“Even to regard your nocturnal ventures with complaisance, fair Rodriga?” inquired another voice behind them, a high clear voice as well-known to her as hers must be to its owner. She whirled, and Marco sprang to her side, dagger gleaming in the dark. The wench squealed.
“And how does your valiant father, whose illness grants you such opportunities?” Lothaire de Gallenard inquired. Rodriga made no reply, but her brain was working fast. He could not have seen her at the House of the Black Girl, and no one could have followed Marco’s course through the alleys of Acre; this must be a chance encounter.
The knight laughed and came closer. “What, quite bereft of speech, most eloquent demoiselle? How much does your doting sire know of your alley-prowling after dark? And which course, I wonder, would be mere liberally rewarded; to inform him, or not to inform him? Nay, have you nothing to offer me for my silence, chaste Rodriga? To bind me to keep your secrets as my own?”
He might have been surprised to know that a gesture from her would impel a knife into his belly; Marco waited for a word or sign. Rodriga wasted no time on protestations or denials which would merely have amused her tormentor, and she thought too highly of Marco to hang him for this reptile. She said nothing whatever, a disconcerting reaction. It seemed to disconcert Sir Lothaire, for he came closer and tried to peer under her shrouding cloak.
“Smitten dumb, fair flower of Spain? Shall I disclose our meeting to your father, or to your bashful lover?”
“You disclose only the foulness of your own false judgments,” she answered contemptuously, and turned from him.
“Oh, not so fast! Am I not to felicitate the man who has won what you deny me?” He peered in the dark at the silent Marco, and all his mocking langour deserted him. His oath exploded in the narrow street. “Hell and the Devil devour you both, you little bitch! Is this whoreson Saracen the bed-fellow you prefer?”
At that Marco moved, and she flung herself across him at his knife-arm, crying sharply, “No!” He obeyed her instantly, for which she thanked God, since she had doubted that her intervention would serve, and she let go of the muscle-corded wrist she clutched and straightened. “Get you gone!” she commanded fiercely. “Carry your filthy slanders where you please, but have a care they are not rammed down your gullet and your tongue after them!”
He recovered himself, taking pleasure from her fury, and she heard him laugh. “But consider, sweet demoiselle! If that gallows’-meat is your champion, what will your fame be? But I am not yet your enemy, Rodriga. The Saints have you in their keeping, sweet neighbour, until the morning!” He rapped on the door of the large house, and it opened to him at once.
No one spoke until Marco bolted the stable-gate behind them. “Why did you stop me, my lady?”
“You are worth too much to hang for that serpent!”
“Waste indeed,” he agreed pleasantly, and melted into the darkness. Rodriga turned to the snivelling girl who waited on her pleasure. “Yes, now I must deal with you,” she said grimly. “Come with me, and I shall find you water and ointment.”
CHAPTER XII
Rodriga saw no reason for troubling her father with the tale of the night until he woke, when Urraca went to him squalling that a trollop from the stews had been introduced into his chaste household. He heard his daughter out without a word of anger or reproach, not being addicted to futile recriminations, and at the end questioned her minutely as to two matters only; Wulfric’s insanity and Giacomo’s courteous reception. Reassured that she had not had to face insult and that none but Giacomo had seen her in his establishment, he grunted in satisfaction.
“Do not see what else you could have done, lass. Sooner see Wulfric wedded to the slut than hanged for it, and your judgment is dependable. Keep the wench hard at work and give her no leisure for misdoing. Who knows, she may be thankful to live honestly!”
“Will you see the girl, father?”
“Yes, fetch her in. And then the eager bridegroom, before you send them off to the priest. Lord Above, girl, do not look so doubtful! They wed to please themselves, and why should we fret ourselves about their choice?”
The girl was miserable and apprehensive after a wakeful night in the anteroom spent nursing her weals; Giacomo’s methods of enforcing discipline were rigorous indeed. She came trembling into Landry’s presence, wet-eyed and whimpering a little, and answered his questions in a frightened whisper, dipping a curtsey at each. Her name was Helga; she had come with her parents from Swabia, serving a knight in the late Emperor Frederick Barbarossa’s train; her mother had died in childbirth on the journey and the baby with her, and her father shortly after the survivors of that ill-fated expedition had reached Acre. She had been taken under the protection of a Flemish knight, but he had wearied of her and abandoned her. After that she had had no other refuge but the brothel.
She plucked up spirit as the questioning proceeded and she found that the formidable old lion on the bed of cushions was more genial than his first appearance promised. She even ventured to smile timidly and to offer of her own accord that she would always strive to please him, an offer that, as Landry afterwards remarked, could be interpreted in more ways than one. Rodriga, inclining a little to charity, reserved judgment. She felt sorry for the wench, hurled suddenly into a censoriously respectable household. Her tale fitted with what Giacomo had told of her and was probably true.
Landry heaved himself up and delivered his verdict. “What you have been concerns us no longer; put that behind you. Wulfric is a true man and will make you a good husband. See to it that you are a worthy wife. This is an honest household, and I will have no harlotry therein. Pray God to bless your marriage and bring you to atonement.”
To Wulfric, incoherently stammering gratitude, delight and indignation, he said only, “My daughter ventured into the House of the Black Girl for your sake and brought out your wench. See to it that she does not regret it. Keep your wife in a decent order. God’s blessing on your marriage, and may He bring you better sense.”
Sense and Wulfric were far apart. He had his heart’s desire, and was divided between adoration of her and of Rodriga who had obtained her for him. His passionate gratitude engendered a curious shame in Rodriga, who reckoned disillusion inevitable, and who had to contrast Helga’s contempt last night for a one-handed cook with this morning’s expressions of eternal devotion and longing to share his labours. She had no valid excuse for evading the marriage ceremony, and indeed derived considerable entertainment from the futile endeavours of all concerned to veil or disguise the purple splendour of the bride’s right eye. Afterwards there was also the satisfaction of seeing her shed tears over a basket of onions, even though Urraca was thereby granted leisure to use her tongue.
Once the household had settled to normal she could return to her father. Though the fierce heat had not slackened, and the snow had long since melted, he was visibly mending, and chafing at his helplessness. “Summon Marco, lass,” he commanded, “and I will finish what I started to say last night.”
The renegade came immediately and advanced to the bed, wary and impassive. Rodriga noted what she had indeed observed before without appreciating its significance, that inside a room Marco always placed himself opposite the door and with a wall at his side.
“ ’Save you, Marco. My thanks for your service last night to my daughter.”
One mobile black eyebrow lifted slightly. “Not curses?”
“Curses? Oh, my daughter is no lily-livered mouse-brained convent-bred ninny, but an old campaigner. She decides her own actions, and I uphold her. You gave her safe escort when she asked it, and why should any man assume the hell-born impudence to deny her right to go where she chooses?”
This novel view of a daughter’s liberty sent both eyebrows up towards his hair, and he smiled half-reluctantly. “You confirm my opinion,” he said.
“Humph. Another cushion, lass. And I have a deal to say, so pour me a cup of wine to loosen my tongue. And for Marco and yourself; we will drink
together.”
“Is that fitting for my lady?” Marco asked sharply.
“Why should it not be, in the Devil’s name? And sit down, man! Sets my neck-joints creaking to be goggling up at you like a frog in a pond!”
“There is nothing you resemble less,” Marco assured him, took the heavy pitcher from Rodriga and poured the wine for her. Landry looked suspiciously at him, trying over the flavour of that assurance on his tongue, but the imperturbable dark face betrayed nothing and he let it pass, taking the cup from the renegade’s lean brown hand with a grunt of thanks. Marco, with the curious courtesy he always showed Rodriga, waited until she had seated herself at her father’s feet before he dropped cross-legged to the floor facing them. They sipped the wine in silence for a moment, and then Landry took a deep swallow, set down his cup with a decided thump, and heaved round to gaze directly at the other man.
“This exploit of yours—what risks have you run?” he demanded.
“None.”
“Do you take me for a fool? You raided the Saracens’ trade in snow, stole a pack, and tell me there was no risk?”
“It was done in darkness, and no man was hurt.”
“Then someone was left alive to talk?”
“He would have nothing worth telling. A blow from behind, no more.”
Landry scowled at him. “Only the richest and greatest of the Saracens can afford to bring down snow in midsummer, as we both know well. Some great lord owes you payment. Who?”
He shrugged. “I do not know. Perhaps Salah-ed-Din himself.”
“And you are known to the Saracens. Oh, in God’s Name or the Foul Fiend’s, whichever rules you, stop imitating a wooden image! You are a trader, whatever else you may be, and traders are free to come and go even now, so long as they keep strictly to their trade and take no share in the fighting! Has this venture cost you that privilege?”
Marco looked at him over his cup. “I do not know.”
“You may have been recognised? There—no, on the way back with the snow?”
“One can never be sure that empty wilderness is indeed empty.”
“You took that chance. Yes, and horses—you never made that ride without relays! Whether you stole or hired mounts, you may be traced by them!”
“I rode my camel. Faster and more enduring for the paths I took. He lasted to Tyre, where I hired horses for the last stage. No trace there.”
Landry grunted impatiently. “Lord Above, prizing information out of you is like prizing Welsh arrows out of timberwork! Answer me, man! If you have been recognised, or even guessed at, what will come to you when next you go among the Saracens?”
“An Emir’s guess is warrant enough for a bowstring,” he replied, with a sudden transforming grin, “but I have so far contrived to keep my neck out of one, just as I have evaded a Christian halter.”
“Doubtless to the disappointment of both!” said Rodriga caustically.
He chuckled, undismayed and unrepentant. It was the first time Rodriga had seen Marco laugh outright; suspicion, wariness and aloofness vanished from his face so that he was warm and friendly and young with them. “There is no doubt whatever,” he agreed. “It is interesting to speculate when that desire will outweigh my usefulness, and with whom.”
“It would be interesting indeed,” declared Landry savagely, “to win from you a straight accounting of how much this service to me has cost you! Tell me honestly, will you be able to continue trading among the Saracens, or is that livelihood now denied you?”
“I do not know. And finding out promises entertainment.”
“It promises to resemble walking into the lion’s den to learn whether the beast is hungry!” Landry retorted forcefully.
Marco finished the meagre half-cupful of wine he had poured for himself and stood up. “I told you that you need not suffer from scruples about me,” he said gravely. “Egypt and Arabia and Persia are open to me; I lose nothing. Now I must thank you and my lady for your hospitality and take my leave.”
“Not yet. Give him more wine, Rodriga! One way or another I will loosen his tongue!”
Marco shook his head. “That is an indulgence I cannot afford.”
“A loosened tongue, or wine to lower your guard?”
“Either, but particularly the lowered guard.”
“Then if you use such particular caution to keep your windpipe whole,” Landry demanded curiously, “however did you let yourself be surprised naked by your enemies?”
“Gross carelessness, allied with misguided faith in my guardian devil,” Marco answered promptly, grinning impishly at him.
Landry snorted, but a reluctant chuckle escaped him. “Makes an oyster resemble a chatty woman, eh, Rodriga? A sick man’s curiosity, look you, should be indulged, lest he fret himself into a fever. Pity to undo the excellent work your snow achieved.”
“A pity indeed,” he agreed, subsiding again to the floor. “To be brief, they were ribalds from Tyre with whom I had had an encounter which cost them two lives and not a little prestige.”
“What manner of encounter, oyster?”
“An attempt to waylay and rob me. Those five came to Acre seeking vengeance, in which I admit I misjudged them. They had waited six nights for the chance I gave them.”
“How did you ever learn that?”
“Conversation I overheard among the survivors.”
“Conversation—oh! Yes.” Landry ran his hand through his hair and considered that cryptic statement. Rodriga, groping wildly for his meaning, saw the sudden grim amusement twitch her father’s mouth, and caught at comprehension a moment before he spoke. “Went after them, did you?”
“You saw me go.”
“Shoving through the market on your camel, and both of you sneering down your noses at all Acre. And what happened to them?”
“They are buried in the sand about three leagues on the way to Tyre.”
“Lord Above! Got all three that same night, did you?” He eyed Marco with respect and exasperation. “Will you open your shell, oyster, or do you have to be cracked? What happened?”
“I tossed a rock into their campfire, and there was a mad scramble in the dark, in which I was the only man who knew what he was doing.”
“Followed by a triple burial. I see, you cold-blooded scoundrel.”
“Were they to boast through all the wineshops in Tyre of having overcome me?” he asked coolly.
Rodriga nodded to herself. She had no sentimental regrets for ribalds and murderers whose removal had spared the hangman a task, and she knew enough of the wolf-pack life in an army’s tail to realise that Marco’s existence depended on his prestige; he could not let the knaves boast in immunity from his vengeance and live. His ruthlessness chilled her for a moment, but her father or Piers would have shown the same ruthlessness to such vermin. She did not need telling that he had disdained to creep up on unsuspecting men to kill from behind; he had thrown the rock into the fire in warning before he leaped among them.
Feet padded up the stair and across the anteroom. Wulfric lifted the curtain. “My lord, my lady, dinner is ready.”
Marco came to his feet in one swift movement like a loosed bow, and Landry flapped an impatient hand at him. “Bring it up then! Rodriga, I warn you I expect better fare than the pap you served me yesterday! Sit down, man! You will eat with us.”
Marco, startled out of all his composure, gasped aloud and backed a pace. Even Rodriga, who was seldom surprised by her sire’s odd freaks, gaped at him, but he was perfectly serious.
“If I thought you meant it—” Marco began, his hands clenching, and then broke off; clearly Landry did mean it. He glanced swiftly at Rodriga, who was not quick enough to conceal her astonishment, and then back at Landry, his black eyes narrow and hard. “I will not so affront my lady,” he declared bleakly.
Landry’s mouth fell open. “God’s Life!” he said blankly, and then his brows came together and his face reddened. “Do you reckon I would shame my own lass?” he demande
d angrily.
“No,” answered Marco, calm again. “I reckon you wished to show gratitude, and to talk with me, and thought of nothing more. But a knight’s daughter is not to sit at meat with a harlot’s son.” The man’s ruthlessness spared himself least of all; his high pride set her honour above his own; his integrity would have no dealings with half-truths and evasions. He asked neither gratitude nor consideration; he spoke hard truth and made an end of it, standing before her father with that taut and wary grace that set him apart from all other men. Rodriga lifted a hand and opened her lips to speak, but checked herself. This was for the two of them to settle.
Landry’s scowl had cleared. “Truly,” he said mildly, “I had no thought of whose son you were.”
“It is not a matter to forget.”
“I remember that you have done me great service.”
“Give no more thought to that; it was not done for your sake.” “Shall I quarrel with that? It is more to me done for my daughter than for myself, for if I die, what comes to her? I am old and done, with my battles behind me, and she is more than my life.” He heaved himself up from the cushions, grunting at his own feebleness, and propped himself on an arm whose fever-wasted muscles jerked and quivered at the strain. “Devil take it, this sickness has eaten the strength from me!” he growled. His arm sagged, and Marco caught him by the shoulders and laid him back.
“Get it back before you abuse it,” he recommended. “And make no more of what is done.”
“Lord Above, what kind of ungrateful hound do you take me for?” Landry flared. “Am I to dismiss you from my house like a thief, when but for you I should be jackal’s meat? Sit down, and leave my daughter’s honour to me!”
Rodriga judged it time to add her word. “It is my wish also.” Without discourtesy he could not refuse again. He looked from one to the other, clearly reluctant, and then said, “As you will.” The decision made, he uttered no further word of argument, but sat down for the third time and waited warily. Rodriga perfectly comprehended his doubts. Landry’s impulsive generosity was so far outside his experience of mankind that he waited for the trap to be sprung.
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