by Judith Tarr
This time, she supposed, he had cause. Of course the Assassin would have waited to make her entrance until she could draw every eye. Shameless though she could be when it pleased her fancy, running about dressed like a boy, on high occasions she was always the perfect Muslim lady: wrapped, swathed, and muffled in veils. Only her hands were visible, white and slender, and her cat-green eyes. No one in the High Court had ever knowingly seen her face, though once, and only once, they had come close to it: the first time she went before them and claimed Aidan for her own. But then she had had her back to them, and only King Baldwin had seen what there was to see, and he was years dead. They told tales of her, exactly as she intended. That she was hideous, or hideously scarred. That she was unbearably beautiful. That she had a demon’s fangs, or a cloven hoof. They never matched the green-eyed Saracen eunuch who was often in the prince’s company, with the mysterious lady of the Assassins.
Her lover’s brother greeted her as a king should, with royal courtesy. Joanna did not hear what she said, but Gwydion’s response was clear enough. He was as smitten with her as all the rest of them, snared by eyes and hands and a low pure voice.
Joanna did not hate her. Oh, no. Joanna was merely jealous of everything that she was. Beautiful—because she was that; a beauty to break the heart. Clear and witty and wise. Aidan’s, beyond hope of changing it.
He was with her. Joanna had not even seen him move. He had her hand in his. She never leaned or clung: she was a wild thing, and even for him she would not be either soft or pliant. But her eyes on him, even at that distance, were burning-tender. He bent over her, tall beside her Saracen smallness, and said something that made her laugh. The sound was fierce and sweet. Still hand in hand, with the king beside them, they went into the hall.
o0o
The children were not supposed to take part in the feast. It was the nursery for them, and Nurse’s hard eye lest they dirty their clothes, and later they would sing for the king. Ysabel knew she could not stretch the morning’s ruse to cover an afternoon’s absence: Prince Aidan obviously had not given her leave to sit with him, and Nurse knew what Mother wanted. Ysabel thought of giving Nurse’s mind a nudge, but she stopped short of it. That was the Sin, Aidan had taught her. Tricks and sleights were one thing; at worst, one got one’s behind paddled, and that was that. Mind-twisting was ugly, a devil’s trick. It smirched the magic, and took all the beauty out of it.
Still, it was sorely tempting. Mariam and Lisabet were little better than babies; all they wanted to do was play with their dolls. Baudouin, the youngest, was asleep with his thumb in his mouth. William was a page; like Aimery, he was judged worthy to serve in the hall.
It was not fair. William, at seven, could wait on the king. Ysabel would be ten on the Feast of the Conquest, and she was shut up with the babies. Help Nurse look after them, Mother said.
As if Nurse ever needed help. Ysabel glowered at the piece she was supposed to be embroidering, and thought of setting it on fire. The needle seared her fingers. She yelped and dropped it. Nurse thought she had pricked herself. Nurse was adept at thinking round the humanly impossible. Not at all like Dura. Dura was mute, and Mother’s. She saw everything, and understood it, the way cats did, under her skin.
Ysabel thought of going to find her. Nurse might not object to that, with all the others to occupy her.
Mariam and Lisabet began to quarrel. This was a hotter fight than most: it came rapidly to blows. Nurse sprang into the fray.
Ysabel took a bare instant to take it in, and to thank Blessed Mother Mary for it. Then she was gone.
o0o
The hall was full to bursting, between her father’s people and her uncle’s and now the Rhiyanan king’s, and such of the pope’s men as had not gone to keep the bishop company. All of Aidan’s mamluks were there, though some only pretended to eat. Ysabel, in her favorite spying place behind the phoenix tapestry, watched them watch their prince. He had Morgiana on his right and Elen on his left, and he had never looked as happy as he did now. He dazzled her, he was so splendid.
Ysabel was happy for him. She would have been happier if she had been William or Aimery: stiff and proud in livery, wailing on him and hearing what they all said. She could do that, but she had to listen underneath, and be careful about it. Aidan might not care if he noticed, but Morgiana could be merciless. Though she seemed happy enough, these days. Laughing at nothing, dancing for no reason at all. It was all a great deal of fuss for a few words on a parchment; even if they were the lord pope’s.
She did not notice Simeon the Jew anywhere, or his son. She was a little disappointed, though of course they would not eat at a Christian table. The mamluks only did it to be near their lord. She was glad she was a Christian. She could eat anywhere, and never worry about being unclean.
Watching them eat made her hungry. She stood it as long as she could, but her stomach began to growl menacingly. They were not doing anything, after all, but eating and talking of nothing in particular. She left them to it.
Cook roared at her, but let her filch a trencherful of dainties and carry them to the garden. She settled there, well content, with the kitchen cat to keep her company.
She was not surprised when Akiva sat on the other end of the bench. “Have you had anything to eat?” she asked him.
“The king saw to it,” he said. “We have our own cook.”
She nodded. “My uncle’s people have one, too. One of them married her to keep her with them. Or so Dildirim says. He’s getting fat on what she feeds him.”
Akiva grinned. His teeth were white and sharp. Animal teeth. She eyed him sidelong. He stretched, turning his face to the sun. He was not much prettier than she was, with his great hooked nose and his too-big eyes and his pointed chin, but something was starting to change. The way Aidan said she would, when she was older. Like a cygnet turning into a swan.
“It’s warm here,” he said. “My bones like it.”
“Your skin won’t, if you’re not careful.”
“I am.” But he sat up straight again and looked at his hands. They were very white. Hers were whiter, but not by much.
He looked up. She stared back. “Are you the king’s son?” she asked him.
He flushed angrily, but he laughed. “No! Nor his nephew, either.”
It was her turn to flush. “He’s only my uncle by marriage. Grandmother married his sister’s son—Lady Elen’s uncle. After my real grandfather died. Because Mother and her brother needed a father, and she liked him. Very much.”
“Ah,” said Akiva.
Her brows lowered. “I don’t like what you’re thinking.”
“You don’t know what I’m thinking,” he said calmly. “You’re not looking.”
Nor was he about to let her. He was strong. Not as strong as Aidan, but strong enough, and trained. She drew back.
“I’m why my father went to Rhiyana,” Akiva said. “Besides the fact that we’re welcome there, and treated like human people. He’s a wise man, my father. He saw what I was, and he knew that I was his, and my mother’s, too, and yet I wasn’t; I was something else. He’d heard about the king; he thought he might know what to do with me. And so the king did. They’re fast friends now, and not just because of me.”
“I can see that,” said Ysabel. She chewed her lip. He was telling secrets. That was a gift, and it expected a gift in return. But she was not sure she wanted to tell him. He knew the part that was less important. How not? He was like her. She said slowly, “I’ve always known I was different. It never mattered, much. He was always there to help me: my uncle. My—” She tried, but she could not say it. “People don’t know. They count to nine and look at my father—the one who thinks he’s my father. They don’t know to count to eleven, to get one of us. My mother thinks I don’t, either. She thinks I don’t know.” Her hands were fists. “I’m not a bastard. I’m not!”
“I’m not calling you one,” said Akiva.
Ysabel barely heard him. “I am, though, aren�
�t I? Father is Aimery’s father, and William’s and Mariam’s and Lisabet’s and Baudouin’s and the new baby’s. I’m the one Mother lied about. Because she loved someone she shouldn’t have; and still does. And he’s going to marry Morgiana. She says I’m silly, and if I were a Muslim it wouldn’t matter who my father is, because where Allah is, every child is the same.”
“I think I like Morgiana,” Akiva said.
“You don’t like Morgiana. You love her or you hate her. Usually both at once.”
“Morgiana is more absolutely us than any of us. Isn’t she?”
Ysabel blinked. “Well. Yes. Yes, that’s exactly it. There’s no human in her, to take the edges off.”
“She frightens people,” Akiva said.
“Even you?”
He grimaced. “Even me. I tried to slip around a corner and see what she was thinking, and she almost took my thought-finger off. Not even thinking about it, mind. Just swatting me like a fly. I’ve still got the headache.”
“No wonder, if you were that stupid.”
He twitched, offended.
She bit her tongue. If he had been one of her brothers, it would not have mattered. Brothers were for driving wild. But he was certainly not her brother. “I mean,” she said, “nobody tries that with Morgiana twice. Even my uncle had to learn the hard way.”
He accepted the peace offering, after a little thought. He held out his hand. “Friends?” he asked.
She wiped her own hand hastily on her skirt and gave it to him. “Friends,” she said.
o0o
Aidan was well aware of the spy behind the arras. Something would have to be done about her, he reflected, not for the first time. Perhaps if she were granted a woman’s privileges, made a part of everything, given what she persisted in taking: that would put paid to her rebellion.
He would speak to her mother. Which was never as easy as Joanna might think it was. Blessed humanity; it made her blind to what it cost him, to keep the distance he must keep.
She was pregnant again and happy in it, her rich body grown richer with years and childbearing. After the first, which had been bitterly hard, she had settled to it. She bore well, and as easily as a human woman could.
Maybe he had a little to do with that. Some of his magic was in her still, woven with her substance, from a time when she had almost died, and he had given her all the power he had, to make her live.
The one who had almost killed her sat beside him, a faceless figure in swathes of green veils, but under them she was thrumming with joy. Morgiana ran a teasing hand up his thigh. He caught it, twining his fingers with hers. “What, madam! Can’t you wait until the Church hallows it?”
“No,” she said, clear and definite, as Morgiana always was. Even when she doubted, she made no bones about it.
He raised her fingers to his lips. He heard the slight catch of her breath. When they were the most notorious sinners in Outremer, they had been less circumspect by far than they were now, with their wedding before them. It changed things. It made them matter more.
Sometimes they forgot that there was a world outside of them. Aidan woke to it with a guilty start, as he often did of late. People were indulgent. It was a new thing, to be predictable. He did not know that he liked it.
There was a stir at the entrance to the hall. A latecomer, and one of rank, from the magnitude of the flurry. The steward hastened toward the high table and bent to Ranulf’s ear. Aidan eavesdropped shamelessly. “A guest, my lord,” the steward said. “Messire Amalric de Lusignan.”
Ranulf’s expression altered not at all. “Let him in,” he said, “and clear a place for him.”
“At the high table, my lord?”
Ranulf hesitated the merest instant. “Yes,” he said.
Aidan had to admire his aplomb. Ranulf de Mortmain would greet the devil himself with quiet courtesy and offer him a place at his table.
Messire Amalric was hardly as illustrious a personage as that. Merely the brother of Jerusalem’s upstart king, and Constable of the kingdom in his own right, and no friend to the house of Mortmain. Ranulf, like any other baron with a brain in his head, had resisted Guy’s regency when the child king was alive, and stood with the Count of Tripoli: firmly enough that his eldest son was Raymond’s page, and soon to be made his squire.
Amalric had gall, Aidan granted him that. He advanced as calmly as if this were a friend’s hall and he an invited guest. His eyes scanned their faces, flickering from Aidan to Gwydion and back again. For a moment he was hard put to choose; but he, unlike his brother, was no fool. He bowed to the Rhiyanan king and said clearly, “I bring you greetings, my lord of Rhiyana, in the name of my lord of Jerusalem. He regrets that he cannot greet you in his own person; he begs your indulgence.”
It was all perfectly correct, and deeply, subtly insolent. Gwydion, who had known all the nuances of insult when this pup’s father was in swaddling bands, inclined his head a precise degree.
Aidan spoke for him with rich pleasure. “My lord of Rhiyana accepts the apologies of the lord from Lusignan. Is he, perhaps, indisposed?”
“A slight fever,” said Amalric easily, keeping his eyes on Gwydion, betraying no anger at the title which Aidan gave his brother. “No cause for alarm.”
Or, his mind said clearly, for joy. He was a jarring presence to such senses as Aidan’s: plain forgettable face, clever eyes, mind darting from thought to thought with dizzying quickness. He relished this game of kings, and the spice of fear that was in it.
Aidan preferred a good clean battle. He raised his cup and drank rather more deeply than might have been wise; not that it could befuddle him as it would a human man.
“We hope,” Gwydion said to Amalric, “that your brother recovers swiftly from his indisposition. A kingdom is never well served when its king is ill.”
Amalric crossed himself piously. “Your majesty is kind. My brother would be pleased to speak with you when you come to Jerusalem; and the lovely lady”—he bowed to Elen—”perhaps would consent to bear the queen company.”
“It would be my pleasure,” said Elen, coolly and flawlessly courteous.
Aidan smiled to himself. The hoyden had grown into a great lady. Maybe, after all, there was hope for Ysabel.
He was pleased enough, almost, not to mind that Amalric accepted the place which had been made for him; even though it was beside Elen. Joanna was on his other side, and she was well able to keep him in hand.
He seemed content to be the skeleton at the feast; he essayed no further insolence, nor played any game that Aidan could discern, unless this was all of it: to be here, and welcomed, and accorded courtesy. Aidan put him out of mind. Let him bear the tale to his fool of a brother. They did nothing here that was not perfectly proper. Even Guy might be capable of comprehending that.
o0o
Elen was glad when the feast was over. Bred as she was to courts, she had no fear of great gatherings and the dance of thrust and parry which was conversation in their midst, but even royal blood could grow weary of it. And she was more than weary. She was wrung dry.
Riquier had been no great marvel of a husband. She was given to him at fourteen, to seal an alliance which her father reckoned indispensable. She gave him three children, none of which lived past infancy. Now he was dead, and she shocked herself. She grieved for him. She wanted him back.
Sometimes she wondered if Gwydion truly understood, or if he had brought her with him simply because she asked. That too had been a shock: how keenly she wanted to be away from any place which reminded her of Riquier. Rome was almost good enough. Outremer might even heal her. They said it could, if a pilgrim’s heart was pure.
She grimaced as her maid undressed her in the room which the two of them must share. It was an eastern room, not large but airy and cool, with a door that opened on the garden. This part of the house, Lady Joanna had said when she showed Elen to it, had been the harem when Acre was a Saracen city. It was not a gilded and scented prison, as she might hav
e imagined. It was merely separate, and quiet.
Quite unlike her heart, or her unruly body. Whatever Riquier’s shortcomings, he had been a skilled and frequent lover; and she had learned to be his match. The fall that killed him was quick, and therefore merciful, and of that she was glad. But she could not forgive him for abandoning her.
Someone rapped lightly at the door. Joanna, casting a shrewd eye over the room and its occupants. Elen flushed, as if that patently human lady could know what she was thinking.
“You’re well?” Joanna asked her. Simple courtesy; there could be no more to it than that. Elen murmured something. The lady nodded, but she did not withdraw. Such a tall woman, and so strong, with a firm-jawed, level-browed face. No beauty, but not ugly, either; handsome in an inescapably Norman fashion. It was hard to believe that her mother was half a Saracen.
Elen spoke before she thought. “Won’t you sit down? Or do you have duties?”
“You were the last of them,” Joanna said, blunt enough, but with a smile in it. She sat down gratefully on a cushion that Elen had seen no visible use for, and leaned against the wall. “Ah. That’s better. I’m run off my feet.”
Elen smiled. “We’d never have guessed it, as cool as you were, and everywhere at once. Were those all your children, who sang to us?”
“Every imp of them,” she said. “And no sour notes, thank Our Lady. It would never have done to have Conrad throwing things in front of the king.”
“Conrad is their tutor?”
“He’s been teaching them to sing. You’d have noticed him: the Viking in the turban.”
Elen most certainly had. “He’s...rather noticeable. Why does he dress like a Saracen?”
“He is one.”
Elen’s disbelief was palpable.
“He’s a mamluk,” Joanna said. “A soldier-slave. They come as children from all over the world; they’re bought by the sultan’s men, and trained as knights are—knights of Islam. Though mamluks from the Rus are rarer than most; usually they’re Turks, or Tartars like the twins. They’re all Aidan’s, that lot, though he set them free.”
