Devil's Bargain (18 page)

“Of course I found you,” he said with a hint of testiness. “I found another, too. He’s waiting, if you’ll follow me.”

She would have thrust ahead of him if she could, if she had
known where to go. He led her as quickly as the press of people would allow, from end to end of the market and into the quarter of the jewelers. Those streets were much quieter than the rest of the market: people moved softly here, and spoke in low voices, as if in awe of the wealth that surrounded them. Only the lesser beauties were on open display; the masterpieces were kept in locked chests, wrapped in silk and sealed with a spell. But even the bits of gaud and frippery were wonderful.

He was sitting in a goldsmith’s stall, watching the artisan craft a flower in beads of gold. The light gleamed on the pure metal, dimming the rest of the world to a grey and featureless blur.

His face would have been clear to her in the dark behind the moon. He was dressed like a prosperous citizen, with nothing about him to mark him a warrior or a prince, still less an enemy of the Crusade.

He greeted her with a smile and a bow. The goldsmith kept his eyes on his work. He did not glance up even when Ahmad beckoned her into the depths of the shop.

It was a much larger place within than without. Behind a curtain was another, wider, dimmer room, and a stair that led to an upper gallery. There were windows there, looking out on a sunlit courtyard. Trees were heavy with oranges and golden lemons. Already a few had begun to bloom, waxy white blossoms amid the ripening fruit.

It was wonderful in the midst of winter. She breathed deep of the flowers’ sweetness, and felt the tightness inside of her ease. “This country,” she said. “It’s full of wonders and sudden beauties.”

“Great ugliness, too,” he said. He bowed her to a chair in the carpeted room, and sat across from her. There was kaffé, and little cakes made with honey and almonds and spices. The taste of the kaffé and cakes reminded her poignantly of the summer and autumn in Jaffa, when she had walked between worlds to learn the arts of magic.

“Today I see the beauty,” she said. And then: “I missed you.”

He blinked. Had she actually managed to startle him? “You were walled and guarded like the fortress of Krak.”

“I was angry,” she said.

He widened his eyes. “Because of—”

“Because you agreed to marry Joanna.”

“Joanna never agreed to marry me.”

“But you did.”

“I reckoned that I knew the lady; I knew what she would say. Meanwhile how could I insult her brother by refusing the prize that he was giving me?”

“You’re a great diplomat. You would have found a way.”

“Certainly. I let her do it for me.”

“You never cared what I would think.”

“Did you honestly believe that I would take your sister?”

“You didn’t say you wouldn’t.”

“I . . . forgot how young you are.”

She slapped him.

He sat still, with the mark of her hand blazing red on his cheek, and his gaze dark and steady above it.

It was she who could not keep her eyes from dropping. She flushed from brow to sole, mortified—with all her anger turned no longer against him but against herself.

She heard him rise. She tensed to turn and run, but her body would not obey her. He drew her to him, folded his arms about her, and tilted up her chin. She could not help but look at him. “Did you honestly believe,” he asked her, “that I would take your sister instead of you?”

“Instead of—” She bit her tongue. “She’s a queen. What am I?”

“Royal,” he said, “and much loved by your brother. And,” he said after a brief pause, “by me.”

“You don’t—”

“Lady,” he said, “you gave me half the autumn and half the winter to pass from bafflement to anger and back to bafflement again—and then to know what was at the root of it. I asked the marquis to bring you to our meeting. It might have been insanity, but I had to know—I had to see—”

“How much I hated you?”

He nodded.

“I never hated you,” she said. “Not even in the worst of it.”

“Have you forgiven me?”

She lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “Maybe. Would you have? If she had been willing?”

“There was no danger of that.”

“Would you?”

His breath hissed between his teeth. “I would have found ways to escape.”

“I certainly hope so,” she said. “She is beautiful. And desirable. And—”

“Never as much as you.”

“Don’t flatter me,” she said crossly.

“I’m speaking the simple truth,” he said.

“
She
is tall and fair. I—”

“Dark and sweet,” he said. “Your eyes are wonderful, like the shadows at twilight—not quite blue, not quite purple. I never saw such eyes before.”

“Violets,” she said.

He frowned in puzzlement.

“They’re flowers,” she said. “They grow in the woods in the spring. They’re shy—they hide in greenery. They’re this same color.”

“Beautiful,” he said.

“I like the roses of Damascus better.”

“I don’t think,” he said, “that I would be greatly taken by eyes the color of blood.”

She snorted—inelegant and knowing it, but this man had no illusions about her. “They would be unusual.”

“Too much so.” He traced the curve of her cheek with his finger. “I shall go on preferring violets. Have they a fragrance?”

“A small one,” she said, “though sweet. It’s not glorious, like roses.”

“Your cheeks are roses,” he said. “Your neck is a white lily.”

“My breasts are twin lambs?”

He gasped; then he laughed. “A pagan may quote Christian Scripture?”

“When it’s apt,” she said, “yes.”

“And what would your own faith say?”

“That the Goddess is in all that is, and every woman is Her image.”

“Certainly man is created in the image of God,” he said.

“Man is the creature She made to please the woman, to serve her and make children with her.”

“Man was made for woman?”

“We believe so.”

“Fascinating,” said that son of Islam.

If he had scoffed, or professed his own faith, she would have cast him off. But he granted her the dignity of her religion. In a warrior of God, in this God-ridden country, that was marvelous. She kissed him for it, meaning but to brush his lips with hers; but the heat of the touch bound them irresistibly.

After some little while they drew apart, but still in one another’s arms. Sioned looked into those dark eyes. What she saw there both exhilarated and terrified her. “What shall we do now?” she asked him.

“What would you do?” he asked in return.

“Love you,” she said. “Stay with you. But we can’t do that. We’re on opposite sides of a war.”

“Not here,” he said. “Not between us.”

“If I send a message,” she said, “will you come?”

“Always,” he said. Then after a pause: “How long will you be in Tyre?”

“For as long as I’m needed,” she said.

“For as long as that is,” he said, “we can meet here. Send a message in the way that Safiyah taught you. As soon as I may, I’ll come.”

“Promise?”

“By my heart,” he said.

She kissed him softly, with but a fraction of the heat that had bound them a moment before; but if she had let it, it would have burned them both to ash. “Soon,” she said.

“Yes,” he said. “Soon.”

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY

I
t was not as soon as Sioned would have liked, that she could see Ahmad again. Conrad watched her as closely as if she had been his wife—so closely that she wondered which of his spies had told him that she met a man in a shop in the city. She had succeeded after all, and too well: once he reckoned that her attention had wandered, he courted her as ardently as any knight in a song.

That was a strange time, that season of Lent in Tyre, between the winter and the spring. She saw Ahmad thrice, with more difficulty each time, but that only made the meeting sweeter. They spoke nothing of politics and nothing of parting. He taught her more of magic, but a different art now, an art of lovers: spells and enchantments that were best wrought by two who were bound in the spirit.

She was coming back from that third meeting, barely aware of where she walked, but remembering to keep her hood close about her face, when a man in servant’s dress accosted her. She realized it when Mustafa’s hand stopped her short. The point
of his dagger rested against the man’s throat. The servant’s dark cheeks had gone grey.

There were protections on him, but Sioned caught no hint of ill magic. Her glance persuaded Mustafa to lower his dagger. The servant mopped his brow with his sleeve, and said as steadily as a man might who had a bead of blood welling from the great vein of the throat, “My lady asks your indulgence; she craves a moment’s conversation.”

“Indeed?” said Sioned. She followed the man’s glance to the shadow of a colonnade. A dark shape stood there, swathed in a mantle. Sioned saw dark eyes lined with kohl, and a smooth ivory forehead; the rest was hidden in veil.

She inclined her head. The lady beckoned her into the shelter of the colonnade.

“Lady Elissa,” Sioned said.

“Lady Sioned,” said Conrad’s mistress. Her voice was brisk and direct, like her glance. “I see why he fancies you.”

“Yes,” said Sioned. “I look like you.”

The dark eyes glinted. “His tastes are consistent,” she said. “Your eyes are more unusual than mine, and your skin is fairer. You’re even more beautiful than rumor made you.”

“Much of that is art,” Sioned said.

“Beauty is always art,” said Elissa. “At the risk of being thought a mere and jealous rival, I came to proffer a warning. My lord suffers no other man to touch the woman he chooses. That one you go to see—he is in danger.”

“His spies are watching,” said Sioned, “but we are watching them. My friend has taken steps to protect himself.”

“That’s well,” Elissa said, “but have you done the same? He’s death on betrayal, lady. Even a king’s sister might not escape him.”

“I know you are not merely jealous,” Sioned said carefully, “and I know you mean to help, but I am aware of what kind of man he is.”

“Are you?”

“Why?” asked Sioned. “Does he keep a secret chamber full of blood? Does he feast on the flesh of children?”

“Don’t,” said Elissa. “Don’t make light of him. What he wants, he gets. He wants a throne, and he will have it. If he wants you, he will be sure to take you—whatever it may cost your friends or kin. Your brother was not wise to send you here, such an innocent as you are, with such a face. Or was he trying to get rid of you?”

Sioned’s back stiffened, but she kept control of her expression. “I thank you for the warning,” she said.

“One day you will,” said Elissa. “I give you good day, and I truly wish you well.”

With no more farewell than that, she was gone. Sioned stood in the colonnade, staring at the space where she had been. She felt odd, off balance, although Elissa had told her nothing she did not know already. It was as if the words had opened the way to understanding, to knowledge that she had been refusing to face.

What, that Conrad could be treacherous? She knew that. Then why did it suddenly matter so much more than it had before?

She returned to the citadel because she was expected, and because she was not minded to turn tail and run from a shadow. She redoubled her wards as she walked, although at that strength they dulled her magical perceptions. If an attack came, she would be guarded, but she might not be aware of it until it struck.

When it did strike, it came from no magical direction at all. There were armed men waiting for her in the citadel. Their faces were grim. The air had a reek to it that she knew too well: the stench of death.

She looked for Mustafa, but he was nowhere to be seen. He had been in her shadow until a moment before; now he had vanished. Anger gusted, passed. He must have his reasons; Mustafa always did.

Conrad advanced through the ranks of his guard and greeted her with cold courtesy. “There is something you must see,” he said.

She had no choice but to follow him, but she did her best to make it seem that she went of her free will. She kept her head high, and shut her ears to whispers that ran in her wake.

The guards, and Conrad at her side, led her to a door she did not know, but from the size and richness of it, she could presume that it was Conrad’s own. The scent of death was strongest here, with the iron tang that spoke to her of violence. Her feet were steady but her heart was cold as the guard in the lead flung open the door.

It was Blanche. She lay in a bed now stripped of its curtains, dressed in her wonted black. Her face and hands were starkly white.

Those hands were folded on her breast. There was a strip of ribbon wound in the still fingers, a ribbon that Sioned recognized: Conrad had given it to her, saying that it matched the color of her eyes.

“She was alive when we found her,” Conrad said. “When we asked her who had done this, she spoke a word. That word was your name.”

“She must have thought I was in danger,” Sioned said with the clarity of shock. “Or—”

“You,” said Conrad, but not to Sioned. The bark of his voice brought forth the youngest of Sioned’s maids, the lovely Petronilla, much disheveled with terror and grief. She shrank from Sioned’s stare, shuddering convulsively. She opened her mouth and began to wail.

Conrad gripped her arms and shook her into silence. “Stop that. Tell her what you told us.”

Petronilla looked ready to burst out in howls again, but fear of Conrad stopped her. “I—I can’t—I don’t—”

“Tell her!”

Petronilla’s eyes overflowed with tears, but her voice steadied enough to get the words out. “I—I saw—you were coming up from the hall. I saw you, and I was surprised, because you said you were going out. And I followed you because you might want me to wait on you. You found—you found her on the stair from the kitchens, bringing up the posset for Jeanne’s
winter rheum, and you told her you needed her. I hid because I didn’t want to be sent with the posset—Jeanne snuffles and moans so abominably. Blanche found a servant to take the posset, and followed you up—up here. When she saw where it was, she said she wasn’t abetting you in immorality—that’s exactly how she said it—and you turned and I couldn’t see, really, but I saw the knife and I saw Blanche go all white and surprised. Surely you remember, because you did it, and I saw the whole thing—and when you went away, I screamed and screamed, until somebody came.”

“I’m sure you did,” Sioned said acidly. “Do you happen to recall if I said anything?”

Petronilla swallowed hard. “I think—I think you said, ‘Take this sacrifice in Satan’s name.’ ”

One or two of the guards made signs against evil. Sioned ignored them, turning to face Conrad. “Do you believe this nonsense?”

“You were seen leaving the room,” he said, “dressed just as you are now. Will you try to defend yourself?”

“I was not even here,” she said. “I was in the city. Ask your spies who have been following me. Ask a certain lady with whom I spoke, just about when this good woman must have been dying.”

“I shall ask,” said Conrad. “But, lady, you were seen. There is no doubt that it was you; the witnesses are clear on that account.”

“Has it occurred to you that whoever mounted this ruse was most careful to be seen? If I could ever have plotted such a thing—and believe me, my lord, that is as far against my character as anything can be—then I would have undertaken first and foremost to be invisible.”

“That may be,” said Conrad in the tone of one who makes no judgment. “Because of your rank and the dignity of your embassy, I will order you confined in your chamber and not in a prison. Whatever you wish to eat, drink, read, you may ask for.”

“And then?” she asked.

“We will do our best to discover the truth of this.”

“I do hope so,” said Sioned.

The guards closed in, but she drove them back with the flash of a glance. She bent over Blanche. The face was still; if she had died in fear, it had not altered her expression from its wonted severity. Sioned laid her hand over the still fingers, meaning to offer respect and farewell. The touch dislodged a thing that had been clutched to the motionless breast: a small brown cake, fresh and still fragrant from the baking.

Behind her, someone gasped. The guards about Conrad drew in closer; those about her seized her and held her immobile. Their eyes on her were blind with horror.

She looked from face to face. It was not real yet, not in her heart, where fear should be blooming into terror. What that cake was, she knew too well. Anyone who lived in this country would know it. It was the Assassin’s cake: Sinan’s gift to his victims. But that these people should think—

It was convenient that they think it. Conrad was honestly horrified, she would have wagered on that, but beneath the horror was a gleam of satisfaction.

At his bidding, the guards searched her with hard hands. They found the little knife that she had had since she was a child in Gwynedd, which she used for cutting meat, and the larger, deadlier dagger that she kept for defense. That had been Richard’s gift; he had taken it from a slain Turk. It had a chased silver hilt, and a verse from the Koran inscribed on the blade.

These men did not care to hear where it had come from. They wanted it to damn her, therefore it did. She saw no use in protest, but that served her ill: they took her silence for admission of guilt.

“Take her away,” Conrad said. His voice was thick with disgust.

The maids had abandoned the room. They had left in great haste, from the look of the oddments tossed about, but everything that was of value, they had taken. Some of it was Sioned’s;
the rest had been on loan from Joanna. There would be explanations to make when she came back to Acre.

If she came back to Acre.

She must not think that way. If Conrad had her put to death, he would bring down Richard’s wrath—which he might be hoping for—but he might also lose the French. They were odd about women, those knights of France; even the horror of the Assassins might not prevent them from suffering an attack of chivalry.

She tried to persuade one of the guards to send for Henry, but the men who stood just inside the door, swords drawn, eyes fixed on her as if she could whip out a dagger and stab all four of them to death, were deaf to any words she might speak. Truly: she glimpsed a wad of cotton in the ear of the one nearest. They feared a spell, an enchantment of the voice.

She knew spells of that sort, but it had not occurred to her to use one. She had been sure that she was thinking clearly; now she began to suspect that it was the clarity of shock. She had never expected this, never planned for it, and certainly not foreseen it. Had Elissa known? Maybe she had. If so, her warning had been too late to be of any use.

Sioned knew what Eleanor had done in decades of captivity after she led one rebellion too many against her royal husband. Eleanor, locked away in the castle of Chinon, had studied the arts of sorcery. But Eleanor had not been taken for an Assassin.

She could die. She faced that fact, sitting on the bed in the lamplit room. Her mother’s people claimed no fear of death; it was but a passing from world to world, and in time would come rebirth. But she had lived among Christians long enough to have learned their fear—even knowing that the dead could walk the world, and even speak to those with ears to hear.

There was no sense or reason in the shudders that racked her now. Death might not be terrible, but dying . . . that was another matter.

She pulled herself together. She must think. She was not powerless. Had Conrad done this? Had Eleanor contrived it to be rid of an inconvenience? Or was there another enemy whom
she did not know? Was it Sinan himself? Did he know somehow, as a master of the black arts might know, that she had spied on his councils with Eleanor? Was this his revenge?