Beri nodded. “Am I right about him? Is he intense? Do his passions burn strong? Do you know him well?”
“I know him. I suppose you could say that his passions burn strong, perhaps even out of control. He is ruthless, Beri, take care.”
“Men should be ruthless,” Beri said with great seriousness. “It makes them more desirable.”
Now that was something to think about.
“Come, Chandra,” Joanna called, lowering her towel. “It is my turn to be oiled down.”
Chandra obligingly rolled off the table and rose. She pulled the towel from about her hair and shook it out free. “It will take an hour to dry,” she said. She turned to see Beri looking after her, her expression puzzled.
The banquet was held in the tent-covered inner courtyard of Ali ad-Din’s palace. The air was redolent with fragrant incense, and the oil lamps burned softly, casting blurred shadows on the rich silk and brocade furnishings. Chandra was gowned in a pale blue silk robe, and her hair hung over her shoulders, held back from her forehead with a band of twisted gold. There was no breeze blowing off the Mediterranean this night, and Chandra felt her gown sticking to her back. The aging archbishop of Liege, Tedaldo Visconti, looked at her approvingly, and she found herself wondering if it was her soul or her person that pleased him.
Chandra greeted Sir Elvan warmly. “I have never seen a sword scabbard studded with precious stones,” she told him.
“A physician receives many gifts in payment for his services,” he said.
“Don’t believe him, Chandra,” Jerval said. “He is more than a physician. He is a Templar, and he shows equal skill in commerce.”
“I have heard it said that you do not always agree with another military order, the Hospitalers.”
“And you find that strange, Lady Chandra? It is true, and the reasons for our disagreements precede my birth. If we take one side of an issue, you can be certain that the Hospitalers will take the other.”
“As Christians,” Chandra said, “I believe we should all fight on the same side.”
Sir Elvan merely smiled. “Nothing, my lady, is ever so simple, I fear.”
“No,” she said after a moment, nodding, “I think you are right.”
Chandra took her place beside her husband on the soft, down-filled pillows. Small sandalwood dining tables were set close together across the courtyard, a red-robed slave standing beside each of them. Along a long table at the far end of the courtyard, Prince Edward and Princess Eleanor sat with Ali ad-Din and King Hugh of Cyprus and Jerusalem. Although Edward wore a pleasant smile, he had a distracted air about him that seemed to Chandra to be shared by all of his nobles present tonight.
She heard Roger de Clifford say to Jerval, “It seems that King Hugh has arranged a farewell banquet for himself tonight, Jerval. He is returning to Cyprus.”
“He should remain. He should show support for Prince Edward,” Jerval said.
“He cannot afford to remain here much longer, else he might lose Cyprus to his greedy barons.”
Chandra took a bite of the roasted lamb, then turned toward Jerval when he said, “I suppose you’re right, Roger. Now that his barons have sent word that they will only serve in the defense of Cyprus, there is little reason for him to stay. Edward, at least, took it well. Though King Hugh had promised us men to defeat the Saracens, in truth,
their numbers would not have added much.”
Chandra said, “I can scarce believe that a king has so little control over his kingdom. Methinks King Hugh should muzzle his barons.”
Roger de Clifford blinked in surprise. “I did not think you ladies had any interest in or knowledge of the matter.”
Chandra cocked an eyebrow. “Why would you think that, Sir Roger?”
Jerval said, after a moment, “Where did you hear of our problems with the Cypriot barons, Chandra?”
“From Ali ad-Din. I asked him why King Hugh of Cyprus was here with so few men.”
“He fears treachery, that’s why,” Eustace said. “What chance have a thousand men against the damned Sultan Baibars and his hordes of Saracen soldiers?”
“Do not forget,” Graelam de Moreton called out, “that the Venetians—our Christian brothers—are busily supplying Baibars with all the timber and metal he needs for his armaments. And the equally Christian Genoese supply them the slaves to build their weapons.”
“Do you know that when Edward reproved the merchants,” Payn de Chaworth said, his brow knit in an angry frown, “they simply showed him their licenses from the High Court at Acre? By God, I would drive them all into the sea.”
Joanna de Chaworth, smiling at her husband with a lustful eye, interrupted the grim conversation. “I cannot get used to these white grains called sugar.” She held up a sweetmeat made of dates and lemons, sticky with the sweet substance, for her husband’s inspection. “I still cannot believe, my lord, that it will replace honey, as you keep telling me.”