The Spymaster's Protection

by S A Monk

  He caught both her hands in his and stared at her regretfully. “No more than I,” he whispered, looking down on her longingly for a long while. “Have I told you today how very much I love you?”

  She shook her head, smiling ruefully. “Midnight is a damnably long time away!”

  Lucien laughed. “My sentiments exactly!” Behind her, someone caught his attention. “Omar! Nephrim!” He greeted their two friends and Gabrielle turned around to do the same.

  “Ah, spending your money on our lovely friend, I see!” Nephrim chuckled, admiring Gabrielle’s new veil.

  “Money well spent,” Omar added.

  “Absolutely,” Lucien concurred, stroking Gabrielle’s arm as he released her hand.

  Then he turned his attention to the elder of the two brothers. “Your arrival is most timely. I have to talk to a man across the street for a moment. It will not take long. Will you keep Gabrielle company until I return?”

  Both men agreed readily and steered Gabrielle to a small outdoor table at a nearby café.

  While they waited, they ordered something to drink. Gabrielle watched Lucien cross the busy avenue. She noticed an Arab dressed in a dark blue robe following him as he entered the alley opposite them and turned into a doorway on the side of a tobacco shop.

  When the people in the street blocked her view of the man. Gabrielle stood up to watch. She saw the blue-robed man come back out of the alley and rush back up the street. His behavior alarmed Gabrielle.

  She looked at Omar and Nephrim, but both brothers appeared at ease, engaged in conversation about some woman they knew here in Damascus. She thought about telling them what she had just seen, but finally decided she must have been making more of it than it really was. Surely, if the two brothers were watching Lucien’s back, they would know of anyone following him. But there were so many people on the street, how could anyone know if they had a follower? She had certainly not noticed anything earlier.

  Sitting back down, she returned to her cool drink and tried to still the lingering unease fluttering in her stomach. She fingered the magnificent scarf Lucien had given her and wondered how soon they would be able to marry. Maybe by the time they returned to Jerusalem, the patriarch would have news of her annulment.

  Visions of standing beside Lucien before a priest, exchanging wedding vows with him suddenly gave way to a commotion across the street that captured her attention. Omar and Nephrim also noticed and rose from their seats, along with her.

  To her horror, she saw Lucien being seized by a half dozen Arabian soldiers as he exited the alley across from them.

  The furtive little man in the dark blue robes stood off to one side pointing a finger at Lucien. “That is the infidel dog who poses as one of us!” he screamed in Arabic. “He is a god cursed Templar I tell you. I knew I recognized the scum!”

  Gabrielle understood every horrific accusation. She started to push and shove her way through the throng of on-lookers who had gathered around the ruckus. Panic threatened to overcome her. What could she do? She couldn’t let them take Lucien!

  Behind her, she was dimly aware of Omar and Nephrim scrambling after her. Before her, Lucien turned suddenly and met her eyes. Fear glittered in them. He shook his dark head, warning her away. His fear sharpened as she continued to shove her way through the crowd. She was pushing frantically against the impenetrable wall of people when Omar finally reached her. She shook off his hand on her arm and spun away from him with a little cry.

  Her behavior caught the attention of the captain of the guard. The big Arab looked at Lucien, then pointed toward Gabrielle. “Who is this woman? Another infidel spy?”

  “No!” Lucien cried out loudly. “She is nothing to me. I do not know her.”

  The loud exchange turned all heads toward Gabrielle. She stopped struggling and stared hopelessly into Lucien’s taut face. She could see that he did not want her to involve herself. In fact, he was beginning to look desperate. Tears filled her eyes. How could she let him be arrested? Surely, she could do or say something!

  Her hesitation gave Omar time to catch her again. This time, he held on firmly. “She is my sister, sir. She is not very bright. The excitement has disturbed her. She does not know this man.” Omar’s words spun Gabrielle’s head to him. “Be still, lady. It will go worse for him if they think you aid him.”

  “But, I must help….”

  “Not now!” Nephrim, who had come up to flank her hissed under his breath. “Let me follow and see where they take him. He is very good. He may talk them out of this accusation. And he has friends in the city that may vouch for him.”

  Gabrielle turned back to Lucien and shared one last desperate look with him before he turned away from her.

  “Do you know that woman, Templar dog!” the captain angrily demanded again.

  “I do not.”

  Gabrielle slumped in Omar’s arms, devastated and terrified.

  The informer murmured something in the captain’s ear and looked at her. Behind her, Omar cursed and grabbed her arm. “We must leave. Now!” he told her urgently. Without waiting for her consent, he dragged her backwards through the crowd, then turned down the alley where she and Lucien had stood.

  Gabrielle looked back one last time as Lucien was drug roughly away. The captain of the guard had apparently decided not to pursue her. They were too busy securing their prisoner and shoving the crowd out of their departing path. All around Lucien, people were calling out insults and shaking their fists at him, yet he gave the guards no trouble as he disappeared from her vision, his broad shoulders straight, his head turned resolutely forward.

  CHAPTER 18

  The news Nephrim brought later that evening was not good. Lucien was being held in the great citadel within the city, the one they had passed upon their arrival nearly a fortnight ago. Rumors circulated among those witnesses to the arrest that the Arab captured was an infidel Templar spy.

  Gabrielle found it ironic that one side considered the other the infidel in this insane religious struggle.

  Nephrim had followed the crowd and gotten as far as the courtyard inside the garrison. He had watched Lucien being dragged, bound, into one of the towers, then the garrison’s gate guards had rid the courtyard of the curious onlookers who had managed to follow the prisoner inside the stronghold.

  After lingering in the street outside the citadel for a while, Nephrim had gone to a public house frequented by the garrison’s soldiers to discover how much of the gossip in the streets was true. He’d learned that Lucien was indeed suspected of being a Templar spy and that he was being held and questioned as such.

  Gabrielle suspected there were details that Nephrim was sparing her. But she knew, through Reynald, that questioning in an Arab prison went hand in hand with brutality. The images that flashed through her mind were so terrible they threatened to crush her with grief and fear.

  Gabrielle, Omar, and the Mansurs were on the roof patio when Nephrim arrived to report what had happened to Lucien. The Arab couple knew the nephews and their uncle, Hazir. Behind the veil that covered half of her face, Nahla was visibly upset by Nephrim’s account. When he finished, she looked to her husband and voiced a question that did not surprise Gabrielle.

  “Lucien is not a Templar, Farouk, is he? And surely not a spy?”

  Her husband, who had come from his forge immediately upon hearing the news hours ago, looked to his wife gravely. “He is both, Nahla.”

  She gasped with shock. “You’ve known this all these years?”

  “I have," he answered quietly, surprising both Gabrielle and his wife. "He is a good man and a blood relation. He has never asked me for information, only friendship and occasional lodging. His goal has always been to use what he learns to save lives and avert warfare, not incite it. We must remember that he is also one of us. He honors his mother’s people as best he can, under the circumstances. It has made his life hard at times, but he brings our interests and point of view to those he serves. That benefits us more t
han having a man in his shoes who is blind to all but his hatred of us.”

  “A man like my husband?” Gabrielle ventured. “You must know who I truly am then, if you know that Lucien is a Templar.”

  “I do,” Farouk confirmed. “I also know my cousin has walked away from his former life because of his love for you.”

  Tears brimmed in Gabrielle’s eyes, and her throat constricted with anguish.

  “Lucien has many friends here,” the Arab sword master reassured her compassionately. “We will try to get him released.”

  “If they believe him to be a Templar still, they will not release him. Templars are rarely even taken alive in battle, and when they are, they are never ransomed.”

  “I will do what I can here, but you must go back to Jerusalem with Nephrim and Omar, lady. It is too dangerous for you to stay here now. If word of your true identity gets out, you will be arrested and used to capture your husband. Our great sultan despises Lord de Châtillon above all others for the atrocities he has committed against our people. The price on his head is enormous. You are at great risk here without Lucien.”

  “I am not safe anywhere without Lucien. My husband has hired an assassin to rid himself of me.”

  “There have been no attacks upon you since arriving in Damascus,” Omar pointed out.

  “I have noticed that,” Gabrielle concurred. “And wondered why.”

  “It is most unexplainable,” Nephrim agreed. “Lucien wondered if someone had persuaded the leader of the Assassin sect to abandon the contract on your life. Lucien tried to accomplish it, but he could not meet the Old Man’s demands or best the price paid for you death.”

  Lucien’s diligent protection of her made Gabrielle determined to do something to help him. A spark of an idea began formulating in her mind, but she dared not mention it to anyone in this room, for they would never allow her to proceed.

  “We should leave for Jerusalem tomorrow, lady,” Nephrim said.

  “Please let me stay one more day.” She needed at least that long to think her plan through and set it in motion. “Lucien might be able to convince them he is not a Templar spy. If he has not returned by tomorrow evening, we will leave the next morning.” It was a lie, of course. She could never simply abandon Lucien to suffer in an Arab prison.

  Omar and Nephrim looked ready to disagree, but finally relented when Farouk promised to keep her safe in his house.

  +++

  Sitting back against the damp stone wall of his dungeon cell, Lucien raised one knee and groaned. Since his arrest two days ago, he’d been interrogated half a dozen times, and each question had been punctuated by a fist to his gut, a kick to his ribs when he’d gone down, or a blow to his head and back by a metal rod. All except his hose and undertunic had been taken from him, and those were ripped from the beatings he had suffered. They’d even taken his boots. But they’d discovered nothing that gave them any indication he was a Templar or a ferenghi.

  He could tell they were unsure now. The man who had informed on him was no one Lucien had ever had dealings with, so he had no idea how the odious little man had come to accuse him of being an infidel spy. The only thing that made sense was that the man had overseen or overheard something.

  He had told his interrogators nothing, and they had no other information to support the informant’s claim. Still, the captain of the guard was unwilling to release him just yet.

  Lucien thought he enjoyed this interrogation business way too much.

  There were other Franks in the prison cells here. He had passed by them often enough as he was being taken in and out of his own fetid cell. Most were simply dark heaps on the stone floor. A few, though, had stood at their cell doors and watched him through the bars as he was being questioned and beaten. At first, Lucien had been afraid one of them would recognize him, but no one had. Some had even cursed him as a filthy heathen. His disguise had certainly fooled his fellow Christian soldiers, probably because he spoke to his captors in perfect Arabic and was as dark skinned as them.

  Letting his head fall back against the damp stone wall of his dark cell, Lucien closed his eyes and thought of Gabrielle. God in Heaven, he’d been frightened in the bazaar when she had pushed through the crowd at his arrest! If she had said one word in his defense, his captors would surely have arrested her. Her gender would not have stopped them from brutalizing her if they had suspected her association with him.

  By now, Omar and Nephrim should have her on her way back to Jerusalem. He had instructed them to take her to Hazir if anything should happen to him. It was why he had brought the two young men with them to Damascus. It was not the best situation for her, but she would be safer with her Arab friend than anywhere else in the Holy City, at least as long as she kept her return hidden.

  Though there had been no further attempts on her life since arriving in Damascus, an assassin could still be out there waiting for her somewhere. Without his protection, she was still way too vulnerable, but Tiberius would not be a safe haven, not with Saladin’s troops massing nearby and de Ridefort prowling the region. If Saladin had not killed de Châtillon, it would not be long before he joined his friend there.

  Reynald could not be allowed to get his hands on Gabrielle. She’d be dead in a heartbeat if she fell into his custody. By God’s Holy Blood! Lucien cursed in the darkness. He needed to be free of this filthy, wretched cell!

  Too bruised to ease his agitation by pacing his cell, he dropped his head onto his arms, which were folded over his raised knees. He heard the guards coming toward his cell. Their approach incited an uproar of whistling and shouting from the cells that lined the torchlit corridor leading to his. Lucien heard the ribald remarks and lifted his head. It sounded as if there was a woman in the corridor.

  He was pushing painfully and stiffly to his feet when his door was unlocked. Metal grating on stone accompanied the blinding light of the torch one of the guards held aloft.

  “Here is your doxy, Templar dog!” the other guard laughed as he shoved someone into the room. “The little idiot from the square couldn’t seem to live without you.”

  Lucien felt his limbs quake as they struggled to support him and the woman thrown at him. She fell against him with a soft cry as he reached out to catch her. Though he was blinded by the sudden light in his dark cell, he instantly recognized the shape and scent of her.

  “Enjoy your stay, little lady,” one of the guards jeered. “When you’re done here, we have many other uses for you.”

  The door was slammed shut and relocked amid much laughter and crude jesting. Lucien overheard one of the guards inform the prisoners that the cooperative ones might earn the reward of her. He shut out the remarks and held the woman in his arms by her shoulders to look at her as best he could.

  “Gabrielle?! My God, what are you doing here? For the love of Christ, how did Omar and Nephrim….”

  “Oh, Lucien!” Her hand rose to his face, searching it frantically. “I could not leave Damascus without trying to help you!”

  Furious at the turn of events, he continued to hold her at arm’s length. “And how, in God’s name, is this going to help?”

  Gabrielle responded to his anger by shaking her head from side to side, then slumping to her knees on the straw covered stones. “Oh, this is not what I had planned!”

  Lucien followed her down and lifted her onto his lap, unwilling to let her sit on the filthy dungeon floor. He could barely see her, so he moved his hands over her face and braided hair.

  “Did they hurt you?” His hands wandered slowly over her upper body and trouser clad legs. He could discern no injuries, but he had to be sure.

  “No,” she rushed to assure him. “I am fine.” Squinting, Gabrielle tried to see him, too. With a little huff of frustration, she proceeded to do as he had done; inspect him with her fingertips. “Have they hurt you?”

  Lucien’s single laugh was humorless. “It is of no import.”

  She heard the truth of the matter in his self-contemptuo
us tone and searched his upper body and face more slowly. “They have hurt you!” Her fingertips detected the blood encrusted lacerations on his beloved face, the torn remnants of his clothing, and the way he flinched when she probed his back and ribs.

  “Tell me how you came to be here,” he demanded with angry insistence, though he held her with the utmost tenderness.

  “I came to the citadel and asked to see the commander. I told the guards that I was Reynald de Châtillon’s wife, and that I wanted to negotiate a release of one of their prisoners.” She heard Lucien’s whispered oath and rushed on. “I thought they would be happy to trade me for you; that the sultan would love to have some leverage against my despicable husband.”

  “And what made you think Reynald would come for you or even ransom you?”

  It was a cruel truth, but Gabrielle was prepared for it. “He wants me dead. Saladin does not murder women and children. As his hostage, Reynald would not be free of me.”

  Lucien heard the anguish in her voice and wrapped her tightly in his arms. Resting his chin on the top of her head, he hid the jolt of pain that pierced him as she pressed against his ribcage. “Little fool,” he murmured against her hair. “You have placed yourself in great danger. This is no place for you, but I will die before I let them lay a hand on you.”

  She drew back and found her eyes had adjusted to the dark enough to be able to see more of the man holding her. “My plan did not work, Lucien. The guards did not believe me and would not take me to their commander. One of them recognized me from the souk. He called me an idiot, and declared that if I was crazy enough to come chasing after you, I could join you.”

  Lucien pulled her close again, steeling himself against the pain embracing her caused. “Aw, Gabi! It was stupid, but I understand why you did it. I love you for it, but now I must come up with a way to get us both out of here.” He rocked her and kissed her brow, then her cheeks, finally her lips.

  It was long time before Gabrielle pulled her mouth away from his. “Farouk said he was going to try to do something. Maybe he and some of your friends will find a way to get us out of here.”