"My lord, all is ready. Will you dine now?"
"Dine?" He had not eaten since noon of the previous day, yet not even a murmur of hunger disturbed his stomach. "No. Celebrate among yourselves." He paused. "What word of Jefar el din?"
"Naught, my lord. I sent two men who found no sign of him there or upon the field. That is not to say he is not dead. Before the men began to search, the guards had already thrown many corpses into the marsh."
Alexandre watched the flickering of the last red light on the water. It had long ago occurred to him that he might never know what had happened to Liliane; might never know whether she was dead or alive. That terrible uncertainty would be his punishment for the rash episode with Saida that had driven Liliane from him. Already the uncertainty was unbearable. "Leave me, Yves. I will see no one else tonight."
After Yves had gone, Alexandre waited until the last glimmers died from the sea and dusk was murky, then he rose in a single motion. In a few minutes, the rooftop was empty. Alexandre crept catlike over the tiled parapet of the neighboring house and vanished into Acre's labyrinth. He searched for Liliane but found only soldiers bent on making revelry, pillaging and finding whores. Drunken quarrels were rampant; street fights erupted, the sergeants blind to the disorder. In a few days, Richard would hang a few troublemakers to restore order, but that night the men were given no restraint A few inhabitants who had escaped the afternoon slaughter were dragged from their hiding places and put to the sword. Women were raped and likewise dispatched.
Alexandre's absence from the villa did not go unnoticed. Yves, uneasy about his strange, depressed mood, crept to the rooftop an hour or so after darkness had fallen. After worriedly checking the cobbles on the street below, Yves searched the master bedchamber, then the rest of the villa. The guards confirmed that Alexandre had not left by the gate. Alexandre's peculiar behavior coupled with his disgrace in Richard's court might bring the whole household into difficulty. Yves called the servants together. "In the next day or so, admit no one to the villa and say the master is out, whether or not it is true."
"What if a summons comes from their majesties?" a hostler inquired.
"Say the count is ill with a shaking fever. No prudent soul who cares for his own health will demand proof."
Alexandre returned by dawn, but during the next few days, he pursued the habits of a vampire, spending his days hidden from the sight of man, his nights prowling the city and eating almost nothing. Yves and the household became convinced he was losing his mind.
During that time they had a few callers, who left swiftly upon being told of Alexandre's ailment. A page sent from Philip inquired every morning after Alexandre's health. On Thursday, they received a caller less diplomatic: Louis de Signe; Signe refused to be turned away without seeing Alexandre.
"I come upon a private matter," he insisted. "It is most important."
Signe was the last person Yves wanted to admit to the house. Courteously, but firmly, he refused. "If you like, milord, I shall relay your message to the count when he is improved."
Louis scowled. "You would do well to grant me audience now, you presumptuous peasant. Delay upon this matter will cost your master ill, and you worse."
Yves spread his hands in Gallic helplessness. "What can I do, milord? I have my orders."
Louis grunted, looking thoughtful. "A few persons are beginning to suggest in Richard's court that your master may be dead"—he stared appraisingly at Yves—"and that his household wishes to keep its creditors away by pretending he is ill. Could that be so?"
Yves fidgeted. "He knew perfectly well those "few persons" at court would be the Signes, eager to clutch at any straw in their hopes of finding Alexandre dead. "Milord, these rumors are unfounded," he protested. "I went over the household accounts myself this morning. We owe no one and have no reason to fabricate such a tale."
"You," Louis said grimly, "are a liar and a villain. The Brueil signet has been used twice already this, week to establish credit at the brothel of the Gilded Leopard. The count was nowhere near the place and the accounting has not been paid."
"What!" stammered Yves, confused and horrified. Alexandre was not rich; in no way could he afford for some villain to run up bills in his name. "Milord's ring must have been stolen!"
"Stolen, bah! Who is to say you yourself are not responsible?"
"Me?" Yves was no longer able to hide his anger. "Me!"
"You are in charge of feeding Brueil's household, are you not? What do you suppose was purchased at the Leopard?"
Yves flushed red with irritated impatience. "We are both men, milord! What else would one want at the Leopard besides—"
"Milk!" Louis crowed triumphantly. "Milk, you thieving wretch!"
Yves turned utterly blank. "Milk? At the Leopard?" From an abyss of confusion, he found a feeble rebuttal. "Milord, we are men-at-arms. We do not drink milk."
"Ah-ha!" Louis marched off with his guardsmen.
Milk. Ah-ha. Louis de Signe. At length, Yves decided that matters had reached such a dire point that he must speak with his master. Gently. And hope that Alexandre had enough wits left to put the situation right.
"Milk," said Alexandre, after Yves had rather vaguely explained everything.
"Milk, milord." Yves's face took on a wistful air. "Can you make anything of it?"
Alexandre stared at his forefinger and meditatively twisted the signet that matched Liliane's ring. Then a slow smile began to creep over his face. "Children," he said softly. "Babies."
Yves's hopes sank. "Milord?"
Alexandre ignored him. His dark face had taken on the light of a sunrise! He leaped to his feet. "Babies! I might have known!" Firmly, he seized Yves and kissed him on both cheeks. "You splendid old fart! By heaven, I could almost kiss Louis today!"
You might better nest with the barn owls, Yves decided hopelessly. The featherdown of your poor brain wouldn't weight a moth.
Contrary to Yves's morose judgment, the moth had wisdom enough not to venture out until dark. Alexandre knew enough to remain bait. Louis had a whiff of something and it smelled of milk. Babies had to be fed frequently. If Liliane were aiding abandoned babies and had found a supply of milk at the Gilded Leopard, she would return there. Louis would lie in wait to capture the bearer of the signet for evidence; he would not carelessly carry a tale of Alexandre's death to Philip.
By nightfall, Alexandre had taken up a position at the open-air tavern across from the Gilded Leopard. He was scarcely settled when he spied a small, furtive shape scampering across the brothel roof. It disappeared into an upper-floor window. Another few minutes passed, then several of Louis's men filtered into the tavern and took places by its windows. They paid no attention to his scabbed, eye-patched face among the other battered ones gathered there. More of Louis's crew drifted to inconspicuous locations across the street. The small shadow emerged from the brothel window and, more swiftly than before, slunk across the tiles to Jump to an adjoining rooftop.
"There's the little fox," hissed a man near Alexandre. "Let's go!"
Alexandre, who by this time knew the city by night better than Louis's men, led the chase. He followed at a discreet distance until the chase grew hot, always keeping himself between the fox and the hounds. With Alexandre close at his heels, the fox was joined by the rest of his litter; they conferred for a few moments under a wizened acacia, then raced off in a pack. Alexandre started after them, then heard a yell from across the tiny square.
"There they are!"
Thinking quickly, he yelled back, "You'll never catch me, you clumsy lummoxes!" And darted down the near alley.
"Who's that?" snapped a voice.
"Don't know," returned another. "Must be one of them. Let's split. You take that one, I'll take the kids."
"Oh, that's nice," the first retorted ironically. "I draw the only one big enough to use a sword!" He sped off after Alexandre, which was foolish, for he died two minutes later.
Alexandre returned to the square to re
cover the scent, but the children were taking sharp evasive action. They had lost their pursuit a few streets away. One pursuer was ferreting about the alleys when Alexandre strolled up to him. "Any signs of them?"
The guard took him for one of his companions. "No, but it may not signify much. Xenobia has a fair idea of where they'll go to ground. Come with me."
The guard led him to the cesspit on the far fringe of the bazaar. "We'll wait here for the others. They'll be along quick enough."
Alexandre looked at the black mouth of the cesspit. "The brats have been hiding in here, eh?"
"Here and a dozen other rat holes around here, likely. Thieving little bastards. It is time the city was cleaned of them."
But not by you, thought Alexandre, slipping out his dirk. One quick slit and he would be down the tunnel before the exterminators.
He was not quick enough; the pursuit arrived, first a few men, then small groups until they numbered above twenty. Louis was among them. He scanned the faces, probably to make sure he was getting his money's worth. His glance flickered over Alexandre, flickered back, then moved on. "Move quickly now," he instructed the men. "I do not wish to warn them." He divided the men into three bands. Alexandre and a few other men were to take the entrance near the bazaar, the others winging out a few squares beyond it.
Alexandre made sure he was in the lead, a small torch in his left hand, his neck prickling as he entered the monstrous blackness. He would have preferred to take on Saladin's whole army than enter the tunnels. His skin was as clammy as the stinking walls. He forced himself to move quickly ahead, blinking-for his eyes to adjust. He had to reach the children before the other men located them.
Then he heard noises and high-pitched, furtive whispers ahead. The children! His throat tightened. He made an Unnecessary splash, stepping into a puddle of muck, and scraped his sword along the wall, hoping to frighten the children away. The men behind him were too close. Hearing running footsteps ahead, he Hung himself to the ground as if he had fallen accidently and blocked the tunnel. His torch went out, plunging them into blackness. "Hey, look out!" he called to avoid being trampled from behind. "I stumbled. Give me a minute."
Two men tumbled over him, barely catching themselves by grabbing at the walls. "Get up, you damned idiot," hissed one. "The brats are just ahead; you can hear them."
Alexandre fumbled at their knees. "Where?"
"Ahead you fool! Get up or I'll slit your gizzard where you are."
Alexandre sliced the thug's femoral artery. As the doomed man grabbed his leg and howled in terror, the men behind him hesitated. The sound echoed in the tunnel like the shriek of some vile monster.
Distracted by the racket, the other thug swung wildly with his sword at the murky darkness ahead of him. Alexandre's counter-stroke took him off at the knees. Another guard came just behind him, then another, their torches silhouetting the man before them and leaving Alexandre to strike from the shadows. Alexandre backed up, taking them one at a time. His arms grew weary, his heart swollen, his hands bloody and treacherously slippery on his sword hilt. As he retreated inch by inch, he heard sounds of fighting behind him. Steel sang. Someone's sword was defending the other end of the tunnel against Louis's mob, a Saracen sword by the high music of it.
Alexandre redoubled his efforts, but knew that he could not last more ton a few minutes. He was too tired, and there were too many of them. Then the sword behind him had ceased to sing, and hideous silence reigned. He'd retreated quickly to overtake the defender's vantage point before it swarmed with the enemy and cat him off. In his urgency, he'd stumbled, fell backward upon a soft body. A lock of hair was silky beneath his neck. A woman, he'd thought distractedly as he warded off a blow that came down unexpectedly from his left. His arms heavy, he'd dispatched his attacker, then shoved himself up. His whole body tingled with the sensation of having touched someone familiar. He smelled a faint, elusive scent tot inexplicably made him long not to die alone—to see Liliane just once again. And then a flicker of torchlight had distantly glimmered in the tunnel, and beneath his bloody hands he saw the golden silk of her hair Liliane's hair. In the next heartbeat, he'd caught her to him and fled with her.
Now . . . now he was staring at the debris blocking the tunnel, and he was brought back to the present. Hope seeped out of him like Liliane's blood over his fingers. He backed away from the cave-in, stumbling down another tunnel. He heard to sounds of Louis's men closing behind him. He came to a halt, knowing he must turn now and face the baying pack if he were not to let them take him and Liliane like cornered, toothless cats. In the darkness, he imagined her hair in the sun as she worked on the unicorn and golden leopard tapestry at Castle de Brueil. He rubbed his cheek against the silky curls spilling across her shoulder. "We were fitter mates than I knew, my fair love," he whispered. "If there be a God, let Him have more mercy than justice, and not keep me from you. . . ."
"Dither on," a youthful voice mocked nearly at his ear, "and Allah will display his mercy quick enough."
At Alexandre's violent start, the voice crackled, and above a small candle, the face was a disembodied mask of Pan. "Come on, do you think we have all night to wait for those clods? Follow and be quick!"
Alexandre, who had never in his life taken an order except from father and king, did not pause to quibble. He followed with desperate haste. His guide followed one tunnel after another with the certainty of a ferret. Shielded by his leader, the candle glow was hard to follow, and he knew his and Liliane's own bulk would block it entirely from their pursuers. At length, they emerged behind the ruined mosque in the old quarter. In the faint moonlight, Alexandre was unsurprised to see a child before him. The boy looked as if he were about eleven, scruffy and hard-eyed.
"I am the oldest, so I stayed," the boy announced as if someone had accused him of some crime. He stepped closer, then swore. "So Jefar's a woman! I should have guessed. No man would have bothered with all those babies!" His voice held a sharp note of disillusionment, then turned husky. "That's a mess. She alive?"
Unoffended by the boy's bluntness, Alexandre shook his head tiredly. "I think so. I have not had time to find out how much damage has been done."
"Haven't got the time now, either. Come on. I know a place." The urchin headed into the ruined portion of the mosque, then down a steep, narrow flight of steps that crumbled away into a tiny room with a partly collapsed ceiling. One wall was a hill of rubble. "You were on to other side of this in the cesspit," to boy commented. Near the wall was inlaid a geometric design in colored stone. He pressed a triangle below the center, and without a sound even after centuries of neglect, the wall swung back a span. "In here."
In to light of the boy's candle, the dilated eyes of several children squatting on to floor looked enormous. Each of to children bore a baby on his back. One baby was awake, glassy-eyed and apathetic as if it had been given a narcotic. The children scrambled back in terror at to sight of Alexandre's clothes, crying in Arabic tot he was an infidel. As he closed the stone, Alexandre's guide swore at them. "Shut up! Shut up, you gibbering monkeys. He's all right." Faint disgust edged his voice as he jerked his head at Alexandre's burden. "He came after her. "
"Her? Jefar el Din?!" Shocked curiosity got the better of fear as they stared.
Ignoring them, Alexandre laid Liliane on the floor and pressed his fingers to her temple. Their eyes on his pale, tense face, to children waited. "Well," the eldest finally demanded, "is she dead?"
"No," Alexandre replied softly. "Thanks to you, she is not."
"That ought to be worth a few dinars to you." The boy shrugged at Alexandre's hardening expression. "No need to be offended. She would pay me if she had any money left. Paid passage up the coast for most of the old wrecks and kids down there. Paid for them, too." The boy nodded at the other children. "Only they will not likely leave tonight." He gazed at Alexandre with complacent familiarity. "Where have you been, anyway? Chasing shadows?"
"All my life, I think." Alexandre tore cloth f
rom Liliane's aba and began to pack it against the seeping wound in her side. Suddenly his head lifted. "Shh. I hear something."
The boy nodded and whispered, "Our friends from the tunnels. Do not worry; they cannot hear us if we keep our voices down."
"Are you certain?"
The boy nodded. "I found this place three years ago. Think I would not check it out?"
"Why did you not hide here instead of the cesspits?"
"If we are stuck here long enough, you will find out." He briefly held his nose. "No air after a few hours. Less with so many people. The air shafts must have stopped up with debris after a few centuries.'' He jerked his head toward a pile of crumbling bones in a dark corner. ' 'When I found him, I knew something was wrong with the place. The problem wasn't the sealing block, so ..." He sidled over to peer at Liliane's wound with the practicality of one accustomed to death. "Nasty." Liliane's hair fascinated him. "She is as much Turk as you. Why would she dress like a man to live in a sewer and look after a raggedy bunch like us?"
"She was weary of war and did not want anyone else to die."
"She is a little crazy, isn't she? In war, it is a lot easier to kill than save lives. Wars are for killing." He sat back on his heels. "She could fight, though. I never thought a woman could really fight." His head jerked around as one of the babies whimpered. "Shut that brat up! Give it some more wine."
They waited two hours; the air was becoming unbearably close. At length, Alexandre stood up. "I must go outside to see if our friends have left."
His savier, who called himself Raschid, jumped up. "No, that's my job. I know the mosque and all the streets around here. I'll be less easy to spot than you."
A Flame Run Wild Page 33