“And if he makes a move or utters a word he should not, he shall have his own dagger through his windpipe!” growled the young man, who seemed to her peculiarly eager to rid Acre of one of her less desirable inhabitants. Rodriga glanced up, suspecting that he was impelled to that scavenger’s task by a personal grievance.
Marco twitched, closed his hand sharply on the sand, and shifted his head. His lids flickered, and then his black eyes stared up, dazed and vacant, into the girl’s pitying face. He blinked, stared again, and frowned, his mouth closing into a tight line. Then utter bewilderment drove away the frown. He muttered something indistinguishable, gazed incredulously up at her, and lifted his right hand waveringly to touch her sleeve.
“Be still,” she said gently, catching the long brown hand and pressing it down. “You are hurt, but not gravely, and your enemies are gone. No one will harm you now.”
He went on staring into her face in blank disbelief of his senses. His hand moved again, to his own cracked head. He touched the bandage, passed his hand over his eyes, and stared again, frowning slightly. She waited, his head heavy on her lap, for his wits to return fully. Again he reached out to touch her sleeve, the frown eased from his brow, and a look of awed wonder dawned on his thin dark face. He shifted his head a little to gaze about him at sand and sea, and then became aware of the tall young man standing over him.
Rodriga felt him stiffen, and his face hardened into a deadly insolent mask, tight-mouthed and narrow-eyed, that betrayed nothing more of shock or apprehension. His head lifted from her lap and then sank back again, but his hand slid down to his waist, encountered neither belt nor dagger, and fell clenched to the sand. He uttered no word, and his black eyes watched steadily from his swarthy face, where the tan covered grey pallor with an odd yellow-brown. Rodriga glanced quickly up at the squire, who nodded grimly at Marco and touched the wooden haft of the knife that was safe in his own belt. Plainly they were foes before this morning, and her own mouth tightened as she wondered how to prevent slaughter.
Marco lifted his head again, got his elbow under him, and rolled from the girl’s lap. Her arm came promptly round him for support, but he sat up, propping himself with his sound arm, shook his head as though to clear it, and turned to her without heeding the menacing young man.
“My lady,” he said, in a voice unexpectedly deep and pleasant, and in excellent southern French, “I thank you for my life.”
She sat back on her heels and considered him. “Thank this valiant squire,” she disclaimed, “for he delivered both of us.”
“I delivered you, my lady,” said the valiant squire grimly and pointedly.
Marco experimentally moved his left arm, and lifted insolent black eyes to him. “Then instead of thanks, I should tender you my sympathy in your predicament,” he observed coolly.
The young man audibly gritted his teeth. Rodriga glanced quickly from one to the other and scrambled to her feet, ready to intervene. “What is this dispute between you?” she demanded sharply.
“Last night,” the squire informed her indignantly, “this knave attempted to murder me!”
“To kill you,” corrected the imperturbable renegade sitting unarmed and bandaged at their feet. Horrified, the girl stared at them.
“He forced a quarrel on me and would have killed me if others had not come between us! What is that but murder?”
“You had an equal chance of killing me.”
The contrast between his calm and the young man’s spluttering indignation started Rodriga’s inconvenient sense of humour, that found matter for mirth in the gravest situations, to ill-timed activity. Laughter would certainly precipitate a killing that, however provoked, must still rate as murder, and she hurriedly demanded, “But why—what was the cause—?”
“He was hired to kill me!” blurted the squire.
That effectively banished her mirth. “Is—is that—hired? Paid to murder a stranger?”
He lifted an eyebrow in mild surprise. “Kill,” he corrected again. “Yes, I was hired.”
She stepped back as from some venomous reptile, in loathing and shame. He met her disgusted eyes squarely, and she caught back her skirts, heavy with sea-water and great diluted stains of blood, from contact with him. He looked up at the young man, put his left hand to his head, and then twisted round and pushed himself to his knees. He tried to rise, swayed, and saved himself with his good arm, propping himself while he shook his head again. Plainly he was giddy and his muscles without force, but after a brief pause he made a further effort. They watched without moving. This time he brought a foot forward to grip the sand, and wavered on one knee, but when he attempted to stand he toppled sideways and rolled onto his face. The girl took a step forward, disgust warring with compassion and admiration for his courage. He struggled weakly, retched, vomited sea-water, and collapsed again.
The young man ungently thrust a foot into his ribs and rolled him over. He was not feigning weakness. His face was grey, shining with tiny drops of sweat, and he was gasping for breath. Sand matted his beard and patched his nose and brow. Rodriga had seen not a few cracked heads in her brief life. The knave, try as he might, would be fit for nothing this day at least. Yet he made another savage effort to stand, and as he fell back Rodriga impulsively dropped to her knees again and gripped his shoulder to hold him flat, forgetting that he had accepted payment to kill another man.
The squire stood over them, scowling down, his hand on the hilt of Marco’s dagger. They glared at each other, ignoring her.
“Will you—make an end—or have you reserved me—for a noose?” the renegade panted.
“Will you tell who hired you?”
The thin mouth tightened. He shook his head.
The squire drew the knife and balanced it across his palm. “There are ways of opening lips like yours,” he said grimly.
“I stay bought,” he answered flatly. “Try them!”
Hot with rage and disgust at the pair of them, the girl leaped up and thrust between them. “No!” she declared violently. “When he is on his feet you may kill each other with my good will, but until then you lay no hand on him!”
The young man scowled heartily back at her. She had to throw her head back to look into his face, for he was a very large young man, and perhaps that tickled him. A reluctant grin replaced the scowl, and he stepped back with an expansive flourish of the hand that held the dagger.
“Fair demoiselle, your wish shall be my law. Since you saved him, the knave is yours alone.”
The girl glared at him, suspecting mockery, and uttered an unfeminine snort of disgust. “What should I do with such carrion?”
“The Provost’s gallows,” jibed the carrion, twisting onto his side, “and no further racking of your tender Christian consciences!”
They looked down on the indomitable scoundrel, and then at each other. Something of her thought seemed to reach the lad, or perhaps he too could be softened by sheer courage. He lifted heavy fair eyebrows inquiringly.
“Will you tread on me like a worm?” gasped Marco furiously, and writhed like a broken-backed serpent in his struggle to stand.
Anger, understanding and shame warred in the squire’s face, and as Rodriga’s hot sympathy flared for the man who fought to meet death on his feet, he turned, stooped, gripped him under the armpits from behind and heaved him upright bodily. He tried to brace himself, shuddered, and then drooped limply from his hold, completely senseless. The lad shrugged, lowered him to the sand and turned to the girl.
“What now, demoiselle?”
She bit her lip, but her choice had already been made when she intervened between them. “Doubtless he deserves hanging, but he is too brave,” she declared defiantly.
“As you choose, demoiselle.”
He was personable and well-dressed, and his bold regard faintly embarrassed her; bold regard she was accustomed to, but not coupled with courteous deference from young noblemen. She tugged gently at one of her black plaits, twisting the ribb
on that bound it round her fingers, and glanced about her. There was no one within half a mile; prudent folk in Acre did not thrust unwelcome curiosity into others’ disputes. The two dead lay in the shallow water, but the three murderers who had fled were utterly vanished. Her courser, frightened by the scent of blood, had bolted to a little distance when she loosed the reins, but the two bare-backed destriers in the squire’s charge, accustomed to it, stood where he had left them.
“If we leave him those jackals who fled will return and finish him,” she said slowly.
“That would be a way to wash our hands of him.”
“Play Pilate? Cleaner to stab him here and now!” she said sharply. “No. If we choose to spare him—”
“If you choose, demoiselle.”
“Then I must go further and save him. He turns my stomach, but mercy is not mercy if we leave it half-done. And those curs turned my stomach more.”
The young man nodded. “Of the same vile trade, but meaner craftsmen.” He prodded Marco resignedly in the ribs with his toe, won no response, and heaved him up over his shoulder. Rodriga frowned unhappily, thinking that in this case mercy might be a singularly misguided virtue to practise. She had heard a fair amount about the renegade, who had been pointed out to her weeks ago, and all she had heard would incline any right-thinking person to tread him out like any other vermin. Yet here she was carefully saving this worthless life that was a menace to honest Christians and Saracens alike, all because she was a soft fool and had held him senseless on her knees.
“I suppose he has no friends,” she said distastefully, as the squire slung his burden like a sack across the broad back of the grey destrier. “Will you bring him to my father’s camp for me?”
“Demoiselle, I have said that your wish is my law,” said the young man solemnly, vaulted neatly upon the bay charger and went to catch her mount for her. She looked after his broad straight back, and then at the long bare legs of the renegade dangling against the horse’s flank. A thought struck her, and she gathered up his tumbled clothing. The less noise about this insanity of hers the better, and a man could not traverse Acre bloody and half-naked without exciting curious comment. The squire was bringing Caliph, and she caught the destrier’s rein and went to meet him.
He slid down, clasped his hands and stooped to mount her. As she settled her skirts he grinned engagingly up at her. He was an attractive young man, and her answering smile had a quiver of shyness in it; attractive young men had come seldom within her experience. He stood with his hand on her bridle, his bold eyes appraising her, and the frank admiration in his gaze brought the blood to her face in confusion.
“Since we have dispensed with the formalities, demoiselle, permit me to present myself. I am Piers de Veragny, your servant.”
“My—my name is Rodriga de Parolles, and I thank you for your aid.”
“Ah, no! The service of beauty is its own reward!”
That was either mockery or extravagance, because her small acquaintance with good mirrors had sufficed to inform her that she was skinny, dark and too strongly marked of feature to rank as pretty. Resentment dispelled shyness. “I am no beauty,” she said bluntly, taking up her reins.
“Then I must pay homage to your valour, demoiselle,” the young man answered cheerfully, bounding again to his charger’s back and starting towards the sprawling camp.
They rode side by side under the burning sun that was climbing over the sand-dunes, and she surveyed him as closely as he had surveyed her. He was, she judged, about nineteen or twenty, a big, fair lad with an odd, unforgettable face. His broad square brow and wide high cheekbones narrowed abruptly to a sharp-pointed chin, his high-bridged nose jutted above a full mouth, and most striking of all, his heavy fair eyebrows met in one straight bar over deep-set blue eyes. He turned his head, encountered her grave regard, and eyed her admiringly, quite unabashed. Admiration was a new experience for Rodriga, and she warmed to the young man, even though some instinct warned her that he was not without practice in the art of pleasing women.
“My father will wish to know you, Master Piers, and to join his thanks to mine,” she said. As well to let him know that she was an honest maid with a father to protect her, and not a casual trollop seeking custom by riding without escort or female attendant.
“Demoiselle, I have been privileged,” he declared.
She grimaced and glanced back at the renegade, dangling still-senseless over the destrier’s back with his head and arms jolting loosely at every stride. It was of course highly unlikely that any man with a head-wound would come to his senses while hanging head-down over a horse’s back, but he should be grateful that his carcase was lugged to safety by any means. She had rescued him primarily to keep her own stomach at ease, not out of any regard for him.
Piers de Veragny followed her gaze, and lifted his impressive eyebrows. “Will your father countenance your clemency, demoiselle?”
Rodriga’s father was inured to countenancing any action she chose to take. “Of course,” she said with certainty, and shaded her eyes to look for her father in the increasing throngs. She could not discern him, though she recognised the little group of men advancing purposefully afoot over the dazzling sands, and lifted an arm to signal them. “These are my people, Master Piers.”
“Not ‘Master’, fair demoiselle, after all we have wrought together,” he objected easily. “Your people? God’s Life, are those javelins, in this day of cross-bows and chainmail?”
“They would make a more horrid mess of your inwards than a cross-bow bolt!” retorted Rodriga, stung to asperity by his cheerful contempt.
The young man chuckled. The leader of the group, a short thin middle-aged man as swarthy as a Saracen, quickened his stride and lifted his outmoded but formidable weapon in menace as he looked from the girl’s black head to her stained gown. The fierce sun had almost dried it, but the diluted reddish-brown patches could not be mistaken. She lifted a hand in reassurance to him.
“No harm,” she announced blithely. “It is not my blood. It might have been, but for this valiant squire, so show him no more of your scowls, Ramiro. Master Piers, this is my foster-father Ramiro, my father’s sergeant. Apart from an excessive thirst for blood, the most admirable of sergeants.” She grinned affectionately at him.
Ramiro lifted his javelin in a stately salute, his watchful black eyes unsoftened as he confronted the squire. “Our thanks go to you,” he acknowledged the presentation, and looked past him. “That, my lady?”
“The source of the blood. Bring him in.”
Ramiro made a delicately suggestive gesture to his throat. She smiled and shook her head. “Doubtless it is all he merits, but since we saved his neck unslit he may preserve it so.”
“Saved it, eh?” Ramiro cocked a reproachful eye at her. “No good comes of interfering, my lady. You should have let me run at your stirrup as I wished.” He gestured to one of the three young men behind him, and he went to the destrier’s head and relieved Piers of the leading rein. As they started again, Marco uttered a faint groan. “Not like to die this time,” Ramiro pronounced, after inspecting him, and came to Rodriga’s stirrup.
“A pity,” she commented caustically, “but no doubt God in His wisdom reserves him for the gallows. Fetch him in and lay him in the shade. Ramiro, where is my father?”
“He went to finish the argument over a cup of wine, and bade me tell you he would rejoin you in the camp, my lady.”
She nodded, and turned briskly to Piers. “If you are not pressed for time, will you break your fast with us? I wish you to meet my father.”
“My lord will not complain, demoiselle, and I too wish it,” he accepted eagerly. The odd little procession moved from the sands, passed the marshes steaming rankly in the heat, and crossed the line of trenches that guarded the southern side of the encampment. They threaded along the twisting alleys between tents and crazy hovels of ship’s planking. Ramiro, wary and suspicious, paced at Rodriga’s stirrup between her and Piers,
a precaution that seemed to impose some constraint upon the young man. He made an end of his compliments and expanded the little information he had given about himself by telling her that, though he was by birth a Poitevin, which she knew already from his accent, he was in the service of a Norman, Lord Gilbert de Cherberay. That combination of circumstances suggested either a portionless younger son or a bastard, Rodriga deduced shrewdly, but he was none the worse for that.
“And you, demoiselle?” he asked, after a brief pause for her to reciprocate which she failed to use. “By your speech you are of the Langue d’oc.”
A pushing young man, this. “My father is, like you, out of Poitou, but I was born in Spain,” she answered. “Catalan speech is much like the Langue d’oc.”
She turned abruptly down a last alley, passed between two tents and halted in her own encampment. The young man cast an appraising eye about him, and she was grimly conscious of its deficiencies. The three weather-stained tents, patched and sagging, looked as though they were on the point of sinking into the sour soil of Acre. In the centre of the space they enclosed smoked a sulky fire of driftwood and dung, tended by a scrawny boy of thirteen who scrambled up from his knees and ran to take her bridle. The young squire stayed staring a heart’s beat too long, so that he was too late to help her from her saddle. She swung down without looking for masculine assistance as a demoiselle aware of her own value would do, and when he sprang flushing to her stirrup, Ramiro blocked his way. The scrawny boy led away the horses behind the furthest tent, two men carried the long limp body of Marco round the side of the nearest and laid him without solicitude in its shade, and she led Piers towards that tent.
The ragged curtain lifted for them as they approached, and in the shadow something moved like a great white moth, resolving itself into an elderly woman in a dark gown, her head muffled in an ample linen kerchief that was wound about her throat and shoulders. She moved soundlessly over the rough canvas that covered the harsh earth, peering at the young man with inimical little black eyes in a face seamed with wrinkles and dark as harness-leather. She clucked hoarsely over Rodriga’s dress and bent to claw at it with bony hands.
No Man's Son Page 2
