The Falcons of Montabard (38 page)

He raised above her, braced on his. forearms. 'Did I hurt you?' he panted. His eyes were the golden green of a lion's, the pupils wide and dark. Against her abdomen, she could feel him breathing in and out.

'No,' she swallowed, shaking her head, raising her hand to his hair then letting it fall to his throat, to the grooves of muscle in his shoulders. Her voice dropped to a whispered, almost tearful laugh. 'No, but in God's name I am swept away. 1 do not know how I will survive.'

He smiled, and the slow, triumphant sleepiness melted her loins so that her flesh rippled around his. 'You might not,' he said softly, 'and neither may I, but we should strike out for shore all the same.' He dipped his head and sealed his lips upon hers, at the same time thrusting forward. Annais closed her eyes and clasped her arms around him. At first, she held back, clinging to the rock of what had been familiar with Gerbert, but although the movements were similar, they were not the same and her hold began to slacken. She dug her nails into his skin as the surge dragged her into the tumult. He kissed her, sharing breath as they shared bodies, and his tongue moved in counterpoint with his hips. Annais moaned in her throat. She thought that she had known and understood lust, but now realised that she knew nothing.

'Wait!' she gasped. 'I cannot ... I ... Oh Jesu!' The river

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had brought her to the sea and, as she was hurled into the surf, the seventh wave struck. Rigid, she shuddered in the grip of white-hot pulses of sensation, and in the midst of the wildness, felt him join her and, with his release, return to her some semblance of familiarity.

There was a long moment of silence while the shipwrecked survivors accumulated their scattered senses. He kissed her throat, her mouth, her breasts. She ran her hands down his narrow flanks, over his taut buttocks to the small of his back and smiled to feel him involuntarily twitch and thrust forward again. Within her she felt a sleepy throb like the slow blink of an eye.

'Now I understand why you arc considered dangerous,' she murmured.

'No more so than any man with half the wit God gave.' He nibbled her earlobe. 'Besides, you have small room to talk. One look and the marrow melts from my bones. You do not know how difficult it was ..."

'What was?' Raising her hand, she pushed the hair from his eyes and traced the line of his eyebrows with her forefinger.

'To hold back, to wait until you were ready . . . when all I wanted to do was plunge headlong to my own release.'

Her finger continued a tactile study of his features. Yes, she thought, that was indeed the danger. From what she had heard other women tell of their marital duty, and from her own experience with Gerbert, waiting was not something that most men thought about. Their pleasure was their wife's duty.

'And I have waited a long time,' he said softly.

'Since Scotland? Do not tell me.' She gave him a disbelieving stare.

She felt his quiver of amusement inside her own body. 'In Scotland you were a prim little nun and even if I was wayward, I had recently been taught some hard lessons. Yes, I thought about you then, but only when I was bored or out of sorts. You were like an irritation that couldn't be scratched — as doubtless I was an irritation to you.'

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Annais sniffed. 'Hah! Indeed you were. Even if you did keep your distance, you gave me small cause to trust you . . . especially after what happened at Tel Namir.'

'You can flay me no more than I have already flayed myself,' he said, sobering.

She shook her head. 'I would be foolish to belabour you with that now. It is in the past ..." Her fingers descended to his chest hair and she tugged gently on the wiry strands. 'So tell me, my lord, how long have you waited? When did irritation become desire?'

He narrowed his eyes and pondered. 'When I saw you with a knife in your hand on board our ship . . . when you played your harp in Fergus's garden in Jerusalem . . . when you hung that icon on your wall at Tel Namir . . . but they were only flashes. It didn't become a constant ache until you married Gerbert.' He gave a wry smile. 'I thought about riding away, but I was pledged to him for a year and a day . . . and when that time had passed, I found I could manage the ache of being in your presence better than the desolation of being out of it.'

Annais blinked on silly tears. Dangerous indeed, she thought. Few women were vouchsafed such declarations of devotion - if they were true, of course, and not just blandishments. After the life he had led at Henry's court, she supposed that he was accustomed to telling women what they wanted to hear. But then he had no reason to lie to her, and she had witnessed his heroic forbearance these last few weeks. Bringing her face down to his, she kissed him, making the salute serve where words would not. He returned the embrace, and for a while they preened and intertwined like courting swans. The soft stroking fanned the embers of what had gone before and they made love again, slowly this time, with pauses for detailed exploration of fingers, and palms, wrists, elbows, all the small places that had been overlooked in the drowning need of that first time. She laughed and squirmed when he touched a particularly ticklish place, and then gasped when he used the same feather touch elsewhere. The excitement built by gradual but

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inexorable degrees. Sabin chuckled at her frustration as she parted her legs and rubbed her thigh along his flanks. He held back, teasing, then rolled her over so that she was on top of him, sought and thrust. The look of astonishment, almost worry on her face told him that she and Gerbert had never adopted this particular position . . . but then Sabin was almost certain that Gerbert had never had a court whore or a Jerusalem courtesan teach him the enticing variations that lent spice to bedsport.

'So,' he said with a grin. 'Do as you will.' He slipped his hands to the warm, smooth flesh of her buttocks. 'Treat me gently, and I promise to be brave in my suffering.'

She gave a breathless laugh. 'Do I have to confess this to Father Jerome?'

He encouraged her to rise and ease down. 'Only if you are accustomed to confessing what you do abed. Besides, with the souls of a garrison of soldiers in his care, he'll have heard it all and more.'

She pursed her lips and contemplated. Suddenly a gleam entered her eyes. 'So if I do this it is not a sin?'

'No,' Sabin said with a grin.

'And this . . . and this?'

He caught his breath. 'Only if you stop,' he managed in a congested voice.

'I have to leave soon,' Sabin said regretfully. The sky had darkened from dusk to the colour of blue-black damask silk, salted with stars and a sickle moon. He watched it through the open shutters and ran his hands through Annais's loose hair. The oil lamp had gone out, leaving them only the light from the window, translucent as fine stained glass.

'Do you mean from this bed, or from Montabard?' she murmured sleepily.

'Oh, not from the bed until dawn, and then only to put in an appearance for propriety's sake.'

'I thought you did not care for propriety.'

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'That was before I became a sober married man.' He smiled and twined a tendril of her hair around his forefinger.

'So you mean from Montabard.' Her tone sharpened as she emerged from the haze of wellbeing.

'A messenger came from the Armenians tonight. They are preparing the assault on Kharpurt—'

'Was there any news of my father?' She rose on her elbow and in the moonlight her eyes glistened like jet.

He took her hand and kissed her fingers. 'I wish I could tell you yes, but the messenger did not know the names of those with the King, save for his nephew Ernoul. I would say it is very possible — you know we searched the dead after the battle and he was not among them but I do not want to raise your hopes.' He meshed his fingers through hers, bone on bone. 'I will get him out if at all possible.'

'But be careful what you risk.' Suddenly her face was stricken. 'I would not lose you too.'

He had been going to make a jest about his nature and taking risks, but one look at her face stilled his tongue. 'I will do my best to stay alive,' he murmured, stroking her hair.

She moved closer to him, pressing her thigh against his, her heart filled with dread. 'I understand that you must go ... that if you have a prize falcon, you do not clip its wings, but fling it from your wrist into the sky. I am trusting you to return to me. Do not destroy that trust.'

He did not swear that he would return, for only God had that power. Nor was he so sure that she should trust him. He closed his eyes against the spectre of a raw November night and a girl called Lora. She had trusted him to destruction too. This was different. He would make it so. Gathering her in his arms, pressing his lips against the pulse in her throat, he murmured soft love words and willed the night to last for ever.

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Chapter 23

r I ihe walls ot Kharpurt rose out of the heat-haze like a I castle in a troubadour's lay. Sabin swallowed against

JL the tension cording his throat, for what they were about to attempt also belonged in the realms of troubadour fantasy. He wore a voluminous robe of coarse brown fabric that amply concealed his sword. A fortnight's growth of beard darkened his chin and a colourful felt hood covered his head. Accustomed to riding a spirited Nicaean stallion, he was now trying to adjust to a small grey donkey. Ahead of him, Gabriel straddled a bay mule, playing the master to Sabin's servant. They were going to enter Kharpurt on the pretext of seeking an audience with the captain of the garrison regarding permission to trade. Behind them on the track lumbered an ox cart filled with carded fleeces and goatskins. The driver was a small, tough man in middle age with a youth at his side and two heavily swathed womenfolk in the back of the cart. Behind again were two priests. All the usual traffic of daily life at Kharpurt, which was an administrative centre as well as a fortress.

Sabin's hands perspired on the donkey's rope bridle as the guards inspected the two farmers in front of him and Gabriel before allowing them through the shadow of the gateway and into the fortress. Gabriel drew rein before the soldiers and Sabin halted a little behind him, eyes downcast, shoulders hunched in a servile manner.

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'Permission to trade in what?' one of the guards queried as Gabriel made his request.

'My brother makes jewellery in gold and silver and while he toils in the souks and bazaars, I bring his custom to places further afield.' Gabriel flapped back the skin covering a pannier on the mule's side and produced an ornate silver belt buckle.

The guard took and examined it. He rubbed a covetous thumb over the intricate surface.

'Keep it,' Gabriel said with an ingratiating smile. The soldier closed his fist over the silverwork and gestured them to enter. Passing into shadow beneath the iron teeth of the portcullis, Sabm suppressed a shiver.

The main courtyard was bustling. As well as Gabriel's silver trader and servant, several petitioners had gathered, hoping to see the garrison commander, and there were sundry itinerant craftsmen passing through the fortress on their way elsewhere.

Sabin tethered the mule and donkey to the brass wall ring and sat down beside them to wait while Gabriel hefted the pannier of silverware by a thick leather strap and entered the fortress.

As Strongfist had done a few weeks since, Sabin watched the women come to the well and fill their stone jars. His gaze rested on them briefly then perused the rest of the compound, noting where the fighting men were. He reached into his tunic as if to scratch a louse bite, and felt for the reassurance of his sword. His heart was thundering, his mouth dry.

Another man entered the compound with two young falcons in a wicker cage. An imperceptible forefinger signalled to Sabin, who rubbed his eyes. The falcon-seller entered the fortress, followed by a well-dressed Armenian. The latter's servant strolled over to gossip with Sabin and drew a short knife to pare his nails.

'Five,' said Sabin to the man who was named Pieter and was as skilled with a knife as a fishwife. 'But only two who look as if they'll put up a fight. And none with bows.'

'Reasonable odds,' Pieter said, adding, with a swift glance

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from under his brows, 'Gregor's here.' Another servant joined them, his gaze swiftly assessing the opposition as Sabin's had done.

From the corner of his eye, Sabin saw two guards move towards them. He tensed and the hilt of his sword bumped against his pounding ribs. With a burst of relief, he realised that the soldiers had no interest in the three 'servants', but were moving to flank an old man and a youth who had emerged from another courtyard bearing bowls of bread and fruit. The group fell into step and disappeared into a small, dark archway at the end of the wall.

'Ah,' said Gregor, a wealth of eloquence in the word.

Sabin rose to his feet and stretched. He took a few paces as if easing cramp and walked closer to one of the remaining guards. Gregor sidled to the mule's other pannier and rested his hand along its top. The tension was palpable, as the seconds seemed to last for minutes and the minutes for hours. Then they heard what they had been waiting for: a cry from within the fortress and a triumphant roar of command. Gregor's hand emerged from the pannier with a loaded crossbow. He sighted and fired and the guards were down to two. Sabin launched himself at his chosen man, dodged beneath the tardily raised lance, wrenched it into his own hands and used it. Pieter wrestled the third guard to the ground and used his short knife to slit the man's throat.

Someone was blowing frantically on a horn to summon help. Gregor, Pieter and Sabin sprinted to the archway at the end of the wall and plunged from broad sunlight to the dimly lit head of a twisting staircase. Sabin cast off the enveloping robe and drew his sword. Gregor descended the stairs first, knife in one hand, sword in the other.

Around the first turn, there was nothing but more steps descending, gritty and narrow. Sabin glanced over his shoulder towards the light of the courtyard, but as yet there was no pursuit. Around the second turn and Gregor suddenly raised his voice and yelled a warning. A guard came running up the