Devil's Bargain

by Judith Tarr

  “I believe that Jerusalem should be well and competently ruled by a man who takes his right to rule from me.”

  “If Conrad believed that,” Sioned said, “he would be allying himself with Richard. Nothing that he does is aimed at taking Jerusalem—only at seizing what power he can for himself. He’ll break the Crusade if it serves that cause, and sell Jerusalem to the highest bidder, provided that he wins and keeps the title of king.”

  “Is it your purpose to antagonize me?” Isabella asked.

  Sioned met her stare. “You have eyes to see the truth.”

  “I see,” said Isabella, “that all of you who come from the West, all of you brave warriors of the Crusade, will fight a battle or two, congratulate yourselves for having saved the world, and then sail away, leaving us to face the consequences. If I could be sure that any of you would stay, I would consider an alliance.”

  “Would you convince Conrad to do the same?”

  “I make promises for no one but myself.”

  Sioned bowed to that.

  “And you?” Isabella asked her. “What are you empowered to do? Can you speak with your brother’s voice?”

  “Within reason,” Sioned said, “yes.”

  “If he will undertake to remain in Jerusalem for three years after he takes it,” Isabella said, “and swear to it on holy relics, then I will consider what he has to say.”

  “Only consider it?”

  “I will accept him as an ally,” Isabella said. “Whether my husband will . . . that I can’t promise.”

  “Can you keep him from interfering in the taking of Jerusalem?”

  “I can try,” said Isabella.

  “Will you allow me to try as well?”

  Isabella’s brow lifted. “How far would you go to gain what you wish for?”

  “Not as far as his bed,” Sioned said bluntly.

  Isabella bit her lip, perhaps to suppress a smile. “Try, then. But do nothing to harm him, or I will be forced to declare war on you all.”

  “If he is harmed,” Sioned said, “it will be none of my doing.”

  Isabella accepted that. It seemed she heard no resonance beneath the words.

  Sioned did not know why there should be. But this place affected her strangely. She took her leave without waiting for dismissal: a faux pas if there had been any courtier to see, but there was only Isabella and the silent maid, and Mustafa who cared for nothing but to keep his king’s sister safe.

  Sioned had won nothing tangible—only a promise of a promise. And, which was more immediately useful, the freedom to work such wiles as she had on Conrad.

  She had not asked Isabella to keep secret what had passed between them. It was not her place to ask such a thing, and she had to trust Isabella to do what was wise. Alliances were built on trust. Mistrust only bred enmity.

  Conrad was a notoriously mistrustful man. He slept not only with a dagger under his pillow but with a sword at his side. Wherever he went, he went surrounded by guardsmen. Rumor had it that they were sworn to him by blood oath. Certainly something bound them; Sioned could see it like a thread running from each man to his lord’s hand.

  He was not a sorcerer, nor did he keep one in his court. Like Richard, he was a practical man. He dealt in the things of the flesh, and left matters of magic to those who believed in it. In that he was very like Richard.

  Sioned used none of her own magic to gain his attention. She relied on the arts of her maids with silks and paints, and on an art of her own that, although she had come to it late, was proving to be remarkably easy to practice. A glance, a smile, a tilt of the head—it was like a spell cast on any man she aimed at.

  Conrad did not yield as easily as most, but yield he did. He who was mated to a golden beauty had a predilection for dark and round and small. They called his mistress the Damask Plum; not that Sioned ever saw her, for she was kept at a tactful distance in a house some distance from the citadel, but rumor had a great deal to say of her.

  “You’re more beautiful than she is,” one of the French knights said. He was less given to flattery than some, and more given to gossip, which made him a useful companion. He was not flattering Sioned now, exactly; he was telling her about Conrad’s mistress, how she was descended from the old kings of Tyre. “She has a face from the old carvings: rather more nose than fashion calls for these days, and a great deal of black hair. She’s swarthy—not like you, your skin is cream—and her teeth are very white. She’s witty and reckoned wise. They say she speaks seven languages. I know she sings like a bird.”

  “He likes a witty woman?” Sioned inquired. She was speaking a little these days in the low and dulcet tones that Blanche had enjoined on her—her natural voice, Blanche decreed, was much too crisp and practical to excite a man’s desire.

  “He likes her wit,” Thierry said. “It’s said she’s a pagan—she still worships the old gods. Though I’ve seen her in church; not that I’ve ever seen her cross herself, but she does seem to worship the Lord God like the rest of us.”

  Sioned did not cross herself in church, either. She was more than slightly intrigued by this woman who did not show her face at court. It might be a diversion—she was well aware of that. And yet there were powers here that did not come from any Christian source, nor did they have a flavor of Islam. They were older than either.

  Had Richard known of this woman when he sent Sioned here? Sioned would wager that Eleanor had—and she would wager that Conrad suspected as much. Conrad saw webs within webs.

  Suspicion could be its own worst enemy. She courted Conrad with her eyes and her smile, and with a little wit—not too much; she was saving it for a greater need.

  He was waiting, the sixth morning after she had arrived, with horses and hounds and falcons. The page who had fetched her had bidden her to the hunt—and not in a way that offered her a choice. She might have attempted a refusal, to see what Conrad would do, but she was not ready yet to test his patience with contrariness. Today she would be obedient.

  It was a small hunt. Isabella was not riding with it, nor was Henry. There were half a dozen knights of France and of Outremer, a company of guardsmen, and the falconers: perhaps two dozen all told. She was the only lady; the only woman at all, except for the redoubtable Blanche, who proved to have an excellent seat on a horse.

  Between Blanche and Mustafa, Sioned felt rather well guarded. The riding clothes that had been inflicted upon her were somewhat more suited for looks than for use, but they would do. The same could be said of the mild-mannered little hawk which she was not even to carry on her own fist; a young falconer carried it for her.

  She was not here for her own pleasure. This was Richard’s hunt; she was only the hawk in his jesses. She rode beside Conrad, taking note that the horse he had given her, at least, was one she might have chosen for herself: a mare of desert breeding, fiery yet tractable, with silken paces and a feather touch to leg and rein.

  There was significance in the choice of the horse. She suspected as she mounted in the courtyard of the citadel, but as she rode through the city, she knew: this was his mistress’ mare. People took her for that lady, seeing her so mounted and accompanied. Many bowed; a few spat as she passed by.

  She wondered if she was supposed to notice and be outraged. In fact she was amused. When they came through the gate onto the causeway, she found the road almost open, and room enough to let the mare run.

  Cries of dismay rose up behind her. Idiots: they thought the horse was running away with her. But Conrad, close behind, loosed a bark of laughter. She glanced over her shoulder. He was grinning like a wolf.

  She let the mare run beyond the causeway, reining her in at last where traffic thickened on the road, wagons and carts trundling to the market in Tyre. The mare danced and fretted, hating to plod earthbound after the exhilaration of speed.

  The rest of the company caught her there, the guards and knights crimson with embarrassment, but Conrad was still grinning in delight—the first honest expressi
on she had seen on that face. He offered no flattery, but simply said, “Marco. Let her fly the peregrine.”

  Marco, the chief of the falconers, had obvious doubts, but Conrad was master of his servants. He surrendered the princely bird, with a faint tightening of the nostrils as she took it on her fist. She held out her free hand; the falconer stared at it, until, with very slightly less reluctance, he surrendered the feather with which he had gentled the falcon.

  She spoke to it softly in Arabic, because it seemed to her the language most suited for speaking to falcons. The grip of its talons was strong but not crushingly so. The wind ruffled the soft feathers of its breast. She smoothed them with the falconer’s feather, and stroked it down the blue-grey back. The falcon eased into the pleasure of the touch.

  She would never win Marco’s respect, but he was less scornful than he had been. They rode up and away from the shore, departing from the road and its press of people and riding out through that rough and windswept country. Their falcons were eager, the game not too sparse—but it was not the hunt that Sioned had come for. Simply to be riding in the open air, feeling the wind on her face, with a good horse under her and a good falcon above her, was worth whatever it might cost.

  Conrad had not come simply to hunt, either. When they were out of sight of the city, they abandoned the pretext of hunting and took what appeared to be a goat track, but horses had traveled that way more than once since the last rain. It was steep and stony, and slippery in places. Sioned was glad of the surefooted mare.

  The track led up to the summit of a hill, then down again to a circle of tumbled stones. It dawned on Sioned that these had been wrought by hands; it was a ruin, though what it had been, she could not tell. A village, maybe. A fortress long ago. It provided a little shelter from the wind, and a corner of a wall made a middling fair hearth.

  The squires had brought charcoal to burn, and provisions that made a small feast. While it was being prepared, the horses threw up their heads; one of the stallions snorted explosively.

  None of the men seemed alarmed. Sioned, who had been poised to leap up with dagger in hand, subsided with a faint sigh. Mustafa was as alert as the horses, but although his hand was resting on the hilt of his sword, he had not drawn it.

  Horsemen rode down the hill from the east. They were dark men in turbans, all of them, and their number was precisely that of Conrad’s company. That was meant, she thought, and it meant something.

  Her hackles had risen, and not simply those of the body. Sparks crackled along the edges of her wards.

  It was not the shudder of evil drawing near, but the tingle of magic at least as great as her own—trained magic, powerful magic, magic that she knew well. He rode in the midst of the infidels, distinguished from the rest by no mark of rank, but she would have known him if she had been blind.

  Her own gust of anger startled her. So did the sudden, powerful urge to fling herself into his arms. She held herself still and kept her face expressionless, watching as Conrad welcomed his guests. They were not strangers to him; he knew most of them by name, the soldiers as well as the emirs, and of course the prince who led them.

  They had brought bread and fruit and cheese and a freshly killed gazelle, which turned a small feast into a rather substantial one. The infidels set up a pavilion for it, with rugs to soften the stony ground, and braziers for warmth. In a very little while, this was a camp fit for a prince, or for a princely council.

  Sioned did not move or speak through all of it. When the pavilion was up and the odor of roasting gazelle had set her mouth to watering, Conrad came and bowed in front of her. “Lady,” he said, holding out his hand.

  Her presence here was no accident. She let him draw her to her feet, though his touch made her shiver, and not pleasantly. As soon as she was upright, she slipped her fingers free of his. He seemed unperturbed; he led her to the pavilion, bowing at the entrance, inviting her to precede him within.

  There was no fear inside that tent, and no danger but what stood at her back. Her heart was hammering even so. She paused to let her eyes adjust, opening the rest of her senses to the curtained and carpeted space.

  He had been reclining against the far wall, but at her coming he rose. She meant to bow, but she found that she could not. She looked straight into his face.

  He smiled at her, a smile so unaffected that she had returned it before she stopped to think. The nonexistent quarrel that had parted them, the grudge she bore him for considering that idiocy of marriage to Joanna, seemed ridiculous here and now, in his living presence. He had been her friend, though in war they must be enemies. He was still her friend; that, for him, had never changed.

  The world faded but for the two of them: a moment out of time, where no other could hear or understand. It was a strong magic, and yet as simple as breathing—or as loving him.

  “You still cherish a friendship,” she said. “Yet you went away and never spoke a word.”

  “Would you have heard it?” he asked her.

  “You should have said it,” she said.

  He looked down—he, the great prince, abashed. “So Safiyah said. But I thought I knew better.”

  “Men always do,” said Sioned.

  It was not an apology, or much of a peace offering, either, but he accepted it as if it had been a much greater gift than it was. She did not know why that pricked her eyes to tears. Foolish heart; it knew no sense or reason. It only cared that he was there again, and the quarrel was gone, with only a faint reek of anger in its wake.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Saphadin and Conrad talked of alliances, pacts of peace between Tyre and the House of Islam. Richard was not to be a part of them. Conrad wanted the title of king; if Saladin would help him win it, he would give Saladin Richard’s head, and the heads of his whole army besides.

  Sioned listened without surprise. The meal she had eaten lay in her belly like a stone. Her joy in Saphadin’s presence was much darkened. She was here for a reason, and that was not to delight herself with the end of a quarrel. Conrad had brought her, knowing who she was, and knowing surely where her allegiances lay. He wanted Richard to learn of these negotiations.

  But why? Richard was all too likely to muster a force of Franks and fall on Conrad with fire and sword. That would weaken and even break the Crusade, which would serve Saladin’s cause admirably—but what was in it for Conrad?

  Richard’s death—supposing that that could be accomplished? Without Richard, Guy would have no hope of taking back the throne of Jerusalem. And if Richard’s army was defeated, Conrad would own whatever wealth it had accumulated, which though depleted by the winter’s miseries, must still be considerable. With that in addition to the treasure of Tyre, he could keep the French army with him for a substantial while.

  It was complicated, but Conrad was a complicated man. So was Saphadin, but not in the same way at all. And Richard . . . Conrad might find that he had underestimated the Lionheart. Clever men often mistook Richard’s warrior bluntness for stupidity.

  Her head had begun to ache. She hated politics. The complexities of a text in an obscure language, the elaborate structure of a great spell, the mending of a broken body, all of those she could encompass. But this web of intrigue wearied her intolerably.

  She forced herself to listen and remember, since it suited Richard’s plan as well as Conrad’s that she do just that. The words impressed themselves as if written on a page, bound into a book and laid away in her mind until she should have need to recover it.

  To rest her eyes, and to relieve the ache somewhat, she watched Saphadin. Him she could not fault; he was only doing his duty to his sultan. He would negotiate with all sides and none, and win what concessions he could, then expect that his brother would take the rest by force. If he had done anything else, he would have betrayed his people.

  Conrad spoke Arabic—not well enough for delicate negotiations, but he had no objection to using Saphadin’s interpreter. If the man altered the sense of a phrase,
Sioned saw how Conrad’s eyelids flickered. That quick mind would be recording every slip and shift.

  Sioned detected no deception. Conrad wanted Saladin’s aid too badly, and Saphadin had too much of the advantage; they had no reason to lie to one another. Prevaricate, yes—conceal certain details, by all means. But nothing worse.

  They ended amicably, if without reaching a firm conclusion. “There are things I must settle with my council,” Conrad said.

  “And I with my sultan,” said Saphadin, bowing where he sat.

  Conrad rose first, Saphadin an instant after him. They bowed to one another, gracious as almost-allies could be.

  Sioned did not want him to go. The not-wanting was so strong that she gasped. Fortunately neither of them heard her—or so for a moment she thought. As Saphadin’s servant assisted her to her feet, the man murmured, barely to be heard, “My lord says, tomorrow morning, go to the market in Tyre. Someone will find you.”

  There was no time for questions. Conrad had taken her arm in a light but unbreakable grip. She let him lead her out into the sun and the wind.

  Conrad expected her to send word to Richard of what he had done. She would do that, but not yet. She did, when she came back to the city, send one of the maids to fetch Henry.

  He took his time in coming. When at last he deigned to appear, it was nearly time for the daymeal; Blanche was busily undoing the damage that sun, wind, and freedom had wrought to the careful edifice of Sioned’s beauty. Blanche, Sioned had already observed, was completely unflustered by that same windblown ride; her cheeks were as alabaster-pale as ever, her wimple still perfectly in place. Sioned did not even remember losing her wimple, though she had been aware of the moment when her hair escaped its pins and plaits and streamed loose in the wind.

  It was nearly subdued again. Paint had done what it could to dim the flush of color in her cheeks. She sat perfectly still for Blanche to complete her handiwork, as her youngest maid brought Henry into the chamber.