The first thing Mirrum noticed, as Bois-Gilbert officiously bowed her in, was that every care had been taken to assure that the King appeared strong. It was an illusion of power – perhaps designed to hold off Heraclius and the other snarling nobles with the doubt, however fleeting, that the fever might not have a stronghold. That its grip might slacken, slowly, and die away with a little weakness, nothing more. That the King might yet recover.

Mirrum suspected Tiberias as the hand behind this last mummery – a kindly backdrop for his liege lord to slip away from with dignity and decorum. And it had to be said, the backdrop was artfully arranged. The air was still thick with the cloying scents from the braziers, but there was a richer, more openly luxurious aroma than Mirrum dimly recognised as frankincense – a costly gift, and an instant reminder of the power he still held between his two hands. The bed had been concealed from sight by a soft blue veil stretched across the apartment. It dimly fluttered in the slight evening breeze.

And the King? What of him?

He was no longer supported by a bulwark of pillows and bolsters upon the bed like a frail old man. That, Mirrum was relieved to see. He was instead seated in a large carven chair placed near the light. He looked upright, firm – and not a little intimidating. Perhaps it was the success of his illusion. The cobweb-fine white linen Mirrum had seen him wear last had been replaced with broidered, sombre silks of a subtle blue black weave. They seemed to tether him to the earth; make him appear sterner, graver. Coupled with the calm, emotionless splendour of the mask, it made an imposing, albeit carefully composed picture.

It very nearly persuaded Mirrum that he was a different man altogether. It was almost alarming... But... then, nothing at Court was what it seemed. When she looked again, with a surer eye, she could dimly discern the cracks in the Physician's last illusion. It was a lie. The King – her King, she might have dared to add, had she not felt so ill at ease – was not so much seated as wearily propped in his chair, his movements slow and deliberate with the caution of a man in obvious pain. The dark silks, although they dispelled the shroud-like air of his white garb with kingly magnificence – they revealed the true state of affairs all too clearly. They hung slack and heavy on his wasted frame.

Mirrum's appalled eye saw all in an instant. But even while she inwardly quivered with grief and pity for the poor Physician – another part of her soul marvelled at the wondrous skill with which the illusion of health had been created for the King's endless audiences with lords and barons and officials. This was a studied image for the world, and the world alone. And, in a sense, Mirrum felt a twinge of strange pity for the world that didn't know false from true.

He was examining some papers as they entered. Mirrum wondered at that, as he slowly put them aside. Had they been hastily snatched up for Bois-Gilbert's benefit, or for hers? The constraints of such a meeting as this made her ill at ease as it was. But with Bois-Gilbert present....

Well. At least she remembered her schooling in the address of monarchs from Sybilla, though it cost her no little pain. She sank to one knee, legs trembling with the sustained effort. Just when she wanted it most, her curtsey was perhaps the saddest ruin of a thing ever to confront a King. It was almost a relief to hide her expression by bowing her head

'Your Majesty,' she murmured. Waiting. This was a formal audience; Bois-Gilbert's presence made that quite clear. It would be the blackest discourtesy for Mirrum to speak her name whilst there was a squire present to announce her.

'The lady Miriam of Malmesbury, my lord – woman-in-waiting to the Princess Sybilla.' Guimar de Bois-Gilbert pronounced it with a ponderous relish clearly copied from some booming steward-of-the-lists, one leg thrust forward for his obeisance - the very model of a dutiful squire.

Mirrum briefly considered hating him for it – especially for Miriam of Malmesbury. Malmesbury was one of Dame Juliana's fiefs. Declaring her Malmesbury was as good as denying that she was anything but a serf. Where had he learnt that? Even Lord Tiberias would have had trouble remembering that she was ever Miriam of Malmesbury.

The King did not, not even by the quiver of an eyelid, reveal any surprise at the name.

'Your name is known to us,' he said calmly. 'You have powerful friends; ones who sing your praises, child. We have heard good report of your service to the Lady Sybilla.'

Mirrum ducked her head, still bent achingly in her obeisance. She couldn't think of any adequate response that wasn't either servile and cringing or stingingly awkward. Mercifully, no reply seemed to be required of her. He moved deftly on through the formalities with a sure hand.

'Our noble cousin the Lord Marshal speaks highly of your person,' he continued. 'Highly enough to recommend that you cease to be cease to be a landless of Malmesbury and instead be instated as a proper subject of Jerusalem –'

Mirrum was mazed. A disconnected part of her mind watched in detached idleness as the words of the King bound her like threads of scarlet wool; full of the formal speeches of court and politics. And so very, very far from the ease with which Mirrum had talked with the Physician in the garden. The impassive silvered face of Apollo gave no measure of how he felt, but surely, Mirrum thought, watching his eyes, watching the way the clumsily swaddled fingers drooped exhaustedly over the arm of the carved chair – surely this tires him? Bores him? It means nothing. It might be in a painted history and have more meaning to me. But not whilst it happens. Not now.

'-You shall cease to be landless, assume a place as gentlewoman and subject to the County of Tripoli, and therefore bear name of Montferrand, rather than that of said Malmesbury.'

Mirrum's shoulders jolted; much as though one of the elusive Jerusalem angels had taken a heavenly spear and driven it sharply through her shoulder blades. Pinioning her into eternal surprise. The face she turned towards the motionless King was almost horrified.

'No!' she blurted out. 'Your majesty must pardon me, my lord, but I do not – I did not come for lands...'

There was a slight note of amusement in the King's voice that was only thinly disguised under his level tones. 'Do they displease you?'

'No, my lord – I-' Yes, thought Mirrum desperately. Yes, they do. I do not want them. I will not have them.

'It is a great gift, and – and a great honour, my lord, but I cannot in truth – I –' Mirrum floundered miserably, lost in her own aghast babbling. 'And besides - I cannot possibly take land from the Lord of Tripoli -'

'He is exceedingly eager to be robbed, then,' The King remarked drily, 'since it was he who suggested I gift a portion of Montferrand to you. It is no rich province; the lands to the east of Tripoli are hostile, and the soil poor. But the rents are yours, henceforth –'

His voice trailed away as he caught sight of Mirrum's thin shoulders ducking into another courtesy. It was true, she held them tautly in check, with the tight control of one who knows that weakness will show there most.

Mirrum lifted her eyes from the floor to find that the eyes behind the mask had darted a blunt, pointed stare at Bois-Gilbert – who shuffled from foot to foot. He was a young squire, Mirrum thought contemptuously. Very young, not to understand the signals. He only left the apartment when the King finally lost patience and spoke the command, 'Leave us.'

'Jesu!' He said wearily, 'It is a hard pretence, Dane-Lady. He has gone.' He added, 'I am sure of it. An older squire would have the sly wit to eavesdrop. You will not wonder at your poor Physician now, Dane-Lady?'

'It seems a hard thing, an audience with a King,' Mirrum said, infinitely relieved. 'I like the Physician much better.'

'I rather think I like the Physician much better, Dane Lady. He sees you clear. And I see that the thought of ending your service to Sybilla as mistress of Montferrand seems to distress you beyond measure.'

'Because I have not earned it!' Mirrum said quickly. 'There are knights twice worthy –'

'I say there are not. Come, would it be so hard to be a gentlewoman? The rents will make you a woman of means. Mistress of your own destiny, Mirrum.' His voice was gentle. 'Is that truly so hard? What made you nearly weep just now?'

'It will -will justify everything Sybilla believed of me.' Mirrum said in a quiet voice. 'She half-thought Tiberias thrust me at you in order to profit – to coax you into giving away property to me-'

'She believes that of you?'

'She does not know what to think, sir. And I do not wish to lose her good opinion. She has been very kind to me.'

'And you are content with my sister's plans for you? Seventy-five zecchins and a husband you will not love?'

Mirrum had no answer to that.

'So. Not Montferrand, then. There are other estates outside Montferrand – greater. I can give them to you without suspicion...'

Mirrum could brook this no longer. 'I do not want any estate, my lord,' she said deliberately. 'And even if I could take the lands you give me without a murmur from Sybilla-'

'You will not take it?' He sounded plaintive, a note of frustration - anger, perhaps – running through the low notes of his voice. 'But I wish you to have it.'

Mirrum shook her head. 'No.'

'You cannot refuse!' The eyes behind the mask looked bewildered. 'I could make you take it...'

'You won't,' Mirrum said, suddenly on stronger ground. 'You won't. Because you would throw off the Physician then. And I would give in before I saw you do that – though it would make me unhappy to take Montferrand or any other place from you. You are not well, Physician, and it does you little good to sit and argue the case out for it.'

He subsided at that – falling back in his chair as though letting it slip through his fingers. 'I had another care when I thought of Montferrand,' he said quietly, the words a faint whisper through the smile of the Greek God mask. 'Montferrand makes you mistress of your own destiny and allows you choice, Dane Lady. You could choose your suitors-'

'I shall have no suitors.' Mirrum said swiftly.

'You will have suitors, Dane Lady, decide what you will.' There was a faint half-smile to his words. 'But you may have one not to your liking if you trust to Sybilla. Do you trust her so much?' A sigh broke through the silence. 'Sybilla is sadly haunted by her own marriage. I fear she would give you a husband you could not respect, much less love...'

'She said once she would give the Physician to me.' Mirrum said sadly, after a long, regretful silence. 'At Ibelin. She was happy then.'

'At Ibelin,' the King repeated. 'Yes. She was happy then, with Balian of Ibelin for company. I do not wonder at it. The man is steady – and kindly. And he has compassion as well as duty...' He sounded pensive, perhaps a little regretful. 'I am weary, Dane-lady.'

'You are, Physician?'

'Yes. And I am a little heartsick with too many audiences today.'

'I can call the squire...'

'What? No, don't call him. Why call him? You can aid me just as well as he – and I can bear it better to be helped by my Dane-Lady than by an officious squire.' He gestured tiredly towards the light blue curtain. 'I think the play is played out, Mirrum. The Fisher King may break his staff and abjure his crown, and slip away into the twilight...'

'I do not hurt you, Physician?' Mirrum asked anxiously, as he rose swayingly to his feet. The weight that hit her shoulder as she supported him was heavy, almost inert, and for a moment Mirrum feared that perhaps he had overtaxed his reserves of strength. But after a few moments of confused disorder amongst the draperies Mirrum had helped him struggle over to the bed, and between them both managed it well –an easing into the cushions, and then Mirrum, coaxing the rumples from the dividing veil with careful fingers. He watched her as she did it.

'I think Sybilla would readily have given your Physician to you, Mirrum.'

The remark was so utterly out of place that Mirrum's countenance drew into an anxious pucker, lest he should be wandering in a sad delirium. But the gaze from the eyes of the mask seemed as collected as ever, and strangely earnest.

'You think so, Physician?' Mirrum looked away. 'I think otherwise.'

'Not in this world, perhaps...' The gaze changed to become extraordinarily wistful; there was a light note of plaintive curiosity in it that reminded her very much of the younger Baldwin, still happily engrossed in mock battles with wooden soldiers. 'But... what if I had been the king with the honeysuckle beard?'

'You wouldn't have been the Physician then.' Mirrum said promptly.

'No? How would I have been different?' He sounded amused. 'How would your king behave? I have half a notion now, Mirrum, that Baldwin the Fourth was quite a different person to me. I may like your Baldwin better.'

'But if you were him, you would be a tyrant!' Mirrum burst out, half-indignant at the idea of a different king – even the initial garish creature of her own invention.

'A tyrant?'

'Oh, not a tyrant as such...' Mirrum bit her lip and ventured a half-smile. 'I only knew of Kings from the scandalous Histories – monks enjoyed lascivious monarchs then. I supposed them all alike. Even the noble ones. I –' she hesitated.

'Tell me.' The King said, the amusement still rippling through his speech. 'You hesitate because you still think of me as Baldwin the Fourth. I rather feel as though he – if he lived – was a dim phantom from the painted histories. It is quite separate from me.' He spoke calmly. 'I am the Physician from here until eternity, Dane-lady. Tell your stories without fear. What did this noble flaxen-bearded monarch do?'

'I am quite sure he lived heartily in all things, until dying at a good age – past fifty.' Mirrum began, hurriedly. 'And he –'

'-hunted!' The Physician said triumphantly, almost starting from his pillows. 'You said that the first time I met you. The goodly king hunts with hawk and hound, and a party of courtiers-'

'Who are always dressed in their best!' Mirrum said quickly, caught up in the enthusiasm of the make-believe. It was a pretty pretend, after all. 'No matter the fact that courtiers do not hunt in that fashion– the monks and their coloured inks have you believe kings hunt in cloth of gold and coronation robes –'

'I suppose the fair-haired one does so,' the Physician said sleepily. 'Does he aught else, Mirrum?'

'Oh, he wins battles, gloriously.' Mirrum said, her fingers twitching agitatedly on the counterpane. 'Dressed in a silver mailcoat, he dealt death and dispensed mercy, this other king of yours. He was known for his generosity towards his allies, but he gave no quarter to those bitterly set against him. He probably had a loud laugh and enjoyed good wassail at Christmas and Lammas tide. There would be pageants and masques, and the ladies of the court would dress as Penthesilea and her Amazons –'

'Like Eleanor of Aquitaine? I heard that tale too – when she came to the Holy Land with King Louis of France.' He smiled, behind the mask. Mirrum could feel it. 'Sybilla would like that. She has always loved France...'

I imagined Sybilla differently too .Mirrum thought. I had in my head a simpering golden doll of a creature in blue velvet – and a king to match. Neat as dolls on a shelf. Exactly alike and with little to tell between.

'There were great quests and adventures, and – and...' Mirrum stopped, at a loss for words. Her invention had been stopped dead by the cold facts before her idle suppositions about the King of Jerusalem could come to fruition. She had no more.

'And the king encouraged them,' The Physician continued – as though it were a tale he knew by heart, this tale of the King who never was. 'But he never took a quest on himself. He was honourable, and a keen warrior with a hearty appetite for deeds of renown – but by some strange chance the quest destined for him never rose on the horizon. He was left to governance. Until one day, riding alone, he chanced to find a circle of emerald-green flame burning in the desert, and within it a tower of pale stone. The flames burnt fierce, and the tower struck a note of uncertainty into the king – for such a thing was clearly not of this world. But he reasoned that if this were a quest he was bound to fulfil, the flames would ebb, and as he urged his destrier over the emerald green flames, the flames flickered out as though they had been extinguished, and suffered him to pass on. And at the very top of the tower, he found a maid asleep.'

'Asleep?'

'Ay, asleep. On a great pile of furs so high they nearly reached the roof. And no ordinary maiden either. This hearty, flaxen-bearded king had seen many wise, fair, noble ladies within his own realm, but he had never seen a maiden'- he shifted slightly, as though pained.

'A maiden who was -'

'Puny and foolish.' Mirrum said bitterly, thinking of her faults. She could never whole-heartedly indulge in make-believe where it concerned herself.

'No.' he said gently. 'Not puny. And not foolish either. Very pale, like a wax effigy with starlight trapped in her hair. A little lost, a little uncertain. But very beautiful. And clearly of noble blood, and well deserved to be a gentlewoman...' The King's voice was growing drowsy, now – a little fretful, as though he found it hard to cling to the passing of the present. 'Mirrum, you are sure you will not take Montferrand?'

'No, no, and a thousand times no.'

'Tiberias will offer it again after I am gone. Sybilla can scarce say it was coaxed out of me then...Will you take it then?'

'No.'

'Tiberias is a hard man to refuse, Dane-lady...Speaking of which, the sleeping maiden was a great barbarian queen from the ice-bound North, and she was ensorcelled by a marsh-witch...I...think... was it a marsh-witch? Or perhaps an afreet... I do not remember what I would have said...'

'I should leave you soon, Physician,' Mirrum said with difficulty, swallowing a burning sob like a hot coal. His wandering disordered her sadly. 'You must keep your strength a little while longer – Sybilla gave me a message for you.' It was a desperate sally – but it seemed to snag on a trailing strand of consciousness for a moment. 'Sybilla?'

'Ay, my lord King. Sybilla. She gave me solemn promise she would visit you and speak with you. So you must keep it a little while longer – a little while, my Physician...'

'Sybilla could not object if I did not give you land – if I gave you something else, instead-'

For an instant Mirrum thought his delirium still harped fretfully on the theme of Montferrand, and opened her mouth, ready to refuse it.

Until she caught the expression in his eyes, and stopped, abashed. The blue eyes looking back at her were quite calm and collected.

'There is an open coffer by my chair,' he said, after a painful silence. 'Go to it. I gave the Lady Audemande many of my histories and tales.' The King continued. 'I reasoned as Sybilla's court trobairitz, she would need them for her lay-making. But I left one gift for you that I knew you would not refuse.'

'Physician-'

'In the chest there is a book. Beneath the papers.'

Mirrum found it. It was a small quarto volume bound in faded brown leather. The spine was cracked – unless carefully oiled, books in the Holy Land had a brief lifespan. But the book had clearly been much loved and well-thumbed. Mirrum picked it up with reverent fingers.

'Is it -'

'The Meditations. I said I would give them to you. Even if I cannot give you Montferrand...'

'Physician-'

'I don't reproach you.' The King said , drowsily. 'I think I am... glad you didn't. Not because I... grudged it...But if it would make you... unhappy...'

'I am very happy... my lord...'

'Happy...' The eyelids fluttered shallowly beneath the eyeholes of the mask.

Mirrum silently slipped from the bed, aware their time was done.

'Sybilla gave solemn promise she would visit and speak with her brother on the morrow.' She said, squeezing her grief like a scorpion into her palm. It stung her viciously, but it was just possible to clasp it tighter and imprison it with calm. 'Remember that, my Physician? A-and...' she swallowed. 'Thank you. For allowing me to know you.'

Sybilla brought the news, and a grieving softness that was new to her, back to her apartments on the evening of the morrow. After a humid, achingly hot day of waiting, all was over. It was finished. The Temple wasn't rent from top to bottom at his passing. No churches toppled, spilling their domes like cracked eggs. The Physician, and that shadow-self King Baldwin IV, left as quietly and peaceably as he had come.

Author's Note:

Apologies for the long wait for an update; I'm hoping this will serve as an apology. I really had to screw my courage to the sticking place with this chapter – it's probably the reason Tu Salus Fidelium has been drawn out so long. More updates soon, and many many thanks to my faithful and interested readers.