Behold the Dawn (17 page)

“He married me to save me, you know.” Mairead’s voice, almost a whisper, broke the stillness. She had lowered her face to the courser’s forelock, the fingers of either hand resting beneath the bridle’s cheekpieces. “To save me from Hugh de Guerrant. He knew what would happen to us once he married me, but he did it anyway because he thought it was the right thing. He died for me.” She breathed deeply. “For what he did for me, I would have carried his sons and I would have stood beside him until he was too old to carry himself. I would have made him happy. You’re right—” she looked at Annan, “he did deserve to be remembered—and by so many more than just me.”

He stared at her. “I remember him.”

The earnestness of the little girl surfaced as she raised her face to see into his expression. “What do you remember?”

What did he remember?
He remembered the earl’s face—instead of his own father’s—smiling on his successes, on his growing prowess with sword and lance. He remembered William laughing every time Annan took a spill from an unruly horse. He remembered the older man’s pride when he had earned his spurs on the field of battle, fighting against the English King Henry II.

The lines in his forehead tightened.

He remembered the grief, the pain that had darkened his mentor’s brow when first he had learned of the burst of temper that had led to the blows exchanged between Annan and his older brother. It had been an accident when his brother’s wife had been struck in her attempt to intervene; it had been an accident that she and both the children she had carried within her had died. But Annan had borne the guilt of it nonetheless. The fight with his brother had been his first step down his dark path. The second had been choosing St. Dunstan’s as the monastery in which to pay his penance.

He had no memory of his master’s reactions to the deeds of St. Dunstan’s; after that black day, he had not seen the face of his mentor Lord William of Keaton ‘til the night of his death in the prison camp.

“I remember,” he said at last, “that he was a good man. If wisdom ever shone its light on me, it was through him.”

Her cheek bent once more to the courser’s forehead. “He was a good man because he was a righteous man.”

Annan shifted, clamping down on a defensive flash. Her words, after all, were not a comparison of William’s life and his own; condemnation had not risen to clog the air between them. Had it been so, he would have told her she had no idea what had shaped his own life, what had led him down a road so disparate from the earl’s.

He held the words in check. William
had
been a righteous man, and he well remembered it. He had respected the earl’s righteousness, and he had tried to emulate it.

But he had not had the faith to hold his own bellicosity in check—a bellicosity that had been born, in part, of his hatred for the unrighteous. And so it was, were he to tell her what had led him here today, he would also have to tell her that, in its own ironic way, it had been William’s righteousness that had sent him hurtling, unprepared, to the early holocaust that had so marked his life.

Mairead laid her cheek flat against the courser’s forehead so that she could see Annan. “Would that all men could be even as he was.”

Annan pushed away from the horse’s side. “Some men are called of God, and some are not.”

She raised her head, both eyebrows lifting. “Aye. But it is also true that there are those who are called and do not come.”

She held his gaze with a steadiness he had never seen from her. Behind them, Marek began to sing the song he had been whistling. His high, clear voice resonated in the night air. “
I trained myself a falcon. He was as I wanted, gentled to my care.
”

Mairead turned away, and her soft tone joined his. “
I bound his feathers proudly, gold the winding shone. Then he took the high road, and flew to parts unknown.
”

Annan watched her go. He would not say that she was not right. A long time ago—a lifetime ago—he
had
been one of the chosen. He had been willing to give everything, even his very life, to the cause of Christ. But that time was long dead.

Annan did not see the silhouette on the horizon until the eastern sky began to color with the blush of dawn.

They had traveled throughout the latter part of the night, mostly in silence, the whir of the wind providing the only barrier necessary for them to keep their thoughts to themselves. Even Marek seemed to have nothing to say beyond an infrequent muttering to his horse.

Mairead had descended into sleep slowly, her muscles softening and softening until at last she leaned against his back, her cheek between his shoulder blades. But as the courser plodded through the sand, its hipbones rocking in time with the bob of its head, Annan found that he had no need to fight the urge of sleep. His mind was too active, too aware of the woman who slept behind him.

Through the coarse warmth of the jerkin Marek had dug from his saddlebags, Annan could feel her arms folded against her chest, drawing her cloak tightly around her. He could feel her gentle breathing, the tickle of her hair at the nape of his neck. He rode straight, shoulders back to keep her from slipping.

Had she been awake, he doubted she would have allowed herself so near him. For that matter, she had never before fallen asleep behind him. He entwined the fingers of his rein hand in the courser’s thick mane and wondered if she had allowed herself to fall asleep because the exertions of the trek had finally overtaken her. Or had their conversation—the first conversation they had held without one of them leaving either in doubt or anger—finally convinced her she had nothing to fear from him?

“Annan—” Marek’s voice, hardly louder than a whisper, seemed to echo in the pre-dawn silence.

“What?”

“Someone’s behind us. Can’t see him now— he dropped down out of sight behind that hill.”

Annan twisted his neck as far as he could without jostling Mairead and cursed himself for not keeping a better watch during the night. He had allowed his own weariness to overweigh his instincts. He
had
seen someone last night, but he had foregone keeping a watch behind them in exchange for letting Mairead sleep undisturbed.

“A Turk?” he said.

“It looked to be a donkey.”

He brought the courser to an abrupt halt and reined him around just as the stranger topped the hill. Adjusting his course slightly, the man kept the donkey’s bobbing head in line with Annan and Marek.

In a rush, Annan’s instincts told him this was the donkey he had seen in silhouette the first night out of the prison camp, when he had questioned the coincidence that had led someone to ford the river exactly where he and Mairead had camped for the night.

Now he knew it was no coincidence.

As purple light streaked the sky behind him, the man on the donkey continued his leisurely journey. His cowl was thrown back across his shoulders, revealing the sunburnt sheen of a monk’s
tonsure
. And from the midst of dark robes fluttering in the morning breeze, the glint of a crucifix shone.

Annan clenched his teeth, one hand seeking the hilt of his sword.

Mairead roused and tilted her chin to see over his shoulder. “What’s wrong?” Her inhalation whistled past his ear as she caught sight of the approaching traveler. One hand darted from beneath her cloak to clench the jerkin at Annan’s side. “Who is it?”

“The Baptist.” Why did he feel only dread, when he should be welcoming this man gladly, if only because of who he wasn’t?

“Thanks to Heaven.” She straightened away from him, and the cold breeze immediately replaced the warmth of her body.

“Indeed.” He hunched his shoulders, fingernails digging into the leather binding of his sword hilt.

Marek gave a little snort. “Well, I can think of a few people I’d rather see. Trouble hovers round him like flies at a
charnel house
.”

Annan threw some slack into his reins and reached to rub his sore hip. “I suppose he’s better than most of the other options.”

“He saved our lives,” Mairead pointed out.

Annan didn’t remind her that Gethin had meant to save the lives of Mairead and
William
—not Mairead and Marcus Annan. He had no doubts the Baptist was about to be as surprised to see him as he was to see the Baptist.

But when Gethin at last drew near enough for the sun to cast its light upon his warped face, no expression of shock or confusion blurred the furor of his eyes.

Annan didn’t move so much as an eyebrow. He owed Gethin nothing, not even an explanation.

“Baptist,” he said.

Gethin drew rein with only a pace of sand between his donkey’s head and that of Annan’s and Marek’s horses. “Marcus Annan.” His features lay flat, but contempt burned in the back of those fearsome eyes. His gaze flicked to Mairead, and he inclined his head. “Countess, where is your husband?”

She hesitated, and Annan could sense more than see that she shifted her glance to him. “He is… in Acre.”

Gethin grunted, then settled his gaze back on Annan. “And, pray tell, Brother Annan, what are you doing with his wife?”

On Annan’s far side, out of Gethin’s sight, Mairead’s fingers slid tentatively against his ribs. A silent message burned in her touch, and he knew she was giving him permission to explain the provision Lord William had issued to allow her the protection of a husband’s name. Gethin could neither condemn nor censure if he knew she was Annan’s wife.

But Annan’s eyes only hardened. Explaining himself to others had never been reason enough to bare secrets, especially to those he did not trust. And his old friend Gethin was no longer a man he trusted.

“Do you add to your sins, Marcus Annan?” Gethin’s voice dropped lower.

“Perhaps.”

Mairead’s fingers tightened, and he straightened his shoulders. “And perhaps not. You impugn the lady with your accusations.”

One heavy brow lifted. “On the contrary.” The donkey moved forward a step until Gethin was able to look directly into Mairead’s face. Her hand dropped from Annan’s side, and out of the corner of his eye Annan could see her shoulders draw back.

Gethin pulled the donkey to a stop and leaned over to take her hand. “Are you well, Countess?”

She didn’t flinch, but Annan’s reflexes burned with the urge to strike Gethin’s hand away. He brushed the courser’s ribs with his heel, and the animal’s hindquarters swerved to the side. Gethin didn’t release Mairead’s hand, and she had to catch hold of Annan’s arm to keep from being pulled off. “I’m fine,” she said. “Master Annan sees me safely to Orleans at Lord William’s request.”

“Orleans.” Gethin let her go. “You travel all the way to Orleans alone—with this man?”

Annan narrowed his gaze. What game was being played here? This was a face of Gethin he had never seen before. He was not the generous, zealous brother
postulant
he had been at St. Dunstan’s, nor was he the cold, dictating mendicant who had confronted him in Bari.

Now he was slippery, manipulating, backhanded. And he was angry. Annan could sense the anger rising from him like the sweat that beaded his brow.

Angry because Annan had left Acre?

Annan nudged the courser’s side once more, swiveling the horse’s hindquarters until he faced Gethin. “What is it you want?”

The mask dropped without a moment’s hesitation, and Gethin glared at him. “I want you to go back. I want you to join the quest for justice. The armies are marching to Jerusalem as we speak.”

“Hah!” Marek had an elbow propped on his saddlebow, his chin and one side of his face mashed against his hand. “Fighting in another one of them battles when we haven’t taken the oath isn’t going to do us much good.”

Gethin didn’t even glance at him. Marek sniffed and rolled his eyes.

Annan looked at the monk levelly. “Why should I go?”

“Because murdered blood cries for vengeance. It is a responsibility that all those who survived St. Dunstan’s must bear. Bishop Roderic cannot be allowed to live.”

“And who was it he murdered?” He clenched a fist in his lap, trying to keep the fire of his temper under control. “I had thought
you
dead at his hands once. But if not you, then who?”

“Many died.”

“You said yourself that was war. Warfare is not murder. Roderic will pay for his sins, but his judgment is not my responsibility.”

For a long moment, Gethin stared at him, unblinking. “I see. And when is it that you pay for
your
sins—
Marcus Annan
?”

A chill lifted the hairs on the back of Annan’s sword hand, and a warning, small and cold, shivered in the depth of his thoughts. “You’ve changed.”

A smile crept across the Baptist’s face, skewing his mutilated lips, damping the animal gleam in his eyes. “Aye,” said he, “we both have.” He closed his eyes and sighed with a weariness that, for the briefest moment, made Annan wonder if this delusional anger, this lust to bring pain upon his enemies, was yet another face hiding the real Gethin—the Gethin he had called brother—from his sight.

Then the Baptist’s eyes opened once again, dropping into place a mask of tacit determination.

He nodded his head to Mairead. “It will be my honor, Countess, to escort you to Orleans. In the company of a priest, your safety will be ensured.”

“I—” She sounded breathless, confused. “Thank you.” Her voice calmed, and she fell back into the role of a noblewoman. “You are most welcome to join us. Were it not for your aid, we should have been killed at the prison in Tyre.”

Annan did not look back, but by the sound of her voice, he could sense she had glanced at him, as though seeking confirmation.

It was a confirmation he would not give. Years ago, when he had thought Gethin dead, he had lain awake in the cold of night and mourned his friend with a ferocity that had made even his bones ache. He would have given anything, most especially his own wretched life, to bring Gethin back.

Now he wondered if perhaps it would have been better had Gethin truly died that day at the Abbey.

Chapter XII

FOR FOUR DAYS, Brother Warin and Hugh de Guerrant, with a small body of men-at-arms, had pursued the escaped assassin Marcus Annan. They had searched every city between Acre and Tarsus, and amongst the lot of them had broken the wind of six horses. Annan and the woman riding with him were nowhere. No one had seen them, heard them, nothing.