The King's Witch (3 page)

“You look very fine.”

Berengaria’s lips moved without sound. Her eyes were wide with terror. The women moved around her, brushing and plucking and straightening, and the girl lifted her gaze to Johanna. “Please.”

Johanna kept on smiling. She began to see this as a fit revenge. “Please what? Come, your bridegroom awaits you.”

She thought for a second the girl would need to be carried, but then she moved woodenly toward the door. The other women fell in around her and they went to the chapel. The day before, a fleet from the Holy Land had brought some of the Christian lords to see Richard, and so the place was jammed with witnesses. When they saw the women they began to cry out and wave their arms, and as Berengaria trudged by them, they threw flowers at her, so that she seemed to wade through a river of rose petals.

Inside, by the altar, Richard waited, the candlelight glinting on his golden crown, his long pale hair. The Bishop of Evreux stood beyond him. Johanna stepped aside, and Berengaria plodded into the blaze of the candles; Johanna could see her shaking, the little fool.

The Queen of Sicily glanced around the chapel, its walls and square columns plastered with icons in the Greek way. Arrayed around her were her own women, and Richard’s court, but behind them stood the crowd of newly come strangers. She looked them over curiously; the King of Jerusalem was supposed to be among them, and she wondered which of these elegant men he was. She had heard a lot of gossip about the King of Jerusalem, even as far away as Sicily. Then Evreux was speaking, and she turned forward.

Berengaria stood there rigid, her face white as salt. When Richard took her hand to put the ring on, she started all over as if he had struck her. Richard did not seem to notice, all his attention on fitting the ring to her finger.

He never lifted his eyes to the girl’s face. She mattered nothing to him. Johanna found herself smiling. The priest said words, and the whole crowd made the response and crossed themselves.

Then Berengaria knelt before her new husband, her hands together as if in prayer, and he put a gold crown on her head and said something in French, and she was Queen of England.

Her lips moved. She shut her eyes, Richard moved back, and for a moment she knelt there, crouched forward, as if the weight of the crown forced her down. Then she shivered and straightened, her head rising, and her eyes opened.

Johanna felt a sudden pang of sympathy for her. She herself had married a man she had met first at the altar. She reminded herself that that had worked out well enough. She thought she should be kinder to Berengaria. With the rest, she knelt and prayed for the long life and many children of the King and Queen of England.

The feast began at noon and proceeded very briskly, like the wedding itself. The King and his new Queen appeared in the hall for a moment, where the whole crowd could see them. While they were there receiving bows and cheers, Edythe went across the courtyard to the royal chamber, to make the new Queen’s bed ready.

Berengaria came in almost at once. With the other women, Edythe helped the girl into a long white gown, sat her in the big open bed, and brushed her hair all around her. The girl was rigid, her eyes staring, her lips pressed together, as if she faced some ordeal. They scattered flowers around her, so Edythe put a white rosebud in her hair. The new Queen had wispy pale hair, so Edythe went out to the garden and got a red rose instead.

The King walked in with fifteen people on his heels. Edythe drew off to one side, out of their notice, but where she could watch. Richard greeted Berengaria with a proper bow and the right words, and sat down on the bed to let a squire take his boots off. After that, he lay down on his back next to his new bride and touched his bare foot to hers. Immediately after that he got up, bowed to her, and left.

Edythe let her breath out. Everybody else followed Richard away, except the Queen and the two old Navarrese women who waited on her. Berengaria sat up straight; the rosebud fell unnoticed in the sheets; her women closed around her. Edythe came and kissed her. The Navarrese women would care for the little Queen, and she wanted to go back to the feast. She said, “God bless you, my lady.”

Berengaria looked at her, her face slack with relief, the pure white froth of lace and silk all around her. “When will I have the baby?”

Edythe choked a little, and glanced at the other women, barricaded behind their own language, who only stared back. “After the Crusade,” she said, and patted Berengaria’s hand and left.

She went across the open space to the hall, where Johanna and the other women sat chewing up the good meats. The great room was splendid. Johanna had hung it with the silken banners and rugs looted from Isaac’s camp, so it seemed like a tent, the silks fluttering softly, continually, in the drafts. All around, the fading sunlight spilled in through the opening in the center of the roof to glow on the floor. Around the walls, on the hollow square of the stone couches, newly softened with Isaac’s cushions and scarves, sat Richard’s lords and the great men of the Holy Land who had just arrived. Edythe went in and stood behind Johanna, who was seated on a bench with the curved paws of a lion, and the Queen smiled and got her wrist.

“Sit. You’ve done well with all this, I’m pleased with you.”

A flush warmed Edythe’s throat; she sank down, her hands in her lap. She had her place here and she would be glad of it. Yet this ate at her. She lifted her eyes to the court, a broad loud splash of silks and jewels all around her, wishing she belonged here.

CYPRUS

Philip de Rançun, who was called Rouquin, slouched against the wall, bored. Down the hall another of the great lords rose, hoisted his cup, and shouted a salute, and all around everybody cheered until the stone walls rang. So far they had agreed that the Crusade was God’s work, Saladin was the devil, and Jerusalem was surely theirs now that Richard was come, and they looked to go on agreeing until the wine ran out. Rouquin shifted his weight, his hands behind him. Richard meant to take Cyprus now and had given Rouquin the charge of running down the fugitive King Isaac; he was itching to start. He loved having his own command.

The thunderous chanting faded. Richard was sitting back on his throne. Rouquin saw him glance over his shoulder toward him and stepped forward and sank down on his haunches at his cousin’s elbow.

“What do you make of this?” Richard said. He drained his cup and handed it off to a page. “Why did all these high lords come to Cyprus? We’ll reach Acre in a few weeks. They’re that excited at seeing us?”

Rouquin let his gaze wander along the rows of drinking, shouting men. “Getting to us first. Making sure we line up with them and not somebody else.”

“As usual, you see my mind,” Richard said. “This doesn’t argue well for the general condition of the kingdom, does it? Now look.”

Rouquin stood; the man approaching them clearly outranked him, older, anyway, draped in creamy velvet figured with gold thread, many jewels about him, a crown on his graying tawny hair. The herald bawled, “Guy de Lusignan, King of Jerusalem!”

Rouquin looked keenly at him, all the stories coming to mind. Guy bowed, and Richard inclined his head. “My lord, I welcome you.”

The King of Jerusalem’s voice boomed, meant for everybody to hear. “I welcome you, my lord, who will help me recover what is rightfully mine, and bring us all revenge for the evil of Hattin and Saladin.” He went on like that for a while. Rouquin noticed he avoided mentioning that the disaster at Hattin had been entirely his fault. Richard reached down into the treasure chest beside the throne and produced a ring, said some proper words, and thanked the King of Jerusalem for taking the gift. Guy bowed himself away.

Rouquin said, “So that’s the King.”

“Maybe,” Richard said. “Maybe not. But Guy is one of us; he’s Poitevin. That should count for something.”

Rouquin scrubbed his hand over his face. He thought in the Holy Land they would need the best men they could find, and Guy was famously hapless. Son of a great family in Poitou, he had gotten in trouble there as a boy and been exiled. Coming out here to the east he had managed to marry a princess and become king when the Leper died. Then at one toss he lost the whole Crusader kingdom to Saladin in the stupid battle at Hattin.

“He sounds like a fool to me. He led his men to their deaths.”

Richard said, “Here come the Templars.”

Two of the black and white knights had arrived from Acre, and now Robert de Sablé, who had sailed with Richard, was approaching the throne; Richard introduced them. De Sablé was the new Grand Master of the Order, elected in Paris. The knights shook hands and bowed and said some pieties. De Sablé blessed them, which everybody took with a straight face. Richard made no move to give them anything, and eventually they sat down.

“They dress very well for monks.” Rouquin watched de Sablé walk away, one hand on the heavy silver hilt of his sword.

“Poverty, chastity, and obedience,” Richard said.

“Besides,” Rouquin said, remembering something else. He sank down on his heels again by Richard’s throne. “How can Guy even still be the King? I thought his wife had died.”

Richard gave a dry chuckle. “She did die, and their children with her, but first she hounded him into laying siege to Acre. She saw it clear enough: Recovering the kingdom starts with recovering Acre. She and Guy led the way. Which is why we’re here, to help him finish the job of taking Acre. So he’d better still be King.”

The herald said, “My lord Humphrey de Toron.”

This was a slight man in neat plum-colored brocade, a silver belt, a single amethyst at his throat, fine silk slippers. He wore no sword. His hands were long and white, and he seemed never to have shaved. After their greetings he said, “My lord, you alone can save Jerusalem. Whatever I may do in our cause, command me. Like King Guy, I depend on you to help me get my honor back.”

Richard mouthed some compliments and gave him another ring. Rouquin said, “De Toron. There was a de Toron who was constable.”

“This one’s father. This Humphrey’s another man who could have been King. He was married to the sister of Guy’s princess, but he refused the crown. So they took his princess away and gave her to somebody else.”

Rouquin watched Humphrey go, wondering how he could have let that happen—how he could still keep his head up after that had happened. How he could expect ever to get his honor back. “Who married her?”

Richard said, “That would be Conrad of Montferrat.”

“Oh. The Italian.”

“Yes, a small prince in a big world, who is not here, you’ll note, but at Tyre, where we are supposed to go next. And I’m afraid he has a better claim to be King than our friend Guy, since his princess is still alive and seems to be the rightful queen. This is a difficulty, maybe. Go find out what you can, while I gild our way down.”

Rouquin straightened. Another gaudy jewel-encrusted man was appearing to receive presents and make his promises and vows and pledges. Rouquin shrugged it all off. He would be on the march soon, the true work, and better. He drifted away across the room, looking the other men over.

From the midst of her maids Johanna smiled at him. The woman he had seen out in the street, the doctor, sat beside her, looking toward Richard. He had heard her name, but forgotten it. Some lispy Saxon name. He paced around the room, watching Richard take homages and give out rewards, gold and silk and swords and cups. At the far corner Rouquin came upon Humphrey de Toron.

He spoke his name and bowed, and Humphrey bowed, and they said the usual things when first meeting. The young man made Rouquin deeply confused; he did not know how to speak to a boy who should have been a girl. The look on the young lord’s face said this was not new to him. His father had been a Crusader legend who had saved the King’s life in battle. The son had never even been dubbed a knight.

“I suppose now there will be a wild dash to get Isaac Comnenus,” Humphrey said.

Rouquin saw no reason to tell him. “Richard has some plan.”

They were of the same rank: Humphrey was a baron of Jerusalem as Rouquin was of Aquitaine. Thinking that, Rouquin felt himself move onto solid understanding again. Humphrey went on, musing.

“Cyprus is ready for a good king. Isaac had a very tenuous grip here in the first place. I don’t know what the Emperor will think of it, but Constantinople hasn’t had much to say about Cyprus for thirty years.” A servant came forward and poured Humphrey’s cup full, and then another took the cup and sipped from it, nodded, and put it on the table before the Lord of Toron. Rouquin watched this, absorbed.

He said, “I think my cousin is already talking to the Templars about buying Cyprus. He needs the money.” Richard always needed money. He glanced at the two black-cloaked knights sitting down the table. Robert de Sablé sat among them, more a smiler and a nodder than a fighting man. A banker, a merchant in power. People like that complicated everything. He turned back to Humphrey, so knowing and so willing to talk.