Thibaut invited me to join him in his rooms, chattering lazily on the way. He told me that he could have demanded to be put up in the king’s palace in the city, but it was too gloomy for his taste. He had spent a rather dull month there when he had just arrived at Acre. “By the time we assembled a high-caliber group of cooks, laundresses, heads of hunting, musicians, storytellers, and jugglers, it was already time to move on,” Thibaut explained to me as we climbed the stone steps to his floor.
I wondered how it was possible that this smug and capricious man could possibly have succeeded—or, perhaps more precisely, would go on to succeed—in obtaining the agreement that promised the Kingdom of Jerusalem the most territory since the First Crusade, and almost without warfare. I liked him even though I was also afraid of him, and I could not wait for Jean to return. I tried not to think too much about Jean himself, with his wife and children, or of myself entangled in this situation.What do we even do together?I comforted myself.We just talk, mostly.I worried that Thibaut’s young man would come back and inform me that I could leave before I had the chance to say goodbye to Jean.
The suite that had been allotted to Thibaut was truly regal. There were three enormous rooms with high ceilings: In the innermost chamber was a huge four-poster bed; and in the other two rooms, one of which opened onto a beautiful balcony, were broad armchairs with red velvet cushions, upholstered benches embroidered in gold thread, and tapestries in muted colors on the walls. Sacks and trunks that had been unloaded from the mules the night before filled the corners. Thibaut’s knights sat around and spoke among themselves. Thibaut disappearedinto the bedroom and returned a few minutes later, dressed in his blue-and-silver velvet attire, his coronet placed firmly on his head.
He sat down on one of the benches and took up his lute, and his knights gathered around him. Cedrique rose from his bed by the window and sat at Thibaut’s feet.
One of his companions held a flute, and another a kind of small tambourine. They joined Thibaut in playing and singing.
“Mercy, my lady,” Thibaut began to sing and smiled at me, accompanying himself on the lute. His deep, resonant voice echoed through the large, high-ceilinged stone room, and suddenly I recognized the song from my YouTube expeditions. It was the song that I had felt compelled to send Jean a little while back.
Mercy, my lady, grant me reply,
By holy God, I beg you, say:
When death takes you—and sooner I—
What shall of Love become that day?
Your grace and wisdom shine so bright,
I love you more than words confess.
Without our hearts to give her light,
I fear that Love will perish, yes.
One of Thibaut’s youngest accompanists stood beside him and, to the laughter of the rest of the men, broke into a voice that was meant to sound like a woman:
By God, Thibaut, Love will not fade,
Not for your death, nor yet for mine.
You mean, perchance, to jest with me,
For plump you seem, in health andfine.
Though death will come, as come it must,
Love does not vanish, nor decay.
It mourns when lovers turn to dust,
Yet keeps its throne in hearts alway.
The knight sang well in a high, feminine voice, and they continued their melodic, philosophical conversation for several more verses. The knights chuckled and elbowed each other at the start, laughing out loud when the singing knight mentioned Thibaut’s plump figure. By the end of the song, some shed a tear, clapped their hands, and stomped their feet. Thibaut and his entourage went on singing—of setting off on the crusade, of brave knights now singing with the angels after dying bravely in battle, of heartless and beautiful ladies, of seductive shepherd girls. I sank into a dreamy daze, enveloped in their singing voices.
I woke up from my half-sleep, and only now did my mind make sense of the words that I had been hearing over and over for some time. “Bless Jean d’Ibelin, the daring Count Arsur,” Thibaut’s voice sang as he strummed a doleful melody on the lute.
The youngest son of Beirut’s lord,
A knight of valor, well adored.
He bent before his cousin fair,
Enchanted from the otherworld.
Thibaut’s companions accompanied him on drums and flute, adding a rhythmic and humorous touch to Thibaut’s gentle strumming. I sat up straight in my chair, embarrassed, and looked around. Thibaut continued his narrative description of Jean, and I realized that he was making up the words in real time, and that he did so with considerable talent. His eyes were fixed affectionately on the other side of the room, and when I lookedover, I saw Jean in the threshold, long-limbed and relaxed and smiling at Thibaut. Beside him, stiff as a broomstick, stood Hugh.
