The Dagger and the Cross (24 page)

She slowed her pacing by a fraction. She had eluded the
farewell feast on the pretext of her courses. Her uncles, alas for their
comfort, had no such escape. But for a guard or two and her maid, the house was
empty. Everyone else was at the king’s table.

All of which she knew very well, and had planned for. But
she had not reckoned on Raihan’s choosing rather to play the rake with her maid
than to help her elude the woman. She had not even been able to exchange a
whispered word with him. He was evading her.

“Damn him,” she said. He was being honorable in the only way
he knew, which was to drive her to distraction with wanting him. He would be
her knight, all carefully circumspect, but he would not give her more than
that. It was not fitting, he would say. That was how well she knew him. She
knew why he would not touch her. Because they could never be more than lovers,
and he wanted more, and he would not dishonor her with less.

She could do with a little more dishonor and a little less
frustration.

She swept up a cushion and flung it with all her force.

He caught it neatly and held it like a shield. She saw his
smile over the edge of it. “What would you, my lady? Target practice?”

She glared at him. “Don’t I wish. With your grinning face
for a bull’s-eye.”

“Why, my lady,” he said, “what have I done to offend you?”

“You know,” she said.

He sobered. “My lady, you know that that is mad.”

“I don’t care.”

“I do.” He let the cushion fall. “No, not for me. For you.
Your king treasures you. He’ll never let you sully yourself with an infidel.”

“He won’t touch me. He might give me a royal tongue-lashing,
but that’s well worth the cost. And I won’t let him touch a hair of your head.”

“It’s not my head I’m worried about,” he said.

Her mouth was open. She shut it. “He wouldn’t!”

“Maybe not that, either. But he could take you away from me
and never let me see you again. I don’t think I could bear it.”

“What, you won’t be going to the war?”

“Oh,” he said. “The war. That’s what I was born and trained
for; it’s in my blood. But to come back and not find you there...that would
break my heart.”

“Is that what you want, then? Chaste sighs and a touch of
the hand now and then, and never anything more? Do you think I’m made of iron?”

“Ivory,” he said, “and ebony, and grey glass. And warm
heart. I’m not iron, either, but my honor is. I can’t cause you grief.”

“You don’t call it grief that you’re causing me now?”

“It will pass once I’m gone, and you find another who makes
your heart sing.”

She tossed her head, furious. “So that’s all I am. A
weathercock. Going all giddy whenever I see a handsome face.” She had all she
could do not to spit in his. “What do you take me for?”

She had wiped the smug self-sacrifice off his face, at least.
He held out a hand. “Lady—”

She seized it. He stiffened, but he did not pull away. She
pressed it to her breast over the beating heart. “Now tell me I’ll trip
daintily off into another man’s arms. Tell me straightly, as if you believe it.”

He shook his head, once, twice. “You shouldn’t do this, my
lady.”

“What, love you? It is that, you know, and not just wanting.
I’m no silly girl, that I can’t tell the difference.”

“You can’t do that,” he said. “There are too many obstacles.
Too much—”

“You talk too much.” That stopped him. She raised his hand
from her breast to her cheek. It curved to fit, not meaning to, she could see
that, but not able to help itself. His palm was hard, callused with fighting
and with handling horses, a soldier’s palm, but its touch was wonderfully
gentle. “You are going to war, and I must stay behind, because my birth and my
sex and my fortune tell me I must. You could die. Men do, in battle. Then what
would I have of you?”

“Memory,” he said. He made a warding gesture. “Which Allah
avert. I don’t intend to die.”

“What soldier does? But it happens. And I want something
more than remembrance. I want you. For this space only, these few hours until
evening. How can you deny me that?”

Not easily; not at all. But he would, because he was what he
was, great overgrown boy with a head full of songs and scripture.

“Your
faith does not forbid you the body’s joy,” Elen
said. “Why are you playing the Christian, and I the Saracen?”

“I am playing the soldier whose commander is your kin, and
who will never allow what you are asking me to do.”

She stamped her foot. “I don’t
care
what my uncles
think! I’m a grown woman. I’ll protect you from them; stop fretting over that.
They won’t call what I do dishonor. How can they? They made love matches themselves,
and far less suitably at that.”

“They are men,” Raihan said, as if that were an answer.

“So are you.” She wound her fists in his shirt and glared
into his face. “Are you my knight?”

“Always,” he said.

“Then I command you.”

He looked as if he could not decide whether to laugh or to
hit her. Since he could do neither, he settled for a flat stare. “That is
hardly fair, my lady.”

“Love isn’t,” she said, unabashed. “My maid is going to go
on an errand which will take her as long as it possibly can. You are going to
stay here with me.”

His brows knit. Handsome brows, strongly marked over those
splendid eyes. “What if we’re caught?”

Her heart leaped. That was assent, if not acceptance. She
dazzled him with her smile. “If we are, then I’ll do the talking.”

“I—” He was caught. His eyes went wide as he realized it. “Witch!”

“I come by it honestly,” she said. “Wait here. If you’re
gone when I come back, I’ll give you cause to rue it. In the middle of the
market. At the top of my lungs.”

He blanched. She set a kiss on her fingertip and laid it
lightly on his lips. “To hold you,” she said.

o0o

Aidan took another sip of the king’s wine. It was excellent.
Whatever Guy’s shortcomings, he had chosen well in his cellarer.

They were all together at last, all the lords and many of
the knights of Outremer, gathered in the great hall of the winter palace. None
but the king and a baron or two of Acre had brought his women to the feast;
this was war, and the women were at home, looking after their lords’ estates.
The cities and the castles were stripped bare of fighting men. Guy was wagering
all on this one great stroke, the full might of Outremer against the full might
of Islam.

“We can’t fight them on a dozen fronts,” he had said in
council that morning. “We can’t lie down and let them trample us underfoot. We
have to be a fist, one single knot of force, striking the enemy again and again
until he breaks or gives way.”

Aidan could not argue with the reasoning, whoever might have
put it in Guy’s head. Outremer was not a kingdom as other kingdoms were. It was
an armed camp, a thin line spread over the hills of Palestine, a few knights
and men-at-arms holding their lands against half a world. Saladin had twice a
hundred thousand men, it was said, from whom he could choose as many or as few
as he would, to ride to the war. Guy had scarce a tithe of that, and less than
a tithe of a tithe of knights.

He also had the cities, and the fortresses that were the
greatest in the world, and faith that was, when it came to it, genuine. If he
could drive the sultan and his unruly hordes to a ground of his own choosing,
then force a battle, he could win his way far more easily, and at far less
cost, than if he settled for a siege.

And he would win. His numbers were small beside the sultan’s,
but they were veterans every one, to the sultan’s raw levies; they had the best
arms and armor to be had, and means enough and to spare for aught that they
might need. The King of Anglia had rid himself of a troublesome archbishop, and
repented of it later. His repentance, being royal, took the form of gold,
marked for the defense of the Holy Sepulcher.

Aidan, sitting at Guy’s feast, drinking Guy’s wine, reckoned
that maybe, after all, Guy might be worth following. He could hardly go astray
with Count Raymond sitting next to him in determined amity, telling him what to
think. Master Gerard of the Temple, forced to a seat some distance down the
table, scowled to see them together, but could say nothing while there were
witnesses. He was wild to move, to fight, to kill Saracens. If it had been left
to him, he would have ridden out long ago with whatever food and weapons he
could snatch, and fallen on the infidels. And died promptly, as he almost had
in his last mad foray against the Saracen.

Which would, Aidan reflected, have been a mercy. Gerard was
a hothead as well as a fool. Guy, at least, was only a fool.

Gwydion, as Guy’s equal in rank, sat near him at the high
table. He did his best to make it evident who was king in this country: he had
left the state crown in his captain’s keeping on his flagship before he sent
his fleet to harbor in Cyprus; all that he had now was a simple silver fillet
with a sapphire set in it, and the signet which he did not relinquish even on
his errantries. It was one certain way, if people only knew, to tell which of
the brothers was the elder.

He had been quiet throughout the muster and silent in the
councils, except when he was called on to speak. That was not often. For the
most part he sat in a corner and listened, like the young knight people could
be tricked into thinking him, even if they knew who he was. Aidan was the one
they turned to if they needed wisdom from that quarter.

Aidan smiled behind his cup. He was quite willing and able
to be part of King Guy’s councils, and it was an old game to let people think
that his brother was the lesser of the two. Quiet, diffident Gwydion, who could
happily have been a monk, if God had not willed that he be a king. In this
place, under this king, it was more than a game; it was pure prudence. Guy had
decided, all by himself, that Gwydion was harmless. He would not listen to the
few who preached distrust. No king lived so long, in such evident tranquility,
without there being more to him than he was letting strangers see.

Guy was happy to let that be all there was. It reassured him
that he was a good king himself. Was he not good to look at? Did he not listen
well to everyone’s advice? Why then, there was the Elvenking with his fair
young face, as secure on his throne as any king alive, and scarcely a word to
say for himself.

There had, of course, to be an open affirmation of Gwydion’s
place in the army. Two kings in an army, however circumspect one of them might
be, needed more than a casual word to mark their amity.

It was almost time. The subtlety, the great
pièce de résistance
of the feast, which had begun as an image in spun sugar and marzipan of
Jerusalem upon her hills, lay in ruins. The wine was going round; heads would
be spinning soon, and then would be too late for matters of state.

Aidan’s eye caught his brother’s. Gwydion nodded very
slightly. He leaned toward Queen Sybilla, who sat on his left, and murmured in
her ear. She smiled brilliantly. She thought him a poor shadow of his brother,
but he was too beautiful to despise; and she was always at her best with
beautiful men. She turned to her husband and whispered a word or two. He
blinked, paused, nodded. It took him a moment to gather his wits and stand,
while the steward struck a bell and the hall went quiet.

“Tomorrow,” he said, “we ride to war against the Saracen.”

He waited out the roar that went up, the clanging of
knife-hilts on goblets, the thudding of fists on tables and feet on floor.

When it was quiet enough for him to be heard, he went on. “We
ride to war, all of us, the flower of the kingdom and its strongest defense
against the enemy. There is no finer army in the world.”

Again they whooped and cheered. Some bellowed their own
war-cries, or the war-cries of Outremer:
“Deus lo volt!
Holy Sepulcher!”

Guy smiled, fidgeting with his dagger-hilt. “Yes,” he said. “We’ll
fight like champions, every one of us, in the Lord Jesus’ name. But before we
go, there’s something that needs to be done. You know my royal brother of
Rhiyana.”

They did indeed, loudly. There was more in it than simple
exuberance. Aidan was surprised to hear how much more there was. The knights,
unlike the council, knew what they had in Gwydion, and were glad of it.

“My royal brother,” Guy said, frowning as it sank in on him
what the uproar meant, “has given us the gift of his person and his people, as
many as there are here over the sea. He is also determined that both should be
entirely at our disposal. He will not be swearing fealty to me—that would
hardly be proper—but he will accede to my authority in all that pertains to the
ruling of my kingdom and its army.”

“That is,” said Gwydion, rising, sliding smoothly into the
pause, “in all that pertains to the war against the Saracen.”

Guy nodded, still frowning. “Yes, precisely.”

“I am a guest and a pilgrim,” Gwydion said, “and a royal
ally. The war is yours, my brother of Jerusalem. I shall aid you in all that I
may.”

Guy’s frown faded. He liked the sound of that. So did almost
everyone else.

Some, however, had heard what was behind it. Amalric’s brows
were knit. Lord Humphrey hid a smile behind his hand. Count Raymond seemed
amused.

o0o

“As tidy a slither as I’ve ever had the pleasure to observe,”
the count said to Aidan when they could have a word together. Aidan had
honestly needed the garderobe; Raymond, it was apparent, had followed him in
order to speak with him.

Aidan flattened against the wall to let a burly knight go
by. He cocked his head toward the stair. Raymond nodded, bowed, gestured him
ahead.

The palace roof, like nearly every other in this country, was
a garden and, in the summer, a sleeping place. There was no one there now.
Aidan made his way to the side of it that looked on the harbor: dim now in the
dusk, lit here and there by a flicker of torches. The sound of hammering and of
drunken voices came up from the city. There was still a little to do among the
smiths and the armorers. The rest of the army celebrated its last night before
the march.