A sound escaped him; something that was not a scream, not a cry, but a wail of man’s deepest agony.
Gwyneth came rushing into the chamber; she fell to her knees before him, anxiously grasping his shoulders. “Bryan! What is it? Has the wound reopened? Are you ill? What—”
He looked up into her eyes, laughter flowed from him, hearty and deep. Too hearty; it mocked the anguish that darkened his eyes.
“She carries his child!” he exclaimed to her, and his laughter, self-scorning, rose again. “Blessed God! I have lain these nights in torment, wanting her, needing her . . . and she carried his child!”
Suddenly he saw Gwyneth’s beautiful dark eyes filling with tears before him. Gwyneth . . . who had cared for him, loved him. Gwyneth, who he had so easily left for Elise!
He grabbed her, crushing her to him. His lips came down on her savagely, and his hands roughly roamed her body, remembering a path of beauty he had roamed long ago.
She started at the savagery of his kiss; but then she returned it. And suddenly they were both rolling on the floor, tearing the clothing from one another. He felt no subtlety; no finesse. She needed to be loved as badly as he needed to love....
But when he rose over, about to take her like a stableboy would a peasant wench, the anger in him suddenly died. He withdrew, shaking as he sat beside her, holding his head between his hands again. This could not ease the heartache in him. Or cure him of desire and longing. It only wronged this woman who did not merit his anger or his violence. To whom he could not give his love, for it was already taken.
“I’m sorry, Gwyenth. I almost—I’m so sorry. You do not deserve . . . this.”
She was silent. Then she began to gather her clothing about her again.
“Bryan, you needn’t apologize. I would have willingly seduced you a number of times, had I had your attention. Perhaps . . . perhaps I am a little sorry that I cannot heal the real scar you carry. But . . . Bryan . . .”
“What?” He gazed at her, still feeling wretched. She had loved him; he had wanted only to use her. Revenge against a pain she had not caused. And he had learned the agony of loving . . . he would add to that pain for another.
She took a deep breath, steadying herself. “Did this messenger say that . . . that Elise carried Jalaha’s child.”
“What do you mean?” Bryan asked tensely.
“A physician seldom attends a woman at such a time . . . unless she is near giving birth.” Gwyneth laughed dryly. “Seldom even then, but if Jalahar considers her special . . . Bryan . . . hasn’t it occurred to you that the child might be yours?”
He stared at her pensively for a minute, then was on his feet, fumbling into his clothing. He raced for the door.
“Where are you going?” Gwyneth queried anxiously.
“To catch the messenger!”
* * *
He caught up with the little Arab as the man plodded slowly along on the trail leading from the town. The Arab flinched, cringing in his saddle.
“Don’t fear, man of Islam! I’ve no intent to harm you. I want to know more. When is the Christian woman’s child due?”
The Arab remained distrustful and nervous. He shrugged and answered carefully. “I am not exactly sure; I do not see her. But I believe it must be soon, for Azfhat remains at Muzhair.”
The little man froze in fear, certain that he had given the wrong answer, terrified that the dark, towering knight truly intended to kill him this time. For Bryan reached for him, but then laughed heartily and astounded the man by kissing him on both cheeks.
Truly the Christians were madmen.
“Thank you, my friend! Thank you!” Bryan cried, and as he rode away, he threw a handful of gold coins into the sand.
The Arab dismounted from his horse in amazement. Then he shrugged again, and grinned broadly as he began to dig the gold out of the sand.
Allah worked in mysterious ways.
* * *
In Richard’s palace at Acre, Gwyneth had hurriedly repaired her clothing, and was preparing to depart on her own impulse. She gathered a few belongings, then rang for a servant to bring her a quill and parchment.
She quickly began to scratch out a note:
Bryan,
I am going to Muzhair. They will allow me in, for I am a woman alone. This might sound insane, and you might doubt my motive, but I wish to be with Elise. She might well need a friend, and that I intend to be.
If God truly sits in heaven, and if things are ever righted, you will have your wife, and your child, again. I will never tell Elise anything. There is nothing to tell her in truth; you love her too dearly to love another. As your friend, I beg that you never say anything to her. She will believe that you are lying—but she will want you to lie.
I love you, and I love Elise. I pray that I am doing the right thing; I know that I wish to stand beside her and give her whatever aid that I can. Do not worry about me; you know that I always land on my feet.
Gwyneth
She set the note upon his pillow and smiled sadly. Then she hurried from the chamber, determined to catch Saladin’s messenger, so that she might find her way to the Moslem leader, and then to the home of his nephew.
* * *
Bryan returned to the palace in rare good humor. He strode on light feet to Richard’s council chamber, and even awaited the page’s announcement before barging in on his king.
When he was allowed entry, he walked determinedly to stand before the king. Richard glanced at him with a brow raised in expectation.
Bryan pulled his sword from his scabbard and laid it before Richard.
“I am ready to best you, Your Grace,” he challenged.
Richard stared at him a long while. Then he grinned slowly, and stood.
“I believe we can arrange for an empty courtyard. It wouldn’t do, you know, for men to see the Lion-Heart drop his sword. They believe that I am invincible.”
Together they went to the courtyard. No one knew what passed there, but the sharp clanging of swords rose high on the air.
XXVII
Elise awoke with the strange feeling that someone was watching her. She opened her eyes to see Gwyneth’s dark, sparkling eyes staring down into hers; a small grin curled her lips into a pretty set of amusement.
Elise stared at her blankly for several seconds. “I’ve died—and we’ve reached heaven or hell together.”
Gwyneth laughed. “Nay, Elise, you’re quite alive. And I must say, I do enjoy the sight of you! I’d never thought you could look anything other than the perfect slender sylph, but you do resemble the fattest friar I have ever seen!”
Elise flushed slightly, but laughed along with Gwyneth, still in wonder that Gwyneth could be sitting by her side in Jalahar’s palace. She raised herself awkwardly—in the past month it seemed that she had doubled in size—and asked, “How can you be here?”
“Very easily. I found my way to Saladin—who is, I might say, a fascinating and charming man—and thereby arrived here by escort.”
“But why?” Elise whispered. “Gwyneth, we may never be freed. Now that you are here, they may never allow you to leave!”
Gwyneth shrugged. “I’m not completely sure myself. Ah, well . . . Percy always did say that I was a bit of an adventuress.” She sobered. “I heard of your child, Elise. I thought that you might be in need of a friend.”
Elise stared at Gwyneth in wonder. A thousand questions raced through her mind. A thousand fears, a thousand worries. All about Bryan. Yet if Gwyneth had . . . taken her place with Bryan, why would she have come here?
Gwyneth read the questions in her eyes, and spoke quickly. “He is fine now, Elise. Bryan is fine. He had a long, dreadful bout with the fever, but he came from it, strong as always at last.”
She wasn’t going to cry, Elise told herself. She had shed so many tears already . . . but moisture stung her eyes.
“You nursed him through it?” she whispered to Gwyneth.
“I—and the Egyptian—yes.”
“Thank you,” Elise murmured, setting her teeth into her lower lip. Whatever had happened didn’t matter, because Gwyneth had helped to keep him alive . . .
But had he survived . . . only to die in battle?
“Gwyneth, what does Bryan think? What is he doing? Surely he knows that I am here. Gwyneth, the child is his, not Jalahar’s. Does he know that? Oh, I have been so torn! I thought that if he believed the child to be Jalahar’s, he might ride away, and therefore live; yet I do not know if I could bear his not knowing . . . not believing that he would come . . . Oh, Gwyneth! Tell me! Tell me about him—I am starved for the truth!”
Gwyneth hesitated, only a fraction of a second. “He is like all men,” she told Elise ruefully. “He was insane with fury to think of you with Jalahar, and when he first heard about the child . . .” She lifted her hands in explanation. “Men can also be as simple as children. His attention was directed to the fact that the child was due very soon . . . so I believe that he is convinced that his son is about to be born in another man’s palace.”
“What will he do?” Elise whispered.
Gwyneth shrugged. “Richard would allow him to do nothing—until he had completely regained his strength. But soon . . . soon he will gather the cream of the army and bring them against the palace.”
Elise fell back to her pillow, thrilling sweetly to the knowledge that he would fight for her, whether it was for love, or possession . . . or his child. But the tremors of delight were combined with darker shivers of fear; Bryan and Jalahar would most certainly seek out each other. One of them would die. Bryan had to win . . . but even that victory would bring pain, because she couldn’t help but care for the desert prince who had abducted her, but had shown her nothing but gentleness.
Still, she had to pray for his death. Because it would be Jalahar or Bryan.
“Does Jalahar know that you are here?” she asked Gwyneth. “Does he know that Bryan . . . will ride?”
“Aye, he knows I’m here,” Gwyneth said dryly. “No one is allowed near his golden prize without his permission. I am allowed to stay with you—as long as I know to leave the chamber the moment he walks in!”
“Did he . . . say anything when he knew for certain that Bryan would ride here?”
“His attitude seems very fatalistic. That appears to be the way of the Moslems. I think he has known all along that Bryan would come and that they would meet.”
“I had hoped that maybe . . . maybe knowing for a certainty that the Christian troops would be concentrated against his palace and domain, he would . . . release me.”
Gwyneth sighed. “I think, Elise, that you underestimate the power of a man’s pride—and desire.”
“I am not . . . worth this!” Elise murmured.
“Probably not,” Gwyneth replied cheerfully. She stood and began to amble curiously about the luxurious chamber, picking up the silver brush, glancing at the jeweled goblets on the Moroccan stand. “’Tis not such a bad prison!” she said softly.
Elise leaned back again. She had felt very tired lately, heavy and lethargic. At times her emotions were intense; at other times, she felt too weary and defeated to care about anything.
“’Tis a prison just the same,” Elise noted.
Gwyneth spun about and returned to her side, the sparkle back in her eyes as she asked, “What is he like, Elise?”
“What is who like?” Elise asked.
“Jalahar! Oh, come, Elise! You are a woman, not a stick! Surely he moves you! He is slim, but so solid! His features are handsomely arranged, and his eyes seem to strip a woman, touch her soul. Any but the blind could see that he knows how to touch . . . to love. To appreciate beauty . . .”
Elise stared at her friend and nemesis with amazement, and then understanding. She had felt the draw to Jalahar herself; only the depth of her love for Bryan had kept her from capitulating to the desert prince.
“There is little I can tell you that you don’t already know,” she said to Gwyneth. “He has never touched me.”
“Never . . . touched you?” Gwyneth repeated incredulously.
“He promised from the first that he would leave me in peace until Bryan’s child was born.” Elise glanced sadly at Gwyneth. “Bryan will never believe that, will he?”
Gwyneth grimaced, then shrugged. “Perhaps he will. He will want to believe it.” She smiled. “Now, get up.”
Elise closed her eyes. “For what?”
“Because it isn’t good for you or the child to lie about like a slug. You’ll make the birth all the more difficult.”
“Will that matter?” Elise asked wearily.
“Up!” Gwyneth insisted.
Elise discovered it was easier to give in than to fight.
* * *
On the morning of the last day of April, 1192, by the Julian calendar, Elise was awakened by a pain in her lower back that rivaled any she had ever known. She gasped, digging her fingers into the silken sheets, but she did not cry out. It was barely dawn; she stood, and shook as she tried to pour herself a goblet of water. But suddenly she felt as if she had been drowned in water herself; the crippling pain came again, and this time she cried out.
Gwyneth, tousled and heavy-eyed with sleep, came to her side quickly. “’Tis definitely time!” she said excitedly. “Stay still. I’ll find you a new gown, and call for Azfhat.”
Shivering, Elise did as she was told. Somehow, she had never quite believed she would actually give birth in the palace. In her dreams she had miraculously been freed, and when she had produced a beautiful and healthy son, Bryan had been at her side. Dreams were not reality; her babe was coming. Jalahar would force her decision; she could keep the child, or allow it to be brought to Bryan . . .
Thankfully, another physical pain swept her to ease the torment in her mind. Nature gave her but one objective; that to give the child birth.
Gwyneth was slipping the wet gown from her head, replacing it with a dry one. Her teeth chattered as she was led back to the bed. She vaguely heard Gwyneth pounding at the door; she heard whispers, and she closed her eyes.
Azfhat was with her when she opened her eyes, as blunt and gravely calm as always. “It will be a long time yet,” he told her. “Though not too long since you have lost the waters.” He lifted her head for her to drink something, assuring her that it would harm neither her nor the babe, but would take the edge from the pain.
The edge was gone; but misted pain remained. Hours passed.
Azfhat was then called away. Satima and Gwyneth were with her, cooling her forehead with cloths, encouraging her to breathe deeply. She heard Gwyneth whisper to Satima in her guttural, English accented French.
“Why has Azfhat gone?”
“Jalahar called him.” Satima shrugged with typical Moslem fatality. “He did not linger in the palace when his own sons were born. Today he leaves a battlefield, and he demands to know what takes so long, and why he hears her scream.”
Downstairs, in the elegant, fountain-laden inner courtyard, Jalahar paced the tiles and railed against the stoic physician.
“You are the physician—the greatest physician, the Egyptian scholar! Why is it that you can do nothing? If she dies, you will die! I will see you set amidst a pot of tar . . . boiled slowly!”
Azfhat sighed, unperturbed by the hot temper directed wildly at him. “She will not die, Jalahar. She suffers no more than any woman must. I can do nothing, because life must take its course. She screams because life is a painful process. Neither you nor even the great Saladin can order the child to come before it is ready—whether I am boiled in tar or not!”
Jalahar stared at the physician in pure frustration. Azfhat contained his laughter and refrained from shaking his head in wonder. Both the Christian knight and the desert prince . . . magnificent warriors, leaders of men—they were fools over the blond woman.
Azfhat shrugged mentally. That was the way of the world. He was too old and too cynical himself to fall to the spell of a beautiful face, yet e
ven he had felt hypnotized by the power of those eyes of an azure sea. She could not be blamed for bringing them all to ruin. She was already a legend to Moslems and Christians alike, the golden beauty who had lain over her husband and lover, and bargained for his life while he lay in a pool of blood.
Azfhat saw nothing but misery in the future. He had watched the Christian knight live by the power of his will; he had seen him battle his way to towering strength again by that same force.
And he knew Jalahar. When the two men came together . . .
Azfhat bowed. “If I have your leave, Jalahar, I will return to the woman, and offer the service that you require.”
“Go!” Jalahar thundered. Azfhat grimaced, then went to attend to Elise.
* * *
Although she was quite convinced she was dying—and that if someone would have offered to end it all with the swift blow of a sword, she would have welcomed that blow—Elise’s labor was relatively an easy one; the child was born well before dusk.
And when she heard the first cry, she was filled with such wonder that she would have gladly done it all over again.
“’Tis done—bear down but one time,” Azfhat told her.
“The babe—”
“Do as I say,” Azfhat commanded. The cord was cut, and the physician drew the afterbirth from her.
She vaguely saw Gwyneth cleaning and swathing the bundle, and she tried to sit. “Gwyneth! Give him to me, please!”
Gwyneth laughed with delight. “Him! Elise, it is a daughter, and she is beautiful. When it dries . . . yes, she will have an amazing full head of snow-blond hair, and her eyes . . . they are the deepest blue I have ever seen!”
“A daughter!” Elise exclaimed. “I had been so very sure it would be a boy.”
Gwyneth handed the babe carefully to Elise. Azfhat moved over to her with interest. “She will be a great beauty—and great trouble, I fear, as her mother!”
Elise glanced sharply at Azfhat, but an uncustomary grin took the sharpness from his words. He told her that he would leave her with her child, that she might hold the babe, but then should sleep.
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