The Dagger and the Cross (3 page)

She looked about. She hardly knew what she was looking for.
Aidan would have been glad to have her with him at the quay, but she was
learning arts and courtesies. This was her gift to him: a reunion with his
brother, without the distraction of her presence. She did not want to be where
Joanna was, if there was anywhere else to be. Therefore she was here, wandering
the markets of Acre.

She had a trinket or two, bought on a whim, and her eye on a
particularly fine ruby that might, if the price went low enough, make a signet
for a groom-gift. She already had the cottes made of Ch’in silk, three of them,
and the cloak lined with sable, and the belt of gold, and...

A ring would please him, and the ruby was his stone. She
knew a jeweler who could carve it, and a goldsmith who could set it.

She turned with sudden decision and went back the way she
had come. No one jostled her or got in her way. That was part of what she was.
Humans knew in their bones, even when they saw only another of themselves: a
woman in dusty black with a veil over her face. Sometimes a pilgrim, raw with
newness, would think of cursing her for an infidel. He never did it, nor need
he ever know why.

The merchant with the ruby was shrewder than most, but he
was no match for her. The price she won was almost half the fair worth of the
stone; and even at that, he made a kingly profit. She could hardly keep him
from cheating poor feckless knights on their way back from Crusade, but she
could take her own small revenge, and teach him a lesson besides. They grew
soft, these robbers of pilgrims. It did them good to match wits with their
betters.

She left the shop, well pleased with herself. A little
distance down the street, where a cloth merchant displayed his wares, she saw a
face she knew. In part for good humor, in part for curiosity, she drew closer.

Joanna’s eldest son was the image of both his parents:
man-high even at twelve years old, with his father’s bright gold hair and his
mother’s grey-blue eyes, and a face that, young though he was, was already
waking sighs among the women. He made Morgiana think of a half-grown lion.

Pure Norman though he seemed, he had sufficient in him of
his Saracen kin. He bargained well and cannily, and he knew how to use both his
youth and his size. The object of his labors, a fine damask cloth, made
Morgiana smile behind her veil. She had wondered what would happen when the
steward discovered the wreck of the children’s pavilion.

When he came out with the cloth wrapped in muslin and then
in a bit of sacking, Morgiana fell in beside him. His glance was nervous, with
an edge of white; it eased hardly at all when she said, “Good morning, Messire
Aimery.”

He started slightly, and peered. “My lady? Morgiana?”

“To the life,” she said.

Born to this sunstruck country as he was, he was as deeply
bronzed as any Saracen; but a blush was still perceptible. “M—my lady.”

“What, did you think I was something less respectable?”

His cheeks were crimson. His eyes were furious. He would not
look at her. “Did my mother send you, my lady?”

Morgiana stopped short. “Since when have I run errands for
any dog of a Frank?”

He spun, startled, turning angry. She watched him remember
what she was. He did not crumble at once into terror. He never even thought of
it. In that, he was his mother’s son. But he was a little more careful than he
might have been, in saying what came into his head.

“My lady, you are noble and a kinswoman, but my mother is my
mother. I would thank you to speak of her with greater respect.”

 Morgiana inclined her head. “Well and wisely said, messire.
They will make a courtier of you yet.”

He shrugged uneasily and became a great gangling lad again,
reduced to incoherence by the presence of a lady.

She took pity on him. “Come, you must be hungry: young
things always are. I know a place where the honeycakes are famed in Paradise.”

It was beyond him to resist her, though he trembled like a
colt in a new saddle. She led him to a street which even he, born in this city,
hardly knew, and down an alley which she would have wagered gold he did not
know, to an utterly unprepossessing doorway. He was in a fine state at the end
of it: thinking that, after all, he had been waylaid by a bandit.

It was a perfectly ordinary shop in which they found
themselves, but the scents which filled it were not ordinary at all. Aimery
drew a breath. His eyes went wide. He sat without a word on the bench to which
Morgiana led him, and took a long moment simply to breathe.

The shopkeeper was as vast as her wares were excellent. She
greeted Morgiana with deep respect and Morgiana’s companion with restraint, and
brought them the best of what she had. There were others in the shop, but most
did not stay; they bought and left, often pausing to exchange gossip with their
neighbors.

“But,” said Aimery when he had a breath to spare from
devouring Fatimah’s cakes. “This is an infidel place. How can it be here?”

“Maybe it isn’t,” said Morgiana.

His eyes went wild.

She patted his hand. “Hush, child. It’s the best place I
know. Does it matter where it is?”

It did. Profoundly.

“Think of it,” she said, “as an adventure.”

He swallowed hard, trying not to choke. “You—this—you
brought me here by witchcraft!”

She lowered her eyes. Aidan would not be pleased. He would
tell her, again, that she would never learn; that she must learn. And never
mind that this mortal child knew what she was. Most of them did, sooner or
later. She was not a good liar.

She rose. “I’ll take you back,” she said.

He caught her hand. He seemed surprised that he had done it;
but he did not let go. “No. No, my lady. It was just...you never...I didn’t
know you could do that.”

He did. But he had never believed it. He was getting over
his shock; he was beginning to enjoy himself. An adventure, he was thinking. A
tale to widen eyes among his siblings, and among the pages and the squires when
he went back to Tripoli. “Where are we, my lady?”

“That,” she said, “is my secret.”

He let her keep it, though he was burning with curiosity. A
mystery, too. He was in bliss.

She sat down again and watched him eat. He paused. “Lady.
Won’t you have some, too?”

She shook her head.

“Is it because I’m a Christian?”

“Hardly that,” she said, “when I break bread with
unbelievers every day.”

“I’m not—it’s you who—” He stopped, tangled in it. “Father
Robert says you’re in—irre—unregenerate.”

She laughed. “That’s not all he says I am! He tried to
baptize me once, did you know? He reasoned that since a baby needn’t know or
consent, a grown witch might not need to submit, either. I think he rather
hoped that I’d sprout horns and a tail at the touch of the holy water, and fly
screeching out the window.”

“Did you?” Aimery went crimson again. “I mean, did he really
do it?”

“My lord talked him out of it. Not gently.”

Aimery looked as if he would have laughed, if he had dared. “I
can imagine. Uncle—his highness can be very persuasive. I saw him in the
tournament last winter. Count Raymond says there’s never been a better man of
his hands in Outremer.”

“There hasn’t,” Morgiana said. “Bohemond was a great fighter
in his day. King Amalric was notable; and his son, the leper king, would have
been, if he had lived.”

“You
knew
Bohemond?”

Morgiana shook her head. “I heard of him. He was seven feet
tall. Even for a Frank, that’s big.”

Fatimah brought a cup of a sherbet cooled with snow. Aimery
drank it blindly, fascinated. “They called him that, you know. Bohemond.
Because he was like the giant in the story. The infidels must have thought he
was a devil.”

“A jinni. A spirit of earth, as my prince and I are spirits
of air. That’s not a devil, exactly. We can accept Islam; we can win salvation,
though it’s harder for us, and longer. Iblis—the Adversary—is our forefather,
you see.”

“You are children of Satan?” Aimery’s eyes were round.

“No,” she said, willing herself to be patient. “We are our
own creatures, less than angels, but sharing somewhat of their substance. So we
never grow old, and we never sicken; but we have free will, like men. Except
that men have pure souls apart from their flesh, and we are both spirit and
flesh, and so it’s harder to divide the two. It’s in holy Koran.”

“It’s false scripture. Though Mother tells us to be polite
to it, and to people who believe in it. So does Count Raymond.”

“Your count is a wise man, for an infidel.” She did not say
what she thought of Aimery’s mother. “I’m neither devil nor damned, and my
prince is as good a Christian as any I’ve seen.”

“But you’re witches,” said Aimery.

“What, like old women muttering over their cauldrons? We are
white enchanters. We work magic in Allah’s name. Or in God’s. You might say we
are
magic. We can no more help working it than you can help being almost as big
as Bohemond.”

“I’m hardly—” He looked down at himself. “I’ll never be as
big as that.”

“Close enough,” she said.

His eyes measured her as she sat there in her veils and her
smallness. Odd: she never felt small when she was among Muslims. She often wore
men’s clothes, and passed for a man, or a eunuch at least; and not a little
one, either. But a tall Muslim was merely a middling Frank, and she was a woman
besides. This hulking boy made her remember that. He was beginning to
understand what women were for, though he was young enough still to blush when
he understood it.

She let fall her veil, which was revenge for the names he
had called her, and smiled, which was to soothe him. A woman should always know
how she looked to a man. Morgiana knew that she was beautiful; she knew that it
was not a common beauty, nor a comfortable one. Gentleness was no part of it.
Perhaps that was why her smile did not have the effect she wanted. Aimery
blanched and stammered. “Lady. Lady, I—”

“Messire, I don’t bite.”

“But,” he said, “you’re so beautiful.”

Now it was her turn, at last, to blush. It made her furious,
but it comforted him. He gulped what was left in his cup and set it down.

“I’m glad you’re going to marry my uncle,” he said in a
rush, as if he had to get it all done at once or never do it at all. “I’m sorry
it took so long. I’d like—I’d like to be your squire. When I’m raised to it. If
your grace will accept me.”

“But aren’t you already given to Count Raymond?” she asked.

He shook his head, sharp and short. “That’s not what it is.
My lady. That’s the allegiance of the world. This is a higher thing.
Like—riding in tournaments, and wearing your token on my helm, and making you
Queen of Beauty if I win.”

Ah, she thought. He had been listening to troubadours. “My
prince might object.”

He wilted visibly. “Yes. He would, wouldn’t he? And he
always wins.”

“There will be a lady for you,” she said. “I’m sure of it.”

“But never one as fair as you.”

“Beauty is greatest in a lover’s eye.” She did not expect
him to understand; she hoped that he would remember. She rose again, held out
her hand. “Come, messire. It’s time we went back to Acre.”

The merchants of Genoa had their own quarter in Acre, like a
city within the city, warded by its own wall and closed off by its own gate.
Where the citizens of St. Mark and the trader princes of Pisa had little more
in their quarters than a hostelry and a church or two, the Genoese, who had
aided the armies of the first Crusade in the capture of the city, had taken the
best of it and made it their own.

In the heart of the quarter, in a house that had sheltered
merchant princes since the city was young, five men gathered, ostensibly to
examine a new shipment of spices. Jars and vials and packets waited on the
table under the awning, should anyone happen upon their meeting.

“Wine?” asked the master of the house.

There were no takers. The youngest of them, who was his son,
looked longingly toward the pitcher, but knew better than to ask. The wizened
man in the monk’s habit sniffed disapprovingly. His companion seemed asleep.
The man in mail had a cup half-full, which he set down to pace along the
portico. The others watched him warily. He had an odd, unfinished look, as if
there should have been more to him: not quite handsome, not quite ugly; neither
tall nor short, neither dark nor fair, neither remarkable nor rightly
nondescript. One would lose him in a crowd, unless it suited him to be noticed.
Then he could draw every eye.

He paused by the table, crumbled a bit of saffron in his
fingers, chose a clove and set it on his tongue. He came back still engrossed
in the sharp, pungent taste, and sat where he had been before, lapsing into
immobility.

Guillermo Seco, merchant of Genoa, shook himself as if from
a doze. “So, then, sirs. Are we agreed?”

The plumper of the monks opened an eye. There was no sleep
in it, and a fair degree of mockery. “When have human men ever agreed on
anything? Be polite, Guillermo. Tell Brother Thomas what we do here.”

“You were to tell him—” Seco broke off. “Very well. As kind
as you are to come here so soon, reverend Brother, with your ship barely moored
at the quay, you are kinder still to lend us your aid in what we propose.”

“Not exactly,” said the wizened monk. “I said that I would
consider your proposal. I never promised to accept it.”

Seco stiffened, but he kept his smile. “Indeed, Brother.
Indeed. You know why we are here?”

“Suppose that you enlighten me,” said Brother Thomas.

Seco’s eyes narrowed. He drew a breath, and let it out,
focusing his irritation in the words which he intended
to say. “We stand
against a common enemy: a rival in war and in commerce, and no friend to the
King of Jerusalem. If you choose to call us a conspiracy, you may. I prefer to
call it a defense of the kingdom against a subtle and deadly threat.”