Halfway there, he recognized her and spurred ahead of his men. “We’ve got to get the orphans inside!” she shouted toward him, forestalling any questions.
He did not answer her, turning in his saddle instead to shout: “Take over the causeway and establish order!”
Sir Galvin nodded and led the others past Ibelin and his lady. Meanwhile, Balian turned back to tell Maria Zoë, “There are well over five hundred horse and probably ten times that number on foot approaching from the north, but they’re marching under the crosses of Jerusalem.”
“What?” Maria Zoë asked, and then she caught her breath. “Guy de Lusignan?”
“Maybe, or a ruse. We’re not taking any chances.”
“Yes, that’s my brother—or rather, both of my brothers,” Aimery told the Marquis. He was standing beside Ibelin and Montferrat on the ramparts of the outer gate of Tyre. Since Salah ad-Din had broken off his siege a year and a half earlier, Montferrat had rebuild and reinforced this gate, and they had a good view down to the men assembled on the causeway. These were led by Guy and Geoffrey de Lusignan, the Bishop of Lydda, and Queen Sibylla, the latter riding in a horse litter bedecked with white and gold hangings.
“Open the gates to your King and Queen!” Guy de Lusignan called up, in a voice that was weakened by distance and partly blown away by the breeze off the sea.
Monferrat did not hesitate for a second. He leaned forward between two of the parapets and shouted a decisive, “NO!”
“This is King Guy and Queen Sibylla!” Guy answered, apparently still convinced they had not recognized him.
“I know who you are, Lusignan!” Montferrat shouted back. “But you’re not welcome here, and I have no intention of letting you in!”
Ibelin was watching the exchange from the crenelation next to the one Montferrat was standing in. He was gratified by the look of utter disbelief on Lusignan’s face. Guy’s mouth dropped open, and then he turned to his wife and brother. A flurry of consultations took place, inaudible on the battlements. Finally, however, Geoffrey de Lusignan raised his voice and shouted: “Are you denying the city to the rightful King of Jerusalem?”
“Rightful king?” Montferrat called back. “Who says that? What I see is a usurper who lost his stolen kingdom at Hattin. He’s got no right to Tyre, since he would have lost that, too, but for me!”
“He is the anointed King of Jerusalem!” Geoffrey de Lusignan shouted. “If you don’t obey him, you commit treason!”
“How? I never swore an oath of fealty to him!”
The indignation on the causeway was palpable, and on the tower the Constable stalked over to Ibelin to demand sharply, “Speak up, damn it! I can’t, because I’ve bound myself to Montferrat. But you didn’t, so say something!”
“Why?” Ibelin asked back, turning a cold gaze on the Constable. They stared at one another.
“Because you did take an oath to my brother!”
“I did, didn’t I? I didn’t have the backbone my brother did. I was too worried about my lands and my wealth, and look where it got me? Your brother repaid our loyalty by losing every goddamned inch of his kingdom! If that isn’t God’s judgment on his usurpation of the throne, I don’t know what is. As for speaking up, I’m just a landless knight with no authority here. Go argue with Montferrat if you don’t like what he’s doing.” Ibelin gestured in the direction of the Marquis in his blue velvet surcoat, glittering with gold trim.
Aimery looked from Ibelin to Montferrat. The Marquis was shouting yet another negative reply, to another demand for admittance. Quite aside from the oath he’d sworn, Aimery recognized that trying to argue with Montferrat would be futile. He was lord of Tyre, and had no reason whatever for letting in trouble in the form of a man who called himself king but had no kingdom, much less a woman who should have been a queen but was only a pathetic wife to her utterly discredited husband.
The worst part of it, Aimery admitted, was that he agreed with Ibelin and Montferrat both: his brother did not deserve to be admitted here. It would have been better for them all had he died at Hattin—or better yet, before he had led them to such an unnecessary defeat in the first place.
Chapter 9
Tyre, early September 1189
MARIA ZOË HAD EXPECTED ISABELLA’S MOOD to improve after Balian went to so much trouble to secure her husband’s release from captivity, but if anything she acted more erratic than ever before. Before, she had been moody and depressed; now she was short-tempered and prickly. While her tone of late had often been sharp or sarcastic, now she was screaming outright. “I’m a married woman! I’ll do what my husband wants, not what my mother tells me!”
“And your husband wants you to live in a war tent surrounded by rude soldiers and whores?” Balian interjected sharply, cutting off both his wife and stepdaughter by adding derisively, “If Toron thinks his lady should sleep in the refuse outside a city under siege, he’s not only a fool, he’s a lout!”
Having been refused entry to Tyre, Guy de Lusignan had continued down the coast with his little band of volunteers and audaciously set siege to the city of Acre. Acre had been the economic heart of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. It had a large harbor, and the city’s prosperity had been reflected in large and luxurious residences for the King, the militant orders, and the various merchant communities. Furthermore, it was so well fortified that its surrender without a fight just days after the disaster at Hattin had been a major blow to the Christian cause. As in the Holy City, the remaining citizens had been willing to defend it, but unlike in Jerusalem, they had not found a champion to organize that defense. Instead they had been betrayed by Queen Sibylla’s maternal uncle, the ever unready and militarily incompetent Count of Edessa. He’d been too “ill” to take part in the Battle of Hattin, and after the news of the defeat reached him, he had preferred to abscond to Antioch with his riches rather than try to defend Acre. Although the burghers had rioted in protest, they’d had no real alternative but to accept Salah ad-Din’s terms: abandonment of Acre in exchange for their lives and movable property. With the Christians thus expelled, Salah ad-Din had repopulated the city with an Egyptian garrison fiercely loyal to him. The latter had been allowed to bring their families (or at any rate, women) and were served by merchants and tradesmen from Egypt. Guy de Lusignan and his forces had set up camp surrounding Acre by land, and the Pisan fleet had left Tyre to set up a sea block as well.
When yet more ships, loaded with volunteers from Friesland and Denmark, arrived in Tyre headed for the siege of Acre, many of the fighting men collected in Tyre decided to travel with the Danes and Frisians to likewise join the siege. An alarming number of women were planning to go with them. While this was hardly surprising in the circumstances, Isabella’s announcement that she intended to go with her husband shocked both Balian and Maria Zoë.
“You just hate Humphrey!” Isabella flung back furiously at Balian. “I’m not the only lady joining the siege! Sibylla’s there already, and—”
“That in itself should tell you how stupid the idea is!” Maria Zoë jumped back into the fray. “When has that brainless peahen ever had a sensible idea?”
“She may not be very bright, but she loves her husband, and so do I! Humphrey and I were separated too long. I refuse to be away from Humphrey another day. I’m going with him, whether you like it or not!”
“Stop shouting at your mother and answer us like an adult!” Balian ordered his stepdaughter in a voice that broached no contradiction, even from the furious teenager. Beet-red with indignation and eyes blazing with resentment, she clamped her teeth together and faced him defiantly—but silently—as he asked: “Whose idea was this? Yours or Humphrey’s?”
“Humphrey has to join the siege!” Isabella exploded. “If he doesn’t, everyone will call him a coward or, worse, a traitor—just because he can speak Arabic so well and had won the trust of Imad ad-Din. He’s got to join the siege and show he’s as determined as anyone to regain Jerusalem for Christ.”
“
That wasn’t my question,” Balian remarked dryly, “but since you are unwilling to discuss this in a civilized manner, I will take it up with my lord of Toron directly.”
“Balian—” Maria Zoë tried to interrupt, but he waved her silent so imperiously that she was stunned into obedience. Isabella took advantage of her mother’s discomfiture to flee.
Balian found Humphrey in the squire’s hall getting a final fitting for his new hauberk. The Sultan had not seen fit to restore Humphrey’s arms or armor on his release. This meant that Humphrey needed to be completely reequipped—an expensive proposition at any time, but particularly burdensome when Humphrey himself was penniless and Ibelin’s resources were limited. Humphrey, of course, swore he was only “borrowing” the cost of his arms, armor, and horses, but Balian never expected to see a penny of the money he “loaned.” He shouldered the costs without protest, however, because in his mind it was a debt he owed Isabella for being too weak to prevent her marriage to Toron in the first place. He had failed to stand up to the insidious intriguer Agnes de Courtenay a decade earlier, and now Isabella was hitched to a spineless coward. To refuse to outfit Humphrey would have humiliated her further, a humiliation she did not deserve.
“My lord, could we have a word in private?” Balian addressed Humphrey, but the armorer took the hint at once. Godfrey announced he’d take the hauberk back to his workshop for a few final adjustments and return with it the next day. Bowing to Ibelin and Toron, he beat a hasty retreat, leaving Humphrey eyeing the older man guardedly.
“Your lady announced this morning that she intends to travel with you to Acre. That came as a great shock, given the appalling conditions that generally prevail at sieges. You can’t seriously intend to expose your lady to such risks, can you?”
“It was her idea,” Humphrey declared defensively. “She said we have been separated far too long already, and she can’t bear to be apart again.”
“That is an understandable reaction on the part of a young woman deeply in love with her husband, but it also reflects her complete ignorance of what a siege is actually like. You, on the other hand, should know better and should forbid her from accompanying you.”
“How can I forbid her?” Humphrey demanded indignantly. “She is a princess, and she has been a patient and dutiful wife throughout the years of my captivity. To forbid her to come with me would only cause her great grief and unnecessary pain.”
“A lot less pain than becoming sick with dysentery, scurvy, or any of the other illnesses common in siege camps!” Balian snapped back. “Not to mention the risk of being burned by Greek fire, skewered by arrows, or crushed by boulders.”
“Do you think I’m too stupid to keep her out of the range of the enemy’s archers and siege engines?” Humphrey bristled, and Balian’s silence was answer enough. Humphrey tried a new tack. “Queen Sibylla is already there with her infant daughter, despite being pregnant again. If the Queen of Jerusalem is prepared to endure the hardships of a siege camp, why should I object if my wife chooses to do the same?”
“Queen Sibylla voluntarily took herself into Saracen captivity,” Balian reminded him pointedly.
“But Isabella wants to come,” Humphrey repeated helplessly, his tone more whining than defiant.
“And I say again, she doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” Balian insisted, adding, “Do you love your wife so little that you care nothing for her health and safety?”
Humphrey fell silent, his gaze cast down in evident sorrow. After a moment, he looked up and met Balian’s eyes with something akin to pleading in his own. “Would you speak to her, my lord? I can’t talk sense to her, but maybe you could.”
Having already tried that, however, Balian decided instead to engage the assistance of his niece Eschiva. For three years Eschiva had been a doting and attentive elder sister to Isabella. Furthermore, Eschiva was in a similar position to Isabella, since Aimery, like Humphrey, had been held captive after Hattin and now planned to join his brothers at the siege of Acre. On the other hand, unlike Isabella, Eschiva had no intention of following him. She readily agreed to try to talk sense to Isabella.
Eschiva took her eldest children, Hugh and Burgundia, with her, knowing that Isabella was very fond of both children, and as expected she was welcomed with great enthusiasm by Isabella. After fussing over the children for a bit, Isabella gave them an illuminated book to keep them happy and asked Eschiva to help her pack. “I know I can’t take too many things,” she admitted excitedly, “but I need to keep myself from getting bored, too. And of course, I want to make things as comfortable for Humphrey as possible. I want to make a little home out of his tent!” she declared with naïve enthusiasm.
“Are you really so sure you should go, Isabella?” Eschiva asked cautiously. “Aimery says siege camps are terribly unsanitary and stink most of the time. He said that no matter how much the lords try to enforce discipline, some of the men are always too lazy to go to the latrines and just, you know, go in the alleys between the tents. He says the whores ply their trade very blatantly as well, and you can hardly avoid coming upon men engaged in fornication, even in broad daylight.”
Isabella’s happy and friendly mood vanished instantly. She righted herself and stood with her hands on her hips and a sullen expression on her face. “Did my mother send you here to lecture me?” she demanded hotly.
“No!” Eschiva could honestly reply. “I haven’t spoken to your mother about this at all. I just—I just can’t understand why any lady would want to live in a siege camp.”
“Is it so hard to understand that I want to be with my husband?” Isabella snapped back, desperation coloring her voice. “Don’t you understand? It’s impossible to lead a married life here under my mother’s nose. And you know how much my stepfather looks down on Humphrey. Humphrey feels like Lord Balian is always looking for something to criticize. I—I just want to be alone with Humphrey.”
“In the middle of a siege camp?” Eschiva asked back, flabbergasted. “Isabella, there are going to be close to ten thousand men at the siege of Acre by the time all the reinforcements flood in!”
“Yes, but Humphrey and I will have our own tent!” Isabella countered. “And with all the others doing what they please, who is going to notice what Humphrey and I are doing?”
Eschiva was too stunned by this irrational reasoning to find an immediate response.
“Don’t you see?” Isabella abandoned defiance and pleaded for understanding instead. “Humphrey’s too—shy. I mean, he can’t—not here—” she gestured to the small room around her, which was squashed between Maria Zoë and Balian’s chamber and the chamber used for the Ibelin children and their two tutors, “he’s too shy.”
It was not a very private environment, Eschiva conceded. Even now they could hear, muted but unmistakable, the voices of the Ibelin children squabbling next door. Yet Eschiva was certain it was still better than a siege camp. She opened her mouth to say this, only to register that Isabella had crumpled up beside the bed and was sobbing miserably into her hands.
Eschiva sank down on the floor beside her, reached out and took Isabella in her arms, while her two children turned to stare at the odd sight of an adult crying. “Sweetheart!” Eschiva exclaimed, stroking her arms. “Sweetheart, what’s the matter? What’s troubling you so?”
“I’ve been married for six years, but I’m yet to become Humphrey’s wife.”
“Of course you’re his wife,” Eschiva answered incomprehending. “Why half the Kingdom of Jerusalem was witness to your wedding!”
“I’m not talking about the ceremony! I’m talking about consummation!” Isabella gasped out. “The marriage has never been consummated!”
Eschiva was stunned by this confession. Eschiva had been married (with Church dispensation) to Aimery at the age of eight. He’d been a complete stranger and twenty years her senior. She had fallen instantly in love with him as only a little girl can when faced with a dashing knight who seemed straight out of a fairy-tale
. By the time he deigned to consumate their marriage, however, she was a nubile teenager in a far more ambivalent state of mind. For the first year of marriage if not more they had been two awkward strangers sharing a bed. She had always envied Isabella going to the bed of man who was already her best friend. But if that bed was a chaste one? It was a strange thought. Just what was the basis of marriage? Mutual respect or the carnal act?
The latter was something men engaged in all the time without the slightest interest in or respect for their sexual partner and that made friendship the more important part of marriage in Eschiva’s eyes.
But Isabella was wailing, “What’s wrong with me? Why doesn’t Humphrey love me?”
“Humphrey? But he dotes on you, Isabella. He’s so attentive and kind. I’ve never seen a more perfect, gentle knight than your Humphrey.” Eschiva spoke with conviction because there had been periods in her marriage with Aimery when he had been none of these things, treating her more with indifference than affection, and pursuing affairs with other women. It seemed to her that Humphrey’s kind of love, particularly if it was chaste, was very rare and valuable.
“Yes, but he turns his back on me in bed,” Isabella insisted, evidently not content with chaste love. “Why doesn’t he want me, if he loves me?”
Eschiva could not imagine any reason why Humphrey would not want to consummate his marriage with Isabella. Isabella had a delectable body, slender but well-shaped, and she had a beautiful face with golden eyes and auburn hair. Certainly Conrad de Montferrat looked at her with desire, and Aimery, despite being extraordinarily attentive, affectionate and devoted since his release from captivity, had remarked with studied neutrality that Isabella had grown into a “stunning beauty.”
Nor was there any reason to think that Humphrey took his pleasure elsewhere. On the contrary, Humphrey seemed to be comfortable only in Isabella’s presence, preferring to stay at her side even when the other men removed to the far end of the hall to talk of war. Indeed, as Aimery had noted with disapproval, Humphrey preferred to read a book than hunt or exercise at the tiltyard. “It’s no wonder he’s worthless on the battlefield,” Aimery had scoffed, “since he does nothing to hone his fighting skills.”
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