The Dagger and the Cross (5 page)

Ysabel, demure between her smaller, plumper sisters, was
engrossed in the king’s greeting. Joanna’s brows lowered. “I never even knew
that she was gone.”

“You were busy.” Aidan sighed a little, shrugged. “She did
want to see my brother. I expect she’ll behave herself now that she’s done it.
For a while.”

“For just as long as it takes her to find some new bit of
mischief.” Joanna drew herself up. Her back was aching. Again. “Enough of that.
Where’s Aimery? Ah. Here, sir, run to the hall and tell the steward to be
ready. We’ll be in directly.”

She was running away, and he had to know it as well as she.
He did not try to stop her. He never did.

This time, she supposed, he had cause. Of course the
Assassin would have waited to make her entrance until she could draw every eye.
Shameless though she could be when it pleased her fancy, running about dressed
like a boy, on high occasions she was always the perfect Muslim lady: wrapped,
swathed, and muffled in veils. Only her hands were visible, white and slender,
and her cat-green eyes. No one in the High Court had ever knowingly seen her
face, though once, and only once, they had come close to it: the first time she
went before them and claimed Aidan for her own. But then she had had her back
to them, and only King Baldwin had seen what there was to see, and he was years
dead. They told tales of her, exactly as she intended. That she was hideous, or
hideously scarred. That she was unbearably beautiful. That she had a demon’s
fangs, or a cloven hoof. They never matched the green-eyed Saracen eunuch who
was often in the prince’s company, with the mysterious lady of the Assassins.

Her lover’s brother greeted her as a king should, with royal
courtesy. Joanna did not hear what she said, but Gwydion’s response was clear
enough. He was as smitten with her as all the rest of them, snared by eyes and
hands and a low pure voice.

Joanna did not hate her. Oh, no. Joanna was merely jealous
of everything that she was. Beautiful—because she was that; a beauty to break
the heart. Clear and witty and wise. Aidan’s, beyond hope of changing it.

He was with her. Joanna had not even seen him move. He had
her hand in his. She never leaned or clung: she was a wild thing, and even for
him she would not be either soft or pliant. But her eyes on him, even at that
distance, were burning-tender. He bent over her, tall beside her Saracen
smallness, and said something that made her laugh. The sound was fierce and
sweet. Still hand in hand, with the king beside them, they went into the hall.

o0o

The children were not supposed to take part in the feast. It
was the nursery for them, and Nurse’s hard eye lest they dirty their clothes,
and later they would sing for the king. Ysabel knew she could not stretch the
morning’s ruse to cover an afternoon’s absence: Prince Aidan obviously had not
given her leave to sit with him, and Nurse knew what Mother wanted. Ysabel
thought of giving Nurse’s mind a nudge, but she stopped short of it. That was
the Sin, Aidan had taught her. Tricks and sleights were one thing; at worst,
one got one’s behind paddled, and that was that. Mind-twisting was ugly, a
devil’s trick. It smirched the magic, and took all the beauty out of it.

Still, it was sorely tempting. Mariam and Lisabet were
little better than babies; all they wanted to do was play with their dolls.
Baudouin, the youngest, was asleep with his thumb in his mouth. William was a
page; like Aimery, he was judged worthy to serve in the hall.

It was not fair. William, at seven, could wait on the king.
Ysabel would be ten on the Feast of the Conquest, and she was shut up with the
babies.
Help Nurse look after them,
Mother said.

As if Nurse ever needed help. Ysabel glowered at the piece
she was supposed to be embroidering, and thought of setting it on fire. The
needle seared her fingers. She yelped and dropped it. Nurse thought she had
pricked herself. Nurse was adept at thinking round the humanly impossible. Not
at all like Dura. Dura was mute, and Mother’s. She saw everything, and
understood it, the way cats did, under her skin.

Ysabel thought of going to find her. Nurse might not object
to that, with all the others to occupy her.

Mariam and Lisabet began to quarrel. This was a hotter fight
than most: it came rapidly to blows. Nurse sprang into the fray.

Ysabel took a bare instant to take it in, and to thank
Blessed Mother Mary for it. Then she was gone.

o0o

The hall was full to bursting, between her father’s people
and her uncle’s and now the Rhiyanan king’s, and such of the pope’s men as had
not gone to keep the bishop company. All of Aidan’s mamluks were there, though
some only pretended to eat. Ysabel, in her favorite spying place behind the
phoenix tapestry, watched them watch their prince. He had Morgiana on his right
and Elen on his left, and he had never looked as happy as he did now. He
dazzled her, he was so splendid.

Ysabel was happy for him. She would have been happier if she
had been William or Aimery: stiff and proud in livery, wailing on him and
hearing what they all said. She could do that, but she had to listen
underneath, and be careful about it. Aidan might not care if he noticed, but
Morgiana could be merciless. Though she seemed happy enough, these days.
Laughing at nothing, dancing for no reason at all. It was all a great deal of
fuss for a few words on a parchment; even if they were the lord pope’s.

She did not notice Simeon the Jew anywhere, or his son. She
was a little disappointed, though of course they would not eat at a Christian
table. The mamluks only did it to be near their lord. She was glad she was a
Christian. She could eat anywhere, and never worry about being unclean.

Watching them eat made her hungry. She stood it as long as
she could, but her stomach began to growl menacingly. They were not doing
anything, after all, but eating and talking of nothing in particular. She left
them to it.

Cook roared at her, but let her filch a trencherful of
dainties and carry them to the garden. She settled there, well content, with
the kitchen cat to keep her company.

She was not surprised when Akiva sat on the other end of the
bench. “Have you had anything to eat?” she asked him.

“The king saw to it,” he said. “We have our own cook.”

She nodded. “My uncle’s people have one, too. One of them
married her to keep her with them. Or so Dildirim says. He’s getting fat on
what she feeds him.”

Akiva grinned. His teeth were white and sharp. Animal teeth.
She eyed him sidelong. He stretched, turning his face to the sun. He was not
much prettier than she was, with his great hooked nose and his too-big eyes and
his pointed chin, but something was starting to change. The way Aidan said she
would, when she was older. Like a cygnet turning into a swan.

“It’s warm here,” he said. “My bones like it.”

“Your skin won’t, if you’re not careful.”

“I am.” But he sat up straight again and looked at his
hands. They were very white. Hers were whiter, but not by much.

He looked up. She stared back. “Are you the king’s son?” she
asked him.

He flushed angrily, but he laughed. “No! Nor his nephew,
either.”

It was her turn to flush. “He’s only my uncle by marriage.
Grandmother married his sister’s son—Lady Elen’s uncle. After my real
grandfather died. Because Mother and her brother needed a father, and she liked
him. Very much.”

“Ah,” said Akiva.

Her brows lowered. “I don’t like what you’re thinking.”

“You don’t know what I’m thinking,” he said calmly. “You’re
not looking.”

Nor was he about to let her. He was strong. Not as strong as
Aidan, but strong enough, and trained. She drew back.

“I’m why my father went to Rhiyana,” Akiva said. “Besides
the fact that we’re welcome there, and treated like human people. He’s a wise
man, my father. He saw what I was, and he knew that I was his, and my mother’s,
too, and yet I wasn’t; I was something else. He’d heard about the king; he
thought he might know what to do with me. And so the king did. They’re fast
friends now, and not just because of me.”

“I can see that,” said Ysabel. She chewed her lip. He was
telling secrets. That was a gift, and it expected a gift in return. But she was
not sure she wanted to tell him. He knew the part that was less important. How
not? He was like her. She said slowly, “I’ve always known I was different. It
never mattered, much. He was always there to help me: my uncle. My—” She tried,
but she could not say it. “People don’t know. They count to nine and look at my
father—the one who thinks he’s my father. They don’t know to count to eleven,
to get one of us. My mother thinks I don’t, either. She thinks I don’t know.”
Her hands were fists. “I’m not a bastard. I’m not!”

“I’m not calling you one,” said Akiva.

Ysabel barely heard him. “I am, though, aren’t I? Father is
Aimery’s father, and William’s and Mariam’s and Lisabet’s and Baudouin’s and
the new baby’s. I’m the one Mother lied about. Because she loved someone she
shouldn’t have; and still does. And he’s going to marry Morgiana.
She
says
I’m silly, and if I were a Muslim it wouldn’t matter who my father is, because
where Allah is, every child is the same.”

“I think I like Morgiana,” Akiva said.

“You don’t
like
Morgiana. You love her or you hate
her. Usually both at once.”

“Morgiana is more absolutely
us
than any of us. Isn’t
she?”

Ysabel blinked. “Well. Yes. Yes, that’s exactly it. There’s
no human in her, to take the edges off.”

“She frightens people,” Akiva said.

“Even you?”

He grimaced. “Even me. I tried to slip around a corner and
see what she was thinking, and she almost took my thought-finger off. Not even
thinking about it, mind. Just swatting me like a fly. I’ve still got the
headache.”

“No wonder, if you were that stupid.”

He twitched, offended.

She bit her tongue. If he had been one of her brothers, it
would not have mattered. Brothers were for driving wild. But he was certainly
not her brother. “I mean,” she said, “nobody tries that with Morgiana twice.
Even my uncle had to learn the hard way.”

He accepted the peace offering, after a little thought. He
held out his hand. “Friends?” he asked.

She wiped her own hand hastily on her skirt and gave it to
him. “Friends,” she said.

o0o

Aidan was well aware of the spy behind the arras. Something
would have to be done about her, he reflected, not for the first time. Perhaps
if she were granted a woman’s privileges, made a part of everything, given what
she persisted in taking: that would put paid to her rebellion.

He would speak to her mother. Which was never as easy as
Joanna might think it was. Blessed humanity; it made her blind to what it cost
him, to keep the distance he must keep.

She was pregnant again and happy in it, her rich body grown
richer with years and childbearing. After the first, which had been bitterly
hard, she had settled to it. She bore well, and as easily as a human woman
could.

Maybe he had a little to do with that. Some of his magic was
in her still, woven with her substance, from a time when she had almost died,
and he had given her all the power he had, to make her live.

The one who had almost killed her sat beside him, a faceless
figure in swathes of green veils, but under them she was thrumming with joy.
Morgiana ran a teasing hand up his thigh. He caught it, twining his fingers
with hers. “What, madam! Can’t you wait until the Church hallows it?”

“No,” she said, clear and definite, as Morgiana always was.
Even when she doubted, she made no bones about it.

He raised her fingers to his lips. He heard the slight catch
of her breath. When they were the most notorious sinners in Outremer, they had
been less circumspect by far than they were now, with their wedding before
them. It changed things. It made them matter more.

Sometimes they forgot that there was a world outside of
them. Aidan woke to it with a guilty start, as he often did of late. People
were indulgent. It was a new thing, to be predictable. He did not know that he
liked it.

There was a stir at the entrance to the hall. A latecomer,
and one of rank, from the magnitude of the flurry. The steward hastened toward
the high table and bent to Ranulf’s ear. Aidan eavesdropped shamelessly. “A
guest, my lord,” the steward said. “Messire Amalric de Lusignan.”

Ranulf’s expression altered not at all. “Let him in,” he
said, “and clear a place for him.”

“At the high table, my lord?”

Ranulf hesitated the merest instant. “Yes,” he said.

Aidan had to admire his aplomb. Ranulf de Mortmain would
greet the devil himself with quiet courtesy and offer him a place at his table.

Messire Amalric was hardly as illustrious a personage as
that. Merely the brother of Jerusalem’s upstart king, and Constable of the
kingdom in his own right, and no friend to the house of Mortmain. Ranulf, like
any other baron with a brain in his head, had resisted Guy’s regency when the
child king was alive, and stood with the Count of Tripoli: firmly enough that
his eldest son was Raymond’s page, and soon to be made his squire.

Amalric had gall, Aidan granted him that. He advanced as
calmly as if this were a friend’s hall and he an invited guest. His eyes
scanned their faces, flickering from Aidan to Gwydion and back again. For a
moment he was hard put to choose; but he, unlike his brother, was no fool. He
bowed to the Rhiyanan king and said clearly, “I bring you greetings, my lord of
Rhiyana, in the name of my lord of Jerusalem. He regrets that he cannot greet
you in his own person; he begs your indulgence.”

It was all perfectly correct, and deeply, subtly insolent.
Gwydion, who had known all the nuances of insult when this pup’s father was in
swaddling bands, inclined his head a precise degree.