She was stunned. "Alexandre, you had no need to surrender command . . ."
"No?" His eyes looked bleak. "When I returned, Richard made it quite clear to Philip that he no longer had faith in me. That is known as an invitation to resignation."
"Why did you not tell me?"
"Because, my dear, I assumed you would know. You have known every other move I have made. And if I do not make it quickly enough, you make it for me."
She felt hideously guilty; he was right. "Alexandre, I am sorry—" The rest of her apology was cut off by Saida's sudden appearance. The girl wore a green costume so outrageously provocative that for a moment both Alexandre and Liliane were taken aback. Liliane was the first to find her tongue. "Saida, leave us! How dare you contrive so shameless a display?"
The girl's painted smile crumpled. "Oh, I feared you would not approve!" She threw herself at Alexandre's feet. "My other clothes are soiled and these are the last I have to wear! I had not the heart, to send the servant boy back, for he had no more money and he wanted so to please me!" Curling to her knees, she grasped her bodice. "I shall tear this defilement from my body, my lord, if it displeases you! You have been so kind to me, and I have thanked you ill . . . ah, woe, I will tear my very flesh!" She wrenched at the bodice and, with a piteous wail, raked her nails across her generously revealed breasts.
Hastily, Alexandre caught her hand. "Saida, do no more damage! Your mistake is easily remedied. Do but put on more suitable garments: the yellow costume is fetching."
Saida clasped his hand to a rounded breast. "Ah, my lord, feel my beating heart and know I would do naught to willingly displease you!" Her sloe-shaped eyes became pools of inviting darkness. "Do what you will with me. I am yours."
Any man would have been understandably intrigued. When Alexandre's hand did not immediately move away, Liliane said sharply, "Enough repentance, Saida. Change."
Saida's eyes slanted toward Alexandre. "Do you truly find my attire offensive, my lord? Am I so frightfully ugly?"
Alexandre carefully removed his hand. "Few men would reprove such . . . feminine garments. Certainly, you are a pretty girl."
A fat tear seeped down Saida's cheek. "I am not pretty enough for so handsome a lord. I am most unworthy."
"Shall we find you a lord more appreciative?" Liliane suggested.
Saida's eyes went wide with apprehension, and Alexandre turned sharply to Liliane. "Do not threaten the girl. She is harmless enough."
"Particularly with her bodice fair dropped to her waist," Liliane retorted in French. "She is so distraught that she may trip on her nipples trying to dive into your braies."
He looked at her for a long moment. "You have plagued me by playing a man; will you burden me with a shrew, as well?"
Flinching with hurt, Liliane rose swiftly. "I shall burden you not at all. Do you wish me to leave you all together?"
"Nay," he said quietly. "Stay. The girl holds no interest for me, but perhaps you will be reminded of a woman's ways."
"Was I not woman enough when you took me to that place of whores?" she responded evenly.
"Satisfying a man's lust has little to do with being a woman. Hardened whores are scarcely women; they might as well be mules inured to burdens and indifference, so long as they claim their carrot: money." He looked at her levelly. "You, on the other hand, expect another carrot: revenge for Diego. I am your bait; so long as your uncle and cousin go for me, you have a chance to prove they killed Diego and go for their throats. I am in too many ways incidental."
Liliane had gone pale. "I once meant to use you as much as guard you, but no longer, and you know it. Do you want to hate me?"
"Perhaps I do," he murmured. "I do not know anymore . . . and I wonder if you know what you want." He waved to a cushion next to Saida, who was desperately trying to decipher what they were saying. "Please, sit. We both are tired. Have some brandy wine." He took up the pitcher and poured as Liliane sagged numbly down on the cushion. In the face of his bitterness and disillusionment as well as her own pain, she did not know how to deal with his changes in mood. Logic told her she ought to fight them, but the rapidly growing fear that she had irretrievably lost him in Saladin's camp made her defensive. Kiki, sensing her unhappiness, crept to her side.
Spotting the monkey, Saida made a face and edged closer to Alexandre. "My lord, I am afraid of that creature. When you are not about to reprimand it, it tries to bite me. The nasty beast has even made its foul turds in my bed." She clung to his arm. "Please, my lord, I beg you, send it away."
Alexandre glanced questioningly at Liliane. "Do not look at me," she muttered in French. "Kiki recognizes a sow and her wallow readily enough."
"She also knows you dislike the girl," he replied evenly. "Send the monkey away. For one night at least, we shall do without fleas in our food."
"The fleas are more likely Saida's—" Liliane's defiant defense of her pet was cut off by the entrance of Alphonse with a platter of savory lamb, okra and fruit. As he settled the platter on the linen, he smiled and tried to catch Saida's eye. She ignored him. Liliane eased Kiki behind her and when serving herself, slipped the monkey a ripe pomegranate to keep it occupied and out of sight. She was sure Alexandre knew of Kiki's. presence, but probably being no more anxious for another quarrel than she, he seemed willing to accept a compromise.
After the deflated Alphonse left, she and Alexandre began to eat, while Saida, in Saracen fashion, waited for them to be done before she took her share. In the silence, small, sticky smacks sounded behind Liliane. Saida's eyes narrowed. To cover Kiki's noise, Liliane began to chew with unnecessary relish.
A glimmer of a smile quirked Alexandre's lips. With slow deliberation, he selected a pear and bit it with dramatic salaciousness. Their meal soon sounded as if its every morsel were drowned in soup. Kiki pinched Liliane for another piece of fruit.
"Are you uncomfortable, my lord?" Saida queried sweetly at Liliane's start. "Shall I fetch you a less verminous pillow?"
"As the rest of our pillows are piled upon your bedding, I think not" was the equally sugary reply. "So many lively specks have collected there, you might consider training the rascals to perform." Liliane smiled wolfishly as she palmed Kiki a plum. "Your chaste nights may also prove less dull when devoted to innocent industry. Why chafe for lovers when a multitude of entertaining companions gambol through your sheets?"
Saida's eyes lowered demurely. "Perhaps I shall take your advice, my lord. It must be wise, as you seem to speak from bitter experience. How sad to have no companion for your bed"—her eyes cut coquettishly to Alexandre—"no soft flesh to comfort you, no red lips and round breasts to make your manhood fierce and proud." She cut a harder glance at Liliane. "If I do not wash, it is to preserve the alluring perfume of my woman's parts. Any man not dead knows that scent and its promise of rich fulfillment." She wrinkled her nose in delicate distaste. "Soap smells of pig grease and lye. What enticement lies in that?"
"I have never noted that rancid musk holds any particular enticement," drawled Liliane. "Rather, it ranks offensively with the effluvium of goats and mildewed cheese. Add a strong whiff of acrid mule sweat and one has an urge more to puke than to pursue."
Alexandre, who had been bemusedly gnawing a tough chunk of mutton while the women bickered, now hastily intervened as Saida acquired a warlike glint in her eye. "Enough, friend Jefar. We shall all have our stomachs turned at this rate. Besides, Saida is unused to having a supply of water sufficient for bathing in the desert." He gave Saida a polite but pointed smile. "As we are not currently lacking in water, an occasional bath will not much diminish your attractions. I must admit that, like Jefar, I prefer less heady scents from the women about me when I am on military campaign." With disarming Gallic charm, he kissed Saida's hand. "Surely, you would not wish me to be so distracted that I may lose my head?"
You have already lost it! thought Liliane, seeing red as he grinned at the giggling Saida. Jealousy and frustration wracked her. "Alexandre," she sai
d sharply in French, "you forget yourself!"
His head turned slowly, his blue eyes icy. "Perhaps I am remembering. There was a time when there were no kings and wives in my life. Why begrudge me a little nostalgia?"
Liliane went white and Saida gave her a triumphant smile. In taut, miserable silence, Liliane watched Saida grow more open in her advances to Alexandre, his gallantries and flattery to her more lavish. He is teaching his headstrong wife a lesson, Liliane told herself bleakly. A hard lesson she would never forget; one her pride and heart found unendurable.
Something was dying in her as she watched them. In these last two years, her love for Alexandre had become the center of her life. Now her splendid, comforting dream was twisting into a nightmare. For many long months, she had lived beyond her strength as a soldier. For three nights now, she had not slept. The last, fragile barrier that had kept her sane in the midst of lonely, hideous destruction crumbled away. Her mind filled with ghosts of the children she and Diego had never had, Diego's death, Alexandre's desertion . . . losses. She had failed everyone!
Saida's coy laughter knelled the end of her marriage; there would be other Saidas. Hereafter, Alexandre's happiness could only be bought at the price of her obedience, and obedience belied her nature. For love of him, she might lie and feign docility . . . but she'd inevitably end by hating him as much as herself. She had no desire to return to France; nothing at Castle de Brueil would be the same again, except that it would be more of a prison than before.
Liliane watched Alexandre, wondering how she could ever bear to live apart from him. His every gesture, every word, felt its hook within her heart. Upon their first meeting, she had been drawn to his lively, wild air, to his mischief and vulnerability, to his strength and poetry. Aye, thief he had been, despite his lands and title; he had stolen her heart easily and she would never have it back again, nor would his heart ever be wholly hers again. Since Acre, he had subtly changed. His face, drawn beneath its tan, had lost its boyish look. His wit was undiminished but had grown acerbic beneath its charm. He seemed withdrawn, unaware of her, even of Saida. Since her coming to Palestine, she knew he had tried to stifle his building resentment with smooth detachment until he could ignore her interference no longer. Neither of them would ever forget the moment when he had been ridiculed by friend and enemy alike; that ridicule had hurt him far more than Richard's chastisement.
Yes, Liliane thought with tears welling in her eyes, he could easily learn to hate me, too. That is one failure I could not survive.
Kiki clambered up Liliane's back and caressed her face. At her lack of response, the little creature peered into her eyes, then scrambled about to follow her blind, wretched gaze at Alexandre. Saida was kissing him. For a moment, Alexandre did not move, then just as his hand lifted, either to press her away or embrace her, Kiki uttered a furious, whistling shriek. She leaped upon the girl's shoulders, catching her by the hair and slamming an overripe peach against her back. With a scream of rage, Saida flailed out at the monkey. When Kiki scampered out of reach, chittering with fury, Saida jumped to her feet to grab a censer. Whirling it by the chain, she took aim at her tormentor. Before the flaming censer loosed, Alexandre swiftly rose and caught her wrist. "Will you burn the very tent with your rash temper?"
"He set the vicious creature on me!" Saida snarled, her pretty face twisted with rage as her finger jabbed past his arm. "Reprove your precious Jefar!"
Alexandre turned abruptly, a curt reprimand on his lips, but saw only Kiki hurling imprecations from an empty pillow. His precious Jefar had gone.
Chapter 12
~
The Fall of Souls
Acre
Alexandre searched for Liliane for many days—so many that they ran together. Even the news that Acre was about to surrender gave him no joy. He combed the camp and searched the brothels without luck. He saw no sign of her on the beach by day, and if she were there by night, he began to mink she must have buried herself in sand. If Liliane had taken to the beach, he worried that she might have fallen prey to Saracen night marauders. She might now be lying in the stinking, common grave at the edge of the marsh.
Gradually, as his hope of finding Liliane faded, Alexandre came to believe that if she were not dead, she might have joined a northbound caravan or taken passage with one of the lateeners for southern Europe. Indeed, Alexandre hoped Liliane had gone, for the only plea she had ever made of him haunted his mind like a plaintive, never-ending whisper: "Do not cast me away in this wilderness. I fear I should never find my way back to you."
He had not only abandoned her, he had driven her away as surely as if he had struck her. He scarcely knew what had possessed him. Granted, he had been coldly angry and determined to show her that she might not tamper with his life as she pleased. As past slaps on the wrist had not daunted her, the demonstration had to be harsh, but he had not meant to go so far. He could happily strangle Saida, but the fault was his own. An explosion would inevitably have occurred between him and Liliane; Saida's flirtations had merely hastened it.
The days grew hotter, the mosquitoes unbearable, and still the city walls stood. The fighting became concentrated in pockets. Sappers fought toe to toe in the torchlight of their mole tunnels and in the great red sun; the crusaders fried in their armor as they held off Saracen attacks from the desert. Disease and fever swept the camp; one in five died. Hatred for those who kept resisting festered among the besiegers.
We are like a putrid boil on the land, Alexandre thought wearily. Like a sickness, we do not belong here. By all that is holy, I want to go back to the green fields and forests of home!
But it was less home he missed than Liliane. What if he never saw her again? Certainly, she would not return to Provence. What could she think it held for her now besides suspicious peasants, a seneschal who thought her a traitor and, when this infernal war was done, a husband who had no love for her?
He would probably never see Liliane again. That idea became a conviction, fixed in his brain like a dark obsession. He imagined her in a thousand places; in none of them was he at her side; in none of them, did she look at him with the trust and longing he needed from her. Her face was distant now, remote as one of the cold Alpine peaks that hid in the mists north of Castle de Brueil. He was alone again, more fearfully than he had ever dreamed. Without Liliane, he would be alone until he died. All Saida's allurements and contrivances for sympathy left him as untouched as trackless tundra. In the midst of this heat, he was encased in ice, preserved for . . . what?
Philip sought Alexandre's company often now that he drifted like an indifferent ghost about the camp. "Your friend Jefar has probably grown weary of this tedious business and deserted," Philip commented lightly. ' 'He may even have been the spy, your spy, who contrived to have you all captured." He put an arm about Alexandre's shoulders. "Come, do not be glum. I have missed you at my table. We must be more together."
"I am in disgrace," Alexandre replied tonelessly.
"Fa! Do you suppose I hold you responsible for that, raid fiasco? Leave scapegoats to Richard. He likes things neady tied; you were the knot, that is all. Acre will be sewn up in a day or two; then his pique will be forgotten. You will ride beside me as you have always done."
As I have always done, Alexandre thought dully. Forever and forever. "Thank you, sire. I want nothing else but to die in your service."
Philip eyed him sharply. "That is a two-edged remark. You are no use to me with your tail between your legs. What was this scurvy Jefer to you?
"A friend; perhaps better than I deserved."
"Leave what you deserve to me from now on." Philip's voice was flat. "You could do much worse than have a king for a friend."
"I am grateful for Your Majesty's interest."
"You had better be." Philip's light tone had returned. "Richard always goes for an enemy's throat. I can wait until the back is turned."
And so Alexandre returned to the royal table, but Philip's last words haunted him. What if Lil
iane had not gone? What if she had been stabbed in the back by her uncle and cousin? What if one of the raiders sworn to silence had revealed her identity and so sealed her death warrant with the Signes? He went looking for Louis.
Ten feet from the Signes' tent, Alexandre met an impressive guard in the darkness of the hovel alley. He closed his hand unobtrusively about his dirk haft, ready to prick the man's kidneys should he prove difficult.
"Do not be hasty, my lord," murmured the big man. "I serve not the Baron de Signe. I am King Philip's man. His majesty doesn't think you ought to settle accounts owing for that raid just yet ... or anything else. He wants his nobles quiet and agreeable during the peace settlement. Diplomacy." His hand settled on his sword. "You know how it is."
Alexandre's lips tightened. Diplomacy might be diplomacy, but he suspected also that Philip, possessive as usual, did not want him to find Jefar. Philip knew something, but what?
Alexandre turned back to the royal tent. Philip was alone, ready for bed. He flopped back against his silken pillows with a careless air, but his eyes were wary. "So, ami, you are still wandering about tonight. Why so restless?"
"I am troubled by a question, sire," Alexandre said quietly. "I believe you have the answer."
Philip shrugged. "Possibly, but then I have never taken the divinity of kings seriously. Perhaps you should apply to the all-seeing Richard."
"Richard is not my friend."
"Ah." Philip smiled. "You are in a pickle. Friendship is blind."
SSI hope not, in this case. Jefar has left, taking something I cannot do without. Do you know where I may find him?"
"He is a thief?"
"No, he had more right than any to the thing he took. Mine is an errand of . . . persuasion."
"Did yon also seek out Louis de Signe tonight on an errand of persuasion?"
"I sought Jefer."
Philip casually lifted a goblet of ambrosia. "Jefar is beyond your reach."
Alexandre stiffened. "Where?"
A Flame Run Wild Page 29