A Flame Run Wild (28 page)

"They will not. We are too far north."

"What if they find the mare?"

"What if they do?" He turned to her. "Are you afraid now? Your mind is darting about like a worried gazelle."

"Afraid? Why should I be?" Liliane stared at the water, then shrugged uncertainly. "Yes. I am afraid. I have brought terrible differences between us, brought out monsters—distrust, lies, where we once had vowed to abolish deception. You still love me, but . . . you don't like me as much as you once did, do you?"

His mouth stopped her. "Hush," he whispered. "Would you have me entirely ungrateful? Had you remained safely at home, I would have loved you no less, but whatever the cost, can you think I want you more tonight?" He kissed the corners of her mouth, her eyes, her ears. "Give me present delight and all your passion," he whispered huskily against her throat. "By day there is hell... by night there is you. . . ."

His hands found her shoulders, then beneath the aba, found her womanly body warm and resilient. Pliant against him, she let the aba fall from her shoulders, arching back to offer her breasts, pale and pointed, to his seeking mouth. He browsed, finding honey there, her flesh feeding his quickening hunger. He tugged at her lower clothing, finding warmer honey between her thighs. Her arms wound about him, her hips moving with a magic of their own in reply to his adroit teasing. His manhood, already hardened beneath his braies, responded with a ready surge.

"Damn," he swore softly, "this would be the time to be wearing armor!" He tugged hard at his leather fastenings, then with a swift movement, dragged both light armor and chainse over his head. He pulled her to him, his mouth capturing hers. Her buttocks fit in his hands, her flat belly rubbed his swollen groin. No longer able to control her own desire, she caressed him, bared him and closed on him. With a low groan, he bore her to the sand. Her long legs parted as she arched her back, and in a single thrust, he filled her. His slow, almost languid rhythm matched hers as they tantalized each other, brought their bodies apart and together as if in a sinuous, exotic dance, writhing together on the sand. His dark flesh slid against her paleness, his arms stretched with hers. Bound by desire, the one enslaved the other, craving each other, withholding only to yield again and again with the tiny silver claws and bells of love. The music quickened, intensifying the vibrato of their slim bodies as Alexandre lured his lady. Bending, arching, the sultry-eyed Liliane maddeningly tempted and evaded him until he was driven to claim her. Their pulses became as drums, their kisses wild cymbals as their bodies joined and strained, singing a high, primitive, piercing note that trembled to breathless silence. For a long while, there was stillness.

His eyes inky, Alexandre looked down at Liliane, her perfect body pale, her blond hair spilled like shimmering light upon the sand. "Solomon was a great poet, yet I think he had no queen so fair as thou; Mohammed no houri. Tonight, I am as the kings and prophets, with all the possessions of earth and heaven in my arms."

"Within your arms lies my world, and all I shall ever ask of heaven," Liliane whispered. "If tomorrow finds our love's starry illusion tarnished, I beg you not to cast me away in this wilderness; I fear I should never find my way back to you."

His eyes narrowed slightly. "Would you do me dishonor? %u are my lady wife. That I would leave you is unthinkable."

"I will never hold you to honor's bond, Alexandre. Where love is not, honor will not suffice. Once duty drove us together, but it must not become a strangler."

"What are you trying to say?"

"That if the day ever comes when I no longer make you happy, I will leave willingly. We need not quarrel and turn all our blissful memories to hate.''

"By Saint Michael," Alexandre said with a trace of impatience, "what preys upon your mind tonight? Have I just beaten you? Do I take my ease in the camp stews? Why will you invite demons of discontent into our very union?" He caught her face hard between his hands. "Our bliss is now. We shall not mar it with grim and groundless foreboding." His mouth came down on hers almost brutally, so much so that she wondered if he were not wrestling with his own doubts. Her fears were beginning to fade into growing passion when a stealthy rustle in the undergrowth startled them apart. Alexandre caught up his sword from his spilled clothing, the weaponless Liliane crouching behind him. The bush stirred, then a low, skulking shape slunk across the gully. Alexandre let out his breath. "Hyena. We had better get out of here. More are likely to be around. They may be cowards singly, but in a pack they are vicious."

When they had dressed, he headed down the gully to the spot where they had left the Saracen and the horses. He dragged off the corpse's
haik
and tossed it to Liliane. "Here, you will need this. You cannot very well ride into camp with your hair flying."

Liliane fought the urge to drop the
haik
. It hung from her hand like a shroud. The thought of wrapping it about her head and face stifled her. Untethering the horse, Alexandre did not notice her white face as she slowly donned the
haik
. Then, a muted cry from the thicket riveted their attention, and he tossed Liliane the reins. In a whisper, with his knife drawn, he disappeared into the brush. The brush rattled as someone tried to scramble away, then she heard a shriek, which was swiftly silenced. Moments later, Alexandre emerged from the thicket, dragging a struggling figure by the scruff. "A Saracen?" whispered Liliane.

"Not quite," Alexandre replied dryly. "She is a Rifi. Round as an apple, with guts of jelly. Probably a slave, run off during the raid." He gave his squirming captive a shake to make her stand up. "If so, she has ran far enough to have raw feet, unless the saddleless horse was hers. That dead Saracen on the ground must have pursued her." The girl was swathed in voluminous garments to the neck. A veil covered her face to her eyes, which were eloquent with fear and entreaty.

"We cannot leave her here."

"Why not?" Alexandre shrugged. "They will treat her like a pig in Acre. A Saracen patrol will check by here tomorrow and see her back to their camp." "

"For a worse fate! Alexandre, she must have been desperate to run into the desert between enemy armies. God knows what sort of master she has! At the least, she is certain to be dreadfully punished."

The Rifi girl looked dolefully up at Alexandre as if to confirm Liliane's assessment. He sighed. "Oh, all right. We'll take her to Acre, but be warned: she is going to prove a nuisance."

Liliane was no longer paying attention to him. She was again all too aware of the smell of blood on the
haik
.

Chapter 11

~

Trouble in the Tent

Acre

Same night

J
ust before dawn, the little band reached the crusader camp, which was in a turmoil. All night, fragments of Alexandre's band had made their way back with conflicting casualty reports. Alexandre himself was thought to be dead.

Philip met them at the ditchworks. "God's bones!" He seized Alexandre by his dusty shoulders. "You took long enough getting back! What the devil happened?" His green eyes flicked knowingly to the sloe-eyed little Rifi. "Or should I ask?"

Alexandre grinned wickedly. "Oh, the wench belongs to Jefar here. He could not resist her bottom. Threw her right over his shoulder and skipped out of an amir's tent." He flashed Liliane a mischievous glance. She smiled lazily back and gave the Rifi's bottom a pinch that dulled his amusement.

"Flanchard says you did not do much damage," Philip observed. "So far, you appear to have lost six men, among them two of my likeliest knights.''

"We killed nearly fifty Saracens and spread havoc. By my reckoning, sire, that is a tidy maneuver:''

"Can you establish your figures?"

"Most of my men are better at mathematics than Flanchard."

"They had better be. Richard is frothing for an accounting." Philip pushed through his hovering guards. "Come along,
mon ami
, time to recite your sums."

When Alexandre hesitated, Liliane gave him an inscrutably Eastern anile. "Do not worry. I shall see to the girl."

On the way to the tent, Liliane wondered if the Rifi had seen her back at the oasis without her
haik
and quite possibly without any clothes at all. If so, the girl might prove more than a mere nuisance and must immediately be-sent out of Acre on an east-bound caravan. If questioned about what she had seen, she would surely lie. Liliane had a better way of picking her brains.

Once inside the tent, she examined the Rifi with a deliberately cold eye. By dawn's light, the girl was very pretty, with a ripely rounded body and the large dark eyes of a gazelle. She was also no more than sixteen and stiff with fear. "What is your name?" Liliane demanded.

The girl looked startled, then her brow furrowed in effort to understand Liliane's Spanish Arabic. "Saida," she whispered plaintively. "I was a slave of Idi ben Ibrahim. He bought me in Damascus when I was a child and mercilessly beat me."

"No doubt for chattering," Liliane observed tauntingly. The Rifi must be tested as to what she had seen and heard at the oasis; also whether she could be relied upon to hold her tongue. "I did not ask for the details of your life." She stalked around the chastened girl. "This Ibrahim must have been a beggar. You are on the skinny side."

For a moment, Saida lost her fear. "Idi ben Ibrahim was a great lord!" she retorted indignantly. "He chose me over forty other girls!"

"For what reason, I cannot imagine." Liliane sauntered over to a fruit bowl, selected a few dates and dropped comfortably onto Alexandre's pallet. She popped a date into her mouth, then muttered darkly, "Probably we should sell you to a brothel to make up for the trouble of saving you from the desert."

Terrified, Saida threw herself at Liliane's feet. "Great lord, I beg you have mercy! Do not let me be defiled by infidels!" A desperate, cunning determination came into her eyes. Crawling forward, she insinuated herself about Liliane's knees, allowing a generous view of her breasts in her low-cut bodice. "Lord, I know ways to please thee that thou hast not dreamed of. Let me prove my gratitude. I will take thee to paradise. Thy staff shall stand like the rod of Abraham. ..."

Fighting to stifle her growing amusement, Liliane let Saida rattle on for a time. Clearly, the girl thought she was a man, so her identity was presently safe enough. Saida's awareness of her peculiar Arabic was another matter. Rifis were Berbers and Liliane spoke little of the Berber dialect that should have been native to Jefar el din. Saida had a ready tongue, a sturdy vanity and no loyalties; if she were not kept close in the tent, she might well gossip in the camp.

By now Saida was cooing lascivious suggestions that would make a ribald blush. At close range, she smelled faintly of goat. Liliane placed a boot firmly between Saida's breasts and gently propelled her to a less pungent distance. "I do not require your services, girl. As a Christian, I am infidel as much as any European in Palestine." She smiled faintly at Saida's flushed panic. "Do not fear. The French lord is master here. He will make the ultimate decision as to your fate. Possibly, you may earn your freedom, but I warn you, learn to curb your tongue within and without this tent or your days of choosing your bedmates will be briefly numbered."

Saida somewhat sullenly backed away, the quicker when she spied Kiki sidling up to his mistress for a date. "Are you afraid of monkeys?" Liliane asked idly, as she gave the small creature a morsel.

"They are dirty and they bite." Saida stared with distaste at Kiki's delicate nibblings.

"This one is cleaner than you and she only bites when provoked." Liliane glanced lazily at Saida. "You would do well to smile at her often. Sour faces depress her, then her temper suffers." She stroked Kiki's head. "Would you like to pet her?"

Looking as if she would sooner stroke an adder, Saida cautiously extended her hand. Sensing dislike, Kiki bared her teeth with a hiss. Saida recoiled. "What a pity you cannot be friends," Liliane murmured. She must keep a sharp eye on Saida. Kiki, as a veteran criminal, was an excellent judge of character. She knew immediately who would be kind to her and who to avoid. "Ibrahim was not your first master," Liliane said suddenly, not making it a question. "Who were the others?"

When Saida named several amirs with pride, Liliane became more dubious about her. Saida was lying; she was too young to have had so many masters, even if she were troublesome. And certainly they would not all have been rich and illustrious, for pretty as she was, she was a common village girl. Her early life would have been hard and brutal, and if she had spent only a year in a wealthy harem, she would have learned intrigue and deceit well beyond her years. Competition within harems was obsessive, not infrequently leading to discreet murder. Even if Saida were not ruthless, she could not be the trapped gazelle she seemed.

"You mast be an extraordinary young woman to have had so many men in love with you," Liliane observed when Saida had finished her recital. When Saida smirked, Liliane added mildly, "One assumes you are also clever enough to be modest within a camp filled with womanless men. Milord Alexandre is beyond your reach; do not impose upon his patience . . . and mine." .She gave Saida a cool smile. "Also, do not conceive the idea of poisoning my monkey. I am far fonder of Kiki than a lying slave."

Saida flattened in obsequious obeisance, her face dusting the carpet to hide her resentful glare. "Go," Liliane told her briefly. "You will sleep in my tent, but not in my bed. Tell the cook you have my leave to take a bath. If you venture beyond the tent, you will be sold to the dirtiest cameldriver in Acre."

After the girl was gone, Liliane sighed. Alexandre was right; Saida was going to be a damned nuisance.