The Crusader's Bride

by Claire Delacroix

  “It is yet night and I was attacked while I lay abed,” the Templar snapped. “It is sufficient to weary me of this city. I order our immediate departure.”

  Fergus shook his head. “Hamish needs more rest before he rides. So the apothecary says and so it shall be.” He nodded amiably at Everard and Joscelin who had followed him from the common room, looking just as sleepy as he. “I would not answer to his mother for the boy’s health.” The men chuckled together, but Wulfe bristled.

  Ysmaine guessed that he saw their reaction as disrespectful.

  “I will not be delayed because of a squire, let alone one so witless that he falls into the hold of the ship when unsupervised,” Wulfe replied hotly.

  “I was pushed,” a small voice was heard to declare.

  “You tripped,” scoffed another boy.

  Fergus shook his head. “It matters little how the injury was inflicted. I will stay in Venice two more days.”

  “This party must remain together,” Wulfe insisted, and Ysmaine watched Gaston consider his boots calmly. “And I am in command! I say we leave this very day. It is not safe for us to linger.”

  “Because you were attacked by this woman?” Duncan asked, his tone jovial. He surveyed her openly. “I wager few men would resent that assault.” Fergus chuckled with him. Wulfe visibly bristled but before he could speak, Gaston stepped out of the shadows of the stable to intervene.

  “What has happened?” he asked, his tone temperate. “It was only last eve that you were glad to have a night away from all of us.” Gaston looked pointedly at the woman, who surveyed her garments, evidently oblivious to all of them. She tugged the hem of one sleeve, brushed a speck of something from her skirts, then straightened, her gaze surprisingly steely when she looked at Wulfe.

  “I have no doubt of her trade,” Radegunde murmured, and Ysmaine shot her a glance so that she would fall silent.

  “Surely you wish to remain in Venice and entertain your guest,” Fergus teased.

  Wulfe glared at him. “She is not my guest. She is a whore…”

  “Courtesan,” the woman interrupted crisply. “And my name is Christina, as I told you.”

  Fergus inclined his head and might have replied, but Wulfe interrupted. “Her name is of no import. Her trade can be called whatever you desire to call it. No matter how honeyed the choice of word, it is what it is.”

  Christina’s lips tightened slightly at this.

  “I have paid her in full, but she follows me…”

  “He declared himself my champion last night,” Christina said, her tone both sweet and commanding. Every man turned to look at her, even Wulfe, who clearly would have preferred to have done otherwise. She smiled with a confidence in her own allure that Ysmaine found enviable. “And indeed, I owe my life to this knight. Of course, I must follow him that the debt might be repaid in kind.”

  “You would surrender your life for him?” one of the squires asked, clearly incredulous. The others snickered.

  “You should not be deceived by appearances,” Christina said smoothly. “Or judge a man by your first impression of him. The lion with a thorn in his paw is yet a noble creature, though his pain may make him terrifying.”

  Ysmaine blinked at this comparison. It was easy to compare Wulfe to a lion—or better the predator he was named for—but she found it harder to imagine he harbored any weakness or hid any pain.

  “It is easy to give credit where it is not due,” Radegunde whispered and Ysmaine frowned at her.

  Below them, Wulfe stood even taller than before. “You owe me no debt,” he said to Christina, his manner cold. “I paid for the pleasure you granted and our agreement is fully satisfied.”

  Christina replied mildly. “I say it is not satisfied, and if it is an agreement, then the consensus of both parties is required to call it fulfilled.” She smiled at Wulfe, apparently enjoying his vexation.

  The knights exchanged glances of amusement, and Ysmaine saw that Wulfe did not appreciate that their humor was at his expense.

  “I did not pay to have my life threatened, to need to defend myself in a moment of leisure or to have to flee from certain destruction.”

  “As bad as that?” Fergus drawled, then winked at Christina. “I would not have expected a mating with you to be so dire.”

  “There was an attack upon the house,” she said, her manner so mild that Ysmaine wondered what she truly thought. “As can happen, when there are wealthy patrons in residence.” That she could show any complacency about the circumstances of such a life told Ysmaine how different their experience had been.

  Christina cleared her throat. “And brigands looted both house and patrons after setting fire to the establishment. The other women…” Her words faded and she straightened, casting a smile at Wulfe. She noted that Christina’s complexion had paled even beyond its original fairness and guessed that the life of a courtesan was not so easy for her as she would have others believe. “My fate would certainly have been worse, had I not been abed with a champion who defended me.”

  “I defended myself,” Wulfe argued so vehemently that Ysmaine wondered what the truth had been. “I was attacked and I ensured my own survival.”

  “And mine as well, to my eternal gratitude.” Christina bowed deeply to the Templar.

  “Your gratitude need not last so long as that. I will give you another coin, even two, that you might continue on your way as we continue on our own.”

  Christina lifted her chin. “And I say you shall be repaid, in kind or in trade, for saving my life. Wherever you go, sir, I will follow.” Her manner was resolute. “Rely upon it.”

  “There are worse fates,” Duncan murmured, but it was clear Wulfe did not share his view. The warrior preened a little, smoothing his hair and smiling at Christina.

  She looked him up and down, but did not smile in return.

  Joscelin was simply staring at Christina, his mouth open, his expression unchanged from his first glimpse of her. Ysmaine wondered whether he salivated.

  “Were you injured?” Gaston asked the knight, his bright gaze so at odds with his casual manner that Ysmaine guessed he saw more of import in this incident than the others.

  Wulfe gestured to his back. “It is naught, but it is naught because I was awake. Had I been asleep, the blade would have slid between my very ribs.”

  “I suppose such peril is a hazard of visiting such establishments,” Everard mused, his tone prim.

  But Ysmaine leaned back against the wall, thinking. Wulfe ostensibly led the party on a quest for the Temple. By his own account, someone had tried to kill him. Gaston truly led the party. It was not hard to conclude that her husband’s life might be at risk.

  After all, he did carry the missive and she knew it.

  Plus there was the relic, which surely must be the treasure they guarded. Although Laurent might be devoted, he slept in the stables with all the others. The boy had been ill for two entire weeks and was worn to exhaustion. She was the sole one who had a chamber of her own, thanks to her husband’s provision.

  Ysmaine would use that advantage to see Gaston’s mission defended.

  She pulled Radegunde aside and whispered instruction to her, indicating a size with her hands, then dispatching the maid to do her bidding in secret. She then returned to the window to listen.

  “It is of no matter what you believe you owe to me,” Wulfe said to Christina, clearly trying to terminate the matter. “We ride out with all haste. You have no steed, therefore you will not depart with us.”

  “Just because you have been routed in the midst of your pleasure by some unfortunate incident, I see no reason to hasten away,” Fergus said, looking as like to move as the Temple itself. “And still Hamish requires those days of rest.”

  Wulfe raised his fist. “A squire will not…”

  “I say we break our fast,” Gaston suggested, interrupting the argument. “And review the situation after that.”

  Wulfe visibly ground his teeth but Gaston con
tinued as if unaware of the knight’s annoyance.

  “No good decisions are made when the belly is empty,” he said. “And my wife has purchases to collect on this day. Perhaps we will compromise and depart on the morrow.”

  “We need to reach our destination sooner rather than later, that I might return to Jerusalem to aid in its defense,” Wulfe protested.

  “And a delay of a day will make little difference,” Gaston replied.

  Again, Ysmaine saw that her husband was truly the one in charge of the party, for Wulfe inhaled sharply then spoke through clenched teeth. “Perhaps there is good sense in your advice,” he said, and Ysmaine thought the admission pained him. “I will break my fast before making my decision.”

  “Perhaps your guest would join us,” Fergus said, bowing to Christina. “Since I gather that her previous abode is no longer hospitable.”

  “It is not, and I should be delighted to accept your invitation,” she said and put her hand on his elbow. He escorted her into the common room, Joscelin following with all the fixed attention of a dog following a roast hind. Duncan yawned again and strolled behind them, endeavoring to hide his interest in Christina without success. Everard inhaled sharply and returned to his chamber, sweeping his cloak around himself before he marched away. With a glance from Bartholomew, the squires returned to their duties, leaving the two knights alone in the courtyard.

  Wulfe glared at Gaston whose expression had turned somber. Ysmaine fancied that she witnessed a battle of wills between the two knights, for the air fairly crackled between them. Abruptly Wulfe pivoted and marched into the common room. She had thought herself unobserved all this time, but her husband looked up at the window of her room so quickly that she realized otherwise.

  She held his gaze, her heart hammering, and wondered at the import of his quelling look.

  * * *

  Women were incomprehensible to Gaston, but he grew to enjoy the mystery. He took Ysmaine to the market again that day to collect all she had bought the day before. He was impressed that she was frugal and glad that she had found a merchant whose daughters sewed one new kirtle for her overnight. The wool garment was of a deep emerald hue and the fabric most sturdy.

  Ysmaine spun before him, her delight sufficient to push the assault upon Wulfe from his thoughts for the moment. “The hue will hide the dirt,” she confided. “And the cloth is well woven. I believe I shall have this garment for a dozen years or more, sir.”

  “You need not justify the price,” he said, enjoying that he was seen as an indulgent husband. “It suits you most well, and I was the one to suggest that you buy new garb.”

  The stockings she had acquired were also sensible and the new boots would keep her both warm and dry. The cloak he had chosen for her was of deepest indigo and lined with squirrel fur, a purchase she had protested, but one that favored her well. The rest was bundled up for them, as were the lady’s old garments.

  Gaston frowned at the sight of them. “Surely, you need not carry these home.”

  “They are for Radegunde,” Ysmaine insisted, taking his arm with an ease that made him smile. “She is most determined to have them for her own.”

  “But the kirtle is faded and the boots worn to holes.”

  “It is her right to have them,” Ysmaine said quietly. “And she is resolved to mend and even dye the kirtle anew, and to have the boots patched when we reach home.”

  “But to carry them all the way to France…”

  Ysmaine squeezed his arm. “She will be the one burdened with them, sir, and I would not compromise her pleasure in this. She recalls the kirtle from when it was first acquired and has always admired it.”

  Indeed, the maid looked elated with her burden of worn garb. Between her delight and his lady’s insistence, Gaston could not find it within him to argue.

  In this matter also, women would remain a mystery to him, but one he was content to leave unexplored.

  * * *

  “Mother of God,” Radegunde whispered in horror when she and Ysmaine were secured in that lady’s chamber again. “I feared he would compel me to discard the clothes!”

  “At least they are yet clothes,” Ysmaine replied. She packed away her new finery with speed, then peered out the window at the courtyard.

  The house was quiet, and she guessed that their fellow travelers were either sleeping or yet abroad in the city. Ysmaine guessed that they would return within the next hour, in order to prepare for the evening meal and the camaraderie of the company.

  She could already smell the food their patroness was preparing and hear the woman humming in her kitchen. That room offered no view of the courtyard. Gaston had said he had an errand to undertake. It was a rare opportunity to evade his keen eye, and Ysmaine did not intend to waste it.

  “Fish stew,” Radegunde noted, wrinkling her nose. “Again.”

  “It is better than naught at all,” Ysmaine reminded her, and the maid smiled acknowledgement. She had already packed the cheap trunk she had acquired at Ysmaine’s command, bundling it into the middle of the old clothes so that it looked no different than it had. It had been weighted with stones and Ysmaine verified that it had a very similar heft to the relic which she had briefly held.

  “We must exchange the trunk for the reliquary,” Ysmaine instructed. “And the cloth wrapping the reliquary in this moment must be placed around the stone in precisely the same pattern. Otherwise, Laurent’s stench will reveal our feat.”

  Radegunde nodded eager agreement. “You shall do that, and I shall stand sentry.” She frowned. “But how shall we distract Laurent?”

  “Perhaps he sleeps as he did yesterday,” Ysmaine said. “Or perhaps he can be lured away from his prize.”

  “I shall go first and abandon my bundle, the better to encourage him to leave his own,” Radegunde suggested. “Perhaps I will feign that Hamish needs our aid. If no knight or noblewoman is present, Laurent may abandon his assignment for a moment.”

  “I will need more than a moment.”

  “I shall contrive it, my lady,” Radegunde said with resolve. “But you must not be seen entering the stables.”

  Ysmaine nodded and remained in the chamber. She watched, her heart thundering as Radegunde crossed the courtyard to the stables. The maid did not look to be in a rush or to be scheming any matter. She called out, as if her eyes were dazzled by the change from sunlight to shadow, demanding to know who was there. Hamish could be heard to snore, but Laurent replied.

  Bartholomew, Stephen, Simon, and Kerr must be abroad with their knights or on other errands.

  Ysmaine heard Radegunde’s cheerful chatter as she slipped from the room, locking the portal silently behind herself. Where was the courtesan? Everard? Joscelin? To be sure, the merchant had been often about the city, for it seemed he had many friends and associates in this place. But the others? She could not say.

  There was no time to look. Gaston might return at any moment.

  Her palms were damp when she reached the door to the courtyard, though still Radegunde chattered merrily. She could see the maid, rubbing the nose of one of the destriers and laughing when the beast nuzzled her. Ysmaine clutched her hands together, waiting for she knew not what.

  Then Radegunde cried out and dropped her bundle at her feet. “Hamish!” she exclaimed in evident terror. “Mother of God, what is amiss?” She darted into the shadows at the back right of the stables. “Laurent! Quickly! You must aid me! Oh, Hamish!”

  Ysmaine wished with all her heart that the boy would fall for the ruse.

  He did. He darted across the space toward Radegunde, his small dark figure visible for only a moment before he disappeared into the shadows after Radegunde. He carried naught at all, which was the sum of what Ysmaine needed to know.

  She raced across the stable and scooped up Radegunde’s bundle, then moved with silent haste into the corner Laurent favored. She turned her back upon the courtyard, hoping her dark cloak disguised her and her deed. The smell of manure was fier
ce, but she fought her reaction. She again memorized the wrappings, then unfurled the relic with shaking hands.

  It was even more magnificent than she recalled.

  It seemed appropriate to pray for divine aid in this moment.

  “He had a convulsion before my very eyes!” Radegunde exclaimed. “Mother of God, what shall we do?”

  “He looks in this moment to be asleep,” Laurent noted, his tone skeptical.

  Ysmaine wrapped the cheap trunk in the cloths that had been around the relic. The reliquary lay gleaming in the straw on the floor of the stable, but she was intent upon making the bag Laurent defended look right.

  “But this manner of illness is deceptive,” Radegunde continued, her voice high with apparent fear. “I saw it once in a man brought to my mother. He twitched in his sleep, shook and thrashed, then choked on his own bile.”

  “Nay!”

  “Aye. Hamish must not be left alone, not for a moment.”

  “But what shall we do?” Laurent’s voice had risen as well, for he had been infected by Radegunde’s fear. Ysmaine placed the bundle as it had been, then rolled the reliquary into the clothes from Radegunde’s bundle. She ensured it was safely bound, then crept to the door of the stables. She placed Radegunde’s bundle as it had been, then hesitated, not wanting to abandon the relic even for a moment.

  She felt rather than saw Radegunde glance her way, then slipped around the edge of the portal. She crossed the courtyard with haste and leapt into the shadows at the base of the stairs. She caught her breath, tried to slow the mad pace of her heart, then began to climb the stairs silently.

  “You must watch him closely,” Radegunde instructed. “I will fetch my lady, for she knows something of these matters.”

  “But what will I do if it happens again?”

  “Hold fast to his hand and speak to him.”

  “But I have to fetch the baggage of my lord knight. I cannot leave it unprotected.”

  “Fetch it now, then and I will hold his hand. Be quick!”

  Ysmaine leaned her head back against the wall and strove for her usual composure. She unlocked her door quietly, then closed it loudly, turning the key in the lock so that the sound echoed in the stairwell. She hummed to herself as she descended the stairs, pretending that this was her first departure from her chamber.