“Alys, did you say?” Sir Galvin had come in behind Ibelin with the other knights of the household. “That little dockside whore?”
“She’s not a whore!” Ernoul protested vehemently. “Just because she sings in taverns doesn’t mean she sleeps with customers!”
“She’s sleeping with you, isn’t she?” Sir Galvin noted with a little smirk that was more approving than the reverse, but Ernoul sprang forward and thrust his knee at Sir Galvin’s groin. It was a defensive tactic he had learned in taverns since he’d lost the strength in his shoulder and arm. Sir Galvin, although taken by surprise, was fast enough to avoid the full impact of the blow, and lifted his fist to strike back.
Ibelin stopped him with a hard blow to his chest from his own balled fist. “Enough! Both of you! You’re in my house, not a tavern! Begone, Sir Galvin, and mind your own business!”
Sir Galvin shrugged and stalked away. He felt unjustly rebuked, since Ernoul had attacked him, but he reminded himself that he was in Outremer to do penance for killing a man in a drunken brawl. Part of that penance undoubtedly entailed suffering moments like this. . . .
Ernoul remained standing before Balian, his face red with indignation and his eyes blazing with pent-up anger.
“Is it the singer?”
“She’s not a whore!”
“We don’t need another singer in this household, Ernoul,” Ibelin told him flatly, adding ominously, “I can’t afford the one I have.”
“She would make herself useful! I promise you, my lord! And if I don’t marry her, my lord, she’ll—she’ll starve. I swear it, my lord.” Ernoul’s face was flushed not with anger so much as the sheer intensity of his emotions. Balian was reminded of Gabriel, who had also flushed bright red when he was agitated about something. Christ, of the five youths he’d trained to knighthood, he’d lost one at Hattin and three in Jerusalem. Ernoul had always been the least promising of the lot. He should have gone into the Church. Balian sighed and shook his head in regret for all the young men who had been so hopelessly lost this past year. Then, dodging the decision, he told Ernoul, “You’ll have to put your case to my lady. She runs this household, and I will not impose anyone on her.” Then he continued on his way to the courtyard to wash himself down.
By chance, Maria Zoë caught a glimpse of the couple from her window. She had told Ernoul that she would make no decision without meeting his intended bride, and Ernoul had promised to bring her for an interview the following morning. Maria Zoë had risen early as she always did, had heard Mass with Balian at the little Church of St. Helena around the corner, and then they had broken their fast with the household before the knights headed for the tiltyard and paddock. Maria Zoë then checked on the nursery (run efficiently by Eschiva aided by Eloise) and the classroom (where Fathers Antonius and Michael were less effectively in command) before retiring to her bedchamber to go over the household accounts. Isabella usually joined her there, doing needlework or reading. Conrad de Montferrat had loaned her a beautifully illuminated copy of Chrétien de Troyes’ Erec et Enide, and she could not seem to put it down.
Maria Zoë had paused to look over Isabella’s shoulder when a barking dog drew her attention to the street. That was when she saw them. The girl was hanging back, and then balked altogether, shaking her head from side to side. Ernoul was pleading with her, but she just kept shaking her head. Then she dropped her face in her hands and broke into tears. Although the couple was on the far side of the street, her sobs were so violent that Maria Zoë could see her bony shoulders shaking, and when Ernoul put his arms around her protective and comforting it melted Maria Zoë’s heart.
“Isabella!” She turned to her daughter.
“Mama?” The teenager looked up, frowning in annoyance at the interruption.
“Tell Helvis to go down and tell Ernoul that I don’t have time to see him right now. She must tell him to wait at St. Helena’s until I send for them. Then come back and help me change.”
“Can’t—”
“Isabella!”
“Yes, Mama.”
The Church of St. Helena was very small and very poor, but it had once been richer, and it was still adorned with a beautiful mosaic that depicted St. Helena discovering the True Cross. At this time of day, between Prime and Terce, it was quite empty. The priest had gone to get himself a bite to eat at a nearby cook shop.
“Ernoul, I can’t face her!” Alys tried to explain. Although she spoke only in a breathy whisper, the acoustics of the church betrayed her, and she could be heard clearly throughout. “Look at me! I’ve no stockings at all, and my feet are bursting out of my shoes. My skirt’s ragged at the hem and has patches at the knee from when I fell and tore it during the siege. My surcoat is stained, and I stink of sweat and grease and spilled ale. How can I face a queen? I can’t!”
“But you want to marry me, don’t you?” Ernoul tried to reason with her. “You want to escape the taverns and the other men.”
“Of course, I do! Oh, Ernoul!” She laid her head on his shoulder and clung to his hand. “Isn’t there any other way? Couldn’t you take service with someone else?”
The couple took no note of a widow in black, her veils completely covering her face, who came in to light a candle and then say some prayers.
“Who would take a squire with a worthless shoulder? I can’t raise a sword, or even look after highstrung horses anymore.”
“But you can sing! We can both sing! Couldn’t you go to the lord of Montferrat and ask to be employed as his minstrels? We could sing every night in his hall.”
“No! I can’t!” Ernoul retorted angrily. “I owe fealty to my lord of Ibelin! I’m not some hired workman! I’m a squire, his liegeman, his vassal.” Worlds were clashing; Alys came from a class that did not live by oaths of fealty, it worked for wages.
“Well, then, couldn’t we make a living together some other way? I know how to make soaps that smell sweet, and I can shave and trim hair. If we just had a shop of our own—”
“Where are we to get the money for rent? And what am I to do while you cut other men’s hair?” Ernoul snapped back, his voice raised in his mounting anger.
“Children! Have you no more respect for a house of God than to bicker like this? You are so loud, you drown out everyone else’s thoughts and prayers!” the widow admonished, getting up from her prayers and turning toward Ernoul and Alys.
Ernoul gasped, because he had recognized Maria Zoë’s voice, but Alys only thought he was ashamed of being publicly rebuked.
“Forgive us, Madame!” Alys hastened to defuse the situation. “Please!” She held her hands with the palms pressed together as in prayer. “We meant no disrespect. I swear it.”
“I see that you did not, child, but I’m not so sure about your gallant here. Leave us, young man! I wish to speak to your maiden alone.”
The word maiden brought a flush to Alys’ face, and she was on the brink of protesting when Ernoul said, “If you can talk sense to her, Madame, then I will gladly leave her to you. She will not listen to me, though I have only her best interests at heart and love her more than life itself.”
“Just leave us alone.” The widow gestured imperatively for him to go.
Only after the heavy wooden door of the church clunked shut behind Ernoul did the widow address Alys again. “So, from what I heard—quite against my wishes—you want to marry that young man—though I can’t see why you would want such a puny youth with a twisted back—”
“He doesn’t have a twisted back!” Alys rushed to Ernoul’s defense. “He was wounded at Hattin! A Saracen crushed his shoulder and collarbone! But that doesn’t make him worthless! He sings like an angel and he can compose poetry and lyrics—”
The widow waved her silent. “Be that as it may, he apparently has no means to support you, so marriage is out of the question.”
“Oh, no, Madame! Please don’t say that!” Alys was on the brink of tears again. “There has to be a way!”
“Why? If that
particular young man can’t support you, then find another. This town is overflowing with young men!”
“But you don’t understand, Madame!” Alys pleaded. “My dad and my brothers, all three of them, they never came home from Hattin! My mother was always poorly, and the flight from Acre did her in. She died last fall. I found an apprenticeship for my little sister with a silk-maker, but she wouldn’t take me. Said I was too old to learn a new trade.”
“How old are you?”
“Sixteen, Madame.”
“And what trade did you learn?”
“My dad was a saddler, Madame, and my mum’s dad was a barber. She taught me to cut hair and make soaps, sweet-smelling soap and saddle soap. I helped clean the stirrup straps and the underside of the saddles. My mum and me, we did the needlework on the cloth my dad stretched over the seat, pommel, and cantle of his saddles. I’m good with a needle, Madame; I could do lovely designs with lions and stags. Things gentlemen like on their saddles.”
“Did you look for work with a saddler here?”
“Of course, Madame—but just like my mum and me, their wives and daughters do the needlework. They sent me away.”
“How, then, have you earned your daily bread?”
Alys looked down at her hands and said almost inaudibly. “I sing.”
“I see. Where?”
Alys didn’t answer at first, but then she looked up and declared almost defiantly, “In taverns, Madame. But it’s not what you think!”
“What do I think?”
“That I’m a whore! That’s what they all think! Except Ernoul. He’s the only one who understands that I don’t want that! It’s just the only—the only way I could earn enough to pay for a bed and bread. If you knew how many times I’d gone hungry because I wouldn’t—wouldn’t do it. Some men buy you a meal and then just expect it of you, but the worst ones set the meal in front of you and then don’t let you take a bite until you’ve kissed them and—and—they’ve had you!” There was a bitterness in her words that chilled Maria Zoë to the bone. The expression of repulsion and hatred on Alys’ face told her that she had paid that price for a meal more than once, but the almost skeletal thinness of her arms spoke of how often she had refused.
“And does your young man know—about the times you had to earn your dinner with more than a song?” she asked softly.
“I—I don’t know.” Alys’ voice was so soft it was almost inaudible. “I’ve told him I don’t want to do it. I’ve told him how hard it is to earn enough by just singing. He saw me all beat up once because a customer wanted me to pay my meal that way and I refused. But, you know, I think he must know that I couldn’t always—that I sometimes didn’t have the strength. . . .”
They were silent for what seemed like a long time, and noises from the street filtered in: a cart on the cobbles, a dog barking, a man offering to grind knives, and a man selling fresh lemons.
Maria Zoё was lost in thought. She was thinking that she had probably never sat beside a whore before, but she did not feel defiled. Indeed, she had far more sympathy with Alys than with Queen Sibylla. Surely, in the eyes of God, a woman’s motives, and her alternatives, must be considered. Christ had set the example by forgiving—not stoning—the woman taken in adultery. “If you married your young man, would you sleep with any other?” She asked.
“Of course not! Why should I?” Alys protested—then, realizing she was speaking to a widow, she added, “Unless I was widowed and wed again, of course.”
“But what if your young man cannot earn much of a living and you are both poor. Wouldn’t you be tempted to supplement your income?”
“Just because we’re poor? No, of course not! My dad was a good saddler, Madame, but we were seven, and there never seemed to be any extra. Most people would have called us poor. I can stand being poor. But—have you ever been hungry, Madame? Really hungry? So hungry it feels like the walls of your stomach are sticking together? I never knew what hunger was until this winter. . . .”
They fell silent again, and then the Maria Zoё nodded and sighed before declaring pointedly, “You are as much a victim of Hattin as your young man—and all the dead and captives. This is Guy de Lusignan’s doing—and Sibylla’s for making him King in the first place!” The bitterness in her voice took Alys by surprise—as did the criticism of people so exalted. Where she came from, you begged God’s blessings on the King and Queen, rather than blaming them for fate.
Before Alys had recovered from her amazement, the widow announced: “So. I am going to take a chance with you, Alys. I will tell my lord husband to give his permission to Ernoul to take you to wife, and my daughter and I will see that you have something decent to wear for the occasion—and thereafter,” she added, with a smile Alys could hear even though her face was still veiled. Still she couldn’t make sense of what the widow had said.
“Do you know Ernoul, my lady?” Alys asked.
Maria Zoë flung back the veils to reveal her face as she nodded and announced, “I am Queen Maria Zoë Comnena, Lady of Ibelin, and you have nothing more to fear—provided you keep your word and are a dutiful and faithful wife to our Ernoul.”
Alys was so overwhelmed she almost fell over backward in her haste to get up from the bench and drop to her knees. As her knees hit the floor, she started kissing Maria Zoë’s hands and babbling, “Thank you, Madame—I mean, my lady—I mean—you will never regret it. I swear it, my lady!”
Maria Zoë helped her back to her feet with a smile. The essense of woman could not be defined by her sexual activity alone, she told herself, and everyone deserved a second chance.
Chapter 7
Aleppo, May 1188
ACCORDING TO THE LINES SCRATCHED ON the wall beside his pallet, Aimery de Lusignan had been in the dungeon of Aleppo nine months and eleven days. That was more than three times as long as his last imprisonment, but the presence of the other lords had helped both pass the time and ease his inner terror, while the thought of Eschiva and the children gave him a powerful incentive for living. The little girls were still babies, but Hugh had been a rambunctious four-year-old when he left home. He wanted to see them all again—especially Eschiva.
Aimery was certain that his wife Eschiva loved him. Not the way Sibylla loved Guy, with an unseemly and blind sexual passion, but with dignity and loyalty and reason. If they were ever reunited, Aimery promised Christ for the thousandth time, he would never again betray her in adultery. He closed his eyes as he swore this, and imagined Eschiva’s face smiling in greeting, relief, and thanks.
“Aimery! Aimery! Have you gone deaf? The Commandant has sent for you!”
His eyes flew open and he saw the moldy bricks of the arch over his head. Then he rolled on his side and struggled to his feet. He was stiff and weak from too much lying on the stone floor, with only the thin straw pallet between him and the damp. He was still wearing the clothes he’d been wearing at Hattin, though he’d removed the chain-mail parts for greater comfort. The shirt and braies were saturated with sweat and other bodily fluids discharged over the last nine months, while the surcoat was so filthy that his arms were no longer readily identifiable.
He made his way forward slowly on his stocking feet, both because his body was stiff and because he was wary of what their jailers might want of him. The closer he got to the door, the more he had to screw up his face against the unaccustomed light streaming in from beyond the dungeon. Not that this was the brightness of day: it was only the corridor leading out of the dungeon. Nevertheless, it had windows at the far end, and these were so bright that Aimery could not look at them directly.
The guards at the door grabbed Aimery by the arms to hurry him along as soon as he came abreast of them. They were talking in Arabic, but Aimery had never learned more than a few words and phrases of the language. He certainly could not understand the flood of words that broke over him now, but he didn’t like the tone of it. The guards shoved him forward, not harshly but impatiently. They prodded him in the back as if af
raid of a rebuke if they took too long. Aimery did not think he had any reason to want to hurry, but hanging back would clearly earn him only blows or kicks.
He scrunched up his eyes against the increasing light and his breath became short from the unaccustomed exertion as he was half led, half dragged along corridors, through halls and eventually up a stairway until they abruptly stopped before a guarded door. The guards opened it at a bark from Aimery’s escort, and he was thrust into the room. Here, to his utter amazement, he found himself standing opposite his younger brother.
Guy de Lusignan looked much better than Aimery. He was clean-shaven, for a start, his shimmering blond hair was neatly trimmed, and he wore a beautifully woven kaftan with stripes of green. Furthermore, although the chamber was simply appointed, it was lit and aired by two windows, which provided welcome cross-ventilation in the Syrian heat. The tiled floor was scrubbed and cool, and on the simple wooden table under one window stood a bowl of pomegranates and figs.
“Aimery!” Guy exclaimed as his brother came to an amazed stop just inside the door. “You look horrible. And you stink.”
“What do you expect after nine months in a dungeon?” Aimery snarled back.
“You don’t have to be aggressive,” Guy reproved. “It’s not my fault you were in the dungeon.”
Aimery took a breath to remind his arrogant younger brother that it was very much his fault that any of them were in a dungeon, but he was too weary of this fight. He just sighed and asked, “So, you sent for me?”
“Yes. I have very important news to share, and need to talk things over where the others can’t hear us. But you really stink.” Guy’s face was twisted with revulsion. “And—are those lice in your hair?” he asked, drawing back in horror.
“Very likely,” Aimery agreed, scratching his head; the mere mention of the insects made his scalp itch.
“Henri!” Guy called out in the direction of the door to the adjacent chamber. “Henri!”
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