Devil's Bargain (26 page)

“And I,” he said. “Saints and angels! Lady, your loss was sorely felt.”

“Not as sorely as if I’d left my head on the executioner’s block,” she said dryly.

His face darkened. “You’re in no danger here. You have my word on that.”

“So I can see,” she said, looking about at guards and council, who were staring as if they could not help themselves. As her glance passed Mustafa, she granted him the briefest flicker of a smile.

She spared no one else more than a moment’s glance. She approached the bier on which Conrad lay and stood gazing down at him as his wife had, with almost the same lack of expression; but hers had a distinct scent of brimstone beneath. “He learned a hard lesson,” she said.

“The hardest of all,” said Henry. “It will be a long while before another man uses the name of Masyaf to conceal his own transgressions.”

She nodded. Her eyes lifted to Isabella then. “Lady. Insofar as you suffer grief, I offer you condolences.”

Isabella inclined her head with icy graciousness. “Have you come to help us, then?” she inquired.

“If I can,” said Sioned, “yes. And if you will permit.”

“Can I prevent you?”

“You can send me away,” Sioned said. “Now that I know my cousin is safe, I’ll go, and offer no objection.”

That tempted Isabella: her eyes yearned for it. But she was too wise and practical a princess. “Stay,” she said. “Be pardoned for any sins against the realm or its late master. Help us if you can. When Islam gets word of this, it may find us ripe for the taking.”

“Islam knows,” Sioned said. One of the guards set a chair beside Henry; she sat in it, leaning toward the rest of them. “Richard is coming. If I’m to be listened to, I counsel that you guard your walls and wait until he comes. My lord of Burgundy, will you—can you—put aside your differences in this extremity?”

The duke flushed. “We are all Christians,” he said stiffly, “sworn to the Crusade.”

“It’s good of you to remember it,” she said.

“So should we all,” said one of the lords of Tyre. He had been one of Conrad’s traveling companions from the Italies; his name, Mustafa recalled, was Marco. He had the look of a pirate
and the mind of a thief, but he was clever, as all of Conrad’s intimates were. The late marquis had not been inclined to surround himself with stupid men.

Marco turned his shoulder to her, subtly cutting her off from his consideration, and faced Isabella. “Lady, however long it takes the English king to fight his way here, he should find a united city when he comes, under strong command. As much as it pains me to suggest it in the first flush of grief, it would be best if there were no gap in the succession. The power resides in you. Will you make use of it?”

Isabella arched a brow. “You offer me a choice? How unusual. Is that wise?”

“We trust that you will choose wisely,” Marco said.

“What if I should elect to return to my first husband?”

Marco smiled. Others blanched slightly, but one or two tittered: the light, false laughter of courtiers. “I’m sure that peerless gentleman and scholar would be pleased to take you, although he has been heard to observe that in his worst nightmares he finds himself crowned and set on a throne.”

“We all know Humphrey has no desire to be king,” Henry said, “which makes him unique among the men of this Crusade. I rather admire him for it, myself.”

“And you?” asked Isabella. “Would you take a throne if it were offered?”

“That would depend,” said Henry, “on whether the throne was worth taking.”

“You don’t think Jerusalem is worth the cost?”

“Lady,” he said, “you ask difficult questions. But then Jerusalem is a difficult kingdom. Would I be King of Jerusalem? That does tempt me. Will you give me time to think about it?”

“You may have a little time,” she said. “But not too long. I believe this murder is meant to cast us into disarray. If we draw together instead under even stronger leadership than before, and pursue the war without wavering until the end, we win far more than a city or a tomb. We win the respect of our enemies, and teach them never again to take us lightly.”

Henry bowed to her as deeply as a knight should to a queen.
“By tomorrow I shall know my decision. If you choose another man meanwhile, and that man will make a strong king, I will give my service to him in all good heart.”

“I won’t choose another,” she said, too soft almost to be heard.

Maybe he heard her; maybe he did not. He bowed again and turned back to the council, which focused now on the matter of defending the city against the possibility of attack.

Mustafa slipped out soon after that. So, as he discovered, did Sioned.

Her jinn had not accompanied her, which was a greater relief than he could have expressed. He was interested to notice that her silken mantle was lined with plain dark wool, and that with its hood over her head and its drab folds wrapped about her, she made a convincing serving maid.

She caught him in a quiet corridor and pulled him into a tight embrace, then kissed him on both cheeks.

“Lady!” he protested. “What was that for?”

“For fetching the last man I thought I wanted to see,” she said, “and indirectly for saving me from the axe. That was enormously insubordinate of you.”

“I’m not
your
dog,” Mustafa said. “I was looking out for my skin. Your brother would flay it off me if I let you come to harm.”

“Obviously he didn’t,” she observed, “or you wouldn’t be here. It even seems he trusts you.”

Mustafa shrugged uncomfortably. “I told him what I’d done. Once he’d thrown me across his tent and bellowed at me until I couldn’t hear properly for a week, he granted that I hadn’t done too hopelessly mad a thing.”

“Then he got you out of his sight by sending you here,” she said.

“Not immediately,” said Mustafa. “I ran errands to the sultan for a while, then he had me scouting raiding parties
between Jaffa and Ascalon until he called me back for this. I was offering the marquis the crown of Jerusalem.”

“Her ladyship has offered it to my cousin,” Sioned observed. “My friend, will you do a thing for me? You’re free to refuse. Will you go to Acre and tell the Queen of the English everything that has happened here, exactly as you’ve heard and seen it?”

Mustafa felt the blood drain from his face. “You’d send me to
her
? You
are
angry with me!”

“Only a very little,” she said. “You don’t have to go. I’ll send one of my guards in any case—he’ll be proof that I have authority to speak to her. But the message will be more convincing if it comes from you. You’re Richard’s man; she knows that. You carry his trust as well as mine.”

“You mean that she won’t eat my soul if she knows her son will object.”

Sioned bit her lip. She was trying not to laugh, he could see. “The queen is a great and formidable power in the world, but she is not an eater of souls.”

“Would you stake your own on that?”

That killed the laughter, though it did not dismay her as much as he had hoped. “She could seduce me to darker powers than I ever want to know, but she’ll let me make the choice. She won’t touch you. You’re far more useful as you are.”

Mustafa was dubious, but he could not refuse her. Nor could he yield to cowardice, however prudent it might be. “I’ll go,” he said, “and pray you tell the truth, or I’ll haunt you ever after.”

She grinned at that. “You would be good company,” she said. “Go with your God, dear friend. Come back as quickly as you can.”

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-EIGHT

R
ichard and Eleanor arrived together, having met on the road half a day’s journey from the city. Both had made great speed; it was only the third day since Conrad was found dead.

The marquis had been buried the day before, laid in a tomb in the cathedral of the city. The mourning for him had had an air of ritual; he was not a man whom people loved. Still there were many who regretted his passing, because he was a strong lord and he would have been a competent king.

Isabella received Henry the evening before the king and the queen came to Tyre. She awaited him in the solar of the castle, in perfect propriety, attended by a pair of maids and a watchful guard. Henry came alone, still in the somber robes he had worn to the funeral and to the feast that followed it.

She was in white, the color of eastern mourning. It paled her gold-and-ivory beauty, and aged her, so that he could see clearly the shape of the bones beneath the skin. She was even more beautiful for that, and even more queenly.

She was very desirable. And yet he had to say, “Lady, I came
to beg your pardon. This is a greater decision than I can make alone. Will you wait a little longer, until I’ve spoken with my cousin the king?”

She was disappointed, that was clear. But he had not refused her. He hoped that comforted her. She inclined her head, granting both pardon and petition. When she spoke, it was of other things: the weather, which was growing hot; the gardens of the castle, which were blooming; the funeral, which had been properly grave and dignified.

It was not easy conversation. She had the art of pleasant speech, but there were stiff moments and awkward pauses. They were strangers, amiable enough but he felt no spark between them. He was rather shamefully relieved when she dismissed him.

“Need that matter?” Sioned asked.

He had not sought her out, not exactly, but one way and another he had found himself in the room where she was. It was a stillroom; she was brewing something pungent, and grinding something even more pungent in a mortar. It was remarkable, he thought, how quickly she had made herself at home here; and how, without the need to pretend to the marquis that she was a lady, she had fallen back into her old self. People had learned quickly to come to her for doctoring, although there were half a dozen noble physicians in the castle. None of them, as one of her patients averred in his hearing, knew half as much plain and useful medicine as she did.

One of the guards who had arrived with her was always nearby, looming and silent. Henry had not heard a word out of either of them in two days. They had something to do with her safety here; exactly what, he was afraid to ask.

Instead he found himself telling her of his conversation with Isabella. He had always been able to talk to her easily, fluently, never at a loss for words. Their silences were companionable.

“Need it matter?” she asked him now. “Marriage is a union of great houses, a binding of wealth to wealth. It makes no
difference if you can’t carry on a conversation, if you can share a realm and make heirs together.”

“She didn’t love the marquis,” Henry said. “She loved the lord Humphrey, I think, in her way, but he never wanted to be king, and was never suited to it.”

“Some priests will tell you love is a sin,” she said with a slant of the eyes that made him smile in spite of himself. “Marriage is for getting children, there’s no more to it than that. She’s beautiful; she must be pleasant to the touch. You can do your duty by her, surely?”

“I can be a stud bull if that’s what’s required of me.” He did not know why he should be so cross. He was being offered a beautiful lady, and with her a crown and a kingdom. He should be beside himself with joy. Instead he was in this small and odorous stillroom, telling his troubles to the woman who—

The woman who—

She did not know. Nor did she share it. Her heart was given to the knight of the Saracens. When she looked at him, she saw a dear friend, but never what he wanted her to see. Never a lover.

She had no lands or property to bring him. She was no blood relation, but the Church in its convolutions of logic would call her kin because her father had married his grandmother. Consanguinity: so convenient when a man wanted to be rid of an inconvenient wife, and so simple when he needed a reason not to marry a particular woman. But how could he find reason not to love her?

“I told her highness that I’ll talk to Richard,” he said after that slight but significant pause. “It’s a coward’s way, I suppose, but I couldn’t think of anything better to say. I should take what she offers. It’s splendid—royal. Troublesome, too, but when did I ever shrink from a challenge?”

“You would make a good king,” she said. “Better than Conrad. You’re younger; prettier. People love you. You know how to lead them, and how to command them.”

“Are you telling me I should do this?”

She shrugged. “How many men are given a kingdom and a
bride all at once? It’s an ungodly short widowhood for her, but this is a war; the wise act quickly or not at all.”

“I don’t think I’m wise,” Henry said. He sat on the bench where the sick or wounded sat to wait for her, head in hands.

“What do you want to do?” she asked him. “If you had free choice, what would you choose?”

“You don’t want to know,” he said.

“Don’t you want to be a king?”

“I would be glad to be a king.”

“But not with that queen?”

He was silent.

“I think you would learn to love her,” she said, “and certainly to respect her. She’ll be a strong queen to your strong king.”

“If we have a kingdom to rule.”

“You can bring the Crusade together, you and Richard. Enlist the French again, gather them all, raise the army and take Jerusalem.”

He lifted his head. “If Richard delivers as rousing a speech as that, I’ll be taking the cross of Crusade all over again.”

“You should all take the cross again,” she said, “before you fritter away the rest of this Crusade.”

“God’s feet,” he said, but mildly. “You have a hard heart.”

“I’m old Henry’s daughter. I come by it honestly.”

A bark of laughter escaped him. “I came here for comfort and you gave me a call to arms. Is this how you heal the sick?”

“I give them the medicine they need,” she said. She finished grinding her powders and poured them into the pot, stirring carefully so as not to spill a drop. The pungency rose to an eyewatering stench, then with startling suddenness, transmuted to a clear green fragrance, like new grass with a hint of wood violets.

“Magic,” he said. He caught her hand quickly and kissed it, and left her to her various enchantments.

They came in the morning, the king and the queen together. They well knew the uses of royal pomp; because they came to a place of mourning, they muted the brightness of their banners
and hung their shields and lances and the caparisons of the horses with black. Yet they were still splendid in the bright sun of spring, crowned with gold, Richard on his golden charger and his mother on a snow-white mare.

Eleanor chose that day to put aside all pretense of weakness and ride as she had ridden fifty years ago, when she was young and sworn to another Crusade. For once she even outshone her son. There was no other queen in her train, not this time. She had left her daughter and her daughter-in-law behind.

She swept into the hall with the rest of her train borne headlong in her wake. So swiftly had she come, and with so little pause for ceremony, that Isabella—never the most punctual of women—was just coming down from her solar, intending to meet the royal guests at the gate.

She stopped short on the stair. Eleanor stood at the foot, haughtily erect, in deep blue to Isabella’s stark white. “Madam,” said the Queen of the English, “you would be late for the Last Trump.”

Isabella bridled, but she was far too well-bred to reply in kind. She said with tight-drawn civility, “Majesties. Be welcome to my city.”

“Yours indeed,” said Eleanor, “and you’ve done well with it, under the circumstances. Now, if you please, call your council. We have matters to settle that will not wait.”

Isabella had no power to stand against that force of nature which was Eleanor. She did as she was bidden, as did everyone when it was Eleanor doing the bidding.

The council met as swiftly as it could. One man was still in riding clothes, another properly dressed but with his hair and beard in disarray. Yet once they had gathered, they had to wait upon the queen’s pleasure. Richard came in soon enough, in hearty good humor and prepared to entertain all of them with tales of the new campaigns: Saracen raiders caught and killed, caravans captured and their riches taken into his treasury. But he did not begin the council.

Eleanor was not taking her ease. As soon as she had reached the suite of rooms that was judged fit for a lady of her rank, she sent one of the servants to fetch Henry. He was on his way to the hall; he allowed himself to be diverted, half in curiosity and half in fear. A summons from Eleanor was never to be taken lightly.

She had put off her traveling clothes and was being dressed for the council. Henry had been her page in his day; he fell all too easily into the role again, holding the mirror that traveled with her wherever she went, that was of pure polished silver. Her reflection in it had gained beauty in the dozen years since he last performed the service. “Freedom suits you,” he said.

She smiled. He had forgotten how bright that smile could be; she was such a terrible force in the world, but when she was young, said those who could remember, she had been the most vivacious of women. “Freedom delights me,” she said. “There’s not a man alive now who can lock me away.”

“None would dare,” Henry said.

“Indeed,” said Eleanor. “Now, sir. I’ve been fetched here by a most interesting message, delivered by a rather interesting messenger. I gather the council of Tyre has been kingmaking while the marquis is barely cold in his tomb?”

“They say,” said Henry, “that time is of the essence; that the infidel will move soon, and there must be a strong Crusade to stand against him. No one is suggesting seriously that Guy be brought back from Cyprus. This kingdom needs another king.”

“They say rightly,” she said, “and they say that you have been offered both the crown and the hand of the lady who bears it.”

“So I have,” he said. “It’s a tempting offer.”

“Of course it is,” said Eleanor. “Why haven’t you accepted it?”

He fought a powerful urge to fidget like the child he no longer was. “I . . . reckoned that you would want a say in it.”

“You reckoned rightly,” she said, “but that would not have stopped you if your heart had been in it. Did you hope I would forbid it?”

“Would you, majesty?”

“If I did—would you turn against me?”

“No,” he said. “No, lady. It’s no small thing to be offered a crown, but I think I’m man enough to live without one.”

“There is a way,” she said, “to escape the difficulty. If the crown goes to another by right of war rather than marriage—if it goes to the great general, to the conqueror of Jerusalem—then his beloved nephew, the young and valiant knight, well might find himself next in succession.”

Henry widened his eyes. He was not about to pretend that he did not understand her. “How will you—he—do that? Won’t the fact that he already has a queen be an impediment?”

“Not if it’s done as I foresee: by acclamation, by the will of the whole Crusade. Then Isabella will be bypassed altogether.”

“But if there’s no blood-right—”

“He is the liege lord of the last king,” Eleanor said, “which gives him a certain right to claim whatever belongs to his vassal. And he has another, stronger right: the right of conquest. If he takes Jerusalem, what man will dare contest his taking of the title?”

“Does he want it?”

Eleanor smiled slowly. “He will.”

“But, Grandmother,” said Henry, knowing full well that he could be going too far, “does he even want to stay once he’s won the city? Won’t he go back home to Anjou and then to England? What if—”

“He will stay,” said Eleanor, “if he must. If the price of victory is that he take the title and the duties that accompany it for a certain span, greater or lesser—he will do it. Then when the span is over and he sails home, some worthy successor will take the crown and the throne. That successor could be you.”