Widow of Jerusalem: A Medieval Mystery (20 page)

“I think that it was my casual mention of that to Scarlet last week that set him on his fatal path. It started him thinking about Henry and William just as I did today. And he remembered something that we all failed to notice at the time of Conrad’s death, thanks to the general shock and confusion of the event.”

“What was that, Fool?” she asked.

“That it takes two days to travel from Acre to Tyre,” I said. “Even at the gallop with a change of horses. Henry left two days before Conrad’s death, supposedly to rejoin Richard.
Yet be showed up in Tyre the
m
orning after!
If he had received the news by messenger during the normal course of events, it would have been at least four days after Conrads death before he would have shown up. Yet in he marched, all dressed up and with the support of the French army, ready for marriage to you with your husband’s body still cooling in the vault. How could that have happened unless he knew in advance that Conrad was going to die? Henry made a show of departing, but didn’t go anywhere. He hid out nearby and waited.”

“How could he be sure that Leo and Balthazar wouldn’t talk?” she asked.

“Because of the Falconbergs,” I said. “William probably told Leo and Balthazar that the other brothers were in on it with him. And Ralph may have been, although I think that he merely figured out what his brother was doing and decided to let events play out. He’s too smart to let anyone tie anything to him. But Hugh was never told, and that leads me to one other instance: When Leo and Balthazar killed Conrad, Hugh responded by cutting down Leo. And Balthazar was visibly shocked by that. He could only have been surprised by that if he had been expecting all the Falconbergs would protect them, and that Hugh’s position as the King’s escort was part of the plan. Perhaps he had been led to believe that the murder was part of a larger, general revolt against Conrad, and it was only when Leo was killed that he realized that he had been betrayed.”

“But why didn’t he confess?” asked Isabelle.

“You know the answer as well as I, milady. Because his captor was Ralph Falconberg, and that’s when the false story about them being Assassins began. Whether Ralph was in on it from the start, or whether he did it to protect his brother, only he can say. But after that, Henry had the crown and you, and the Falconbergs all came along for the ride.”

“If what you say is true,” she said slowly, “then Henry deserved to die.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But Scarlet didn’t.”

“I didn’t know that he would take his own life,” she said, the tears flowing anew. “You’re right. He did figure all of this out, and he came to me. I learned that the man I thought married me for love had only done so out of ambition, just as I had learned too late that the man who I thought married me out of ambition truly loved me.”

“I am sorry for it, Isabelle,” I said.

“I couldn’t live with him after knowing this,” she said. “Knowing that the man who came to my bed every night had killed my husband for that privilege. I would have gone mad.”

“So Scarlet saved you,” I said.

“He said he would take care of everything,” she said. “I won’t pretend that I didn’t know what that meant. But I never knew that he would kill himself as well.”

“How could he do anything but that?” I shouted, and she cowered against the headboard. “You knew him better than anyone. You knew how he abhorred killing. Do you think that he could have lived another moment with you, knowing that he had violated his most sacred precept and did it at the behest of the woman he loved above all else? Every intimacy, every memory of the two of you would forever have been tainted by this act. Every day in your presence would have eaten away at him. Believe me, lady, he had no other choice. Death was a mercy.”

“What else could I have done?” she whispered.

“Yiu could have killed the man yourself,” I said. “Poisoned him, got him drunk and then shoved him out a window to look like an accident, done it a dozen different ways, and let Scarlet think no less of you for it. But you let him die for you, Isabelle.”

“What will you do?” she asked fearfully. “Denounce me? Take vengeance upon me?”

I looked at her, clutching a cushion to her stomach and rocking like a little girl. I wondered if that’s how she spent her first wedding night.

“No, lady,” I said softly. “Scarlet taught the children not to kill. I taught them to shun vengeance. I know all too well where it can lead.”

“Then what shall I do?” she said. “Call upon my oath to the Guild. Command me, Fool. Name what penance I must pay.”

“Let me think,” I said, and I sat with my legs crossed on the bed, leaning back for a minute. “Very well. You must rule as Queen of Jerusalem. That is your role and your punishment. Remove the Falconbergs from any position of influence. Scarlet trusted Balian. You do the same.”

“Is that all?” she asked.

“It is a heavy burden as it is,” I said. “But there’s more. There will be pressure upon you to remarry.” She turned pale and looked down. “Resist it. There is no urgency. Take the normal period of mourning this time. Reach out to Al-Adil and make peace, and give the Pisans their quarter in exchange for their loyalty. A grieving young widow should appeal even to their shriveled sense of chivalry.

“And, if I could put my two mites in, should you consider marrying again, there is a man I could suggest.”

“Who, Fool?” she said in surprise.

“Amaury of Lusignan,” I said. “His boys are already betrothed to your daughters, and he is to be a king in his own right, so he will stand before you as an equal. Cyprus would be a valuable ally as well, being so close. But more importantly, he would be something in a husband you haven’t had before.”

“What is that, Fool?” she asked.

“A good man,” I replied.

She sat there, thinking. Slowly, her arms relaxed their grip on the cushion, which slid to the floor.

“I suppose it would suit the Guild’s purposes to have me marry him,” she said.

“I have no idea,” I said. “Perhaps. But I think Scarlet would have approved of him.”

“Very well, then,” she said. “For the Guild.”

“If you like,” I said.

“Will you stay on as my new fool?” she asked suddenly.

“No,” I said. “But Perrio will. He was one of Scarlet’s best pupils. Speaking of which, how did Scarlet manage to afford to send all of them to the Guildhall?”

“An anonymous benefactor,” she replied, smiling for the first time. “I thought as much,” I said.

I
nnsbruck was
two days behind us. The baby was sleeping, and Claudia was gazing into the distance as we rode west.

“Was he buried in his motley?” she asked softly.

“He was,” I replied. “At the feet of Henry of Champagne.”

“What?” she exclaimed. “Good heavens, why?”

“Everyone had heard of the valiant efforts of the dwarf to save his master, and how he had died in the attempt. There was a great clamoring to continue this touching loyalty in the grave, so they were buried together at the Church of the Holy Cross. Or so the story goes.”

“How sad,” she said.

“Not really,” I said. “There was another reason they were buried together. The real reason, in fact. Each day, Isabelle would come to the church, sit by the gravesite, and weep. The whole kingdom spoke of her devotion to her husband. Few knew that the man she wept for every day was Scarlet.”

“Oh,” she said. “Then I’m glad it was arranged so. How long did you stay on?”

“Not long,” I said. “I set up Perrio in the castellum, then sailed back to Cyprus to speak with Lepos. He saw the merit of my idea and agreed to work on Amaury. From there, I went straight back to the Guildhall.”

“You left Acre without doing anything about William?” she exclaimed.

“Oh, well, we did do a little something,” I said. “Perrio and I waited for him one night when he had been drinking too much. We hit him over the head, then stuck him inside a burlap sack and carried him off to a deserted stable outside of the city. When he woke up, he was bound and blindfolded. Using voices other than our own, we advised him in no uncertain terms that the Queen was well aware of his treachery, and that only her respect for his family prevented her from having him gutted like a fish. We mentioned that that respect was of limited duration. Then we left him there. When he finally escaped, he did what he usually did when confronted with a real threat. He fled.”

“I am glad to hear it.” she said. “And the sign?”

“The last thing I did before I left Acre was to get that done by a court painter who knew Scarlet. He caught his likeness well, I thought. Not the servant, but the master fool. When I got back to the Guildhall, I went straight to the tavern, which used to be called the Dancing Pig, and bought everyone a round. Then I gave the sign to the barkeep and told him that the drinks had come from Scarlet, and that the Guild wanted to change the tavern name in his honor. No one had been very fond of the Dancing Pig anyway, so the change was welcome. Ever since then, Scarlet has been watching over the rest of us. And whenever I run into one of his pupils, he or she drinks on my coin.”

She leaned over to the mule and pulled the sign out of the saddle bag. She looked at the merry face of the dwarf, then put it back.

“I would have liked to have met him,” she said. “I’m glad that we reclaimed the sign.”

“Thank you, Duchess,” I said.

“But I think that you were too harsh on Isabelle,” she said.

“I thought I was too easy,” I said.

“She was trapped,” said Claudia. “Everyone told her to marry Henry. Even Scarlet, and I’m sure that must have torn at him as much as anything when he discovered the truth. To say that she should have committed the act rather than let Scarlet do it is easy, but not everyone has what it takes to kill someone. Not everyone is like you and me.”

“True, but…”

“Scarlet taught her to be a fool like himself,” she said. “How could he then expect her to turn against those teachings and kill Henry? But if he lived on, she would have gone mad, or even died of heartsickness. Scarlet did what he had to do, what he always did. He took care of her.”

“And in doing so, left her to take care of herself.”

“It was about time that she did so, I think,” said Claudia. “And you and Perrio were there to help her through it. Maybe seeing how capable Perrio had become gave Scarlet the will to leave Isabelle, knowing that another fool could take his place by her side. Is Perrio still there?”

“He is indeed,” I said. “He was a good choice for her, for he knew the truth and she couldn’t charm him. She waited a full year after Henry’s death, a proper mourning this time, while Ralph Falconberg dogged her footsteps, hoping. Then she reached out to Amaury, and they wed. Amaury negotiated a truce with Al-Adil that has continued to this day, Lepos joined Perrio, and the royal children run through Acre like children should, unaware that they have all been committed to each other for life. Isabelle has had two more daughters with Amaury, I hear.”

“And is she happy?” wondered Claudia.

“That never gets mentioned in the reports,” I said.

Claudia looked down at our sleeping daughter.

“Will Portia be a fool?” she asked abruptly.

“I suppose so,” I said. “I really haven’t thought about it.”

“Will she learn to kill, as we have?” asked Claudia.

“What else can she do?” I said, “hou left the nobility to join the Guild, “lou can’t go back again just to make her a lady.”

“No,” she said. “But there must be another way. I don’t want her to be a killer. I don’t want her to be a fool.”

“Not all fools kill,” I said. “Some merely entertain and send reports back to the Guild.”

“But she’s our daughter,” said Claudia. “If we let her become a fool, you know that she will be just like us. I want a better life for her than that.”

“Shall we find her a nice stolid shopkeeper to marry someday?”

“Stop it,” she said. “All that I am saying is that I fully expect our child to be remarkable. I want her to have a life equal to her abilities.”

“We’ll think of something, Duchess,” I assured her. “In the meanwhile …”

“Look,” she said suddenly, pointing ahead.

In the distance, as the sun began to set, a band of pilgrims was setting up camp by the side of the road, singing as they did so.

The singing was extraordinarily good.

The people nearest to us as we approached looked us over carefully, then one of them suddenly shouted, “Theo!”

“Theo! It’s Theo, and his wife,” some others called, and soon we were swarmed by fools without motley. Many faces I recognized, but even more hopefully, many I did not, for they were young and new. The novitiates had stuck with the Guild despite the current state of emergency, and many of them looked at us with awe as the older ones quickly whispered our story to them.

Brother Dennis, the Guild ostler, came striding through the pack to lift me off Zeus and squeeze me until I cracked.

“By Davids lyre, you made it,” he laughed. “And you and Zeus managed not to kill each other. Hello, old friend.”

“Hello to you,” I replied, but then I saw that he was greeting my horse.

Brother Timothy, Father Geralds second in command and the Guild juggling instructor, came up, an uncharacteristic grin on his weathered face.

“Theo, Claudia, welcome home,” he said. He held his arms out to Claudia and took the baby from her, then helped her off her horse. “I hope you have some money left,” he muttered to me. “It’s a costly journey when we travel as mere mortals and can’t earn our way.”

“We have some,” I said. “Where’s Father Gerald?”

“That wagon over there,” he said. “I’ll take you.”

Brother Dennis took our horses and a team of children carried our bags behind us as we went to greet the oldest man any of us had ever known. He sat on the rear of a wagon, reclining against sacks of flour, bundled in an old brown blanket, staring blankly into space. But his hearing was still sharp, for he turned in our direction immediately when we neared him.

“Who has arrived, Brother Timothy?” he called.

“An old friend,” replied Timothy. “Come and greet him.”

Father Gerald slipped carefully off the wagon and tottered in my direction.

“Speak, Fool, that I may recognize you,” he commanded.

“Hello, Father,” I said.

“Theo?” he said, his face creasing into a thousand smiles. He stepped toward me and hugged me hard. “Praise the First Fool, Our Savior! You have returned safely.”

“I promised that I would,” I said. “And you promised that you would be alive when I got back.”

“Then thank God that we are both men of honor,” he laughed. “Is this your wife?”

“Hello, Father,” said Claudia, a bit nervously.

“My dear, welcome home,” he said fervently, taking her hands in his. “We have not settled into our haven yet, but when we do, we shall give you a proper welcome to the Guild. And where is this baby that I heard about?”

“Here she is, Father,” said Brother Timothy.

“Let me hold her,” said Father Gerald. He took Portia carefully, then gently ran his fingers across her face. “Ah, she’s a good one,” he said softly. “A child of Theophilos in the world at last. A great event, in my opinion.”

“Thank you, Father,” said Claudia as he handed her back.

“Well, Theo, we’re living in strange days,” said Father Gerald. “But they always are, aren’t they? We’ll have the Guild going again in no time.”

“I am sure of it, Father,” I said. “I volunteer to help build the new tavern.”

He laughed, then turned somber.

“That reminds me,” he said. “I have to apologize to you. The one thing we forgot in our haste to evacuate was that sign you brought back from Acre. I know how much… what, what is it?”

The older fools were chuckling as I held my finger to my lips and the sign over my head.

Father Gerald could still glare even though blind, but they just laughed harder.

“You’ve got the sign, haven’t you?” he said accusingly.

“I have, Father.”

He shook his head.

“fou’re as hotheaded as you ever were,” he said. “One would think that having a wife would temper you.”

“As a matter of fact, I helped him get it,” said Claudia.

“Oh, my,” said Father Gerald, shaking his head in dismay. “You’ve found the perfect mate, lad. What mischief will this baby get into when it learns to walk?”

“Supper is on,” called someone, and we walked together to the cooking fires.

“Excuse me, Father?” piped up one of the younger novitiates. “Why is that sign so important?”

“Well, I don’t know that I am the proper one to tell that story,” replied Father Gerald. “Theo is the one who knows it best.”

I glanced over at Claudia, who was seated on a blanket, nursing Portia. She smiled up at me and nodded her head.

“It’s a long story,” I said.

“We have a ways to go before we reach the haven,” said Father Gerald. “You might as well.”

“Tell it! Please!” cried the children.

“All right,” I said. “It was in the summer of 1191, after the recapture of Acre by the Crusaders, that I first met a dwarf called Scarlet. It was a day filled with screams”