Whatever his reasons, his departure put Conrad de Montferrat in an awkward position, since the King of France’s support for his claim to the crown of Jerusalem had been an essential counterweight to the King of England’s unstinting support for King Guy. Philip had ostentatiously accorded Montferrat the courtesy owed a king and had even shared his booty with him—including 1250 of the hostages held as a guarantee that the Sultan would fulfill the terms of the surrender agreement. When Philip of France departed the siege camp, Conrad de Montferrat had taken those 1250 hostages with him to Tyre. It had taken two embassies of high-ranking dignitaries to convince him to return the hostages so that they could be exchanged today for the captives, the ransom money, and the True Cross. But no words could persuade Montferrat to return to the siege of Acre himself.
“Lady Eschiva says he is not pleased with the agreement my lord husband struck with Philip of France before the latter’s shameful departure,” Berengaria remarked, testing the reaction of her sister-in-law. She was sitting stiffly on her stool while her ladies affixed her crown over her veils, pinning the latter carefully in place to help ensure that it did not slip.
“I daresay he was not, since the agreement recognized Guy de Lusignan as King of Jerusalem as long as he lived, making Conrad no more than his heir. Conrad cannot bring himself to bow to Guy, and that is the main reason he removed himself to Tyre. Nor did it please him that my brother named Guy’s brother Geoffrey Count of Jaffa and Ascalon—should those coastal cities and their environs ever be recovered. Conrad rightly recognizes that Geoffrey de Lusignan is a far more formidable opponent than Guy. No one takes Guy seriously anymore, but Geoffrey is not a man to be ignored.”
“But why not Aimery? I felt most distressed for our friend Eschiva that her husband was overlooked in the settlement.” Berengaria had come to the point that interested her most, and her tone was more impassioned than before. “Sir Aimery has been in Outremer longer than either of his brothers. He was a good constable, so everyone says, and he suffered captivity with his brother after Hattin. Why wasn’t he even mentioned in the settlement?” The English crown now fixed in place, Berengaria turned to look at her sister-in-law as she asked this question earnestly.
Joanna was used to Berengaria asking her questions she could answer, but this was one she couldn’t. She was as baffled as her sister-in-law, and she shook her head. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. I share your sympathy for dear Eschiva. She has endured so much—and always the poor relation, always ‘in waiting’ on someone else, always living on charity from her brother-in-law or her uncle. It seems most unfair, particularly as Aimery de Lusignan strikes me as both braver than Guy and wiser than Geoffrey. Geoffrey, you know, was implicated in that horrible attack on my mother! According to her, Guy wielded the lance that killed the Earl of Salisbury from behind, but Geoffrey was in command.”
“I’ve never heard of this!” Berengaria declared, wide-eyed. “What happened?”
“Not now! We must hurry!” Joanna countered, taking her sister-in-law by the arm, to rush her out of her chamber and down to the courtyard where their horses and escort were waiting.
Berengaria and Joanna descended by a covered stairway to a cobbled courtyard, where their escort of Poitevin knights waited impatiently for their arrival. The escort was commanded by Aimery de Lusignan, and Eschiva had gone ahead of the queens so she could have a few minutes with her husband.
At the sight of the queens, Aimery helped his wife into her saddle, and the other men started mounting, while grooms led the queens’ mares forward. Berengaria had a very pretty white palfrey, a gift from King Richard shortly after their arrival in Acre. She was a captured Arab with a dish face, very dainty feet, and beautiful manners. She never kicked or bit, but waited as docilely as a dog for Berengaria to mount. Joanna’s mare was a pretty chestnut, less eye-catching but lively and intelligent. Aimery swung himself into his own saddle and, riding over to the queens, respectfully asked them to fall in on either side of him. Joanna answered that she would instead ride behind with Eschiva, and in this order they rode out of the gate.
Once in the street, Joanna was alarmed by how empty the city seemed. “Are we very late?” she asked Eschiva.
“No, not very. We should still make the muster in time.” As she spoke Eschiva glanced toward the steeple of St. Mark’s in the Venetian quarter, which rang the hours like a ship’s clock, marking each half-hour. “It only just struck seven bells, a half-hour before Sext.” Ahead of them Aimery picked up a trot, and they urged their horses forward to keep up with him.
Despite Richard of England’s efforts and expense to rebuild Acre’s shattered defenses, the city still had the shabby feel of a garrison town. Neither the Saracen nor the crusader army had come with the intention of making it a pleasant or habitable place; for them it was simply a means to an end. Although the burghers of Acre had appealed to the King of France for the restoration of their property, and the French King had ordered it done, the restoration had been on the condition that they billet troops with them as long as the army was present. That meant that the houses, shops, and markets were used over-whelmingly by men who had no interest in their substance or state of repair. Men pretty much tossed their rubbish where they wanted, pissed where they wanted, and scratched their names on any inviting surface in a perverse desire to “immortalize” themselves. The owners had much to complain about, and found little sympathy after the principle of property restoration had been established. In these circumstances, they did not send for their wives or children, waiting instead for the plague of crusaders to move on. As a result, the only women in Acre were the the queens and their ladies, the laundresses with the army, and whores—lots of whores. There were so many of the latter, in fact, that Joanna and Berengaria were usually discomfited when they ventured into the streets of Acre. Today, however, even the whores were gone.
As the queens emerged from the city gate, it became clear where everyone had gone. The entire Frankish army was drawn up in ranks and files under the bright, fluttering banners of their leaders. The clergy in their vestments (but barefoot as a symbol of humility) were drawn up in processional order behind the army, and the women clustered around the fringes in an excited, jabbering mass. At front and center of the army, the banner of England flapped lazily from a converted mast mounted on a mobile platform. This placed the English banner above the others, including those of France, Austria, and Jerusalem itself. Berengaria felt a little uneasy about the latter, since the crosses represented Christ and the Apostles, while Joanna was reminded that the Duke of Austria had already made quite a fuss about his banner being tossed down from the walls of Acre after its fall. Because Richard and Philip had agreed to share the spoils of all they captured fifty-fifty, acknowledging the claims of the Germans was awkward. On the other hand, the Germans had been at the siege longer than either the French or the English, and the Duke of Austria was offended and had declared his intention to return to the West as a result. Joanna did not think her husband would have been so abrasive or insensitive to another nobleman’s pride—but then, William wouldn’t have led assaults on enemy beaches as Richard had done at Limassol, nor would he have fired crossbows at the defenders of Acre from a litter. Richard was like no other king, she concluded; he made his own rules.
By the time the queens reached the cluster of men around King Richard that included King Guy, the Dukes of Burgundy and Austria, and the other senior nobles, the bells were ringing Sext from all across Acre. That there were bells to ring was little short of a miracle. The Arabs had trashed the churches on taking control of the city four years earlier—disfiguring the crucifixes, smashing the statues of the saints, burning or hacking the altars, and melting down the bells. On learning of the latter, the bellmakers’ guild in Tyre had called all their members together and set to work forging two dozen bells, which had been sent to Acre and installed only the previous week.
While the bells were ringing, the Frankish leaders scanned the
heights surrounding the city, on which the Sultan’s army was still encamped, searching for signs of movement. The common soldiers did the same. Now and again someone thought they saw something, calling out or pointing only to be disappointed. The sun was very hot and seemed to grow hotter as they waited in the open, while the flies were increasingly bothersome. The horses stamped, shook their heads, and swished their tails in growing annoyance.
King Richard’s face was so grim that Berengaria did not want to draw attention to herself. He looked as if he were about to explode, and she had heard terrible things about his temper. If nothing else, his father had in a rage inadvertently brought about the murder of an archbishop, and that was a terrible thing indeed.
Her husband’s voice barked, and Berengaria started. A moment later, Humphrey de Toron rode up beside the English King and bowed from the waist. Berengaria could not hear what her husband said, but Toron bowed again and then spurred his horse across the empty plain, galloping alone toward the enemy camp.
“That is very brave of him,” Berengaria noted to Aimery in a low voice, so as not to draw attention to herself.
Aimery snorted and then cast her a sideways glance. “Humphrey has nothing to fear. He made very good friends with the Sultan’s secretary while in captivity, and he speaks Arabic like a native. Some claim he converted—”
“Holy Cross! Surely not?” Berengaria crossed herself at the mere thought of having dined and conversed with a man who might have abrogated the True Faith to follow the false prophet Mohammed.
“No, he didn’t go that far,” Aimery conceded, shaking his head. “But he admires much about their culture, their food, medicine, literature. He flatters them with that and they like him for it—like a poodle.” That was not a compliment.
“You do not like my lord of Toron,” Berengaria concluded.
Aimery shrugged. “I might have liked him more if he hadn’t been playing chess with Imad ad-Din in fragrant gardens, waited on by slave girls, while I rotted in a dungeon,” Aimery admitted acidly. Berengaria mentally noted something else she had to ask Eschiva about at the right time.
This time was obviously not right, however. Several of the lesser commanders had lost patience and rode forward to find out what was going on. Berengaria hadn’t yet learned to recognize all the men in her husband’s service, much less the French, German, and Italian crusaders, but she did recognize the Count of Champagne and the Lord of Ibelin.
Champagne, she knew, was in the odd position of being nephew to both Philip of France and Richard of England, because his mother was Eleanor of Aquitaine’s daughter by Louis VII of France. Champagne had come out to Outremer in the French King’s service, but had transferred his allegiance to the King of England because he’d run out of funds and the Plantagenet had been willing to advance him a loan, while the Capet had not. Berengaria knew, furthermore, that Champagne was a devout crusader, seriously concerned about the recovery of Jerusalem, and no one had been more shocked and outraged by the French King’s defection than the young Count of Champagne. He had personally come to Berengaria to express his shame at his uncle’s ignoble decision to return to France, and although Berengaria was alert to men trying to win her husband’s favor by pleasing her, his distress had struck her as very genuine. In fact, if she hadn’t been so mesmerized by her husband, she would have found herself very attracted to the Count of Champagne. He was in his early twenties, after all, a slender, elegant man with fine blond hair and a sunburned face.
Ibelin, in contrast, although tall and lean, was dark of hair and skin and looked all of his forty years. His eyes were sunken in his regular face, and he had a dramatic gray streak running from his right temple. He was a handsome man, in his way, Berengaria conceded, but she still couldn’t overcome her initial mistrust of him, instilled by the story of how he’d taken his stepdaughter away from her lawful husband just so he could make the Marquis of Montferrat King of Jerusalem.
Her husband was talking to Ibelin now, and she wished she could have heard what they were saying. Whatever it was, it did not make her husband happy. His stallion was swinging his haunches from side to side, his ears flat back on his head, his tail lashing. Berengaria knew enough about horses to realize the rider’s fury had been transmitted to the horse.
Berengaria was beginning to get very hot, and she didn’t like the way she was sweating in her expensive coronation robes. Furthermore, the weight of the crown was becoming very uncomfortable, and her brow was so wet with sweat that it was starting to trickle down behind her ears. It was obvious that something had gone wrong—again—and she wondered how much longer they were going to wait out here in the sun. She glanced at Aimery and then twisted a little to look at Joanna. The latter shook her head in a mute warning to do and say nothing.
At last Humphrey de Toron emerged out of the distance and cantered back to the waiting host. As he drew in opposite the King of England, it was clear from his face alone that he brought bad news. Berengaria risked urging her horse nearer so she could hear him as he announced, “I’m sorry, my lord King. The Sultan of Egypt and Damascus regrets the inconvenience, but he has still not been able to find the designated twenty-five hundred captives or the gold—”
“Does he take me for a fool?” the King of England burst out. “He’s been playing me out for three weeks now, and all he has to offer me are lies! Damned lies!” Richard swung his horse around and galloped straight through his host, leaving it to his commanders to pass the word.
The King of England was not the only one outraged and distressed by this latest betrayal. Throughout the city of Acre, priests had prepared a procession to honor the return of the True Cross. Men from above the Artic Circle (like Haakon Magnussen) and from Scotland, England, France, and Flanders, men from the Rhineland and the Palatinate, from Normandy, Lombardy, and Sicily—indeed, from every part of Christendom—had assembled this day to receive the Cross on which Christ had been crucified. The ransom money went to their leaders, but the Cross was theirs. Just as Christ had died for their sins, His Cross belonged to all of them. It had been the thought of the Saracens insulting, beating, and urinating on the Cross that had motivated many of them to leave their homes and take up arms against the infidel. The promised return of the Cross had compensated them emotionally for being denied the right to plunder Acre. But now the Cross was denied them, too. It had been promised today, and it had not come. The Saracens had played a trick on all of them, sitting up on their hill and laughing as the Frankish host waited gullibly in the burning August sun. The more they thought about how the Sultan had played their leaders for fools, the angrier the Christian soldiers became—with the enemy and with their own leadership.
The mood was increasingly explosive. Brawls broke out across the city, and the shouts of angry men hurling abuse punctuated the night. Ibelin and his men were billeted near the customs house close to the harbor, and he set an extra watch, both as protection and to keep his men out of trouble. After his second inspection he returned to the hall, and his eyes swept across the scene of men drinking in sullen silence. Sir Bartholomew was missing.
“Where’s Sir Bartholomew?” he asked, in a sharp voice loud enough to wake them all from their individual thoughts. No one had an answer. “When was the last time anyone saw him?” he asked next, receiving worthless answers such as “He was at the muster.” “Damn it!” Ibelin shouted. “No one lost more today than Sir Bartholomew. We need to find him!”
Sir Galvin roused himself from his wine-soaked lethargy with a growl. “I think I might know where he might be,” he confessed, shaking his head to clear it of drunkenness.
Sir Galvin led his lord to a small and rather poor Augustine establishment only a few blocks away, but they found the door locked and barred. They pounded on it, but got no answer. Sir Galvin stood stupidly on the doorstep, swearing he was sure this was where Sir Bartholomew said he was going.
Apparently all they could do now was comb the streets, the taverns, and the wharves, Ibelin thou
gh resentfully. Resigning himself to a sleepless night of searching, he took a deep breath and was about to turn away when the monastery door cracked and a feeble voice called out, “Sirs? Can we help you?” It was hardly surprising that the monks were keeping a very low profile in Acre tonight. Few monks had risked returning to the city at all, and the Augustines of Acre were notoriously reclusive.
“We’re looking for one of my knights, Sir Bartholomew d’Auber.”
“Are you the Lord of Ibelin?”
“I am.”
“Come!”
Ibelin exchanged a look with Sir Galvin and followed the monk’s invitation into the church. The monk closed and bolted the door behind the visitors before leading them to a cloister. Tall cypress trees loomed up in the corners of the small garth, and the leaves of citrus trees clustered around the well at the center rustled in the light breeze. There were no lanterns or torches, and it was hard to see where they were going. Once Sir Galvin (still a little drunk) tripped as his foot fell into a hole in the pavement, and the monk apologized, explaning, “The Saracens tore up all the graves in the walkway—anything with a cross on it—and threw the bones somewhere.” Sir Galvin crossed himself, and Ibelin shook his head in sympathy.
The monk led them to a bench on the far side of the cloister where a man sat hunched over, his elbows on his knees, sobbing into his hands. It was Sir Bartholomew.
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