The Dagger and the Cross (56 page)

Neither of them was in sight. Joanna saw Archbishop William
behind the Patriarch, coped and mitered himself, but properly subordinate. He
seemed to be propping the Patriarch up, or blocking his escape. The archbishop’s
expression was solemnly content.

Someone came quietly through the door behind them. Heraclius
started; William smiled. Joanna blinked hard. Aidan had put on garb proper to a
wedding, if he was Aidan, and wedding his Assassin. His coat was that which
Saladin had given him in Damascus, the Saracen robe of honor blazoned with the
tiraz,
the bands of scarlet circling his arms, embroidered with his name and the
name of the Syrian sultan. The cloth of the coat was silk, black subtly
damascened with gold, and his belt was black inlaid with gold, and his sword
hung from it, damascened scabbard, silver hilt with its great coal of a ruby.
Most often he wore Frankish hose and shoes under the coat, but now he wore the
trousers that were proper to it, and the soft boots with their upturned toes,
and the inlaid spurs of the Saracen. He only lacked the turban to seem all
infidel. His head was bare but for a coronet, the mark of his rank which he
almost never wore. He passed Heraclius, bowing regally, and stood on the step,
and waited.

The sun rose slowly to the hour of prime. None of them
moved, not even the lookers-on. Either Morgiana would refuse it after all and
flee away and never come again, or she would gratify them with a spectacle.
They waited for it, either one.

They received neither, when it came. Simply a pair of nobles
walking, her hand on his, through the cathedral close. Gwydion was in blue and
silver, severely simple, with a hat on his head and no mark of his kingship.

 Morgiana was clad in green silk, seeming as much a Frank as
Aidan seemed a Saracen. It was not the gown she had worn to that other, shattered
wedding. This was simpler, such as a lady would wear in her own demesne, to
please her lord and enchant her people. Her hair was free under the veil,
confined only by a slender fillet, from which hung a single emerald to glow
between her eyes. But they were brighter than any stone.

They did not seem to see anything in all that place but the
one who waited for her. He was blind to aught that was not she.

Joanna’s heart, which had broken long ago, throbbed dully as
it rose into her throat. Now they came face to face. Now the pope’s legate came
forward, and in his hand a writ with a pendant seal. Now the monk who had read
it on that other day, came to take it from him. The monk’s hand shook a little,
as if he too remembered, and dreaded what he might find.

The city itself seemed to stand silent, the wind to still,
the gulls to wheel mute in the vault of the sky. Joanna heard the whisper of
vellum, the clack of the seal as it swung against its mooring, the clearing of
the monk’s throat. He began, somewhat unsteadily, to read.

“Urban, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his dear
son in Christ, Aidan, Prince of Caer Gwent in the kingdom of Rhiyana, Baron of
the High Court of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Defender of the Holy Sepulcher, and
to the Lady Morgiana of the city of Persepolis, servant heretofore of the
Masters of Alamut, greeting and apostolic benediction. In the matter of
impediment, to wit, disparitas cultus, disparity of faith, we dispense, we
permit, we remove all obstacles to their joining in holy wedlock with the
blessing of Mother Church and the countenance of the Holy See.”

None of them heard what more there was. Conditions, there
were always conditions. Patriarch Heraclius or his chosen deputy must say the
words; the children must be raised in the faith of holy Church; the prince
would swear never to forsake that faith, on pain of anathema. None of it
mattered. The pope had spoken. The dispensation was granted. Now at last
Heraclius must begin the rite.

He did not wish to. That was evident. But still less did he
wish to prolong the nightmare. He raised his hand on which flamed the ruby of
his patriarchate, and beckoned. The king led the lady to her lord.

Their hands met, joined. Gwydion drew back forgotten.
Heraclius, shuddering just perceptibly, laid his hand over theirs. In a voice
which was, when it came to it, remarkably steady, he spoke the words for which
they had waited so long.

o0o

Windy words, to matter so much. Aidan, hand-clasped with
Morgiana, heard only that they were holy. Saw the ring brought out in Gwydion’s
hand, the circle of gold that Aidan had forged himself and set with an emerald.
There was another beside it, gold and ruby, made for a larger hand.

He raised a brow. Morgiana would not look at him, but her
mind was on him.
Should the bridegroom be denied what is given the bride?

He almost laughed. He should have expected it. She was
Morgiana, after all.

Heraclius said the words twice, because they would give him
no peace else. For her first, as was prescribed: setting the smaller ring on
her thumb in the name of the Father, and on her first finger in the name of the
Son, and on her longest finger in the name of the Holy Spirit, there to remain
as Aidan set the bridal coins in her palm and said unprompted, “‘With this ring
I thee wed, this gold and silver I grant thee, with my body I honor thee, with
all my earthly goods I thee endow.’”

And for him it was the same, she saying the words gravely,
to the shock of those who listened, he trying not to smile. She went down on
her knees as the rite commanded, bowing low before him. And when she rose, he
went down, sending a murmur up. He laughed for simple, wicked joy. Yes, this
was how it should be, holy and splendid and, for all of that, somewhat of a
scandal. So they were themselves, who raised eyebrows even in ancient harlot
Rome.

Heraclius, for whom this was purest purgatory, spoke the
blessing over them. “‘May the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God
of Jacob be with you, and may He join you together, and may He fulfill His
blessing upon you. Take this thy kinswoman; henceforth thou art her love, and
she thy beloved. She is thine this day and ever after. May the Lord of heaven
prosper you both. May He grant you mercy and peace.’”

They bowed their heads to it, standing side by side, hand
wound with hand. Aidan’s mind was all perfectly Christian. Morgiana’s, echoing
beneath, spoke words of its own, words which were much the same, but to her
infinitely more holy.
May the Lord of heaven prosper us both. May Allah
grant us His blessing and peace.

“You are grinning like an idiot,” she said.

“So are you,” he said.

They looked at one another. Vaults of stone arched over
them. It was night in the desert of Persia, but the cavern was full of light.
Hers, glass-green; his, fire out of embers. He remembered captivity, and walls
of air. She remembered dancing for him just there, a long stride from where
they lay, and learning the limits of her courage, and sealing a bargain with
him.

“I never expected it to take us so far,” he said.

“Nor I, to take us so long.” She raised herself on her
elbow, frowning down at him. “I feel no different.”

“Should you?”

“There are words between us now. And the pope’s will. Would
he be angry if
he knew how little he matters to me?”

“Probably.”

She laid her hand flat on his breast, studying the shape of
it, slender ivory fingers on his moon-white skin. His heart beat under her palm
where a man’s heart would not be: well she knew that, for when she drove the
dagger home.

No longer. She was a princess now. When she killed, she
would kill as royal folk did, in battle; not in secret, in the night.

He, woven in her mind, did not want her to know that he
laughed, but she knew. “Princesses don’t go to battle at all,” he said.

“Queens do. When Eleanor was queen of Francia, she came
Crusading with her king. She was a better general than he was.”

“And he divorced her for it.”

“Whereupon she found a fine young king and married him
instead.” Morgiana’s hand moved slowly down, as if she had no part in it. “Was
she the lady you made songs for, in Carcassonne?”

“One of them. Once.” Thirty years agone. When he seemed no
younger than he did now, and not a whit less wild. He lay all loose on the
scarlet coverlets, stark black and stark white, but his eyes were the color of
steel. He smiled at her. “I’m a married man now. No paramours for me.”

“Not even your Frank?”

He shook his head, not trusting his voice.

Morgiana considered anger. They could quarrel. Again. They
could accuse one another. They could ruin this night as they had ruined many
another.

It would not change anything. What she was to him, she knew.
Heart, soul, life. What that one was, was beyond any hope of altering. Beloved
and lover; mother of his child. Child of fire though he was, he was a constant
creature. He did not know how to fail of it.

She would not want him to. It hurt to know that she must
share him; but that was part of why she loved him. There was enough of him for
all of them.

Hers was a more niggardly spirit. There was only room in it
for one great love; even that strained all its boundaries.

“Your heart is greater than you know,” he said, so gentle
that she almost wept.

She glared instead. “What, can you bear to share me with
another?”

He blushed. He hated that he did it so easily; she thought
it enchanting. “Won’t you ever forgive me for that?”

“I thought I had.” She bent down and kissed him where he was
warmest, making him blush the more brilliantly: as above, so below.

He thought her blasphemous, or scandalous at least. Poor
sometime Christian, he never knew what to make of her.

“I do know how to love you,” he said.

“And you are beautiful.” From her vantage, a most private
and particular beauty. All hers now, by the pope’s decree.

“That was not precisely what he was thinking of,” he said.
His voice was dry, but there was a catch in it. A little longer, and there
would be no speech in him at all.

Their minds met, joined, wove and unwove, more fully than
their bodies ever could. This, the humans could never know. For them it was
only speech, and the touch of flesh on flesh, and for a few brief moments, body
in body. She pitied them.

Forget them.

His voice, soft in her deep places. He could be wisest when
she least expected it. She let her gladness rise and swell and bloom within
her, and fill her full. There was singing all about them, the old song, the
wild song, the sweetest song in any world. She made herself a part of it.

o0o

They had a night and a day and another night, and full of
joy they were, there where the world could not come. But the world was waiting,
and their kin within it, in a rising tide of war.

Morgiana startled Aidan. She rose in the grey morning and
said her prayer, and woke him with kisses. “It’s time we went back,” she said.

He yawned, stretched, blinked the sleep out of his eyes. “I
was supposed to say that.”

“Therefore I said it.” She had bathed; she was dressed in
trousers and coat, her hair plaited and wound about her head. As he watched,
she began the winding of her turban.

For an appalling moment he wondered if he had dreamed it
all; if she was still his captor and his vengeance still untaken, and the whole
of it yet to endure. Then she smiled. It was the same smile with which she had
heard the Patriarch’s blessing: wide, white, and wicked. He reached for her,
turban, coat, and all, and pulled her down.

It was, in the end, much closer to sunset than to sunrise
when they took the mage-road to Tyre.

o0o

They came back in the evening, the third after their
wedding, when dinner was done and the family all together in the solar, drinking
wine and talking. Ysabel saw them first. They looked splendid; triumphant.

She did not stop to shriek, or otherwise make a fool of
herself. She flew into their arms, both of them, in a glorious, threefold
tangle.

Gwydion came hard on her heels. Then the rest of them,
laughing, babbling, even crying a little.

In a little while they settled, Ysabel in her father’s lap,
defending it against all comers. A servant, sent for, brought bread and meat,
and sherbet for Morgiana. While they ate, Ysabel said, “We were talking about
Messire Amalric. How he wanted a marvel, and how you gave him one.”

Morgiana laughed. “We did indeed! He’ll not forget it soon,
I think.”

“He played too many sides,” said Ysabel, chewing the end of
a braid as she thought about it. Her mother frowned at her; she lowered the
braid-end and nibbled her knuckle instead. “He tried to make it so that he
couldn’t lose, no matter what he did. He’d have won, even, if we hadn’t been so
far outside his reckoning.”

“He would never have won me,” said Elen. Her voice was soft,
but her will was unbending. Raihan was there, being her guardsman. They did not
glance at one another, or touch, or make any move at all. They did not need to.
Ysabel could not begin to tell which one of them was happier. Morgiana had
given them a gift before she went away to be with Aidan: a long-bearded,
deep-eyed, impeccably dignified
qadi
to make them man and wife as
Muslims thought of it. The
qadi
seemed not to mind at all that he was
there at the will of an ifritah, marrying a Christian prince’s mamluk to a
Christian princess. Odder things had happened where he came from, which was
somewhere near Baghdad.

Gwydion was not precisely delighted to have a Muslim for a
nephew-in-law; but he was glad to see Elen so happy. It seeped out of him like
light out of a basket, casting odd bits of brilliance when one least expected
it. One dazzled Ysabel and almost made her miss what Aidan was saying.

Aimery had not spoken to her since he found her weaving sun
and shadow on the roof, and he learned who her father was. He had not spoken too
much of anyone else, either.