5: CSI: Outremer

The director's hotel suite now bore a passing resemblance to an incident room. On a cork pinboard, he had affixed photographs of the two 'victims', Guy de Lusignan and Humphrey de Toron; scribbled notes about the circumstances of their deaths; sketches from the storyboard. He even had a flip-chart on an easel. The writer had to admit that he was impressed.

"Now," said the director, who had seen far too many detective series on TV, "we've got Guy and Humphrey. Dead. Humphrey stabbed while swearing allegiance to Guy. Guy carved up in a swordfight with Balian. Who are their enemies? Who benefits?"

The writer sighed. "I guess we should start with Guy… He's the more straightforward case. Dramatically his death makes sense, even if it doesn't historically."

"Yup, good point! I'd have wanted him dead even if you hadn't!"

The writer looked at him…

"Look, it wasn't me! Honest!" the director replied defensively.

"OK, I believe you. The other thing with Guy is - historically as well as cinematically - hardly anyone likes him."

"Hardly anyone?"

"- Apart from his wife."

"But even she doesn't in your script!"

"That wasn't my idea! - But the plain fact is, when the barons had to elect a King of Jerusalem in 1192, he didn't get a single vote!"

"Has he ever sung for Norway in Eurovision?" the director asked.

"Seriously. Not one vote."

"So if it came to listing his enemies…"

"We'd run out of paper!"

"Hm. What about Humphrey? He's pretty inoffensive. Pretty and inoffensive."

"Humphrey's an odd choice of victim. Not warlike, but a good linguist - a translator of Arabic. Stepson of Reynald. Regarded as effeminate and girlish. But he had enemies, too. Isabella's supporters - her mother Queen Maria, her stepfather Balian - wanted him to back her claim to the throne after Baldwin V died, but he chickened out and swore allegiance to Guy. After Hattin especially, people found that hard to forgive."

"And so he's stabbed to death while swearing his loyalty to Guy and Sibylla… Poetic justice? - But what about Isabella's lack of reaction? That struck me as… chilling."

The writer gave a deep sigh. "That's what's really strange. Isabella was attached to Humphrey. She was eleven, he seventeen, when they married at Kerak. He was like a brother to her, especially since her in-laws kept her parted from her mother and stepfather afterwards. Even for the good of the kingdom, she didn't want to divorce him, but her mother forced her into it. Mind, when her second husband was murdered, she remarried only a week later."

"What? Her second husband was murdered? How?"

"Stabbed."

The director scrawled in marker-pen on the flip-chart. "So… The first husband gets the death of the second, am I right?"

"Yup. Then her third husband fell out of the window, and her fourth husband died of a fish-overdose."

The director rolled his eyes. "Was she some kind of ultra-inventive serial killer?"

"No. The third was sheer Darwin Award: a dwarf was involved. And the fish was just off."

"Bizarre …" He paced the room back and forth. "But is there any link that you can think of?"

"They were all Isabella's husbands."

"No, I mean between Humphrey and Guy. Besides being brothers-in-law."

"The swearing allegiance business… It's interesting that our phantom script-doctor kills off Humphrey then. It's as if it's a punishment… Her stepfather wasn't happy about it at all, and he later opposed Guy."

"And he is - I keep forgetting who's who in this damn thing!"

The scriptwriter opened his briefcase and unfurled a family tree of the royal line of Jerusalem photocopied on to an A2 sheet of paper. He laid it on the coffee table, using the brass coffee pot and a paperweight to keep it flat. "I thought you might need this! - As I said, Isabella's stepfather is Balian of Ibelin. The real Balian."

"And do you think…?"

"Someone might be upset over what we've done to him in the script? If I were a descendant, I sure as hell would be! Priest-killing, adultery…"

"Vacuousness," added the director. "Oops! I didn't say that! - So, let me get this straight: someone acting on behalf of Balian might have a motive. Killing Guy, giving Humphrey his successor's death… Was that the fellow Isabella had to get divorced for, then?"

"Yes," the writer replied. He was in his element now, enthusing about his beloved Outremer. He pointed to another name on the chart: "Conrad of Montferrat. He needed to marry Isabella, to get a crack at the kingship, against Guy, after Sibylla died in Acre. But there were questions about the marriage's legality - whether he had previous wives living, and the fact his brother had been Sibylla's first husband."

"You're losing me again! Where are we on the chart?"

"Here!' He pointed with a pen. "William of Montferrat married Sibylla, and was the father of Baldwin V. Conrad was one of his younger brothers, and he married Isabella, Sibylla's half-sister."

"So, besides wanting Humphrey out of the way, he's another of Guy's enemies?"

"A major one! He sailed into Tyre 10 days after Guy's defeat at Hattin. The city was preparing to surrender to Saladin. He immediately took command, threw the Saracen banners into the ditch, and refused to surrender even when Saladin threatened to kill his father! He held Tyre through two sieges, and sent out appeals to the West for help: without him, the whole kingdom would have fallen. Not surprisingly, he got all the votes instead of Guy!"

"Pity you didn't tell me this sooner! Sounds sequel-ish!"

"It's too depressing! He was murdered a few days after the vote, before he could be crowned. Isabella re-married a week later. She was carrying Conrad's child, so it was quite scandalous."

"Any idea who did it?"

"Yes - Assassins."

"I know that! But I'm asking who."

"I said, Assassins - with a capital 'A'. Nizari. An Ismaili sect. Hashishiyun."

"Sounds like a bunch of pot-heads!"

"That was the rumour, but it seems they were sober enough when they made their hits: Raymond of Tripoli's - Tiberias's - father had been one of their previous victims. But who put them up to it… That's an open question: perhaps Saladin, perhaps King Richard."

"Richard?"

"I forgot to say, he was the only person left who wanted Guy to stay King - basically because the Lusignans were troublemakers in Poitou, so he was less of a nuisance if he stayed in Outremer. But he didn't have a vote."

"Interesting…"

The flow-chart was now covered in words such as:

ISABELLA
BALIAN
CONRAD
POT-HEADS
RICHARD

The director sighed wearily. "This is getting extremely confusing… Where is Montferrat, anyway?"

"Europe?" suggested the writer.

To be continued: A romantic rendezvous