Jerusalem

by Cecelia Holland

  He shut his eyes. His head throbbed, and his arms ached; every time he breathed a hard pain stabbed him in the chest. Something broken. He wanted them to kill him now, before they decided to make a game out of breaking him.

  He wanted them to kill him, but he was afraid of dying.

  Above his head, somebody said, “He’s awake,” and a blow thudded into his hip.

  “Good. The old man wants to see him cry a little.”

  “You know, I never really liked Guile much until now.”

  There was a laugh at that, and somebody hit him again. He lay still, his teeth clenched against the whimper in his throat. They would kill him, eventually, and he would go to hell. He was back in the time before God, when he had been one of these men, doing evil for the fun of it, and now he would go on dying forever. A cold terror flooded him; he bit his tongue; he tasted blood in his mouth.

  Hands on his arms dragged him up, halfway onto his feet, and they swung him around. Now he saw what they had been doing. They had pried up the grate out of a hole in the floor, opening the way into a pit under the armory. They were going to throw him down into that pit. His wits flew. He gave a yell, and began to fight, a useless desperate struggle. They rained blows on him. Laughed, and kicked and cursed him, and dragged him headfirst to the pit and hurled him in.

  Sibylla slept late into the morning; when she woke, the baby curled in her arm, Guy was gone, out hunting again. Alys was directing the servants around with their breakfast of peaches and clabbered milk and bread.

  “This is a terrible place,” Alys said. “Now they’re talking about hanging somebody.”

  “Hanging someone. Who?” Sibylla sat up. The baby smelled ripe, and she laid her down on the covers, and sent one of the maids for fresh clothes for her.

  “Some Templar,” Alys said. She sat down and broke one of the rolls open. “They’re only waiting for the other one to come back and allow it. I hate these people. I hate Kerak.”

  “I’m not too fond of Kerak either,” Sibylla said, slowly. With the maid standing there to hand her the clean clothes and take away the dirty ones, she began to unwrap her daughter’s swaddlings. “Send somebody out to find out for me where the Templar is now.”

  Joscelin said, “I don’t want to do this. Kerak’s like a badger when he thinks you’ve crossed him.”

  Sibylla hooked her arm through his. Two of Joscelin’s knights were coming along after them. On ahead of them, through the gateway, his captain galloped off down the road, to rouse the rest of Joscelin’s army and bring them up to Montgisor.

  She hoped they would be unnecessary. The palms of her hands were clammy and she could not stop clearing her throat. “Montgisor is my castle, Uncle. He does not rule here.” This was going to be hard, maybe impossible. “What will it do to us, if we let him do as he pleases? Who can rule then?”

  Joscelin’s head swayed toward her; his eyes blinked. “Yes,” he said. “I know.” Turning, he beckoned to the men behind him, and sent them to try the door of the gatehouse. He and Sibylla stood side by side in the yard watching.

  The door was locked from the inside. Joscelin said, “Knock,” and one of his men lifted his fist and rapped on the door. At once the door cracked slightly ajar.

  “Open for my lord the Count of Edessa,” said Joscelin’s man.

  From the crack in the doorway: “My lord Kerak bade me let no one in.”

  “This is my lord the Count of Edessa,” Joscelin’s man said, again.

  Sibylla lifted her voice. “I rule here, not Kerak; let us in.”

  The doorway said nothing more, but did not close, and after only an instant of the silence, Joscelin strode heavily forward.

  “Let me in! Now!”

  The door opened. Joscelin marched into the room beyond, and Sibylla trailed him; the other men stayed outside.

  With the guard, they filled the little armory chamber, whose floor was made much smaller by the gaping hole in the center, its iron cover tipped back to one side.

  Kerak’s knight stood with his back to the wall, his eyes white. He said, “My lord, I have to follow orders.”

  Joscelin nodded at the hole in the floor. “He’s down there?”

  “My lord—”

  “Bring him up.”

  The guard stood still a moment, swallowing. Joscelin’s head came around. All his life, men had obeyed him; he looked outraged now that this one did not, and his voice swelled. “Bring him up!”

  Sibylla could hear footsteps running toward them, outside in the yard. Her throat was dry. She moved over to one side of the room, her back to a rack of painted shields, and folded her arms over her breast. In through the door burst a knight in Kerak’s color.

  He saw, first, only that the guard was on his knees by the hole in the floor, getting ready to go down into it. “What are you doing, you idiot?” Then he saw Joscelin, and he froze, his head up, his fists at his sides. Then Kerak strode into the room.

  This packed it, and the knight behind Kerak turned and left. The Wolf glared at Joscelin. “What are you doing?” The man climbing down into the hole in the floor had stopped to wait for orders.

  Joscelin said, “You overreach.” He turned to the man on the floor. “Go down, and bring him up.”

  Kerak said, “He killed my son.”

  Sibylla’s throat was so dry she thought she might not get the words out. “This is my castle. You cannot do justice here. I alone can judge.”

  Kerak’s head swiveled around toward her. His green eyes were feral. “Don’t make an enemy of me, woman.” He spoke to Joscelin in a hiss like a snake’s. “I won’t forget, Edessa. Don’t take me lightly.”

  Joscelin said, “Let her judge the case. Now. Here.” He looked down at the floor, where the guard had reappeared, and turned and gave Sibylla a deep look. “Sibylla?”

  Sibylla nodded to him. Her arms were clasped around her, like a shield. The close presence of the men seemed to make it hard to breathe. The hole in the floor gave up a smell of rot and old water and dung. The guard knelt beside it, and reached down, and dragged the Templar up onto the floor; there he lay, half-conscious, his hands still wrapped around with the cut ends of the rope. Blood matted his short black hair.

  Joscelin said, “What happened?”

  “He killed my son,” Kerak said. “Ask him. He will admit it.”

  Joscelin reached out one foot and pushed the Templar’s body. “Can you hear us?”

  The man groaned. His hands moved, pulling apart the bonds. Kerak thrust his head forward, his teeth bared. “It was his dagger. He admitted it.”

  “Who was there?” Sibylla asked. “Who saw?”

  “No one,” Kerak said. He gave her a crafty, gloating look. “Only the murderer, and my son and the men with him.”

  “Yes. Certainly, after last night, Guile knew he needed help with him.” Sibylla shifted her weight to the other foot. “So they set on him, outnumbering him. I think him innocent.”

  Kerak bellowed, his arms flung up. “Women have no reason!” He fixed her with a pig’s tiny glittering stare. “Do you think you’ve won anything? Do you think you’ve won anything?” White spume flew from his lips. He wheeled toward the door of the gatehouse. “Where are my men?” He strode out, shouting.

  Joscelin was looking morosely at Sibylla. “Well, that looked fine enough,” he said. “But what are you going to do now, Sibylla? They’ve half-killed him already; they’ll finish the job as soon as we’re gone.”

  On the floor, Rannulf moved. He rolled over, and Sibylla moved back hastily away from him. She looked out the door into the gate.

  Several mounted men were riding up from the road. Joscelin’s knights. More came after them, many more, clogging the gate yard. Her heart jumped. This was going to work. She looked down at Rannulf, who had gotten to his hands and knees.

  “Saint. Can you ride?”

  He staggered to his feet. The rags of his jerkin hung around his waist and his shirt was soaked with blood. He put out one
hand to steady himself against the wall, and hung there a moment, breathing hard.

  Joscelin said, “I’ll get him a horse,” and went to the door.

  Sibylla turned toward the Templar, swaying on his feet, and said, under her breath, “You see, I pay my debts.”

  “I didn’t know you owed me anything.” He set off around the little room, hunting through the racks of weapons. With a murmur he took an old battered scabbard down from the wall. She knew he had found his own sword.

  Joscelin tramped into the room again. “Quickly, now. There’s a horse here. My men will block the gate for you, so that Kerak cannot follow, but we cannot do it long.”

  The Templar said, “Thank you, my lord.” He went toward the door; on the way, as he came close by Sibylla, he said, “Thank you, Princess.” He looked at her, their eyes meeting, just for a moment, and he went on and out the door.

  Joscelin stood there staring at her. “What did that mean?”

  She smiled at him, folding her arms across her breast again. “I don’t understand you.”

  “What debts do you have with a Templar? With that Templar?” Joscelin’s eyes narrowed. “You are Agnes’ daughter, Sibylla.”

  Outside, there was a yell of outrage. Sibylla thought she could hear Kerak’s raw bawling voice. She had defeated him; he would not rule in her castle. She had done justice here. She said, “Thank you, Uncle Joscelin.” She went out to the gate yard, to help quell the angry uproar.

  Rannulf knew they would be looking for him on the road to Jerusalem, and he swung away from it, striking out instead through the broken hills to the east, pierced with caves and watered with a hundred ancient wells. All the rest of the day and all night long he travelled, although he was exhausted, and sick, the pain in his chest working steadily deeper, down to his heart. He slept little, and dreamed much, of monsters, rising from the black flames of hell, gnawing and devouring him.

  He was riding straight into the east. When the first light broke before him at the rim of the sky, he drew rein and dismounted from the horse, and turned around to face Jerusalem. His chest was a fiery bonecase, his head pulsed; he knew he was dying. He had to try to pray again, to beg God’s forgiveness, to ask to be taken back again. Kneeling down he put his palms together, but the words would not leave his throat.

  He sat slumped on the flat sandy ground, facing west, toward Jerusalem. Behind him the sun was rising in a wave of light. Suddenly he sensed around him a great voice calling, so vast and perfect he could not hear it with his ears. His soul heard it, and a fearsome exaltation swelled him: for a moment he seemed to be lifting off the ground.

  Then the call broke like glass breaking, into a million separate sounds, and all of these were audible: the shrill cries of birds, the scream of the wind, the thornbush rattling. The whole desert lightened toward the day. His shadow stretched over the ground before him like an arrow toward Jerusalem. The horizon streamed colors, blue into green brightening to gold, and then fading again into the colorless wash of the daylight.

  Caught in this blast, exalted, he knew how stupid he had been. God had never given him up. God filled the world, God was everywhere, in the earth under him, in the wild skirling of the air, in the blaze of the rising sun; God pierced him through and through. He doubled over on the sand, surrendering himself to that measureless power, and the day flowed over him in a tide of light.

  After that, almost at once, he began to get well.

  Chapter XXVI

  Felx said, “I went to the Temple this morning.”

  “See anything interesting?” Stephen said. He leaned against the doorjamb. He had just done a quick reconnaissance of the hall, before the little King came down for his daily audience. There was no one else in the hall save the pages and serving people, looking busy. On the stairs down to the lower door, there were already some petitioners waiting to see the King.

  “Some interesting,” Felx said. “They all think Rannulf isn’t coming back from Montgisor.”

  Stephen frowned at him. “What does that mean?”

  “De Ridford’s taken him into a trap,” Felx said. “Nobody’s saying so. But as I said, they all think he’s gone.” He tugged on his ragged yellow beard. “Ponce le Brun even asked me who would command the King’s guard now, with Rannulf out of the way.”

  “What!”

  “He tried to pretend I had misunderstood him but I heard what he said.”

  Upstairs, the big door groaned open; the two knights turned and looked up, and the chamberlain came out of the great hall and took up his staff. He cleared his throat a few times, trying his voice. Stephen went to the doorway and stood beside it, and Felx stood on the far side. The chamberlain paced in, announcing the King in booming tones, and with two pages and a squire in front of him, and his nurse behind, the child entered the hall, walking very straight. Last of them all Richard le Mesne strolled by, yawning. Felx and Stephen closed on him from either side and steered him off into the corner where they could talk unheard.

  “What is this?” Bear asked.

  Stephen said, “Saint’s in trouble.”

  “Unh.” Bear lifted his head. “I knew this sounded like a bad idea.”

  Stephen said, “I say we go down there and get him.”

  “What about the King?” Bear said.

  “One of us can stay by the King. Two of us go down and get Rannulf.”

  Bear said, “I’m going. If Saint’s in trouble, I want to be there—he’s saved my head so many times he owns it.”

  Felx said, “Anyway, we’ll need a lot of help. You know who’s at Montgisor. Besides that snake de Ridford, there’s Kerak, and Kerak’s Guile—” In mid-sentence he stopped, staring across the room, his jaw hanging. Stephen swung around.

  The crowd of little people waiting on the stairs was pushing through the hall, to present the morning’s petitions to the King. Behind them, just inside the door, was Rannulf Fitzwilliam.

  Bear said, under his breath, “Oh, well, and here I was hoping for a little excitement.”

  Stephen slapped the back of his hand across Felx’s arm. “What, were you daydreaming?”

  Felx growled at him. “Yes? Look at him.”

  Rannulf was angling across the room toward them. Felx was right: he had taken some hard hits. He was dragging himself along, and the whole left side of his face was bruised and swollen. Half his jerkin was gone. He came up into the midst of the Templars and looked around at them.

  “Is this how you stand guard over the King?”

  “What happened to you?” Stephen said. “Where’s de Ridford?”

  “As far as I know he’s still at Montgisor,” Rannulf said. He gave a wide look around the room and faced them again. “Bear, take the door. Felx, stand by the King. I’m going upstairs; I have to sleep.” He turned around and walked over toward the door, weaving through the crowd of people standing around the boy King, who was delivering one of his rote speeches. In the doorway, Rannulf turned, and said, “Mouse,” and Stephen went after him.

  “We were just getting ready to come down there and get you,” Stephen said, on the stairs.

  “No, you weren’t,” Rannulf said. “You were staying here and doing what I ordered you to do when I left.” He went slowly up the steps, and on the landing, he slumped against the wall. “Help me,” he said.

  Stephen stepped in beside him, took Rannulf’s wrist in his hand, and looped Rannulf’s arm over his shoulders. “What happened to you?” He walked, and Rannulf half-walked across the room to the cot by the window.

  Rannulf s voice shook. “God healed me. God had mercy on me.”

  “What about de Ridford?” Stephen asked.

  “I don’t give a damn about de Ridford,” Rannulf said. He sank down heavily on the cot. “Wake me up,” he said, “if anything happens.” He pulled at the blanket, lying down half on top of it, got a fold of it over his legs, and was immediately asleep.

  “If he dies before he’s fourteen, Tripoli gets the crown. Isn’t that t
he agreement?”

  “One of the Leper’s stratagems, buying the boy some protection. In truth if this child dies a child, the crown will belong to whoever can take and hold it.”

  “Which might as easily be Tripoli, as us.”

  “Or us, as easily as Tripoli.”

  “He is sickly, the boy.”

  “Yet he is only a boy. I cannot stomach . ..” Joscelin shook his head. “My niece is right. We cannot let the Crusade make murderers of us all. See what has befallen Kerak, now.”

  He nodded across the hall, toward the high table. No one sat there now, save Kerak; the Princess had come in and left, Guy de Lusignan beside her. The other men milled through the hall, talking and eating the last of the dinner meal, and getting ready to go out. Up behind the empty board, Kerak sat alone, his hands before him tilted up together, his gaze glassy.

  De Ridford grunted in his chest. His plan had gone terribly wrong. He had heard the story over and over again, and it still unnerved him. Somehow Rannulf had escaped a perfect trap. He said, “God forgive me for bringing here the instrument of Guile’s death.” He crossed himself.

  Joscelin said, “Guile is no great loss, it seems to me.”

  De Ridford murmured a leave, and drifted off across the hall, circling the table. Rannulf was out there somewhere, loose. De Ridford’s back itched between his shoulder blades. He went up beside Kerak, and laid a hand on the older man’s shoulder.

  “You have my prayers, my lord, and for your son.”

  Kerak’s steepled hands curled up into fists. “I want that son of a bitch who killed him. Will you give him to me?”

  De Ridford sat down on the bench next to him. “You had him. You let him go.”

  Kerak thumped his fists down on the table. “He was the only son I had. My only child. Born on the wrong side of the blanket, and with his mother’s rabbit-brain, but still—”

  De Ridford said, “You have my sympathies. I shall pray for him.” He was glad Guile was dead, Kerak’s most loyal and most zealous commander. He began to be pleased with himself for getting Guile out of the way. “You should have settled matters with Rannulf when you had him in your hands.”