The Falcons of Montabard (61 page)

Annais watched Sabin from the corner of her eye. He was checking his weapons, which had been restored to him from Shaizar's armoury. He had been delighted that his sword had been oiled and the leather scabbard nourished to prevent it from drying out and cracking. Now he was carefully examining the rivets in his mail shirt for damage and rust. He had been silent throughout the scrutiny, but not from concentration, she thought. Several times he had seemed on the verge of speaking but on each occasion had drawn back, the last time with an irritated glance at Strongfist. The latter was sitting on the floor with Guillaume, playing a game of flipping dinars into a small brass pot, but Annais could tell that her father's attention was divided.

Finished with his hauberk, Sabin set it to one side, but only to fetch his shield. He examined the handgrip and the long leather carrying strap. Annais saw her father compress his lips. Again, Sabin threw him a wordless glance.

'Is there something you are not telling me?' Annais asked.

'Why should you think that?' Sabin busied himself with the buckle on the strap, shortening it by a notch.

'The way you are checking your equipment as if riding to war. The way you and my father have been passing silent messages ever since you returned from the Emir's apartments.'

Sabin shrugged. 'It is a precaution,' he said. 'The better armed, the less tasty a morsel we will appear to passing brigands ... Is that not so, wife-father?'

Strongfist flushed. 'That is so,' he said. 'But you do not need

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to make a parade of preparing your weapons. You will make everyone think that the risk is greater than it is.'

'Better in the bosom of my family than lurking in a corner,' he said. Satisfied with the shield, he set it aside.

Annais looked at Sabin and murmured, 'And how great is the risk?'

He shrugged. 'Probably negligible, but your father did not want me to tell you ... he thinks you should not be worried lest it curdle your milk.'

Annais raised her brows. 'So you tell me through gestures instead.'

He gave a wry smile. 'I was beginning to wonder how obvious I should become. It was getting to the point where I was running out of equipment to sort through.'

She bit her lip to control a smile. 'There is still my knife,' she said. 'Do you want to inspect that in case I have to use it?'

Her father cleared his throat loudly and frowned. Sabin began to laugh. The sound attracted Guillaume who abandoned his game to pounce upon his stepfather.

'Your mother', Sabin chuckled as he rolled the child in his arms, 'is an Amazon.'

'Ama . . . Amazon?' Guillaume tested the new word with stumbling curiosity.

'Don't be so foolish.' Annais pretended to put her nose in the air. 'They only have one breast . . . and I most certainly have two and in good working order.'

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Chapter 41

⁽
"TL
IT
ay Allah protect you on your j ourney,' Usamah said

|\ /1 as Sabin gained the saddle and drew the reins
JL.
T JLthrough his fingers.

The dawn was a red flush in the east and, below the steep walls of the fortress, the River Orontes gleamed like the inside of an oyster shell. Morning smells of bread, hot oil and fresh dung from the stables mingled on the air. Sabin savoured each one because they were seasoned with the scent of freedom. He wore his mail lightly with his shield at his back and his newly honed sword positioned at his left hip - the first time that weight had hung there for a year. Although he welcomed it, the familiarity would have to be relearned.

And may God watch over you,' he responded. 'If we meet again, may it not be as enemies on the field of battle.'

'Inshallah,'
Usamah said, placing his hands together and bowing his head.

Sabin settled his helm on his head, easing it down over the felt arming cap. Reining about, he leaned to take Guillaume from Annais's arms and placed him before his own saddle. There was no baggage wain; everyone was riding astride. Annais carried the baby in a sling; her mount was a smooth-paced black mare, which had been a parting gift from the Emir. Other gifts, such as bolts of silk, goblets of rock crystal and finely woven rugs, were loaded on sturdy pack mules. The Emir could afford to be generous, given the amount of gold that had

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just trickled into his coffers. He had replaced the grey pony that young Joscelin had outgrown with an Arabian roan, complete with gilded harness.

Banners fluttering in the dawn wind, the later heat of the day less than a whisper, as the Frankish party rode out of Shaizar, crossed the narrow bridge into the citadel and wound its way through the narrow streets of the town. Usamah had sent one man with them as a guide and companion to escort them on the first miles of their journey: Abu, one of Usamah's huntsmen, a slight, swift warrior who was an expert with the bow. He was of an amiable and curious disposition and rode in the middle of the troop, exchanging the occasional word with the knights.

As they left the shadow of the citadel, boys and youths crowded behind them like a swarm of hungry midges. Abu stood in his stirrups and commanded them to be off, but in a good-humoured way. Fergus had a handful of quartered silver coins and a bag of sugared almonds. He flung these offerings vigorously far and wide, and the smaller boys dived in a feeding frenzy, scrabbling in the dust. Sabin grinned at the sight and, expanding his lungs, drew his first breath of free air in a year. Feeling the deep movement in his stepfather's breast, Guillaume looked round and up in curiosity.

'Going home,' he said. He wasn't quite sure what that meant, but he had been told that they were 'going home' today, and everyone had seemed excited at the prospect. He could sense their happiness, but also the underlying tension. It made him feel happy too, but with a squirmy feeling in his mid-section like when he woke in the dark and could not find his favourite scrap of blanket.

'Yes, going home to Montabard.' Sabin ruffled his curls and Guillaume responded to the smile on his papa's face. 'I don't suppose you remember Montabard . . . where you were born.'

'Yes I do,' said Guillaume, not because he did, but because he wanted his papa's approval.

Sabin smiled and tightened his arm slightly, giving the child

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a gentle squeeze. 'I hardly know if I remember it myself,' he said. 'Except for the falcons wheeling around its great walls, and the river sparkling in the distance — a little like Shaizar.'

'Edmund's not seen it,' Guillaume said and leaned in the saddle to look round at his mother who was cradling his little brother in a sling. Guillaume liked the idea of having a brother, but at the same time he was jealous. A bit like the mixture of happiness and the squirmy feeling. At least he was a big boy though, and Edmund was only a baby.

'No, it will be his first time.'

'I'm the first,' Guillaume said stoutly, raising his chin. When his papa said nothing, he swivelled to stare up at him. 'I'm the first,' he repeated.

'You are the firstborn,' his papa said. 'Now stop wriggling, or else I will begin to think you are a fish, not a boy.' He negated the comment by cuddling him and making Guillaume squeal and wriggle even more. However, after that, reassured, the child settled for the journey.

They wound their way along the river valley with steep hills to their right and the sun climbing in the sky. Behind them, if they chose to look round, the walls of Shaizar stood high sentinel, dominating the landscape. Of the party, only Abu chose to do so, and that because he was judging how far he should accompany them before riding back to report them safely on their way.

He trotted up to ride beside Sabin and engaged him in a brief, fragmented conversation, but barely had he opened his mouth when yelling riders erupted from a thicket at the river's edge and blocked the road. Scimitars flashed in the air and the hard light of the risen sun bounced off shield bosses and mail.

Abu's mouth dropped open.

'Go!' Sabin snarled. 'Bring help!'

Abu wrenched his bay mare around, kicked her flanks and swiped her rump with his switch. She took to her heels like a gazelle pursued by a cheetah. Arrows whistled overhead and clattered to the ground in the dust churned up by her flying

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hooves. The Franks drew their swords and raised their shields. Sabin reined Lucifer to Annais's side and handed a screaming Guillaume across to her. 'In the name of the Emir of Shaizar, let us pass!' Strongfist rose in his stirrups to bellow.

The reply was hostile and filled with mockery. 'In the name of the Emir of Horns, most certainly you may pass and enter the realm of his hospitality.'

'Over my dead body,' Strongfist snarled, drawing his sword.

'Christ on the Cross,' Sabin muttered and, threading his shield onto his arm, kicked Lucifer towards the front of the line.

'That can be arranged,' the Saracen said. A flick of his fingers brought an archer forward, arrow nocked. 'Why should I grieve over one less Frankish knight?'

The archer had sighted on Strongfist but, as Sabin spurred forward, his aim swivelled. Sabin had an instant to recognise Faisal, whose nose he had bloodied in Shaizar's courtyard, a moment of locked eyes and statement of intent. Then, faster than a blink and more slowly than waking from deep slumber, Faisal loosed the shot. His aim was true and Sabin's horrified reactions slow. The arrowhead sank not into wood but mail. A second and third followed in rapid succession. Lucifer reared and Sabin was pitched from the saddle to hit the ground with a sickening thud. A rivulet of blood crawled from beneath him in the dust and he lay as still as a slaughtered sheep. Lucifer bolted back down the road, reins trailing.

The Saracen leader shouted furiously at Faisal and knocked his arm, so that a fourth arrow flew wide, bounced on the hillside and clattered into a gully.

'You filthy sons of whores!' Strongfist roared, his voice cracking with shock and rage. He would have charged into their midst and given his life to take some of theirs, but now the bows were not aimed at him, but at Annais and Guillaume, at the baby and the ashen-faced Joscelin of Edessa.

'You will yield,' their leader said, 'or I will kill the woman and the children.' Another swift signal sent his men among the

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troops. Weapons were seized and confiscated. Annais was so numb with shock that she could neither think nor move. It was only when a Saracen tried to take Guillaume from her arms that she rallied enough to fight. But it made no difference. She could not hold a baby and a small boy. The Saracen mimed that he would cut Guillaume's throat if she continued to struggle and so she gave him up while his screams pierced her ears and rang in the hollow of her skull. She swayed in the saddle and instinctively tightened her grip on the reins. She must not faint. If she fell with the baby ... if she fell . . . Her eyes went to the still form in the dust, the red crawl of blood, the outspread, slack hand. She choked and had to retch over her mount's side. What use was her seax now? All the jesting, all the bold words counted for nothing. She wanted to fling off her horse, run to him, take his head in her lap, hold the outspread hand. But she couldn't. Her son was screaming. The baby had woken and was adding his roars in counterpoint. It should have been enough to stir the dead, but it wasn't.

Archers and lancers hemmed the group around, and the horses were prodded into a rapid trot. Faisal lingered near Sabin's still form. He gave it a vicious kick and spat on it. His commander shouted at him again and drew his scimitar. Reluctantly Faisal mounted his horse and joined the troop. Several times he looked over his shoulder as they jogged along the road, before finally settling down behind Annais's black mare.

'Your man is dead,' he gloated in accented French. 'Soon you will wish that you were dead too . . . and your children.'

Annais swallowed bile and fixed her gaze on the Saracen in front who was carrying Guillaume. The little boy's screams had faded to whimpers that now and again carried back to her. Edmund continued to wail fractiously and she jogged him against her body.

'Do you know what they do to Prankish male children? Did the women at Shaizar not tell you?' Faisal's voice was a sibilant whisper. 'Some say that we thrust spears through their

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buttocks, out through their mouths and roast them whole over a slow fire, but such tales are told by ignorant fools.'

She felt him watching her, judging her response, and sweat crawled down her back like a cold worm. She swallowed and willed herself not to be sick, to show nothing. Against her side, beneath her cloak, she could feel the leather sheath of the seax and wondered if she would have the courage and swiftness to use it. Inside she was silently screaming Sabin's name. If not her soul, then she had lost her soul's mate.

'No,' Faisal whispered hoarsely, 'we take them and, as we do with our colts not used for breeding stock, we geld them and make of them our slaves. The boy, he will make a pretty catamite, with those eyes and the fine curls ... if he survives the gelding, of course. Not all of them do.'

Annais clenched her fists around the bridle and held herself as straight as a spear.

'It will go hard for you. If you had been fair-haired or blue of eye, you might have entered a harem as a favoured slave. Our emirs and atabegs enjoy pale, Frankish women, but you are too like one of our own. Doubtless you will be put to work in the kitchens, or sold to a man of lesser means

He was baiting her, she told herself. None of it was true. Even if the Emir of Horns took them, they would be ransomed. Let it flow past like murky water down a river in spate.

'Perhaps I will offer to buy you,' he speculated as he rode alongside her. 'It would not compensate me for the loss of my brothers, but it would go a certain way.'

'I would rather bed with a leper,' she said stiffly.

He narrowed his eyes. 'That could be arranged. Perhaps an entire colony of lepers, eh?' He nudged his horse closer to hers and Annais's hand inched across the bridle leather towards the knife sheath concealed under her cloak. She met his stare with loathing.