Crescendo

by Markland, Anna

  It pained her to hope for a quick release for Georges, but then she would leave Giroux. Longing for a man who abhorred her was hard—and he had not seen the horror of her face. Then his revulsion would be unbearable.

  Georges The Crusader

  Izzy saw little of either Georges or Farah over the course of the next fortnight. Berthold and his men had gone off on a pilgrimage to Mont Saint Michel, promising to return in two months. Robert had told them nothing of his rescue of Dorianne from the famous monastery after Pierre forced her into the nunnery there.

  Izzy had assisted in the management of Domfort Castle, but there was a lot to learn and his head buzzed with ideas and plans. His father had promised him cuttings from the apple orchards at Domfort. Men were already turning the earth in preparation.

  When Georges became too weak to be brought to the Great Hall for meals, Farah fed him in his chamber. At first she collected their food from the kitchens, but Izzy arranged for it to be taken to them by a servant. The less he saw of her, the easier it would be to get her out of his thoughts. She had informed the Montbryces of her intention to travel on to Aragón after Georges’ death.

  Izzy did not know how she spent her time, assuming she kept her patron company. He told himself he did not care, but every night he lay awake for hours, haunted by the vision of her dance. When exhaustion claimed him, he dreamt of suckling her breasts, wrapping her long legs around his hips, inhaling the spicy scent of her jet-black hair. He longed to know her face, thirsted for those elegant fingers to stroke him. Red nails raked his skin. He often awoke in the middle of the night, startled awake by his own growls of desire, the sweat cold on his body—might someone have heard him cry out?

  He hoped for Georges’ death, but dreaded it. Then she would leave. It was for the best, but he wanted to see her face once before she went. Often, unable to get back to sleep, he wandered the darkened hallways of the castle, clad only in shirt and breeches, listening to the creaks and groans of an unfamiliar stone edifice. Would Giroux ever feel like home?

  One night, the squeak of a door hinge further down the hallway alerted him to the presence of another coming from Georges’ chamber, he was sure. His heart hammered when he heard the swish of fabric on stone. A faint trace of Farah’s perfume hung in the air.

  She would be alarmed if she bumped into him in the dark on her way back from tending her patron. “Milady?” he whispered loudly.

  Her footsteps stilled.

  He peered into the shadows. She was a ghost pressed against the wall, her face turned from him. It was too dark to see clearly but he sensed she wore no veil. He took a step towards her.

  She held out a defensive hand. “Come no closer.”

  Even in the dark he repulsed her. He swallowed his anger. “Don’t be afraid. It’s only me, Izzy.”

  There was a moment or two of silence. “Izzy?”

  He chuckled. “Gerwint Isembart. Everyone calls me Izzy. I prefer it.”

  Was she smiling? What did her smile look like?

  “Izzy,” she murmured, her sultry voice igniting flames of desire. He took another step closer.

  She put one hand to her face, but did not try to flee. “Please, come no closer—Izzy.”

  He raked his hand through his hair. “I will not harm you, Farah. You have naught to fear from me.”

  “I do not fear you,” she whispered, “but my presence here is a burden for you.”

  They stood in the darkened hallway for long minutes in silence. Izzy’s mind whirled. He might never have another chance to see her face. Why was he plagued with this obsession? “You are not a burden, Farah. You are a beautiful woman. Why do you hide your face? Is it forbidden to look upon you? Berthold claims you are not an infidel.”

  Her sharp intake of breath was audible. Was it a sob? He took another step. She covered her face with both hands. “I am a Christian. It is not forbidden to look upon me—only abhorrent.”

  Ice seeped into Izzy’s veins. Abhorrent? How often he had used the same word to describe himself. “I do not understand.”

  Her voice was bitter. “I cover my face for the same reason you cover your hands.”

  He took a step back, dread coiling in his gut. She was disfigured. Emotions warred within him. What if he looked upon her face and felt revulsion? He knew the utter despair of such rejection. He would not inflict it on her. “I will trouble you no further,” he rasped. “Goodnight.”

  He turned away and forced his legs to carry him back to his chamber, cursing himself for a coward as well as a fool.

  * * *

  Farah’s knees buckled and she crumpled to a heap on the cold stone floor. She heard the door of Izzy’s chamber close and her heart closed with it. Izzy! Such a name for a warrior. Why did he insist on seeing her face? Because he lusted after her. She had seen it before. Men intrigued by her eyes, by the fact she was veiled—unattainable.

  She had sensed, hoped, he was different. He was a man whose pain she ached to ease with her gift. But the idea of a disfigured woman had repulsed him.

  Sharing her gift of healing brought intense pain, but she could have borne it for him.

  She slumped against the wall and fell into a fitful doze, haunted by the nightmare of the long ago voyage from Morocco to the Holy Land.

  The storm was terrifying in its intensity for a child of ten. The mast cracked and fell, pinning their new master, ad-Daula, to the deck. The crew despaired, gripped by panic.

  Without warning, a calm awareness of power stole over her. Ad-Daula was close to death. Rain lashed the deck. Unafraid, she knelt at his side and placed her small hands on his broken body. Intense pain shook her to the core, but she did not scream. Flashes of lightning illuminated desperate faces as all eyes gazed in disbelief at the kneeling child taking their master’s pain into her body. Hands reached out to touch her; some scrambled to kiss the hem of her robe.

  She awoke, distraught that she’d fallen asleep in the hallway. She hurried back to her chamber, trying to recall what had happened next, but it remained a blur. She had awakened two days after the storm in a soft bed in the harem. Her mother was bathing her forehead, cooing words of endearment. Ad-Daula had recovered and declared Farah and her mother untouchable. She was revered from that day forth as a miraculous healer and allowed to study the treatises of al-Kindi, the great Islamic physician, under the tutelage of ad-Daula’s doctor. She was a child of ten, but they recognized her ability to learn.

  After the fall of Jerusalem, it was a boon from God that most of ad-Daula’s library survived the siege and been safeguarded by the crusaders. Georges had secured access for her to continue her studies, arguing on her behalf that great healers were to be prized and encouraged. Raymond Saint Gilles had concurred.

  If only she knew how to heal the crippling resentment of her disfigurement. Although she had saved his life, ad-Daula turned against her. His sword would have inflicted greater pain but for the arrival on the bloody scene of Georges de Giroux.

  She accepted and welcomed the aid of servants from the castle, but took on most of her patron’s care. It cheered her that many of the older servants remembered Georges fondly, and she learned much about the horrors he and his brothers endured under the tyranny of their father’s madness.

  She cared for the crusader not only because he had saved her life, but also in memory of the love he had lavished on her mother, María Catalina Tarazona, though the Norman accepted she had never stopped loving Sancho Ramírez.

  Her nightmares came less frequently now, but Farah often relived the horror of the last day in the harem. The enslaved women were kept ignorant of the state of the siege of Jerusalem, but everyone sensed the impending fall of the city. The eunuchs guarding them held their shoulders more rigidly, their eyes darting about warily. Sweat sheened their bodies; fewer and fewer took up their post each day. The stench of burning flesh was sickening. The sumptuous meals usually brought to the seraglio were a memory. Favorites returned from ad-Daula’s bed bruised and we
eping.

  Quiet desperation hung in the air. If the city fell, every woman knew ad-Daula would not leave even one of them alive. Better to die at the hands of their master than to be raped or tortured by invading infidel crusaders.

  The morning the Governor of Jerusalem appeared with his remaining eunuchs, their weapons drawn, the women clung to each other, wailing softly. María Catalina hurriedly pushed Farah into a corner and concealed her behind her own body. The eunuchs methodically scythed their way through the crowd of kneeling women, beheading one after another with a single stroke, like straw-filled dummies in the training yards.

  Farah could not see what was happening. She covered her ears to shut out the screams for Allah’s mercy. She pressed her face to her mother’s back and felt the cold sweat of her fear.

  María Catalina later told her that ad-Daula had watched impassively, his gaze fixed on the untouchables. It was only when foreign voices and the metallic sound of sword on sword reached his ears that his attention wavered. María Catalina seized the moment to push Farah towards the entry gates. “Corre!” she urged.

  “Mamá,” Farah screamed, trying in vain to make her legs work. She looked from her mother to her Master and knew she looked into the eyes of El Diablo. Gone was the gratitude she had seen on his face when she had healed him. Now murder glowed in his eyes.

  He strode towards Farah, taunting her with his curved blade, calling her a Spanish harlot, blaming her for his defeat. Her mother lunged at him, but not before the point of the shamshir had torn into Farah’s face. She put her hand to the wound, but blood gushed between her fingers. She fell to her knees, choking on fear. María Catalina screamed. Ad-Daula raised his sword, but suddenly fell forward, collapsing on top of Farah’s mother with an eerie gurgling sound.

  Shaking uncontrollably, unable to comprehend what had happened, Farah looked up into the eyes of a tall crusader who held a huge broadsword in both hands. He had brought the hilt down on ad-Daula’s head. Terror washed over her. The warrior intended to cleave her in two with his sword.

  Her mother, pinned beneath ad-Daula’s weight, screamed pleas for mercy in Spanish, explaining frantically they were Christians. The Crusader lowered the sword, wrested the shamshir from the Arab’s death grip and kicked him off her mother. He said something in a language Farah did not understand, but his voice was kind. An enormous wave of relief swept her into oblivion.

  Scars

  Two days later, Georges de Giroux died peacefully in his sleep. Farah wept for him. She sent word to Izzy de Montbryce who came at once to the chamber where Georges lay. He paused on the threshold. “He is gone?”

  She didn’t rise from where she knelt, but turned to look at him. He was a fine looking man, this troubled Norman, all lean muscle. He felt her pain, she knew. Grief stole her voice. The one person left in the world who cared for her was gone. Lost to dementia for months, he was still a link to her mother. Now there was only Berthold, who had his own reasons for desiring her return to Aragón.

  She turned back to rest her forehead on the edge of Georges’ bed, then stiffened when she felt Izzy’s presence behind her. His masculine scent filled her nostrils. He touched her shoulder. His pain sliced through her and the room tilted. She grasped his hand, but he withdrew it abruptly as if she had burned him. The pain left her.

  “I am sorry,” he rasped, apparently unaware of what had passed between them. “I know you loved him.”

  Farah vaguely heard the sound of his voice, but euphoria filled her. She still had the gift of healing. She had tried and failed to heal others since ad-Daula. The pain that had racked her body when Izzy touched her was a reassurance that she could help him. An inexplicable bond existed between them, a healing bond. She had never understood why she had been given the power to heal ad-Daula, a man she hated and feared. Perhaps Fate had taken a hand to protect her from violation. But the link between her and Izzy had been strong from the moment she set eyes on him.

  She pressed her hands to the mattress and rose, turning to face him. “I can help you.”

  Izzy looked at her outstretched hands and frowned, backing away. “Help me?”

  She walked towards him, but he retreated until his back was against the door.

  “You need not fear me. Give me your hands.”

  * * *

  Izzy did not understand why, but he closed his eyes and held out his aching hands. Farah carefully peeled off his gloves. Her warmth seeped into him as she took hold of his hands. He heard her sharp intake of breath. His pain drained away.

  He groaned and opened his eyes to exclaim his exultation, but the cry died in his throat. Farah’s eyes betrayed her agony. She shook with the pain she had taken into her body—his pain. He didn’t know how such a thing was possible, but it was unacceptable.

  “Non!”

  He tore his hands from her grasp. She collapsed to the floor in a dead faint.

  He fell to one knee, scooped her up, and hurried to her chamber. Exotic aromas assaulted him—cinnamon, ginger, and others he did not recognize. She must have brought spices and perfumes from the Holy Land. No wonder there had been so much sweet-smelling baggage.

  He laid her carefully on the bed, took hold of her frozen hands, and touched them to his face. His pain did not return though he rubbed her hands vigorously. “Farah, wake up, wake up. Don’t leave me.”

  He raised his knee to the bed, cocked his head and put his ear close to the veil, dreading she had stopped breathing. The rise and fall of her chest reassured him. She slept peacefully, pain no longer her enemy. He turned his face to look at her, his nose close to the veil. Sweat broke out on his brow. He licked his lips. She would never know if—

  He sat back on his haunches, wiping his hands on his leggings. He filled his lungs with the spiced air then held his breath. Taking hold of the edge of the delicate veil with his clumsy fingers, he lifted it away from her face.

  A river of fire flowed through his veins as he gazed at the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her eyes were already etched on his memory, but her sensuous full lips begged for his kisses. The proud nose spoke of her noble Spanish blood. He flicked his tongue, imagining he licked the tiny heart-shaped birthmark at the hollow of her throat. Her high cheekbones were flushed like two red apples. Her skin was flawless, except for a thin jagged scar from temple to chin. An urge to kill whoever had marred this stunning face welled up in his throat.

  He held his gnarled fingertip close to her temple and slowly traced the length of the scar, without touching, but feeling the pain it must have caused. A desire to taste her overwhelmed him. Bracing his hands on the bed, he loomed over her and let his tongue wander along the wound, finally exhaling.

  His heart skipped a beat when he tasted a salty tear. Her eyes remained closed, but she had awakened. He scrambled off the bed and hurriedly left the chamber, ashamed once again of his utter cowardice.

  * * *

  The sound of Izzy’s retreating footsteps broke Farah’s heart. Her disfigurement had so disgusted him he could not remain in the same room. She opened her eyes, but tears blurred her vision. She turned over and buried her face in the linens. Had he understood what she had done for him? He had not thanked her for easing his pain. Now he knew the truth of her ugliness, she need no longer hide behind the veil.

  When there were no tears left, she wiped her eyes on the corner of the linens and slid from the bed. The Master had no doubt gone to make preparations for Georges’ funeral. He would likely want the old man buried quickly. The body must be cleansed and properly dressed.

  Her mind numb, she fumbled around in her stores for the fragrant oils brought from faraway lands. Clutching the vials, she stepped out into the hallway and spoke to a passing maidservant. “Milord Georges has died. Please see that hot water is brought to his chamber, so I may prepare his body for burial.”

  The girl did not seem to know her. She had left off the veil! The maidservant’s eyes were fixed on the scar. Farah squared her shoulders. “Quic
kly, now. Be off with you.”

  The girl closed her mouth and hastened away.

  Farah took a deep breath, but had to pause on the threshold of Georges’ chamber. He looked insignificant in the huge bed. At least he had died at home, though this strange castle had not been his home for many a year. Perhaps the ghosts of hatreds past would haunt this place forever. A yearning for the beleaguered Master swept over her. She would never forget him. The feel of his tongue on her flesh would remain burned in her memory forever, but she didn’t understand why he had licked her.

  As she carefully washed and anointed the withered body of her Patron, she pondered the man who preoccupied her. He had seen her scar, so there was no reason to avoid him. The moon would wax and wane before Berthold’s return. There was time enough to use her gifts and the precious medicinals to help Izzy de Montbryce, whether he welcomed it or not.

  * * *

  Seeing to the arrangements for Georges’ interment had kept Izzy occupied and his mind off Farah. He had delayed his return to the old man’s chamber long enough. Farah had no doubt prepared the body, but he should be dressed in his knight’s garb and strong arms would be needed to lift him onto the litter. He took Steward Aubin and three other men with him.

  He tapped on the closed door, but received no invitation to enter. He hesitated for a moment, aware of the curious eyes of the men behind him. He cleared his throat and opened the door slowly.

  The air was laden with the smell of beeswax. Farah knelt beside the bed. The flickering light from a dozen candles burnished her hair, unbound and adorned only by a large red jewel fastened over her ear. She wore her dance costume.