Behold the Dawn (27 page)

The Lady Mairead was more than capable of creating weaknesses in many a man; he was himself chief among them. And mayhap, if her nonsense about being the wife of Marcus Annan were true—utterly mad as the thought might be—there truly was a weakness to be exploited.

But not in the way the bishop wanted.

No, indeed. When Hugh was through, even the great and mysterious Veritas himself would be groveling in admiration at the thoroughness of Hugh’s skill. His lips straightened into a hard line. When it came to these sorts of things, no one was more thorough than himself.

He peered into the narrow street below and nodded when Bertrand looked up with a salute that said the men were ready to move. If the bishop’s messenger was right, and they had discovered that this wench was Annan’s weakness, then Hugh could do much better than kill her.

Indeed, if Veritas was right—and Hugh could not help but believe, in the pit of his stomach, that he
was
right—then he would wring a weakness from Annan that would scar far deeper than the lady’s death.

His hand pressed tighter round the crumpled message, driving its creases into his palm, burning the truth of its message into his veins as surely as Lady Mairead’s hand had burned his face.

“Bertrand.” He spoke loud enough to be heard through the window. “Come up here. I wish to speak with you before we leave. There’s going to be a new plan.”

“M’lord.” Bertrand nodded and ducked out of sight beneath the overhang of the first story.

Hugh stepped back from the window and turned to await his lieutenant. Heretofore, they had ridden as a single unit; but it no longer mattered if someone other than himself found the Earl of Keaton’s widow.

There was a greater purpose now. And Hugh prided himself that even he could appreciate that.

Chapter XIX

FOUR DAYS FROM Shaizar and the night that changed everything, Annan stopped somewhere in the verdant hill country between Turbessel and Edessa.

In front of them, carved in the face of a hill, was a square hole, perhaps as tall as his shoulder. Other holes, of varying sizes, stretched eastward along the side of the hill, each of them no lower than his waist. Larks perched in some of the holes, looking at the approaching threesome, black eyes shining in their cocked heads.

“What is that?” Mairead asked, as Annan dismounted his bay charger and came over to take her courser’s bridle.

“Hermitage.” He stopped at her side and reached for her.

“Aye, but where’s the
hermit
?” Marek lifted his leg over his palfrey’s shaggy neck and slid to the ground, catching his rein on the way down.

“Do you know there is one?” Mairead asked. The soft dirt puffed beneath her feet as she landed beside Annan.

“Aye. Stephen knew of him.” He let go of her and reached for the courser’s rein.

She stayed close to him, her shoulder against his side. “We’ll be safe here?”

He shrugged. Safety was a matter of coincidence more than anything, and, when necessary, a fair amount of skill. “Brother Werinbert!” His left hand shifted, out of precaution, to his sword hilt. “
Pacatis!
”

As soon as the Latin greeting of peace had left his lips, he felt Mairead’s quick glance on his face, sensed her astonishment that he, a wandering soldier, was able to speak the language of the Church.

It was so easy to forget she knew no more of him than what she could see with her eyes. He had forgotten that St. Dunstan’s, that black hole of his being, meant nothing to her.

Perhaps, if he had been granted the rest of his life with her, he would have told her. He would need at least that long after speaking his tale to convince her not to shrink into the shadows every time he drew into sight.

From the gray-black depths of the largest hole came the scuffling of sandal-shod feet, and then a man appeared against the blackness. Perhaps Annan’s own age, with a tonsure wormed with veins, and bones that jutted beneath the folds of his ragged sackcloth, he was bent with the rigors of his solitude, and his steps were the shuffles of an elder. Only his eyes, sparkling against the sun-speckled bags of his skin, were young.

Annan took a step forward, leading the horses. “Greetings, Brother. We are travelers, in need of a place for the night. Lord Stephen of Essex directed me to you. May we share your hospitality?”

Smiling, the hermit slapped his ear with the hand that was not supporting him against the doorframe.

Marek slacked a hip. “Maybe he’s deaf.”

Annan tried a Saxon dialect, and Werinbert’s smile immediately widened to a snaggly grin. When Annan had finished speaking, the hermit crossed himself and bowed to them. “Greetings in the name of Christ and St. Beuno.” His accent was heavy, probably from east of Normandy. “Please be welcome to rest with me for the night. You are English?”

“Scottish.” Without looking around, Annan reached back for Mairead, and she folded both her hands into his palm.

“You are pilgrims to the Holy Land?”

“The Crusade brought us.”

“Yes, yes.” Werinbert blew out his cheeks in an expression that did nothing to soften the hard ridges of his cheekbones. “The defense of Christ’s city is a mission most worthy.”

Annan grunted.

“Soldiers traveled past only a few days ago. They bring word that peace negotiations are under way.”

“If all the Christians wanted was peace, they shouldn’t have come in the first place.”

Marek shot him a glare.

“Come.” The hermit lifted both hands and gestured over his shoulders. “I will prepare a repast for you. The horses you may leave near the water.”

Annan followed the line of his pointing finger to where a stand of shrubs closed the gap in the hill. If he listened hard, he could hear the chimes of a waterfall. He pressed his hand against the small of Mairead’s back. “Go with him.”

She looked up into his face, hesitating. But she had nothing to fear from this man, and she knew it. She looked away, let go of his hand, and gathered her skirt. Ducking beneath the gray courser’s reins, she came forward and met the hermit with the sign of the cross.

Marek started for the pool, but Annan tarried, watching as she bowed to Werinbert with the grace of nobility.

Werinbert’s ragged sleeves weren’t wide enough to hold both his wrists and the opposing hands, but he tried to fold himself into them nonetheless. “What is your name, mistress?”

“Mairead.”

By itself, the name sounded naked. Annan frowned. He had no home for her to claim as her own, no title to gift her with. He had taken all that from her to save her life.

No, that wasn’t true. She could have kept her title, the prestige of Lord William of Keaton’s name, if she had wished. She had chosen differently.

His stomach, empty since midmorning, tightened. Aye, she had chosen—but poorly. She had chosen a man whose life was nothing but a long chain of mistakes. A man who, even with all the blood and sweat and strength of his body, could give her nothing come the end of the day, save his own life in exchange for hers. And he
would
give it without question. To die for a cause worth living for was far more than he deserved.

He turned to go, his tired bay charger falling into step behind him, and the gray courser trotting up to walk at his shoulder, ears perked forward, nostrils distended with the scent of water.

“Mairead.” Werinbert rolled the name on his tongue as Annan walked away. “Meaning a pearl of great price. Like that in the most excellent proverb, for which a man sells all that he owns.”

Annan reached a hand to the courser’s bridle and brushed his fingertips against the soft short hair on the horse’s jowl. How many men had sold everything for this particular pearl?

Lord William, who had given his life. Lord Hugh, who had sold his soul. And now himself. What had he given? Who was to say he had not given both body and soul?

He trudged to where the waterfall churned lacy bubbles into the silver-green pool at its base. Surrounded on three sides by the steep hills and deep enough to drown a lad of Marek’s size, it was the clearest water he had seen since the plains of Lombardy in early spring.

Marek, flat on his stomach on the bank, flung his head back from its immersion in the pond, water droplets shimmering through the twilight. He blew through his lips like a horse and rose to his knees to give his streaming locks a good shake. “Whew. Right cold, I’d say.”

“Better than drinking sour wine, that’s sure.” Annan stopped at the bank, a horse on either side, and tugged once on the courser’s rein to keep him from nipping at the palfrey’s neck.

“Tell me this—” Marek rocked back onto his haunches and pushed a hand against the bank to gain his feet. “Why’s it the Church comes a-fighting its head off for hot, stinking places like Acre, and leaves a paradise like this to the heathen?”

“Tell me why any man goes a-fighting.” Annan stripped halfway out of his sleeveless jerkin, keeping one armhole looped round his elbow as he knelt to wash his face.

“If you don’t know the answer to that, probably nobody does.”

He did know the answer—knew all too well. But right now there was a heaviness in his bones, and in his soul, that he wondered if even the hottest battle fire could melt. He bowed to the pond and splashed his face with both hands. As the water, cold and smelling of moss and mud, slid from his jaw down the front of his neck, he rubbed a hand across his eyes and pressed until white and yellow lights danced behind his lids.

“What do you think?” Marek asked. His saddle creaked as he loosened a strap. “Are we clear of trouble?”

“Are we ever clear of trouble?”

“There’ve been moments. But I gather you don’t think this is one of them?”

“Maybe.” Annan dropped his hand from his eyes and waited until the spots cleared and he could again see the red streaks of sunset reflected in the pool. “Depends what’s happened to Hugh.”

“Well, I didn’t best him in a sword fight if that’s what you were hoping.”

Annan gave a little snort.

“If that’s the best answer you can muster, I guess you
must
be expecting trouble.”

“Trouble is what you make of it, laddie buck.”

“And right now you’re making it, is that it?”

Annan blinked and turned to look at him. Marek’s ruddy face, framed by the water-darkened hair that clung to his forehead, was as wide-open and frank as Annan had ever seen it. For the first time since he had picked the lad out of the mud of that Glasgow street, he saw a man looking back at him from behind the wide-set eyes.

Annan leaned his chin against his propped-up hand. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying nothing. Just that if there is trouble, it’s ‘cuz of her.”

“So you’d have me leave her to her fate?”

“Course not.” Marek’s scowl flashed as he ducked to loosen his girth. “I’m just saying you shouldn’t have married her. She’s in enough trouble without adding ours to hers.” The girth swung free and bumped against the palfrey’s knee. Marek straightened back up and took a good hold of the saddle, front and back. “You know full well you’re not exactly the most difficult person to find under the sun. If this Hugh fellow can’t find her, he’ll find you.”

“That’s hardly a deterrent.”

“Well, surprise though it may be, one of these days you’re gonna find out you’re not as immortal and all powerful as ye think you are. He almost bested you the last time you two collided. Mark me, Annan.”

“Is that so?” But the throb of his hip wasn’t likely to let him forget.

Marek dropped the saddle to the ground and reached to catch his palfrey’s rein before the horse could wander. “All I’m saying is you shouldn’t’ve married her.”

Annan rose to his feet, knees cracking. As his arm straightened, the jerkin fell, and he caught it in his hand. Shadows were descending over the pool, sharpening his hearing, even as they damped his ability to see. The waterfall plummeted with a rush and gurgle that spoke something different with every passing moment—and yet was always the same. For years it had fallen; for years it would fall.

As would mankind. As would Annan himself. His fall hadn’t ended after St. Dunstan’s. He was falling yet, adding more mistakes to his chain.

He looked over to where the lad had moved to unsaddle the courser. “When it comes to that, there’s a lot of things I shouldn’t have done.”

By the time Annan and Marek trudged back into sight of the hermit’s cell, the only remaining light was a thread of violet against the tapestry of black and, from within the hillside, a yellow glow of candlelight.

Annan entered first, hunching his shoulders to fit through the misshapen hole of a doorway. The smell of damp earth and broken herbs swelled his nostrils. He could sense more than see the opening that stretched out to his left; no doubt, it was the same passage marked on the outside by the line of window holes.

The hollowed-out room in which he now stood was just wide enough for a rough table and a low stool. A bowl of something brown and lumpy and an open book, both spread beneath the glow of an oil lamp in the center of the table, were the only other objects in the cell.

Neither Mairead nor the monk was in sight.

Marek peered round Annan’s shoulder. “What happened to the hermit and his hospitality?”

Annan didn’t answer. The wind whistled an eerie song through the window holes. He moved forward, past the table, until he could see down the passage. A glow of light, barely visible, softened the darkness some twenty paces down.

“Least he left us some scoff.” Marek plopped onto the stool and reached for the wooden bowl. “Have some? Though I dare say I could bolt t’all myself.”

“Help yourself. I’ll be back.” He sidestepped Marek’s outstretched legs and ducked into the passage.

“Dinna hurry on my account. I’ll holler if I find myself a problem.”

Annan didn’t respond. Likely, Marek’s only problem would be running out of food. They might end up being more of an imposition on the holy hermit’s hospitality than Annan had foreseen.

He followed the tunnel, cool with the chill of moist earth, down a blackness splotched only with the starlight blinking through the holes. Even before he reached the glow of firelight, he could hear the murmured incantation of Latin, spoken in Brother Werinbert’s high singsong.