The Dagger and the Cross (53 page)

She drew a sharp breath, perhaps to argue; but she let it
go, hissing like a cat. “None of them is worth a hair of your head.”

“Then why do we waste time that could be spent preparing for
our wedding?”

Her scowl lightened as if of its own accord. She strove to
sustain it; she said, “They will come back to haunt us.”

“Let them.” He was magnificent in his folly. He opened his
arms wide, taking in all his following. “Come, my friends! Who’ll sing at my
lady’s bridal?”

“Conrad,” said the maidchild, facetious. Prince Aidan
laughed and swept her up. With her still struggling and ordering him
peremptorily to set her down, he bore her away.

It was grand insolence, well befitting a demon prince. In
the moment before he was gone, his eyes met Thomas’ once again. They laughed
indeed, but that laughter was white and cold, demon-laughter, daring Thomas to
do as his lady prophesied.

Thomas stood where they had left him. Marco, freed at last
from the weight of their presence, tumbled in a faint.

Very slowly Thomas knelt beside him. He was deathly white,
but his heart beat strongly enough. Terror only, and shock. Poor child, he had
had more than his strength could bear.

He came round slowly. Thomas made no move to hasten it. He
was numb, emptied. Mercy, had it been, that they let him live? The devil’s
mercy, and the devil’s contempt. Thomas tried to exorcise it with a sign of the
cross; with the words of piety. “I shall do as God wills,” he said.

Marco stirred, murmuring. Thomas stroked his brow to quiet
him. He started, thrashed. His eyes opened wide. White rimmed them. His mouth
worked. “I can’t—” he said. “I can’t—I can’t—”

“Hush,” said Thomas. A little sharply, perhaps. Defeat was
bitter; the scorn of his enemies more bitter still.

Marco’s hands, groping, found Thomas’ habit. They wound
themselves in it. He pulled himself up. His eyes, still fixed in that wide, mad
stare, rolled upward, over Thomas’ head.

There was nothing to see. Only air.

“Light,” said Marco. “All light. I can see—Brother, look! Do
you hear it?”

Hysteria. Thomas raised his hand to slap the boy to his
senses. But Marco had staggered to his feet. He swayed perilously, but he
stood.

Now Thomas knew that stare. Blind.

“Blinded,” said Marco, “by the light.” He half-sang the
words. “Don’t you see, Brother? What they did? What they freed us for? Even the
devil—even he must do the Lord’s bidding.”

Mad. When Thomas was himself again he would grieve. For a
little while he had hoped that here was one who shared his true vocation. They
had taken that from him as they had all else.

Marco turned, stumbling, and nigh went down. Thomas was
there to catch him. He wound his fists again in Thomas’ habit, like the child
he was, and laughed. “Oh, Brother! Don’t you know what they’ve done? They’ve
shown us what to do. Like Saint Paul on the road to Damascus. They’ve made our
faith all new.”

It was an appalling prospect, as if these devils could stand
in place of God Who had blinded Paul so that he might see the truth. But had
not the Adversary himself been suffered to tempt Job?

Thomas was beginning, however dimly, to see. Pride and shame
had robbed him of his wits. Now this child showed him the way.

Iblis’ daughter had foretold it. Thomas said it in the words
which God set on his tongue. “This is God’s will,” he said. “For this He set us
here, and tried us so, and tempered us with defeat. For this and no other: to
be the end of them.” He paused. The light that dawned in him was nothing so
feeble as to blind him. No; it made him see as he had never seen before, down
to the very heart of things. “And not you and I alone,” he said. “A whole army
of us, an order sworn to the service of God, bound by our vows to destroy
witchcraft and heresy wherever it may be.”

“Yes,” said Marco, rapt. “Yes.”

Thomas seized the narrow shoulders; held them, shook them,
clasped the boy to his breast. Tears ran unheeded down his cheeks. “I shall do
as God wills,” he said again: and now, truly, he meant every word of it.

Once Aidan was out of the chapel, he set Ysabel down, to her
manifest relief. It had not come home to him yet, for all his show of
exuberance. The hunt was ended. Abbot Leo had the dispensation, wrapped again
in its bit of silk, laid carefully in the breast of his habit. The man who had
forged it, the men who had abetted him, were gone and forgotten.

Yet Aidan could not summon the joy that had lain on him in
Jerusalem. Its bright clarity was clouded, its purity stained by war and defeat
and the long bitter hunt.

The hunters stood about him in the corridor. They had let
him lead, even Morgiana, against Brother Thomas and his conspirators. It was
his oath and his battle. Now they waited for him to say what they would do. Go
back to the caravanserai, first, and bear the news to the rest; then consider
how to go about wedding a Muslim woman to a Christian prince, with the
Patriarch in Jerusalem and a war between.

He shook his head. “Why should we wait?” he said to them. “Why
not do it as soon as may be? Not today, no, the poor cooks would never forgive
us, but tomorrow—surely that’s time enough.”

“You did insist,” Morgiana pointed out, “that the Patriarch
say the words.”

“So he shall, if you will fetch him for us. He can hardly
refuse the pope’s command.”

“He might refuse to travel as I travel.” But she was
catching his mood. This was purely to her taste: sudden, headlong, and full of
witchery.

They grinned at one another, he and she, well matched and knowing
it. For a moment it was almost pain to know that they would be wedded at last.
Now. Tomorrow.

Abbot Leo ventured to break in upon them. “I can understand
your eagerness, my lord, my lady. But would it not be wiser to wait
somewhat—two days, even? Three? Surely even you cannot effect a court wedding
in an afternoon and a night.”

“Would you care to wager on it?” Aidan asked.

The abbot looked so dismayed that Aidan laughed, laying an
arm about his shoulders and embracing him, shaking him lightly. “Come, father
abbot! Aren’t you a man of God? Don’t you believe in miracles?”

“Surely, my lord, but—”

Aidan overrode him, the gladness rising now, and the
wildness, and the sheer, white exhilaration of knowing that he had power, and
it was strong, and he was free to wield it. “My lady?”

She nodded, smiled, took the hand he held out to her.

“Brother,” Aidan said, clear as on the battlefield. “If you
will, go to our kin now, and tell them. Ysabel, Akiva, go with him; assure Lady
Joanna that I haven’t gone quite mad, and ask her if she’ll tell the cooks.”

Gwydion nodded. The children looked mildly rebellious, but
he offered a hand to each and bent his glance upon them. They could hardly
refuse a king. They went together, Ysabel with her chin on her shoulder,
willing her father to change his mind.

Her father was hardly aware of her. “And I,” he said before
the abbot could say it for him, “shall have a moment’s audience with my lord
archbishop.” He slanted a brow at Morgiana. “Will you come with me?”

She inclined her head. She was amused. She often was, when
Aidan troubled to be decisive.

Precipitous.

Aidan refused to be discommoded, even by a whisper in his
mind. He gathered the two of them, abbot and Assassin, and went to face the
spiritual lord of Tyre.

o0o

The Archbishop of Tyre was no stranger to the lord of
Millefleurs. Aidan had known him since he was Archdeacon William, chancellor of
the kingdom and tutor to King Baldwin. It was William who first ascertained
that the heir to the throne was a leper, and William who stood as friend and
teacher to the young king, until Baldwin died and the throne fell, lurching and
tottering, into Guy’s hands.

William was still an elegant personage, although the years
had thickened his middle. He received the prince and his lady at once, as much
for policy as for friendship, and set aside the pens and parchment with which
he had been working. “A history of our country,” he said as he greeted his
guests, “and a stone around my neck when I consider how much of it is still to
tell. But I write a little every day, as God and my duties allow.”

Aidan smiled. He would not at all have minded hearing
William’s new chapter, but time was pressing. “Your excellency, when you’ve a
mind to read to us, we’ll happily hear it, but now I have a favor to ask.”

William was only slightly disappointed. If there was
anything he preferred to the writing of history, it was the making of it “Ask
on, my lord,” he said.

“Today,” Aidan said, “we have won back what was taken from
us in Jerusalem. My lord abbot has it now: the dispensation which was stolen,
permitting my marriage to Lady Morgiana and obliging the Patriarch to
officiate. We see no purpose in delaying past the morrow. My lady will go when
it is time, to fetch the Patriarch.”

“Wiser so,” she said, “and more practicable. Even I would be
hard put to bear all our friends and kin to Jerusalem, that they might see us
wedded.”

“Yes,” William said. “That might be a strain even on your...capacities.”
He raised his brows.
“Fetch
the Patriarch? Here?”

“If you will consent,” Aidan said.

“Heraclius is my metropolitan. Obedience binds me to him.”
William’s tone was faintly sour. He was no admirer of his Patriarch.

“I’m not speaking of obedience,” Aidan said.

William’s face was perfectly still, but a spark had kindled
in his eye. “You’ll be wanting the cathedral, of course.”

“By your leave.”

“The canons will have to be consulted.” He allowed himself a
very small smile. “There are procedures, and precedents. We can hardly give you
what we have always given the kings of Jerusalem, but what we can manage, you
shall have.”

Aidan was puzzled for a moment. “The kings... I had
forgotten.”

“Kings have often been wedded here,” William said. “A prince
will suit us very well.”

He was enjoying himself, was William. Not Aidan alone would
welcome the spectacle of Heraclius plucked from his comfort in Jerusalem, haled
away to bless the union of a witch and an Assassin. That their haste was
unseemly, not to mention ungodly, troubled him not at all. He went in his own
person to speak to the canons of the cathedral, to bid them wreak a miracle.

o0o

Elen was happy—more than happy—to know that Aidan could have
his lady at last and with the pope’s blessing. She wished that she could have
been as happy for herself.

Gwydion brought the news to them all. He did not speak
directly to Elen. He had no glance to spare for her.

Certainly he had cause to be distracted. There was much to
do, and precious little time to do it in. But Elen knew the many colors of his
silences. This was indigo, with a flicker of scarlet: storm colors, thunder
colors. His majesty of Rhiyana was not pleased with his kinswoman.

There was no comfort in Raihan. He was gone about his prince’s
business; he would hardly welcome her presence in his shadow, even if she could
have followed him.

She told herself that it was best. She had had a little joy,
more than either of them was entitled to. Now she must put it aside. Her body
was her family’s again, to bestow to its best advantage.

Her heart was her own, and it knew surely what it wanted.
She was woman grown and no giddy girl; she could not fall out of love as easily
as she had fallen into it. She did not think, in the quiet of herself, that she
would ever fall out of it at all.

Sweet saints, she had a virtue. She had a constant heart.
Alas for her good name, that it had fixed itself on so unsuitable an object.

“He is
not
unsuitable!”

There was no one to hear or to stare. She was in the garden
cutting roses for the wedding. A thorn stabbed her finger, last and worst of
many.

She straightened abruptly. “Enough of this,” she said.
Patience was not an art she knew much of; and she had never seen the good in
suffering, still less in silence. Her secret was uncovered; her king was
displeased. So then: let there be an end to it.

She was not entirely lost to good sense. She took the basket
of roses to the kitchen, set them in the basin of water which waited for them,
paused to smooth her hair and her gown. Someone called to her. She pretended
not to hear.

Calm, she could hardly call herself. But composed—yes, she
was that, as a princess should be. She went in search of his majesty the king.

o0o

His majesty was in the room in which they entertained
guests, hidden away behind the hall. For a miracle, he was alone. He had been
dispatching messages—a
pair of pages had shot past her as she approached
the solar, nearly oversetting her—but he seemed to have paused, perhaps for a
moment’s quiet.

He would have it when she was done. She sank down in a
curtsy, as if this had been his hall and the plain hard chair his throne. He
regarded her steadily.

She stood erect. She had meant to lower her gaze like a
proper meek woman, but her eyes had a will of their own. They met his boldly,
and would not turn away.

Her tongue was as willful as her eyes. It would not keep
silence or wait humbly for him to speak. It said, “I am sorry that I caused you
hurt. I cannot repent of what I did.”

“So you informed me.” His voice was quiet; calm. Cold.

“I would,” she said, “if I could. I will pay the penalty as
you decree.”

“Will you, then? Will you take a husband if I command it?”

She faced him steadily. “I will do my duty to you and to our
family.”

“Duty only? Nothing more?”

“Can there be more?”

For a moment she thought she saw his eyes flicker. Then they
were cold again, hard, grey as stones beside the sea. “What if I bid you wed
the Lord Amalric de Lusignan?”