by Judith Tarr
“Indeed, no. That was my lord king, and her majesty the queen. I helped them as I could, which was little enough. I know somewhat of canon law, from an excess of curiosity in my youth; it was useful in its way. The sons of holy Church find learning disturbing in a woman, and appalling in one who has no calling to religion.”
“It is unusual,” Amalric said.
“And, no doubt, unnecessary.” She made little effort to keep the malice out of her voice. “Are you versed in the law, sir?”
He spread his hands, smiling. “I’m but a simple knight, my lady, come to defend the Holy Sepulcher.”
Simple, she thought. Indeed. “There is wealth to be won here, I’m told,” she said, “and more than wealth, if one is clever.”
It was impossible to shake his composure. He looked, if anything, delighted with her rudeness. “Of course, my lady. There’s the soul’s wealth, for the pilgrimage. And it’s a great virtue to divert the riches of the east from the infidel’s clutches into good Christian coffers.”
“Where they can do good Christians as much good as possible,” she said. “Or is it Christian to hunger after gold?”
“Why not, if it’s Saracen gold?”
“Ah, then you are of the school which teaches that nothing is evil if it thwarts the infidel.”
“I might balk at alliance with the devil,” he said. “Or I might not.”
His eyes rested, not by accident, on Gwydion. Elen smiled, cool to coldness. “Indeed; and if the kingdom falls, he might offer you a refuge.”
“A warm one, no doubt,” said Amalric.
“I wish you joy of it.” She caught a listener’s eye over Amalric’s shoulder. Blue in a dark face, and for a moment—angry? Amused? Both at once?
He came as readily as if she had called him, bowed extravagantly, overwhelmed her with eloquent nonsense. As neatly as she had been trapped, she was freed. He bore her away before Amalric could say a word.
His babble stopped as soon as they were well away. He did not withdraw his arm from beneath her hand. She would have liked to throw her arms about him and kiss him; she had instead to pace coolly beside him with her head at a regal angle and all her laughter trammeled in her eyes. “I am grateful,” she said, “for the reprieve.”
“You seemed to be holding your own,” said Raihan.
She showed a gleam of teeth in what might have passed for a smile. “Is that why you rescued me?”
Above the heavy shadow of his beard, his cheeks glowed ruddy bronze. “I happened to be nearby,” he said. “My lady. And I did not like what he had to say of your kinsman.”
“It’s not what he said. It’s what he was being careful not to say.” She frowned slightly; her fingers tightened on his arm. “No. It’s not even that. He is his brother’s man, after all; he’d be a poor partisan if he failed to defend him. It’s just...I don’t know what it is. I simply can’t abide him.”
“Maybe it’s the reek of jackal that surrounds him.”
His tone was frankly venomous. She regarded him in surprise. “I thought,” she said, “that Saracens never spoke freely if they could avoid it.”
He showed his teeth as she had, with nothing of humor in it. They were excellent teeth. “Ah, but I’m corrupted: I’ve been raised in a Frankish castle. Or maybe it’s blood that will tell. My father, insofar as my mother ever knew, was a man-at-arms from Tripoli.”
“She didn’t—” Elen stopped herself.
Raihan finished it for her. “She didn’t know for certain. One doesn’t, when one is diversion after a battle. Her husband was kind: he kept her afterwards, and let her raise me, and when I was old enough to be worth something, sold me for a decent price.”
He was perfectly calm about it. No doubt he had to be. His eyes on her were level, daring her to recoil, or to say something regrettable. He could not help but know what Christians thought of birth outside of wedlock.
She was neither shocked nor repelled. She did not even pity him. “You’ve done well for yourself,” she said.
He laughed, light and free. “So I have! My lady, you are wasted on these dogs of Franks. A Muslim, now: a Muslim would appreciate you.”
“What, as a beast in his menagerie?”
“As a jewel in his crown.” His cheeks had gone ruddy again, though his voice was as smooth as ever. “That one only wants you for what he thinks you can give him.”
“Most men do,” she said. “Why not? I know what I am. Rhiyana’s succession is clear enough. Neither my lord nor his brother has an heir. Their sister has a daughter, and the daughter has Rhodri, who is man enough and heir enough, but as mortal as any; and I am his sister. May God forbid that I ever come closer to a throne than I am now, but I am close enough, for a man of some ambition.”
“I should like to see him touch my lord or his brother,” said Raihan through gritted teeth.
“I doubt that he would,” said Elen.
“Do you, my lady? I wish that I could be so certain. That one never means to live out his life in his brother’s shadow, you can be sure of it. If he saw a way to a crown, he would take it, even if the price for it was a life. Or two. Or four.”
“Two at least of those lives may not be so easy to take,” Elen said. “No; he’s more likely to gamble, and pray for a stroke or two of fortune.”
“He may pray all he likes,” said Raihan, as sweetly poisonous as ever Aidan could be.
“And,” said Elen, “if I’m to be given away, it’s my lord the king who will do the giving.”
He seemed to agree with her that that concluded the argument. He deposited her in the company of the lord and lady of Mortmain, who were quite sincerely glad to see her, and went to attend his prince. She did not know why, for an instant, she should feel abandoned. He was only being a good servant.
And, no doubt, a good Muslim.
7.
“It is certain?” the Patriarch asked.
“Incontrovertible,” said the pope’s legate.
There was a silence. Patriarch Heraclius was a Byzantine Greek—a Roman, he would insist. Abbot Leo was Roman in truth, of a line that went back unbroken to the Republic. Of the two of them, he was the elder, the smaller, and the more visibly saintly: a sweet-faced old man in rusty black, who affected no mark of his rank. Heraclius beside him seemed a true prince of the Church. His eyes were dark and deep, his beard long and beginning augustly to silver, his body—regally slender in youth, thickening as it aged—set off to best advantage in patriarchal white and scarlet. If Abbot Leo objected to the presumption of equality with the pope in Rome, he did not express it.
Leo sat back in his chair and folded his hands over his middle. “The Holy Father left no doubt of it. The dispensation is granted. The marriage will take place.”
“It could not have been an easy decision,” Heraclius said.
“Easy enough in the end,” said Leo, “the petitioner being an anointed king on behalf of his brother, who is not only a faithful son of the Church but a defender of the Holy Sepulcher.”
Heraclius’ expression was sour. “You have the document, then.”
“In a locked coffer, under guard.” The legate smiled. “I thought it best to take no chances.”
“I should examine it,” said Heraclius, “if I am, as I presume, the one who must perform the rite.”
“You are,” said Abbot Leo. “The bridegroom himself requested it, as he professed in his petition, ‘so that there may be no doubt in any man’s mind that this union is valid and binding.’”
“I could choose to be flattered.”
“Indeed you should.” Leo cocked his head, birdlike. “The dispensation shall be read publicly before the wedding. That is the Holy Father’s instruction. I may not, until then, break the seal, to which the fortunate couple should bear witness as whole and unbroken. Will my word be sufficient that all is properly in order?”
“I can hardly offend you with a refusal.”
The legate smiled his sweet, vague smile. “Oh, bu
t I am impossible to offend, when I understand perfectly. Still, I am his holiness’ man. You do understand, your eminence.”
It was not a question. Heraclius took it with such grace as he might.
“Tell me,” Leo said after a while, when Heraclius had poured and drunk a cup of wine. “What is there that makes you so reluctant to perform this marriage? They are hardly the first to cross the wall of faith and creed.”
“They are the first of royal blood,” said Heraclius. The wine slowed his tongue somewhat, but did not calm him. “The woman, of course, is unspeakable; though he seems to have tamed her slightly since she presented herself before the gathering of the High Court and proclaimed that he had sold himself to her in return for her power over the Master of the Assassins. He is to be applauded for insisting on a proper Christian marriage, if not for suffering her to persist in her unbelief. One may argue that she is, after all, only a woman.”
“So was it argued in the curia,” Leo said.
“Successfully, I presume.” Heraclius stroked his beard, frowning. “Do you know the prince at all?”
“Somewhat,” Leo answered, “long ago. I was in awe of him then. I was a novice, and young for it. He,” said Leo, “was but a little older than he seemed.”
“That does not trouble you?”
“Not while the Holy Father is content.”
Heraclius’ teeth clicked together, painfully: they were not of the best. The pain burned away his shock. A prince of the Church was not well advised to wonder at anything a saint chose to do. “It troubles me,” he said. “As does the necessity of accepting it.”
“You dislike him, then.”
“He can charm wine out of a stone. Men do battle for a place in his following. He keeps no more state than a baron should, prince royal though he is; this is not his kingdom, he says, and he will not demand the right of his birth, only what he can earn in service to the realm. He is scrupulous in that service. Even”—and Heraclius did not say that easily—”in his refusal to offer liege oath to the king in Jerusalem.”
“That is no longer a difficulty,” Leo said, “for him at least, now that his brother is present and holds a prior oath.”
“And Guy does not strip him of his lands, for fear of losing the men who come with it; and more than they. He has allies in all quarters. The Knights Hospitaller themselves stand behind him, and they bow to no man.”
“Not even to God?”
Heraclius shot him a glance. “You see how I am constrained. He is a power in the realm. I will not of my own accord sanction this wedding, but I accept the pope’s decree, since the petitioner comes from a land under Rome’s jurisdiction.”
“A powerful concession,” Leo said, “and a laudable obedience.”
Heraclius said nothing, so that he might have nothing, later, to regret.
o0o
Just as Leo was rising to depart, a clerk brought word of one who would speak with them both. The man’s eyes were wide and somewhat startled. “He says that he is the King of Rhiyana, your eminence, father abbot.”
He was, although he came in no great state, with only a squire for escort. By his garb he could have been a simple knight; he carried himself quietly enough, and offered these princes of the Church all due respect.
Abbot Leo greeted him with delight. “My lord king! You look well. And the Lady Elen, is she prospering?”
“Like a flower in the sun,” Gwydion said. “You had the right of it, father abbot. This pilgrimage has taught her to smile again.”
“Good, good.” Leo did not wait for Heraclius; he beckoned Gwydion to a chair. “Come, sit, be at ease. Will you have wine? I believe there are cakes—are there, your eminence?”
Gwydion sat, but refused food or drink. Heraclius watched him under lowered lids. He had none of his brother’s restlessness; he knew how to sit still, and how to wait. His face was quiet; serene.
Deadly; because it seemed so young. The eye could not accept what the mind knew, that this was no young knight new to his spurs, no innocent in the ways of the world, but a king both ancient and subtle. What else he might be was told in whispers. No natural man could live so long unchanging. There was sorcery in that; and, surely, in more than that.
Abbot Leo was snared in it. He babbled happily, addressing the witch-king as if he were an old and cherished friend. “All these years, and would you believe it, this is my first sojourn in the Holy City? So high and so holy; so many blessed places. It seems that I am always weeping, for joy or for grief, or for both together. Have you climbed the rock of Calvary? I went up, and hard it was on these old bones; then down the steep narrow stair past all the pilgrims’ crosses into the vault of Golgotha. Saint Helena found the True Cross there, but then, you must know that, my lord. And past the Place of the Skull, in such beauty that it breaks my heart—but so simple itself, after all, a plain stone, an empty tomb: the Holy Sepulcher.”
“Yes,” said Gwydion softly. “I have seen it.”
Leo smiled, all innocent delight. “Why, of course you have! You would have done it as soon as you decently could. Are you in comfort here? Is your brother as well as you had hoped?”
“Better,” Gwydion said.
“And his lady? Is she well chosen?”
“Remarkably well.” Gwydion seemed close to smiling. “And yes, I am relieved to know it. My brother has found his match, in more ways than one.”
“I shall have to cultivate her acquaintance. A word or two at a banquet, spoken to a pair of eyes within a veil, is hardly enough to judge a woman’s character.”
“That is her modesty,” said Gwydion.
“Muslim modesty.” Heraclius broke in with unByzantine impatience. “She concedes nothing to Christian manners. She is altogether a perfect Saracen.”
“‘Car felon sont Sarazin,’” Gwydion sang, soft and heart-stoppingly sweet. “She is that no longer, your eminence. She has chosen the west, and my brother. The east has lost her.”
“All of her that matters,” said Leo. “Except her soul. Has no one tried to teach her the truth of our faith?”
“Many a man,” Heraclius answered, “and not a few women. She hears them all, and if she speaks, it is only to profess her own false faith: ‘There is no god but God, and Muhammad is the Prophet of God.’”
“How beautiful,” Leo said. “How exquisitely simple. I can see that she might prefer it to our endless intricacies. Three Gods in One, and God’s son dead upon a tree, and ‘Love thy neighbor’ and ‘Sin no more,’ and surely she would take no pleasure in our vow of chastity.”
Heraclius glared. “Perhaps, father abbot, rather than seek to convert her to our religion, you should convert to hers.”
“Why, has anyone done it?”
“No.” The Patriarch bit off the word. He did not add that one zealous abbess had been restrained, with difficulty, from pronouncing Muhammad a true, but minor, prophet. She was still under discipline.
Gwydion did not move, did not speak, but suddenly he was the center of the room. His eyes, Heraclius thought. He had raised them, that was all. They were the color of good steel. There was nothing of youth or of gentleness in them. “It would set my heart at ease,” he said, “to know that no obstacle remains between my brother and this marriage.”
Heraclius’ fists were clenched. With an effort he unclenched them. “To my knowledge there is none. Have you cause to suspect otherwise?”
“The dispensation is in good hands?”
“Under guard,” Heraclius said with a glimmer of pleasure.
“You are yourself prepared to uphold it?”
“To the letter.”
Gwydion paused. For a moment it was as if Prince Aidan sat there: tensed, fierce, glaring with a falcon’s mad eye. It blinked, veiling itself. The soft calm voice said, “It is not that I mistrust you. But this has been no easy road; nor shall I deem it ended until the rite is done. As I fear even yet it may not be.”
“You fear?” Leo asked. “Or you foresee?”
Gwydion regarded him with wide pale eyes. “Fear only, father abbot, but all the worse for that. If I knew, I would know how to prevent it.”
“There is nothing,” Leo said. “I promise you. You know what is written beneath the seal; you have seen it laid in its coffer. My own monks stand vigil over it. None shall touch it, nor speak against it.”
Gwydion crossed himself. “God grant,” he said. “There is no reason to fear, father abbot. I fear—I know not what. I have come so far, after so long a battle, and I cannot believe—I cannot trust—that all will be well. The air is full of war. Where better to begin than with this union of Christendom and Islam?”
“Therefore we guard against it.” Leo smiled and patted his arm. “No, no, my son. You have your victory. It is yours; no one will take it from you.”
Gwydion seemed unoffended by either touch or words. Uncomforted, but unoffended. “I pray that no one dares. Not for my sake, father abbot, nor even for my brother’s. His lady is no gentle creature; and when she is angered, she knows no mercy.”
“She kills,” said Heraclius.
“If she must. If there is cause.”
“There will not be,” said Abbot Leo.
o0o
The inner courtyard of Aidan’s house had a fountain in it, and a lemon tree, and a family of cats asleep in the sun. One of them woke long enough to pour itself into Gwydion’s lap. He stroked it as it asked, not too gentle, not too slow. His free hand stretched to catch the spray from the fountain. He was calmer now, with the abbot and the Patriarch sworn to defend Aidan’s dispensation.
As if they could do otherwise. He was fretting over shadows. His mind, seeking, found nothing to fear. Aidan had enemies; what great lord did not? None was so rash as to thwart him in this. Most would come to the wedding to see the deed done at last, and to feast at his expense.
Gwydion filled his hand with water and laved his face. The coolness was blissful. He glanced about a trifle guiltily and dropped cotte and shirt. The cat departed in disgust. He refused to pity it. He plunged his whole head into the basin, and rose dripping, and shook like a dog, in a shower of spray.