Behold the Dawn

  Annan was on him with a wordless bellow, even as the back of his mind grabbed at the realization that the uplifted sword was of Western design. He brought his saber down in a hammering blow that tore the sword from his opponent’s hand.

  “St. Jude—”

  From beneath unruly hair, a pair of hazel eyes glared up at him, and Annan stopped his second blow at its apex. He whipped the saber around to touch the soft flesh under the jaw and lifted the other’s head until he could see through the shadows’ distortion into his prisoner’s face.

  With a growl, he cast the saber aside. “Peregrine Marek! I thought you on your way to Jerusalem by now.”

  Marek scrambled to his feet, slapping sand from his breeches. “And I thought you bloody well cold in the ground! What’s the meaning of sneaking up on me like you was your own ghost and scaring me near to death!”

  “If you’d been paying attention, no one could have sneaked up on you.” Annan slid his sword beneath Marek’s fallen blade and flipped it into the air so he could catch it. He thrust the hilt against Marek’s chest. “How many times have I told you to always keep this at your side? Had I been a Saracen or a marauder, not even St. Jude would have kept you from having your guts thrown into the river.”

  Marek frowned as he sheathed his sword. “Having a sword didn’t much protect you from that Turk’s arrow.” His gaze traveled to Annan’s shoulder. “Speaking of which, why hasn’t Saladin dragged you back to Jerusalem behind his favorite donkey?”

  Annan ignored the question. He cast a glance round Marek’s slipshod preparations for passing the night. “You make a terrible camp, laddie.” He drove his sword deep enough into the sand that it stood on its own, then bent to pick up the saber. “Bring your palfrey farther into the brush, and if you haven’t already done it, fill your wineskin. I’ll be back. If you’ve got any viands, now’d be a good time to break them out.”

  “Yes, dear ol’ Master.”

  Annan shot him a glare.

  Marek blinked. “I don’t suppose now would be a good time to mention that the strain of watching one’s master fall in battle should diminish one’s time of servitude by at least half?”

  “No, it would not.”

  “Then I also suppose this isn’t a good time to mention that, since you were dead and everything, I was rather expecting to be in my Maid Dolly’s arms before Christmastide?”

  Something cracked in the brush behind, and Marek’s palfrey snorted. Annan spun, saber whipping in front of his face.

  From the deep shadows of the brush emerged the gray head of the courser. Mairead sat his back like a queen, her eyes wide open and her mouth rigid. She took in the scene at a glance, her gaze flitting over Marek, then coming back to Annan.

  Lowering the sword, he stepped forward to take the courser’s bit. His brows tightened into a glower despite himself. “I told you to stay where you were.”

  “Everything went quiet. I didn’t know what to think.” Her eyes flicked back to Marek, and her lip slid between her teeth.

  Annan let out a sigh that sounded more like a growl. “It’s all right.” He looked back to Marek. “He’s a friend.”

  “St. Jude.” Marek stood stock-still, sword halfway out of its sheath, a tilt to his mouth that hinted at both laughter and bewilderment. Annan hoped the lad would show a little sense and choose to express the latter. The last thing he needed was for Marek to laugh his head off at the idea of his master escorting a countess through hostile territory.

  But Marek showed more aplomb than Annan would have given him credit for. He drew his sword with a flourish, slammed its hilt against his heart, and plunged to one knee. “Peregrine Marek, gracious lady—forever in your service.”

  Mairead’s mouth opened slightly, but a lady of high blood didn’t gape when people pledged their allegiance. She dropped her head in a bow. “Thank you, Peregrine Marek.” Then she glanced at Annan.

  Marek looked up expectantly, and Annan raised an arm in a futile gesture, knowing he would never be able to explain the lad’s quirks before Marek had a chance to demonstrate any more of them.

  “He is indentured,” he said at last. “Apparently, I wasn’t the only one to escape the siege.” He bit back a weary breath. “Marek, this is the Lady Mairead, Countess of Keaton.”

  Annan could sense her quick glance in his direction, her question—and probably relief—that he had not said former Countess of Keaton. But he had done it for his own sake as well as hers. Marek’s charm, along with any tact he possessed, would die an instant death should Annan announce that this striking noblewoman—with her wide eyes and tousled hair—was his wife.

  Marek’s eyebrows lifted. “The Keaton?”

  As Annan led the courser forward into the open slot of space between the trees, he fixed the lad with a warning look. Having to deal with Mairead’s tears would be one trial too many for the day. And Marek certainly wasn’t entitled to know the whole story. “The earl requested I escort her to a convent in Orleans,” he said, and left it at that.

  “Then I, too, pledge myself to your safety, lady.” Marek bowed his head, then rose to his feet, sheathing the sword. “Welcome to my humble camp.”

  “Thank you.” For the first time in the days he had known her, Annan heard a smile in her voice. He glanced at her, and in the last rays of light, he could see that the smile was fixed on Marek.

  Was it any wonder she found Marek less intimidating than him? Even when Marek tried, his nature hardly lent itself to destruction. Marek was the one who had argued to come on this Crusade, not because he had old bodies from the past to bury, but because he desired absolution for his wayward master. Marek, superstitious wretch that he was, was the one who regularly invoked the saints and covered himself with the blessing of the Cross. Marek was the one who named the horses.

  Annan stood back, one hand on the bridle, the other on the courser’s damp neck, and watched Marek help the countess down. She did not shy from Marek’s touch, nor look away from him, though she had known him only a handful of moments. Had she accepted him so quickly because she now had someone to buffer her from Annan?

  He turned to lead the courser aside. Why should he care? It was not his duty to win the countess’s trust. He was to take her to Orleans, nothing more; and for that, he did not need her trust.

  This feeling wasn’t the jealousy of a husband for his bride. Had it been that, Marek would have been set in place the moment his mouth had fallen open at the sight of her.

  Annan was not jealous. How could he be, when there was nothing to be jealous of? She was William’s wife even now, and would die William’s wife, as far as he was concerned.

  But this fear she had of him gored something deep inside. As Marek led her to a clump of brush he had gathered for his own bed—no doubt heedless of the thought that such would be clear evidence to anyone wishing to track him—Annan stopped the tired courser at a nearby tree and tossed the reins over a low-hanging branch.

  When a man became such that a woman feared him, not because of who he was, but because of what he had done, he had probably crossed that irrevocable line of eternity Marek was always haranguing about.

  Annan rubbed his palm across the horse’s hard shoulder and summoned the bitter smile that had been his shield against these truths for such a long time. It didn’t matter. Within two score days, the lady would be ensconced in the walls of St. Catherine’s. And then, perhaps, it would at last be time for him to seek in earnest an opponent with an arm stronger than his own.

  Chapter X

  BY THE TIME Annan finished unsaddling the courser and tethering him in the brush, out of kicking range of the bay palfrey, Marek had remembered to fill his wineskin from the river and haul out his sack of food. His supply was more than ample, which was hardly surprising. The lad had an appetite to rival any dozen bloated noblemen.

  Annan lugged the saddle through the gathering darkness and dropped it next to Marek’s crouched form. He could just make out the dark shadow that was
Mairead, still poised upon the leafy couch to which Marek had led her. He could see the subtle movement of her head, the white glitter of her eyes as she looked at him.

  “Just a moment, lady,” Marek said, and Annan glanced down in time to see the skip of an orange spark and hear the scratch of flint against steel.

  “Marek. No fire.”

  The lad looked up at him. “You can’t very well let her shiver all night.”

  “I said no.” He bunched up the linen shawl, now dry, and tossed it at Mairead’s feet. One didn’t build fires when facing possible pursuit. Keeping the countess safe was far more important than keeping her warm.

  “But we can’t see a blithering thing!”

  Ah, so that was it. The laddie wanted to admire his new companion. “I said no.” He turned toward the river, then stopped. He could hear Mairead shifting in her bed of boughs, no doubt believing this was the way he treated his servants all the time.

  He forced an exhale past his clenched teeth. It didn’t matter. He didn’t need her to trust his decisions.

  Didn’t need it, perhaps, but despite himself he wanted her to—wanted her not to look at him with wide-eyed fear because all she could see was the bloodstained tourneyer.

  He stayed where he was, arms at his sides, still facing the river, but made himself speak softly—slowly—with only a trace of the growl that had become his long-ingrained habit. “If we can see by firelight, then we can also be seen. We can fight the cold better than we can marauders.”

  Marek let out a little snort that wasn’t half as impertinent as Annan expected. The boughs shifted again beneath Mairead’s weight, but she said nothing.

  Annan left it at that and started back down to the river.

  * * *

  Mairead watched Annan’s dark shape retreat down the hill to the riverbank and found herself blowing out a sigh of relief. She shouldn’t fear him. He had done nothing to her—would do nothing to her.

  But he was so volatile, so abrupt. And if what he said this afternoon was true, then he was a black mark in the sight of God and saints alike.

  Across from her, Marek clucked his tongue. “Well.” He turned to her. “It’s my personal opinion that my master has spent rather too much time avoiding humankind.”

  “Indeed.” She picked up the shawl from where Annan had tossed it and drew it across her lap. Her eyes sought his silhouette against the river.

  “Well, before he rescued me anyway. I’ve done me best to cure him, but he still behaves like a troll most of the time.”

  “Rescued you?”

  Marek pushed to his feet. “This old shopkeeper back in Glasgow wasn’t being all that generous about the sharing of vittles with a starving laddie like meself. He was going to heave me into the dungeon since I couldn’t pay him.” Marek stepped over to his food purse and began rummaging through its contents. “Annan saw him chasing after me, and he paid the bloke his money.”

  “Why?”

  “It is my suspicion that he was in search of a top-rate servant and bodyguard.”

  She raised her brow. “Bodyguard?” That Marcus Annan would need a bodyguard was absurd in itself, but this lad didn’t even have the width to stand in front of his master and act a shield.

  “Well.” The word wasn’t quite a concession. Marek came away from the sack with a handful of food and brought it back to her. “Cheese, my lady? I’ve some fish and crusts as well.”

  She accepted the pieces and laid them on the shawl. Marek backed off to what he apparently deemed a respectful distance and sat down cross-legged in front of her. He seemed a good lad, even if he was hewn from a rough log.

  They chewed in silence, and she could feel his eyes on her as they ate. She was almost glad Annan hadn’t let him build a fire. The darkness gave her an anonymity she would probably never again have once the lad saw her by daylight. She rather doubted this Glasgow wretch had ever seen a noblewoman in such an intimate setting.

  He smacked his lips with finality and slapped crumbs from his legs. “So I see Annan finally found this Earl of Keaton he’s been looking for?”

  She lifted her head. A queer flutter, half fear, half something else, prickled in the back of her brain. “He was looking for us?”

  “Aye. He wanted to warn the earl about something that Baptist fellow had told him. Ever met the Baptist? Ask me and I’ll tell you there’s a loose rock clattering round in his skull.”

  “I—” Her mouth opened, but she found she had no words. Annan had been looking for Lord William? Was it possible his very presence at Acre’s siege, wounds and all, was because he had come to extricate William from the straits into which Mairead had plunged him?

  Aye, it was possible. He did rather seem to have a knack for hauling less fortunate people out of harm’s way, herself among them. But the idea was a far cry from the gold-seeking tourneyer he proclaimed himself to be.

  “So—” Marek leaned forward, an elbow propped on either knee. “Where is the earl?”

  “He’s—” The last thing she needed was to give this wide-jawed servant news of her plight. “He’s still in Acre.”

  “Ah…” The lad let the word linger long enough to indicate he was rather hoping for a bit more of the details. When she didn’t speak, he started a new tack. “Um. And how was it then that you came to be with Master Annan?”

  She smiled. The lad’s manners were rough, yes, and he was decidedly incorrigible. But at least she would hear no muttered platitudes from this boy. Not that she’d had to deal with any from Annan over the last few days anyway.

  “Apparently,” she said, brushing the last of the crumbs from the shawl and rising to her feet, “my lord trusted your master.”

  “Well, that’s something.”

  She gave him a sharp look. “You don’t trust him?”

  “Of course, lady.” He stood. “He saved me life, remember? I’d be dead or in the mud of the streets weren’t for him.”

  “Then why say that like you did?”

  “Because, I told you, he’s a troll. He minds his own business, and I’ve yet to meet the man who knew him well enough to trust him. ‘Cept maybe that Baptist person.”

  The lines in her forehead cleared. “The Baptist trusts Annan?” The same Baptist who Annan swore was a deluded fool?

  “Well, maybe he trusts him.” Marek shrugged and turned half away, as though he’d spoken too much. “Trusted him enough to tell Annan your earl was in trouble anyhow.”

  She pressed her lips together and took a step forward. “Did Annan come here because he knew Lord William was in trouble?”

  “He didn’t come to gain absolution.”

  Mairead bit her lip. Annan had all but said he wished the Baptist dead, and yet the Baptist trusted him enough to inform him of his plans and his concerns?

  “How do you know the Baptist?” she asked.

  “I don’t. Never knew he was more’n a name ‘fore we ran afoul of this rather disagreeable count person in Bari.”

  “But your master knows him. How?” She took another step.

  He turned back to face her. The night sky was just bright enough that she could see wrinkles of thought between his brows. He couldn’t possibly be able to understand her intensity. He wouldn’t be able to understand how the Baptist and everything he did was entwined so inextricably with her life, with her every breath.

  “He wouldn’t tell me,” Marek said. “I don’t think he even hears half my questions, and I was ailing on the voyage over anyway.”

  “You must know something.”

  “All I ken is that neither of them like that bishop too much. I sweated myself half dead the whole time we was in Acre, thinking Annan was going to kill him.”

  Mairead’s nostrils flared, filling all her senses with the damp night. “But he didn’t kill him.”

  “He’d’ve gone straight to Hell for sure. He hasn’t taken the Crusading oath, you know.”

  “The Baptist trusts him…” She shook her head and looked down to the
shawl dragging in the sand at her feet. If the Baptist trusted Annan, then perhaps she had misjudged him. Never had she known the Baptist’s judgment to be wrong, and Lord William had lived by his faith in the man ‘til the day he died.

  Marek tilted his head to look her in the face. “You know, lady, you could ask the master about this Baptist bloke.”

  She gave half a smile. “He’d bite my head off.”

  “Oh, he’d bite my head off. Wouldn’t think twice about it. But not yours.”

  She flicked her gaze up to his face and let the smile reach both corners of her mouth. “Is that so?”

  The flash of white through the darkness told her he was grinning. “Well, you have rather a better chance than I do at least. And anyway he barks harder than he bites.”

  The smile faded. “I’ve seen his bite.”

  Marek chuckled and leaned a little closer. “But—and on this I stake my meager life—he doesn’t bite ladies.”

  * * *

  On the other side of the river, across from the shoddy camp where Marcus Annan brooded on the outskirts and Lady Mairead and the lad murmured together, Gethin the Baptist lay on his stomach. Fist-sized stones pressed into the flesh of his belly and grated against his bones. The night burned cold on the bare skin of his legs and the back of his tonsured head; he could feel the gooseflesh pricking his chapped skin into tiny ridges.

  For hours, he had lain here, cold and alone, the wind drowning even the whispers of the rodents in the brush. He had been watching them—all of them—from the moment Annan and the countess had appeared, and his heart had throbbed with the knowledge of his successful hunt.

  Had he so desired, he could have slipped silently into the waters of the Orontes and crossed over, unknown to them, in but a few moments. The sharp cold in his bones would have been more than worth the shock, maybe even fear, he would find on their faces.