The King's Witch

by Cecelia Holland

  King Conrad spent more time than Johanna liked in Acre, where, with the other lords gone, her court was hardly more than a household and could not interest him. He spent much of the day looking over the city, its walls and defenses, rapidly being rebuilt at the direction of Templar masons. In the evening he yawned through the lute-playing and singing and got too drunk, and she was very glad to hear him say he was going on to Cyprus.

  He said, “I can make some arrangements with the merchants there to bring their ships to Tyre, and to Acre also. Thus we will all get rich.” He smiled at her. He was always trying to take her hand; his palms were sweaty, his fingers creased and ugly in their coiled rings.

  She said, “My lord, I should be glad of a few traders in.” When he kissed her hand, she wiped it on her sleeve. He left with many bows, and she sent at once for paper and ink and a quill pen to write to Isabella, in Tyre, that her husband would be gone to Cyprus and she should escape at once. This she managed to send that same morning to Tyre.

  In fact, more ships were coming to Acre’s harbor, and the markets were growing. A few days after Conrad sailed away to Cyprus, she got another packet of letters, and went out into the garden to read them. Berengaria had gone to Mass and would likely be there all day, bobbing and praying. Johanna sat on the bench with the letters in her lap.

  Both were from her mother, the first fretting about Prince John and his endless inept scheming, and the second announcing her alarm that Philip Augustus was reportedly on his way back to France. Apparently he had stopped in Rome and tried to get the Pope to release him from the Crusaders’ peace with Richard. The Pope had not relented.

  Johanna said, under her breath, “The damned Gnome.” But Philip was looking for another wife, and Eleanor took several mean and funny turns on this theme, so Johanna was laughing by the end.

  She crumpled the letters quickly in her hand, lest anyone even see them, and looked around for a brazier. If she burned them, she could not then give them to anyone else. She had realized too late what a mistake that was; now de Sablé had proof that she was loose with the family secrets. She wished she had thought more about that. She wished she had asked Edythe. A page came up the garden walk, and said, “My lord Humphrey de Toron.”

  She folded her hands around the wad of paper in her lap. The slender young lord came up the walk and bowed to her; she was always taken by his elegance at this. All the local lords had this kind of sleek address, as if they lived in a more delicate world than the common Western oaf. In most it was artifice, but Humphrey made it look very fine.

  She said, “God be with you, my lord. Come sit by me.” And when he did, she said, “I have good news. I believe Isabella will be free of Tyre within the week. I have sent to her that Conrad has gone to Cyprus, and she can flee away.”

  The lean young face before her did not smile, as she expected. He said, “My lady, Conrad is going to Tyre.”

  Her heart clenched. She said, “He told me he was going to Cyprus. To make arrangements with merchants.”

  “He lied. He sailed to Tyre.”

  She gripped her fists together. “The dirty swine. Does he know, then? About me and Isabella.”

  “Maybe not. More likely he found out I saw her at the Ladder of Tyre.” Humphrey gave a shake of his head. “Conrad has no use for truth; he lies just to keep his edge. But it’s possible—he could know. He could be managing everything between you and Isabella for his own ends.”

  She closed her hands over her mother’s letters. She thought of what Edythe had said about de Sablé, that he trained her like a dog. Suddenly she hated de Sablé the more for what King Conrad had done. “What a snake he is.”

  Humphrey shrugged.

  “Maybe she can still escape.”

  He sat perched on the bench, rocking slightly back and forth, ready to take flight. “Maybe. Ladymas is soon; there is much celebration in the city then, crowds, processions and Masses, people in the street late into the night. If she cannot, she has the wit to know, and not to try.”

  “Well,” she said. “Then we will have to try again.”

  “Anything is possible.” He bowed his head toward her, and his voice fell, soft, intimate. “My lady, you have my constant gratitude for this. I am in your debt forever.”

  Berengaria’s maids were coming down the walk, and the little Queen after them, with a veil over her face in the Byzantine fashion. Humphrey greeted her with a bent knee and a flourish, and for a moment the three talked of the weather, the quiet of the city with the army gone, the lovely music to be had. Johanna was not staying in the garden while Berengaria was there, and she started up the walk to the citadel, still carrying the letters.

  To her surprise Humphrey followed her. She took this for a compliment, that he attended her rather than the Queen of England. A few of his pages followed. They went across the courtyard and into the bottom of the citadel.

  There in the empty corridor a brazier burned, and she paused long enough to throw the letters into it. Humphrey saw her; he gave her a sharp look but said nothing.

  She said, “Oh, I was just tired of carrying around all that paper.” The letters blazed up. He made no comment, and they went up to her hall and sat there and drank wine and gossiped.

  Twelve

  THE WAY TO JAFFA

  The army marched only in the morning, because of the heat, stopping wherever they found water. Edythe rode on shipboard. The ship glided along just off the beach; she could see individual men, the foot soldiers dragging their javelins, the knights making their horses dance, up there past the fringe of sea grass. The galley kept pace awhile across the narrow water with a cart, drawn by mules, a tall staff in the middle holding a red banner. All morning, the dust clouds hung in the air, and the Saracens’ wavering cries came and went.

  Ayberk pointed to the cart with the banner. “There they take the wounded.”

  In the afternoon when she came ashore she wanted to find the red cart, but Richard had taken a slice across the ribs from a lance. When she reached him, he was standing by a campfire drinking, his shirt already off, and the gash bleeding down his side. His body was more slender than Rouquin’s, his skin white.

  The wound was shallow but long, and she had to sew it. She used silk thread, because he was a King. The hard part was making sure the edges matched. All the while, he stood talking to his officers, sending them here and there, never wincing at the needle. She tied off the last knot, gave him a tonic to drink, smeared yarrow on the cut, and laid a strip of linen over it; since she had seen the texture of the armor padding she had worried that the scab on a healing wound might stick to it, and the linen seemed a good remedy. The squire came with Richard’s shirt.

  Then suddenly something walked over her foot, and she looked down and saw a huge black spider on her toes.

  She screamed and kicked violently; the enormous black mass flew away in a wild high loop through the air. It landed on its back on the ground, many legs squirming above a hairy body the size of her hand. The men around her dodged it, laughing, and Mercadier scooped it up into a helmet.

  He thrust the helmet into her face, and she recoiled, with another scream.

  Now they were all laughing at her. It was a joke; they had planned it. She scowled at them, outraged, humiliated, and that made them laugh more, even Richard. She could hear the spider’s claws tapping on the sides of the helmet. She stood up straight and walked back into the tent to be alone.

  On the galley she sailed by flat sandy beaches, past deserted villages, rock outcrops, old walls, and broken towers. The heat was relentless, soaking her through to the skin even under the screen of her tent. She kept the sides up, but there was no wind. In the distance rose plumes of smoke. Ayberk told her the Saracens were burning the villages ahead of the Crusaders, to deny them supplies, but of course the fleet carried supplies enough.

  On the ship she ate bread and drank sour wine. At night, when she walked into the camp, she ate what the men ate. Every few days they heard Mass,
the whole army chanting at once. Holy Sepulcher, help us. One evening she reached the tent before the King was there, and a man-at-arms in a green and red striped jacket came up to her.

  “Please. Lady, please. My brother. Can you help? Please help me.”

  He was younger than she was, a scrawny straw-haired boy with buck teeth. His French sounded like hers. She went after him, down through the camp.

  Usually all she saw of the camp was going through it on her way to Richard’s tent, when the army was just moving in. Now they were all sitting around their fires, cutting wood, bellowing and drinking, half-naked in the heat. She walked through them as fast as she could, following the yellow-headed boy.

  Somebody hooted after her. Somebody else hissed. “Take care. That’s Richard’s witch.”

  After that she walked easier. She thought now, also, she should have just stepped on the spider.

  The bucktoothed boy took her to the cart with the banner, where the wounded were taken. There were several wounded lying on the ground around the cart, and three gowned men standing around, but the bucktoothed boy led her around behind the cart, to where another man lay on a blanket.

  She could see at once that he was dying. He was pale and he breathed in little gasps, and his wide eyes were unseeing. Matter dribbled from his nose. She knelt down beside him. One of the gowned men came toward her.

  “God’s greeting. I am Doctor Roger Besac—can you bleed this man?”

  She started, angry. They thought she was a common bloodletter. She said, “No—he’s dying; it won’t do any good anyway. Get a priest.”

  Roger Besac looked at the bucktoothed boy. “I told you,” he said, and went around the cart again.

  She sat down by the dying man. “How was he hurt?” She touched his throat, to feel the pulse from his brain, and it was thin and fluttery and she knew there was no hope.

  “His head,” the bucktoothed boy said. “Not even fighting. He fell asleep and fell under a wagon and it rolled over his head.”

  “Ah,” she said. “Ah,” and laid her hand gently on the man’s matted, filthy hair. The wide dark eyes looked at nothing. The matter issuing from his nose smelled bad. She felt the print of the wagon wheel crossing the bone beneath her fingers.

  The priest came with his oil and his mumbles, and she got up to give him room. The bucktoothed boy was sitting on the ground crying. She crouched beside him a moment, but he turned away from her and put his arms across his face.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, and he shuddered away from her.

  Useless, she walked up toward Richard’s tent again; her body felt like stone. She began to cry silently, tears dripping down her cheeks. She remembered the beggar saying, “Everybody loses.”

  “Edythe.” Rouquin came up to her.

  She gathered herself, shaken, telling herself she had seen men die before, that sometimes it was better to die. The big knight scowled at her. He had taken off his mail but still wore the jack, and he stank. “Where were you? He is looking for you.”

  “Is he hurt?” she said.

  “He’s fine. He’s the greatest fighter in the army. Any army. Nobody can get near enough to him to hurt him.”

  She knew this to be untrue. She hoped no one could get so near to Rouquin. Talking steadied her. Drove the dark away. She had to keep herself from reaching out to him. Instead she said, “How do those wounds feel?”

  “They still itch a little. It’s all right. It’s my shield arm. I just let the bastards get too close, pulling Mercadier out of there.”

  She wiped her eyes. He was watching her intently, and he said, “What happened?”

  She started up toward the tent again. “Somebody died. They asked me to help him, but I couldn’t.”

  He walked beside her, unlacing the top of his jacket, sodden with sweat. “Damn, woman, you can’t save everybody. You’re supposed to be Richard’s doctor, not the whole world’s.”

  “I can’t save anybody.” She thought, Tomorrow he could be dead. I could be dead. And never have what we both want. The whole world shrank down to this moment. She stopped and put her hand on his arm.

  “Rouquin—”

  He faced her with that same hard look. “What?”

  She felt, suddenly, everybody watching them. She said, “Nothing.” She went on toward the King’s tent.

  At the fire, a cook gave her meat and bread, and she took it into the tent to eat, where she could sit with her back to a crate. The tent door darkened a moment and Rouquin came through, a cup in his hand, and sat down beside her.

  He did not speak, only put the cup between them. The jack was gone and he was wearing a dry shirt, the sleeves torn off, his arms bulky with muscle, scratched and scarred. He smelled slightly better.

  She said, “It seems so hard. Fighting like this.” She took the cup and drank some of the unwatered wine; it was half-turned. With a glob of honey it would be oxymel. She ate more bread.

  “It isn’t what I’m used to,” he said. “At home, it’s all ambushes and raids, home by morning. This marching, marching, the heat, the Saracens like gnats all around us, and we don’t even strike back—I don’t know how this will end. We can’t beat them; they can’t beat us.”

  “Won’t it end in Jerusalem?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. I just follow Richard.” His hand scrubbed through his hair. He said, quietly, “It’s different, is all. Everything here is different.”

  Maybe talking eased him, as it had her. She remembered when they had sat together beside the sick King; he was that Rouquin now, not angry, nor harsh, but inward and unsure, even his voice lower. He picked up the wine and drank some and spat it out. “God, this is privy dribble.”

  She laughed; he turned smiling to her. Then Richard’s voice sounded outside.

  “Rouq’, come here.”

  He grunted. “I knew this was going to happen.” He got up and stalked off; in the light of the doorway, she saw him pull his belt up, square his shoulders, make himself again into the outward Rouquin. She ate the rest of her dinner, hoping he would come back, but he did not.

  Rouquin roused his men in the dark before dawn; the fleet had already left, with Edythe safe aboard. He harried his men along, getting them moving off before the sun broke up over the horizon. Ahead, in the first gray light, spindling trees covered the rolling coastal plain. Their leaves were turning and the whole wood looked like a smear of yellow across his path. He rode on the left flank, with the Templars, the vanguard spread out in several ranks ahead of him. Their banner had already disappeared into the wood. Rouquin turned to Mercadier and pointed a finger and pushed his palm forward, and the Brabanter officer went up to move the men in closer to the vanguard’s flank.

  The sun rose red as blood on his left. Richard, trailing squires, Hugh of Burgundy, and Guy de Lusignan, rode up beside Rouquin and reined his horse in. He leaned his forearm on his saddle pommel; his mail glove glinted back the first red daylight.

  “You said this wood is an hour’s ride across?”

  “The rear guard should clear it by midmorning. They aren’t big trees, just clumps.” Rouquin had scouted the wood the night before. Guy was looking from one to the other of them, frowning. Hugh was just staring at the trees.

  “And you think Jaffa is close by.”

  “The road to it is.”

  “What day is it?”

  “Unh—” He knew the phases of the moon better than the days of the week.

  Guy said, “Sire, I believe it’s Friday.” He gave Rouquin an apologetic smile.

  Richard sat up straight in the saddle and looked south. “Saladin has been moving along south of us all along. He’s south of us now. I think when we come out of this wood he will attack us. He’ll count on the trees breaking up our line of march. And he cannot let us get to Jaffa.”

  Guy said, “Well, there’s not much left of Jaffa, really.”

  Rouquin ignored that; on things like this Richard was usually right. “So—”

 
“So we form up as close as we can now, through the wood. No straggling. Nobody out of line. The Templars in the vanguard. Your men and mine here on the left, the Angevins on the right side. Guy and Hugh in the middle, and the Hospitallers in the rear guard. We’ll set a screen of foot soldiers in front. You command the vanguard, all across. Make sure they keep going. Stay tight. If we’re attacked, don’t let them charge. No matter what, until I say so.” Richard’s voice was taut. Maybe he wasn’t so sure as he seemed. “I’m depending on you.”

  “I will do it.”

  Richard smacked his arm, by way of parting, and turned to Guy, who was putting on a gaudy plumed helmet. “Come with me.” He galloped off, the other men clattering after him. Rouquin rode forward into the wood.

  The trees were small, crooked, many of their leaves still on the branches, so as the sun rose the wood grew shady. He wove a way through, trying to get around the corner of the vanguard. As Richard had foreseen, moving through the stands of trees was breaking up the march into separate groups of riders and men-at-arms, scattered for almost a mile from the edge of the sea to the far side of the forest.

  He found his own men first, where he had sent them; Mercadier raised a hand to him, and Rouquin lifted his fists over his head and banged them together and Mercadier waved. He would hold the left side of the front line, just behind the men-at-arms. Then Rouquin turned west, toward the sea, where the vanguard was already deep into the forest.

  De Sablé had let his black and white knights spread out, getting through the trees; in the shadowy light, they looked like many more than they were, but they were farther apart with every step, straying out of any kind of order. Rouquin reined his horse up to four of them.

  “Where is de Sablé? You’ve got to keep closer together.”

  “How far is it?” The Templar he had spoken to wiped his sweating face on the skirt of his surcoat.

  “Soon. Where’s—”

  “What if they set the forest on fire?”