Behold the Dawn (25 page)

Hard lines etched themselves in his forehead. If she knew it was him, she should hardly be afraid. Not anymore.

His throat bobbed. “Lady.”

Still, she did not move, except to clench her hands in front of her. “We— we saw the charger in the stable. I recognized it… I—”

“Why are you here?” The words were gravel in his throat. Why should Heaven send her to him now, when he was most vulnerable? When he needed her most?

“Lord Hugh… found me.”

His innards turned to iron within him, but he didn’t stop.

“We—Marek and I—we escaped.”

He couldn’t see her face, but he didn’t need to. He could feel her presence filling the room, filling him with every breath.
Dangerous ground
, his mind whispered. But he didn’t care; it didn’t matter anymore. All that mattered was that she had found him. And he would not leave her again to face Hugh de Guerrant’s ravaging by herself.

Face to face with her, not even a pace between them, he stopped. She stared up at him, the whiteness of her throat glimmering even in the darkness. He could hear by her breathing that she was still afraid, almost near tears. “Are you angry?” A tremble marred her voice. “Because I came after you?”

Something like joy—incredulous, wonderful joy—shot through him. She was afraid! But not of Hugh, not of him. It was his rejection she feared. And even if he wanted to, he could not reject her now.

His head bowed, tired shoulders hunching, and he kissed her. He could feel her surprise, her shock, the flash of uncertainty. But she didn’t resist, she didn’t pull away.

He kissed her again—and again. If they were moving he didn’t know it until the thump of her shoulders colliding with the door stopped them. He pulled away, his breath heavy, and he stood looking down at her, his head bowed so that wisps of her hair touched against his forehead.

“Annan—” Her voice was soft, almost inaudible. But he could hear the tears in it. “Annan, you don’t know what you’re doing—”

“Aye, I do.”

“No—you don’t. I have been defiled—”

“I know it. It doesn’t matter.” He bowed his head still farther.

“There was a child—Hugh’s child. A child of sin. Does not that matter to you?” Her voice cracked.

“The sin was not yours.”

“But—”

“No.” He held her face in his hand, tracing the line of her cheekbone with his thumb. His words rumbled. “You are my wife. That is all that matters.”

She caught a sob in her throat, and her fists clenched in the tunic over his chest. “Annan—”

He didn’t let her get any further. He kissed her again, feeling the warmth of her tears against his face, the hammer of her heart against his.

Chapter XVII

BENEATH THE SHADE of a ruined wall, Brother Warin waited for the bishop to summon him. A trickle of sweat leaked down the line of his scalp, and he fidgeted, pulling the collar of his tunic away from his body, trying to stir the heavy seaside air.

A gull shrieked overhead, diving low across the broken walls of Jaffa. After his victory on the plains of Arsuf, King Richard had moved his army here until the Jaffa port could be repaired enough to act as a supply base. Then he planned to move, at last, on Jerusalem.

The gull swooped back into sight, its black-tipped wings slapping the air high above. Warin emptied his lungs and let his tunic cling once more to his sweat-dampened skin. He had been in the camp not even an entire day, and already he had heard the murmurings of the soldiers. Most of them didn’t think Jerusalem could be taken. After so recent a victory as Arsuf, that was a bad omen indeed.

The door flap of Roderic’s tent was pushed aside, and a pock-faced youth stepped out. “His Grace wishes your presence now, Master Templar.”

Warin set his teeth and forced his shoulders back. He hoped the bishop did indeed wish his presence. He had, after all, returned without their quarry, without Lord Hugh, and without Roderic’s summons. And he did not come bringing excuses or peace offerings. He was here to ask questions.

The questions of a tourneyer.

He entered the shade of the tent and stood at the door, waiting until the sunspots dispersed before his eyes.

“Brother Warin.” Roderic’s voice held neither severity nor clemency.

“Your Grace.” He bowed in the direction of the sound, and when he rose, his eyes had cleared enough for him to see the bishop where he sat in the rear of the tent in a high-backed chair, his hands draped on the scrolled armrests. Both chair and posture were all too suggestive of a throne.

Warin swallowed a putrid taste in his mouth. A hired assassin’s insinuations were hardly grounds to doubt the bishop’s sincerity and piety. Why did he have to keep reminding himself of that?

“You haven’t brought me Marcus Annan.” Roderic’s expression remained impassive.

The corners of Warin’s mouth deepened. “No, your Grace.” He wasn’t surprised the bishop already knew. Roderic had an impressive collection of informants—Warin among them.

“Why not?”

“I was… compromised.”

“Compromised?” Roderic lifted a hand to the etched crucifix on his chest. His wide, elegant sleeve slid across the smooth wood of the armrest and dropped into his lap.

Warin fought to keep from shifting his weight. He hated that the bishop felt the need to examine him like this, to look at him as though he were a maggot wriggling in a breaded air pocket.

Roderic’s eyes were like the wind in winter—sharp, biting, impenetrable. “Why were you compromised?”

“I lost too many men.” Another line of sweat rolled past the vertebra at the top of his spine and gathered speed down his back until it hit the waist of his breeches. It was true. Counting the men Hugh had taken with him, Warin had lost almost all his command. But that wasn’t why he had come back. He straightened and clasped his hands behind him. “It was my faith in the mission that was compromised.”

“Oh?” Roderic arched an eyebrow. No hint of surprise colored his tone.

“I spoke with the assassin.”

“You were sent to kill him, not speak with him.”

“He talked as if he knew you.”

For an instant, Roderic’s long fingers stopped their motion upon the crucifix; then they resumed. “He lied.”

“Bishop, I can only pray the things he said about you were lies indeed.
That
is why I have come back. To know the truth.”

A wary look, like film upon the surface of standing water, entered Roderic’s eyes. He sat a little straighter. “What truth?”

Warin took a step forward, unbidden. “He said you bore innocent blood upon your hands. He said you were a murderer and an adulterer, unrepentant before God.”

Roderic’s fingers dropped from his crucifix. “That is the heresy of the Baptist.”

“Marcus Annan does not follow the Baptist.”

“He speaks the Baptist’s very words. He refuses my generous compensation for killing the man. Of course, he is in league with him!” Roderic shoved against the armrests and pushed himself to his feet. “Brother Warin,
why did you not kill him
?”

Warin swallowed. Roderic’s wrath could be terrible. He had seen it meted upon others often enough to know. To continue now would be to risk that same wrath upon himself. But he had to know… “He said we would never be able to take Jerusalem if you continue to advise King Richard. Your Grace, I have seen for myself the apathy of our soldiers. We could have taken Jerusalem by storm long ago, crushing Saladin under our horses’ feet. Yet here the armies sit, frightened and shriveling!” He took another step. “If God wills it, as you and the other priests say, then how can this be?”

“Be silent.” Roderic’s voice grated in his throat. “Veritas was right.”

“What?” Warin blinked. Veritas? Never had their anonymous messenger written to Roderic; the messages always came to Warin himself.

Roderic’s eyes snapped back into focus. “Where is Lord Hugh? Dead?”

“No, he was… diverted.” Warin wet his lips, trying to clear his thoughts. “We found the Countess of Keaton with Annan.”

“You fool! Marcus Annan consorts with the wife of the Baptist’s chief disciple—a man who personally knew Matthias—and you let him go! I was right from the beginning. This man Annan
is
a follower of Matthias!”

“I disagree—”

A sound like an angry cat scratched behind Roderic’s pale lips. “You—” Spittle quivered at the corner of his mouth. For a moment, all he did was stare, his chest heaving beneath his finery.

Warin waited, watching as the bishop collected himself, seemingly with great effort. Roderic’s gray eyes blazed with anger and frustration and—aye—desperation. His fear was greater than Warin had imagined.

Warin held out a tentative hand. “Your Grace—” The man had to calm himself before his heart seized within his chest.

What secret power did these men hold over him that could produce such terrible results? Or was it perhaps the bishop’s own guilt, as Annan had suggested?

“Be still.” Roderic raised himself up, straightening his hunched shoulders. “Veritas
was
right.” He scrabbled through the folds of satin on his chest until he found the crease that hid a heavy piece of parchment bent twice upon itself. Warin’s throat tightened. He recognized the parchment; it was the same upon which their allusive messenger always sent his warnings.

“Shall I read it to you, Brother?” Roderic unfolded the parchment, but his red-rimmed eyes never left Warin’s face. “He says,
Fidere
Templar
nullus
.
Vir cernere conspicere inimicus; vir fluctuare.
Need I translate?”

Warin’s hand fell to his side. Nay, he need not translate.

Trust the Templar no longer. He has seen the enemy, and he has faltered.

How? How had Veritas known? How could he know these things? His knowledge had always been uncanny, always unerring. But this… even had Veritas somehow planted a spy among the men-at-arms, how could he know what was in Warin’s heart? How could anyone have known unless he had stood face to face with him, eye to eye?

And, suddenly—like a fist in the softness of his belly—Warin knew who their messenger was. And the knowledge of it chilled him to the bone. “Bishop—”

Roderic lowered the parchment to his side. His chin lifted, his eyes hard as ice. “If you argue with Veritas, you waste your breath.”

The moment froze around them, their eyes locked. Warin knew not what Roderic saw in his own eyes; but in the depths of the bishop’s gaze he saw the truth for which he had come searching.

Annan was right, and Warin could no longer serve this man. He would no longer be his eyes and ears. And he would surely not tell him that it was the great Veritas—not Warin, as the bishop might like to think—who was going to stab him in the back.

Step by step, he backed toward the doorway, until he stood again in the glow of sunlight that pooled on the floor. He dropped his chin to his chest in the abject humiliation Roderic expected from his servants. “Have I your leave to go, Father?”

For a moment the only sounds that competed with the murmur of the camp were those of Roderic’s robes rustling and the parchment scratching back into its nest against his shallow chest.

The bishop came forward.

Warin stayed as he was, knowing that Roderic might kill him where he stood—though in light of having to execute the deed himself, in Lord Hugh’s absence, it hardly seemed likely.

“Brother Warin.”

“Your Grace?”

“I have taught you by my own mouth, guided you with my own hand. But you have betrayed me—”

“Your Grace—”

“Veritas has never been in error. You admit yourself that you were compromised. Nevertheless, I will be merciful. I will give you one more chance.”

Warin darted his head up. This was not what he expected. Nor what he wanted. “What?”

“I am leaving. Our messenger tells me I am no longer safe here. My presence is needed in Antioch, so I serve two purposes in going there.”

“What about Richard?”

“Richard can manage his own army. You—” His eyes narrowed, the brows lowering over them like furry white worms. His signet-bearing forefinger stabbed the air between them. “You are to remain here. And if you see aught to substantiate Veritas’s warnings, I wish to hear. Otherwise… I know you no longer, Brother. Never enter my presence again. Do you understand?”

Warin dropped his head once more. “Indeed, your Grace.”
Indeed. And thank God for it.
God—and the heretics of the world, Marcus Annan and the Baptist among them.

After Warin left his tent, Roderic slumped in his chair, one elbow propped on the armrest, his fingers tracing the line of his chin. Once more he had come so close, only to be pushed back farther yet.

He did not think Warin had purposely betrayed him. The man was too honorable for that. But he had exchanged words with the enemy, and he had
agreed
with them. Henceforth, he would be useless. Utterly useless.

Darkness fell all around him. Sleep stung his strained eyes, and he pressed his lips together. Not yet. The blood-soaked nightmares would have their way with him later. But not yet. He had to plan, had to find a taste of sweetness in all this bitter gall.

It was a sweetness that could only come of his enemies’ spilled blood. He pushed himself up from his seat and walked to the door flap. The careless lad who attended him had not drawn the netting across the opening, and flies, black as drops of spilt treacle, buzzed round his head. He dispersed them with a wave, and pushed the door aside to see into the starlit night.

Lord Hugh would have to continue the pursuit on his own now. Roderic grimaced. That was most unfortunate, especially now that William of Keaton’s wife had reappeared. Hugh, hotheaded Norman that he was, needed the steadying influence of someone with Warin’s scruples.

That was something Roderic was going to have to remedy. “Odo!” He pushed farther through the tent flap, instinctively tightening his nostrils against the unavoidable sourness of the camp. “Odo!”

His truant servant, perpetually red in the face, rolled onto his knees from behind a nearby tent. Roderic’s frown deepened. Undoubtedly, the lad had been gossiping with the king’s servants instead of thinking on his own work. What was it that today all his minions had decided to prove themselves unreliable?