Baldwin’s jaw clenched. John knew that the prince hated nothing more than when people made allowances for him because of his illness. The boy dealt with the many at court who shunned him because of his disease with surprising grace, but he could not abide being pitied. ‘Again,’ he repeated.
John nodded and raised his wooden practice sword. Baldwin attacked immediately, lunging at John’s chest. John knocked the prince’s blade aside, and Baldwin spun left and brought his sword arcing towards John’s side. John parried and countered, swinging for the prince’s head. Baldwin knelt to duck the blow and then slashed upwards. John jumped backwards, but the tip of the wooden blade caught him high on his right side.
‘You are touched!’ Baldwin grinned. ‘I have won!’
John felt his side. There would be a wicked bruise there tomorrow. He took a deep breath and forced himself to ignore the pain. ‘Your foes will be wearing mail,’ he told Baldwin. ‘They will hardly notice such a blow.’ He resumed his fighting stance.
Baldwin’s knuckles whitened where he gripped his sword. He lunged again at John’s chest. This time, John sidestepped the blow and chopped at the prince’s side. Baldwin just managed to parry. John reversed his sword, swinging high. Baldwin ducked, and John brought his sword down to tap the prince’s head.
‘You are dead again, my lord.’
Baldwin frowned as he rubbed his head. Then he grinned. ‘In battle, I will be wearing a steel helmet. I will hardly notice such a blow.’ The prince attacked with a series of quick lunges and John gave ground. Then Baldwin overextended himself. John sidestepped the blow and brought his wooden blade down on the back of the prince’s sword hand. Baldwin jumped back and raised his blade, ready to fight. But John had lowered his sword.
‘Why do you stop?’ the prince demanded.
‘My lord, you are bleeding.’
Baldwin looked down at his right hand. There was a red welt on the back with blood trickling from it. His brow furrowed. ‘So I am,’ he murmured.
Agnes hurried forward and took Baldwin’s injured hand in hers. ‘My dear, we must get this bandaged.’
‘It is nothing.’ Baldwin pulled his hand away.
Agnes gripped his arm tightly. ‘It is not nothing. Bernard!’ Baldwin stood impatiently while a servant rubbed his wound with a sulphurous ointment and then wrapped a strip of linen around his hand.
‘You fought well today, Baldwin,’ John told him.
‘I lost,’ the prince replied, a bit petulantly.
‘Lady de Courtenay,’ a man called, and John turned to see a thin fellow dressed in expensive silk step into the courtyard. John recognized him as one of the courtiers in Agnes’s pay.
Baldwin gave the man a haughty stare. The prince had little patience for such men. ‘What is it?’ he snapped.
‘It is your father, Prince. The King has returned from Constantinople.’
‘How was your trip?’ John asked William. They stood in the waiting-room outside the king’s private audience chamber. Prince Baldwin was inside with his father.
William rolled his eyes. ‘You have never seen such foolish luxury: dances in the hippodrome, luxury barges on the Bosporus, endless feasts, women whose lewd actions matched their ill-repute. It was no place for a priest.’
John smiled. ‘And how do you know so much about these women’s lewd actions?’
‘Amalric would not stop boasting of them. He-’ William stopped short as he realized what John was implying. ‘I am offended, John. I am a priest, dedicated to Christ.’ He gave John a hard look. ‘We are not all of us slaves to earthly passions.’
John did not want to start another argument about Agnes. ‘And how did the negotiations progress?’
‘The Emperor Manuel will send troops in the event that Nur ad-Din invades. And he has agreed to another joint attack on Egypt.’ William nodded to the doors to the chamber. ‘How is my pupil, Baldwin?’
‘Stubborn, tenacious, wilful. He will make a good king.’
William met John’s eyes. ‘And Agnes?’ John looked away, and William lowered his voice so that the guards by the door would not hear him. ‘I told you to stop seeing her. She has married again, John.’
John winced. Agnes had married Reginald of Sidon last year, but it had not changed anything between them. She said it was a mere formality, and indeed, she spent little enough time in Sidon.
William sighed. ‘I suppose it does not matter. Her dalliance with you will be at an end soon enough. You are leaving Jerusalem.’
Before John could question William, the doors to the audience chamber opened and the seneschal Miles stepped out. ‘Father John, the King wishes to speak with you. William, your presence is also requested.’
John entered to find Amalric seated in a simple wooden chair on the far side of the room. John knelt before him. ‘God grant you joy, sire.’
The king’s mouth was set in a hard line. Visiting with his son always upset him. No matter how often John told the king that leprosy was a disease, Amalric persisted in seeing it as a judgement from God, a judgement against him. ‘William has no doubt told you of our trip to Constantinople. Manuel has offered his fleet to support another invasion of Egypt.’
‘Yes, sire.’
Amalric leaned forward. ‘I want you to go to Cairo, John. I had spies in the caliph’s court, but they are useless now. Saladin has dismissed all the courtiers. He depends only on his own men. I want you to be my eyes in Cairo. Tell me about Saladin’s plans. Let me know how many men he has, and when they are on the move. Find out where Egypt is weak.’
John’s first thought was not of Cairo or Yusuf, but of Agnes. He did not want to leave her. Or Baldwin. He had grown close to the boy. He glanced at William. Was this his doing? ‘Why me, sire?’
‘You speak Arabic like a Saracen. You know their ways. More importantly, you were close to Saladin. You know people at his court, people who can give you information.’
‘And you are a priest,’ William added. ‘The Saracens respect holy men. When you travel, you will say that you are on a pilgrimage to visit the sites where the holy family stopped in Egypt. When you arrive you will join the brothers at a Coptic monastery in Mataria, just outside Cairo. The Coptic bishop in Jerusalem will prepare you a letter of introduction.’
John frowned. ‘I owe Saladin my life, sire. I will not spy on him.’
Amalric was suddenly stern. ‘I am your king. You will do as I command.’
‘Yes, sire.’
‘Do not trust your news to messenger pigeons. When you have information, ride to Ascalon and deliver it yourself.’
‘We are particularly interested Saladin’s relations with Nur ad-Din,’ William said. ‘We want you to find ways to drive them apart.’
John shook his head. ‘Saladin will never betray his lord.’
‘He is vizier of Egypt now, John,’ Amalric said. ‘And rulers will do what they must. There is no lord above us but God.’
‘When do I depart?’ John asked. He was thinking of Agnes again. He would need to take his leave of her.
‘Tomorrow,’ William told him. ‘Tonight, you and I will be busy discussing your mission in more detail.’
‘And how long am I to stay in Cairo?’
‘Until we send for you. And that might not be for some years.’
AUGUST 1171: CAIRO
Yusuf sat in his study, a writing desk on his lap, and blinked his tired eyes as he read a report from Selim on the army’s progress in southern Egypt. Yusuf had sent his brother and Qaraqush up the Nile to deal with the remaining Nubians. The campaign was going well. The Nubians were divided amongst themselves, and Selim had been defeating scattered groups one by one. He expected the remaining warriors would soon seek peace.
Yusuf set the report aside and picked up another message. It had come by carrier pigeon from the court in Aleppo. In it, Nur ad-Din ordered Yusuf to instruct the mosques of Cairo that the khutba, a sermon delivered before Friday prayers, was to invoke Allah’s blessing on the Sunni caliph in Baghdad — not the Egyptian caliph, Al-Adid. It was the eighth such letter Yusuf had received since he became vizier, two years previously. He frowned. He was only the vizier, which meant that, technically, he served at Al-Adid’s pleasure. If he broke with the caliph so openly, then Al-Adid would be forced to move against him. There would be a rebellion.