“Proof must come first, young fire-brain, or the King will dismiss you without hearing! And proof nineteen years old will mostly be buried by now.”
“Buried in Poitou, where I am a stranger! Better to challenge Robert and fight his champion! God will defend the cause of justice!”
“The cause of the strongest arm!” snorted Landry, who had no opinion of that method of deciding cases. “I have seen that faith disproved too often! Young pups are always yapping after the wrong scent! You will do nothing. Understand? You are not to go blundering about like a bear among beehives, warning that recreant that you know who you are! Devote yourself to this devil-devised siege and bleat no word of Rionart!”
“I must seek out proof—” began Piers, rising to one knee.
Landry, who had a lengthy arm and considerable force left in it, dealt him a clout on the head that tumbled him back upon the cushion. “You great dolt! You will leave that to me!”
Piers gaped at him like a new-caught fish. “You?—but why?”
“Because you are a meddlesome knight-errant, and always have been!” declared Rodriga affectionately.
He frowned at her, his lips twitching “Firstly,” he stated with immense dignity, “because this miserably mishandled siege offers me little occupation but that of futile criticism, which will wear me into the grave unless I find some cause to meddle in. Secondly, because I can do it without alarming this Robert. What more natural, with Poitevins here by the hundred, than that I should seek out friends and neighbours of twenty years ago? Old men will gossip, while young men fight.” He was in his mid-fifties, and had never previously admitted inability to hold his own against any present-day young cockerel more apt to crow than to strike.
“Telling each other how much better you managed sieges in the days of your youth,” murmured Rodriga, choking back mirth.
Landry cast at her an admonitory scowl. “The best chance, I reckon, lies with the older priests. Theirs is not a company I favour, but at least one finds among them more intelligent conversation than with these irreverent pups who win to knighthood now. Moreover, their presence is indispensable at christenings, weddings and funerals.”
“But what am I to do? And must I ignore Robert’s try at murdering me?”
Landry again sought inspiration in his cup, and set it down empty with a decisive thump. “Yes. Having failed, he will have had time to consider. You told your lord about meeting him, and about this Marco? Warn him that you did, if you meet again, and he will forbear and leave your killing to the Saracens. If you die of a knife in the back, your lord would demand explanations of him, and the one thing he cannot afford is inquiry into his dealings with you.”
“There is one man in Acre who I think knows everything,” Piers said, as though suddenly reminded. “The steward of Lacombrey— when I overheard their talk that time he menaced Robert with his knowledge of a wedding!”
“On his own behalf?”
“Yes.”
“No true knight would witness injustice and profit by it.”
“But can he not be forced to speak?”
“Not until we have a case fit to take before the King, and can compel him to testify on oath. No, boy. We lose nothing by keeping still, and stand to lose all by talk.”
“Then I will leave all in your hands, my lord, with all gratitude for your kindness.” He stood up, and they rose also. He turned with a smile to Rodriga. “Demoiselle, God was good to me when he led me to you on the seashore!” he said warmly.
“Then by rights you should spare a little gratitude for the Devil!” said a deep, pleasant, rather breathless voice behind him.
Marco stood at the entrance, steadying himself by a hand that gripped the canvas. Two dagger-hafts were grasped together, but he did not flinch. He regarded them with imperturbable insolence, though his face was an odd greyish-yellow and he was plainly reeling with vertigo and weakness.
“I suppose none but the Devil guides your movements,” Landry commented, his lips twitching.
“He has been listening! He has heard everything!” Piers cried, and his dagger slid free of the sheath. Landry put out a hand to check him, and Rodriga slipped round them to stand at the other side of the doorway, intent and waiting.
“Softly, young hot-head! I wonder how much he heard?”
“More than you will ever let me carry away from here!” the renegade said bitingly. “Yapping like dogs over offal, with naught but rotten canvas between your unschooled tongues and my ears!”
Piers turned scarlet and started forward, to be halted by a long arm across his chest. “God’s Life, the whoreson renegade must be silenced!” he blurted.
“Put that knife up, lack-wit! He is seeking to goad us into ripping out his guts. Eh?”
“Yes!”
Landry chuckled, the lad gaped, and Rodriga, watching Marco, saw his hand tighten until his knuckles shone white as he held himself erect by the canvas.
“Never do aught irreparable in haste, pup, or be ready to oblige your enemy,” Landry admonished Piers, and grinned at the renegade. “You are in great haste to get yourself despatched to Hell.”
“So you are too cold of blood to forgo the vengeance you brought me here for! Or do you think to make me testify against my employer?”
“Angels preserve my wits! Produce testimony of yours in any court under Heaven?” Landry exclaimed scathingly. “You have nothing to bargain with.”
The man audibly gritted his teeth. “Bargain? I do not sell the man who pays me, nor grovel to a great unweaned moon-calf who could only seize me after another had laid me senseless! Devise what death you have skill for, and I shall spit in your faces with my last breath!” Rodriga stirred slightly. This was punishment, and the man was inflicting it on himself. Plainly the renegade had had small acquaintance with mercy or pity. How long had he lain conscious, listening perforce to talk of which the knowledge must, by his judgment, doom him, waiting for whatever fate his experience and imagination could suggest? And he had uttered no word of the extenuation that had occurred to her; a cripple menaced by a vigorous young enemy might well have claimed justification for hiring his services. She looked into his desperate face and was sick of baiting him.
“I did not save you to have you murdered,” she said curtly. “We are Christians here.”
“Rodriga!” yelped Piers, forgetting to entitle her. “That is madness! He knows too much to let him live!”
“Christians!” spat Marco, bracing himself with his feet apart to stand steadily. “Make a righteous Christian end of me and praise your virtue afterwards!”
Rodriga reached across and twitched the dagger from the lad’s belt; the fine sharp steel with its rough-surfaced haft that was a craftsman’s loved and cherished tool, no gaudy ornament. Marco drew in his breath sharply at sight of it. She held it across her palm, haft towards him, and looked gravely at him.
“What are you about, Rodriga? You cannot turn this bellyripping hyena loose to run tattling to Robert, or to try again at my throat!” Piers protested hotly. “My lord, bid her leave us! Surely you agree he must die?”
“But we have already agreed that he is Rodriga’s,” said Landry with vast enjoyment, grinning at them all. “What will you do with him, lass?”
She looked straight into the strained black eyes, that met hers without quailing.
“Do you think to bind him with an oath—the bastard of a common harlot that was raped by a fiend-worshipping Infidel?” cried the young man.
Marco jerked himself erect at that brutal disclosure of his origin, let go his hold and gathered himself to leap for the knife. His strength was not equal to his desire, and he reeled and caught at the curtain. In a gasping snarl he said, “I would strangle you—in your own entrails—if I were whole!”
“Be quiet!” she ordered Piers in sudden anger. “Does your oath bind you?” she demanded sternly of the renegade.
“Yes.”
“Give it and go.” She held out his dagger.
/> He staggered, and only saved himself from collapse by clutching the curtain with both hands, so that the whole tent rocked and shuddered. He could turn no paler, but his narrow black eyes widened in unbelief, and he shook his head and blinked as though he could not see clearly. “Go!” he repeated under his breath, and stayed staring, first at the dagger and then at Rodriga’s face. “You —you mock me!” he whispered.
“No. Give your word to share no more in this vile plot, and you are free to go.”
“You have my word,” he muttered, and cautiously put out a hand to the dagger, as though he expected it to be snatched away as he touched it. When he was permitted to close his fingers on the haft he caught it to his breast. All his self-control, that would have held intact through any torment, fell from him at this incredible mercy.
“You let me go—you saved me—brought me here not—not for killing—it cannot be!” he gasped. He stared at impassive Landry, restraining furious Piers, and then looked wildly round the camp behind him. The boy Diego glanced up curiously from his unsavoury cooking, and Ramiro, lounging watchfully beside the largest tent, lifted his javelin and turned expectantly to his lord. Marco stiffened, and loosed his hold on the curtain, his head lifting contemptuously. “So your men will kill me as I go, and you keep your Christian hands clean,” he sneered. “You shamed only yourself by pretending mercy.”
“You torment yourself; mercy it is, and not your deserts,” Rodriga answered sternly. She kicked the bundle of his clothing to his feet. “Take your gear and go. No man will molest you.”
Piers began a last protest, and stopped when he saw that it was futile. “Put yourself inside my reach again,” he threatened savagely, “and we shall see who is throttled with his own guts!”
The renegade snarled wordlessly, stooped unsteadily to gather up his gear, and backed three paces. “Do you expect gratitude for shaming me with a woman’s mercy?” he cried, and stumbled from the camp.
Landry chuckled and threw his arm round his daughter’s shoulders. The squire looked on her with disapproval and admiration warring oddly in his face. “I trust you will not regret this error of mercy, demoiselle,” he could not refrain from declaring.
“Save his life and then permit his murder? Do you take me for a monster?” she exclaimed impatiently, never having been taught the feminine duty of placating manhood by submissive speech and conduct. The retort obviously jarred on his sensibilities, for he appealed instead to her father.
“My lord, could you not have overruled your daughter’s folly?”
“I never overrule my daughter,” Landry replied cheerfully, “and the knave was hers. Moreover, the thing is done, and argument about its wisdom serves no useful purpose.”
Piers bit his lip. “Then I will take my leave of you, with many thanks for your kindness,” he said stiffly.
“Do, or your lord will be reckoning that he has lost a pair of destriers,” Landry grinned. “If you visit us again tomorrow evening, we may have news to discuss.”
Piers flushed hotly, stammered a few words of appreciation, saluted Rodriga’s hard brown fist in magnanimous forgiveness of her offence, and took himself off. She would not have been greatly surprised had he attempted to pursue Marco, but probably he realised the folly of hunting a man familiar with it through the labyrinth of the vast encampment, for he departed in the opposite direction. She watched his tousled curls bob out of sight beyond the tents and lifted a hand to clasp the great freckled paw on her shoulder.
“Well?”
“This,” pronounced Landry, “promises to enliven a very tedious siege.” He grinned down at her, plainly in love with the prospect.
“You should be a judge of enlivenment after a lifetime spent in seeking it,” she agreed rather grimly.
He pulled her back into the tent and took down his sword from its hook on the central pole. “Simon de Rionart was a gallant knight and a friend of mine,” he said thoughtfully. “I cannot stand by while his son is wronged. The whelp needs schooling, but he is a likely lad. And I have other reasons.” He swung the belt around him and hooked the clasps of enamelled bronze. Scabbard and belt had once been scarlet and were now the hue of old blood, and the chape and clasps were chipped and scarred, but the Andalusian blade was the noblest thing he had brought out of Spain.
Rodriga made a guess at the other reasons, and did not press for explanation. “Where do we begin?” she asked practically.
“As all good Christians begin, by asking God’s blessing on the task,” he answered piously, drawing the sword a few inches and thrusting it back, to make sure it slid sweetly in the scabbard. He settled his dagger on his right hip. “In a church with a Poitevin priest.”
CHAPTER III
It was over a month since Landry de Parolles and his daughter had landed at Acre, before King Richard of England had arrived to demonstrate to all men, and especially to King Philip of France, how to conduct a siege. They knew the city of tents and huts well by now. They were even accustomed to the stench of it, the manifold stinks of a siege; unwashed crowds, dogs and horses, wine, smoke, poor cooking, rotting food, dung of beasts and men, canvas and hides and glue, and overlaying every other odour, that of death. Acre stank of death, of stale blood and corrupting flesh, of the uncounted thousands who had perished in two years of siege through sickness, starvation and the Saracens’ weapons, and whose shallow graves were scratched up by jackals and scoured open by winter rains and summer winds.
Of habit they looked up at the great walls and at the huge, battered bulk of the Accursed Tower at the north-east corner of the city. For a fortnight now the Kings’ engines had been hammering incessantly at it; mines and counter-mines had burrowed under its foundations; it had been breached and mended, and vainly assaulted, but still the green banners flapped in the sea-breeze above the broken battlements, and the bright helmets and turbans of the defenders flashed behind them. A petraria on the tower-top jerked its long black arm against the sky, and Rodriga screwed up her eyes to follow the flight of the missile. It was lost beyond the tents around her, and not even the sound of its fall came to her above the clamour of the camp. She had seen more sieges than she could count, but never so great a one, nor a more valiant defence than the Infidels made.
There were several churches in the camp, small temporary structures of canvas and old ships’ timber, where Mass might be offered until the city was taken and its desecrated churches reconsecrated. Rodriga and Landry had attended several and were acquainted with a number of priests, so they made straight for the nearest. The church was crowded, but when the Celebration ended most of the throng dispersed, and Landry was able to corner one of the priests, an amiable middle-aged man from Poitou itself, with leisure for conversation. He introduced himself as a fellow-Poitevin exiled for twenty years, and no more was needed.
They were speedily deep in reminiscences of the eventful old days before young Count Richard had set about discouraging local enterprise with rope and fetters and blinding-irons. Landry’s enforced departure had occurred before that regrettable onslaught of law and order, and a well-placed question or two soon had the priest in full spate of recollection. It was all worth hearing, if little to their desired point, and Landry gave himself with plain relish to the exhumation of long-buried scandals.
They were discussing the misdeeds of a notorious noble malefactor, long ago gone to his accounting, when the priest suddenly checked, looked past Landry and lifted a hand to beckon someone who had paused in the doorway. Rodriga and her father turned to see, and stiffened as the newcomer hobbled forward on a crutch.
The cripple was a thickset man of middle height who had been powerful before physical disaster wrecked him. Time had thinned his hair and thickened his belt-line, had blurred the hard bones of his face with sagging flesh and graven on it lines of sullen temper, but he was still oddly formidable. His left leg was bent and shortened so that his toe barely touched the ground, and it was stiff as a limb of wood. He swung awkwardly but quickly on h
is crutch. Rodriga, encountering his greyish-brown eyes, felt a sudden urge to cross herself as in the presence of evil.
The priest was courteously making them known to each other. “Sir Robert, I present Sir Landry de Parolles and his daughter. Sir Landry is a fellow-Poitevin who has dwelt in exile many years, and is eager for news of old friends. Sir Landry, this is the Lord of Veragny.”
Rodriga dipped silently into a curtsey, and attentively studied the murderous step-brother. He smiled pleasantly as he exchanged salutations with her father, and politely hoped to assist him in tracing former friends.
“Curiosity, my lord,” Landry blithely disclaimed serious intent. “I quitted Poitou in something of a hurry, and never heard the outcome of all the feuds and scandals that were brewing. Father Augustine has been enlightening me. Veragny is in the Landes, is it not? I have no acquaintance with that country.”
“Nor I with Parolles, though I once met a Bertrand of that name.”
“My nephew. Lord Above, it must be all of forty years since I crossed its borders! Never could abide my eldest brother; no enterprise at all. Never so much as stopped a merchant on the highway, I give you my word. I served the Count of Ferrisain for a few years, until we fell out over some loot and I beat him into Anjou by a spear’s length.”
Robert de Veragny’s heavy face split into a grin at that engaging frankness. He disregarded the little group waiting respectfully for him by the door, and balanced more comfortably on his crutch. “I should think you were well-advised. I have an estate in that neighbourhood; Rionart.”
“Rionart?” exclaimed Landry in what appeared surprise. “What befell Simon?”
“You knew him?”
“Neighbours for years. Lord Above, I danced at his wedding! Died without heir?”
The cripple nodded soberly. “My father married his widow, and Count Richard was pleased to grant the estate to him.” He was watching narrowly.
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