Jerusalem

by Cecelia Holland

  For a moment she shrank away from them. They would all stare at her. Smile to her face and talk behind her back. Alys went on a few steps, and turned and looked back, puzzled. Sibylla shook her skirts out. She reminded herself of Ascalon, steady between tumults. Head high, she went down into the court.

  The great sprawling palace of Ascalon was called the Salome Palace, after the niece of King Herod, who had lived here, according to the stories. Certainly it was very old, like a little city in itself, with living quarters and kitchens, baths and workshops, stables and vineyards, and a graveyard. From its long southern front two opposing staircases descended, through three levels of landings and gardens, to a wide circular courtyard before the entrance gate. Agnes de Courtenay liked to have her gatherings on this many-leveled terrace. She sat on the topmost landing, where the fresh breeze reached, and she could see everything. Her grandson leaned on her knee, and she fed him grapes.

  “There is your daughter again,” Amalric de Lusignan said.

  He had just returned from France, where he had gone the year before. Agnes was surprised to find that she had missed him; quickly she had restored him as her favorite, excusing the Plancy cadet who had taken his place. She glanced down onto the second level, where Sibylla had appeared around the side of the palace. Reaching down, she lifted Sibylla’s son up onto her lap and kissed him.

  “Now, sit still, sonny, I shall teach you statecraft. See how they swarm around her.” Wherever Sibylla walked, the people turned, bowing and pushing closer, all in waves like windblown wheat.

  Amalric said, “She’s prettier now than when I left. Is she still favoring Baudouin d’Ibelin?”

  Agnes gave a cackle of amusement. “Not much.” Captured after the Battle on the Litani River, Baudouin d’Ibelin had come back from Damascus encumbered by a crushing ransom. While in the Saracens’ hands he had bragged openly that he would soon be King of Jerusalem, and the Sultan had assessed him in that light. Sibylla was furious with him and would not receive him, nor even speak to him, save as she had to. “He went off to Constantinople. The Emperor’s hinted at helping him pay his ransom. There is de Ridford. Send down for him; I must sound him out about this truce.”

  “De Ridford,” Amalric said. He turned and nodded, and one of the pages went off down the stairs. “Still as he was when I left—a wax candle monk. Does he have women?”

  “Not that I can discover. His lust is power; he could second as a bung-puller, he is that crooked.”

  Her gaze went to Sibylla again. Her daughter was climbing up the stairs toward her, stopping every few steps to talk to someone else. The little boy on Agnes’ lap was trying to get down, and she let him go. “She should marry again, she is too fixed on men’s affairs of late. Her brother seduced her into it, and now that they have quarreled he won’t even talk to her. She needs a man who will make her be a woman.”

  “She could have her pick,” Amalric said. “That one, there, for instance—see how he stares at her.”

  Agnes followed his eyes, and the discreet tilt of his smooth-shaven chin. On the landing just below Sibylla a tall man stood alone, in the corner of the rail, watching the girl above him. He wore a long-tailed cap over his yellow-white hair. His coat was red and black. She said, “Guile of Kerak.”

  “Is that who that is.” Amalric came forward a few paces, to look closer.

  “The Wolf’s bastard,” Agnes said. “Got on his wife’s tiring maid when he was Prince of Antioch. Risen now to be the Wolf’s right arm.

  “Everything is the same but the hair.” The way he looked at Sibylla rankled, rousing a motherly ire. “He is baseborn. He should not even walk among my court, much less ogle my daughter.”

  Amalric laughed. “If you would exclude everybody with a question in his quarterings, lady, there would be nobody here, not even you.”

  “Ah, you cur! What a tongue.”

  “Now you complain.”

  Agnes hissed at him. Her grandson was climbing onto the railing, and she snapped her fingers and pointed, and a page hurried after him. Sibylla came up the steps. Balancing on the rail, the little boy went by her, and she by him, and neither of them remarked the other. Agnes saw this, with a wrench at her heart; she saw her daughter straying off into a wasteland of men’s doings, missing what was best in a woman’s life. She lifted her face, smiling, and held out her hands.

  “Dear girl. Come and give me a kiss. You look beautiful. Umm-mmm.”

  Sibylla bent, and pecked at her mother’s cheek, her eyes elsewhere. “You look very well, my lady.” Her cousin Alys, round as a dumpling, puffed and panted up the steps after her, carrying masses of pink quartrefoil; Sibylla turned at once, and commanded the other girl here and there, putting the flowers around. A servant brought her a stool but Sibylla did not sit down, only gave orders.

  “They smell wonderful,” Agnes said. “Do sit, my girl—you make me restless, standing above me like that.”

  Sibylla plopped down gracelessly on the stool. “There. Does that please you?”

  “Quite.” Agnes patted her on the arm. “That dress is very becoming, the color fits you perfectly.” She turned her head slightly toward Amalric, who needed no more hint than that, but drifted off across the flagstone terrace, toward the stone railing, which Alys was decking with masses of pink flowers, a very pretty effect.

  Sibylla said, “What, are you going to lecture me again about marrying?”

  Her mother said, “It’s better to have a man than not, my dear.” Her gaze shifted, down a flight of steps, to the next landing, where the lutenist sat; several people stood around listening. One who did not listen was Guile of Kerak, leaning up against the railing, staring at her daughter. “For one thing, they protect you.”

  That angered Sibylla, who swiveled to face her, chin high and eyes flashing. “I protect myself, Mother. I am no fearful, clinging wife.”

  Agnes lifted her eyebrows at her. “You are innocent, Sibylla. I understand you have taken to going off alone, without even sweet Alys here, which is very dangerous; what do you think you are up to?”

  “I like to go around the city, and Alys will not ride.” Sibylla smoothed her skirt down, flattening the embroidery under her fingers. She was never still; her foot tapped, her eyes searched around the many-layered terraces. At the top of the stairs, the Templar Marshall Gerard de Ridford stood, smiling, waiting to be noticed, and Agnes nodded to him.

  “My lord Marshall. I am very glad to see you. You must tell me about this truce the King my son has concluded with Damascus.”

  The Templar Marshall bowed over her hand. “My lady, I have only heard of it what you have heard. Until I go back to Jerusalem I have no opinion.” He turned to Sibylla. “My lady Princess, I am very pleased to see you.”

  “My lord Templar.”

  Agnes said, “In three years’ truce we can rebuild the kingdom. It seems suspicious that Tripoli should have gotten us so much in return for nothing. Saladin must have fallen asleep.”

  “Oh,” de Ridford said, “Tripoli has sold us out again, certainly. I placed some of my men with him, on the mission to Damascus. When I return to Jerusalem, I shall know more.”

  Sibylla said, “You all hate Tripoli, you can see nothing good in what he does. Yet the truce seems to me of more value than the Crusade.”

  Agnes blinked, startled at that; de Ridford chuckled. “The Crusade, certainly, is worth no more than the truce. My lady, my dear Princess.” He was taking himself away; Agnes waved him off, and he went across the flagstones, toward Amalric and his French news.

  Sibylla said, “If Saladin will make truce with us for three years, when he has such an advantage, then he might make peace forever.”

  “Dear girl,” Agnes said. “There is no such place as forever. My advice to you is to speak more carefully around the men. If they think you’re loose-tongued, they’ll say less in your company.”

  “Mother,” Sibylla said, “you are all connivance. Could one of us make some private contact with S
aladin?”

  Agnes sat bolt upright, shocked. “One of us? You mean, you or me? God’s love, girl, what are you thinking of?” She cast a quick look around her, to see who might be listening; no one was listening. Amalric and de Ridford were the closest people to them, save for the dreamy, inattentive page behind her, and the two men were off in a corner talking. She reached out and clutched her daughter’s arm.

  “Listen to me, girl. I know not what foolishness your brother has stuffed into your head, but it is wicked folly, if it leads you into this—keep your hands out of this. Do not go behind their backs to Saladin. Do you understand me?”

  Sibylla jerked her arm out of her mother’s grasp. Her eyes were dark with temper. “Do not handle me, mother.”

  “Do you understand?”

  “I know,” Sibylla said, “that if we go on as we are, the Kingdom is lost.” She stared away, her fists in her lap, her foot tapping on the floor again. Her cheeks were ruddy. Agnes chewed her lip, frowning. She knew Sibylla too well to think she would abandon this idea simply because her mother told her to do so.

  Ideas were slippery, unmanageable, especially the treacherous idea of peace. Agnes had learned early to confine her dealings to people, who were easy, and solid, and real. Now here was her daughter, entangled in that net of dreams. She gave a little shake of her head, alarmed.

  The trouble with coming out here by herself, Sibylla thought, was that she had no one to talk to. She had brought a groom and a page, of course, but she missed Alys, whose company so amplified her pleasure, who provided a reliably appreciative audience for Sibylla’s clever observations and remarks, and who often had observations and remarks of her own, although seldom as clever as Sibylla’s. With Alys to be cautious, Sibylla could be bolder; with Alys to sound her constant alarums, Sibylla could more easily laugh alarming things off.

  Like this Egyptian show. She had ridden down the little slope from the Salome Palace, out to the broad beach that was one of Ascalon’s chief thoroughfares, and found a crowd gathered to watch a story show. This was something common enough; Ascalon stood at the convergence of several trade routes, and there was a regular trade in entertainment.

  The show was already going on, and the local people watching were yelling and laughing in huge enjoyment of it. The stage was only a square cut out in an upright board, with a drapery around it; the figures were made of cloth, with faces sewn on, and huge hands. Held aloft on sticks they waggled and sailed around in the space framed in the board, more like birds than people, swooping at each other, while from under the drapery came the shrieky voices of the players.

  One of the figures had a big red cross on the front of it. When Sibylla had been there a moment, a man in a flat cap who had been watching from the side of the stage turned and went around behind it, and the figure with the cross was yanked down out of sight. Almost at once another figure took its place, this one wearing a Turkish turban.

  Sibylla frowned. She wondered if she should be offended at this.

  Now the figure in the turban was taking a merciless drubbing from the other figure, which, she realized now, was dressed to be an Arab. This was probably an insult; she saw how the crowd watched her, over their shoulders, through the corners of their eyes. They would expect her to do something. On the stage the Arab was now chasing the Turk around and around, as, had she not been here, it would have chased the Crusader.

  She wondered what Baudouin would do.

  That gave her an idea. She reached into her purse, got out a couple of coins, and gave them to her page. “Take these to the players. Tell them the next time, they may leave the Crusader in view, as in Ascalon we are wide-minded.” She said this loudly, so that everybody nearby could hear her.

  The page ran off through the crowd, which parted to let him through. On the stage the figures stopped in midair; the page slowed, approaching, and a man in a cap came out from behind the stage and took the money and heard the boy speak. Turning, he scanned the crowd, saw Sibylla, and swept her a huge bow.

  The crowd cheered. The players came out from behind the stage, the figures on their hands, and bowed to her as well, and made the figures bow. With a cool wave, Sibylla called the page to her, and rode away down the street.

  Her heart was pounding. She had done well, she had done as Baudouin would.

  The beach stretched away before her, swarming with people hawking goods and people buying them, with beggars and loiterers enjoying the sun. The wind being light, two tubby Genoese merchantmen had stood in to anchor in the open roads of the sea, and a steady stream of little boats rocked up and down the waves between them and the shore. Sibylla rode along behind a woman balancing a basket neatly on her head; in the basket lay a dozen long silver fish. Three brown men rushed along beside Sibylla’s horse, their hands uplifted, streaming strings of coral beads. “Lady! Lady!”

  At a sign from her, the groom rode up and chased them off. She veered up toward the inland side of the beach, where in the clustered little shops was a merchant who had promised her black pearls.

  The merchant, who was from Basra, sat under a palm tree and showed her jewels in little bags of brocaded silk. She haggled with him a little, not much wanting what he had, but thinking he might carry messages for her to Saladin; then something her mother had said once came back to her. The Templars ruled the roads, and all that travelled on them. She went out again, having bought nothing and given nothing away.

  Her groom held her bay mare by the reins, down at the edge of the street; as she came away from the merchant, a woman with sores on her face came up, her palm cupped, and Sibylla gave her money, which brought on a tide of beggars. As she was giving a coin into each filthy pleading hand a shout sounded, in the street.

  She turned her head; her groom had been dozing, and jerked his head up. The page came dashing in from the street.

  “They’re beating up the puppet show!” The child’s face was red with indignation. “Princess! Stop them! Look!”

  “Help me.” Sibylla grabbed her reins in one hand, and the cantle of her saddle with the other, and the groom gave her a practiced boost. From the vantage of her saddle she could see over the heads of the crowd now milling and pushing around the end of the street, where the stage for the show still stood, surrounded by its flapping drapery. Around it three men on horseback were fighting with some men on foot.

  Sibylla cried out, angry; she saw the show’s drapery caught on a sword blade, and ripped away, she saw the stage go down. The players were trying to defend what was left of their work, their bare arms raised against the swords and horses of the three men harrying them. Sibylla was halfway to this rout when she saw among the mounted men the white head of Guile of Kerak.

  Her hands tightened on her reins. Guile frightened her. But she could not draw back now. She thought of Baudouin again, and spurred her horse into a short lope across the shelving beach and in among the crouching players, who were trying to gather up their show and flee.

  She plunged into their midst, and they shrank from her as from another enemy. She wheeled to face Guile of Kerak.

  “What are you doing here? What right do you have to take arms against these people?”

  Startled, Guile’s horse backed up two steps from her, its nose poking the air. The white-haired knight had a whip in his hand, with which he had been worrying the players, and he swung it around toward her, as if he meant to strike her.

  She flinched back, and he laughed. On his long shark-jaw the new beard glittered like sprinkled sand. He said, “Princess, you should not go around without an escort.” The two men with him stopped what they were doing, and waited behind him, their gazes on her.

  Everybody’s gaze was on her. She felt the stabs of a thousand looks: the crowd pressing in now on all sides, the three knights before her, the players huddled behind her; she knew some other mounted men had come up on the edge of the crowd, but she was too intent on Guile to see who they were.

  She fixed her gaze on Guile; she made her vo
ice strong and clear.

  “I need no escort here in Ascalon. These people love me.”

  The crowd let out its breath in a yell of agreement, and she took courage from that. Guile’s thin lips kinked into a smile. His gaze moved from her face, travelled down leisurely over her body, in a way that made her feel naked. When he looked into her eyes again his smile widened.

  “You should not be out here, Princess. I’ll take you back where you belong.” He reached for the reins of her horse.

  She shouted, furious, and yanked on her reins, backing her mare out of his reach. Guile lunged after her, one long arm grabbing, grabbing, and she raised her whip and slashed him across the wrist. He jerked his arm back, and in a fury, a breathless, heedless rage, she spurred her mare forward and swung her whip at his face.

  He recoiled, his arm cocked in front of him, and when the lash struck his hand he caught hold of it and yanked it from her. The crowd around them gave her no room to escape. The knight swung toward her, his face clenched and his teeth bared. He flung down her whip, and he reached for her with both hands.

  Before he could touch her, someone else drove through the crowd and wedged his horse between them, a second rider flying on his heels. “Hands off her, Whitehair!”

  Guile roared. He gripped the hilt of his sword; Sibylla, now tucked in behind the two newcomers’ horses, saw these two men reach for their weapons, and cried, “No! Stop!” She reached out and caught hold of the arm of the nearest rider.

  Guile was backing away, his face flushed red as raw meat. “She was here alone, in the street, alone,” he shouted. “I was doing a knight’s duty!”

  The man who had rushed in between them said calmly, “Your duty’s done, then. Leave off.” He turned to face her, and she saw he was Amalric de Lusignan, her mother’s favorite.