In a letter sent to all three, she wrote, “if a major catastrophe, the like of which has not been seen in Western Europe since the Middle Ages, is to be avoided in Holland, something drastic has to be done now.” I saw her with a group of travelers in a Chinese restaurant in Nukualofa, the capital. She was tall, blonde, buxom, and sounded American. I tried to talk to her, but she took no interest. Then it was announced everyone was going to a nightclub, the only one in the land. I went, along with a German guy I’d met some days earlier and was sharing a hotel room with, to economize. I’d begun to believe he might well be gay and was feeling nervous about this realization, as I am not gay. Just two years later, Baldwin III died and Amalric ascended the throne – but only on the condition that he set aside his wife (Baldwin’s mother) Agnes de Courtney. Agnes was duly disposed of, but Amalric’s children of his marriage, two-year-old Baldwin and his year-older sister Sibylla, were explicitly recognized as legitimate. They remained at court with their father.
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