Free Holy War by Jack Hight

city.’
    ‘Where is he now?’
    ‘La Sephorie. He has called on the barons to join him there. Reynald attacked the ports of Medina and Mecca, breaking the treaty with Saladin. The Saracens are invading, John. The Kingdom is going to war.’
    ‘I understand. You made Reynald a great lord, and now that he has damned us all, you have come to ask for my sword.’ John went and sat on his mattress. ‘You will not have it.’
    Agnes stepped into the cell. ‘I have made mistakes, John. I will not deny it. But now I am trying to set things right.’
    ‘You are wasting your breath, Agnes. I will not fight for Guy.’
    ‘I am not asking you to. I want you to fight for Baldwin.’
    John’s head jerked up. ‘He lives?’
    ‘I will take you to him.’ As Agnes was leaving the cell, she paused and looked back. John still had not moved. ‘You can stay here if you wish, John, but I will not come again.’
    This time, John followed. Agnes led him out of the dungeon and up a pair of staircases. The second opened into a hallway filled with sunshine spilling in through arched windows. John blinked in the bright light. He went to stand at a window, closed his eyes and let the sunshine spill over him.
    ‘John,’ Agnes called. ‘Are you coming?’
    She led him up another, broader staircase to her private quarters. A table had been set with food: roast lamb in a thick gravy, fresh bread and wine. John’s mouth began to water.
    ‘Eat,’ Agnes told him.
    ‘The King—’
    ‘Eat first.’ Agnes’s tone brooked no debate.
    Food had never tasted so good. Agnes watched him from beside a door on the far side of the room. She wrinkled her nose. ‘You look horrible, John. And you smell like a latrine.’
    ‘They do not offer baths in the dungeons.’
    ‘No. I suppose not.’
    John finished the roast and sopped up the last of the gravy with the bread. He drained the cup of wine and stood, a little unsteadily. The alcohol had gone straight to his head. ‘Take me to Baldwin.’
    Agnes produced a key and unlocked the door she stood next to. John followed her into a waiting room, where a guard stood. Agnes nodded to him, and the guard pulled another door open. She gestured for John to go first. The room he entered was dim. Heavy curtains had been hung over the windows. On the far side of the room, he made out a large bed. He crossed the room. Baldwin lay beneath thick covers. The king’s face was skeletal, his cheeks sunken and his skin impossibly pale. His breathing was shallow.
    ‘He has been this way for months,’ Agnes said. ‘It is all the doctors can do to keep him fed. He wakes sometimes, but he speaks no sense and soon relapses.’ She crossed the room and took a cloth from a bowl of water at the bedside. She carefully wrung the cloth so that water dripped into the king’s mouth. ‘Heraclius has helped Sibylla draw up a letter of abdication. They will sign it for him, and then Sibylla will make her husband Guy king.’ She met John’s eyes. ‘We must stop them.’
    ‘Why would you want to do that? Guy and Heraclius are your creatures.’
    Her mouth tightened. ‘Baldwin is my son, John. I had no part in these plots. With my brother’s help, I have taken control of the citadel and placed Sibylla in my custody. I can prevent the letter of abdication from being signed, but only until Guy returns. That is why I need you.’
    ‘And what would you have me do? I have been stripped of my position in the church. I am nothing.’
    ‘No longer. The abbot of Mount Sion has died. I have arranged for you to replace him.’
    ‘Under whose authority?’
    ‘The King’s.’ She took a scroll from the sleeve of her robe and handed it to John. He unrolled it and squinted to read in the darkness. It requested that John be made abbot of the abbey of Our Lady of Mount Sion in return for a gift of five thousand gold bezants. At the bottom, it bore Baldwin’s seal. ‘I, too, can forge documents,’ Agnes said. ‘The monastery has one