Knight of Jerusalem

by Helena P. Schrader

  A short but firm knock was followed by the stentorian announcement: “His Grace, King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem!” With this announcement, the man-at-arms at the door brought the Council to their feet—but did not stop the various conversations from continuing as the men stood up.

  The King paused in the doorway, taking in the scene. Had any of his councilmen been looking at him, they would have seen his lips pull back in controlled anger—but no one stopped to watch their King advance to his large, armed chair, covered by a baldachin of satin bearing the arms of Jerusalem. Baldwin took his seat and waited, his inner anger simmering. He allowed himself only one glance at his uncle, who winked at him, but otherwise retained his impassive pose.

  At length the Regent nodded to the Chancellor, and together they stepped down from the window niche to take their places on either side of the King. This signaled to the others that the meeting of the Privy Council was about to begin. The other members broke off their own conversations, while the clerks squirmed themselves comfortable and waited expectantly.

  “The most important item of business today is, of course, the marriage of—”

  “My lord.” Baldwin had to speak out loud to stop the Regent’s flow of words, because the Count had ignored his raised hand.

  Tripoli looked over, startled and annoyed. “What is it, your grace?” he asked, obviously irritated by the interruption.

  “Before we take up the agenda, can anyone in this room tell me what day it is?”

  The men around the table looked blankly at one another—except for Jocelyn de Courtney, who looked down at his hands with a smirk playing around his lips.

  “It’s the Feast of St. Alexis of Edessa—” the Patriarch began automatically, and the Chancellor caught his breath so loudly that they all turned to stare at William of Tyre.

  Only Baldwin remained cool, remarking, “I believe the good Archbishop has grasped the significance of the date—at last.” There was a well of bitterness in those last two words, and the Archbishop of Tyre flushed as he bowed deeply to his King.

  “Your grace does well to admonish me. I can only beg indulgence that negotiations over the marriage of your sister to William of Montferrat . . .” He fell silent, conscious that no excuse was good enough.

  Baldwin offered the Archbishop no respite from his embarrassment, staring at him in his discomfort for several seconds before enlightening the rest of the baffled Council. “Exactly fifteen years ago, on the Feast of St. Alexis of Edessa in the Year of Our Lord 1161, I was born. In consequence, according to the laws and customs of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, my lords, I am no longer a minor.” The meaning of his words had dawned on all the Privy Council members long before he finished speaking. No one replied, however. They just gazed at him, wondering what would come next—except for Edessa, of course, who was grinning triumphantly.

  King Baldwin turned to the Count of Tripoli and spoke slowly and deliberately. “I wish to thank you, my lord, for the great service you have rendered the Kingdom by so ably governing during the years of my minority. I appreciate the great sacrifices you have made in my service, and I wish to state explicitly that I am most pleased with your stewardship.” Baldwin paused and looked directly at the clerks. “Note down that King Baldwin IV thanks the Count of Tripoli warmly and sincerely for his stewardship, and wishes as a token of his gratitude to bestow upon him the right to marry the widow Eschiva of Galilee.” That brought a gasp from some of the men in the room, because Galilee was one of the richest baronies in the Kingdom, owing one hundred knights. To join this with Tripoli made Raymond the richest and most powerful baron in the Kingdom. The gesture was also well calculated to silence any protest from the recipient of the favor—and any suggestions that Baldwin was not pleased with Tripoli’s stewardship. “Now, let us turn to the agenda. You were saying, my lord of Tripoli?”

  Tripoli recovered quickly from his initial surprise. Two years earlier he had believed that Baldwin might die before he came of age, but frequent contact with the King had convinced him otherwise. While Baldwin’s leprosy was irreversible, it appeared to have been arrested. Baldwin’s increased activity after his coronation had given his face a healthy complexion without a trace of corruption. His riding had improved to the point where ordinary men compared him to a centaur, and he walked without apparent difficulty or impediment. His hands and forearms, to be sure, were discolored and lifeless, but they were not covered with ulcers, and none of his limbs had actually become deformed, much less fallen off. Tripoli had long since accepted that Baldwin would reach his maturity and take power for himself; it was just that he had hoped to conclude a few items of business first. For some reason, he’d thought Baldwin’s birthday was not until the end of the month. Now Tripoli bowed his head to Baldwin and thanked him for his “kind words and generosity.” He added, “I have always served you, your grace, with the utmost conscientiousness and with all the facilities in my power.”

  “Thank you,” Baldwin replied simply. “Now, to the first order of business: the marriage of my sister Sibylla.”

  “Yes, your grace. The Marquis of Montferrat has agreed to all our terms with only minor alterations, and is prepared to sail before the autumn storms. He expects to arrive no later than the end of October.”

  “What alterations?” Baldwin wanted to know.

  “They were—” The Chancellor had been about to say they were of no consequence; but reading Baldwin’s mood correctly, he cut himself off, turned to one of the clerks, and set him scampering for a copy of the revised marriage contract.

  “You are certain that the Marquis will sail before the winter?” Baldwin asked the Chancellor after the clerk had departed.

  “Quite certain, your grace.”

  “Then we need to start making plans for the wedding. I want it to be very splendid—almost like a coronation. And my sister has asked that she be attended by our mother on the occasion.”

  The consternation in the room was tangible but unspoken. All eyes turned instantly on her brother, the Count of Edessa, whose smug expression seemed to confirm all suspicions that he was behind this surprise move.

  “I will ask Queen Maria Zoë to return to court as well,” Baldwin continued, as if seeking to mollify his obviously outraged Council. “I want my little sister Isabella to grow up at court.” It sounded innocent enough, but Tripoli’s face revealed just how much he disapproved. He opened his mouth to protest, but then snapped it shut again, unable to think of a way to word his objections that would not sound selfserving.

  The King beamed at his Uncle Jocelyn and declared, “We can all be together. A family at last!”

  “Maybe it is understandable that the King has come to resent me,” the Archbishop of Tyre conceded in a tone of voice that suggested he thought the opposite, “but how, in the name of our everloving Savior, could he turn on you? You! The only man to befriend him when he was treated like a leper! The man who gave him the courage to train the healthy parts of his body, who taught him to ride, who—more than anyone in the entire court—gave him back his smile! How can he just push you aside for that worthless man!”

  “My lord,” Balian tried to calm the Archbishop, “I don’t think the King intended any offense. He has come of age and wants to demonstrate his independence—”

  “Independence that consists of doing everything that weasel whispers into his ear!” Tyre protested.

  Balian sighed, “I admit he is rather taken with his uncle of Edessa at the moment, but I really don’t think he meant to insult either of us. Baldwin has long felt caged. It may have been a gilded cage, but it was a cage all the same, and he felt locked inside. Now he’s broken out, and the last people he wants around him are his former jailers. I can understand that.”

  “Well. Good for you.” The Archbishop looked at him with cold eyes and narrow lips. “That is, undoubtedly, very Christian of you,” he conceded. “But whether you can ‘understand’ or not, the consequences are catastrophic! After tutoring that boy for years,
I can honestly say I never thought he would prove so—not just ungrateful—but foolish! He’s not stupid! He’s wise beyond his years! How can he not see what his mother and her brother are doing to him?”

  “Perhaps we are to blame for that, too, my lord.”

  “Just what is that supposed to mean?” Tyre demanded, looking at Balian with an expression of complete incomprehension.

  Balian shrugged. “We sheltered him, my lord. We surrounded him with genuine respect and affection. How should he now be able to distinguish between respect and flattery—between sincere affection and the pretense of it? How can we expect him to see through the likes of Edessa, when we have spent the better part of the last five years making sure he didn’t have anything to do with such men?”

  “Damn it! No one wanted anything to do with him until he became King!”

  “Edessa says he wanted to be here—but he was in a Saracen prison. And his mother has filled his ears with tales of suffering agony ‘not for losing a crown, but for being separated from my sweet babies.’” Balian could not keep the sarcasm out of his voice as he quoted his sister-in-law. The whole time she had been married to his brother, he couldn’t remember her once referring to her children by Amalric.

  “Ha! So you are more angry than you let on,” Tyre remarked, relieved that Balian was not as saintly as he’d sounded a moment earlier.

  “If I could find a way to remove Agnes de Courtney from the face of the earth without committing a mortal sin, I would spirit her away in an instant. I do not dispute your assessment of the Queen Mother or the Count of Edessa, my lord; I simply don’t think Baldwin is to blame for falling under their spell. He has been starved of affection, especially after his father died.”

  “And you were the one to give it to him!” Tyre returned to his original argument. “He should love you more than the others, for being there when he needed it most!”

  “That’s not the point. After being starved of affection for so long, he finds it intoxicating to have it given lavishly by two people who can honestly claim they were prevented from showing him their love before. They may be hypocrites, but Baldwin is not to blame for believing them.”

  The Archbishop of Tyre sighed and looked at Balian with an annoyed expression of resignation. “I begin to doubt if the King deserves the loyalty you give him, but I stand humbled before you, Sir Balian.”

  Balian shook his head with a wry smile. “No, my lord, that would be inappropriate. It is true that I love Baldwin, and if he wanted me to remain his closest advisor, I would be honored. But after five years in nearly as much isolation as the King himself, I cannot pretend I do not welcome more freedom. I’m twenty-seven years old, and I have nothing to show for it.”

  “What are you talking about?” Tyre was astonished by this selfassessment. “You covered yourself with glory in the campaign against Homs. Tripoli calls you the ablest of his bannerets and said he would—” Tyre cut himself off, as he remembered that Tripoli no longer named the royal bannerets; the Count of Edessa had been appointed seneschal of Jerusalem, with the power to make all appointments. He gazed at Balian with understanding now, and asked, “Where will you go? Your brother—”

  “I’m not that desperate!” Balian cut him off decisively.

  The Archbishop was surprised by Balian’s vehemence, but accepted his sentiments; he was not the only younger son who was uncomfortable serving an older brother. Moreover, he had a higher opinion of Balian than of the Baron of Ramla, and inwardly applauded Balian’s stance. “I know service to a prince of the Church is not considered particularly prestigious or exciting, but it can be lucrative and rewarding nevertheless. I would be happy to offer you service in my household,” he proposed next.

  Balian smiled at that, a little crooked smile that was somehow sad, even as he answered the Archbishop. “Thank you, your grace. I may take you up on it, but I’m not making any decisions today. It’s not as though Baldwin has stopped my pay and thrown me out of his household or banned me from court. I have—and need—time to think.”

  “Of course. That is very wise of you. And my offer will not evaporate in the summer sun. I would be honored to have you in my service. You would be a banneret, of course.”

  Balian thanked the Archbishop again and the churchman continued on his way, leaving Balian by the courtyard fountain of the royal palace where he had found him.

  Walter, who had discreetly removed himself to the shadows of the surrounding arcade as soon as the Archbishop stopped to talk to his master, re-emerged to stand beside Balian. The sun was already hot although it was still early morning, and it glittered on the gently tumbling water.

  “How do you feel about going home to Ramla, Walter?”

  “Ramla?” The squire sounded astonished. His father held a knight’s fee in the barony of Ramla, but Walter’s father wasn’t a rich man, and he had recently taken a new wife. Walter’s face betrayed how much he dreaded going home, even as he dutifully answered, “I’ll go wherever you do, sir.” But he couldn’t help from adding, “I just wonder where Queen Maria Zoë is. I thought the King had sent for her, too.”

  Balian laughed bitterly. “Don’t bark up that tree, Walter. Except for a dusty flower, we’ve had nothing from that quarter—ever.”

  Walter was startled by the bitterness in his master’s voice. He had not heard it there before, and it worried him.

  Jerusalem, August 1176

  Was it really two years since she had left Jerusalem by the dark of night? The memory of wrapping herself in a dusky cloak, putting Isabella to sleep with wine laced with poppy seed, taking the service stairs down to the postern gate, and mounting up outside the city walls was still vivid. And the city itself did not seem to have changed very much: it still gleamed white in the sunlight from miles away, its proud ring of square towers enclosing it like a crown of stone. After entering through St. Stephen’s Gate, the maze of narrow, paved streets, pungent with odors pleasant and vile, and the crowded covered markets with their haggling vendors and customers seemed as familiar as the words of the Ave Maria. The cacophony of different languages and the hordes of pilgrims toiling their way along the Via Dolorosa were no different from the day she’d left.

  Yet so much had changed. The court Maria Zoë had left had been in mourning for a dead King and in shock over the accession of a leper boy. Even prior to that, the court she had known for her seven years as Jerusalem’s Queen had been a sober court, dominated by a man renowned for his military competence and his diplomatic successes, but not for his patronage of the arts or his flamboyance. Amalric had put a great deal of emphasis on displays of wealth and power as tools to enhance the standing and dignity of his Crown, but he did not much care for frivolous entertainment or wanton extravagance. Agnes de Courtney evidently saw things differently, and Agnes de Courtney and her inconsequential brother were setting the tone at court now.

  Maria Zoë came full of prejudice against the pair. She was perfectly aware that she owed her crown to the fact that Agnes had been unacceptable as Queen, and she had been imbued with the notion that she, as a Comnena and a pure virgin bride, was immeasurably superior to her husband’s discarded wife. As for the Comte d’Edessa, he had been characterized to her as a shallow man, content to wear an empty title, a man of ready wit but no wisdom.

  Two years with the Carmelites had no doubt left their mark as well, Maria Zoë admitted to herself. She had not lived as part of their community, but had lived beside it. She had not been governed by their strict rule, but had been surrounded by it. Her cook had ensured she did not suffer the monotony of convent fare, but her isolation had reduced the menu to modest, wholesome foods. The only music she had heard was what they could make themselves: Rahel singing, Maria Zoë playing the cittern, and Abel, the groom, playing his flute. They had taught Isabella her letters with the only book in Latin script that they had with them, a Bible.

  It had been liberating to have no duties, no ceremony, no state banquets, no state processions—and no
husband to answer to. It had been a relief to wear comfortable clothes that were not weighed down with jewels, nor cut to reveal or conceal the state of her belly. It had been delightful to walk barefoot on the sun-warmed tiles of the courtyard, and refreshing to cool off by splashing water onto her face and neck at the fountain.

  Simple life had its pleasures. Maria Zoë knew that now. She knew that she could always go back to it, and it gave her strength to know that she could be content without either the trappings or the substance of wealth and power. She would never be like Agnes de Courtney, so desperate for power that she was enslaved by her own desires.

  But that was not the same thing as being without desires. Maria Zoë was twenty-two years old, and two years with the Carmelites had, if anything, sharpened her awareness of her own senses. She came to crave the bright colors disdained by the sisters, and had taken an interest in stitching merely for the sake of working with the bright threads. She learned to love the taste of each spice and herb because her cook could only use them sparingly, not all mixed together. She learned to love the feel of all things soft—fur and silk and sunlight—because so much of the convent environment had been hard. And she had learned that she did not want to spend her life among women.

  Men were much more interesting. They were interesting because they could go places women dare not go, and they could do things women were incapable of or prohibited from doing. These experiences gave them more to talk about. Men had traveled to the ends of the earth, seen strange lands and exotic peoples; they had conquered the seas by harnessing the wind, fought wild beasts, and vanquished countless foes. What did women have to talk about that compared to such deeds?

  But mostly men were more interesting because they held the reins of power, and so what they did was important. After the initial novelty of her flight and isolation had worn off, Maria Zoë realized that what she missed most was not the luxuries of the court, but simply knowing what was going on in the world. It was not long before she was wondering how Baldwin was doing, whether Salah-ad-Din had defeated his rivals, whether her great-uncle had pushed back the Seljuks—and everything else that might be happening out there in the wide world.