The King's Witch (29 page)

She did not see him again, not alone, for a long while; Richard had work for him, and Besac was always calling her, and she was supposed to be making the huge old palace along the water into a place fit for Queens to live in. She doubted she could tell him anyway who she really was. She had read the admiration in his face. She did not want to see it turn to contempt, or worse. The dirty Jewess. When she thought of that, she pressed her face to the stone wall and hated God for being so unfair. But the knight with the skull fracture was up soon, eating and talking perfectly well and walking around, and bedeviling her for more poppy, and a few days later she delivered a backwards baby, live and yelling, and his mother hale and walking almost at once.

“My lord the King gave me the honor of bringing you this news,” the Grand Master said. “My lady, let there be special Masses sung in thanks. We have won a great victory, near a place called Arsuf, by Jaffa. Saladin’s army has fled. King Richard holds Jaffa.”

The Queen sat still as a post. None of this was news anyway; the rumors had been everywhere for days. She said, “God be thanked.” Humphrey de Toron, standing behind her, slid his hands behind his back; she looked on de Sablé as if on a viper.

Humphrey had been with her when the Grand Master was announced, and she had begged him to stay there. Now he saw why.

The Grand Master strode up and down before her, his arms swinging. “The King was magnificent. He led charge after charge against the Saracens. All fled before him. Of course, my brother Templars and I rode every step with him. It was a day of true glory. We were invincible.”

“Non nobis,”
Humphrey said, unable to resist.
“O Domine, sed tuo.”
De Sablé’s glance stabbed at him.

“My brother is a great knight,” Johanna said. “I trust my cousins did as well, and the other soldiers of the cross.”

“We all fought in God’s name,” de Sablé said, his lips thin, and his eyes still turned on Humphrey.

“God be thanked,” Humphrey said.

De Sablé turned brisk again. “And my lord the King has given me the honor as well of escorting you and the Queen Berengaria south to join him, which I stand ready to do, whenever my lady shall wish.”

At that, Johanna slid back on the divan, as if she would get as far from him as she could. De Sablé held her gaze, half-smiling, and Humphrey saw that he knew she loathed him, and relished it.

He held some power over her. Humphrey cleared his throat.

“I see you came overland, my lord Grand Master, and will want to refresh yourself before journeying back. My ship is in the harbor, and I can leave at once. The Queen may travel with me, if she wishes, and so reach her beloved brother sooner.”

De Sablé lost his smile; his cheeks quivered. He kept the beard required of his order down to a thin neat line around his jaws. His black and white habit as always was spotless. He said, “The King requested this of me. I can find a ship.”

Johanna said, “I will happily travel with my lord de Toron. My lady Berengaria may have a different choice.”

“My lady,” de Sablé said, in a voice with a warning edge.

Humphrey said, “Thus you will not compromise your vow, my lord, associating too closely with women.”

The Templar’s face was rigid; he gave Humphrey a savage look. But whatever he held over her, he was not spending it now, on a trifle like this. Johanna said, “You have my leave, sir. You should bear your news at once to the lady Berengaria, who is likely in the garden.” She rose. “I shall go give prayers of thanks. Good day, my lords.” The three maids in the far corner had risen when she did and followed her out.

De Sablé swung toward Humphrey. “Ah, you interfere.”

“Alas,” Humphrey said. “I merely try to serve.” He smiled at de Sablé as de Sablé had smiled at her.

“Oh, God, Jaffa at last!”

Johanna came down the ramp from the galley, first of all the women; Edythe went to meet her on the quay. In spite of the heat the Queen wore a dark gown of many layers, trimmed in fur, and a long cloak with a jeweled clasp. Her arms engulfed Edythe. “I am so glad to see you.”

“My lady.” Edythe hugged her back, glad for the welcome. “Welcome to Jaffa, and happy we will all be to have you here. But I am afraid you will find it a little rough.”

“Oh, nonsense. After Acre camp?”

The Queen swept on down onto the quay. The other women spilled around them, murmuring a welcome to Edythe as they passed. Berengaria in a veil gave her a curtsy, which Edythe hastily remembered to do, and then hugged her. To her surprise the Navarrese women hugged her also, but the several others Johanna had found in Acre only bent the knee and bowed their heads and said her name in a little chorus. On the quay they gathered in an excited chatter, talking about the journey and Richard’s great victory and now Jerusalem, surely, Jerusalem was next. A seagull shrieked past. The harbor smelled of rotten seaweed.

Henry of Champagne was waiting on the street with some pages and knights, and the horses for Johanna and Berengaria. Humphrey de Toron had come quietly off the galley behind them and already gone. Johanna hooked her arm through Edythe’s.

“I have so much to tell you.” She flitted her gaze here and there. “We can walk,” she said to Henry. “I have no interest in sitting anymore.”

He bowed. Edythe led her toward the street, the Queen’s warm bulk friendly against her side. A page and two knights ran to get ahead of them. The air smelled of dust, and from several places came the bang of hammers. They went from the broad harbor street into a lane, the honey-colored walls close on either side, a staggered row of darker bricks running along the top.

“My lady, I must warn you, the palace is hardly—”

“Well, then I’ll have much to do.” She whispered into Edythe’s ear, “Do you know de Sablé got Richard to send him for me? But Humphrey saved me.” She looked around again. “I have so much to tell you I don’t know where to begin.”

They went up some steps and across a broad marketplace, where heavy colored awnings hung out over the street and shrill voices hawked nuts and bread and tincraft and deliciously aromatic roasted lamb wrapped in soft bread. Down a narrow seam in the hard beaten earth ran a foul trickle of waste. A white goat ran by them. They turned a corner and went in through the new gate to the palace courtyard, which was only half-bricked.

“This is not so bad,” Johanna said, looking around. The long flat palace loomed up over them, featureless. “Does it have any windows?” she said uncertainly, and went up the steps. Edythe followed, beckoning to the porters to bring the Queen’s trunks and chests.

“Oh!”

Johanna had gone out into the hall. Edythe went after her, smiling. She had felt the same, seeing the frowning back of the building, and then coming up the steps to this hall, to the huge expanse of the terrace above the sea. Johanna, like everybody else, was at once drawn to the sunlit edge. Edythe went up beside her, and Johanna turned and ran her arm through Edythe’s again.

“This is very fine. Jaffa!”

“Yes, my lady.”

She felt Johanna’s touch like an embrace all around her. She had been long among the men, with their spiders and wounds and killing each other and dying. She took Johanna down the balcony to the end, where the women’s chamber was. “The King’s is at the far end,” she said. “It makes for quieter nights.”

Johanna laughed. The room was bare, except for a well-built pallet with a thick mattress on it and a big clothes chest. Edythe said, “I’ve been trying to find carpets for the floor, but—”

“I will bring everything from Acre,” Johanna said. “This is good, for now. Let me show you this.” She sent off the men bringing in her baggage, tossed off her splendid cloak, and opened her wallet.

“This came just before I left Acre.”

It was a thin sheet of paper, obviously one of Isabella’s double letters. Edythe turned it quickly over, on one side the formal letter, on the other the hidden one: They were both on the same piece of paper, unlike before. The back, which had been glued on along the edge, was gone.

“Sister,” the hidden letter read, “I must beg you to pardon me, but I cannot leave Tyre now, not now. You must give up on this, I implore you. Your loving sister Isabella of Jerusalem.”

She thought,
Conrad has found out
. Aloud, she said, “Were you planning that she should leave?”

“We had—first she was supposed to flee Tyre on Ladymas, and then that did not play out, so we were talking of another. But then this came.”

Edythe said, “Where would she go?”

“She was going to take ship for Acre.” Johanna frowned at her. “What?”

“Acre is too close to Tyre. They would only force her to go back,” Edythe said. “Most of her family is on Conrad’s side.”

Johanna faced her, brave. “We could withstand them.”

“Not without Richard. And Richard wouldn’t be there.” Probably didn’t care, but that was unkind.

Johanna was frowning, her face fixed: Another of her plots gone wrong. She said, heavily, “So you think it’s for the best?”

“Yes,” Edythe said. “I expect so.” She put her hand on Johanna’s.

“At least she saw Humphrey again,” Johanna said. “I managed that much.”

Edythe said nothing. She remembered the shimmering blue and silver Queen, whose touch could make any man King of Jerusalem, and wondered if Isabella ever knew happiness.

Johanna paced around the room. The pages would have taken Berengaria away to her own chamber, in the back of the palace. Johanna ran her hand over the terrace wall. A hole pierced the wide flat stone top, its rim stained brown; once there had been an iron railing here. “I’ll have them send down those hangings from Acre, the ones with the lions and camelopards.”

“It’s actually quite comfortable, at night, the only cool place.”

“Good. We’ll make it all very pleasant. I told Humphrey about de Sablé. Maybe a bit too much, but he is discreet. And he loves Richard.” She giggled. “He’s like a girl sometimes. You should hear him talk about Richard.”

“You told him?” Edythe said, alarmed. She had hoped that matter was closed.

“Well, he had already thought most of it out. He’s very clever, Humphrey; you would like him better if you talked to him more.”

Edythe had not realized she disliked Humphrey. Now suddenly she did. She tried to convince herself that she was foolish and stupid, but like a grain of sand the worry settled itself into a corner of her mind, that he knew too much.

JAFFA

On the next full moon Edythe took blood from Richard’s arm; the blood was warm and looked wholesome, thickened properly, separated out properly into the other humors. The rebuilding of Jaffa went on, the walls rose higher, and the King himself went around every day to see it. A messenger came from Saladin, but Richard would not receive him, because of the bleeding. Two galleys brought in the first shipments from Acre of furnishings for Johanna’s room and the hall. The hall especially was suddenly more comfortable, with long cushioned divans and hangings on the walls, and the raised chair Johanna set out for a throne.