The King's Witch (33 page)

Johanna said, “That came this morning, by ship.”

Edythe read, slowly. “She says she will fly Tyre as soon as you send her a safe conduct into Acre. This must be soon. Conrad is gone but not for long. Pray, send the safe conduct soon.” She looked at Johanna. “Can you even issue a safe conduct?”

“I don’t know. Probably. Enough wax and ribbons will carry it.” Johanna said, “ What do you think of it, though? It’s on the wrong side again.”

Edythe turned the letter over and looked at the seal. “I don’t think it was opened, like the others.”

Johanna said, in a low voice, “Could she have gotten it out without him knowing?”

Their eyes met. Edythe said nothing. She was thinking,
Why then would she need the pretense of the false letter?
Johanna said, “No.”

Edythe said, “No, probably not.”

Johanna was already nodding. She said, “ We are betrayed. This is Conrad’s work, the liar. He’s worse than a Greek.” Her eyes widened. “He wants the safe conduct to sneak into Acre and seize it.”

Edythe said, “Maybe. . .”

Johanna gave her a sly look. “You have some thought in mind?” Her voice was bland.

“No, my lady,” she said, humbly.

“Good,” said Johanna. “ Leave this to me. Now help me with this table.”

Edythe wondered why it mattered to her that Johanna had this plot afoot, and that Acre was suspended on her whim. Guy de Lusignan had gone back to Acre after the Crusade fell apart. Now Johanna was giving a safe conduct into his city to his worst enemy. Let him sink or rise, most likely sink, from what Edythe had seen of him. Richard would suffer, but ho heigh. They had no loyalty to her, and so she had none for them. It was all one to her, and one was nothing.

But it was not nothing. She tried to grind away the pebble beneath the blanket, but still it rubbed her. She longed to see Rouquin again, who would never leave Richard. Richard had kept his own kind of faith with her, protecting her secret. She hated him less now that he had failed. With the rage against him in the streets, she could not rage against him in her heart. And they had fought so hard for Acre. And she thought of the old beggar by the fountain there, and Berengaria’s garden.

Johanna had a safe conduct drawn up, allowing the bearer and an escort into Acre, and covered with seals and stamps and colored ink and a big ribbon. She concealed this in a letter to Isabella. She did not hide it especially well, but she knew it did not really need to escape notice, up there.

She wrote also to Guy of Lusignan, who was back to ruling Acre now, that he should be ready to arrest anyone who used it.

This seemed the perfect trap to her, which Conrad himself had devised, and Conrad himself would set off. She kept it out of Edythe’s sight. She knew Edythe was Richard’s creature, and Johanna wanted to punish Conrad herself, by her own guile. Then she would let him know, the lying snake, that she had done it. Edythe might even admire this. Richard certainly would. Pleased, she sent her letters off.

“They have come back from Jerusalem,” Berengaria said.

She was sewing on an altar cloth. She had excellent skill at this, and in the light of the candles the angel’s wing she was composing in gold thread looked as smooth as honey. Her own sleeve was worn, and soiled at the edge; her ladies took poor care of her.

“They never reached Jerusalem,” Edythe told her. She was holding the cloth on her knees, to steady it for the Queen’s needle. They were sitting in her chamber, where around them the other women went on chattering in their own tongue. Berengaria alone of all the Navarrese had bothered to learn French. “The Crusade failed.”

“Well, then,” Berengaria said, watching her fingers with the needle and thread. “ Will we then go back to Acre?”

Edythe said, “ I don’t know, my lady.”

Berengaria gave her a quick look. “You want Acre too?” She stopped sewing and faced Edythe.

“ I want what you want, of course.”

Still watching Edythe, the little Queen smoothed the gold thread with her thumb. She said, “ I want to go back to Acre.”

Edythe was thinking they might never be able to go back to Acre. Conrad, whatever he was, was far too clever for Guy, and if he seized the great city in the north he would not let the Crusaders in again, as he had not let them into Tyre. She considered what Berengaria had just said.

“You could write the King and ask him.”

“ I could send a messenger,” Berengaria said. “ I cannot read or write, my lady, alas. You know this.” She made no move to do anything, but stared at Edythe, as if she could put her thoughts into Edythe’s mind.

Edythe said, “ I could write it for you.”

Berengaria smiled at her. She had said the right thing. Berengaria said, “You write him. You tell him better.” She nodded. “Help me, I help you.”

“My Lady, I—”

Berengaria shuffled her hands in front of her. “Just do. Bring paper and pens.” And Edythe wrote exactly what the Queen wished to say to her husband, and beneath it, wrote,
Go to Acre, quickly
.

A letter came back, a few lines of script: He would let them go back to Acre in the spring. Ricardus R. No news, nothing personal. Nothing to Edythe. Berengaria said, “ Will I ever be truly Queen of the English?”

“My lady, only God could tell you that. It has been a strange marriage, that I can say. But, you know, I have seen few marriages that are not strange.” She was thinking of Eleanor and Henry. “You could make a garden here.”

“ Here, there, everywhere,” Berengaria said, in a sharp voice. This was so unlike her that Edythe gawked at her. The little Queen threw down the letter. “ I could as well have heard from my father. I am tired of waiting.” She waved at Edythe to go. “ I think I will have a headache later. If you would bring me a drink.”

“My lady,” Edythe said.

Some time went by. They heard nothing from Ascalon, nothing from Acre. Edythe made the women potions containing mostly honey and wine and spice. She put the tincture of artemisia in ajar with a firm stopper. One day when she went up to the palace, she came on Johanna in a flying rage, storming up and down the hall.

“Have you heard this? Tell her! Tell her!”

By the throne Rouquin stood, taking a cup from a page. He said, “Not likely.” He wore a long loose shirt and hose, no armor, but his sword on his belt, his gloves thrust under the buckle. He gave Edythe a brief, hot look. She remembered the last time she had seen him, and her heart jumped. She tore her gaze away from him.

Johanna’s face was magnificent with anger. She spun toward Edythe, her arms flying out. Her coif had come loose, and she pulled at it, and released a tumble of her curly red-gold hair across the yellow silk shoulders of her gown.

“They have offered me up to the Saracens.”

“ What?” Edythe said.

Johanna stalked across the room. Along the divans the other women murmured and bowed as she walked anywhere near them and giggled when she had passed. A table fell over. A cup rolled. As she neared Edythe, she cried, “They have offered me to marry one of the Saracens!”

“Safadin is not so bad,” Rouquin said, smiling. He drank the wine.

“No, when he has a scimitar and you have a sword.” She stamped her foot. “ I will not marry an unbelieving pagan hound.”

Edythe drew back with the other women, trying not to smile. Rouquin was clearly not conveying this as a serious offer; she thought Richard himself would have to come before her to make this even a matter of question. Johanna in full fury was like a small storm, gusting up and down the hall, things flying in her wake. Probably enjoying herself.

Now she blew past Rouquin and flung herself down on the throne, where she was wont to sit when Richard was not there. She glared at her cousin. “My brother is being amusing. He cannot mean this.”

Rouquin shrugged. “ I don’t know if Safadin is any more inclined to it than you are.” His eyes moved, and Edythe caught his glance, but then he turned back to Johanna. He said, “The King wants you to swear you will not deal anymore with Isabella.”

“Oh,” Johanna said. She looked suddenly smaller, the air gone out of her. “ Is that why you were in Acre?” She waved a hand at him. “ Tell me everything that’s going on there. And Berengaria will want to know about her garden.”

“Guy still rules,” Rouquin said. “ I don’t know about the garden. Let me go, Jo, I have to leave soon.”

“Go,” she said. “ Tell Richard I will have a Christian husband, or none.”

Edythe went out onto the terrace, into the dark; she thought,
He would marry his sister to a Saracen, but I am not fit to be allowed into Jerusalem
.

She knew Richard did not mean the marriage offer seriously. It was his way, she thought, of punishing Johanna for meddling with Isabella. He seemed to have fallen into a playful way of dealing with Saladin when they weren’t fighting, these mock negotiations, like boys dueling with sticks. The moon was rising, a little less than full, clouds drifting over its face like islands in the air.