The Dagger and the Cross

by Judith Tarr

  She wandered aimlessly. The nightingale fell silent. The wind was blowing enough to keep the flies at bay; she could hear the hiss of waves on the shore, the creak and wash of ships riding at anchor beyond the wall. Tomorrow one would go out to Cyprus to summon Gwydion’s fleet. He meant to offer passage to as many as his ships could hold: pilgrims put to flight by the Saracens’ war, wives and children of knights slain at Hattin, and more than they, messengers to the courts of the west.

  He had paid a price for his freedom, he and his brother. Elen wondered that Aidan had not come to hate his lady of the Assassins for buying him with such an oath as she had made him take. Never again to bear arms against Saladin: that was a bitter bargain. It robbed him of revenge; it made him seem a coward. It left him with no honor, and no recourse but to flee.

  “It’s not as bitter as that,” he said out of the darkness.

  She saw him then, a shadow within a shadow, a gleam of eyes. A white blur was his hand, offered to lift her up to the pavilion in which he sat.

  The pavilion was small, an airy folly on a pedestal, with slender columns holding up the roof, and a ledge running round the rail at sitting-height. Elen perched beside Aidan, straining to see him in the thin moonlight.

  “I’m not bitter,” he said. “Unhappy, yes; I’d give much to deal Saladin such a defeat as he dealt us. But the price was fair.”

  “Do you ever regret it?” she asked him. “Loving Morgiana. Being loved by her.”

  “Neither of us had much choice in the matter,” he said.

  She looked at him, knowing that he could see her clearly.

  “No,” he said under her blind, bland stare. “No, I never regret Morgiana. Quarrel with her, yes; long to throttle her, all too often. But regret, no.”

  “Even with all she’s cost you in honor and reputation and in battle with the Church?”

  “Even with that.”

  She thought about it, unhastily, sheltered in his silence. After a little she reached out and took his hand. It was warm, warmer than a man’s, and strong. She wanted suddenly to tell him her secret. He of all people—he would understand.

  But she did not. It was Raihan’s secret, too, and she did not have his leave. Bad enough that Aidan could know it if he chose, simply by walking in her mind.

  She leaned toward him and kissed his cheek. “Thank you,” she said.

  He did not ask her what for. She was glad of that. If he had asked, she would have had to answer, and that answer might have had to be a lie.

  o0o

  It was easier to corner Raihan than she had expected. She waited a day or two, until the house had fallen into its new rhythm. She saw how its patterns flowed and where everyone was likely to be, and where one might go to find solitude. Raihan spent most of his time in the stable with his horses; she suspected that he slept there rather than in the warren of the house.

  She found him there, and alone, at an hour when everyone was either sleeping through the heat of midday or doing something quiet that could be done in the shade. Raihan was with one of his mares, who was in foal and approaching her time.

  He glanced at Elen as she approached, but kept most of his attention on the mare. “I knew I should have left her at Millefleurs,” he said as easily as if they had never been apart. “The journey troubled her little enough, but now she’ll foal on shipboard, and that’s no way for a horse to come into the world.”

  “She’s one of your best,” Elen said. “How could you leave her behind?”

  “That’s what I tell myself. And the lord king, he knows how to heal beasts as well as men. But I’m human. I fret.”

  She came to stand beside him. All the mares were in this one stable, with its broad passage and its louvered roof and its stalls divided by thin walls, and each with a round window at horsehead-height to look out of. There were no doors on the stalls; one could, and Raihan did, leave the horses loose to wander as they would, although he tethered them at night and when he fed them. Or when, as now, he wished to examine one.

  The mare was mettlesome and given to fretting, but under his hand she was calm. He smoothed her long mane. She lipped his shirt; he smiled and gave her the bit of apple she was asking for.

  “You are going, then,” she said. “With your prince. To Rhiyana.”

  He nodded. He looked neither happy nor sad.

  “Why? How can you leave your own country?”

  “My country is where my lord is.” He ran his hand along the mare’s back and round her barrel, probing for the shape of the foal.

  “If you had a choice,” she asked, “would you stay?”

  His hand paused. He did not look up. “I don’t have one.”

  “What if you did?”

  He straightened. The mare flattened her ears. He caught her halter and held it, stroking her out of her temper. “Are you offering me one?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I am.”

  His face was unreadable under the beard, with his eyes in shadow. “Do you have that right, my lady?”

  “I love you.”

  The words fell in silence. His voice came soft and slow, but there was iron in it. “Has it occurred to my lady that if I remain here, we will never meet again?”

  “Yes,” she said. “But you would be free. You would have your own people. You would not be a foreigner in a land of infidels. I see how they treat you here, where your people are known and familiar, and a few even understand your faith. What will it be like in the west, where there are no Muslims?”

  “How would you go about setting me free?”

  Her heart thudded. He was listening. He had not cut her off. He wanted this, then. He wanted to be free.

  Free of her.

  She crushed that thought before it could sink claws in her. “All you need,” she said, “is to be caught with me. I promise you, you won’t be hurt. My uncles will not be pleased, but they’ll listen to me. They’ll leave you alive and unmaimed. They’ll send you away, and you’ll be free.”

  He stared at her. “You would dishonor yourself for that?”

  “They’ll hush it up, of course,” she said. “They’re not likely to whip me or starve me, or do anything but sunder me from you.”

  “Is that love, then, my lady? Or disposal of an embarrassment?”

  The heat rushed to her face. “I love you, damn you! I want you to be happy.”

  “An odd way you have of showing it,” he said dryly, “my lady. Proposing that I smirch your reputation, shame your kinsmen, and abandon you to whatever fate they may propose for you.”

  “I know what my fate is. It is to marry a man of their choosing, to bear heirs to their house.” Her hands were fists; they ached. She could not will them to unclench. “I don’t want you to have to see it. Or suffer it. Or be torn out of your own place, thrust into one in which you are always, and only, a foreigner.”

  “As to that, my lady, I’ve never had a place that was mine. Except this one.” He gestured toward his scarlet coat where it hung by the stall. “Seven of us died for my lord. Allah chose not to take me. I accept what Allah wills; that is what it is to be a Muslim. Would you have me refuse Him?”

  “Surely your Allah would want you to worship him in his own country, among your own kind.”

  “If that were so,” he said, “then He would never have given me to my lord.”

  Elen had begun to tremble. “What if I can’t bear it? What if I tell you that, if you come, I will never be able to accept any other man? What then, messire?”

  Now she could read his face. It was set hard, with his eyes glittering in it, the color of ice under a winter sun. “If you tell me that, my lady, I will tell you that you are not so poor a creature as that. You are a lady and a princess. You will do what is best for your house.”

  “No,” she said. “No, Raihan. I am not that noble. I am not that strong.”

  He was. She could see it in him. He would give her up because he must; because his lord required it.

  She ra
ised her fists. She set them with trembling care on his breast. She wound her fingers in his shirt, and wrenched it down.

  The soft cotton tore. He did not move. She stripped him of the tatters. Her mind was quite clear. White fury, that was the name of it. “I can’t give you up,” she said. “I can’t.”

  “Therefore you would force your kin to do it for you?”

  She combed her fingers through the hair of his chest. He shivered almost imperceptibly. He was not as calm as he seemed, or as cold.

  “Every night I prayed for you,” she said. “Every morning I dreaded that, that day, I would learn that you were dead. Every hour I thought of you.” She tried to laugh. It was an ugly sound, dry and strangled. “I’ve gone mad, I think. And I can’t even want to be sane. It must be in the blood. Prince Aidan is just like me. Just—like—”

  The tears startled her. She was not a woman for weeping. But he could have died, and he had not, and she had to give him up for both their honor’s sake.

  He opened his arms and gathered her in. He smelled of horses and man-sweat and musk.

  He had a bed there, indeed: a heap of sweet straw in a far stall, with his box of belongings beside it, and his weapons hung up carefully, and a pot for his needs, for he was fastidious. He blushed a little. “This is no bower for a princess,” he said.

  There was too much that she could have said. She kissed him instead, long and deep, and pulled him down into the straw.

  31.

  Akiva lay utterly still on his pallet. He was so white and thin and elongated that he looked as if he had died. Then, as Gwydion bent over him, he drew a breath. The king laid a hand on his brow, his own face going still, until it seemed hardly more alive than Akiva’s. They looked like kin, then, with their arched noses and their black-black hair and their narrow bloodless faces.

  Ysabel, mute, huddled in her father’s lap on the high bed that was Gwydion’s, watched and tried not to fidget. Morgiana was there, too, frowning over the king and the boy, but she touched neither, simply stood guard. They had had to send Simeon out. He was afraid, and Akiva could not help but know it, and it slowed the healing.

  For that was what it was. It did not look like much. But to power’s eyes it was a great flaming torrent, reined and bridled to Gwydion’s will. In the light of it they all could see the places that had burned from being used too soon, and the places that were raw and bleeding, and the threads that ran, frayed and raveled, between body and power. It was much worse than Ysabel had thought. They had not even known, when he did it. Even when he fainted. Power could do that, if one used too much of it.

  Now you know why I’m always after you to rein yourself in, Aidan said in her mind.

  She hated it when he preached at her. But because she was afraid for Akiva, and because she did know, she only scowled; she did not say anything.

  He smiled and tugged at one of her curls. You’re growing up, catling.

  Not fast enough for me. She glowered at Akiva. He’s starting to look like you.

  What, less homely?

  Less human.

  Aidan nodded slowly. It happens, he said. His mind-voice was soft. It will happen to you.

  She shivered. I’m not human. Am I? In spite of Mother.

  You are what you are. He kissed the top of her head.

  People call us witches. They want to burn us. They hate us. But why? We’re not bad people.

  We have things that they can’t have, and wish they did. We don’t get sick. We don’t grow old. We have power.

  She shook her head sharply. I’d hate to give up power. But they can go to heaven.

  Not all of them. And the ones who hate us most are often the ones with the least chance of heaven. Aidan hugged her to him, tender but fierce. None of them will ever lay a finger on you. I won’t let them.

  One could believe him when he shaped the words so, each one distinct, ringing with truth. She looked at him while he watched his brother. He had no glamour on him now. He was tall and strong and splendid, as a prince ought to be. He did not look human at all. His face was too odd, his eyes too big, his skin too white. Human skin was different. Coarser and softer and darker, and it grew odd bits of colorless hair, even where it seemed bare.

  People are afraid of us, she said, but deep within herself, where only she could hear.

  She did not like it, that she was frightening. She ran her tongue over her teeth. Cat-teeth, to go with her cat-eyes.

  She was only Ysabel. She never wanted to hurt anyone, except when she was angry, and even then she knew better. She tried to be good. It was not her blood’s fault that she was a hellion.

  o0o

  The healing lasted a very long while. Humans were quicker, Aidan told Ysabel, and easier. They had no power to fight back. Power was like an animal in a trap. It fought to protect itself even from what would heal it; from anything at all that was outside of it.

  But Gwydion was stronger. It was a fierce battle, but he won it.

  When Akiva slept, and Gwydion stood up and staggered and needed Morgiana to keep him from falling, Aidan set Ysabel on her feet and went to help his brother. Gwydion needed sleep at least as much as Akiva did, but he insisted on telling Simeon that his son would be well. That was what a king was. He always put his people before his own comfort.

  Ysabel hovered for a bit, but no one needed her. She was too young, again. Without her friend and with her father all caught up in looking after his brother, she felt horribly alone.

  Everyone else was sleeping through the midday heat. She was not sleepy at all; she had seen enough sleep in the healing to last her for a while. She looked for Lady Elen, but did not find her in her room, or in the women’s solar, or in the garden. The last place Ysabel looked, the stable, held the lady, but she was not alone. Not in the least.

  Ysabel backed off before either of them could see her. She knew what they were doing. When animals did it, it was breeding. When people did it, it was loving. They looked hot and rather desperate, but to mind-eyes they were beautiful: a great, blooming flame, with two colors in it, shifting and blurring and mingling.

  She was sorry to leave them, but they would be deathly embarrassed if they knew that she was there. Humans could only see the ugly, sweaty, heaving part, and they were odd about that even when the lovers were married. Some of Elen’s worry spilled over, and it was full of defiance. Let her uncles find her; let them despise her; let them call her a whore. She loved this man. No one could make her recant it.

  Raihan thought much the same, but he went all dark and blood-tinged, willing violence on anyone who spoke ill of his princess. He meant to find a way, somehow, to protect her honor and have her, too.

  Ysabel wished them good fortune. Loving was nothing that she could understand, or wanted to, yet, but she liked the two of them; she would not want them to be unhappy. It had been bad enough when Raihan was gone to the war and Elen feared that he was dead. Ysabel had never been able to tell her that he lived. She had been too fierce about keeping him a secret.

  Now Ysabel was all alone. Mother was napping with Salima at the breast. The children never understood Ysabel, even when she tried her hardest to be like them. She wandered at loose ends, out into the garden, back into the house, up all the way to the roof. There was not much of a garden up there, but there was a lemon tree in a basin, and a cote full of pigeons. Sometimes the keeper let Ysabel hold one of the birds, and told her stories about their noble ancestors. Some of them were descended from the very bird that flew the first message of the Crusaders’ coming into Outremer.

  The keeper was gone now about some business of his own. Ysabel talked to the pigeons for a while, but pigeons were not excessively good company. She perched on the basin under the lemon tree and amused herself idly, plaiting bits of light and shade, trying to see how big a tapestry she could make before it escaped her fingers and melted into the air.

  o0o

  Aimery was in a mildly foul mood. He had come to Tyre because Prince Aidan persua
ded him, and because he did not want to go to Count Raymond in Tripoli. “Visit your mother,” Aidan had said. “Tell her what you have to tell. Then let her choose whether to keep you or send you away. She is your lady mother, after all, and should stand regent for you, now that you are lord of Mortmain.”

  “Lord of Mortmain,” he said aloud, with a curl of his lip. Oh, he was that, no doubt about it. All the servants called him monseigneur now, instead of simply messire. But Joanna was still their lady, and she was the one they listened to; she was the one they obeyed.

  He did not mind that. He was young and his training was only half done; and she was a very great lady. He was proud of her.

  But there was no substance in his title. The Saracens had his demesne; Mortmain had an emir in its high seat and soldiers of Allah in its guardroom. He would win it back, he had sworn it, but the winning seemed farther away now than it had when he left Damascus. All they did here was sit and wait. Marquis Conrad had a war in train, but he had not answered the message Gwydion sent, that the King of Rhiyana was in the city. Gwydion would not call on him until the message was answered. A king did not play suppliant before a marquis; the message alone went well beyond what was necessary. Conrad had to know that: he was trained in Byzantium. That meant that he was silent because he chose to be.

  Gwydion refused to speculate on why he did it. Aidan only said, “An asp bit Conrad in his cradle. He’s been a venomous little snake ever since.” Which gave Aimery a suspicion as to why Conrad insulted a king by ignoring him. The king’s brother had never been noted for his tact.

  Aimery smiled in spite of himself. Prince Aidan had a definite, if perilous, gift. People loved him immoderately or hated him passionately. Never anything between. But only raw newcomers failed to respect him. He showed the world what a prince should be.

  He had made the weeks after Hattin endurable, because he was what he was. For the first time since Aimery was a baby, he had had Aidan to himself, and it was bliss. He did not speak of Ranulf unless Aimery began it, but when Aimery needed him he was there. He took Aimery riding and hunting; he taught him weaponry; he played chess and backgammon, and taught him strategy. They were uncle and nephew, kinsman and kinsman, knight and squire.