Sword Stone Table

by Sword Stone Table- Old Legends, New Voices (retail) (epub)

  “If you permit me to interview the principals. I assure you of my discretion.”

  The king indicated the antechamber. “Please begin with the queen. I would release her from her confinement as soon as I am able.”

  At first Yusuf thought Arthur a king of great forbearance, but then he caught the bitterness shading the hollows of his face.

  “You have already judged her,” Yusuf said.

  “You have not seen her with my knights.” The king’s expression betrayed his abhorrence for the subject.

  Yusuf brought his training as Qadi to bear. “If she is much admired, surely that is a tribute to the king. You judge your wife’s chastity in the absence of evidence.”

  “It is not a question of chastity. Guinevere is my wife. I have bedded her as I choose.”

  “As you choose? Does the lady have no say?”

  “The queen knows her duty.”

  “If duty is all she finds in your bedchamber, no wonder she thinks to stray.”

  A terrible silence descended. Yusuf cleared his throat. “Do you know the stories of our Prophet?”

  A fleeting surprise crossed the great king’s face. “I know of your desert creed, and I know you claim a kinship to the followers of the Christ. But for us, the old ways are best.”

  Yusuf looked out through the window to gauge the failing of the light. It would be time for the dusk prayer soon.

  “For us, the only way is God’s. I mention our Prophet, may peace and honor embroider his name, because he faced a similar dilemma. His wife was accused of faithlessness, betrayed by the loss of an ornament of her own.”

  The king’s interest was piqued. He crossed his arms over his broad chest, his feet apart as he listened. “A pin?”

  “In the lady Ayesha’s case, a necklace. She slipped from her howdah to search for a necklace whose clasp had come undone. Then, when the caravan she was traveling with departed, she was left behind, on her own. Her absence went unnoticed, but before the caravan could panic, a young soldier of the Prophet’s army found our Noble One’s beloved Ayesha and returned her to her kin.”

  “The lady Ayesha was questioned?”

  “The lady Ayesha was accused,” Yusuf said, grim, “of adulterous behavior. The whispers against his adored caused the Prophet unnecessary grief.”

  “Did her honorable husband doubt her?”

  “Like you, noble king, he took the measured step of waiting for adjudication. In his case, the answer was divine.”

  A flush had risen to the king’s cheeks, the line of his shoulders rigid. “And the divine response?”

  “ ‘Surely those who accuse chaste, unsuspecting, believing women are accursed in this life and in the Hereafter. Their punishment will be tremendous.’ ”

  There was a tinkle of glass in the antechamber. The silent queen had dropped one of her possessions—a trinket, or an object of artifice. Glass glinted on the cold stone floor.

  The king’s arms dropped, and a subtle fatigue eroded the strength in his face. To Yusuf he said, “The whispers will not be silenced by your scripture. I hope you have something more.”

  Yusuf bowed his head. “My lord, the comfort was meant for you, the inquiry for the others.” And when Arthur still looked grave, he added, “You may rely upon the honor of a just and virtuous wife. But leave the matter with me, and I will determine the truth.”

  “You shall have an hour alone.”

  Yusuf held up a hand to prevent the king’s departure.

  “No, my lord, not alone. Protect your wife’s honor at all costs. I would also defend mine. Send a soldier you trust or a member of your wife’s family.”

  Though he knew she was listening, Yusuf did not dare to utter the queen’s name. To take a woman’s name was an act of presumption, an offense against her honor.

  But the king regarded his request with suspicion.

  “You’ve just told me to trust in a virtuous wife.”

  Yusuf spread his hands in wry acknowledgment. “Trust her, but do not allow her honor to be maligned by the whispers of others. Give this gift to your wife.”

  * * *

  —

  In the presence of the queen’s handmaidens, Yusuf questioned the queen. He was amazed by these bone-colored women, with their hair like bedded-down straw and too much of their skin exposed above the bodice of their gowns. To a man used to the concealed graces of the Caliph’s court—to lustrous-lashed women whose gemlike eyes and burnished radiance shone—these pallid maids seemed close to sickness.

  He thought of the edge of a smile caught through a delicate veil. Of the coolness of a woman’s enigmatic expression, of a perfume so subtle that a hint of its fragrance could drive a man to his knees. He thought of his beautiful, dark Lubna, her habitual frown of impatience, and her astonishing eyes—a gazelle captured in flight when he disturbed her attention from her manuscripts.

  This glacial queen with her straw-like locks and forbidding demeanor—how could she have inspired such turmoil? A proud old king defeated, a young lion eager to be tested. She seemed frail, fine boned, and angry. But if he’d been passing judgment on the queen, standing some distance away so as not to tower over her, she had been doing the same. For a time she was silenced by the dark sienna of his skin, by his clustered curls and silky beard, by his foreign manner of dress, the sumptuous coat over his qamisa, the elegant winding of his turban, the carnelian jewel on his hand. The queen’s attendants sighed as they gazed at his face, and he flashed them a white smile. They were pleasant enough in their way.

  The queen was of a different order. She was dressed in a tightly cinched gown whose deep-blue velvet softened the chill of her eyes, her skin freckled, her hair left free to fall to her waist in a careless spiral of curls. The gemstone brooch in the shape of a swan was pinned to her gown between her breasts, catching at the material. An act of defiance from a woman who would not be accused. Yusuf glanced at it once, then, out of respect, he turned his gaze away.

  She did not blush. In a cold, rather clear voice, she asked, “I understand you have been selected to judge the queen of Camelot’s fidelity.”

  How strange that she spoke to him as though removed from herself.

  “You know I am a jurist, then.”

  “Not of any law of Camelot’s.” Such a cool, clean bite to the words, like snowflakes falling on the tongue. He waited, sensing the outraged pride beneath the civil exterior. She bent her head, an effort at courtesy that cost her, the fullness of her mouth drawing tight. “Your name precedes you, my lord. The king’s court is aflutter, eager to catch a glimpse of a fabled Saracen prince. You see the behavior of my ladies.”

  His gaze did not leave her face, though inwardly he knew that, regardless of his origin, she had chosen to call him a Saracen as a mark of her contempt.

  To know us but not know us, he thought.

  “Rather, yours is the fabled court.”

  She glanced past his shoulder to the door through which the king had made his exit. When she looked back at Yusuf, pain had smudged her irises, deepening the icy gray to blue.

  He was beginning to find her interesting, the tension inside her wound tight, a plea beating beneath the surface, though as yet, he could not deduce its source.

  Abruptly she asked, “Are you married, my lord? You spoke of a virtuous wife.”

  His attention sharpened. “I do have an interest, but I have not yet taken a bride.”

  She considered him with a frankness that would be considered discourteous at the court of Seville. This queen was no hesitant maiden. But he saw the strength in the line of her jaw and deduced that she was a woman who knew herself of consequence and was resolved to be heard.

  He sought to conciliate her anger. “This questioning is shameful to you.”

  She raised her chin. “When one has not sinned, there is
no reason for shame.”

  “Still. The whispers must weigh upon you.” He watched her. Examined each nuance of her expression for some sign of unease. Noted the spiteful edge to the coquettish glances of her maids.

  The ice queen was unheeding. “Knowledge of virtue must be its own solace.”

  And now the swift strike of the Andalusi blade. “Is your husband to have no solace, my lady? No refuge from the whispers?”

  The blush-pink cheeks went pale. She sank into her seat, her maids to either side.

  “I care for my husband more than you know.”

  “And Sir Lancelot?”

  Her hands twisted the kerchief in her lap.

  “He…admires me. As do all my husband’s knights. You impugn me without cause.”

  “I merely inquire, my lady. I cast no allegation to trouble a spotless conscience.”

  The pale brows raised, the queen’s expression haughty. But he caught sight of a band of freckles at her throat that struck him as touchingly defenseless.

  “Will you use your Saracen tricks to divine my innocence?”

  Another insult. To throw him off course or offered simply in the manner of ignorance that characterized these Franks?

  “No tricks, my lady. A few questions, that is all.” He returned to the subject of Lancelot. “What form does your knight’s admiration take?”

  “He dedicates his victories to me—he wears my token into battle.”

  Yusuf’s brows drew together. “And your husband permits this?”

  “I had heard some rumor that your customs are enlightened, your women more outspoken. Do I require his permission?”

  The full line of his lips slackened, became richly sensual. “It is not a matter of custom. No wife of mine would be permitted to give another man her token. I would see to it she had no reason to allow her attention to wander.”

  He smiled to himself as a shiver stole over her sun-dappled skin, for the ice queen had cleverly placed herself in the light. Her eyes were a denser blue now, reflecting her inner excitement. A creature of buried sensuality, this queen of knights. The thought of a man asserting his rights unsettled her…and not only for reasons of propriety.

  He ventured further, trying to draw her out. “But as a question of fairness, I would refuse the smallest attention from a woman who was not my wife.”

  “But you may have many wives. A harem, if you choose.”

  The queen’s handmaids gasped at the thought, rosy with titillation. But Yusuf’s attention was riveted on the queen. A smile graced his sculptured lips, the edges raised and distinct.

  He found his heart was racing, his blood heating under her peculiar air of challenge. Beneath the forms of his inquiry, a separate current flowed. “You have fallen prey to rumors. One woman is enough for me, if she is the one my heart desires.”

  “Your heart?” The queen sat up straight. “Forgive me, my lord, but it is rare for a man’s heart to be involved in these calculations.”

  He laughed softly to bury the jibe. “Do you know this firsthand from Lancelot? Is that how he enticed you?”

  He watched her hands curl into fists. For the first time, she dropped her gaze. “I resent this inquisition into my behavior. It is a judgment I have done nothing to deserve.”

  “The innocent have nothing to fear.”

  “They have everything to fear in a court of intrigue and deception.”

  His interest quickened again. “Is that how you name the court of Avalon? Your king’s court? Whence the romantic tales I hear of the knights of Camelot, then?”

  “Men boast of deeds that women do not ask for. Is ours only to linger and praise, hoping for their admiration?”

  “There is virtue in that. Men need praise and soft arms to return to. Otherwise our deeds mean little.”

  “I encourage you, then, to remain idle while others vaunt vainglorious deeds.”

  “Surely you mean glorious, my queen.”

  “Do I? As you are to judge in all matters, why not judge my meaning as well?”

  Very softly he asked her, “You do not enjoy these tributes, my lady? As the rightful due of a queen? You do not encourage them, perhaps? At the court of the Caliph in Seville, the poets vie to recite paeans of devotion to their ladies. Many a veil has fluttered in delight.” Devilment crept into his voice. “Is this not akin to courtly love?”

  The queen’s mouth tightened in reproof. “From what I have heard of the ring songs of Andalucía, your poets have a gift for eroticism, whereas a knight of Camelot may admire no more than the color of my hair.”

  “There can be enticement in such simple things.” He moved closer to the queen and drew a chair across from her, his handsome cloak resettling around the breadth of his shoulders. Her gaze touched upon his jaw, his mouth, the column of his throat, before she turned her head to the side.

  “Are you afraid to look at me for fear I will see the truth?”

  “You said no tricks,” she whispered, catching his eyes again. “You allude to impropriety, yet when I affect reserve, you accuse me of dishonesty.”

  Yusuf shifted his weight in the chair, a loose-limbed, supple movement. A nervous laugh escaped from the maid seated to the queen’s left.

  “Perhaps I wish you to regard me.”

  A subtle alteration in the flow of the current. He saw her breath hitch in her chest, the pulse flutter madly in her throat, further evidence to mull. This cold, narrow-eyed queen was fully awakened to herself and not immune to admiration. But oh, how clever she was! She divined his swift conclusion and hurried to attack.

  “Do you claim to feel no lust when you gaze upon me, Saracen?”

  The title derided him, quashed his pretensions to rank, reduced him to one of a nameless multitude of men, all of them degenerate. How to maneuver this queen to a moment of revelation? He leaned forward. When the handmaids pretended to be flustered by his physical aura, the queen dismissed them, a frown creasing her brow. A new arrangement for the almond-pale dots across her skin, close enough for him to count.

  “I wouldn’t be a man if I didn’t feel lust, but I am in control of my desires,” he said once they were alone. For the moment he chose to ignore the arrangement contrived by the queen, in spite of his warning to the king. There would be something to learn from this clandestine contest.

  “You relieve them in the beds of strumpets, no doubt, as ladies of distinction would dismiss you.”

  “They yield their virtue as readily as others,” he said with a private smile. “But that is not the cure for any man’s desire.”

  “Pray do not play coy.” She flicked a hand at him without looking up. “In this, all men are the same.” An acrid accusation that he would work to unfold before he decided on whether this queen was betrayer or betrayed.

  “My people fast, my lady. I assure you, when a man has eaten or drunk nothing for nigh on sixteen hours, then spends the night in prayer, the cure is more than effective.”

  She proved her quickness again.

  “Then when your holy season is upon you, your knights are weak in body. Any contest against you would result in your defeat. Perhaps I should pass this secret to our knights who are eager to join the crusade.”

  He permitted himself to take offense. “In our holy month, we are strong in spirit.”

  She waited. Played with the embroidered square on her lap. Drummed her graceful fingers on her knee. At last she let herself sigh, her limbs swaying like the branches of an alder in slender capitulation. “You came here to test me and have found me wanting. I will please the king through you, as he desires, if you answer a question of mine.”

  He gave her a courteous bow.

  “This beloved of yours—the woman you would court to put an end to your abstinence, this doe-eyed sorceress of the sands, by what name do you call her?”


  Yusuf laughed out loud. For a moment, the queen seemed transfixed.

  “She is no seductress with undulating hips. She has no slavish desire to please me.”

  “No?” The queen arched a pointed brow.

  “She is rather a determined scholar of the court, tedious in her passion for knowledge. Her greatest pleasure lies in mathematics. She terrifies me at times. Her name is Lubna,” he added. “Though I call her my jewel-flower.”

  “How absurdly romantic!” The bite was back in her voice.

  “Are your knights not so?” His glance was cool, pitying. “I regret that their adoration should be clumsy.”

  She made a sound of pain. “So clumsy that it condemns me.”

  He gave her a sharp look, settling back into his role as judge.

  “How did your pin come to be in Sir Lancelot’s bed?”

  When she said nothing, he let his gaze roam her face freely, searching for signs of tension.

  “You said you would give me an answer.”

  She held her peace, catching her lip between her teeth.

  Another enticement? But he would not be diverted. Time to be bolder, then.

  “Did he steal it from you in a fit of ardor?”

  Silence, jagged and shorn.

  “Did you give it to him?”

  A thin watery film turned her eyes to glass.

  “Did he wrestle it from your body while you lay at your ease in his bed?”

  She stood so abruptly that her chair struck the ground.

  “How dare you say such a thing!” She turned her back to him, her hands trembling at her sides. “Get out! I have no wish to see you again.”

  Yusuf waited, silent as a cat. With no sense of where he was or what he had chosen to do, she turned around again to find him one step closer.

  There were no tears on that pale, proud face—just a wretchedness deep within. And that tiny, hammering pulse, beating hard in her throat.

  “How did you come to miss your pin?” The question was not cold, not kind. Merely introspective.