Devil's Bargain

by Judith Tarr

  “That’s well,” Elissa said, “but have you done the same? He’s death on betrayal, lady. Even a king’s sister might not escape him.”

  “I know you are not merely jealous,” Sioned said carefully, “and I know you mean to help, but I am aware of what kind of man he is.”

  “Are you?”

  “Why?” asked Sioned. “Does he keep a secret chamber full of blood? Does he feast on the flesh of children?”

  “Don’t,” said Elissa. “Don’t make light of him. What he wants, he gets. He wants a throne, and he will have it. If he wants you, he will be sure to take you—whatever it may cost your friends or kin. Your brother was not wise to send you here, such an innocent as you are, with such a face. Or was he trying to get rid of you?”

  Sioned’s back stiffened, but she kept control of her expression. “I thank you for the warning,” she said.

  “One day you will,” said Elissa. “I give you good day, and I truly wish you well.”

  With no more farewell than that, she was gone. Sioned stood in the colonnade, staring at the space where she had been. She felt odd, off balance, although Elissa had told her nothing she did not know already. It was as if the words had opened the way to understanding, to knowledge that she had been refusing to face.

  What, that Conrad could be treacherous? She knew that. Then why did it suddenly matter so much more than it had before?

  She returned to the citadel because she was expected, and because she was not minded to turn tail and run from a shadow. She redoubled her wards as she walked, although at that strength they dulled her magical perceptions. If an attack came, she would be guarded, but she might not be aware of it until it struck.

  When it did strike, it came from no magical direction at all. There were armed men waiting for her in the citadel. Their faces were grim. The air had a reek to it that she knew too well: the stench of death.

  She looked for Mustafa, but he was nowhere to be seen. He had been in her shadow until a moment before; now he had vanished. Anger gusted, passed. He must have his reasons; Mustafa always did.

  Conrad advanced through the ranks of his guard and greeted her with cold courtesy. “There is something you must see,” he said.

  She had no choice but to follow him, but she did her best to make it seem that she went of her free will. She kept her head high, and shut her ears to whispers that ran in her wake.

  The guards, and Conrad at her side, led her to a door she did not know, but from the size and richness of it, she could presume that it was Conrad’s own. The scent of death was strongest here, with the iron tang that spoke to her of violence. Her feet were steady but her heart was cold as the guard in the lead flung open the door.

  It was Blanche. She lay in a bed now stripped of its curtains, dressed in her wonted black. Her face and hands were starkly white.

  Those hands were folded on her breast. There was a strip of ribbon wound in the still fingers, a ribbon that Sioned recognized: Conrad had given it to her, saying that it matched the color of her eyes.

  “She was alive when we found her,” Conrad said. “When we asked her who had done this, she spoke a word. That word was your name.”

  “She must have thought I was in danger,” Sioned said with the clarity of shock. “Or—”

  “You,” said Conrad, but not to Sioned. The bark of his voice brought forth the youngest of Sioned’s maids, the lovely Petronilla, much disheveled with terror and grief. She shrank from Sioned’s stare, shuddering convulsively. She opened her mouth and began to wail.

  Conrad gripped her arms and shook her into silence. “Stop that. Tell her what you told us.”

  Petronilla looked ready to burst out in howls again, but fear of Conrad stopped her. “I—I can’t—I don’t—”

  “Tell her!”

  Petronilla’s eyes overflowed with tears, but her voice steadied enough to get the words out. “I—I saw—you were coming up from the hall. I saw you, and I was surprised, because you said you were going out. And I followed you because you might want me to wait on you. You found—you found her on the stair from the kitchens, bringing up the posset for Jeanne’s winter rheum, and you told her you needed her. I hid because I didn’t want to be sent with the posset—Jeanne snuffles and moans so abominably. Blanche found a servant to take the posset, and followed you up—up here. When she saw where it was, she said she wasn’t abetting you in immorality—that’s exactly how she said it—and you turned and I couldn’t see, really, but I saw the knife and I saw Blanche go all white and surprised. Surely you remember, because you did it, and I saw the whole thing—and when you went away, I screamed and screamed, until somebody came.”

  “I’m sure you did,” Sioned said acidly. “Do you happen to recall if I said anything?”

  Petronilla swallowed hard. “I think—I think you said, ‘Take this sacrifice in Satan’s name.’ ”

  One or two of the guards made signs against evil. Sioned ignored them, turning to face Conrad. “Do you believe this nonsense?”

  “You were seen leaving the room,” he said, “dressed just as you are now. Will you try to defend yourself?”

  “I was not even here,” she said. “I was in the city. Ask your spies who have been following me. Ask a certain lady with whom I spoke, just about when this good woman must have been dying.”

  “I shall ask,” said Conrad. “But, lady, you were seen. There is no doubt that it was you; the witnesses are clear on that account.”

  “Has it occurred to you that whoever mounted this ruse was most careful to be seen? If I could ever have plotted such a thing—and believe me, my lord, that is as far against my character as anything can be—then I would have undertaken first and foremost to be invisible.”

  “That may be,” said Conrad in the tone of one who makes no judgment. “Because of your rank and the dignity of your embassy, I will order you confined in your chamber and not in a prison. Whatever you wish to eat, drink, read, you may ask for.”

  “And then?” she asked.

  “We will do our best to discover the truth of this.”

  “I do hope so,” said Sioned.

  The guards closed in, but she drove them back with the flash of a glance. She bent over Blanche. The face was still; if she had died in fear, it had not altered her expression from its wonted severity. Sioned laid her hand over the still fingers, meaning to offer respect and farewell. The touch dislodged a thing that had been clutched to the motionless breast: a small brown cake, fresh and still fragrant from the baking.

  Behind her, someone gasped. The guards about Conrad drew in closer; those about her seized her and held her immobile. Their eyes on her were blind with horror.

  She looked from face to face. It was not real yet, not in her heart, where fear should be blooming into terror. What that cake was, she knew too well. Anyone who lived in this country would know it. It was the Assassin’s cake: Sinan’s gift to his victims. But that these people should think—

  It was convenient that they think it. Conrad was honestly horrified, she would have wagered on that, but beneath the horror was a gleam of satisfaction.

  At his bidding, the guards searched her with hard hands. They found the little knife that she had had since she was a child in Gwynedd, which she used for cutting meat, and the larger, deadlier dagger that she kept for defense. That had been Richard’s gift; he had taken it from a slain Turk. It had a chased silver hilt, and a verse from the Koran inscribed on the blade.

  These men did not care to hear where it had come from. They wanted it to damn her, therefore it did. She saw no use in protest, but that served her ill: they took her silence for admission of guilt.

  “Take her away,” Conrad said. His voice was thick with disgust.

  The maids had abandoned the room. They had left in great haste, from the look of the oddments tossed about, but everything that was of value, they had taken. Some of it was Sioned’s; the rest had been on loan from Joanna. There would be explanations to make when she came ba
ck to Acre.

  If she came back to Acre.

  She must not think that way. If Conrad had her put to death, he would bring down Richard’s wrath—which he might be hoping for—but he might also lose the French. They were odd about women, those knights of France; even the horror of the Assassins might not prevent them from suffering an attack of chivalry.

  She tried to persuade one of the guards to send for Henry, but the men who stood just inside the door, swords drawn, eyes fixed on her as if she could whip out a dagger and stab all four of them to death, were deaf to any words she might speak. Truly: she glimpsed a wad of cotton in the ear of the one nearest. They feared a spell, an enchantment of the voice.

  She knew spells of that sort, but it had not occurred to her to use one. She had been sure that she was thinking clearly; now she began to suspect that it was the clarity of shock. She had never expected this, never planned for it, and certainly not foreseen it. Had Elissa known? Maybe she had. If so, her warning had been too late to be of any use.

  Sioned knew what Eleanor had done in decades of captivity after she led one rebellion too many against her royal husband. Eleanor, locked away in the castle of Chinon, had studied the arts of sorcery. But Eleanor had not been taken for an Assassin.

  She could die. She faced that fact, sitting on the bed in the lamplit room. Her mother’s people claimed no fear of death; it was but a passing from world to world, and in time would come rebirth. But she had lived among Christians long enough to have learned their fear—even knowing that the dead could walk the world, and even speak to those with ears to hear.

  There was no sense or reason in the shudders that racked her now. Death might not be terrible, but dying . . . that was another matter.

  She pulled herself together. She must think. She was not powerless. Had Conrad done this? Had Eleanor contrived it to be rid of an inconvenience? Or was there another enemy whom she did not know? Was it Sinan himself? Did he know somehow, as a master of the black arts might know, that she had spied on his councils with Eleanor? Was this his revenge?

  It was somewhat belated if so, and rather more blatant than he was known to be. She was hunting far afield. The answer, she had no doubt, was much closer to home.

  She was alone but for four heavily armed guards. There were no wards on her, no magical protections: proof that no one here knew or suspected what she was. She must not let them suspect. She must seem as innocent and defenseless as she could.

  It was all too easy to sink down weeping. The guards were not visibly moved, but she was not playing for them. She pretended to cry herself to sleep; then when she was still, she called in her arts and powers.

  They were slow, reluctant. The aspects of air and fire were leaden, weighted with earth. She could not spread wings, could muster no strength to fly. She had wrought her wards too well, and woven them too tightly into the fabric of this place. It had made them stronger—so strong that they not only protected her against attacks from without; they bound her within, helpless to escape.

  She gave way at last, exhausted, having gained nothing. She could not even sleep. She knew that if she tried, her dreams would be full of death and dying.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Mustafa’s hackles had been up since he first passed through the gate of Tyre. He did not like the air of this place. Lady Sioned said that there was no evil here, not in the earth or in the soul of the city, but she could hardly deny that men’s hearts were another matter altogether.

  Marquis Conrad had a heart like a blighted tree. There was good in him, surely, as there was in any son of Adam, and he was a strong lord to his people. But the core of him was eaten away with pride and rancor.

  Even before his courtesan made her show of warning against him, Mustafa had known that this venture would not end well. Sioned was blind to foresight: her eyes were full of a certain face, and her mind could think of nothing but that lord of Islam. She fancied that she could balance Conrad and the lord Saphadin, cozen one and love the other, and face no danger from either.

  But even Mustafa’s premonition had not warned him that the danger was so close, or that it would be so great. Whoever had done this wanted Sioned dead—though whether it was only Sioned he hated, or whether it was Sioned’s royal brother, Mustafa could not have said.

  It tore his heart to leave her in the hands of those cruel guards, but that same heart knew what he should do. She would find no help in Tyre. The lord Henry was not a prisoner, not precisely, but he was being kept from her; nor was he allowed to send messages to his uncle the king. He was still an honored guest, still treated with courtesy, but he no longer had the freedom that he had had before.

  Mustafa made a devout and heartfelt prayer to Allah that Conrad would not execute Sioned before he could come back. She had magic, which Conrad did not appear to know, and she was clever and wise. She would defend herself as she could, for as long as she could. Allah willing, it would be long enough.

  They had not yet sealed the stables when Mustafa came there, although he heard the captain of guards call out a company to see that no one left the citadel on horseback. His mare was weaving in her stall, little ears flat, cursing the existence of the gelding stabled next to her. He was just out of reach of her heels, which frustrated her to no end.

  She would have been delighted to kick Mustafa’s head from his shoulders, but he knew her too well. Her heel met the sting of the switch in his hand; before she could gather herself for a second assault, he was in with her, gripping her collar, and swinging her about until she left off trying to kill him.

  Then, changeable creature that she was, she let him feed her a bit of sugar and saddle and bridle her, and lead her docilely out. The greater gates were already guarded, but the postern Mustafa knew of, which was not far from the stable, was deserted. He slipped out unnoticed, even as the stable door boomed shut, locking the horses within.

  The marquis had not yet thought to close off the exits of the city. That would require a good part of his army and an excuse to go on a war footing, which he did not have. The danger, he would be thinking, was within the citadel. The malefactor was captured. He would be guarding his person most closely, but the city, for the moment, could fend for itself.

  As desperate as Mustafa was to be galloping away from Tyre, he paused in the market for certain small necessities, and a larger one in the form of a bony mare with a wild amber eye like a cat’s and a coat that, under the dirt and neglect, had a peculiar metallic sheen. He did not question the fate that had placed such a horse here when he needed it most; nor did he let the horse dealer see the eagerness in his heart. He would have struck an even harder bargain than he did, if he had not felt the pressing of time, but when he rode out of Tyre with his new purchase on a lead, lean ears flat at the indignity of a pack, he allowed himself the luxury of a smile.

  Mustafa’s Berber mare was as fleet as she was fickle. The mare from the market, whose blood had come from plains far away, ran neck and neck with her, with an easy, even contemptuous stride. The horses of the desert were fast, but the golden horses of the steppe could outrun the wind.

  It took Mustafa three days to find the lord Saphadin. He had been within a day’s ride of Tyre, but he had moved his forces the day Sioned’s maid was killed. Mustafa found him camped in the hills near Jaffa, on a day of sudden spring.

  The place that he had chosen was an oasis of blossoms and of greenery, fed by wells of clean water. It had belonged to the Romans once; there was still an old god watching over the chief of the wells, his bearded face much battered with age and human hostility. That he was still there at all was somewhat of a miracle. Someone had laid a wishing on him long ago, and though much eroded now, it protected him against the zeal of Christian and Muslim alike.

  Between Tyre and this camp, Mustafa had put away the garments he wore in that Christian city and returned to the dress of Islam. It was a small thing, but he felt as if he had returned to himself. And yet as he observed the camp from the cover
of an outcropping of rock, he did not see a return home.

  These were Turks, he told himself, and Kurds, and a few Arabs. He was a Berber. Yet it was more than that. He had become, if not a Frank, then a dog of the Franks. He was no longer a warrior of Islam.

  Inshallah, he thought: God’s will be done. Or as the Franks would put it, Deus lo volt.

  He went back to the hollow where he had left the horses. The two mares loathed each other and must be tethered well apart, but they declared a truce when he was riding one and leading the other. He made himself as presentable as he could, putting on the new coat he had bought in Tyre, and a clean turban; he tidied the horses, brushed and plaited their manes, and wove blue beads into their forelocks, to make them beautiful and to protect them from ill wishing.

  Then he was ready. He mounted the mare from the east and led the Berber mare, driven by an impulse that he could not have explained. She was a slab-sided, snappish, opinionated beast, but her stride had proved surprisingly smooth and her responses unexpectedly light. She did not try to whirl and kick her companion more than twice, on principle, whereupon she settled to her business.

  He rode openly down the track to the camp, hands held carefully away from weapons. The guards were alert; they barred his way, but offered no open threat unless he should demand one. “I come from Tyre,” he said to them. “Tell your lord: from the lady in the citadel.”

  They looked hard at him. One, catching a glance from the man who must be their leader, trotted off into the camp. The others stood, watchful, saying nothing. Their curiosity was well reined in; but he had expected that. The lord Saphadin kept his men in good discipline.

  The messenger came back fairly quickly. “He says come,” the man said. He made as if to take the bridle of the mare whom Mustafa was riding, but the snap of her teeth warned him not to take liberties. He settled for walking somewhat ahead so that Mustafa could follow.

  This was no great army. Mustafa reckoned maybe a hundred men: picked troops, the guard that rode with the lord Saphadin on his embassies to the Franks. He was going to Richard, then, as Mustafa had thought; and that was interesting so soon after he had been near Tyre striking bargains with Conrad.