Envoy of Jerusalem

by Helena P. Schrader

  Ibelin was on the brink of deciding they had won the engagement, when out of nowhere Sir Bartholomew launched himself after the retreating Saracens. He flung himself half out of his saddle in an attempt to wrap his arms around one of the most tenacious of the leaders, a Mamluke with a flaming red beard, and drag him from his own saddle onto Sir Bartholomew’s own. This rude and targeted attack on the troop leader had the appalling effect of rallying the already routed enemy. With shouts of alarm and outrage, the captured Mamluke’s men not only rushed to his rescue, they screamed for support. From where he sat, Ibelin saw Saracen horsemen sit back, haul their horses around, and come to the rescue of their embattled comrade. He registered that the red-headed Mamluke was either very popular or very important. It took only a few seconds for Sir Bartholomew to be surrounded, and then to become completely lost from view as the enemy rained blows on him from all sides.

  Ibelin shouted and spurred his destrier into the fray, lashing out in a frenzy with “Defender of Jerusalem.” Sir Galvin and a half-dozen other Frankish knights joined him. They cut and hacked their way into the enemy, but the Saracens were already falling back before them, their comrade rescued.

  As the enemy withdrew again, Ibelin saw Sir Bartholomew fall onto the neck of his horse and then tip forward even farther, to sink slowly off his stallion and land in a heap beside the horse’s front feet. From the way his body fell and sprawled, it was obvious he was either dead or unconscious. His stallion stopped dutifully beside him, dropping his head to sniff at his immobile rider. The horse was covered with cuts, bleeding and favoring his off foreleg.

  Ibelin drew up beside Sir Bartholomew and flung himself out of the saddle to go down on one knee beside the older knight. Confused memories filled his brain: Sir Bartholomew steadying his nerves on the Litani, standing by him like a rock at Le Forbelet, flanking him as they crashed over the cliff at Hattin to slide and scramble in a cascade of sand and rubble down the slope toward Lake Tiberius. Dear God, how could You grant him escape from Hattin to die here? Pointlessly. In a skirmish that would never be remembered? Ibelin mentally asked God.

  Ibelin removed Sir Bartholomew’s helmet, and the older man’s head flopped to one side. Ibelin pulled off his chain-mail mitten, freeing his fingers so he could untie Sir Bartholomew’s aventail and slip his hand inside to feel for a pulse. Around him the other knights gathered, Sir Galvin dismounting to go down on one knee beside Ibelin, anxiously awaiting his report.

  Ibelin was startled to feel the flutter of a pulse beneath his fingers, and called out, “He’s alive! Does anyone have water?”

  At once Aimery handed him his own water flask, and Ibelin slipped his hand behind Sir Bartholomew’s head to lift it before pouring water onto his forehead in a slow dribble.

  Sir Bartholomew sputtered and shook his head, as if coming back to life. As his eyes registered the crowd around him, he grunted and shook himself again.

  “Are you all right?” Ibelin asked him.

  “I’ve been better,” the older knight growled, but the very way in which he now started to pull his feet under him and reached out his hand for Sir Galvin to help him up was answer enough. He was undoubtedly bruised and battered, but he’d sustained no serious injury or wound.

  As Sir Galvin braced himself and hauled Sir Bartholomew to his feet again, the others started to disperse, their attention now directed to Sir Roger, who was advancing with the archers in good order. They also began to take stock of what they had achieved. Since Sir Bartholomew was not dead after all, they had sustained no fatal casualties among the knights. In fact, aside from one dislocated shoulder, a couple of broken bones, and the usual collection of bruises and sprains, they were fine.

  Ibelin heard Sidon ask about the casualties among the infantry, and Shoreham answered that they were “few, my lord”—whatever that meant exactly. But as the others drifted in the direction of their campsite, eager for water, food, and rest, Balian focused on Sir Bartholomew.

  Now they were alone except for Sir Galvin, who was still supporting his friend. In his mind Balian was reliving the older knight’s absurd attack on the red-bearded Mamluke after the enemy was already routed. “What the hell was that all about?” he demanded of the older man.

  Sir Bartholomew dropped his head and looked down at his feet. “My daughters and grandchildren,” he muttered in misery, the full implications of his failure overwhelming him now that he’d recovered from the surprise of his own survival.

  Into the stunned silence around him, he added, as if his lord and friend might not fully understand, “I recognized that Mamluke, he seemed in high favor with Salah ad-Din. I thought I might have been able to exchange him for my daughters and grandchildren.”

  Balian caught his breath—the image of the fifteen thousand women and children who had been marched into slavery because they could not raise a ransom suddenly vivid in his mind’s eye. He felt his throat constrict, too, and for an instant was paralyzed by his sense of guilt.

  It was Sir Galvin who put his arm around Sir Bartholomew’s shoulders and promised, “We won’t forget them, Bart. We’ll get them back. I promise you on my soul!”

  Tyre, August 1189

  The high-pitched squealing of excited children drowned out the knocking at the door to the street, and Mariam had to knock several times before one of the Hospitaller sisters answered. Sister Patricia was Irish by birth, with bright red hair (now hidden by her wimple) and pale, freckled skin that a decade in the Holy Land had been unable to darken. She smiled at the sight of Mariam loaded down with boxes, and backed up into the courtyard of the little orphanage.

  The orphanage was a simple structure consisting of four vaulted chambers around a small cobbled courtyard. Here the children were playing some game with wild enthusiasm on the part of the elder children and confused but excited running and shouts on the part of the younger children. Built of mud bricks covered with a layer of dirty white plaster, the orphanage was one of the buildings that had sprung up over the last eighteen months outside the defenses of Tyre.

  The arrival of Mariam caused a small sensation. Every now and then she brought to the orphanage the things she could no longer sell. At the sight of her, the children dropped their game to crowd around, jumping up and down and clapping in excitement or asking eagerly “What have you brought us?” “What have you got?”

  Mariam and Patricia together shooed the children out of the way, to enter the kitchen tract. Here Mariam set her packages down on the solid central table with a sigh of relief. Sweat was dripping from her red face, and she dabbed it dry with the skirts of her apron.

  “Today must be the day for visitors,” Sister Patricia announced cheerfully, peering into the packages as eagerly as any of the children might have done. “The Dowager Queen and Princess Isabella arrived only a few minutes ago and are with Sister Adela,” she told Mariam.

  “Ah, yes,” Mariam nodded. “Alys mentioned that the Dowager Queen was born on the feast of St. Helena and likes to do something charitable to commemorate the day. Do you know what she brought?”

  “Nothing that I know of,” Sister Patricia answered honestly. “Or anyway, nothing tangible. I think she said something about employment for one or two of the boys.”

  Employment was a scarce commodity in Tyre, particularly for youth with no family connections, so Mariam nodded approvingly. To be sure, many of the children here were not true orphans in the sense that they still had living mothers, but they had all been abandoned by relatives unwilling to look after them, and so unwilling or unable to place them in apprenticeships. Not a few were the children of whores, abandoned by mothers who had taken to the streets in the aftermath of Hattin.

  “I heard some of the glassmakers are reopening their workshops,” Mariam told Sister Patricia. It was not good news for Godwin and herself, because they were being evicted, but it would surely create some more jobs, she thought.

  “I hadn’t heard that. I’ll be sure Sister Adela knows, so she can talk to the
glassmakers about giving some of our charges a chance. Meanwhile, I think Queen Maria Zoë said something about grooms. I gather Lord Balian’s horse-breeding is flourishing and Queen Maria Zoë wants to give the orphans a chance.”

  Further discussion was cut short by the arrival of Sister Adela with the Dowager Queen and her daughter.

  “Ah, Mistress Olafsen!” Sister Adela greeted the pastry mistress with a warm smile, and Mariam blushed and became flustered. She usually made her deliveries to Sister Patricia, and was uncomfortable with Sister Adela because her sense of gratitude toward the Hospitaller sister bordered on adulation.

  When Mariam had been brought to childbed this past year, she had, as expected, stood on the brink of her grave. The child was born dead and the hemorrhaging wouldn’t cease. Godwin frantically begged her to confess and repent, but she insisted she did not regret any part of their relationship. So Godwin had gone to the Bishop of Beirut, confessed to bigamy, and asked to be flogged publicly in order to appease God. The Bishop had obligingly turned Godwin over to the secular authorities, and the Marquis de Montferrat had had no qualms about a public flogging. But although Mariam’s bleeding had stopped, she had still been slowly sliding into her grave, unable to repent.

  Then suddenly the Dowager Queen had appeared with Sister Adela in tow. Sister Adela went down on her knees beside Mariam’s bed and announced, “Godwin’s first wife is dead. He is free to marry you, and says he wants to.” Behind Sister Adela, Godwin had declared in a choked voice that this was true. “All you need do is repent past sins and accept his offer,” Sister Adela had coaxed.

  Mariam had broken down. A priest was brought, and she had confessed and been married without leaving her bed. After that she fell into a deep sleep, and while she took weeks to recover fully and had she lost close to twenty pounds, she had been on the mend from the moment she confessed. She was convinced that Sister Adela had saved both her life and her soul.

  So was Queen Maria Zoë, watching now as Mariam tried to go down on her knees to the Hospitaller sister, who stopped her and told her to sit down instead. Maria Zoë had strong suspicions that Sister Adela had made up the whole story about Godwin’s first wife being dead. It had all been too propitious: the way she “remembered” the woman’s death only after learning Mariam was on her deathbed. Furthermore, when Godwin asked about his daughters, she had looked startled and then told him glibly that they had been adopted by a childless couple after their mother’s death. Too neat and pretty for reality, Maria Zoë thought. Yet she admired Sister Adela all the more for taking this sin upon her head for the sake of making three people—Mariam, Godwin, and poor Sven—very happy.

  Perhaps she had done it for Sven more than anyone, Maria Zoë reflected, watching as Sister Adela deftly drew attention to Mariam’s boxes and exclaimed enthusiastically about how happy she made the children. “Sister Evangeline frequently admonishes me that more bread and fewer sweets would be better for their health, but it seems to me that happiness is the best nourishment of all—after faith, of course.”

  Sven had been as close to death as Mariam, and that from sheer grief. During her illness he had refused to leave her side and could hardly be persuaded to eat. Maria Zoë herself had witnessed him begging a half-conscious Mariam not to abandon him, promising to be “good” and never talk back to her ever again, if only she would live. It was as if he saw her dying as a personal rejection.

  Separately, Sister Adela had noted to Maria Zoë that “Godwin may have committed bigamy and Mariam adultery, but Sven is an innocent lamb,” adding indignantly that his real mother had selfishly kept the cash that would have saved Sven from slavery to buy herself and her daughters things in Sicily. “Can you imagine that?” she’d asked Maria Zoë, her eyes blazing with indignation. “She preferred pretty clothes to her son’s freedom! She will burn in hell for all eternity for what she did! Just as your husband will find God’s blessings for saving Godwin and Sven.”

  “I wish my lord believed that,” Maria Zoë had answered honestly. “For he still feels guilty for those he could not save.”

  “That is to his credit, my lady, but our Lord is more generous than we mortals.”

  Not for the first time, Maria Zoë was left feeling privileged to know this woman, although at times she also made Maria Zoë feel ashamed of her own worldliness. Even today, as she offered two youths jobs at the Ibelin stud, she had found herself ashamed by how carefully she calculated what they could “afford” when Sister Adela pressed her to take a third boy as well.

  Of course Sister Adela had won, but Maria Zoë still felt guilty for her own resistance and her lingering resentment at the price of hiring a third groom in their present circumstances. She was far too worried about her family’s material well-being for the good of her soul, she admitted—but she couldn’t stop herself. She lay awake at night mentally going through the accounts, adding up income and outlays, turning over one scheme after another to raise more cash without detracting from the dignity of either her husband or her eldest daughter. Having Humphrey to outfit in accordance with his station did not help, Maria Zoë reflected, although thankfully Aimery had talked Montferrat into providing separate accommodations for his small family and wages in exchange for doing homage to Montferrat as lord of Tyre.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by children bursting into the kitchen, all shouting at once. They seemed to be saying something about “Saracens” or “army,” and then Maria Zoë’s blood ran cold as she heard the sound of bells clanging in alarm. She felt the grip of terror and spun about on her daughter. “Isabella! Get back inside the walls at once!”

  “What about you?” Isabella countered—not because she was reluctant to go, but rather because she was unprepared to leave her mother outside the city.

  “Don’t argue with me!” Queen Maria Zoë snapped back. “Hurry!” She grabbed Isabella by her arm and shoved her out the door into the courtyard.

  The image unfolding in the courtyard was enough to make her heart falter. Children were running away from the door in evident terror, and angry men’s voices could be heard in the street. Then the door crashed open and armed men spilled into the courtyard. Their arrival was so forceful, it took Maria Zoë a moment to recognize Conrad de Montferrat.

  The Marquis caught sight of her at almost the same moment she recognized him, and he strode toward her ordering: “My lady! To the fortress at once! Your husband sent a rider back from his patrol reporting that a large armed force is approaching from the north. My lady, I insist that you come with me!” This last command was addressed not to Maria Zoë but to Isabella, and was underlined by Conrad taking the younger woman’s arm.

  Even as he started dragging Isabella toward the exit, she looked back over her shoulder at her mother. “Mama!”

  “Go!” Maria Zoë ordered, following both to convince Isabella she was coming and to be sure Isabella was indeed taken to safety. Montferrat’s men were holding his stallion just outside the door, and before Isabella knew what was happening, the Marquis lifted her up off the ground from behind. At that point she stopped all resistance, found the stirrup with her left foot, and grabbed the pommel as she flung her right leg over the cantle. Montferrat swung himself up behind her, took up the reins, and with his men clearing the streets for him, he clattered away as fast as he could ride in the confined alleyway.

  As Maria Zoë turned around, she found herself face to face with Sister Adela. “You must get yourself to safety as well, my lady,” Sister Adela advised.

  “Not just yet,” Maria Zoë answered. “We need to get all the children safely into the city first.”

  Beyond them in the streets of the shanty town, panic was spreading. Some people were shouting the news, others were screaming hysterically or crying, and everywhere dogs were barking. People streamed toward the causeway that led to the city gates, while others frantically tried to collect the few belongings they had managed to scrape together over the last two years.

  “Madame, please rid
e to the gate and hold it open for the rest of us! I fear Montferrat will order it closed long before half these people are inside!”

  Maria Zoë shared Sister Adela’s opinion. Montferrat would close the gates as soon as he decided it was militarily prudent—and those outside be damned, as far as he was concerned. So she nodded agreement and hastened to retrieve her already much alarmed and fractious mare. As she swung herself into her saddle, her eyes met those of one of the boys selected as a groom. He was staring up at her with a silent plea in his eyes. “I can take one of the children up behind me,” she offered to Sister Adela, “and if one of your sisters can ride a hot horse, they can do the same on Isabella’s mare.”

  “Take Philippe!” Sister Adela agreed at once. “And can you also take an infant on your lap?”

  Maria Zoë nodded, and while boy eagerly scrambled up behind her with a breathy and clearly excited “Thank you, my lady!” Sister Adela handed her a squalling infant.

  Maria Zoë’s mare was unnerved by all the people shouting and running. She fretted and pranced, flinging her head up and down to try to get free of the bit. Maria Zoë, riding one-handed with the infant in the crook of her left arm, found herself praying to St. George not to let the mare get away from her. More than once she shied sharply, and the boy behind her clung frantically to her waist to stay on.

  As they emerged from the narrow alleyways of the outer town to a point where they could see the causeway, it was evident that the crush of people trying to cross the causeway was too great. There was a serious risk of people being trampled underfoot. People were shoving and pushing already. It would take only the slightest spark to set off a real stampede. Maria Zoë’s mare had no intention of joining that seething mass of humanity, and Maria Zoë couldn’t blame her. She drew up and looked about for some alternative.

  Coming down the road from the north at a fast pace was a band of riders, and Maria Zoë felt a surge of relief when she recognized the banner of Ibelin. Turning her mare away from the causeway, she rode instead to intercept her husband.