7: A (Crossbow) Bolt from the Blue...
"There!" said Rosa, tapping at the laptop. "That's sorted! Now the Spam will go directly into the Junk Mail, and your incoming mail will go into the right folders! Is that all right… sire?"
Conrad, sitting beside her (so close that she could feel the chill, yet not so close as to touch), nodded. "Many thanks!"
She tried not to read the addresses, but the temptation was too strong: balian&maria-at-nablus-dot-net, fritz-at-barbarossa-dot-de, callixtusii-at-vaticano-dot-org… "You have an interesting address book, if you don't mind my saying."
"Oh, that's just my family. Who else have we…? Here's Uncle Otto of Freising… Cousin Alfonso in Castille… And that one's… Yes, that's a live person - a doctor. Funny woman, but she's been kind to me over the years."
"But how…?"
"How did I learn about all this?" He laughed. "Well, we have to find ways of occupying ourselves for eight centuries! Your time may have lately discovered 'reality TV' or whatever you call it, but we Dead have been watching all of you for rather longer…"
"And learning computing?"
"It's very popular! Nearly everyone who ever was is on line now. My nephew picked it up in no time: he's a bright little fellow, is Baudouinet. And of course, when we discovered that there were ways for people with physical handicaps to use these things, Baudouin was very excited!"
She shifted uneasily. "You mean, he's still…?"
"When he comes back, yes: he's still disabled. To some extent we're still tethered to our earthly condition when we choose to re-embody: my chest trouble. But he never let his illness stop him before; he certainly doesn't now!"
It was a lot to get her head around. If she were honest, she had come to his room with the intention of going out for a drink, perhaps a meal, and for dessert a wild night of middle-aged passion. Instead, she had found herself emotionally drawn towards a… What exactly was he? Too solid to be a spirit - some kind of corporeal revenant. A 12C King of Jerusalem with an interest in cyberspace. It was too bizarre for words.
"The Boatman's quite a soft touch if you give the dog a few biscuits. Three of everything. I always got on well with my hunting hounds in the old days, so it's not difficult to persuade him into parting with a return ticket. Most of us do at some time, but we try to be inconspicuous. Not draw attention to ourselves. I made that mistake earlier. I tried to see my daughter - my Maria - when she was about five. I died before she was born, you see... I tried to sneak into the palace at Acre, behind a delegation of Pisan merchants, but my successor recognised me."
"And you got into trouble?"
"Not directly. He panicked and fell through a railing across the window, and a dwarf fell after him, landing on his head. He's been whining about it at me ever since, although he'd have been fine if the dwarf hadn't... Not that he was altogether innocent of…" His voice trailed off. "It was a pity about the dwarf, though!"
"Dwarf?"
He shrugged. "But it was an accident! There are other people I'd far rather have sent plummeting to their deaths!"
"And your daughter?"
"We're like strangers," he said curtly. "She's nineteen now, of course."
"Only nineteen?"
"Childbirth. Her first."
"I'm sorry…"
"And her daughter likewise. The last heir of my blood - my namesake - was executed. None is living now. If I don't take care of my own interests, who will? Novelists, film-makers… This isn't the first time, you know! 1935 was bad, too..."
"And being on the set of a historical film is the perfect cover?"
"Not perfect. Strangely comedic if I'm in a dark mood!" he said wryly. "Maddening in other ways."
She too smiled awkwardly. (How could she be entirely at ease now?) "Why didn't you get them to hire you as a consultant?"
He rubbed his beard with his scarred hand. "Hmph! They they'd have to try to be honest!"
"- Or is that why you're here?" she asked.
"I'm just playing a game," he answered.
Late into the night, the writer and the director were adrift in a sea of flow charts and diagrams.
"I reckon it's someone acting for Balian, you know," said the director. "It has to be. Some descendant who got wind of the film, and didn't like what we were doing to his ancestor."
The writer clapped his hands: "Exactly! So who does he pick on to kill in the script? The two people who let Balian down the most!"
Then the director shook his head. "No, no… Too simple! Could it be Sibylla? A champion of hers might want to free her from a useless husband! Or Baldwin?"
"What about Raymond of Tripoli?"
The director nodded. "You think his family would have minded much about him using a subsidiary title?"
"I think we were maybe pushing the envelope with the 'secret conversion to Islam' line. His enemies accused him of treason, and said that after his death he was found to be circumcised. There were allegations about Reynaud Garnier, too, but it wasn't true of him either!"
"And who the hell is Reynaud Garnier?"
"Lord of Sayette - Sidon. The Leper King's stepfather."
The director sighed, and swigged another black coffee. "Where's that bloody genealogy again…?"
"So what's this game, then?" Rosa asked.
"I think you people call it 'interactive fiction'. It was my nephew's idea. He wrote the programme when he heard that they were making his mother poison him in the film. He's just a child - you can imagine how that distressed him! Baudouin wasn't happy about it, either. But the script was so odd from the first - all the inaccuracies - that collectively, we thought it would be… amusing to add some of our own, just to see how far we could go."
"You mean…?"
"We rewrite parts of the script," the King said simply. "Just think: all the people who have wronged you in life… To be able to make them ridiculous is surely the best revenge. And after eight centuries, it is, indeed, served very cold."
"Guy?"
"His death, yes. And Honfroi's. Balian thought it was a good idea, too, when we asked him!"
"So what are you planning now?"
Conrad was humming to himself as he typed quickly (Fortz chausa es, that well-known air by Gaucelm Faidit, composed several years after his death). As he stared intently at the screen, a thin smile of mischief - or malice - spread across his handsome face.
She read aloud, slowly, in English: "Richard leaves Balian, and rides ahead into the forest. As in the earlier scene with Godfrey and his men, we see a local official approach, backed by men at arms. Some have crossbows. They shoot. Richard is hit in the shoulder, close to the neck, and falls."
She stared at him in bewilderment. "You're killing the King of England?"
He laughed. "It's nothing, after all, is it? - Play-acting! - Maire de Deus! After what he did!"
In the morning, at breakfast in the hotel dining room, the writer read over the script once more. He turned pale, and rushed over to the director, pointing in silent horror at the laptop screen.
"What is it? What's happened? Again?"
"I-I think… whoever it is wants us to re-shoot the ending!"
"What do you mean? Let's see!"
He stared at the document on screen then put his head in his hands, and sighed. "Well, I suppose it is only a cameo role! We can easily do a different ending!"
"But - but it's Richard the Lionheart!"
"So what? He's not crucial to the plot - just a witty historical movie coda! When did he die in reality?"
"1199. Gas-gangrene from a crossbow quarrel in the shoulder. Siege of Chaluz."
"It's just been brought forward a little, then! What's nine years or so in movie-tweaking? We've done worse!"
"But don't you see? Humphrey, Guy - and now Richard! This means he wouldn't be on the Crusade! This is… major sabotage!"
To be continued: We three Kings of Orient?
