Jerusalem, September 1172
When the King still had not come to
her more than a fortnight after her recovery, Maria Zoë took things into her
own hands. She knew that Amalric, a conscientious monarch, met with his Privy
Council every day at noon in the Tower of David. She ordered her ladies to
dress her in her wedding gown with its extravagance of jewels, and she set the
crown of Jerusalem upon sheer silk veils that shimmered gold and white over her
dark hair. Then she sent for the herald. “Announce me to the King,” she ordered
the astonished herald.
“But, your grace—” He broke off as she
rose to her feet and met him in the eye.
“I am going to the Tower of David to
see my husband. Go and announce me.”
The herald backed out of her chamber,
bowing, and Maria Zoë could hear his boots as he ran along the gallery leading
from the modern palace back to the ancient citadel. Maria Zoë moved slowly to
give the herald time to warn her husband, but not so slowly that Amalric could
escape her altogether. By the time she reached the exterior stairs leading up
to the great audience chamber in the ancient tower, the Patriarch of Jerusalem
and the Constable, Humphrey de Toron, were exiting the grand chamber in
apparent haste. Both men bowed their heads to their Queen, and Maria Zoë could
feel their eyes boring into her back.
As she entered the grand chamber with
the throne and a table for the council, two clerks were falling over themselves
in their haste to put away their quills and inkpots and clear out. They, too,
bowed deeply to Maria Zoë and beat a hasty retreat.
Amalric awaited her seated, his face
impassive, his eyes following her alertly. Maria Zoë approached the throne and
went down in a formal curtsy. “My lord,” she murmured as she righted herself.
“Since you have avoided my presence these last two weeks, I thought it was time
I sought you out.”
“Hmm,” Amalric remarked. “You are
recovered, then?”
“I am recovered. And you, my lord, you
are well?”
“As well as a man can be—after being
presented with a second daughter at a time when the Kingdom desperately needs a
male heir. People may not say it out loud, but Baldwin has leprosy. Very likely
it disqualifies him from the throne altogether. A nobleman with leprosy must
enter the Order of St. Lazarus. Can the law exempt a prince?”
“My lord, I am as disappointed as you
are that my child is a girl,” Maria Zoë answered steadily. “But I cannot decide
the sex of my child.”
“No, so I’m told,” Amalric admitted
grudgingly.
“The only solution is for us to try
again.” Maria Zoë had practiced this line in her head a hundred times and she
tried to sound bold, but her voice quavered a little nevertheless.
“Oh, really?” Amalric asked
sarcastically, making Maria Zoë blush. “Somehow, I never had the impression you
were very enthusiastic about sexual intimacy—at least not with me.”
Maria Zoë gasped. “You cannot think I
have been unfaithful to you!”
Amalric considered his bride and
smiled cynically. He had always preferred married women to girls, precisely
because virgins were rarely enthusiastic partners in bed. Maria Zoë’s beauty
had seduced him at first, but her unresponsiveness—often with a twisted face
and gasps of pain—had soon dulled his appetite. She seemed to dislike physical
intimacy so intensely that he truly found it hard to imagine her risking her
crown, her head, and her soul for the sake of carnal pleasures—unlike Agnes de
Courtney, who was always eager for variety in fornication. Nevertheless, he
reasoned that it didn’t hurt to let his wife think he doubted her, so that she
would be frightened as well as disinclined. In answer to her reply, he merely
weighed his head from side to side and remarked, “You’re a beautiful young
woman—and as such, weak and easily seduced.”
“Never!” she declared indignantly, her
cheeks flushed. “And how should another man have a chance if you are there?”
“Where? You mean in your bed? Ah,
well, believe me, it’s quite possible to make love in other venues—but that is
a topic best saved for another time, and not exactly the reason you are here,
is it?”
“My lord, as you said, the Kingdom of
Jerusalem needs a male heir, and only you can sire him.”
“Indeed, but not necessarily with
you.”
So the rumors were true, Maria Zoë
registered, and he was considering setting her aside.
“I am your wife—”
“Perhaps not. If my marriage to Agnes
was valid, then my marriage to you is bigamous, and you are nothing more than
my concubine.” He let this sink in, enjoying the look of horror on Maria Zoë’s
face. Like all Greeks, she considered herself fundamentally superior to other
races, and Amalric took a certain pleasure in pointing out the weakness of her
position. “I’m sure I could find a priest—even a bishop—who would argue the
case. Should I so desire …” Amalric threatened with a mild, unfriendly smile.
“I’m sure you could, too, my lord,”
Maria Zoë answered steadily, having recovered from the insult of being called a
concubine. She wasn’t, after all, entirely unprepared for his line of attack.
She was no fool, and she had given much thought to where this conversation
might lead. Since he had played this trump, however, she drew hers. “And I’m
just as certain that my great-uncle would see such a move as an insult
incompatible with his status as your overlord.”
“The Greek Emperor is not my overlord,” Amalric retorted
sharply.
“No? I thought that was the purpose of
your trip to Constantinople last year—to renew your lapsed oaths of homage,”
Maria Zoë pointed out coolly. Although Amalric had not seen fit to include her
in his meetings with her great-uncle, her father had been present, and he had
assured her that Amalric had dutifully acknowledged that he held Jerusalem as a
vassal of Constantinople.
“The Greek Emperor generously offered
me his protection, and I assured him of my goodwill—no more than that,” Amalric
insisted, frowning sidelong at his beautiful doll-wife, who had never dared
talk to him like this before.
Maria Zoë recognized that she could
not argue this point, and changed her tactic. “Whether my great-uncle is your
overlord or not, neither he nor my brother-in-law of Antioch will allow me to
be set aside without consequences for Jerusalem.”
Amalric snorted in exasperation—because
she was right. The Emperor in Constantinople had made it very clear that he
considered himself the center of the universe and would take any slight to his
prestige as lèse majesté, while Antioch had tied himself to Constantinople
because he needed Greek support to keep the Seljuks at bay. This dependency was
reflected in his marriage politics: Prince Bohemond’s sister Mary was the
Emperor’s current wife, while Bohemond himself was married to Maria Zoë’s
sister. In short, Amalric’s two most powerful allies would both side with his
wife in any public dispute, and Jerusalem could not afford to fall out with
both Constantinople and Antioch.
Amalric considered his wife again
through narrowed eyes, registering that she was not as fragile, weak, or docile
as he had taken her to be. She was clearly growing up. He grunted a second
time. He was stuck with this wife for political reasons—and truth to tell, it
was not such a difficult duty to get her pregnant again. “I’ll tell you what,”
Amalric suggested, leaning closer to Maria Zoë and lowering his voice. “You
make me feel welcome in your bed, and
I’ll think about spending as much time there as we need to make a son
together.”