Behold the Dawn

  Mairead bowed slightly. “Since Tyre, madam.”

  “Tyre! And here I stand gossiping, with you exhausted on your feet. Come with me, and let these knaves bore themselves with tales of their inept war.” She cast a glance at Annan’s unshaven face and torn and bloody tunic. “Though if Lord Stephen has any civility, he’ll give Master Annan into a servant’s hands ere long as well.”

  With Mairead’s elbow clamped between two ring-adorned hands, Eloise shepherded her to the door.

  Mairead wasn’t quite out of the room when Lord Stephen spoke. “An admirable woman. You surprise me again, Annan. I’d no thought of your taking a wife.”

  She stopped. Would he tell Stephen the truth? He had not told Marek.

  By unspoken agreement, they had yet to disclose their marriage. Lord William had placed her under Annan’s name to protect her from her enemies—certainly not to draw skeptical glances from those who knew him.

  And yet…

  His gaze shifted past Lord Stephen’s face to meet hers, and for that moment she wondered what it would be like were they to drop the charade and tell the world she was his to do with as he liked.

  Her lower lip crept between her teeth. And he liked only to protect and honor me.

  “No,” he said. His gaze pulled from hers, and the connection snapped and shattered, falling to the floor between them like so much broken glass. “I am entrusted to grant her safe passage to Orleans. She is the wife of William of Keaton.”

  Mairead turned away, the muscles in her back clutching with renewed intensity.

  Lady Eloise waited outside the doorway, her hands folded into the wide sleeves of her kirtle. “Hmph. I thought you too nice a maid to be lying in Marcus Annan’s arms. Come, dear heart, no frowns while you’re under my roof. By the saints, life will be beautiful again come the time we’ve finished our fun and I must send you back to your Lord William.”

  Mairead followed in Lady Eloise’s wake, trying to absorb the Englishwoman’s chatter. But somehow, as she was ushered through the hallways and up the twisting stairs to a bedchamber that was huge and cold in all its English splendor, she heard not a word—only the dull beating of her heart beneath her cloak.

  * * *

  The late meal was served in the afternoon’s fourth hour. Annan, too restless to sleep, had spent the day pacing the upper ramparts, watching for a rider on a bay palfrey. With every passing hour that brought no sign of Marek, the frown lines in his brow deepened.

  Now, as he stood in the noise of the Great Hall, behind the seat Stephen had indicated, he gritted his teeth in frustration. It was Marek he should be searching for. Not Gethin.

  But Marek would have to wait. Mairead—and now Gethin—took precedence. Annan gritted harder, his back teeth stabbing pain down his jaw. If that lad was out dawdling somewhere, Annan would yank every hair from his loitering head.

  From where he stood behind the seat of honor in the middle of the high table, Stephen leaned in Annan’s direction. “My wife would doubtless have done worse than call me a knave had I disturbed your rest this afternoon, but I would like the opportunity to discuss these plans of yours sometime this even.”

  Annan nodded.

  “An English courier rode in an hour ago.” Stephen pointed to the tables on the cavernous floor below, where some two score servants waited to seat themselves. The courier was distinguishable from the others only by the flowered blue livery of King Richard, which bore considerable evidence of a long journey. He seemed to be having trouble communicating with his Syrian neighbors and was gesturing with his hands to explain some point of confusion. To Annan, it looked as though he were recounting the storied proficiency of Saladin’s mounted archers.

  “He’s brought some rather interesting news from the Crusade,” Stephen said.

  “So I see.”

  The double doors at the room’s far end ground open, pulled by two lads, and the crowd below quieted.

  Stephen straightened away from Annan. “Ah, the ladies. At last.”

  Annan followed his gaze to where Lady Eloise, garbed in scarlet, her wimple embroidered in gold, promenaded between the lower tables. Her keen eyes sparkled like a child’s.

  Mairead walked behind her.

  In silence, Annan watched. The reason for Eloise’s glee was evident: Mairead had been transformed. Blue the color of midnight illuminated her fair skin better than the sun’s rays could ever do. With her skirt trailing her like the last whispers of night, she walked like a queen.

  His eyes drifted to her dark hair. No longer the long, unruly veil that had blown in the hot winds, it was now a crown of braids piled on the back of her head. An absurd resentment for Lady Eloise seized in his chest.

  Mairead’s eyes found his, and for a moment the queen disappeared and she was again the frightened girl who had ridden through the long nights with her head against his shoulder. Her lip found its place between her teeth, and he knew she was trying to read his expression, trying to understand the flash of anger that had burned there for a moment.

  He knew she wanted a smile, the encouragement of a friend among strangers. But he could not. If he said anything to her now, it would surely surface in the growl that had caused her to distance herself from him so many times.

  He turned to Lady Eloise as she mounted the steps to the high table. At the trumpet flourish, played by the lips of a servant lad no higher than Annan’s hip, she took the seat at Annan’s right, placing herself between him and Lord Stephen. Mairead sat at Stephen’s other side.

  After a visiting monk had invoked the blessing and as the servers began bearing in the platters of capon and wood pigeon that would be their first course, Eloise leaned over to speak to him. “You may know, Master Annan, that my opinion of you has never been very high. But this is twice now you’ve done me good service. Lady Mairead is delightful. I should have died for want of companionship before winter had you not brought her when you did.”

  “How fortunate.”

  “Indeed. And now I should like to offer you a proposal.” She tipped back for a moment, until the server had finished heaping their trenchers with the fragrant meat. “I should like,” she said, “to relieve you of your responsibility to this girl.”

  Annan reached for his wooden drinking bowl, which another servant had filled with a mulled wine.

  “She has told me enough of her story for me to know she will be safest from her enemies if she is delivered to this St. Catherine’s with all haste.”

  “Indeed.”

  “And since you can hardly deliver her anywhere with any haste while you are pursuing your business back in the Holy Land, I should like to offer our services in seeing her safely into Christian hands. Stephen already plans a journey to Constantinople within a few days.”

  “And what of my promise to Lord William of Keaton?”

  “Explain it to him. I’m sure he’ll agree it is the best thing for her. I heard of him often when we were yet in England, and I know him to be as sensible a man as can be made.”

  Annan stared at the cloves drowning in his wine. “And what does the Lady Mairead say of this?”

  “She seemed content to leave the matter in your hands, but undoubtedly she wants to be returned to her husband as soon as possible.”

  His lip twitched. Returned to which husband? The one that was already in the grave—or the one that was walking dead? “Yes, of course.”

  Eloise flipped her long sleeves off the table and dipped her fingers into her trencher’s mound of oily meat. For a moment, Annan didn’t stir. He smiled a sardonic little smile that meant nothing to anyone but himself and tossed back the contents of his bowl. He set it back on the table and turned his head just enough to see Mairead, two seats down. Her eyes, larger in her face now that her hair was caught back, darted away from Lord Stephen. Her lip crept between her teeth, and Annan saw the tiny bead of blood where she had punctured the skin.

  * * *

  “Yours is a strange kind of honor,” Lord Stephen s
aid from his fur-piled seat behind Annan. The smile in his voice dimmed what might otherwise have been an affront.

  Annan, arms crossed against his chest, stared into the flames that snarled within the hearth of the now empty Great Hall. They were flames that mirrored those within himself. Telling Stephen his reasons for returning for Gethin hardly made them sound any more satisfactory. “The Baptist was once a friend. I can’t leave him to his fate, even if he is guilty of falling into his own trap. Besides, where I find Gethin, I may also find Marek.”

  Stephen’s chair creaked as he pushed himself to his feet and walked up to stand beside Annan. “Well then, I wish you Godspeed, and I don’t doubt that you’ll need it. Any idea where you’ll begin this search of yours?”

  “In Acre, I suppose, or wherever the Crusaders are camped.”

  “May I suggest Arsuf?”

  Annan glanced at him.

  “That courier I was telling you about—he’s brought word of a great battle near there, in the plains between Acre and Jerusalem.”

  “Did he say who won?”

  “The Christians, led brilliantly by King Richard. Though the courier may perhaps have been a bit prejudiced.”

  “The king’s left his sickbed then.” He rubbed absently at his sore shoulder.

  “Yes. And the French king has returned home. His own illness and a number of petty quarrels with Richard overwhelmed his spirit of piety, apparently. He did leave the majority of his force behind, however.”

  Annan sighed, calculating the days it would take him to ride to Arsuf and back, even without delays. “I’ll leave at daybreak tomorrow.” He pressed his middle finger in the corner of his eye and held it there, trying to relieve the pull of weariness. “I’ll have to borrow a horse.”

  “I’ll have to give you a horse, you mean.” Stephen’s smile grew a little crooked. “This saving one’s life business is rather profitable, isn’t it?”

  “On occasion.”

  Stephen chuckled and laid a hand on his arm. “Indeed. And what about Lady Mairead? My wife beleives she would be better off if we provided her an escort for the rest of her journey. Business takes me to Constantinople in a few days’ time. Eloise feels it would be wise for me to take Mairead with me.”

  “So she told me.”

  “You disagree?”

  Annan let his hand slide from his eyes down over his mouth. He stared harder into the fire, watching the blackened logs flake beneath the heat. “I don’t know.” He met Stephen’s gaze. “You don’t think she’d be safe here until I return?”

  “You insult me, Master Knight. She’s safer within these walls than she was in the hills with half a score of men-at-arms trailing her.”

  “They’re trailing her still, Stephen.”

  He waved a dismissive hand. “You have my pledge that she will be safe until you return or until you send word that she is to go on without you.” He lowered his hand to grasp Annan’s. “That much I owe you. Trust me.”

  “I do.” He turned from the fire. “And if Marek happens to arrive at your gates, make him sleep in the cold a few nights for his tardiness.”

  Stephen’s smile deepened. “Decidedly.”

  * * *

  Mairead stood at her narrow slit of a window, watching as rosy dawn dispelled the dark clouds of night, waiting for the gates below to open and for a knight on a borrowed horse to ride away from her. The chamber’s heavy door grated open, and she turned to see Annan ducking his head to pass through the doorway.

  “I’ve come to take my leave, lady. Lord Stephen has lent me a horse.”

  Suddenly cold, she folded her arms over her chest, one hand reaching to finger the crucifix that hung from her neck. She had been watching for the last hour, aching at the thought that he was leaving her here. But now she almost wished he had just gone. She didn’t want to say goodbye.

  The silence hung between them. She refused to look at him.

  “You’ll be safe here,” he said at last. “Lord Stephen has promised he will guard you as though you were his own daughter.”

  She bit down hard on her lip. And now had come the time when she was to curtsy low and thank him kindly for his services—and then release him from his promise.

  In the pressing blackness of the night, buried deep within the bed of muslin-covered straw, she had lain awake, fighting desperate battles with herself over what she was now about to do.

  When they had parted the night before at the door of Mairead’s chamber, Lady Eloise had whispered that, if Mairead would but say the word, Annan would not be returning for her after his search for the Baptist. Lord Stephen and Lady Eloise would see her delivered safely to Orleans; Master Annan’s services were required no more.

  If Mairead’s heart had turned to stone at the thought of Annan’s leaving for the few weeks needed to free the Baptist, it had died a cold death upon Lady Eloise’s calm utterance. She should release him from his promise. She knew she should. He was no longer needed. She would be just as safe under the protection of Lord Stephen. She had no reason to cling to him.

  No reason except the black fear that welled in the depth of her stomach at the thought of his leaving her.

  “Master Annan—”

  His face was unreadable. “Lady?”

  She made herself hold her eyes to his. “Lady Eloise has proposed that it be Lord Stephen who provides for the next leg of my journey. She suggests I release you from your vow. You need not come back for me.” A dangerous tremble filled her throat. “Thank you, Master Annan.”

  The scar on his cheek twitched, then stilled. His shoulders straightened. “Farewell, lady.” He kissed her hand, and when he rose again, something in the iron set of his eyes had softened just slightly.

  For a moment, she didn’t breathe. He could ride away from her so very easily; he could leave with his mind clear of any debt he thought he owed William; he could forget about the blood and the sweat and the pain she had brought upon him here in the land of the Holy One; he could forget even to wonder if she lived or died.

  He straightened to his full height, until her head could barely top his shoulder. “Lady Mairead, the vow belongs to me—not Stephen. I will come back for you.”

  The sun and the moon and all the stars exploded inside her chest. Slowly, she let her breath out. “Thank you.” The words refused to rise above a whisper.

  He turned to go. His expression was grim once again, and a new line creased his forehead. “Look for me within the month.”

  “I will pray for you.”

  He stopped at the door and looked back at her, almost as if he wanted to tell her not to trouble. But he said nothing, only nodded.

  And then he was gone. She stared after him, her arms clamped across her chest, her lips pressed together. She would not weep; not a tear would she shed. Not over this tourneyer.

  This bloody, bloody tourneyer…

  A tear slid down her cheek and fell, warm, against her hand. She turned to the window and pressed her shoulder against the wall. Her tears fell unchecked as the gates creaked open and Annan galloped away.

  The chamber door swung inward, and Lady Eloise came to stand at her shoulder. “Away he rides, I see. And why this wet face, Lady Mairead?”

  She didn’t look at the other woman. With chin lifted, she faced the wind that chilled every tear where it glistened on her face. “Is it not right for a woman to mourn in the absence of her husband?”

  Chapter XIV

  THE DAY AFTER Annan left, the servant Ducard presented himself at the door of the living chamber where Mairead sat plucking the strings of a long-necked lute. “A Master Peregrine Marek wishes your attendance, m’lady.”

  She dropped the lute beneath her stool and sprang to her feet. “Marek—”

  With a resigned lift of his heavy brows, Ducard stepped back, and Marek sauntered into the room. “Greetings, lady.”

  “Marek, you blessed lad! We feared you dead.”

  He kissed her offered hand, eyes sparkling in his
ruddy face. “Not I, fair one.”

  She pulled her hand free. “You’re a rogue, Peregrine Marek.”

  “Of course.” He tugged off his cap and scratched his fingers through his tousled hair. “But a lucky one, I must say.”

  “Indeed. How is it you’re not dead—or marching back to Acre in chains?”

  “Quick wit will ever conquer brute strength. And a fast horse is also rather useful.”

  “Not fast enough to get you here before Annan and I.”

  He shrugged and walked over to the bench in the inglenook. No fire burned at the moment, only sleepy embers, buried in the covering of ash left over from the night. “I had to stay out of sight for a while.” He plopped into the middle of the bench and spread his arms on either side of the seat’s back. “Where’s Annan?”

  Mairead sat across from him. “He’s not here.”

  “Not out looking for me, is he?”

  “The Baptist was captured during the battle. Annan’s gone back for him.”

  “Go on with you, lassie. Master Annan’s not going to risk his head for that raving mooncalf.”

  “But he has.” She rubbed her hand along her leg, her fingers tingling against the softness of the blue silk gown. She wondered how much of his reason for going had been her prompting and how much had been this innate desire he seemed to have for rescuing the helpless.

  Marek huffed. “Why is it he can’t keep himself clear of trouble for a few days without me? It’s beyond me ken, I tell you. I suppose this means I’m off again to save his hide, and me without sleep and vittles for two days.”

  She lifted a shoulder. “He thought you dead.”

  “Far from it, dear lady, far from it—so why this long face?” He leaned forward to chuck her under the chin.

  The lad’s insolence knew no bounds, but the gesture was so flippant and brotherly as to draw a smile instead of the rebuke it deserved.

  He grinned. “You’re much more beautiful with a smile.”

  “You’re not only a rogue, you’re a knave.”