Crusader's Lady

Chapter Eight

The vast timber-roofed hall echoed with the clank of wine cups and orders shouted to the table servants by the single burly figure at the high table. Hounds lolled on the rush-covered floor, snapping up dropped tidbits of meat and bone. The din was deafening, the sounds so loud and ugly Soraya clapped her hands over her ears. Had these Templar Knights no fine carpets or cushions on which to recline? No timbrels or lutes to calm the soul?

She watched Marc follow a servant to the high table, the holy man at his heels. Both were seated on either side of a heavyset man with sun-coloured hair. Suddenly she stood alone in the great hall that stank of sweat and wine.

‘You there!’ a pimply-faced youth yelled in the Norman tongue. ‘Sit you at the end of the servants’ table.’ He pointed toward the back of the hall where a group of chattering boys sat at a trestle far back in the shadows. Some wore Arab-style tunics and head wraps. Others, younger and bareheaded, wore ragged shirts that hung down over skinny, hose-covered legs.

‘Merci,’ she managed. The air reeked of grease and offal, and as she seated herself on the long bench, her stomach erupted. No one paid her any attention! In the zenana she would have been cosseted with cool cloths and iced sherbet while slaves cleaned the floor. Here, the hounds made quick work of her disgrace.

She sank onto the rough plank bench and lowered her head. God help me to endure this hellish place.

Only the high table was covered with a cloth. The trestle where she sat was bare wood, stained and smelly from previous meals. The other servants were fighting over a haunch of roasted meat, knocking over wine cups and scattering a bowl of sugared nuts across the table.

‘Better get busy, boy, if you want to eat.’ The voice came from a chubby red-headed youth on her left.

She answered in the Norman tongue. ‘I do not wish to eat.’

‘Then you don’t work hard enough,’ spoke a deeper voice at her right. ‘One day of service in this keep and you will beg for scraps.’

‘I am not hungry,’ she protested in a quiet tone.

‘Eat!’ he insisted. ‘Mangez!’

The others took up the cry, like a chant. ‘Mangez…mangez…mangez.’ The noise made her head buzz.

‘Let’s have a look at you.’ The red-haired boy prodded her shoulder. Instinctively she pulled away.

‘O-ho, he’s a shy one! And bony, too,’ he said, pinching her arm.

She jerked free, then leveled her gaze at each of the shouting boys, now rhythmically slapping their palms onto the table top. ‘Mangez…mangez.’

‘I will not.’ Inside she trembled with fear, but she would never let it show. Khalil’s training had taught her such control that she could endure a knife cut without flinching.

‘Oh, aye, you will eat,’ the deep-voiced boy next to her rumbled in her ear. He jabbed her in the ribs with his sharp elbow. ‘Mangez,’ he whispered. ‘Now! Or I will cram it down your throat.’

Marc looked up at the sudden noise at the far end of the hall. Some chant or other at the servants’ table. He scanned the benches until he found Soray, seated between a chunky-looking lad and a half-grown stripling with a mop of silvery hair and a curved back. As he watched, the taller boy jammed his elbow into Soray’s side. Marc’s hand closed into a fist.

The Templar grand master Giles Amaury leaned forward. ‘You were saying, de Valery?’

‘What? Ah, yes, the siege in Jerusalem. It goes badly for both sides. The Christian forces have scant food remaining, and the infidel has none, but he controls the water holes.’

He watched the white-haired lad again drive his elbow into Soray’s side. Soray twisted away, then clenched both fists and rammed them hard into his attacker’s groin. Marc winced. He almost pitied the boy.

The fat one on the other side edged away, then shot one hand out and flicked Soray’s cheek. In the next instant that boy, too, bent groaning over his belly.

The other servants at that table fell silent. Then someone across from Soray reached to fill his wooden wine cup. But instead of drinking…

The grand master tapped Marc’s metal trencher with his eating knife. ‘You are distracted, de Valery.’

Marc jerked. ‘My lord Amaury?’ Out of the corner of his eye he saw Soray deliberately dump his wine cup into the lap of one of the injured lads. God! Small though he was, Soray was both brave and clever; the lad would have made a fine knight.

Giles Amaury paused to catch Marc’s eye. ‘And then that ninny Richard of England cut a swath through the enemy as if he were scything a wheat field. There were Christians among the Muslim ranks, but even so, he cut down every man. Christians!’

Marc sent a covert glance toward the monk on Amaury’s other side. Richard’s head was bowed. The robe-covered arm did not so much as twitch, but the fingers of the extended hand drummed rhythmically against the table covering.

‘True enough,’ Marc said slowly. ‘England’s king may be a better leader than a statesman. But, faced with an ambush of mixed troops, only a fool would stop to separate out the chaff.’

‘The man is dangerous,’ the grand master shot. ‘A fool in fine armour.’

Marc set down his flagon of sweet Cyprus wine with a clunk. ‘Richard may be many things, but he is not a fool.’

The king’s fingers stilled. ‘I think, de Valery, that your young servant needs rescuing from yon table.’

Marc strained his eyes but could see nothing further amiss. ‘I think not. The lad has declawed the lions, both of them.’

Richard’s penetrating blue eyes sought his. ‘Look again.’

It was an order, not a polite request. Marc understood at once. Richard would be private with the Templar grand master.

‘You are right,’ Marc amended. ‘Young Soray looks to be in need of…direction.’ In truth, young Soray had things well in hand, but Marc quickly excused himself and started across the hall toward the servants’ table.

‘De Valery!’ the grand master abruptly called at his back.

Marc halted.

‘I would not wish you to roam freely about this keep. My servant will conduct you to your guest quarters.’

A moment of silence, then the low murmur of voices resumed, the disguised king’s and the grand master’s. What mischief was Richard stirring up now?

A paunchy, grey-haired man in a white surcoat appeared out of the gloom, sidestepping both hounds and refuse without breaking his stride. ‘This way, sir knight. Follow me.’

Marc stopped at the servants’ table and spoke at Soray’s back. ‘Come on, lad. To bed.’

Soray scrambled off the bench, resisting the impulse to throw her arms around her rescuer. ‘Oh, thank you, lord. Thank you!’

‘That tired, are you?’ he said, an edge in his low voice.

‘Oh, no, not tired,’ she blurted. ‘But I have been…quite busy here.’

‘Ah,’ said her knight. ‘Commendable aim you have.’

She gaped up at him. ‘You saw?’

‘I saw.’

Soraya flinched. His world, even the small part of it she had seen, was ugly beyond words, full of rudeness and noise and awful smells. She hated it.

But she did not hate him. On the contrary, she was beginning to like him. He roared and grumbled, but he did not strike. He fed her, warmed her at his fire, protected her from angry merchants…even laughed at her remarks. Apparently he found her acceptable company.

She followed him out of the great hall and up a winding staircase, the stone steps unevenly worn with long use. Up and up it went, curving always to her right. By the second landing, she was so dizzy she feared she would stagger off the edge. Blindly she reached out toward her knight, caught a handful of his tunic and held on.

‘Better than the tail of a horse, is it?’ he said over his shoulder. The amusement she heard in his rough voice made her grin.

‘Much better, lord,’ she said at his back. ‘A horse could never climb such steps as these.’

He chuckled and shortened his steps. ‘But a horse has no need for guest quarters in a Templar keep.’

They both laughed.

On the next landing, the grey-haired man led them down a short hallway, through a wooden door that screeched on rusty hinges and into a small chamber with a single window cut into the stone wall.

‘Here it is, my lord,’ the man puffed. ‘Fine view. See all over the city, you can.’ He surveyed Soraya with a measuring eye. ‘Mind you don’t lean out too far past the shutters, boy. Many a young page has found himself swimming upside down in the moat.’

She stared at the window and fought down a shudder.

‘Anything you be wantin’ from the kitchen my lord?’

‘Hot water and soap,’ de Valery replied.

‘I’ll send it up with a page. Don’t think I can manage this climb more than once a night.’

Water and soap? ‘You would bathe?’ she blurted. Here, in front of her?

‘I would,’ he snapped.

‘Now?’

‘Aye, lad, now,’ he growled with impatience. ‘What better time?’

The old man started for the door. ‘You’ll be wantin’ a large tub for the likes of one tall as yerself. I’ll see to it.’

From the rank smell of bodies in the dining hall, she knew that knights did not bathe often. She caught her lower lip between her teeth. In a few moments de Valery intended to disrobe; as his servant she would be expected to help him shed his garments and then…

She swallowed hard. She had never before seen a full-grown man naked.

‘What ails you, lad? Help me get these boots off.’

She ducked her head and tugged at the spurs and the tarnished buckles on his blackened leather boots.

Chapter Nine

It took seven buckets of steaming water to fill the wooden tub. The last servant, panting from his exertions, set a bowl of soap, a cloth and a towel on the floor next to the tub, and by the time the door closed after him, the knight was shrugging off his tunic.

‘Open the window. I smell like no rose.’

‘Oh, no, lord, you smell just as you should!’ The words spattered out of Soraya’s mouth like sand blown in a wind-storm. ‘You need not bathe at all. You smell…just like a rose. A musky one, like the pink rose my uncle Khalil trained over an—’

‘Enough!’ he roared. He began stripping his legs free of the mail stockings. Soraya looked everywhere but at him, the fireplace set deep in the thick stone wall where lazy flames threw out a flickering light; the simple rope chair upon which he draped his discarded garments.

‘Don’t stand goggling, boy. Give me a hand with this mail and my hauberk.’

Soraya stepped forward. Don’t think. Just do as you must. Three hard tugs and the mail shirt rolled off his torso with a soft crunch. Then she untied the laces of the padded hauberk underneath.

‘The window,’ he reminded, his voice tight.

She swung the shutters as wide as they would go, gulped in the soft, scented night air. Below her, the moat gurgled as if in warning.

She was his servant, but she could not look at him. When she finally gathered her courage and turned back to the knight, he stood before her completely naked. She caught her hand to her mouth.

His body was beautiful, his chest hard-muscled, his waist narrow. His entire form looked lean and hard, as if chiseled out of stone. In spite of herself, her gaze drifted lower, to his battle-scarred thighs. And his…

Oh, my. Her breath whistled in through her teeth. That, too, was handsomely formed.

She looked away. ‘My uncle Khalil has a fine house,’ she stuttered. ‘In Damascus. With fine carpets and hammered silver chests, and the linen always spotless. And—’

‘What on earth are you chattering about?’

‘I was speaking of my uncle’s house,’ she said quickly. She knew she was talking nonsense to a knight who cared nothing about the house in Damascus, but it was all she could think of to distract herself. ‘I had a private bathing pool in my quarters. Heated. I bathed ev—’

‘You had your own quarters, did you?’ he said, his voice sharp. ‘A servant? Huh! You are a skillful liar, boy, but you do not fool me.’

He made a half turn away from her and lifted one bare foot into the tub. She forced her gaze to the floor, inspected the bowl of soap, the linen towel. She heard a splash and a groan of satisfaction, and she could not resist raising her head.

He was leaning back against the edge of the tub, eyes closed, a tired smile on his lips. ‘Start at my neck,’ he said in a drowsy voice.

Soraya went perfectly still. He wanted her to…touch him? Touch the naked flesh of a man?

‘Soray?’ came the grumbly voice. ‘Make haste, lad.’

She knelt quickly beside the tub, reached for the cloth and lifted the bowl of soap. It was runny and smelled of sheep fat. She looked at his chest, at the bulges of muscle, the sprinkling of black hairs around his flat, brown nipples, his bare forearms resting on the tub edge. A peculiar feeling lodged deep in her belly.

‘One moment, lord,’ she murmured. She could not sully his wondrous body with soap such as this. She set the wooden bowl down. Yanking open the leather pouch she carried under her tunic, she poured in half a palmful of aromatic rosemary leaves, then plunged her hand in the mess and squashed the herbs into it. When it smelled fresh and pungent instead of rancid, she scooped up a glob with two fingers and dribbled it onto his bare skin.

‘Ah, smells good,’ he said.

‘So will you within the hour,’ she said without thinking.

‘So I do stink, do I?’ He laughed softly. ‘Small wonder. One Christian legion could flatten an entire army of Saracens just from the stench of our bodies.’

He did not stink. He smelled of sweat and leather, and his breath, when he blew it out, smelled of wine. But he did not stink.

He smelled like a man.

Marc did not open his eyes when the soap drizzled onto his chest. It smelled different, spicy and pleasant. He smiled to himself and began to let his body take its ease. He had managed to get King Richard safely to Cyprus. Also, after months of drinking sour ale, he was tasting good wine. And the soothing attentions of Soray, scrubbing gently at a month’s caked filth, were calming.

He opened his lids. ‘War is a dirty business. A warrior fights not only the enemy, but heat, desert sand, exhaustion, thirst, even hunger, while kings and princes negotiate behind each other’s backs and make secret bargains. Grasping power-seekers, the lot of them.’

‘Saladin is reported to be honest,’ the boy ventured. ‘And chivalrous.’

Marc huffed. ‘Saladin wants to hold Jerusalem at any cost. He is like a patient desert ant—truce or no, he will find a way, through force or chicanery. Or both.’

His servant uttered not one word. The rough cloth traveled back and forth across his chest, and when he leaned forward, it slid up and down his back from neck to tailbone. The lad might be unfamiliar with the ways of knights and armies, but he understood something about bathing. Marc turned one ear toward his bent knee to allow the boy to scrub his scalp and again he closed his eyes.

He was more tired than he had thought. So tired his brain was muddling things together, the scented soap, the sweet, warm air flowing in through the open casement, the feel of a hand other than his own giving attention to his body. It was soothing. Almost caressing.

He sat upright with a groan.

‘What is wrong, lord?’

‘Nothing,’ he grated. ‘Everything. I have been months without a woman.’

The washcloth halted and Soray sat back suddenly.

‘A woman?’

‘Aye. You are too young to know of such things.’

A look passed over his servant’s white face. ‘I have heard that other warriors, Christians, take Saracen women.’

‘Aye. They say such women are soft-skinned and perfumed. And skilled in dancing. And other things.’

‘And are they?’ came a small voice.

‘I would not know, lad. I have never taken one.’

‘Never?’

Marc ignored the question. Now he felt the sharp prick of desire, and it brought another groan from his throat. ‘Come, boy. Hurry it up so the water will still be warm for you.’

The boy’s breath sucked in and again the gliding cloth halted on his shoulder. ‘For me!’

‘You said you bathed, did you not? Or is it just hands and face you wash?’

Marc drew the washing linen out of the boy’s hand and scrubbed his belly and his privates, then his legs and feet. Soray hunched beside the tub, his eyes on the floor.

Marc dunked his head into the tub and came up shaking off the water like a hound. He stood up, turned toward the boy and lifted his arms. Soray stared at the rivulets of water dripping from his hair onto his chest, but the lad did not move.

‘Well, towel me off,’ he barked.

The servant bit his lower lip and began mopping at Marc’s wet skin, careful to touch no lower than Marc’s waist. God, the lad was an innocent.

An irrational feeling of protectiveness washed over him. He must guard the lad from predators until he was old enough to…

Absently he took the linen towel from Soray’s hand and dried his torso, a scar making him think suddenly of his older brother.

‘Henry, my brother…’

Unaware he had spoken aloud, he blinked when Soray softly inquired, ‘What about your brother, lord?’

‘We are very close. We were fostered together, with my father’s older brother in France. Henry won his spurs when he was eighteen, and then he took time to tutor me in the tilt yard. I still bear this scar on my chest from a badly deflected blow. There was lots of blood and Henry laid me down on the grass and wept.’

‘You love your brother,’ Soray said quietly.

‘That I do. I pray nightly that I will see him once again soon, God willing.’

The lad moved away and stood with one hand on the door bar. ‘Shall I fetch a page to empty the tub?’

‘What? No, do not. Use the water, lad. Strip and soak yourself.’

Soraya’s heart skipped once and stumbled to a stop.

Strip herself? ‘I thank you, lord, but… I…’

The knight turned toward the huge curtained bed, and Soraya swore he was hiding a smile. She was dirty and smelly, but… She glanced down at the inviting bathwater. Oh, to soak the filth off her body.

But she dared not. Unless…

She studied the blue damask curtains tied back with a thick red cord, then let her gaze drift to Marc, who was nearing the bed.

‘I wish you a peaceful rest, lord.’ She waited, heard the whisper of the straw mattress as it took his weight.

‘Peaceful it will not be until our friend the holy man is safe in his…monastery.’

Soraya did not reply. Instead, she stood motionless, listening to the knight’s gradually slowing breaths. When air gusted out of his open mouth with a hoarse after-sound, she sneaked a final look at him.

He lay spread-eagled on the fur coverlet, arms flung outward, his mouth sagging open. Asleep, she prayed. She tiptoed forward.