Antichrist

by Cecelia Holland

  His attendants—the pages, the officers of his court, Fulk and Ezzo and Guy Embriaco, Balian and Conrad—fell into the line in ranks of four, wearing their fortunes on their backs. Those not going ran along beside the little cavalcade, cheering and shouting. Frederick’s horse took a violent dislike to Yusuf’s, just behind and to one side, and, kept swinging its rump around to kick, and Frederick jabbed it in the mouth with the bit. Whoever had gotten him this horse was going to answer for it—the horse lowered its head, took hold of the bit, and shied, grunting. They left the camp and the crowd of screaming people behind.

  “Yusuf, do you have a stick?”

  Yusuf reined his horse up next to Frederick’s and reached out to hand him his leather-bound riding whip. Frederick grabbed it; while he was off balance the horse darted swiftly to the other side, nearly dumping him. Up ahead, the Archbishop twisted his neck awkwardly to look. Because of all the trappings and harness, finding a place to whip the horse turned out to be almost as much trouble as staying with its mad leaps from side to side, and finally Frederick slashed it hard across the neck. The horse bucked. He brought the stick down as hard as he could, jabbed his spurs in, and yanked the horse in the mouth, all at the same time. God, if I have to change horses, I’ll kill this brute. But the horse subsided, sulking.

  They moved elegantly across the barren sand; the fluttering banners cast their shadows over the ground and the riders, and the sunlight bounced off the armor and all that gold. Frederick began to consider a charge of Templars tearing them to pieces. This is all very pretty, but it does have its drawbacks. He handed the stick back to Yusuf, who at a signal from Ayub jogged out of the line and galloped up ahead to see if al-Kamil had reached the meeting place yet. All along the line heads turned to watch him pass, his white robes streaming around him.

  Theophano . . . He’d missed her last night; he’d crawled into a camp bed alone and tossed around, thinking about the meeting, unable to get comfortable. If she’d been there I could have gone to sleep. I could have made love until I was so tired I had to sleep. Something she’d said came back to him—“Write me a poem in Greek, something I can keep.” She’s going to leave me. His heart clenched. I won’t let her. take her back with me even if she doesn’t want to go. But if she doesn’t want to go? What if she doesn’t want me anymore? He closed his eyes. I won’t take it. I won’t let her—The horse sensed that he wasn’t paying attention and coiled up into a terrific buck, and he hauled on the bit and slashed with his spurs, and the horse bounded sideways out of the line, its head thrown back and its nose up, kicking out.

  Up near the horizon the tops of trees appeared, and Yusuf was coming back, like a white bird with his robes flying around him, waving his arms. The knights called out to him. Frederick forced his horse back into the line, and Ayub screamed in Arabic, “Is he there yet?”

  Yusuf reined in hard. “He’s coming into the camp. The tent’s bright green, it’s beautiful—wait until you see it.”

  Ayub looked back, and Frederick nodded. The unhappy yearning for Theophano tugged at his mind and he crushed it back. No, let’s do this right. He raised his arm, and the Grand Master circled back to ride beside him.

  “Well go in now,” Frederick said. “Do you remember the order?”

  The Grand Master nodded. Bright and dark, his eyes fixed on Frederick’s face. “Sire,” he said, “you are about to recover Jerusalem.” Abruptly his face split into a tremendous smile, and he took Frederick’s hand in his mailed glove and kissed it. With his head back, he cantered up to the head of the line and yelled to his standard-bearer, and the gonfalon swung in an arc across the sky.

  Jerusalem. Of course; he’d almost forgotten. The blazing happiness in the old man’s face struck him again through his memory. But that isn’t really why I’m here—it’s because of Sicily, not Jerusalem, to save Sicily. They don’t know that. I am their instrument for something else. He felt suddenly deserted, as if he’d taken one fork of the road and they’d gone happily off down the other, not noticing.

  The Teutonic knights swung out of line and formed up in four ranks, wide apart, their lances at salute. Balian of Sidon trotted up, calling out to the others, who broke up their triple file and milled around; Balian, Conrad of Hohenlohe, Tommaso and the Archbishop gathered in a tight rank in front of Frederick, with the Saracens on either side and behind him, and the rest of his retinue organized themselves into a square around them all. Tommaso looked up at the banner to make sure it hadn’t gotten fouled on the staff, and Ayub rode hastily up to give the standard of Jerusalem to Balian. For a moment, while they got the heavy staff settled in Balian’s stirrup, the tasseled silk draped itself over them. Frederick’s horse shied tentatively.

  They rode over the low rise and down the slope toward the camp called Saint Paul’s Well by the Crusaders and the Well of the Hawk by the Moslems. Shaking in the slight breeze, the huge green tent sprawled across the dun-colored ground. Al-Kamil was just entering the camp from the far side, his retinue got up in ostrich plumes and cloth of gold in spite of the heat of the noon sun. Before the well, in among the dusty date palms, white camels lay, each with a Moslem soldier standing at its head. Frederick stood in his stirrups, looking for al-Kamil. After all those letters, my my. The knights rode down and stopped in a crescent, facing the Moslems, the Grand Master in the midst of them.

  In al-Kamil’s train, drums started up; on Frederick’s side, the flute players and the trumpeters with their dog-headed horns began to play, and Frederick’s horse quit being good. It tried to spin and bolt, but Frederick wrestled it savagely back on course. The horse bucked, reared, and on its hind legs leaped down the slope almost into the palms. A camel bawled. Frederick lost both stirrups. He wondered what al-Kamil would say if the horse pitched him. The drums boomed merrily on, and the horse neighed. Foam splattered across its neck from its mouth, blood-flecked. Somebody yelled somewhere, and the flutes and horns sang out. Frederick set one hand and hauled as hard as he could on the other rein, and the horse shuddered to a braced halt, in between the knights and al-Kamil’s wide-eyed retinue. The drums gave one last boom, and all the horns blasted. The horse quivered violently.

  “Ayub,” Frederick roared, “come get this pig of a horse before I kill it.”

  Ayub, Yusuf and Masuf raced down to him, flung themselves off their horses, and grabbed Frederick’s reins. Masuf held up a napkin. All around them al-Kamil’s and his own retinues were staring, openmouthed. Frederick swiped at the sweat on his face with the napkin, threw it down, and grabbed the reins of Masuf’s white mare. His horse half reared, fighting the hands on its bridle; Frederick kicked it sideways until it was parallel to the mare and scrambled into the other saddle. Grooms from al-Kamil’s side were running up to help, and Frederick backed the white mare neatly away from the frothing, squealing horse, wheeled her, and cantered back up to his place in the line.

  In Arabic and Latin, heralds were proclaiming who everybody was. Frederick mopped his face and surreptitiously scratched his back where the sweat was trickling down his spine. He decided al-Kamil was the bearded man laughing in the middle of a flock of sober younger men.

  “Now, what?” Tommaso said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “How do we get from here to there?”

  “We ride.” Frederick pressed his leg against the white mare’s side, and mercifully, she obeyed, moving out of line and around the end of the knights. The others followed, and from the ranks around them came a cheer. Al-Kamil and his five witnesses were advancing, straightfaced. Passing Fulk, Frederick glanced at him out of the corner of his eye; Fulk was chatting to Ezzo, looking as if he spent the noons of all his days like this, in the middle of the desert dressed like a prince. Frederick grinned.

  Moving at precisely the same speed, he and al-Kamil approached the tent, their banners flapping overhead. Al-Kamil caught Frederick’s eye and smiled, and Frederick grinned. He’d expected an older man—but al-Kamil was older than he, he just looked you
ng. He couldn’t keep from staring into the man’s face: it was a continual shock to remember that he was actually al-Kamil. In front of the tent he dismounted, and al-Kamil an instant later stepped down and came forward.

  “Sultan,” Frederick said. “I’m not sure I know how to speak to you, when we’ve done all our talking with letters.” He saw Fakhr-ad-Din in the midst of al-Kamil’s sons and cousins and lifted one hand to him, and Fakhr-ad-Din bowed.

  Al-Kamil laughed. “I think we’ll learn how. Shall we go inside?”

  He nodded to the door, which had been widened, and a stake set in the middle, to make two entranceways. Solemnly, with their men around them, they walked together into the tent, where it was much cooler. Frederick’s pages scurried past him, bowed to the two rugs set up for them, and arranged themselves around a table loaded with fruit and jugs set in snow. Balian and Tommaso set their standards into the ground, called over pages to hold them, and stood behind Frederick. Opening the box, the Archbishop got out the crown, and gave it to Frederick to put on his own head. The cool edge of the gold made him sigh. Al-Kamil’s eldest son, Ayub, took the Sultan’s banner around behind the rug and stood with it, and for a moment they all stood there, looking at each other across six feet of Bokhara carpeting.

  “Well,” al-Kamil said. “One, two, three, sit.”

  Frederick laughed. He let al-Kamil sit down before he did; it seemed the best way to pay him back. Immediately his pages and al-Kamil’s slaves, who seemed to wear nothing but jewels, trotted around with cups and bowls of peaches.

  “Well,” al-Kamil said. “Have you enjoyed your stay in Syria, Sultan?”

  “It’s been interesting. I’ve done lots of things I never did before. And the weather’s certainly better.”

  “Sometime perhaps I could visit Sicily.” Al-Kamil didn’t sound enthusiastic. “I understand you’ve been having difficulties with those of your own faith.”

  “Nothing I can’t deal with, either here or in my own kingdom.” Frederick sipped sherbet and licked his upper lip. “If you came to Sicily, Sultan, we’d show the rest of the world how to entertain kings.”

  “Even lizard kings?”

  Frederick laughed, and Fakhr-ad-Din turned and whispered to al-Adil abu Bakr, who gave Frederick a curious stare and bent to whisper to as-Salih Ayub. Al-Kamil drank milk and wiped his mouth with a napkin.

  “The problem of Jerusalem,” he said, “is one more troublesome than many believe. The city is the holy place of the Christians, of course, but it’s also the holy place of the Jews and the third most holy city of Islam. In a sense it is not mine to give up, nor yours to receive, and before we agree on such a transfer of responsibility, perhaps we should discuss the smaller details.”

  Frederick nodded. Tommaso was translating swiftly into the ear of the scribe sitting on his left, and the whisper of the brush on paper blended with his voice. Frederick said, “Jerusalem above all cities ought never to be fought over, and yet it’s fought over more than any other. If the question in your mind, Sultan, concerns the liberty of the people living there who are not Christian, and the rights of prayer of pilgrims coming to Jerusalem who are not Christian, I can assure you they shall be safeguarded as diligently as if they followed the Cross.”

  Al-Kamil steepled his fingers; behind him his relatives murmured and raised their eyebrows and looked at one another. Fakhr-ad-Din leaned forward and spoke in a low voice to al-Kamil, who turned his head slightly and nodded. Through it all ran the sound of the scribes’ brushes and Tommaso’s voice. Frederick looked up at the peak of the tent, where the silk glowed bright green under the sun.

  “The walls of Jerusalem are in disrepair,” al-Kamil said. “The city lacks the fortifications necessary to defend herself. Would you desire, if you held her, to rebuild these walls, Sultan?”

  Frederick glanced at the Grand Master, who was frowning. In his mind he pulled together all the elements of his argument, taking a moment to organize the words. Looking back across the carpet, he met al-Kamil’s eyes.

  “If it were my choice alone, Sultan, I would tear down the walls entirely. The City of God needs no fortifications. Yet such a decision is beyond even my power to make. Jerusalem is a great city. Ought she to remain in disarray? Yes, I would rebuild the walls.”

  The Moslems behind al-Kamil whispered among themselves.

  “However,” Frederick said, without raising his voice, “I would request of you, Sultan, as I have made clear in my letters, no more territory than the city itself and a strip of land from the coast to Jerusalem, over which pilgrims may travel. I require no more land than that, and without the territory surrounding Jerusalem, she cannot be defended against a serious attack. Therefore, Sultan, you may see that my interests are peaceful, and that I mean to insure the rights of all pilgrims and residents of Jerusalem, for without the means to defend the city, who would risk incurring the wrath of Islam against her?”

  Al-Kamil nodded. “This you have indeed made clear, and I am satisfied that you intend what you say. Yet if the Christians cannot defend the city, they might be seduced into wars of conquest in order to be able to protect her.”

  “Sultan, I will not question your clear-sighted knowledge of the affairs of Syria. However, I would like to point out to you that the Franks have no power to conquer. And while the truce between us lasts I can assure you that there will be no Crusade.”

  “So.” Al-Kamil looked toward the Grand Master. “What does this knight think of such an arrangement?”

  The Grand Master said in his halting Arabic, “The recovery of Jerusalem is my only wish.”

  “Even if the city lay at the mercy of any Moslem attack?” al-Kamil said. “Even if the only assurances against attack were good faith? Even if, at any time, Jerusalem might fall again into the hands of the people you call unbelieving?”

  The Grand Master looked over at Frederick and said in German, “Do you wish me to answer?”

  Frederick snapped, “Tommaso, translate this for them. Say what you want, Hermann. Say what you think.”

  Tommaso translated it loudly into Arabic. The Grand Master frowned, while all the Moslems watched him, their faces carefully inexpressive. Finally he said, “I would have grave reservations about any treaty in which Jerusalem was not fully under the control of Christendom. If the city cannot be defended it isn’t ours, really. A few years ago the Syrian Franks rejected a treaty that would offer them Jerusalem under much the same terms, and for the reasons I have just mentioned.”

  Frederick thought, I doubt we have a right to Jerusalem at all, anyway. He watched al-Kamil mull that over, what the Grand Master had said. If I am Sicilian, how can I own a city in Syria?

  “He is your own man,” al-Kamil said gently. “Yet even he can’t support what, you suggest. Can you imagine, Sultan, what your enemies will say?”

  Frederick turned and beckoned to Corso, who went back to the refreshment table. “Sultan, what my enemies say is of no use to me. My enemies in Sicily are telling my people that I am dead. Am I to lie down and die for them?”

  Corso brought him a cup of sherbet to replace the empty one he held. Behind him Balian cleared his throat—Balian, who held land in Syria, who had to live here when Frederick had gone back home. Al-Kamil’s eyes shifted toward him and back to Frederick.

  “The Haramu’sh-Sharif, you have written, might be left in the hands of Moslems, with Christians allowed to pray there.”

  “That I promise you.”

  The Grand Master said, “The Templars won’t like that.”

  Tommaso began to translate. Frederick said, “Good for them. I won’t help the Templars recover anything, not if I could give them all they want by lifting my right hand.” He bit down on the last word.

  “Moslems may pray in other areas of the city?” al-Kamil said. “For instance, the Mosque of ‘Umar?”

  Frederick nodded. “That’s to be taken for granted.”

  “Between us, Sultan.” Al-Kamil’s teeth showed in a grin. “Betw
een the average Christian and the average Moslem, no. We should discuss the length of the truce.”

  Tommaso said quietly, “We mentioned ten years once, I believe.” He spoke Arabic.

  “I’d prefer a truce for twenty-five years,” Frederick said.

  Al-Kamil sipped milk. Al-Adil abu Bakr leaned forward and spoke to him, one hand gesturing. Under the crown Frederick’s forehead started to itch, and he was getting a headache. He looked around for the Archbishop and made a gesture, and the Archbishop came over, took the crown, and put it gently on the cushion beside him. Frederick ran both hands through his hair and shook his head, relieved.

  “Sultan, you are a young man still, but I am not.” With a gesture al-Kamil sent a slave for fruit. “In twenty-five years I expect to be dead. In twenty-five years you might well be dead. The agreement is fragile enough without depending upon the like minds of our heirs.”

  “In twenty-five years maybe people will have gotten used to the arrangement. In ten, they won’t—they’ll see an end to it.”

  The slave held out a tray to al-Kamil, who took a peach and sent the tray across to Frederick. “You think in terms of changing things for good. I doubt you see the difficulties I do. Sultan, I cannot agree to a twenty-five-year truce.”

  Besides, in ten years maybe you’ll want everything back. Frederick studied the ripe, flawless fruit, took an apple, and sent the tray away.

  “It has never been my purpose to disrupt the balance of Syria. It’s occurred to me more than once that what I do here could have repercussions none of us could predict, not only among the Christians and between Christian and Moslem but in Islam as well. If ten years is suitable to you, I can only agree to it.”

  “Your sentiments are certainly admirable and well taken, Sultan. And, before we go into the details other than Jerusalem itself, I have another point to make, which what you have just said leads into very well. If we conclude a treaty, I must ask you to consider it exclusive, in that you might not negotiate with any other Moslem ruler while this treaty holds.”