The King's Witch Page 7

  She could not keep the memories away anymore. Eleanor had told her, “Forget everything. You must not think of it. It will go away if you forget.” And she had managed not to think of it, for so long.

  The unspoken reasoning: If they know, no one will want you. You will be cast out, lost and alone. I love you, I will save you, but you must do as I say. So forget.

  Seeing the King of France had brought it all up again, like a drowned body rising to the surface: this weasel King, whom Johanna tried basely to seduce. This King, who had brought Edythe’s family to their deaths.

  Then her name had not been Edythe. She had been only thirteen. She had not been home; when the decree came she was in Rouen, far to the west, with her aunt and uncle, at some family festival. She still remembered the white dress, the pretty slippers that were too tight, the sound of a glass breaking. Her mother and father had stayed behind in Troyes because her mother was so near her time. Then the decree was published. Her aunt and uncle made ready to flee, and her aunt bundled Edythe off to England, with a letter to the imprisoned Queen.

  It was only later that Eleanor told her what had happened to her family. “It is terrible. You must forget. Forget it all. Begin again, now, be Edythe and Christian, from now.”

  She groaned, her fist pressed to her stomach. She knew the bitter wisdom in the Queen’s words. There was nothing she could do, anyway. She had no power of revenge. She had no will to revenge. But she hated him, that weasel King. And now she could not push it down below the top of her mind. Johanna had made her somehow complicit with him. In the dark of night, among the other sleeping women, she thought over and over of her mother and father, her tiny brother, burning.

  In the gray dawn, the women buried Gracia behind the camp, in a graveyard already full, the mounded earth patchy with weeds. Most of the graves were marked only with rings of stones. Dogs had been digging at them. Johanna and Lilia both wept, and Edythe kept her head down and thought with an ache in her throat that Gracia would be alive if she had known what to do. She thought again about Jerusalem, where all of this would make sense. When she looked up, she saw Berengaria and her attendants there, a little apart from Johanna. After the priest was done, the little Queen went up to him and knelt for a blessing. Tears streaming down her face, Johanna trudged back up the slope, Edythe and Lilia behind her.

  Johanna had brought only a few chests and a bed, which they had put in the back of the tent, well separate from Berengaria’s corner. The two maids slept on a pallet, which they folded away every morning. A page came in with a basket of bread and cheese and some wine and they ate. The bread was bad and not much of it. Johanna lay down on the bed and buried her head in the cushions. Berengaria had brought the priest back with her to pray and, with Lilia, Edythe went about their small daily chores.

  The ordinary work settled her, the pattern of what she knew, what she was supposed to do. Lilia’s eyes were red. They went out to shake the bedclothes; the day was blooming with the summer heat. The city lay still as a graveyard, nothing moving beyond the crumbled wall or on this side of it, except for a row of men who stood on the slope looking the place over. Already it seemed familiar, as if they had been here for years. But it wasn’t, she knew; everything was different here, everything had changed. Lilia lifted her apron to wipe her eyes and plodded back into the tent, and Edythe followed her to bring out the chamber pots.

  The men worked along the walls, dragging in the pieces of the great war machines from the ships and putting them together. The heat was terrific. Rouquin shaded his eyes, looking toward the city. The battering that destroyed the wall had left in its place a broad, almost impassable barrier of rubble. Ahead of him among the enormous stones, six men—naked but for their hose—were digging a tunnel. On the broken stones of the wall a darker shape moved, a sniper with his bow.

  Richard was riding toward them, a dozen other men behind him. Rouquin picked up his shirt and wiped his face with it, and took off his hat.

  “Mind the archer,” he said, when his cousin reined his big black horse around beside him.

  Richard looked toward Acre. “They’re all over. They can’t hit anything at this reach; they’re just wasting arrows.”

  Among the men behind him, someone said, “Word is at night they sneak out here and pick them up again. It’s worth your life to come down here at night, my lord.”

  Richard leaned on his saddlebows. There were lines around the corners of his mouth, and his eyes had a dark sheen. Rouquin thought he was beginning to regret the promise he had made the night before, to take Acre within the biblical forty days. The King’s gaze traveled over the men trying to clear a ground for the belfry. “This is slow work,” he said.

  Somebody shouted, “Watch out!”

  From the city came the whine and thunk of a catapult, and then a high arching shower of junk, arrows, pebbles, and jars of burning oil began to pelt down just short of the Crusaders. The oil stank. A stone bounced past Rouquin’s shoe. He turned to Mercadier.

  “Get somebody to collect all those arrows.” He turned back to Richard. “You were saying?”

  Richard rubbed his hand over the pommel of his saddle. “I’ve had an offer from Saladin to talk.”

  “You know what I think of that.”

  The King laughed. He looked tired. He said, “Well, come up to Johanna’s tent, and we’ll discuss it.” Which meant he would accept the Sultan’s offer and order Rouquin to go along. Rouquin turned his eyes to the war machine. A truce might give him the chance to build it much closer to the walls. He shouted at Mercadier to bring up the next crosspiece of the frame.

  Five

  ACRE

  Berengaria and her women now spent most of their time with the priest, who kept church in a separate tent, so Johanna and her women had more room in theirs. They brought in new reed mats for the floor and kept the door flaps folded back, to let in the air and light. The dust from the camp drifted everywhere. In the evening, while Lilia and Edythe shook out the Queen’s linen and made her bed ready, Lilia said, under her breath, “You will never guess who loves me now.”

  Edythe glanced at her. “Who?”

  The girl had shed her gloom about Gracia. She smiled; she had dimples at either corner of her mouth. Her dark eyes flashed. “You will never guess.” She flipped her hips back and forth and put a finger to her lips.

  Edythe shut her mouth tight, ashamed of even caring. Lilia would get nothing for this but a few baubles, maybe worse. But the girl was happy, glowing. Someone loved her. Edythe felt a low roil of envy, herself old and juiceless.

  She bent over the pallet bed, tucking down the corner. “Then I won’t try. We should bring her some bread and wine; it’s getting late.”

  “The King is coming,” Lilia said.

  “Well, then definitely we should get some wine.”

  Johanna came in, a train of pages after her, carrying a table, and some ewers. Right behind them another page appeared, stood to one side, and piped out, “The King!” Johanna fussed over the placement of the table, and Richard sauntered in, trailing Rouquin and King Guy and Guy’s brother Hugh and the Templar Grand Master. They crowded the place. Edythe drew back almost to the bedside, the sharp smell of sweat in her nostrils. Johanna called Lilia to light the candles.

  Richard came up to his sister. “Not getting on so well with my dear bride?” He kissed her cheek. “God, what a shrew.” He left the ambiguities of this hanging in the air. Edythe, watching, was startled at how pale he looked, his face gray beneath the brown of the sun. While Johanna bustled around she stood quietly watching them all.

  Guy was saying, “Everybody is lining up to take the four bezants. Even the Germans.” He drank from a cup and handed it off to a page. Rouquin, a few feet away, kept his back to him; watching from the back of the tent, Edythe had seen before that Rouquin hated Guy.

  “Nonetheless,” said Guy’s brother Hugh. “One month. That’s close.”

  Humphrey de Toron walked in among them, trailing
three of his pages. He made his bow to Guy, his overlord, and Guy spoke and shook his hand, smiling. Guy played a perfect King; Edythe wondered, briefly, why that wasn’t good enough for a nonexistent kingdom. Her gaze lay on Humphrey, whose puzzling elegant manners fascinated her. If she had such a grace, she thought, she would have more than one to love her. Humphrey’s page brought him a cup of the wine. He said nothing, but Edythe saw his attention slide across the room, as if against his will, toward Richard. The look on his face reminded her suddenly of Lilia.

  “What about the fleet?” Richard said. He was at the center of the flaming lamps, under the peak of the tent. When he spoke, all the rest of them fell silent and faced him, a ring of moons. The Templar stepped forward. He wore the silver medal of his order on a chain around his neck. The red cross was like a bloodstain on his snowy white surcoat.

  “A lot of the shipmasters who brought us here want to go back to Sicily, but there’s a Genoese captain who came with the King of France who can take charge of that. Simon Doro.”

  “No,” Richard said. “No Genoese. They’re all French under the skin.”

  The Grand Master’s voice was measured. “We have to seal off the city completely, that’s the key to it. For that we need a fleet.”

  Richard put his hand to his head. Maybe he had a headache. His voice was mild. The Grand Master might have no overlord but the Pope, but he only advised, and Richard disposed. “The Pisans will do it. The fleet that came with me. If we offer them enough. Rouq’, did you scout Saladin’s camp?” The Templar backed off, frowning.

  “Mercadier and I did, this afternoon,” said his cousin. “It’s a clever setup, several rings deep; it would be hard to storm. Still, from all the signs, they used to have a lot more people, so they’re losing men. I think we outnumber them two to one, maybe. Mercadier has heard they send swimmers back and forth across the bay with messages, so we should have the fleet on the watch.”

  Johanna walked up to her brother and put her hand on his arm. “If you must talk of war, get out of here. I want this for a place of peace, a woman’s place, so if you want to stay, talk more gently.”

  Richard said, “Go, then. Humphrey—my lord de Toron, stay.” He sat down on a stool in the middle of the tent and asked for some wine. Humphrey de Toron lingered, waiting to be called on. Richard turned to Johanna, who was bustling around him, directing Lilia with the wine; Edythe came up quietly and put another stool beside the King’s.

  Johanna’s brother said, “So where is the lady Berengaria?”

  “At church,” Johanna said, and gave an imperious sniff. “Or what passes for a church here.”

  “What’s wrong between you? I thought you women clung together like brambles and sheep.”

  Johanna sat down on the stool. “She prefers the company of God. No, believe me, I am much happier without her. It’s men who are the brambles and the sheep; men can’t endure life without another man around to be better than, or in liege to.” Nearby, Humphrey de Toron smiled.

  Richard took the cup of wine. This, Edythe knew, was an old game with them. She frowned; his eyes seemed unnaturally bright, and his face shone with sweat. “Women,” he said. “You’re just like Mother. You love circles, everything’s got to web together for you, which is why you can’t decide anything.”

  Johanna began a sharp reply. Richard swayed, as if his head were suddenly heavy; the cup slipped out of his hands, and he pitched forward onto the floor.

  Lilia screamed. Humphrey de Toron started toward him, and Edythe leaped up from her place by the bed. With a cry, Johanna had dropped to her knees beside her brother. She swung toward Humphrey.

  “Please go, sir.” Her eyes came pleading to Edythe. “Help me.”

  Humphrey left, with his pages. Edythe sank down beside the King. He was alive, still, she saw at once with a ridiculous gratitude, and struggling a little, as if to get up. Or just twitching. His eyes were only half-open. She laid her hands on him. He was shivering in long furious spasms, his muscles knotting under her touch.

  “What is it?” Johanna said. She wrung her hands together, leaning over him. “Is it poison?”

  Edythe said, “I don’t know.” She looked around them. “My lady—we must cover him. We could put him in your bed.”

  “Yes,” Johanna said. “I’ll bring Rouquin.”

  Edythe knelt by the King, struggling to understand this. He was breathing well enough. Now his eyes opened; he put one hand on the mat beneath him and tried to get up, but he was too weak even to lift his head off the ground, and he lay flat again. Sweat trickled down his cheek. Rouquin came in, swearing under his breath, and lifted Richard in his arms. Edythe, standing back, remembered how strong he was; he lifted his tall cousin like a child in his arms and took him to the Queen’s pallet.

  Johanna said, “Let no one in.” She turned to Edythe. “You must help him. You must save him, Edythe.”

  A plea. Or a command. Edythe licked her lips, trying to think what to do. She had lost Gracia. Help me, she thought. Please help me. But she could not think to whom she prayed.

  Edythe got Lilia to heating wine, the last of the zingiber potion and a good dose of oxymel, and with Johanna she wrapped the King in the bedclothes; before they were done, he thrashed and retched and his knees jerked up and he spewed vomit. Johanna began to weep, her hands to her face, sobbing helplessly. Edythe mopped up the mess, pulling the dirty blankets into a heap on the floor. She unwrapped her coif and wiped his face with it and tossed the soiled cloth after the blankets. He was still shivering and he was unconscious. His clothes were filthy and she began to undress him; she pulled his belt out from under his body and cut the lacings of his shirt with a knife. Johanna brought more blankets and helped her peel his shirt off. They covered his chest with fresh blankets and pulled off his boots and hose. He had fouled himself. Johanna turned her eyes from his nakedness, put her hand on Edythe’s shoulder, and stared steadily away while Edythe cleaned him up and then covered him.

  Edythe’s heart was pounding. She had never touched a naked man before. Of course she had seen them, and drawings and descriptions, but this was different. His efflorescence amazed her. He was beautiful; she could not let him die.

  When he was clean and covered snugly, she got the potion from Lilia and pointed to the heap of filthy clothes and blankets on the floor.

  “Take that. Have it burned. See to it yourself.” The cup in her hand, she turned to Johanna. “Help me.”

  They could not budge Richard, lying cramped on his side with his knees drawn to his chest, shivering and sweating at the same time. Berengaria came back, saw her lord husband bundled on the bed, and fled away again to the makeshift church. Johanna sent again for Rouquin.

  The big man came in. Edythe had thought him always a little angry, but there was no anger in him now. He went down on one knee beside the low pallet and put his hand on Richard’s cheek.

  Johanna said, “We need to get him to drink. He has to be up—” She looked at Edythe.

  “He must sit up,” Edythe said.

  Rouquin went behind the pallet, squatted down, and laid his arm under the King’s shoulders. His voice sank almost to a whisper.

  “Sit up, Richard. Sit up, boy.”

  The King’s head moved, and his lips parted. Johanna gave a long sigh. Rouquin raised him effortlessly against his chest, supporting his head, and Edythe held the full cup to his lips. She stroked his throat, to make him swallow. Rouquin said, “Come on, sonny, drink it, drink,” in that same crooning, tender voice.

  Richard’s eyes fluttered. His lips touched the wine, and he lifted his hands unsteadily, but he had no strength even for that. Under Edythe’s fingers his throat worked in a swallow, and then another.

  His eyes closed. His head rolled back against Rouquin’s shoulder; the big man looked at Edythe.

  “Let him down,” she said. “Let him sleep.” She could tell they had used all the strength Richard had left. The moon was old and weak, which was in his favor. She
would have to see where Mars was. She hoped the potion warmed him; she could think of nothing else to do.

  Rouquin stayed in the tent, near the door; Lilia came back, carrying a bundle of fresh blankets, and made another bed on the far side. At the prie-dieu in the back, Johanna was crying and praying.

  Rouquin said, “Is it poison?”

  Edythe sat on the side of the pallet, one hand on the King’s chest over the blankets. “I don’t think so.” She would look in her herbal, where there was a section on poisons and their effects. She slid her hand under the blankets, to the King’s bare chest, to feel his heart’s pulse.

  Against her palm the pounding of his heart was another sign that his humors were swelling out of balance. Sweat covered his skin, his knotted muscles shivered; she imagined the black bile seething in his gut, the yellow pooling in his belly. She wondered if they were right about the poison, or if it could be magic, an evil spell.

  By midnight Richard was scorching with fever. Maybe she had given him too much zingiber. Nonetheless, the fever proved that it was not a poison. She boiled some lemons with their cooling properties in a lot of wine and water, let this potion stand awhile, and then called Rouquin to help her; Johanna and Lilia were asleep, spooned together, on the pallet across the tent. Berengaria was still in the church.

  Rouquin gathered the King in his arms, whispering to him, and sip by sip she fed Richard the new drink. As she did she looked him over for swelling, lumps, or bruises that would show where the rioting humors were collecting in dangerous masses. Foul stuff matted his hair and beard.

  Rouquin said, “Will he die?”

  “No,” she said, without thinking about it much. She would not let him die. He had drunk nearly all the potion, and she nodded that Rouquin could lay him down again on his back. She went and found a comb among Johanna’s things and came back and began to comb out Richard’s hair. Rouquin stayed where he was, hunkered down behind the pallet.