by D. N. Carter
“So by this stage in your story, when Paul met this princess, she was now married to Reynald?” Peter asked.
1 – 25
“Yes.”
Alanya Fortress, Cilician Armenia (Turkey), 1179
Tenno pulled up the caravan opposite the main entrance to the old fortified defences. It had been a steep ride up the side of the high mountain, some 800 feet, to reach the main pathway. Abi followed close behind constantly checking all directions as they moved ever vigilant. She smiled at Tenno once as he looked back at her. Sister Lucy and Theodoric shuffled across the main driver’s bench ready to get down as Taqi pulled up alongside them, riding their second horse. Several Templars stood next to their horses as the troop of Hospitallers behind the caravan manoeuvred themselves alongside several other caravans. The sun was already high and the heat rising. Paul sat in the rear of the caravan holding Arri as Alisha finished covering herself up having just fed him. Once she had tied up the lacings across her green dress, she watched Paul as he sat just staring at Arri. She sighed and smiled. She knew she had been harsh with some of the things she had said to him lately and knew she had pushed him away. She missed her father and thought back to the birth. She was convinced she’d heard her father calling her name and at one point she could see him standing beside her, she believed.
“Paul,” she said softly as the noise outside of people talking grew louder.
Paul looked up. He was pleased to see Alisha smiling again. She sighed and tilted her head and stared at him intently. She did not need to say anything. He knew what she was saying to him.
“I know,” is all he replied and looked at Arri again, who was trying to suck his fist.
Taqi opened the small rear door and leaned in.
“Do you two want to stretch your legs before we set off? It could be a long haul to the next hospice so one of the Templars was just telling us,” Taqi said quietly.
“It is okay, you can speak normally for we want this little man to get used to the noise,” Paul answered.
“Well, apparently we shall be travelling through some spectacular landscapes. We will be following old Roman roads, some old Ottoman tracks and no walls nor fences for most of it. Through woodlands and forested gorges to open plains and cultivated fields and laden fruit trees…sounds exciting doesn’t it?” Taqi remarked.
“The King’s Highway is not an easy route to travel, especially if the weather turns…which it appears to be doing,” a Templar said aloud as he pulled up his horse near to the caravan.
Taqi pulled a grimacing face and smiled broadly upon hearing the Templar’s comments. Sister Lucy pushed past him and squeezed her way into the caravan.
“I have been told by Theo I must travel in here with you for the first leg of today’s journey and help you out with little Arri…if that is okay with you both?” she stated and moved herself onto the right side bench.
“Of course it is. It will give me a chance to quiz you further all about Theo…,” Paul replied.
“Oh no, not you. You will be outside with the boys. This is woman time,” Sister Lucy shot back grinning and shooed him away playfully.
“That will be most welcome…your company, for I do have much I need to ask of you,” Alisha commented.
“Really…such as?” Lucy asked.
“Well, for a start I recall…though quite vaguely…that you spoke some prayer whilst I was giving birth. I just wanted to know what it was and whether you believed it worked,” Alisha explained.
“I think the answer to that question is lying there fast asleep and you sitting there,” Sister Lucy answered and pointed towards Arri. “But in all truth, I had run out of ideas…and I knew that if a woman simply believes it enough, the power of the mind and suggestion is unbelievably powerful.” Alisha thought upon her answer and sat placing her hands under her legs and then smiled. She looked at Paul intently and then Taqi. “And as a consequence, regardless of whether the words actually have power, you now have three men in your life that would die for you.”
“As I have said before, I do not want anyone to die for me…but live for me,” Alisha remarked and swung her feet back and forth.
“Right…I think Tenno and Theo, though I still can’t think of him as a Theo, will need us outside…so…Paul…come on,” Taqi said and motioned for Paul to follow him.
As Taqi gave a quick wave and ducked out of the doorway, Paul stood to leave, when Alisha gently grabbed his left arm. Paul looked at her quizzically as her eyes met his. Paul could see there was a sparkle in her eyes and when she smiled, he felt his heart leap almost. She leaned forwards and kissed him, the soft press of her lips upon his sending a sensation through his body. As she broke the kiss, she placed her hand upon his face and just looked at him.
“I love you, Ali,” Paul said softly.
“I know…and I you, Paul,” Alisha replied and smiled again.
It was just a simple kiss and a few words, but it meant everything to Paul to hear and with a broad grin across his face, he backed out of the caravan.
“Cherish these moments, my young woman…for before you know it, you will be as old as me,” Sister Lucy said as Paul shut the door quietly.
“If I look as good as you when I get to your age, I shall be happy.”
“Huh…these old bones! Wish I could look as young as Abi…yet she is older than I.”
“Abi I think is not of this world…,” Alisha commented and laughed. Sister Lucy laughed too but raised her eyebrows. “But you have shown me one thing already.”
“Have I. What is that?” Sister Lucy asked, bemused, as she looked over at Arri asleep and smiled.
“That love can last a life time and span many years unchanged.”
“Oh…you mean Theo and me?” she replied and sat back down with a deep sigh. She sat staring at Arri for a few moments then turned to look at Alisha. “My dear girl, there is much I would love to tell you about Theo and me, but I will not until he feels comfortable in me doing so. But I will tell you this for what it is worth. Some people spend a life time searching for real love and never find it. Others have it handed to them upon a plate and throw it away….” She paused and frowned.
“Is that what Theo did with you?”
“Oh Lord…no. He did not throw our love away. There is much I still have to ask him about why he feigned death…but I know this. I have loved that man since the day I first laid eyes upon him, and I know that he did and still does me. It is something you just know. Like you and Paul, I suspect. And I know I shall love him until the day I die. Do you know what I mean?” Sister Lucy explained and asked.
“I do. But am I correct in saying that you were married to another?” Alisha asked awkwardly.
“I was. But it was an arranged marriage and I had already met Theo before then and loved him long before,” Sister Lucy recounted and sighed again.
“How so? Did you love your husband…did you have children…could you not have said no to the arranged marriage?”
“Slow down, my woman…too many questions, bless you. In answer to your first question, no I did not love my husband…not at first anyway, but as time passed and Theo was away, I came to honour and respect my husband, and in a fashion, also love him. He was a very kind and understanding man. A decent good man,” Sister Lucy explained and sighed heavily as she recalled the past. “And yes I had children,” she remarked with pain in her eyes.
Alisha sat quietly with just the noise from outside of horses and men preparing themselves to move off.
“I am sorry I asked,” she said softly and placed her hand upon Sister Lucy’s.
“Oh my dear. ’Twas a long long time ago. Both my children died before they reached four years of age,” she explained and sighed. “They were Paul’s children…not Theo’s, before you ask.”
“Your husband’s name was also Paul?” Alisha asked surprised.
“Yes my dear…it was.”
“How so. I mean I knew he shared his surname to protect him for some r
eason we still know not why…but also his first name. Is there something I…we…are not being told?”
“Alisha…there is indeed much you are not being told. Not for bad reasons, but good…trust me on that, my child. All I can really tell you at this point in time is that Theo was responsible for bringing your father and Paul’s father together…and in turn my husband Paul. Certain things happened which sadly led to the death of my Paul…in defence and protection of Stewart and just prior to Paul’s birth. It was out of respect and to protect your Paul that his father took on his name…and much more besides,” Sister Lucy explained, clearly saddened as she remembered the past.
“Is Philip actually Paul’s real father?” Alisha asked delicately.
Sister Lucy looked up at her and frowned.
“Good Lord yes, girl. I think I may have told you more than I should have on this matter,” Sister Lucy said and moved to stand. Alisha grabbed her wrist.
“Sister Lucy…I ask as I need to know the true line of my son. That is all and to understand how you could be set into an arranged marriage if you loved Theo,” Alisha said and feigned a smile but clearly puzzled and desperate to ask a million questions.
Sister Lucy hesitated and sat back down and clasped Alisha’s hands with both of hers.
“Alisha. You are so very young. There is a woman in another caravan next to ours, right this very minute, who has had to endure the task of not one, but three arranged marriages…purely for political alliances and economical reasons…and love had nothing to do with either of them. Perhaps she is best suited to answer your question,” Sister Lucy explained.
“You know this woman?”
“Oh yes. But that is another story for a much later time. But I can explain how she came to be married three times if you wish?” Alisha nodded yes. “Then let me explain that the genealogical origins of the early Crusading nobility is paramount for it is the only means within our feudal society an individual has of obtaining land and exercising military power. Reynald knew this rule very well. My dear, there is so much to learn and understand about the European and Eastern Latin nobility as many of these ruling families were descended and expanded from tenth-century Europe, into the Latin East. The French practised the custom of primogeniture, bit of strange word but means inheritance by the eldest son, regardless of whether the son was born of a first or subsequent marriage, and regardless of any female children, and so the crown passed through several generations. However, a lord named Robert the Pious had another son, Robert of Burgundy, who had a daughter, Audiard, who married Guy of Poitou. From this union was born a son, William the Eighth, who inherited the duchy of Aquitaine and the county of Poitou, a region that became famous for its courtly culture under his great-granddaughter, the celebrated Eleanor of Aquitaine. She was instrumental on granting La Rochelle its free city status. Understand it was and still is common practice to unite families through marriage, not only to gain land but to protect existing territories, and to entrench the connection of two lines through the mixture of blood in the children of the marriage. The common ancestry of France and Aquitaine was therefore reintegrated by the marriage of Louis the Seventh to Eleanor of Aquitaine. Although the couple divorced after their voyage on the Second Crusade, at which time Eleanor gave for her divorce the very same reasons which had, in part, made their marriage initially desirable, but the marriage produced two daughters, permanently mingling the Capetian and Aquitanian bloodlines. In these ways, heritage, marriage and progeny, the expected role of the relationship within the gens was fulfilled. But Eleanor was not only the divorcée duchess of powerful Aquitaine but, in one person, she represented a bloc of the whole of Mediterranean Europe., which has connected her own family to all of the present ruling families. It is a powerbase that will surely grow” Sister Lucy explained and paused briefly. “Her second husband was Henry the Second of England, also firmly tied to the less populous but equally extensive powers of northern Europe. Thus we are brought to the point of the marriage of Eleanor and Henry, which is itself the combination of several ancestral bloodlines into one family, which is the union of Capetian France, Iberia, Norman England, Brittany, Antioch, Jerusalem and Byzantium. Geographically, Eleanor brought Aquitaine, Spain, Portugal, Toulouse and Tripoli into union with Henry’s lands in Normandy and his allies of Brittany, Flanders and Scotland, with his cousins of Antioch, Jerusalem and Byzantium. Together they founded the Plantagenet dynasty, emphasising the ancestral unification of Europe through the marriage of their children to France, Brittany, Navarre, Sicily, Toulouse and Castille. However, one must take into account the social aspect, not only through the family or gens, but also through the personal relationships within those families. Their family charts show how diverse and distant some of the noble kinships were, despite the nobility of Europe having always viewed one another as cousins and that is why there has been so much intermingling of various bloodlines, creating the extended gens of nobility on the Crusades. And Princess Stephanie out there is very much a product of that, as you may learn.”[20]
“But that does not explain why you went into an arranged marriage,” Alisha asked quizzically.
“In short, my father was indebted to Paul’s family. They were also close family friends and it had always been assumed I would marry their eldest. But I met Theo…and he showed me things I had never before imagined. It nearly destroyed both of us when I had to marry Paul. And later, when I lost Paul and Theo at the same time…that did very nearly destroy me… but I had Niccolas and your father and of course Philip to look after,” she explained and finished off with a slight laugh.
Outside the caravan Paul stood with his back towards the far larger caravan that Princess Stephanie was travelling in positioned opposite them. Abi dismounted her large Arabian purebred horse, at least four hands higher than Paul’s Adrastos. She stood beside him as Tenno dismounted and stood the other side of Paul and both seemed to be looking each other up and down as Theodoric walked towards them. Princess Stephanie leaned nearer the small side window from inside her caravan to look out at the two tall strangers, bemused. She pulled away the delicate white lace cover from across her face as she looked on. Her short blonde hair hung loose with just a small section being tucked back under a thin gold headband. Her light blue eyes looked almost grey against her pale white skin. Just the first faint showing of lines edged the corners of her eyes belying her true age as she looked far younger than she was. Intently she tried to listen to what the two tall strangers were saying.
“This journey will not be easy,” Tenno stated very matter of factly.
“Tenno speaks the truth, Paul. And we should be thankful we have him with us,” Theodoric remarked and nodded briefly at Tenno. Tenno looked surprised to hear his comment. “’Tis a pity we shall not be honoured with Abi’s presence too.”
“I have other matters that I cannot put off that must be done. But I promise…as soon as I have fulfilled them, I shall find you all again,” Abi replied and looked at Paul as she placed her right hand upon his shoulder.
Tenno placed his left hand upon Paul’s other shoulder as Princess Stephanie looked on even more intrigued, especially by the tall young man stood between Abi and Tenno. Her mind wondered who the well dressed broad shouldered man was to solicit such clear respect from the two far taller individuals by his side. Was he nobility? Was he someone she had not heard of before? As she thought this, Paul sensed he was being watched and slowly turned his head and moved so he could look behind him. As his gaze fell upon her caravan, his eyes moved to look at the caravan’s small window. All he could see was a dark space but Stephanie quickly pulled away from it alarmed he had seen her. Abi and Tenno both turned their gaze towards the caravan as Theodoric stretched to see what they were looking at.