Crusader Captive (14 page)

When the echo died, he drew a long, shuddering breath and tightened his fist on the handle of the flail.

Chapter Thirteen

F
ortemur lay only a little more than twelve leagues to the west of Blanche Garde, but the path climbed steep hills and wound through vineyards and orchards before beginning a slow descent to the sea.

Because they’d departed so late, Jocelyn and her troop were forced to spend the night on the road. Sir Guy requisitioned a bed for her in the home of an olive merchant. She slept but fitfully and roused early to continue the journey. By noon of the next day, she could see the Mediterranean shimmering in the far distance.

She near wept when she rode through Fortemur’s massive gates the next afternoon. This was home. This place was safe. Now, at least, she wouldn’t have to exchange it for the marble fountains and perfumed gardens of the emir’s harem.

Before parting from Melisande, she’d wrung a reluctant promise from the queen. Both women acknowledged Jocelyn must wed, and soon. Given the emir’s treachery and the certainty of further battles to come, it was more imperative than ever that Fortemur be vested in a knight strong enough to defend it against attack. A Frankish knight, Melisande had agreed. One who would hold Fortemur for the crown. As Simon would have held it, Jocelyn thought with a stab of pain so sharp it near tumbled her from her saddle.

No! She couldn’t allow herself to dwell on what might have been. There were graves to be dug. Widows to grieve with. Children to comfort. Still, she almost fell into Lady Constance’s welcoming arms and had to fight to hold back her tears when she related the astounding events at Blanche Garde to Thomas of Beaumont and his pinch-faced wife.

“I would have come to your relief myself,” the king’s cousin asserted officiously. “But with Hugh and Guy both most anxious to answer your call, I felt it my duty to hold Fortemur against possible attack.”

She was too sick at heart to do more than nod. “There’s much to do. Let’s get to it.”

The days passed swiftly. The nights seemed endless.

Exhausted though she was from the ordeal at Blanche Garde and the grim tasks she had to complete on her return, Jocelyn tossed restlessly in bed and woke more weary than when she’d retired. When she did drift into sleep, her dreams were all too often of blood and fire and the pain Simon must even now be enduring.

She knew no more than anyone else of the trials an aspirant to the Order of the Knights Templar must go through. She’d heard rumors, however. Whispers. Gruesome tales. How could he endure them after all he’d suffered at the hands of his captors?

Tortured by horrific imaginings, she thrust aside the bed coverings and padded on bare feet to the intricately carved prie-dieu. Her hands went white at the knuckles as she bowed her head and pleaded with God to spare Simon what agony He could.

Night bled into day.

Day darkened to night.

When two brother knights dragged Simon from the chapel, he’d long since lost all sense of time or self. It was true, he thought hazily as they scrubbed the blood and sweat from his naked body. Deliberate, torturous self-abasement could indeed erase all carnal thoughts. Pain could take a person beyond the realm of the physical.

He could scarce recall his own name, much less the one he’d thought would remain emblazoned forever on his heart. It was only with the sheerest effort of will that he was able to raise his arms so the brother knights might clothe him with clean, rough-spun garments.

They let him eat then. Two dry crusts of bread. One slice from a cheese wheel. He crammed them into his mouth like a pig at the trough and washed them down with watered wine.

“Slowly,” one of them murmured sympathetically. “Drink slowly, else your shrunken belly will heave and churn and spew everything up.”

Simon acknowledged the wisdom of this advice some moments later, when his roiling belly threatened to do just that. Drawing on his last, tattered shreds of will, he managed to choke back the acrid taste of bile. The knight beside him nodded in approval.

“If you’re ready, the Grand Master awaits.”

“I’m ready,” he croaked.

It was dark, he noted as they led him once again to the chapel. Nigh onto midnight, he guessed, although the fog swirling inside his head made a mockery of his thoughts. This time he was halted just outside the door.

“Knock thrice,” the knight holding him up with a firm grip instructed.

Thrice. That pierced the whirling haze. Once for the Father, once for the Son, once for the Holy Ghost. Breathing hard, he did as instructed.

“Who’s without?” a voice boomed from inside.

“An aspirant to our order,” his escort replied.

“Bring him to me.”

His heart hammering, Simon entered. Was it just an hour ago he’d exited the chapel? Mere moments since he’d yielded all to pain and darkness?

The mat he’d knelt and slept and wept on was gone. All trace of blood and vomit and excrement had disappeared. A hundred, nay, a thousand, wax candles dispelled the darkness that had surrounded him. Their fragrance joined that of the incense that sent spirals of scented smoke curling from silver dishes.

Those of the Templars who’d survived the battle stood in two rows. They flanked the Grand Master, who gestured Simon’s escort to take his place beside his brothers in arms.

Without the man’s supporting hand, Simon near toppled to the stone floor. He caught himself in time. His breath hissing through locked jaws, he straightened. In the distant corner of his mind not hazed by pain, he noted the attendant standing just beyond de Tremelay.

Was that a skull in the man’s hands, cut off and inverted to form a bowl? Sweet Lord, was the dark liquid in the bowl blood? The tales Simon had heard of aspirants required to seal their oaths by drinking the blood of enemies spun through his dazed mind as the Grand Master made a short, chopping gesture with his sword.

“State your name, that all may hear who aspires to join our ranks.”

“I am—” He had to stop and lick his lips. His throat raw, he began again. “I am Simon de Rhys.”

“Hear me, de Rhys.” De Tremelay’s eyes burned with intensity as he leaned in. “You’ve now had a taste of the rigors every Templar must endure. Our life is one of hardship, not ease. Danger, not indulgence. If you join our ranks, you will sigh for sleep. Pray for a wormy crust of bread or flask of water. You will own nothing. Not the sword you wield in battle, nor your horses, nor your armor. All you bring with you, all you win by the strength of your arm, will belong to the order.”

De Tremelay leaned closer. His voice reverberated with the passion of one who’d endured all the hardships he’d just enumerated.

“You will be loyal to no country,” he continued. “No liege. Only to the Pope, the master of this order, and the brothers senior to you in rank. Do you understand what is asked of you?”

“Yes.”

“Then answer now, before these witnesses. Are you in good health?”

For a stunned moment, Simon thought the man toyed with him. He stared at him stupidly and tried desperately to scrape the cobwebs from his mind. Only belatedly did he realize that de Tremelay was not referring to the wounds inflicted at his specific order.

“I’m in good health.”

He had to force his reply past jaws near locked with pain.

“Are you in debt?”

“No.”

“Are you betrothed, or married?”

For a moment, a mere heartbeat, the image of a pale-haired maiden pushed through the haze still fogging Simon’s mind.

“No.”

He couldn’t be sure in his weakened state, but it seemed the Grand Master let out a low hiss of satisfaction.

“Do you belong to any other order?”

“No.”

“Then we come to the final question. Tell me this, de Rhys, and tell me true. Do you take the oath of Knight Templar with a pure heart?”

Chapter Fourteen

S
till Jocelyn could not sleep. She arose each morning before the dawn and applied herself so relentlessly to her duties as chatelaine that Fortemur’s residents took to sliding away at her approach for fear of being set to yet another backbreaking task.

They couldn’t escape her vigilant eye. She ordered the dovecotes cleaned and fresh rushes cut for every floor of the keep. Tapestries were taken down, beat with branches to remove their dust, and laboriously rehung. The beekeeper, the stable master and the ale master were all taken to account for vital tasks left too long undone.

Her ladies Jocelyn set to sewing several new gowns for the wedding she advised them would take place as soon as the queen or her son named a replacement groom. Sir Thomas’s ferret-faced wife plied her needle along with them.

“Who will it be, do you think?” she asked when Jocelyn came to inspect their progress.

“I don’t know.”

Nor did she care. The passion that had driven her to take such outrageous risks to avoid marriage to Ali ben Haydar seemed to have drained away. She had the queen’s promise that she would be given to a Frankish lord. Nothing else seemed to matter anymore.

“From all reports, Lord Eustace will soon have need of a bride.” Thomas’s wife knotted her thread and snipped it with the scissors attached to her belt. “His lady is rumored to lie on her deathbed. Maybe the queen will give you to him and join your holdings with his.”

“Surely not!” Lady Constance protested sharply. “Eustace’s bones creak even more than mine. He has to have celebrated seventy name days, if he’s celebrated one.”

“I doubt it not.” A small, spiteful smile crossed the other woman’s face. “But what matters age when kingdoms are at stake?”

What matter, indeed? Blowing out a ragged breath, Jocelyn spun on her heel and left the women to their stitching.

To distract herself from fruitless speculation, she threw herself with ever more energy into inspecting and shoring up Fortemur’s defenses. Her ceaseless efforts took so much from her that she grew more haggard and short-tempered with each hour. Finally Sir Guy pleaded with his wife to intercede. Lady Constance did so in her blunt manner.

“By all that is holy, Jocelyn! You’re driving us all to dip deep into the wine barrel. Take your falconer, your bird and your foul temper, and for God’s sake quit the keep for a while.”

It was, Jocelyn realized an hour later, just the antidote she needed for her ill humors. Sunshine and a bracing breeze off the sea cleared the last, lingering horror of Blanche Garde from her mind. The grace of her peregrine as it rode the updrafts with effortless ease gave her a measure of peace she never thought she would find again.

She couldn’t help but think of the first time she had watched it fly. Simon had ridden with her to these same cliffs. Then, as now, the peregrine had demonstrated its sharp-taloned skills. And when it was done, she had taken Simon to the crystal cave.

Memories of that stolen hour filled her mind. She could almost feel his flesh against hers. Taste again the salt on his skin. He’d given her a gift she could only now appreciate, she realized. Not just carnal knowledge, nor yet a woman’s searing, panting satisfaction. He’d given her the gift of love.

It would stay with her always. Whosoever she wed, wheresoever she went, she would hold the memory of their brief time together in a corner of her heart as special and private as her cave. She rested her leather-sheathed wrists on the pommel and watched the bird soar. The sight didn’t completely erase the ache inside her, but the faint tinkle of the bells tethered to its leg did seem to soothe some of the sharp edges.

Would that she could fly with such unutterable grace, she thought with a sigh. Where would she go? Jerusalem, she thought. It would be wondrous indeed to view the holy sites from such a lofty perspective. Or Venice, perhaps. She’d heard tales of the palatial villas crowding its fog-shrouded waterways. Or—

“Mistress!”

Her falconer’s shout jerked her from thoughts of canals and palaces. She would go nowhere, Jocelyn acknowledged, even as her mind leaped to the possibility of a threat. She was Fortemur. Her destiny lay now and always between its crenellated walls.

“What do you see?” she asked sharply.

“Look!”

She twisted in the saddle and saw that he pointed to a lone rider descending the road toward Fortemur. He was slumped in the saddle and too far away for her to see his face, but there was no mistaking those broad shoulders or Avenger’s distinctive barding.

Everything in her went still. For long moments she couldn’t squeeze so much as a breath from her lungs. A thousand chaotic thoughts tumbled through her mind. Why had Simon returned? Had he failed his initiation? Taken some grievous hurt?

What did it matter? He was here! Like one prodded from a trance by the sharp tip of a spear, she shouted a command at her escort.

“To me!”

Her heels dug into her mount’s sides. Heart pounding, Jocelyn wove through the stunted trees lining the cliffs and thundered up the slope.

Simon dismounted slowly and waited while she threw herself from the saddle. His arms came around her with a fierceness that crushed the air from her lungs. Heedless of the men charging up the road after her, she thrust up on her toes to cover his mouth, his cheeks, even his chin with greedy kisses.

He returned them before burying his face in her hair. His hold was so tight she was sure her ribs would crack. Laughing, gasping, near sobbing with joy, she tried to ease back.

“Simon! I beg you. Let me draw a breath, then tell me what you do here!”

He gave a small grunt and loosed his grip. Only then did she realize he wasn’t holding her so much as using her to hold himself up.

And his face! Sweet Lord, his face! Now that she could see past her tears of joy, the sight of him shocked her to her very core. He was so gaunt. So drawn and gray. His eyes, once as blue and bright as the sky itself, were dull and rimmed with red.

“Simon! Are you ill? Have you taken a—?”

She broke off when he lurched against her. Wrapping both arms around his waist, she staggered under his weight and cried to her men to give her aid. It took three of them to support him.

“Lay him in the grass beside the road,” Jocelyn ordered frantically. “One of you go now, and fast! Fetch Sir Guy. Have him bring a wagon. And Lady Constance. Tell her—”

“No.” The protest was little more than a rustle of air from between Simon’s gritted teeth. “I can…ride. Help me…back ahorse.”

Since his knees had given way and he was dragging those supporting him to the dirt, Jocelyn paid no heed to the ridiculous request.

“Do as I bid,” she snapped at her men. “Lay him there.” Whirling, she stabbed a finger at one of the others. “Get you to the keep.”

The groan that ripped from Simon’s throat when they stretched him out on the stubby grass stopped Jocelyn’s breath in her throat. She dropped to her knees beside him. Her hands trembled so badly she couldn’t loosen his mailed hood or shove it back from his sweat-drenched forehead.

“Can you speak, Simon? Tell me where you hurt.”

His red, crusted lids lifted. For the merest instant, a faint gleam pierced the dull glaze in his eyes and the ghost of a smile pulled at his lips.

“Where…do…I…not?”

“This is worse than before. Much worse.”

Lady Constance’s grim assessment sliced like a sword through the stillness pervading Jocelyn’s bedchamber. Her hands were gentle as she bathed Simon’s naked form, but her face wore a most grave expression.

“I’ve never seen such grievous wounds.” She tossed the sodden, bloody rag into a bucket filled with reddened water and stretched out an imperious hand. “Give me another cloth.”

Jocelyn jumped to do her bidding. She’d hovered at the older woman’s side ever since her men had hauled Simon up the stairs and into her bed. A half-dozen others hovered nearby, ready and willing to give aid. Another of her ladies was among them. Two maids. A page poised to run and fetch as commanded. Two beefy men-at-arms to help lift and turn.

Sir Guy was there, too. As was Sir Thomas. The king’s cousin pulled at his sparse red whiskers and asked yet again the question still burning in Jocelyn’s mind.

“Why is he here?”

“I don’t know.”

“Has he brought a missive from the king?”

“We found no missive among his garments,” she bit out.

“That’s another thing. Why was he wearing the stained tunic he left Fortemur in? Didn’t you tell me he was preparing for induction into the Order of the Knights Templar when you departed Blanche Garde?”

She gritted her teeth, praying for patience, and nodded.

“Then he should have been wearing the Templars’ white mantle and red cross,” Sir Thomas pointed out unnecessarily. “Unless he failed the tests,” he added scornfully. “It’s often so with men as big as this one. They present a fearsome appearance but cannot endure the most trivial—”

“You don’t know of what you speak,” Guy interrupted fiercely. Newly appointed by Jocelyn to fill Sir Hugh’s position as castellan, he didn’t bother to disguise his disdain for the king’s cousin. “I was with de Rhys at Blanche Garde. I saw firsthand his bravery on the field.”

“Oh, so? Well, all I can say is that he doesn’t look brave now. He looks like some oaf flayed by his master for stealing a pig or—”

“Get out!”

Jocelyn whirled on him, her hands curling into claws. She’d had enough—more than enough!—of this blood-sucking leech.

“Get out of my chamber and out of my keep!”

Thomas stumbled back a step, his jaw dropping in sheer surprise. “What do you say?”

“You heard me. I want you gone within the hour. You and your whey-faced wife.”

“You…you cannot order us away,” he stammered. “Baldwin himself appointed me steward of Fortemur.”

“I am
un
appointing you.” Fire and fear for Simon blazed in equal measures in her heart. “Sir Guy, escort this man from my sight.”

“Gladly.”

Her new castellan hustled the indignant and still stuttering knight to the chamber’s door. Had she given the matter a second thought, Jocelyn wouldn’t have doubted King Baldwin would support this summary dismissal. He, like the queen, knew full well the timely arrival of Fortemur’s troops had helped to turn the tide of battle. They owed her almost as much as they owed Simon.

That brought her back full square to the question still burning in her mind. Why was he here?

She got her answer late that night.

She’d abandoned all pretense and refused to leave Simon’s side. She no longer gave a groat who knew he was in her bed, or that she ached with her whole being to join him there.

She couldn’t slide in beside him, of course. His wounds were too grievous to risk aggravating them. All she could do was banish everyone but Lady Constance from the chamber and pull a stool close so she might stroke his bruised and battered hand.

Minutes crawled by. Hour dragged into hour. Constance gave way to weariness and slumped in the chair she’d placed on the far side of the bed. On the verge of utter despair, Jocelyn laid her head on her crossed arms.

“You are…the sun…”

The hoarse whisper jerked her head up. Hope leaped like a dancing unicorn in her heart. “Simon!”

Her glad cry brought Lady Constance bolting upright. So thrilled were both women to see him awake and his eyes clear that they near missed the words he added on a soughing breath.

“…that ends…my darkness.”

Jocelyn whipped her gaze from him to Lady Constance and back again. She’d heard those words before. But where? When?

It burst on her of a sudden. The troubadour, Blondin, had sung that very line in the great hall, strumming his mandolin all the while. And just as quick, the full verse scrolled through her head.

Your whisper brightens my heart.

Your kiss feeds my soul.

You are the sun that ends my darkness.

I will be faithful to you forever,

In this life and the next.

Dear God!
This life and the next?

The fear that Simon had dragged himself into the saddle and made the tortuous journey to Fortemur only to bid her farewell clutched at her heart like a mailed fist and squeezed so hard she couldn’t draw a single breath. If not for Lady Constance’s tart comment, she might have crumpled to the rushes into a sobbing, shapeless mass.

“So, de Rhys. You’ve decided to rejoin the living.”

“Indeed I…have, lady.” With an effort that was painful to watch, he smiled. “In more…ways than one.”

That slow curve of his lips arrowed straight to Jocelyn’s heart. “Simon,” she said with a catch in her voice. “Please, please tell me. Why have you returned to Fortemur?”

“To…take you…to wife.”