The Last Crusader Kingdom

by Helena P. Schrader

  The Queen drew up and dismounted, causing all her escort to do the same. Her brother John stepped forward to hold her mare, and her sister Meg stepped behind her to carry her train. Slowly and deliberately the Queen advanced toward the gangway.

  At last the King of Cyprus crossed the gap between sea and land, stepping down onto the quay to meet the Queen of Jerusalem. Neither bowed nor bent a knee. As equals they met, and as equals they kissed. The kisses were cool and formal, as if they were perfect strangers. Then the Queen turned to face her city and subjects, while the King took her elbow.

  Together they walked along the prepared route between cheering crowds to the Cathedral of the Holy Cross. They walked slowly, nodding and waving to the crowds. Isabella managed to smile and wave, particularly for a youth sitting astride the railing of a balcony as he gestured frantically to get her attention and for a troop of excited little girls, who waved wildly at her and giggled in delight when she waved back. King Aimery nodded and lifted his hand now and again, but acted as if the cheers were all for the Queen.

  They mounted the steps to the Cathedral and passed into a candlelit nave, the organ humming and the canons chanting. They proceeded directly up the central aisle with the barons, knights, and aldermen behind them. They were met at the screens by the Archbishop of Acre, and here the King and Queen halted. Behind them, the procession entered and spread out in the nave, along with many others who had tagged along, until the cathedral was filled to overflowing.

  It took a long time, but eventually a degree of imperfect quiet settled on the crowd. The canons finished their chant. The organ fell silent. The Archbishop raised his hands and blessed the King and Queen. He reached out and took Isabella’s left hand and Aimery’s right. He asked first Aimery and then Isabella if they were prepared to take the other in holy matrimony. They each answered in the affirmative, Aimery in a firm voice heard to the back of the nave, Isabella softly but without hesitation. The Archbishop placed Isabella’s hand in Aimery’s. The King of Cyprus drew a ring from his baby finger and prepared to slip it on Isabella’s ring finger. When he noticed she was still wearing Champagne’s wedding ring, he hesitated. He glanced up at her, but she kept her eyes down demurely. He pushed his ring over her knuckle and closed his hand firmly around hers for a moment. Then he turned to face the Archbishop again.

  The Archbishop blessed them, then led them through the screens. Aimery took Isabella by her elbow and together they followed the Archbishop between the canons, who had started to sing again. In front of the high altar, satin-covered cushions waited for them. They knelt down to take communion, while the spectators remained behind in the nave.

  Following the wedding Mass, Aimery and Isabella exited by the main portal into the street, to be met by a large crowd that broke into cheers of “Hip, hip, hooray!” and “Long live the King and Queen.” Again Isabella waved graciously and Aimery waved with noticeable restraint. After a suitable time, some of Isabella’s knights slipped past to clear a way for her to the royal palace and the waiting feast.

  The wedding meal lasted over five hours, with numerous courses both savory and sweet. It was interspersed with entertainment from jesters, acrobats, troubadours, dancing monkeys in Saracen costumes, dwarfs dressed like Roman soldiers, and more. Each community in the city had selected their favorite entertainer for the occasion. During the feast, wedding gifts were also presented to the Queen. Each guild and commune strove to outdo their rivals by the beauty, craftsmanship, and expense of their offering.

  Isabella seemed particularly moved when the Jewish community presented her with a carved ivory book cover that depicted scenes from the Old Testament. She asked the Talmudic scholar who had been selected to present the gift to come onto the dais. As he knelt before her, she thanked him earnestly, saying that she was touched by such generosity when the Jewish community had suffered so much damage at the hands of the German crusaders. The man, in his skullcap and long beard, bowed repeatedly as he assured her that the Jewish community was loyal to her and her house, and appreciated the protection her family had always provided to them. He glanced toward her brother John as he spoke. King Aimery at this point leaned forward and announced in a deep and clearly audible voice that the Jews could be assured of the protection of the House of Lusignan as well.

  Later, after the last course of meringue roses and marzipan doves had been decimated, there was dancing. The Lord of Ibelin danced with the Dowager Queen, and many other barons likewise danced with their ladies. King Aimery was seen to address his wife, but she shook her head, and the royal couple remained on the dais as spectators. As the pace of the music increased, more and more of the older couples retreated, leaving the sweep of the great hall, cleared now of tables and benches, to the youth. John d’Ibelin led his sister Meg, but he was soon displaced by Hugh of Tiberius, Walter (the younger) of Caesarea, and a host of other young noblemen. Meg d’Ibelin was very pretty, lively, and (based on the peals of laughter that came from whatever part of the room she was in) witty and entertaining. She was also the sister of the ruling Queen, which made her a brilliant match.

  After three hours of dancing, with the city long since embraced by the early winter night, King Aimery rose and offered his hand to Queen Isabella. She stood, and Aimery indicated the door off the back of the dais. Isabella turned and started toward it. At once the guests, now well inebriated, began clapping, chanting, and singing. Many, particularly the young men, surged toward the dais to follow the couple to their bedchamber and partake in the bedding ritual. They were stopped short by the knights of Ibelin, who came seemingly out of nowhere and lined the front of the dais, preventing anyone from mounting it.

  There was some protesting, but as the Queen’s household knights reinforced the Ibelin knights, the crowd recognized they had been checkmated. With some grumbling, they accepted that they would have to find their entertainment elsewhere. As neither wine nor food was being replenished anymore, the crowd started to disperse. The wedding feast was over.

  Aimery knew his way around the royal palace of Acre, but he let Isabella lead. They had spoken very little, beyond the marriage vows and other necessities, and Aimery still could not see beyond Isabella’s public façade to what she was really feeling. As they entered the Queen’s anteroom, Philip and Fulk, Aimery’s new squire (Dick had been knighted the year before), rose to meet them.

  Isabella was surprised to see Philip; she smiled at him. “Philip! When did you arrive?”

  “I came with my lord of Lusignan,” the squire answered with a glance at his lord.

  “You’re still my brother,” Isabella told him, and stepped forward to give him a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

  As Isabella drew back from a visibly embarrassed Philip, Aimery told his wife, “I’ll give you a few minutes to prepare yourself,” and gestured with his head toward the door leading deeper into her apartments.

  Isabella nodded and continued to the bedchamber, where her ladies awaited her.

  When the door closed behind her, Aimery removed his crown and handed it to Philip, who reverently placed it on one of the small tables. Then Philip and Fulk helped Aimery out of his wedding robes and undergarments, right down to his silk shirt. This Aimery opted to keep on. “Is there water?” he asked.

  “There’s water, wine, bread, dried fruits, and oranges in the bedchamber, my lord,” Philip answered.

  Aimery nodded and looked about the room. Something was different about it from the days when Eschiva had served the English Queen, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

  “It was hung with black tapestries, my lord,” Philip explained, interpreting Aimery’s look almost correctly. “We managed to get them all down, but didn’t have time to find substitutes.”

  “The Queen is still in mourning—no matter what she wears or the color of her tapestries.”

  Philip nodded solemnly, and Aimery glanced toward the inside door, wondering whether it was too soon. He decided to wait a little longer, and gave Philip instructi
ons to pack his crown in its leather case and stow it in a chest in his own suite of rooms at the other end of the corridor. “One of you should sleep here,” he ordered, revising his instructions to: “Philip, as Isabella’s brother, you’d better be the one to stay here. Fulk can sleep on the pallet in my chamber.”

  Both squires nodded, and Aimery glanced again toward the door nervously. He shook his head, and a strand of his long hair fell into his face. He ordered Philip to bring a comb.

  Eventually one of Isabella’s ladies appeared in the doorway and announced that the Queen was ready to receive her husband. Aimery nodded to his squires, dismissing Fulk to retire and ordering Philip to remain where he was. He then proceeded through the open door and across the day room to the bedchamber beyond. As he entered the latter, the other lady curtsied deeply to him before withdrawing, closing the door behind her.

  Aimery found himself in a richly decorated chamber dominated by a large box bed with heavy velvet hangings. The room was lit only by one glass oil lamp hanging from the ceiling and a candle by the bed. Isabella was already in bed, her hair loose about her head, but the sheets drawn up over her body modestly. Only her neck and head were visible, propped up on the pillows.

  Aimery walked to the side of the bed and sat down on the edge.

  “Thank you for sending the revelers away,” Isabella opened.

  “Actually, it was your step-father’s idea,” Aimery admitted.

  Isabella smiled faintly. “Dear Uncle Balian. I thought it might have been, since his men moved forward first, but you approved it. I appreciate that.”

  “Look, Isabella, I’m not here to humiliate or conquer you. I understand that you do not want any intimacies. For the High Court, your servants, and your subjects, I think it best that I spend the night inside this room, but I am prepared to sleep on the floor if you insist. Or, if you would be so kind, I will join you in bed but, on my word of honor, I will not force myself upon you.”

  “Thank you. I—I would not have agreed to this marriage if I had not believed you would respect my wishes. Yet, I—I want you to fully understand: I still love Henri.” Although she spoke almost defiantly as she gazed at him, her lips were trembling and tears were shimmering in her eyes.

  Aimery’s heart went out to her. He would have liked to stroke the side of her cheek with the back of his hand. She had been brittle all day, and she’d been bound to break sooner or later. He was thankful that she had made it through the wedding and the feast without breaking down. He would have liked to take her in his arms as he would have one of his daughters, but he realized that any move to touch her would be misinterpreted. So he looked away from her and, staring at the candle, announced in a low and heavy voice, “And I still love Eschiva.”

  Isabella flinched, but Aimery didn’t notice. His eyes were still focused on the candle rather than Isabella. “I think I’ve loved her longer than I even realized. Even in the early years, when I cheated on her with any woman who fired my loins, it never detracted from my love for her.”

  “That’s a terribly male thing to say,” Isabella told him bluntly. Aimery looked away from the candle to try to judge if she was bitter or reproachful, and Isabella smiled faintly at him. “I’ve been married three times before this, Aimery. I know a little about men.”

  “Fair enough,” Aimery conceded—“but what I wanted to say is that my love for Eschiva grew with each year, each setback, each crisis.” His eyes shifted back to the candle as he spoke in a voice heavy with memories. “Throughout that year in a Saracen dungeon following Hattin, it was the thought of Eschiva that kept me from going mad. Yet it was only after I went to Cyprus that I came to rely on her in a way I had not imagined possible.” He paused and then admitted out loud for the first time, “She was the rock on which I built my kingdom—and she was gone before I could put a crown upon her head. I cannot tell you how much that hurts me to this day.”

  The pain in his voice reached Isabella through the darkness. She leaned forward and touched her fingers to his cheek so lightly that he could barely feel it. “I’m sorry, Aimery. For you and Eschiva both.”

  Aimery snapped his head around, and their eyes met. They were both on the brink of tears and they just gazed at one another. Then Isabella patted the bed beside her. “Come under the covers, Aimery, before you catch cold.”

  Aimery hesitated, but then he went around the bed, lifted the covers, and slipped in to sit beside, but still inches away from, Isabella. “Thank you.”

  “Why are you here, Aimery?” Isabella asked. “I don’t mean in bed, I mean in Acre. Why did you accept this burden of a grieving widow, four frightened little girls, and a threatened kingdom, when you could have just stayed on Cyprus with your own family and a secure kingdom?”

  “That’s a fair question,” Aimery admitted. “I didn’t jump at the offer—in case Balian didn’t tell you.”

  Isabella shook her head. “He didn’t tell me any details, just that you had agreed to my conditions.”

  “I made him wait three days for my answer—and knowing how persuasive he can be, I wouldn’t let him talk to me during that time. I spent a lot of time at Eschiva’s grave, or just talking to her in my mind. I spoke to my confessor, and even asked my son Guy and Burgundia what they would think of such an extraordinary development. It was Burgundia who surprised me most. Her face lit up and she exclaimed, “Oh! Mama would have been so pleased!” He paused, because the memory was unmanning him. Tears were threatening to spill out of his eyes as he struggled to explain. “And that’s the point,” he continued, swallowing down his pain. “Eschiva never wanted anything for herself. She only wanted me to be successful and happy. She would have wanted me to be King of Jerusalem—not because she wanted Henri dead or you to be widowed. Don’t think that—”

  Isabella reached out to calm him. “I know that. Eschiva loved me like a sister and only wanted the best for me. I know.”

  “But she hated my brother Guy,” Aimery confessed. “She always resented that he, unworthy as he was, had been made a king and dared to look down on me. She hated that.” Suddenly he could hold his emotions in check no longer. He found himself sobbing helplessly at the memory of his former humiliations—and the irony that he was now King of Jerusalem but Eschiva was not with him to triumph.

  Isabella opened her arms and pulled her husband to her breast. She held him and brushed her hands gently over his rough, graying hair as he shook with sobs. She did not speak, just held him until he had calmed himself.

  That night they slept chastely in each other’s arms, yet both found comfort and peace that neither had expected.

  Acre, Kingdom of Jerusalem, December 1197

  “Father!” Aimery greeted Balian with open arms.

  “Spare me!” Balian answered. “My impudent daughter Meg is going to get her wish for a beardless bridegroom, simply because I can’t stand the thought of yet another son-in-law who is older than I am.”

  Aimery laughed heartily and gestured toward a table in the open doors giving access to a balcony.

  “You do know,” Balian remarked, eyeing the open doors suspiciously, “that it was the railing of the balcony in the next room that gave way, sending Champagne to his death?”

  “Yes, I know. Just one wrong step . . . But we’re safe here. Come, sit down. I have a lot to discuss with the First Baron of my realm.”

  “You seem to be in remarkably good spirits,” Balian noted with a penetrating sidelong glance. Aimery looked refreshed and energized as he had not since Eschiva’s death.

  “Indeed,” Aimery agreed. “Surely you know that a young bride is the fountain of youth?”

  “Hmm,” Balian answered ambiguously. After all, he had been the one to convey Isabella’s condition that the marriage be completely formal and unconsummated.

  “You don’t have to look at me like that. I have not broken my word, as your lady wife will be able to attest after she’s seen Isabella. Nevertheless, Isabella and I are going to get along very well.
We have already agreed on a number of things.”

  “That is very encouraging,” Balian noted cautiously and a little warily.

  “First of all,” Aimery announced happily, “I don’t know why Champagne was so reluctant for a coronation. It’s past time Isabella was crowned and anointed. She’s been Queen of Jerusalem since her sister died eight years ago—and had we crowned her then, my brother would not have found it so easy to bend England’s ear. Conrad would certainly have insisted on a coronation, but Champagne’s reluctance has denied Isabella her anointing these past five years, quite unnecessarily. I intend to set that straight, and will order that the Patriarch prepare a coronation for us both shortly after the turn of the year.”

  Balian nodded approval.

  “Second—something you and I have talked about before—we need to pull together everyone’s memories of the laws of Jerusalem and codify them, or at least record them before we forget.”

  Again, Balian nodded.

  “Third, Isabella is very concerned about these German crusaders, who appear to take no account of her interests or those of her subjects. She does not trust them, and she fears they may do more harm than good. They failed to relieve Jaffa, and now it has fallen to al-Adil. What we’re hearing is that they have plundered and slighted Beirut to the point where, reports say, it is no longer habitable. That’s not in anyone’s interest.”