Nine White Horses (14 page)

She straightened her back; she faced the one who sat in a
chair of stone unmarred by any ornament. No splendor marked him, no seal of
power distinguished him from his fellows. He was older than many, gaunt with
the rigors of his office, yet mighty in his power. His eyes were dark and cold
and still.

She bowed to him as if she had been a queen. No flicker
acknowledged her, and yet she knew that she was noticed.

“Master,” she said directly, as Franks were said to do, as
came most easily to her nature, “you hold captive what belongs to me.”

The Grand Master of the Hospitallers looked down from his
eminence. His nostrils flared the merest fraction; his brows raised by a hair’s
height, as if he deigned at last to credit that what he saw was no delusion. A
woman, and a woman of Islam, addressing him in Arabic, in his own hall, before
the gathering of his knights.

His cold eyes passed from the unspeakable to the merely unbearable.
A mamluk, but a mamluk with a
Frankish face and Frankish bulk and Frankish arrogance. He spoke in his own
tongue, cold words, meant to chill Ghazalah into silence.

“He says,” said Barak with the ease of one who is either
royal or a fool, “that I might prefer conversion to the death reserved for
defilers of his sanctuary.”

“Would you?” asked Ghazalah, not looking back, not taking
her eyes from the Grand Master’s face.

She could sense Barak’s smile, warm as sunlight on her back.
“There is no god but God, and Muhammad is the Prophet of God. “

The air shuddered and shrank. The massed knights rocked at
the Truth that to them was blasphemy, and signed themselves with their false
god’s cross. Swords leaped from sheaths; men growled in their throats.

The Grand Master raised a hand. His servants subsided into
wary stillness. This time he spoke in Arabic, if not to Ghazalah. “Do not speak
those words again under my roof.”

“Certainly,” she said, “if you will give me back my
brother.”

“We hold no infidels hostage here.”

She had won a victory: she had pricked him into addressing
her. “You hold a woman of your own people. She has a companion. Surely you can
scent the sorcery in him.”

Her scorn did not touch him. “The dog? It is an infidel? That
is apt.”

“He is my brother. I will have him back. Will you give him
freely, or shall I take him?”

“Can you take him?”

“I love him.”

“Indeed,” said the Grand Master. “But does he love you?”

“Does that matter?”

“To his freedom,” said the Hospitaller, “yes.”

She stood with her head up, striving valiantly not to tremble.
Barak was no help to her. He was not human; he did not know this folly that was
human love.

No more did she. She was only half a woman.

“If he loves you,” the Hospitaller said, “loves you truly,
as a brother should love his dearest sister, then I will give him to you, and
set you free.”

“And if he does not?” she asked with admirable steadiness.

“Then we keep him.”

“And I?”

“You may go where you will, if only it be out of Krak. Your
mamluk,” the Hospitaller added, “we keep. It was not wise of him to enter here
where Jinn and demons are not welcome save as slaves. In whatever form they
come to us.”

Barak started. If he would have spoken, he never began. He
stood again in stallion’s shape; even as he gathered himself to rear, a man
leaped, flinging a bridle over his head. Its headstall was wrought of jewels
set in iron, and every gem carved with the Seal of Suleiman. Barak bowed under
it, though his ears had flattened to his head, though his lips had drawn back
from his teeth. He could not speak: the bit forbade, carved all about with
signs of silence.

Ghazalah had not known that she could be so angry. “That was
unwarranted!”

“What, do your people mete no punishment to a slave who has
escaped his master’s vigilance?”

She would not answer that. In a moment, she could not.
Mailed guards had come, leading within their circle a familiar figure, and in
her arms the creature that was Shams al-Din.

The Lady Melisende regarded the stallion with recognition
and the woman with interest, stroking Shams’ long black-curled ears. He seemed
content, as a beast is, without will to alter what is done to it.

The Grand Master spoke to the lady, and his voice was
shocking, for it was almost gentle. “Come here, sister-daughter.”

She obeyed him without undue reluctance. She seemed to bear
him no rancor, although he held her prisoner.

“My niece,” said the Grand Master, and again he was haughty
and cold, “owes this pup of yours a debt. He has taught her what she would hear
from none of us, that fidelity is more to be prized than passion, and that a
woman may master a man if she keeps her wits about her. She has agreed to the
alliance which once she spurned, for the man is royal, and gentle, and constant
in his affections; and if he cannot equal her intelligence, at least he will
value it for the treasure that it is.”

“He sounds a paragon,” Ghazalah said.

“He has a face like a frog,” said Melisende. “But I have seen
what beauty is. In the end, since I must choose, I know which I prefer.”

Shams huddled in her arms. At her words, he whined, barely
to be heard. His eyes were huge with hurt.

Ghazalah knew wisdom when she heard it, but Shams was her
brother. “Are you any better than he? He loved you for as long as it was in him
to do. You but used him for your pleasure.”

“
I
never swore an
oath,” said Melisende.

Ghazalah met that cold blue gaze until it dropped. “I pity
your husband,” she said. “Still more do I pity you. Shams is young and inclined
to foolishness, but his heart is steel beneath the fire. Yours is naught but
ice and air.”

“Ah,” said the Grand Master, “but does he love you, woman of
Islam?”

At her uncle’s bidding, Melisende set Shams upon the floor.
He gazed up at her, bewildered. His tail wagged timidly; he licked her foot.
She pushed him away, not ungently. “Why do you fawn on me? There is your
sister. Go to her, if you would set yourself free.”

He turned to look, and Ghazalah’s heart sank. Of course he
did not know her. He had never seen her as a woman.

She gathered her will, shaping the shift from maiden to
mare. And nothing came. Where her true self had been was only emptiness.

She met the Hospitaller’s eye and knew. He had trapped her
as he had trapped Barak, though far less openly.

“Brother,” she said as strongly as she could. “Brother, it
is I, Ghazalah.”

He did not believe her. He knew what Ghazalah was: his
long-maned beauty with the star on her brow. He turned his back on her and
sought refuge in Melisende’s skirts.

Ghazalah rounded on the Grand Master. “This proves nothing!
Love is more than a dog’s acknowledgment of his mistress.”

The Grand Master bowed his head a fraction. “So it is. Puppy!”

Shams came at that call, though he came trembling, snarling,
snapping at air.

“Puppy,” said the Hospitaller, “I offer you a choice. There
is the woman whom you loved, however fleetingly. There behind you is your
sister. Your lover will suffer your presence if you desire it, and cherish you
more deeply, it may be, than any who walks in the shape of a man. Your sister
will take you back to your kin, away forever from the Lady Melisende.”

Shams stiffened at the mention of his kin, his body a cry of
startled joy. But it did not endure. He sank down shivering.

“In your own form,” said Ghazalah, soothing him.

“That was not in the bargain,” the Hospitaller said.

Ghazalah could not even rage. Shams for once had seen more
than she was willing to see, and comprehended it. All of it. There was the
test. Life here, enchanted, but in his lady’s company, more intimate than any
man. Or life in Cairo, enchanted, bound in the shape of that beast which all in
Islam despised as unclean: a shame and a curse, and a mockery of his father’s
name.

Al-Kehailan had only been a fool. Shams al-Din had been a
fool and a breaker of faith.

“O Allah!” cried Ghazalah, though the castle shuddered at
the Name. “What does it matter if he loves me, if he pays for it in pain?”

She never heard the answer, if answer indeed there was. Barak
had broken free. The bridle was on him still, but the reins hung loose and
frayed. She caught them without thinking, braced as he twisted against her. The
bridle fell. He reared up, trumpeting his freedom, and hurtled down.

Shams was there beneath his feet, motionless, eyes on those
merciless hooves. Death was in them, and he knew it. He waited for it to take
him.

She leaped too late, struck too late, cursed far too late. Even
through the stallion’s cry, she heard the crack of bone. The great hooves
battered her brother to a bloody rag.

She had gone mad, she knew it; she watched herself, she
watched Barak. He stood still, unmoving as she flogged him with the tatters of
his bridle. He did not flinch, even when the blood sprang, immortal blood, too
fiery brilliant for any creature born of earth. His eyes were the color of
rain.

“Ghazalah!
Ghazalah!”

Her arm sank down of its own accord. It would ache, when she
deigned to notice it. That voice . . . she knew . . .

She had lost even the little wits she had. She thought she
heard her brother calling her, saw him standing on the grey stone, real and
solid and desperate with fear for her. “Ghazalah!”

She could not fling herself into the arms of a ghost. No more
could she tear her eyes from him. Even to beg forgiveness of the one who had
freed him.

Shams’s fine dark brows had knotted. “You
are
Ghazalah? Whose spell did you run
afoul of?”

“Our father’s,” her voice answered for her. Her hand stretched
out. He was real. Alive. Unmarred by any wound. And quite as bare as he was
born. She had never known that he had a beauty mark on the point of his hip:
precisely where she bore its twin.

“You look like me,” said Shams. He seemed surprised, but
pleasurably so. Until he frowned. “You’ve always been . . . ?”

She nodded.

His lips thinned. “You never told me. Never once. I shared
everything with you. And you—you kept a secret.”

“It was never time.”

He tossed his head. “Oh, indeed! I was closer to you
than—than—”

He was hurt, and angry, and as oblivious as she to useless
modesty. She looked at him and knew her heart would break. Lovely, shallow,
light-witted Shams. He could not even care that he was here. He knew only that
his possession had kept a secret to herself.

“Perhaps,” said the Grand Master, “I should have demanded
that
you
love
him
.”

Shams was startled. “What—”

He seemed at last to become aware of the hall, the knights,
the weight of eyes on her slender frame. Some of them were avid.

He barely paused. He set himself before Ghazalah and glared
at them all. “If you touch her—if you even think of it—”

It would have been ridiculous, if she had not wanted to weep.

“Hush,” said Shams, turning to hold her, patting her with
remarkable competence. “Hush. I’m here. I won’t let them hurt you.”

“You had better not.”

A stallion speaking had no power to startle Shams. They glared
at each other with fine fierce rivalry, until she struck them both. “Just
exactly who is it who needs protecting?” She stepped from between them to face
the Grand Master. “I count my bargain won.”

“I do not.” The Hospitaller met her wrath with icy calm. “This
is not love; this is merely ownership. Bid the young pup choose.”

“What is there to choose?” demanded Shams. “I’ll be no lady’s
lapdog.”

“Would you be her lover?”

Shams stilled to stone, but stone that breathed. His eyes had
found Melisende of their own accord. Light had dawned in them; he whispered her
name.

Cold she might be, but she was a woman, and he was Shams al-Din.
She half raised a hand.

Ghazalah would not cling or beg. Shams was Shams again; the
rest did not matter. Much. Would it kill her father to lose his son to a
Christian?

He shivered. It was cold here for a naked man. He turned
away from Melisende. “Ghazalah,” he said. He sounded angry, or impatient, or
ready to weep. “Will you bear me away from here, or must I walk?”

“But—” she said. She had never felt so blankly stupid. “But
you—she—”

“She is not my sister.” He set his fists on his hips. “Well?”

She could have cried aloud. It was haughty, and it was Shams;
but it was most indubitably a choice.

The whole of her was there, full and rounded for her shaping.
Shams’ wonder was sweet, his gladness sweeter yet, though he masked it with
temper. In mounting he managed, for an instant, to embrace her.

His weight made her complete. She danced: she could not help
it. No more could he help his gust of laughter.

She wheeled at the touch of hand and heel, and sprang into
flight. No one moved to stop them. One thing only of all that was there would
linger, and come back to her after in memory or in dreams: the Grand Master’s
face. It had not warmed or softened, and yet it bore no anger. It had lost no
more than it was willing to lose, and gained more perhaps than any Muslim knew.

An honorable enemy, an honorable battle; and a victory well
won.

o0o

The gate was open. Two sets of hooves woke the echoes beneath
it. They burst into sunlight and clean air and stones that bore no taint of
Christian magic.

But of Muslim magic, enough and more than enough. Ghazalah
had half expected the rising of the whirlwind. Shams shouted his astonishment.

Cairo embraced them with a mother’s arms. They breathed its
blessed air; they turned their faces to its blessed, brazen sky.

Not so blessed the place in which they found themselves.
Sunlight altered it. The grass was searingly green, the roses red as blood.