Crusader Captive (11 page)

But no siege engines had as yet been built. No wooden towers were ready to roll into position. And these balls of flame didn’t come from the direction of Blanche Garde. Nor, Jocelyn realized in a moment of sheer panic, from the king’s encamped army.

Another blazed into the sky. Then another, and another. In the next heartbeat, they crashed to earth right in the center of the camp. Screams rent the night. A tent became a flaming pyre.

They were being attacked from the rear! By the very army that was supposed to join forces with Baldwin’s!

The realization burst on Jocelyn with the same searing impact as the projectiles now raining down on the camp. She had time for just that one, terrible thought before Hugh lunged forward and grasped her wrist.

Pivoting violently on one heel, he swung her like a weighted stone at the end of a tether. Shrieking, Jocelyn flew through the air. She hit with a force that knocked the air from her lungs. At the same instant, a fiery ball crashed to earth just paces from where she’d stood.

Where her castellan still stood.

“Nooooooo!”

The scream ripped from her throat as tongues of fire spewed in all directions and turned everything they touched into a torch.

“Hugh!”

Panting, sobbing, propelled by sheer panic, she got her feet under her and thrust upward. By then her most trusted friend and adviser was ablaze. Fire licked at his boots, his surcoat, even his hair.

Chaos reigned and screams now filled the night. Ignoring all agonized cries but Sir Hugh’s, Jocelyn looked frantically for a cloak or blanket. When she saw nothing close at hand, she dragged up the hem of her bliaut. Water wouldn’t douse the fire, but maybe she could smother it with her robe.

She tried. She tried most desperately. Throwing herself to her knees, she slapped at Hugh’s writhing form with the folds of her gown. Heat singed her face. The stench of burning flesh seared her nostrils.

She couldn’t beat down the flames. They ate right through her bliaut and blistered her hands. In desperation, she screamed for help.

“Someone! Anyone! I beg of you, attend to me!”

Her frantic cries went unheeded. And no wonder. The scene that met her frantic eyes could have come from the lowest reaches of hell.

The unexpected attack had thrown the king’s camp into mindless panic. Foot soldiers ran in every direction. Pages cowered in terror. Knights screamed at squires to fetch swords and shields and horses. All the while death rained down around them.

She was still on her knees, her breath rasping raw in her throat and her heart near stuttering with fear, when she heard her name shouted above the tumult.

“Jocelyn!”

She raised smoke-seared eyes and saw Simon charging through the flames. He’d drawn his sword. Donned his helm. Taken up his shield. Unlike so many others in the king’s camp, he was prepared to battle whatever foe might appear through the carnage.

Jocelyn near wept with relief. He would save Sir Hugh. He must!

Yet she knew from the moment he halted beside her that he couldn’t work miracles. She couldn’t miss the grim assessment in his eyes as they skimmed over Hugh’s charred flesh. That one glance said her desperate efforts had gone for naught.

“He’s beyond help.”

“No!”

“He’s dead, Jocelyn, and you must get to shelter.”

“I can’t leave him. Simon! Hear me! I can’t leave him.”

He didn’t waste time on debate. Reaching down, he pulled her to her feet and dragged her away from the smoking body. She fought him every step of the way, but she might have been a butterfly beating its wings against a steel cage. Ignoring her frantic protests, he raised his shield above his head to protect them both as best he could from flying tongues of fire.

In the midst of her fury and fear she heard a drawn-out hiss above her. It was a low warning—their only warning—before the fires of hell consumed them both.

Chapter Eleven

T
he blazing ball tore off the top of the queen’s tent. Spewing fire and death, it crashed to earth some yards beyond. The tent’s blue cloth walls shook violently and collapsed in on themselves. Flames were already consuming the gilded swans when Jocelyn beat on Simon’s arm and screamed to be heard over the uproar.

“The queen! Simon! The queen’s inside her tent!”

He didn’t hesitate. Throwing her to the ground in a tangle of arms and legs, he covered her with his shield.

“Stay here!”

Like a turtle in its shell, Jocelyn wiggled around frantically on her belly until she faced the now-flaming tent. Terror consumed her while she watched Simon swing his sword two-handed to hack through fallen poles and burning cloth.

He would burn. His surcoat would flame. His face and hands would scorch. His chain mail would heat, and he would roast alive. She couldn’t bear to crouch and tremble like a blancmange while he fought his way into that inferno. Throwing off the heavy shield, she leaped to her feet and screamed with all the power of her heat-and smoke-seared lungs.

“To the queen! To the queen!”

Her frantic cry brought Melisande’s terror-stricken lady-in-waiting running from the pile of equipment she’d crouched behind. Along the way Lady Sybil rallied several cowering, quaking pages.

Jocelyn’s frantic cry also caught the ear of a knight about to throw himself aboard his hastily saddled destrier. His head jerked around and horror filled his face beneath his helm. He shouted something to his squire and raced toward the queen’s tent. Two of the king’s guard came running at the same time.

Then the king himself appeared! Baldwin was mounted on his warhorse and had a small troop of knights scrambling to follow him.

“My lady mother?” he shouted at Jocelyn.

“She’s within!”

With a vicious oath, he kicked free of the stirrups and would have thrown himself from the saddle if a terrifying apparition hadn’t stumbled from the burning tent.

It was a man, or so Jocelyn thought. Covered from head to foot by one of the thick Persian carpets that had graced the floor of the tent. Flames were already licking at the rug, making it appear as though he wore a cloak of fire.

The horror around her seemed to fade. The shouts and screams died. For what felt like an eternity she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. Not until the apparition tore off his heavy covering and she spotted Queen Melisande clinging to Simon’s chest, did Jocelyn draw in a raw, rasping breath.

She wanted to drop to her knees and give a sobbing prayer of thanksgiving. But even as the king’s guards rushed forward to relieve Simon of his burden and the queen assured her anxious son that she was unhurt, a chorus of hoarse shouts heralded a new danger.

Jocelyn spun around and followed outthrust arms and pointing fingers. Horrified, she saw that Blanche Garde’s massive gates had been thrown open. While she watched in swamping waves of dismay, the portcullis went up and the drawbridge rattled down. She didn’t need to see the distinctive armor of the Saracen cavalry that thundered onto the drawbridge to realize the king’s army had been lured into a well-planned trap.

Baldwin recognized it as well. Rising in the stirrups, he shouted at the knights behind him. “LeBeau! Tell the trumpeters to sound ‘To Arms.’ Ibelin, you take the left flank. DeChatillion, the right. I’ll lead the center. We’ll attack those who fire at us from the rear first.”

The knights pulled on the reins, spurred their mounts and thundered in opposite directions.

“You!”

The king’s glance cut to Simon. He couldn’t remember his name but recalled who he was pledged to.

“Get you to the Templars. Tell the Grand Master he must blunt the attack from Blanche Garde at all costs.”

He sawed on the reins to hold his mount steady as another fireball soared overhead.

“And you…” This was directed to the knight who’d rushed over on foot. “Take my lady mother and these women…”

Where? No tent was safe from the missiles raining down on them, no place secure from attack.

“The stream just beyond that copse of trees,” Simon shouted as he raced to Jocelyn and scooped up the shield she’d thrown aside. “They can crouch below its bank.”

“To the stream,” the king concurred grimly as he dug his spurs into his mount’s sides. “I’ll send a troop to safeguard them as soon as I may.”

Simon paused only to thrust his shield at Jocelyn. “Keep this to protect your head and back.”

“No! You’ll need it.”

“I’ll find another.”

He was already off and running. Her arms sagging with the weight of the embossed leather shield, Jocelyn watched him dodge fiery obstacles with the agility of a panther. He stopped only to seize the reins of a riderless palfrey plunging through the chaos and haul himself into the saddle. By the time the trumpets sounded a strident call to arms, he’d disappeared from her sight.

“Majesty.” The smoke-blackened knight the king had entrusted his mother to croaked out a desperate plea. “The copse of trees. We must get you there.”

He held his shield over Melisande’s and Lady Sibyl’s heads. Jocelyn grunted at the weight of Simon’s but raised it high enough to join with his. Under this pitifully inadequate protection, they stumbled past blazing tents and smoldering corpses to the rocky stream cutting through the trees.

Once there, the beleaguered knight thrust both shields into the bank. The queen and her lady-in-waiting crouched under them. They were up to their ankles in trickling water and surrounded on all sides by the din of men rushing to answer the trumpet’s call. Melisande shoved her charred veil from her eyes and beckoned urgently to Jocelyn.

“Here, girl. Take cover with us.”

Jocelyn started to duck under the shield but halted after just a step. Sir Hugh was dead. Simon had been sent to fight alongside the Templars. Who remained to lead Fortemur’s contingent?

“I must see to my men.”

“No!” Melisande reached out and grabbed her wrist. “Do not leave this shelter.”

Shaking off her hold, Jocelyn crouched and followed the low, winding bank. Her sodden skirts dragged the mud. Rocks bit through the soles of her boots. Smoke stung her eyes.

The site Simon had selected for her troop lay close. She was certain of it. Or as certain as she could be of anything in this terrifying nightmare. She was about to climb up on the bank to take her bearings when a knight wearing the black and red of Fortemur charged through the trees.

“Sir Guy!”

Thank the Lord! Her armorer had arrived with Sir Hugh! Sobbing with relief, Jocelyn scrambled up the bank.

“Sir Guy! Here!”

“Milady!” Sawing on his mount’s reins, he drew it to a pawing halt. “Sir Simon sent us to stand with you and the queen until the king’s men arrive. Now, for the love of the Holy Virgin, take cover.”

Since he’d already dismounted and was dragging her back down the bank, Jocelyn had no choice but to obey. Then all she could do was try to block the screams and stench and wing prayer after prayer heavenward.

Keep him safe.

Dear God, please keep him safe.

Simon thrust right, then left, then right again. Sweat poured down his face, soaked his neck beneath his mail. His sword was blooded to the hilt. Its grip was slick from gore and entrails and brains. Straining every muscle and sinew in his body, he fought alongside the Templars.

Seasoned warriors that they were, the knights had leaped into their saddles mere moments after the Saracens had erupted through Blanche Garde’s portcullis. The sergeants had similarly rushed to counterattack with pikes and maces and battle-axes. Holding aloft the black-and-white Beauseant that was both a banner and a beacon, they’d rushed to meet the unexpected assault.

Like Simon, every one of them was now drenched in so much blood and gore that it near obliterated the red crosses on the knights’ surcoats and the black crosses on those of the sergeants.

Thank God and all the saints Sir Guy had ordered Avenger barded and saddled at the first signs of attack. A terrified Will Farrier had been gripping the destrier’s reins with white, shaking hands when Simon had charged back to order a protective troop for Jocelyn. With a shouted command for Will to remain with Sir Guy, Simon had leaped from the palfrey he had commandeered in the king’s camp and swung astride the heavily muscled warhorse.

In the desperate hours—or was it mere minutes?—since, Avenger had more than proved his mettle. Responding to the slightest pressure of Simon’s knees, the bay wheeled, bit, kicked and trampled to devastating effect. Blood poured from wounds to its neck and haunches but the destrier proved as effective a weapon as any lance or sword.

Avenger evidenced even more value when Simon saw Bertrand de Tremelay go down. The Grand Master was surrounded by a half-dozen Saracen foot soldiers. One lunged forward to grab his mount’s reins. Another ducked under his slashing sword and thrust his pike at the furiously battling knight. The force of the thrust pierced de Tremelay’s mail and toppled him from the saddle.

“Templars!” The cry ripped from Simon’s raw, smoke-seared throat. “To the Master!”

He spurred Avenger and used the barrel-chested courser as a battering ram to force a path through the swarming foot soldiers. De Tremelay was on his feet when Simon reached him. His right arm dangled uselessly at his side, but he’d transferred his sword to his left and now swung the blade in vicious arcs.

Simon did what he’d spent almost his entire life training to do. He killed and dismembered. Ruthlessly. Dispassionately. Swiftly. Within mere moments, the ground around the Grand Master was littered with corpses.

“I’ll not forget this,” de Tremelay shouted gratefully when Simon dismounted to help him back onto his courser.

They would be lucky if either of them lived to remember anything, Simon thought grimly as he dragged himself into the saddle again. The battle raged all around them. Vicious balls of fire still shot through the night sky.

As he plunged back into the fray, he could only pray that Jocelyn was sheltered and safe.

The battle was over by dawn.

Baldwin had rallied his forces and charged the army at his rear. Even before the queen and the rest of the camp heard that his desperate counterattack had succeeded, wild rumors as to who’d led the army that had attacked them swirled as thick as the smoke that hung like a pall over the battlefield.

Against all odds, the Templars had routed the attackers who’d poured out of Blanche Garde’s gates. Then, incredibly, they’d battled their way to the gates themselves and stormed through them. The hilltop fortress was now back in Frankish hands.

But at horrific cost. When at last it was deemed safe for the queen to emerge from her protective position, she looked stricken to her very soul by the carnage around her. She stood with Jocelyn on one side, Lady Sibyl on the other, and surveyed the scene with red-rimmed eyes.

“Dear God above,” she rasped in a smoke-ravaged whisper. “Will this kingdom ever know peace?”

For a moment she looked old beyond her years. So old and worn that Jocelyn put out a hand wrapped in bandages torn from her linen undertunic.

Melisande might be the daughter, wife and mother of kings, but she’d lived her entire life in a land torn by strife. She knew all too well the price that must be paid to hold this kingdom together. Drawing in a ragged breath, she squared her shoulders.

“We must needs find the king’s marshal,” she told Sir Guy. “He—or his second in command if Sir Humphrey has fallen—will organize succor for the wounded and identification of the dead. These ladies and I will assist how we may.”

Jocelyn didn’t have Lady Constance’s skill at physiking the sick. As chatelaine of Fortemur, however, she’d seen her share of broken bones set and crushed limbs sawed off. Even so, the gruesome burns, weeping blisters and spilled entrails made her gag until at last she grew accustomed to such horrific human misery.

All the while she helped tend to the wounded, she wondered desperately whether Simon had survived the storming of Blanche Garde. She didn’t learn his fate until the king came in search of his mother sometime past noon. By then every bone in Jocelyn’s body ached with fatigue, and grime had etched its way in every fold of her skin.

Baldwin looked no better. Blood stained his surcoat. Soot rimmed his eyes. He’d lost his helm with its gold coronet and had shoved back his mailed hood to seek relief from the sun that now beat down mercilessly. But no sign of the enmity that had pitted mother against son in their fierce struggle for power showed in his face as he reached down to help the queen rise.

She put her hand in his and got stiffly to her feet. Her gaze raked his tired face as she sought verification of the rumors that were now all but fact.

“So it’s true? It was the Emir of Damascus?”

Jocelyn held her breath. Several of the men she’d tended had sworn they’d recognized the emir’s standard, but they could well have been mistaken in the dark of night and heat of battle.

“It was the emir,” Baldwin confirmed heavily.

“Is he dead?”

“He is.”

“May the bastard rot in hell!”

Just in time, Jocelyn bit back a heartfelt endorsement of the queen’s wish. With so many dead and dying all around them, this was hardly the time to give vent to personal feelings. And truth be told, she was more concerned at this moment with Simon’s fate than with the emir’s.

“Come, Lady Mother.” The king led her to the palfrey he’d brought for her. “Blanche Garde is ours once more. I’ll see you housed within its walls.”

“Attend me, Lady Sibyl. You, also, Lady Jocelyn.”

Baldwin held the reins while the queen mounted. Squires performed the same service for her ladies. While she settled into the saddle, Jocelyn made bold to address the king.

“Do you have word of Simon de Rhys?”

“Who?”

“The knight who commanded my guard. You sent him to tell the Templars to hold at all costs.”

Wearily, the king shook his head. “I don’t know his fate. We’ll find out soon enough, however. The Grand Master has sent word that he awaits us inside the keep.”