The Falcons of Montabard (30 page)

Tousling Amalric's head, he took the reins and swung nimbly into the saddle. Gerbert emerged from the hall and answered the bread-filled hand that Sabin lifted in salute with a comment that made both men laugh. Her husband mounted his enormous bay and glanced upwards at her window. Sabm glanced too, and Annais swiftly drew bark Although she was almost certain that the men could not see her, Gerbert would not be overjoyed to think that the sights he enjoyed were on display to other men. Handing Guillaume to Letice, Annais allowed the women to dress her in a gown of soft red linen, belted with gold braid, and a veil fashioned of two layers of gilt-edged silk.

She hastened below, took the chalcedony stirrup-cup from a waiting steward and went out to bid Gerbert a formal farewell. By the time she arrived, Sabin was at the head of the ranked Serjeants and knights waiting to lead them out, Gerbert's banner fluttering from the haft of his lance.

Taking the cup from her, Gerbert drained the wine and spices and handed it back down in exchange for his shield, which was also her duty to present to him. The weight strained at her arms as she lifted it up the wall of the bay's massive side.

'Perhaps I should get a smaller horse,' he said.

She shook her head and found a smile. 'It would not suit you, my lord. Stay as you are.'

'I'll try ..." Leaning down, he touched her face and looked at her intently as if memorising every feature. Then he reined sharply about and trotted to join his men. Sabin glanced back and tipped her a laconic salute from a now breadless hand.

One of her women handed Guillaume to her and she held him high in her arms to watch his father leave. As the last horse

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clattered beneath the portcullis and under the gatehouse arch, she hastened to the wall walk with the baby and watched until the conroi of men became smaller than ants toiling down the path, and were finally lost to sight round a deep curve in the escarpment. When she descended to the ward, it was full of the usual sounds of people going about their daily business, but, to her ears, the noise seemed muted.

'Annais?' Letice touched her arm.

Annais shook her head. 'I am all right,' she said. There was a painful lump in her throat, but what she said was true. In a castle the size of Montabard the cisterns would run dry before the tasks did. Her nature was essentially practical. She would keep herself busy and. although not a feast, it would be enough to live on.

The red glow of sunset burned the sides of the two rowing boats like embers and dripped beads of fire from the oars as the craft were sculled across the width of the River Euphrates. The rowers, plying their way in stealth, wore dark-coloured garments and hoods. Sword hilts were slung at their left sides and daggers at their right. Occasionally mail rivets sparked in the dying sun. As the craft threaded the reeds edging the far bank, nesting waterfowl took flight and the men in the boats cursed softly. A moorhen gave its piercing, startled call once, then again in rapid succession.

'The signal,' muttered one of the men and, cupping his hands at his mouth, returned the cry. Wine-red light edged the shapes of other men running stealthily down to the water's edge. A rope plashed among the sedges, was caught by willing hands and the first boat was drawn into cover, close followed by the second.

King Baldwin jumped from the craft and splashed onto the bank. The greeting party knelt and he gestured the men to their feet. The soldiers who had accompanied Baldwin made certain that the boats were fast and, hands to sword hilts, joined him. On the far shore the rest of Baldwin's force had pitched camp - not his main army, but a splinter force of fast horsemen and seasoned warriors. From that force he had hand-picked a dozen

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men, Sabin among them, to accompany him across the river and deep into enemy territory around the stronghold of Kharpurt, residence of Emir Balak, and prison of Joscelin, lord of Edessa.

The leader of the group that had come to guide Baldwin was a leather-faced Armenian named Gabriel who looked anything but the angel of his namesake. He had narrow black eyes, one of them half closed owing to an old scar that slashed from eye corner to chin. A full black moustache occupied the space beneath his hooked nose and overhung his lip so that he looked like a whiskered terrier. He spoke French, which, although heavily accented, could be understood. Baldwin, whose wife came from Melitene, but a few miles distant, had a smattering of the native tongue.

'The Emir Balak guards the fortress closely,' Gabriel said, 'but it is possible to get men inside. We have villagers who take in supplies and we have been able to glean that Lord Joscelin has not been harmed, but that he is kept shamefully in chains and under close guard.'

'Will the castle withstand a siege?'

'You mean can it be taken swiftly?' Gabriel made a forward and back motion with the flat of his hand. 'Who is to say? I think perhaps not, but even for us it is difficult to come close to the walls. There is no tree cover and Balak has doubled the guards.' The Armenian flashed the King a broken-toothed smile. 'But we will bring you as close as we can.'

Baldwin chewed on his forefinger. 'Where is Balak himself?'

'That we do not know, sire, only that he is not at Kharpurt, nor within the range of our spies.' He smoothed his moustache. 'But he keeps his harem here, safe and away from the fighting.'

'So he thinks,' Baldwin growled.

As the dusk gathered and fell into night, Gabriel led them by goat tracks and narrow footpaths towards the fortress of Kharpurt in the foothills rising from the valley floor. The moon rose in a bright silver disk and washed the landscape in shades of grey, blue and dull green. The Franks and their guides spoke

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only by hand gestures as they toiled up the track. Any arms or armour that might clink and give them away to a sharp-eared sentry were wound in cloth. Hoods remained raised.

Sabin's every sense was attuned to the night. His eyes were at full stretch and his ears felt as if they had grown points like a cat's, so hard was he listening. A ball of apprehension floated in his stomach, but he was exhilarated too. This was as much his environment as the battlefield. He found it easy to copy the stealthy footsteps of the Armenians, to think himself into the shape of a shadow or a tree. He could understand why Gerbert and Strongfist had not been selected for this foray. They were both big men who, although skilled in battle, relied more on their strength than on fluid speed and grace.

King Baldwin was of their ilk. It was his foot that slipped on a stone and sent a shower of small pebbles rattling down the track. It was he who stumbled, or who stood out from the blending of light and shadows. But since he was Edessa's former count and it was his desire to reconnoitre Kharpurt, men held their tongues and prayed.

Finally, they came within range of the massive walls of Kharpurt. Sentries bristled on the wall walks and the iron studs on the great gate gleamed in the moonlight. The voices of the watch calling to each other in Arabic carried on the still evening air. Outside sentries patrolled the perimeter with leashed hounds, their way lit by hand-borne pitch brands. Two guards stood on the main trackway, warming their hands at a brazier and leaning on their lances.

Baldwin stared intently at the fortress as if memorising each stone. Grouched in the bushes, Sabin kept close watch and prepared to draw his sword.

'The guards are discussing the harem,' Gabriel whispered. 'They were expecting some women to arrive today, but they are not here yet.'

Baldwin shrugged. 'We could do without the number of guards, but at least the light is useful,' he muttered, shifting position, determined to see the castle from another angle.

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Sabin held his breath as more stones showered and a guard shouted to his companions below. Sabin drew a foot of steel from the scabbard.

The torches on the fortress slope swung towards them and the dogs gave tongue as they were unleashed. Sabin cursed and heard Gabriel do the same. Now they had to decide whether to remain where they were and hope they were not flushed out or make a run for the river.

Above them something skittered on the path, dislodging a greater cascade of stones. There was a flurry, a series of unearthly growls rising to a scream and then the frantic yelps of a dog in pain. Higher up the dog-handler could be heard whistling and clapping to retrieve his animals. Moments later a fluid shape bounded past the gully where the men were hiding. Sabin saw compact silver muscle, eyes of gleaming jet and a muzzle pleated above a cavern of fangs. Then the moonlit image of the lion vanished into the darkness beyond.

'We are saved,' Gabriel hissed. 'They will not come lower and investigate in the dark.'

Baldwin laughed softly and seemed pleased with the notion that a lion had saved a king. It was entirely fitting. Sabin was less sanguine, especially now that the lion was somewhere between them and the river. The dog was still yelping, but must have struggled back to its master, for the sound had faded into the distance. As the men settled from their encounter, other noises alerted them. Horses were clopping up the path to the fortress. Raising his head above the lip of their hiding place, Sabin saw a bobbing procession of torches and lamps. Saracen soldiers, turbans tucked around their heads, short mail byrnies swimming with light, were escorting a group of shrouded figures mounted on mules and asses. These must be the women for Balak's harem, although it was difficult to tell even whether they were human, let alone what sex they were, so heavily were they concealed.

The patrol guards drew back and the attention of those on the walls shifted to the new arrivals. Gabriel took the opportunity to move the group out of harm's way. Warned by the

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earlier incident, they completed their reconnaissance swiftly and by moonset were back at the boats - fortunately without encountering the lion.

In the morning, the commander of Kharpurt sent his men to search the slopes beneath the fortress. If there was a lion in the area, it needed flushing out and frightening off. Spoor was found, and the dogs pursued the scent, dragging their handlers over rock and through scrub. But it was not news of the lion that the searchers brought back to Kharpurt, but of human footprints in the soft ground above the river, and of a woollen hood discovered by the dogs in one of the ravines. The commander pondered the signs and deciding to err on the side of caution, sent a messenger to the lord Balak on the swiftest horse in the stables. Then he ordered the guard on Joscelin to be doubled.

King Baldwin had a yen to hunt. As always, even on campaign, he had brought his hawks and they formed their own camp of bow perches to one side of the royal pavilion. In the early cool of the April morning, Sabin and Gerbert moved among the sleepy birds. There were mottled sakers, the favoured falcons of the Syrian nobility, famed for their fierceness and speed; there was the King's superb Scandinavian gyrfalcon, hooded in crimson silk, with a plume of dyed blue feathers and jesses stitched with silver bells. And there were the shahins, fastest of the long-wings, some of them part of the tribute that Montabard paid to King Baldwin.

Gerbert paused by a pair of perches on the outer edge of the camp and, drawing on his hawking gauntlet, unfastened his own young shahin from its tether and brought the bird to his arm. Sabin too had a hawking glove, for Gerbert was lending him the white saker on the next perch.

'When we return to Montabard, you ought to have one of your own,' Gerbert said.

'I had a merlin when I was a child,' Sabin murmured, taking the saker onto his wrist. 'My father gave her to me in my twelfth

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summer, and taught me to fly her.' He stroked the saker's soft breast feathers.

'Your first falcon?'

Sabin smiled without parting his lips. 'There were always birds in the mews . . . but yes, she was the first of my own.' A distant look filled his eyes. 'It was a long, hot summer that year and it is a thread of gold in my memory. There have not been many such threads since.' With deft fingers he removed the hood from the bird's head and gave her fierce amber gaze to the morning.

Gerbert eyed him thoughtfully. 'So what changed after that summer.'''

Sabir, shrugged. The "esture looked casual, bi.it it was a habitual one and not unlike the motion of a man swinging forward the shield he always kept in readiness. 'My father died, and I lost my merlin on a hunt,' he said impassively.

'I am sorry.'

'My stepmother bought me a new one, but I had no interest. The falconers cared for it in the mews.'

'But you know hawks, you can handle them.' Gerbert nodded at the saker perching alert but quiet on Sabin's arm. 'You must have continued your education.'

'I did - at the court of King Henry.' Sabin gave Gerbert a sardonic look. 'That is why I am here now.' He moved away towards the horse lines. Gerbert's inquisitive nature was intrusive and at times irritated him to the point of gritting his teeth. His perception was sharp, but did not have that final thrust to break through the shield. It might be better if he did, rather than doing half a job. In his mind's eye - as if from the view of a hovering hawk - he could see himself, a dark-haired child, swinging the lure, and his father looking on with a smile of pride as the merlin flew to it. Warm sun on his back. His father's tunic of forest-green wool; the heavy scent of pine from the woods beyond the clearing; the sturdy dappled cob and the matching pony grazing side by side in the endless afternoon, their harness jingling. Was that why he had a preference for

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grey horses now? He squared his shoulders and quickened his pace, but the memory followed in his shadow.

'King Baldwin seems pleased with himself,' Strongfist commented as he prepared to mount his copper stallion.

'He is always pleased when there is a hunt in the offing,' Sabin said. He glanced to one side. Baldwin had emerged from his pavilion and was inspecting the hawks on their perches. 'Besides, he knows the lie of the land around Kharpurt now, and that Joscelin is still alive and within possibility of rescue. Today is by way of a reward to himself.'