Constantine ran his tongue along his teeth and closed his eyes for a moment before turning to face the man, who seemed so distraught that Constantine wouldn’t have been surprised to see him collapse to the floor to pound his fists and boots against the tile.
“You can’t keep blaming others for your failures, Felsteppe. Eventually, you will have to claim responsibility for your life and the choices you make.”
“Choices?” Felsteppe said on a false laugh. “You mean like the choice Baldwin has made? You know it’s only a matter of time before Saladin orders the attack on Chastellet now that our king has turned him away yet again. The fortress isn’t even properly completed!”
“It’s almost done,” Adrian Hailsworth muttered from his corner, his head still down. “Only the glacis to complete. Strong enough now.”
“The foundation is exposed!” Felsteppe cried out to the architect. When Adrian failed to respond, Felsteppe faced Constantine once more. “You’re all fools! Baldwin has guaranteed your deaths.”
Constantine’s eyes narrowed. “It is our duty to defend this stronghold and the river crossing below. That’s what you swore to do when you accepted your charge.”
“I came here to make my fortune, same as all the others.”
“Perhaps you should have sought assignment in one of the ports, then. Promise of riches is not why men come to Chastellet.”
Felsteppe stared at Constantine and then sniffed a half laugh, his thin lips quirking in some semblance of a grin. “Oh, yes. That’s not why you’re here, is it, Gerard?”
Constantine’s back stiffened, but he kept his expression neutral as he gestured to the pile of armaments still littering the floor. “Do as the king commands and retreat to your cell before the sun sets. Some may lie in wait for you.” He turned and started to cross the floor, heading toward the double doors and his own chamber in order to grieve the delay of his departure.
Perhaps many men’s futures—indeed, the future of the world—would have been quite different had Glayer Felsteppe held his tongue and allowed Constantine to leave without further comment.
But, alas.
“You’re here because your wife is a very rich whore with a constant itch and everyone doubts the son she bore is yours!”
Constantine halted, still facing the door.
Baiting you again. That’s all.
He started forward once more, and this time he saw that Adrian had raised his head and was now watching Constantine with a wary expression.
“That’s right—I know. Everyone knows,” Felsteppe taunted. “Who can predict how many children you’ll have to your name upon your return? Perhaps even now, little Christian is on some other man’s lap, sitting in your chair at supper, calling him papa.”
Constantine stopped again, his feet sticking so firmly that he swayed in his stance.
“You’ll never outstay that rumor, Gerard,” Felsteppe chuckled. “It will live with you—and the boy—for the rest of your lives. Christian will never really know if you’re his father or not. Rather sad, isn’t it? I feel sorry for the lad, truly. Whore for a mother and a coward—”
Felsteppe continued to talk as Constantine turned and stalked back toward him, but he had no idea what the man said; the blood was roaring in his ears so loudly that it drowned out all other sound. Felsteppe, however, must have realized he had finally hit his mark for now he drew his sword and sank into a defensive posture with a satisfied smirk.
Constantine, too, swept his weapon from its sheath as he continued to rush forward. When he was nearly close enough to strike, Felsteppe changed tactics and charged. But Constantine was ready, and in two swings, Felsteppe’s weapon went sliding and clanging across the floor. Constantine was upon him, then, and rammed the butt of his hilt into Felsteppe’s nose once, twice, sending blood spraying from the man’s face like a fountain.
Felsteppe staggered back with a cry, his hands covering his dripping face while Constantine sheathed his weapon—if he didn’t, he was certain he would kill the man outright. But even though he was no longer readily armed, he wasn’t yet finished with Glayer Felsteppe.
And neither was Felsteppe finished. Once he saw the weapon was sent home, he charged at Constantine with his bloody fists clenched, a scream of rage coming from his sticky mouth. Constantine met his fury with his own, ducking Felsteppe’s swing and coming up with a fist under his chin and then two swift blows to the man’s abdomen. When the redhead doubled over, Constantine grabbed him by the back of his leather hauberk and slung him around in an arc.
Felsteppe flew through the air toward Adrian Hailsworth’s corner table and landed across the end of it, sliding through the piles of parchment as his hands scrabbled for purchase. Adrian pushed his chair back with a screech and stood.
Constantine stomped after Felsteppe, seizing him and flipping him over on his back, a shower of crumpled ivory pages raining down around them. Felsteppe swung with a weak yell, his fist clenched around a wad of parchment, and Constantine took the blow on his chin. He hardly felt it, though, as he drew back and hit Felsteppe in his already battered face, his knuckles making sick, splashing sounds by the third blow.
Before the sixth could land, Adrian hooked his arm around Constantine’s and pulled him backward with a mighty heave, allowing Glayer Felsteppe to slide to the floor in a crumpled, gasping heap.
“Killing him won’t make Baldwin change his mind,” Adrian said near his ear as he pushed between Constantine and the bleeding, wheezing man on the floor. “You’ve made your point.”
As much as Constantine appreciated the friend he had found in the brusque, scholarly Hailsworth, he was not quite satisfied that he had indeed made his point. He swept Adrian aside and after two strides sank to one knee over Felsteppe, seizing the front of his sodden tunic and pulling the limp rag of the man close to his face.
“Dare not speak my son’s name again. Verily, never be in my sight after this day, Glayer Felsteppe,” Constantine said as calmly as his still seething rage would allow. “Whether Baldwin allows your return from Tiberias or nay. Perhaps I could not prove them before today, but I have not forgotten—nor will I—your many, many misdeeds at Chastellet. The rapes of the merchants’ slaves; the thefts; the traitorous discords with which you sought to infect the men. You are scum, and you deserved to be wiped from the land. The next time I see you, I will kill you.”
“You think everyone is afraid of you, Gerard,” Felsteppe rasped, bloody spittle flying from his split lips. “I’m not. You’re not holy; you’re not superior. You’re a pampered house cat who’s been made to believe he’s above covering over his own shit.”
“I do believe this particular house cat has shown you his claws,” Hailsworth muttered as he returned to his chair, his eyes for naught but his precious scrolls as he straightened his exploded stacks.
“Fuck you, scribe,” Felsteppe snapped, and then he glared back into Constantine’s face. “You’ll pay for what you’ve done today. Today and every day since you came here and tried to ruin me.” Felsteppe pushed at Constantine, and he stepped back and allowed the beaten man to stagger to his feet at last.
Felsteppe pointed a bony, stained, trembling finger toward Constantine, his other hand still curled around the ruined parchment he’d dragged from the tabletop. “I will see everything you love burn. Everything.”
“You couldn’t come within a score of miles of anything I love, Felsteppe. You’re fortunate the king didn’t dismiss you outright. I believe he still might. Then where will you go? Back to Land’s End to herd sheep?” It was a low blow, but his fury seemed to let the words flow like the water from yonder cask.
Felsteppe’s face matched his bright hair, between the blood in and on his cheeks. “Everything you love,” he repeated. “No matter what I must do.”
“Get from my sight,” Constantine demanded and then turned away from the man before he was tempted to fall upon him again.
He heard the door open, and Adrian Hailsworth called out in a
sardonic tone, “Oh, no, please—do keep those parchments. They weren’t quite right and rather covered in your blood any matter.”
The door slammed shut.
“Maggot,” Adrian muttered.
The air in the room seemed to tingle with the altercation that hadn’t fully absolved Constantine of his anger. And when his gaze fell upon the pile of contraband Felsteppe had failed to collect and return, as commanded by the king, Constantine sighed. Even though his muscles still burned and his breaths left a metallic scent in his nostrils, he crossed the floor and began gathering the broken swords, the cracked shields, the worn pads himself, his hands still wet with Glayer Felsteppe’s blood.
It was his duty, after all.
* * *
Glayer Felsteppe staggered through the narrow, dark interior corridors of Chastellet, his humiliation unrelieved by the fact that he passed no one. It mattered not—by now, Glayer knew every warrior monk, every base laborer, even the meanest slave had been appraised of the goings-on in Baldwin’s antechamber. No one at Chastellet would ever let him forget what had happened. Perhaps it was best that he left.
He swiped at his dripping face with the wad of soft paper in his hand, then paused near a tall, wide tapestry to press a finger to one nostril and blow the contents of the other into the seam of floor and wall. His breath hitched in his chest as he coughed and spat; he thought perhaps at least one of his ribs was cracked. He stood there a moment, looking at the tapestry while he tried to regulate his searing breaths. The symbols of the Templars seemed to mock him as they hid among the trees and rivers woven into a rich, fantastical battle landscape: a dragon flying from a castle perched on a craggy peak; giants treading through a surf littered with wreckage; a figure with flowing red hair hovering above it all, seeming to stare down the corridor in the direction from which Glayer had just come.
Baldwin would never elevate Glayer to a senior officer of any kind now. Bastard leper, prancing about as if he were fit to command battalions when he was barely out of nappies.
Glayer reached up suddenly, flinching at the stabbing pain in his side as he grasped the heavy tapestry and wrenched it from the wall. He spat again upon it, then strode across it and down the corridor, his pace quickening as his mind urged him on.
Bastard Gerard, behaving as though he owned the world, with his title and his estate and his heir. His pious standards and pharisaical morals.
Glayer had been sincere in his desire to destroy Constantine Gerard, but in truth, there was nothing for him to go back to if he was turned away from the Holy Land. He’d come here to make a name for himself—to earn lands, riches, perhaps even a fief of his own. He would not become Baldwin’s servant in Tiberias, traded to some Frankish baron as if he were little more than a page. To be laughed at here, then forced back to his mother’s poor cottage on the westernmost point of England with nothing to show for his years away than a nose more crooked than when he’d left.
His vision blurred as he came into the blinding light of the bailey, and the shimmers of heat floated up from the baked earth. Glayer threw up a forearm and ducked his head as he struck out into the center of the space, to shield his eyes from the sun and from the sight of whomever might be watching him, laughing at him. He walked quickly.
He hated Gerard. And Baldwin. And his mother. Hated this damned oven of a fortress; hated the men it sheltered. He glanced up and saw the light-colored robes of Saracens still gathered near the wide gates, obviously readying to depart. In their midst was General Abdal himself, the soldiers around him protecting both the messenger and the coin Felsteppe knew he still carried. An ambitious man, Abdal, who knew how to wield the power he had been given in this land of enemies and thieves.
Unlike weak, sick, stupid Baldwin. Glayer wondered if anyone else but he knew how many thousands of dinars Saladin had offered in exchange for the razing of this godforsaken place. For Christ’s sake, the foundation wasn’t even . . .
Felsteppe stopped suddenly in the blinding, hot bailey, his heart pounding, and looked down at the crumpled rendering of Chastellet’s most private parts. His skin went icy, clammy, as he raised his head, and the tall General Abdal turned toward him as if Felsteppe had called his name. The two men stared at each other for a long moment.
And Glayer Felsteppe realized his time had come at last.
Chapter 1
March 1182
England
Dori came awake with a gasp and then gave a weak cry as the side of her head banged into a hard surface. Her neck was too weak to hold herself erect in time to avoid the next rocking blow and she tried to throw out her hands in the churning darkness as her lungs struggled to draw sufficient breath. Oh, God, she must be in hell—a cold, damp, black hell that was trying to shake her bones from her body and deafen her with its roar.
She spun her fear into strength and lunged forward, praying she wouldn’t launch herself into an eternal descent. “Help me,” she croaked, her arms flailing in the darkness.
But someone caught her. “There now,” a stern voice cautioned, taking firm grasp of her left forearm and right shoulder, pushing her backward once more but so that she sat aright. “You must come to your senses, Lady Theodora. Light the lamp, boy; perhaps if she can see, she will not be in such a fright.”
Dori’s lips felt half numb, blubbery, so that the words she struggled to speak were little more than humming mumbles. Panic wrapped around her heart like an icy fist. Where was she? Why was she so frightened of this dark place? And why did she feel as though she had been dunked in the frigid spring river running past Thurston Hold? Cold, so cold . . .
A searing, yellow-white flash blinded her; she hadn’t known for certain her eyes had been open. Now she squeezed them shut and tried to turn her head away from the explosion of brightness, rewarding herself with another blow to the side of her face as the seat beneath her lurched and sent her into what was possibly a wooden panel.
Then the roaring sound filtered through her panic: wheels on a road. The rocking, jostling—she must be in a carriage. It was night. But why was she wet? And what was that dreadful smell, rich and fecund, like—
Blood. She was smelling her own blood.
And it was in that moment she remembered: her baby. They had stolen her baby. She’d heard the weak cry through the haze of her stupor and then it had gone. They must have poisoned her again to keep her docile. And now she was in a carriage traveling in the night to . . . where?
But she was not alone, and the voice of her chaperon was all too familiar. Dori opened her eyes the tiniest crack, tears flooding and blurring her vision as she struggled to confirm the identity of the person across the short space from her. The damned priest, Simon, whose presence had turned what should have been the happiest moments of her life—her wedding, the birth of her child—into nightmares, was in the opposite seat, along with a young boy who was carefully hanging the lamp on a hook next to the carriage door. The servant lad showed no interest in her at all as he sat back against the seat, his face turned toward the curtained window.
“How do you fare, my lady?” Simon asked matter-of-factly, as if he was doing nothing more out of the ordinary than greeting her in the morning.
Dori tried to blink away the nonsensical water from her eyes—she wasn’t crying, yet the tears continued to flow. “Where is my baby?” she croaked, feeling as if her throat was lined with blades and tasting the film of old vomit in her mouth. She felt a prickling deep behind her ears.
The priest swallowed. “He is safe. He is with your husband.”
He—a boy. She’d borne a son.
“Then he is not safe. Take me to him. He needs me. He needs to feed.”
“His needs will be attended to.”
The rocking carriage caused the bile to rise in her throat and she strangled for a moment, fighting the urge to vomit. “I’m ill,” she managed to choke out in warning.
Father Simon rapped on the ceiling of the carriage with his walking stick, the sharp sound send
ing slivers into Dori’s brain. But the conveyance lurched obediently to a halt and the priest was seizing her arms, hauling her through the door the boy held open for them.
Theodora vomited on the side of the road, feeling that her insides were being expelled from her as her skirts were drenched with more blood and Simon gripped her arms from behind.
“The potion will wear off soon,” he said from somewhere over her head. “Your bleeding will hopefully slow.” The priest pulled her aright and then reached into his cassock as if searching for something. “You will likely recover, but you must try to be as still as you can manage for the next several hours. It will be a challenge, considering—”
Theodora didn’t wait to see what he would have retrieved, but reached up with clawlike hands to grab at Father Simon’s narrow face. “What have you done with my baby?”
“You must go away now,” he insisted calmly, ignoring her question as he pushed her weak fingers away. “Far away. This carriage shall take you to a ship.”
“No! Not without my baby!” Dori sobbed now, each breath searing her throat like a torch as she struggled to free herself from the priest’s grasp that both restrained and supported her. “He’s mine and you know it! They’ve stolen him! You stole him!”
“Listen to me!” Simon gave her a sudden shake and, for the first time since she had known the priest, she heard a thread of fear in his normally emotionless voice. “I have committed a great sin. One that I cannot undo. There is no hope for me beyond God’s mercy.”
“You are the devil,” Theodora accused.
“He told me to kill you,” the priest said, shaking her again as if desperate that she should understand him. “That I will not do. And I cannot give you your son. But there is someone who can perhaps help you. You must go there quickly and you must leave tonight. If he finds that you are still alive . . .”
Theodora only sobbed, clutching at the priest’s robes as he let the thought go unfinished.
Constantine Page 2