by Nina Merrill
She took a seat on the bench when Tibald gestured. His own trencher brimmed with stew and chunks of bread. A tankard stood nearby. He pushed both toward her. “Eat, Jeanne.”
“Oh, but this is your meal—”
“Eat.” His eyes lingered on her face, then skimmed over her hair. “I neglected to find a kerchief and girdle for you. I will remedy that.”
Jennie touched her braid, fuzzed from her time abed. She must look a wreck. “A kerchief?”
“You cannot go about bare-headed. It is not seemly.”
She recalled that more than one religion—even in her own times—required women to cover their hair, as if by concealing its beauty they could control the desires of men. In reality, what was hidden became all the more alluring, much like the Victorians aroused by the forbidden sight of a slim ankle or a glimpse of bare legs.
“Did you bring me the shoes? I must thank you.”
Tibald nodded, then pushed the trencher another inch closer. “Eat.”
It hasn’t killed him…it probably won’t kill me. Jennie eyed the platter. There was a wooden spoon at Tibald’s elbow, but he picked up a crust of bread and scooped it through the stew before lifting it to his mouth. She watched it disappear, his lips framed by the neatly trimmed beard, and had to look away. How did his sandy beard make his mouth seem that much more sensual, a mouth made for hours of kissing, or shaping words of love? She gulped, swallowing the rush of saliva that had filled her mouth at the sight of food, and reached for the spoon.
Did she dare ask what sort of meat formed the basis of the stew? She prodded at what looked like a root vegetable, took it up on the spoon, and decided it would be best if she didn't know the details of what she was eating. She took a brave bite. Tibald nodded his approval. It wasn’t bad, pungent with garlic and onion, though it lacked pepper. Her stomach received the first bite with a growl of welcome, which Tibald heard.
With a chuckle, he pushed the tankard toward her as well. The ale was cool, though not chilled, and cut the grease from the stew’s gravy nicely. When a few more bites had taken the edge off her ravenous hunger, she ventured a question.
“What will happen to me now, Tibald? What does your commander have in mind?”
Between bites and sips, he chewed while obviously musing over her question. “He hasn't said.”
She repeated the question she'd asked Boudin. “Am I a prisoner?”
Tibald’s eyes slid away from hers. “Not exactly, though you're not to be left unattended. Napier or I or Boudin will accompany you always.”
She put down the spoon and looked him in his gray eyes, noticing faint lines at their corners, the product of a life spent out of doors. “I must have my book back so I can try to get home again.”
His thick lashes shuttered his gaze, and he took a deep drink of the ale. “Commander de Payraud has your grimoire.”
“It’s not a grimoire. I’m not a witch, just someone out of her rightful place and time. I must get home again.” She reached out and put her hand over his where it rested on the table. “Please, can’t you understand?”
The trencher was dragged away from them across the table, clattering wood against wood. Napier emptied a bowlful of stew into it and slammed a small crusty loaf down on the table, glaring at them both. Jennie withdrew her hand, angry at the guilt Napier’s stare made her feel.
“The entire hall can see you sharing your plate with this temptress, Tibald.”
“we're doing nothing wrong!” she sputtered in fury. “It’s only your vile imaginings that make it seem so. I don’t understand why you’re so convinced I’m evil.”
Napier curled his lip and ripped off a chunk of bread before commencing his meal. “I see the shameful effect you have on my companion.”
“Hold your tongue, Alain.” Tibald drew a deep breath. “We’ve been given the task of guarding the lady and we will perform our task with all proper respect.”
“And one of us will enjoy it more than the other.”
Tibald’s face tightened as he studied Napier. Gone was the easy camaraderie she had noticed the night before. Jennie anxiously interposed. “Gentlemen, I have no wish to be a cause of discord between you. Therefore, if we might visit Commander de Payraud, so that I may request he return my book—”
Both men’s shoulders relaxed slightly, though Napier’s lip remained curled when he replied around his mouthfuls. “The commander is very concerned that your grimoire should not fall into the wrong hands.”
“We will not discuss this now,” said Tibald. His gaze went to the men seated near them at another table, and Jennie recognized one of them as the man—Maillet—who had accosted Napier the night before.
Jennie bit her lip. It seemed she could say or do nothing right. She felt the pressure of tears behind her eyes and angrily fought them back. The stew sat like a stone in her belly, but perhaps enough ale would numb her, even if only a little. She reached for the tankard, ignoring the stares as she drank the whole thing down.
Chapter 9
My second night on this dreadful bed. What I wouldn’t give for a decent wash and a clean pair of panties. A hairbrush, even.
From where she lay on the lumpy pallet, Jennie had a partial view of the landing where torchlight reddened the stone walls. She smelled the torch’s pitchy smoke, glad of the fresh night air from the open window. Tibald cleared his throat quietly. She was glad it was Tibald watching over her as she slept, and not Napier. She wondered what he was doing and how he kept himself awake. Turning onto her side and scooting to the edge of the bed, she could just see his boots and leggings and knew he was seated where he could watch the approach from the stairs.
After several more minutes of wakeful tossing, she gave in to the impulse that had nagged at her for an hour and rose, pulling on the boots without lacing them, and wrapping the topmost blanket around her. She padded to the doorway. Tibald turned his head to look at her.
“Another rat?”
She smiled. “Not since the one Napier spitted.”
“It’s night. You should be sleeping.”
“I’m wakeful. Can I come and talk with you?”
His brows drew together and then smoothed. “Of what do you wish to speak?”
“Oh…anything. Your favorite foods, what you were like as a little boy, when you first held a sword.” She crept past the door and bent to settle herself on the cool stones next to him.
“Why should that interest you?”
“It’s lonely being locked up here.” She watched his lips quirk in a smile, and felt warmed and emboldened by the response. “So when did you first hold a sword?”
His finger traced the knobby hilt of the sword lying on the floor on the side away from her. “I shall tell you instead of when I was given this sword. I cannot remember when I first held a sword. It was always expected of my family. We serve. My father before me, and his father.”
“I thought Templars didn’t marry?” Her scholar’s soul was fairly trembling with eagerness. The opportunity to learn first-hand all the things she had only speculated about excited her. Too bad you’ll probably never get the chance to put all this in your dissertation, Jen.
“We are not all Templars. Besides, some knights do marry, or become knights late in life after wedding and fathering children. Many never returned from the holy wars after falling in love with infidel Saracen women, or beautiful Jewesses.”
“Then why does Napier make such a fuss—”
Tibald’s amused gaze flicked to her. “Did you want to talk of marriage, or Alain, instead of swords?”
Jennie blushed. Do I want to talk of marriage? Not exactly. But I do want to sit here with you, feeling your warmth, and learning the grace of your hands while you talk. Aloud, she said, “No.”
He brought the scabbard to lie across his lap, the grip pointing toward Jennie. It was simple and undecorated, except for the tooling on the leather that wrapped it. The pommel was marked with the splayed Templar cross on one side, and the G
reek letters chi and rho on the other. The rho was superimposed on the chi, the upper loop forming what looked almost like the skull in the Templars’ skull and crossed leg bones glyphs. Jennie made a mental note to quiz Tibald about the skull his fellow knights used in their meetings—did it truly speak? And if so, had it spoken as she tumbled among them, newly shot from Minneapolis?
“My father’s father brought it from the Holy Land many years ago. He won it from a Maronite there.”
“In battle?”
Tibald slanted her a charming smile with his eyes crinkled nearly closed. “A game of dice.”
Jennie laughed. Her delight seemed to please him, for his smile widened.
“It is a fine sword, forged in the Lebanon. It served my grandfather well, and my father after him. My father taught me to fight with one of his heavier swords, but in my fourteenth year, he gifted me with this, his finest weapon. It defeated many an enemy for him.”
“And for you?”
“I have never traveled east to war—by the time I was of age, the Holy City of Jerusalem had fallen from Templar hands. The farthest I have been is to Cyprus.”
Jennie’s eyes widened. “When did you go?”
“Twelve years ago, when I was fifteen. I went with my father as his squire, in service to Master de Molay.”
She considered the image of a teenage Tibald, earnest and quiet, sandy-haired and still mostly beardless, and smiled. “Did you see battle?”
His gaze turned away. “A little. They are bloody things, battles. Not what I had expected. Nothing so easy as training with my cousins… God does not simply give His warriors the victory.” He shook his head. “It was while we were in Cyprus that my father introduced me to the Templar mysteries and had the pommel of the sword stamped with these emblems. Two years later he was taken by a fever. I returned home without him, came to Paris and sought to become a knight of the order.”
“And did you?”
“I cleaned stables and cared for horses for another two years before I was admitted into the secrets.” His tone was wry and yet nostalgic.
“But all along you had your family’s sword, and I’m sure you continued to practice.”
“Of a certainty. Alain was here as well. We were squires together. How strange is your speech. Truly from elsewhere.”
At the mention of Napier’s name, Jennie scowled a little. “He doesn’t trust me.”
“Napier trusts no one. He is made that way.”
“He trusts you.”
“That is different. A knight must trust his brother, for who else would stand at his back in battle? Alain has known me longer than any here except for Master de Payraud, who raised us both in the order.”
There was a long pause. Jennie realized Tibald was not the sort who needed to fill a silence with chat. At last she asked the question she’d been longing to ask. “Do you trust me, Tibald? Believe me?” Her hand touched his drawn-up knee, and after a moment, he put his hand over hers, squeezing it briefly. His touch was warm, the skin rough with work.
“Let us say I cannot yet disprove your words.”
“Are you trying to?”
“Not truly.” He squeezed her hand a second time, then lowered their linked hands to the floor between them. It seemed to her that he was reluctant to release her, but he did, and she brought her hand back to her own lap. “There are many mysterious things in the world. I think perhaps your coming is one of them. I cannot explain how you know what you know. Yet something tells me it’s the truth.”
“It is!”
“If you are correct, we're all in grave danger.”
“You’ll all be imprisoned. Tortured to confess. Killed for your supposed crimes. I couldn’t let that happen without trying to warn you, even if no one listens.” In her anxiousness to be understood and believed, she crowded close to him, looking him in the eye. He met her gaze, stoic and calm.
“This frightens you.”
“It should frighten you as well!”
“The king’s men will not harm a woman, Jeanne.”
“You cannot know that, Tibald. The king is desperate for power. In telling the Templars what I know, I’ve set myself between him and his goal. God help me if he discovers what I have done.” The full scope of what her actions would mean to Philip the Fair dawned on her at last. “He may already have heard. We know not which of your newest knights are loyal to the king.”
His gray eyes were gentle as they moved over her face, scanning from her brow to her lips and chin and back to her eyes. He cupped her cheek. “You are brave as only a woman can be,” he said softly.
Jennie fought the urge to lean into that strong hand, and lost. His touch was a comfort like nothing she had ever known, and it startled her even as it soothed her. “I’m not brave at all. I’m so frightened, and I…I want to go home.” Tears fell, and she heard his heavy sigh. When her forehead leaned against his shoulder, he didn’t stop her or make her sit upright away from him. Instead, his hand moved to stroke over the back of her head and down her shoulder, as if she were a fractious horse requiring a gentle touch to settle her.
She drew up her knees, still leaning her head against him, and whispered, “Tell me more. Tell me about a sunny day when you were happy. Tell me about when you learned to read and write. Tell me—”
Jennie heard the smile in his voice when he spoke. “What? Shall I tell you of my farmhouse childhood? Stealing eggs to throw at my cousins? Or blocking the pond so the water flooded the paddock where my father’s warhorse dozed, switching flies with his tail?”
“Yes. Those things.”
“You think these will keep the fear at bay.”
“Yes.” And maybe this desperate loneliness. She twisted to look up at him. His face filled with gentle indulgence. This close, she could see the individual hairs of his eyebrows and beard, the creases in his lips, the fringe of lashes, a small scar on his forehead. Her cheeks grew warm as she continued to stare. Her thoughts drifted to places they should not—he was so near that she could have kissed his mouth with little effort.
And oh, she wanted to kiss Tibald. His mouth drove her mad with the desire to trap it with her own, explore its strong curves, feel the rush of his breath. Shake his ironclad composure to its roots. She imagined herself twined in his arms, clutched close in the urgency of passion, and her eyelids grew heavy. Could he sense what she wanted?
She thought perhaps he could. He focused on her mouth, and the tip of his tongue slid out to wet his lips. Jennie’s stomach clenched and then melted in a sweet rush. Tibald’s arm came around her and she was certain he would kiss her. She had even tilted up her face and closed her eyes, but instead he settled her against him, pressing her arms hard against her sides so she could hardly move them. He began to speak, and this time she knew for certain she’d affected him. He cleared his throat more than once, and stared resolutely at the wall across from them as he told her of stealing eggs and hiding them until they were weightless and rotten with age, then throwing them at his cousins.
She missed most of the details, lost in her disappointed thoughts. The tale ended with Tibald’s somewhat forced laugh, and she laughed with him, still disconcerted. Her feelings and desires had been evident, hadn’t they? Yet he hadn’t succumbed in the least. Embarrassed now, she tried to concentrate on his stories.
They talked until the torch guttered low, past the hour when Tibald mentioned he should wake Napier for his turn at the watch, and still they talked. Jennie left her discomfort behind, caught up in the fascination of Tibald’s life—indeed, the facts of medieval life altogether—and shared her own stories of growing up. Learning to drive a car—what a car even was. Getting stitches at the hospital after a minor accident. Dancing with boys. Airplanes. Toilets and running water. Being snuffled by the soft, wet nose of a circus elephant. Tibald listened like a wide-eyed child, asking questions or shaking his head in disbelief, until finally they ran down, two clocks whose windings were spent. The torch sputtered and went out, bu
t Jennie didn't see it. She slept at last, her head pillowed on Tibald’s shoulder, wrapped in her blanket with her feet tucked under her. The Paris night had grown a little friendlier, a little kinder, if no less dark.
Chapter 10
Morning found Jennie back on her pallet, covered with both blankets and far too warm. She had not put herself to bed a second time.
Tibald carried me, and I never even woke. The thought both thrilled and alarmed her. She scrambled from the bed and crept to the door, opening it softly.
Napier looked at her from where he leaned against the wall. “Your breakfast awaits you, madame. Commander de Payraud felt it would be best if you didn’t dine with the men again during your stay, so I have brought it here.”
“I did nothing untoward at the meal.”
Napier’s lips pursed. “Perhaps not. But too many eyes noticed you. Perhaps even the wrong ones, if you spoke the truth about the king’s agent.”
“You mean, too many eyes noticed me with Tibald.”
Napier’s lips shifted to an unabashed smirk. He bent and lifted a tray from the floor. “Perhaps a little time dining alone will prompt your memory for the name of the king’s agent.” He handed her the tray, and when she took it to her little table, closed the door firmly behind her. She glared at the door, hot with embarrassment and anger, knowing herself innocent, but feeling guilty all the same.
You’ve got to get over this infatuation, Jen. It’s stupid. Tibald was just being kind; he’s not really attracted to you.
Stupid, yes, but painfully real nonetheless.
With a muttered “harrumph,” she plunked the tray down and ate in sullen silence. Try as she might, she couldn't summon the name of King Philip’s agent in the Paris Temple. Had she ever read it, or was she just remembering a more general fact? She knew the king had sent an agent to each of the twelve preceptories in France. But what were their names?