“Mother, this is Richard, and Sadaquah, Richard’s friend from Egypt,” I told her. Sadaquah bowed.
“I am glad to see you are recovering from your ordeal,” Richard ventured. “Would I had been here to prevent it ever happening.” It was the wrong thing to say, and both he and I knew it as soon as it was out of his mouth. My mother trembled and tears chased themselves down her cheeks.
“Oh, if only I had done my duty as mistress of the house and given you a place,” she faltered. “How could I not have known it was you? I see it so clearly now. And even though I did not know, how could I have turned you away? I am to blame for all this.”
“Nay, nay, my lady, do not say so,” Richard said tenderly, taking her hand and kissing it. “‘Twas God’s will. ‘Twas His plan, to teach us that His ways are not our ways, nor are His plans ours. He knows all, and it has happened as it did to make us stronger. And so we are made stronger. Is it not so? But my Aunt Ada was always strong, and always so gracious and beautiful.” He kissed her hand again, and wiped the tears from her cheek and kissed her there, too. She embraced him and gave a shuddering sigh.
“It was the change in your heart that made me not know you,” she said timidly when we sat down and Richard had given thanks. “I knew you from a child, but as you grew there came to be no sweetness or gentleness in you. My faith was so small I could not believe our proud, arrogant Richard would come back so changed.”
“Then surely the fault was mine, lady, because the example of how I should be was always there before me. I did not learn to be proud from my father. That is sure.”
Chapter Sixteen: Bittersweet Vows, Secret Love, Hidden Hopes
Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous; but who is able to stand before envy?
Open rebuke is better than secret love.
Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.
To the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.
Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart: so doth the sweetness of a man’s friend by hearty counsel.
Thine own friend, and thy father’s friend, forsake not; neither for better is a neighbour that is near than a brother far off.
Proverbs 27
Lord Godwin, Duke of Sherbourne, and the tribunal the king had sent came to call within a few days. Richard and I had overseen all the preparations. I was becoming less clumsy and beginning to know what I was about.
Simon was there and the entire household had worked with such a willing heart it had almost seemed like a light task. Lord Godwin was stupefied by how much we had done to repair the damage from the fire. In the old style our new servants had willingly bedded down in the great hall while servants’ quarters were rebuilt. We had just put up a new front door that morning. Old Simon had led in the scrubbing of the charred walls and we had repaired the broken tables in the great hall. We were actually ready to receive company.
Richard and I met Lord Godwin at the door and conducted him to the garden courtyard where Baron Colchester sat taking the sun, though the air was still chill and he was wrapped in shawls and furs. Richard was very stiff and tried to hide his pain as best he could. Baron Colchester could not rise at all, but Lord Godwin bowed before him and kissed his hand.
“I have been told this knight is your son, my friend,” Lord Godwin smiled. “He has honored your name. I am sorry I cannot take him as my own, but I am so glad for your sake that he will stay here. I will see to it that the king does not forget all he has done.”
“We need nothing, my lord,” my uncle said. “My son is home. What can the king give us to make us richer?”
Sadaquah appeared while Richard went through the receiving line of nobles in the tribunal, a long line of stately men in many-colored silks and velvets and glittering mail. The Arab stood and watched him, tight-lipped and narrow-eyed. Richard stood just as he had done outside Gil’s inn, planted and inscrutable through everything, resplendent in a pure white tunic with the red shield and gold lion of the Cloyes family emblazoned on it. When Richard finally got free of the ceremonial greetings Sadaquah grabbed him by the arms and held him out for a good looking-over. Richard sucked in his breath and we hastily helped him to a chair.
“Min fadlak … Taffadhal … Do not remove my poor head, brother,” Sadaquah said cautiously. “But you know I have the opium…”
“And you know I will not use it,” Richard said fondly. “Atini -- Go and fix a cup of that good tea instead. That I will take, and welcome.” Sadaquah swept away in a swirl of robes.
Richard tried to get up and I forced him back down. He sat there without moving and I saw him wrestling to get his voice back from a wave of pain that almost made him faint.
“After the horses had their try at me, I fair lived on opium for a year … two years … I know not how long,” Richard told me softly as I knelt beside him. “I did not think I could ever bear the pain without it. But then I saw it was eating away at my soul. I could not care about anything when the stupor took me over. ‘La oreed,’ I would say to Sadaquah when he would try to wake me, to help me to keep my resolve.
“I did not want to walk, or heft a sword, or speak Scriptures, or come home. It was hard ... it was very hard to stop taking it. I still want it at times. You must be patient with me, my lady. Just as my strength comes on like Samson’s at times, so also at times it all just goes away. I fear I will be a poor son and a poor husband. I fear I am mad to think I can do all I have in my heart to do here, with my father and with you.”
“You must not think you have to do anything alone,” I whispered, touching his arm. “I cannot be all that Sadaquah was to you, but I…”
“You can be something different,” Richard smiled. He stroked my hair and played with the cropped ends. “Already it grows out again. But it cannot be that having it long again will make you more beautiful.”
“I cannot think how you can call me beautiful when you have seen Tahira,” I said.
“Ah, the Lady Tahira,” Richard said. “She is a wonder, is she not? I never, ever thought to see her again. Why do you suppose someone has not snatched her up to wife and made her a mother of ten children by now?”
“She called you her knight,” I replied. “Perhaps she loved you.”
Richard looked across the terrace. Lady Godwin stood with a group of women, and Tahira stood at her elbow, silent and oh, so lovely. I saw her steal a glance in our direction, and her eyes were wistful.
“Nay, it cannot be,” Richard said. “Do you think–?”
Sadaquah bustled in at that moment with a fragrant cup cradled in his hands. He tendered it to Richard and squatted down to watch him drink it. “So this lady is truly the squalling brat you told me about?” Sadaquah said, cocking his head like a bright-eyed bird and smirking at me.
“Sadaquah,” Richard said, flushing. “She was a babe of three when I went away, and I a grown man of twenty-three. How could I think I would ever love her?”
“And then when you came back you did,” Sadaquah said shamelessly. “But she did not love you. You English. What does loving and not loving matter? If a woman is there, you take her. If she pleases you, and if she is strong and can give you sons, what is all this loving? I am glad I do not have such foolishness in my head. How is it now, my brother?” he asked anxiously. “Better?”
Richard set his empty cup aside. “Better,” he nodded with a sigh.
“You must teach me how to make the tea,” I said quickly.
“And you must go to Palestine and Egypt and Persia to gather the herbs when these are gone,” snorted Sadaquah, shaking a little cluster of embroidered bags he wore on a thong around his neck. “How can I teach you to do for him what I have done? It is more than just brewing tea. You think you know – You cannot know ...”
“Sadaquah, peace,” Richard rumbled. “Do not think no one else can do wonders except you. Do not chide the Lady Hope for failing when she has hardly begun.”
Sadaquah stood up in a rush and turned his
back to us. “I will go back to Egypt now, since you are in such good hands,” he said bitterly.
Richard started up. “Will you?” he asked, catching Sadaquah by the shoulder. The Arab swirled away from him, still not looking back. Richard caught both of us with the flat of his palms and pushed us inside to our bedchamber. “Sadaquah, are you jealous of Hope?”
“You have a father, a home, a wife,” said Sadaquah, still refusing to look at him. “What need have you of me anymore?”
“I have great need of you, my brother and my friend,” Richard whispered, turning Sadaquah around. “Do not go away like this. I cannot bear this kind of parting. If you were homesick, I would speed you on your way ...”
“Homesick?” cried Sadaquah. “Do you think I want to go home? In Doumiât I was less than a dog. Do not you know why it was that I could speak English to you when you came that day? My father was an English knight. He took my mother and called her his wife. While he lived no one dared to touch us, but then he died when I was five and we were cast out. I do not even have a proper Arab name. His name was … was Sayre … and everyone called me Sadaquah because it means the alms a Muslim must give to the poor. They did it to mock me.
“I got the only living we had by helping the Christians bargain with the traders. My mother starved to death, a beggar on the streets. You almost certainly saved my life. The band dragged me out of Doumiât to come interpret for you, remember? The city was destroyed when your crusaders attacked a few days later.”
“Sadaquah, you never told me any of this,” Richard said.
“Only when you came did I find a place of respect,” Sadaquah rushed on. “They let me join the band because they needed me to teach you our tongue. And they let me stay because you spoke up for me and wanted me by your side. Even after you left us they feared you would come back, so they let me go on being a warrior. But everything I did meant nothing. It was you they respected – you they honored and feared. There is nothing for me to go back to.”
“Then stay here,” Richard said. “Only remember that the Lady Hope is my wife, and I will not have you speak to her as you have just done.”
“Oh, Richard, do not speak so roughly to him,” I pleaded. “You are all he has in the world.”
“I do not want your pity,” snarled Sadaquah. “Pity from a woman, and an English one at that.” He spat on the floor.
Richard’s hand flashed out, just as it had when Robert had grabbed me back at Gil’s cottage. Sadaquah took the slap and scarcely flinched, but his whole frame trembled and his face was scarlet.
“Can I not love you both?” Richard thundered. “Aye, I think I can. If all this is only because you think there is not enough space in my home and my heart for Hope and for Sadaquah, too, boy, then go wherever you can, and go quickly.”
Still Sadaquah did not answer him or move. His slim frame was so rigid, his face so set, I feared to look at him. Richard limped away from him with long, angry strides, then swung back.
“Sadaquah, you know I have never struck you before, and I have never told you to leave me before. You defended me and saved my life the first day we met. You were with me when I was totally alone, in mortal fear every day that the band would kill me if I was too slow learning their tongue or showed any sign of infidelity. You were the only person on earth I could speak to and understand.
“When I became converted you were the only reason I stayed in Palestine, so I could search for you and tell you of Christ. You nursed me when I could not drag myself on my belly across the sand or pick up a cup to drink. But I tell you now that though I bless the Lord God of heaven for all you have been to me, and though I love you more than my own life, if you cannot live in peace with my Lady Hope then you cannot bide here under my roof. Is’t clear what I have said?”
Sadaquah crumpled suddenly, all the way down onto his face, and sobbed. “Min fadhlak taffadhal oatherni. Pardon me this wrong, my brother. Pardon me. I will lie down in a whole bog of English mud and let your lady cross it on my back if it will prove that I honor her. If I did not honor her so much I would not fear losing you to her so much. She is … she is more than fit to be your wife. I am not fit to be her slave. Allah is witness to the truth of my words. It is so. A Ith’hab.”
He lurched up onto his feet and stumbled toward the door, blinded by his own tears. Richard stepped into his path and Sadaquah collided with him. Richard engulfed him in his embrace and Sadaquah clutched at his tunic, sobbing again.
“We will never speak of this again,” Richard whispered. “You will stay with us da’eman -- always. That is, if you promise never again to complain that it is too cold, or too foggy, or too green here in my England.”
Sadaquah laughed through his tears and rested his head on Richard’s broad chest. Richard took a double handful of Sadaquah’s robe and clung to him. Tears coursed down his own cheeks. I slipped out and left them alone.
Back in the garden I embraced my mother, who had come out to join the ladies. The men had gone in to the great hall for their meeting. I wondered if they would need Richard, but Lady Godwin assured me it was not likely.
I knew I had better see to the preparations for the meal that would follow the tribunal’s business, and excused myself. My mother said she would come but I scoffed and bade her play hostess where she was.
“Take Tahira with thee, Lady Hope,” Lady Godwin said to me as I went toward the kitchen doors. “She hath been brooding about something, but she seems easier with thee somehow. Perhaps thou canst find out what troubles her, too.”
It was not likely Tahira would be happy in my company if indeed she pined for my cousin Richard. I made so bold as to say as much to Lady Godwin and she looked thoughtful.
“I think thou dost mistake her, my dear,” she smiled at last. “I have never heard a hint of such feeling in Tahira’s tone when she spoke of her knight of the black lion. She was grateful, and in awe of him, but there was no more. Thou must understand, too, dear Hope, that Tahira hath buried thoughts of love deeply in her heart. She was used by that Frenchman, and she cannot think of ever having a husband. She believes, as her people believe, that no woman like her can ever expect a man to take her to wife.”
“How wrong that is,” I said angrily. “God has forgiven her, and men should too. She would be such a loving wife, and imagine her as a mother.”
“I grieve to think of it,” Lady Godwin nodded. “But I cannot force her to marry, and there are no men banging down the door to beg her hand. All seem to know of her past. At any rate, sweet Hope, see if you can cheer her heart.”
Lady Godwin left me and went to speak to Tahira. She smiled and came quickly to my side. As we worked together in the kitchen we talked freely, as if we were old friends.
“Tahira, can you believe all that has happened here?” I said, twining my fingers into hers and leading her off when all was ready. “It is God’s work, surely. No man could order such events.”
“I knew when I first heard a Christian knight sing praise to God out of a torture pit that I was part of a wonder from heaven,” Tahira said. “I was so consumed by my own sorrow and shame I had made up my mind to end my life. But I heard him sing ... I heard him speak the Words of God .… How could I think that I could not live, when he lived in the midst of such horror and praised God beside? He says I saved his life, but he saved mine, twice over. And because he freed me, I was able to come into a community of Christians and find Christ myself. I came into the service of Lady Godwin from there, and I cannot but think my life has been blessed tenfold because of Lord Richard.”
I watched and listened carefully as Tahira told me this. It was as Lady Godwin had said. There was only joy and gratitude, no love of woman for man in all her tone or manner. But as soon as she had said this, a cloud passed over her face.
“Will the young man from Doumiât go home soon?” she asked abruptly. “I heard him say so to the Arabs in our company.”
“No, Tahira, he is going to stay with us always,” I smil
ed. “His name is Sadaquah. Did you not know it?”
“Yes, my lady, but I ... It is not proper for me to speak it. I cannot defile the name of a man of my country by forming it with my tainted lips. He will stay? I did not think he was happy here.”
“Oh, Tahira, he can be happy nowhere else. He loves my cousin Richard, and he would be as much an outcast in his country as you would be if he went back there.”
“How is that possible?”
“His father was an Englishman. He and his mother were left beggars and he was an orphan when he was brought to teach Richard to speak Arabic.”
Tahira looked at me with wide eyes. I suddenly wondered if I should have told her these things. It would probably shame Sadaquah exceedingly, especially knowing how he felt about women. Tahira lowered her eyes and seemed to be thinking hard.
“I remember how wild and proud he was the first time I saw him. I came to that dear rough Bedouin and asked him to help me rescue the poor Christian knight, having heard a rumor that he was not dead. I was surprised to hear that he had already planned to do it, and he brought that young man with him.
“He would not even look at me ... All of them knew what I was … but I learned that it was for the knight’s sake he came, and I will never forget his face when he saw it was one who had been his friend, whom he had been searching for a year or more. I wondered much how he could love a Christian so. I could not speak to him, except when he wanted to know what he could do to ease his friend’s pain and tend his wounds. I marveled at how he took the instruction, how he fed him and dressed him and cleaned him. I am sure Sir Richard lives only because of him, not because of me. I thought him as good and great a man as my knight. I still think it, though I am sorry he resists Christ.”
Hope and the Knight of the Black Lion Page 18