Alamut (15 page)

He did not even greet her. He said, “I've come to take you home.”

“This is home,” she said.

He shook his head, ponderous as an ox, and as stubborn. “You belong with me.

Her eyes darted to Aidan. Say something, she willed him. Do something.

Did his brow lift the merest fraction? He bowed again. Hope bloomed.

Died. He was turning. Leaving. Abandoning her.

She hated him. She lashed him with it. He did not even pause.

Ranulf never saw. “You are my wife,” he said. “You're coming with me.”

She barely comprehended the words. They were noise; empty wind. She was all alone on the other side of hate. “Where,” she asked him with perfect calm, “were you when my brother died?”

The sun had burned Ranulf's face the color of Roman brick. Perhaps, now, it reddened. His jaw jutted. “Away,” he answered her, biting off the word.

“And you think I'll go back to you.” Her lips drew back from her teeth. It was by no means a smile. “I will not.”

His eyes were on his fists, clenched on his knees. Coarse fists, rough-haired, mottled with an ancient ailment of the skin. Her mind, ever wayward, recalled long white hands, a touch as light and soft as wind, warm as hearthfire. She had to struggle to hear what Ranulf said. “I was away.” He said it roughly, as if with anger. “Breaking compacts. If you come back, you can have the baby.”

She froze in spite of herself. “The—Aimery?”

“Aimery.” It half choked him.

Laughter burst out of her, high and wild. “Bribery! How long will I keep him this time? A day? A week? A fortnight? Then when I'm secured, off he goes, back to feed his father's lust for power.” Ranulf said nothing. His shoulders had hunched; he looked more than ever like and ox: slow, tow-colored beast of burden, blind and deaf to human pain. “No,” she said. “No, my lord. I will not go back.”

He stood abruptly; so abruptly that his chair overset itself. She started like a hare. He made no move to touch her. His face showed nothing, not even anger. With deliberate care he righted his chair. When it was settled, he stood with his hands on its back, the broad scarred fingers flexing and loosing, flexing and loosing. The nails were bitten to the quick. Had they always been so? “You don't want the baby back?”

Her heart stopped. Part of her wanted to shriek aloud. Part, the cold part, the clear part, said, “Not at that price.”

“What do you want then?”

“Nothing you can give.”

His jaw tightened. “I see. It's not fairy gold.”

It was too subtle for her, at first, coming from Ranulf. “You think—you—”

“They seduce, that kind. They don't mean to, most times. They just are. But then they go their ways, and what's left?”

“More than you've left me.”

He straightened, flexing his heavy shoulders. For an instant she thought that he would seize her. But there was not even that much passion in him. He merely stood, staring. His eyes were ox's eyes, sheer brute endurance. If there had been anger in them, or any emotion at all, it was gone before she could be sure of it. He opened his mouth. She curled her lip. His head shook, once, as if against the weight of a yoke. “And what do I do if you die?”

For a moment she had no words at all. “Do? What have you ever done?”

He stood unmoving. He seemed to ponder what she had said. Or maybe he was only waiting for her to burst into rage or tears, or to crumble into submission.

She would not give him the satisfaction. “Your pardon,” she said with icy courtesy, “but I have duties waiting. Godefroi will show you out.”

His eyes burned. Now he would do it; now he would act like a human man, and shout at her, and force her to yield. She almost—almost—wanted it.
Aimery,
her heart yearned.
Aimery.

Ranulf shuddered. His teeth clacked together, sharp and sudden. “Come back alive,” he said. That was all

oOo

“He loves you, you know.”

She started; her horse shied. Aidan watched her as she recovered reins and dignity. More Arab than Frank in those robes, yes, and more alien than either. “You were trespassing,” she said with vicious softness.

“You were shouting for the deaf to hear.”

She made a rude noise. “You only hear what you want to hear.”

“Or what is meant for me.”

Her cheeks burned with more than the sun's heat. He was maddening, but not as Ranulf was. He gave as good as he got.
He
would quarrel if she wanted it, with a high keen pleasure.

“He does love you,” Aidan said. “It's a great pain in him, that he can never show it.”

“Love? Is that love, that rips a child from its mother's breast?”

“Love, and jealousy, and a deep need to matter in the world. He's twinborn, you know. Like me. But my elder-by-b-moment had the will and the wealth to give me a share in our inheritance. Ranulf comes of a house with little more to its name than honor, and he's Norman, and bound by Norman laws. His brother had it all. For him, always, there were only the leavings. He'd not even be a knight, now, if he hadn't won his spurs on the field.”

She knew all that. She did not want to know what it meant. “He's kinder to his dog than he is to me.”

“Of course. His dog doesn't demand that he love it. It simply knows. And,” said Aidan, “it loves him back.”

“He says I'm ugly.”

“He told you once, under rich provocation, that you are not pretty. You aren't. On occasion, you are very beautiful.”

“As when?”

“Not,” he said, “when you're in a temper.”

She spat at him, not accurately. And was quickly sorry. The hot air seared her mouth; and she would not, for temper's sake, soothe it with water while he watched with that infuriating expression. “
You,”
she said nastily, “are excruciatingly pretty.”

“Alas for my virility.”

“What does that have to do with it?”
“Nothing,” he said.

Suddenly she was tired. Tired of remembering, and regretting, and knowing that she could have had her son, now, but for her own poisonous temper; tired of quarreling; tired of being herself. She wanted Thibaut alive, and Gereint, and Aimery warm and heavy in her arms, and Ranulf…

Not that memory. Astonishment, when he saw his newborn son; disappointment, a little, at the wizened red monkey-creature in its mother's arms; sudden, wondrous softening, big hands moving with unexpected competence to cradle the small wriggling body, cold eyes warming into something almost like tenderness. And he had looked at her and smiled, and yes, that was tenderness; for her; for what she had given him.

The moment ended. He was Ranulf again, rough as old stone, and never a thought in him for her as Joanna and not as a mare in his stable.

“That is fear,” said Aidan, shameless in his meddling. “Of baring the truth. Of being hurt.”

She closed him out. It was bitterly hard, when he was there, under her skin, but she did it. In the end his own nature aided her: it sent him spurring away, whooping like a madman, hot on the track of a gazelle that had burst out of a hollow. she had not even known that he had a bow, until the arrow flew, a clean shot, unerring on the mark.

oOo

They dined on gazelle that night, in a caravanserai which they had to themselves, gathering in its court under the stars. Joanna's cookfire was a little apart from the others, in part for her rank, in part for her sex. She was glad enough of it. The choicest bits had found their way into Dura's pot; Joanna found that she could swallow a bite, then another, and another. Before she knew it she had emptied her half of the pot.

Aidan sat on his haunches beside her. His teeth gleamed white as he smiled. He was in a fine good humor: he had been among the guards, trading practice strokes with one of the swordsmen. She had watched as much as she could without seeming to watch. The guard had been teaching him Saracen strokes with a weapon lighter and more supple than his own.

He had it now, easy in his hand, turning the blade to catch the light. Wave-patterns upon it rippled and flowed.

“He sold it to you?” she asked.

“Lent it,” he said. “Great honor that that is. I wish…”

“You want one like it.”

It was alive in his hand. With loving regret he quenched it in its sheath. “I should give it back.” But he did not move. His eyes were on the fire, full of it.

She shifted until she was close enough to touch, but not quite touching. She was aware of Dura in the shadows, a shadow herself, dark-eyed and silent. Voices washed over her, laughter; a soft, wailing song.

She blinked. “You,” she said, “yonder. You spoke Arabic.”

He glanced at her. “Did I?”

“You didn't even know?”

He shrugged. “It's my gift. It's not something I think of.”

As simple as that. “Any language?” she asked him. “Any at all?”

“Any that a man speaks in my presence.”

She whistled softly. “Gereint never told us about that.”

“I doubt he knew. It was never obvious. Till I came here.”

He hardly seemed to care that he had it, still less to be proud of it: a wonder and a marvel, to be free of Babel's curse.

“It's nothing,” he said. “A trick.”

Modesty. Truly. She laughed, astonished. He could not have been less human than he was now, or more.

She did it before she thought. Bent toward him. Set her palm against his cheek.

He tensed the merest fraction.

Her hand snapped back. She knotted it with the other, hating it, herself, everything but him. Him, she could not hate. Him, she—

Him, she…almost…loved.

This was what the priest thundered against. Lust. Unholy desire. This ache in her body. This fire when she looked at him, or thought of him, or was simply near him. She wanted to touch him again. And again.

She wrapped her arms about herself and rocked. Why did he sit there? How could he not know? And pity her, and despise her.
He
would know no such weakness. He was male, and royal; he could have any woman he wanted. Princess Sybilla had cast her eye on him, people said. He would never want such a poor creature as Joanna was, wedded as she was, to a man—who—

Who had no earthly use for her, except to breed sons. She scrambled herself up. He said something. She did not try to understand.

oOo

She cried herself to sleep. For all of it. Aimery, Gereint, Thibaut. Even Ranulf. But most of all, herself. She should have taken the baby, whatever the cost. Once she had him, she could have kept him. But anger had betrayed her. Had cast Ranulf out. Had brought her here.

Into, if the priests told truth, mortal sin. Simply to desire him who was not her wedded lord; and to have no power to stop, or even wish to stop. Maybe she had gone a little mad.

She woke in the night, and knew that he was there, beyond her door, guarding her. The ache of weeping, the heaviness in her body, mattered nothing. She could rise, if she would. Go out. Touch him.

And be cast off. Rightly, properly; gently, even. It was in him to be gentle, when he wished to, though he would have died before he admitted it.

She lay on her face, though her breasts ached. She welcomed the pain. Dear God, what was this that she was wanting? Hot breath, hard hands, cruel weight atop her; the old pagan dance, great pleasure for a man, but for a woman only weary endurance. And yet she wanted it. Her body wanted it. Was going to drive her mad with wanting it.

She slid into a restless, shadow-haunted sleep. She dreamed, she knew that, but what her dreams were, she did not afterward remember. Morning was a blessing and a release.

And yet, for all the hideousness of the night, in some strange way it had cleansed her. She rose both calm and sane. Saner than she had been since before Aimery was born. She knew herself again. Grief was no less, guilt, shame, even anger, but she was Joanna; she could bear it.

Even Aidan in his Bedu robes that might have been made for his wild beauty: even him, she could bear. Flushing, she could not help it, but offering a smile. Which he accepted, and returned in good measure. “It gladdens me to see you glad,” he said.

Such a pretty way with words, he had. She played the lady for him, all gracious condescension, which made him laugh. He laughed wonderfully, with all of him. It infected her, it filled her with a crazy delight. “What!” she cried. “Mock me, will you? Is that a knightly deed?”

“No,” he admitted, “my lady.”

“So, then. You shall pay for it. You call me your lady. Be my knight. Serve me in all humility.”

His eyes glinted, catching a little on the humility. “Shall I sing for you, too, and be your troubadour?”

She clapped her hands, forgetting to be the lady. “Oh, will you?”

But he did not forget to be the knight. “
Ma dama,
your every wish is my command.”

She checked for the merest breath of an instant. This was dangerous. He knew it, she could see it clearly. He thrived on it. And she?

It was morning; her spirit was scoured clean, and his eyes were dancing on her. She offered him her hand in her most queenly fashion, not even a giggle to betray her. He took it as a true knight must, and set a kiss in the palm, and folded her fingers over it. He seemed a little surprised at what he did. For a moment, as his eyes met hers, he seemed almost—frightened?

Not he. He had been a troubadour since the world was young. She held his kiss to her heart and lifted her chin. “Now then, my knight. Ride with me.”

oOo

He knew where it was going, and he made no slightest move to stop it. She thought that she had mastered it. Brave child. There had been fairer ladies than she, but never one so valiant.

He could admit it, in the dark that was the center of himself. He had fallen in love with her.

No matter the catalogue of her many imperfections. She had no beauty as humans saw it. She was too young, too unschooled in graces, too damnably mortal. She had a husband, whom Aidan could not, even for his life's sake, dislike; who was cursed to be most inept where he loved most. She had a mother of whom even Aidan could stand in awe. She had been a daughter to Gereint, of whom even these mute thoughts were a betrayal.