The King's Witch

by Cecelia Holland

  Edythe watched her go, puzzled. The Queen had been much on edge of late. She wondered what the reeds had to do with it. Her mind went back to the day on the beach, when she had seen Lilia take a secret summons; that might have been such a reed. So they did have to do with a man. Still she wondered at Johanna’s anger. She looked down at the brazier, where the box was flaming, the reeds already burned.

  The Crusaders had been pouring into Acre from the moment they knew they had won it; the surrendered garrison had withdrawn behind a line of pikes into a little walled quarter with a gate, to wait until their ransom was paid. King Philip, by demand, took charge of guarding them, but Richard had arranged to feed them. The rest of the Crusaders streamed into the city and took over what they willed.

  The Queens and their little households came in near the end of the day, when the camp was all but deserted and the city streets not so full. They entered through the main gate, where now only the French King’s banner and Richard’s flew. Rumor had it the Duke of Austria, whose banner there Rouquin had torn down, had immediately left for the West.

  The army was very short of horses. Richard had sent mounts only for his sister and his wife, so Johanna rode first, with Berengaria beside her. The rest of the women walked after them in a little parade.

  The gate was smashed, still, although already Christians were working on the wall on either side, hauling the great stones back into place. The pavement of the narrow street was broken and dusty. The way took them by the first blasted houses of the city, where the war had reached in, crushed walls and roofs to rubble, and turned the gardens to dust.

  Nonetheless, Acre was theirs; they had brought the city back to Christ. Edythe, walking behind Berengaria, felt her spirits lift, and she looked around her eagerly. They went through the momentary cold darkness beneath an archway. Beyond a gate, the street widened suddenly into a square.

  They were deep inside Acre now. The houses here still had roofs and walls, although all the gates were broken in, the doors beyond were gone, and the gardens in between only dirt and stones. What had been a scaly feather-topped palm tree on a corner was only a rotting six-foot stump.

  Yet it had been beautiful. Here and there on the tops of the walls some decoration still stood, six continuous feet of a filigree of stone, a single carved trefoil. The shapes of the houses invited her. Blank walls sealed them off, but through the open gates and doors she could see the buildings within, painted bright colors, with tiled floors, designs and pictures painted on the outside walls. On some were dark brown handprints that seemed stamped in old blood.

  The place seemed still abandoned. The Crusader army had moved into the city, but it was so big it had swallowed them; she heard a shout, somewhere far off, and a couple of pages ran through a cross street, but the houses they rode by all seemed empty. They rode along a crooked street, past the high blank yellow stone of a wall; balconies jutted above like jaws under the edge of the roof, covered with lattices like strange teeth.

  Her nose picked up the tang of the shore, but none of the teeming odors of life. This place was dead. No birds flew, no pigeons, not even vultures in the pale sky overhead, not a cat sunned itself on a high wall, no dog prowled.

  They came into another paved square, where at the gates of the walled houses guards stood. In the center of the square was a ruined fountain, a stone angel in the middle, his head and one wing broken off. He spilled invisible water from a shell into an empty basin, crusty with dried weed.

  At the foot of the fountain lay a bundle of rags, which the horses shied from. Johanna had ridden past it before a hand reached out from the ragged heap and a feeble voice croaked, “For the love of God. For the love of God.”

  Ahead of Edythe, Berengaria’s horse shied, and one of their escort dropped back to catch its bridle. Edythe’s steps lagged. As they passed, her gaze stayed on the ragged beggar, wondering if this was a man or a woman, Saracen or Christian. It had spoken French. In the shreds of its hood a few gray strands of hair showed.

  No one else was paying any heed to it. Johanna was riding on, Berengaria on her heels. Edythe followed, her head turned to look back at the fountain. The street bent around a corner and they came to a gate, with a square tower beyond, three levels high.

  Guards stood by the gate, and when they went into the courtyard they found it jammed with knights and pages. Johanna said, humorously, “I sense my brother is here somewhere.” Grooms came for the horses, and they all went through the massive front door.

  Into a house. Edythe followed the two Queens in through the door and stopped, overwhelmed. The square stone walls around her were bare and scarred and there was no furniture, but this was a house. For the first time in months she stood under a roof, the walls around her solid and straight and permanent. The pleasure washed over her, as real as food, spiced with simple gratitude. Johanna exclaimed, and Berengaria clapped her hands, her face lifted; they felt the same.

  Edythe drew back, thinking of the beggar. Johanna could manage all this without her, and she went back to the courtyard. If Richard was here, then there was food, and she skirted the main hall, where she heard the glad cries of Eleanor’s children meeting, and down a stairwell to the back.

  Behind this tower the wall closed in on both sides, to a point above the sea. A ruined garden filled the space, but when she went around the corner of the citadel tower, she found wagons, and men lined up to get bread. She could not wait, and she moved around the people, peering over the sides of the crowded wagons. In one, she found a basket of dates, and took a handful.

  She went out again, through the courtyard, to the street, and along it to the square where she had seen the beggar.

  The ragged bundle had shifted, sat up, pressed against the bowl of the fountain, bracing itself on one fleshless arm. Edythe sank down beside it.

  “Alms.” The other hand jerked out toward her. Edythe knew the word, but it was in Greek, not French. She put two of the dates into the withered palm.

  “Unh.” The creature lifted its hand to its nose and sniffed. “Aaaaaah.”

  It was a woman, either really old or really sick. Mad, certainly. Most of her hair was gone. Her face was sunken to the bone, her eyes gummy, the hand with the dates a bone cage. She blinked at Edythe.

  She spoke again, this time, Edythe thought, in Arabic, and put the dates to her mouth. Her lips moved on the food; a fierce shiver went through her. Staring into nothing, she mouthed the dates with toothless gums. The long narrow seeds slipped out between her lips as if by their own power.

  More Crusaders were coming up the street. Edythe said, “Old woman, come to the citadel, I will care for you.”

  The bleary pale eyes groped toward her. Maybe she was blind. How had she lived? She swallowed, but her mouth was still working over the dates. “Go in there?” Date juice trickled down the side of her mouth, and she licked at it. “Do you know what happens in there?” She thrust her hand out. “More.”

  Edythe gave her the rest of the dates. “When did you come here?”

  The old woman made no hurry with the food. She felt over the plump sticky fruits with her fingers, murmuring, almost smiling, chose one, and put it in her mouth. She said, “I have never left here.” Brown date juice collected in the corners of her mouth.

  “You were here during the siege?”

  “I hid.”

  “How did you eat?”

  The old woman put another date into her mouth. The boatshaped stone of the previous one slid down her chin.

  “You were here then when the Christians were here. We’re here again. You’re safe, now.”

  The clouded eyes turned toward her. “Safe. From what? They will lose, too. Everybody loses here.”

  “No,” Edythe said. “This changes everything. Richard will throw down Saladin and take Jerusalem, and the new kingdom will rise up.”

  The old woman gave a sound like a laugh. Her hand reached out again. “More—More—”

  Edythe had no more; she got up and
backed away, wary, now, shaken. “Come to the citadel,” she said. “Tell them the Lady Edythe summoned you.” Richard would win. Then the old woman would understand. Another pack of Crusaders was coming up the street and she ran toward the archway, to get back before Johanna decided to look for her.

  She was almost to the citadel gate when the bells began to ring. All around her, everyone stopped and turned; the porters put down their bales, the guards tipped their lances against the walls, the grooms hitched the horses to the walls. Heavy in the air the great brazen voices boomed, slow, demanding, and all started toward the sound. In the street before the citadel the mass of people all walking together was so thick Edythe could not but join them. They went on a few blocks as more and more people pressed in among them and went in under an arched doorway, and were inside a church.

  The space around them packed them still closer together. Edythe moved steadily forward, pushed on by folk behind her. As she went, she raised her eyes to the old church. It had been looted, the walls stripped and scarred with burns and scrawled Arabic signs. Ahead, before the altar, the wall that had borne the icons was torn apart, the pulpit broken, the sanctuary laid open. One of thousands, packed together, she stood almost against the altar, in the middle of the great hall, and now, suddenly, from hundreds of throats, a great shout rose.

  GLORIA

  Her hair prickled up. The song swelled, a thundering joy, a massive wall of sound, so loud her ears rang.

  GLORIA IN EXCELSIS DEO

  A Templar walked up into the narrow strip of cracked pavement, carrying a bundle; he climbed up a step and fixed his burden there. The crowd fell to a rapt, emphatic hush. Edythe stood on her toes to see. The Templar stood down, gripped the wrapping on the bundle, and pulled it off.

  At the sight such a cry went up from the packed crowd that Edythe sobbed, utterly taken out of herself. There hung a crucifix, the Sacrificed Christ, their Savior.

  They were kneeling around her, and she knelt, her hands together, her heart pounding, lost in their midst. Their voices rose again, in praise, in a savage, exalting joy.

  LAUDAMUS

  Tears spilled down her cheeks. Around her they were crying out to God in gladness, certain they were heard, children running to a happy Father.

  LAUDAMUS TE—

  She clutched her fists to her breast, shaken. She knew no such certainty as this. Christ had died to save them, not her. This victory proved, again, that their God loved them, that they were worthy. But not her. Alone among them she could not stir this faith to life.

  Please, she thought. Something for me, please, let there be something for me, too. She lowered her head on her hands, sobbing. Please.

  The sun had gone down; in the western sky the evening star shone bright as a lamp. Johanna went quietly along the top of the sea wall, looking out to the murmuring dark water. She had told no one she was coming. She knew that was part of this, to tell no one.

  Where the sea wall met the beach, a stair went down into a narrow square behind the blank backs of houses. She waited there a moment, her hands at her sides; the way was steep and went down into darkness. Then from the foot of the stair a man appeared, walking backward, to show her he was there, and she went slowly down the stair to the street.

  He at once came to her and steered her to one side, where the angle of the wall and the stair hid them from all eyes. As he did so the church bells began to ring again, this time for Vespers.

  “You came as bidden,” he said. “Indeed, well behaved, for a Plantagenet.” It was Robert de Sablé, Grand Master of the Templars.

  Johanna said tautly, “I got your message.” She threw the reed down on the ground at his feet. It landed with the bell and star showing. “What do you want?”

  “My lady,” he said, “surely you know what I know of you, or you would not have come at all.”

  Her heart churned like a mill of ice. “I did nothing.”

  He said, “You betrayed your brother to Philip Augustus, his enemy. Do you deny it? What secrets you gave him, the enemy?”

  She said nothing. She remembered the bundle of reeds in Lilia’s box; she knew how he had learned of this, and likely he knew more.

  He said, “How would the King receive this news, do you suppose?”

  “Don’t tell him,” she said. She turned away. Like a gray web her guilt covered her; she could not bear to imagine the look on Richard’s face, even if he forgave her. He might never forgive her. It had seemed right, at first.

  “Then for my silence I shall require some favors,” he said.

  She gritted her teeth. She saw how what she had done had led her to this; it was truth that a woman found a twisting path to everything. She lowered her head.

  “You must stop trying to turn Philip from the Crusade. Already he talks of going home.”

  “Then he is unlikely to change,” she said, looking at the stone wall.

  The man behind her was only a voice. “And you must bend your brother the King toward supporting Conrad for the crown of Jerusalem. Guy has no gift for it. Lionheart must stay, and take back a few more cities, rebuild the kingdom, and then Conrad will fill all our coffers.”

  That was it, she saw; he needed the war, because through it the Templars throve. The price of his silence was that she betray herself. There was a ruthless order in the world, she knew, and she saw it here again, and despised him all the more.

  She said, “Richard prefers Guy.”

  “Change his mind.” The voice was farther away. She turned. He had gone. Her hands were clammy. She put them to her cheeks, terrified.

  The court settled quickly into the citadel. The tower stood three floors high; the great hall filled the ground floor, the women took over the center level, and the King the highest. The Christians driven out when the Muslims came were returning to Acre in streams. They looked more like the Saracens than the Crusaders, the men in long gowns and turbans, the veiled women in black. They chattered in some other language, but most of them spoke good enough French, although with many odd words. Palestino, some of the Crusaders called it.

  Richard had given Guy de Lusignan lordship of the city because he had led the first assault. Guy rushed around judging various claims, allotting this house to that one, and stopping the fights. Richard and the other lords held endless councils on the top floor. Everybody, even the knights, worked to rebuild the city wall and the ruined houses. One morning soon after they came in, Johanna heard a rooster crow. A few days later pigeons fluttered through the market square.

  The weather was baking hot, the sea so blue it hurt the eyes. There was no sign of the Saracen ransom. The captive garrison stayed behind its wall, and every day Richard sent in a ration of bread.

  Johanna had been living in a tent for six weeks, but now swiftly she gathered around her cooks and kitchen knaves, pages, porters, grooms, washerwomen, and seamstresses making them all new gowns of the local cloth. Every day merchants came to her door with the meats and fruits of the whole area, with traded goods and local. She hired several cooks and a Turk to haggle for her. After the camp food anything would be better, and now they ate for hours: shaved meats and cheese, sauces, breads and nuts and fruit, beans, mashes, compotes.

  As hard as Johanna worked, yet the Grand Master’s threat hung heavy over her. She woke up thinking of it and could not sleep at night because of it. But a new secret message from Isabella lightened her heart. This at least was a work with only good in it, and she could make right many wrongs. As soon as she could, she found her cousin Rouquin where they could talk without being overheard.

  “The Queen Isabella has asked me to help her get an annulment of her marriage,” she said. “And she has excellent grounds. She believes Conrad is still married to a woman he met at the Imperial court. He’s her sister’s first husband’s brother, making him well within the forbidden bonds of kinship, and she was wed against her will, no matter what her mother says.”

  She had met Rouquin in the courtyard, which was still crowd
ed with donkeys and wagons; he had been out of the city for two days, on some work for Richard. His men were leading their horses off, and she had guided him back into the shade of the wall, overhung with a flowering vine.

  He said, “So what? All this was true a year ago, and he married her then.” He looked tired. There was blood on his surcoat and he had his helmet in one hand.

  Johanna leaned toward him, breathless with this scheme that did so many things so well. She had the secret letter, and she held it out to him. “We will get her marriage annulled, and then you, you marry her—you will be King of Jerusalem.”

  His jaw fell. Unaccountably he was angry. She had not seen him this angry at her since they were children. She had forgotten the red rage that took him. His eyes glinted. He bristled. He said, “Apparently, anybody can be King of Jerusalem. Is this your way of buying me? Am I a slut you can pay off?” He slapped at the paper in her hand. “Forget this, Johanna. This is trouble.” He walked off, shouting for Mercadier, his officer.

  She told Edythe what had happened, because she had to tell someone. “I don’t know what he meant. It was wicked of him to be angry. I only meant to advance him.”

  “Do you think he would want to stay out here?” Edythe said.

  “No,” Johanna said, reluctantly. She was beginning to see it differently and that meant thinking about things she preferred to forget, and she gave up the idea.

  But the one good thing she could do was gone, now. She felt heavy with ill feeling. At any moment de Sablé could expose her to Richard, a worthless, two-faced sister who had betrayed his Crusade.

  She was putting her whole will into the work of making the household, and yet it did not please her. The food was too little, not good enough, not hot when it reached the table. The new gowns were ill-fitting. She was sharp and scowling, and nothing anybody did served her. More than ever, she longed to go home.