Devil's Bargain (40 page)

C
HAPTER
F
ORTY-SIX

R
ichard carried his exaltation back to the Tower of David and the feast of his coronation. Sioned had caught a little of it, a singing gladness that made her laugh at the feeblest jests—and that before she had taken a sip of wine.

She was at the high table with the rest of her kin, and Henry had managed to have himself seated beside her. It was not exactly his proper place—that should have been at Richard’s right hand—but he had argued persuasively that Queen Eleanor should hold that place of honor. Then there was the Patriarch, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Hugh of Burgundy who must at all costs be placated while he led a substantial portion of the army, not to mention the queens Berengaria and Joanna. Henry’s place, as he pointed out, was well down the table, and he was glad to take it.

“Someday,” Sioned said, “your tongue is going to talk you out of your rank and station.”

“Not likely,” Henry said. “I’m going to marry Isabella, did you know? Now the crown’s safe on my uncle’s head, dear Grandmother has decided that it’s time to trundle out the royal bride.”

“You don’t sound unduly cast down after all,” Sioned observed.

He shrugged. “I’ve had time to think, and to stop being a silly child. I don’t like her much. I certainly don’t love her. But that’s a noble’s lot.”

Certainly it was, Sioned thought, and very likely Eleanor had exerted something more than earthly persuasion—though Henry did not seem spellbound. He was the same bright presence as always, and still yearning after her, too. He kept sliding eyes at her as if he could not help himself.

It made her a little sad. If she had been as legitimate as Joanna, with a crown and a royal title, Isabella might not have been preparing for her wedding.

Foolishness. Of course she would have. She was the heiress of Jerusalem; Richard’s interception of the crown did not change that. Any heir that he might sire, supposing he could be brought to do such a thing, would be intended for England and Normandy and Anjou. Jerusalem belonged to Isabella’s children, whoever their father might be.

In the meantime Henry was highly amusing, and Sioned was in a mood to be amused. She almost let herself forget the other side of the table, down toward the end, where a few men in turbans ate food prepared for them by cooks versed in the laws of their faith.

She could feel Ahmad’s presence like sunlight on her skin. He seemed oblivious to her, carrying on a conversation with a youth who resembled him closely, who must be the sultan’s heir, and exchanging occasional banter with one or another of the lords who sat nearest. His French had improved greatly; he had a strong accent still, but he was quite decently fluent.

He mourned his brother—of that there was no question. But he did not hold Richard to account for that. He was gracious in defeat as Richard was in victory; he conducted himself like a guest and not a sullen prisoner. His young nephew, Sioned was interested to note, was following his uncle’s example. He was young enough to sulk mightily if given occasion,
but he had his pride. He would let these Franks see how little their conquest troubled him.

He was very like his uncle. He even—her eyes sharpened. Yes, he had magic. It was young and raw and still discovering itself, but there could be no doubt of it.

That could be interesting. What if—

“Sioned?”

She blinked. She had forgotten where she was, or that Henry was speaking to her. He smiled at her, but his eyes were just a little sharp. “You should go to him,” he said. “Truly, you should.”

She shook her head. “That’s past,” she said. “It’s done.”

He arched a brow. “Oh? Is it? Come now, cousin. You can’t lie to me.”

“Am I lying? What use can there be in pining after him?”

“Maybe a great deal,” Henry said. He took her hand. “You should stop and think, cousin. You’re not usually this dense.”

“What—”

“Think,” said Henry.

Sioned did not see what there was to think about. There was Ahmad, Richard’s prisoner until Richard saw fit to let him go. There was she, Richard’s bastard-born sister, deeply and richly content in Master Judah’s hospital.

And there was their child, waxing in her womb, and she still had not told anyone of it—though Master Judah must know; he had tended her for days in her sickness. That could not continue. Even if she could hide her swelling middle until the child was born, she had no intention of spiriting it away to be raised by strangers. This was her child—her daughter. She would raise it as her mother had raised her: with no need of a father, unless the child herself chose.

She left the feast early. She was tired; that was not a pretense. She had lost her taste for wine, and she was not, after all, in the mood for carousal. Henry insisted that one of his guardsmen escort her back to the hospital, but he stopped that when she
reminded him that she had her own troop of protective spirits. The great jinni himself took the form of a squire in mail, looming formidably at her back as she made her way out of the hall.

Ahmad was waiting near the gate. She had not seen him leave the feast; indeed she could have sworn that when she left, he was deep in conversation with Richard.

At the sight of him her heart stopped. He was leaning against the wall, arms folded, conspicuously at ease.

“You look very comfortable,” she said, “for a captive.”

The corner of his mouth curved upward. “And you look very uncomfortable, for a conqueror,” he said.

She glowered at him. “You know I had nothing to do with—”

“Beloved,” he said. “Are you forgetting? I was there. I know what you did. That was a great theft, as great as any in a story.”

The flush began in her middle, quite near the child, and flowed rapidly upward. “I only did what was necessary.”

“Of course you did,” he said. “I’m to ask if you will come. Your brother wishes to see you.”

“He does?” Sioned made no secret of her disbelief. “With you as his messenger?”

He bowed slightly, regally, but with that same beguiling flicker of a smile. “I am your servant, lady.”

She snorted inelegantly, but her curiosity had roused. A wise woman would have thrust firmly past him and gone back to the hospital to take refuge in her solitary bed. Sioned, who was only intermittently wise, said, “Take me to him.”

Ahmad said nothing as they walked back through the passages of the castle. Sioned’s guard was silent, treading like a cat behind them. She did not venture to guess what Richard wanted. Conversation, probably; she had seen as little of him as of Ahmad, although she had not been avoiding him.

Richard must have slipped out of the hall shortly after Ahmad had. He was in the solar behind it, flushed with wine but clear enough of mind. A page was with him, and Eleanor.

At sight of the queen, Sioned nearly turned on her heel and ran, but she had come too far to turn back now. This was more than a brother desiring a moment of his sister’s company. There was an air of seriousness in them, but there was nothing particularly dark about it.

“Sister!” Richard cried as she hovered in the doorway, leaping up from his chair and pulling her into the room. He insisted that she sit where he had been sitting, and plied her with sherbet made with sugar and citron. She was glad of that, although there was hardly time to savor it.

Richard had welcomed Ahmad, too, although with somewhat less enthusiasm. When they were both seated, Richard stood grinning at them. “Sister,” he said, “this lord of Islam has presented a rather remarkable solution to a dilemma or two of mine: what to do with him, and how to manage relations with the infidels. Mind you I proposed it once, but the lady was anything but willing. It seems I offered the wrong lady.”

Sioned was not quite a hopeless idiot. She knew what Richard was getting at. “He asked to marry me,” she said. Her voice was flat.

Richard’s grin vanished. “Don’t tell me the prospect revolts you, too.”

She ignored him. She fixed Ahmad with her most merciless glare. “Why?”

“It is rather logical,” he said. “Our realm is in massive disarray. Jerusalem is a Frankish kingdom again, under a king who might actually have the wit and the capability to rule it. It’s a time for forging alliances—and for drawing claws, too, if truth be told.”

“Indeed,” said Eleanor, dry as dust on Golgotha. But for her and her spells, Ahmad could have flown out of this place, free as a falcon. He was captive in more than the body, a fact that appeared to dismay him little, but it was inescapable.

He smiled sweetly at his jailer. “Ah yes, my claws are most assuredly drawn. Yet still I am a danger to this fledgling kingship—unless I can be sealed to it with bonds that I have no desire to break.”

“So I’m to be your shackles,” Sioned said. “How long will it take you to resent me?”

“Rather a long time,” he said. “I would say never, but what is certain in this world?”

“Suppose I do this,” she said. “What do I gain from it? I have no dowry, unless you’d count a box of medicines, a gown or two, and an army of the jinn.”

“A rather significant dowry, that last,” he said with a glint of laughter.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Richard said. “I’m giving you more than enough riches to take to a noble husband. Lands, titles, gold, shares in trading ventures—”

“A house,” she said, “in Jerusalem. And a demesne outside of it, with income, and the wherewithal to pay the knight’s fee.”

“Well,” said Richard, “that, too. Hubert Walter’s seeing to it, now he’s found the charters of the old kingdom—God bless the sultan’s clerks, they didn’t touch the archive, though damn the French for trying to burn it before my Normans stopped them.”

“So I’m rich?” she demanded. “I have titles? I can make this choice for myself?”

“Provided you choose him,” Richard said, “yes.”

“And if I don’t, I go back to being Master Judah’s burden? Wasn’t there a promise of payment for a certain service? Did I not perform it?”

“You did perform it,” Richard said. “You’ll get your house. But if you marry this man, it will be a much handsomer one.”

“Did he tell you why he thinks I would marry him? Or even why he wants me?”

Richard scowled. “You’re my sister, aren’t you? You’re a beauty—more than Joanna, if you want the truth. You’re not a queen, but he says he doesn’t want one. He declares that he doesn’t mind that you’re as overeducated as a woman can get, and he thinks your medical skills will be useful. He’s an infidel, but you were never baptized—didn’t think I knew that, did you? He doesn’t object to a pagan, he says, as long as she’s
reasonable about the children. I should think you’d be glad to get him. He insists that he’ll be glad of you.”

“Reasonable,” she said, “about the children. There will be children? And they’re to be Muslims?”

“Would you rather they were pagans?” Richard snapped. “It’s not as if you were half a nun, the way Joanna sometimes seems to be.”

“I would be a wretched nun,” Sioned said. “Now if you were to make me an abbess . . .”

“Don’t tempt me,” said Richard, “or I’ll up and do it.”

“I’d have to be baptized first,” she said, “and all things considered, I think I would rather marry an infidel.”

It took Richard a moment to understand what she had said. Even then, he eyed her narrowly, mistrusting her. “You’re agreeing to it?”

“I think I am,” she said, “provided that he agrees to certain conditions. I will live in Jerusalem; if he wishes to live elsewhere, then I must be free to choose whether to go or to stay. I will not give up my work in the hospital. If he takes another wife after me, he will do it with my consent, and only with my consent. And when it comes to the children, the sons are his to convert to Islam, but the daughters are mine, to raise as I will.”

Richard looked ready to burst out in wrath, but Ahmad’s hearty laughter stopped him short. “Lady! Oh, lady! What glorious conditions. I’m glad to accept them. Delighted. Have you more? I’ll take them all.”

“There is one more,” she said. She stood. They all watched her, even Eleanor, as if she were a force to reckon with. That was a novel sensation; she was not sure if she liked it. But she would have to grow used to it. She had given up her happy anonymity; she was about to become a power, a lady of rank and standing.