Maria Zoë had heard the Bishop complain to Balian that he was treating the prisoners too well. The Bishop had heard that Balian served his prisoners the same meals as the rest of the household, kept them in a room with a window, and let them sleep in beds with straw bedding. What the Bishop objected to most, however, was that Balian allowed them to visit the baths (under guard) and allowed them to pray.
Balian had shrugged off the criticism, remarking that the roles could easily be reversed, and that he had no desire to suffer Reynald de Châtillon’s fate. The Bishop countered by noting that his good treatment of the captives would not guarantee good treatment should he become a captive.
The youngest of the captives caught sight of Maria Zoë and called the attention of the others to her. They all looked up, and an eruption of Arabic was followed by grins and laughter. Maria Zoë instinctively sensed that the comments were insulting, and she started to back away from the railing, but she was not quite fast enough.
From directly under her, Balian sprang on the youth who had drawn attention to Maria Zoë, knocking him onto his back and pinning him to the ground with his sword at his throat. The other two captives yelped protests, but Balian’s soldiers had instantly drawn their swords and closed in around the unarmed prisoners. Balian snarled in Arabic at the youth he was threatening. Without easing the threat of his sword, he raised his voice and ordered his guards: “Seize them all, bind their hands behind their backs, and shackle them in the cellars—separated. From now on, they don’t see the light of day—or each other—until their ransom is paid!”
Maria Zoë gasped, but no one in the courtyard heard her, because the guards sprang to obey Balian’s orders and the prisoners were protesting more loudly than ever. She could only watch apprehensively as two of the guards grabbed the youth at the tip of Balian’s sword and dragged him to his feet, while Balian’s blade followed the hollow of his throat every inch of the way. The youth flung something at him in Arabic, and Balian flicked his wrist so rapidly that Maria Zoë did not even see the motion—only the sudden stripe of red on the side of the youth’s face—and the terror and pain in his widened eyes.
The evidence of Balian’s fury and his ability to hurt a defenseless prisoner left Maria Zoë almost as frightened as the victim.
“Take them away!” Balian ordered.
“That will leave a scar, my lord, if it isn’t bound,” someone protested from under Maria Zoë’s feet.
“It’s supposed to,” Balian answered coldly. “I don’t want him to forget what I just told him.” He added something in Arabic, directed at the youth. Then he put his sword away and stormed out of the courtyard without waiting to see his orders carried out.
Maria Zoë backed away and looked hastily over at the three girls to see if they, too, had witnessed this scene. Fortunately they were standing too far back to have been able to see down into the courtyard, but they were holding each other in obvious fear, and Beth’s eyes were huge.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Maria Zoë told them automatically—despite her own misgivings, reinforced by the sound of clattering hooves in the street beside the residence. “My lord husband’s prisoners were in the courtyard saying their prayers.” She tried to ignore what had followed, but the way Beth was looking at her suggested she had understood more of what had happened than Maria Zoë herself. Beth looked down, her hands fumbling with the front of her dress.
Maria Zoë shivered. Clouds were gathering over the ocean and blocking the sun, which was slipping down the sky. The temperature had dropped noticeably, too, aided by a strong wind that sprang up as if a storm was in the offing. It had whipped the sea into racing, white-capped waves. “It’s time to go in!” Maria Zoë announced. “It’s getting cold!”
No one protested. Silently Rahel put her needlework away in her basket, and—still subdued into utter silence—the girls filed through the open door and Balian’s chambers to the apartment they shared on the far side of the gallery. Maria Zoë found herself chattering about silly things like going for a boat ride tomorrow and needing new bed curtains for the girls’ bed, while all the while she kept an ear cocked for the sound of Balian’s return. But he did not come back.
Maria Zoë sent for the girls’ evening meal, and sat with them as they ate. Then she helped Isabella undress and brushed out her fine chestnut hair, while Beth helped Eschiva. When the girls were ready for bed, Maria Zoë led them in prayer, kneeling side by side in front of the big bed.
First they said the Lord’s Prayer in unison, and then Maria Zoë asked God’s grace and protection for King Baldwin and the Kingdom of Jerusalem, for the Emperor and Patriarch in Constantinople, and finally for Balian, Ibelin, and the city of Ascalon.
“And for my father and husband,” Eschiva chimed in.
So they prayed for the Lord of Ramla and the Constable of Jerusalem.
“And for Madame!” Beth whispered, referring to Richildis, whom she (rightly, Maria Zoë thought) revered.
“And for Gladiator,” Isabella piped up, not willing to be outdone, it seemed. She was very concerned that Balian’s gallant stallion was still lame from the wound he’d taken at Montgisard.
Maria Zoë hesitated, unsure if it was appropriate to pray for an animal—but then, remembering how Balian had credited the stallion with saving his life, she nodded, and ended their prayers with an appeal to Christ “for a full recovery of my lord husband’s stallion Gladiator.”
At last Maria Zoë could haul herself up off her knees, with solicitous help from Rahel. Meanwhile, Eschiva had thrown back the covers and shooed Beth and Isabella inside before clambering into the bed herself. Maria Zoë pulled the blankets over the girls, then bent and kissed Eschiva on the cheek, Isabella on the nose, and patted Beth’s cheek because she was shy about kisses. “Sleep well, sweethearts.”
“Isn’t Uncle Balian going to come to say good night?” Isabella asked. She had picked up the “uncle” from Eschiva, and neither Balian nor Maria Zoë had felt there was any harm in it.
“Not tonight,” Maria Zoë told her. She stepped out onto the upper gallery, closing the door behind her, leaving Rahel behind to look after them.
It was dark, but light spilled from several of the downstairs rooms into the courtyard, and the murmur of male voices tumbled out of the hall as well. Whether it was for the way he’d fought at Montgisard or because he’d been made a baron, no less than seven bachelor knights had offered Balian their swords in recent months, and his household was growing.
Maria Zoë did not know what to do next, but then a shadow separated itself from one of the columns in front of her, and Balian came towards her.
“Balian! What on earth happened?” she asked him at once, unable to keep her worries pent up inside any longer.
He took her into his arms, but he didn’t answer. Despite herself, Maria Zoë melted in the warmth of his embrace, breathing in the scent of leather, oiled chain mail, and rosemary that was distinctive to him.
Balian turned and with his arm still around her waist, guided her into their suite of chambers. Dawit was lighting the candles, while Daniel was putting pomegranates into the bowl on the table. Balian led Maria Zoë to one of the chairs by the table and she sat down automatically, while he fetched wine and two crystal goblets. Only after the squires had finished their duties, bowed, and withdrawn did Balian answer her question. “They have turned down my ransom demands again.”
“Oh, Balian, I’m sorry. Why?”
“Rashid’s father says he is too poor to pay.”
“What are you asking?”
“Ten thousand bezants.”
Maria Zoë gasped. “For all of them?”
“No, apiece,” Balian answered, surprised.
“Thirty thousand gold pieces?” Maria Zoë was unable to believe her ears. “That’s a fortune.”
“No more than the rebuilding of Ibelin will cost me!” Balian snapped back.
Maria Zoë was stunned into silence. She registered that he might
be accepting her revenues because the rebuilding of Ibelin was so important to him, but inwardly he still wanted to pay his own way. After a moment she remarked cautiously, “I understand, Balian, but if you can’t raise thirty thousand bezants, then take a little less. There will be other opportunities, surely.”
“Damn them!” Balian answered, jumping to his feet and pacing to the window. “Damn them all! The only one of the whole lot whose father gives a damn about his son is the one who probably is too poor to pay—too poor, it seems, to have more than one wife and one son. The other two are too rich! They have four wives and countless concubines and litters of children, so that one son more or less means almost nothing to them! They accept the loss—Allah Inshallah!—and prefer their gold to their sons’ lives!”
Maria Zoë held her tongue in the face of Balian’s obvious fury, but she found it hard to believe that he was right—for surely, regardless of religion and race, men loved their sons? Yet there was some logic to what he said, too; it was the nature of men to place greater value on things in short supply and lesser value on things available in abundance.
“I wrote to Ishmael’s father that I would be ashamed and dishonored to offer only one thousand pieces of gold for a son, and do you know what he wrote back?”
Maria Zoë dutifully shook her head, a little afraid of the answer. “That he would be ashamed and dishonored to have only one wife.”
Maria Zoë caught her breath at his reply, and she felt herself getting angry too. “Is that why you attacked him in the courtyard?”
Balian froze, and it was several moments before he answered. “No. No, but the words were in my mind and no doubt added to my rage,” he admitted.
“Why did you attack him?” Maria Zoë persisted in a low voice; she felt she needed to better understand this man she had married.
Balian still hesitated, because he did not know Maria Zoë well enough yet to be sure how she would react, but at length he admitted: “He called you a whore.” Maria Zoë caught her breath and remembered Beth’s face: the girl had understood. Before she could even sort out her emotions, Balian continued. “He did it to insult me—despite the courtesy and generosity I have shown all of them. When he caught sight of you, he said, ‘Look at that! These Franks are so lacking in honor, they let their wives show themselves to strange men like common whores.’”
The words sparked indignation in Maria Zoë, and she found herself asking, “And what did you answer him?”
“Oh, I don’t know exactly.” Balian shrugged in embarrassment. “In my fury, my Arabic went to hell, and I probably only managed a lot of gibberish.”
Maria Zoë did not believe him entirely, but it was true that being angry in a foreign language was almost as difficult as cracking jokes in one. It had taken her years before she could be either angry or humorous in French. “What did you try to say?”
“Something about Franks having so much honor that we need not lock away our wives to protect them—since only dishonorable men would leer at another man’s wife. To which Ishmael said that if a woman was so wanton as to show herself in public unveiled, a man would have to be a eunuch not to leer. That was when I sliced open his face, and told him the scar would remind him that Franks punished men who were so boorish as to leer at their wives. I told him he’d gotten away lightly only because he was an unarmed prisoner; otherwise he would already be dead.”
Maria Zoë took a deep breath, and then a sip of wine to steady herself. “I’m sorry to be the cause of this incident,” she declared, putting her wineglass back on the table. “I shouldn’t have shown myself to them.”
“Why not?” Balian asked back sharply. “This is my palace, in my city, in your Kingdom! You have the right to go anywhere you please! It’s my prisoners who have forgotten themselves! I have been too lenient with them, but that has changed. The messenger will return to Damascus tomorrow with the news that they will be kept in chains in the darkness from now until the summer solstice. Tomorrow I will have them transported—blindfolded and in shackles on the back of an ox-cart!—to the dungeon at Ibelin. If the ransom has not been paid by the solstice, they will be sold as slaves. Maybe that will awaken some paternal feelings in their polygamous fathers!”
Ibelin, May 1178
CONSCIOUS OF HIS OWN COWARDICE, BALIAN put distance between himself and his wife’s agony. Her water had burst in the night, and the contractions started soon afterwards. He had dressed at once and gone for the midwife, while Rahel and the other women took Maria Zoë to the ground-floor chamber of the northeast tower, which had the best access to the cistern. This chamber had long since been readied for her lying-in with supplies of linens, candles, a cradle, and, of course, the birthing stool.
For hours the sound of Maria Zoë’s screams had been coming from that chamber, and while Balian initially kept up the pretense of checking on the work still being done on the stables and then inspecting the garrison, he had all too soon run out of things to do that did not take him away from the castle. He gave some thought to going in to Ibelin town to see how work was progressing on rebuilding the wool warehouse, but he hesitated to be so far away. Surely the ordeal would be over soon?
Balian had no experience or memories to draw on. His mother had moved away when he was an infant, and although Agnes de Courtney had given his brother two stillborn children, he had been too little at the time to remember those births. Even as a squire, he had served in the household of Hebron after his wife was beyond childbearing age. All Balian knew was that Maria Zoë had nearly died giving birth to Isabella.
“My lord.” Roger Shoreham abruptly stood in his way, and Balian realized he’d been wandering about without looking where he was going. Balian waited expectantly; Roger’s wife was helping the other women. “My lord, one of your prisoners has asked to speak to you.”
Balian frowned. He had not seen his prisoners since they had been transferred to the dungeon of Ibelin. That had been easy, of course, as long as he had remained at Ascalon, but now that he was in residence at Ibelin he felt guilty. He kept hearing in his conscience the phrase “for I was a prisoner, but you visited me not.”
“Which of the prisoners wishes to see me?” he asked Roger, playing for time.
“The one called Rashid, my lord.”
“Is he ill?”
Roger weighed his head from side to side and pursed his lips. “No more than the others, or no more than is normal under the circumstances.”
Balian drew a deep breath, and glanced in the direction of the tower from which Maria Zoë’s cries came intermittently.
“It’s going to take a few more hours, if you ask me,” Roger answered his look. “My wife never managed to push a child out into the world in less than twenty-four hours, and I’ve known ’em to take more than twice that.”
Balian looked at him, horrified. He felt he couldn’t take this another twelve hours; how could Maria Zoë? Better to face the prisoners. “All right, I’ll see Rashid.”
Roger nodded, satisfied, and led the way first up the exterior stairs of the keep, and then back down by the internal stairs cut in the thickness of the stone wall, to the windowless ground floor. This was used primarily as an armory, wine cellar, and storeroom, but in the center was a grated hole that gave access to the dungeon, which was carved out of bedrock below the keep. Balian had ordered Ishmael, the youth who had insulted his wife, to be put into the dungeon proper. However, because he wanted to keep the prisoners separated and felt the others deserved somewhat better treatment (they had only joined in his laughter, after all), he had ordered wooden cubicles to be built here on the ground floor to house the other two.
It was to one of these that Roger now led Balian. Roger had the key to the door on a ring at his belt. He removed the key and turned it in the iron lock, then stepped back. Balian had to duck to enter the improvised cell, and he grimaced at the stench as soon as he entered. The prisoners were provided with a slop bucket, but by the smell, it was obvious this was not cleaned out ve
ry regularly, and it had evidently overflowed now and again.
The prisoner was chained by one wrist to the outer stone wall, and his ankles were chained together. At the sight of Balian he struggled to his feet, his eyes fixed on the Christian knight. Balian did not like what he saw. The fine armor that his prisoners had worn at their capture had been removed immediately and put away for when they would be released. Throughout their captivity they had worn only the typical striped kaftans of the local peasants, but these were interchangeable and had been regularly washed as long as the prisoners were held in Ascalon. Since their transfer to Ibelin, however, they had not been given a change of clothing, a bath, or a shave. As a result, the kaftan Rashid was wearing was now filthy from a month of living on the floor of the keep. He had a month’s growth of beard, and his hair was shaggy as well. Worst of all, his skin was covered with bites of one kind or another, many with bloody crusts. Evidently he had lice or fleas.
“You asked to speak with me?” Balian opened coldly.
“Yes, my lord.” Rashid bowed his head respectfully. “My father is a poor man. He cannot pay the ransom you demand, so what is the point of keeping me here? If I am to be your slave, then let me serve you sooner rather than later.”
Balian had the impression he had prepared and rehearsed this speech for hours or even days—but although it had an inner logic, Balian dismissed it with a grimace. “I don’t keep slaves. I do not trust them. Certainly not former fighting men. If your ransom is not paid by the solstice, I will sell you to a slave trader and let him deal with you.”
Balian thought he heard Rashid’s intake of breath, but he might only have imagined it. The prisoner’s expression, on the other hand, was one of open horror. Being the slave of a great nobleman could be quite lucrative in the Arab and Turkish world; being sold to a trader bore the risk of ending up someplace truly gruesome, like the mines or the galleys.
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