Hot Summer's Knight (9 page)

“Odo, I was wondering if I really am married.”

“Of course you’re married.  I was there!  And the rest of the valley.  You stood up next to young Huon in the church, I saw you there myself.”

“But that’s not all there is to marriage, is there.”

“No, Berenice, it isn’t, as well you know.  The sheets were shown to everyone the next morning.  An outdated custom, to be sure, but it serves a purpose.”

“What if I were to tell you that I didn’t…  That we never…”  Berenice felt herself blushing clear to the edge of her headdress.

“You’d have a difficult time convincing anyone.  The sheets, as I recall, told their own story.  Are you telling me it wasn’t your blood?”

“Yes, it was mine, but it wasn’t what you think.  What everyone thought.”

Odo was silent, waiting while she composed herself, seated on her stool once again.

“I want to tell you what happened, Odo.  No-one else knows.  Well, one other person does, but he’s unlikely to tell anyone.”

Odo leaned over, and held one of her small hands in his large ones.

“I’ll listen, little sister.  After all, that’s what I’m here for.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

An unfamiliar feeling permeated Gareth’s entire being.  It was contentment, he realized, even happiness.  After all those long years of bitter hardship, he barely recognized the emotion.  An hour or two in Berenice’s company could wipe away the pain, and bring a smile to his lips.

He remembered how she’d moved above him, his tunic billowing around her in the water.  She’d been frightened at first, he knew, and annoyed with him for forcing the situation upon her.  But when she’d gotten used to it, she’d enjoyed the sensation of floating, and her face had been illuminated by excitement and exhilaration.

Bemused, he walked to the river, rinsed his tunic once again, wrung it out, and hung it to dry.

There was work to be done on the parapets, but it could wait.  Two years as a galley slave had left him with, amongst other things, a strong need for privacy.  He wanted some time to himself, to store up the memories of this interlude with Berenice.  He wanted to go over each moment, and polish it like a gem, and put it away in a corner of his mind.  Later he would be able to take out these memories and relive them.  They would have to last him for the rest of his life.

There was time enough for his laundry to dry.  Still smiling, he stretched out in a patch of dappled shade, and slept.

***

Last night the horses had refused to drink, and again this morning.  Now the smoke and the flames had driven them mad with fear.  Huon’s palfrey reared, and for the first time in many years, he lost his seat.

He stood up, rubbing his rear, in time to see the horse bolt through the melee and leap a burning barricade.

He swore softly and profusely.  It was just one more calamity in a day of calamities.  He still had his armor and his sword, thank God, but his helm had been tied to the pommel.

He wondered what else could go wrong.  They’d stopped here in the heat of the day, in the miserly shadow of the mountain the Saracens called Karnehatin, the Horns of Hattin.  Why they’d stopped, he didn’t know.  They were only four miles from Tiberius, and safety.  Now they were surrounded by Saracens and fire.

The fires burned dry bushes and green wood; when the flames didn’t scorch, the smoke blinded and choked.  Great urns of fresh water had been brought up to the battlefield, and the Saracens had taunted the Christians while they poured the precious water out onto the sand.

Huon searched the rabble for his men.  When he was knighted, and later, when the old Lord of Freycinet had acknowledged Huon as his heir, he’d sworn to protect his small band of vassals, just as they’d sworn to serve him.  He’d known them all since they were boys together at the king’s court:  Matthieu, of royal blood, but on the distaff side; Ralph the poet; Otto, whose mother was a Danish princess; Reynard the hunter; Luc, the quiet one; Rinaldo, the son of the Pisan ambassador; and Gordon the Scot, with his flaming red hair.  Huon knew they’d stay together, a well trained, tightly knit band, but they’d rely on him to lead them.

He cursed the palfrey again.

The Saracens fired arrows through the smoke.  Men writhed on the sand, clutching wounds, some screaming.

Still he searched.

From his right, a man came running, his visor down, his sword raised.  In an action faster than thought, Huon reached for his own weapon.  The stranger almost met an untimely end, until Huon realized he was a Frank, not a Saracen, and he was aiming for a point beyond Huon’s right shoulder.

Huon spun in time to see the stranger’s sword dispatch a white robed Saracen with lethal efficiency.

“My thanks, kind sir, I owe you my life,” said Huon, bowing briefly to the stranger.

“Think nothing of it, my Lord.”  The stranger bowed in his turn.

It was hardly the time for formal introductions.  Huon tried to make out the insignia on the stranger’s shield.  He couldn’t.  The shield was unadorned.

“May I ask one more favor of you?” said Huon.

“Of course, my Lord.”  The stranger wiped his sword on the dead Saracen’s garments.  He didn’t bother to sheath it.

“Have you come across the men of the Compagnie de Freycinet anywhere in this madness?”

“De Freycinet did you say?  No, I fear not.”

They searched together, fighting as they went, the stranger always to Huon’s left.  They slashed at the wraith-like, white robed Saracens, who wore their head scarves over their faces to keep out the smoke.  The Saracens were not heavily armored like the Franks.  To Huon it was like slashing at ripe wheat in a field, except  the wheat screamed and bled and fought back.

Eventually, they found the Compagnie.

Luc and Ralph had lasted the longest.  They looked as though they’d been trying to protect the others, and both their bodies were a mass of wounds.  The others were behind them, in a rough barricade made of discarded equipment and supplies.  Gordon hadn’t a mark on his body, but the shaft of an arrow protruded from one eye.  Rinaldo’s entrails stained the desert sand; his eyes were wide with shock.  Otto had taken a blow that had almost severed his arm, and he’d leaned back against the others, almost as though he were sleeping, only his head was barely attached to his body.  And Matthieu, the youngest, the one who had a jest for every occasion, had an arrow in his neck, and another at the join of his breastplate. 

“No!” bellowed Huon, and whirled away from the terrible sight.

There was a flash of steel, and agony as his face was sliced open to the bone.  Then nothing.

***

Gareth dragged himself out of the dream.  For eight years he’d relived that battle.  At the beginning, it had been every night.  Now it was usually only once or twice each week, sometimes even less.  This was the first time the dream had come since he’d been back in Freycinet.

Waking was accompanied by all the usual emotions.  He’d been absent when the men of his company had been attacked; he’d failed to protect them.  Disgust and self-loathing inundated him.

He would never understand why God had let him live.

By an effort of will, he pulled himself out of the quagmire of sleep.  Sometimes, when he woke, he would vomit until his stomach was empty.

This time was different.  This time, for a moment, he wondered whether the ghosts of his men had come back to haunt him, to extract their revenge for his desertion.  He could feel their cool fingers sliding over his body.  Moist lips brushed him, and sucked at him.  Fingernails like tiny daggers scratched his skin.  Sharp little teeth nibbled his flesh.

Gareth lay, every sense alert.  Small, strong hands stroked his body.  Lips teased his nipples, and nuzzled his neck.  One hand slid lower, exploring beneath the cloth he’d tied around his loins to preserve Berenice’s modesty.  Long hair swept across his face and chest.

This woman – it had to be woman, a man would have made sure he never woke again - this woman’s odor was sour, a rank undercurrent beneath a flood of cheap scent.

He kept his breathing steady, and opened his eyes a little.  The hair was a brassy gold, and the breasts dangling in his sight were lush and full.

“Hmm, troubadour, awake at last,” the girl purred, “a pity more of you isn’t awake.  Do you not care for my caresses?”

“Jessamine, stop that,” said Gareth, sitting up suddenly and spilling the girl in a heap on the grass, “and fix your dress.”

“Gareth,” she sulked, “That’s no the way to treat a lady!”

“You’re no lady, Jessamine.  No lady would think of behaving the way you just did.”

“Well, aren’t you the high and mighty one today!  You can’t fool me, I saw the way you looked at me when we arrived in this hovel,” she leaned against him, stroking his chest again, toying with dark hair that grew there, “I know what’s on your mind.”

“Do you just.  Then it won’t be a surprise to you that I have to get back to the castle.  Sir William’s expecting me.”

“No time for a little fun?”  She leaned back a little, her breasts almost escaping from the loosened neckline of her shift.

“My apologies, Jessamine, you’re not my idea of fun.”  Gareth gathered up his belongings, and strode off through the woods without saying another word.

He pulled on his clean tunic as he walked back down the path to the castle, his thoughts chasing each other like chickens trying to escape a fox.

The Hattin dream always left him in a foul temper.  He wanted to retrieve his sword and hack away at a practice dummy, or better still, a human opponent with enough skill and an even enough temper to let him work off his evil mood.  For a minute, he contemplated asking William if he would agree to a bout, and then he dismissed the thought.  It would be too dangerous.  Too many people would notice if he and William looked as though they were trying to kill each other, and word might get back to Berenice, not to mention further afield.

Not for the first time, he pondered God’s strange sense of humor.  A woman such as Jessamine had come panting to his side, while he dared not touch his own wife.

Jessamine.  He could still smell her cheap perfume.  He wished he’d had time to bathe again, but he’d promised William they’d have a look at the ramparts, and he could tell from the sun he was probably late already.  He’d watched her ride through the gates with her family, and had known she’d be trouble; that sort of woman always was.  He wondered if an innocent like Berenice would realize just how much strife Jessamine was capable of causing.

His thoughts always returned to Berenice.  The gentle brush of her lips on his check was still with him; Jessamine’s practiced caresses could never erase Berenice’s touch.  He’d loved a memory for eight years, but the more he grew to know Berenice, to appreciate the woman she was now, the more he loved her.  He wouldn’t have thought it was possible.

He remembered his frightened bride of eight years before.  They’d both been so young, Berenice barely sixteen years old.  Although he’d been twenty four, he’d never had a great deal to do with women.  He’d been separated from the mother and sisters he adored at the age of seven, and sent to the king’s court to learn the ways of chivalry.  While the other young men had found willing girls in the village or on the fringes of the court, he’d been more interested in honing his skills in the practice yard.

Perhaps…

What a useless thought.  Perhaps if he’d spent more time finding out what the ladies liked, he wouldn’t have been feeling so inept the night before he was to meet his bride.  And then he wouldn’t have been tempted to drink quite so much wine, either that night, or the next morning on the final leg of the journey.  And then he wouldn’t have fallen over his own feet in front of her.

She’d been so beautiful, standing on the step with the other women behind her.  All the sentimental poetry they’d drummed into his reluctant head hadn’t begun to express the emotion he’d felt when he’d first seen her.

So beautiful, and so proud.  Who could blame her for despising a drunken oaf?  He’d tried to make amends, but the damage had been done, and nothing he did or said was going to change it.

She wouldn’t even look at him, wouldn’t raise her eyes as far as his face.  They’d sat next to each other at the high table every night, shared a cup and a trencher, and her gaze had never rested on more than his hands.  He’d had no idea what to do.

He still didn’t.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Jessamine had seen the way Gareth looked at her when they’d arrived, even if he denied it now.  She’d seen that look in many a man’s eyes, and she knew what it meant.  There had to be another reason why he walked away from her now.

She lay on her back in the long grass, and gazed up at the clear blue sky.  She’d stay here for a while, she decided.  No-one knew where she was, except Gareth, and he wouldn’t tell anyone, because then he’d have to explain why he knew where she was.

That fat old cook would be demanding to know why she wasn’t in the kitchen.  He could scream and shout until he was blue in the face for all she cared.  And the cow of a woman who ran the place treated her more like a serf than the daughter of a master craftsman.

She hated it here.  To make everything even more horrible, the only man worth looking at, the man who’d taken her breath away the first time she’d seen him, had just knocked her back.

She couldn’t believe it.  Never had a man refused her, not in all the years since she’d discovered her power over them.  Men always panted after her, desperate for what she had to offer.

She’d been so pleased when she’d found Gareth asleep on the riverbank, all alone.  He must have found someone else, it was the only possible explanation. 

She’d seen the way he’d followed her with his eyes the day they’d arrived in this godforsaken hole.  She knew that look in a man’s eyes.  He’d wanted her before, she’d swear.

Sighing, she stretched out on the grass, not caring if her skirts rode up around her knees, and her breasts almost escaped from her shift.

She wondered how her father and mother and brother could be content with this existence.  They never looked at the fine lords and ladies her father worked for, and wanted anything else.  They didn’t see the beautiful clothes and the high stepping horses and the big dry beds on cold winter nights, and think maybe they deserved a share too.