Antichrist

by Cecelia Holland

  “Yes. Well, one. If I were you, Sultan, I would replace the . . . unfortunate gentleman now with my Lord with Tommaso d’Aquino and Berardo the Archbishop, if he’s here. The Sultan doesn’t like the one he got.”

  “Oh. I forgot, Tommaso plays good chess.”

  “And this business of going to Jaffa, Frederick, now really.”

  Frederick cocked his eyebrows at him. “Don’t brag. You do have excellent spies, I already know that. I—”

  Fakhr-ad-Din looked past him and beamed. “Corso. I should have taken it for granted.”

  Corso knelt, holding out a tray, and made a pleasant face at both of them. “I heard that the most excellent Emir was here and naturally I had to come say that one Sicilian at least is overjoyed that you’ve come back.”

  “But you speak Italian,” Fakhr-ad-Din said. “I didn’t forget your language, but you forgot mine.”

  Corso blushed. “I didn’t get much practice. Shall I leave the tray, Sire?”

  “Yes.” Frederick kicked at him. “You’ve disgraced me.”

  “Sire.” Corso made another face and fled.

  “Well. I see you didn’t budge without the comforts of Sicily.” Fakhr-ad-Din scooped up a fruit. “But our peaches are better than yours.”

  “I’m taking some slips from your trees back with me. Provided I ever go back. I might have to stay here and become a learned professor at a madrassah. You know I can’t go back without Jerusalem.”

  “How wonderful it would be to have you with us forever. Speaking of learned professors, you recall the teacher of mathematics I had with me in Sicily?”

  “No.”

  “That’s because you didn’t like him. He was caught stealing other people’s proofs in solid geometry and sold on the block. Brought very little.”

  Frederick howled. “My, you’re rough. How good are your spies, really? I have to go to Jaffa.”

  “Simply because it’s closer to—”

  “Because everybody here wants me dead.”

  Fakhr-ad-Din’s face altered slightly; his eyes searched Frederick’s face. “And they pushed you down the stairs?”

  “No, I was joking. They ambushed me in the street. Hasan is dead. They killed him.”

  “Who?”

  “The Templars.”

  Fakhr-ad-Din’s lips drew back from his teeth. “How ugly of them. No. Our spies didn’t report that.”

  “They will. It’s all over Acre.”

  Fakhr-ad-Din jerked his smile back into place. “Jaffa will be a superb place for your retirement. I’m told the ground is lovely for gardens.”

  “Yes. And how is Khwaresm behaving these days?”

  “Khwaresm?” Both shaggy eyebrows arched up. “My dear fellow, how nasty of you. Your spies must be as good as ours.”

  “Quite.”

  “Khwaresm loves us like a brother.”

  “I understand this new Shah is just as ambitious as his father, and he doesn’t seem to have learned from his father’s unfortunate experience with a certain other tribe of which we really ought to talk. They tell me this Shah definitely wants Syria. He does control Baghdad, after all, and Baghdad without—”

  “Sufficient. Yes. Jelal-ad-Din is an irritation to my lord al-Kamil, and al-Mu’azzam at one point acknowledged the sovereignty of Khwaresm over Damascus, which only proves one need not be Christian to be a damned fool.”

  Peach juice dribbled down Frederick’s chin and he swiped at it with the back of his hand. The sun cast his shadow over Fakhr-ad-Din’s white-robed knees. “Yes. Now tell me what’s behind Khwaresm.”

  “The Mongols.”

  “Yes.”

  Fakhr-ad-Din tossed a peach pit into the bushes. “If you ever saw them you’d think they were beasts, not men at all. They’re little, heavy-set, crooked, and intolerably ugly, We had two of their khans to court a few years ago. The damnable thing is that they are men, and they’re intelligent. They learn fast. Ten years ago, when we first encountered them, they didn’t know how to siege cities, but now . . . it’s a crime, when brutes can be clever.”

  “Shrewd cows and short horns. How is your book?”

  “Oh.” Fakhr-ad-Din made an embarrassed gesture. “I read it and burned it all.”

  “That’s too bad. Why?”

  “Because it wasn’t any good. I’m decent at conversation, but writing just isn’t my sort of thing. Actually, nothing’s my thing, except pleasant talk; if I hadn’t been born the son of a sheikh I’d be a slave.”

  Frederick laughed. “I doubt it. How is al-Kamil?”

  “In his element. He loves negotiations. He’s dickering with en-Nasr, playing games with al-Ashraf, bargaining with you, and up to his armpits in the business of everybody else within reach. He adores it. Whines all day long that he has no peace and quiet. You know him.”

  “I don’t, really. But we’ve exchanged some fine letters.”

  “Ah, yes.” Fakhr-ad-Din looked down at him, grinning. “He was most impressed by the letter this Uberto brought with him. He wondered where you’d gotten so gifted an Arabic scribe. I told him you’d probably written it yourself.”

  “Naturally. Does he think I’d let a scribe handle correspondence that important?”

  “Yes. Well, he says your Arabic is ungodly good.”

  “Of course it is. Come over to the other side of the garden—I want you to meet my new girl.”

  Once they had passed Caesarea the Jaffa road ran along the coast, past a sea so blue Frederick caught Theophano staring at it for hours and understood. Shortly after they’d left Acre, another Saracen had joined his bodyguard, a man named Feisal, quiet and unobtrusive. After Frederick made sure he was an Assassin, he kept him apart from Fakhr-ad-Din and told Ayub to see that the two never met.

  The sea rolled white as cream in to the beach, turned to a pale, fiery blue just beyond the surf, so clear that from the hillside above it Frederick could see submerged rocks, and deepened gradually to a deep, rich blue that ran on to the horizon, and beyond the horizon was Sicily. He dreamed of it at night, sleeping in Theophano’s litter with her arms around him, the macchia, sere and barren after the long summer, the marsh and Crane Bay with its cattails.

  They were short of supplies, and nobody knew where the fleet was. Sometimes, reining up on top of a crest in the road, he turned and looked back and saw the train of people following him, stretching back along the pale dust of the road between the darker brown of the low scrub grass: thousands of people, because the German pilgrims in Acre had come too, hoping he would take them to Jerusalem. It depressed him. They had no reason to have such faith in him—nobody should ever trust any other man so much. After a while he decided that he felt that way because he was afraid he would fail. Fakhr-ad-Din had said that al-Kamil might not be able to give him anything.

  Pay for it. He nudged his horse forward again; they had to move slowly because so many people had to walk. Ahead, Theophano’s litter swayed heavily down a hillside, the colors already faded by the sun to the color of the dust in the road. Pay for it, and he needs peace, so give him peace. You told him that already. I will promise you no more Crusades if you will give me Jerusalem. No more Crusades . . . The Christians were tired of that game anyway, now they sent their children out for their salvation, or they sacked Constantinople. It was never a good idea.

  He saw the Freidank, far ahead, singing to a group of knights. If you believe that, why are you on Crusade? Because . . because because. The heat and the sunlight made him thirsty but there was no water, not for another hour. Or more. Beside him the Assassin rode, silent as ever, his dark eyes on the sea. I wish I could go to Alamut and see the Sheikh.

  Fulk rode up alongside him. “The Emir is coming.”

  “Oh. Thank you.” He twisted in his saddle and looked back. A faint plume of dust off to one side showed where Fakhr-ad-Din was trotting his horse to catch up. Frederick looked at the Assassin.

  “Ride up by that litter, Feisal.”

  The Assassin wit
hout a word kicked his horse into a jog and swung out of line. Fulk was riding beside Frederick, wiping the dust from his face with a scarf. He caught Frederick looking at him and grinned.

  “Did you ever wonder what the hell we’re doing here?” Frederick said.

  “No. I leave that wondering to you, Sire.”

  Wondering’s bad for the mind. I have to stop thinking so much, I tie myself in knots and get nowhere. But the depression dragged at him, drawing him down. Waiting for Fakhr-ad-Din to catch up and start talking, he looked toward the sea and wished he could go home.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  “Sicily.”

  She touched his arm. On the other side of the fire, Fakhr-ad-Din looked up from his book and smiled. Frederick put his chin back in his hands.

  “Do you want me to find the Freidank for you?” Theophano said.

  “No, I’m tired of his music. Leave me alone, I’ll be all right.”

  She left him alone, rare for a woman. He thought of Adelaide, who always brought him presents and insisted on talking to him when he felt like this. Have I ever felt like this before? Certainly. And in a while I’ll get angry and start yelling at people. How predictable I am. Oh, Christ. Will you stop thinking.

  Theophano was talking to Fakhr-ad-Din in her slow, accented Arabic. She treats everybody as kindly as she treats me. Is that good or bad? He wondered if Fakhr-ad-Din got the same jolt when she looked at him, if Fakhr-ad-Din hunted for things to say that would make her stop and think and say, “That’s right. I didn’t consider that.” Now he was telling her about a Cordovan poet. Damn her, she should talk to me.

  He stood up, and both of them looked at him, surprised. Without a word he walked out of the firelight, headed for the cliff over the sea. Immediately his Saracens grouped themselves around him. I’m never alone, I’m not permitted to be alone. They passed the fires of the knights, the pilgrims; nobody noticed him. All across the hillside the campfires glowed. All the way back to the road, hundreds of them. He turned his back on them and sat down cross-legged on the edge of the little cliff and listened to the boom and hiss of the surf beneath his feet. The Saracens moved off, leaving him by himself.

  What if I can’t take Jerusalem? He made himself think about that. Go home anyway? He’d have to, probably. And fight it out with the Pope for a little bit of a kingdom, everything else lost—the Pope would dictate to him and hedge him in—you failed. Or stay here and live with Theophano on a cliff over the sea, and be forgotten. That would be better. Let them make Heinrich the Emperor. Let Heinrich find out for himself what everybody whispered distorted and warped into his ears. My son. Stupid, conniving little—

  He could smell the shore and the wind, full of dust. They had enough supplies for two more days. After that we go through the usual: send some men out to steal food and when they come back get all indignant and make them pay for it. With my money. No, with Guy Embriaco’s money. If I don’t take Jerusalem and I can’t go home I can’t repay him. Sorry, Guy, old fellow, you lost.

  Something moved right behind him, and he spun around. Theophano sat down beside him. “It’s only me, Red.”

  “Oh.” She’d come looking for him; he felt inordinately pleased. Her hands touched his shoulders, and shifting herself onto her knees, she began to rub his back. With a sigh he relaxed and shut his eyes, and after a moment she reached around in front of him, unlaced his coat and shirt and pulled them off, and her fingers worked on his bare back.

  “Down a little. A little more. To the right. Oooooooh.” He put his head back; her fingertips dug into the sore muscles and soothed and loosened them, and he sighed in rhythm to the strokes of her hands. Forget Sicily, forget Jerusalem, right now it’s all . . . He arched his back and shivered. “Keep going.”

  She laughed softly. Behind her the Saracens would be standing in a semicircle, guarding him. He opened his eyes and looked out to sea, quivering under the touch of her hands, feeling much better.

  What mess,” Fulk said.

  “Well, it certainly isn’t a garden of delights, is it?” Frederick stepped across a gap in the boards and shaded his eyes with his hands, looking out over Jaffa. The brilliant sunlight flashed off the tumbled stones of the city, off the rippling water in the harbor; all around them lay ruined buildings, without roofs, missing walls, filled with dust. In some of the houses people still lived, and huts crowded the sloping hillside behind the city. There was no wall. It reminded Frederick of an unmade bed, the way it sprawled cluttered and filthy around the crescent of the harbor. But they had discovered that most of the wells still ran full of sweet water, and there was certainly a huge supply of building stone.

  “Where do we start?” Fulk said, and shrugged.

  “I need a place to live. Everybody needs a place to live.” Frederick walked around the top of the Angel Tower, where they stood, looking down through the gaps in the boards that covered it. The top three stories of the tower had collapsed, leaving a trunk like a tree that had been chopped down too high. In the dark down there, he saw heaps of stone, iron rods, dust and rats. “Over there.”

  Fulk raised his head to look where he was pointing. A huge rambling ruin of a building lay in what had probably been the next street; signs remained of its gateways and balconies and terraces, and the whole first floor stood nearly intact. “That?” Fulk said, uncertainly.

  “Yes. I want to be able to see everything.” He went to the edge of the tower and jumped down, practically on top of his Saracens. “Let’s get back to the camp and start making plans.”

  Riding back through the city, he saw the knights and the pilgrims scrambling around the wreckage, probably hunting shelter. That had to stop. If they once got comfortable they’d never get to work on improving anything. He kicked his horse into a jog, watching for holes and obstacles in the street. Some of these roads looked like old Roman work, and he decided to dig one of them up to find out if it really was. The Romans had built magnificent roads. He reined in at a place where debris narrowed the street and let Yusuf and the Assassin precede him.

  First they had to clean out the wreck of a building he’d decided would be his palace. Once they’d all started working, everything would go along more smoothly. The Grand Master would simply have to pry his men off their rumps and get them out there with hods and shovels, set an example for the pilgrims. The Cistercians with the army would probably leap to work with small shrill cries of joy: they loved manual labor. Or they were supposed to. If I do some work they’ll all have to do some work. Shame them into it. He remembered how pulling the oar in the galley had skinned his hands, and made a face. They reached the edge of the city, where remnants of the wall thrust up through coarse grass and dusty plants, and he lifted his horse into a canter toward the camp.

  Fakhr-ad-Din, Balian of Sidon, Conrad of Hohenlohe and the Grand Master were waiting outside his tent; when he rode up they dismounted. Yusuf and the Assassin trotted hastily away with the horses, but Frederick caught Fakhr-ad-Din staring thoughtfully after them. He pulled off his filthy cloak and threw it through the door of the tent.

  “Gentlemen.” He clapped his hands together and grinned. “We are going to have fun.”

  Fulk muttered under his breath. Fakhr-ad-Din smiled, but the others, more used to Frederick’s idea of fun, began to twitch. Frederick paced around in a small circle, rubbing his hands together.

  “Hermann. Get all your knights together and give them bags to carry dirt in. Conrad, you arrange for a train of carts to carry away the trash. Balian, you deal with the pilgrims, get them organized and equipped. Fulk—”

  “Excuse me, Sire,” the Grand Master said. “What are we going to do?”

  “Well, first we’re going to clean up my palace, and second we’re going to rebuild the Angel Tower, and after that we’ll work on the wall, and perhaps fourth we’ll rebuild the system of quays around the harbor—”

  Balian’s mouth hung open. Conrad said, “Sire, surely the local peasantry would be—”


  “Idle hands,” Frederick said, beaming. “Devil’s playground. Everybody up, let’s get working.”

  Fakhr-ad-Din laughed. “As an ambassador I feel privileged to observe this.”

  Frederick gave him a look through the corner of his eye, beamed at the others, and ducked into his tent. In the midst of her native maids, Theophano looked up, and her eyes widened. “Where have you been? You’re filthy.”

  “Inspecting.” He yelled for Corso and kicked off his shoes. “You’d better send them into the back while I change my clothes.”

  The maids rose and quietly left. Theophano said, “The rumor’s all around the camp that there’s no more food. People are starting to hoard.”

  “I’ll get some food. At least there’s plenty of water.” Corso got him into fresh hose and a clean shirt. If they were hoarding they’d lost faith in him. Gather them together and feed them loaves and fishes. What do they think I am? Two pages trotted around tidying up after the women, who’d been sewing; they’d left bits of thread and cloth all over everything. Theophano did not sew, she watched. He went over to her and knelt and kissed her.

  “I’ll be back for dinner.”

  Her arms slid around his neck. “All dirty again?” With her face so close, he could see nothing else, and when she smiled it filled his vision. “Go play, Red.”

  He kissed her again and went outside.

  Stripped to their underwear, the knights stooped under the broiling sun, shoveling dirt and chunks of stone into baskets the natives had given them, while mules dragged sledges back and forth from the palace to a place near the main gate where Frederick had ordered the debris dumped. They’d set up casks of fresh water all around the building, so that no one went thirsty. Up on the wall, Frederick could feel the heat draining the sweat from his body. He looked up at the pulleys, shading his eyes.

  “Well, try it. But I think we’ll have to brace up that arm.” He jumped down to the ground. His shirt was black with sweat and dirt and he peeled it off, watching the men rig up the ropes and lower the net to the ground. Three other men started heaving a block of fallen stone toward the net. He paced back and forth, his eyes shifting from the pulleys to the knights. A mule with a sledge moved toward them, and he trotted over to direct it.