getting worse. When I die, you have to be ready to rule, Bili, and I must teach you.”
“God’s teeth,” his mother said. “You’re wasting your efforts, Sire. She’s just going to get married again.”
“I don’t want to be married again,” Sibylla said. She waved off a page with a cup of wine and a tray of sweets. “And I will be Queen of Jerusalem.”
Their mother gave a scoffing laugh. “Oh, and that is to be Queen of the Amazons, I suppose?”
Tripoli was watching them, only a few steps away, and the Templar Marshall, and a dozen others. The King said, “Mother, keep counsel. Bili, you are light-minded. The Kingdom will be yours, but it needs a king. Women cannot fight wars. And Saladin is—”
“You’ve beaten Saladin,” Sibylla said, her voice sharp with insistence, almost chiding him, as if he had failed at his lessons. “With a hundred knights against fifty thousand Saracens, a mighty victory for the Cross. You’ll beat him again, and again. We’ll always beat them. God is on our side. Don’t you believe that? What are you fighting for if not that?”
Her voice rose, as she spoke, ringing out so that the folk around them heard, and heeded. A little cheer went up. The King stared at her a while. Her skin was fine and smooth, her wide brow clear as Heaven, her eyes full of the courage of the untried. Finally he said, “We have to go on winning, again and again. But he only has to win once.”
“God won’t let you lose,” she said.
He gave up trying to corrupt this purity. “You are to remain here in Jerusalem until we find you a suitable husband,” he said. This made him feel suddenly old. He who would never embrace a woman, who would never marry and never have a child. “I’ll see that you are properly entertained.”
At that she made a face, signifying how little he knew of entertainment, proper or not. She lifted her laughing eyes to him. “Well, anyway, Bati, we’ll be together more. You said you would teach me. I’d like that.”
“Good,” he said. He started to take hold of her hand. Before she could notice and recoil from him he reined in the gesture. He said, “Tell me what you did at Kerak,” and she burst out laughing, and began in on a string of gossip, most of it frivolous and scandalous. Tripoli ambled up nearer the throne, his eyes sharp. The Lord of Kerak was another of his many enemies. While his sister chattered, Baudouin sat back, watching the men around him, and saw the Templar from Ramleh coming into the hall.
No herald announced him. Another of the Order accompanied him; Templars went everywhere in couple, if not in mass. This pair came side by side across the room, cutting purposefully as tracking dogs through the languid clutter of the court. The one on the left was the knight called Saint. His long jerkin was grey with dirt and ripped and torn along the hems; the sleeves were rolled above his elbows. He could have been a country plowboy, except for the sword slung at his hip and the heavy spurred boots on his feet. At his approach the Marshall’s face closed, not smiling anymore, intent.
The King saw, suddenly, that his sister, not the Marshall, had been used here: the Marshall had contrived this, a new battle in an old war. The two knights stopped before him, ignoring everybody else. The King glanced over and saw Raymond of Tripoli to one side, watching keenly.
De Ridford said, “Rannulf, the Princess Sibylla has charged you with misconduct toward her, on the road south of Ramleh; you are to apologize.”
The knight set his hands on his belt. In a voice curt with temper, he said, “Did you call me all the way over here just for that?”
The Marshall’s eyes narrowed. “I gave you an order.”
For a moment they stared at one another. Then Rannulf Fitzwilliam cast a sweeping look around him, as if he only now noticed the other people in the room. His gaze found the King’s and locked. He said, “I did what was necessary. If I caused the Princess any trouble I am sorry for it.” His attention swiveled back to de Ridford. “May I go now?” There was a startling ring of contempt in his voice.
De Ridford said, “You are a pig, Rannulf. You stink.” He turned with a bow to Sibylla. “Princess? Are you satisfied with this?”
Quiet on her stool, she lifted her eyebrows at him; she had realized she was playing someone else’s game. Coolly, she said, “I am perfectly satisfied, my lord.”
The Marshall straightened, facing the King. “And you, Sire?”
Baudouin leaned forward, seizing this opening. He spoke directly to the ragged Templar before him. “You met my sister on the road?” De Ridford took a step forward to intercept, and the King waved him back out of the way.
Rannulf Fitzwilliam stood with his head down, his hands behind him. “We had just lost our horses. We came on her and her escort and borrowed some of their horses.” He flung a furious glance at de Ridford, who had drawn off to one side. “I meant her no disrespect.”
Baudouin let out a gust of laughter. “I think you have very little respect for any of us, Saint, by God’s truth.”
The knight straightened up, meeting his eyes again. “For you, Sire,” he said.
The compliment so pleased Baudouin that for a moment he could make no reply. Finally he said, “Well, I shall try to deserve it. At Ramleh and on the road to it you were a champion of Jesus Christ and my cause, and I see no reason that you should apologize. To me, or to my sister.”
The knight seemed suddenly taller. His head bobbed. “Thank you, my lord.”
“The King is gracious and generous.” De Ridford pushed in between them, his voice sharp with raw anger; this had not gone as he desired. “I am also insulted, and I am not so forgiving. Rannulf, take your sanctimonious stench back to the Temple, and I will deal with you there later.”
“You called me here,” Rannulf said. He turned, and with the other man at his side walked off across the hall.
De Ridford said, “I beg your pardons for this knight. We have a few of this sort of man, for whom the Temple is a last refuge.”
The Count of Tripoli moved in closer to the throne. He said, “Bah. You are all so, except some wear silk over it. Your vow is poverty, chastity, and murder, and you do not God’s will, but your own.” He signed to a page, who brought him a cup of wine.
“Murder,” de Ridford said. “At that art you are the adept, my lord, isn’t that so?”
Tripoli rounded on him with another insult. Baudouin sat back, exhaling a weary sigh. He was beginning to think of his supper, and a draught of strong wine, and going to bed. His mother craned forward in her chair, her voice raised, to join the two men before him at their duel of words.
The voices bubbled up around him; he felt himself drowning in their little quarrels, their petty private schemes. At his feet his sister twisted around on her stool, and raised her face toward him. She reached out her hand to him, and he reached down and their hands touched. She had a great heart, his sister, and he would teach her. He would find a way through this yet. He sank down in his chair, waiting for a good moment to leave.
Chapter V
The Templars held their chapter meetings in the refectory, which had been a Saracen mosque before the Christians took Jerusalem, eighty years before. The hall was almost as tall as it was deep and smelled like a cave of damp stone and moss and bats. Two rows of octagonal columns held up its vaulted roof. On the walls hung battle trophies—lances and arrows, swords, shields, helmets, coats of mail. Lamps dangling on chains from the ceiling cast lanes of light through the shadowy depths of the great room.
The knights flooded into the hall in a noisy tide. Rannulf was very uneasy; he remembered de Ridford’s threat against him. He went up to his place in the front rank of the brothers. It was the custom of the chapter that new men stood at the back, and moved up as those in front of them died. Rannulf had been standing in the front ran
k for more than six years.
The officers walked in, going up to the space at the front of the hall, where there was a stone table like an altar. Odo de Saint-Amand, the Master of Jerusalem, went first, and then German de Montoya, and Gilbert Erail who was Seneschal of the Order, and the draper and the commander, and last of them, swaggering like a king, came Gerard de Ridford.
He wheeled to stand with the other officers, behind the stone table, and for an instant he and Rannulf looked at each other. Rannulf lowered his eyes. His heart clenched like a fist in his chest.
Odo de Saint-Amand’s voice rose in a harsh call. “God be with all here!”
The packed ranks of the Templars answered in one voice. “And our spirits with Him in life everlasting, world without end, amen!”
“Rannulf Fitzwilliam, come before me.”
Rannulf drew a deep breath, and gathered himself; he went forward into the gap between the massed ranks of the knights and the single rank of the officers. Facing Odo, he bowed, and then stood with his hands clasped behind his back, saying nothing.
Odo hooked his fingers in his tangled yellow beard. “Gerard de Ridford, step forward.”
The Marshall walked around the end of the table and stood opposite Rannulf. Odo’s narrowed eyes shifted from one man to the other. “My lord Marshall! You have some charge against this knight.”
The place hushed. The Marshall de Ridford swung around to face the gathered men.
“He is unfit for this company. He is an insolent pig, and all know it! The Princess herself complained to me about him, and when I called him to account for it, he gave neither the lady nor me any satisfaction. He held me up to ridicule before the King; he degrades us all.”
Rannulf lowered his gaze to the floor and bit his teeth shut. He longed to draw his sword and thrust it into de Ridford’s chest. Behind him, someone called, “Throw him out of the chapter!” Across the hall, men shouted out in agreement, a dozen voices, maybe more.
“Baseborn dirt. He’s halfway a sand-digger anyway!”
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