by S A Monk
Lucien rose from his chair and retrieved his mantle. "I have yet another hour before I need to return to the preceptory," he announced as Brother Giles rose also. "Will you help me find Lady de Châtillon?"
The Hospitaller led Lucien down the corridor to the empty meeting room, then out the door, to cross the courtyard to the orphanage. "I should probably discourage your interest in her, brother," the black robed monk concluded worriedly. "But I think Gabrielle could use someone with your connections to help her place some of these children. You could put word out to your Arab contacts. She is of a mind that these children need to be raised by Muslim families, not by Christians."
Lucien lifted an eyebrow. "And what say you, Brother Giles? Do you not want to convert these children?"
"Nay, I do not. They deserve to have replaced at least part of what has been taken from them, as Lady de Châtillon often reminds us.”
Lucien found one more reason to admire Gabrielle de Châtillon. Her broad-minded way of thinking was highly unusual. She wasn't out to perform charitable acts for the sake of advancing her spiritual coin, but for the sake of truly helping these children who had lost all family. While many women of the realm involved themselves in charitable work, most did it to advance their reputations. Certainly, he had never met one who put her life at risk for it.
"I still do not see how Lady de Châtillon has escaped harm on her journeys," Lucien repeated, shaking his head.
Brother Giles steered him to a rear door at the back of the orphanage. Walking down the center of the children's residential hall, Lucien was amazed at how many children were living at the orphanage. There were dozens of them, ranging in age from infancy to adolescence. Half a dozen nuns and an equal number of Saracen women attended the children, but there was, as yet, no sign of the woman Lucien had been anticipating seeing today.
"We try to watch out for her, even if we are not providing escort. I always forewarn our road patrols if she will be traveling in their vicinities, but having your patrols alerted would also be extremely helpful. Still, the woman has extraordinarily good fortune in avoiding trouble. The incident you rescued her from was only the second time in five years that she has been accosted."
"That is truly remarkable!" Lucien swore. "She must indeed have a heavenly guardian traveling at her side."
"She surely has earned one," Brother Giles added. "Life with Reynald alone has been perilous enough." The monk stepped through an open doorway and pointed toward the woman in the center of the private courtyard, playing stickball with a dozen children.
Lucien followed his direction and saw Gabrielle de Châtillon, dressed in loose pants and tunic. Her long dark hair was woven into a single braid as thick as his forearm. It hung down her back, to her waist, and a multitude of loose tendrils had worked themselves free, curling about her face like a nimbus.
Her flawless golden skin was moist with perspiration in the midday heat, giving her an ethereal glow that took his breath away.
As he watched her move nimbly, batting the ball with her thick stick, he realized that she was barefoot. She didn’t seem to be bothered in the least by the dirt that swirled around her as the children played delightedly.
Lucien could not recall ever having been more enchanted by a woman. He did not want to disturb her, only stand and watch her. But his spell was soon broken when Brother Giles called out to her.
She halted immediately and turned to wave. Her face broke into a smile as she greeted the Hospitaller beside him. Then her eyes slid to him. To his surprise, her smile remained. After encouraging the children to continue playing, she walked over to the two men, grabbing her headscarf along the way.
As he watched her lift it over her hair and swing the long ends over her shoulder, Lucien found himself suffering a sharp stab of disappointment. Even in a braid, her gold-shot hair was glorious under the sunlight. He remembered how it had swirled around her when he'd first come across her in the desert and wished she did not feel compelled to cover it.
Greetings were exchanged, then Brother Giles left to fetch water from the well for them.
Lucien steered Gabrielle toward a bench under a shade tree. She sat down, while he remained standing. "Brother Giles tells me you need help finding homes for these children," he began.
"And he tells me you have very wide-reaching contacts, frère," she said hopefully. "I want to place as many of these children as possible in Muslim homes. Brother Giles and I wondered if you could help me do that."
Lucien gave her a crooked half smile. "Templars do not minister to the sick and poor the way the Hospitallers do, Lady de Châtillon. We defend the roads and the settlements. We are simply fighting men."
Gabrielle met his barely concealed amusement with a frown. Her eyes narrowed as she stared up at him. "You are a monastic order, are you not? And is it not the duty of all monastic orders to render aid to the poor and needy?"
Lucien was enjoying her indignation entirely too much. He could see she didn't like it, but the spark of temper in her exceptional blue eyes was too fascinating to quell.
"Yes, we are a monastic order, but our purpose is narrower than most. We are strictly military monks; fighting men."
"I understand that you, frère, also do more than protect and serve. Reynald has run a wide-reaching intelligence network for years. You do the same for your Order, do you not, Brother de Aubric?"
"Is that what you have heard?"
"I have, from several people," Gabrielle informed him, trying not to react to his crooked smile and the dangerous appeal in his dark eyes.
Bemused by him and her response to him, she decided he could charm the devil, himself. He was an incredibly attractive man, and she found herself irritatingly drawn to him. The hard planes and angles of his face were utterly mesmerizingly, especially when he smiled.
"What you have heard is accurate," Lucien finally admitted. "I do have many contacts in the Muslim world, and I might be able to assist you in placing these children. I could at least talk to a few of my contacts and encourage them to help you on the matter. I would not recommend you do this alone, though."
"Would you be willing to introduce me to some of these people?" She was relieved that he was now being more serious. Lucien de Aubric’s smile was simply too disturbing.
"I will put out some inquiries, and if I can generate interest, I will set up a meeting. I will, of course, go with you."
Gabrielle frowned uncertainly. "Will your Order allow you to accompany me?"
"I will arrange it."
She remembered Hazir saying this man followed his own path. She knew that the rank and file Templars could never do that. They were bound by oath to be obedient in all things, and they could not go about on their own, but that did not always hold true for the higher-ranking officers. She had seen many of them come and go, on their own, at Kerak and at the royal palace. Still, there was no way she could visit the Templar garrison here in Jerusalem the way she did the Hospitaller complex. While the Hospital allowed women to work and be treated here, the Templars allowed access to no female, unless they were under siege and taking all nearby inhabitants inside their garrison for protection.
"You may use Hazir as a messenger," she offered.
"I will." Leaning with an arm braced casually against the tree she sat under, he looked down at her and gave her one last slow smile. It stretched into a long moment of silence.
Thankfully for Gabrielle, Brother Giles returned and handed them both a wooden cup of cool well water, then announced that Lucien's friend, Brother Conrad, was looking for him.
"The messenger said he is waiting in our chapter house," the Hospitaller stated.
Lucien was reluctant to leave. His visit with Gabrielle de Châtillon had been entirely too short, and he was already thinking of some way to see her again. But with Brother Conrad waiting, he could hardly delay. Finally, he bid her good day.
Gabrielle watched him walk across the small courtyard and into the residential hall with Brother Gile
s. His powerful physique disappeared too quickly, and she was left feeling strangely bereft.
For the remainder of the day, she continued to think about Lucien de Aubric. His dark angular face and tall muscular build drew a woman's attention immediately, and he smelled better than any Templar she had ever met. While most of them kept their habits clean and orderly, thanks to the Order's drapers, they did not believe in regular bathing like the Arabs did. She had even overheard Reynald snicker behind their backs about their practice of never changing their lambs' wool drawers. Considering how foul-smelling many were, Gabrielle believed the story to be true.
But Brother de Aubric smelled of leather and sandalwood soap. There was nothing offensive about him, except his slight penchant for arrogance. It was not the same overbearing, belittling arrogance Reynald and her father demonstrated, though. And, despite her initial impression of him, she’d discovered that he did possess a capricious sense of humor. Or maybe he simply enjoyed teasing her. It had taken Gabrielle awhile to recognize it as such.
She wasn't used to being teased by a man. Her father had always been a harsh, disapproving man, first with her mother, then with her. Gabrielle had concluded long ago that he had never loved either of them. While Simone Chaumont had been alive, she had sheltered her from his scorn and abusive rages.
To her great disappointment, her father’s rages had not stopped after Gabrielle’s marriage. His brutality had simply been replaced by her husband’s. Reynald de Châtillon was was every bit as physically abusive, and he had added a disgusting sexual deviancy that she had found detestable and always painful. All of her fourteen-year-old innocence had been utterly shattered by the husband who had been over two score years her senior. Reynald de Châtillon had emerged from fifteen years in a Saracen prison more malevolent than when he had entered.
She'd truly been chattel to both her husband and her father until she'd found a way to escape her hellish existence. Now, she was simply unwanted baggage. They paid her no more attention than they had to, and as long as she did not embarrass them or inconvenience them, they let her be. Although Gabrielle was aware that Reynald wished to be rid of her in order to marry the licentious heiress of Hebron, she had never wished to accommodate his quest for an annulment. By acquiring Silvia’s fiefdom, Reynald would command a demesne that would rival the wealth of Galilee and the political influence of the count of Tripoli.
Gabrielle wished her husband and her father both would expire of heart failure or be mortally wounded in their numerous raids into Saladin's territory. God forgive her for her sinfulness, but never did two men deserve retribution as much as Armand Chaumont and Reynald de Châtillon.
Both men had been comrades in conquest for over three decades. They had come to Outremer with King Louis VII in 1148. When Reynald became Lord of Antioch in 1153 by marrying Princess Alice, Armand became his seneschal. Together, they had killed, raped, and pillaged from Antioch to Cyprus to beyond the Red Sea. Gabrielle knew for a certainty that they had destroyed more innocent lives than simply her own.
When Reynald had been captured by the Saracens and sent to Aleppo, Armand had taken his wife and infant daughter to Jerusalem and eventually had become bailli to King Amalric. As a reward for his service, the king gave Armand a small fief in Oultrejourdan, recently vacated by the death of Paganus the Butler, Kerak’s builder.
Upon release from an Arab prison, Reynald had immediately looked up his old friend. The potential wealth he saw in the region prompted his unholy bargain with Armand. Gabrielle became the prize, and with her marriage to Reynald, Armand saw Castle Kerak and his fief in Oultrejourdan grow in size until it was one of the largest, most strategic in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. As a reward for selling his young daughter, Armand became the very wealthy seneschal of Montreal, a garrison Reynald captured to the south of Kerak.
After years of her tortuous marriage to the man known as the kingmaker, she had fortunately been set aside to live peacefully in Jerusalem. There she had finally begun to build a worthy life for herself. And now, she had, by chance, met a man who made her pulse flutter every time she saw him. In all of her nearly twenty-six years, she had never been attracted to any man. Maybe her budding interest in Lucien de Aubric was simply a result of inexperience and naiveté, but it felt like something more; something fateful and singularly significant.
When he looked at her, it was with warmth, affection, and a keen interest that was so completely focused on her. She'd received admiring looks from men before, but they had always been predatory, lustful, and base.
Lucien de Aubric looked beneath the surface; beyond the exterior appeal. And from the first, she'd felt an indefinable connection between them; some affinity that seemed quite extraordinary. Maybe she was simply indulging in ridiculous fantasies, but it was a heady sensation, and, against all her better judgment, she wanted to explore it. She wanted to see Lucien de Aubric again.
She wondered if that was why she had asked him to help her find appropriate homes for the Muslim children at the orphanage? She had been, afterall, managing to do just that for a couple of years now on her own. Brother Giles and several other clerics had put her in contact with several good Muslim families willing to help.
Asking Brother de Aubric for help felt very much like an excuse to see him again. She wondered with no small measure of embarrassment if he had seen such a motive in her request.
It was all well and good to seek help wherever she could, but he was a monk, afterall. She had no business encouraging meetings between them. Long ago her marriage vows had stopped holding any sanctity for her. While she had remained faithful to Reynald, it had not been out of respect for him, but out of respect for herself.
But she could not, in all good conscience, think of Brother Lucien's vows as anything but sacred and inviolate. She must only think of him as a friend, the way she thought of Brother Giles and the other clerics she worked with. No matter that his dark sensual stare felt like a physical caress, or that his deep husky voice made her shiver. She’d try to ignore that devilishly charming smile that could melt stone. For his sake and hers, none of that could matter. The next time she saw him, she would control all those treacherous responses that had played such havoc with her senses and her principles from the moment she had met him in the desert.
CHAPTER 5
Gabrielle had a fortnight to convince herself that she would respond differently to Lucien de Aubric the next time she saw him. Like all the nobility in Jerusalem, she had been invited to the celebration for the king's birthday at the palace. No one dared to ignore the summons, especially after all the dissent and rancor that had followed the recent coup. While many would have tolerated Sibylla on the throne, few liked having Guy of Lusignan. But now that he was king, few wanted to incur his disfavor by shunning him.
Gabrielle dreaded the occasion because it brought her husband and father into town. They arrived the day before the scheduled event and took over her home like they owned it, which of course they did. But Gabrielle seldom saw either of them anymore, and she felt invaded. All of her small handpicked household staff was immediately set upon; bullied and shouted at and ordered around relentlessly by her demanding father and husband.
She seethed with silent fury over the degrading way both men treated her Arabic staff, for each one of them had become more family to her than servant. All she could do to protect them was to keep them out of sight as much as possible, which meant she saw to many of the needs of the two men herself. Their maltreatment was nothing new to her, but it was hard not to retaliate after she had enjoyed so much freedom these past five years.
Moving away from Kerak and finding such personal fulfillment in her work with the orphans had healed her and made her stronger. As a result, her greatest fury came from her renewed feelings of impotence. Yet it would have been foolhardy to challenge her husband. She did not dare invite his heavy hand, for herself or her staff. So she held her tongue and reminded herself that both men were only here for a couple of days.
On the day of the birthday celebration, she arrived at court with Reynald and Armand, praying for a swift conclusion to the event.
Knowing how the royals liked to dress in the Oriental fashions of the Byzantine empire, Gabrielle chose to wear a sleeveless gold damask surcoat over a simple ivory chainse with long wide sleeves, banded above her elbows, trimmed in bright gold thread. Instead of being girdled at the hips as was the fashion in the West, her outer garment fell in slender tapering lines to her silk slippered feet, with long armholes cut to her waist. Her headrail, worn over a wimple of sheer ivory silk, was wound and interwoven with braided gold cord into a turban.
Neither Reynald, nor her father had remarked on her appearance, though Hazir’s daughter, who acted as her maidservant, had pronounced her lovely enough to rival the queen. Secretly, Gabrielle knew she had taken such care with her appearance simply in the hope of seeing a certain dark-haired Templar.
The palace where the Christian kings and queens of Jerusalem had resided since King Baldwin the II had moved out of the Temple Mount and the al-Aqsa mosque, leaving it to the Templars, was a newly erected building next to the Tower of David. Designed with a Byzantine influence, it was a sprawling complex, which rose four stories high and covered an entire block. Fortress walls surrounded the entire structure, with a double gatehouse, bridged by a heavy oak and iron gate at the primary entrance.
In the center of the square structure, there was an enormous open-air courtyard, bordered on the outer edges by opulent Mediterranean gardens that provided a cool buffer between the interior and exterior of the palace. A wide variety of potted palms and stately trees shaded the marble benches lining the edges of the rectangular court. And in the center, a huge multi-tiered fountain rose two stories high, spilling water in a shimmering cascade to the large circular pool at its base.
Latticed balconies and long porticoes rimmed the upper levels of the palace, all looking over the flag-stoned courtyard below. As Gabrielle walked across the square to the cavernous receiving hall, brilliantly colored silk draperies blew from open windows above her head, mingling with the riotous shades of bougainvillea, snow-white jasmine, and a breathtaking array of hanging flowers.