Devil's Bargain (19 page)

It was somewhat belated if so, and rather more blatant than he was known to be. She was hunting far afield. The answer, she had no doubt, was much closer to home.

She was alone but for four heavily armed guards. There were no wards on her, no magical protections: proof that no one here knew or suspected what she was. She must not let them suspect. She must seem as innocent and defenseless as she could.

It was all too easy to sink down weeping. The guards were not visibly moved, but she was not playing for them. She pretended to cry herself to sleep; then when she was still, she called in her arts and powers.

They were slow, reluctant. The aspects of air and fire were leaden, weighted with earth. She could not spread wings, could muster no strength to fly. She had wrought her wards too well, and woven them too tightly into the fabric of this place. It had made them stronger—so strong that they not only protected her against attacks from without; they bound her within, helpless to escape.

She gave way at last, exhausted, having gained nothing. She could not even sleep. She knew that if she tried, her dreams would be full of death and dying.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-ONE

M
ustafa’s hackles had been up since he first passed through the gate of Tyre. He did not like the air of this place. Lady Sioned said that there was no evil here, not in the earth or in the soul of the city, but she could hardly deny that men’s hearts were another matter altogether.

Marquis Conrad had a heart like a blighted tree. There was good in him, surely, as there was in any son of Adam, and he was a strong lord to his people. But the core of him was eaten away with pride and rancor.

Even before his courtesan made her show of warning against him, Mustafa had known that this venture would not end well. Sioned was blind to foresight: her eyes were full of a certain face, and her mind could think of nothing but that lord of Islam. She fancied that she could balance Conrad and the lord Saphadin, cozen one and love the other, and face no danger from either.

But even Mustafa’s premonition had not warned him that the danger was so close, or that it would be so great. Whoever had done this wanted Sioned dead—though whether it was
only Sioned he hated, or whether it was Sioned’s royal brother, Mustafa could not have said.

It tore his heart to leave her in the hands of those cruel guards, but that same heart knew what he should do. She would find no help in Tyre. The lord Henry was not a prisoner, not precisely, but he was being kept from her; nor was he allowed to send messages to his uncle the king. He was still an honored guest, still treated with courtesy, but he no longer had the freedom that he had had before.

Mustafa made a devout and heartfelt prayer to Allah that Conrad would not execute Sioned before he could come back. She had magic, which Conrad did not appear to know, and she was clever and wise. She would defend herself as she could, for as long as she could. Allah willing, it would be long enough.

They had not yet sealed the stables when Mustafa came there, although he heard the captain of guards call out a company to see that no one left the citadel on horseback. His mare was weaving in her stall, little ears flat, cursing the existence of the gelding stabled next to her. He was just out of reach of her heels, which frustrated her to no end.

She would have been delighted to kick Mustafa’s head from his shoulders, but he knew her too well. Her heel met the sting of the switch in his hand; before she could gather herself for a second assault, he was in with her, gripping her collar, and swinging her about until she left off trying to kill him.

Then, changeable creature that she was, she let him feed her a bit of sugar and saddle and bridle her, and lead her docilely out. The greater gates were already guarded, but the postern Mustafa knew of, which was not far from the stable, was deserted. He slipped out unnoticed, even as the stable door boomed shut, locking the horses within.

The marquis had not yet thought to close off the exits of the city. That would require a good part of his army and an excuse to go on a war footing, which he did not have. The danger, he would be thinking, was within the citadel. The malefactor was captured. He would be guarding his person most closely, but the city, for the moment, could fend for itself.

As desperate as Mustafa was to be galloping away from Tyre, he paused in the market for certain small necessities, and a larger one in the form of a bony mare with a wild amber eye like a cat’s and a coat that, under the dirt and neglect, had a peculiar metallic sheen. He did not question the fate that had placed such a horse here when he needed it most; nor did he let the horse dealer see the eagerness in his heart. He would have struck an even harder bargain than he did, if he had not felt the pressing of time, but when he rode out of Tyre with his new purchase on a lead, lean ears flat at the indignity of a pack, he allowed himself the luxury of a smile.

Mustafa’s Berber mare was as fleet as she was fickle. The mare from the market, whose blood had come from plains far away, ran neck and neck with her, with an easy, even contemptuous stride. The horses of the desert were fast, but the golden horses of the steppe could outrun the wind.

It took Mustafa three days to find the lord Saphadin. He had been within a day’s ride of Tyre, but he had moved his forces the day Sioned’s maid was killed. Mustafa found him camped in the hills near Jaffa, on a day of sudden spring.

The place that he had chosen was an oasis of blossoms and of greenery, fed by wells of clean water. It had belonged to the Romans once; there was still an old god watching over the chief of the wells, his bearded face much battered with age and human hostility. That he was still there at all was somewhat of a miracle. Someone had laid a wishing on him long ago, and though much eroded now, it protected him against the zeal of Christian and Muslim alike.

Between Tyre and this camp, Mustafa had put away the garments he wore in that Christian city and returned to the dress of Islam. It was a small thing, but he felt as if he had returned to himself. And yet as he observed the camp from the cover of an outcropping of rock, he did not see a return home.

These were Turks, he told himself, and Kurds, and a few Arabs. He was a Berber. Yet it was more than that. He had become, if not
a Frank, then a dog of the Franks. He was no longer a warrior of Islam.

Inshallah
, he thought: God’s will be done. Or as the Franks would put it,
Deus lo volt.

He went back to the hollow where he had left the horses. The two mares loathed each other and must be tethered well apart, but they declared a truce when he was riding one and leading the other. He made himself as presentable as he could, putting on the new coat he had bought in Tyre, and a clean turban; he tidied the horses, brushed and plaited their manes, and wove blue beads into their forelocks, to make them beautiful and to protect them from ill wishing.

Then he was ready. He mounted the mare from the east and led the Berber mare, driven by an impulse that he could not have explained. She was a slab-sided, snappish, opinionated beast, but her stride had proved surprisingly smooth and her responses unexpectedly light. She did not try to whirl and kick her companion more than twice, on principle, whereupon she settled to her business.

He rode openly down the track to the camp, hands held carefully away from weapons. The guards were alert; they barred his way, but offered no open threat unless he should demand one. “I come from Tyre,” he said to them. “Tell your lord: from the lady in the citadel.”

They looked hard at him. One, catching a glance from the man who must be their leader, trotted off into the camp. The others stood, watchful, saying nothing. Their curiosity was well reined in; but he had expected that. The lord Saphadin kept his men in good discipline.

The messenger came back fairly quickly. “He says come,” the man said. He made as if to take the bridle of the mare whom Mustafa was riding, but the snap of her teeth warned him not to take liberties. He settled for walking somewhat ahead so that Mustafa could follow.

This was no great army. Mustafa reckoned maybe a hundred men: picked troops, the guard that rode with the lord Saphadin on his embassies to the Franks. He was going to Richard, then,
as Mustafa had thought; and that was interesting so soon after he had been near Tyre striking bargains with Conrad.

Saphadin had been practicing his archery: they had set up targets on the edge of the camp, and his bow was strung, although there was no arrow set to the string.

His servant took the bow and unstrung it as Mustafa approached and dismounted and went down in obeisance. Saphadin drew him to his feet, eyeing the eastern mare with considerable interest. “Is that . . . ?”

“A horse of heaven,” Mustafa said. “Yes, I do think so. She leaves the wind behind when she runs.”

“God has favored you,” said Saphadin.

He turned and began to walk. Mustafa followed, leading the two mares. Saphadin went not toward his tent but farther away from the camp. Guards trailed at a discreet distance.

When they were still in sight of the camp but out of earshot of it, Saphadin stopped in a circle of broken stones. Some were of a size and shape to sit on; he took one and with a glance invited Mustafa to do the same. Mustafa tied up the mares’ reins and hobbled them and let them graze on the bits of new grass.

“I hope you will pardon me,” said Saphadin, “for not immediately offering you guest courtesy. That will come, but for this I think perhaps you would prefer that no one hear us.”

“You’re wise, my lord,” Mustafa said. “There’s no telling who might listen, or to whom the words might go. Have you heard any rumors from Tyre?”

“None,” said Saphadin. His face settled into a terrible stillness. “What is it? What has he done to her?”

Mustafa considered circling round to it, but that would only put off the pain. “She’s imprisoned on suspicion of murder.”

Saphadin’s breath hissed between his teeth. “Who? Not Conrad, surely.”

“Rather unfortunately,” said Mustafa, “no.” He told Saphadin what he knew: the woman slain, the slayer who had worn Sioned’s face, the warning Sioned had received even as her maid was dying.

Saphadin heard him in silence, eyes fixed on the sky. Mustafa
might have thought that his mind had drifted far away, but there was something profoundly intent in the way he contemplated the ramparts of clouds that built over the hills.

When Mustafa finished, the silence stretched. The mares were grazing side by side from the same patch of grass—improbable enough that Mustafa was almost alarmed.

He did not break the silence. Saphadin was thinking hard, from the way his brows had drawn together. After a long while he said, “To cast suspicion on her as an Assassin—that’s outrageous, but also it’s clever. People would actually believe it, because it’s so improbable.”

“They do believe it,” Mustafa said. “There have been whispers, you see: that she’s no Christian, that although she shows her face at Mass beside the marquis or the lord Henry, she goes only out of courtesy, and not out of faith. Where would such a whisper have come from, if not from an enemy?”

Saphadin nodded. “An enemy who has sown the seed of suspicion, so that people will believe that a woman from the far corner of the world could have sworn herself in fidelity to the Old Man of the Mountain.”

“Whoever has done this knows too much,” Mustafa said. “He knows what gods she worships, and he knew when she was out of the castle. If he knows what she was doing in the city—”

“I think not,” Saphadin said. “That she went to visit a man, yes, but not who the man was. And that makes me think that it was Conrad who did this. Only he would care so much that she trysted with a man other than himself. It would suit him well to use the name and terror of the Assassins, and to cast that suspicion upon her.”

“But he has no magic,” said Mustafa, “and the witnesses swear that they saw the lady herself commit the murder.”

“Did they? How bright was the light? She showed me how they had painted and prinked her for the court; her face was a mask, which any woman of like size and features could mimic.”

“As closely as that?” Mustafa demanded.

“People see what they wish to see,” said Saphadin, “and hear what they expect to hear. In the dim light of a castle, a clever
woman with a gift for voices could be very convincing—and never need magic at all. I do almost pity her; she was evidence. Conrad would have been sure that she was destroyed.”

“And so will our lady be,” Mustafa said. “I pray God she’s not dead already.”

“She is not,” said Saphadin with such certainty that Mustafa could not say a word. He closed his eyes for a moment and sighed. “No; she is not. I would know. She’s still alive.”

“But for how long?”

“He won’t harm her,” said Saphadin. He rose. “Now come. Be a guest for a little while. Put your heart at rest. Our lady will be safe—you have my word on it.”

Nothing in this world was safe, Mustafa wanted to say, but he could not bring himself to gainsay this lord of Islam. This powerful sorcerer; this man who loved the lady Sioned. “If anyone can set her free, my lord,” he said, “I know it will be you.”

Saphadin’s lips curved in a thin blade of a smile. It was the smile of a tiger, baring his teeth for battle. “In the name of the Merciful and Compassionate, it shall be so.”