Knight of Jerusalem

by Helena P. Schrader

“And the best cook for a hundred miles—if not more,” Roger added, winning a grateful smile from Demetrius, who remained on his knee.

  Balian gestured him to his feet. “I was always told to beware a thin cook,” Balian jested, but the look of fear on the man’s face made him realize it was too soon for jesting. He corrected his tone and announced, “Dinner smells delicious. I am looking forward to it.” The cook looked relieved at that, and again his eyes darted to Roger.

  “Demetrius learned to cook in the household of the Caliph of Damascus,” Roger explained.

  “Only as a boy, my lord,” Demetrius hastened to assure Balian, afraid this would be held against him.

  “Better than not at all,” Balian returned. “I understand the Caliph maintains some of the largest and best-appointed kitchens in the world.”

  Demetrius nodded vigorously, adding, “I was given as a gift to an imam here when I was still a youth. I was here when the city fell to King Baldwin III, and your generous predecessor allowed me to prove my worth, my lord.”

  “And I will do the same,” Balian assured him, then nodded and retreated. As soon as they were out in the courtyard again, Balian asked Roger, “Why is he so afraid?”

  Roger shrugged. “Lord Godfrey died suddenly of a stomach ailment. The King suspected poison—or Tripoli did—and ordered Demetrius arrested. He was imprisoned for several weeks before Lord Godfrey’s physician convinced Tripoli your predecessor died of the flux, not poison.”

  “He said he was given as a gift. He was a slave?”

  Roger nodded. “Yes, from childhood.” He paused and added, “Demetrius is also a eunuch, my lord.”

  Balian winced inwardly. It was one thing to know about eunuchs in the abstract; it was something else to meet one face to face.

  Roger continued, “I don’t know why, but gelding horses makes them calmer, and gelding men makes them timid.”

  Balian looked sidelong at the hardened sergeant and raised his eyebrows slightly; the remark suggested that Roger had more experience with eunuchs than he had had, but he did not pursue the topic. Instead he allowed himself to be distracted by the sight of his horses being groomed in front of the stables opposite the kitchens.

  While a little boy was busy removing stable stains from the packhorse with a currycomb, the black-skinned youth of the evening before was vigorously brushing the hooves of Balian’s destrier with a stiff, wet brush that removed every clump of mud and manure, leaving the hooves glistening. Behind him, the older man was combing out his palfrey’s tail with long, gentle fingers, separating the hairs just a few at a time. Balian paused to watch the two Ethiopians work until, feeling his eyes on them, they stopped and bowed to him shyly.

  Balian had rarely seen grooms take so much time or show so much gentleness toward high-strung horses. It was more common for grooms to try to show who was master by smacking and shoving and yanking on their leads. He went closer. “I did not catch your names yesterday.”

  The older man nodded and bowed again. “I am Mathewos, my lord, and this is my son Dawit.”

  “Are you from Ascalon?”

  “We are Ethiopians, my lord, although my son was born here in Ascalon eight years after the city was liberated.”

  “Where did you learn about horses?”

  “I learned from my father, and he from his father before him. My grandfather served the Emperors of Ethiopia, but my father came on pilgrimage. He settled in Ascalon because of the horse market here, but in the siege, all his horses were killed and eaten by the garrison. That broke his heart and he died of grief—but I was young, and I found work with the new lord of Ascalon.”

  Balian nodded and went to stand beside his destrier. The youth backed away deferentially, his hands still wet and dirty from the work. “This,” Balian clapped the stallion on his thick neck, “is Gladiator. And that,” he pointed to his chestnut palfrey, “is Jupiter.” The youth smiled shyly at him.

  “You are sixteen, your father says,” Balian addressed the youth.

  The youth nodded vigorously.

  “And you are your father’s oldest son?”

  He nodded again.

  “So you want to follow in his footsteps?”

  The youth nodded.

  Balian turned to Gladiator and combed his fingers through the horse’s bushy forelock while he considered carefully. Since learning he was the only knight in Ascalon, he had decided that Walter had to be knighted sooner rather than later. He was nineteen already, and while he was not particularly adept with either lance or sword, no amount of further training was going to make him significantly better. Knighting him would increase his stature and enable Balian to employ him more flexibly. But that meant he needed one or, preferably, two youths to look after his horses, his equipment, and himself. Since there were no other knights or noblemen in Ascalon, he could not look among their sons for squires.

  He turned back to the Ethiopians. “I need a youth to serve as my squire, Mathewos. Would you be willing to lend me Dawit for a few years? Two or three at the most?”

  Mathewos looked astonished; then he bowed very low and came up smiling. “I would be honored, my lord!”

  “And you?” Balian turned to look at the Ethiopian youth, but his grin was so broad he didn’t need to verbalize his answer.

  “Good,” Balian nodded, satisfied. “I will have Walter teach you your duties over the next several weeks.” That settled, Balian started to turn away and continue into the main building, but his eyes fell on the little boy, who was standing on tiptoe and straining to reach, imperfectly, the back of the packhorse with his currycomb. Balian smiled at him and announced, “That is Job, and he loves carrots.”

  The little boy turned around and considered Balian curiously. “What horse doesn’t?” he wanted to know.

  “Mind your manners!” his father bellowed, shocked by such impudence, but Balian laughed and asked Roger Shoreham, “What’s your son’s name?”

  “That jackanapes is Gabriel,” Roger answered, with a frown at the boy but pride in his voice. “And he’s as mad about horses as a healthy journeyman is for women of easy virtue. I expect I’ll have to ’prentice him to a stablemaster.” He shook his head as if in disgust, but Balian heard the pride that seeped through.

  “You have other sons?”

  “Aye. Four altogether.”

  “Tell me about them,” Balian urged.

  “The oldest was ’prenticed to Joachim Zimmermann, the carpenter I was telling you about. He’s a master carpenter now, and married to one of Joachim’s daughters. He hopes to take over the carpentry when the time comes, but he has rivals in his brothers-in-law, so I’m not so sure. The second boy took the cloth and was ordained last year.” Shoreham was clearly proud of this, adding in obvious amazement, “He can read and write!”

  Balian nodded approvingly. “That leaves one more?”

  “Yes, Daniel.” Roger didn’t elaborate.

  “How old is Daniel?”

  “Fifteen now, my lord.”

  “Apprenticed?”

  “Of course, but he’s a bit of a troublemaker, Daniel is. A good boy!” Roger hastened to add. “Sharp as they come and full of spirit and daring, but he’s still a bit wild. He’d make a good soldier, my lord, but my wife won’t hear of it.”

  Balian nodded, storing the information away, and they continued into the main part of the palace. Under the arcade Roger stopped. “Ah, my lord, if you no longer need my services, I—with your permission—would like to attend to my duties. I mean, my other duties. I mean—”

  “Of course,” Balian agreed. “Report back to me at Vespers.”

  “Yes, my lord.” Roger bowed and withdrew toward the stables again, while Balian continued under the arcade to the corner room used by Father Laurence as an office and archive. As he entered, Walter glanced up with a look of relief. “I was beginning to worry something had happened, s— my lord.”

  “Ascalon is not small,” Balian answered, sitting down on the bench beside Walt
er and looking at the priest, who occupied the head of the table.

  Father Laurence had been piqued that Balian had not taken time for him the night before, and even more annoyed to be given second place to Roger this morning. His intelligent face was easy to read, and it was disapproving as he remarked almost sourly, “Nor is Ascalon poor, my lord.”

  “Tell me.”

  “There are a variety of dues and fees owed to you, but the main sources of revenue are the rents that every household in the city owes you and the fees every guild that holds a market must pay. Of course, you also collect the taxes on goods imported into the Kingdom through the port and, more important, the Gaza Gate.”

  “The taxes belong to the King,” Balian noted, watching the priest carefully. There were many men who were happy to cheat a distant king in favor of helping their immediate lord make more money. They expected rewards for their corruption from the man who paid their annuity. But King Baldwin IV was not a distant crown to Balian, and he did not intend to cheat him.

  “Indeed, but you are entitled to one-twelfth of the revenues generated—to cover expenses.”

  “Of course. And just how high are my expenses?”

  “That depends on you, my lord. Do you have a lady?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Then I presume, like your predecessor, you will not do so much entertaining. Lord Godfrey was, however, very generous to the Church.”

  “No doubt,” Balian replied with a mirthless smile. He considered himself a good son of the Church, but he did not like churchmen putting pressure on him to give away income he had not yet collected, let alone enjoyed. “How many households are there in Ascalon?”

  “Roughly four thousand, my lord. The total population is somewhere between twenty-one and twenty-two thousand, not counting transients, of course. At any one time there are usually about twentyfive thousand people in the city. During the important markets at Easter and Ramadan, there can be as many as thirty thousand.”

  “And the Constable’s average annual income?”

  “Close to twenty-five thousand dinar.”

  Walter caught his breath, suitably impressed, but Balian kept his own expression impassive. The Constable also paid the garrison and was responsible for their equipment and the upkeep of the walls—huge expenses. “And the average expenses of my predecessor?”

  “A little over twenty-two thousand dinar.”

  “Without entertaining or building?”

  “Correct, my lord—but there are certainly a variety of means to increase revenues, if you find these inadequate.”

  “For example?”

  “Rents are very low because there were so many vacant houses initially that to encourage settlement, rents were set low. Now that the population is roughly what it was before the Egyptians were driven out, you could afford to raise the rents.”

  Balian did not like the idea; it was the kind of thing that made common people feel they had been betrayed. People had been known to riot for less cause. Besides, he remembered what Roger said about many of the residents being either former crusaders who would help defend the city, or refugees from Egypt. Both kinds of residents made good defenders, and he would not want to see them leave to be replaced with the type who could pay more but would also be quicker to make terms with the enemy to save their property.

  “I think the guilds and passing merchants a better milk-cow, Father, but for the moment the discussion is purely theoretical. The walls are in excellent condition, and I see no need for major building projects or lavish entertaining. We will work with what we have—for now.”

  “As you wish, my lord.” Father Laurence bowed his head graciously, but Balian sensed continued disapproval.

  “How large is my household?” Balian asked next.

  “Twenty-eight.” That sounded reasonable.

  “What else do I need to know?”

  “Since this is a Crown domain, as Constable you are the King’s representative and hold court in his name. There has been no court here since your predecessor’s death—which explains the large crowd out in front.” Father Laurence gestured toward the window facing the street; although narrow and glazed with thick, milky glass, it still let in a dull rumble of voices.

  Balian nodded. “I will hold court after dinner. I will need clerks to record the names of the people seeking audience, and someone to take notes of the proceedings as well. Are there household clerks available for these tasks?”

  “Yes, there are two clerks.”

  Balian nodded and got to his feet. “I think that is enough for now. I will—no, there is one thing more: I want a hall of some kind. You can arrange that?”

  “Yes, my lord, of course.” The two men exchanged a look that suggested that for the first time, Father Laurence approved of something Balian had decided. That was a start, Balian concluded.

  As he walked out of the room, he glanced up at the clear sky over his courtyard, and still could not believe it. He was master of twenty-two thousand souls with an income of three thousand dinar! It might not be hereditary, and he might hold it only at the whim and in the name of the King, but it was a success that even Barry could not belittle. And it was only a beginning, he vowed.

  Chapter 8

  Ascalon, September 1176

  THE PACE OF THE MUSIC (IF not the quality) was increasing as the musicians and their audience became more and more inebriated. The bride’s garland of flowers was slipping farther and farther off her head as she spun on the arm of first her bridegroom and then all his guild brothers. Despite the canvas stretched across the cobbled courtyard of the smithy, the late afternoon sun was so hot that she was the color of boiled crab under her bright, blond curls, free of covering veils for the last time in her life. Most of all, her laughter was contagious.

  Chuckling as he left the floor to make way for younger dancers, George Smith thumped himself down on a bench beside his old friend and companion-in-arms, Sergeant Roger Shoreham. Smith, too, was beet red from the heat and the exertion of dancing, and he used the back of his arm to wipe away the sweat dripping down his brow. Then he grabbed a tankard of ale from the tray of a passing servant and declared, “I’ll be damned if she ain’t the prettiest bride I’ve ever seen. Good housekeeper, too, or so my boy says.”

  “Oh, I think you can count on that,” Roger agreed, clunking his large pottery tankard with that of the father of the groom. “All Joachim’s girls have been well trained by their mother to keep a proper house.” Roger could speak with authority since his eldest boy, Edwin, was married to the second Zimmermann girl, the bride’s older sister.

  “I guess we’re kin now,” Smith declared, nodding smugly, before gulping down half the ale in his tankard to quench his thirst.

  “Indeed,” Roger agreed, clunking tankards again. “Which I didn’t expect, seeing as we both have only boys.”

  “Speaking of which, what’s this I hear about Daniel running away from his apprenticeship?”

  Roger frowned. It was a subject he would have preferred not to discuss on a happy occasion such as this, but it was the scandal of the town, and he could hardly expect Smith to ignore it. “The boy’s a disgrace! He was late to work, impudent, and then when Fulk thrashed him—as he well deserved—he ran away. Fulk says he won’t have him back, not for anything,” Roger admitted glumly, shaking his head.

  Smith nodded sympathetically, noting, “Daniel always had a wild streak in him. He got into all kinds of scrapes as a boy.”

  Roger growled. “Well, at fifteen he’s not a boy anymore! And who’ll take him on after this? No master worth his salt will hire an apprentice with Daniel’s reputation. His mother is in despair and thinks he should be given to a monastery to learn discipline.”

  Smith grunted, expressing eloquently—if nonverbally—Roger’s own doubts. He felt almost obligated to offer Daniel an apprenticeship in his smithy, but was reluctant to do so. Even if he’d known the boy all his life, he didn’t need an apprentice who wasn’t punctual, mu
ch less talked back. He decided to change the subject before Roger thought to ask him outright for the favor, since it would have been hard to deny him when they’d just become kin. “What’s your opinion of the new Constable, now that he’s been here three weeks?”

  “Sir Balian?” Roger asked, surprised but relieved to change the subject from his troublesome son. “I like him. He’s not the kind of lord to lord it over you, if you know what I mean. He always talks to me man to man. But he’s clever, too. Father Laurence didn’t want to like him. I don’t know why, just snobby as he is, I guess. But then this Coptic shopkeeper brought a complaint against an Arab merchant and Father Laurence wanted an interpreter, only to have Sir Balian put him in his place: declared he could speak Arabic and proceeded to prove it. And did you hear he’s talked the Hospitallers into stationing ten knights in Ascalon?”

  “How did he manage that?” Smith asked in amazement, his hands resting on his knees, the tankard still in his right fist.

  “He invited the Hospitaller Marshal to Ascalon and then wined him and dined him, and talked so long and hard about the importance of Ascalon and the fragile state of its defenses that the Marshal finally broke down and promised to send ten knights.” Roger laughed at the memory of the harassed Hospitaller. “Ten!” he’d repeated several times, “and not one more! Ten knights and ten sergeants—to be maintained at your expense, not that of the Hospital.” Roger chuckled to himself at his lord’s triumph, then lifted his tankard and took a long gulp before turning to Smith and asking, “What do you hear from customers?”

  “Oh, they like him, for the most part. Some of the older men grumble that he’s too young, wet behind the ears, and never taken part in a siege—on either side—but most people like him. I’m out of ale. Shall I fetch us each a tankard?”

  Roger drained his tankard and handed the empty to Smith with a nod. He didn’t notice his second son, Michael, slipping out the back with a full tankard in each hand.

  Michael hastened down the narrow alley between the courtyards and ducked into his father’s house by the back gate. He had to be careful not to trip over his cassock as he stepped over the wooden doorstep into the kitchen garden with both hands full. Beside the outhouse a wooden door gave access to the cellar, and here he set down one of the tankards to release the wooden bolt that kept the door closed from the outside. The door squeaked as he opened it, and he had to kick it when it tried to fall shut again after he’d picked up the second tankard. He then descended the wooden steps carefully, his eyes adjusting slowly to the darkness.