For Love And Honor (16 page)

“How many ships in the navy?” asked Alain,
his gaze fixed upon the numerous craft in the harbor. “Do they
truly fight ship to ship and not just use the vessels to transport
men and supplies? I know too little of such things.”

“Those,” said Ambrose, “are questions you
must ask of our host when you meet him this evening. In the
meantime I ought to be at my prayers, which I have neglected too
often during our journey.”

“I am going back to the harbor,” Alain
decided. “I want to look at those ships again. Piers, will you come
with me?”

“Until I recover completely from the
lingering effects of seasickness, I’d rather stay as far from the
water as possible,” Piers replied. “The garden I see below looks
inviting. I think I’ll walk there and try to accustom my legs to
solid ground once more.”

They separated, Piers making his way down an
outside stairway to the garden. Seen at ground level, it was even
more delightful than it had seemed from above, and for a time he
wandered in peaceful contentment among artfully arranged trees and
shrubbery. The flower gardens that would later in the season bloom
in riotous exuberance were in full bud. Gravel paths led through
the garden and strategically placed fountains delighted the eye and
ear with the sight and soft sounds of falling, sparkling water.

Beyond the cultivated area near the house,
Piers found a more natural space that offered shade and coolness in
a day grown surprisingly warm. He brushed between two bushes and
found another gravel pathway leading into the distance. Piers
followed it to a tiny round structure. The walls of this building
were carved in an open fretwork design, and there was no door, only
an open, pointed arch. Inside he could see a wooden table, a
patterned carpet, and some bright pillows on a low platform that
was also covered with carpet. The whole was lit by several glowing
brass lanterns. From within this pavilion came the sound of a low,
rumbling snore. Wondering if perhaps he had inadvertently stumbled
into a trysting place kept by George of Antioch, Piers stopped
walking. Another snore issued from the pavilion.

“Sir, will you help me?” The words were
spoken in accented Norman French. The soft female voice came from
directly behind him. Piers whirled to confront the speaker.

At first he thought she was unreal, a figment
of his imagination or some creature conjured up by a magician. Her
hair was covered by a black scarf, and the robe that shrouded her
from throat to toes was also black. Her eyes were dark, too. She
looked as if she might melt back into the shadowy greenness from
which she had emerged. Then whoever was in the pavilion snored
again, making the mysterious creature giggle. The illusion was
broken, and Piers saw she was just a very young girl.

“You want my help?” he asked.

“If you please.” She caught at his arm. “Come
with me. It’s not far.”

She led him off the path, into a thicket
where untamed brambles grew. She knelt, pointing through the
twining vines and leaves. Piers knelt beside her, not knowing what
to expect.

“In there,” she said. “There is a wounded
bird. My arms are too short to reach it, but I think yours are long
enough.”

“You expect me to rescue a bird from that
mess of thorns?” he asked. “Why don’t you just leave it alone?”

“We can’t do that.” Her words made them
companions in the rescue effort. “Please, sir, bring it out before
the cats get it.”

“The cats,” Piers repeated, wondering what he
had gotten himself into. All he could see of the girl was the pale
shape of her face, her large, shadowy eyes, and two delicate,
slender hands. From within the tangle of vines came a faint
rustling.

“Please,” the girl said, her glance sweet and
trusting.

Reluctantly, Piers slid his right hand into the place,
wincing when a thorn scratche
d him. His
searching fingers closed around a trembling,
feathered thing. He could feel the frantic beat of a tiny heart.
Taking care not to hurt it, using his left hand to widen the
passage, he drew the bird out of the thicket.

“Oh, thank you.” The girl was on her feet.
“Will you carry it, please? It’s better not to move them too much,
so if you will just keep it in your hand as you are doing now.”

“Carry it where?” Piers asked.

“Back to the pavilion, of course.” Once again
she led the way. “Set it down gently, there on the table.”

Piers did as she wanted. Upon looking around
the pavilion, he discovered the source of the snores he had heard.
On the platform extending around the wall of the pavilion, an
elderly woman lay upon the silk pillows, her head and overweight
body covered with dark clothing similar to the young girl’s.

“Shh.” The girl put a finger to her lips.
“That’s Lesia, my nurse. Let her sleep.”

“What are you going to do?” Piers saw several
strips of narrow white fabric on the table near the injured bird.
On the platform sat a bird cage.

“I am going to bind up its wing as best I
can,” the girl said, “then keep it safe until it is healed and can
fly again.” She was working as she spoke. The bird sat still
beneath her fingers and soon the job was done. Gently she placed
the bird into the cage and closed the little door.

“Will it heal?” Piers asked, watching the
girl’s delicate face and her beautiful hands.

“Once it recovers from its fright, I think it
will,” she said.

“Not another injured bird?” Lesia the nurse
had awakened. With a healthy yawn she heaved herself into a sitting
position and swung her feet to the floor.

“Another?” said Piers. “Does she do this sort
of thing often?”

“She has always been like this,” the nurse
said. “One day it’s a stray cat, the next day a bird, or a dog, or
a horse that needs her attention. I vow, if a poisonous viper were
hurt, she’d try to heal it, too.”

“Of course I would,” said the girl. “All are
God’s creatures.”

“Not snakes.” Lesia was on her feet, glaring
at Piers as if he were a serpent. “You, sir, must leave. At
once.”

“Lesia, please,” said the girl, her dark eyes
on Piers. “He may be a wounded creature, too.”

“There are guards within sound of my voice,”
Lesia told Piers. “Out. Now. Leave.”

“I stumbled in here by accident,” Piers said,
trying to pacify her. “I did not mean to intrude upon your privacy,
and I offer my apologies for doing so.”

“If you mean well, then leave us,” Lesia
ordered.

Her fiercely protective demeanor gave Piers
no choice but to withdraw as quickly as he could. With a last look
toward the girl, he left the pavilion. Her image went with him,
making him wonder who she might be. He grimaced, recalling her
words. A wounded creature? Not Piers of Stokesbrough! He had no
hurts a girl like that might cure.

*
* * * *

There was a balustraded white stone terrace
along one side of the house, where George of Antioch liked to sit
in the evenings, watching the light change on the sea and the ships
leaving and entering the harbor. Few sights were more pleasing to
George than a view of tossing waves with the sky arching above. It
was there, on the terrace overlooking the sea, with the sky turning
orange and gold and the shadows lengthening toward the purple of
twilight that Yolande saw the stranger again.

She was sitting on the little stool placed
next to the chair in which her Uncle George was relaxing, and she
had just been teasing him that he was secretly longing to give up
his honors ashore and go to sea again, when she heard
footsteps.

“Here are our guests.” George rose to greet
them. He was a tall, impressive man in his mid-forties, with
prematurely white hair and beard. A Levantine Greek by birth, who
had fought for the Moslems in Tunisia before transferring his
allegiance to Roger of Sicily, George was renowned as a brilliant
naval leader. He was also broad of shoulder and he was blocking
Yolande’s view of the newcomers. She stepped to one side just as
the man she had been expecting came through the arched windows and
onto the terrace.

He was so thin. She saw again the telltale
signs she had noticed earlier and knew he was emaciated and pale
from illness. She had met other travelers who arrived in Sicily in
a similar condition after a long sea voyage. A little rest and food
would cure him and his two friends. They would require new
clothing, too. She could tell they were all freshly bathed and
barbered, but their garments were travel-stained and in sad need of
repair or replacement.

“My niece, the lady Yolande.” George drew her
forward.

Waiting
politely while he introduced her to each man in turn, Yolande noted
every detail of their appearance. The
priest was about ten
years
older than her uncle,
brown of hair, kind of face, a man anyone would trust. Alain was
tall and handsome, but enveloped in a sadness that set him apart
from ordinary life. Instinctively she knew that Alain of Woodward
would not look with delight upon the famously beautiful ladies of
Palermo.

“So this is who you are, my lady. How fares
the bird we rescued?” Sir Piers of Stokesbrough took Yolande’s hand
and laughed at her when she tried to say his full name.

“
The bird
does remarkably well, sir. I believe you will fare well also.” She
laughed back at him, marveling at his good looks. His eyes were
dark brown, sharp and clever, deeply searching when they met hers.
His straight hair was black as a starless night, his face
narrow,
his finely arched
nose a miracle of human flesh. And his wide mouth was so
beautifully shaped that Yolande had all she could do not to touch
it with her sensitive fingertips. That she was able to restrain
herself had more to do with her respect for her uncle and a desire
not to embarrass him before strangers than with her own
inclinations.

In the society of Norman Sicily, with its
strong Moslem influences, it was rare for a woman to have as much
freedom as Yolande. The ward of George of Antioch for the past ten
years, she was not really his niece, but the term described their
relationship so aptly that by now they both believed in it. In
George’s house there were innumerable servants to do his bidding,
or Yolande’s, and a head steward who ran the household, but at
seventeen Yolande fancied herself the chatelaine. On this night, as
she often did when foreigners came to visit, she wanted to play the
great lady with George and his guests, sitting with them at table
and listening to their conversation about distant lands.

Except that she could not pay attention, not
after the talk had veered onto the subject of the Sicilian navy and
the way it was used to supplement King Roger’s land forces during
warfare. Those were men’s concerns. Yolande was interested in
people and, at the moment, in one particular person. Happily, Piers
had been seated at her left hand.

“
You do
not find the strategy of sea battles as interesting as do your
friends,” she said to him. It was not a question, just a statement
of obvious f
act, and she feared it was rather an inane
open
ing, but it got her Piers’s
full attention.

“I am not fond of ships,”’ he said. “I get
seasick.”

“So do I.” Yolande laughed. “I remember too
well my only sea voyage. When I was very small my mother brought me
here from Salerno. I was so sick that she thought I would die
before we landed. Since that time I have never again set foot on a
ship.”

“
I wish I
could do the same.” Piers sighed ruefully, knowing the time would
come when he would have to go to sea once more. Liking the musical
sound of Yolande’s soft laugh and the way she had centered her
attention on him to the exclusion of the other three men, he looked
more closely at her. There was more of her to see now that she had
discarded her head scarf and the all-enveloping black robe. She
wore a shimmering green dress, and her luxuriant dark red-brown
hair was drawn up into a knot and decorated with thin gold ribbons.
There was a loose end of ribbon that curled just behind her left
ear. Piers thought if he tugged on it, all the intricately wound
ribbons would come loose and her hair would tumble down around her
shoulders. Or perhaps it would spill to her waist or below.
Startled by his own imaginings, he looked into her eyes. They were
as dark as her hair,
with flecks of an even
darker shade when she turned toward the
light. They were soft eyes, warm and melting, set in a remarkably
expressive face with a firm, almost square jaw.

“You said you came to Sicily as a child,”
Piers remarked, to keep her talking to him while the others still
discussed naval affairs. “Was your mother George’s sister? Or was
it your father who was his brother?”

“
Oh, no,
we are not closely related at all.
Theo,”
she spoke the Greek word with a charming
accent, “does not j
ust mean
uncle.
It is also a title of respect, for a young person
to use when addressing an older man. In my case, it was my late
stepfather who was distantly related to Theo Georgios.”

“Then you are not Greek?”

“By adoption only.” Yolande’s lips curved in
a bewitching smile. “My real father was a Norman baron who held
lands in Apulia under our present king’s father. He died before I
was born. My mother was a Hungarian noblewoman. I am named for
her.” She delivered these last pieces of information with a lifting
of her head and an expression that conveyed to Piers her delight at
such an unusual heritage.

Piers looked at her more closely, noting the
way the slight upward tilt at the corners of her eyes and the high
cheekbones combined to give her a vaguely exotic appearance. This
woman would never look old; she would only grow more beautiful with
the passing years. Gazing at her, Piers knew he wanted to see her
at age fifty, or sixty, or even older, when the soft flesh of youth
had given way to the purity of fine bone structure and elegant
bearing.