“Yes, Monsieur,” Isabella agreed, taking a deep breath. “I trust you—and it will be on your head if something happens to me. But I can go nowhere without shoes.” She pointed to her bare feet.
“Fetch her shoes!” the Bishop ordered, and one of the men disappeared back inside the tent. A moment later he returned with two of her shoes, which Isabella bent to slip on. When she righted herself, she nodded. Clutching the cloak around her, she let the Bishop of Beauvais and the Count of Champagne escort her through the camp to the French quarter.
The French contingent had been growing steadily and was now the largest in the siege camp. At the heart of the French camp were the baronial tents. The largest tent belonged to the highest-ranking of the most recent arrivals, the Duke of Burgundy. His tent was flanked by the tents of the counts of Flanders and Champagne. Isabella, however, was taken to yet a fourth tent. This smelled of incense, and as soon as she slipped inside she saw an altar and clerical vestments. Her arrival caused a commotion, as monks scurried to safety and curtains were drawn across these sections of the tent.
The Bishop of Beauvais paused and announced to Isabella: “My lady, you are to remain here in my tent until an ecclesiastical court determines the validity of your marriage to the Lord of Toron. You will be well guarded by my own knights and those of the Duke of Burgundy. They will prevent Toron from trying to seize you by force.”
“What about—” Isabella started to protest, but then something stirred in the shadows, and a figure separated itself from the darkness. Isabella could hardly believe her eyes. It was her mother. “Mama!” She ran to her instinctively. How often since her foolish arrival here had she fantasized about returning to the safety of her mother’s arms! How often had she longed and prayed for her mother to come and rescue her!
For a moment they clung to one another, but then Isabella’s brain overcame her instinct and she pulled back to ask: “Mama! What are you doing here? Do you know what’s happening? They’re trying to separate me from Humphrey!” Even as she spoke, it dawned on Isabella that if her mother was here, in the Bishop’s tent, she was on the side of the men who had abducted her. “You can’t be making common cause with these men!” she protested, already starting to get angry. “How could you?”
“Listen to me, Isabella,” Maria Zoë admonished firmly. “Your marriage to Humphrey has never been valid. You were not of the age to consent—”
“Maybe I wasn’t then, but I am now!” Isabella countered furiously. “I love Humphrey! Why can’t you accept that? Why can’t anyone accept that? I love him!”
Maria Zoë was conscious of the large audience staring at them, and she imperiously told the men to leave. “This is between my daughter and myself, my lords. Leave us.”
The young Count of Champagne cast Isabella a concerned look, while the Bishop of Beauvais seemed reluctant to take orders from anyone, but Maria Zoë met the Bishop’s eyes with an uncompromising expression. “My lord Bishop, that was not a request.”
“Your grace.” He bowed deeply and, grabbing Champagne by the arm, shoved him out of the tent in front of him.
“Mama, I can’t believe you’ve done this!” Isabella turned on her mother as soon as the strangers were gone.
“Isabella, calm down. Here, have some wine—” Maria Zoë tried to offer her a chalice filled with red wine.
“No, I don’t want wine! I want an explanation of what is going on!”
Maria Zoë set the chalice down again and opened, in a cool voice that was intended to get Isabella’s attention and force her to respond less emotionally, “As I believe you know, your sister Sibylla is dead.”
“Yes, I was here, remember?” Isabella retorted snippishly.
“That, my dear child, was entirely your choice. I think you remember well enough how strongly your stepfather and I warned you against coming to a siege camp. We urged—no, begged—you to remain in Tyre. Don’t come to me with your self-pity at being here.”
Isabella clamped her lips together in furious helplessness because, of course, her mother was right.
“With your sister’s death,” Maria Zoë continued, taking a deep breath to check her own anger at her daughter’s intransigence, “you have become the rightful Queen of Jerusalem.”
“But Guy is already anointed, and Humphrey says . . .” Isabella’s voice trailed off.
“Yes?” Maria Zoë prompted with raised eyebrows.
“Guy is still King. Everyone still addresses him that way.”
“As long as no one challenges him, he will certainly try to retain that status. And as long as no one challenges him, everyone will accept the status quo.” Maria Zoë paused to let this sink in before continuing. “A man willing to steal a crown is unlikely to abandon it easily. But that changes nothing about your right. You are the rightful Queen of Jerusalem, and the High Court is willing to recognize you.” As she spoke, Maria Zoë watched her daughter very closely. Isabella caught her breath and straightened her back. Although it was hard to see in the half-light, Maria Zoë also thought she flushed, as if with a surge of excitement.
“Have they met already?” Isabella asked, and the breathlessness in her voice confirmed her mother’s intuition: Isabella welcomed this news with all her heart.
“Yes, your stepfather summoned all the lords, sacred and secular, in Tyre. That was the majority. They are prepared to recognize you as their queen, Isabella. On one condition.” She stopped.
“Condition?” Isabella asked sharply. Her frown indicated she had already guessed what it might be.
“That you set Humphrey aside.”
“Why?” Isabella lashed out. “Why? What do they have against him?” Isabella’s questions were flung out more in protest than inquiry, but her mother was ready to enlighten her.
“Because, Isabella, your husband betrayed them at Nablus, when they last agreed to make you queen. Have you already forgotten?” Maria Zoë knew perfectly well that Isabella had not. Still, she continued in an uncompromising voice, “They offered to make him king then, Isabella. Young and untried as he was, they were prepared to crown him king and do homage to him. All he had to do was accept. But he wasn’t man enough—”
“That’s not true!” Isabella protested hotly, ever ready to defend her husband’s courage. “He just wanted to prevent a civil war—”
“What? So Guy could lose the whole Kingdom rather than just part of it?” Maria Zoë snapped back, rapidly losing control over her temper.
“How can you blame Humphrey for what Guy did?” Isabella demanded self-righteously. “It’s not Humphrey’s fault that Guy turned out to be such a disastrous king. No one could foresee Hattin four years ago.”
“No one?” Maria Zoë asked sarcastically. “The whole High Court foresaw it, for God’s sake! Why do you think they opposed making Guy king in the first place? Why do you suppose they were prepared to pass over Sibylla and make you queen? Why, even Guy’s own brother Aimery saw it, but at the time he was too greedy for his own gain to oppose it, just like Edessa and Heraclius. In fact, the only one fool enough to think Guy might make a competent king was Humphrey de Toron.”
“Humphrey’s not a fool!” Isabella protested furiously, tears of frustration and confusion streaming down her face.
Maria Zoë considered her daughter distantly and finally remarked, “I would like to comfort you, Bella. I can see how hurt, confused, and miserable you are. But, frankly, I’m afraid of your rejection. You have thrust me aside too often in the last years for me to risk taking you in my arms—as much as I long to do so. It seems that when Agnes de Courtenay took you from me as a child of eight, she succeeded more profoundly than I thought possible. It seems you are no longer my daughter, after all.”
Isabella gasped, and her blood turned to ice. She had no memories of her father whatever. Her earliest memories were being with her mother in a convent, a world in which everything revolved around her. And then her mother and she had moved to Nablus and from there to Ascalon, the latter with
Uncle Balian. Uncle Balian had been a wonderful addition to her life because he had made it so much more exciting. He had introduced her to tree climbing and swings, taken her out on boats, and taught her to ride. Life had been lovely until one day the Baron of Oultrejourdain’s men had come and taken her away from that personal Garden of Eden. They’d taken her into the desert and beyond the Dead Sea to a horrible, bleak castle on the edge of Sinai: Kerak. There she’d been subjected to the heartless and vindictive regime of the Lady of Oultrejourdain, while Humphrey was brutalized and humiliated by his stepfather, Oultrejourdain himself.
Isabella had been eight years old. She was utterly helpless and terrified. She wanted to run away, but how do you escape from one of the most heavily garrisoned castles in the world and then cross the notorious desert surrounding the Dead Sea? A girl? Alone? At the age of eight? She’d prayed for rescue, but Oultrejourdain had prohibited her mother and stepfather from visiting. They had defied him three times, and once Uncle Balian had come on his own, but in between those times, day in and day out, she had had only one friend: Humphrey.
Humphrey had been as miserable as she. He had wanted to escape, too, but he had nowhere to go. His “home” was where they were. And his kin were the very people who were making their life hell. He had begged Isabella, and she had promised, never to leave him. But Isabella had made that promise with the certainty that when he came of age they would escape together, and she would be reunited with those she loved: with her mother and stepfather. She had wanted to take Humphrey away from his world and into hers.
Of course, things hadn’t worked out like that. Humphrey had been uncomfortable with her parents. He claimed Uncle Balian looked down on him. Isabella had resisted believing it, but she could not overlook the fact that her husband was not happy in Uncle Balian’s company. So she had followed Humphrey wherever he went, and physical distance had grown between herself and her parents.
Yet that deep-seated, almost visceral, sense that “home” was with her mother and Uncle Balian had not seriously diminished. It had been reinforced dramatically when Uncle Balian had rescued her from Jerusalem after Hattin. And it had been only natural that she await Humphrey’s release from captivity with her mother and Uncle Balian. When Humphrey was finally released, almost a year after the others, he had come to her and them.
Yes, she had come with Humphrey to Acre, because the tensions between Humphrey and Uncle Balian had been worse than ever, but the horrors of the siege camp had only reinforced her sense that “home” and “safety” were with her mother. She had made her bed and had been prepared to sleep in it, but she had never stopped trying to find a way to go home—to her mother and stepfather—without quite admitting she’d been wrong. How often had she imagined that she heard Uncle Balian’s voice and jumped up full of joy, thinking he had come to rescue her from this hell hole just as he had once rescued her from Jerusalem? Not once had she imagined that her mother and stepfather might reject her.
With cold clarity as the light of a gray dawn seeped into the strange tent, Isabella realized that her mother might not always be there for her. Worse: she abruptly recognized that her mother might not always forgive her. With naked brutality, Isabella remembered how rude and selfish she had been; her temper tantrums and her (usually overblown and unfair) accusations of treachery and cruelty echoed in her head. She had flung insults at her mother and stepfather; she had screamed and rejected their advice with utter faith in her impunity. Suddenly it dawned on her that she was not immune after all.
Isabella noted how tired her mother looked, how aged. Her mother had always been beautiful. She was the beautiful Greek bride admired by the whole world; she was the lovely young widow who had captured the heart of a brave knight. But she was thirty-six now. Older than Sibylla had been at her death. She’d brought five children into the world, too, and that was now reflected in the solid width of her waist. And yet, she hadn’t looked this old a year ago, Isabella’s mind protested. Had she?
“Mama?” Isabella asked uncertainly. Had they really become strangers in just a year?
“Yes?” Maria Zoё’s voice was strained but controlled, always the queen.
“What do you mean? Why aren’t I your daughter anymore?” There were tears in Isabella’s voice.
Maria Zoë was aware of nearly overwhelming exhaustion and a sense of futility. Isabella was her firstborn, and her sex had been such a disappointment to her father (who needed an heir other than his leper son) that he had taken little interest in her. Isabella had always been hers—hers alone. When Agnes de Courtenay had engineered Isabella’s marriage to Humphrey and taken her away at the age of eight, it had nearly killed her. The most horrible fight of her entire marriage to Balian had been because she blamed him for not doing enough to prevent King Baldwin from taking her daughter away. She had gone so far as to confront the Queen Mother publicly, calling her a bitch in heat. All for Isabella. And what was Isabella now? A self-willed and foolish woman who rejected not only good advice, but the good intentions of those who loved her best.
To Isabella she said simply, “You have rejected me and my advice ever since Humphrey returned from captivity. You have made it clear to me, and your stepfather, that you place Humphrey ahead of everything else.”
“Isn’t that what a wife is supposed to do?”
Maria Zoë took her time and considered her answer carefully before she spoke. “A wife, perhaps, but not a queen. I am a princess of the Eastern Roman Empire, Isabella. I was taught at a very early age that my duty was to that Empire, and that the interests of the Empire would always take precedence over the stirrings of my heart. I thought I had taught you that, too. That you are not a woman—you are a queen. Sibylla failed to understand that, and we can see where it led us. I always blamed Agnes for that. I always thought my daughter carried my blood as well as the blood of Jerusalem. I thought my daughter understood her duty—as a queen. At Nablus, you seemed ready to pick up your burden. You seemed determined to be a better queen than Sibylla. At fourteen, you seemed more mature than now.”
Isabella winced inwardly and remarked bitterly, “Everyone tells me I’m acting like a child—Humphrey because I have ‘childish fantasies’ about being a queen, and you because I’m so ‘childish’ as to think a wife should be loyal to her husband.”
Maria Zoë drew a deep breath. “Well, if you do not want us to look on you like a child, Isabella, then you must start acting like an adult.” She took a gauze shawl striped white-on-white by the weave and wrapped it around her head and shoulders before adding in a weary voice, “Since you do not seem to value my advice, I will leave you to make your own decision. You are safe here. The Bishop of Beauvais has guaranteed that no one but the clerics involved in the case will be allowed access to you. Of course, you will not be allowed to leave this tent until the ecclesiastical tribunal has ruled on the validity of your marriage, either. Think well, Isabella.” Then the Dowager Queen swept past her daughter and out into the new day.
Siege camp at Acre, mid-November 1190
Humphrey knew what he was facing. No, the whole siege camp knew what was going on. His mother-in-law and her husband had engineered this entire plot so they could take Isabella away from him and marry her to Conrad de Montferrat. They had always looked down on him, and never accepted that he was good enough for, much less good for, Isabella. As for Montferrat, it was obvious that all he cared about was the crown of Jerusalem. He was a grasping, greedy, arrogant bastard, and an ignorant adventurer as well. Humphrey hated him with all his heart, and the sight of him in his expensive clothes, surrounded by a large entourage, made Humphrey’s blood boil.
At least Montferrat would not be admitted to the trial. The church court was exactly that: a court presided over by the Papal Legate, Hubert the Archbishop of Pisa. The other judges were the Bishop of Beauvais representing France, the Archbishop of Mainz representing the Holy Roman Empire, the Archbishop of Canterbury representing England, and the Archbishop of Nazareth represen
ting Jerusalem. These worthy bishops were seated in a long row against the canvas wall that divided the tent, while lesser clerics sat at flanking tables set at right angles to the row of bishops and prepared to record the proceedings. All that was as it should be, Humphrey thought, but he was less comfortable about the crowd of secular lords who were standing behind the lesser clerics on the sides of the room, apparently spectators. It was particularly galling to see Ibelin there, come to see him humiliated! And it hurt to see William of Tiberius, whom Humphrey had sometimes thought of as a friend. Telling himself they did not matter, Humphrey focused his attention on the five clerical judges. He went down on one knee before them and bowed his head.
The Archbishop of Pisa addressed him. “Humphrey, Lord of Toron, you are summoned here before this court to testify on the validity of your marriage to Isabella of Jerusalem. Do you swear upon this sacred relic, that you will speak only the truth before us?” A priest was holding a reliquary covered with jewels set in gold.
Humphrey dropped his second knee, placed his hand on the reliquary, and answered firmly, “In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, I do.”
“Humphrey, do you solemnly swear that you are Humphrey, son of Humphrey, and Lord of Toron in the Kingdom of Jerusalem?”
“I do.”
“Is it correct that you have been cohabiting as man and wife with Isabella, Princess of Jerusalem?”
That sounded like a trick question to Humphrey. He answered steadily, “It is true that Isabella, Princess of Jerusalem, and I have lived together as man and wife ever since our wedding.”
“Where and when were you allegedly married?”
“Isabella and I took vows of marriage to one another publicly at Kerak on November 18, 1183. There were hundreds of witnesses,” Humphrey added testily, casting an angry look at the spectators, several of which, like Ibelin’s younger brother Henri, had personally attended that wedding. Why didn’t they speak up?
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