Jerusalem

by Cecelia Holland

  He spoke louder than he needed. Around him stood ranks of Templars, fencing him off. His pretty young queen sat behind him, on the double throne, and said nothing; but her eyes were always moving. Ali had already looked among the Templars, not finding the one he wanted to see.

  Yet there were Templars everywhere, at all the gates, in the streets, on the walls. There would be no free roving around the city from shrine to shrine, this time; they had already made that obvious. Ali watched the tall, brown-bearded Master of the Temple walk up beside the King, and whisper in his ear, one hand on his elbow.

  Tabib the Ethiopian made his leave-takings, and they went out of the citadel, down some narrow stairs to a courtyard full of horses. There more Templars escorted them off to the palace called La Plaisance. Ali saw he would make no contact this time with Stephen de l’Aigle.

  He told himself that was a grace of God. Already in Damascus people had begun to talk about how eagerly he advanced this mission, which had been his idea, conceived even before the news came of the boy King’s death. For months he had thought of nothing else. Now it had all come to dust. Inside La Plaisance, he left the other faithful to relax and joke and eat and clean up, and wandered away from room to room, his mood leaden.

  Unlike the citadel, which was a fortress, this place was meant for comfort, as its name suggested. Its inside spaces were open sunlit galleries, some with mosaic floors, and some with painted walls, and there was even a bath, in the back wing, with fanciful fish on the tiles of the pool. Now La Plaisance stood all but empty, with only the embassy and their servants living there, and a few servants of the King to attend on them. He thought no one had lived here for a while, and found proof of this in a little gallery, where dried boughs left over from some festivity still hung along the walls, their dropped needles scattered in brown drifts across the floor.

  He told himself this was a fitting figure for his pursuit of Stephen de l’Aigle, a withered bough, the dry husk of a memory, tucked off in an empty room in a palace in a hostile city. Crossing the black-and-white tile floor, he came to a door, and opened it.

  A wave of colors rushed at him. He stepped out into bright sunlight, and the riot of a burgeoning springtime garden; a rush of little birds fluttered away at his approach, and scattered into the trees.

  The air was warmer outside than inside. There was a sweet trace of fragrance in the giddy breeze. The garden had been untended for a while, like the palace, and had gone wild, daisies with hairy stalks lifting up among the clustered Turkish cups, and blown roses; a line of an old poem came into his mind, how the rose shed its petals like drops of blood across the wind of time. He went out into the middle of all this wild, secret beauty, delighting in it, and then there was suddenly someone behind him. He wheeled around, his hand flying to the dagger in his belt. Then, in a rush of relief and pleasure, he saw who it was.

  “God—God—I thought never to see you again.”

  “Well, you were wrong,” Stephen said, and came to him.

  “You spoke very harshly to the Sultan’s man,” Sibylla said. She sat down on the stool, and Alys came up behind her and began to take off her linen coif.

  Guy said, “They are Saracens! They respect nothing except force, and the threat of force.” Now that the morning’s audience was done, he was making ready to go out hunting. He had no taste for the small steady work of being King.

  Sibylla sat still, her head bent, while her cousin’s hands worked down the back of her gown, undoing the laces. “If you start out talking fight with them you have nowhere to go. No room. It’s like standing with your heels over the edge of a cliff.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do,” he said.

  She was still a moment. Alys had undone the gown, and now lifted it up over her head and away. Guy went noisily around the room, looking for something. Since the coronation, he and Sibylla had not been easy with each other. Alys brought her a long loose coat to wear, and Sibylla put it on; she nodded to her cousin. “Go fetch Jolie to me.”

  “Yes, Highness.” Alys went eagerly out. She liked the times they spent with the baby.

  Sibylla sat down again on the stool, her gaze following her husband. “There are people in the embassy from Damascus who are not merely spokesmen and servants.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “One of the men who stood behind the black man is a relative of Saladin’s who has been here before.”

  His head swiveled toward her. “How do you know that?”

  Pleased to have gotten his attention, she smiled at him. “The chamberlain recognized him.”

  He looked angry. That she knew something he did not seemed like an insult to him. He said, “Sibylla, stay out of this. You should go back to Jaffa, anyway.”

  “Well, I am not going back to Jaffa,” she said. She knew he could do nothing to prevent her staying; he was King because of her, he needed her.

  Alys came in, with the baby and her nurse. Seeing her mother, the little girl gave a scream of imperious pleasure. Sibylla went down on her knees and held out her arms, and Jolie ran headlong into them.

  “That’s my girl. That’s my little Jolie.”

  Guy squatted down beside them. “My women,” he said. He kissed Sibylla’s cheek, and then the baby’s. Sibylla put her arm around his neck, holding him there.

  “Come with us. We shall go down to the suk in the Under City and watch the jugglers.”

  “God’s love.” He pulled violently away from her. “What are you taking her down there for?”

  “There’s always something to see in the Under City.”

  He stood up. “I don’t want you going down there,” he said. But he was already turning away. He had said what he wanted to say and now he would go off hunting, and she would take Jolie into the Under City. There was a delicate balance between them; they kept in place by constantly pulling in opposite directions. He called for his groom, who was waiting in the antechamber, and bent and kissed Sibylla again, and Jolie, gave them some good-byes, and went out.

  Alys said, “He’s angry.”

  “No, he’s not,” Sibylla said. Jolie trotted off across the room, toward the corner, where there was a lute; the child loved to pluck the strings, and even tried to sing. Sibylla followed her. “Send down for dinner, will you, Alysette?”

  Alys waved a page off to this minor duty. “When will we go to the Under City?”

  “Later. Nothing happens down there until after Nones, anyway.” De Ridford would escort them. There was a caravan in from Egypt, with jugglers and shows. Also in the suk, a man she had to see.

  That, too, Guy would mislike.

  He could not stop her; he had given up trying. Had settled down into his proper role, which he had done very well, today, actually, in the audience. He was her sword. The Saracens would pay more heed to her overtures of peace if they thought Guy might attack them at any moment.

  “Mama, see?” The little girl had pulled the lute into her lap.

  “Show me.”

  Jolie banged on the strings with her hands, lifting her voice in a long quivering bray that was so like and yet so unlike a real song that Sibylla burst out laughing. Alys bustled by her, loudly scolding.

  “No, no, little silly, not like that.”

  “No, leave her,” Sibylla said. “Go tend to that, now.” The servants were bringing in their dinner on trays; a clattering and babbling spread out through the room. Redirected, Alys bent her importance in a smooth arc back to the servants. Like Guy, she loved to give orders. Sibylla sat down, her back to the bustle, smiling at her daughter. “Play that again, Jolie.”

  In the dark, in the warm silence, Ali said, “Come with me.”

  Stephen muttered something below words. He stretched, his body twisting on the bed, his arms wide. Ali laid his hands on the knight’s chest, and pushed him down, and put his head down on him and listened to his heart beat.

  “Come with me,” he said, again.

  Stephen fingered through his hair. “What
do you mean?”

  “Go back to Damascus with me, and live there. With me. How can I say this more clearly? What don’t you understand?”

  The hand stroked his hair until every nerve tingled. “How you could say it at all, that’s what I don’t understand.”

  “Ayyyahh.” Ali pushed angrily away, and lay down on his back, alone. “What, it makes too much sense? My uncle is going to annihilate you, Stephen, your whole kingdom, your whole Order, all of you.”

  “Yes, well, as Saint says, he can try.” Stephen moved again, rolling onto his side, his head propped on his hand. They had found this little room in a far corner of the palace; the high windows behind the bed opened on the white sky of the evening. Ali could not keep from touching him. He stretched out his arm and laid his hand on him.

  “Are you in danger, coming here like this?”

  “Maybe. Stop trying to rescue me. I am who I am, you are who you are, that’s all. But in spite of everything, we’re here, together. Can’t you be glad of that? Isn’t that good enough, for now? Because that’s all there is, Ali.”

  Ali said, “No. You’re being ingenuous, Stephen. It’s more than just now for me, more than just sex. And I can’t do it anymore like this. I can’t be both your lover and your enemy.”

  Stephen said, “Come to Jerusalem. Be a Templar.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Ali said.

  “It was a joke.”

  “Obviously. But I’m being very serious. I will not go on like this. I love you, Stephen. I have thought of you constantly since we were together last. I have schemed and plotted like a wizard to get back to Jerusalem to see you. I want you with me. I want you in Damascus with me, forever.”

  Stephen listened, his face still; he said, “Or?”

  “Or this is over between us.”

  For a moment Stephen said nothing, and did not move, but then he gathered himself. Slid off the bed, and stooped for his clothes. Ali said, “Where are you going?”

  “Away,” Stephen said.

  “Damn you,” Ali said, an edge in his voice. “Why are you doing this to me?”

  “I’m not doing anything,” Stephen said. He was putting on his leggings. “What I meant for a joke, you mean seriously. You’re the one who’s decided, Ali. Good-bye.” He pulled his shirt on and went out.

  “Stephen,” Ali said.

  There was no answer. The door swung half-open. Beyond lay part of the garden, and the trees behind it. He would go out over the wall at the back. Ali laid his head down on the bed and shut his eyes.

  After Vespers the tables in the refectory were set up for supper. At the ringing of a bell the knights filed into the hall and lined up along the walls, and listened with heads bowed to the words of the priest praising God. The bell rang again, and all together the knights went forward and sat down on the benches, and the food was brought in.

  Rannulf sat at one end of the middle table, with Bear on his left, and Felx to Bear’s left, but there was a little space between them.

  Bear said, “Where is Mouse?” He reached across the table to take a loaf from the nearest basket. The clatter and rumble of the knights spread through the hall. It was their custom to amuse themselves during meals by getting the novices to recite psalms, and now one of the young men climbed onto the stool in the middle of the room and lifted his uncertain voice.

  “By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept, as we remembered Zion—”

  “Oh, babble on,” Felx muttered.

  “Where is Mouse?”

  Rannulf said, “He’s not here.”

  On the stool the novice was stumbling through the verse; he forgot a word, and from all around the hall the other men whooped and whistled and threw chunks of bread at him. Bear said, “What are you going to do about that?”

  “Do about what?” Rannulf said. The sergeants were bringing in big platters of meat. The sour stink of it reached his nose; for weeks they had been getting bad meat, because of the famine. He reached for another loaf of the bread. A sergeant came by and filled his cup.

  “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand—unh—” The novice flung up his hands, warding off the bombardment. “Lose its cunning, may—may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth—”

  Bear planted his elbows on the table. “I mean, what are you going to do about Mouse. And the damned sandpig he’s busy plugging.”

  Felx slammed an elbow into him; Bear adjusted to it with a grunt. Rannulf said, “I’m not going to do anything.”

  Felx said, “I told you.”

  “O daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction—unh—”

  Rannulf said, “This is my favorite psalm, and he is butchering it.” He broke the hard end off the loaf in his hands. “I won’t hear anything against Mouse. Got that?” He cocked his arm back and threw. The novice was crouched on the stool, his arms over his head, bellowing through the hail.

  “He who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks!” He bolted off the stool. The knights roared for another victim. In through the far door came Stephen.

  He looked grim; he walked around the end of the table, and sat down between Rannulf and Bear. He put his hands up over his face. Above his bowed head Rannulf met Bear’s eyes.

  Another novice had taken his place on the stool; this one knew the virtue in a short psalm.

  “How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity!”

  “I like this one,” Felx said. “All that oil.” Bear hung his arm over Mouse’s shoulders. Rannulf ate another bite of bread.

  Chapter XXIX

  In the suk, when the beggar boy came up to him, Stephen thought at first he brought a message from Ali, and his hopes leapt. But it was not. The Queen wanted to see him, secretly, alone. Through his disappointment, there ran a cold trickle of warning: this was not a good idea. But he had said once, Call me.

  He looked over his shoulder, off past the row of camels in front of Abu Hamid’s, where Rannulf squatted on his heels talking to drovers. The other knight’s back was to him. He did not see this. Stephen turned to the boy and nodded. “Tell her I will come.”

  Stephen said, “I am doing this only for you. And only once.”

  “Thank you, Mouse,” Sibylla said.

  He stood aside, one hand out to the man waiting behind him. “My lady Queen, I present to you my lord Faruk ad-Din Ali ibn Aziz.”

  The Saracen prince stood where he was, staring at her, his eyes wide. He had the fine features and fair skin she had marked in other Kurds. He said, “To the Queen of Jerusalem, may God give peace.” His French was excellent.

  She said, “Thank you very much for consenting to this meeting, my lord. I have some messages for you to bear to your master, the lord Sultan, Salah ad-Din.”

  The Saracen watched her as if he had never seen a woman before. He said, “I shall convey them, Highness.”

  “One is a letter, which I have written.” She turned, and Alys came forward with the letter in her hand. Alys’ hand shook so the letter rattled. Sibylla said, “The other message is my personal assurance that if the Sultan will talk to me of a lasting peace, I will meet him anywhere he wishes.”

  The Saracen took the letter from her, with a little bow of his head. “I shall tell my uncle the Sultan what you have said to me, Highness.” “Thank you,” she said, again.

  That was all. He went out again, at once; Mouse followed him. Sibylla turned toward Alys. Lifting her hands, she adjusted her coif. “Well,” she said. “It’s begun now.”

  Alys said, “I hope my lord the King never finds out.”

  “I hope he does,” Sibylla said. “Because then something will have come of it.”

  Ali said, “She is beautiful. But so brazen. What sort of man is her husband, that he allows her to go about so freely?”

  Stephen said, “She rules herself. She does as she pleases, and she always has.”

  “She must be miserably unhappy. Women need to be ruled.”

  Stephen lau
ghed. “What do you know about women?” They had only a little way to go; they had met the Queen in a house by David’s Gate, only a few blocks from La Plaisance. It was very late, well past vigils. They went down the great street a little, staying to the shadows of the houses on the right; to the left the high wall of the citadel reached its corner, and the dark expanses of the marketplace opened up away from them, stretching toward the hump of its vaulted roof.

  Ali said, “Have you changed your mind?”

  “No. My mind has never changed. I’ve been the same through all of this. I’ve loved you, honestly and well. You’re the one who wants it to change.” He stopped short, one hand out. “Hold.”

  “What?” Ali looked away down the street; ahead of them the buildings on either side loomed high above the narrow way, so that the street was utterly dark, and nothing moved there now, but a moment before, Stephen thought, something had moved.

  Ali said, “I have to get back,” and started to walk on down the street, and Stephen grabbed his arm.

  “No, wait.” He raised his voice a level. “Saint. Is that you?”

  For a moment there was no answer, and then out of the dark of the street Rannulf walked. By his walk alone Stephen knew his temper; he collected himself. Rannulf came up to him and shoved him hard in the chest.

  “What are you doing? You’re giving de Ridford just what he wants.”

  Stephen yielded a step to him. “I’m not doing anything.”

  Rannulf shoved him again, pushing him back another step. “Go down and get my horse.”

  Stephen went around him, out into the street, and turned. Rannulf was facing Ali, his head thrust forward, his shoulders set, as if he were about to fight him. “Get out of my city.”

  “Your city,” Ali said, his voice rough. He stood back, his head high. “You inflate yourself, dog-soldier. Do you think you’re anything but chaff in the wind? I have seen enough of Jerusalem to know this is a city full of lies, and treacheries, and brewing hatreds.”