The Falcons of Montabard (49 page)

Sabin eyed his Saracen companion. 'Do you know how much it is going to cost us for King Baldwin's return?'

Usamah smiled, revealing a dazzle of white teeth. 'That is easy,' he said. 'A king's ransom.'

Sabin made a face. He had asked for that.

'Not so much that it is refused,' Usamah temporised. 'Emir Timurtash does not want the responsibility of holding your King. To him, the money - whatever the sum - will be more useful.'

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He waved his hand and his groom rode up on a dappled gelding. Perched behind him on the crupper was a cheetah, a gilded collar around its neck, a chain of silver links running between it and the groom's hand. At first Sabin had been somewhat unnerved at the sight of the huge cat, but he had gradually grown accustomed to its presence among Usamah's hunting menagerie of hawks and hounds. He had been surprised to find that it had paws like a dog's, with claws that remained set and did not retract — the reason, Usamah said, for its great speed.

The women came among the men, handing up farewell cups of wine to the Franks, sherbet to the Muslims, and wished all good hunting. Annais smiled at Sabin's stirrup and gave him first the wine, and then Guillaume, who was clamouring to sit in the saddle. The warm wind ruffled his light brown curls and shone in his eyes, making them a pale, almost translucent grey.

'A fine boy,' Usamah said. 'Although he looks not like you.'

Sabin gave the Saracen an amused look. 'There would be hell to pay if he did resemble me, since he is the son of Gerbert de Montabard, God rest his soul. Gerbert died of a battle wound when my stepson was still in swaddling.'

'Ah.' Usamah nodded. 'I remember him. Occasionally he visited Shaizar on business for your King.' He looked specula-tively at Guillaume, and the narrow quality of his gaze caused the hair to rise at the back of Sabin's neck, although he could not have said why. Feeling thoroughly disturbed, he returned the infant to Annais, then his empty cup.

'Good hunting,' she said. 'Be careful.'

Setting his qualm aside, Sabin forced a smile. 'That's a contradiction,' he teased, 'but I promise to do my best to keep my hide whole.'

Usamah was curious about Sabin's life at King Henry's court and asked detailed questions about Frankish ways, which Sabin answered with good humour. They talked of the different domestic habits, of bathing and diet, of weapons and military

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training. Usamah wanted to know what had brought Sabin to Outremer.

'Were you following your God, or was it the notion of land to plunder and infidels to kill?' he asked.

Sabin shook his head. 'I was fleeing trouble at home.' He told Usamah about the circumstances of his arrival in Outremer. 'It was supposed to be a pilgrimage of atonement,' he said. 'And somewhere to dwell for a while until the dust settled.'

'So you will go back to your people and your homeland one day?' Usamah's hazel eyes were shrewd.

'There is nothing there for me. In truth, if I returned, I suspect all that settled dust would blow up again within days of me stepping over my family's threshold.'

'But you would be returning as a man, not a fickle youth.'

'Precisely,' Sabin said wryly.

During their conversation, they had fallen behind from the main hunting party, although Usamah's groom still attended them with the cheetah on his saddle and Amalric rode behind, armed with several spears and a bow. As they pushed their mounts through a cane-brake of licorice trees to catch up with the hunt, Usamah's fawn saluki bitch nosed into a thicker part of the undergrowth and began to growl. There was a burst of vigorous rustling, a squeal and then the dog yelped and shot backwards, its chest and flank ripped open to the bone. A boar charged out of the undergrowth, its yellow tushes stained with the saluki's blood. Usamah exchanged his falcon for a spear from his groom and hurled it at the boar. The point penetrated its shoulder, but did not pierce deeply enough to create a mortal wound or lodge in the flesh. Shaking off the lance, the pig darted back into the thicket. The dog shivered and died.

With pounding heart, Sabin gave his own hawk to a white-faced Amalric and armed himself with a spear. Sabin had often hunted boar in England and Normandy, but only as part of a general crowd and he had never been of sufficient importance at court to be granted the privilege of making a kill. The boar was a formidable enemy. Unlike a deer, it would turn and fight

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while still fresh, and its tusks were powerful enough to disembowel dog, horse or man.

'If we wait, it will come out again.' Usamah's eyes were agleam. 'And when it does, I will strike and kill it.'

Sabin adjusted his grip on the boar spear and nodded at Amalric to stay back. He remembered Annais's words about 'good hunting' and 'being careful' and gave a humourless grin. He reached for his hunting horn, intent on sounding the alarm and summoning the others, but the boar crashed out of the undergrowth and dashed for the denser woods on the other side of the path. Amalric yelled as the boar sprang past him. Usamah's groom tried to strike the beast with his own spear and succeeded in piercing the hump of its shoulder blade. But the weapon had a weak shaft that snapped off, leaving a protruding stump. Squealing, bleeding, the pig pivoted on its haunches and charged straight at Usamah's mare, hitting her side-on. She staggered and went down with Usamah under her, and the pig galloped off into the bushes. Sabin swung down from his horse, grabbed the mare's bridle and hauled while Usamah scrambled out from beneath her. She struggled to her feet, but held her offside hind leg gingerly. Although not broken, it was clearly sprained.

Cursing harshly, blood trickling from a graze on his cheek, Usamah ordered his groom to hand over his own horse, seized the man's spare spear, and thundered off in pursuit of the boar. Cursing similarly, but in Christian terms, Sabin galloped after him.

The boar had fled into a brake thick with more licorice trees and asphodel. Although the scrub was dense, the boar had been slowed by its injuries and was leaving a thin trail of blood. Usamah followed it with determination, his spear poised to strike. His hand was swollen and it was obvious from the way he held the weapon that his little finger was either broken or dislocated.

Sabin hefted his own lance and looked along its length to the bright, sharp point. He could see no imperfections in the wood,

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so, as long as his thrust was true, he stood in no danger.

Usamah bared his teeth at Sabin in what was supposed to pass for a grin. 'You do not like the boar as an opponent, I can see it in your face,' he panted.

'I have not hunted them often,' Sabin said. 'I know that a wounded boar is perhaps the most dangerous of all beasts.'

Even as he spoke, the pig came crashing out of the trees. Usamah yelled and spurred to meet it, but his hand was injured and the thrust that was supposed to pass between its ribs and open its heart was not strong enough and turned on the bone, and the pig's weight slammed into the horse's forelegs. Again, Usamah's mount went down, and although the Saracen threw himself clear of the horse, he was still in the path of the boar's stained, razored tushes.

Sabin spurred forward and, without time for thought, thrust down hard with his lance. The pig let out a gurgling squeal that ended abruptly as it staggered and keeled over, narrowly missing the stunned Saracen. His horse threshed to its feet and stood trembling. Sabin yanked out his spear on a river of blood and the sweet smell of it filled his nostrils and made him feel desperately sick. The boar twitched, but it was no more than a spasm in a creature already dead. Dismounting, Sabin hastened to help Usamah rise. By now the fingers of the Saracen's right hand were swollen a deep purplish-red and an angry graze blazed on his brow.

Sabin stooped, his hands braced on his knees, and breathed slowly and deeply. The nausea lessened, although it did not go away. He did not think that he was ever going to develop a passion for hunting boar.

'You saved my life,' Usamah said gravely.

Sabin straightened. 'And my own.' He forced a smile, 'I would have done the same for any man who was my companion.'

'You are generous.'

'No, it is the truth. I acted upon the spur of the moment without time to think about either spending generously or holding back.'

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'Even so, I will mark down what you have done for me, and I will not forget it.' Usamah held out his good hand and Sabin clasped it across the corpse of the boar.

'There is one thing,' Sabin said.

'Name it, and, if it is within my power, it is yours.'

'Then tell me why you gave my stepson such a strange look before we set out to hunt?'

Usamah turned to his shaken mount and smoothed his hand upon its sweat-damp neck. 'I was not aware of having looked at the child with anything more than idle curiosity,' he said impassively.

'Then you have a strange way of expressing idle curiosity.'

Usamah said nothing for several heartbeats. Then he sighed and turned his fierce gaze back to Sabin. 'Once the ransom sum is agreed, your King is to be set free, but there will have to be guarantors for his payment. Emir Timurtash has requested that certain Frankish hostages be housed at Shaizar until the sum and the conditions are met in full.'

' "Certain Frankish hostages?"' Sabin went cold.

'Since, next to the fighting men, your children are the rarest and most precious commodity that you have, Timurtash demands that at least ten of them be held against the payment. He demands the Princess Joveta and Joscelin of Edessa's son. It is likely that he will also ask for the child of Gerbert de Montabard.'

'No!' Sabin snarled. It was an instinctive reaction and one so strong that he even reached for his sword. The sight of Usamah's damaged hand flashing to his scimitar in a gesture of self-defence caused him to release his grip from the hilt and instead clench his fist around his belt. 'No,' he said in a more controlled voice. 'I will not let him go.'

'Not even for your King?'

'Not for all the gold in Christendom,' Sabin said furiously. He collected his mount and swung into the saddle. 'If you have influence, then use it. Let that be the price of your life.'

Tension crackled between the men and was not dissipated

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by the arrival of the groom and cheetah on foot and Amalric still astride.

'I will see what I can do,' Usamah said, nodding stiffly. 'But do not expect miracles.'

Having calmed from her initial shock on hearing about Sabin's encounter with the wild boar, Annais salved a graze on his arm and made doubly sure that he was unharmed beyond such minor damage. They had the momentary privacy of a small side chamber off the royal rooms. It was little more than a large wardrobe used to store spare napery and bed linen. Constrained by lack of space, they stood in each other's breath.

'Even a scratch can turn bad,' she said when he displayed impatience at her fussing.

'I did it on a licorice tree. It wasn't as if I was tushed by the boar.'

She gave an involuntary shudder and bound a strip of linen over the injury. 'And now I hear that the Emir of Shaizar's nephew is in your debt for his life.'

Sabin shrugged. 'So he says, although I have already called it in.'

She drew back her head and stared at him. 'What do you mean?'

He glanced to the door curtain, but there were no sounds nearby to suggest that they were about to be interrupted. 'The ransom price has been fixed at eighty thousand dinars and the ceding of some land around Aleppo. Usamah told me that Timurtash desires hostages for surety against the payment. He wants one of the Queen's daughters, Joscelin of Edessa's son and other children belonging to the royal court . . . and that may mean Guillaume.' He expected shock and exclamations of horror, but her expression did not change.

'I know,' she said calmly.

His gaze widened. 'You know?'

'The Queen told me while we were at our stitching and you were off hunting.'

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'Why did you not say something sooner?'

'I was waiting the right moment to tell you, indeed I would have done so now, but you have arrived at the destination before me.'

Sabin stared at her, unable to believe how calm she was. 'We must take Guillaume back to Montabard immediately,' he said. 'Usamah says that he will put in a word with Timurtash against Guillaume being selected.'

Annais shook her head. 'I have already promised the Queen that I will stay. She asked me to accompany Princess Joveta as one of her nurses, and I said that I would.'

'God's blood, you did what?' They were standing breast to breast like lovers, but tender emotions were not uppermost in Sabin's mind.

'I said that I would,' she repeated in a voice that was determinedly level. Her expression was one of nun-like composure. 'Joveta knows me well and prefers my company to that of the other women. She is scarcely more than a babe in arms. She needs attendants with whom she feels safe.'

'And for that reason you will put yourself and Guillaume in jeopardy? What happens if Baldwin reneges on the ransom?' His own voice, although held low, was harsh with fear. 'What do you think will happen to the hostages then? Do you know what Balak did at Kharpurt when he overran us? He didn't stop to worry whether the women in that place were Christian, Muslim, with child, innocent or guilty. He ordered them all pitched over the wall to their deaths . . . every single one.'

She went as pale as a lump of Caen stone, but did not flinch. 'Timurtash is not Balak,' she said. 'You saved the life of the nephew of the Emir of Shaizar who is Timurtash's friend and ally. Surely that is a powerful counter-balance to any threat that might be made on our lives.'

'A counter-balance about which you did not know when you offered your services,' he snapped. 'What were you thinking?'

'I was thinking of Joveta. I spoke with my heart . . . and I am not ashamed that it has ruled my head.'

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'I would be within my rights to throw you over my saddle and drag you back to Montabard. No man would blame me.'