Behold the Dawn

  And Marcus Annan would be once more drawn into the battle, whether he chose to be or not.

  Chapter VIII

  ALL DAY MAIREAD and the tourneyer Marcus Annan had ridden in silence, the last words to have passed between them being his terse order for her to dismount that morning. She had obeyed him numbly, pushing away from his body and landing in the sand, one hand outstretched to catch her balance. He had whirled the charger around and ridden away from her without a backward glance, and her heart had stopped beating.

  Every fiber in her body shouted that this man—this tacit, unyielding warrior whose blood she had staunched, whose lips she had moistened with red drops of vinegary wine, whose life she had saved—had abandoned her. He had left her to her fate, there in the desert, with the screams gusting on the morning breeze and searing her ears. He had sacrificed whatever honor Lord William had thought him capable of possessing.

  No doubt had clouded the blinding light of her certainty that there she would stay and die, while he made his way westward, alone, to collect the dowry she had promised him.

  But he had not left her.

  He had battled their infidel pursuers with a skill that spoke too well of his occupation, and then, instead of laying his heels to the gray courser’s dappled sides and galloping far away, he had returned to her and, without a word, held out his broad callused hand.

  Now, as they rode together, the shadows of purple dusk settling all around them and the Orontes River whispering its secrets somewhere to their left, she almost wished she hadn’t taken the hand he had offered and allowed him to swing her onto the pillion behind him.

  She was afraid of him, this huge man with his cold eyes and his impenetrable strength. She had not feared him when he had lain asleep beneath her ministering hands. And she had not feared him when first he woke and spoke to her, his voice deep and hoarse from his long unconsciousness.

  But when he had come to her after Lord William’s death—when first she knew that here was the man who now held her life and her soul in his hands—she had seen the fierceness in his eyes. And she had feared him, her heart clenching in her breast, her skin tightening over her bones.

  As the edge of the moon punctured the darkness of the eastern skyline, he at last drew their tired mount to a halt. “We’ll pass the night here.”

  She nodded, though he couldn’t see it, and tried to stop the shudder that sliced through her body despite the heavy cloak she had tugged once more around her shoulders. Oh, William! My lord— why did you leave me! And why this man, this tourneyer—why leave her to his care? The night, dark and endless, loomed before her, and the cold ache of fear rooted itself behind her breastbone.

  Annan sat straight in the saddle, his weariness visible only in his uninjured arm braced against the saddlebow. He was surveying the landscape, looking, listening. Though they had seen no one since he had killed the two Turks outside the prison camp, she had felt his caution radiating off his tense shoulders all day.

  But there was no one here for him to see now. Only a man, a woman, and a gray courser.

  An old familiar fear clawed at her innards, twisting so hard her stomach lanced with pain. Without waiting for his permission, she took hold of the cantle and slid down the horse’s sweat-roughened hindquarters. When the tips of her bare toes touched the ground, she dropped.

  He glanced at her. But before he could speak, she turned away and started toward the bank of the river. Her throat burned with thirst, but she would not risk disease by drinking the water until she had no choice. She would have to wait for him to untie the wineskin the Baptist had hung across the saddlebow.

  At the Orontes’ edge, she knelt in the damp pebbly sand and played her fingers across the brown surface of the water. Behind her, Annan dismounted with a painful exhale. They had gotten off the courser’s back only four times to give the animal a chance to rest, and no doubt the man ached as much as did she.

  She bit her lower lip. Perhaps that alone would be enough to keep him away from her this night… She closed her eyes. She was his wife now; she had spoken the vows. In the sight of God and man, he could do what he would with her.

  Her body tremored, and she clamped her eyes shut, willing herself to forget the night that had birthed all these fears and created the small, dark mound of earth she had been forced to leave behind somewhere in northern Italy.

  Something smashed onto the ground behind her, and her heart bounced into her ribs. She turned just enough to see that it had been the saddle landing in the sand where Annan had dropped it. He rubbed the courser’s sweaty back with his sleeve, his eyes on the horse’s, the heel of his palm digging into the animal’s muscles.

  She might indeed be his wife, and all of Christendom might see nothing painful or wrong in her hasty taking of his name, but that did not mean she would surrender herself to him. She would resist, just as she had almost a year before. And this time, she would fight until she died.

  * * *

  Annan gave the horse’s back one last slap, then flicked his eyes to the horizon. It was too dark to discern details, but the rising moon gave light enough to see movement. Only the swaying of trees and shrubs shadowed the riverbank, and for that every weary bone in his body was thankful. Before turning to gather the saddle from the ground, he rubbed his tender shoulder, feeling the burn of blood coursing through the new flesh that was filling the arrow hole.

  His body ached as it had not ached in years. He could only imagine the lady’s exhaustion. He turned for the saddle. Until they reached her safe convent in Orleans, she would have to bear the trek the same as he.

  She didn’t rise from the riverbank as he approached. He dropped the saddle and forced his stiff joints to bend until he could grasp the wineskin tethered to the saddlebow next to a hefty, flat-bladed sword that would have been more than helpful had he noticed it before his skirmish that morning.

  “Drink.” He uncorked the skin and held it out to her.

  Her shoulders jerked in an exhale. Then she rose to her feet and turned. He watched her approach, her gait soft and liquid, as though he saw not her, but her reflection in the river’s water.

  An arm’s length away, she stopped and accepted the wineskin. She did not sit across from him, and her dark eyes stayed wide open as she drank.

  “That’s enough,” he said. “When that’s gone, we’ll have to drink water.”

  She hesitated, took one more drink, then held it out to him. He would have to lean forward to take it, but she did not step toward him. Her eyes, large like those of a frightened gazelle, did not leave his face. He could almost taste the sharp, acrid fear that filled the air between them.

  Was it pursuit from the Moslems, or from Hugh de Guerrant, that she feared? Or was it him?

  “We’ll be safer here than in the open or near a city,” he said. “I’ll keep a watch tonight.”

  She lifted her chin, and he could see the tendons in her neck give a little quiver.

  It was him, then. He lifted the wineskin to his lips. Eyes closed, he took a long draught—though not as long as he would have liked—and tried to push the flash of irritation to the back of his mind.

  He had come to the Holy Land on an impulse, a mad desire to reconcile with the past. But he had only succeeded in reigniting old angers and reopening scabbed-over wounds. Not to mention receiving a few new ones. Rolling his injured shoulder, he corked the wineskin.

  He looked back to where the lady stood, skirt and cloak spread to the breeze, arms clamped across her chest, lip between her teeth.

  Now, due to Lord William’s dying wish, he had to escort a skittish noblewoman halfway across the world, hoping all the while that her enemies had no knowledge of her survival.

  “We’ll follow the river as far as we can,” he said, more because they couldn’t just go on staring at one another than because she actually needed to know. “I’ve no idea what cities are in Saladin’s hands, so we’ll have to stay away from them until we reach Byzantium.” And even the
n, he preferred to stay as far from people as he could. Constantinople had been ransacked by too many marauding Crusaders for the Byzantines to bear Westerners any great love.

  “Once we’ve reached their border, we’ll take a ship to Venice or whatever port we can get.” He reached for the purse tied to the saddle and unknotted the drawstring. It was too dark to see the contents, so he just shook out a handful of what felt like crusty bread and a few chunks of hard cheese. “Here.” He offered the purse, holding it so that she would have to take a step to reach it.

  Again, a long moment grated past before he heard the whisper of her skirts as she leaned to take the purse. “What is it?” she asked.

  “Bread and cheese. Your friend the Baptist planned well, though I doubt he intended for me to be participating in those plans.”

  “He didn’t.” She retreated a step before lowering herself to the ground, and he could hear her fingers searching through the purse.

  To their left, the courser stamped a foot and nickered. Annan glanced at him. The animal was a stout one. Not many would have withstood so well the rigors of such a journey.

  “The Baptist learned horseflesh since I last knew him, that’s certain.” Among other things. A memory of the artful blow that had felled the Moslem sentry that morning flitted through his brain. The Gethin of sixteen years ago could never have lifted his hand to shed blood with such a masterful stroke.

  “You know him?” she asked.

  “The Baptist?” He tore his bread. “Apparently not. The man I knew would fain have died rather than let the Church charge him with heresy.”

  “Heresy.” A soft thump, as of the purse landing in the sand near her knees, punctuated the word. “Who are you, a tourneyer, of all people, to speak against heresy?”

  His gaze narrowed, and he arrested the hand that held his bread halfway to his mouth. How much had William told this woman about him? “Only those who know it can speak of it. How else can the Popes be so free with their exclamations of excommunication?”

  He could hear a puff of breath before she spoke. “That is heresy—to speak against the Holy Father.”

  “And that’s not what the Baptist does?”

  “His only crime is speaking against sins made blacker because their owner wears the robes of a bishop! If you had ever met Bishop Roderic, you could never say the Baptist is a heretic!”

  “I didn’t say I thought him a heretic, lady. And I have met Father Roderic.” He bit into the bread and chewed.

  “And how did he impress you?”

  “As a man who has not virtue enough to warrant his breathing the air of the Holy Land, much less counseling the king who would save it.”

  Moonlight glinted off her dark hair as she lifted her head to peer at him. “Then you do support the Baptist?”

  “Nay. I may share his opinion of Father Roderic, but I do not support him. He is consumed with hatred and blood lust.” His lip twisted at the irony. Gethin had chosen a far different path from his own, and yet he had been unable to avoid arriving at the same end.

  “It is not vengeance he seeks,” Mairead said, “it is justice.”

  Annan swallowed and brushed his hands across the front of his tunic. “That is what he has deceived himself into believing.” He stood, and he could sense more than see the tension that swept over her. She was suddenly like a hare, tensed, ready to run if the hound came but one step nearer.

  “Lady Mairead.”

  “What?” She spoke breathlessly, and he could almost hear the heavy beat of her heart.

  “You’re afraid of me.”

  * * *

  Mairead’s breath caught so hard that pricks of light studded her vision. So here it was. She had hoped that if she kept him in the conversation, if she made him think of other things, that perhaps the night would pass.

  But no. He was only a tourneyer, a man with the blood of countless knights upon his hands. What was one defenseless woman to him? He could crush her backbone in his arms without trying, and the deed would never darken his thoughts.

  “You’re afraid of me.” He towered above her not more than five strides distant.

  “Am I?” The words squeezed past her throat. Her fingers sought the drawstrings of the food purse. It wasn’t heavy, but it would be her only chance of a weapon. The sword the Baptist had given them was still strapped to the saddle, and Annan had kept the infidel saber at his side.

  “Aye,” he said, but did not approach. “Why?”

  Why? The word bounced inside her skull. Why, indeed? What had she left to be afraid of—save death? And even that was not so dark as before. Why not step into the maelstrom with arms stretched wide?

  She rose to her feet. The hard leather of the purse strings dug into her fingers. She swayed a moment. Oh, God—oh, blessed Savior— Fists clenched at her sides, chin lifted, she stepped forward. “I’m not afraid.”

  “Yes, you are.” Something akin to amusement colored his tone. “Why?”

  She lifted her chin higher still. Would he allow her no dignity? “If I fear, it is between me and Heaven.”

  “Then keep it there. We’ve a long journey before us, and I’ve no desire to be tripping over your fears at every turn.” He stepped forward, and she clenched her eyes shut. Broken, scattered images smashed through her brain… images of before. Cold sweat rose on her limbs. Her hands clenched tighter, driving her fingernails into her skin. Let it be over quickly…

  But he did not come to her.

  She opened her eyes. He had lifted the saddle to his hip and was unstrapping the sword. He turned away, toward the courser, then glanced back at her. His voice was still gruff, but the tone was frank. “You’ve nothing to fear from me, Countess. As far as I’m concerned you are Lord William’s wife yet. I am with you only to give you safe escort to Orleans.”

  She stared at him, sinews still tight. In the starlight, she could see the glint of his gaze and feel the pressure of it against her own. The tightness in her throat eased. Tourneyer or no, the savagery she had seen and feared in others was not present now.

  Lord William would not have given her to a knave. Lord William had trusted this man with his life and his honor.

  She wished her assurances had strength enough to still the trembling that skittered across her clammy skin. “Thank you,” she said and tried to ignore the cold sliver in her heart that whispered he was only trying to catch her off guard.

  He looked for a moment more, then turned back to the courser.

  She exhaled, the air clouding in front of her face and her body slackening. Lowering herself back to a crouch, she bowed her face into her hand. Think. She had to think, had to plan. Whether Marcus Annan meant what he said or not, she would not—could not—trust him.

  If he planned to watch through the night, so would she. And if death came, so be it. She would welcome it. But she would not be caught off guard. She would not submit to him.

  * * *

  Annan dozed once during the night and woke, his back stiff and his brain buzzing with a sudden rush of energy. He froze, senses straining, his hand clenched round the hilt of the infidel saber. Carefully, he pushed away from the tree trunk against which he had been sitting and rolled onto his knees. His stiff body groaned as he forced his joints to bend and crack. The repairing flesh of his left shoulder throbbed. He counted the beats, trying to steady himself—regain focus—remember what had woken him.

  A few paces ahead, the dark huddle that was the Lady Mairead blotted the sand. He cursed himself for not forcing her nearer to him and the horse, where he would have been able to better protect her. But her fear had been thick enough to taste, and he had not wished to do anything to further discourage her trust in him.

  Not that trust would matter if his carelessness cost her life.

  He stayed where he was, sword held just off the ground. He could tell by her tight, shallow breathing that she was awake, and the lines in his forehead deepened. Either she had been awakened by the same thing that had roused h
im, or she had so many misgivings that she hadn’t dared sleep in his presence.

  He shifted his gaze to scan the brush of the riverbank. Darkness still filled the sky, but the stars had started to disappear. Dawn was probably only a few hours away. He listened, straining his hearing until his ears filled with the hoarse whisper of the wind, the rustling leaves overhead, and, farther in the distance, the soughing brown water of the Orontes.

  And then… a splash, a clatter against stone. His muscles jerked tighter. Behind him, the courser snorted, and he recognized it as the sound that had woken him.

  The splashing stopped, and the air hung suspended. His skin burned as he debated a charge into the open. But the distance to the river was too great. Whoever was there would see him long before he could use his advantage.

  He dug his fingernails into the polished wood of the saber hilt. The lady stirred, lifted her head from the cushion of her arm, and he bit back the impulse to tell her to be still. Any word now would bring the intruder down upon them, be he foe or friend.

  And then, a voice, almost soft enough to be the wind or the river, murmured, and the splashing resumed. This time, Annan could discern that it was an animal of burden, probably a horse or donkey, crossing the river.

  Abruptly, the lady sat up, her cloak sliding from her shoulders, and he could hear her intake of breath.

  He hissed as loud as he dared, hoping that to the ears of the person crossing the river, it would be just another whistle in the wind.

  She jerked around to find him in the darkness, and he growled. Afraid or not, if she fainted, he was going to bind and gag her for the rest of the journey. But her head dipped in a nod of acknowledgment, and then she was still.

  The splash and clatter of hooves in the river ended in a flurry of falling pebbles as the animal bounded up the far bank. The hoofbeats paused, then resumed. Carefully, Annan unbent his legs, wincing as a cramp seized his calf. Motioning Mairead to stay as she was, he made his way through the brush until he could see the other side of the river.