Devil's Bargain (12 page)

“It’s not slavery,” Richard said with remarkable patience. “It’s marriage—and a very good one. The man’s a king’s brother, he’s as powerful as a king himself, he’s rich, he’s cultured, he’s a knight and a gentleman. What does it matter what he calls his God? Maybe he’ll convert to our religion. Maybe he won’t. The Pope will give a dispensation, you needn’t worry about that. I’ve already asked Mother to see to it.”

“And she agreed?” Joanna asked coldly.

“She didn’t disagree,” Richard said.

“She knows it will never happen,” Joanna said, “because I will not marry that man. Not now, not ever, not if he were the last man alive.”

“Oh, come,” said Richard. “What objection can you possibly have to him, except the one?”

“The one is enough,” she said.

“That’s ridiculous. What is it really? That he’s not as young as some? He’s not old, either. He’s strong. He’s a splendid fighter. He’s got a clever tongue on him, and a good voice—I’ve taught him some of our songs, and he sings them well. Any reasonable woman would be delighted to have him.”

“Then I am not reasonable,” she said, “and I will not ever be. I will not marry him.”

Richard’s face darkened to crimson. His eyes were bright and searing blue. His voice was quiet—a soft growl, barely to be heard. “You will not? Even for your king’s command?”

“You are not my king,” she said, “and you will not command me to do this.”

“I’ll force you.”

“Try that,” she said, “and I’ll take the veil. The Church will shelter me. I, a Christian queen, forced to marry an infidel—I’ll find asylum wherever I go.”

He curled his lip. “You, a nun? You’d go mad in a month.”

“Never mad enough to marry that man,” she said.

“Do you want to bet on it?”

She met his glare with one just as blue and just as sulfurous. “I’ll bet my life.”

“Do that,” he snarled. His voice rose. “
Do
that, you damned bloody woman! Do it and be damned to you!”

“Oh, no,” she said. “Damnation is this marriage. I will not marry him.”

“You are out of your head!”

“
I
am? I never proposed to hand my sister over to the Devil’s own!”

“That is a better man than half the knights in Christendom, and every blasted one of the priests.”

“Blasphemer!”

“Bitch!”

She drew herself to her full and considerable height. “Better a Christian bitch than an infidel whore.”

Richard’s hand flew up. Her eyes dared him to strike her. He spun and stalked away from her.

C
HAPTER
T
WELVE

J
oanna had won the battle and the war. There would be no wedding of Christian and infidel. The whole army knew every word that Richard and Joanna had said to one another, embellished and re-embellished until it had become a legend and a song.

Sioned heard that song everywhere she went, until she was ready to take a mule and her bag of medicines and ride to the world’s end. She was still angry, abidingly so—and never mind how foolish it might be. Her heart knew neither wisdom nor reason. It only knew that it was wounded. She had not gone to her lessons since the day Saphadin had failed to put a stop to Richard’s folly.

When she was not playing physician, she was pacing the streets and alleys of Jaffa. The darker, the narrower, the more dangerous they were, the better.

She was in the darkest and dankest alley she had yet found, near evening of a day some untold number of days after Joanna had refused to marry an infidel. A footpad lay gagging and clutching his privates, some distance behind. He had thought
to find easy prey in a woman alone, and discovered all too quickly that not only did she know exactly where to hurt a man most; she was completely ruthless in the doing of it.

It was not like her at all to so indulge her temper. And yet she could not control herself. Was it not just? Was it not, after all, fitting?

That was a hazard, Safiyah had warned her. Mages were so strong in so many things, that God had given them a weakness to balance all the rest. It was dreadfully, deliriously easy to give way to the dark side of the soul.

And for such a reason, too—it was absurd, if she ever stopped to think about it. But she refused to do that. She wanted this darkness. It was better than facing reality; than admitting that she had let herself fall in love with a man. Love was not for the likes of her. She should have known that from the beginning, and built walls against it.

The alley in which she had been stalking, nurturing the swelling bloom of her anger, came to an abrupt and stony end. At first she thought it a blank wall; then she saw how it bent round a corner, and marked the faint outline of a door. It was a postern, tiny and hidden, but to her surprise it was unlocked.

This must have been a mosque when Jaffa was in the hands of Islam. It was older than the first Crusade, though not as old as Rome: she could feel such things, it was one of her smaller magical gifts. There were marks of fire on it, up near the dome, and broken tiles along the arches. Rats had nested in the rugs that heaped the floor, all hacked and fouled as they were.

Yet this was still a holy place. The air held a memory of incense; the light of day blessed the faded tiles of the walls. The lines of sacred script that flowed over the arches and the doorframes were hacked and broken, but she could read a fragment here and there, and one intact near the
mihrab
, the niche that faced toward Mecca:
There is no god but God.

Spirits lived here. Sunlight made them shy, but she caught glimpses of them in shadows. At night they must come out in force. A deep thrum came up from below, a throb of sanctity. God, or gods, had been worshipped on this circle of earth since
long before Muhammad proclaimed himself the Prophet of Allah.

Sioned knelt in front of the
mihrab
, not in worship, not exactly, but because it seemed appropriate to kneel in such a place. There was peace here, such as she had not felt in much too long.

She did not want peace. She wanted anger. She wanted the dark that came up from the earth. She wanted—

Eleanor.

As if the thought had been a conjuring, she saw in the
mihrab
, framed like a painted image, the queen in her chamber in the castle. Eleanor was dressed in black as she always was, but this was not her wonted fashion; it was a long robe without belt or girdle, and her hair was loose, unveiled, thick and gleaming, flowing down her back like a river of snow. Hers was a cold stark beauty, but beauty it certainly was, like a stone of adamant.

As she had done in the shrine of Cyprus, she spoke to a coiling shape of nothingness. It was stronger than it had been. Because she was closer to it? Or because all this war and blood had fed it, and given it space to grow?

It spoke in a voice so deep it rumbled in the bones. “Now?”

“Not yet,” Eleanor said. She did not waver, nor did she forsake her icy calm, but Sioned could feel the strength of the effort that kept her so steady.

“We have a bargain,” the dark one said. “I would keep my half of it.”

“You will do so,” said Eleanor, “in the fullness of time. Are you not well enough fed? Has not my son kept you sated with blood of Turks? Is it another battle you require? Surely we can arrange a small one. There are always skirmishes; men are men, and they will fight, however feeble the cause.”

“A holy war is feeble?”

“Come now,” the queen said. “Your faith is not the one that moves the sultan, nor is your worship any that he would approve of. You serve another power altogether.”

“I am a power in my own right,” said the dark one, “and he rankles at the core of me. Let me dispose of him now.”

“No,” she said. “It is not time. My son is managing him well enough for the moment, and these illusions of peaceful negotiation are serving us well. When his fall will destroy all that he made, when my son is so placed as to fill the void of his absence, then you may take him.”

The dark one hissed, but forbore to strike like the serpent it just then resembled.

“Patience,” she said to him. “You will have your prey.”

Maybe he trusted her; maybe not. She dismissed him with an incantation that raked claws through Sioned’s bones. He vanished. Eleanor sank down in a pool of black robe, as if all strength had abandoned her.

Yet when she lifted her head, her eyes were burning. Her hand, upraised, drew letters of fire in the air: wards, bound to Richard’s name and presence. She was wise and she was wary, and she knew her ally—who was also the worst of her enemies. He would not attack her son while he fancied that she was too weak to stop him.

The wards rose in a searing shimmer, closing off Sioned’s vision of her. Sioned made no effort to call it back.

Here was a way, if she would take it. Here was a path that she could choose. She could take the darkness to her; become both its ruler and its servant. It would possess her in the end, but then so would the light. Every living thing died; that was the price one paid for life.

It was a potent temptation. She knelt in the empty mosque, in the fading daylight, and all about her the spirits gathered: jinn and afarit, wrought of essential fire. They were no more purely of dark or light than any human creature. They too had that gift and curse: they could choose which power they would serve.

They swarmed above her, thick as a migration of swallows. They darted, swooped, wheeled. Some of them sang in eerie voices. When there were words that she could understand, those were words in Arabic, verses of the Koran and praises of the All-Merciful. Of course these would be good Muslim spirits, since this was a Muslim place, however faded and forgotten.

Laughter bubbled up in her, sudden and altogether unexpected. It had an edge to it, the cut of irony, but it was honest enough. In the giddy swirl of the spirits’ dance, she had found, not peace, not exactly—but a degree of sanity. She was still angry, but with some vestige of measure and restraint. For the first time in a long while, her mind was clear. She could think. She could make a choice.

Not the darkness now. Later, who knew? For the moment she remained in the light, though the shadows were a fraction deeper than they had been before.

She remained there into the night, resting her spirit in the dance of the afarit. When she left them, they sang a long, rippling note: bidding farewell for a while, but not for always. She sang it back to them as best she could. Those that were nearest to solid form and substance bowed before her, not entirely in mockery, and one or two followed her through the midnight blackness of Jaffa, seeing her safe to her room in Master Judah’s hospital.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTEEN

T
he rain that had begun in the month of October continued almost without interruption for the whole of that winter: month upon month of raw damp and bone-numbing cold. The season of Advent gave way to a wet and shivering Christmas—and few enough of Richard’s men had any shelter as dry or warm as the Lord Christ’s manger in a stable.

At the New Year, Richard marched on Jerusalem. But Jerusalem would have none of him. At Beit Nuba within sight of the holy city, he could go no farther. There the rain turned to sleet and then to a blinding blast of snow. The men could not march; the horses, those that had not fallen to cold or sickness or Turkish arrows, were never enough to carry an army.

“Face it, sire,” said the Grand Master of the Hospitallers. “We’ll get no farther this winter. The men have had enough. Their armor is a mass of rust, their shirts are rotting off their backs, they’re eating more mold and weevils than bread. Even if they’ll follow you to Jerusalem, what can they do when they get there? They’re too weak to storm the walls, and too few to hold the city even if by a miracle they should take it.”

The king’s council had gathered in Richard’s tent, which if not exactly warm and not exactly dry, was warmer and drier than the storm without. Even as the Hospitaller paused, a blast of wind smote it, rocking it on its moorings; the sides groaned in protest. But the tent was made in this country, and it was well anchored. It held.

They all drew a sigh of relief. Only the king had taken no notice. His eyes were fixed on the Hospitaller’s face. “Are you saying we should give up?”

“I am saying, sire,” said the Hospitaller, “that there is excellent reason why the infidels send their armies home in the dark of the year.”

“That’s why I kept mine on the march,” Richard shot back. “Because there’s no more than a garrison to defend Jerusalem. We can take it. We’re still stronger than a few hundred Turks and Kurds.”

“Are we, sire? Listen to the wind! It’s blowing straight from the walls of Jerusalem. The harder we fight it, the more powerfully it drives us back. We can fight men—but can we fight the wind?”

“Wind stops,” Richard said. “Storms end. We’ll wait this one out, and march before the next one hits.”

“Men must eat, sire,” the Hospitaller said. He was as stubborn as Richard, and he was no coward, either. “Our supply lines are dangerously thin as it is. If we go any farther away from the sea, we’ll starve.”

Richard’s expression was alarming. Some of his lords looked as if they would have preferred to brave the storm than face the king’s wrath. But the Templars were as bold as any Hospitaller. Their Master scowled at the Hospitaller, but he said, “He’s right, sire. As little as I like to agree with him—he’s telling the truth. We can’t wage a war under these conditions. If we go back toward the sea, toward Acre or Jaffa or Ascalon, we’ll be warm, dry, fed—and we’ll keep our troops until spring. They’re dying here. They’re not an army now, sire. They’re a mob of invalids.”

“That is true.” The voice was not one that spoke often in the
king’s councils, but the ring of authority silenced any protest. Master Judah did not either rise or come forward; he sat still until all their eyes were on him. Then he spoke again. “My physicians and surgeons are working night and day, and they can’t keep up with the number of the sick or wounded. We’ve used up most of our medicines; men steal the bandages to wrap their feet or hands against the cold. If even half your men are up to fighting strength, I’ll be astonished.”

Richard shook his head obstinately. “I can take Jerusalem now. I have enough men for that.”

“You do not,” Master Judah said. “Even the hotheads of the Temple are telling you so. Will you listen?”

“Give me a map,” said Richard, biting off the words.

One of his clerks had one to hand. Richard snatched it with little grace, sweeping wine cups and bits of bread and moldy cheese off the table that stood in the center of the tent. He spread the map there, glowering at it, muttering as his finger traced the lines of road and hill, wall and gate.

His eyes flashed up. “We have to go on,” he said. “Don’t you understand that? If we turn back now in sight of victory, we lose it all—and I take the blame.”

“If you go on,” said the Hospitaller, “you will lose. You can live with a bit of blame now in return for a chorus of praise later. And consider this, sire—I hear the men talking as I walk through the camp. They are convinced that once they come to the Holy Sepulcher, their service is over. They can lay down the cross; they can leave. There will be no one to hold the city once you’ve taken it, and no hope of keeping it past the first blush of spring. The Saracen will come back, and he will destroy you. Jerusalem will lie in unholy hands once again; all your Crusade will be for naught.”

“That won’t change,” Richard snarled, “whether it happens now or half a year from now.”

“Maybe not,” said the Hospitaller. “Or maybe, once spring comes, new forces will arrive from the west, and the forces that are here will remember their strength and devote themselves fully to the defense of the Holy Sepulcher. The air itself resists
them now. In spring, when winter’s cold is forgotten and summer’s heat is no more than a promise, they’ll learn again how to fight for their faith.”

“Stirring words,” Richard said, glaring at the map, which told him exactly how far he had to go through a cruel winter, without water or provisions, to take an impregnable city. “I’ll hold you to them, damn you. And damn you again, for making too bloody much sense. We’ll wait out the storm. When it lets up, we’ll march.”

The Hospitaller bowed his head in respect. “Where shall we march, sire?”

Richard rolled up the map and flung it at his clerk. “Ascalon. We’ll build it up again. That will keep the men warm, and give them something to think about besides running for home.”

“And,” said the Hospitaller, “the ships can come in with provisions from Cyprus and the west, and our men will be fed and dry for the first time since we left Jaffa.”

“Dry feet,” someone sighed. “Ah, God! A dream of bliss.”

Great wit it was not, but it struck them to a ripple of mirth, an easing of tension that had gripped them all. Only Richard did not join in the jest. He stood stiff and still as they took their leave, not flinching from the lash of wind and snow through the open tent flap. The Hospitaller was the last to go; he looked as if he might have paused, but the snow was deepening inside the tent. He thrust forward into it, turning to wrestle the flap back into place.

The wind had blown out the lamps. Richard turned in the dimness, moving toward the nearest, but Mustafa was there already, striking a spark from the flint off the steel of his dagger.

Richard started a little. “You! Where did you come from?”

“I was here, lord,” Mustafa said. He lit the other lamps from the flame of the first, taking his time about it. Lamp oil at least they had enough of: one of the quartermasters had intercepted a caravan to the holy city, and its chief cargo had been oil for eating and for burning in lamps.

“You’re as quiet as a cat.” Richard flung himself onto his
cot, arm over his eyes, groaning aloud. “Damned bloody cowards! Every pox-infested one of them.”

Mustafa held his tongue. The brazier needed feeding; he fed it with care, until the coals were burning steadily, sending off a blessed wave of heat.

Richard sat up abruptly. “You’ve been out, haven’t you? What have you found?”

“That the Master of the Hospital is right, sire,” Mustafa said. “And that this storm will grow worse before it dies down.”

“You don’t think it’s—”

Richard would never speak directly of magic if he could avoid it: strange, considering what his mother was, but perhaps not inexplicable. The son of so strong a mother might prefer to resist her rather than to give way to her.

In any event, Mustafa could answer him honestly. “If it has been . . . assisted, it’s still a natural storm. This is the land itself raising walls against you.” He paused. “Maybe, sire, it does this to give you time. If you take your army back to the sea, and let it rest and recover, in the spring it will be much stronger and more willing to fight.”

“Are you the council’s tame ape, to mimic all that they say?” But Richard’s rancor lacked its usual ferocity. “Do you know where the singer is?”

Mustafa rebuked his heart for sinking. “I saw him with the men from Aviègne,” he said. “They had a fancy for a song or two.”

“So do I,” said Richard. “Go and fetch him, will you? Then find a dry place and rest. Whenever this storm of hell stops, we’re marching—even if it’s the dead of night.”

For Richard, that was kindness. Mustafa braced himself against the cold and the cut of the sleet, wrapped his mantle close about him and the end of his turban about his face, and set hand to the tent flap.

He paused. Richard was lying flat again, eyes shut, sulking mightily. It was no ill Mustafa could cure. But Blondel, however waspish his temper, had his lute and his sweet voice. He
was the medicine that the king must have. Wise Richard, to know the physic for his own sickness.

Mustafa found Blondel still singing for the French soldiers. They objected not at all to surrendering their entertainment to the king. Their mood in fact was remarkably light, for warriors of Crusade who were about to withdraw just short of the Holy Sepulcher. They were all singing paeans to the great dream of the army that winter: warm hands and dry feet.

Almost Mustafa followed Blondel back to the king, but a faint glimmer of wisdom restrained him. He sought another sanctuary instead, a small tent, empty just then, but sharing the warmth of the greater tent beside it. He curled like a cat in the corner, and like a cat, seized the opportunity to sleep.

Sioned was weary to the bone. The flush of satisfaction she had felt since she attached herself to the army yet again without a word of objection from her brother was long gone. Victory over Richard’s will was no small accomplishment, but this was as wretched a campaign as even the most seasoned soldier could remember. She actually found herself envying the ladies in their cushioned prison in Acre. It would have been a stupefyingly long winter of gossip and embroidery and court intrigue, but it would have been warmer than this.

The storm had begun in the dark before dawn. Now it was almost dawn again, and the wind showed no sign of slackening. Snow heaped against the sides of tents; those whose occupants were not diligent in keeping the tents clear had collapsed, with much cursing and struggling to get them back up again.

She had been tending frostbite and physicking winter rheums since before the storm began. There was not a tent in the camp that was free of a chorus of coughing. When a man began coughing up blood, he came in search of the physicians. Sometimes he found them before it was too late. Sometimes he died on the way.

Too many men had died today. Richard’s retreat came none too soon. Later there would be carping and blame. Now there was only relief.

She stumbled to her little bit of tent to snatch an hour’s rest. The shape curled in the corner aroused no alarm. Mustafa came here as often as not; he said it comforted him to sleep in the light of her magic. Sometimes if there was time or if she had strength left, he taught her to sing in his Berber tongue, or to dance with knives the way his people did—the women, he said, even more fiercely and flamboyantly than the men.

There would be no dancing or singing tonight. She fell onto her cot as if into deep water; sleep took her before she touched the blanket.

She had dreamed of Saphadin often enough that winter, and dreamed that her lessons with his wife continued, night after night. The dreams of him were only dreams; those of Safiyah, she was less sure of. She remembered every word of them when she woke, and as often as not, the magic in her was different; it had grown, changed, become something other than it was when she went to sleep.

There were no lessons in this early dawn. Her dream was full of snow, but it was not cold; it had no edges that cut. It was like a cloud of feathers, white and soft, suffused with a silver light.

She had a dagger in her hand, but its blade was silver rather than steel. The hilt was in the shape of a silver swan, its eye a ruby, red as blood. Because this was a dream, the eye was alive, alert with intelligence. It sparkled at her as she turned the dagger in her fingers.