The King's Witch (13 page)

Richard’s fever raged all day, and then fell; in the late afternoon they managed to feed him a little bread. He was never fully conscious. Sometimes he spoke gibberish or reached for things no one saw but him. Johanna prayed and got Lilia to pray, and Edythe kept him covered and gave him wine when she could.
Please
, she thought.
Please.
She was afraid to think he was getting better. People came and went with news. King Philip was very sick, plucked bald and spitting teeth, but unlikely to die. There was some general evil in the camp, which had carried off many people in the first day, among them Baldwin of Alsace, the Count of Flanders. Even some of the Germans, who avoided all of the others, were burning with fever.

Still, after its first killing assault, it was losing its power. Everybody had some notion about this: the influence of Saturn, corrupt air, a Saracen curse. Fevers had swept regularly through the camp for two years and nobody had ever had any answer, except that they all passed by.

During the long, grim day Johanna heard everyone and did what she could, which was not much. Edythe admired her calm. Everywhere things looked bad. There was no bread left. The wine was almost gone. The meat was spoiled. At noon on the third day they heard that Rouquin was fighting by the wall, trying to raise the belfry against it; at midafternoon, that he and his men had swarmed over, but no one could get to their support before the defenders closed. Rouquin barely escaped, last of the Crusaders to reach safe ground.

They ate the meager supper of beans and onions, and Johanna and Lilia went to sleep again on the far side of the tent. Edythe sat by the King’s pallet; she dozed as she had before, her head on the foot of it.

The trembling of the pallet woke her. He was shaking all over, his knees drawn up, his teeth clattering together. His eyes were open. She put her hand on his head and his eyes turned toward her, lucid and full of pain. She wrapped him with the blankets, tucking them in tight around him, looped a corner over his head, and rubbed him through the blankets to warm him. Her arms began to ache, but after a while his shuddering lessened under her hands. She rubbed his muscles flat and smooth, all up and down his back, until he was quiet and the spasm passed.

Suddenly he said, “I have to piss.”

She went for a pot and brought it to the side of the bed; he was trying to push himself up, but his arms buckled. She put one arm around his waist and heaved his upper half against her. He swung his legs off the bed, one on either side of the pot, and leaning on her, he reached down and sent his stream into the pot. He sighed at the release.

He said, “It’s a bad thing . . . when a man can’t even stand up to piss.” It took all his breath to say it.

She laughed; she thought it was true, and also that the act of will to say it was a good sign. When he was done, she dabbed at the end of his penis with a cloth she then tossed aside. He was falling out of her grip, lying down again, his arms under his head. She swung his legs up onto the bed and wrapped him in the blankets.

She took the pot to the front flap of the tent, where there was light from a torch outside. She sniffed at the urine and looked at it in the light; it was very dark but there was a lot of it, and it smelled clean and sharp. She tossed it out the door, startling the two guards drowsing on either side.

She closed the flap and went back to the pallet. The King was awake. He lay on his stomach, his head turned to one side, and his eyes gleamed at her. When she sat down on the edge of the pallet, he said, in a whispery voice, “Where’s Rouquin?”

“I hope he’s sleeping. King Conrad is coming.”

“Ooh, is he. Well, things were too simple.” His body was cool, almost without fever. She began to rub his arms and shoulders, to get his humors moving. His skin was scaly.

“Could you keep down some broth?”

He dragged in a deep breath. “I could keep down half a cow. Who’s been here?” His voice was stronger.

“Johanna has never left.” She gestured toward the far side of the tent, where the other women slept on. “She told me that King Guy came, while I was asleep.” She hoped Berengaria was at least praying for him.

“Good for Guy. He’s not a coward, at least.”

She got up and went across the tent to the brazier, where a pot of bones had been cooking all night; she drew off some of the juice into a cup. The cup was hot, and she wrapped a corner of her skirt around her hand to hold it. When she came back, he tried to sit up. She helped him and, gasping at the heat, he gulped down the broth, which seemed to make him stronger.

“Johanna said also Humphrey de Toron was here,” she said.

“Humphrey,” he said. He lay back down on the bed, his head turned to watch her. By the way he spoke the name she knew how it was with him. He must have seen it in her face, because he said, “You think I am a monster.”

“My lord,” she said, surprised. He was hers, now, whatever his sins; she loved him. “Do you want more?”

“Yes.”

She went for the rest of the broth. What men did together, making women of each other, that was sinful, cursed, and apparently very common, to judge from jokes and stories. Those who said it was evil agreed also that she was evil. That set their righteousness at nothing. What Richard did was Richard’s humor. She sat down beside him and helped him drink again. His color was better. His head still wobbled.

He pushed away the cup, then lay down again, and his gaze poked at her. “Who are you?”

She sat back away from him in a little jerk of warning. She had loved him too soon. She folded her hands in her lap, her back straight. “Edythe. I’m one of—”

He rolled onto his side toward her, one arm bent under his head; the light from the front of the tent shone on his face. He said, “I mean, who are you really?”

“My lord, I don’t understand. I will fetch some wine.” She started up.

He grabbed her skirt. “No, stay. My mother sent you?”

She sat down. Her hands knotted together in her lap. She had let him start this, and now she had to go where he hunted. “Yes, my lord.”

“And Mother got you somehow from an English nunnery.”

“I—yes.” She looked off toward the door, in case someone was listening.

“You’re lying. You don’t sound English, you don’t even sound Poitevin. You’re from France, somewhere.”

“I—”

“Tell me.” He was trying to prop himself up on one elbow, his head unsteady, the blanket down around his waist.

“I was born in Troyes. But I swear—”

“Troyes. That’s not a Troyenne accent. No.” Abruptly, as if he had caught a fresher scent, he went off on a new track. “Your father was a physician, wasn’t he? That’s how you know all this, from Papa’s knee.”

She jumped, cornered. She said nothing; against her will she saw in her mind the gaunt bearded face above the dark clothes, a book in his hand, pointing to places on her doll and explaining humors. A brief pang struck her like a tooth in the heart.

“My mother is broad-minded,” he said. “She loves clever, accomplished people, no matter who they are. She knew a famous physician in Troyes. He sent her herbs and recipes, gossip and stories, and gave her much wise counsel. She might have saved him from the French King’s purge, what was it, ten, twelve years ago, if she had been free, and still in Poitiers.”

She watched him like a rabbit seeing a snake coil steadily closer through the bending grass. He said, “But she did save you, didn’t she?”

“My lord,” she said, her voice thin. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Not a Troyenne accent,” he said, “because in Troyes you didn’t speak French. You spoke that other thing—Zephais—Zephardic. You’re a Jew.”

“No,” she said. She licked her lips. Unwillingly she thought of the evils his coronation had brought upon the Jews of London—when the crowds rioted through the Jewry and killed many. He had stopped it but for money. “No,” she said again. “Not anymore—I’m a Christian.” She remembered to cross herself.

“Were you ever baptized? You shouldn’t be on the Crusade.”

“Oh, please—” She flung out her hands to him. Eleanor had decided against the baptism, in itself a dangerous admission. “I want to go to Jerusalem. I have come all this way, and we’re so close, I can’t go back now.”

He said, “You must serve God. Be a true Christian. When we take Jerusalem, we will bring the Kingdom of Jesus, and when He comes again, He will know you, and you will be saved.”

“I serve God,” she said. She settled back, her hands on her knees. She understood what this meant: To serve God was to serve Richard. “I promise.”

He smiled at her. “I believe you.” He hitched himself up on his elbows; he was tired. “I think you’re one of us, anyway, damned thing and outcast. If I take Jerusalem, we’re all saved, you with me.”

“Yes,” she said. She wondered what he meant.

“Good. Bring me something to drink.”

She brought him the jar. At the first swallow he made a face. “This tastes awful.” But he drank it all and had her bring him more.

When that was gone, he lay back on the pallet, drowsy. “How long have I been sick?”

“Just three days. You fell late two days before yesterday.”

“Good. Now send for my brother,” he said.

“Who?” she said, surprised.

“My cousin. Rouquin.”

He was falling asleep. She went to pull the blanket up. He said, his eyes closed, “Get him.”

“Yes, my lord.”

He settled himself into the bed. He whispered, “It’s all well if I do this well.” At once he was asleep. She thought awhile about forgetting the order and letting him rest, but in the end she sent a page for Rouquin.

ACRE

At dawn the servants brought a basket of bread and cheese. Edythe made sure Richard got the best of the bread and forbade him the cheese. After, with a page and a basket, she went around the camp and begged and bought all the meat bones she could. There were few, and they cost her much; most men were eating only thin bean porridge, and everybody had money.

As she went from fire ring to fire ring, the men around her sent up a constant shrill lewd pipe and whistle, and some reached out to grab at her skirt. She moved quickly, to keep them off. She should have brought a knight, she thought; the page was only a child. She could have asked Rouquin. The idea warmed her, and she wished she had.

When they would not sell her their scraps, she said, “This is for the King. Do you deny Richard?” Then they sold her what they had. Hearing Richard’s name, they kept their hands away.

She was tired and the sun seemed too bright and her throat felt scratchy. With the page behind her hauling the basket along, she went back to the royal tent to find at the doorway a large wooden frame, a bed in the middle, and a gang of half-naked men crouched around it.

She bade the page put the bones on to cook and went by into the tent. Inside, men in mail and surcoats made a wall of backs between her and Richard. She crept along past them and got close enough to see that he was eating, sitting up with Rouquin’s help. Johanna pulled her away by the arm.

“You have to sleep.”

“I need—”

“Sleep,” Johanna said, and towed her to the Queen’s own bed and made her lie down. She slept at once. When she woke, thirsty, she saw that Richard was gone, the tent empty except for Lilia, dozing, and a few idle pages playing dice. A pot full of bones bubbled on the brazier. She slept again and woke around noon.

The tent was quiet. Johanna and Lilia had left. She put on a fresh gown and a kirtle and brushed her hair a few strokes, skipping over the knots. She summoned in the page and said, “I need to talk to other doctors. You must find me other doctors.” He went out. She ate the last of the bread; the cheese was gone.

The page took her across the camp to the west, toward the sea. As she went, her skirts gathered up in her hands, she looked over the siege before her.

Every day the place seemed less a city and more a vast heap of stones. From here she could see the broad dent of the moat, dry and stuffed with rocks and dirt and what looked horribly like dead bodies. Out on the knob of the promontory the tall, thin tower stood, too far for any catapult to reach, and from the big ruined fortress in the harbor the black flag of the Saracens flew out on the stiff breeze.

But the ships that crowded the harbor were all Christian, Richard’s ships. They could not get near the Black Tower, wreathed in half-submerged rocks, but everywhere else the Crusaders held the bay. No supplies could get into Acre, and the Tower itself looked abandoned, in spite of its brave flag. They were winning, she thought, and her heart leaped. There was an end to this.

She shaded her eyes with her hand. A red galley she had not seen before was rowing toward the shore, and from the beach a flock of little boats hastened toward it.

The page led her across the camp, weaving a way between the camps, and the men followed her with their eyes but made no sound. Their stares unnerved her. She walked as fast as she could, and the page got her quickly under cover—a strange rambling shelter, half tent and half wooden shed.

She went forward a few steps, looking around. The only light came through the doors and the tent fabric, and she could not see well for a moment. Lining either side of the long, narrow space were heaps of straw spread with coarse blankets, and on these makeshift beds lay bodies. A stout man in a monk’s cassock came toward her; the page had just announced her, which, since she had no power of her own, had taken all his breath.

The monk said, in bad French, “Well met, then. The Queen Sicily is known to me. I self Sir Markus Staufen.”

“Do you speak Latin, my lord?” He was a monk. Of course he spoke Latin. “Have you a doctor?”

“Alas,” said the German knight, who spoke less Latin than he believed, “our doctor has dead. Many having dead here, Lady.”