“You put us deeper in your debt, Marco,” said Rodriga rather stiffly.
He spoke directly to her for the first time since his greeting, though she knew that his thought had been on her. “No, my lady. It would not be fitting for you to scuffle with the ribalds for a roof among the taverns and brothels.”
“Holy Mother forbid!” she exclaimed in appalled agreement. “We are grateful indeed that you trouble so much.”
His teeth flashed again, and his voice betrayed amusement, though his words were grave enough. “My lady, this association with you and your worthy father is a privilege.” He stood straight in one swift movement like a loosed bow, and was gone before another word could be uttered.
“Impudent hound!” exclaimed Landry. “But one ends by admiring his impudence! A privilege, eh? Turning courtier!”
Rodriga gave a little crow of laughter. “He means it amuses him, especially when it brings a brush with Piers! That is it—what a fool I was not to realise it before!”
“Odd sense of humour he must have, but I confess I like the knave’s insolence, probably since I am not its target. We will leave Piers word with Father Augustine where to find us, and we must trust to the Saints to put it into Robert de Veragny’s head to lodge at the other end of Acre. Do you want aught, Wulfric?”
“An hour’s leave, my lord, if you will.”
“You have earned it, and likewise something to spend. Need not warn you not to follow a pimp into a dark alley? We have no wish to return to Diego’s cookery.”
Wulfric grinned rather absently. He had, in fact, the look of one pre-occupied by weighty thought rather than pleasure, and he was back inside the hour, with his burden apparently increased and not diminished. Rodriga wondered what troubled him, but if he required her aid or counsel he would ask it, and until then his affairs were his own. He was not one of her foster-kin, whose minds were open to her as unshuttered windows.
Her father’s leg throbbed so sorely this night that she worked for half an hour by the firelight wringing out cloths in hot water and clapping them on his swollen flesh in the hope of bringing him relief. It eased the aching sufficiently to let him sleep, but she determined to ask advice at the Hospital during her next visit. There they had great experience of wounds, and she had a sound distrust of army chirurgeons and their works bred of years spent following the wars. It was becoming a habit with her, she reflected wryly, to take worry as her bedfellow these nights.
CHAPTER IX
Marco proved a true prophet. At first daylight the trumpets cried for a parley, and under the curious, reluctantly admiring gaze of the Christian army the Saracen commanders came forth to confer with the Kings of England, France and Jerusalem and the lords of the Council, aided by the prelates and the Grand Masters of the Military Orders. All morning they debated terms, with handsome young Humphrey de Toron, the best Arabic scholar among the nobility, as their interpreter. Then the gates were thrown open, and Landry, Rodriga, and all their company made part of the great throng who watched the enemy march forth into captivity after the valiant defence at which all must marvel. They came unmoved and even cheerful in their acceptance of their God’s will, and the host paid their courage the tribute of respect.
Then the royal banners went forward amid the screaming trumpets; the prelates and priests in a glory of vestments chanted the Te Deum; the great lords with their households, resplendent with steel and silk and gold; the sombre Hospitallers and white-robed Templars; the barons of Outremer in their light surcoats, marched in, and after them the rejoicing thousands rioted through the gates. Trumpets and pipes, harps and cymbals, viols and lutes and all manner of instruments united with the songs and shouting. Men and women swarmed cheering through the streets, capering with sheer delight. Wine-barrels were broached for all who cared to dip, and reeling folk clasped hands and danced in the streets, broke the circles to drink again and pranced back.
Landry nodded to Marco as the great men disappeared, and the men swung into their saddles or seized the reins of mares made sumpter-beasts. They edged inconspicuously into the procession and through the gate that now stood wide. Marco was riding his lovely grey mare, and had covered himself with his vast hooded cloak, so that they should not offend the dearest prejudices of their fellow-Christians by taking him openly into their troop. Under the hood his wary black eyes watched alertly as they threaded slowly through the tumultuous main streets. Their pleasant middle-aged neighbour who had been so helpful closed in behind them and grinned at Rodriga, shouting a broad compliment across the uproar, and she waved an answer.
Marco turned from the wider thoroughfares and the crowds converging on the palaces, and led them smartly along twisting foetid alleys and back ways where a loaded pack-horse could scarcely pass without brushing the walls on either side. They saw scarcely a soul as they wound between high white windowless walls which shut out the sun from shadowed chasms of streets, or opened to let the full glare flood down and dazzle their eyes. Certainly he knew Acre. Rodriga was hopelessly lost in that maze before they had traversed a quarter-mile, and he brought them without hesitating to a blank white wall touched slantwise by the westering sun, and broken only by an iron-banded door set in black shadow. He dismounted and thrust at it with one hand, and it creaked back. He stepped aside and gestured to Landry and Rodriga.
“Your house.”
He moved back and softly clicked his tongue against his teeth. The grey mare stepped delicately to him and nuzzled his shoulder, and his hand caressed her inquiring nose before it lifted to his pommel. He vaulted lightly into the saddle without touching the stirrup and reined the mare away, and Landry checked in the act of dismounting.
“Hey, this is your house! Go you first and show us! Is there a stable gate?”
Marco swung down again and pointed along the irregular street. “Turn into the alley,” he said, and the Catalans, at Landry’s nod, led the horses out of sight round the corner. Rodriga looked about her, though there was little enough to see. Behind them the street, ankle-deep in dust and decaying refuse, bent sharply left, and three or four houses further along a larger building jutted forward so that it cut off any view of what lay beyond. Marco, seeing the interest in her face, nodded in that direction. “That way goes down to the harbour, my lady.” Then he stepped forward again and through the shadowed doorway.
For a moment, as she followed him, Rodriga’s sun-dazzled eyes were blinded by darkness, and behind her Landry uttered a little grunt as he hobbled in. Then she saw light ahead, though Marco’s shrouded body obscured most of it. A few steps more, and she was standing in an open courtyard, with high walls on two sides and buildings to the left. The house behind her was at its southern end. Over their heads was a little roofed colonnade, upheld by three posts. Vines had been trained up the posts and along the edge of the roof. Beyond it an open stair led along the face of the building in two flights, giving access to the upper floor and to the roof. Flowers flamed in huge jars, and in the centre of the courtyard a fig-tree grew beside a tiled pool.
Marco crossed the court to open a gate in the wall, and let in the Catalans with the horses. He spoke briefly with Pablo, and they saw him point at the lower building beside the gate, with the great double door that marked it as a stable. The men began to strip off packs and harness and lead their beasts under shelter. Marco replaced the heavy wooden bolt that barred the gate and came back to where Landry and Rodriga still gazed at their new quarters in amazement at their good fortune.
“The stabling is inadequate for all your horses, but you can picket some in the court here. That first building is the warehouse,” he said briskly. “There are two rooms here—” he stepped back into the passage and indicated a curtained doorway they had passed by unseeing in the gloom “—and I believe two above, though naturally I was never admitted to the private apartments.”
Landry limped to the stair and lowered himself with a grunt to the bottom step. “When were you last in Acre?” he asked suspiciously.
“Not since then, eh?”
“No. I know it is reported that I have swum with messages into and out of Acre, but that task has been entrusted only to Muslims of unimpeachable loyalty.”
“Then why go so often swimming by night and give men a hook to hang rumour on?” Landry demanded irritably.
“To do so by daylight,” Marco answered, with a swift sidelong glance at Rodriga, “is attended by certain disadvantages.”
“Then why swim at all, when it serves but to give your enemies fuel for their suspicions?” He was pressing the unimportant inquiry with a persistence which made Rodriga look anxiously from one to the other, wondering uneasily what was in his mind.
“Confirmation of them, you should say,” Marco corrected him. “And are your actions ever guided by your enemies’ opinions?” That was a hit indeed, and Landry grunted something inarticulate and then asked impatiently, “Does your ill-fame mean nothing to you?”
“It means a deal. In the hierarchy of ribalds it gives me a rank immeasurably above the half-denier cut-throats who dare not show their noses beyond their rat-runs.” He was watching Landry with an odd intensity, though he answered his questions lightly and showed no resentment.
Landry glanced about him, and his suspicions seemed to shift and fasten their claws in another matter. “This house—what were your dealings with its owner?”
“My gleanings in criminal fields were frequently marketable,” Marco replied pleasantly. He made a tiny signal with the hand Landry could not see, catching her attention. She had been listening in dismay, wondering what had set her frank father to that suspicious, sullen probing. Her anxious eyes lifted to the thin dark face. He shrugged off his Arab cloak and tossed it down by one of the flower-jars. “This may interest you, demoiselle,” he suggested, and moved unhurriedly towards it. She followed helplessly. His finger indicated one of the flowers, but his words had no connection with their cultivation.
“My lady, your father is very ill, and half out of his mind with fever. That leg-wound has bred poisoned humours.”
“Then that is why—” She broke off, horror assailing her as she understood.
“It was the fever made him speak so. Get him to bed—”
“What are you doing with my daughter, devil’s spawn?” Landry’s voice demanded harshly behind them, and Rodriga spun round. He had struggled to his feet and was hobbling towards them, his face dusky-red under the shade of the colonnade. Marco started forward, and he raised a broad freckled fist and quickened his ungainly limp. He reached across his body and fumbled at his sword-hilt, and the scabbard swung awkwardly, thwacking at his leg. He grunted, lurched sideways, crashed against the middle post and slowly slid down it. Marco caught him and eased his fall, going down with him onto his knees and laying him flat. Rodriga flung herself down and lifted his head to her lap. “My daughter—” he muttered thickly, and lay still. The men came running.
It seemed quite natural that Marco should take command. He knew the house, and no one found it remarkable that he should send Urraca to the fireplace behind the stair to start a fire, Wulfric and Diego to the upper rooms with the packs of bedding, the others to get water and wine and linen. He helped to carry the heavy, inert burden up the awkward stair, and when they had laid him down on the low broad shelf that ran round three sides of the inner room, it was Marco who stripped off his clothing and unwound the bandages, with the swift dexterity that characterised his every action. He so obviously knew what he was about that no one dreamed of disputing his right.
Rodriga stood at his head, numb with dread. Landry was unconscious or near it, breathing heavily, his skin hot as fire. When the wound was uncovered she uttered a little cry of horror. Since last night the swelling and discoloration had increased alarmingly; around the healed cut the flesh was dark and white-edged, and red streaks ran up his thigh to the groin. She had seen such wounds before, gathering evil humours until a man’s whole body was poisoned, and she knew how grave they were; knew then that her father’s life was in danger.
He moaned and muttered her name, flinging out a knotted arm. She clutched his great hot hand between her own and offered up disjointed prayers to God and His Mother. Diego and Wulfric had piled the scattered cushions that strewed the bench upon Landry’s pallet, and covered it with a sheet. Marco and Ramiro lifted him between them and laid him on that improvised bed. They covered him, and the renegade turned decisively to Rodriga.
“Keep hot cloths to that wound as soon as you have water ready. I know a Knight of Saint John who is a chirurgeon; I will find him.”
He was gone on the word, without a sound. Rodriga sat on the low shelf at her father’s side and stroked the tangled hair back from his forehead. His skin was hot, scorching her sticky paw, and though the sweat streamed from her in the heat his flesh was dry. He twitched and muttered, but she could distinguish nothing of what he said. After what seemed an age Urraca brought in a bowl of hot water and she shifted her place and got to work. He jerked away with a groan of protest from the first touch of the hot cloth, but she set her teeth and persisted, nodding to Ramiro to hold him. Presently the treatment brought a measure of relief, for he quieted, and his breathing eased.
Ramiro moved softly and competently about the room. He looped back the curtain which divided it from the outer room, to admit as much air as possible, though the wind was still the flesh-searing blast from the desert. A tiny window high up the side wall let in the rays of the setting sun, that slid up to the ceiling and then were gone. He investigated the three little lamps that swung on chains from a bronze tripod in the corner, and lighted one. Urraca sat on the floor beside the bench, hugging her knees and watching the girl, her seamed old face turning into a shadow as the night came down. The other men had withdrawn to the courtyard; occasionally a murmur of voices reached Rodriga.
Dusk was turning rapidly to dark when she heard a knocking below, and sprang up, hoping that Marco had returned with aid. But when she reached the stair it was Wulfric mounting to her. “The lord of Veragny,” he announced, gesturing to a dark squat shape in the courtyard. She caught her breath and then ran down, her heart hammering. The cripple moved to greet her and take her hand.
“My child, I am deeply concerned for you. Yes, your man here has told me. Is there any way in which I may help you? Have you a chirurgeon?”
“Yes, my lord—at least, one is sent for, but I thank you for your kindness. He—he is grievously sick—his leg-wound—”
“Command me at need, demoiselle. Shall I take him into my household? I meant to offer before this—I should be happy to take you into my care.”
“It—it is kind indeed of you,” stammered Rodriga distractedly, “but I would not move him, and—here he may have quiet—my lord, I thank you, but—”
“Yes, of course. But if you need aught, I am close at hand.”
“Close—my lord, how did you find us?” she asked stupidly.
“Thank my seneschal for it, demoiselle. He was so eager to continue his acquaintance with you that he set a man to follow you this morning. We are lodged in the larger house just along the street. I will not detain you here, however, when you wish to be with your father. God have you both in His keeping.”
She fled to the upper room with her mind in a whirl of conflicting emotions. Close neighbours to the very man they had tried to escape, Marco returning shortly, Piers visiting them as soon as he found them—matters had gone far awry, and her father was desperately sick. She sent Urraca for more hot water and dourly worked at the one task of use.
With nightfall another problem thrust itself upon her. Acre rang with the tumult of rejoicing, and the streets were full of riotous revellers. Latecomers were seeking quarters, flown with victory and wine, and not particular how they obtained them. After the first encounter with an inebriated Norman Wulfric barred the door and she slid her dagger back into its sheath along the inside of her left for
earm. “We parley with others from the roof,” she decided, and ran back up the stair. Landry was muttering and shifting uneasily on the bed. His face was fiery crimson in the lamplight, his open eyes bloodshot and unseeing. Cold terror gripped her. Few men of his age, however vigorous, ever recovered from so grave an illness. She went dry-eyed to sit beside him and change the cooling cloth on his leg, and then leaped up and ran to the roof as more blows resounded on the solid door. During the next hour, that dragged like a week, she outfaced three more companies, and at last stood wearily against the parapet listening to a foul-mouthed Brabantine routier captain tramping away. The city stank even more vehemently than the camp of ordure and corrupted flesh. A party of roisterers reeled by with arms entwined. She thrust her hands through her hair and looked once more before she went below
Swift light feet came to the turn, and two dark shapes came quickly to the door. The foremost rapped softly.
“Marco?” she called eagerly.
“Here, my lady.”
She shouted to Wulfric to open and ran down to meet him. They mounted the stairs as she came to the turn, Marco leading a tall man in the flapping black cloak of a Knight of Saint John. They reached the door together, and he presented him as they entered.
“My lady, this is Sir Jehan de Jornec.”
She knew him already; he was the very tall, bony knight who had tended Juan by the trenches. He wasted no time on courtesy, but crossed to the bed, flinging his cloak down by it. Rodriga uncovered the wound, and he stooped his length over it. Ramiro silently shifted the tripod, bringing the light closer, and Marco waited intently by Landry’s feet, watching the thin hands feeling and pressing. Landry groaned at the touch and tried to jerk away.
“The wound must be opened to let out the humours,” said Sir Jehan decisively, “before the whole limb is corrupted. More linen, hot water and wine. You—” he nodded to Ramiro, “hold his arms. Marco, his feet.”
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