The Falcons of Montabard (51 page)

Letice hesitated as if she might say more, but the moment passed and she too kept her own counsel.

Annais woke from her sleep with such heaviness in her breasts and loins that she thoroughly expected her flux to begin. She still felt tired, but was able to find sufficient energy to face the remainder of the day and to eat a gargantuan meal of spicy stew and boiled grains. She was aware of Sabin watching her with concern, but that seemed to lessen as he viewed the amount of food she consumed.

'I was worried for you,' he said, 'but no one could be deeply ill and eat as much as that.'

A dish of sweetmeats was set before them: pine nuts and sesame seeds in a confection of boiled sugar, honey and spices. Annais reached eagerly, craving the sweetness on her tongue. 'I was tired, nothing more,' she said.

And very hungry.'

She made a face at him and he smiled, heartened at her response.

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The next morning, the feeling of heaviness was worse. Annais slept late and when she woke, felt sick. She lay in bed, gazed at the painted ceiling, counted the days, and knew that she could fool herself no longer. Her flux should have come with the waning moon, but that had been twelve days ago. The symptoms were beginning to suggest a gathering of life rather than a bleeding away. She laid her hand to her belly. It was as flat as ever, but her breasts were sore and full.

Slowly she sat up. She would not tell Sabin yet, she thought. It was far too early. Even if she was fairly certain herself, it was still a precarious time and she might yet bleed. She knew of several women who had miscarried in the early months before the quickening. She would wait until then before telling him, and hopefully by that time they would be free.

King Baldwin arrived from Harran two days later accompanied by a detachment of Saracen warriors. He came clad in fine silks and wearing his own mail coat, newly burnished until it shone like a basket of silver coins. His sword rested at his hip, and he was afforded every grace and honour. With him rode his nephew Ernoul and Waleran of Birejek. They too had been restored their mail and weapons.

The Emir of Shaizar greeted Baldwin with kisses on both cheeks and treated him as an honoured and welcome guest. Food, drink and entertainment were provided in lavish quantities. Baldwin was gifted with a fine saker falcon hooded in jewel-stitched silk with golden bells attached to the jesses, a robe of embroidered damask and a ring set with a lustrous black pearl.

'You see,' murmured Usamah to Sabin. 'We are terrible in war, but we can be the most generous of hosts when it is in our interests. My uncle remembers the good service that King Baldwin did to him in granting him remission of a payment we were supposed to make to Antioch several years ago. Now the debt is repaid and the ground is level again.'

Sabin sipped from his cup of sherbet and watched some

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women from the harem dance for the pleasure of the company. Unlike the 'dancing' girls he had witnessed in the brothels of Jerusalem, these women were modestly clad and their movements were graceful rather than suggestive. The entertainment was intended to be aesthetic and appeal to the mind as much as the body.

'As soon as your King repays the rest of his ransom, then you will all be free to go,' Usamah added, lifting his cup of frosted pomegranate juice to his lips.

'What of Waleran and Ernoul?' Sabin asked. 'Do they depart with King Baldwin to Antioch?'

Usamah stroked his luxuriant black beard and his gaze slipped past Sabin's. 'The agreement was that the King alone should be freed,' he said. 'Emir Timurtash gave no such undertaking for those with him. Like you, they will be treated with honour and respect, but they are to be held at Shaizar for the moment.'

Sabin had been expecting such a response, but still his gut tightened. Although the Saracen courtesy was impeccable, it was plain that there was to be no leeway of any kind.

Later that night, Baldwin privately visited with the men, women and children who, for his sake, were to remain at Shaizar until the terms of his ransom had been fully met. He sat on a woven rug on the floor, four-year-old Joveta cradled in his lap, and looked over her sleepy fair head at the gathering.

'I will do everything within my power to have you free of this place within a few short months,' he said. 'Even if I have to tax the country dry to raise the coin, I will do so.'

'And what of the other promises, sire?' Sabin asked.

Baldwin shot him a bright look. 'What promises?'

'To cede the towns that Aleppo demands, and to lend your aid to Timurtash in suppressing Dubais ibn Sadaqa.'

'You think I would put my own daughter's life in danger? Or that of these other small children?' A note of distaste entered Baldwin's voice and his blue gaze was frigid.

'No, sire,' Sabin said. 'But matters often change when a

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different light shines upon them.' It was the nearest he would come to suggesting that Baldwin might alter his mind once he was free.

'I will do all in my power, I have told you that. If you were so uncertain of my word, then you should not have volunteered for the task of standing hostage.'

'I sought reassurance, sire, not to offend.'

'Then be reassured, and I will take no offence this time, although you sail very close to the wind.' He gave his sleepy daughter a last squeeze, kissed her brow, and raised her from his lap. 'Time for your bed, sweetheart,' he said. 'I swear that even if you were as light as a feather at the start, you have grown as heavy as a war shield on my arm.'

Annais hastened forward to take the little girl and lead her away to the waiting feather mattress in an alcove beyond the main room. Sabin excused himself from the gathering and followed her.

'Why did you speak to him like that?' Annais demanded in hushed tones as she removed the child's dress, leaving her in her cotton chemise, and tucked her beneath the covers.

'I was reminding him of his responsibilities,' he said. 'So that his conscience remains a shield and not a feather.'

'You think he would go back on his word with so much at stake?' She smoothed Joveta's hair and murmured soft words to the child. Joveta clutched a corner of her blanket and raised it to tickle her nose. Her eyelids drooped, revealing lashes that were as thick as the fringes edging the floor rugs. Sabin moved silently past the child's mattress and went to gaze down at Guillaume who was sprawled on his back like a puppy.

'That depends how much we weigh in the balance,' he said softly. 'And how much of his payment he thinks that he can remove from the scales before he ruins the transaction.'

Her brow furrowed. 'You do truly believe he would do that, don't you?'

Sabin crouched by his stepson and gently pulled the cover over his sleeping form. 'Let us say that I hope he would not,

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but that kings often have to make decisions of the head, not the heart. In two months' time when we are home in our own bed at Montabard, you can call me all the names that you wish and I will accept them meekly.'

'You will indeed,' she said, but the words were spoken as a token gesture and Sabin felt a pang at the sight of the trouble he had put into her eyes. Yet he could not have kept silent. Baldwin had had to hear the words spoken by one held hostage for his sake. It drove home the necessity to remember, made it harder to barricade the door of conscience.

'I am sorry,' he said. 'I was never much good at being held at the behest of others. I feel like a beast in a cage. Put my doubts down to my own failings.'

She came swiftly to his side. 'You could never fail me.'

He laughed bitterly. 'Oh, I could. You do not know how easily.'

'Never,' she repeated, and, taking his hand, linked her fingers through his.

Sabin was not particularly comforted. Given their present circumstances, the weight of her trust felt almost like a shackle. 'Play your harp for me,' he requested. 'Something to ease and lift the spirit.'

And Annais took her harp from its case and sat down with it among the company and played the tunes that she had brought with her from Coldingham, a lifetime ago. 'Love me broughte and Edi be thou hevene quene.' The notes dropped from the strings like clear, cold rain on parched skin and for a brief span, reality was relegated to insignificance by imagination.

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CHAPTER 33

The brightness of daylight pierced Strongfist's eyeballs like a fistful of needles. 'Christ,' he groaned. 'Close those shutters.'

Fergus's wife, Margaret, gave him an exasperated look, but did as he asked. Even so, the sunlight still dazzled through the latticework. 'You know that you are to stand guard duty before noon?' she said.

Strongfist pushed his hand through his hair. 'What hour is it now?' His head felt as if there was a giant inside it, kicking to get out.

'High morning. I left you as long as I could. You and Fergus drank enough last night to fill a cistern.' She clucked her tongue in disapproval and moved away. Strongfist heard the sound of liquid trickling into a cup. She returned with a goblet of pomegranate juice and water. He took it and, with no great enthusiasm, drank. His gut was rolling like a ship in a storm. Last night the court had arrived in Antioch complete with Morphia and Baldwin. Strongfist had not been on duty; Fergus had been newly come from Tyre with Margaret and their sons, and, naturally, they had been caught up in the celebrations.

'Where is Fergus?' he asked.

'Asleep on the floor where he dropped, but at least he is not on duty today.' Margaret jerked her head in the direction of the smaller antechamber. They were renting a house not far from the palace, and, although it afforded them the privacy that it

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was impossible to obtain in the royal quarters, space was cramped. Margaret moved around the room, finding Strongfist's equipment and laying it together, her manner briskly efficient. He watched her with aching eyes and was filled with longing for Letice.

She pushed a platter of bread and a hard-boiled egg at him. 'Here, you will need to eat. It will be a long day.'

The sight of the food almost made him gag, but to please her and to pretend he was not as ill as he felt, he forced it down before summoning Amalric, whom Sabin had left in his charge.

'Perhaps the King will have something to say in council about the hostages,' Margaret said as Strongfist pushed his arms into his quilted tunic and the youth tugged it down over his body.

'I hope so.' He looked at her. 'Fergus says he will give up his share of the gains he took in Tyre to go towards the ransom.'

She raised a sardonic brow. 'Was that before or after you got drunk?'

'Before. I'm sure he will tell you when he wakes up.' His tone was hesitant. Fergus's share from Tyre was around five hundred dinars, and he knew that Margaret might not see her husband's generosity in quite the same light as he did.

'Oh, I am sure he will,' Margaret said with a determined nod and a severe purse of her lips. For a moment she kept Strongfist dangling, then gave him a hefty push. 'Oh, away with you,' she said. 'If five hundred dinars help to buy back your family, do you think I will put my silk gowns and rare perfumes first?'

'But it is a great deal of money for one man.'

'So it is ... and perhaps even more for one woman, but nothing if it helps friends and family. I will hear not another word on the matter from you.' She smiled. 'Even if Fergus might hear many from me . . . and, yes, I am jesting.'

Amalric assisted Strongfist into his mail shirt and then the surcoat of scarlet silk embroidered with gold. Margaret handed him his swordbelt.

'Thank you,' he said, making it clear that it was not the belt

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he was talking about. 'You and Fergus give me reason to count my blessings.'

'Fool!' she said, but with affection, and presented him with a round red cheek to kiss. Mindful of his sour breath, he gave her a quick peck, and turned away to seek out his spear and shield.

Strongfist spent the rest of the day guarding King Baldwin. It demanded vigilance, for the King was a prime target for assassination and a royal bodyguard needed eyes not just in the back of his head, but all over his body. By the time evening arrived, Strongfist's headache was like a huge black thundercloud. He swore that never again would he try to match Fergus drink for drink. He had not succeeded when he was eighteen years old; why should it be any different a score of years later?

Baldwin was dwelling at the residence of the Patriarch of Antioch, Bernard de Valence, and the two men had retired to the Patriarch's private solar. A squire served them with wine and sweet cakes, bowed and departed. Strongfist remained in the room, guarding the door he had just closed. Outside two more knights stood on duty.

Strongfist knew how to be deaf. It was a lesson perfected long ago in the service of Prince David. He looked straight ahead and stood as still as an effigy, essentially becoming part of the background. Baldwin and the Patriarch were so accustomed to the presence of armed guards that they paid him as much heed as they would a lizard on the wall.

At first, their discussion was easy and quiet. They talked together as old friends and there was the occasional burst of soft laughter. Strongfist's attention wandered. He gazed at the embroidered wall hangings and thought longingly of his bed and a cold lavender-scented cloth for his brow. His eyelids started to droop and he forced them open.

'You cannot do that!' Patriarch Bernard's raised voice jerked Strongfist out of his threatened doze. He turned his head and saw that the prelate had risen from his chair and was standing

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over Baldwin. 'Those towns are not yours to cede, and well you know it. Yes, you are overlord to Antioch, yes, you are the regent, but you have no right to give away a boy's patrimony.'

'It is one of the terms of the treaty,' Baldwin retorted, also springing to his feet. He stood taller than the Patriarch and whatever advantage Bernard had gained by his initial stance was now lost. 'Do you realise what is at stake?'