Behold the Dawn (21 page)

“I do.” He turned from the fire. “And if Marek happens to arrive at your gates, make him sleep in the cold a few nights for his tardiness.”

Stephen’s smile deepened. “Decidedly.”

Mairead stood at her narrow slit of a window, watching as rosy dawn dispelled the dark clouds of night, waiting for the gates below to open and for a knight on a borrowed horse to ride away from her. The chamber’s heavy door grated open, and she turned to see Annan ducking his head to pass through the doorway.

“I’ve come to take my leave, lady. Lord Stephen has lent me a horse.”

Suddenly cold, she folded her arms over her chest, one hand reaching to finger the crucifix that hung from her neck. She had been watching for the last hour, aching at the thought that he was leaving her here. But now she almost wished he had just gone. She didn’t want to say goodbye.

The silence hung between them. She refused to look at him.

“You’ll be safe here,” he said at last. “Lord Stephen has promised he will guard you as though you were his own daughter.”

She bit down hard on her lip. And now had come the time when she was to curtsy low and thank him kindly for his services—and then release him from his promise.

In the pressing blackness of the night, buried deep within the bed of muslin-covered straw, she had lain awake, fighting desperate battles with herself over what she was now about to do.

When they had parted the night before at the door of Mairead’s chamber, Lady Eloise had whispered that, if Mairead would but say the word, Annan would not be returning for her after his search for the Baptist. Lord Stephen and Lady Eloise would see her delivered safely to Orleans; Master Annan’s services were required no more.

If Mairead’s heart had turned to stone at the thought of Annan’s leaving for the few weeks needed to free the Baptist, it had died a cold death upon Lady Eloise’s calm utterance. She should release him from his promise. She knew she should. He was no longer needed. She would be just as safe under the protection of Lord Stephen. She had no reason to cling to him.

No reason except the black fear that welled in the depth of her stomach at the thought of his leaving her.

“Master Annan—”

His face was unreadable. “Lady?”

She made herself hold her eyes to his. “Lady Eloise has proposed that it be Lord Stephen who provides for the next leg of my journey. She suggests I release you from your vow. You need not come back for me.” A dangerous tremble filled her throat. “Thank you, Master Annan.”

The scar on his cheek twitched, then stilled. His shoulders straightened. “Farewell, lady.” He kissed her hand, and when he rose again, something in the iron set of his eyes had softened just slightly.

For a moment, she didn’t breathe. He could ride away from her so very easily; he could leave with his mind clear of any debt he thought he owed William; he could forget about the blood and the sweat and the pain she had brought upon him here in the land of the Holy One; he could forget even to wonder if she lived or died.

He straightened to his full height, until her head could barely top his shoulder. “Lady Mairead, the vow belongs to me—not Stephen. I will come back for you.”

The sun and the moon and all the stars exploded inside her chest. Slowly, she let her breath out. “Thank you.” The words refused to rise above a whisper.

He turned to go. His expression was grim once again, and a new line creased his forehead. “Look for me within the month.”

“I will pray for you.”

He stopped at the door and looked back at her, almost as if he wanted to tell her not to trouble. But he said nothing, only nodded.

And then he was gone. She stared after him, her arms clamped across her chest, her lips pressed together. She would not weep; not a tear would she shed. Not over this tourneyer.

This bloody, bloody tourneyer…

A tear slid down her cheek and fell, warm, against her hand. She turned to the window and pressed her shoulder against the wall. Her tears fell unchecked as the gates creaked open and Annan galloped away.

The chamber door swung inward, and Lady Eloise came to stand at her shoulder. “Away he rides, I see. And why this wet face, Lady Mairead?”

She didn’t look at the other woman. With chin lifted, she faced the wind that chilled every tear where it glistened on her face. “Is it not right for a woman to mourn in the absence of her husband?”

Chapter XIV

THE DAY AFTER Annan left, the servant Ducard presented himself at the door of the living chamber where Mairead sat plucking the strings of a long-necked
lute
. “A Master Peregrine Marek wishes your attendance, m’lady.”

She dropped the lute beneath her stool and sprang to her feet. “Marek—”

With a resigned lift of his heavy brows, Ducard stepped back, and Marek sauntered into the room. “Greetings, lady.”

“Marek, you blessed lad! We feared you dead.”

He kissed her offered hand, eyes sparkling in his ruddy face. “Not I, fair one.”

She pulled her hand free. “You’re a rogue, Peregrine Marek.”

“Of course.” He tugged off his cap and scratched his fingers through his tousled hair. “But a lucky one, I must say.”

“Indeed. How is it you’re not dead—or marching back to Acre in chains?”

“Quick wit will ever conquer brute strength. And a fast horse is also rather useful.”

“Not fast enough to get you here before Annan and I.”

He shrugged and walked over to the bench in the
inglenook
. No fire burned at the moment, only sleepy embers, buried in the covering of ash left over from the night. “I had to stay out of sight for a while.” He plopped into the middle of the bench and spread his arms on either side of the seat’s back. “Where’s Annan?”

Mairead sat across from him. “He’s not here.”

“Not out looking for me, is he?”

“The Baptist was captured during the battle. Annan’s gone back for him.”

“Go on with you, lassie. Master Annan’s not going to risk his head for that raving mooncalf.”

“But he has.” She rubbed her hand along her leg, her fingers tingling against the softness of the blue silk gown. She wondered how much of his reason for going had been her prompting and how much had been this innate desire he seemed to have for rescuing the helpless.

Marek huffed. “Why is it he can’t keep himself clear of trouble for a few days without me? It’s beyond me ken, I tell you. I suppose this means I’m off again to save his hide, and me without sleep and vittles for two days.”

She lifted a shoulder. “He thought you dead.”

“Far from it, dear lady, far from it—so why this long face?” He leaned forward to chuck her under the chin.

The lad’s insolence knew no bounds, but the gesture was so flippant and brotherly as to draw a smile instead of the rebuke it deserved.

He grinned. “You’re much more beautiful with a smile.”

“You’re not only a rogue, you’re a knave.”

“You wound me to the quick, lady. Please tell me you don’t also think me as much a troll as you do my master?”

The smile disappeared. “Hardly.” She returned her gaze to her lap and smoothed the wrinkles she had created in her skirt. Tears gathered in the back of her eyes, and she was surprised to find she no longer despised herself for it. “I fear for him.”

Marek leaned back again, the spread of his arms just long enough to touch the edges of the bench’s back. “Takes a mighty hefty blade to put that life in any danger. Tourneymen can’t dent him, the Saracens couldn’t do more than poke a hole in his arm, and he fought off all those blokes t’other day and still managed to get you back here before I could. That should be evidence enough to lay your fears at rest.”

She didn’t look up. “He’s only a man. All men must die.”

“You fret yourself too much, lady. I’ll be off at first light no doubt, and I’ll have him cleared out of this mess in a flash, eh?”

“Nay, you’re to stay with me until he returns.” And he
would
return.
Holy Father, may he return to me!
She did not know what future she might face if he did not. She did not know if she wanted to face the future if he did not.

Marek sat up a little straighter. “Ah, well that’s more as it should be. I say, it’s about time he gave the devoted slave a little ease and repose.”

The door opened, and Lady Eloise entered, her rust-brown skirts billowing like a sail. Mairead rose, and Marek leaned to peer around the corner of the inglenook. Eloise stopped and frowned. “Who’s this?”

He stood and bowed with a flourish of his cap. “Your ladyship, may I introduce myself as Peregrine Mar—”

“Marek.” Her frown deepened. “Aye, I remember. Well, get along with you, boy, and don’t trouble the lady any longer.”

“Trouble her, gracious one? I assure—”

“Oh, get out with you. One would think you believed yourself a troubadour, ‘stead of a sharp-faced swindler.”

That, apparently, brought him back to his senses. Living with a man like Annan, who made up his own rules as he went along, hadn’t likely been a very good lesson in gentle manners. He shut his mouth, bowed once more—this time without the flourish—and ambled to the door, tugging his cap back over his ears. Before he left the room, he turned to glance at Mairead, such a look of long-suffering on his face that she couldn’t help but smile.

Lady Eloise shook out her skirts and glided over to where Mairead had dropped the lute. “That rogue Annan did a good turn in pulling that lad from the streets, but, merciful Heaven, what a villain.” She picked up the instrument and ran the backs of her fingers down the strings.

Mairead sat back down in the inglenook. “Annan’s done many good turns.”

Eloise sniffed. “Aye, and he’s also created his share of villains. Men like Marcus Annan are more trouble than they’re worth.”

Mairead spun back to her feet, ducking out of the inglenook. “You say that so smugly. But you and your husband would not be here today were it not for him.”

Eloise clucked. “My dear girl, he’s only another tourneyer, no better or worse than the lot of them.”

“Then you do not know him.” Mairead snapped the words without thinking. No, Eloise did not know him. But did she? What if he knew the extent of her shame, of the scars in her past that had brought her and Lord William to this heathen land? Would he still have been so willing to close the door she had opened to release him from his promise?

With her eyebrows lifted, Eloise looked rather too feline. “Child, you place too much trust in the man. The Church has condemned the tourneys for three score years. The Devil’s mark is on men like him. I’m not even sure the Crusade could absolve him.”

Mairead looked at her levelly. Her breath came in quick tugs, but it did not clutter the calm of her voice. She had never thought herself capable of such calmness. “There is always redemption.”

Eloise laid the lute on the stool where Mairead had been sitting before Marek came in. The movement was deliberate, final. “Not for the likes of him. Even God Himself is not always merciful.”

“He is when one seeks His mercy.”

“That man doesn’t seek mercy. He’s more interested in the blood on his sword and the gold in his purse.” Eloise tugged her bodice, the movement seeming to yank straight all the lines in her face. “What would your husband think were he to hear these things you say?”

Mairead’s breath slipped past her lips. “I hope he would agree with me.”

For three days Annan rode a hard course due south. He entered the fertile Orontes valley as purple dusk began to burn the horizon’s edge, and immediately, he knew something was different. In the trampled sand only paces to the east were horses’ hoofprints. Not camels, not donkeys, not oxen. Horses. And in this time of war, only soldiers rode horses.

Filling his lungs with the cool of evening, he nodded to himself and turned his bay charger’s head aside. Under the shelter of darkness, he would discover whether the horses’ riders wore the white of Mohammedan muslin over their chain mail or if they labored under the gay caparisons of the Knights Templars and the House de Guerrant.

He tracked them until it was too dark to see, and then he lifted his head to see the orange glow of fire against the moonless sky. He smiled. Leaving the tired charger secured in the darkness of a juniper’s shade, he checked his weapons and started forward, all but invisible in the darkness, his footfalls silent beneath the mutterings of the wind.

He almost missed a sentry posted some fifty paces from the fire, but the murmured voices of one Frank to another as they changed the watch stopped him in his tracks. He kept an eye on the retreating shadow until the man had seated himself by the fire. Then, rising from his crouch, his dagger slipping from its sheath, he crept near enough to hear the shuffling of the man’s feet.

With a speed born only in battle, he caught the man’s shoulder and spun him up against his own chest. The Frank’s grunt was cut off by the dagger against his neck. Annan shoved his jaw alongside the man’s ear. “You’ll be silent if you value your life.”

The Frank’s panting told well enough that he had no desire for his blood to be let by the blade of an unknown assassin.

They were five paces from the fire when the seated men-at-arms caught sight of their approach. Annan kept his blade tight against his prisoner’s neck and waited until the two knights had completed a general scramble to find their weapons. “Hold your blades, laddie bucks. I’d have a word with your leader before you get yourselves killed.”

The Templar straightened from his defensive posture. “Marcus Annan. We meet again.”

“Indeed. My heart sings with the pleasure.” He cast a quick glance around the camp. Only two men-at-arms accompanied the Templar. Hugh and those who had given chase to Marek were not to be seen. Gethin stood at the edge of the firelight, having also risen in the moment of alarm. His face was passive, his arms folded into his sleeves. But the dancing firelight could not hide the twist of his eyebrow.

The Templar came forward a step but did not lower his sword. “Be assured, the feeling is reciprocated, Master Knight. But perhaps you haven’t been informed: we were to follow you, not you us.”