Widow of Jerusalem: A Medieval Mystery (16 page)

The novitiates, many of whom were seeing the interior of Tyre for the first time after so long a sojourn in the tents, performed splendidly, finishing with a pair of six-man pyramids juggling clubs across to each other. Scarlet beamed at them proudly from his place by Isabelle’s side, and Henry solemnly presented each of them with a silver bezant.

Scarlet sang an encomium composed for the occasion; Balian and Burgundy gave long-winded speeches, and everyone got drunk, with the exception of Isabelle. And Henry, I noticed. Amidst the celebrating in his honor, he smiled politely and kept a cold, sober eye on everyone. Not the worst quality in a young king, I suppose, but I thought he could have been happier. At the end of Scarlet’s performance, he joined in the general applause hesitantly and stopped before the rest.

Given the recent history, the normal wedding jibes were abandoned. The usual folk customs for the wedding chamber were dropped as well, due to the bride’s advanced stage of pregnancy. I hoped Henry was a patient man. Indeed, that seemed to be the theme of many of the speeches made. Everything good comes to those who wait, slow and steady wins the race, and so on. In other words, give her a chance to produce the heir before you go heaving your crusading loins at her, young Henry.

My own king, Denis, partook in the revels heartily. The next day, he decided to tour the city with me as his guide. I made a point of showing him the ruins under the waves of Old Tyre as Scarlet had once shown them to me, and Denis was duly impressed.

“Comes to us all, jesters and kings, doesn’t it?” he mused.

“Aye, milord,” I said. “Should the jester go first like a good servant and prepare the way?”

“No rush, no rush, my friend,” he said. “Let us live as long and as well as we possibly can. The world does not need our lives so badly.” One of his men came running up.

“Sire, I have found a boat to Constantinople,” he said. “It leaves in two days.”

“Excellent,” said Denis. “Book passage for all of us.” He turned to me. “Should be quite a trip. I’ve never been there.”

“Nor I,” I said. “May I take my leave of you now, sire? There are some friends to whom I wish to bid farewell.”

“By all means, Droignon,” he said. “Meet us at the harbor two days hence.”

I
n the morning
, I went to the clearing for one last session with the novitiates. They were still buzzing with the success of their performance and were already taking requests to repeat it for various companies of soldiers. I gave them some more material to work with, then gathered them around me.

“My children, my students, my friends, my colleagues,” I said. “It has come time for me to leave you.”

There were cries of dismay, which secretly pleased me, I must say.

E
gotist
!

What?

Well, if you insist that I play Echo to your Narcissus, I’ll say it again. Egotist!

My dear wife, all performers are egotists, and all teachers as well. What should a teacher of performers he?

Smug, apparently.

Perhaps. But remember, these children were orphans and refugees. If Scarlet had become their father, I had become something to them as well.

A mother?

More of an uncle. Let me continue. This story is still my performance.

Egotist.

“
N
ow that you
have had a taste of performing before royalty and crowds, you may be spoiled for what I have to share with you,” I continued.

“Nonsense!”

“Tell us!”

“Please, Monsieur Droignon?”

“Then sit,” I said. They did, quickly and quietly. “The Guild will always tell you not to let your love of performing interfere with your mission. Fair enough. But what I want to tell you is this: do not let your mission interfere with your love of performing. It’s why you want to become fools. It is a way of life, not just a way of carrying out the obscure and frustrating tasks that the Guild will send you. We entertain, whether it’s before a hundred thousand at the Hippodrome or one lowly shepherd in exchange for a night’s shelter. To bring laughter to the world is as sacred a mission as to bring peace. We may bump into each other again someday, in which case I expect each of you to buy me a drink.”

They cheered at that. I held up my hand.

“But in the event that we do not, remember me, and I will remember you. And now, I want to see if it’s possible to embrace all of you at once.”

It wasn’t, as it turned out, but we certainly tried.

I
came back
to Scarlet’s cottage. He wasn’t there, so I fed the pigeons and gathered my belongings. When I was done, I went to the castellum. To my surprise, I was stopped at the entrance.

“Is there anything wrong?” I asked the guard at the gate.

He looked around to make sure no one was watching, then leaned forward to whisper to me.

“Sorry, Droignon, but there’s orders from the King. No jesters in the castellum anymore.”

“What? But the Queen—“

“Orders from the King,” he said. “That’s what I said.”

“What about Scarlet?”

“He’s inside with the Queen,” he said.

“So, there is a jester in the castellum,” I said.

“No, there isn’t,” he said.

“But you said—“

“I know what I said, Fool,” he barked. “Now, go away!”

I saw one of Henry’s captains standing at the entryway, the source of the guard’s increased hostility.

I went back to Scarlet’s place, hurt and puzzled. After all this time, I wanted to pay my respects to Isabelle. I also wanted to see how she appeared in private. At the wedding, she seemed happy, but I had my suspicions of her public performances.

At sunset, I heard Scarlet climbing the ladder to the roof. I came out of his cottage to see him standing at the edge of the roof, looking out to sea.

“Scarlet?” I said. He turned, and I winced.

He was no longer clad in his scarlet motley, cap and bells. He was wearing the dingy garb of an ordinary palace servant.

“He promised that I would remain with the household staff,” he said quietly. “But he never promised that I would remain a jester. I am to be his lackey. Scarlet the Varlet.”

“Bastard!” I shouted.

He shook his head.

“As long as I am with Isabelle, it doesn’t really matter,” he said. “And I will still have time to teach the novitiates once a week. If they can support themselves. With peace at hand, everyone in the tent city will be leaving Tyre. We may not be able to keep the children together. Well have to find places for them to do their fooling, but I have a feeling that it won’t be easy with this young king.”

He noticed my packed gear for the first time.

“Well,” he sighed. “Looks like you’re leaving.”

“I could stay,” I said. “You’re the Chief Fool. If you tell me to stay here, the Guild can’t second-guess you.”

He shook his head.

“What I would like personally is not what I think should be,” he said. “When do you leave?”

“In the morning,” I said.

“Then tonight, we will get roaring drunk, and I won’t give you a head start this time.”

We walked to the wharf, and I stowed my gear aboard the ship.

“I solved one of our minor mysteries,” Scarlet said as we walked to the nearest tavern.

“What’s that?”

“When I was in the great hall, fetching wine for my new master, who should walk in but Pierre and Philippe.”

“Really?” I exclaimed. “So they were working for Henry?”

“No,” said Scarlet, “””lour guess was right. They were spies for Richard. But they were spying on the Duke of Burgundy. After the French abandoned the Crusade, Richard wanted to make sure that they wouldn’t try to seize any territory on their own.”

“And they had nothing to do with Balthazar and Leo?”

“Apparently not.”

I hesitated, took a deep breath, then plunged.

“Scarlet, what about Isabelle?” I asked. “What if she was behind Conrad’s murder?”

He darkened.

“Don’t ever mention that again,” he said. “I know that she had nothing to do with it.”

“But—“

“I trust her as I trust myself,” he said. “If you value our friendship, then drop this now and forever.”

“All right,” I said reluctantly. “But I haven’t any other ideas on the subject.”

“Even if we found out who was behind it, we couldn’t do anything to bring Conrad back,” said Scarlet. “The wheel has turned once again. Alexander the Great’s Tyre lies under the sea, Conrad lies under the cathedral. In the morning, you sail away. I’ll get some wine.”

The first words he ever said to me, I thought.

It didn’t take him long to get drunk, and the pressure of going through the day without jesting caused him to burst into a constant riot of song and storytelling. Soon, everyone in the tavern was crowded around the dwarf who sat on a high stool in the middle, his eyes flashing like twin suns. Only the daylight streaming into the tavern broke his chain of foolery.

“Well, looks like we all forgot to sleep,” he said merrily. “Gentlemen, good day. I must escort my brother to his place of departure.”

We all staggered out, looking like wrecks and smelling like men who had spent the night carousing. I espied Denis and his retinue moving their supplies and horses onto the ship.

“I guess this is it,” I said.

“Seems like it,” he said.

I knelt down to embrace him.

“Come back to the Guildhall someday,” I said. “If I hear that you’re there, I’ll drop whatever it is I am doing and come see you.”

“Maybe,” he replied. “But there’s Isabelle. And the baby. Someone has to watch out for them.”

“She’s safe,” I said. “Good-bye, Scarlet. I owe you a few drinks.”

“It all works out in the end,” he replied. “It has been a pleasure.
Stultorum numerus
…”

“Infinitus est,”
I said, and boarded the ship.

I stayed on the deck as the oarsmen pulled us slowly out of the enclosed harbor, watching Scarlet shrink into an even tinier version of himself, one hand raised.

Peace is at hand, I thought. Not as much bloodshed as there might have been. One king home already, one king to return soon, I hope. Maybe the alliance here would carry over to France and England, but somehow I doubted that. More work for the Guild.

Yet there was a murdered marquis, and a poor woman no one remembered who had her throat slit. Not our problem, said Scarlet, and he was right. Still, I was not satisfied with how things were left in Tyre. But that would be the last time that I would set foot in that city.

“
A
nd that was it
?” exclaimed Claudia, startling Portia into crying.

We stopped and dismounted so that she could soothe and nurse the baby.

We had left the Adige river behind at Bozen and were now following the path of the Isarco, hoping to reach the hospice at Brixen by sunset. It was the same route that the Romans had once used to go from Verona to Innsbruck, the old
per vallem Tridentinum.
It was the easiest of the passes through the Alps, which was a good thing for us, lacking the elephants Hannibal used for the western passage.

It had been perhaps ten days since we left Niccolo. The rivers were getting some snow melt even now, but the road wasn’t too muddy and the horses got through without much complaint. We had switched our guises back to those of returning pilgrims, realizing that merchants without goods would arouse undue suspicion from the toll-collectors. It also gave us access to the hospices, which saved us some money. The inns were dear, especially with the increased flow of traffic in the spring.

The inns, however, were a useful source of information. The Guild kept a few jesters posted along the road, and they often worked the inns, entertaining travelers and picking up all kinds of gossip. At Bozen, we learned from a colleague that the traveling Guild was just five days ahead of us, having tarried to repair the wagons. We also learned that the wine at Bozen was outstanding.

When Portia was asleep, I took the sling from Claudia and climbed back on Zeus. He seemed to know that the baby was in his charge now, for he didn’t raise his usual nasty antics. Claudia mounted Hera and looped the mule’s reins around hers, and we rode on.

“No, that was not it,” I resumed.

“But you said that was the last time you set foot in Tyre,” she objected.

“And so it was. The story would continue elsewhere some years later.”

“Oh. I still can’t believe that you, of all people, would leave so many loose ends like that.”

“I wasn’t quite the avenging busybody that I have become of late,” I said. “Nor was I my own master. I had specific directives from the Guild and from Scarlet. What other choice did I have?”

“I suppose,” she said.

“What would you have done?” I asked.

“Well, since at least two people were lying, I would have gone after them somehow,” she replied. “Probably starting with the lesser.”

I shook my head in admiration. “I wish that you had been with us then,” I said. “Where were you when we needed you?”

“At home, raising a child while waiting for my first husband to come back from the Crusade,” she said. “All while running his city and his estates. Anyhow, it’s easy enough for me to pick up on the lies from the story. I’m sure it was much more difficult when you were living through the experience.”

“It was, unfortunately. Had we understood more as the events actually happened, we might have averted some of what was to come. But I’m getting ahead of myself.”

D
enis
and I ended up spending a lengthy period of time in Constantinople, thanks to a romantic entanglement.

Is Thalia part of this story? Because
if
she’s not, I’d rather not hear about her.

She was not part of this story. We stayed more on account of Denis’s lover than anyone I was involved with. But I’ll move on.

After we left, we traveled overland to Durazzo, sailed to Apulia, and continued west to Pisa. From there, it was a short journey to Denis’s kingdom. I was hoping to guide him into a suitable marriage once we came home, but he was in no hurry to settle down with anyone. About two years after that, having survived the armies of Saladin and the fleshpots of Constantinople, he fell from his horse while hunting and died of his injuries a week later.

A young death, a sad death, but not a mysterious one. Since he died without issue, the throne passed to his father’s younger brother, a hale former soldier with three daughters, two of whom were married with children of their own. I stayed on for a while to help ease the transition, but the kingdom was in stable hands, so I requested permission to return to the Guildhall.

It was actually my third visit there since returning from Tyre, Denis having been most generous with my requests for the occasional journey. I came sometime in early July of 1197.

Having arrived unexpectedly, I was hoping that my surprise appearance would be good for a few rounds of drinks from my brethren. To my disappointment, however, the Guildhall was relatively devoid of visiting fools. The hall held mostly faculty and novitiates, and they were too busy to give the prodigal his just deserts.

But my coming did not go entirely unnoticed. As I was unpacking my gear, a novitiate knocked respectfully at my door.

“Father Gerald wants to see you,” he said. “Right away.”

I tossed my weapons under the bed and followed him through the old tunnel that cut through the mountain from the Guildhall to the monastery on the opposite slope. The boy vanished behind me, and I tapped on Father Geralds door.

“Come in, Theophilos,” he called, and I stepped inside. He was an ancient man, knife-thin and more weathered than an Alp. There was constant speculation at the tavern as to his age, but none had the courage to ask him about it. He could still see back then, and his glare hit me like a shovel before I could adjust to the dim light of the room.

“So,” he said. “Thought you would pay us a little social call, did you?”

“Nice to see you, Father,” I said, “You’re looking… well, rather old.”

He smiled, stepped from behind his desk, and embraced me. I returned it carefully.

“It turns out that your appearance is most opportune,” he said, sitting down again. “Are you up for a little more travel?”

“Wouldn’t mind it at all,” I said. “Things are rather dull where I am, which is a good thing. Where are you sending me?”

“Acre,” he said.

I felt a thrill of both joy and anxiety shoot through me.

“Did something happen to Scarlet?” I asked.

“No, no, nothing disastrous,” he said. “But I need someone to take some information to him and to get a fresh sense of what’s going on there. By the time we hear anything about the area, the news is three months gone. Given your familiarity with the territory, you’re the ideal fool.”

“I would be delighted,” I said. “I enjoyed.my time with the little fellow immensely. What’s the information?”

“Pisa,” he said. “They’re sending a fleet to Acre, and that’s always trouble. They have intrigued in that area before, and Henry bears them no love. I don’t want Scarlet to find this out by seeing them sail into the harbor. With some warning, he may be able to work on Henry to reconcile with them.”

“Fine,” I said. “How much of a lead do I have?”

“They leave in a week, according to Fazio. You know Fazio, don’t you?”

“Met him in Pisa a couple of times,” I said. “One of the best. All right. How do you think I should go?”

“I’d say from Brindisi,” he said. “There’s regular pilgrim traffic going from there, and you’d be more likely to find passage than in Venice. You may want to consider stopping in Cyprus on the way. The fool with Lusignan is named Lepos.”

“In Nicosia or Famegusta?”

“Lusignan is in Nicosia. And one more thing, Theo. You’ll be taking another fool with you.”

“I will? Why?”

“He’s going to be assigned to Acre. Scarlet could use another pair of eyes and legs in the area.”

“Fine,” I said. “Who is he?”

“See for yourself,” said Father Gerald. “He’s standing right behind tf you.

I whirled to see a tall young man grinning at me from two feet away. He was in full motley, yet had crept up behind me without making a sound. Not easy when you’re wearing a cap and bells.

“Well done,” I said. “I never heard you coming. Not many can catch me unawares when I’m sober.”

“I was always good at sneaking,” he replied. “But you knew that.”

I stared at him for a moment in shock.

“Peter?” I exclaimed. “Is that you?”

“Stultorum numerus,
Monsieur Droignon,” he said, and he grabbed me in an immense hug.

I pried myself away, stepped back, and looked him up and down. He was maybe fifteen or sixteen by this point, with the build of an acrobat and a devilish glint in his eyes.

“And he’s graduated,” I said to Father Gerald. “Did he do well for you?

“Took to it like a duck to water,” said Father Gerald proudly. “He already spoke Syrian and Arabic, so he seemed the right man for this job. He’s done some apprenticing, including four months with Fazio. I expect that you could add a little more to his education on the trip.”

“It shall make the journey a pleasant one,” I said. “Very well, youngster. Pack your gear. We leave at dawn. What is your name now, by the way?”

“Perrio,” he said. “Something close to my own.”

“
I
brahim and Magdalena
are in Thessaly,” Perrio informed me the next morning as we left the Guildhall. “They have two children, and from all reports are quite happy. Sara is breaking hearts in Brittany. And the others…”

“What do you mean, “the others?”

“ I asked. “I thought only four of you came to the Guild.”

“You didn’t hear?” he exclaimed. “Scarlet managed to send every single one of the novitiates to the Guildhall. We don’t know how he did it, but somehow he got the funds together.”

“Remarkable,” I said, shaking my head in wonder.

“Some of them are still in training,” he continued. “But the older ones are all out and fooling. If Scarlet ever -decided to come back to Europe, he could go from country to country and never have to pay for a drink.”

“What of Scarlet himself?” I asked.

He looked gloomy for a moment.

“They say that Henry treats him most cruelly,” he said. “The King of Jerusalem never misses an opportunity to insult or abuse him. Yet Scarlet merely smiles and continues serving him. He has never once considered leaving or given Henry the opportunity of getting rid of him.”

“And Henry considers himself honor bound by the promise he made the Queen,” I said. “Poor Scarlet. To go so long without launching even one retort or insult. That must be hell for a fool as talented as he is.”

We found a merchantman shipping out of Brindisi to Cyprus and paid for enough space to rig two hammocks, one over the other. The trip took about three weeks, and we were heartily glad to put our feet back onto solid ground when it was over. We docked at Kyrenia—not the most convenient port on the island, but the most fortified. This close to the eastern end of the Mediterranean, piracy was a real threat. In particular, the emir of Beirut, Usamah, was raiding Christian shipping so prolifically that the odds of completing a pilgrimage to the Holy Land without being killed or enslaved were about one out of two.

From Kyrenia, it was a days journey south to Nicosia, the capital of the conquered kingdom. I say kingdom, but there wasn’t actually a king at this point. Guy de Lusignan had died in 1194, alone and disgruntled, and the mantle had fallen to his brother Amaury. It took some time and political maneuvering to get recognition for Cyprus as a new kingdom, but it finally had been done and Amaury was set to be crowned in September.

The years of Crusader rule had not made much of a change. The island was still very much a Greek place. The people spoke Greek, the churches practiced the Greek rite, and the food was Greek, which was fine with me. The mountains of the interior made for good vineyards, as we discovered. Perrio had not yet learned to drink properly, so I took it upon myself to further his education, as per my mandate from Father Gerald.

Nicosia was a central market for the island and could have passed for any reasonably bustling Greek town, except that the men were cleanshaven, a concession to their to their Frankish masters. Still, everyone looked prosperous and contented, which shows how little the loss of a beard compares to five years of peace and stability.

In the center of the city was a keep, dating back to Byzantine rule, and still being repaired and built up. The Templars had used it when the island had been given to them by Richard, and they had barely held out against the subsequent revolt of a populace not in tune with the Templars” tender methods. The city was not walled, although a number of defensive towers were under construction around it.

A man in motley appeared in front of us as we crossed the market.

“Do I even have to bother with the password?” he said merrily. “My brothers, welcome to Nicosia. I am Lepos. Come, come, my room is yours.”

“Infinitus est
anyway,” I said, shaking his hand. “The name is Droignon, and the recent newcomer to manhood is Perrio. I’m supposed to watch him until he starts shaving,”

“Fdm, looks like you’ll be a while,” said Lepos, examining the boy critically. “Well, I suppose you’re just passing through.”

“Not just,” I said. “Father Gerald told us to check in with you. It is a welcome diversion after the sea voyage. How are things here?”